Guild Wars 2

UndeadRufus.6832:

anzenketh.3759:

As the game evolved did it get easier for alts? Yes. Skill scrolls is one item that made it easier. Was it possible to bypass this “gate” yes it is. However for the majority of players I would say that you are unlocking the same things at the same rate now as you were before.

Except you really aren’t. At least I’m not. Even if I am moving at the same rate and this is just a matter of perception, it’s still indicative of a poorly-implemented change that has made the game grindy, dull and dumb, and has been forced on people in lieu of the one of the game’s most highly-praised systems. Even if we could find a point of agreement that something needed to change in the early game, the way it has happened is stupendously awful and anti-player. An effective tutorial in the opening sequence, ala GW Nightfall, could have bypassed nearly all of these alleged problems, if the average gamer is half as inept as ArenatNet seems to believe.

The larger issue here is that early levels should not be so empty and mind-numbing as to make me want to skip them, yet the NPE has made this issue even more pronounced than it was.

i think this is the real big deal, the NPE made the system less entertaining as a whole, the changes they have made, make the system less painful, or at least painful for less time, but does it make the beginning more fun?

one huge unfun part for me, was them taking all loot drops out of personal story. Getting loot drops for enemies, makes killing enemies more entertaining, especially when exp per kill is generally low.
Now when i do personal story i really hate having to fight enemies, feels like every enemy in there is a total waste of time, and i should be avoiding killing as much as possible.

perhaps they should add a rating system for extra rewards in personal story, or give extra rewards for killing all non respawing enemies, time to completion (not counting cutscenes and skippables) below a certain threshold.

eekzie.5640:

phys.7689:

elaborate here on what wasnt fun.

I’m not judging you, im just interested in what you felt made that system, or even this system not engaging or fun.

i do agree that overall the process could be more entertaining, in and of itself, but im curious what would do it for you.

Personally, I would love more loot reward.
Seeing more damage every time you level up (via better gear mostly) is something I personally really like.
They’ve added some via PS and level up rewards, but it could’ve been more / better.
I still get so much stuff I can’t use via the PS…
Kind of sad as I expected them to have seriously addressed this issue with the blog post…

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.

that means they would either have to restructure the base charachter power level, or totally redistrubute stats, whereby stats are unevenly distributed to different peices. However that would probably create a lot less customizability of stats overall.

Some of what you are talking about used to happen as a side effect of the trait system. a person who put every early trait point in power, would tend to see dmg boost.

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

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

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zackie.8923:

pre-trait gating leveling system was great … why come up with so much kitten to fix something that issn’t broken?

Because it was broken? Or at least, it wasn’t anywhere near engaging or interesting, or fun.

Now if they could get the last one of those to actually be something they hit even 75% of the time . . .

elaborate here on what wasnt fun.

I’m not judging you, im just interested in what you felt made that system, or even this system not engaging or fun.

i do agree that overall the process could be more entertaining, in and of itself, but im curious what would do it for you.

Behellagh.1468:

New Patch is out.

For you gate haters.

• 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.

Also a number of bugs including the diving goggles fixed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-9-2014/4420127

interesting, so they pushed back the primary skills to pre level 20, your charachter is complete, almost as if to say, use a level 20 scroll.

for non scroll users, in order to make 1-20 more entertaining i would say:

• weapon swap should probably unlock earlier, say level 11

• I think skill points should be completable at any level anything else is will lead to more confusion and not understanding for early players. Its nice that its account unlocked now, but still seems confusing for new players.

• proffession mechanic abilities are kind of core abilities to the class, i would say unlock them earlier

• gaining skill points each level feels much better than in chunks imo,

I believe the old weapon skills unlocking through use was a superior and more scalable system, however im guessing you guys really want to keep this version for whatever reason.

However, with these changes, i think the system overall is less unwieldly, and at least by level 20 you are mostly free from unlock gates.

Next up trait system, which seems like it will take a lot more work than this.

Vorch.2985:

I like the changes after level 40. Ranger and Mesmer feel A LOT better.

I like that the level 1-40 experience has been significantly sped up.

I also like that I have the option to skip 1-40 entirely with level up tomes and level 20 scrolls.

The physical experience of going through 1-40 without any resources? I don’t think that is good, atm.

um, what changes after 40?
level 1-40 experience isnt sped up, 1-15 is the only thing that changed.

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

MikaHR.1978:

before: grind mobs, grind mobs and then grind some more mobs for every single skill of every single weapon or NO weapons skills for YOU!

That’s not how it worked for at least half a year now. There was a change sometimes ago, that made it so each new skill required less grind the higher your level – at ~15-20 you needed one-two hits to unlock any, even the last one.

Vayne.8563:

I have a working theory. But it’s just that, a theory. I’d have to do a lot more testing to see if this is what happened. Anet didn’t believe people could make their own builds so they made certain traits they saw as advantageous to leveling very easy to get (like the chest in Kessex which anyone can do), and put the ones that were much less beneficial (on average anyway) behind harder targets…trying to guide people to the easier stuff that might help them right away.

That might have been sensible, except for one small point. The unlocks are the same for every class, while the trait spreads for reasonable builds for every class are different. What works for a warrior would be a terrible build for a guardian or ele.

Sure but each build as different traits. So the idea that they could simple look at the what trait we want to be decent and put that trait for each profession at kessex, so it unlocks early. A trait like the falling trait for each class they gate, because they don’t consider that something useful for low level characters trying to survive.

but they didnt do it that way, they just place the traits by their numerical position, except for falling damage which is always obsidian sanctum.

so trait iii on the power(1st) line, will always be gendarren field, regardless how useful or not useful it is, or what it does

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

Astralporing.1957:

MikaHR.1978:

before: grind mobs, grind mobs and then grind some more mobs for every single skill of every single weapon or NO weapons skills for YOU!

That’s not how it worked for at least half a year now. There was a change sometimes ago, that made it so each new skill required less grind the higher your level – at ~15-20 you needed one-two hits to unlock any, even the last one.

The discussion is what happens for 1st few levels (up to 10) which would be 6ish in old xp curve.

Now at level 10 you have ALL weapon skills unlocked whether you depopulated lvl1 boars or not. What happened in lvl15+ in old leveling curve is irrelevant.

actually this is a discussion of leveling in general, the npe doesnt stop at 10, in fact traits is actually the first part of the npe, i guess they didnt have that ready for US in time.
regardless, this patches npe stretches skills you out to 40, so if your going to discuss the changes, it isnt just about what happens from 1-10

and btw, skills unlocked super fast at 10 as well.

Its very helpful to read what youre responding to so your answer makes sense.

Hint: its about weapon skills SPECIFICALLY

Please, elsborate what bothers you the most about weapon skills in lvl 10+.

and btw, skills unlocked super fast at level 10 as well.

dekou.6012:

Here’s an older topic on this issue, with a red post saying they “identified the bug” causing it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Downscaling-new-system-is-weird/first

that doesnt deal with the stat slump/burst issue, which is caused by the design of giving players big stat boosts at different level ranges, rather than gradually

MikaHR.1978:

Astralporing.1957:

MikaHR.1978:

before: grind mobs, grind mobs and then grind some more mobs for every single skill of every single weapon or NO weapons skills for YOU!

That’s not how it worked for at least half a year now. There was a change sometimes ago, that made it so each new skill required less grind the higher your level – at ~15-20 you needed one-two hits to unlock any, even the last one.

The discussion is what happens for 1st few levels (up to 10) which would be 6ish in old xp curve.

Now at level 10 you have ALL weapon skills unlocked whether you depopulated lvl1 boars or not. What happened in lvl15+ in old leveling curve is irrelevant.

actually this is a discussion of leveling in general, the npe doesnt stop at 10, in fact traits is actually the first part of the npe, i guess they didnt have that ready for US in time.
regardless, this patches npe stretches skills you out to 40, so if your going to discuss the changes, it isnt just about what happens from 1-10

and btw, skills unlocked super fast at 10 as well.

Sokia.3710:

Behellagh.1468:

Yeah I know. There are a couple of adept traits for thieves which are similarly heinous. They should have made all the unlocks at the level or below where you can slot that trait

I have no idea why they would even make it to where you need to go to a higher level area than the level that it takes to get enough trait points to get that trait tier. That is hilariously bad design. How did that even leave the brainstorming room?

not that i agree with the reason, but they did it because

adept traits are content for people level 30-60 now.
so, most of the content is in that range, this essentially means some traits that were once available as level 15 traits, are now seen as obtainable at 60

also, they did not assign them based on difficulty, usefulness, or what they think people should try to get first, they assign them arbitrarily based on what number trait they are. the VI trait on every job is in the same place.

they didnt have enough high level zones, so some they just sprinkled in anywhere. Some of those have been rescinded, like the frostgorge adept trait.

overall id say the system was pretty poorly implemented/designed.

Tom.8029:

phys.7689:

Tom.8029:

Here’s how I see it. If you’ve been playing for a year, you have a good sense of the basics. If you’ve been playing for a year, you also have an item from your birthday that will instantaneously boost you to level 20. As far as I’m aware, boosting to level 20 will cause you to avoid most if not all of these restrictions.

If you haven’t been playing a year, then you wouldn’t have this item. But, who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new that you didn’t before.

Sure you may want to make several new characters in a short period of time and lack the correct amount of this item, or maybe you don’t want to skip levels, or maybe you feel like you shouldn’t have to rely on a single item to avoid this new content.

It could all be a little unnecessary for them to make things unavailable to more experienced players until certain levels. But for new players, I don’t see the issue. And as I’ve said, for more experienced players, you have the item alternative.

I made a new character the other day and actually rather enjoyed unlocking something new in every level. I also believe it gives new players an opportunity to become accustomed to and aware of some of the other features the game has to offer without them just being thrown to the wolves.

the NPE doesnt end at level 20, you still have skills locked out, the trait rework is actually also part of the NPE.
Also you get one birthday booster per charachter created, per year. in the first year i made like 5 or 6 charachters, so a new player today will have to go through the same thing every time they make a new charachter. I think many players make at least 2-4 charachters in the first year of play.
so they would not have access to these things.

