Guild Wars 2

Deleena.3406:

I have no problem with raids (long as they never required or become the only new PvE content) its only bad imo if it becomes the main/only way to progress.

Agreed- raids are fine if they don’t detract too much from other content.

As long as raids can be supported within the existing resource envelope, they are probably a net win for the game. I don’t raid myself (I hate waiting around for the raid to start or reassemble after a wipe) but they can be useful for the total game package, even if not all that many folks partake.

One of GW2’s strengths (more so pre-HoT and hopefully soon to be the case again) was that there was always a lot of different content, something for every mood and style. Raids can be part of that.

Paulytnz.7619:

Thoughts lol?

Interesting analysis and good to see they tried to balance things. I don’t think things need to be perfectly balanced but given the healthy push to have good female role models and paths in STEM, probably a good call to have Taimi be female.

Of course, she is a bit pig headed at times but part of role equality is to show faults as well as a strengths.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Nobody cares…

If you like the game play it. If you do not, then go do something else.

I care. I don’t want to spend money on a game that is dying. I’d like it to have a horizon of at last 18 months.

I think their results were not catastrophic but were weaker than desired. Thus the AMA and staff changes. Reading between the lines: the CEO has been ordered to fix the problem. As everything he said is something I’d like to see fixed, I’m all for it. I have hopes they will sort this out soon enough.

I have to say that acknowledging some of the obvious shortcomings goes a long way for making me happy as a player. Even acknowledging that some things won’t come out as quickly as they want helps by setting expectations.

Put another way, I know it takes time to make changes and roll out content, I just want to know they intend to make changes that address what I don’t like about HoT. Until now, there was little reason to hope things would improve.

From a marketing point of view, this sort of communication should have happened much earlier as it would have helped stem the bleeding but better late than never. (And I’m sure there is some behind the scenes stuff that affected the timing and the personnel changes).

I have hope for the game again, and am much more willing to give it time to sort itself out while playing, which includes a willingness to buy gems again.

Vayne.8563:

Actually I think you’re right. There are less people in cities now, because there are more places to go to sell and get to your bank, including Guild Halls and the PvP Lobby. I’m often at the PvP lobby even though I never PvP, because it’s convenient.

Prices being low is often a sign of more supply, which could very well mean more people farming.

My own personal experience is that my guild is busier now than it was a year ago.

Perception is great. Interpreting that perception is just as difficult as trying to interpret numbers. There are all sorts of things that change how things are perceived.

In my mind the only thing that can really be judged is WvW, because there are three zones with no overflows. But even then some WvW players could be playing Edge of the Mists because they don’t like the new borderlands.

Your alternate conclusion may be correct, which is why I’m not certain of my analysis but, as my personal opinion based on my personal observations, I think pop is lower. I’m sure we’ll get a better sense in the months ahead. Useful data points will include NCSoft earnings announcements and whether they force more changes.

On a somewhat related note, one of my TP data points is the price on dyes. They are much lower than I recall. This could be more dyes (not necessarily more of a given type, maybe more different types). Could be partially related to 3 year anniversary gifts. Could be a drop in demand. I see a similar thing on skins. Could be result of multiple 2-ticket skins on sale or recent events or could be fewer purchasers. I’m happy enough- got several things I’ve had my eyes on for some time but it does make me wonder.

Could be GH but I’m not sure GH would really drive the prices down although I suppose that could be it. Just not sure money going to GHs would have gone to skins and dyes- not something guilds usually by and most individuals probably donate mats not gold- I did anyway.

What’s your take on it? I’ve been dying to ask (pun intended :P )

IndigoSundown.5419:

See how that works? That could all be a function of when, where and what I play, just as others’ anecdotes about population decline could be. Such data is not reliable because individual players do not have large enough sampling power.

No, not really

You can go look in stats tables and see what sort of confidence levels you have based on the nature of the data and number of samples. You can make reasonable conclusions on fairly small sample sizes.

Saying you can’t draw any conclusions because you don’t have all the numbers is counter to what most businesses, pollsters, insurance folks, manufacturing lines, and weather predicters do every day. There’s entire industries based on interpreting imperfect data.

Are they 100% right? Of course not, but predictions based on partial data are accurate enough to be useful that people stake large sums of money on them.

I’ve offered my opinion, based on what I think is okay if not stellar data. Doesn’t seem like I’m the only one making that conclusion. Time will tell.

