ColinJohanson.2394:

Conner.4702:

To me none of the LV felt like it truly impacted the WORLD. Sure zones got changed, but the world stayed the same. Just look at the current LV there is a huge tower in the middle of a lake, but the humans and centaurs still have their petty land disputes..

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

Change the dynamic events in the region to reflect whats going on. Instead of centaurs simply battling with humans, have each side switch their focus to what is going on at the center of the lake. New DEs…Humans and Centaurs are vying for resources..spin something off of that.

Touching on your second point about work volume and keeping a schedule: This is what we are all harping on. The quality of your content and story is at stake if you keep to the release schedule. If you truly want to have a world that changes seemlessly, with new content evolving and reacting to what is going on in your story, then you might just have to re-think your release schedule.

Or, and this would be a kittene to swallow and not one I am currently advocating despite my reservations on Living Story…Maybe, just maybe, living story won’t work out perfectly and you can scrap it. If we can’t find the fix to having the world react to the story, and having the characters on the map, friendly and enemy NPC, react to a big tower in the middle of the map without loads of dev time…then we are left with mediocre ties, and old ‘fueds’ between NPCs that have nothing to do with the LS.

You might just end up with trying to fit a square peg into a round hole here. It might not work. You might not be able to have your cake and eat it too, sort of thing…

ColinJohanson.2394:

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I think this raises an interesting question, what do you consider to be “temporary” content, and what qualifies (in your mind) as content that occurs and drives the living story forward it makes sense to have go away, vs. that which remains?

Hi Colin,
I wanted to quickly respond to this, then I will read the rest of your post. Have you guys considered using phasing? Keep the content in the game for everyone and use phasing to phase the world into the different changes that the Living Story dictates.

For people that are playing alts, if they have unlocked the last, or most current phase, of the Living Story with a previous character, they have a choice to kick off the LS from the beginning or at the current point in the story.

Are there technical difficulties to this to wihch GW2 and Phasing don’t mix? This would seem to solve your problem of content that should be temporary and content that could stay. It would also fix the problems that are in the game, such as undead in Orr still chanting Zhaitans name when he has been defeated by many.

Thoughts?

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

Edited to add: This specifically applies to experiences in the open world, and doesn’t mean we couldn’t do things like letting you see moments in time in the past, or experience living world instanced (or “phased”) moments on their own timeline.

Fair enough. Good reasons and I definately agree with them. I viewed phasing as a tool to solve the problem of a zone being outdated by the progress of the game, or fitting perfectly with living story, possibly (barring some other hurdles to cross). But if you feel that it negates the spirit of GW2, as a game where you experience things together, then thats good enough for me.

Back to the drawing board to figure out the problem of allowing folks to go back to living story content they have missed.

Phenn.5167:

cesmode.4257:

Phenn.5167:

cesmode.4257:

@JonPeters:

Any word as to why Greatsword warriors were left untouched? In PVE, they are handsdown the most powerful class in terms of damage. I very rarely see anything but a greatsword warrior.

I was hoping that there would be some changes to encourage people to consider other classes, builds, weapon loadouts for speedruns. I don’t see that happening since nothing has changed for this class that would bring them down to the level of the rest of the classe.s

Comments?

I, too, would like to see some interaction along this line. There’s an unhealthy pre-occupation in these so-called balance efforts with PvP. So much so that the things that are broken in PvE go ignored, and those things in PvE that are okay get broken with each “balance” patch.

Thank you! So im not the only loon that think these changes are PVP centric.

If anyone thinks balance does not impact PVE, they are wrong. Just look at the optimal group set up for many dungeon runs: Zerker warrior and zerker mesmer. If Greatsword warriors took a hit, then there might be some more group combinations going in. But everyone wants a zerker warrior because his 100b hits like a truck, and mobs just sit there and take it.

I would love to see some warriors with a shield, or see a warrior running around a dungeon DW axes. But they are inexistant. Ignoring these issues for PVE fosters the same type of elitism groups that have been running wild in the game for months now.
Zerker warrior/mesmer or go home.

Yup. I’ve asked for Dev interaction on this blatant refusal to consider the impact on PvE of these PvP-centric balances on three separate occasions in this thread, and they have heretofore been ignored.

I understand the desire to keep things roughly similar across gametypes, but the reality is PvE is vastly different to both PvP and WvW. I have yet to see a single “balance” patch directed at PvE. The only possible exception was the recent increase in “minion” HP in PvE. But that’s such a token nod to the broken reality of minions of all kinds in PvE that it’s almost insulting.

But all that being said, the PvE-focused community has had to “make it work” with every balance patch thus far, and we will continue to do so. It’d just be nice to not have to scramble and re-work everything anytime a PvP-centric balance hits.

Not to mention, they have said in the past that they can and are willing to break up the changes if needed.

But specifically, the game needs a greatsword warrior nerf, at least in PVE. GS Warriors are just leaps and bounds better in both survivability and damage output compared to any other warrior spec or class.

Phenn.5167:

cesmode.4257:

@JonPeters:

Any word as to why Greatsword warriors were left untouched? In PVE, they are handsdown the most powerful class in terms of damage. I very rarely see anything but a greatsword warrior.

I was hoping that there would be some changes to encourage people to consider other classes, builds, weapon loadouts for speedruns. I don’t see that happening since nothing has changed for this class that would bring them down to the level of the rest of the classe.s

Comments?

I, too, would like to see some interaction along this line. There’s an unhealthy pre-occupation in these so-called balance efforts with PvP. So much so that the things that are broken in PvE go ignored, and those things in PvE that are okay get broken with each “balance” patch.

Thank you! So im not the only loon that think these changes are PVP centric.

If anyone thinks balance does not impact PVE, they are wrong. Just look at the optimal group set up for many dungeon runs: Zerker warrior and zerker mesmer. If Greatsword warriors took a hit, then there might be some more group combinations going in. But everyone wants a zerker warrior because his 100b hits like a truck, and mobs just sit there and take it.

I would love to see some warriors with a shield, or see a warrior running around a dungeon DW axes. But they are inexistant. Ignoring these issues for PVE fosters the same type of elitism groups that have been running wild in the game for months now.
Zerker warrior/mesmer or go home.

perilisk.1874:

cesmode.4257:

Global Dominance

I had posted my idea/suggestion in a paragraph form and in a less structured manner, for a Global Dominance system. For organizational purposes I will re-post my idea with a bit more structure.