I haven’t gotten my new character all the way through to be aware of all the changes, so I apologize for that. What skills are still locked at level 20? I remember before the update your elite skill was still locked until level 30 anyway.

depends on what your proffesion is,
missing 2 utilities (24 and 35)
missing 1 elite (level 40 now)
f3-f4 skills (if you have these one at 22, not sure the last)
i believe 2 underwater skills
no access to minor traits till 30
no access to selectable traits till 36

Behellagh.1468:

Sokia.3710:

Fernling.1729:

I’m missing something here… You only have to unlock a few of the top traits, right?

You have to unlock every single trait individually, except for Minor traits which still function the same as before.

But you don’t have to unlock all of them, just the ones you want to use. You can’t honestly say that you’ve used all the traits in all the trait lines.

most people arent that sure what they want to use until they try them, id say for most jobs i have tried 90% of traits at some point or another. I probably have tried more than many people, but i would say most people try, or at least are interested in at least 30% of the traits available. (seeing as how you have access to at least 49% of the traits in the game even with only 1 build)

Tom.8029:

Here’s how I see it. If you’ve been playing for a year, you have a good sense of the basics. If you’ve been playing for a year, you also have an item from your birthday that will instantaneously boost you to level 20. As far as I’m aware, boosting to level 20 will cause you to avoid most if not all of these restrictions.

If you haven’t been playing a year, then you wouldn’t have this item. But, who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new that you didn’t before.

Sure you may want to make several new characters in a short period of time and lack the correct amount of this item, or maybe you don’t want to skip levels, or maybe you feel like you shouldn’t have to rely on a single item to avoid this new content.

It could all be a little unnecessary for them to make things unavailable to more experienced players until certain levels. But for new players, I don’t see the issue. And as I’ve said, for more experienced players, you have the item alternative.

I made a new character the other day and actually rather enjoyed unlocking something new in every level. I also believe it gives new players an opportunity to become accustomed to and aware of some of the other features the game has to offer without them just being thrown to the wolves.

the NPE doesnt end at level 20, you still have skills locked out, the trait rework is actually also part of the NPE.
Also you get one birthday booster per charachter created, per year. in the first year i made like 5 or 6 charachters, so a new player today will have to go through the same thing every time they make a new charachter. I think many players make at least 2-4 charachters in the first year of play.
so they would not have access to these things.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Glad you’re doing this, because if it were me, I’d be biased and a white knight fan boy. Pretty much my experience with it too. The different for me was that I had two characters I tested it on, one I leveled from scratched and a higher level character in my 50s. I really like getting rare gear every few levels and stuff to put on it, because normally I just waited until something dropped. Didn’t feel it was worth buying stuff for stuff I’d change in 5 levels anyway.

With the new drops I actually am more powerful than I used to be without buying or crafting anything. And things aren’t nearly as underleveled as they were for me in the old system.

Naturally I could craft or buy stuff, but I never really worried about a piece unless it was 20 levels under.

All in all, the extra stuff I get from higher levels I like enough to not worry so much about the lower levels.

uhh you say you had the same experience, but he said it was kind of annoying and a bit tedious, whereas you said it was fun and drove you to level more.

I would say that means yall have fairly different experiences

Here are quotes from some of my threads on leveling (there are a couple more but this should prove something anyway):

“Arguably, in some ways the game is harder for new players. Even some older players are saying it’s more challenging now, because they have less skills and not a fully working downed state. I won’t look for the threads but I’ve seen it mentioned at least twice.
I know when I’m going through starter zones now, I have to move more. I can’t depend on skills. I have to be more careful because I don’t get those other slots that used to protect me unlocked as early.
Be that as it may, we’ve always had level gated abilities and I’m not so sure the time to unlock most of it is so vastly different, that it’s worthy of the outcry we’ve heard.
There are definitely issues with it. I’m not sure why Anet took away the hints section, even if they took away the achievement. They should put it back. It’s weird not to have access to hints and tips all the time.
I don’t think the choices made with the downed state are right at all, but it has nothing to do with level gating.
And I think it’s problematic that leveling with some professions for the first 15 levels is much harder/longer than leveling with other professions.
But over all, I think it’s a step in the right direction. It was always going to need adjustment.”

“Things have always been gated, even in Guild Wars 2. Your skills have always been gated. you didn’t unlock your first slot skill to level 5, your second till level ten and your third to level 20. If you believed it was wrong to gate, it should have been wrong last week too.
Switching weapons was gated at level 7. No one talked about gating until the gating changed. Now nothing should be gated. Most of it was gated before in some way.
Elite skills were at level 30 before, now they’re at 40 but Anet tells us they unlock at about the same number of hours played.
Is this new method slightly more inconvenient. Sure it is. But if Anet is right and this helps keep people just starting out and from free demo weekends, it’s probably worth it. Having more people in the game benefits everyone.
I don’t think these inconveniences are so bad. They don’t significantly change the game for me. Experienced players often have level 20 scrolls anyway. PvPers have tomes galore.
You can still level in EoTM. You can still PvP from level 2.
There is gating, but there has always been gating.”

Bonus quote:

“QFT. Anet takes a lot of flack for not delivering on things announced. But if Anet came out and said, clearly and front in center, that certain things are delayed or have been moved to the back burner, most reasonable fans would understand.
Anet not saying anything is pretty much Anet asking for trouble. The logic is simple.
If I tell my wife we’re probably going on vacation in June to Europe and I can’t make it, I probably should let her know before September. It would save me a lot of grief in the long run.
She might very well be disappointed if I came and told her I couldn’t get time off, or we couldn’t afford a vacation to Europe but she’s understand.”

didnt really see the connection, maybe too much text, but am i to assume you also think that overall the changes make the game a bit more boring and annoying?

Fernling.1729:

Sokia.3710:

Fernling.1729:

I’m missing something here… You only have to unlock a few of the top traits, right?

You have to unlock every single trait individually, except for Minor traits which still function the same as before.

Hmm, I checked out a guide on dulfy. I definitely missed this update. Was this well received?
It looks like it could be fun. Looks like they tried to bring back the skill capture from GW1. I’m kinda excited to try this out. I’m guessing it will feel more like a hassle than it’s worth though.

the execution isnt done that well, for the system its going for.
But you can try it yourself and get back to us on the implementation.

Vayne.8563:

Glad you’re doing this, because if it were me, I’d be biased and a white knight fan boy. Pretty much my experience with it too. The different for me was that I had two characters I tested it on, one I leveled from scratched and a higher level character in my 50s. I really like getting rare gear every few levels and stuff to put on it, because normally I just waited until something dropped. Didn’t feel it was worth buying stuff for stuff I’d change in 5 levels anyway.

With the new drops I actually am more powerful than I used to be without buying or crafting anything. And things aren’t nearly as underleveled as they were for me in the old system.

Naturally I could craft or buy stuff, but I never really worried about a piece unless it was 20 levels under.

All in all, the extra stuff I get from higher levels I like enough to not worry so much about the lower levels.

uhh you say you had the same experience, but he said it was kind of annoying and a bit tedious, whereas you said it was fun and drove you to level more.

I would say that means yall have fairly different experiences

chemiclord.3978:

11-20

Pretty uneventual initially (Personal Story pushed me to level 13 as it was), and really up until 13 it was all the same until finally unlocking utility skills and the ability to access skill points.

Not sure if it’s consistent among classes or races, but for my human ranger, I got Signet of Renewal for free as my first unlocked utility, which is pretty much the worst one that could have been provided for a PvE leveling experience. I had to backtrack to earlier regions to gather up skill points to replace it and Heal as One, a healing skill I normally replaced as soon as I possibly could (seriously, Troll Unguent heals nearly as much per tick, ticks 9 more times, and only has a 5 second longer cooldown).

At level 15, I finally have the ability to swap weapons. Previously having it at level 7 before, it was something that irritated me, even though I really couldn’t think of any one place up until then where I felt, “If only I could weapon swap here…” While it didn’t negatively impact the game itself, any maybe in terms of total time spent it wasn’t much longer, it felt like it took longer, and felt like an annoyance.

I also gained my pet’s F2 skill at about this time… 15 levels to finally feel “complete.” I understand for other classes, it can take longer to unlock the “base” mechanics of your given class. Maybe having that slow unlock process DOES help new characters, but for veterans, it’s an annoyance.

And that’s kinda what these first 15 levels kinda feel like… quick, not painful, but just a little series of annoyances one after the other, stretched out longer than we were used to.

After level 15, the exp curve returns to what a veteran player recognizes as “normal.” At about level 17, I stumbled onto my first trait (that I can’t use for another 13 levels), not that it’s a particularly useful one, and is a reminder of something I am reasonably certain I am going to loathe going forward, trait hunting.

I can’t say I’ve really noticed too much of the “profession compatible” loot adjustment that this Feature Pack provided so far at this point up to level 20. I’ve gotten much more relevant gear from leveling up.

I also noticed that I wasn’t getting skill points at level up after about level 14. I don’t know if that is intended or a bug or what. That’s not a small irritation. (Edit: I got 8 skill points at level 20. Uhh… okay…)

I still really haven’t felt “underpowered” at any point, even with the stats being clumped together rather than a gradual gain… but I still don’t see any compelling reason to clump them together, either. The skill points are a more “visible” thing, so I guess I can get that… but the stat points? Really?

All in all, there seems to be two very different experiences in this level range, pre-15 and post-15. Once you get past that barrier, the game plays much like it did before, as far as I can remember (although if I recall correctly that second utility skill unlocked right at 20).

Will having that second slot delayed 4 levels impact my experience? Will my character’s 20s be as boring as mine was? Stay tuned!

as you level up, the skill restrictions ease up, just as the trait restrictions hit. The bundling of skill points and stats creates odd gaps in power (which you generally will only notice fighting higher level stuff)
Its not really harder, just more boring, less options, and more focused on leveling.

