Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

the problem both of you are ignoring, is that whats fun in pvp and whats fun in pve is dramatically different, its not just about power, its about mechanics.

for many moons, confusion was almost completely useless in pve due to pvp balance
for many moons illusion of life is not worth it in pvp due to pve balance. the fact is the two modes a drastically different in playstyle, goals, and responsiveness.

you will never have retaliation make sense in pvp and pve with the same ruleset, it just doesnt work.

lets take a look at might, in pve, might is a group effort, maintaining it and having everyone benefit from it is the name of the game, why reduce the effectiveness off good play? dont say because some dont have access to it, for most jobs the best way to stack might is through combo fields and team coordination, and everyone has blast finishers, and the ones who have few tend to have fire fields.

fact is spvp is not a good base for balancing, it is a specific mode, with specific needs, it will always be so, unless they can make pve encounters more like pvp, which aint gonna happen

phys.7689:

you dont notice the small changes, but overall you notice that your charachter is a lot less effective than they used to be in various ways. Sure you can still win, but is it as exciting?

the focus of skill design in pve should be around creating exciting worthwhile feeling skills/engaging abilities. The focus of skill design for pvp is creating a good fair match with counterplay. Its just wildly different goals.

It sounds like you’re on the same wavelength as the people Ensign was talking about, those who believe that PvE skills should only be buffed, never nerfed. However, developers also have to consider the effect that skills/traits and mechanics have on PvE content. If a skill or buff is too powerful, it can further trivialize already trivial content. ANet has to decide whether to please Home Improvement fans (More Power!) or please those who want a tiny bit of challenge in PvE.

Might will still be worth stacking next week. Might-stacking will still reward coordinated play. The reward will be somewhat less, but it will probably still be the go-to mechanic. If, as seems unlikely, it makes room for other combo fields than fire to be welcome in PvE, I would have a hard time thinking that is a bad thing.

As to Confusion… I am unsure whether the PvE/PvP split of this debuff’s damage is going to make PvE use more desirable. If most mobs die before they use two skills anyway, the damage increase will not be that noticeable. Also, enough skills produce confusion that in any decent zerg, one’s confusion might not be felt at all on longer-lived bosses.

its not really about buff and never nerfed, its about the difference in the way encounters play out.

for example, in pvp, someone having easy access to faster run speed (or escapes) is an unfair advantage.
In PVE, it is not, the monsters are not moving much and faster movement speed skills only allow you to get in and out of battle, or dodge deadly attacks more easily, which would make a lot of sense as a defensive skill for say elementalist or thief.

how often a theif can cloak and dagger is about fairness in pvp, in pve its about fighting rythym and max damage.

All these changes sum up to watering down of the style of each proffesions play. That sacrifice makes sense in pvp, where fairness and how it feels to fight against something is of paramount importance. But neither of these are even considerations in pve.

I have to wait .5 seconds on my mesmer to pull monsters for control/interupts because in pvp people felt other players werent given enough time to respond. This has elimated key party saving control for mesmer in pve, and made the skill a lot less usable/logical.
oh snap! 5 enemies are going to kill billy! let me pull them away! in .5 seconds… oh billy is dead.

Its not that pve skills should never be nerfed, its that if they are nerfed, it should be for pve reasons, in ways that are consistent with class designs/play and make sense for pve

Albadaran.1283:

The main reason is that it hardly effects PvE. Group events will still be succesful in a full map if everyone knows what he/she needs to do, and those who play solo (mostly for grinding, mining) will hardly notice any difference.

you dont notice the small changes, but overall you notice that your charachter is a lot less effective than they used to be in various ways. Sure you can still win, but is it as exciting?
the focus of skill design in pve should be around creating exciting worthwhile feeling skills/engaging abilities. The focus of skill design for pvp is creating a good fair match with counterplay. Its just wildly different goals

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m with Ensign.

Ultimately balance comes down to comparing x to y. This involves looking at various aspects of a character (skill, weapon coefficient, etc.) and how it fits into a combination of other aspects of a build and then comparing the results to the results available to other builds. This by necessity involves comparing one thing to another thing, or one thing to similar things.

WvW zerg play and large-scale PvE would be extremely difficult to use as a format for balance. You never know what you’re going to get. Quantity has a quality all its own. Making adjustments to balance based on how builds work in that type of content would be a fool’s errand.

If you look at WvW roaming builds, many of the published ones use similar skills and traits as comparable sPvP builds for the same profession. Solo/small group PvE, on the other hand, is a different animal. Mobs fight very differently than players. They don’t (generally) have both high sustain and high burst in the same build. They also (again, generally) don’t bounce around like jack-in-the-boxes either. Finally, they don’t post threads saying, “Nerf X build, it’s OP!”

the problem both of you are ignoring, is that whats fun in pvp and whats fun in pve is dramatically different, its not just about power, its about mechanics.
for many moons, confusion was almost completely useless in pve due to pvp balance
for many moons illusion of life is not worth it in pvp due to pve balance.
the fact is the two modes a drastically different in playstyle, goals, and responsiveness.

you will never have retaliation make sense in pvp and pve with the same ruleset, it just doesnt work.
lets take a look at might, in pve, might is a group effort, maintaining it and having everyone benefit from it is the name of the game, why reduce the effectiveness off good play? dont say because some dont have access to it, for most jobs the best way to stack might is through combo fields and team coordination, and everyone has blast finishers, and the ones who have few tend to have fire fields.

fact is spvp is not a good base for balancing, it is a specific mode, with specific needs, it will always be so, unless they can make pve encounters more like pvp, which aint gonna happen

the reality is, if they are going to have new content, they need progression. The only games that dont need progression are generally arena type games and fighting games. But even those games recently have added some form to it.

It doesnt have to be leveling though. It can be content progression, skills, gear, abilities, unlocks, even for some genres, high scores, ranking etc.

But if you think they can make successful new content with no progression at all (hence you may feel like you got left behind) i highly doubt it.

The main reason i am opposed to levels, is because unless it comes with new gear, its pointless, and if it comes with new gear, they totally screwed up, because ascended is way too much work/commitment to have it become invalid. Games that have treadmills, its honestly not really that much work to gear up. It generally happens while completing the new content a few times. Anet made ascended a highly annoying grindy trial (leveling crafting, daily crafting quests, large gold/item farms on daily basis) people will not be happy if its invalidated.

cillard.3986:

Brother Grimm.5176:

The only effect it can possibly have on PvE is to make dungeon runners take a few minutes longer to do a run (not game-breaking). Maybe it takes a few minutes longer to take down a World Boss (possible issue that may need to be addressed).

Actually, using the term “game balance” when talking about PvE is kind of chuckle worthy (as the PvE side of the game has very few “difficult” parts).

I didn’t mention PvE specifically. Outside of sPvP, there is both PvE and WvW. I will contend that WvW is even more difficult to balance than sPvP because of all the added variables like the food and buffs.

There is no question, for example, that a cele ele is balance issue in sPvP. However in WvW, they are not even close to being optimal for most situations. Why not just limit balance changes for sPvP to sPvP only as they have for other changes in the past?

You really aren’t making a counter argument to my statement.

because it takes more time/resources than they are willing to dedicate for seperate balancing.
also, the spvp and balancing team shares (or at least used to share) basically the same people give or take. Also spvp testing is more direct, doesnt require huge numbers of people (like wvw) and is self contained.

Not saying its a good idea, its actually a really bad idea for pve balance, which is less about balance between players, and more about cool fun stuff for fighting npcs. But its been years, they probably arent ever going to change this policy, and hence many problems will occur.

jokke.6239:

Imagine the storm it would create though haha. People spend tons of gold on asc armors. It’s not gonna happen

it is theoretically possible to raise a level cap, without increasing the required level of gear.

honestly though, in this game, levels serve little to no purpose other than gating you from monsters.

for many people something easy is not entertaining. The problem is everyone has different concepts of what is easy.
The answer is either to create different content for different people, or create different difficulties.

Mightybird.6034:

Zypher.7609:

Mightybird the reason no one likes writing out a one or two sentence post is because with all the “I have been gone, what did i miss” posts. The moment it is summed up in two sentences, we get a ohh so nothing has changed at all. It takes a bit to show everything that has changed, or even if the changes are something you will like. The best bet is not to ask what is changed, but to just go and play the game. If you like what you are playing keep playing, if not take another break and check it out in a few more months.

