Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

The poster implied over all disappointment.

There is a rather large difference between him implying something and you choosing to infer something. A statement referring to addictive gameplay seems like a fairly solid counter to a claim of implied, “overall,” disappointment.

You really are arguing just to argue at this point. Here then is the exact quote:

“This game is trying too hard to please EVERY type of RPG gamer: story-follower, PvP, casual player, PvE grinder, smart people, people with no-life~~~~ending up disappointing everyone”

I’m not inferring anything here. He’s linking a cause and affect I don’t agree with. I don’t think trying to please everyone will cause disappointment in everyone PERIOD. There’s nothing else to discuss.

He was making a rather obviously generalized statement, and one tends to be true most of the time. Trying to simultaneously satisfy groups of people with completely opposite preferences is unlikely to succeed without some degree of disappointment/dissatisfaction from at least one side. You even attempt to debunk his statement as false based on your own lack of disappointment, yet contradict your own claim by stating aspects of the game you are clearly disappointed with.

I still like the game, and enjoy playing, but I am definitely very disappointed with quite a few aspects of it. Probably more so than many others, but I find it unlikely that you will find anyone that is not disappointed by at least one aspect of the game. Even if there is just one minor area you feel should be better, that is by definition, disappointment.

Kevan.8912:

i think that anet can make both sides happy only through horizontal prog.

Vertical progression just pushes the power curve higher and higher, continually requiring harder content to keep up. It’s been fairly low increase so far, but if they intend to keep on this course that will be forced to change.

Horizontal progression can give you so much more to work for, without having that drawback. And it’s not just about style and cosmetics. You can add progression and gameplay variety with unlockable skills/traits.

Bumping the numbers with vertical progression was just the easy (or lazy) solution.

Kevan.8912:

they tried a tricky compromise.
long grind, small stat increase.
but it revealed as a betrayal for no-new-bis casuals, too much effort for little reward for wow_boys.
and made both of them kitten off.

and yeah, maybe part of the population would have quitted anyways, ascended or not, because need steepy “powaaaa” treadmill.

in all cases….anet is wrong
my 2 cent

I don’t think I’d be considered casual by anyone but the most extreme hardcore player, and I still don’t want to spend the entire life of a game chasing stat points. Especially not on gear, when I have to keep wasting additional money to keep my desired looks through the stat upgrades. Re-transmuting armor that has already been transmuted once is just throwing away money.

In any case, it was a horrible attempt at a compromise, and all they actually accomplished was making both sides angry.

Dindin.2378:

- feeling sad that there is nothing desirable to farm for (this is my main issue with the game). would love to farm for an epic mount to drop, a weapon item that only 200 people in game have, a very rare backpiece etc.

I think this is the biggest failing the game has, it’s simply not rewarding outside of a steadily paced earning of gold. Every desirable item has a set path of grind/farm to get, which is just rather dull. I think that option should be there for these items, but it should not be the only way to get them. For some, that chance to have something really great drop is more incentive to farm than a steady trickle of gold. Right now, that only exists with precursors, which have such a ridiculously low drop rate that you will likely play thousands of hours and never see one. Other weapons could be several times more common, but still have enough rarity to retain value and give a more rewarding experience overall.

Kevan.8912:

i really wonder, if those who don’t want to farm hate ascended and new BiS, and those who do like farm still don’t like ascended that much…(and seemingly also ask for horizontal upgrades)
why are ascended still here? O.o
good job anet

I’d guess that a lot of the players that wanted ascended gear already got it and moved on, or got tired of waiting for each bit of it to be released and left before it was all added. They drove away a bunch of other players in an attempt to keep a group that has probably moved on anyway.

They were trying to satisfy a group of players that can only be satisfied by constant vertical progression. The pace that ascended gear was released at was likely far too slow for this group, but far to fast for other types of players, such as alt-lovers like me. With all the timegating (although some can be bought around), I’d be spending more than a year getting gear for 8 characters. Likely a couple years because I don’t stick the just one build per character.

Great game at launch, just with some issues that should have been worked out over the last 18 months. Instead they have worked hard to avoid improving on what made GW2 unique and drive it towards being more like every other MMO. The core of the game, mainly the combat, keep it above the rest, but so many other aspect are being dragged down in what I see as ultimately failing attempts to keep the attention of other MMOs’ fans. The focus needs to go back on what made GW2 unique, but I fear too much of that fanbase has been driven away already.