…
What is Global Dominance?: Global Dominance (GD) is a system, like WvW where the players must control zones against enemy NPCs. The more of the world map that the players, overall on the server, control the better the reward is for everyone on the server regardless of what you are doing. There will be a natural ebb and flow with how much territory players control depending on what time of day it is, and this is to be expected. Since this will play off of the Dynamic event system, and scaling, the GD system can scale with what could be considered ‘off-peak hours’ so that enemy npcs attack a little less frequently giving players in the off peak hours a chance.

…
Well, now that we are controlling a good portion of the world map, what kind of rewards are there?: Well, thats up for Arenanet to decide However, I would advise having Karma as the primary source of reward. I would push for a gold reward, or something that is actually valuable.

I had posted something like that on the suggestions forum. My plan for the reward aspect of what I called “WvE” was letting players “Invest” with special NPCs in various areas throughout the world.

Once you invest in an area, keeping the local economy there running (by keeping it under friendly control, but also by helping supply caravans and so on) would cause a bar for that area to fill up over time. When the bar gets full, it would reset and a special NPC in the player’s personal instance would receive a reward appropriate to the area (that is, mats from mining/logging/farming areas, karma or items from other places) that the player could pick up on return. Basically, it would be a very cooperative way of getting resources, with many economic levers to adjust, and one which encourages broader travels. Gating it with the investment mechanic would prevent access to level-inappropriate rewards, and could potentially act as a small gold sink.

I don’t think it would be appropriate for Orr, barring a cleansing, but making the temple effects global could help in that regard.

Actually, thats a cool idea. I hadn’t thought about a contribitution system like that, in addition to the structure I laid out. The only problem I would see is that if Im running around a low level zone like Queensdale or Kessex, Im not sure if I would want to be rewarded with low level mats. Id press onto a higher level zone.

The object here is to allow players to play in the zones that they want to without any encouragement to go elsehwere, other than to help out a struggling zone.

Maybe take away the personal reward portion, and just allow your contributions to the zone to positively impact the friendly NPCs in a way that they can better fend for themselves, or something like that.

I definately like the idea of a contribution system here, but not sure being rewarded for zone-appropriate materials would be a good thing. Without these rewards, Im not encouraged or baited, either directly or passively, to play in a specific zone. I play where I want.

@JonPeters:

Any word as to why Greatsword warriors were left untouched? In PVE, they are handsdown the most powerful class in terms of damage. I very rarely see anything but a greatsword warrior.

I was hoping that there would be some changes to encourage people to consider other classes, builds, weapon loadouts for speedruns. I don’t see that happening since nothing has changed for this class that would bring them down to the level of the rest of the classe.s

Comments?

Big Tower.5423:

I really disagree on that, becuse p/p has allways been USELESS and broken.

Erm. No.
Its probably on par with every non-warrior zerker setup. I’m able to string together 3 or 4 unloads for about 7-9k each, sometimes 10 or 11k if I have full might stacks. Id say thats not too shabby.

So for PVE…why are these changes going to kill my build? Because of a change to vigor?

joshc.3129:

Before anyone starts I’m not going on about they should make Ascended weapons and Legendary weapons easier to make.

It comes off as odd to me how legendary weapons which are the highest tier are in a way easier to make than ascended weapons the next tier down and over all except for the secondary stats have the same damage output. Take any ascended greatsword and then look at the 3 legendary greatswords. All have a damage output of 1,045 – 1,155.

Even if legendary weapons require a lot more farming, the items needed with the exception of a few can be drop by normal enemies or found out in the world (wood and ore). However with ascended weapons one of the unique item needed rely on it dropping from exotic champion loot bags. I have 2 lvl 80- characters and have done several high end champion events over the past few days and have yet had any Bloodstone Dust drop.

Just my two cents on the matter.

This is definately an interesting thought. Never occurred to me.

Last night I got my 73rd mystic clover. 4 more I believe. I have a few of the other parts already made. I really just need the precursor and im more than halfway there.

I think people are talking about two different things.

1. How can players go back to experience LS content they have missed
2. Having DEs drive the LS.

Well, if arenanet plans on making the LS story-driven, it does make sense that things be taken away, and areas changed and re-changed again, etc. Stories change, TV shows change. The characters change. So if this is where they want to be, then I don’t see how DEs will solve any of this.

If arenanet decided to wrap up the Scarlet story arc, and take our suggestions to make the LS more DE driven, which I am in favor of, then there will probably need to be a lot less open-world story telling. You’ll simply have new dynamic events, the narrative between NPCs will tell the story to an extent. You complete the event, and its over. Until it starts up again.

What arenanet CAN do is take the story portion of LS, and place it inside of the realm of personal story, with all the trimmings of the personal story. This may take longer to develop, but it is a necessity. Give the players the freedom to experience the STORY when they want to, and have it well told to them. Simultaneously, put in content..just content. But re-structure the way DEs work so that theres a real sense of success and failure, a real sense of player impact. If they try to link these DEs to the LS, we will wind up in the same spot that we are in now.

Grimthagen.6019:

For those advocating Phasing:

The main weakness of phased content is the further division of the playerbase. There are a lot of zones in GW2 that are barren on any but the most populated servers. If you add phases into that then you are looking at spreading population even further. Past a certain point, one questions whether there’s a point in having persistent zones at all rather than the instanced zones of GW1.

True, and I don’t know of a way to solve this one. And this is true for WoW as well. They have not fixed this issue yet either. But if your goal is to allow everyone the freedom to experience all content at their leisure, then its an option. It is something that can be weighed…

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Do people actually find grinding out ascended gear fun? The 100s of gold spent PER profession, the time gating, the champ/event trains for ascended mats, the tons of lower tier mats required…THIS is fun? THIS actually makes people happy and want to keep playing the game?

No, it isnt fun. But that is why this time around, Im going to just acquire ascended gear if I can when I can. Im going to try to simply enjoy the game, rather than creating things to do for myself.

If that is at all possible.

Chidori.9483:

cesmode.4257:

Are there technical difficulties to this to wihch GW2 and Phasing don’t mix? This would seem to solve your problem of content that should be temporary and content that could stay. It would also fix the problems that are in the game, such as undead in Orr still chanting Zhaitans name when he has been defeated by many.