It hasn’t been two months its been almost two years (so trust me something has changed.) I feel so lost and out of place in the game at 80 I don’t know what to do so I came here first.

My guild is gone and I’ve no idea where to even start playing.

they are paranoid, because usually the results of these questions are with people feeling like not a lot is different.

The main thing to do is living story, however you will have to buy the missing chapters.
The goal of playing at a high level, is mostly chasing cosmetics, so look for items you want for your charachter in the new wardrobe, and then figure out what you need to do to get them.

generally the best way to obtain things will be to get gold.
best way to get gold, will probably be to play the tp, or do the current gold farming meta.

now that i think of it, you can also buy the missing living story chapters with gold through the exchange, so basically you should
get gold.
buy living story chapters
buy favorite weaponskins

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

I think it’s entirely possible that the author of that article has seen the same spurious claims by the same people and thought he might throw that out there, because it’s just as ridiculous to him as it is to me.

It’s also possible the author wrote a puff-piece in exchange for a visit to ANet headquarters and some cool GW2 swag. Such occurrences are not uncommon in video game journalism.

Vayne.8563:

As for what people meant, some of those posts were pretty kitten ed clear. People claiming less than 50 people work at Anet can’t be taken as hyperbole. There are enough of those kinds of posts where sharing this doesn’t seem that bad to me.

I said most were using hyperbole. It’s certainly possible there are a few unreasonable people who legitimately believe ANet isn’t’ working on anything but the Living Story. But unreasonable people are, by definition, unreasonable. So what good does it do to “stand up to” them?

Vayne.8563:

If you don’t like that I shared it, you don’t have to comment in the thread. It’s not constructive.

Ah, “agree with me or get out”. I see. Not constructive, indeed.

It’s not constructive. I shared something that I thought was interesting by someone who had a least some respectability.

Yes, he COULD be an Anet shill. You could be a Blizzard shill. But it’s information in an article that I shared.

Now, this is in response to those people and it’s been more than a couple, that have posted that the game has no updates coming that, or that there’s no one working there.

Surely that’s not unreasonable.

Trying to turn it into something it’s not, on the other hand, could be construed to be unreasonable.

its not exactly like he is a paid shill, but the entire point of the colum he is writing is to discuss the cool things in GW. Someone who takes on this job is basically going to be very optimistic, and thats what they are expected to write. Both of the former writers got jobs at anet.
He is noy really a journalist(in this instance), he is a writer, and his job is to talk about the cool going ons of arenanets flgship game. Bias is inherent.

Vayne.8563:

So a few of us white knight types have been saying for a while that Anet is working on stuff and a few of you not so white knight types have been saying Anet isn’t showing us anything because they don’t have anything to show. Enter this article:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/11/25/flameseeker-chronicles-navigating-guild-wars-2s-tangled-paths/

The article itself is what it is, but there’s one bit of it that I’ll quote here:

“Although I’m bound by blood oath not to discuss any specifics (it’s a Necromancer thing), I can say with certainty that, yes, ArenaNet is working on stuff. It is working very kitten stuff. There is no internal catastrophe or barren office lurking behind the studio’s policy of limited communication as some fans have feared. There are a lot of highly organized developers there doing things I was mostly not allowed to see up close because there are probably nuclear fallout shelters less secure than ANet HQ. But it’s safe to say that they didn’t pull together hundreds of people and tell them to look very busy and enthusiastic and excited about their game just because I happened to be in the vicinity.”

Now of course, this really means nothing. It’s one man saying he saw something at the studios when he was there, that he’s not allowed to talk about. But it was being done.

The same stuff a lot of us have been saying. He’s saying straight out the fans who say Anet doesn’t have plans in the background are incorrect.

I suppose time will tell, but it’s what I’ve always believed.

no one thinks that they were not working on stuff. In fact all information points to them probably working way harder than they should to achieve what they achieved. I am certain they have all been working hard for a couple years already. But we have yet to see many things that feel substantial.

Regardless, the article is from an extreme optimist who tends to make kittenumptions. He really isnt a valid for of news. All he says is, i went on a tour and everything seemed cool, and they seemed busy.

The Op is an interesting read, but the bias is heavy. The consenus, is almost always his particular conclusion, rather than the consensus on what people have to say on the topics.
Would be more usefull if it was more neutral.

nethykins.7986:

This is literally how threads of great importance get left behind, closed or die.

So much has been said from one end, it’s starting to just resemble one person talking to themselves pacing back and forth with an onlooker only peeking in to say “are you still pacing back and forth? keep pacing back and forth…”

This reminds me very much of the first CDI; Open for TOO long with very, very little response from the devs, considering they were the ones that came up with the idea but failed to execute it.

I’m putting my bet here that, it’ll eventually get Gaile or a mod coming in saying that this thread has now run its course, and “the feedback was valuable” but that they’ll close the thread as they feel they’ve exhausted all talking points, and still they’ll tell us nothing about the status of trait changes.

For the love of all that is good in the world, SOMEONE from Anet say SOMETHING about the traits. Staying silent only reinforces a lack of trust between player and company.

they will take what they like from this thread, they will spend money building it to co,mpletion, and then they will give it to us.
If it is bad, you can look forward to another year, or possibly never for a fix.

the sad part is they have learned very little from these big misteps, their overall policies make it more likely to occur again and again.

Rauderi.8706:

phys.7689:

graphics/style. yeah ffxiv style is way better. I like some gw stuff, but even with an insane amount of flashy armor, it all still seems pretty unified, and the gear looks kitten good. But, GW2 is pretty good overall.

I miss Limsa Lominsa so much. :\
That area was gorgeous, and I adored the sound score.

…Which is another thing I miss about 14 over GW2. GW2 has some notable pieces and I like them, but FF14 draws me in more. I even ported various combat music to GW2 to enhance my play experience.

yeah they scored gw2 in a very random way. literally, zones have random pools of music to play. Therefore there is very few themed areas/music. The music does not set the theme/feeling of areas, because it is primarily unrelated.

Copestetic.5174:

Yep, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I’d also like to add, that the PvP scene in FF:XIV is also already dead. Hardly anyone does Arenas ( 4v4 forced 1 Tank, 2 DPS, 1 Healer on each team ) and Frontlines ( 24v24v24 of wtf ever classes going for 3 nodes like in Conquest ) has been on the decline since its release earlier this year.

its all pretty subjective. UI for me is better in ffxiv, perhaps it takes longer to get used to, but your UI does waay more. I actually play with a controller right now, and its pretty awesome i must say. I never even looked for an explanation and i can navigate pretty easily.

• having to equip a lot of stuff, i can see why you would have beef, but the armory system is designed to let you switch proffesions AND gear and skill set up at the touch of a button. therefore ut takes more time to set up. GW2 needs this sorely. But you are right, having such a system would be confusing for noobs. Still i would rather have it than not.
  To put it simply, by using the armory, you will have about 10 times the inventory space of gw2, and be able to swap between different jobs, classes etc with one button press.

• As far as skills, you have more than gw2, but i dont think you will ever need more than 20ish skills, but im not max level yet.

• the map, could be a lot better, but on the plus side, i find myself paying attention to the surroundings way more

• combat, well, GW2 has this way better. I prefer all hits to be guaranteed, smart targeting/attacking without targets. More utility and difference between skills. But once i get to dungeons, i would say FFXIV has better encounter design than you see in most of guild wars. Essentially battles are more well planned out, and the interaction between enemies and player is better in ffxiv, for most monsters/fights.

• graphics/style. yeah ffxiv style is way better. I like some gw stuff, but even with an insane amount of flashy armor, it all still seems pretty unified, and the gear looks kitten good. But, GW2 is pretty good overall.

• travel, yeah its not easy, but i think that is by choice, it makes me more involved with the world. You think, should i teleport? should i walk? should i use mount.

• crafting, ok im sorry byt ffxiv crafting is awesome, recipes make sense, interconnect. You get more exp based on how well you make the item. The crafting is so well weaved into each other, and it enhances gathering greatly. The itemization makes you feel like items have value.

But yeah GW2 has a lot going for it. I too started playing ffxiv recently and there are a couple things gw2 did right, however, im really appreciating how well crafted ffxiv is. The large systems work so well together, like itemization, gathering, crafting, materia, gathering.

IMO the strengths of GW2
personal combat system
Diversity within a proffession
Exploration
Can go almost anywhere on a map/exploration
more interesting dynamic events world

In most of the rest of the categories, currently i would give it to ffxiv.

