Guild Wars 2

Boneheart.3561:

phys.7689:

… and i dont think anyone can say it was good…

But I just did. Indirectly, I just typed that I liked it. This is the second time someone has told me that I’m wrong and that I didn’t like something.

phys.7689:

… i dont think there has been a more underwelming ending boss fight i can remember in my entire history of playing games.

Fallout 3. “Bang, bang, YOU WIN”.

actually you said it wasnt bad(implication when i here that is that it was not good, but not bad), now you are saying you liked it though, i cant argue that.

never played fallout 3 though, so perhaps that was worse.

Noah.9654:

If you’re truly not happy with GW2, leave. It really is that simple.

I never played GW1, but I honestly don’t see what people are talking about when they say that they can’t connect to their characters or the NPCs. I for one am in love with my character. GW2 gives your character a basic back story that is pretty customizble compared to other MMOs that just give you a toon, drop you off in a city, and tell you to grind. As with most MMORPG’s, the RPG part really needs to come from you. You need to come up with the fleshy backstory for your character. You need to give them personality. You need to work to make your character unique. The only thing I wish ANet would touch upon in terms of personal story is give some explanation as to where most of the player’s magic/fighting ability came from.

As for the NPC’s saying that they no personality—or something you can attach to—is downright wrong. Every major character in the Personal Story and Living Story is more fleshed out than any character in any other MMO I’ve ever played. You cannot honestly say that you don’t have some form of opinion on Trahearne, Destiny’s Edge, Faolain, Queen Jenna, Countess Anise, Phlunt, Rox, Taimi, Scarlett, Kasmeer, or Brahm. Personally, I absolutely hate Trahearne, Phlunt, and Kasmeer, but its either because of their infuriating personalities or because they somehow hogged all the glory from you when you killed an Elder Dragon….Anyway, kudos to ANet for making me feeling ANYTHING about NPC’s; further kudos to them for making me want to dislike them.

I personally LOVE GW2 more than any video game I’ve ever played. A big part of this is because I see it for what it is; a social MMO that gives your character a lot of room for development if you put in the actual effort.

as someone who never played gw1, you probably cant compare it.
Now i am not saying gw1 was the second coming or was the greatest thing ever, but as a person who played i can kind of see why people feel some of the way they feel.

GW1 pve was essentially a collection of missions, think personal story/combined with dungeons that all moved the plot forward, at every single step.

GW1 skill system, if you didnt use the cookie cutters, was highly unique. You could get totally, and i mean totally different playstyles for one proffesion.

GW1 world, revolved around the narrative for each area.

that said, i dont think many people can enjoy gw1 the same way now that they have played gw2. It has different strengths and weaknesses.

However, i will say gw1 was way better at developing and improving the initial experience. The PVE design improved with every campaign (imo) and yet it all tied together pretty well. It also, by this time in its cycle had a wealth of content, and things to do.

There are some things to learn, and apply from gw1, however, it usually gets caught in gw1 vs gw2 instead of talking about what is strong, or what would transfer over well to gw1, and how to transfer it over.

reapex.8546:

notorious bob.2061:

GW2 is not an MMORPG. It is, maybe a MMOFPS. There is no RPG in GW2 because there is no freedom to create anything other than cookie cutter toons. And at that there is a desire to make all classes the same. Take away the holy-trinity and every toon just becomes same old same old.

GW1 had WAY more RPG to it, way more Co-op and WAY more community.

GW1 had a ton of cookie cutter toons, you load a build from a template code and you were ready to go. GW2 has more flexiblity because any class can be any part of the (former) holy trinity. Guardians can be tanks, healers, or dps; Same with other classes, there are even new combinations people are coming up with. GW1 was more restricted IMO following the holy trinity model.

this is not true, gw1 had tons and tons of builds and synergies, if we are going to define it by the cookie cutter builds,
gw2 usually has a slight variation on 2 to 3 cookie cutters per proffesion with 8 proffesions, lets call that 24 cookie cutters heck lets say there are 5, that would still only give us 40.

this is the list of great pve cookie cutter builds in gw1
http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Category:Great_working_PvE_builds
it numbers 133.

so comparing cookie cutter to cookie cutter, gw1 still wins.

the main purpose of gw2 skill system limitations is not for greater variety, its to make it easier not to make a bad build. AND to actually have less viable builds, so they have to balance less.
Overall i would say gw1 had more interesting builds/options.
I think gw2 needs to expand the skill system in the future.

they should add skill swaps for weapon skills (think if each weapon had multiple possibilities for each slot, even if only 2 options per slot)
and more weapon skills.

they also need more elites, and more regular skills.
more proffesions.

we had a fine starting point, eased people into the game, but it is ready to be expanded on.

reapex.8546:

Furyan.9578:

Zero Day.2594:

I kind of liked solo’ing stuff in GW1. Something that’s hard/ineffective to do in GW2. Kind of allowed me to play whenever, for however long. With GW2 if I want to do a dungeon I have to find a group of people (hopefully competent enough), and then I can’t exactly ditch them half way through (some paths are too long, would feel bad considering how long it took to assemble a group) if I had to go do something else (life calls).

I miss that choice to be able to play with others or just do it yourself: open world is open to all, the whole MMO aspect but dungeons are not. I miss being able to run it myself (with or without a party) as I could in GW. I miss that choice.

You can solo dungeons, there are plenty of Twitch streams that have people Soloing Arah and more rather easily with practice.

its not rather easily, and its fairly time consuming, also, if you dont sell dungeon paths, its a general loss of money. I dont think you can really compare gw2 solo sub culture, with gw1 solo/small group accessibility

Algreg.3629:

Don´t get me wrong, I immensely enjoyed GW1 and certainly am not the biggest fan of GW2, but I doubt you can pull off the feeling of GW1 in any MMORPG. In GW1, the world revolved around you, in an MMORPG, you are by definition just one of the guys. That, of cause, is no excuse for the rest of the things listed in this thread, which I mostly agree with.

this is not necessarily true.

They tend to design MMOs like you are just one of the guys, but it is not necessary within the game design. You can make every player feel like a great hero, and have tons of players.

MMO just means you have a lot of players playing in the same world at the same time. How heroic they are is a different matter.

think of it this way, the marvel universe has supposedly thousands of super heroes, and yet they are still heroes

Jexx.6471:

phys.7689:

Jexx.6471:

Sakri.7234:

I am willing to forgive the lack of content under the assumption that their manpower is currently tied to implementing a full-scale expansion.

I’d be willing to forgive it based on the fact that they aren’t making us pay for anything.

Plus, I don’t need content to be constantly thrown at me. GW2 is just that kind of game I play when I want to. I don’t need them to continually put in content, that’s just a plus for me.

so essentially, you are satisfied, because you dont feel the need to play it much.
thats not really a good reasoning.

“hey gw2 doesnt need new content, when they have nothing interesting going on, i just dont play it for awhile” = they probably should have something that makes you want to actually play the game. They kind of made the game so that people will want to play it.

Exactly. There’s no need to be playing Guild Wars 2 all the time. I have other games to play. Games are releasing all the time, just in the next few months I have a large amount I want to get.

And they do have something that makes me want to play the game: the game.

I guess I’m not really using an MMO mindset, but that’s what I love about the game: you don’t have to, and in some ways, I suppose you aren’t actually supposed to.

an mmo like this cant really operate the same way it is for your other games.

If they create a system that makes a lot of people play like you, they will fail, unless you play little, but spend a decent amount in the gem store consistently. But even if that were the case, the world would begin to look/feel empty, and most of the content requiring people to be around would fail.

Basically they have to make a game that you want to pick up and play often, it doesnt have to be for 3 hours a day, but they do need you(players as a whole) to play regularly, and be fairly engaged with the game. See other games, can be finite, or seldom played, you have already paid them for their work, but this MMO is designed with recurring costs, so it needs to keep people engaged.

Also from a design standpoint, one of the main draws for people investing in an online world type game, is that it continues to grow, and change offering new experiences as time goes on. It is still very much a service, and not just a product.

Ayrilana.1396:

@Ohoni:

I don’t feel like quoting so i’m numbering each of your topics as 1-4 but only adressing the first two.

1) I do not believe you understand what player demand actually is nor what Anet’s role would actually be.

