Guild Wars 2

I find it problematic that they even put up temporary items in the store, not sales, but whole items. By the time some of us actually get paid these things are gone so even in the store there’s an issue getting to the things I might want.

Their economist is so busy patting himself on the back for more RNG and more gold sinks in his ever inflating TP that he’s not noticed that he’s actually hurting their sales by making these items temporary.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Trouble is, many of us existing players actually like complexity. That’s what keeps us making alts, keeps us trying new builds…

The NPE works directly against this. The trait change works directly against this.

There’s a fundamental mismatch here, and I’d love to hear ArenaNet talk about it. Or even acknowledge it…

Absolutely, but it’s worse than just the NPE because the NPE is just another setback in a series of mistakes when it comes to PVE complexity, PVE balance is at an all time low what with the ongoing problems with condition stacking no real healer role and everything being immune (not resistant) to CC, add to that the use of Gold for traits from the previous feature patch in an already terribly out of balance inflating economy with things like DR and too much RNG for everything useful, and then add this to the mix and you’ve got a reason for people to come here to complain. People keep wrongly trying to portray the so called “whiners” but no one is actually looking at why they are complaining and doing something positive about it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ohoni.6057:

Note we want to make the fixes and then have a focused discussion about the system (Probably here)

We really want to hear what you think once the system/content is functioning as designed.

Chris

Again, waiting until it’s “functioning as designed” before having the discussion about it just pushes back the point where solutions can be reached. If you’d have discussed these changes with us months ago we could have hashed them out before the patch, and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Let’s say it takes another week to get things “functioning as designed,” and then we spend another couple weeks debating the changes, that’s weeks wasted when you could be working on fixing them now.

You guys already know which elements of the current game are bugs and which are features, so instead of waiting until the bugs have been removed, why not just TELL use which elements are not intended and which are, and we can discuss the issue from there?

This is the core about what we mean when we say we want communication. We don’t want to wait until things are implemented and then discuss them, we want in on the design process BEFORE you waste the time and effort implementing systems that we never wanted in the first place. Think of how many manhours you guys wasted working on these NGE systems that are dead on arrival with the players! How many other great systems could those developers have been working on instead in that time?

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Chris

P.S: If you want to discuss potential future features and systems then you are welcome to partake in the CDI.

Will there be any chance that the team will be looking into replacing using Gold for the purchase of traits (with the use of Karma) from the original Feature Patch? I feel that this is a concern (for many who still experience what many have dubbed the “unlucky account” problem) is part of the forum outrage over the alt system for veterans.

What I don’t understand and I think this is part of the frustration with this patch is there are sooooooo many other more important areas they could be fixing in the game that are well documented that people have asked for changes in for years that we’ve been told would be fixed, but this was the choice of the thing that was priority 1. So I can understand especially when it comes to the lack of rewards from normal gameplay kills, why this is viewed as the last problem we should be looking at. Because even tho there are some good rewards periodically during the leveling process and from personal story, there are essentially no rewards from the rest of the world of consequence until you get to Dry Top for many a player due to drop percentages, DR, what items players carry with them and their quality, etc, and I think people are going to continue to complain until those things are addressed, not because every game has their whiners in the forums but because it’s a real problem and has been since just after launch when they nerfed alot of what we were able to get as drops to sell for gold in the open world.

I think since there are clearly objectives people especially new players would like to achieve without buying gold like buying certain sigils/runes, and the feature from the previous feature patch that requires gold + skill points for traits that they need to look at that as well during the process of rolling back the NPE. Don’t we have Karma for progression for a reason? Shouldn’t players be spending Karma + skill points for traits instead of gold?

Fred Fargone.3127:

Acinonyx came up with a fantastic idea: Just apply the changes to the first character created.

Of course, even better would be some sort of setting we can toggle on and off, since honestly, until we can get some sort of HM option, playing with new characters has become quite painful.

Could we at least retain the option to do higher level personal story, at our own risk? Since when I hit the next x0 level, the story content is already quite trivial to stroll through. Tbh, I probably could do level 40 story at level 30 no problem. But that would be whole lot more interesting than doing level 40 story at level 40, when I’m guaranteed success. (Is it really success if it is just handed to me? Winning gold medal doesn’t really feel like winning gold medal if they’re handed out at the entrance to the arena.)