Behellagh.1468:

But taking the results without such considerations and adjustments but only at face value does make it worthless. Since I hadn’t heard of either of the polls then it’s sampling from only those who knew about it and if it was posted in a negative thread about the changes then it’s highly likely only players who already didn’t like the changes, whether they tried them or not, voted than those who didn’t think they were all that bad.

no survey that is taken includes everyone, getting everyone is almost never the goal of a good survey.
Im not saying this survey was a paragon of balanced survey taking, but its really more lopsided than these surveys usually are.
This data is worth noting, for one of these argument threads, it got a lot of participation,
Its also way more skewed than most of these polls usually are, even with similar sources, and being posted in biased places
Im speaking more of vaynes straw poll, the other one on what people want doesnt seem as black and white.

point is, while i wouldnt say everyone hates this NPE, i would say the feedback is more negative, and more visceral than almost any other change i can remember being polled. Even if these people only represent a specific type of gamer, thats a pretty drastic response. On the other side, i have seen little data to support its benefits. CHina publishers locked down threads and banned people complaining about it. The public line was, all of these changes will be coming to NA as well, later, so its not our fault.

which anet US denied, but so far, it seems that may have been more accurate than not. Point is very little points to these changes enhancing the game, or new player experience, i wouldnt ignore this info, because i think it is saying something, even if it isnt pure, at the very least, it bears more investigation.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

Mister Midnight.9837:

MikaHR.1978:

Mister Midnight.9837:

I can’t even comprehend how you’d manage to ignore enough aggressive enemies that pursue you for 15 levels to not get these abilities just by defending yourself, but I guess some people just run past enemies?

Obviously I can’t say your experiences are invalid as much as you cannot attempt to invalidate mine.

It seems to me a reasonable middle-ground would have been to just reduce the number of kills (Because it isn’t about hits. One hit counts as much as 20 on a single kill in the old system) for those people that…don’t seem to fight enemies as much as most other players?

Most other players?

Please explain how you know what “most other players” do or like?

The way they changed it it quite seems most other players didnt like to JUST grind mobs for basic weapon functionality and they actually DID miss skills to play with for far too long. And when they finally got new weapon type – all over again.

Honestly this is a complaint I pretty much never saw, maybe it’s just me.

Your entire argument doesn’t even make sense, it is a FACT you will have at least two if not three of your first weapon skills before you leave that level 1 tutorial. You never had to wait until leveling up to acquire your weapon skills. You didn’t even have to TRY, you could have leeched one hit off an enemy someone else was fighting. Is there really any regular enemy in this game that takes very long to kill anyway?

Let me emphasize that point: You have to WAIT to get a weapon skill. You seriously have to WAIT until you are ALLOWED to have that, rather than being able to pick up any weapon you desire and smack a handful of heads to get yourself started. As you level up higher the process took even fewer kills. This was never something that took actual effort.

I’m pretty strong in my belief that you are greatly exaggerating the amount of combat it took, and frankly experiencing this process 18 times gives me a pretty strong standing point I think.

And i experienced it 16 times.

Tell you what:

ANet listen, implement small bar on weapon skills that will slowly fill up with xp as you gain it and the skill unlock will, just by big coicidence, unlock exatly when you ding lvl 2-4-7-10.

There you go, you get your little bar back since some peole are unusually fixated on it.

Ashen.2907:

MikaHR.1978:

Its very simple: if you didnt intentionally grind mobs you didnt get weapon skills for a long long time, MUCH longer than now

I didn’t intentionally grind mobs and got my weapon skills by level 5-6. Level 5-6 is, “a long long time, MUCH longer than now ?”

On all weapons?

every class has a different amount of weapons.
If you are level 15 weapon skills unlock super fast.
The old system adapted to the player better
if you have interest in a weapon early you can fully use it earlier
if you have little interest, it will be easy to unlock later when you have more experience.
as you use the weapon you get each skill the more you use the weapon

It actually makes a lot more sense, and is way more adaptive system than the current one.

For example lets take a new player who played like you played, you actually have less desire for combat anyway. you are more interested in non combat activities, and if you were new, you would have less knowledge about weaponskills.
therefore, it would be logical that you would learn them later. You dont need them, barely use them, and arent familiar with what any of them do.

The game actually better adapted to your actual experience with each weapon, and in combat before.
Now, a new player like yourself, who they believe can only handle skills at a rate at like 5 skills every 1-1.5 hours of combat, gets a whole bunch of skills at once with no explanation and no pacing. You have the experience of killing 10 monsters, and they threw 5x the unique weapon sets at you.

how is that more intructive/less options as players are ready for them/etc.

its really not at all. but it fits your playstyle better, that i cant argue. Too bad now everyone has to play your playstyle to get the most enjoyment.

rofl, nothing you write is logical

the new system has much much more freedom than old one.

its THAT simple.

Asking for a little bar in your weapon skill to fill up – guess thats simple too, as i said, few players are fixated on it so ANet, please.

i dont think logic means what you think it means

Rogue.7856:

It’s more cost efficient to get both markets under one roof. Two Fold

yeah, but they didnt really even need to add the grind for china. Many chinese players who experienced both already told them the new system was not appealing. So what im saying is, its not really to get china, its because they believe this is what players all over the world prefer, which is odd because it seems the majority of players dont want it.

even look at their tests on people who left or quit, in instituting their preferences, they kind of ignore the fact that 100s of thousands of people did get past the starter experience.

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

They worded this as a positive change and if you enjoy gated content then this is the build for you. However I bought the game on what they sold it as.
“Most games [have a] boring grind to get to the fun stuff. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2. Noone enjoys that, noone finds it fun, we want to change the way people view combat.”
To go back on those statements 2 years later and switch it up to what is more appeasing to their Chinese market is beyond me how people will support this practice.

Why gate the content, what is their to gain from gating content other than to create the very thing they are against.

It depends on how you define grind. Leveling isn’t a grind unless it takes 30 hours and 3000 critters to smite between levels. The one to two hours per level here is no where a grind.

Skill slot and weapon slot locking was always part of the game. If it takes the same amount of play time to unlock them now as before, then there is no change in the experience, just a number as to when that happens.

The weapon skill unlocks is a trade off between unlocking all weapons skills at the same time Vs unlocking the skills on the weapon you use. Before if you get a weapon drop of a different type that you would rather use, you had to unlock those skills, now if you have skill slots 2 and 3 unlocked on your original weapon, they are unlocked on this new one automatically. Can’t say which is a better solution to the weapons/skills problem.

In another thread I said that you always felt significantly weaker leveling a new alt simply because you aren’t fully equipped with exotics and your preferred selection of traits. But like the trait change we again have a “fall guy” to point at for that reason instead of our own cloudy memories of what it was like as a true level 8 than a down-leveled 80. We are newbs in swathing clothes rather than Gods who descended from Olympus.

And the combat comment wasn’t about grind but the non-rooting attacks and dodge defense as oppose to the stand your ground and wale on a critter hoping for someone to heal you during combat.

grind is about perception, so its somewhat subjective, however there are some things that will make it more likely to be seen. (like short is a subjective term)

grind essentially is when you feel like you have to do a repetitive boring task in order to progress.

therefore, you can increase grind by increasing boredom, or increasing how far away progress seems.

the ways in which they changed the system give you less options, and makes you feel like the main way to progress is to level. They also outline a basic formula for leveling, which gets repetitive. Even if the time to max level is the same, for many people they increased the feeling of grind.

Rogue.7856:

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

They worded this as a positive change and if you enjoy gated content then this is the build for you. However I bought the game on what they sold it as.
“Most games [have a] boring grind to get to the fun stuff. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2. Noone enjoys that, noone finds it fun, we want to change the way people view combat.”
To go back on those statements 2 years later and switch it up to what is more appeasing to their Chinese market is beyond me how people will support this practice.

Why gate the content, what is their to gain from gating content other than to create the very thing they are against.

It depends on how you define grind. Leveling isn’t a grind unless it takes 30 hours and 3000 critters to smite between levels. The one to two hours per level here is no where a grind.

Skill slot and weapon slot locking was always part of the game. If it takes the same amount of play time to unlock them now as before, then there is no change in the experience, just a number as to when that happens.

The weapon skill unlocks is a trade off between unlocking all weapons skills at the same time Vs unlocking the skills on the weapon you use. Before if you get a weapon drop of a different type that you would rather use, you had to unlock those skills, now if you have skill slots 2 and 3 unlocked on your original weapon, they are unlocked on this new one automatically. Can’t say which is a better solution to the weapons/skills problem.

In another thread I said that you always felt significantly weaker leveling a new alt simply because you aren’t fully equipped with exotics and your preferred selection of traits. But like the trait change we again have a “fall guy” to point at for that reason instead of our own cloudy memories of what it was like as a true level 8 than a down-leveled 80. We are newbs in swathing clothes rather than Gods who descended from Olympus.

And the combat comment wasn’t about grind but the non-rooting attacks and dodge defense as oppose to the stand your ground and wale on a critter hoping for someone to heal you during combat.

Its a grind compared to what the game once was… its level gated content that has no need to be gated. They claim its to help players ease into new abilities, but at the end of the day its gated content that leaves early game experience for all players old a new limited and a push for the fun stuff later. This is exactly what they said they would not do, and after 2 years its very clear why now they decided to do this… with a blind eye to NA/EU players, and their mission… its very clear why they did this… and why they tried to paint a pretty picture and slide in this bad system…

its not really about china, china was one market, they also think this is a better answer to the NA market, and will pick up players they couldnt appeal to who were more used to other MMOs systems. In a lot of ways its more worrysome than them trying to appeal to a large asian market. They are trying to appeal standard mmo level grind gamers.

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rogue.7856:

Way to snip what you want from what I said.

Rogue.7856:

Its not an opinion. The fact is, the reward system is nothing short of rehash and a play on words. There really is no “Reward” from the experience other than gating content that was accessible for 2 years. The “New” experience is an annoyance at best, and an insult at worst.

Read the bold text… its people like you that get me banned from these forums… please open your eyes when your reading next time. It will help.

Read my bold text.

I don’t feel insulted or annoyed by the NPE yet from what little I have played. It has stayed mostly in line with my original leveling experience way back at the start of the game, sans a few pieces here and there.

Also, don’t be insulting. I’ve been polite all through posting this last week despite really feeling like being mean. You can at least do the same.

Your not being polite by snipping quotes and rewording my text in your quotes. That’s insulting much in the same by what the devs have done, by calling this a “Rewarding” experience.

Quote my entire post or don’t quote me at all. Same goes for reading my post. Your problem is you have selective reasoning.