Vayne.8563:

This entire thread is a question that has no definition proof. There’s no way to know if there are more people playing or less people.

That mentality will send statisticians screaming

In lieu of hard stats, which Anet could provide but then again, what game company does, you can still infer activity from the presence of people in various places. Many of us put in enough hours over the years to have a sense for what typical populations are.

I took a break, have come back to dabble on dailies and a little pvp. My sense: population is lower.

Cities seem to have less than half the folks around at my usual times. Trading post prices are surprisingly low for a number of things I’m interested in. Whenever I pop into SW or a HoT zone or really anywhere in the world, I see fewer people.

Now, my one world recent event did end up with a good number of folks. The TP money could be going to things I don’t track. Folks could be in mysterious, taxi-full zone instances that I haven’t blundered into. All my former guildies could have been too busy to carry on their previous fairly noisy chatting.

In short, all the data points I look at to gauge population could be misleading… but I kinda doubt it. From what data I have available, the population clearly seems lower. I am 100% certain? No, but I’m fairly certain it is substantially lower.

Raziel.4216:

Gem income per active player is good.

But how is active player defined? And how have the number of active players held up? If active players is >10 hours per week, I would not be surprised that the gem sales have held up. But how many formerly active players are now below what ever threshold they set as active player?

If I were in marketing, I would set a fairly high active player threshold because you know that above a certain level of play per week, engagement and therefore gem purchases will hold steady. It’s kind of a skewed stat though if you don’t report how your active player base is doing.

Palador.2170:

This is a game, it’s supposed to be fun. If someone has to play it for several hours before they start having that fun, then there’s something really wrong. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to know you’ll not find something to your liking no matter how long you give it.

So many people forget that this is a game. We pay for an entertaining experience. We have other options for our time and entertainment dollars.

Yes, creating good content is hard but that’s the business Anet is in. I don’t really care for HoT but I do like GW2 and hope it can survive what at best we know from NCsoft’s earnings release was a weak expansion launch. Q1 will unfortunately not look any better.

I’m sure GW2 won’t get the plug pulled but I’m much less sure there won’t be staffing cuts, which will just accelerate an already downward spiral. What really surprises me is that a group of devs that seemed to have such a great vision and steady hand could have made these decisions.

ChanxThexMan.1078:

If people don’t like the game, that’s cool. If people do like it, that too is cool. But if you don’t wanna play then just don’t play. Who cares if it’s thriving or dying? Enjoy the game or go do something else if you’re not.

I think those who don’t like it hope the dropping population (which means dropping Anet revenue) will cause them to change it.

I went away for a few months and came back about a week ago, although very casually back, maybe I do my dailies every other day. One data point on population: the cities seem to have about one third their former population. Maybe people are off else where but the population does seem to have dropped.

I recently returned; it’s been entertaining enough but I have to say, there seem to be a lot fewer players in any one zone and there seems to be serious deflation in the trading post… a sign of declining players I think

It seems obvious once you find it but took me a while too

Whispering.8672:

Hello All!

I have been away from Guild Wars 2 for the better part of a year now to to real life responsibilities but am looking to come back. I still have plenty of stuff to finish from the core game but wanted to know if the expansion would be worth it right now when I still have plenty to keep me busy in core game?

Any pros and cons would be appreciated!

Thanks!

It’s definitely a mixed bag. Some people love it. Some people hate it. I’m in the middle. If nothing else, HoT definitely changes the basic play. It’s a lot more like other ncsoft games now- push for the gemstones (i.e., cash outlay), more grindy content. But it has some upsides as well, as many have listed.

I’d try it out non-HoT for a while before spending the money on HoT. Plus, there’s probably going to be some sales before long.

Vayne.8563:

So it may not make a different to you, but let’s not pretend that all altoholics are unanimous that the changes you suggest would be better.

Thought I was pretty specific about some changes that might get me back in but if you want to read it as demanding the changes for all altoholics, enjoy the strawman.

Good post- waiting is one of the things I hate in any game. I don’t like a movie that spends the first hour doing little. Why would I want a game that makes me wait around for the fun?

Plus, a lot of the waiting seems to be present just to slow things so I don’t notice lack of content. That was not much fun in 1990s adventure games and it’s not much fun now.