Some things i want Gaile to understand, so she can better represent what players here are trying to communicate, if there ever comes a time that she can try to transmit this to the concerned parties

• CDI is not a roadmap, yeah Mike O brein said try to treat it as such, but its not. The people who run it make it clear in the first page notes about it. Its a brainstorming session. Spitballing ideas. Its very nice and good, but it cannot be a roadmap as long as it has the qualification that nothing discussed within represents future plans.

• stringing people along the best way to string a person along is not to tell them whats going on. There are two ways to string someone along, tell them lies, anantd tell them nothing. The key to not stringing someone along is telling them exactly what they want to know, and sometimes what they do not want to know, but is relevant.

Eh well whatevs, you guys are hearing us, but you are not listening, good luck, i hope you start to create better content, and get a pulse on what the players want to keep them interested in the game.

I hope by the time you guys announce these type of things, i havent built up a feeling of bad blood, and antipathy towards the product.

SpyderBite.6274:

dlonie.6547:

This is an online game. No matter what they do, people will kitten, moan and complain ;-) They need to stop being so afraid of that, and just communicate what their goals are. If people complain, at least they’re getting feedback before they release content that flops.

Is this your first MMO? Please show me another game which has developers who layout their entire roadmap for the game for the player base to critique.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/643-Letters-from-the-Producer

he is up to letter 57 right now, he also does video letters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft:_Warlords_of_Draenor
was announced last year
http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/62349-mists-of-pandaria-will-not-be-the-last-wow-expansion-pack
they day it came out, they announced that there would be another expansion.

it really isnt abnormal at all.

But know this, many other games dont have to tell people everything, because they already have established how the game is going to grow. WoW can say expansion, and people know what to expect. GW, no one knows what to expect from any release.

eithinan.9841:

I like how anet makes corrections to that exact issue over time. With the addition of Ascended weapon and armor crafting, event based mat sinks like the spinal backpieces for a short term adjustment etc. All that is for the purpose of balancing the whole economy but not for the benefit of precursors.

People here seem to mistake Precursors being a large/influential part of the economy(naturally, due to the high value) with being the “linchpin” that will destroy all aspects of it(the economy) if there are changes made in the acquisition of them(Pre’s). What you will see is all the various items associated with them dropping in price. This will hurt the people “Playing the game as intended”, which i grant is the vast majority, by lowering their income.

The complicated thing Anet is trying to do is figuring out a way to get an alternate method of acquisition of pre’s without killing the associated markets(wood,metal,t5,t6,etc…). This is to prevent the majority of their players, who go out and farm or grind or whatever and are not entitled, getting the shaft.

People are not leaving gw2 because of the difficulty of getting Pre’s, or if they have left solely because of that they are statistically insignificant to other reasons.

yeah i agree that they are working towards not having an economy that is completely dependent on the legendary process. Ascended was a big one, there have been a couple others. But apparently people dont believe we are at the level where we have an economy that can survive alternate methods of legendary aquisition, or any change really involving them.

By the way people talk here, they cant even create anything that looks, or is more interesting than legendaries ever, or introduce new legendaries with different means of obtaining it, with out crashing the entire economy. That to me, isnt a healthy situation.

See legendaries as they are now, are treatment for the symptoms of over production, But the problem remains. Way too many goods are produced without intention, that then must be destroyed. legendaries job is to suck up all of this excess, and give all of these nearly valueless items value. But you still have the problems inherent with over production. Nothing feels valuable in small quantities, grind is high, great difference in value between regular play and farming. These qualities effect people, and legendaries prop up the system without fixing its innate flaws.

As far as people leaving the game, legendaries was supposed to be one of the main incentives to keep playing, a method that shows mastery of the game, and gives you something to work towards. Its not fullfilling that goal for many players currently. If they had some sort of system whereby people feel like they had goals even at max level that they could realistically achieve, more people would probably be playing. At least that is the theory that Eric and Colin were presenting when they talked about what the legendary process was hoping to achieve.

If legendaries are no longer meant to serve that purpose, thats fine, then they need to come up with some other things to serve that purpose. However, if whatever they create is too successful, then that may cause problems as well.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

JS makes a statement that directly links their consideration of the long term stability of the market to permanent content. It’s not reaching to see that Anet values its market stability with respect to the content in the game from that statement, otherwise they wouldn’t consider it in their permanent content plans and he wouldn’t have mentioned it as a factor.

I mean, this gets back to the whole point and the evidence that supports it. A Game development company does not hire a PhD economist to monitor the market because they don’t value the performance of the market in the game. It’s just stupid to suggest otherwise.

long term stability does not require the current design, in fact the current design seems to be one that will not be stable. Too much is tied to the values of one class of item.

What do you consider stable?
I would say that precursors are some of the stablest items in game.

They are stable now, but should they become unstable, the whole economy will feel the ripples.
lets say some new high profile items come up that dont have the same aquisition, how will that effect the entire rest of the economy?

then there is the question, what happens when precursors reach the saturation point? when most who want them have them?

Precursors probably arent going to be the “thing” forever, and since that is the case, it may not be a good idea for so much of the economy to be dependent on these items.

You said the current design is/will be unstable, I was just wondering what design you were referring to.

it will be unstable any time precursors become unstable, this has happened for various reasons in the past, but not to an insane degree.

Essentially, for long term stability, you dont have too much tied to one item.

Well, good thing then that they are quite stable. And a good point for not making them widely and cheaply available.

any design where a single point of failure can collapse the whole thing is not considered stable.
The fact that many here believe changing precursor aquisition, a limited good marketed at small % of the population, may collapse the market only proves that it is an unstable economy.

One of the precise problems with an economy that is too heavily based on one good is being forced to continue practices that are bad for the world as a whole, in order to protect the economy.

Now in a normal economy, this would eventually cause various failures, but since this is a game, many of those self correcting tools are not available. So it just keeps going on, with most people feeling fairly disenfranchised until they quit.

We were discussing, if precursers are stable or not, we werent talking about the whole economy. Your arguement that the whole economy crashes, if the stability of precursors fails is moot because the stability of precursors is secured due to the low droprate, which makes it hard to farm as a drop and through the vast amount of mats that go into forging one.
As the stability of pres is guaranteed as long as they drop as intended, the economy also has to be seen as stable. You cant call the economy unstable because of a reason that didnt happen.

people were discussing how precursors are needed to be where they are in order to keep the economy stable. I agree that is true, but i the fact is your economy is not stable if it depends too much on one good.

If tommorow people decide that legendaries arent entertaining, the whole market collapses.

If something new is added that people like more than legendaries, the whole market collapses.

If too many people obtain their chosen legendary, and are no longer interested in other legendaries, market collapses.

point is any design that has a single point of failure, that you cannot easily replace, is a flawed design.

And yeah things can be unstable because of something that didnt happen. Engineers deal with it all the time. If you are waiting to see the bridge fall before you fix the flaws, you probably shouldnt be in charge of maintaining a city.

Vayne.8563:

It’s really not a fast fix. I know why they wouldn’t want to revert it. It was changed for a reason.

It was a bad change because the way it was changed left you with all sorts of things out of context. It was a good change because of the situation in Orr.

Spoilers below:

The story of Orr is really two stories. It’s the story of Trahearne’s Wild Hunt to heal Orr and the story of your battle with Zhaitan.

In the old telling you did a bunch of stuff against Zhaitan and then there was a whole hiatus from your story while you ran off to do Trahearne’s story before getting back to your story.

This new way gets Trahearne’s story out of the way first. So your weakening of Zhaitan by cutting off his food supply, partially blinding him, crippling his ability to make undead directly precedes you’re encounter with him. It removes some of the bitter sting of Trahearne’s prevalence in your story while at the same time showing that the last fight with Zhaitan isn’t just a boss fight. You’ve been in fact fighting him for the last five or six missions and finally get to finish him off.

The Zhaitan fight is going to be anticlimatic no matter how you slice it. This way it’s less anticlimactic.

continuity errors tend to be more jarring than a story which moves around. Regardless the solution presented was pretty bad.

Shaaba.5672:

A thought occurred to me from people mentioning Mawdry.

Craft a ‘booster’ that increases your chance to loot a precursor.