I would like this as well. I was forced to start grinding out a crafting skill so that I could begin the process of coming closer to level 80 because every time i went into a higher level zone and killed mobs there it would give me miniscule XP like 3-5 per kill with boosts on. Whatever they did they removed a big advantage of being a veteran that knows where to go to complete that final run on your alt to complete the leveling process. Part of the fun was the challenge and XP rewards of getting to those high level places and not just surviving but also flourishing by gaining extra xp.

Engineer
Thief
Necromancer
Ranger
Guardian
Elementalist
Mesmer
Warrior

I’m seeing this as well now. If you have minions turned on for underwater they die anyway, and mine seem to disappear no matter what I do in some maps.

I have 4/4 on the same character but when i go to use them to combine them it says that I don’t have enough in my inventory.

I think it’s so funny the number of people who haven’t read the actual post but are posting replies as if these were a real concern for certain aspects of the game. Shhhh

Fascinating that I didn’t see it anywhere even tho you say you posted it to the official forums because I can tell you that if it were here in general you would have definitely NOT received the 1% demands that you have listed there. Absolutely not.

You see most of the people posting here are casuals in the official forums whereas most of the people on reddit are the 1% who demand raiding, making everything harder, and dungeons constantly. So it’s blatantly obvious that these results are skewed. Not to mention that one of the key reasons why Arenanet is moving away from the 1% is due to their losing vast numbers of casuals. When you lose the majority it’s time to move away from the tiny demographic you’ve been trying to appease for 2 years.

So I simply don’t believe that these are results from this forum because I see the posts in general all the time and most of the people who are left here are tired of the problems that come with dungeons, tired of fractals, want new content but generally want it to be open world in the form of new zones, and want the old stuff to be fixed before moving onto the new content.

azurrei.5691:

It makes me glad I have a bunch of 80’s that were leveled a year ago purely on scarlet invasions+crafting that have never touched the personal story – definitely something to start working on

I was thinking the same thing.

While I like that some people are getting some rewards, I’m hopeful that the perma DR that some of us experience will not affect this change. The only thing I miss from personal story rewards are the skin change items because since they didn’t announce they would never make the level 79 ones useful I deleted those for bank space long time ago and was hopeful I could farm some more.

Brilliant LOL They should do one for Gadget Engineers.

As the title suggests we need more runesets with inherent 25% run speed boost. It doesn’t give people in PVE an advantage but since there’s no mounts involved we should have the option. It would also spread out the cost a bit since these generally are in an eternal inflation cycle where they are increased because of the run speed boost essential to classes that don’t have this as an option really. I think if they made all runesets in PVE have the run speed boost it would diversify the options a bit more and give the TP a chance to move around the cost so that the playerbase wouldn’t end up with essential Runesets that are extremely high in gold cost for their level 80 open world armor. It would also eliminate the need to pick traits that aren’t really beneficial to the build just to get to a run speed boost trait.

I play necro but I don’t do pets because of the seriousness of the weakness inherent to pets across all classes in this game. I’ve leveled as a well wizard.

It is very annoying, and difficult to control. I’ve been in situations before where the bubbles for say weren’t enough for people to find me due to nearby obstructions.

I think it’s brilliant LOL I’ve often thought they should do a mini series about how mobs feel while they are on the job, as if they were themepark workers.

Vitus Dance.4509:

What’d be the point of fielding an army of minions or pets if you could simply tab target the player?
I’d say it’s working as intended.

Hardly. Just as their megaserver system doesn’t really allow players the control they need to focus on a specified “channel” their targeting system leaves much to be desired, simply because every other mmo out there has the option in controls to never target pets.

nethykins.7986:

On NPE:
Maintaining two separate clients would have used up a lot of resources
You could say the same thing about what we have now.
You can also end up throwing your game into a death spiral for one market in order to satisfy another, then end up using resources changing things to suit which ever market is in disarray.