As someone that is not impressed with most legendary weapons, the primary long-term goal is already a bust. Playing multiple professions instead of having a main makes ascended gear/agony resist more tedious that it’s worth, and the idea of gear-grinding just to do a slightly harder Fractal has no appeal. The only other gameplay goal I can think of is map completion, which is not a long-term goal at all as it can be done in a fairly short time. The rest of the achievements are filled with story and open world ‘goals’ you will get on leveling a character, and kill 5000 mob achievements. Most of the daily achievements have more substance to them than the majority of normal achievements.

Anet needs to look back at what gave them their biggest fanbase, and use the lessons learned in GW1. GW1’s titles were so much more than GW2’s achievements. Even the prestige items in GW1 seemed to be handled better to me. If I wanted a certain fancy sword, I knew where I had to go for a chance to get it. It’s still RNG, but I think I do prefer that to random full-world item chase of a GW2 legendary. A single lucky drop, compared to stack upon stack of crafting materials and an even less likely single drop (precursor).

Most of the prestige/fancy armor/weapons in GW2 seem to be based around grind. Dozens of dungeon runs, stacks of materials, lodestones with ridiculously low drop rates. Shouldn’t Feathers of Dwayna or Infinite Light just drop sometimes in a certain part of the game, instead of having only the long, boring grind to craft. It’s nice to get an actual reward from just playing from time to time. Something that’s not just a common-as-dirt skinned exotic to sell for 2g or salvage for a 5g sigil.

I played GW1 for almost 8 years, and GW2 has already lost most of my attention. I’d probably be long gone by now if it weren’t for longtime friends and WvW. Although I haven’t even done WvW lately with the return of stale matchups.

Had this happen with a friend this afternoon, I didn’t even notice the confusion till he called it in party chat.

I think it did also trigger my Bountiful Interruption trait. I was too amused by what happened to notice the boons on myself, but he started triggering confusion damage and the first few triggers did more damage, which BI’s might stacks would explain. I’ve not tested it with any other on-interrupt traits.

Edit:
Confirmed, it does trigger Bountiful Interruption, as well.

Seems to be working now. A guildie had his start working at the time, although he said he had just restarted his PC. I hadn’t done anything and it just started working for me.

I’ve had the same thing since today’s patch. Setting exclusions for AV/firewall did not help, not that I expected them to as I’ve had no need for them for the last year. This one looks to be on Anet.

Seeing a lot of similar reports in guild chat, most from wvw. It happened to me in LA.

whenfirecomes.7963:

It’s also rather disappointing that such a drastic change would be implemented without prior feedback from the players, especially during these days of collaborative development. It’s further disappointing that Anet has stated times and again that vocal minority on the forums is not representation of the playerbase’s desires, yet it’s the very same minority that was listened to this time without any care for what the majority thinks.

They’ll listen when it’s something that can add more grind (player retention in their view) or gem store sales. I imagine that some of us that are unhappy with these armor changes might be looking to replace it, which likely means needing transmutation crystals. Or others that like the change might buy new cultural armor, which means more transmutation crystal sales.

Something popular among the players that actually reduces some grind (like the much-requested account-based wvw ranks) will get pushed aside with the “vocal minority” label. When that “vocal minority” wants something they see a way to profit from, it becomes “listening to a large number of our players”

The reality of this, for me at least. I’m not wasting even more money on transmutations or taking the effort to get costly cosmetics that might be “improved” next week. I was happy that the new light armor skin in the gemstore was Marjory’s armor, and I was actually thinking about getting it…until I saw what they’ve done to my necro. I have no reason to believe that the items I like now will remain items that I like, and I simply can’t justify spending money (real or ingame) on them with that lingering possibility of it being ruined.

I’m not really sure if the new Kessex is a good change or not. It’s good for the living story content, but is it worth the disruptions to immersion, continuity with the existing zone content, and experience to new/low level players?

I really liked the zone how it was originally, and I think maintaining that original experience is important, especially for new players. The new events and mobs don’t seem to be designed with level-appropriate characters in mind. Scaling that produces multiple veterans versus single players, or even running into silver/elite mobs alone is not something a low level should be facing. If I had came into this version of Kessex on my first level 15 character, it would have been a huge discouragement to keep playing.