2) Anet has stated that they want a player driven economy. Just because they have the ability, does not mean that they should. You are confusing the type of economy we have in this game versus what you believe to be an ideal economy for you.

your theory is shot to heck by the fact that anet has repeatedly stepped in and altered the economy multiple times based on what they decided was important.

Its really not a question of whether anet can/should alter the economy through design. They do that every few months at the very least. They can and will do it at will. They actually know very well that this is not a truely player driven economy, even JS has said, it is player driven to a degree.
It is probably not possible for a game developer to have a truely player driven economy, being as they design the game.

But lets say it was a player driven economy, its highly likely the supply on highly desired items would be more elastic.

Jexx.6471:

Sakri.7234:

I am willing to forgive the lack of content under the assumption that their manpower is currently tied to implementing a full-scale expansion.

I’d be willing to forgive it based on the fact that they aren’t making us pay for anything.

Plus, I don’t need content to be constantly thrown at me. GW2 is just that kind of game I play when I want to. I don’t need them to continually put in content, that’s just a plus for me.

so essentially, you are satisfied, because you dont feel the need to play it much.
thats not really a good reasoning.

“hey gw2 doesnt need new content, when they have nothing interesting going on, i just dont play it for awhile” = they probably should have something that makes you want to actually play the game. They kind of made the game so that people will want to play it.

Boneheart.3561:

Zhaitan could’ve been better, but I wouldn’t call it bad.

Is it possible I was so pumped from the music and everything leading up to the encounter that it drowned out disappointment.

thats called being anti climactic, and i dont think anyone can say it was good, theres nothing good about it, the world is subjective, but i dont think there has been a more underwelming ending boss fight i can remember in my entire history of playing games.

Haishao.6851:

phys.7689:

what is the core of what you feel is missing in gw2?

Depth

how could guild wars 2 add depth?

felessan.9587:

Tryxtr.6295:

One fundamental problem with this that I have is that according to Anet they surveyed people that stopped playing the game and based their changes on the leveling system based on their answers. But did they survey the players that are actually still playing the game? Don’t our opinions count for something?

If I made a movie, showed it to 500 people, and 20 of them walked out angry, I wouldn’t change the movie to suit them, because 480 people seemed to enjoy it. It’s not a perfect comparison but you get the point.

Why didn’t they do a CDI on the leveling experience?
Why isn’t there an in-game survey system that periodically asks me questions about in-game features? Wouldn’t that be super helpful if you’re interested in what your player-base thinks? (which, admittedly, Anet definitely seems to).

These forums are full of amazing ideas, but it’s no secret that we’re only a small part of the GW2 population. An in-game survey system would reach 100% of your current player-base and would provide an amazingly accurate idea of what your players want. And I know that personally I wouldn’t mind answering a few questions here and there in order to make the game better. There would also be a great opportunity to link directly to the CDI’s on these forums from inside the game. Collaboration is a great thing, but I feel like 80% of the player-base is upset with the new changes and that is not good.

You’re assuming a 96% retention rate with those numbers. I haven’t seen the metrics and not being a game designer, I don’t know what retention rate is considered superior. However, my guess is it’s no where near that high. It may even be sub 50%. Either way, what I would surmise is more people buy and quit the game than stay and play it and that is expected. But, it seems the current percentage simply isn’t high enough for the company’s standards. We’re falling into the trap of thinking that “we stayed so obviously everything is fine,” but do we know what percentage of activated accounts we are?

Really, not rhetorically, does anyone have those numbers?

changing your game substantially for the people who buy and never play is a waste of time. It very rarely has a lot to do with the actual game.
Now if you ask these people they will give you reasons, because you asked them, but the reality is they just didnt have the time energy/interest.

the reality is that the game didnt draw them in, within the first X minutes, and very little of that is based on something the game should actually change. (without being a detriment to the games actual design)

Vayne.8563:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

amimeta.4960:

…

It would be nice to know if a one-time tutorial, which deals with all the aspects of the gameplay (like dodging, downstate, healing skills, utility skills, elite skills, weaponswap, etc.), would have the same effect for you, rather than the current implementation.
While I agree that the level-up rewards shift the focus to the leveling, I’m still highly concerned about the changes.

The problem with tutorials is that many players skip them…because they’re tutorials. Playing the game will make more of an impression than a tutorial to many people. People are anxious to get through the tutorial to get to the game.

It may well work better for some people but I’m not convinced it would work better for the bulk of the population. And I know from experience, sometimes, some people who need tutorials the most are most likely to skip them.

many times tutorials arent skippable the first time.
Also, how annoying people find it have a lot to do with how well designed they are.
presearing was essentially a tutorial, but it was entertaining

shing jea was a tutorial, but it was entertaining

many games have very good opening levels that act as tutoral AND game content. While at this point i would just call it a day, and move on, even though the beginning of the game is kind of lackluster now, i can’t lie and say they would not be better off creating an actual interesting mini zone for tutorials, which played like an actual game with real, logical pacing.

In fact level gating will often be bad pacing in terms of teaching. Leveling is not representitive of a players skill or understanding, it just represents time, and everyone learns at different paces.

to be honest, the real reason they probably locked skills is for pacing, and rationing out abilities, to make people feel “rewarded” for leveling.

theres a common teaching idiom about how unlikely it is to learn through osmosis, and thats essentially what level gating skills/traits is.

notorious bob.2061:

Boneheart.3561:

notorious bob.2061:

Vorch.2985:

I’m a Gwamm with a 50/50 HoM.

And?

Vorch.2985:

I understand that this is a forum and that we are all entitled to our opinion, but as a GW1 vet, please remember that there are plenty of us playing GW2 and enjoying ourselves. Keep that in mind next time you see a God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals title in GW2.

And I wonder, how many like me, are not enjoying ourselves?

That might make an interesting poll for Anet.

I was under the impression that your initial post (and this post) conveyed that Guild Wars players would relate to your issues with Guild Wars 2. So, some people that played Guild Wars (including me) typed that they cannot relate (in a few cases, not entirely).

Seems like many GW players DO relate to my opinions. No doubt some will and some won’t. What is more important perhaps is that ANet needs to be listening to all opinions and perhaps, shouldn’t have advertised GW2 as being a sequel for GW1 – it isn’t.

The community and ANet should be focussed on making GW2 better – and not simply accepting a half- kitten d job where the focus seems to be on the trivial. e.g. did any of us really expect GW2 to be dominated by TP economics and insider trading? I don’t remember GW1 really struggling due to a lack of a TP – heaven forbid players actually had to trade with each other… oh my!

you love gw1 too much to bring much to the table(discussion) here. At least thats how the thread starts to look the more you read it. The OP seems to be less focused on loving gw1, but each post you say after focus it on liking gw1. Try not to turn this into a gw1 vs gw2 debate, its only going to derail your real ideas.

This is a different game, what do you think, that would make sense to add to this game/gameworld would improve it?

what is the core of what you feel is missing in gw2?

As for me, i have come to the realization, that gw2 lacks an ability for solo/small groups to jump into activities that matter/have a clear direction, and are designed to be challenging.

Yeah this was probably the worst way to end the personal story, it really literally actually ruins it, like a bad ending in a book.

But i guess they are fine with it, it hasnt changed in 2 years. And yet, they still choose to encourage people to do it, even though they know its one of their worst moments, kind of odd.

Rauderi.8706:

Palador.2170:

Before the CDI on Guild Halls begins, I think it’s only fair that someone asks the big question:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

There’s no point in wasting time throwing around ideas that will never see the light of day. This isn’t a question that can be answered with a “maybe” or “we’ll see”. This is a “Yes” or “No” question. If the answer is “Yes”, then fine. Full steam ahead. If it’s not, then we don’t need to waste our time on something that’s going to get buried under other projects and come out half-baked, if at all.

Other question, would there be any legal issues with using the specifics of an idea from a CDI? I would think not, or the devs wouldn’t be taking a risk on it, but intellectual property is kind of a sticky issue.
I can imagine scenarios where “we like the idea but we can’t copy it directly” might cause seemingly half-hearted execution of an otherwise solid, detailed concept.

its a forum/suggestion situation. And its documented on the net as such. I doubt you can sue people for things you put in a suggestion box. The internet basically acts as an open public record that you are giving away your ideas.