In regards to Khong Zhong, and any influence that could have been placed on them. It’s not impossible to think so. A lot of game devs have creative freedom only up to a point. If the developers say X, Y and Z is not going to be fun, and the publisher states they’ve run tests and metrics say A, B and C should be done, you kind of have to take that on board or that could place you bad standing with them, and in the climate we’re in, any sign of something failing only gives publishers a reason to shut a game down, or seize more control.

They already sent the game into a death spiral by listening to the 1%, now it’s arguably sound that they are aiming for the 65% group, the open world PVE players/RPers to try to increase the number of players.

The rest of us left long long ago some multiple times and were told by the 1% multiple times to go play something else, even tho originally this game was made for the 65% not the dungeoneers, these things were said here in the forums and some even harassed us in game because we spoke out against the changes that were imposed on the game to satisfy the “everything isn’t hardcore enough” crowd. (I’ve personally only recently returned.)

Now I think they are on the best track sure I dislike many of the elements of alt making right now but I feel that for the most part (particularly because they included two of the things that were requested from the now archived Suggestions folder in this patch) they are making an honest attempt at getting back the players they lost. I have hope this trend will continue.

As far as their products in store, the single worst thing I can think of about it is that they have items out temporarily. Leave them in and have sales imo. That would make these things purchasable even after the sales go out and it would still bring in revenue for some of the items, like the endless gathering tools for example. I know for a fact that many people I’ve played with have been highly disappointed these things were removed shortly after release. I can think of plenty of examples on getting items from the store, like cosmetics for example, that were for some reason only sold during the LS events they were tied to (not talking holidays) that would totally have been acceptable to keep these items in store.

So while I feel they do tie too much to the gem-gold conversion, I also feel that they’ve basically harmed themselves by removing items they didn’t need to remove thus losing money they didn’t need to lose in the process. I sincerely hope this isn’t the work of that economist they have working for them but if it is it explains so many things wrong with his methods, it really does and I would hope that they don’t have a contract so they can get someone in there who is a bit more practical about keeping future items in the store for longer, they don’t even have to continue the sales for longer just keep the items there.

Part of the problems I’m seeing as a vet with the new player experience really have more to do with the previous feature patch requiring gold to advance because some of the things they have on the list really don’t get done anymore by players. Like the Krait Witch for example. I’ve not seen that done in months.

Actually I think their suggestion system should be put into the game where people are actually playing. They should also have implemented a “why are you leaving” single post option to their developers to know the majority of the reasons why people are leaving. They could limit these posts to 500 characters and archive them, it would eliminate alot of wasted posts on the forums (like the archived suggestions folder) they could then in game put out global voting on the most requested items they’ve archived to pick their direction.

Problem solved.

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.

It would have for the feature patch because you see they didn’t release that in 2 weeks like they do with some of their LS releases so that argument is nul and void you can stop using it now.

I find it funny that people are saying things like 5 zerker warriors running a dungeon must be perfect when we’re basically playing a game that allows a single class to run 5 mans and sell boss kill slots, guess which class they choose to accomplish this. Warriors.

laokoko.7403:

Sunreva.8714:

laokoko.7403:

and dude, dont’ tell me I have to finish the map before I can have fun. I finished the same maps 24 times already.

Ya but this is irrelevant. After all, completing dungeons on story mode with character X does not unlock a Grandmaster Trait ( that requires it to be completed) on new character Y. If you made 3 new characters and wanted to unlock the grandmaster trait on each character that requires completing Arah Story Mode, you already have to complete that Arah Story Mode three times (ones for each character).

If you finished Arah Story 24 times already, it doesn’t matter. If you make a 25th character, you already have to finish Arah Story Mode a 25th time (or plunk down the gold/skill points for that particular trait at the vendor). So this logically should be applied to all other means of locked-character progression post level 80.

The developer implies they are considering making a change to that. I’ll quote it

Finally, I want to add that a few things (hello traits!) are things that can be improved for players who make multiple alts, we’re aware of this, and though company policy prevents us from discussing what’s in development: I can say we know Gw2 can be an even better game for people who love making alts in the long run, more info: when it’s ready™.