On the other hand, this is the kind of permanent/semi-permanent changes the living story should have. I assume that we will take out this krait tower at some point, but that it will still leave some permanent mark on Kessex. I hope the current Orr-ish looks is not here to stay, but it’s hard to imagine all of the damage that’s been done just going away.

This release really does highlight one big problem with the living story. It can’t co-exist with the content that’s already in the game, especially not in a low level area. The reknown hearts can’t be removed because they are vital to leveling and world completion, but they make no sense being along side this new war zone. This content would be much more appropriate in a new zone without reknown hearts and other unrelated events.

It was just silly to have an offshoot event near the Earthwork Bluffs while there was another event active that had centaur running through the same area, and attacking the NPCs from the offshoot event. This area is also a reknown heart region, which I’m sure is a nightmare to complete with two dynamic events running on top of each other, especially when one spawns mobs that are very overpowered for appropriately leveled characters.

It’s nice to see different event types and activities for the living story, excluding the f-spamming non-scavenger hunt (can we get some hints please?) for obelisks, but I think it’s very out of place. This should probably have it’s own zone, or at least an alternate/phased/selectable version of Kessex.

These events seem designed for zergs. I was just doing one of the vigil escort/toxic offshoot events with two other players, and we were getting a ridiculous amount of silver/elite and veteran mobs. One of the nightmare court NPCs went into the downed state, which attracted 2-3 un-aggroed silver/elite krait to revive him. The even failed because the vigil NPC/golem died to the army of silver krait.

The amusing part is that this was in Queensdale. I’m sure 3 level 10s would have a wonderful time with that event. I really hope this scaling was caused by a nearby champ train, as it was close to where the Oakheart spawns. Although, that does highlight one massive problem the scaling system has always had. It scales events based on “nearby” (often not-so-nearby; as in out of visible range) players instead of those actually participating.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Thanks for making my mind up for me which one I choose to give the cultural armour set to (the one that’s unaffected, the warrior).

The warrior/heavy hasn’t been changed yet. Her post does state that the other armors will be “assessed for a similar pass”, meaning that these changes are planned for additional sets.

Before and after of my necro’s T1 armor. The headpiece actually had a dye channel removed, but at least the issue with the dangling gem appears to be gone. It used to not move with my characters’s head turning, always staying locked in the same position as if it were completely unattached. I’m glad that was fixed, but the rest of this should be reverted.

At least give me a fourth dye channel that is dedicated to the glowing spots. I would like to match the glow, and only the glow, to my character’s skin glow. Not being able to change the glow without altering large portions of the armor is just not acceptable, in my opinion.

edit: Those screenshots don’t even do justice to the amount of changes to the textures. The color shifts are obvious, but the entire set looks washed out in many lighting conditions, and the texture looks very low quality and lacking in detail

As far as I am concerned, this update has destroyed my character’s armor and I no longer want to wear it. But I’m also not inclined to replace it, or anything else I have, because I don’t know what future changes might destroy that, as well.

The previous changes to legendary weapons made me glad that I do not have one, and assured that will not be getting one. I’m very disappointed to see that this treatment is now spreading to other aesthetics within the game.

Hamfast.8719:

She should also scale in difficulty so the smaller or less organized servers have a chance.

That’s that entire point of the scaling system that is supposed to be so important to this game. Why make such a huge deal about it, then completely ignore this system for one of the biggest events in the game?

Teq fights during offpeak times were already down to 15-20 players (sometime even less) on YB before this update. I don’t see how making the event require 80 players is good for anything or anyone. If the event can’t be completed on your home server, during just-off-peak hours, then the design is horribly broken.

I haven’t even been to that zone since about 3 days after Teq was changed. I have no desire to wait around for hours to avoid overflows or have people bothering me to be in a TS/Mumble with 100 random people. I rarely do any world events during the evening (US east cost) peak hours, so getting a successful Teq kill at the times I do go to these events is extremely unlikely.

This event pretty much requires you to play at peak hours and wait around so you can actually have a chance of being in the right instance of the zone for it. So I rate it as a complete failure.

I bought T1 for my syvlari necro because I liked how it was. If I was unhappy with the original design, I would not have bought it. Now it’s been changed to something I don’t like.

I think this might be fine if the glow color had its own channel. As is, in order to have the armor glow matching my character’s glow, I have to make a large portion of the armor (all of the leaf tips/edges) red. So now I am stuck with either a mis-matched glow color I don’t want, or an armor color I don’t want.