Thoughts?

I think phasing would be the best idea. Then people could go back and experience the story themselves, it is after all our character’s story. It’s kinda strange if you just come in in the middle of it all or at the end of an arc and are praised a hero for all your deeds when you didn’t do them.

I agree, obviously Really would like to hear someone from arenanet comment on it. Blizzard really started to use it well in WOTLK, which was 5 or 6 years ago. Surely, arenanet has the know-how to do this. Whether or not it is possible given the content structure of the game(dynamic events and many public-centered content), is another story.

I agree. Still a lot to do, only 2 months left. Will be saddened if a lot of it doesnt make it in.

Sadly, I really think that the Living Story effort takes resources(meaning people, money, infrastructure, time) away from other parts of the game that truly need it, such as the list of things you noted. Everything is invested in LS, and everything else is just getting pushed aside it seems.

Again, overall, I think phasing technology should be utilized to combat a lot of the problems we are discussing in this thread.

If today, a player decides to kick off the Living Story chain, you could install some mechanic to do so. Once that happens, the player progresses through the zone(s) during each LS until he/she arrives at the final LS.

I can see some potential problems. This person will miss out on some achievements such as closing the invasion portals during Clock Work invasion, or some of the dungeon content. But on the whole, the zone changes like Kessex, or Divinities Reach changes with the Queens Jubilee, or Frost and Flame…all of these could be handled with phasing.

ColinJohanson.2394:

For me the original invasion of Southsun Cove was the best example of this, it had a lot of “story” style content that made sense to happen and then go away, and also left a lot of permanent experiences as a result of that storyline.

I would agree. But for a different reason. The original southsun cove patch, however buggy, had the right idea. It launched a new zone, with new dynamic events, new lore tied to the island, a new enemy, and a culminating event.

If each of the LS patches were similar in nature, you might hear a different tune around here. People like new zones, new enemies, etc. We like to see new landscapes, and your art team is definately not short in skill in creating gorgeous landscapes.

I also think the current LS is actually quite decent so far. I have no idea whats going on story wise, because I missed the last two months, but changing Kessex is really cool.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I think this raises an interesting question, what do you consider to be “temporary” content, and what qualifies (in your mind) as content that occurs and drives the living story forward it makes sense to have go away, vs. that which remains?

Hi Colin,
I wanted to quickly respond to this, then I will read the rest of your post. Have you guys considered using phasing? Keep the content in the game for everyone and use phasing to phase the world into the different changes that the Living Story dictates.

For people that are playing alts, if they have unlocked the last, or most current phase, of the Living Story with a previous character, they have a choice to kick off the LS from the beginning or at the current point in the story.

Are there technical difficulties to this to wihch GW2 and Phasing don’t mix? This would seem to solve your problem of content that should be temporary and content that could stay. It would also fix the problems that are in the game, such as undead in Orr still chanting Zhaitans name when he has been defeated by many.

Thoughts?

TooBz.3065:

cesmode.4257:

So..
Dragonite, empyreal, bloodstone dust…
Are these found in chests and champ bags only?

Bloodstone dust are from champs. (most efficient, champ train and you’ll be rolling in it)

Dragonite are from temples, world bosses, and taking keeps and castles in WvW. (most efficient, Dragons, Golem, and temples)

Empyreals are from dungeon runs, jumping puzzles, world chests, and taking camps and towers in WvW (most efficient, dungeon runs).

Thank you sir, exactly what I wanted to see.

So Im in for another grind/farm it seems for at least the the T6 mats. I dont think these new mats will be overly difficult to acquire. Unless I need 5000 dust, when I only get 5 dust from a champ bag. ..

Edit: I read your next post. A second thank you.

@Jaken: Wardrobe is something that I have been clamoring about for a while. It hardly releates to Living Story, but it would be soooooo nice to have a wardrobe UI that stores every skin you’ve ever equipped, including blues and greens. Maybe throw in a karma cost to withdraw a skin for use, giving Karma some actual value again.

Anyways, thats beside the point of the thread. A lore book would be nice, whether in the game or on the website, so we can read and get caught up. Im not talking some quick one or two paragraphs for each LS update…something more in depth. Tell us a story! Spend some time on this.

I must have read the WoW lore on their webpage 3 or 4 times, and it is a good 4-5+ hour read.

Solution to replaying older LS content… phasing. Easier said than done, but Im curious why phasing is not used in GW2 when it is such a valuable piece of tech.

rizzo.1079:

Yeah and you get the empyreal for dungeon runs and doing stuff in wvw apparently too.

Will I need a ton of these new materials as well?

So..
Dragonite, empyreal, bloodstone dust…
Are these found in chests and champ bags only?

Hi,
So last night I made the decision to slowly get back into the game. I guess Chris Whiteside’s Collaborative discussion thread re-invigorated me with GW2. Anyways, I took a gander at what I would need for an ascended weapon. It looks…daunting. I feel it is going to be a ton of mats to just craft my way to the required crafting level. Is this true?

Any tips ? Suggestions? Do most people have their ascended weapons? Is this going to be painful?

I see you are oceanic… do you mind some poor NA bloke?

I prefer small guilds, to be honest. It is so difficult to find a small guild that is roughly your size and wants to stay that way, relatively, and maintain quality over quantity.

Im slowly getting back into GW2, and looking to find a good group of folks that I can settle in with since my previous two guilds have disbanded during my time away from the game.

Also, what are your playtimes/peak playtimes? Just curious if Id be logging into an empty guild at night or not.

Hi,
I am looking for a semi-casual guild on Sea of Sorrows. I enjoy both WvW and PVE, leaning a bit more toward PVE but I can definately get lost in WvW for hours. Im not looking to join any large 200+ member large guild, or any elitist guild. I tend to gravitate toward smaller guilds, 30-75 members, that simply enjoy the game.

I won’t bore you with details about myself, however, if you are interested please PM me here and I will be happy to go into as much detail as you want to see if I’d be a good fit!

Thanks!

Are there patch notes?

I started playing again yesterday and my game has been crashing… a lot. and I never crashed before.

Earlier, I said I have stopped playing.