How about you do your part in this poll: http://strawpoll.me/2555336/r

And go find a few hundred other people that agree with you. And only then will you only be able to balance the poll. Sure this is an opinion… but to say that the opinion of a vast majority doesn’t matter, is ignorance at its worst.

He never reworded your text in his quotes from you. Quit being offended over imaginary slights.

And straw polls are worthless because A) they are voluntary; because it’s only posted in the forum in not just this thread; C) players who are upset are more likely to vote and then use the results as proof that they are in the right.

its all good to qualify your data, but make no mistake, there is no such thing as perfect surveying or sampling. Proffesional people can try very hard to get accurate statistics, but even then they are expected to qualify the data and present the sources.

Point is, you dont ignore data you dont like, you analyze it. Yes, consider the sources, consider what it represents, but ignoring it is foolish.

assuming everyone has a different opinion from the data you gathered is actually a more poor assumption than even anectdotal evidence.

if you ask 5 girls if they like your shirt, and they all say it sucks.
you shouldnt promise that all girls hate your shirt
at the same time you shouldnt believe that every other girl loves your shirt
however it would be something you should be concerned with, and you may have to assume, perhaps this shirt isnt liked too well, until you can get more information from somewhere else.

point is ignoring feedback because it isnt every ounce of feedback in that exists, is actually a very bad idea.

note as well that in general most of these polls that appear with the same sources, are much more balanced, many people vote who dont actually talk. the fact that that poll was 80% disatisfied with the patch is a huge as far as polls generally go, where an 10% difference is considered a fairly big deal.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

hydeaut.1758:

Vayne.8563:

But personally I think it’s enough reward for getting through the starter instance. It does what it needs to do.

And this is where you and Anet terribly fail and where their disconnect comes from: they don´t see it through the eyes of the player.

A new player won´t say: “Hey, great, Anet want´s me to teach how to change weapons”, he will see that he receives a reward which is practically the same weapon he already has.

Let´s foresee the conversation we´ll have in a few months:

Forum: “No wonder the free trial wasn´t a success if Anet doesn´t listen to feedback”.

You: “It would have been if the game would not have been talked down”.

There´s always a way out, isn´t it?

Really?

So a new player to an MMO goes through a five minute starter instance and expects what? A precusor? Give me a break.

A new player starting on his first instance getting his first reward for the starter instance is probably expecting basic beginner stuff.

But the rest of the leveling experience offers far more rewards and it originally did. Maybe you’re just having trouble seeing it from a new player perspective.

Guild Wars 1 you got like no rewards for doing anything in the beginning. The rewards were minscule. No one cared, because it was the beginning.

Nothing you get in any MMO in the first ten levels that I can think of is something you’ll fondly remember a week later.

i think the point is, they may have more interest in a different weapon at that point rather than the same weapon.

But we really are talking 10 minutes into the game. New weapons drop more often now, remember? I had new weapons a couple of minutes later. I’m still not sure that what they would rather have is an issue, because no one is usually thinking that way.

New player in a game, you see what drops. You don’t get your first reward in a game and think I’d rather have X. It comes fast enough anyway.

actually on almost every charachter i played in this game even from head start, i was thinking i would rather have a different weapon. Its statistically unlikely that the weapon they choose to start a player off with, represents his prefered style, and even if it did, the possibility of a new weapon option is more enticing than a slight damage upgrade.

let me think, mesmer starts off with scepter, probably the least loved mesmer weapon
guardian club, definately niche
warrior 1h sword, one of many
ranger longbow, i personally prefer sword, axes, greatsword

yeah just about every charachter i had, if i had a choice between a different weapon i would have picked it, and that is going back to beta weekend events.

Not what I was saying. The first time you ever played this game, if you said that I’d call you a statistical minority. However, now, you get those other weapons much faster than you used to, or at least I did. Since the drops have been changed so you get more profession appropriate drops, you will much more likely have a weapon you want sooner than later.

In fact, in the old version all you got was an offhand, not a main hand weapon, so you still had to use the same weapon.

im not a statistical minority
first you have to realize, in this game, weapons often tied to playstyle
second you have to realize most classes have like at least 5 different weapons.(weaponskill sets)
If every weapon is liked equally, the chances you gave someone the weapon they liked is at best 1/5 or lower (barring ele and engineer)

statistically speaking most people will want a different weapon.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

hydeaut.1758:

Vayne.8563:

But personally I think it’s enough reward for getting through the starter instance. It does what it needs to do.

And this is where you and Anet terribly fail and where their disconnect comes from: they don´t see it through the eyes of the player.

A new player won´t say: “Hey, great, Anet want´s me to teach how to change weapons”, he will see that he receives a reward which is practically the same weapon he already has.

Let´s foresee the conversation we´ll have in a few months:

Forum: “No wonder the free trial wasn´t a success if Anet doesn´t listen to feedback”.

You: “It would have been if the game would not have been talked down”.

There´s always a way out, isn´t it?

Really?

So a new player to an MMO goes through a five minute starter instance and expects what? A precusor? Give me a break.

A new player starting on his first instance getting his first reward for the starter instance is probably expecting basic beginner stuff.

But the rest of the leveling experience offers far more rewards and it originally did. Maybe you’re just having trouble seeing it from a new player perspective.

Guild Wars 1 you got like no rewards for doing anything in the beginning. The rewards were minscule. No one cared, because it was the beginning.

Nothing you get in any MMO in the first ten levels that I can think of is something you’ll fondly remember a week later.

i think the point is, they may have more interest in a different weapon at that point rather than the same weapon.

But we really are talking 10 minutes into the game. New weapons drop more often now, remember? I had new weapons a couple of minutes later. I’m still not sure that what they would rather have is an issue, because no one is usually thinking that way.

New player in a game, you see what drops. You don’t get your first reward in a game and think I’d rather have X. It comes fast enough anyway.

actually on almost every charachter i played in this game even from head start, i was thinking i would rather have a different weapon. Its statistically unlikely that the weapon they choose to start a player off with, represents his prefered style, and even if it did, the possibility of a new weapon option is more enticing than a slight damage upgrade.

let me think, mesmer starts off with scepter, probably the least loved mesmer weapon
guardian club, definately niche
warrior 1h sword, one of many
ranger longbow, i personally prefer sword, axes, greatsword

yeah just about every charachter i had, if i had a choice between a different weapon i would have picked it, and that is going back to beta weekend events.

Vayne.8563:

Rogue.7856:

Not sure why my topic title keeps getting edited. I thought it was ok to express my opinion in a none offensive manner. I feel that this is not offense and more importantly factual to the point of the discussion. Please don’t remove “is a complete joke”… because it truly is a joke. A very sad and insulting one…

What is offensive and insulting and has no place in the game is calling this system you implemented ‘New’ and ‘Rewarding’ over the old system… It is the exact opposite of this. You have stripped out the hint system and gated content, calling it ‘rewarding’. You must be joking! You can have every single ‘reward’ I get from leveling, which are for the most part nothing new than what you started out with.

There is nothing “New” or “Rewarding” from the new system. Its complete trash… please take it back and give me back my ability to play the game freely.

The fact that you can’t see calling it a complete joke is in itself problematical. I can see a problem with it. Nor do I think saying it’s complete trash is constructive.

You never had the ability to play the game freely. Skills still unlocked at different levels, and the weapon swap still unlocked at different levels. To say that you played freely before is a misnomer.

But most of all, the new system does end up being more rewarding, and that’s a fact. You may not like the rewards at lower levels, but since there were no rewards at higher levels, the new system is in fact, factually more rewarding.

leveling up as a reward when they take rewards from other places and redistribute it, is what he was getting at.

Though i will say leveling up specifically is more rewarding, but many other things are less rewarding.
the rewards from leveling i would say are probably balanced by the complete destruction of having drops from all story instances. Seeing as how some missions have a fair amount of killing, and sometimes even champions, this is probably an overall nerf.

as far as skill unlocks/trait unlocks, they basically make you work harder for the same reward, so leveling overall, skill and trait wise is not more rewarding, its at best the same, but if you consider that previously leveling in the traits situation unlocked more traits for less money, leveling with regard to traits is actually less rewarding.

So while leveling may or may not be more rewarding depending on how you look at it, playing the game is overall less rewarding per time spent, and thats probably the bigger picture.

Vayne.8563:

hydeaut.1758:

Vayne.8563:

But personally I think it’s enough reward for getting through the starter instance. It does what it needs to do.

And this is where you and Anet terribly fail and where their disconnect comes from: they don´t see it through the eyes of the player.

A new player won´t say: “Hey, great, Anet want´s me to teach how to change weapons”, he will see that he receives a reward which is practically the same weapon he already has.

Let´s foresee the conversation we´ll have in a few months:

Forum: “No wonder the free trial wasn´t a success if Anet doesn´t listen to feedback”.

You: “It would have been if the game would not have been talked down”.

There´s always a way out, isn´t it?

Really?

So a new player to an MMO goes through a five minute starter instance and expects what? A precusor? Give me a break.

A new player starting on his first instance getting his first reward for the starter instance is probably expecting basic beginner stuff.

But the rest of the leveling experience offers far more rewards and it originally did. Maybe you’re just having trouble seeing it from a new player perspective.

Guild Wars 1 you got like no rewards for doing anything in the beginning. The rewards were minscule. No one cared, because it was the beginning.

Nothing you get in any MMO in the first ten levels that I can think of is something you’ll fondly remember a week later.

i think the point is, they may have more interest in a different weapon at that point rather than the same weapon.

Nokaru.7831:

Did you know: Previously, when a player leveled, they would gain a small amount of stats every level; now you gain a lot every six levels starting with level four. This is what’s known as the “stat burst.”

These stats had to come from somewhere though. It isn’t a bonus; just a redistribution. It’s an illusion of “rewarding leveling” because the reward is denied and given later on. Players now experience another phenomena called a “stat slump” where they are the weakest a few levels prior to their “stat burst.” This has pretty severely compromised the leveling curve. Before, it was fine to tackle a creature one or two levels above you. However, if you try to do so now during a “stat slump” it can be the equivalent of fighting something 3-5 levels higher than you. This is why for some players there are Personal Story missions that seem much harder now than before.