To me, nothing says “dev is stuck for ideas” then a time gate. I can see why a dev with finite resources might be tempted to do a time gate. What puzzles me is why players put up with so much standing around waiting for something to happen.

Mahou.3924:

I switch between my characters a lot because I can’t find a profession where I feel the most comfortable with.

I wonder if that’s at the bottom of it: those who like a lot of characters (like me) may find all the HP acquisition and time gates very daunting on multiple toons. If you are doing it more “one time” on a single toon, it may be a different experience entirely.

I left GW2 some year ago when I stopped having fun with my herd of characters and came back when they made account wide wallets, dyes and outfits. Maybe some similar change in the future might make it altoholic friendlier. The masteries are already account wide but the map exploration and HP are certainly not.

Anyway, something for me to keep an eye on in the updates. If they do something that seems to make running lots of toons friendlier again, I may give it a try.

BTW for those who say each character should go with the full effort, what difference does it make to you or the game company on what toon I’m spending my time if I supporting the game through my money and my presence? Why is 20 hours on one toon better than 5 hours on each of 4 toons?

FogLeg.9354:

The people who liked GW2 were expecting more of same kind of content. And HoT is really not same thing at all, so players complain.

Not sure what this thread is about. If you have customers who are not satisfied with your product or service, they can ask for refund. Is this really such a surprise for you?

Most customers are not going to ask for a refund. They will, however, start going to different restaurants. In the game world, there’s lots of other stuff out there for those who no longer find GW2 fun. I think the complaining comes from the fact players used to really like the old “menu” and are sad they have to find a new restaurant aka game.

I left because I no longer enjoyed logging in. Obviously many do not have this problem with HoT. But I won’t be back until most of the content gates are gone because those mostly exist to force me to repeat content or wait around doing nothing for long periods of time. I’ve got enough arbitrary gates and waiting around in the “real world” part of my life. Why would I ever want to do that in a game?

Hate is such a strong word… I don’t hate HoT at all. I just don’t enjoy playing it, at all.

What’s disappointing is that I used to love playing GW2. There was a lot that appealed and I could do whatever I wanted to without too much of a wait at any one thing.

The expansion had a few things I liked but my game experience became: try a few HoT zones to find nothing happening, try WvW to find more of nothing happening, try some pvp ( no longer any fun), try some old world to find it mostly nerfed and empty, logoff early. Soon I was just doing dailies. Soon thereafter I wasn’t even logging in.

I’ve moved on to other games but I do have fond memories of GW2 and may try it again if enough changes but I guess I just don’t really expect that to happen at this point. There seems to be zero acknowledgment from Anet that GW2 needs anything but a few tweaks here and there. Tweaks aren’t enough to bring me back.

I’m glad some folks like it. I don’t and I’m clearly not alone.

I walked away a few weeks ago but have enough fond memories of GW2 that I peek in on the forums from time to time to see how things are going.

Even with all the posts, pro and con, I can’t quite sum up why I don’t enjoy GW2 anymore. Ultimately, it just comes down to “fun per hour”. Before I stepped away, I was logging in, poking around for something I’d enjoy (and I like a fair range of things: wvw, spvp, pve, farming but instances not so much). After finding unsatisfying pvp, some half empty maps with nothing progressing, noticing my progress on masteries going no-where, getting annoyed by a slow map completion or nearly all the adventures, it was more fun to do something else.

I do hope things change but it also feels to me like, if they even decide to try to change things in a direction I like, it might be 6-12 months.

Fortunately, while the MMO world isn’t too rich atm, there are things worth spending a few months on and single player games offer lots of options.

Just saddened by the whole thing and puzzled that:
a) they thought this was a good idea
b) the apparent lack of realization that in 2015, consumers have a plethora of entertainment options. Using 1990-style content gates just isn’t going to work

Bolbo Baggins.8594:

Thats why im slowly going back to single player games. Never used steam in the past, love it now, ton of sales with good games.

Yep! I don’t think I would have noticed Age of Wonders III without HoT or joined my friend for some fun time in Tera without HoT, so maybe the xpac isn’t all bad

Agemnon.4608:

It isn’t about easy rewards per se, only proportional rewards.

Exactly. Or put another way, GW2 is a game, a form of entertainment. Skew the effort/reward ratio the wrong way and it becomes less entertaining than the vast array of other entertainments we have in the year 2015.

DeWolfe.2174:

It’s not the right word. Most of the complaints are from the gates that inhibit players from doing. That’s not being lazy, that’s players being annoyed by artificially being held back.