I was happy. I’d like to have the armor I paid for.

Asami.3572:

To any unfortunate soul that got caught in the ODG game of hockey a couple hours ago: Lol sorry. Hope you had a good laugh out of it though. You’re the start of our GW2 Hockey video!

Ok, I have to see this for myself.

The double camp daily put me at 1/5 to 3/5, and completing 2 more dailies for 5/5 did give me the chest.

Same for me. Completed it while standing in a camp cap circle with my achievement panel open, and it crashed the second the camp flipped. After I got back in, I clicked the daily tracker to open the full daily category, which caused another crash.

This looks like it might be good for the gvg community. A map where they can go without having to worry about a wvw zerg crashing their match, or having either group causing queue problems for the other. It’s not a place of their own, but it does sound like it might be a better place than the borderland windmill.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Yeah we had 250 people and you guys had 20. (I forgot we have been spawn camping you all week with our superior numbers)

Like I told someone the other day in Guild Chat:

The 1st rule of WvW:

If you lost, you were outmanned…If you won you were outmanned.

I said from pretty much the beginning that we had more people than you guys at first…Then you guys started calling out for help and within 30minutes you vastly outnumbered us. You guys were popping swords on the 3-5 we would have just trying to run back to the tower from spawn.

I don’t mind the disagreement about the numbers, but it is funny to see a server that has laughed all week about their superior tactics, and superior numbers, and superior siege to get so bent out of shape over 40minutes of wiping to a turtled up group of SF.

I don’t know who had more at various points of that fight, but the numbers don’t really matter if the fight is good. And that was certainly a good fight. We both had a lot of people and I’d say the balance shifted a few times, but I think both sides probably had a lot of fun.

You guys did a great job of holding onto that swiss cheese mess of a tower.

Kurieg.4158:

King Amadaeus.8619:

We started with about 25 (or less)

Do you honestly have no idea how many people are on your side?

Because 25 is a terribly low estimate for the number of SF in Aldon’s.

ps – The defense was well done. Don’t cheapen it with cluelessness.

There were a lot of them in that tower. 25 does sound like a very low estimate from what I could see standing on top of that supply hut.

But I don’t really care how many were in there, it was a fun fight.

I’d rather get my 50 doors in the open world than with the labyrinth zerg, but this seems designed to highly discourage that for no good reason. Went through at least 20 doors in Kessex, and only gained 2-3 door closes towards the achievement because the events are so uncommon. Had at least 5 more doors despawn right in front of me, as well.

I just want the achievement out of the way so I can do the next part of the story. These doors are a great example of the “boring stuff to get to the fun stuff” that we’re not supposed to have in this game.

I had completely forgotten that last year’s Halloween had two competitive/pvp games. I went into the Inquisition expecting the MOBA-style game I remembered from last year. It was disappointing to discover the survival game I had forgotten.

I don’t even like any MOBA games, but I thought the Rumble was rather fun. This needs to be brought back so we have something other than the boring hunter/prey game. I spent 8 minutes of the 10 minute round just roaming around with friendlies, while the enemy team was nowhere to be seen.

Tachyon.5897:

Kedryn.2981:

I saw on Dulfy that the 3 weapon Gift of *, needs 10 Corn Cobs and 100 of one of the other (i.e. 100 Gibbering Skulls). That means 10.000 Corns and 100.000 chattering skulls… it’s plain stupid… it’s nearly impossible to get 1k chattering skulls alone… but 100k ???

Not to mention that 100,000 equates to 400 stacks. I wonder how many people have 400 spare storage slots to store all this stuff?

Once you have 4 stacks (1000), you can covert them to single higher quality item. The max slots you would need is 4. 1 for the high quality item and 3 for stacks of the dropped items, with the 4th stack being in the collections tab.

Of course, this does nothing to rationalize the absurd number of items required.

Avatar of Belle.9623:

Hold on. I thought NSP wanted to go to Silver League to show Devon Carver the ‘fun’ of WvW. Kaineng may be doing it for selfish reasons but it seems to lead to a desired result. If I can find the thread, I’ll edit my post later.

That does sound familiar. I recall seeing a few posts about wanting to get into the bottom of silver league, which I think were from NSP. Of course, that doesn’t represent the desire of their community as a whole, but it’s something a few wvw leaders could make happen.