Most of the changes made were done in haste. Don’t believe me? Did you know that bulk amounts of Apples and all sources of Green Beans were simply deleted from their game as they carelessly removed Karma items from the starting areas? This shows there wasn’t any system in place to even check once if there was any sort of consequence to their action. (Heaven forbid they try double-checking!) ArenaNet has become renown though for deleting things, like entire Personal Story chapters inexplicably.

i didnt know that about the apples, but it fits with what i have noticed. A lot of these changes dont interact well with the pre existing systems.
for example every classes f1-f4 skills are not equal. Warriors unlock the full power of their profession skill with one f1 unlock, mesmers do not. Engineers dont become full engineers until level 36.
offhand weapons are a basic part of thief weapon skills. The skills in the 3 slot are basically weakened versions of dual skills.

the system treats everyone the same, when everyone is not the same, you see the same thing with trait unlocks, some people have key unlocks easy, and some people have key unlocks hard

the list goes on, but the fact is that many of these changes are not well integrated, and the seams are showing.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

SidewayS.3789:

They know far more about the game and the players than anyone complaining about the changes does.

Nope. They dont. That’s why their game is losing ground, and above all thing, i think Anet is somekind of hardcore masochist.

And for these mindless fanboys : Keep it real, until you’ll realize, that this game is no longer the same game from 2 years ago.

Their game is losing ground? Evidence?

Their game is doing what almost all MMOs have to deal with in their lifetime. It’s dealing with aging. During the last quarter both ESO and Wildstar were released. I don’t really think, all things considered, they’re losing ground as fast as you think.

And yes, this game is NOT the same game from two years ago. 100% true. In some ways it’s better and some ways it’s worth. 2 years ago, we had neither fractals nor drytop, both of which I like. There were far more bugs back then then there are now. And a lot of the game has fundamentally changed. If you like the changes, the game is better than it was, and if you don’t like the changes, the game is worse.

But you know, I can’t think of any MMO I’ve ever played that was fundamentally the same two years after launch. Not one.

Hell, games like Final Fantasy had to be closed down and rewritten completely. Star Wars ToR went free to play. They’re making major changes to ESO and moved the launch of the console back because of it. Even Archeage has had fundamental changes from 1.0 to 1.2

most successful mmos begin an upward trend after about 2 years. they keep most old players, and bring some new ones, the drop off is what happens after the initial game hits. Then the strong ones build playerbase for a long time, till they get old and die.

look at ff14 ARR, its not everyones cup of tea, but its playerbase is growing, not shrinking.
look at WoW year 2.

sure a lot of failing edge case mmo continue to bleed players until they die, or have to do some huge change to adapt, if they successfully adapt, they then start gaining ground and getting more players. like lotro swtor, lineage, etc.

point is, losing players/profits at this point is not expected, its a sign of something going wrong.
How they adapt to the bleed, will determine the future of the game.

Final fantasy had to close completely and relaunch. It’s now starting to come into it’s own, but how many people are actually playing? Do you know?

I suspect Guild Wars 2 is doing about as well as Final Fantasy. The Raptr numbers seem to support that anyway. Still waiting for this months to come out.

like i said, once you have a good forumla, and after your initial craze, mmos doing well increase their playerbase/ or maintain it.
FFXIV ARR is a sub based game, they are maintaining old subs, and adding new ones. They have more active acounts now, than they had after 3 months into the games relaunch.

Also note FFXIV, it was actually completely and totally a different game. Zones changed, main plotline is totally seperate, battle system is totally different. At best you can consider it a sequel.

point remains, number going down is not normal unless you have a cyclic upswing. It means something is wrong, this isnt the after launch effect anymore, these trends represent the long term effects of the games current design trends. Unless something big changes, the game is bleeding.

Now, if you are optimistic, that thing is an expansion, and it may totally alter the prospective, however nothing they have actually said points directly to an expansion, and even then, one has to wonder, what type of expansion would bring back the most old players, satisfy current players, and attract new players.

Does it feel like the design decsions show that they know how to keep old players/attract new players? I dont feel that the releases from this year are doing this well.
The reason people are so sour on the changes this year, is because it feels like the game is going in the wrong direction for many people. Its not just one thing, its the overall package, many have taken a wait and see approach, and now that we are 9 months into this year, i dont think it has been satisfying update wise for many people.

I think that the only way to get back old players is with expansion level content, so i didnt include it in the goal of the current updates.

MikaHR.1978:

Mister Midnight.9837:

MikaHR.1978:

Mister Midnight.9837:

I can’t even comprehend how you’d manage to ignore enough aggressive enemies that pursue you for 15 levels to not get these abilities just by defending yourself, but I guess some people just run past enemies?

Obviously I can’t say your experiences are invalid as much as you cannot attempt to invalidate mine.

It seems to me a reasonable middle-ground would have been to just reduce the number of kills (Because it isn’t about hits. One hit counts as much as 20 on a single kill in the old system) for those people that…don’t seem to fight enemies as much as most other players?

Most other players?

Please explain how you know what “most other players” do or like?

The way they changed it it quite seems most other players didnt like to JUST grind mobs for basic weapon functionality and they actually DID miss skills to play with for far too long. And when they finally got new weapon type – all over again.

Honestly this is a complaint I pretty much never saw, maybe it’s just me.

Your entire argument doesn’t even make sense, it is a FACT you will have at least two if not three of your first weapon skills before you leave that level 1 tutorial. You never had to wait until leveling up to acquire your weapon skills. You didn’t even have to TRY, you could have leeched one hit off an enemy someone else was fighting. Is there really any regular enemy in this game that takes very long to kill anyway?

Let me emphasize that point: You have to WAIT to get a weapon skill. You seriously have to WAIT until you are ALLOWED to have that, rather than being able to pick up any weapon you desire and smack a handful of heads to get yourself started. As you level up higher the process took even fewer kills. This was never something that took actual effort.

I’m pretty strong in my belief that you are greatly exaggerating the amount of combat it took, and frankly experiencing this process 18 times gives me a pretty strong standing point I think.

And i experienced it 16 times.

Tell you what:

ANet listen, implement small bar on weapon skills that will slowly fill up with xp as you gain it and the skill unlock will, just by big coicidence, unlock exatly when you ding lvl 2-4-7-10.

There you go, you get your little bar back since some peole are unusually fixated on it.

Ashen.2907:

MikaHR.1978:

Its very simple: if you didnt intentionally grind mobs you didnt get weapon skills for a long long time, MUCH longer than now

I didn’t intentionally grind mobs and got my weapon skills by level 5-6. Level 5-6 is, “a long long time, MUCH longer than now ?”

On all weapons?

every class has a different amount of weapons.
If you are level 15 weapon skills unlock super fast.
The old system adapted to the player better
if you have interest in a weapon early you can fully use it earlier
if you have little interest, it will be easy to unlock later when you have more experience.
as you use the weapon you get each skill the more you use the weapon

It actually makes a lot more sense, and is way more adaptive system than the current one.

For example lets take a new player who played like you played, you actually have less desire for combat anyway. you are more interested in non combat activities, and if you were new, you would have less knowledge about weaponskills.
therefore, it would be logical that you would learn them later. You dont need them, barely use them, and arent familiar with what any of them do.

The game actually better adapted to your actual experience with each weapon, and in combat before.
Now, a new player like yourself, who they believe can only handle skills at a rate at like 5 skills every 1-1.5 hours of combat, gets a whole bunch of skills at once with no explanation and no pacing. You have the experience of killing 10 monsters, and they threw 5x the unique weapon sets at you.

how is that more intructive/less options as players are ready for them/etc.

its really not at all. but it fits your playstyle better, that i cant argue. Too bad now everyone has to play your playstyle to get the most enjoyment.

Vayne.8563:

SidewayS.3789:

They know far more about the game and the players than anyone complaining about the changes does.

Nope. They dont. That’s why their game is losing ground, and above all thing, i think Anet is somekind of hardcore masochist.

And for these mindless fanboys : Keep it real, until you’ll realize, that this game is no longer the same game from 2 years ago.

Their game is losing ground? Evidence?

Their game is doing what almost all MMOs have to deal with in their lifetime. It’s dealing with aging. During the last quarter both ESO and Wildstar were released. I don’t really think, all things considered, they’re losing ground as fast as you think.

And yes, this game is NOT the same game from two years ago. 100% true. In some ways it’s better and some ways it’s worth. 2 years ago, we had neither fractals nor drytop, both of which I like. There were far more bugs back then then there are now. And a lot of the game has fundamentally changed. If you like the changes, the game is better than it was, and if you don’t like the changes, the game is worse.

But you know, I can’t think of any MMO I’ve ever played that was fundamentally the same two years after launch. Not one.

Hell, games like Final Fantasy had to be closed down and rewritten completely. Star Wars ToR went free to play. They’re making major changes to ESO and moved the launch of the console back because of it. Even Archeage has had fundamental changes from 1.0 to 1.2

most successful mmos begin an upward trend after about 2 years. they keep most old players, and bring some new ones, the drop off is what happens after the initial game hits. Then the strong ones build playerbase for a long time, till they get old and die.

look at ff14 ARR, its not everyones cup of tea, but its playerbase is growing, not shrinking.
look at WoW year 2.

sure a lot of failing edge case mmo continue to bleed players until they die, or have to do some huge change to adapt, if they successfully adapt, they then start gaining ground and getting more players. like lotro swtor, lineage, etc.

point is, losing players/profits at this point is not expected, its a sign of something going wrong.
How they adapt to the bleed, will determine the future of the game.

ahhh but i just realized the flaw of ingame survey, with ingame results.
They have lot of people who bought the game who dont actively play it. Ingame is also a biased population, in comparison to the amount of people who bought the game.
if they could get back even 1rd of the inactive people, they would have a substantially larger playerbase than they have now.

As someone said in a different post above, these “niche” audiences may actually be an extremely sizable portion of the people who bought the game and left, and catering to them should not be ignored.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Well, as amateur surveys go, this one is probably one of the better-worded ones. That is to say, the questions are less likely to skew results, although some of them would still need work. The other issue is that the sample population is not representative of the game’s population, it’s representative of the population that visits forums. As such, I would expect the survey to reflect the desires of the sample population. Given all that, the number that surprised me most was 42% “satisfied with the present direction of Guild Wars 2’s development and updates.” What this suggests is that in a sample representative of the whole population, the satisfaction rate would likely be much higher.

this is a kittenumption, you assume that the people we really have no numbers to reflect what people in game think. Many people assume people ingame love it, but almost all such evidence is anecdotal at best.