What is lazy is using arbitrary gates to spin out limited content. I’m an old time gamer. I’ve seen it long ago in the old adventure games that could be done in a few hours if they didn’t put some arbitrary puzzle in the game to slow players down.

I don’t mind working on something. I do mind sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for something to be ready. Or running zone events over and over again. I don’t care about the precursor crafting (I was looking forward to the scavenger hunt but not the way they implemented it. That said, I’ve never been about doing legendaries anyway). I do care that it is hard to fine something fun to do that isn’t repetitive. And this is from someone who farmed the old WoW frost sabre mount.

As ANET said long ago, the game should be about playing it your way. Now, I need to spend a lot of time doing things I don’t like doing IF I kept playing it. But this is 2015, there are many other things out there. I’ve yet to find anything as fun as GW2 but there’s plenty of things more fun than HoT.

Spirited Was Eceni.3869:

My point? ANet please please please save this game. I used to love this game, I like most of our guildies, I want to do stuff solo or with them again like we used to do before you destroyed the magic. I really don’t want to leave Tyria but I just can’t take this level of boredom for much longer. I’m holding on with the real hope you’ll produce something but I have no idea what that could be. Please just do something.

Yeah… I did as you described for a while, then got bored with it. Now I just monitor the game without logging on. I’m sure they do actually have some interest in fixing things but the trouble is that fixing it will take a very, very long time. Look at the recent post on precursors- even removing something as basic as not requiring events to fail to fill out the collections is going to take some time.

Hopefully, in time, it will be playable again but there’s always new stuff coming out. Many who left, perhaps me, won’t come back if we find something else as fun as the old GW2.

This would make a very good case study for an MBA with a focus on the video game industry, except that there are already many examples of companies in the game world or out of it, assuming they knew what their customers wanted and finding out they were very, very wrong.

Spirited Was Eceni.3869:

My point? ANet please please please save this game. I used to love this game, I like most of our guildies, I want to do stuff solo or with them again like we used to do before you destroyed the magic. I really don’t want to leave Tyria but I just can’t take this level of boredom for much longer. I’m holding on with the real hope you’ll produce something but I have no idea what that could be. Please just do something.

Yeah… I did as you described for a while, then got bored with it. Now I just monitor the game without logging on. I’m sure they do actually have some interest in fixing things but the trouble is that fixing it will take a very, very long time. Look at the recent post on precursors- even removing something as basic as not requiring events to fail to fill out the collections is going to take some time.

Hopefully, in time, it will be playable again but there’s always new stuff coming out. Many who left, perhaps me, won’t come back if we find something else as fun as the old GW2.

This would make a very good case study for an MBA with a focus on the video game industry, except that there are already many examples of companies in the game world or out of it, assuming they knew what their customers wanted and finding out they were very, very wrong.

Wolfeng.3784:

tl,dr: If you could change everything in the game to make it your masterpiece, your dream game, what would it be?

It was pretty close to my dream game pre-HoT. Honestly, I was fine with a new zone every now and then but given what I paid for it, I would have liked more zones and much more in the way of new skins.

I don’t need the adventures. Masteries are fine, as long as not much is gated behind them or if you could earn them a bit faster with XP in any zone. The specializations are fun, no problem with that.

For me, what kills it is the new zones are just no fun- between having to catch them at the right time and then having to hang in them for a long time makes it tedious. I’m fine with needing some coordination but they seemed to have tuned it wrong. In SW, you could start small and build up to something fun and worthwhile. In HoT, if you don’t start big, you don’t hit good tiers in time and it isn’t worth the trouble. Plus, the zones are just “sticky” very hard to navigate on a toon new to the zone.

In the end, perfect game: remove all arbitrary gates (be they time or masteries), make the zone events more forgiving on timing, scale back the trash mobs because they are just a finger in the eye to solo players (and folks who want to level multiple characters).

I don’t care about raids (fine with me that they are in but I won’t do them). I would like dungeons, fractals and wvw to be viable again. Pvp was fine enough for me in HoT so no real complaint there (except that most of the HoT rank finishers were kind of weak)

I loved GW2. I will keep an eye on it but pretty sure, if they do change it enough to bring me back, it will take them a year or so to do so, which worries me: if they don’t fix it, then it means other players like the new paradigm enough they don’t need to, which is fine but makes me sad (I did really enjoy it for a time) or alternately, in a year they will have lost so many players it won’t be worth fixing, which also makes me sad.