I for one am hoping they remove the gold cost on it, it’s one thing to farm scrolls for points it’s entirely another to try to farm gold it’s really a terrible idea especially considering the problems surrounding getting materials to make sigils and runes some of which require such rare materials you might as well be a whale. /crosses finger

Karma + Skill points would be a good replacement because it would ensure that people would have actually played the game imo.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Vorch.2985:

You forgot the /s tag

Maybe OP should apply to work at Anet?

That’s what I was thinking, they are looking for plenty of people who’ve obviously never played mmo games before otherwise he would have know the sheer staggering number of examples of what to do in place of the grind we’re seeing in GW2. I also find it funny that he conveniently left out the cost of gold for these traits, something that one should never do in an MMO that’s supposedly F2P/Buy once and play for free is tie something you get directly from the shop, like gold for example, into progression. It’s bad enough that you have to buy gold to get the sigils runes you need to play simply because there are no karma vendors with those materials to even craft them yourself. And farming HA I guess we’re playing two different games. Farming died long ago with the use of DR.

Oh and I’ve played since BWE2 back when Engineer could actually do more damage than greatswords because we had explosives in our kitten nal. Sure we might be able to do more DPS in a non-open world environment, but definitely not burst. Anybody who claims that hasn’t played one.

I personally am about to level an artificer once I reach max, just for the backpacks. I’d like to be able to make potions that matter honestly I would. I’ve love temporary use health or stamina potions.

Gimli.9461:

You should get dragonite by doing Dry Top instead. Way more fun and the chests drop it.

Have to agree, as someone who’s been an advocate against DR and the ongoing affliction of their loot system against actual rewards, Dry Top had a pleasantly positive approach to rewards. something I had hoped they would have spread to the rest of Tyria. It’s sad when I never get a single skull in dry top but if I were to go to Orr BAM nothing but…

luckily I’ve reached level 40 before the patch on my final character. However, I have to say that the restriction on getting into higher level zones is ridiculous, you get like 3-4 experience for killing harder to kill mobs, you’re experience for discovery and nodes haven’t been affected but it’s odd that you can’t EARN anymore xp especially since food only affects kills rather than explorations or events. The other thing I hate and this is from the previous patch, is what is required to unlock traits. You basically have to be 80 for some of it which kind of defeats the purpose doesn’kitten So I think that’s the reason why there’s so much outrage, it’s not just one patch it’s 2.

Meglobob.8620:

Why the kitten, would anyone want to collect spoons of all things?!?

Is this some kind on ‘insider’ Anet joke?

Actually people collect all kinds of things in real life, have you missed entire seasons of Hoarders?

Okay so when it first launched it was crazy. I expected it to be like the single shard games that I’ve been used to where you choose which “channel” you’re in from your character interface or that of your guild or party. It could still use that but I just gotta say…

This morning I woke up with inflammation pain and had to stay up waiting for my pain killers to work. I decided what the heck I’ll login and level some more on my Necro.

I get to Fen and start running around, low and behold Teq spawns. I actually defeated the new Teq thanks to the multitude of players in the area this morning and to Megaservers.

Thanks Anet for Megaservers.

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!

I have but i didn’t realize some would be drops I actually got one from Teq this morning. Second time killing Teq.

Invictus.1503:

So I decided to level a new toon to see what all the fuss was about. I’m not going to comment on the experience as a whole because that is a different type of thread.

What I found very odd was that currently I’m lvl 24 (lvl 20 experience scroll + completing chapters 10 & 20) and so have to level to get to the next chapter. I went out to Gendarren Fields and killed a few lvl 30 enemies, but only got 3 experience. 3!

Next I made my way to Queensdale and killed a lvl 16 enemy and got 24 experience (+ 11 bonus). How in the world does this make sense?

Well that explains why suddenly my leveling experience at level 55 went to a crawl.

I’ve been used to going to higher level zones and getting enough xp to actually reach level 60 easily and then begin crafting for the rest. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, this is contrary to their position on a rewarding experience.