MikaHR.1978:

Hope they never ever listen to GW1 suggestions (khm…traits….khm)

you keep saying this, but im pretty sure its not accurate, can you point me to where people asked for existing traits to become unlocks? im pretty sure that never happened.

theif is probably your best bet.

mesmer is tricky, but its not strictly speaking fast, you can make some quick movements, but its more about set up.

ranger is really good all around, but playing with the pet is required, if you want to be strong.

theif and mesmer play depend more on traits than ranger, so you will probably need to be 80 to get a real feel for the classes.

Perhaps you should play them all in SPVP to figure out what you like best.

Mireles Lore.5942:

I am not sure this falls under logistics and quality of life, but I feel like guilds need more guild goals to work towards and something that makes an individual guild more unique than the next max unlocked guild.

Proposal Overview
Permanent perk trees with mutually exclusive benefits.

Goal of Proposal
The goal is to give guilds a progression to work on as a guild and make individual guilds more unique and specialized. I feel like when recruiting for my guild we are all offering the same things. PvX, WvW, Guild Buffs, All guild missions unlocked, ect ect. It would be nice if we were able to offer different things than every other established guild out there based on what members participate in.

Proposal Functionality
Perks will require influence and merits to unlock. The tree should be structured in a way that not all perks can be unlocked at one time. Some will have to be chosen over others. You could make 3 trees such as WvW, PvX, and PvE.

All trees should have general perks that apply broadly to all modes but also have some specialization trades.

WvW tree could include permanent version of perks that we already enjoy but on a permanent basis, maybe even some new ones, I am pretty open to suggestions on what some of these might be. This tree will have the strongest and highest perks involving WvW as well as some perks not available in other trees.

PvE tree would include permanent perks focused on dungeons and fractals. This tree would offer things like increased reward rates on things like tokens and an extra item to roll out of chests as well as increased magic, gold, and experience gain rates on dungeons and fractals only. The perks involving dungeons and fractals should be exclusive to this tree.

PvX perk tree will be the generalist perk tree. While it includes things that apply to both modes they should be weaker than specializing in WvW and Dungeons trees. It should also include some exclusive perks that are related to guilds and open world. Such as maybe another build queue and reduced costs/build times.

The perks are very open to suggestion or debate. While tree and some of the perks in them should be mutually exclusive, guilds should be allowed to reset their perks at a cost of losing their investment in the current tree.

Associated Risks
Reward and stat creep should be considered when making perks. If stats are included in perks they should not be overbearing to the point where it causes high imbalance to the point where it is a major deciding factor in a fight. As for rewards, there is also the economic influences like inflated currency and supply.

i would keep pve perks to being guild related

like instead of better chance at general drops,how about increased chance of commendations, random chances or special circumstances that give merits, influence gains. Guilds already have enough generic boosts, and i dont think you want people to feel like they should be with a guild any time the do such an activity.

sirian.4981:

phys.7689:

I think what they should have done, was create a new mini area tutorial/adventure for levels 1-10, that are skippable by veteran players, that act as a prequel. This short area could be a real starter/tutorial area for the basics.

While it would be a really good idea, based o their current content release rate they simple don’t have the resources to do that.

Its much cheaper to take stuff away than it is to add it in.

its true that this is cheaper, but is it effective? I dont really feel these changes will retain more players overall, because while it is easier, it is less engaging. You may have gained some players who quit because stuff was happening too fast, but you lost a bunch of players who felt that it was too slow/boring.

The best thing they could do is create a really exciting and interesting tutorial area. This may be hard to design, but if they can, it will pay for itself by greatly increasing the retention rate, by teaching people well, and entertaining them at the same time.

I guess the big problem would be, if this was a super good interesting design, there may be some drop off/dissapointment when people get to the main world, if its less interesting.

But yeah, its probably too late now, they spent a whole bunch of time/resources on this already, to do it again is probably not worth the cost in what else they could be doing.

but its something to think about for next time.

Ohoni.6057:

I think you’re overreacting to a few things that some people are making as just suggestions. There’s no guarantee anything here is going to be implemented — and the stuff that has less of a reasoning behind it or isn’t nearly as widely supported will have even less of a shot.

I’m not over-reacting, I’m just making it clear that I don’t want their suggestions to ever see implementation. Since ANet doesn’t talk about things they are working on until they launch, I don’t want six months from new to see those features in the next patch and then have it take six month months for them to fix it. It’s not like I’m leaving the game because they’re suggesting things I don’t like, but if this game became one in which non-guilded players became second class citizens, I might play it a lot less.

Isn’t is fair to assume that many paying customer where expecting a game where guilds did where an important element of the game? The game being named Guild Wars. Most won’t know the lore. So guilds having a big role should not be a problem.

People have been playing this game for two years now, I think its safe to say that while most players might want to see incremental improvements in guild features, they are reasonable comfortable with the nature of guilds in GW2, and the amount of players who would want a fundamental overhaul of them would be relatively small.

Most of the changes recommended in this thread I fully support, I just don’t like the idea of tying guilds into a mandatory endgame leveling system as some have suggested.

At best you might be locked out of some specific new guild-related content (guild raids for example) otherwise and it’s rewards while you still are able to get items / rewards of the same type in other way.

And that much I’m fine with, so long as these guild raids do not present unique rewards that non-guilded players are locked out of. Really though I don’t like the idea of guild raids, they should just be raids, and while a tight knit guild might do better at them since they have more experience working together, you should be able to hotjoin them as well.

However to stay more on topic, why don’t you make your concerns visible in the form of a suggestion. Thats what this thread is about in the first place

Fair enough, Suggestion: Don’t do what that one guy said.

This most likely will have to bet met at middle ground, where we will lose some things and gain another ones in return, with perhaps the most difficult task sits on how to do it by gaining the most, with the minimum loss and impact possible.

Not every situation calls for a middle-ground. Sometimes one side is just wrong and doesn’t deserve to get anything they wanted. If a player suggests something that would make things worse for more players than it makes things better for, then that feature does not deserve to be implemented, even in a “middle-ground” fashion.

While i do tend to think Ohoni may sometimes seem too passionate, i think its important to consider this thread, and the people in it, primarily represent people with a vested interest and desires for guilds to be more prominent.

So, i think systems that effect a lot of other players would need a bigger discussion. I beleive there is a vast amount of people who are not in guilds, so they definately should not make being in a guild a centerpoint, or the pinnacle of any game type.

However, i believe it can have its own unique aspects, but they should not be requisites.
I would try very much to tie Unique guild progressions/rewards primarily with things that mostly people who would be in a guild would want.

for example:
special effects on items that trigger only when you are with guild members
new designs featuring guild logos
guild outfits (the advantage of being able to equip at any time, designed by guild leader)
guild teleports that allow all player to teleport to a guild member
guild halls
the list goes on, but essentially create rewards that people who dont really do guilds much, would not be as interested in.

Roybe.5896:

It’s a gold sink, not a revenue stream. Revenue stream implies that there is some level of profit. Trading gems for gold is an appeasement tactic that costs the company profits because the exchanger did not supply the business real money.

This is a problem for this model because, I believe, more people play the ‘avoid to pay’ game, more than they offer money to buy in game gold. To maintain profitability, the ‘avoid to pay’ game necessarily has to become painful enough to warrant the exchange for opportunity cost, i.e. make it so long to reach your goal that it’s less painful to pay 2-6 hours of paid labor than the 50 hours of gameplay to make your goal. By increasing uncertainty in the availability of products in the gem store, you also increase this pressure.

My problem right now is that there is no way to gauge how far this monetization plan will go. This is one reason why the devs have to hold their cards so close to the vest…remembering it might not be their choice to do this, NCSoft is running the show. If they are moving down this path, and they tip their hand to soon, the ‘smart money’ will abandon ship immediately.

One other thing I would like to put out there. In this post in this discussion

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changes-Coming-to-the-NPE/page/7#post4421761

buried in the business/psychology terminology is a very repugnant business idea. By giving someone something, getting them accustomed to it, then removing it, and offering that item for sale is done daily by drug dealers. I find it interesting that this might be a plan for the future, but it’s also distressing. This means that more things that we enjoy can be removed, changed, stretched out to change the opportunity costs involved to tip more players into the gem store with real money than in game currency.

They need people to want to buy gold with money
this is actually not necessarilly true.
“IF” they have a good exchange rate system going.