As of last night, I am slowly getting back into it. I need to take a more casual approach to the game and not let all of the ascended BS, and all of the Living Story grind and achievement grind get me down. It tends to feel like a job.

I log in last night, my guild was disbanded, and the group of friends that I used to play with hasnt logged in since august. Now I must find new friends!

Julie Yann.5379:

cesmode.4257:

JonPeters.5630:

Here are my comments on what we have seen discussed so far with the warrior changes.

-snip-

Link to warrior sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/December-10th-Warrior-Changes/first#post3149139

Any comment on the greatsword warrior? Or why it is literally the only spec I see any warrior running around in, for PVE? Any plans to bring other specs or weapons up to match the effectiveness of greatsword?

The only reason that GS is so powerful in PvE is because of the mentally challenged AI. Mobs will just stand in a 100B without dodging, blocking, or even just walking away. If they fixed the AI then the GS damage would be on par with the rest of the weapons.

As for the Hammer nerf to ES and SB, I am still concerned that it would make the hammer very weak. Especially for those builds that don’t use UF or BM. Basically, it would limit our options when build trying to create a viable Hammer builds cause now we will be forced to go get 1 or the other in order to keep enough pressure on the enemy.

Ok, and since recoding some of the AI might take a while, why not bring other weapon sets up in line with the GS for the warrior, or bring the GS down a bit? I hardly ever see any warrior running anything but a GS. And that warrior is probably a zerker warrior too.

Want to talk about balance..well if PVE is in this discussion, then please balance this out. We need more spec diversity.

Im still just baffled how changing up the GS warrior for PVE did not make it into this balance patch at all. It is down right the most OP spec and most commonly played warrior spec in the game. 18-19k 100B? Without breaking a sweat. Choose any other weapon and youre useless to the group.

Lore Book (or Story Book)

As a temporary measure, if other plans are in place to help people who have missed part of the story, could arenanet post some story pages detailing what exactly has gone on during the living story, in a story format?

This way, if I have been out of the game a few months, I could come to http://www.guildwars2.com , and click on a link that brings me to another page that tells the story from start to finish, or until where we currently are in the story. This way, I have an idea of what has gone on.

Perfect example of this would be on World of Warcrafts site, however they give the complete history of Azeroth going all the way back to the Titans which is really interesting! This Lore Book could contain history going as far back as you want, but also include the living story as well.

Last night I decided to log in and see whats going on for the first time in a few months, and I think Im going to stick around a while longer. However, I have no clue whats going on with the story and since the past story arcs are done, I am lost…Who is Marjory Delequa(sp)? Who is her blonde friend? What has happened to Kessex?!? These are the things that should be easily accessible on the http://www.guildwars2.com website. Don’t point me to a third party site like Dulfy or a GW2 wiki. I should be able to find all that I need here.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris – is it possible to get a separate thread for the DE discussion? Largely because it doesn’t directly pertain to the Living Story and there is a small fear some of the LW feedback has got lost amongst the DE discussion (I understnad they can connect, but they are 2 big topics and if you guys are as busy as you appear, it would be easier to sift through as well I’d imagine)

There’s a weight of great discussion going on here, but the title isn’t advertising it is about DE’s. You could feasibly get more people involved in a separate thread (and it doesn’t need a cut off date either since people can opt in/out at will)

Hi Randulf,

I agree that we should and will have a separate discussion thread for DE’s foundational design, evolution and quality. What i am interested in here however is how DE’s can relate to story telling and game play synergy and the overall evolution of Living World. Therefore within these bounds i think it is a great topic for this thread.

Hope this makes sense?

Chris

Chris, please see one of my earlier posts on this. I think it directly relates to what you are looking for here…Global Dominance system.

JonPeters.5630:

Here are my comments on what we have seen discussed so far with the warrior changes.

-snip-

Link to warrior sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/December-10th-Warrior-Changes/first#post3149139

Any comment on the greatsword warrior? Or why it is literally the only spec I see any warrior running around in, for PVE? Any plans to bring other specs or weapons up to match the effectiveness of greatsword?

Stormcrow.7513:

Honestly the whole Scarlet thing is like Scooby doo movie…

Ru-ru-ru-ruff-arooo!!!?

Global Dominance Part 2

A few notes:
-This will only work without the current iteration of Living Story. Funneling people into specific zones will take players out of their current zone to participate in the current LS. Letting the players loose to forge their own adventure is key, do not push them into other zones.

-To continue the stories, put the story driven content into the personal stories. A lot of folks have been asking for more personal stories with voice narrated content, cinametics, cut scenes, etc. Really develop some quality story arcs similar to the 1-80 personal story and free up the Living World for the global dominace system, which will change with the ebb and flow of player activity all on its own, without the need for you, the developer, to direct it.

-If the GD system is not possible and/or you are unwilling to give up on the current iteration of Living Story, then a modified version of this idea is still possible. The same core idea of spreading players to different zones, any zone they want, and participate in Dynamic Events that are already there. Server wide, if certain thresholds are met, the server is rewarded. If the server congregates in one or two zones, then they are minimally rewarded. If people spread out and experience content that is already in the game, then the rewards can be more lucrative.

Global Dominance

I had posted my idea/suggestion in a paragraph form and in a less structured manner, for a Global Dominance system. For organizational purposes I will re-post my idea with a bit more structure.

Goal: To get players in all corners of the open world at any given time. Currently, any living story arc, patch, or event funnels most players into one or two zones to tackle new content. This creates zergs, for better or worse, but it does not solve the issue of a Living World. If you walk through a zone less traveled, Timberline Falls I repeatedly use as an example, it is empty and devoid of players. If you happen to find yourself in this corner of the world, you definitely do not feel the world is a living one. The Living Story event is taking place 5 zones away from you. How can it feel living?

How to accomplish this: Implement a system where the players are given true freedom to play in whatever zone they wish, but they are also rewarded for it. If you really like those less-traveled zones, you can zone into them and contribute to the Global Dominance system (which will be explained later). Depending on how much territory the players control on a global scale will determine the reward value, much like the current WvW system.