Jeknar.6184:

I still think that the only server that will suffer the so terrible consequences of being in the silver league is NSP, since it’s being FORCED on the Silver League by Kaineng tanking.

Yeah, NSP is probably getting the worst position. Maguuma is also in a fairly bad situation due to Dragonbrand’s collapse. The only server they have any real chance of beating in gold league is SoS. TC will easily defeat them, but it’s a matchup where they can hold some ground and put up a fight. BG/SoR/JQ will likely crush Mag just as bad as ET/SF are getting from YB this week, especially in a matchup with no other T1 server keeping them busy.

biggs.4702:

Getting the gold for 20-slot bag runes is a million times easier. WTF were they thinking?

I was expecting the 20-slot bag to be a reward we could reasonably get one of, maybe a couple for those with a lot of time to play. As it is now, the bag is a complete waste of money/candy corn just to have an inventory bag with a unique icon. You’d be better off putting that towards the mini or just selling the candy on the TP.

Euryon.9248:

Your entire argument is stemming from the selfish standpoint of what benefits YOUR server (YB) and maybe a few more in your situation. You’re basically wailing and gnashing your teeth over the removal of imbalanced matches where YOU are the dominating server, while glossing over the great benefits of those who will no longer be subject to YOUR server lording it over them.

Actually, YB is in the middle of silver league, so I have no idea why you’re trying to accuse me of this. You might have a point if I were on NSP, IoJ, or CD. Those are the servers in silver league that are getting the short end of the stick. YB is in a better position than most, as far as getting a mixture of reasonable matchups, matches where we get stomped, and matches we can easily win.

I certainly don’t want to “rolfstomp” servers like ET and SF. But the leagues will be giving plenty of that for the servers on the bottom of each league. There is a huge difference in an easy win and a total decimation like what we have this week. Servers like NSP will have nothing but defeats and decimations to look forward to, where they could at least have some wins if they weren’t cut off from others like Kain or HoD.

My argument is for servers that are being given no chance to win at all, and has nothing to do with my own server’s position, as we are in a fairly decent one. Under no circumstances should a server ever face one 6+ ranks away from them, nor should they ever be locked out of facing one 2 ranks lower while being locked in with servers 6 ranks higher. Leagues are keeping the former, and even forcing it unnaturally for many, while totally preventing the latter from ever happening for servers at the bottom of each league.

Jeknar.6184:

Only the servers involved on the silver league are susceptible to getting bad matches more often, and only because of the server transfers that happened recently, and the rankings couldn’t get stable… We’re not saying that gold and bronze will not have unbalances, but they will be more unlikely than they are now.

The top of gold league hasn’t had any more unbalanced than what leagues will allow. They have only faced each other and ranks 4-6, with only 4 exceptions over the last year. Ranks 4-6 get only get balanced matchups versus each other as well, and the rest is a mix of getting decimated by tier 1 servers, or beating (likely less severely) servers in t3 or lower.

For the T1 servers, not much changes, as their high rating prevents servers below T2 from being matched up with them. For the T2 servers, leagues lock them into either a balanced matchup with their T2 companions, or in a landslide match involving 1 or more T1 server. What they lose is the chance of an easy matchup vs a lower tier server. While these easy matchups are unbalanced and can be rather boring (if it’s too far mis-matched), it’s preferred to being on the receiving end of the decimation. Like the bottom of every league, the T2 servers are put in a situation where the only possible matches are the less likely even matchups with their tier-mates or a stomping from higher a tier server.

I’d rather have 7 weeks of swapping between stomping, and being stomped, than being stuck in weeks of just one of those options. In either situation, the chance of a truly balanced match with your closest servers is rather low.

It might have been stale, but being matched up against the servers closest in rank was a better system. The randomized matches, and now the upcoming leagues that force you to fight every server in your league, just put us all up against opponents we should never be facing.

If anything, we need tighter limits on what servers are considered viable opponents, not the league system’s hard cut-offs of servers that could potentially offer decent matchups. Ranks 5-6 and 14-15 should have the chance to be matched up with the servers just below those ranks, not being totally sealed off into a league where they are forced to be at the bottom of every round.

Euryon.9248:

League play is going to be better or at worst neutral for the majority of servers. Only the bottom 3-5 servers in the top 2 leagues (10 servers max out of 24) are potentially in a worse situation than they currently are in.