I know most people wont believe me, but the way it actually breaks down, is that it doesnt make much difference whether gold to real money is 10 to 1 or 1 to 1.
As long as their exist people who sell gold, and people who buy gold. Because the real money comes from players desire for gem store items.

Essentially, whether you buy gem store items with real cash, or you buy it with gold, at the end of the day anet still gets paid.

Point is, the price of gold has more to do with how much gold selling players value their time, versus gold buying players value their time, in conjunction with how valuable the gem store items seem.

Anet profits as long as people want to buy stuff with gems, irregardless to how hard they have to work for it.

Now this doesnt mean monetization has no effect, it just means the primary concern is getting people to want to buy gems, not getting people to not want to trade gold. I actually think they would make more money if the rate was lower, and the value of gold and gems was more balanced.

problem is, doing that means creating really effective, or highly desirable gold valued items. Which in general would probably annoy people as well, and make the game feel more farmy.

Anyhow, i doubt these changes are tied to the gem store. I know companies make descions based in part by monetary concerns, but you dont really have to look deeply to see that keeping more players playing would help generate income.

problem is, they cannot do that at the expense of the existing resource of players, as well, i dont truely feel these systems will help retain players.

I think what they should have done, was create a new mini area tutorial/adventure for levels 1-10, that are skippable by veteran players, that act as a prequel. This short area could be a real starter/tutorial area for the basics.

Now, as for progression/direction, that is a different beast, they kind of connected the two, but i dont think they are should be connected in this way.

V Man.8512:

I think you made a big mistake back in April by making the traits that much harder to acquire. I guess if you just started playing after that it would be fine but to have one set of pre-patch characters that have everything unlocked as default, then anything you made after the patch automatically feels inferior. It’s like you have to do a lot more work for no extra reward. For something you got for free before.

Now with this new patch you seem to have taken that even further, although I cannot really comment on the specifics. I just hear quite a bit of discontent and I’m very glad I got my characters to 80 already.

Off topic a bit – but WHY did you not add a way to hide the personal story / world completion text? It has annoyed me since launch, and was one of the main reasons for working my way through the story – to make the bloody thing disappear! And now it looks even more obnoxious with that stupid circle thing, and when you complete the story it doesn’t even disappear any more!! So now I have to get world completion just to make my UI a bit cleaner? Come on Anet.. it’s time for some UI customization options.

PLEASE

i believe you can get rid of both, check the options when you hit the escape button and go to options, i think its in the top right side.

Dusty Moon.4382:

calyx.9086:

Behellagh.1468:

But you can’t really ignore the fact that LS2 is repeatable for all characters, including ones made after LS 2 started.

Yes you can. The content is barely worth doing once, and having to repeat it for achievements was tedious. It’s certainly not worth repeating on other toons.

Oh boy, lets run around and talk to a bunch of people at a dinner party in DR!! Such repeatable content so much wow.

Then why even play after making one character. You will be doing the same for the newer ones. Your argument has too much negative attitude to be valuable here.

i know you guys are in argument mode,

however i was thinking about this, and i think the main reason people replay certain things is
A) To experience it differently, with the new gameplay of a new class, or if things play out differently
B) When you really enjoy something, you may want to repeat it.
C) rewards or some benefit for doing so.

I dont think LS2 (most quests) offer much of a unique experience per class, or play out differently, so A isnt good, and C, well the rewards from what i saw were fairly unentertaining, as far as being unique, and not competing in terms of high gold value returned.

So, how replayable living story missions will be has the most to do with B )
for me, it wasnt so enjoyable i would do it again for joy, but i might do it again for like a refresher at some point.

Ideally, if they want something super repeatable, it would probably hit A, B, and C.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

another thread just reminded me.

Non sellable/salvageable gear is horrible. You should not give any one items that break the rules of all other items, and especially not new players.

You should be familiarizing them with game mechanics, not these weird exceptions that dont follow the rules.
What if people put a rune in one of these items? they are completely wasted.

I really think you should eliminate this whole class of items, or make it into its own item class which doesnt accept upgrades, and reccomends throwing destroying it on use.

short version, dont give, or encourage new players to get any type of gear that is not salvageable/npcable. It causes more confusion at some point.

Since a LOT of items actually breaks this supposed rule (which of course is not any kind of rule, in fact it follows the rule from previous versions of the game and “awarded items” first one you receive as a part of CHARACTER CREATION)

Earliest karma vedors sell this kind of gear also (since launch), and www, and temple gear…

actually at launch you could salvage and sell karma gear, they changed it in a hotfix because they felt people were turning karma into currency (it was actually a really crappy rate, but when the game first came out a few silver was a big deal)

these sort of changes have not gone through a thorough review, at the very least they should make it extremely obvious that items like this are different than other items.
they should clearly say not salvageable, and they should warn you when you try to put an upgrade in.

It has always been extremely poorly messaged, (like the white items that you can get from the TP which cannot be salvaged, but you dont know until you try them) and one would think they would not increase this problem, with a focus on new players. If you look in your bags after doing some adventuring its highly unlikely you remember exactly which green axe you got from leveling and which ones you got from adventuring.

For a system that is supposed to alleviate complexity, and make things very clear to new players, these items are not it.

hey they just told me i can salvage, why cant i salvage some items that look the same as others?

bad design.

Thats a whole other bag, and how it worked 1+ years ago is irrelevant.

I agree that there should be some sort of warning on non salvagable gear (although you can remove upgrades from it, just not by conventional means)

But non salvagable non sellable gear actually follow the rule for such items and pieces that are salvagable break the rule.

tell me what exactly the rule is, and i will test it for consistency.

karma gear, rewards/awarded gear, www (badge) gear

rewards/awarded gear are sometimes salvageable, some times not, last two story rewards were salvageable.
my guess is right now, rewards specifically from leveling up are unsellable/unsalvageable, however, if it came in a container you got from leveling up, it is salvageabe.
also, some items that are not tradeable and salvageable, are able to traded on the trading post, while others are not, for that i can find no consistent rule.

all in all, probably fairly confusing to most people. And not good for npe imo

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

another thread just reminded me.

Non sellable/salvageable gear is horrible. You should not give any one items that break the rules of all other items, and especially not new players.

You should be familiarizing them with game mechanics, not these weird exceptions that dont follow the rules.
What if people put a rune in one of these items? they are completely wasted.

I really think you should eliminate this whole class of items, or make it into its own item class which doesnt accept upgrades, and reccomends throwing destroying it on use.

short version, dont give, or encourage new players to get any type of gear that is not salvageable/npcable. It causes more confusion at some point.

Since a LOT of items actually breaks this supposed rule (which of course is not any kind of rule, in fact it follows the rule from previous versions of the game and “awarded items” first one you receive as a part of CHARACTER CREATION)

Earliest karma vedors sell this kind of gear also (since launch), and www, and temple gear…

actually at launch you could salvage and sell karma gear, they changed it in a hotfix because they felt people were turning karma into currency (it was actually a really crappy rate, but when the game first came out a few silver was a big deal)

these sort of changes have not gone through a thorough review, at the very least they should make it extremely obvious that items like this are different than other items.
they should clearly say not salvageable, and they should warn you when you try to put an upgrade in.

It has always been extremely poorly messaged, (like the white items that you can get from the TP which cannot be salvaged, but you dont know until you try them) and one would think they would not increase this problem, with a focus on new players. If you look in your bags after doing some adventuring its highly unlikely you remember exactly which green axe you got from leveling and which ones you got from adventuring.

For a system that is supposed to alleviate complexity, and make things very clear to new players, these items are not it.

hey they just told me i can salvage, why cant i salvage some items that look the same as others?

bad design.

Thats a whole other bag, and how it worked 1+ years ago is irrelevant.

I agree that there should be some sort of warning on non salvagable gear (although you can remove upgrades from it, just not by conventional means)

But non salvagable non sellable gear actually follow the rule for such items and pieces that are salvagable break the rule.

tell me what exactly the rule is, and i will test it for consistency.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Did you see the interview with Colin at I think it was last year’s PAX? He said what I said he said.

looked for more info, and this is what i think you are refering to.