What is Global Dominance?: Global Dominance (GD) is a system, like WvW where the players must control zones against enemy NPCs. The more of the world map that the players, overall on the server, control the better the reward is for everyone on the server regardless of what you are doing. There will be a natural ebb and flow with how much territory players control depending on what time of day it is, and this is to be expected. Since this will play off of the Dynamic event system, and scaling, the GD system can scale with what could be considered ‘off-peak hours’ so that enemy npcs attack a little less frequently giving players in the off peak hours a chance.

How can we increase our territory, or lose it?: I’ll answer this with an example widely used on these forums… Enemy centaurs attack the water towers in Queensdale. They succeed. They then gain, what is formally called, a foothold. They have a small centaur-themed camp at the water towers with centaurs roaming the nearby area. If after a short while these centaurs are not challenged (players do not take back the water towers with a dynamic event), these centaurs set off to attack the next nearby friendly NPC camp. If they succeed there, they set up another foothold, and more centaurs appear. Overall, their presence in Queensdale is increased because they now control two camps/towns. Via Dynamic Events (DEs) it is now up to the players to defeat these footholds and take back the towns one by one.

So now that we control all of queensdale, is our job done?: No. The server-wide reward is dependant on the overall global control. So if you only control Queensdale, your server’s reward is minimal. This is to prevent funneling players into one or two zones. This spreads the players out so they can play in whatever zone they want to. If myself and a few dozen others control Queensdale, hopefully there are other people who want to play in their own favorite zones, Timberline falls for example, and are attempting to gain control there. Each zone controlled adds to the overall score. Also, this system applies to all zones all of the time. There will not be a select number of zones to control. This enables the individual player to choose where he/she wants to play without the system dictating it.

Well, now that we are controlling a good portion of the world map, what kind of rewards are there?: Well, thats up for Arenanet to decide However, I would advise having Karma as the primary source of reward. I would push for a gold reward, or something that is actually valuable.

What is the end result?: A world that changes depending on our activity. A world where the individual can choose his/her adventure. He/she has the ability to choose which zone he/she wants to play in and help contribute to the world. This would be an ongoing 24/7 system, much like WvW, so you can log in at any time to play in any zone to contribute and have fun. You may log in one night and find that your entire zone is in the red and is almost completely taken over by the zone-specific enemy. This gives everyone true freedom to do what they want.

Nike.2631:

TIDES OF DECAY: Discussion

cesmode.4257:

See, the problem with this is that it doesn’t fix the current issue of zerging in one zone alone. While the idea is interesting, it still sounds like players will congregate in one zone and zerg zerg zerg. I think it would be better to spread the population out a bit more across many zones, not just one or two, but a half dozen or even all of them.

While I personally enjoy the occasional zerg – the chance to see my server really mass up and smite something actually appeals to me – I don’t likes zergs that are rushed and frenzied. Doing more invasions or the Queens pavilion because you know this opportunity will go away soon is a little too mouse in a maze for me.

The critical distinction in content like TIDES is there’s no threat of time limit. I think the initial wave will be smaller – people will want to come and check it out, but The Deal is clearly spelled out up front: “Please come check it out, but it’ll be here. Even if you’re stuck at work, in the middle of moving, on vacation with the family, TIDES will be here waiting for you.” And TIDES is design to scale down so if you come late you don’t NEED the entire server on hand to make it work. You can potentially flip the zone all by yourself if you want to commit some long hours to it (75 events at an average of 5 minutes each + travel time… 4-5 hours if you are Risen-mulching machine). You’ll need a party to see victory over the linchpin [group] events with bottom end difficulty akin to dungeon endbosses, but you can still come out and look them over all by yourself.

That change of pacing and acknowledgement of decline of player-mass over time, means TIDES should see a smaller zerg-upswell at the outset and burn cooler but much, much longer than most LS content has.

I was touching more on the point that this idea would funnel people into one zone only and that at its core it is still similar to the current iteration of Living World/Living Story. They give us a story arc, a purpose, and a target location, and we all go there. his would render, as it is today, 9 out of every 10 zones empty still. If the ultimate goal is to make the world feel alive, then we need to devise a way to get people into all zones, simultaneously. Nothing is more discouraging than waltzing through a zone and not seeing one living soul.

Timberline falls has a very diverse landscape of greenery, highland trees, mountains, streams, and snow.

Although, caledon is gorgeous.

The art in this game, especially in the enviroments, is simply astounding. I never have a bad thing to say about the art style and graphics.

Edit: and it is funny people are listing more un-commoin zones, yet we still congregate to queensdale/kessex or whatever is the flavor of the month in the Living Story for farming…just for riches.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve stopped playing because it’s time for bed. I’ll probably play more when I wake up. lol

It’s interesting to read a lot of the reasons people stop playing, because some of them are the very reasons I keep playing but I know what potential the game has.

Generally speaking (and this is very general), I think people who are more focused on rewards and loot are generally less happy with the game than people who are focused on just doing whatever the hell they want to do. The problem is, because of that, Anet keeps trying to get the people who want the loot to be happy.

Which causes inflation and puts pressure on people who don’t want to play a certain way to play that way, if they happen to want ascended weapons or some cool looking skin.

In the end, no game can be all things to all people and Anet needs to position the game in such a way where it stops kitten ing off both sides of the divide (though right now it’s leaning quite heavily toward the loot seekers).

Edit: I do realize the statement above seems like a contradiction, since it’s leaning heavily to the loot seekers, but they’re the least happy. Yet, I still think it’s true. Because I don’t particularly care about loot, I do what I want anyway. I spent the entire evening leveling a 30th level character. That’s what I wanted to do, that’s what I did. I got zone completion in Wayfarer Foothills. I had fun, even though I’ve done it before on other characters. But if I were only interested in loot, I’d feel a lot of pressure not to waste this time and go do stuff that might not be fun to me…which is why I think that the loot – seekers aren’t happy. The limited amount of ways to farm will almost guarantee they’ll be bored sooner rather than later.

I read your first sentence and almost jumped out of my chair haha.

I agree though with your post. But call it human nature, at least for most of us. Excuse the example, but put a chocolate cake in front of a fat kid and he will want to eat it even if he knows he shouldnt. Put a shiny in front of a video game player, and he will want it even though he knows he doesnt need it. Its just human nature. I honestly wish I were more like you when I play/played GW2. I would love to just log in and do whatever. But it is very hard to ignore the advertisements of big shinies that people in LA are wearing, and map chat and all of the LS ads on your HUD. Just in general, its hard to ignore this stuff. And to a small degree, I do want to experience the story and keep up. And I do want more AP because the skins you can get via AP are pretty nice. But at the same time, I know that its a double edged sword and can/will be the death of me in the game.