I’m hoping, too. But I think this will take months to fix and I won’t even do dailies until then because maybe it will be 18 months. Then again, maybe their game stats will shake up their assumptions.

Lord Kuru.3685:

But with HoT and the new grind associated to all aspects of it, the casuals don’t feel like they’re accomplishing anything when they do have time to log in.

That’s the core of it for me: with the time I can devote to the game, I don’t feel like I’m making any progress.

And, stepping back, it feels like the reason I am not making progress is that they have added a whole lot of grind and arbitrary content gates to keep me from moving quickly.

I’m an old time gamer. I’ve seen this before. This feels just like devs dribbling out content because they can’t afford to make more content. One thing that is a red flag for this for me? The fact that they are very few new skins in the game. I was willing to live with outfits in the gem store for the last 8 months with the hope/thought that they were making lots of cool new gear (non-outfits, real gear) in HoT. But that actually isn’t the case. New skins is not all that I look for but I think the lack of new skins is very
symptomatic of the whole issue.

Vavume.8065:

I’m sorry but this is a learn to play issue.

No, it’s a “the game changed materially” in play style issue. If you like the change, great. If you wanted more of what it used to be like, I guess you’re out of luck.

Kraggy.4169:

Not at all .. they designed HOT for the vocal minority that say they want 1990s group-or-die over world content then implemented Masteries in such a way everyone else who doesn’t particularly care for that type of game has to endure it or give up and they know most won’t give up due to their addiction.

Speak for yourself. I’m quite happen to not log in and watch forums for when they come to their senses… Even with most players logging in, I bet their gem store purchases have dropped.

Aytheist.9476:

Solo players cannot advance in the new content, and any decent publisher would disclose such a fundamental change prior to taking your money.

OP is correct. The xpac is not solo friendly. Sure, if you are lucky you might find a reasonable map in the earlier zones. But more likely, you will find a map that has a few languishing events and not enough commanders to progress.

It is called Guld wars after all, yet they have been very solo friend for a long time. To suddenly change seems rather foolish and I’d bet a fair amount of money that their play-time stats support my statement. So, after some tweaks and maybe some whining from the die-hards and the fan-boys, they will fix things. If they don’t, well, they aren’t the only game in town. I have enjoyed the game and will monitor things but I no longer log in, not even for “I’m still here” tap. Color me not pleased but hopeful they come to their sense.

knives.6345:

There will always be complaints because some people think the game is made for themselves instead of for the community.

More like I will spend money on things I like and move on to things as necessary. I suppose it is fine if they no longer like my money. There’s lots of other things out there, including nice refreshes of older games. That said, Anet is a for-profit company so driving away a certain class of players does seem odd. But, they can do what they want and I can do what I want. I have enjoyed GW2 enough that I will keep an eye in the game but unless they make material changes, it is off to greener pastures.

Is the game made for me? No, of course not. It is made for a range of players. The range of players does seem to have shifted so it looks like I also need to shift to another game.

Anet did suggest/hint before HoT launch that guilds would matter a lot more, so need to give them credit for that. That said, it is a lot less solo friendly.

Me, I vote with my feet. ATM I don’t even login for dailies There are many other games out there, including some 8 year old games that are more fun than GW2 is atm. Maybe they will fix it, maybe they won’t. I will certainly check in gain if they promise some solo-friendly changes but otherwise I will go elsewhere, as will may fairly game-company friendly credit card. They are a for-profit company. They know how much I spend. They can bring me back or not, as they see fit.

Happy about HoT? No, absolutely not. Sad about losing a game I used to enjoy? Yes.

Cyninja.2954:

- accept that you don’t HAVE to get every reward there is in 1 week time

It feels more like I can’t get any reward with a week’s time.

I’m with the OP.

The game has changed and not for the better. It’s a matter of degree and rate of progress. Across the board, everything does feel both more expensive and too time consuming to attain.

I liked in the pre-HoT world the feeling that I could do what I wanted here and there and still feel like I was getting something. Now, I pop into a new zone and I’m hitting at the wrong time or there’s not enough people around to do events and I can’t do anything on my own anyway. Plus when I can find events, they quickly get repetitive. The time-in-zone rewards are actually a disincentive for me: what I need to hang around for an hour doing the same things before loot picks up? No thanks.