The top few servers in silver and bronze leagues are on the opposite side of the same situation, as are the bottom 3 servers in gold league. They have only a couple suitable opponents, and 5+ servers they will have boring matches with.

The only servers that might come out of this with better matches are the top of gold league, and the bottom of bronze league. And that is only because there are simply no servers above and below them. It’s impossible for Anvil Rock to get anything worse than what is currently possible, because every other server is above them. The league system simply can’t make it worse for them.

AR gets the rid of the small chance of facing a server above rank 16, and BG/SoR/JQ get rid of the small chance to face a server below rank 6. In fact, the chance of this is so small, that it has not actually happened with the current system. The last match AR had that involved a server above 16, was when AR itself was 15. BG has not faced a server below rank 6 in over a year, and they were rank 7 when they did so. Even JQ and SoR’s matches with servers below r6 are very rare, with only 4 occurrences all year.

I’m certainly happy that we won’t see the landslide wins as bad as this week’s, but I don’t consider the league’s forced and guaranteed matches against SBI and FA to be any type of improvement for us.

bradderzh.2378:

Seems they have become disillusioned on what is an achievable reward.

This looks to be the path they are heading with all of these event-related items. It’s either something so easy that everyone gets one (or more) or so ridiculously grindy/expensive (often in real money) that few have a chance at it. This would be fine if they knocked the item requirements down to a few thousand, instead of 15,000-100,100. They’ve lost sight of the mid-ground, and all we get are the extremes.

I think they were on the right track back during the Dragon Bash, with fairly rare items from RNG boxes that dropped from every mob in the game. I’d rather take my chances with that RNG than have the reward stuck behind 100,000 items I know I’ll never get in the time allotted.

The most appalling part of this is the fact that they continue with this terrible Black Lion Claim Ticket/Scrap scheme. Average of $45-55 worth of keys for the current weapons, which goes up 5x in price in a month. That’s $250 (average) or over 1100 gold for a single “old” weapon skin. Anyone doing this for a Zodiac skin right now would be crazy, because you can currently get any of them on the TP for 50-170g.

How they can justify a $250 pricetag on a single item in a game is simply beyond me. I could buy 4-5 newly released games for that price, or a dozen (or two) recent games from Steam sales.

All the leagues are going to do is prevent matchups with some highly mismatched servers, while making matchups vs other highly mismatched servers even more likely. Sure ET and SF won’t be seeing YB once the league starts, but NSP/IoJ will be guaranteed to see FA and SBI while getting no chance to face servers they can push around so easily. FA and SBI are going to have a great couple months without any risk of facing a real threat.

The lowest 3-5 servers in every league are going to be worse off than they are now, because their only possible opponents (aside from each other) are servers in higher tiers, while the lower tiers are totally cut off from them. Might as well cancel the season and hand out the rewards today, because we already know who is going to win each league.

beyonder.9735:

This is what YB will be doing against servers in their tier.. I felt some vomit come up after watching this (Pay attention to the tags u see on the floor lol)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxdgsNKAmhw

SBI…in our tier? Uh, that matchup was about as even as this week’s.

I was expecting a video of some fight we’d lost vs Ebay/Kain/etc, but I just see some footage of Yaks goofing off instead of handing SBI free bags.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Titles and weapon skins amount to the same thing in my eyes. They;re both either for showing off or making your character sound/look cool.

I think a weapon, or a mini, in GW2 stands out more than a title, especially a GW1 title. You didn’t even see titles in GW1 unless you moused over or targeted someone. And in either game, you don’t see your own title unless you go looking for it. You always see the weapon you have equipped in GW2.

The items are what I see, so that’s more important in my eyes. I don’t really care what someone else sees, or what they think of it.

lordkrall.7241:

Lucky did very much give actual advantages though.

True, it did have a benefit to it, but a 2-12% extra chance to retain a lockpick is (in my opinion, at least) less significant than an exclusive reward hidden behind such grind, and was negated by the cost of obtaining the title. And Luck was also something you could keep working on during several events, or even in normal gameplay, not an item that you had a very limited time to obtain.

Luck was a ridiculous title, though. Most of us that maxed it did so by afk’ing on the boardwalk, at the cost of a good bit of gold. At 12% better retention, you would have to go through a lot of lockpicks to actually see a benefit from spending the 1.5.-2.5 million gold it took to get.