Perhaps you can write up a post on how you are able to put aside quests for shinies, loot, and income and how you are able to just play intrinsically. Perhaps I could adopt some of those methods, because currently I am not playing.

dace.8019:

I’m really enjoying the LW/LS content as it is being delivered. It’s rewarding loyal players who log in daily/weekly. Maybe the content could linger/overlap longer. Maybe some more of it could be permament additions. But being able to say you were there for such and such happening gives your GW2 life a kind of heritage. You can’t make everyone happy all of the time, and I personally am grateful ANet chose to concentrate their efforts on their regular players. 2 weeks is plenty of time to do the LS/LW content for most gamers, in my estimation.

Scarlet is ok. I understand that the LS/LW is a new thing for GW2/ANet and using Scarlet safeguards existing story threads from any pitfalls ANet may fall into while honing their skill at LS/LW. Even the events not directly connected to Scarlet are really fun and diverse, and while I think ANet still has alot of room to grow to bring the LW to its potential I think they manage to, most times, make it fun. I don’t believe the LS/LW deserves anywhere near the criticism you find on the forum for it and the LW adds, for me, alot of value to the game in terms of entertainment but also in respecting their customer.

I think the only value LS is adding to the game is for people who truly believe in LS and achievement grinding. For anyone else, its not living up. It adds nothing else to the game other than a less than mediocre story, achievement grinding, minis, and skins which, unless you have the luck to win the lotto, you need to buy off the gem store most of the time. It adds nothing to dungeons, nothing to the true lore of Guild Wars, nothing to class skills. Yes, we’ve had some QoL changes, a world boss revamp which no one does anymore, and some WvW changes. But a few changes scaterred over almost a year? The idea of LS adds nothing to the other cogs of the GW2 wheel. It only feeds itself.

I wish LS would add more for the dungeoneers, more for the explorers, more for the class build explorers, more for the jumping puzzle fanatics. A lot of what was added for these folks was taken away because it was temp stuff. We are then, again, left with achievement grinding for metas.

I have stopped playing GW2 for the following:
-Living story, in my opinion, is a bust. It is not living. A lot of the issues that are wrong with it are being discussed in the collaborative discussion thread, which is good. But it is still a bad addition to the game. They could have gone a different route in making the world ‘living’.

-Ascended gear / item treadmill. ’Nuff said. I dont want to grind and wait for weeks or months to get my BiS gear. When I bought the game, I was under the impression, as were MANY, that getting exotic would be relatively quick and then you can work on cosmetics. Not the case. And I fear that once we FINALLY have our full ascended set, many months down the line, possibly a year…that the level cap will be raised shortly after that. Oops, have to start the grind for BiS gear all over again. I will then sit pretty with the knowledge that I called it…this has been a gear treadmill that was masked by time and by releasing slots, not entire tiers. Same thing if you really think about it.

-The game has become centered around zergs, living story(which IMO is not a slam dunk success at all) and achievement points. Not to mention, the prices of everything keep going up on the TP so it is getting harder to acquire what you need to do anything.

-Build diversity. It is becoming less of a priority to create build diversity.

Although, I will admit… I am thinking of returning. We’ll see over the next few days or weeks how the LS discussion unfolds and where arenanet thinks they may go with our feedback. But then again, I am having a lot of fun playing other games, and other types of games. I think when all is said and done and Im ready to return to MMOs for a good long stint, it might be to a game that will do character and gear progression properly. Wildstar might be that game. I just think Arenanet’s approach to stat progression is terrible and doesn’t belong in GW2.

I sometimes think zerker was intended. Especially for PVE. Judging by some of the class balance changes, there doesnt seem to be a rush on fixing the zerker speedruns. GS zerker warriors will still be top dogs in dungeons.

Im very sad that GS warriors were not looked at. I feel like I cannot play any other build with my warrior, or sometimes with any class, in fear of getting heckled by others to go GS/Zerker, or go home.

@JohnPeters: Can I ask why warrior’s 100 blades raw damage was not looked at? That ability alone makes warriors a bit OP, at least in PVE. It really is no secret that a GS warrior will out damage almost another other class/spec. I hardly see any other warriors in dungeon runs, or out in the open world. Are you guys considering PVE when making these changes? If so, I definitely feel GS warriors needed a look. Or at least bring the other specs in line too. I feel like I need to run a GS warrior otherwise, whats the point of playing a warrior?

It really seems these changes were pvp focused and pve was not considered at all. Leaving GS warriors in their current state for pve continues to encourage the zerker speedrun elitist builds that run wild in the game. We need to balance this out.

Nike.2631:

TIDES OF DECAY

Tequatl hasn’t just evolved… It’s on the march.
Return to Sparkfly Den and Guildwars 2’s most challenging encounter in this permanent Living World release. The threat posed by “The Sunless One” has spread like a black tide… See the next evolution of GuildWars 2’s Dynamic Event system with new tougher challenges and “Second Chance” events that give you surprising ways to hold your ground when all seems lost.

VIBRANCE / DECAY
Battle for dominance across the zone as Tequatl presses toward Lion’s Arch. You control the very landscape in the battle between Vibrance and Decay as Tequatl seeks to leech the lifeforce of the land to power its continuing evolution.

When Vibrance reigns, this zone is more rewarding than ever before. Gold find and magic find are each increased by 20%. All champions have a chance of dropping sun-bead themed weapon skins. All events across the entire the zone offer 1-5 sun-beads in addition to their current rewards. New vendors will trade sun-beads for hylek, risen, and tequatl themed rewards. Mini-pets new and old, tonics, consumables to summon hylek warriors of all types and colors to your side, and even a special Hylek decorative item to add to your personal home area can be acquired to commemorate the service of those who fought long and hard for the Children of the Sun.

See, the problem with this is that it doesn’t fix the current issue of zerging in one zone alone. While the idea is interesting, it still sounds like players will congregate in one zone and zerg zerg zerg. I think it would be better to spread the population out a bit more across many zones, not just one or two, but a half dozen or even all of them.