Make it a scavenger hunt like Mawdrey. Make it somewhat difficult and expensive (but not unattainable) and once you’ve crafted it, you keep it in your bag, or perhaps consume it to create a semi-permanent buff. A specific type of magic find that effects only precursor drops. Once a precursor drops, the buff is gone, or the item is deleted or broken. Possibly even make these boosts specific to a certain precursor, so that you can choose which one you want to drop and your chance at getting, say Dusk, is increased greatly or guaranteed when a precursor eventually drops. Once one drops, you can craft another booster if you like for another precursor.

This is specific to the precursor problem only, and not the general RNG roulette, but it could be workable. It doesn’t guarantee you a precursor, but the more effort you put into the game, the better your chances are for being rewarded.

remember that this thread is not primarily about precursors, but also remember having a random generated to solution to a random generated problem, is probably not going to answer much.
Unless whatever random boosting effect is so drastic that it becomes a small amount of trials to normalize, you will get the same problem.
for example, it might be the case that a magic find booster already doubles your chance of looting a precursor/ascended box etc, however, doubling the chance still doesnt really make it likely.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

JS makes a statement that directly links their consideration of the long term stability of the market to permanent content. It’s not reaching to see that Anet values its market stability with respect to the content in the game from that statement, otherwise they wouldn’t consider it in their permanent content plans and he wouldn’t have mentioned it as a factor.

I mean, this gets back to the whole point and the evidence that supports it. A Game development company does not hire a PhD economist to monitor the market because they don’t value the performance of the market in the game. It’s just stupid to suggest otherwise.

long term stability does not require the current design, in fact the current design seems to be one that will not be stable. Too much is tied to the values of one class of item.

What do you consider stable?
I would say that precursors are some of the stablest items in game.

They are stable now, but should they become unstable, the whole economy will feel the ripples.
lets say some new high profile items come up that dont have the same aquisition, how will that effect the entire rest of the economy?

then there is the question, what happens when precursors reach the saturation point? when most who want them have them?

Precursors probably arent going to be the “thing” forever, and since that is the case, it may not be a good idea for so much of the economy to be dependent on these items.

You said the current design is/will be unstable, I was just wondering what design you were referring to.

it will be unstable any time precursors become unstable, this has happened for various reasons in the past, but not to an insane degree.

Essentially, for long term stability, you dont have too much tied to one item.

Well, good thing then that they are quite stable. And a good point for not making them widely and cheaply available.

any design where a single point of failure can collapse the whole thing is not considered stable.
The fact that many here believe changing precursor aquisition, a limited good marketed at small % of the population, may collapse the market only proves that it is an unstable economy.

One of the precise problems with an economy that is too heavily based on one good is being forced to continue practices that are bad for the world as a whole, in order to protect the economy.

Now in a normal economy, this would eventually cause various failures, but since this is a game, many of those self correcting tools are not available. So it just keeps going on, with most people feeling fairly disenfranchised until they quit.

Malkavian.4516:

So far the only significant change I have seen is the modification of the story journal to what it once was, with the exception of a duplicate story chapter involving Sayeh (Temple of the Forgotten God) showing at the beginning and the end of Chapter 8.

they arent really fast with these type of things. If they fix it at all, it will probably be awhile.

Zaklex.6308:

Wynne.3908:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Gulesave.5073:

Gaile was not asking whether the promise of more LW is sufficient to sate our desires for intel, just whether it counts.

Yes, this is correct. When I see comments like “there’s nothing new to do” or “we need fresh content” it just occurred to me to ask if you’re taking LW into account, if you see that as new content and pretty significant chunks of it, at that. (Admittedly, it may not be what you personally have requested, but if the statement is “there’s nothing new” that doesn’t seem quite right.)

Thanks everyone for not barking at me when I asked the question. Again, the question was not “is it enough?” I really was pointing to it to ask for your impressions of the concept and the execution as continuing, new content in an ever-changing world.

But it’s not quite wrong either is it?

A lot of people I know, myself included, bought Guild Wars 2 under the impression that there would be boxed expansion-like products i.e Cantha, Elona etc., similar to how Guild Wars 1 content was produced.

Now that this hasn’t happened, and doesn’t seem to be in the works, they have left the game. Living World has not enticed them back. I don’t know how to put it anymore simply.

Bravo for a great thread!

Well, you know what happens when you assume something, as you did when you purchased GW2. You created an artificial expectation without any knowledge that what you were expecting was going to come forth. Anyone that did this shouldn’t be putting any blame on Arena.net for not delivering but only placing the blame on themselves, since they haven’t gotten something that they thought was rightfully their’s, when in essence the only thing that is/was rightfully anyone’s was the game they purchased for $40 – 60(or what ever price someone paid).

Remember, when the game was released they said nothing about expansions…and just because every other game does it, does not mean that every game will have them.

P.S.> Above comment is the devil’s advocate approach, but also contains some truth.

it wasnt until after the game came out that they started saying they werent working on expansion type stuff

Johanson added, “On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.”

so the idea that they would eventually give you expansion level content is not something players decided on their own when they bought the game.

Eitri.2608:

Sadly It seems like the metric they’re using is quarterly financials. If you go by those, most of the design decisions have been good ones. Maybe with this last quarter’s numbers our statements about playing less and not recommending the game due to this system will carry more weight.

by quarterly finanicials, they have been continually losing 5-10% per quarter over the last 4 quarters.
So i doubt that the descions can be seen as good in that light.

It may be unrelated, but all indications are that profits have gone down since said changes

NaotsuguLH.8915:

I see all your points, but for me, I have an excess of skill points, and quite a bit of silver. I’ve also found several traits unintentionally, and this is my first char, not even lvl 80. I’ll admit, that what I’m doing to lvl most people don’t do (mapping) which accounts for my excessive skill points (I just spent like 50 the other night leveling up random skills). I suppose I sympathize, but I don’t mind the whole, “Finding the trait” thing to be too bad.

Anyway thanks for all your insight people.

well, keep us posted, when you get all your traits. how you feel about getting them as you progress

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

JS makes a statement that directly links their consideration of the long term stability of the market to permanent content. It’s not reaching to see that Anet values its market stability with respect to the content in the game from that statement, otherwise they wouldn’t consider it in their permanent content plans and he wouldn’t have mentioned it as a factor.

I mean, this gets back to the whole point and the evidence that supports it. A Game development company does not hire a PhD economist to monitor the market because they don’t value the performance of the market in the game. It’s just stupid to suggest otherwise.

long term stability does not require the current design, in fact the current design seems to be one that will not be stable. Too much is tied to the values of one class of item.

What do you consider stable?
I would say that precursors are some of the stablest items in game.

They are stable now, but should they become unstable, the whole economy will feel the ripples.
lets say some new high profile items come up that dont have the same aquisition, how will that effect the entire rest of the economy?

then there is the question, what happens when precursors reach the saturation point? when most who want them have them?

Precursors probably arent going to be the “thing” forever, and since that is the case, it may not be a good idea for so much of the economy to be dependent on these items.

You said the current design is/will be unstable, I was just wondering what design you were referring to.

it will be unstable any time precursors become unstable, this has happened for various reasons in the past, but not to an insane degree.

Essentially, for long term stability, you dont have too much tied to one item.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

JS makes a statement that directly links their consideration of the long term stability of the market to permanent content. It’s not reaching to see that Anet values its market stability with respect to the content in the game from that statement, otherwise they wouldn’t consider it in their permanent content plans and he wouldn’t have mentioned it as a factor.

I mean, this gets back to the whole point and the evidence that supports it. A Game development company does not hire a PhD economist to monitor the market because they don’t value the performance of the market in the game. It’s just stupid to suggest otherwise.

long term stability does not require the current design, in fact the current design seems to be one that will not be stable. Too much is tied to the values of one class of item.

What do you consider stable?
I would say that precursors are some of the stablest items in game.

They are stable now, but should they become unstable, the whole economy will feel the ripples.
lets say some new high profile items come up that dont have the same aquisition, how will that effect the entire rest of the economy?

then there is the question, what happens when precursors reach the saturation point? when most who want them have them?

Precursors probably arent going to be the “thing” forever, and since that is the case, it may not be a good idea for so much of the economy to be dependent on these items.

Obtena.7952:

JS makes a statement that directly links their consideration of the long term stability of the market to permanent content. It’s not reaching to see that Anet values its market stability with respect to the content in the game from that statement, otherwise they wouldn’t consider it in their permanent content plans and he wouldn’t have mentioned it as a factor.