It is true however that the survey has selection bias, the key is we dont know in what direction or how a different sampling of information would change it, or even whether it would change it much.

What anet should really do is have a survey they link ingame that gives a pretty good reward (worth doing). Most people will do the survey if it has a good reward, and can help direct the games future, if they have any interest in the game at all.

Then they can get a lot of information.

laokoko.7403:

I finished map completion on 16 characters, and is working for my another batch of 8 profession.

I was wondering if anyone actually bother to do map completion on multiple alts. I heard a couple people with map completion on around 20 characters. But never heard anyone with more.

map completion was fun for me the first time. After that i pretty much ignore it, I find it very tedious. I prefer not to stick around any area once i outlevel it, and hearts really dont entertain me much, i generally do the easy ones, or the ones that can be completed while doing events/other things.

got 9 slots, and i am just getting completion for the second time for legendary crafting, still got all cities, and some WvW left. bleh

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

nethykins.7986:

Darfod.9375:

There have been “I am confused” posts, but these are more aimed at the quirks of GW2 – dodging / combo fields / downed state / etc.
These could have been addressed by having a reasonable tutorial section of gameplay (which could be skipped by those who don’t need it), rather than a wholesale re-working of the early stages of the game.

You may not have seen this, but a dev answered my question on this, basically saying the reason they’re not making an in-depth tutorial is because “It’s too hard”

JonPeters.5630:

nethykins.7986:

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but:
Don’t you think a well developed, clear and concise tutorial would have at least curbed some of the issues you have with new players “understanding” the game, instead of changing the core game pacing?

Actually not. Generally speaking tutorials are hard to implement, boring for experienced players and overwhelming for new players. The best tutorial is a system that slowly puts the content out to players because it gives experienced players something to achieve while reducing complexity and option shock for new players.

That’s . . . that’s not what he said . . .

he said tutorials are too hard for new players, and bore veterans.

and yet the system they instituted bores/annoys veterans greatly, and i dont really buy that it teaches people the basics any better.

MikaHR.1978:

Katz.5143:

CalamityO.2890:

Leveling alts(s) to level 10 and then unlocking all weapons skills by equipping each weapon is convenient. The rest really seriously do need a good looking in to.

I enjoyed leveling the weapon skills and looking at the list of weapons I could equip and then crafting or finding or somehow getting the weapons I hadn’t unlocked and unlocking the skills. It just sort of felt like a small little accomplishment.

Question: Is there some place where each change and its rationale is clearly explained by a developer? Other than an overall general “we are making it easier” statement?

And i hated grinding mobs for every single skill on every single weapon. I just felt it detracts from doing more fun stuff like events, hearts, collecting mats, doing POIs/Vistas….

Now i have the freedom to do whatever i want and dont have to endlessly grind mobs just to have basic weapon ability use.

you didnt have to endlessly grind monsters, you just had to kill them while doing whatever you were doing.
If you gained great exp while doing so, and was like level 10, the system then makes it so you get them with even less kills.

you can like whatever you like, but unlocking a weapon was no where near endlessly grinding mobs.
i guess the point is you hate killing monsters while you play. Ok thats a valid reason for yourself, but most other people dont mind killing monsters while doing hearts/events/getting mats from enemies, etc.

Behellagh.1468:

Because 2 1/2 tickets out of 25 keys is crap, right? That’s 150g for two chaos skins. 3g for the dyes.

And you mean Black Lion Salvage Kits right?

he got .5 tickets.
he said 2 black lion keys not tickets.

however, in my expereince its like 1/4-1/5 before, for scraps, so its pretty normal, and normal is pretty poor return unless you are lucky.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

tigirius.9014:

We’ve been saying for years now that they need a PTR for some things and what they’ve done to progression prior to max level is a perfect example of why. Even people like Vayne can’t deny this fact honestly without losing face in the process.

Yeah, I dunno about a PTR being a good idea for unrelated reasons. Primarily, I think it could lead to people quietly taking down information of what’s upcoming and preparing their Black Lion pocketbooks for it.

For the related reasons, I don’t know if the PTR would catch enough with enough players interested in taking part to realistically emulate live server loads. Remember, often times things break when too many players go trigger the same thing at once . . . that happened on Lost Shores, it happened with Dragon’s Reach Part 1.

Even if they limited PTR to feature patches it would be lightyears better then the testing they are doing now. I understand people’s desire not to see posts about content or story, I do and I agree totally with that but when it comes to game balance, or feature changes we need a PTR!

We don’t need one. With Anet’s release schedule it probably wouldn’t have helped much anyway. And it would force people to go there, or be left out of all the price gouging going on. First in, first to get the expensive stuff and make a fortune.

you dont keep any items you get in a PTR, its a seperate world. Usually they may allow you to copy your charachter in. but you cant take anything back.

The only advantage people get would be knowledge, which isnt even an advantage because people who are interested would be talking about it and sharing it in the forums, they already do this. BLTC TP wizards already are in a race from the first hour of a patch to buy sell and trade based on what people figured out would be valuable based on patch notes. Anyone who takes a wait and see approach is already late to the game of TP hustling.

Not to mention, PTRs change drops/rewards often in the process. They often have placeholder drops, because they update it as new changes come in. They tweak things back and forward based on input from day to day.

Also people say ptr doesnt give you the same load testing usually.
This is true, but the main flaws with these patches arent load testing. The main flaw is generally that they have things which would be found early in testing, or could get real feedback early on and save time and money.

not saying they must have one, but with their development style, the more feedback they can get during the development process the better. They also seem have a system whereby once they give something a pass, they dont revisit it for a long time. This means finding small issues earlier is better as well.

In this case, in this patch, we have collections, which would need to be tested as part of the feature patch. Those who get there, and those who read forums would have a huge advantage, because not everyone does. It would force people to the PTR, they’d feel they have to be there, even if they didn’t want to.

In a game like this where that kind of change completely changes the economy, a PTR would screw with too many people.

no, someone like dulfy would just post the info on a website, which is essentially what happens right now.
You dont take part in the BLTC culture do you? the people have already made predictions and have things ready to be sold within 10 minutes of logging on the day of the patch.

to be clear, if your goal is playing with economics, there is no advantage to being on the ptr, all you need is the info from the ptr, which will be readily available, probably in these very same forums. People who focus on the latest info and the economy already have a substantial advantage, that will not change.

If you are planning to make your bltc moves after reviewing the patch for a day, you are already too late to take advantage of the cutting edge economic changes.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Robert,

I won’t go into all the details of my job as it could take a while and be a little boring.

As the Studio Design Director I am responsible for the health, professional growth and design acumen of the Game Design and Game Director teams. I am also responsible for the game design quality/experience of everything that comes out of the studio. As I studio director i am also responsible for long term strategy planning of the studio and its overall health as well as other areas.

I am 100% aware of any design changes that go live and up to date on most other discipline focused changes to this environment. This is because we review content right from written design phase all the way to iterative reviews to deployment.

However in regard to NPE it is not currently functioning as designed and therefore it is very hard to have a conversation about it. Thus we are working on fixes and once they are deployed I am really looking forward to a discussion.

Hope this helps,

Chris

P.S: I didn’t think you were rude at all.

by deployed, do you mean once they are ingame?
While i understand in this case, speed may be a primary goal, It seems to me, it would be better to test proposed changes on sounding board of players, before implementing it in game.

Unless of course, you feel confident that you can lose very little in terms of time/money, and will deliver the same level of player satisfaction/design goals being met in the same time frame, without any player feedback until its in game.

in the past in this forum i have found just by reading the patch notes/proposed changes, players often accurately predict possible flaws with many of the systems.
For example the kicking of players and taking of instances now happening with dungeons
trait system being very redundant on second charachters
etc.
If knowing these things ahead of time would save time/energy at all, i think it would be worth posting ahead of time. At the very least it should be useful when talking about fixing/patching/adjusting existing systems that are currently in the process of being patched.

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

tigirius.9014:

We’ve been saying for years now that they need a PTR for some things and what they’ve done to progression prior to max level is a perfect example of why. Even people like Vayne can’t deny this fact honestly without losing face in the process.

Yeah, I dunno about a PTR being a good idea for unrelated reasons. Primarily, I think it could lead to people quietly taking down information of what’s upcoming and preparing their Black Lion pocketbooks for it.

For the related reasons, I don’t know if the PTR would catch enough with enough players interested in taking part to realistically emulate live server loads. Remember, often times things break when too many players go trigger the same thing at once . . . that happened on Lost Shores, it happened with Dragon’s Reach Part 1.

Even if they limited PTR to feature patches it would be lightyears better then the testing they are doing now. I understand people’s desire not to see posts about content or story, I do and I agree totally with that but when it comes to game balance, or feature changes we need a PTR!

We don’t need one. With Anet’s release schedule it probably wouldn’t have helped much anyway. And it would force people to go there, or be left out of all the price gouging going on. First in, first to get the expensive stuff and make a fortune.

you dont keep any items you get in a PTR, its a seperate world. Usually they may allow you to copy your charachter in. but you cant take anything back.

The only advantage people get would be knowledge, which isnt even an advantage because people who are interested would be talking about it and sharing it in the forums, they already do this. BLTC TP wizards already are in a race from the first hour of a patch to buy sell and trade based on what people figured out would be valuable based on patch notes. Anyone who takes a wait and see approach is already late to the game of TP hustling.

Not to mention, PTRs change drops/rewards often in the process. They often have placeholder drops, because they update it as new changes come in. They tweak things back and forward based on input from day to day.

Also people say ptr doesnt give you the same load testing usually.
This is true, but the main flaws with these patches arent load testing. The main flaw is generally that they have things which would be found early in testing, or could get real feedback early on and save time and money.

not saying they must have one, but with their development style, the more feedback they can get during the development process the better. They also seem have a system whereby once they give something a pass, they dont revisit it for a long time. This means finding small issues earlier is better as well.

chemiclord.3978:

I’ll add to this thread the further I go.