My idea was to create a sort of global dominance system, similar to WvW, where we need to capture,hold,defend,attack towns from enemy NPCs. The more we hold, the more benefit the server gets overall.

This spreads the community out into their favorite zones to play in. Rather than everyone being funneled into one zone, like we currently are.

This sounds like a good story arc for the current iteration of the living story. However, if arenanet has any aspirations to change up the structure of what they consider a ‘living world’, then continuing to funnel players into a single zone is not going to work. Doing so fosters zergs which encourages you to zerg or be less profitable, which takes you out of what you normally would have liked to have done in the game.

StriderShinryu.6923:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lunaire.5827:

Finnway.2183:

Faowri.4159:

I feel pressured to complete the achievements ASAP so I can get on with the content I would rather be playing,

This summarizes how I feel about achievements in the living story.

I think there should be less achievements (like 5-6) for the meta, and have a separate achievement category for doing LS dailies to earn a bi-weekly chest (just of like dailies and monthlies). This way, players who like to grind will still be rewarded, and players who only have 5 hours to spend can still complete the meta.

I totally agree with this. This way achievement grinders can still have lots of achievements to earn, and people with less time to play can still get involved and earn the limited-time rewards without feeling rushed and pressured.

I agree with this also. We are certainly trying to improve with our achievements in terms of activities, time requirements and rewards. I feel that we have been making good progress but we aren’t quite there yet. Soon though.

Chris

I wonder why acheivements come with every living story patch to begin with. What are your thoughts regarding intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards in a game?

Thinking back to a day where we played Super Mario just to beat the game, over..and over and over and over. How many hours did we put into games like Mega man. Not because we were being rewarded, but because the gameplay was fun! I believe you can shed a lot of the rewards in the game, even a lot of the achievements themselves, and still produce quality fun. People look at LS as another checklist of achievements so they acquire more AP and inch closer to the next threshhold of AP reward, and for titles/minis. I would rather just enjoy content. However, as human nature is, if you put shinies in front of me I must go after them. But I hate it!

This is definitely an important topic for discussion. Rewards, whether they be via Achievement Points, Achievements or direct items, are a very tricky thing. There is little question in my mind right now that there is far too much focus in the LS on achievements, and I strongly feel that this is really what leads to much of the issue with the two week cycle. If you’re purely looking at the storyline content, most of the time said content really isn’t all that rewarding on it’s own and, even when it is, it can be completed in an average hour or two of play. Most players can accomplish that and still have time to experience the rest of the game. It’s when you start focusing on the Achievement grind that you run into problems, particularly when you’ve got maybe time gated achievements to do something hundreds of times and you’ve only got two weeks in which to do it.

Seeing and participating in the storyline itself should feel rewarding and be something players want to do (or, perhaps if the story is telling a large enough tale, can’t even avoid). Content should be generated based on the storyline, and not shoehorned in the other way around, with achievements actually fitting that content and storyline. If this means there aren’t any achievements or rewards for doing more than the basic content, I see no issue. I understand that some people want achievements to “mean something,” and that’s cool, so reserve a small pool of AP and special titles for doing special things like beating bosses without taking damage or what have you. Keep this pool separate from whatever Meta exists for the release. Take out achievements that are simply grind based time wasters. There’s no skill involved in, say, smashing hundreds of pinatas or collecting hundreds of widgets when 10 suffice for the storyline. Those sorts of achievements are just time wasting crutches that lead to real world stress for completion oriented players.

Maybe this will expose a flaw in the LS where in “everyone” is done everything and bored in a couple of days. Honestly, that would be fine for me because it would make it clear where the LS needs assistance. AP grind just hides the holes by making players “feel busy.”

I agree, for the most part. And I would be fine with having a Meta, or a small pool of achievements, be earned for the people that like AP. But in the form of ‘Kill the boss in 30 seconds’, or ‘Dont get hit by the slime’, or ‘Dont take any damage’ as you put it. These achievements were in the Queens Jub, and I thought they were awsome. I actually liked going after those. Those are the types of acheivements Id like to see, not check lists of grind after grind.

And we need to keep the achievement list small.

Tom Wolf.1340:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I had posted the opposite where, for example, if centaurs took over a camp, they gain a foothold and their overall presence in the area/zone is increased. After a shortwhile they attack a new town from these footholds, and so on and so forth.

This wouldn’t necessarily be a zone-wide event, but simply the ebb and flow of one small dynamic event that could have the potential to be disastrous for friendly NPCs. It is up to the players to push back the bubble of enemy NPCs and gain back some towns.

Rift sort of did this, and quite well. The only difference was that these were timed events that would happen zone wide. Mobs would spawn and run rampid through the zone, not simply stand there, attacking and taking over towns. You WILL lose your quest givers and NPCs if you do not defend and/or defeat the footholds.

I would take a slightly different approach in GW2 and make this part of a simple small dynamic event of centaurs, or renegades attacking a town. If they succeed, their presence grows and they continue gaining control in the zone. But all of this derives from a small dynamic event tucked away in the system, not some big zone alert saying ‘Attention! Invasion!!’

When you first spoke of living world, this is the first thing that popped into my head. Thats truely a living world because it really does depend on us being active in zones, interacting with the system, protecting, defending, attacking. If you wish, tie in some rewards for holding the entire zone from enemy onslaught some how.

That sounds really interesting.
How would you propose it working during off hours when theres little player activity?
Ive sometimes ran across entire areas without even seeing another player.
Would it be scaling like todays events that can be done by one single player or would one have to wait till more people arrive?

Well, there are euro players on NA servers and vice versa. Or, simply put, if arenanet feels that between the hours of 12am and 5am EST for an NA server that the population is a lot thinner, they could code the attacks to kick off less frequently.

However, in games such as rift or Firefall, if you log in during off hours and an invasion is or has occurred already, the map will simply be in red. Happy hunting, more for you to kill.

And completing dynamic events solo is not bad or impossible. They are dynamic after all and scale with the player. So one player CAN push back an attack.

Continued: Picture this, a player logs into the game and chooses their favorite zone to play in. Oh no! It looks like 75% of the zone is red(enemy NPCs). Time to get to work and take back some towns! 20 minutes later, my daily is finished, I took back a few towns, and have fun doing it.