This has been a bug or a design flaw for about 7-8 months now. I first noticed it on my thief that long ago. The enemies will be in the middle of casting a spell that typically is ground targeted or they started a long attack like bows firing multiple shots. Now typically in the past as a thief you could stealth go around behind them and get hit only minorly because they couldn’t see you, NOW however they follow you no matter where you run they still are targeting you and they don’t bother to leash back most of the time. This happens also mind you if you blind them when stealthing, a trait I’ve always used.

Part of the point I think people are making about this is this….if a warrior and shout his way out of a fight or a lock can slow people by using bugs then this defense mechanism for a thief should work properly, and before some numbskull gets on here and says something foolish about it remember, it is disorienting to suddenly lose track of your target, IE flash grenades.

Vayne.8563:

We’ll know if this gambit is successful only after the first free weekend is done…probably a couple of months after that.

Because I’m sure that’s why these changes were made. Not to inconvenience us. To grow the player base.

If they’d like to grow the playerbase there are three areas I can tell them to work on right now that will do it instead of fixing yet another something that wasn’t broken in their Feature Patch 3. Remove gold entirely from the cost of progression (this includes traits, sigils, runes, and gear), make diversity a thing in PVE again (this includes fixing all of the problems they can in every class that’s caused them to nerf PVE, things like Kit Refinement rollback and condition damage builds and make healing a real life thing for every class with healing skills), fix the rewards system post level 80 in the open world (remove DR entirely because it’s never been effective at removing bots or gold farmers, eliminate some of the RNG from crafting, allow for the trading of Tier 7 and karma for essential Tier 6 crafting materials like lodestones).

Those three things have been the most complained about items in the game in these forums yet we’re sitting at the 2 year mark and they’ve not even been mentioned by the developers in all this time.

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

LOL. Looks like the poll backfired on the OP.

Didn’t backfire at all, mate. Not even a tiny bit.

Nope it revealed exactly what a PTR would have revealed, that people don’t like these changes and would rather they work on what’s really wrong with the game.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It’s the difference between me asking my wife, is this dish supposed to look like this, and me saying, this dish sucks, it’s terrible, it’s horrible, I’m never eating your cooking again.

LOL.

Not sure that the analogy holds up…can Anet make you sleep on the couch ?

Vayne.8563:

I mean we hold Anet accountable for every communication gaff they’ve made (and there have been many).

I am not going to pull out the old, “customer is always right,” adage because it has never actually been true.

But.

The merchant taking customers’ money for a service should be held to a different standard than a random customer.

There’s also the fact that Vayne keeps leaving out, this isn’t the first change to the starter areas, it’s the 2nd which is part of the reason why people are so upset. It’s not that they made unannounced changes, it’s not that they nerfed something that didn’t need changing meanwhile essential pieces of the game go untouched that actually ARE broken like condition damage, it’s not even that they made it more difficult for some players (ie veterans) it’s the fact that once again we’re left with sweeping changes that no one asked for in a system that was never broken, “tested” supposedly in a manner in which Arenanet wouldn’t have received an honest answer at all from the general populous, the people who pay them, about these changes.

The PTR’s the thing. There would be a dwindling tiny few posts about any such changes to make it out of a PTR had they had one because people would have told them prior to any release of the patch how terrible this system is, they would know about the problems that were out of sorts, and they would have fixed it before releasing it so there was no confusion because the system wouldn’t have had these things in the wrong time/level slot.

It’s the same for the cost of traits which still hasn’t been fixed. Now instead of going about playing the game because even the earning of traits without spending gold are in the wrong time slots/level you have to spend gold as a new player or alt or get help like in the map completion for many a trait being 10 levels higher than they should be for example or other such nonsense like champions being ignored by the playerbase because they are too difficult to defeat and everyone’s too busy or too weak at that level to kill such things (like the krait witch for example).

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.