I mean, this gets back to the whole point and the evidence that supports it. A Game development company does not hire a PhD economist to monitor the market because they don’t value the performance of the market in the game. It’s just stupid to suggest otherwise.

long term stability does not require the current design, in fact the current design seems to be one that will not be stable. Too much is tied to the values of one class of item.

mtpelion.4562:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

can anyone explain to me what this common expression “hurting the economy” means? What would be the problem if certain items get more expensive/less expensive than they are today?

In a virtual economy, high end luxury items are the main force that keeps crafting alive. If you make it too easy to get high end items, crafting quickly become obsolete. With crafting being obsolete, the vast majority of items in the game lose demand and soon you will simply sell everything to a vendor because no one wants to buy it.

It is for that reason that highly demanded items are kept rare, in order to keep the economy chugging so that crafting and item drops retain value.

this is not really true, its true that this economy is driven primarily by precursors and legendaries, but i am familiar with game economies that are not. Most of these other economies are not really very dependent on any one group of items.

their data on it is probably also bad. However, they want a new better solution most likely, which they will not interact with us on. It will take them quite some time to design, implement and test. And if it sucks? well it may change after a similar time change. The sad part is the old system was fine. The feedback they heard was misunderstood, and the execution very poor.

i think a big problem with this games development, is it tends to focus too much on revamps, and not enough on new things.

those drop rates dont really make it easier though, that just gives you more sources for the same thing. But most of the sources dont have a faster output per time invested.

so whether you kill sparks, run fractals, kill dwayna, or hunt bags, your probably looking at one every 1-2 hours depending on your luck. I definately think that is a good thing, less ways to get bored, and more types of content that can get you what you want. But its not really easier.

eithinan.9841:

Lothirieth.3408:

In MMOs I’ve always gone and played the hardest content and earned my shinies directly. My characters were usually blinged out with best in slot everything. What I had reflected my skill, not my willingness to farm

In other MMO’s that is exactly what you did is farm. You farmed the same stupid PvE content to get a better glove. then you went on to a different hero mode or hard mode and farmed your boots. These were behind another RNG wall too, albeit with less possible drops.

I hate grinding out the same content for gear. GW2 is a breath of fresh air in that respect, in that I can play the content I want and still get BIS items.

in the current terms of gw2 (which may change) its not a question of best in slot items. Its currently a case of specific looking items. That said there are valid arguments on both sides of unique drops being available to all, and only for different types of content.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the heart of the issue here is that you’re anti-Capitalism. Anet, as a company, offers optional vanity and convenience items that can be bough using real money. This revenue stream is fed to the mother company, NCSoft, who in turn pays Anet employees to develop more content for us to enjoy, for free. Non-paying and paying customers all get to partake in the additional game time that paying customers are responsible for.

Because paying customers have the additional feature of exchanging purchased microtransaction currency for in-game currency, you feel that this is a sin because non-paying customers don’t have access to it. This isn’t a moral issue here. This is straight up jealousy. Someone willing to spend hundreds of their own dollars to buy virtual goods in game get what they pay for. They sacrifice real money for virtual pride. What has the non-paying customer done to deserve the same perks?

The key to the success of the Gem Store is that Anet allows non-paying customers to enjoy some of the same perks that paying customers have. They can exchange in-game Gold for microtransaction currency. By doing this, a player can go through his entire GW2 lifespan without spending any additional real money, and still enjoy the game extras. I know of people with thousands upon thousands of Gems, and never spent a cent beyond the purchase price of the game.

One more thing, the Gem Exchange was created to counter RMT Gold Sellers. If people are willing to pay for Gold in games, why not sell it directly to the players? By cutting out the middle man (RMTs) and becoming the supplier, the company can enjoy the additional sales. From a business standpoint, it was the smart thing to do.

there are few non paying customers here, the box costs money. when it goes f2p, you can claim there are non paying customers

When you bought the game you paid for the content offered at that time. Any additional content developed after that, is free to play for you.

and here is the flaw in your argument, precursors, legendaries, are all part of the box price that everyone paid for. Smooth brought it up in the context of anet should keep precursors high to help the market, and help them sell gems.

The product that they, according to smooth are trying to manipulate for profit is not extra content IT IS BOX CONTENT.

Now im not going to say they shouldnt have anything in the gemstore, but as has been said, if they are sacrificng good game design for beleif that they will get more dollars, i personally doubt they will.

design something good, and sell it in the gemstore, fine, but dont make an inferior game design just to get more money, because the more inferior your product the less likely people will want to spend money on it.

I dont think that Smooth ever suggested that Anet is trying to manipulate legendary crafting in order to sell more gems.

Legendary acquisition has been pretty much the same since release, if anything, they made them easier to obtain by buffing the forge rate, introducing a 1 time event that had a high drop rate for pres and adding pres and t6 mats to more loot tables (champ bags, bonus chests, rank up chests, etc).

You also need to convert far less gems into gold now, if you want to buy rage/frenzy compared to a year ago.

So they made Legendary acquisition easier and cheaper across the board but people come here with a p2w arguement.

its not any easier, before they did those things to increase it, they decreased it first(precursors).
I suppose for certain precursors, some t6 lodestones are easier now, but thats more a case of unbalanced supply than particularly making it easier.

and your arguement that it is easier to buy with real cash, is not really relevant, the purpose of legendaries, was supposedly to provide an endgame goal for players

at around 7:30. “things that you have to do yourself…., things that show mastery of the game”

The buying gold to get it, is not supposed to be the main method of acquisition, though the option exists. And here is the flaw, the way precursors/legendaries work now, is not acting as an endgame goal that shows mastery of the game.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the heart of the issue here is that you’re anti-Capitalism. Anet, as a company, offers optional vanity and convenience items that can be bough using real money. This revenue stream is fed to the mother company, NCSoft, who in turn pays Anet employees to develop more content for us to enjoy, for free. Non-paying and paying customers all get to partake in the additional game time that paying customers are responsible for.

Because paying customers have the additional feature of exchanging purchased microtransaction currency for in-game currency, you feel that this is a sin because non-paying customers don’t have access to it. This isn’t a moral issue here. This is straight up jealousy. Someone willing to spend hundreds of their own dollars to buy virtual goods in game get what they pay for. They sacrifice real money for virtual pride. What has the non-paying customer done to deserve the same perks?

The key to the success of the Gem Store is that Anet allows non-paying customers to enjoy some of the same perks that paying customers have. They can exchange in-game Gold for microtransaction currency. By doing this, a player can go through his entire GW2 lifespan without spending any additional real money, and still enjoy the game extras. I know of people with thousands upon thousands of Gems, and never spent a cent beyond the purchase price of the game.

One more thing, the Gem Exchange was created to counter RMT Gold Sellers. If people are willing to pay for Gold in games, why not sell it directly to the players? By cutting out the middle man (RMTs) and becoming the supplier, the company can enjoy the additional sales. From a business standpoint, it was the smart thing to do.

there are few non paying customers here, the box costs money. when it goes f2p, you can claim there are non paying customers

When you bought the game you paid for the content offered at that time. Any additional content developed after that, is free to play for you.

and here is the flaw in your argument, precursors, legendaries, are all part of the box price that everyone paid for. Smooth brought it up in the context of anet should keep precursors high to help the market, and help them sell gems.

The product that they, according to smooth are trying to manipulate for profit is not extra content IT IS BOX CONTENT.

Now im not going to say they shouldnt have anything in the gemstore, but as has been said, if they are sacrificng good game design for beleif that they will get more dollars, i personally doubt they will.

design something good, and sell it in the gemstore, fine, but dont make an inferior game design just to get more money, because the more inferior your product the less likely people will want to spend money on it.

Zaklex.6308:

Tachenon.5270:

~Snip~

I believe many GW2 players must surely wonder when, if not indeed, if, they may see the advent of new professions, new skills, new weapons, new playable races, new areas — that is, new areas that would require months of diligent exploration to fully explore.

~Snip~

It seems I’m the only person around here that remembers anything that was said by Arena.net when this game was released a little over 2 years ago. Based on what was said then, I would never expect new professions, new playable races, or very many new skills…at all. I would like to see additional weapons, new areas(which we are getting, not as fast as some would like, but that’s personal taste), more weapon choices for the existing professions.