I am amazed at how quickly things flipped from being an enjoyable game with many things to do, as suited my mood, to it being too much time between ‘fun’. This is a game after all, not a job.

I guess it was a sign a few weeks ago when I decided to sell all my horded mats and just farm gold since the precursor path seemed too tedious and expensive and I wasn’t going to raid. But farming for gold when I don’t really see anything I want to buy got old pretty quickly as well.

I’ll peek in from time to time to see if they fixed things. But obviously there are plenty who like it so I won’t hold my breath.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Platforming content used to be optional. Now with adventures, they have dangled mastery points behind this Nintendo crap.

I loved the freedom of the original spirit of gw2. Too bad Anet have turned their backs on that concept.

LOL @ the Nintendo comment, but true. I guess that’s one of the things that has me taking a break from GW2: the realization that to get the mastery points I needed, I would have to do a lot of the adventures. While I’ve only done a few, they really seem kind of pointless time sinks, another way to drag out content.

The net of it all certainly feels like there isn’t much to do except what they want you to do. Even if I liked it, which overall I haven’t really so far, I haven’t found it that easy to find active maps to progress at a reasonable rate.

They’ve turned things around before. Maybe things will look better in a half a year or a year. But in the mean time, no need to continue playing something that no longer provides any real joy for me. For those who like it, more power to you.

Purple Miku.7032:

I just don’t know guys. I haven’t played in a month, and it’s kinda hard to quit everything because I didn’t feel ready to do it but the game itself doesn’t appeal to me at all anymore. Perhaps I’ll actively play again but I guess for now I’ll just be on other games and being a negative nancy on the forums sometimes? ._.

That’s it in a nutshell- it just doesn’t appeal any more.

And to add to my earlier post, the legendary collections were a real disappointment. Time is money. If they are going to make me run all over the place for the collections, I expect it to save me some money. Instead, it just seems to be something for masochists to do.

Certainly not angry enough to empty my account and move on but I’m about to move from just doing dailies to walking away for a while and checking later to see if they fixed things.

It’s a shame. I was really enjoying the game but the fun has gone out of it for me.

Rick Lavigne.7295:

Not finding the new areas enjoyable as a solo player at all. I like GW2, been playing since the start but as PvE solo for the most part.

I have to agree with this. Pre-HoT I liked the fact that I could join in an event or follow a tag, as desired. I don’t mind finding a map with good commanders and working as part of an ad-hoc group but I also like to be able to navigate a map without a group and do some of the content on my own or with very small groups.

In HoT, especially now that many commanders have pushed deeper into the new content, I don’t feel able to enjoy the new maps. On my own, I can do little. It’s hard to even explore a map on a new character.

I’ve taken a few characters to the end of their specialization training but I’m currently stalled on a guardian: I’m 75% through and am seriously contemplating going back to the old world and doing map completion because that actually seems to be a faster way to gain HP. It probably isn’t but finding HPs I can’t do because I don’t have the masteries or need to beg or wait around for a group is it’s own frustration.

At the moment, I’m doing a bit more PVP than I have in a while, considering trying WvW again, may play around in old-world PVE but am not really enjoying HoT. Entering a HoT zone seems mostly a waste of time: dangerous trash, not enough groups to join, especially if I’m running a character new to the zone who doesn’t have all waypoints (and especially if it is Tangled Depths).

I have enjoyed GW2 but I have to confess the only reason I haven’t moved onto another MMO is that I don’t see any that really intrigues me (and I have been looking lately). In the meantime, my GW2 hours are about a third of what they used to be and I’m playing more single player games. I’ll keep an eye on the game and see if things change but I can certainly see drifting to something else.

Update: completed two zones in the last two days while casually working on another world completion and both came with a key. Could be random but makes me wonder if they upped the drop rate more in some game areas than in others. Or it might be the odds of a key from a zone completion was already somewhat high.

To the person commenting on the nerf on key farming, I think it was a good call on Anet’s part. It isn’t really in their interest or in the gamers to encourage tedious game play. It’s how folks get burned out and move on, even if there are other things they could be doing because it makes it more likely for them to associate grind with the game.

I recall the old Queensdale boss train as being a factor when I left the game a while back. Yes, I could have been doing something else but at the time I was running the train, it got old, and I wandered off to some other game for an extended period of time. I was doing a bit of key farming myself a few months ago and while it had its moments, it does get tedious pretty quickly.