“The thing that we haven’t decided yet,” he went on, "is what form that type of content will take. Is it right for Guild Wars 2 for that kind of boxed expansion? Is it right for that to be something we add, live, through storylines in the game? Is that something we want to sell through our in-game store? There are a lot of different options available to us.

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

Mike Zadorojny, clarifying his comments from last year – which suggested there wouldn’t be an expansion any time soon – said: “The answer I gave you [in 2013] was that nothing was off the table.”

looking at this quote i would say they have backed off a bit, and now its a possibility, but they still are talking about a timeframe of withing the games lifetime.

still not saying they are working on it now, or have been in the past.

i would say its still in the realms of possible, rather than probable, but each person can interpret the quote how they feel

for clarity of time frame i believe the, “not right now an option” was in july.

and the, “not sure if expansion” was in january.

the time frame is, within the games lifespan, which i would guess is any time within 10 years from release

Nice guess, but just a guess. They may not release features as a paid expansion, but they are working on features that you’d find in an expansion. I’m sure the China launch set them back.

The bottom line is they didn’t say there would or wouldn’t be an expansion. Now, it’s possible that Drytop was one of the things they said they were working on, which is a new zone which is the type of thing that comes in an expansion. But the more I look at the number of people working and the type of stuff they’re doing, the more I come to the conclusion that some work on something is going on in the background.

This is a complex business. A lot of things happen that affect other things. Simplest most recent example is Wildstar not doing as well as expected. That could very well be a queue for NcSoft to pay more attention to Guild Wars 2, and make some of that investment back. Best way to get an influx of cash?

Probably an expansion.

pretty sure ncsoft was reccomending an expansion since day 1, (korean traders kept saying that it was part of their plans) anet was probably the one saying hold up, we got a different plan.

but yes, at this point i would say its still a guess. its an unknown, so i wouldnt rely on it being the case

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

another thread just reminded me.

Non sellable/salvageable gear is horrible. You should not give any one items that break the rules of all other items, and especially not new players.

You should be familiarizing them with game mechanics, not these weird exceptions that dont follow the rules.
What if people put a rune in one of these items? they are completely wasted.

I really think you should eliminate this whole class of items, or make it into its own item class which doesnt accept upgrades, and reccomends throwing destroying it on use.

short version, dont give, or encourage new players to get any type of gear that is not salvageable/npcable. It causes more confusion at some point.

Since a LOT of items actually breaks this supposed rule (which of course is not any kind of rule, in fact it follows the rule from previous versions of the game and “awarded items” first one you receive as a part of CHARACTER CREATION)

Earliest karma vedors sell this kind of gear also (since launch), and www, and temple gear…

actually at launch you could salvage and sell karma gear, they changed it in a hotfix because they felt people were turning karma into currency (it was actually a really crappy rate, but when the game first came out a few silver was a big deal)

these sort of changes have not gone through a thorough review, at the very least they should make it extremely obvious that items like this are different than other items.
they should clearly say not salvageable, and they should warn you when you try to put an upgrade in.

It has always been extremely poorly messaged, (like the white items that you can get from the TP which cannot be salvaged, but you dont know until you try them) and one would think they would not increase this problem, with a focus on new players. If you look in your bags after doing some adventuring its highly unlikely you remember exactly which green axe you got from leveling and which ones you got from adventuring.

For a system that is supposed to alleviate complexity, and make things very clear to new players, these items are not it.

hey they just told me i can salvage, why cant i salvage some items that look the same as others?

bad design.

Vayne.8563:

Did you see the interview with Colin at I think it was last year’s PAX? He said what I said he said.

looked for more info, and this is what i think you are refering to.

“The thing that we haven’t decided yet,” he went on, "is what form that type of content will take. Is it right for Guild Wars 2 for that kind of boxed expansion? Is it right for that to be something we add, live, through storylines in the game? Is that something we want to sell through our in-game store? There are a lot of different options available to us.

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

Mike Zadorojny, clarifying his comments from last year – which suggested there wouldn’t be an expansion any time soon – said: “The answer I gave you [in 2013] was that nothing was off the table.”

looking at this quote i would say they have backed off a bit, and now its a possibility, but they still are talking about a timeframe of withing the games lifetime.

still not saying they are working on it now, or have been in the past.

i would say its still in the realms of possible, rather than probable, but each person can interpret the quote how they feel

for clarity of time frame i believe the, “not right now an option” was in july.

and the, “not sure if expansion” was in january.

the time frame is, within the games lifespan, which i would guess is any time within 10 years from release

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

There is just no pleasing people.

So in Living story season 1 one of the major complaints was that the story pacing was too slow.
and you know perhaps it was, 30 mins of story every 2 weeks that would take over a year to resolve.. not a pacing everyone can be comfortable with for sure.

In comes season 2 now every release contains 4 – 5x as much story instead of a single 30 mins story instance we get 4 – 5 of them per release. Now feed back is there is not enough story. Only 4 releases before a mid season break? ohh but season 1 was so much longer…. Actually no those 4 releases had at least 4 story instances each and were the equivalent of 16 releases from season 1. if we get double that till then ends thats the equivalent of 32 releases from season 1 making season 2 nearly twice as large as season one story wise.

Longer breaks then season 1? of course with so much more content what do people expect? did you think Anet was taking it easy in Season 1, working 1/4 of the time and just doing nothing the other 3/4? If it took them 4 weeks to do 1 story instance before, how much longer does it take to do 4-5 instance per release? (of course now the teams are larger and the dynamics are differently so the answer probably isnt 16 weeks but its definitely larger then 4 weeks. They can keep up the previous pace indefinitely, it makes sense they need longer breaks to finish the next batch.

And that can be a good thing as they can put stuff SAB, holiday events, Pavillion and things like that in between.

and please lets stop quoting assumptions as facts.

Last I checked they didnt say they’re not working on an expansion they said we’re not talking about it.

I said it before and I will say it again in 5 years they massively updated their engine, designed and developed the game as well as created 8 dungeons, 25 zones, 1500 dynamic events, many jumping puzzles, quite a few secret events / stuff to discover etc.. Since launch their team has increased and not shrunk yet while output should have been higher (better workflow, no game to develop per se, better tools etc..) it didnt seem to be the case. so either people are being paid to do nothing or there is stuff going on in the background we dont know about.

Arenanet for some reason decided not to talk about stuff until its ready to release.
Whatever it is they’re working in the background (if anything at all) we will not know about it until its ready.

actually, last thing they said, was we are not working on an expansion.
People who want to be optimistic say that that announcement was long ago, and MAYBE now they COULD be working on expansion.

make no mistake, they have never said anything about an expansion, other than not right now, we are not working on it.

The last thing they said were that they were working on the type of content that you’d find in an expansion and they haven’t yet decided how they were going to deliver that content. It could be an expansion, or it could be through living story.

The last thing they said certainly wasn’t we’re not working on an expansion.

they said it more than once, and from different people. Here is a quote from one.

“So right now we’re not really looking at expansions as an option,” lead content designer Mike Zadorojny told me on his visit to London last week."

“It’s something that’s on the table but it’s not something we’re focused on, because what we want to do is – our idea here is that with Living World, we can do what expansions would have done but do it on a more regular basis.”

they may have changed their minds, but the last thing they actually officially said was that they werent working on an expansion.

You can choose to believe that plan has changed, but nothing they have actually said implies that they have.

im not saying this to talk down the possibility, im just trying to keep people operating on real facts. Anets most recent talk on expansion is that they have no plans for an expansion, and were not developing it at this time.

time and time again they basically said, no plans for an expansion, living world is the method of delivery for that type of content.

At some point early in development, before living world was a thing, they said they werent sure how to deliver expansion type content.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well, you can Forge them but . . . hmm.

the big problem is when people waste a lot of resources on these items, then realize they cant get the items back, like when they put upgrades in them.

Imagine you get buy some cool OP rune, or find one, and you put it in your gear you got as a level 64 reward, that looks virtually exactly the same as other items.

now that rune/sigil is lost forever.

Preyar.6783:

phys.7689:

another thread just reminded me.

Non sellable/salvageable gear is horrible. You should not give any one items that break the rules of all other items, and especially not new players.

You should be familiarizing them with game mechanics, not these weird exceptions that dont follow the rules.
What if people put a rune in one of these items? they are completely wasted.