Have to agree with Changer. For me however it’s gone far beyond the whole adjustments for the lower levels. you see it was already difficult enough to get drops or rewards from doing normal things, like completing maps. But now! Now you can feel restricted WHILE not getting any rewards for anything outside of personal story. Now you can have your hand held wherever you go while playing and “Experience” will be your reward. That’s revolutionary alright, that’s entirely outside of the norm of why MMOs are played in the first place. The first feature patch (which btw they still haven’t fixed, it still costs gold to progress in traits, remember karma? yeah…) cut new players off from progressing for example, not all events are done by players because some of these were messed with by the early direction of making the game a 1%ers game so they could keep raiders as long as possible. For example, the krait witch. I’ve been on that map multiple times now, not a single time has anyone decided to go over there to complete it, but it is essential to the traits especially if you’re a player with one of those unlucky accounts that doesn’t earn gold.

And why have people earn anything from early levels why have them gather anything so there’s an ice cubes chance in hades that they might actually be able to one time or another afford something like the Krait Witch’s trait that they need later on? That might be economically unsound or something >.>.

Let me tell you just how bad this is. AA is coming out. Even with all of it’s blatantly obvious directly noticeable pay to win options in their system, even THEY added the ability for players who are F2P the ability to progress to some minor degree when it comes to getting enough currency to buy the plans to make a vehicle essential to getting enough for making a house. They knew that people after leveling would need enough currency to progress, they have forgotten that here in GW2.

Sounds like you gotta taste of the unlucky account blues. It’s spreading around. I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of their economist. They could definitely use one that isn’t so focused on RL economies and that’s actually had experience with gaming because I doubt very much that he plays any games personally.

Your gem store conversion was spot on as one of the central problems this game faces.

While I don’t agree with you on their new direction away from the dungeoneers/raiders I do completely agree with your assessment of DR. Why is it still in the game is beyond me.

Also, as an Engineer in PVE I feel your pain when it comes to nerfs. Kit Refinement as a secondary heal and condition removal tool, the shortening of the AOE range of bombs well below that of a daggers, 2handed swords doing well above standard damage (which means that we would have never developed things like flame throwers, bombs, grenades, mines in real life humans would have fought WWI with two handed swords because apparently that is so much more powerful than a rifle, or chemical warfare for example.) Mines that enemies can dance around on and not get hit by, grenades that have been nerfed multiple times in PVE. the list is long on the PVE engineer side that has never been fixed. They seriously need someone from the military to explain to them how these weapons should work so they can finally fix them.

Then there are the uneven condition damage types. Apparently Poison isn’t deadly it’s simply a bee sting and will subside without any major damage at all.

While I feel your pain over the rewards system ( or lack thereof ) not ALL of the rewards are in the store. Right now you can craft backpacks and earn some rewards from collections, a huge step in the right direction. Here’s to hoping they stay on that path.

But I do also agree with you on the gems conversion thing. It’s fine as a side note something to do when you don’t have something to buy in the store to help your character along, however, their economist has turned this into one of those mandatory things especially for new players where you are required if you have an unlucky account which most will find they do, to convert gems just for the sake of getting the ever inflating gear that’s not sold by karma vendors, complete with sigils/runes that are only available with DR inhibited drops so you can’t craft them yourselves without gold even. It’s the single worst economy I’ve ever experienced in my entire 24 MMOs.

MikaHR.1978:

What exactly do you HAVE TO pay for to progress in GW2. Im curious, i have 11 80-ies and i didnt have to pay for anything? Elaborate on that, maybe i missed something progressing 11 characters to max level to completely progress without being forced to pay for anything.

And, just for record, nobody called GW2 F2P game, dont know where you got that.

AND i got much more of everything that i got for FREE in GW2 after the initial purchase than i got from all that wasted sub money since i strted playing MMOs in 2002. So yeah, theres that also.

But i agree, for instance, SWTOR has abbysmal F2P model thats based on just gambling boxes (its just a matter of time until taxman look into that) and recolored stuff AND buying freaking pieces of UI lol

let me clarify so that everyone can keep up in the class. If you have one of those PermaDR accounts and or the so called unlucky accounts, you cannot earn which means you can go do anything in the game and the drops just do not flow. So that means you don’t earn gold. Add to that the fact that they nickle and dime you while leveling (5 silver when you complete a map) but expect gold for things like traits to catchup with your buddies and there you are. Gold shouldn’t be tied to progression at all. It’s fine for racial armors (although I disagree with that practice too but for other reasons) but for sigils/runes and specific new types of armors of which are not on karma vendors, and trait costs those are progression systems.