Because I hate myself, apparently, upon hearing the rage and fury from the online contingent (and knowing if there’s anything the online community loves, it’s irrational rage and hyperbole), I decided to put this “horrible”, “terrible”, “worst patch in history” to the test.

1-10

Because I really hate myself, I chose to level another ranger. Okay, in truth it’s because it’s my primary class and I felt it would be the most easy for me to notice not just significant, but also subtle changes as well.

The first thing I noticed was a complete inability to control my pet, as the pet bar didn’t unlock for me until level 5. Basically set to a guard state, but with no call back until it unlocked, potentially running from combat would be troublesome. However, since level 5 unlocked in about 20 minutes, it was a minor bother at best… not to mention I didn’t actually HAVE to run away from anyone.

Coming up soon… 11-20. Does a shift in unlocking utility skills cause me to blow a gasket? We’ll find out!

your analysis is way off.

If your goal or joy in low leveling was getting levels fast, then its essentially the same, if what you enjoyed low levels was the freedoms, options its totally different.
The best people can say about the new system is that its faster and easier. If that wasnt your main goal, its totally different.

Heres how i would play an alt usually before, and you ll see many of the joys are totally different, increasing boredom.

• starter area, try to kill as many enemies as i can without going out of my way on path to finishing zone, you get better skill unlocks faster in this area, so every kill is still uselful to your charachter although the experience to next level isnt the focus.
• When you finish the starter story, pick a different weapon, or a side weapon, unlocking other skills keeps you focused on aquiring new skills, and killing enemies.
  • picking up new weapons matters, for unlocking purposes, every time you get a new weapon you now have something new to try. (notice my focus of play is only slightly on effecient exp earning)
• By level 3 you probably have 1-2 weapon sets completely unlocked, but you still have other weapon sets, you have the option of using your favorite weapons or unlocking basic ones, it gets easier to unlock weapons he higher level you are.
• Your doing personal story now, its pretty easy at first, but the more above level you go the harder it is. If you actually get equipment, you can kill enemies pretty fast, but they can kill you with a single mistake, feels exciting. If you prefer it easy, you can do open world stuff at your leisure, you have options.
  • hit skill points in areas as soon as possible, this gives you options for more heals, and later, more options for utility skills. Gives extra goals you choose, taking the focus off just grinding exp as fast as possible.

Essentially the old system gives you multiple goals, with choices that effect how you level, and gives you different styles for doing it.

Now, killing any monster at all, that isnt in a dynamic event/heart is ineffecient. Event tagging is the name of the game, tag as many events just enough to get credit, and find new ones. Leveling is focused on hearts, which after the first time i played, i generally avoided unless i could do something else at the same time (like unlocking weapon skills, or dynamic events, or it was a fun heart) The entire goal of low level play now, is effeciently grinding exp. And thats why a lot of people hate it, because now they are watching the pot.

That said, is it the end of the world? not really. Does it change the focus of alt play from exploration and doing what you want, to essentially map completion and event tagging? yes. I mean yeah, its always been a fast way to level, but by gating abilities/traits to higher levels, they decrease the chances you are enjoying being lower level, so what you get overall is a less enjoyable leveling process, and a greater feeling that your primary focus should be leveling effeciently

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

I think part of the backlash of this patch comes from an overall discontent with part of the community, who was looking for a reason to attack.

I don’t see any reason why the answer needs to be so deepset. People got pretty upset about the trait changes and quite a few are still complaining about it, or have left the game over it.

This patch looks like more of the same: Trying to improve the experiences for newbies at the cost of what veterans have grown to love.

I think the discontent over stuff like this tends to look very sporadic and temperamental for a couple of reasons. 1) Most of the people who are genuinely angry about it are just going to leave. They aren’t going to stick around complaining until the end of time. 2) The people who stick around may just give up after a bit and give it some time – you only have so much energy to get bothered about things in your life.

Traits were in no way connected to newbs, but to statisfy certain specific group of whiners (and unfortunately they listened to them)

no one asked for trait locking.
some people suggested they should make NEW SKILLS that you could get through gameplay, opposed to only being able to pay 25 skill points (like the universal toxic heal) and that could act as horizontal progression.

They then decided to apply this to traits instead, because traits are easier to create. (some dev actually said this in an interview or something)They decided to apply it to old existing traits, and not just new ones, as a surprise twist, but most likely because they felt leveling needed more progression.
it was not a requested feature.

It was requested feature because a lot of people whined that reading a manual is crap and they should make it like GW1 skill hunting (becasue that was “awesome”)

It was a requested feature because a lot of people whined that "character is “complete” at level 30 and theres nothing after that"

That one WAS direct from feedback of the “community” and falls on back of the “community”

Enjoy.

you say things, but i actually read the CDI, it was about SKILLS, not traits, and people whining the game is complete at 30 were not the people even asking for horizontal progression. That would be vertical progression, which in the cdi, people were actively avoiding talking about even when the devs steered the cdi to that topic, and trying to talk about horizontal progression again.

I do know people who complained about game feeling complete at 30, but they were generally shouted down by a great many players for every person asking for that.

So no, it was not the masses they were listening to, they may have listened to one guy that a lot of other people were disagreeing with, but that seems to suggest they were just gonna do what they wanted anyhow, and were not following the desires of the people.

MikaHR.1978:

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

I think part of the backlash of this patch comes from an overall discontent with part of the community, who was looking for a reason to attack.

I don’t see any reason why the answer needs to be so deepset. People got pretty upset about the trait changes and quite a few are still complaining about it, or have left the game over it.

This patch looks like more of the same: Trying to improve the experiences for newbies at the cost of what veterans have grown to love.

I think the discontent over stuff like this tends to look very sporadic and temperamental for a couple of reasons. 1) Most of the people who are genuinely angry about it are just going to leave. They aren’t going to stick around complaining until the end of time. 2) The people who stick around may just give up after a bit and give it some time – you only have so much energy to get bothered about things in your life.

Traits were in no way connected to newbs, but to statisfy certain specific group of whiners (and unfortunately they listened to them)

no one asked for trait locking.
some people suggested they should make NEW SKILLS that you could get through gameplay, opposed to only being able to pay 25 skill points (like the universal toxic heal) and that could act as horizontal progression.

They then decided to apply this to traits instead, because traits are easier to create. (some dev actually said this in an interview or something)They decided to apply it to old existing traits, and not just new ones, as a surprise twist, but most likely because they felt leveling needed more progression.
it was not a requested feature.

Vayne.8563:

Your right. The debate isn’t going anywhere, because you’re stuck in a mindset that says gating = bad, even though gating existed in the game. Now you’re saying gating necessary skills. Well weapon swap is a necessary skill and it’s always been gated. It just wasn’t necessary at level 7. And controlling a pet isn’t necessary until level 5, or at least it certainly wasn’t for me.

But more to the point, you’re still saying this is bad for new players and old players, but there’s no actual evidence of that. Anet has tested this out and they seem to think it’s better for new players to the game. They could be right, they could be wrong.

But the tendency of people to think that most people play like them comes to mind here. I know for a fact that I don’t need any level gating at all and I’ll still learn a game. I know for a fact also my IQ is well above average, I’m a self starter and that I can figure things out without a clue.

I have a friend who cuts down trees for a living. Well and other landscaping jobs. He used to play GW 1 with me no problem. Linear, tutorial, the whole bit. He has no problem playing DDO which is considerably more complex. But he comes into Guild Wars 2 and he doesn’t really know what to do. He’s not having fun. Why? because hes’ the guy who LIKES to follow the arrow, of which there are many. He’s come home from work, he’s had a few beers, he wants to go kill stuff.

He’s not the only guy like that, not by a long shot. If you were a company would you want to cut off every player like that?

Life is about compromises. You can’t have it all. You can’t make a game really hard for guys like me and still have enough people to keep it viable long term. Wildstar launched to appeal to hard core raiders and dungeon guys and it’s reportedly very hard. It’s also not doing as well as expected. It’s so bad in fact that they’re already offering free server mergers and saying a megaserver is coming and asking people who like the game to hang in there. That’s a bad look for a two month old game.

We’re not the rule. We’re the exception. We don’t need gating or hand holding. Many do. Those people are necessary to keep decent sized games running in this day and age. Even Eve, which is the most successful sandbox MMO to date has just had to close it’s California office.

Realistically, the bit of inconvenience I’m getting from it is worth the chance for new people like my friend who will spend money in the gem store and he’ll happily run around shooting stuff…even if he never beats Arah explorable mode or gets to a high level fractal.

I find it hard to believe that you can think that the mere existence of those buttons they dont have to use would cause your friend, and others to quit the game.
its one thing not knowing what a button does, its another thing for it to cripple you and cause you to uninstall.

for someone who doesnt understand the buttons, but doesnt like mousing over things and reading, they wont press any f1-f4 pet abilities, for those that do, they find fun new abilities they can use.

Once again this isnt about needing these skills to survive, this is about having access to skills that will probably be of some entertainment to you.

Hey, i can make my pet attack something before i attack something
hey i can make my pet attack whatever target i want
hey i can make my pet come back

and if you cant figure this out, you are playing the same exact way that you would be if you couldnt see the buttons.

there is no benefit to your new friend that those buttons dont exist, i dont believe that your friend was scared by its existence.

so there really isnt a logical reason that anyone should be denied 27 minutes of a more fun experience, for your friends benefit, because honestly he gained no benefit from skill locking f skills to level 5.

he may like a shiny shaky box, and he may like new gear, but he didnt gain anything by not having access to those skills for 5 levels.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

Nokaru.7831:

phys.7689:

But would you prefer a game designed such that it makes 80% of the people who play it disatisfied?

democracy may not be perfect, but leadership that enflames 80% of the people usually leads to revolution.

The best argument against large-scale democracy is just watching 2 minutes of Twitch Plays Pokemon.

If this game was designed democratically, we’d never see things like Liadri or the revamp to Tequatl and the Crown Pavilion.

If you want to change the game, then enter the gaming industry and become a designer. This might come as a shock to you, but It takes more than just having an opinion and clicking on a poll to actually make a good game.