I really think you should eliminate this whole class of items, or make it into its own item class which doesnt accept upgrades, and reccomends throwing destroying it on use.

short version, dont give, or encourage new players to get any type of gear that is not salvageable/npcable. It causes more confusion at some point.

I know where you’re coming from but that will never be a problem. First, a new player won’t buy a salvage kit that is more worth than their low level rune. If they do buy the cheapest, there’s a low chance to even recover upgrades. Still, I understand when it comes to the WvW exotic gear.

the gear rewards continue until you hit level 80 most likely. poster in another thread confirmed level 33.
imagine you put get strength runes in some gear at 60ish and cant get them out.
Its really bad design to include these items that are pretty unclear whether they are salvageable in the hands of first time players.
heck its always bad, but its actually increasing players access to these rare cases, to boot, they look almost exactly the same as normal items. Its not easily clear that they are different.

Galen Grey.4709:

There is just no pleasing people.

So in Living story season 1 one of the major complaints was that the story pacing was too slow.
and you know perhaps it was, 30 mins of story every 2 weeks that would take over a year to resolve.. not a pacing everyone can be comfortable with for sure.

In comes season 2 now every release contains 4 – 5x as much story instead of a single 30 mins story instance we get 4 – 5 of them per release. Now feed back is there is not enough story. Only 4 releases before a mid season break? ohh but season 1 was so much longer…. Actually no those 4 releases had at least 4 story instances each and were the equivalent of 16 releases from season 1. if we get double that till then ends thats the equivalent of 32 releases from season 1 making season 2 nearly twice as large as season one story wise.

Longer breaks then season 1? of course with so much more content what do people expect? did you think Anet was taking it easy in Season 1, working 1/4 of the time and just doing nothing the other 3/4? If it took them 4 weeks to do 1 story instance before, how much longer does it take to do 4-5 instance per release? (of course now the teams are larger and the dynamics are differently so the answer probably isnt 16 weeks but its definitely larger then 4 weeks. They can keep up the previous pace indefinitely, it makes sense they need longer breaks to finish the next batch.

And that can be a good thing as they can put stuff SAB, holiday events, Pavillion and things like that in between.

and please lets stop quoting assumptions as facts.

Last I checked they didnt say they’re not working on an expansion they said we’re not talking about it.

I said it before and I will say it again in 5 years they massively updated their engine, designed and developed the game as well as created 8 dungeons, 25 zones, 1500 dynamic events, many jumping puzzles, quite a few secret events / stuff to discover etc.. Since launch their team has increased and not shrunk yet while output should have been higher (better workflow, no game to develop per se, better tools etc..) it didnt seem to be the case. so either people are being paid to do nothing or there is stuff going on in the background we dont know about.

Arenanet for some reason decided not to talk about stuff until its ready to release.
Whatever it is they’re working in the background (if anything at all) we will not know about it until its ready.

actually, last thing they said, was we are not working on an expansion.
People who want to be optimistic say that that announcement was long ago, and MAYBE now they COULD be working on expansion.

make no mistake, they have never said anything about an expansion, other than not right now, we are not working on it.

another thread just reminded me.

Non sellable/salvageable gear is horrible. You should not give any one items that break the rules of all other items, and especially not new players.

You should be familiarizing them with game mechanics, not these weird exceptions that dont follow the rules.
What if people put a rune in one of these items? they are completely wasted.

I really think you should eliminate this whole class of items, or make it into its own item class which doesnt accept upgrades, and reccomends throwing destroying it on use.

short version, dont give, or encourage new players to get any type of gear that is not salvageable/npcable. It causes more confusion at some point.

Dayra.7405:

Ha! Lvlup to 37, cool lets see what I get.

Argh a green lvl 33 chest, wtf, I just bough my lvl 35 cultural armor

Probably sponsored by Logitech: several clicks needed to accept and destroy it
Neither sellable to NPC, nor salvage. Stop throwing such garbage at players. The only thing that can still be made worser: “Enter the name of the item to really destroy it”.

Every single mob I slayed during the last 4 levels was more rewarding than this level up reward!

i think that the non sellable, salvageable aspect of these items its pretty bad, i had forgotten about that. I think the game should be moving towards not having any items all that fit into this category

Togashi Jack.9531:

phys, to answer you question – a dungeon or two would have been great. The game launched with 8 dungeons, and the only additions to that has been the Aetherpath for Twilight Arbor(which isn’t so much an addition as a replacement). Fractals is dungeon-ish, but that hasn’t been expanded since the Fractured release almost a year ago. The introduction of Dry Top was the perfect opportunity to put in a new dungeon, but there wasn’t one.

Dungeons and Fractals are repeatable, group oriented, non zerg content. We need more of these things.

I think this is the answer as well, but not just dungeons and fractals, although i think they definately need to expand those things, i think they probably need to come up with a system that can offer similar thrills/goals, but is adapted better to the open world.
essentially they need some more highly replayable content for multiple types of players.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

2014 included some of the best and most popular content updates since launch in my opinion. The only problem is they’re no longer in the game.

I don’t find the year disappointing. However, I do acknowledge that due to the release of China, we have less stuff. Large undertakings like that are good for the game long term, but people need to be more patient, because no company can take on a big project like that and keep up the release pace from the first year. I don’t feel it’s reasonable to respect them to.

Since China what you’re seeing is all catch up. Things like the mega server and the NPE are necessary, at least in Anet’s mind, the move the game forward.

I hope most players aren’t that impatient, because my gut instinct is that it’s going to get much better moving forward.

i’d say orgins of madness was pretty good, i enjoyed that one a lot. Aside from that, nothing really awesome, to me, in 2014. I also dont feel like the game has fully integrated some of their major changes

in year one(well 1.3 since it started in august), i would say we had a lot more big deal updates.
southsun cove
fractals
guild missions
SAB
first WvW tournament
nightmare tower
and 2 or 3 pretty good LS updates
tequatl revamp.

thats just my opinion of course.

Sort of my point though. We didn’t launch in China last year. We did launch in China this year. Major undertaking is a major untaking. I don’t think anyone really could expect the same number or depth of updates.

Games aren’t created in vacuums and very often what goes on in a game’s development is tightly tied up with other things the game has to do to grow. Growing is good for everyone, even though you can’t see the results in world at the time.

So yeah, there is less stuff this year than last, sure. But I’m not sure why anyone would have expected more.

Also this year we had EotM which is very popular was some people, arguably a much more popular map than Southsun.

to be honest EOTM is popular mostly because its like the champion train:
really good rewards compared to anything else
extremely approachable as a follower
Essentially always going on, and you can jump in and out at will.

i would say its 60% the first thing.

But i will say EOTM is a fairly well designed map, even though i the falling all the time style. Its actually a shame that it is mostly a karma train map in someways.

So yeah, ill give EOTM big deal of 2014 props, although i feel it actually hurt WvW itself a bit.

As far as the china release using resources, They probably should have jobbed development out. I think one of the misteps, is mistiming their big deal stuff. I think the second year, players are expecting big things, or at least big announcements.

in the 1-2 year mark, even people who liked your game are often craving something new on the horizon. I get that there will generally be some downtime on development, but i think it was a mistake to have that slump occur in this time frame.

This is probably why many other studios either do minimal changes to the client, or they let a seperate entity work on it, or a fairly small part of their studio. Most games i remember didnt go off their content release schedules in preparation for a new market.

Yargesh.4965:

phys.7689:

Yargesh.4965:

Gaile Gray.6029:

JackDaniels.1697:

Everybody that hates the NPE is going to take over the discussion after all the fixes have been released I believe. You’re going to see multiple posts by the same people that hate it, and it’s going to seem like a lot more people dislike the new changes, when in reality, it’s just those same people that really want to make their point across. And not that there is anything wrong with posting more than once, it is a discussion after all, but you get my point.

I mean you can see the evidence of it now, with people complaining in one thread over the subject, and then having some of those same people from that thread start up new threads on pretty much the same topic.

I do agree that some minor changes need to happen, but hopefully Anet doesn’t give in to the pressure and make a complete 180 to the NPE, because I believe some of these changes are good for the game.

So I can’t wait to chime in when all the fixes are done. Should be interesting.

I agree with you about this. I think it’s premature to gauge how NPE will play at the current time, because we do know changes are coming.