Danikat.8537:

In GW1 events like this also brought us an opportunity to grind Lucky/Unlucky and Gamer titles to try and make a tiny dent in the insane number of points required.

I’m not saying it’s ok, but after some of the GW1 titles I can’t imagine anything in GW2 looking like an excessive grind.

The difference is in the reward. In GW1, it was just for a title, not for items or other tangible/beneficial rewards. The worst of the grind in GW2 is for weapon skins, which are a huge thing in a game where the end-game prestige primarily about style.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Zylonite.5913:

Did someone say the LS is grindy?

Lies… everyone knows Anet doesn’t make grindy games!

I suppose they don’t make grindy games, but they sure make a lot of grindy add-on content for their non-grindy game.

In GW1 events like this usually brought us 2 costumes for $8 (temp bundle price) that we could freely retrieve copies of at any time from an NPC, item rewards from quests/instances, and a bunch of free for-fun items(booze, tonics, etc). All we have left from that in GW2 are the tonics and food we get for free. All but a select few items are stuck behind ridiculous grind or $60+ worth of RNG with Black Lion chest keys.

I would have already spent my $8 for costumes in GW1. Here, they won’t see a penny from me for this event. I don’t have a problem the mini packs, but I don’t buy them since I can’t use them while they are in the bank (another thing missing from GW1).

ElenaDragon.8401:

Maybe these boxes can drop like the shatterer wings? They were ridiculously expensive to buy with candy, but as a drop much more obtainable via the TP.

I’m hoping that’s how it is. The amount of candy corn required is just absurd. Buying it would cost over 150g, and farming enough for a single item would take more than most people will get throughout the whole event. How many people actually have the time or patience to get 500 candy corn per day for the next month?

I’m guessing that krait witch is up to something. We let her stay there too long without bothering to stop her. Maybe an updated event, or a new world boss here.

No matter what it is, this is a nice little tease. The map change is definitely an attention grab, and the NPCs give you just enough to want to learn more.

I don’t think I have been any more disgusted or disappointed in Anet than when I saw this announcement. The fact that they would do this as if it were a favor to the playerbase, or somehow good for the game, is just insulting to anyone that actually cares about the state of the game. Some of us were already thinking that Season One was an attempt to get gem sales from transfers, at the cost of destroying what little integrity the Leagues might have. This sale on transfers just proves it.

After all the troubles transfers have caused WvW over the past year, there is no way anyone could make this move with good intentions. This is like opening up a professional sports draft halfway through the playoffs. The current ranks, and therefore league placements, are going to mean absolutely nothing. Server matchups are bad enough right now without stupid decisions like this throwing them into complete chaos.

And the whole idea of free transfers to medium population servers is a joke, at least for North America. There aren’t any lower than high, so the only way for anyone to get a free transfer is if this sale causes a mass exodus from one of the high population servers. Any population shifts that large would only serve to create further imbalance in the upcoming wvw season.

Astral Projections.7320:

For those who think that these new hairstyles should be included in character creation now and be free.

That’s fine for all the new accounts or for old accounts who want to make a new character. Otherwise, old accounts are going to have to purchase the kits. Don’t you think that people who have already have level 80s wouldn’t complain about this? The forums would go ballistic if new people got these for free and old accounts didn’t. They can get these for free with ingame gold now and people are complaining.

I have a level 80 of each profession, and right now I have no plans of making any new characters. I also have no problem with buying a hair style kit for one my existing characters to get one of these new styles, in fact I have done that for my asuran ele. However, I still think that new characters should have the new styles available at creation.

It doesn’t bother me that these characters would get a new style for free, even though I had to pay for my existing character. I could get the style for free myself on a new character if I chose to.

Redenaz.8631:

I’ve been trying to dig up the blog post from when they changed how respeccing traits is done, but the old development blog seems to be gone now. I seem to remember the reasoning being that they wanted to give character progression/build more of a sense of permanence, so that the choice would have more weight.

I actually prefer to not be able to respec on a whim, because that means I’m not encouraged to do so in order to play optimally. If I’m fighting Destroyers (again, as an example,) the fight has very organically-added drama because my favorite condition isn’t going to work this time, making them a weak spot for my character that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

If I recall, those were two major reasons for not allowing trait changes on-the-fly. Adding some permanence to trait progression and preventing a situation were people were changing traits before every fight.