Also, we’ve been told what A.nets stance is on giving out information, yet people keep asking for stuff that clearly isn’t on the table per their own(A.nets) stance that they will only talk about stuff that is ready for release. I understand you want more, but consider for once the business, they’ve put rules in place, they’re trying to abide by them, whether we think they’re correct or not is not our place to decide. It’s time to just let it go and live with it. I don’t know about everyone else, but someone above said they don’t get e-mails when ever a new LW episode is released, well, they should probably check their junk mail folder, because every Tuesday on release day, I get a mail from NCSoft telling me to log in to GW2 and unlock the new episode.

I personally find all these threads asking for more information highly amusing, it’s like you’re trying to get blood from a turnip, it’s not going to happen.

uhh what exactly are you talking about, when the game came out they had said that at least one other race was being considered to have been put in at release. They never said they would do it, but nothing they said suggested they wouldnt. They definately said the simplified skill/trait system would allow that to more easily expand skills, and talked about how our first elites were just the top of the iceberg. Within a week or two of release Jon peters mentioned how one might see a 2 handed great axe one day in an expansion or free update.

The only thing they said they didnt have ideas for was a new proffession. Since then though they have said you would definately see things like a new race or proffessions within the life of gw2.

As to your other point, a bad policy is a bad policy, and it behooves customers to tell business when they have a bad policy. Its up the business to do or not do anything about it, but customers telling them things is not wrong

Gaile Gray.6029:

Gulesave.5073:

Gaile was not asking whether the promise of more LW is sufficient to sate our desires for intel, just whether it counts.

Yes, this is correct. When I see comments like “there’s nothing new to do” or “we need fresh content” it just occurred to me to ask if you’re taking LW into account, if you see that as new content and pretty significant chunks of it, at that. (Admittedly, it may not be what you personally have requested, but if the statement is “there’s nothing new” that doesn’t seem quite right.)

Thanks everyone for not barking at me when I asked the question. Again, the question was not “is it enough?” I really was pointing to it to ask for your impressions of the concept and the execution as continuing, new content in an ever-changing world.

The concept of living world?
as we understand it and anet understand it, may be different

If the goal is to create a world that feels more alive and ever changing? nope, i mean some things have changed but overall the game never feels renewed by living world, especially this season. The stories are more interesting, but most the content outside of them feels the same.

but really the living story angle is a bit of a digression. people arent saying in this thread that anet is doing nothing. They are saying (at least in the OP) that no one knows what to expect from the game going forward.

unless you are saying all we should expect from anet for the foreseeable future is stuff similar to ls2.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the heart of the issue here is that you’re anti-Capitalism. Anet, as a company, offers optional vanity and convenience items that can be bough using real money. This revenue stream is fed to the mother company, NCSoft, who in turn pays Anet employees to develop more content for us to enjoy, for free. Non-paying and paying customers all get to partake in the additional game time that paying customers are responsible for.

Because paying customers have the additional feature of exchanging purchased microtransaction currency for in-game currency, you feel that this is a sin because non-paying customers don’t have access to it. This isn’t a moral issue here. This is straight up jealousy. Someone willing to spend hundreds of their own dollars to buy virtual goods in game get what they pay for. They sacrifice real money for virtual pride. What has the non-paying customer done to deserve the same perks?

The key to the success of the Gem Store is that Anet allows non-paying customers to enjoy some of the same perks that paying customers have. They can exchange in-game Gold for microtransaction currency. By doing this, a player can go through his entire GW2 lifespan without spending any additional real money, and still enjoy the game extras. I know of people with thousands upon thousands of Gems, and never spent a cent beyond the purchase price of the game.

One more thing, the Gem Exchange was created to counter RMT Gold Sellers. If people are willing to pay for Gold in games, why not sell it directly to the players? By cutting out the middle man (RMTs) and becoming the supplier, the company can enjoy the additional sales. From a business standpoint, it was the smart thing to do.

there are few non paying customers here, the box costs money. when it goes f2p, you can claim there are non paying customers

Gaile Gray.6029:

Alerno — Taking what you have (and everyone else has) put on the table I do wonder something. I want to ask, and hope nobody will bite my head off here.

You mention wanting to know there will be more to the game. The new and continuing episodes of the Living World count towards that, right? The fact that players know there’s a team working on new content and features, and that there are releases on a regular basis? I fully understand that may not fulfill every desire, but it does show a continuing commitment to “new stuff” for us players, wouldn’t you agree?

regardless of whether living world is large or small, saying living world is coming eventually has no meaning.

Living World can be as large as an added map, or as small as a cutscene. There is also no definition, or understanding what can or will be in living world.

Its like you ask where you husband is going, and he says “out”. yeah, its true, but it hasnt answered any questions or given you any idea what to expect. Point is, nobody knows what the games future is any more, other than living world which can be anything and nothing.

so yeah, living world is coming! = no real info
new proffesions are coming = info
new weapon types coming = info
new dynamic event chains = info
restructuring rewards = info

just to make it clear, if yall told us, in response to what is coming, “something is coming” people will be just as dissatisfied. When people say they want to know what type of things the future holds for gw2, they mean they actually want to know more than something is coming.

NaotsuguLH.8915:

See, thing is, what you are asking for essentially, is a written admission as to what ANet is going to do with the game.

That’s going to cause a whole lot of problems. Let’s say they say the game is going this direction. However, after a while, they see an opportunity to take it in a different direction. You’re going to have a lot of players kicking and screaming that they lied, blah blah blah. They’re going to moan and groan.

Also, it’s quite possible that ANet is feeling out the story as they go based on feedback from players on the forums. How could they release something about the future of the game if they’re not sure yet?

Overall, a bit of spontaneousness isn’t bad.

you still need to have an overall direction/focus/vision for what you are going to do. Development takes time, you will never be able to make anything substantial playing it by ear. and what people want to hear about is the substantial things. like i said, they promoted gw2 for 5 years, they told us many things that changed form, people are fine with change but they still want to know where they are headed.

Astralporing.1957:

Wasbunny.6531:

Wait…is this seriously a thread demanding to know the ending (and thus being able to pre-approve the direction) of an open ended saga?

No, it is a thread where we’re suggesting that perhaps it would be nice for the authors to at least keep us informed what genre they are aiming for. Because we’re really unsure if the next chapter is going to have a school romance setting, vampires, aliens, ninjas, moody horror story, or perhaps even all of the above. We don’t know if the story that started as a children book will stay that way, go to growing teenagers version (or even end up as r-18 steamy novel). And the authors’ responses instead of clearing up the situation only keep us in the dark even more.

We don’t need to know how it’s going to end. We don’t need story spoilers. What we do need to know is of the next book will be aimed for the audience we’re part of, or not.

Edit: just to clear any misunderstanding, i’m not really speaking about the story here. I am speaking about the direction the game as a whole is taking.

so you are using it as analogy, was gaile?

If it was an analogy, then uhhh…

to make it clear we need a very clear idea what the direction of the game is, what to expect going forward.
before release GW2 was promoted as a buy2play game, that would most likely feature regular expansions.

Later not long after release, a few dev comments implied they intended to give us that same level of content for free

After about 2 years following that paradigm we are pretty far from the b2p with a small cash shop focus.

We started out with a focus on dynamic events/chains and dungeons

We now hear dungeons are out of favor, and dynamic event depth is not on the level of the better dynamic event chains on release.

Before release the progression systems in place were said to be easy to update, and we could expect new skills, or traits, and even weapons pretty easily. This has only had slight developments.

point is not that things are on a wrong path, but they definately are different, they definately are not anything where you can make an accurate prediction about what the focus of the game is, or what to expect.
Thats ok, but if its the case, it is imperative that you do communicate what the design is.

We really have no idea what to expect from this game, any persons opinion is likely as any other. So the question becomes, to anet, What is it that you see as the focus of the game, how are you planning to develop it in the future.

I dont really get why you guys act like this stuff is mysterious, you were very good at giving previews, reveals, and details in the 5 years up to release. I dont know why all of a sudden it becomes a mystery.

you told us about gw2 coming 5 years early.
You told us what the overall setting was within 4 years of release
talked about WvW and dynamic events within 3 years
talked about various progression systems (even if they ended up changing)
I remember a vid of aimed ranged attacks.

and the result of all of this communication, and telling people about the game before it was “fully baked” something like 1 million preorders. Why change to a less successful strategy? complaining aside, the results overall was more players feeling more connected, and more aware of the future.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Your better half is mistaken. It’s not that that other game can afford it and ANet cannot, it’s that the developer of that other game had a plan for furthering the game, is implementing it and you approve of its plan. ANet also has a plan for furthering the game and is implementing it. Some posters, including, I presume, you, just don’t like the plan. GW2 netted almost $6M per month in Q3, a time when dire predictions were being made in these forums about its health. While this amount is less than they made in Q2, it seems to me that’s still plenty to support operations, development and turn a tidy profit.