About 15 chests (definitely more out there and you can see it in the trading post price which has halved or more). I got 2 keys early on but none since then.

I’m guessing Anet realized that the lower chest rate was discouraging key sales (chests were drifting up there in cost) and made a significant change to chest drop rate and a small change on key drop. Although, key drop rate was never high so it’s harder to kitten.

Cyninja.2954:

While I have to agree that lower level fractals are lacking shiny and unique rewards, the last revamp already added pristine fractal relics to sub level 10 fractal dailies (which is a huge improvement over the old system). Thus getting your ascended rings by level10 and 20 is assured and allows for smooth progression.

Oh that’s why I don’t have a pristine fractal relic- I did a few sub 10 fractals, have some fractal relics, checked out the wiki and it suggested I probably ought to have a least one pristine (given what I had run) but nothing in the wallet. I must have run it before the revamp.

My personal experience with fractals was lukewarm, partly because of my own incorrect expectations: as described by Anet, I kind of expected shorter instances but the current fractal run is quite long. Couple run time with the need for agony resistance, which requires a dedicated armor set, and there was little appeal to me. It’s not like I don’t like farming for skins; it’s just that there’s other skins and other ways to do that that I enjoy more.

I am eager to see the new fractal system, which appears to be more what I was expecting. If it becomes something I can step in and out of, without a large commitment of time on any one evening, I might give it another go. Of course, it depends how fun HoT is, but since they have described a HoT legendary system that seems to require so much time it isn’t really ‘rushable’ (i.e., I will be done many many months from now), I don’t envision spending all my time in HoT. (This is probably a good call on Anet’s part- means I’ll enjoy the content for much longer and also leaves value in doing other things).

I guess the new legendaries require some fractal items as well, but to be honest, they need to greatly improve fractals before I’d grind those items. When I realized Maudrey II required pristine fractal relics, I stopped working on it. Would be nice to have, don’t want it enough to even grind fractals for a week. So there I sit 5 relics short of the item. I guess that’s a sign of how little I enjoyed fractals

Easy going player looking for a Pacific Time Zone guild for HoT. I’m Yak’s Bend but willing to transfer for the right guild.

I’m an older player on the west coast looking for a guild that is predominantly US pacific coast, ideally guild leader is west coast, so that I can make guild activities and line up with regular guild runs. A smaller guild active after 8:00PM PST is ideal.

Seasoned, 2+ year player with 8 80s and all professions maxed. I enjoy spvp and farming plus a smattering of other events. Some WvW is great but not looking for a serious WvW guild. I’m up for fractals and dungeons although so far in GW2 it’s more something I’ve dabbled with. Willing to try raids but probably not able to commit to a regular raid schedule and prefer a guild that isn’t focused on raids.

I’m a long time paper and pencil roleplayer and up for RP as well, although I prefer to do more of it in-world (30 minutes is probably my limit for sitting around doing only RP. After that, as in D&D, it’s time to go find some treasure)

Reasonable familiarity with WvW (bronze rank)
Lots of sPVP time but wouldn’t say I’m great- I tend to play a class for a bit until I get tired of it and move on.
Limited dungeon and fractal experience.
I’ve done 2 world completions and am up for more.
I enjoy farming SW or any other event zone to unwind.
Looking forward to HoT.
Flexible on which toon I play for group events.

LGBT friendly, don’t care about salty language, have (or will get) most VoIP apps but prefer not to spend time on headsets unless for a dungeon or WvW.

While I think the OP’s suggest has some opportunities for abuse, it is an interesting suggestion. I’ve always thought that real policing in any on-line forum requires community monitoring. There’s really no other way to do it.

You’d have to put in some safeguards- a banned person can challenge the ban and penalties to people who manipulate the system if caught.

But these sorts of systems can work if you also build in the concept of a trusted moderator: maybe some combination of play time, some measure that reporting isn’t overused, establishes you as someone whose vote counts more than a new account who has already blocked five people today.

A simpler initial option might be to count how many times you were blocked, show that to everyone on log in, and have some way for Anet to check the players with exceptionally high block rates. If you know you are being watched, you are less likely to act badly.