And yes, you do see some forum members making the same points again and again. That truly is not helpful to the review and discussion, in that the devs would prefer a focused, clear, concise statement rather than realizing “Wait, it’s that same person, saying the same thing for the 19th time.”

Glad that you have pointed out that they are being obvious and the result is negative (for them and the forums in general).

whats your opinion on the new changes, what if anything would you do to make it more attractive/informative for new players of various skill levels, and vets who dont have 1-20 scrolls?

Lol you are funny. I’ll bite though.
I know I have eight level 80s and I am not remotely the target of these updates.
I know I have taken a character from lvl 1-16 after the Sept patch and found the process smooth.
I know that the game is still enjoyable after two years for me.
I think the game could be expanded.
I think it will be.
I think they could improve pr but I think every company in existence could.
I think being personally insulated by a game is similar to being personally insulated by a tree. Smile, nod and move away from people who say that.

so I take this as, you mostly dont care, but find NPE adequate for its goals. fair enough

Perkinz.5362:

Hello, I would like to share my story with you all—I feel it is quite important to share this, as it very closely relates to the current and future state of the game.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

They just patched the system, and made some changes that may make it more tolerable

overall, by 20 you have most of your unlocks out of the way now.
skill points are account unlocks after the first time, so alt charachters should be able to do them as soon as they walk up to them.

I dont think the experience from 1-15 is much better, however if you like the game it is better than before the 9/16 patch
Overall i would say it may be a mistake to put such a heavy focus on leveling as the primary means of reward. Also i think the game leads you too much now, and people probably wont really smell the roses with a lot of content. However, i think the frustration of the system when you don’t know what to do probaly outweighed the benefit.

eekzie.5640:

-Early levels are incredibly dull. Early hearts/quests are too simplistic and bland.

True, but apparently this was an issue for not experienced gamers. What, like 12 hearts got adjusted?

-Traits take far too long to open up

Level 60 was already the case since launch. No change there.
I do agree that the trait system needs fine tuning.

-Utility slots take far too long to unlock.

They are at level 13 / 17 / 19 now. With exception of the first utility this is at about the same pace as before (time wise).

-“Tutorial” process
You can easily just click it away with 1 button… and more often than not you get loot.
It’s not a tutorial, it’s simply pointing out game specifics. You’d be amazed how many people miss out on them.

traits unlock 20 levels later than they used to.
you used to unlock traits at 10 or 11, now its 30
major used to unlock at 40, now its 60
grandmaster used to unlock at 60, now its 80

Togashi Jack.9531:

Alright, lets put things in perspective.

They’re not working on an expansion, they’re working on the Living Story as a focus for putting out new story content.

Between the Fractured release (Nov 26, 2013) and the Origins of Madness (January 21, 2014) there is no Living Story content. 2 Month break.
Between the Battle for Lion’s Arch (March 4th, 2014) and the Gates of Maguuma (July 1st, 2014) there is no Living Story content. 3 Month break.
Between Dragon’s Reach Prt 2 (August 12th, 2014) and the return of Living Story Season 2 (November 4th, 2014), we have nearly another full 3 months of break.

There has legitimately been more waiting for story than actual story(though I will say the Season 2 story is leagues better than Season 1). Yes, they are working on other things like the feature updates sure but I can’t play a feature update. I can’t be thrilled and wowed by the gripping story that is another generic week of World Vs World. I can’t be excited by all the gripping changes that have been made to the leveling process considering I’ve 8 lv 80s and no new classes have come out since launch.

I’ve played the game since pre release. I have played the content that is available. Living Story releases give me something to do. Lets take a look at those gaps that I listed earlier. Between the Battle for Lion’s Arch and the Gates of Maguuma release, I hardly played the game. When we had the Dragon’s Reach prt 2 and they said there’d be no new releases until Sept Feature Pack I took a break and came back to find out there’d be no story for another 2 months..

I want to play your game Anet, please give me something to do, and Skritt Shinies are not it.

i dont think its feasible, at this stage, that they would be able to tell a story more often they have, and still have good stories.

Can you think of some sort of workflow that would make that possible?

or would you be satisfied, with some better/more repeatable content inbetween phases.

Vayne.8563:

2014 included some of the best and most popular content updates since launch in my opinion. The only problem is they’re no longer in the game.

I don’t find the year disappointing. However, I do acknowledge that due to the release of China, we have less stuff. Large undertakings like that are good for the game long term, but people need to be more patient, because no company can take on a big project like that and keep up the release pace from the first year. I don’t feel it’s reasonable to respect them to.

Since China what you’re seeing is all catch up. Things like the mega server and the NPE are necessary, at least in Anet’s mind, the move the game forward.

I hope most players aren’t that impatient, because my gut instinct is that it’s going to get much better moving forward.

i’d say orgins of madness was pretty good, i enjoyed that one a lot. Aside from that, nothing really awesome, to me, in 2014. I also dont feel like the game has fully integrated some of their major changes

in year one(well 1.3 since it started in august), i would say we had a lot more big deal updates.
southsun cove
fractals
guild missions
SAB
first WvW tournament
nightmare tower
and 2 or 3 pretty good LS updates
tequatl revamp.

thats just my opinion of course.

i would say this hasnt been a great year for GW2 content wise, while i dont think its horrible, it definately didnt feel like we had much awesome/cool additions this year. Felt kind of like a rebuilding season in sports. And just like rebuilding seasons in sports, you dont really know if the next season is going to be any better than the previous.

Perhaps next year will be the big deal year(analogy: gw2 goes to the playoffs).

Yargesh.4965:

Gaile Gray.6029:

JackDaniels.1697:

Everybody that hates the NPE is going to take over the discussion after all the fixes have been released I believe. You’re going to see multiple posts by the same people that hate it, and it’s going to seem like a lot more people dislike the new changes, when in reality, it’s just those same people that really want to make their point across. And not that there is anything wrong with posting more than once, it is a discussion after all, but you get my point.

I mean you can see the evidence of it now, with people complaining in one thread over the subject, and then having some of those same people from that thread start up new threads on pretty much the same topic.

I do agree that some minor changes need to happen, but hopefully Anet doesn’t give in to the pressure and make a complete 180 to the NPE, because I believe some of these changes are good for the game.

So I can’t wait to chime in when all the fixes are done. Should be interesting.

I agree with you about this. I think it’s premature to gauge how NPE will play at the current time, because we do know changes are coming.

And yes, you do see some forum members making the same points again and again. That truly is not helpful to the review and discussion, in that the devs would prefer a focused, clear, concise statement rather than realizing “Wait, it’s that same person, saying the same thing for the 19th time.”

Glad that you have pointed out that they are being obvious and the result is negative (for them and the forums in general).

whats your opinion on the new changes, what if anything would you do to make it more attractive/informative for new players of various skill levels, and vets who dont have 1-20 scrolls?

sirian.4981:

phys.7689:

sirian.4981:

phys.7689:

Nova Pint Kiosk.7085:

Would you consider making traits account unlocks instead of individual unlocks? This will lead new players to content through requiring them to do it, but keep it from annoying the kitten out of people creating alts. It makes sense with how the NPE is now, and would be amazing.

this would solve the problem of trait unlocks being repetive for alts, but it would solve almost no other problem. It wouldnt solve the initial goal focuses of the trait revamp, which my guess is

more rewards that are tied to playing the game
more progression
a good system framework for how new skills/traits should be introduced.

Those are much more complex changes. I would completely support reworking how traits are rewarded.

For one, trait missions should all be things most players can reasonably work on and enjoy. Time gated activities and unpopular group activities(Killing Overgrown Grub) should not be required for traits.

It would also be nice to have some solo traits people can easily accomplish mixed in.

I think this was a big error in design, i understand its an online game, and working with people is a focus, but i think unlocking traits is seen as personal growth by many. I think its something that should definately have multiplayer methods, but should at its basis be as you say, something that is doable by solo play.