No sub, thank you, optional or not.

The idea as expressed is ostensibly to support development of content. However, I would have zero control over what content would be worked on. While I have zero control as it is, I can at least choose to spend money now if content I want is implemented, but don’t if what’s offered doesn’t interest me.

I believe in letting businesses make whatever business plan or monetizing scheme they desire. They’re going to anyway, so I’m essentially just riding the horse in the direction it’s already going. What I do not believe in is offering to throw more money at them if they don’t perform to my satisfaction. To do so essentially encourages businesses to under-perform, because customers will throw money at them anyway. This is kitten-backwards. It should be that businesses produce, then get paid, not they get paid and then produce.

i agree somewhat, but reality is in that same time period ffxiv likely netted 30 mil. 15 dollars a subscriber, and here number to the tune of almost 3 million, even if this exagerated, lets assume 1.5 million, that would still give them 22 million a month versus 6.

as to not throwing money at them, well, in a subscription game you are paying because they have given you so much, its worthwhile to access it. Now if you think about it like that, if the gw2 world isnt giving you something you would be willing to pay for, then thats probably the biggest problem.

Monetization basically boils down to giving people something they want to buy. I honestly think the initial plan for gw2, that they discussed before release would have been their most profitable plan.
buy 2 play, with small optional gem shop to fill in the gaps in earning. The monetization strategy right now, is basically an f2p model, and going further in that direction as we speak. I honestly wouldnt be too surprised if they went f2p, for f2p to work best, it needs to be free.

either that or they need to go back to a buy 2 play strategy. I know they didnt like the peaks and valleys of b2play, but thats the product they appear to be best at making.

FF XIV has console though. I’m not sure if it was comupter only that it would be as much or even close to as much. No one really knows. That’s the problem with comparisons.

There are a whole lot of people out there who won’t play games on a computer, but still have consoles.

if making a console port would really be guaranteed to increase your earnings that much, everyone would/should be doing it. The fact that more companies arent, probably gives a clue that they dont think it would be worth the investments.

I personally think if precursors have a crappy aquisition solely to drive the economy, then they need to improve the economy.

Overall game design should be the main force for content creation.
While precursors current aquisition is responsible for the current economic equilibrium, that economic equilibrium is responsible for the feeling of lackluster rewards, a high focus on grind, lack of incentives for content, and quanity over all else approach to progression.

So yeah, i think they need to work on restructuring the player economy to be less wasteful, and seperated from game design.

Zaklex.6308:

dlonie.6547:

~Snip~

I like this idea! Especially since we can’t easily search these forums without google + “site:http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/”.

You don’t even need to go that far, just search Google without adding the forum extension, it will still find it…so maybe they should just add a Google search function to the forum.

For those that keep asking, here’s the forum post about the Precurser Crafting…found it doing a plain old Google search:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/gw2-precursor-recipe-scavanger-hunt-news/3780700

Also, as much as it would be nice to get an idea of what they might be working on, that goes against the stated policy of A.net, which is to not talk about anything until it’s ready for “prime time”. I know a lot of you don’t like that stance, but until it’s changed not much is going to be said. Personally, and I’m only speaking for myself here, I could really care less what features are being worked on or are potentially on the way. I look at it this way, it’s a business, a very competitive business and anything that you’re possibly working on that could be revolutionary, you don’t just want to announce so that all your competitors know about it now too, but that’s just me speaking from a business mindset.

from a business standpoint, that only applies if your competitors are cutting edge. MMORPGS are not cutting edge. They incorporate already existing game ideas in a cool package and world. Even among the innovative features, nothing was really new in MMOs or games in general when it came out.

Its basically bad business not to fully market and use your product. Really bad business. In fact the biggest hurdle most businesses face is getting people aware of your product and why people should take part in it.

This is why movies announce they are coming long before the arrive, and tend to spend months trying to get people to know they are coming soon.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Your better half is mistaken. It’s not that that other game can afford it and ANet cannot, it’s that the developer of that other game had a plan for furthering the game, is implementing it and you approve of its plan. ANet also has a plan for furthering the game and is implementing it. Some posters, including, I presume, you, just don’t like the plan. GW2 netted almost $6M per month in Q3, a time when dire predictions were being made in these forums about its health. While this amount is less than they made in Q2, it seems to me that’s still plenty to support operations, development and turn a tidy profit.

No sub, thank you, optional or not.

The idea as expressed is ostensibly to support development of content. However, I would have zero control over what content would be worked on. While I have zero control as it is, I can at least choose to spend money now if content I want is implemented, but don’t if what’s offered doesn’t interest me.

I believe in letting businesses make whatever business plan or monetizing scheme they desire. They’re going to anyway, so I’m essentially just riding the horse in the direction it’s already going. What I do not believe in is offering to throw more money at them if they don’t perform to my satisfaction. To do so essentially encourages businesses to under-perform, because customers will throw money at them anyway. This is kitten-backwards. It should be that businesses produce, then get paid, not they get paid and then produce.

i agree somewhat, but reality is in that same time period ffxiv likely netted 30 mil. 15 dollars a subscriber, and here number to the tune of almost 3 million, even if this exagerated, lets assume 1.5 million, that would still give them 22 million a month versus 6.

as to not throwing money at them, well, in a subscription game you are paying because they have given you so much, its worthwhile to access it. Now if you think about it like that, if the gw2 world isnt giving you something you would be willing to pay for, then thats probably the biggest problem.

Monetization basically boils down to giving people something they want to buy. I honestly think the initial plan for gw2, that they discussed before release would have been their most profitable plan.
buy 2 play, with small optional gem shop to fill in the gaps in earning. The monetization strategy right now, is basically an f2p model, and going further in that direction as we speak. I honestly wouldnt be too surprised if they went f2p, for f2p to work best, it needs to be free.

either that or they need to go back to a buy 2 play strategy. I know they didnt like the peaks and valleys of b2play, but thats the product they appear to be best at making.

DarkWasp.7291:

Three problems:

1. ArenaNet already puts a lot of constant work into GW2. It just isn’t the stuff that you listed (despite the fact that we want that stuff.) So the theory that they are doing less for the game because they can’t afford it is kinda moot.

2. The game makes a ton of money from the cash shop, probably more than it would make if it was a sub based game.

3. GW1 had no sub-fees and very little as far as microtransactions until AFTER GW2 was planned. Up until that point it received 4 new classes, loads of new features, hundreds of new skills and 2 completely new world maps plus a very large expansion to Tyria’s map.

gw1 was made in a buy 2 play fashion, their focus was on giving players a new game with the same basic mechanics. Their plan was similar to say, a streetfighter 2 or dark souls or assassins creed franchise.

Their overall goal would be to create a world that people want to come back to for new adventures periodically. Call of duty series is probably the most successful game with this model currently.

Ayrilana.1396:

Or you just buy stuff from the gem store.

the problem with support via buying stuff from the gemstore, is you are encouraging them to develop gem store items. If what you are giving them money for is stuff like classes, new zones, new game modes, features etc. There is no way to show them thats what you want.

Basically if you are running a business, and people come and buy cupcakes, you may think hey they like them! more cupcakes! ill make more. Then it turns out people were coming for the ambiance and the self made paintings you have on the wall. Then you wonder why all these new cupcakes you made arent selling very well.

Its not even really about money, its about priorities. A subscription game makes money by keeping you as entertained as possible for as long as possible. Therefore the focus is on content with high repeatability, the world, new content.

If you are cash shop focused, then your focus is on selling people things they want to have in the game. The game world is a mall.

Wasbunny.6531:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, I’m back. About Harry Potter…

I think that the whole basis for the presentation in this and other threads about communication has a few pillars. And it’s one of them that I’m thinking about. J. K. Rawlings wrote a series of well-loved books, and I am sure (although I didn’t follow it) that people gave feedback to her on every release, heck, probably every nuance of every release, and that they also provided suggestions for future books. It’s a natural thing: People were highly invested in the series, loved it a bunch, and wanted to know more, or to have input.