One more thing to consider… like WvW, you could give server-wide buffs or rewards for the players controling threshold percentages of the world.

For example:
-If the players control 25% of the world, they receive 2 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 50% of the world, they receive 5 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 75% of the world, they recieve 10 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 100% of the world, they recieve 20 gold at the turn of the hour + some small additional reward.

This would REALLLY get players into ALL zones of the world, and not just congregating in one zone to follow the zerg around. You want your server’s PVE population spread out as much as possible so you can control as much of the world map as you possibly can to increase your reward. Thus, players choose their favorite zone! For me, it would be timberline falls or something. It is one of the least played zones, but I’d have a blast locking down that zone while other people lock down other zones like Kessex, Iron Marches, Ascalon, Metrica Province, etc.

What do you think?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I had posted the opposite where, for example, if centaurs took over a camp, they gain a foothold and their overall presence in the area/zone is increased. After a shortwhile they attack a new town from these footholds, and so on and so forth.

This wouldn’t necessarily be a zone-wide event, but simply the ebb and flow of one small dynamic event that could have the potential to be disastrous for friendly NPCs. It is up to the players to push back the bubble of enemy NPCs and gain back some towns.

Rift sort of did this, and quite well. The only difference was that these were timed events that would happen zone wide. Mobs would spawn and run rampid through the zone, not simply stand there, attacking and taking over towns. You WILL lose your quest givers and NPCs if you do not defend and/or defeat the footholds.

I would take a slightly different approach in GW2 and make this part of a simple small dynamic event of centaurs, or renegades attacking a town. If they succeed, their presence grows and they continue gaining control in the zone. But all of this derives from a small dynamic event tucked away in the system, not some big zone alert saying ‘Attention! Invasion!!’

When you first spoke of living world, this is the first thing that popped into my head. Thats truely a living world because it really does depend on us being active in zones, interacting with the system, protecting, defending, attacking. If you wish, tie in some rewards for holding the entire zone from enemy onslaught some how.

cont’d on next post.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lunaire.5827:

Finnway.2183:

Faowri.4159:

I feel pressured to complete the achievements ASAP so I can get on with the content I would rather be playing,

This summarizes how I feel about achievements in the living story.

I think there should be less achievements (like 5-6) for the meta, and have a separate achievement category for doing LS dailies to earn a bi-weekly chest (just of like dailies and monthlies). This way, players who like to grind will still be rewarded, and players who only have 5 hours to spend can still complete the meta.

I totally agree with this. This way achievement grinders can still have lots of achievements to earn, and people with less time to play can still get involved and earn the limited-time rewards without feeling rushed and pressured.

I agree with this also. We are certainly trying to improve with our achievements in terms of activities, time requirements and rewards. I feel that we have been making good progress but we aren’t quite there yet. Soon though.

Chris

I wonder why acheivements come with every living story patch to begin with. What are your thoughts regarding intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards in a game?

Thinking back to a day where we played Super Mario just to beat the game, over..and over and over and over. How many hours did we put into games like Mega man. Not because we were being rewarded, but because the gameplay was fun! I believe you can shed a lot of the rewards in the game, even a lot of the achievements themselves, and still produce quality fun. People look at LS as another checklist of achievements so they acquire more AP and inch closer to the next threshhold of AP reward, and for titles/minis. I would rather just enjoy content. However, as human nature is, if you put shinies in front of me I must go after them. But I hate it!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

—snipped for brevity—

Post like this Cesmode really don’t need to occur. Many of your questions can be answered by keeping up to date with the thread and understanding what the stated goals are of the initiative. I appreciate your feedback and some of your commentary but please understand that this slows the process down and can also derail extremely valuable discussion.

I hope you understand,

chris

Chris,
I do not feel that I am combative in my responses. I have encouraged other folks to be patient with arenanet’s involvement in this thread early on. However, now that it has been 5 days, some of us are wondering when arenanet will become a bit more involved in this collaborative discussion. We just dont want this to become a one way street and turn into every other thread on these forums.

With that said, apologies if it at all detracted from the purpose of the thread. My intent was to try to get your attention so we can have more collaboration in this thread, rather than the players speaking their minds, to which we do every day. If there isnt going to be a lot of discussion between developer and player, then the initiative itself fails and this just becomes another thread. Which, in case, we can refer to the countless threads on the Living Story debate to get the players’ pulse on the subject.

I did see your responses to the numbered items in my post that you previously touched on in the thread, I was simply hoping for a little more back and forth to the main issues

Edit: It looks like theres been some real discussion today(I have been out all day). Good stuff.

Hi,
So Ive posted more than my fair share in this thread, both asking questions such as “Arenanet, what are your thoughts on utilizing phasing technology” to answering each question/conversation directed statement from arenanet, as well as posting my own ideas, suggestions and criticisms. I think many have done this as well. I have also encouraged others who, early on, questioned the entire purpose of this thread when they have seen very little interaction from arenanet, to be patient in waiting for arenanet’s involvement.

While Bobby Stein has been the most vocal in this thread, I am a bit disappointed that other key folks chime in once or twice and then leave for a few days. The thread has been live for five days with very little interaction and collaborating. Unless the whole point was just to give us a place to collectively talk about one topic where you sit back and gather our opinions passively. However, to that I would simply say “read the forums a bit more, we talk about these this every day”.

Where is the collaboration portion from arenanet? You have our feedback, there are several hot topics that continue to recur such as :

1. Cadence of release too fast
2. Cadence of story too slow and disjointed from each release.
3. Little impact on the world of Tyria, and little impact on your character being a ‘hero’
4. Rewards
5. Success/Failure
—to list a few hot topics…—

Many of us have touched on each of these several times over and on a whole these are hot topics. I understand you are developing the game, but where is arenanets involvement? If you could not devote time to this initiative, better not to start it at all. Otherwise, it just looks like you are attemping to appease the masses by saying
“Hey, heres a thread where we will listen and collaboratively discuss”…Only, you don’t discuss. We do.

I havent really played GW2 in a while, let alone my warrior… Are warriors, specifically in PVE, receiving the nerf they desparetely need? Currently, if you are not a zerker warrior or zerker mesmer, speed runners hate you. GS warriors are dime a dozen. What has been done to combat this? Sadly, it is early in the morning and I can’t tell from the patch notes.