It makes me seriously question if Anet devs actually play this game. Overgrown grub has been a trait unlock since the beginning. Anyone who plays WvW would tell you trying to get a group to kill that thing will just get you ignored or yelled at by people that you are hurting the war effort.

my interpretation, was they were like, maybe if people could get a trait here, people would actually do it.
But the flaw with that is, less people need it over time, and the primary reason grub isnt a big deal in WvW, is because it doesnt actually achieve much within WvW. They improved these types of encounters in EOTM, which often unlock new mechanics, and serve a purpose in and of itself within WvW.

anyhow, I wonder, is traits considered part of the NPE for the purposes of this thread? or is this primarily focused on the 9/9 changes?

sirian.4981:

phys.7689:

Nova Pint Kiosk.7085:

Would you consider making traits account unlocks instead of individual unlocks? This will lead new players to content through requiring them to do it, but keep it from annoying the kitten out of people creating alts. It makes sense with how the NPE is now, and would be amazing.

this would solve the problem of trait unlocks being repetive for alts, but it would solve almost no other problem. It wouldnt solve the initial goal focuses of the trait revamp, which my guess is

more rewards that are tied to playing the game
more progression
a good system framework for how new skills/traits should be introduced.

Those are much more complex changes. I would completely support reworking how traits are rewarded.

For one, trait missions should all be things most players can reasonably work on and enjoy. Time gated activities and unpopular group activities(Killing Overgrown Grub) should not be required for traits.

It would also be nice to have some solo traits people can easily accomplish mixed in.

I think this was a big error in design, i understand its an online game, and working with people is a focus, but i think unlocking traits is seen as personal growth by many. I think its something that should definately have multiplayer methods, but should at its basis be as you say, something that is doable by solo play.

Vayne.8563:

I’m absolutely convinced that some people don’t care about the changes one way or another, never plan to level a new character and they’re here just to bait white knights, or drive people from this game to whatever game they’re interested in. It does happen.

The problem with the repeating in every thread of the same negative thing (which I try to counter by posting something more positive) is that it gives an unreal impression to people who don’t remember forum names.

There are about twenty people on this forum that really hate (or at least say they hate) the new NPE. I’ve been accused many times of posting in every negative thread, even though it’s not true. I pick my negative threads I post in.

If you put a teaspoon of wine in a barrel of sewerage, you get sewerage. If you put a teaspoon of sewerage into a barrel of wine…you get sewerage. It’s much much easier to tear something down than it is to build it up.

It takes the people who want to far less energy to start a negative stampede than it does to stop it. And when that happens and misinformation starts, it’s not good for the game, period.

For some it’s an honest reaction. Some just get caught up in the peer pressure or the bashing. Some are trolling. And at the end of the day, most of it gets fixed, or enough of it to play and the game continues.

But the affect it has on the population is staggering. You might be surprised at how many people have contacted me saying they wouldn’t post on this forum because of how aggressively negative it is if you post something positive.

So yeah, repeating the same thing over and over in every thread is more destructive than helpful…in my opinion.

perhaps, but for those who feel that way, talking about talking about repeating it over and over again (or talking about the possible negative outcomes) is even less productive.

So on that note, how do you feel about these changes with the latest patch, in combination with how you felt before?

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the Content Direction System to direct players to higher-level zones when a more appropriate zone was nearby.
  * Fixed a bug that would occasionally direct players using alternate characters towards the dodge tutorial before level 4.
  * Diving goggles now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis.
  * Fixed a bug that occasionally unlocked collection items incorrectly.
  * Fixed the text in the options menu for the Content Direction System.
  * Fixed a bug that prevented some accounts from having vistas now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis.
  * Skill challenges now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis as originally intended.
  * Utility slot skills 2 and 3 now unlock at levels 17 and 19, respectively.
  * The elite slot skill now unlocks at level 31.
  * Elementalist F4 commands, mesmer F3 commands, and guardian F3 commands now unlock at level 17.
  * Mesmer F4 commands and engineer F4 commands now unlock at level 19.
  * Skill Challenges are now visible at level 13 instead of level 15.

personally i feel these a pretty good changes, and overall make the experience fairly livable for veterans, and seem designed around the idea that by level 20 you once again have most things unlocked.

Still i feel that the unlock system is still fairly unfair and unbalanced for some professions, and that level 1-20 will still not be as enjoyable, though better than before.

essentially, good job, its better, but i dont think 1-20 will be a better experience for newbs, and vets who havent the means to skip to 20.

On the + side, it will be a fairly short period of being any different than anything else they have done, so its tolerable.

basically, less painful, but still not increasing peoples motivation to play this experience, for vets, and average new gamers.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nova Pint Kiosk.7085:

Would you consider making traits account unlocks instead of individual unlocks? This will lead new players to content through requiring them to do it, but keep it from annoying the kitten out of people creating alts. It makes sense with how the NPE is now, and would be amazing.

I could get behind this. Or make it like with Elite Tomes from GW1 – you can buy them with Skill Points and use them to select a locked Trait Mastery to learn which is unlocked on another character.

I think this concept could be interesting, offering a different method that is more generic to get skills once you have unlocked them.
perhaps they could be bought with karma/be given from doing any trait unlocking activity in that teir. In this way people could choose the traits they want after the first time.

Nova Pint Kiosk.7085:

Would you consider making traits account unlocks instead of individual unlocks? This will lead new players to content through requiring them to do it, but keep it from annoying the kitten out of people creating alts. It makes sense with how the NPE is now, and would be amazing.

this would solve the problem of trait unlocks being repetive for alts, but it would solve almost no other problem. It wouldnt solve the initial goal focuses of the trait revamp, which my guess is

more rewards that are tied to playing the game
more progression
a good system framework for how new skills/traits should be introduced.

Gaile Gray.6029:

JackDaniels.1697:

Everybody that hates the NPE is going to take over the discussion after all the fixes have been released I believe. You’re going to see multiple posts by the same people that hate it, and it’s going to seem like a lot more people dislike the new changes, when in reality, it’s just those same people that really want to make their point across. And not that there is anything wrong with posting more than once, it is a discussion after all, but you get my point.

I mean you can see the evidence of it now, with people complaining in one thread over the subject, and then having some of those same people from that thread start up new threads on pretty much the same topic.

I do agree that some minor changes need to happen, but hopefully Anet doesn’t give in to the pressure and make a complete 180 to the NPE, because I believe some of these changes are good for the game.

So I can’t wait to chime in when all the fixes are done. Should be interesting.

I agree with you about this. I think it’s premature to gauge how NPE will play at the current time, because we do know changes are coming.

And yes, you do see some forum members making the same points again and again. That truly is not helpful to the review and discussion, in that the devs would prefer a focused, clear, concise statement rather than realizing “Wait, it’s that same person, saying the same thing for the 19th times.”

I think you are missing the point, a lot of people havent seen the new changes yet, thats why the discussion at this time is old.
As far as seeing the same people, i dont think that is really relevant in a logical discussion. As long as the discussion is logical (which i admit many are not)

I think the best method to promote useful talk,
reiterate the new patch that just happened changed things. ask people to focus on those changes/whats missing/how they feel about the new stuff.

Actively engage posts that you feel are the type of posts you want to see, or are useful feedback and collate the major points adressed to compile feedback.

not saying you shouldnt agree with people you agree with, but essentially your post just continues the discussion on whether you think the information will be useful, instead of encouraging/focusing talk on useful information.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

phys.7689:

hmm.
There is a noticeable increase in damage if you are always wearing the top of the line gear, but that is fairly expensive. However i doubt they could/would give you like 8-9 peices of gear every time you level.

You can craft alongside your leveling fairly easily – this is what I did the first time through and have done for my alts. It’s not easy, and if you have a lot of alts you might need to spend time getting resources but . . . it works better than RNG.

Those solutions would be really large scale changes though, effecting almost everything, so i doubt they would do it.

I think creeping forward on the damage value is something which is worth being wary of. It can easily just go awry.

In the current design, you are basically expected to use gold to power up your armor as you level, occaisionally finding something useful

Or you can just craft, or befriend a crafter. Heck, if you had the materials I’d even do it for people. Wouldn’t even charge, if I had the craft discipline up high enough.

crafting is using gold, by other means, anything you use to craft could be sold, and in general many things actually cost more money to craft than to buy.

make no mistake, i actually enjoy crafting, and thats how i geared my initial charachter, however at that time, the TP was not functioning that well, and materials were generally a lot closer to being break even.

But unfortunately, its kind of a bad way to gear a charachter now, effeciency wise.

i remember many times wondering if i could help my friends with crafted gear, but after doing the calculations, the answer was often, ahh probably better just to buy it on the TP, and sell your materials.