In that small sense — and yes, that’s only part of the communication question — I don’t think I’d want our team to communicate about the game’s direction. Like, “Yes, so in the future, all frogs will become sentient, treble in size, and take over Lion’s Arch, leading to the elimination of all non-amphibian races. Yep, yep, that’s where we’re heading with the story.” NOTE: This is NOT where the story is going. This is only a wildly-improbable scenario offered for purposes of… umm… providing a wildly-improbable scenario.

My question: Do you agree that it’s good to not share that sort of information, information related to the actual direction of the game saga as a whole?

If so, then my sense is that you want to know more about the nuts and bolts.

• “Are you looking at XXX new feature?”
• “Do you intend to improve ABC functionality?”
• “Is ### working as intended, or is it bugged, or will you incorporate player feedback to change it?”

Again, this is a small part of the discussion, but I wanted to make sure I was looking at that part accurately. I wondered if generally, no one is asking about the whole “Tell us where the story is going” bit.

Ok I just read this part and now in my eyes you are a double-plus-good hero.

Anyway to further reinforce your point with some other comparisons; I would never want George R.R. Martin, J.R.R. Tolkien (what’s up with all the R.R.s?) or any other author or artist/musician whatever to feel that they needed to elicit direction in their work from their audience. This is in the realm of ‘test audience’ and ‘focus groups’ that is a sure fire recipe for killing any creative direction whatsoever.

With regards to narrative or any other artistic direction please ignore everything said on this forum beyond the most general of feedback. I mean, what would happen if there was a public outcry that Ophelia in Hamlet was impossible to sympathize with and so Shakespeare immediately erased her from the plot fearing the backlash of the vocal minority?

Please just tell us the story you want to tell us. You are all doing a beautiful job over there…just keep it up.

Ok, i notice here you look at in a different way, and yeah gailes post does start off that way though it appears to go into story spoilers versus design

but if she means, as you say, should Anet be like an author, who doesnt compromise their vision just for the fans.

I would say, no, but thats only true if you are being lead by a visionary who is also a skilled visionary. If you are making something by commitee, than all input is useful, and you should probably consider the target market and their desires.

the best art is made by artists whose goal is to express something or reach people.

the best products are made by engineers whose goal is to meet the needs of the specifications set in front of him

the best games are made to entertain, and engage people, at the same time generally giving a bit of challenge, or something to overcome.

now, communication wise, i think products, and games need a lot of feedback. Art, maybe not so much, but to appeal to many people you probably need a lot of different art, because it is so subjective.

nihavel.6592:

dlonie.6547:

Gaile Gray.6029:

-snip-

My question: Do you agree that it’s good to not share that sort of information, information related to the actual direction of the game saga as a whole?

Absolutely. Spoilers/lore, and to some extent, specific details don’t need to go into it. For example:

“We’re working on a new map with a large scale, multiphase, dynamic event requiring a higher degree of teamwork and coordination, because folks have complained about older content being ‘too zergy’.”

This would have been a great way to bring up the Shiverwastes without revealing anything detailed. Yet, it tells us that we’ll be getting new content, what sort of content it is, and even communicates how our feedback has made it to the designers.

Announcing something like this when the zone begins production wouldn’t harm anything. Bringing up details about the mechanics of the new event for feedback/discussion would be a nice extra. (Just to be clear, by discussion, I don’t just mean listening).

I’ll mention (because if I don’t, others will…) that ideally, less open-world PvE and more PvP/WvW/dungeon content would be better, too, e.g.

• “A new map is coming, … and it will have a new 4 path dungeon.”
• “The Living Story in the Shiverwastes will advance, and we’re introducing 2 new Magumma-inspired PvP maps, and a new PvP mode!”
• “Something similar for WvW, maybe some new seige and events!!!”

If so, then my sense is that you want to know more about the nuts and bolts.

• “Are you looking at XXX new feature?”
• “Do you intend to improve ABC functionality?”
• “Is ### working as intended, or is it bugged, or will you incorporate player feedback to change it?”

Again, this is a small part of the discussion, but I wanted to make sure I was looking at that part accurately. I wondered if generally, no one is asking about the whole “Tell us where the story is going” bit.

You got it. The story doesn’t need to be revealed to keep us excited about upcoming content.

Another part of the discussion is that if things are going to be delayed or not updated for a while, let us know when we ask. The silence comes off as manipulative and dishonest, especially when areas of the game continue to be neglected despite player interest.

No they don’t need reveal any feature to us, players.
Why?
’cause they could have some problem while they develop the feature.

You said “We’re working on a new map with a large scale, multiphase, dynamic event requiring a higher degree of teamwork and coordination, because folks have complained about older content being ‘too zergy’.”

Ok, what if they have several problems to develop the map and they need abandon the project?
We player will start complain the new map doen’t show up.

We complain precursor crafting, but we know they will release the feature.
We complain housing, but we know they will release the feature.
We complain SAB but we know they will release new path.
We complain new PVP maps and modes but we know they wll release something.
We complaing expansion but in NCSoft Earnings Report 3Q14 unofficially annunce expansion packs.

So, we don’t need know anything about their work in progress, we must wait release.

the problem is, we dont really know that. many people have assumed, as you did, that they are working on something, and they have been wrong.

They have revealed, they have not in fact been working on new dungeon paths, and at the time of that interview had no current plans to do so.
They revealed they had in fact not been working on SAB and had no plans to do so. After a massive amount of fan response, they amended that to, we will work on it in the future.

Housing was also, a maybe one day thing, and the fact they did a cdi, means they are forming a proposal on it, it doesnt mean it will happen.

and thats what this thread is really about.

What does anet know they want to do for the game. What type of content, and future should players expect. Essentially, what are the goals and main idea for game development going forward?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, I’m back. About Harry Potter…

I think that the whole basis for the presentation in this and other threads about communication has a few pillars. And it’s one of them that I’m thinking about. J. K. Rawlings wrote a series of well-loved books, and I am sure (although I didn’t follow it) that people gave feedback to her on every release, heck, probably every nuance of every release, and that they also provided suggestions for future books. It’s a natural thing: People were highly invested in the series, loved it a bunch, and wanted to know more, or to have input.

In that small sense — and yes, that’s only part of the communication question — I don’t think I’d want our team to communicate about the game’s direction. Like, “Yes, so in the future, all frogs will become sentient, treble in size, and take over Lion’s Arch, leading to the elimination of all non-amphibian races. Yep, yep, that’s where we’re heading with the story.” NOTE: This is NOT where the story is going. This is only a wildly-improbable scenario offered for purposes of… umm… providing a wildly-improbable scenario.

My question: Do you agree that it’s good to not share that sort of information, information related to the actual direction of the game saga as a whole?

If so, then my sense is that you want to know more about the nuts and bolts.

• “Are you looking at XXX new feature?”
• “Do you intend to improve ABC functionality?”
• “Is ### working as intended, or is it bugged, or will you incorporate player feedback to change it?”

Again, this is a small part of the discussion, but I wanted to make sure I was looking at that part accurately. I wondered if generally, no one is asking about the whole “Tell us where the story is going” bit.

its not so much just nuts and bolts, as much as overarching designs.

I dont need to know Jim is going to get sword after travelling to cantha via airship.

But i might want to know, gw2 is planning to open access to a new continent.

we re looking at developing new classes.

We are going to be focusing on making newer, more interesting dynamic events, and systems that track them.

We feel like we should add at least 2 dungeons a year.

We are working on an expansion.

etc.

nuts and bolts are often small things, like changing the UI for traits.

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

Yeah nvm the whole edit……just carry on………(sarcasm btw)

All of that completely depends on what the objective is. If the two players are trying to get green pieces and one can pay to get green pieces faster…..then yes they can p2w. There are multitudes possibilities in terms of objectives. Even in chess…..least amount of clock time, most losses while using the most logical moves (losses can be a win if that’s the objective), most games played consecutively, etc etc….

It all depends on the objective and means to that objective.

The objective of chess is to checkmate the other King piece.
That is how you win.
The people playing chess may have objectives that are unrelated to checkmating the other King piece (such as having green pieces). My ability to buy green pieces helps me accomplish my personal objective, but it does not impact the objective of the game. Thus I cannot pay to win at chess by getting green pieces.

you have identitifed your own winning conditions.
GW2 has not identified winning conditions.
by your definition any game without pvp cannot be pay to win.

However, having such an open definition of win, does lead to communication problems, and a nebulous meaning of the word. However, winning is basically a nebulous term.