I think they were right on those counts, but I don’t think the NPC/fee was necessary. The fee isn’t really an issue, though, since it’s barely any money at all. Their main goals would still be maintained if trait resets were freely available anytime in a city. Or perhaps even within certain villages/outposts in pve zones.

phys.7689:

actually, there is no other buy2p mmos that dont have cash shop. In fact the kind of content you are talking about are often sold in offline games these days, its called downloadable content.
Its fairly common these days to pay a box price, and an additional price for alternate costumes. All in all i think anets execution of these new hairstyles is in good faith, mostly due to the fact you can trade gems for gold.

I know that even some sub-based games have cash shops, but that doesn’t mean everything included in those shops is something I have to find reasonable, or that it’s somehow a justification for Anet to do the same. If we’re using other games as examples, many of the totally free to play MMOs I’ve played did not have hairstyle, or other creation, options locked behind their cash shops.

And it’s not really comparable to an alternate costume. There are a lot of armor styles I can get ingame without touching the gemstore. A hairstyle is a semi-permanent part of character creation. I have no problem with charging some gems if you want to change a hairstyle after creation, but character creation should have every available option there. A game that requires upfront purchase should probably hold off just a bit longer before putting cash shop options in your face. At least it’s not presented during creation as a locked-out option, but it’s not likely to take a new player long before they notice others having hairstyles that were missing during creation.

I have bought purely cosmetic items in this game, and in others. I have happily paid for DLCs in some games. I just happen to think that in a buy-to-play game all basic aspects of character customization should be included in character creation without the need for gemstore items.

fellyn.5083:

Because it’s a money grab pure and simple. People have asked for this feature since release.

GW1 had the exact same issue and they changed it so we could respec in any outpost for free.

It’s a pretty kitten move.

I’m pretty sure GW2 had this feature in late alpha (just before closed beta) or the earliest closed beta stages. I remember the community reaction to the announcement that trait resets would require traveling back to certain cities, and would not be free. Thankfully, at least the NPC fee turned out to be negligible. But the devs went to some length explaining why not allowing trait resets on the fly was important, and that allowing it would detract from gameplay.

Not that completely I agree with their reasoning, but it appears that their desire to monetize is more important than sticking to their idea of what they thought was a good design decision.

“We told you this was a bad idea, and gave some valid reasons why shouldn’t have it…but we decided to overlook that, if you’re willing to pay us”

Astral Projections.7320:

what I SAID is that if they gave them away free to new people then the old accounts would complain about that.

And instead we have new accounts, or old accounts making new characters, complaining about it. The only way to make everyone happy is to make them free for everyone, which doesn’t make them any money at all. The option they did go with ends up double-dipping on character slot purchases, and to new accounts to a lesser degree. A new player to the game might be a bit disappointed to find that a hairstyle they had no option of selecting during character selection is stuck on a cash shop option.

That type of option might be expected in other non-subscription MMOs, but most of those games don’t require an upfront $50 purchase.

Teege.4623:

Some of those characters look worse now, but yes they did make money off of them regardless.

Looks are subjective, and I assume that those people like their characters as they are now. I’ve seen at least one new style that I kind of like, so I might end up getting a kit to change one of my characters.

Pip.2094:

Seriously, they need to earn somewhere and that’s the best add we had in months. They will have my money support for this.
OP…the company won’t pay bills with your charming new characters you know?

The first thing I saw when I logged in today were several level 80s standing around with new hairstyles. They are making money off of this from existing characters changing to the new styles.

Brienson.7319:

GW2 is the only non-subscription MMO I have every played in my life where players are complaining that they have to pay for cosmetics.

The only complaints I’m seeing here are about one specific aspect of one cosmetic update. I don’t have any issues with older characters having to pay for a makeover/hairstyle kit to get these new hairstyles. If I like one of the new styles enough, I’ll buy a kit to get it. I just think that cosmetic updates to aspects of the game that are part of the character creation process should be included for new characters.

Tamaki Revolution.3548

New characters don’t get new armor styles or stats when they’re created though. Also older characters can still get those using gold or such, just like the new hair styles.

New characters didn’t have to spend 30g, or however much, on a set of gear that a new stat combo made obsolete for them. It’s a general understanding that older characters might have to replace existing items as new items are released into an ever-changing game, while newer characters get the benefit of going directly into the new items instead of replacing existing gear. Later on, those now new characters will be in the same situation when even more new items are added.