That said, I rarely find map chat very bad. Sometimes you get a couple players having a snit in sPVP but GW2 map chat seems pretty tame to me. Then again, I don’t spend a lot of time in cities and I do have good personal filters

I’m an old school RPer from paper and pencil RPGs decades ago. In that environment, while lore and background matter of course, they really don’t define the character that much. It’s about how they act, what they do, and what they say.

This really isn’t very different than what most people seem to enjoy about movies and books. Does James Bond need to know all the historical details of the cold war? No, he certainly acts within that mileau, and yes, it would be rather odd if he worked for MI6 and he was born in Bulgaria but, for instance, how he feels about the Berlin airlift (or even that he knows about it) has never come up to my knowledge, and he doesn’t waste anytime discussing the origins of the cold war or the merits of the two sides.

Too much MMO RP seems to fixate on the lore and not on character. It’s always been off putting for me, as for the OP. Do you have to spend days memorizing lore before you can RP? In paper and pencil RPGs, you’d just jump right in and pick it up as you go along. When you are trying to loot an old temple, you don’t really care too much where the dwarf in your party was born.

I think some of this is because classic RPGs did their RP while doing something (planning a raid, recruiting a party, exploring a haunted woods). In MMOs, the RP seems to be consigned to the sidelines and basically exists only for itself, not as part of the whole experience.

That said, I’d still like to try a good RP guild that did in-world RP. You know, cleared a dungeon in character, explored HoT IC, etc.

Some post events thoughts:

First, while I really did not like this event for all the reasons folks have already given, I do appreciate you trying something different and I actually feel bad for the dev(s) who crafted this event. I’m sure they thought they had something fun planned for all. Please keep trying!

As for the future, as an example of how this sort of event could be improved:

1) make the rewards less stair step: why not one bloom per two invasions stacks rather than 10 at 10, 15 at 20, etc? That just pushes folks to tag and run. (Although I was happy with 10 and just closed invasions out, many did not.)

2) Random invasions popping up here and there aren’t really all that much fun. How about something less random with an ‘end’ like: At center of map, a boss vine spawns. Similar to the vines protected by flowers, this vine is protected by other vines which also spawn with it. It can’t be killed until the satellite spawns are killed. Maybe even a chain of protected vines to make it a little more interesting.

So, something with more continuum rewards, something with a little more structure to it.

You can still sprinkle on random spawns on top of the main ones but pure random is actually kind of dull, especially since you don’t really know if the vine will be there when you arrive.

First off, I appreciate Anet and the team being up front about the event not working out as planned, so kudos to that. Not everything works the way we like it to in life. Pretending “you meant to do that” just makes us question your integrity.

This has been covered before but just running around chasing points, hoping it’s still there when you get there, and the folks tagging and quitting are not much fun.

I’d prefer to see something less random: this is an invasion, after all, what if the Mordrem started from a point (or points) and spread outward. Maybe a successful invasion spawns additional ones and the goal is to first contain then eliminate it.

Just tossing out some ideas, but what if at start there are vine spawns at four corners of the map. If they aren’t eliminated in X minutes, they each spawn two more. Perhaps these first invasions are extra hard but give a bonus chest right they’re if eliminated. Once they spawn secondaries, they become normal difficulty and reward but all vines spawn new vines if not eliminated within a period of time. If all vines are eliminated, then we get a bonus followed by random spawns as we do now.

This is just a broad outline but something that forced us to have a little strategy, to try to contains things, would be a lot more interesting than just running around looking for the next random spawn point. It would also keep folks from abandoning some of the harder to get to/eliminate vine points.

I really liked the look of Old Lion’s Arch but like the new one even better (besides, a change is always nice). Kudos to the art team.

While they could be better still, I think the new wing mechanics are much better. They actually move something like a real wing, rather than something like a pair of cardboard wings taped to the character back.

When I saw how the white ones moved, I bought them.

Well done- appreciate the clarifications and the extra slot.

I agree with OP and want to add that this was all very, very well handled- perhaps not the original confusing FAQ but the follow-up. I had felt that Anet tried to address player needs but was starting to wonder with the recent roll-out. But the extra slot for the veteran players and the refund offer is an excellent case study in how to handle customer complaints.

Well done. Having come from a game where the company seems tone deaf, at best, and interested in gouging me, at worst, I really appreciate this.

I had actually purchased the expansion after a few days consideration and, while I thought it was the wise move, didn’t expect you to make any changes to extra slots or what not.