And you still miss the point. Saying people dont know what they want/what is good is fine and dandy, i agree to an extent, but thinking that any small group of people will automatically make the descions that will improve the game as a whole, is a bad premise.

And no matter how good a game designer you think you are, if 80% of the people who play your game, thinks your latest design was unsatisfactory, you will fail.

lets say dark souls II sold 2 million copies,
new dark souls team makes dark souls 3
80% of people dont like it
you have failed as a designer, democracy or not.

now, someone can try to appeal to 80%, and in doing so make a game that 80% of people dislike as well, he is also a fail, but neither invaildates the feedback that 80% of your intended audience is unsatisfied with your product.

80% people of what exactly?

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

thats an irrelvant statistic?
what exactly is your point?

Its very relevant, as you want to push some random 80% which definitely isnt representative of anything but tiny group inside a small group.

Loudmouths on forums account from noting to tiny. Same goes for forum polls.

loudmouths on forum account for infinitely more than no other information at all accounts for.

Lets say you get some pants at a store, than you think women love and will be attracted to.
80% of women you ask say its distasteful and detracts from you
10% tell they like it.

now you can then say i only asked 400 women, and there are 1 million women in the city, my data is useless, but it more useful than the other data you have

But thats not what youre doing here so yor analogy is bogus.

You have overwhemingly skewed sample on forums. Its like forming statistics on 400 women that came back to your shop (and you sold millions). How many times did you return to shop to give praise to the product?

what do you mean by return to a shop, people often return to shops they like?

I edited, return to the shop JUST to complain or praise the product, not for anything else.

How many times you bought something, were satisfied with it and went back to the shop with no other intention than to say “i just adore your product”?

its actually pretty common when you give them something they like a lot. I tend to get a lot of positive feedback . You also can tell by people returning to the place of business.
think about this, many people here have played many alts, they were return customers of the old system. Now they are complaining customers, many people who in general are on the opposite sides of forum politics are way more unified in this, people who never logged into the forums are now complaining when they never felt the need before.

let me put it like this, you dont know you have a bad product when 3% of people return it, but when 10% return it, and go out of there way to tell friends they dislike it, and you usually get 2% of people coming back to say they like it, and now you get .01% of people saying they like it.

Its fair to say you have an inferior product to your other products.

you can ignore it, but a lot of data suggests that this is not a favorable change.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

Nokaru.7831:

Take a look at this thread: Dungeon Patch Discussion 1/28

Wow look at all of those people upset! If only the designers listened to them! What a blunder! The thread is full of people complaining about them removing “res-rushing” in dungeons.

If this game was designed by the community, this garbage would still be in the game, where players throw themselves at bosses over and over again until it dies. Sometimes designers have to do what they think is right, even if many players disagree with it. If it pans out: Great. If it doesn’t: Learn from your mistake, and try something different. (Or hire a new designer)

The fallacy you are making is you think a popular decision is the correct decision. Most of the time it isn’t.

this is why forums are actually more valuable than just what is popular, because the people supplying their opinions also have to supply general reasoning. Knowing their reasoning or understanding what is at the heart of the desire, is the key to designing a great solution.

Point is a good solution does not ignore people, it considers them, and if at the end of the day everyone hates your solution, its not a success, even if you thought you had really good reasons.

You stilldont get it.

Forums will never be sample for measuring success, let alone make decisions on. Forums represent tiny group which isnt in same category as 95%+ of playerbase.

first of all, im pretty sure he didnt just post that poll here, but also on reddit, which people dont specifically go to to complain.
second of all, when you compare this feedback to other forum polls that have been posted, you very rarely find these type of numbers. its usually a lot more balanced even within the forum.

third of all compare it to how many people are coming to complain on the forums compared to other things.

if you usually only get 20 people complaining, and you instead get 80 people, going out of there way to complain about that specific thing, it tells you something.

Notice how many people felt like weighing in on this poll, most of the straw polls here are lucky to get 200 people to respond. This poll is over 1000 people

you are ignoring a lot of information hoping that the 95% that you have no info on secretly love it when a lot of indicators are not coming up positive.
yes statistics are tricky, yes they can be skewed, but when your statistics show something you believe to be innacurate, you have to actually go, investigate and see if they are, and why they are.

then there goes the other side, forget statistics, the reasoning people provide for disliking the systems, and how it clashes with its intended purposes are also solid. What actual reasoning tells you its a good idea to gate skills behind leveling in this game? how does it enhance the game play experience? Why is it reasonably better to get an elite at 40 than 30, your final utility at 35 instead of 20? to only have access to 4 skills for 40 minutes?
what about those things enhances the gameplay?

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

Nokaru.7831:

phys.7689:

But would you prefer a game designed such that it makes 80% of the people who play it disatisfied?

democracy may not be perfect, but leadership that enflames 80% of the people usually leads to revolution.

The best argument against large-scale democracy is just watching 2 minutes of Twitch Plays Pokemon.

If this game was designed democratically, we’d never see things like Liadri or the revamp to Tequatl and the Crown Pavilion.

If you want to change the game, then enter the gaming industry and become a designer. This might come as a shock to you, but It takes more than just having an opinion and clicking on a poll to actually make a good game.

And you still miss the point. Saying people dont know what they want/what is good is fine and dandy, i agree to an extent, but thinking that any small group of people will automatically make the descions that will improve the game as a whole, is a bad premise.

And no matter how good a game designer you think you are, if 80% of the people who play your game, thinks your latest design was unsatisfactory, you will fail.

lets say dark souls II sold 2 million copies,
new dark souls team makes dark souls 3
80% of people dont like it
you have failed as a designer, democracy or not.

now, someone can try to appeal to 80%, and in doing so make a game that 80% of people dislike as well, he is also a fail, but neither invaildates the feedback that 80% of your intended audience is unsatisfied with your product.

80% people of what exactly?

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

thats an irrelvant statistic?
what exactly is your point?

Its very relevant, as you want to push some random 80% which definitely isnt representative of anything but tiny group inside a small group.

Loudmouths on forums account from noting to tiny. Same goes for forum polls.

loudmouths on forum account for infinitely more than no other information at all accounts for.

Lets say you get some pants at a store, than you think women love and will be attracted to.
80% of women you ask say its distasteful and detracts from you
10% tell they like it.

now you can then say i only asked 400 women, and there are 1 million women in the city, my data is useless, but it more useful than the other data you have

But thats not what youre doing here so yor analogy is bogus.

You have overwhemingly skewed sample on forums. Its like forming statistics on 400 women that came back to your shop (and you sold millions). How many times did you return to shop to give praise to the product?

what do you mean by return to a shop, people often return to shops they like?

Nokaru.7831:

Take a look at this thread: Dungeon Patch Discussion 1/28

Wow look at all of those people upset! If only the designers listened to them! What a blunder! The thread is full of people complaining about them removing “res-rushing” in dungeons.

If this game was designed by the community, this garbage would still be in the game, where players throw themselves at bosses over and over again until it dies. Sometimes designers have to do what they think is right, even if many players disagree with it. If it pans out: Great. If it doesn’t: Learn from your mistake, and try something different. (Or hire a new designer)

The fallacy you are making is you think a popular decision is the correct decision. Most of the time it isn’t.

this is why forums are actually more valuable than just what is popular, because the people supplying their opinions also have to supply general reasoning. Knowing their reasoning or understanding what is at the heart of the desire, is the key to designing a great solution.

Point is a good solution does not ignore people, it considers them, and if at the end of the day everyone hates your solution, its not a success, even if you thought you had really good reasons.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

Nokaru.7831:

The last thing I’d want is a game designed democratically.

Absolute truth.

“What players want” is such a hogwash. If you ask 1000 players what they want youll get 5000 different stuff.

And if you pick 3 to make youll get 997 saying they dont listen to community and 3 saying you are lazy and didnt make ALL they wanted

the skill of being a good engineer/designer is figuring out what people need/want from feedback and giving them solutions that work.

Figuring out what a project needs, is not always about listening to what everyone says, but if when it actually comes to fruition, everyone dislikes it, you have failed at making a product.

Who is this “everyone”? You?

the quote you made was from a hypothetical situation, as it was a response to a hypothetical, conceptual idea, which is that democracy is not a good means for doing anything.
so since the poster is speaking in terms of concepts, and not numbers, i was also arguing from a conceptual standpoint, which would represent the theoretical democracy that actually does take every revelevant person’s opinion in to consideration.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

Nokaru.7831:

phys.7689:

But would you prefer a game designed such that it makes 80% of the people who play it disatisfied?

democracy may not be perfect, but leadership that enflames 80% of the people usually leads to revolution.

The best argument against large-scale democracy is just watching 2 minutes of Twitch Plays Pokemon.

If this game was designed democratically, we’d never see things like Liadri or the revamp to Tequatl and the Crown Pavilion.

If you want to change the game, then enter the gaming industry and become a designer. This might come as a shock to you, but It takes more than just having an opinion and clicking on a poll to actually make a good game.

And you still miss the point. Saying people dont know what they want/what is good is fine and dandy, i agree to an extent, but thinking that any small group of people will automatically make the descions that will improve the game as a whole, is a bad premise.

And no matter how good a game designer you think you are, if 80% of the people who play your game, thinks your latest design was unsatisfactory, you will fail.

lets say dark souls II sold 2 million copies,
new dark souls team makes dark souls 3
80% of people dont like it
you have failed as a designer, democracy or not.

now, someone can try to appeal to 80%, and in doing so make a game that 80% of people dislike as well, he is also a fail, but neither invaildates the feedback that 80% of your intended audience is unsatisfied with your product.

80% people of what exactly?

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/#comments

thats an irrelvant statistic?
what exactly is your point?

Its very relevant, as you want to push some random 80% which definitely isnt representative of anything but tiny group inside a small group.

Loudmouths on forums account from noting to tiny. Same goes for forum polls.

loudmouths on forum account for infinitely more than no other information at all accounts for.

Lets say you get some pants at a store, than you think women love and will be attracted to.
80% of women you ask say its distasteful and detracts from you
10% tell they like it.

now you can then say i only asked 400 women, and there are 1 million women in the city, my data is useless, but it more useful than the other data you have