They put karma into the game for a reason, I’m simply reminding them that they should make karma the system to use for progression not gold.

They can charge all they want for cosmetics I don’t mind that, they can make people pay for hearthstones I don’t mind that too much but progression on an unlucky account is what I’m specifically talking about.

And the reason you’re confused probably means that you don’t have one of those. Thousands have reported having those types of accounts and most likely left the game a while back because of the ongoing problems with the economy and how this game is designed under the hood. And let me tell you another thing for those doubters out there. It happens. When you see those same guild buddies with the same magic find as you doing the same events week in and week out ending up with everything and the kitchen sink and you get nothing month after month after month, there’s a problem, and it’s not simply a matter of RNG.

Does that clear it up now? Oh btw, in order for a toxically RNG system to seem “meaningful” to the elite, it has to make almost everyone not get drops at all.

Anyway, people didn’t just start leaving the game because something they didn’t like in their imagination, they started leaving because things like this. The game isn’t rewarding and even the devs recognized it 7 months ago promising a rewards revamp. Even with the changes to the system for personal story, what happens to make people leave occurs after reaching level 80. When all you get are the mandatory rares/exotics (1 at a time mind you) from boss events, there’s a serious issue with your rewards system.

Even WoW’s open world event system on their island is more rewarding at this point.

If they want people back they’ll have to add the carrot on a stick beyond the skins thing otherwise people will continue to leave and stay gone and a couple of years down the road they will be known as “Remember that game that had unlucky accounts that no matter what you did nothing would drop, and people on the forums actually defended that like it was okay or something! yeah that one!”

Vayne.8563:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Snorcha.7586:

+1 – does anyone on the dev team even play a low level character.. this has turned into the most frustrating leveling experience i’ve ever done…. what was wrong with the old system????

From the devs that no longer work for ANet, they saw this coming and bailed when the higher ups refused to listen to even them when they said this was wrong. They knew this was coming months ago.

I’m sure this is a factual statement and you know those devs personally and they old told you this.

People leave companies for all sorts of reasons. Drawing this kind of conclusion is a matter of confirmation bias. I seriously doubt you can verify what you’ve said.

Probably about as factual as your insider knowledge into how powerful their metrics are. Remember that loot bug people kept denying for months that they told us all was in our imagination? Or how about that drop rate problem they created with unidentifiable dyes. Yeah…

I think that’s brilliant really.

I also think they could do with an in game suggestion box, and a 1 time per patch 500 character limit ui interface in game that allows players to report on a new patch feature or balance problem once per patch.

Funny the result matches pretty much what’s going on in chat channels in the game all over tyria. It’s what happens when you don’t have a PTR and you implement sweeping changes, and what’s sad is this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Finish leveling my final character, a necro to 80. he’s 55. Finish leveling artificer on my necro and build some more backpacks. Finish my junk collection and possibly try others for their rewards. (I had hoped that the junk collection would have had some silly trashy backpack LOL Like a giant Hefty bag or something. oh well)

Mine only displays for 1.4 seconds what’s happening in game, then suddenly it goes black, it actually shuts off my monitor it’s so bad, then the computer freezes and I have to force restart the computer. The computer in question mind you is twice as good as my Windows 7 machine so this is baffling.

So I was having issues getting past the black screen problem. Used the window command on the new shortcut I created. Now, the game does the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

I login, it goes to windowed mode, I resize it to fit the screen size I have in windowed mode. I login to my ranger. The ranger just happens to be in a place with an event. I see it blip a few times in the loading screen, 1.5 seconds of seeing my ranger fighting. Then blackness. And the sound in the background starts off with what my ranger is doing, then when it goes into crash mode all I hear is a campfire and the ambient sounds of day or night whichever is going on in the zone.

My other characters have the same issue. The game completely crashes my entire computer, cannot get into ctrl – alt- delete to shut it down. It even shuts off my monitor entirely and I have to fiddle with that to get it to show anything. I have to force restart my computer with the power button on the casing.

Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in the 20+ years of playing mmo’s.

Can someone explain to me what’s happening? Is there a solution for this? My Windows 7 computer with all of the same security software, with the same manufacturer of video cards, even with less memory is not doing this!

Transformation elites should at the very least make us temporarily immune. Like tornado, I mean really they are swinging at air, cmon now. It’s not that difficult. Whirlpool too.

There are similar situations on the necro I’m playing right now, like whoever thought of someone using a sword to kill a cloud of disease particles.

Guhracie.3419:

Actually, it takes you to the exchange section, where you can exchange your gems for gold, or your gold for gems. And “pay to win” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means.

So long as Sigils/Runes are bought with gold in an ever inflating AH, and gear doesn’t have the option to be elastic, yeah I’d say he has a point about the P2W. If they want this game to have an easy system of switching builds they’ll need to remove certain aspects from the gold market, like traits for example. They DO have another currency, it’s called Karma and many people have pointed out that there simply aren’t enough sinks for Karma. They could easily make Karma the key currency for progression 100% eliminating the need to buy gems for gold for the use of buying traits and seting up gear or changing gear because of a balance patch nerf.

I’ve not yet reached level 30 of the personal story on my new toon so I dunno what to expect but I have to say that the only thing that will make me angry is if they removed the items they use to change skins from personal story quest rewards!

I deleted some time ago like 99 of the level 79 ones long before they ever revealed they would be making those universal and so of course there’s only those in the store. It would be insulting if I couldn’t get any without having to spend money now since the patch!

Oh lord another one of these posts again. If you actually read all of the comments even in the most passionate of threads there are always people who are in between. Who won’t hesitate to tell them when they are doing something wrong but will give you several reasons why they like other things, it’s not all vitriol.

Thanks for the clearup regarding future trait fixes and fixes to when people get to see elites. I think it will go a long way to helping with Alts. I hope that new trait system will use Karma rather than gold in the long run!

pdavis.8031:

I can see how it might be decent for a brand new player to MMOs. However, it is terrible for alts, and even veteran video gamers in general. Now if people were picking up GW2 as their very first PC game, it might be a different story. I did reserve my judgments until I played it. I leveled up a ranger until level 10. Yes it do go a bit faster, but I still found it incredibly annoying that weapon skills, and other abilities were level gated. Not having pet control (or other class mechanic) until a later level REALLY was a terrible idea. I almost didn’t make it to level 10 I was so dissapointed. However, that is the view point of a vet, with several alts. I am still trying to get my wife to try it as she is a new player, with VERY limited MMO/gaming experience, and has a much different perspective on it. I will post her thoughts when she gets around to it.

I too play a ranger. That is a terrible idea, it’s bad enough that they have limited pet control overall for any class but for a ranger to be cut off from that is overboard too.

Blaeys.3102:

After watching days of complaining and crying on the forums, I decided to start a new toon and see what I really thought.

I honestly think the changes are for the best – for the most part. They arent perfect, and i think some things could use refining, but the new system feels fluid and actually works. I think it is a step in the right direction.

It makes me think that most of the people complaining on the forums are just following the hate crowd or simply reacting to change.

My advise – actually create a lvl 1 and see for yourself. Otherwise, please note that you havent actually tried the system when spewing hate.

That said, here are the positives and negatives, imo:

Positives:

- Places early emphasis on gameplay/exploration rather than on hitting random mobs
to unlock weapon skills.

- It actually does feel more intuitive and easy to grasp – which should help players brand new to MMOs.

- The leveling pace feels significantly improved (MUCH faster) during the early levels. Basically one heart = one level.

Negatives:

- Some systems take a little too long to unlock. I think all weapon slots should be available in the first 5 levels (one per level), off hand slots should be available at level 6 and weapon swapping should be available at level 7.

- It can be a culture shock for veteran players. There should be a clear way to disable hints.

- I dont like that they had to dumb down some of the early fights/events. I think if they sped up the unlocks just a little (as per above), they could revert some of those events back without causing issues.

Elites should be level 30 for example.