Guild Wars 2

My primary concern are collision/padding issues as they make my physically ill, sometimes to the point that I have to stop playing the game. Jumping puzzles are the worst – they so often seem to be in tight areas with lots of floating things.

As a great example of this, watch the camera bounce off of the small pipes in the Not So Secret jumping puzzle. (I’ve linked you to the right point in time.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5rT_uLu9yw&t=2m25s

I like that example because it’s 100% obvious what’s happening. The camera hits a pipe and pulls in closer to the player. But the pipe is thin, so it’s very soon able to return to its standard position. Oh, there’s another pipe! Time to move closer! etc.

I wish they had removed 350 more hearts.

Could this be simpler? Remember when Southsun had those Magic Find buffs? What if there was just an NPC – Nicholas-style – who moved between zones every day. He gives you a buff with +MF EXP Karma Coin only within the zone.

This would mean lots of people in the open world, though just within the zone of the day. Still, it’d mean you can do some open world content with better rewards.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

Yes. Yes yes yes. Renown hearts were my least favorite part of the game. While I respect the feelings of others who like them, I think you’re on the right track that dynamic events are more fun and engaging than hearts.

Honestly, when it comes to open world content, I think one of the largest reasons you don’t see people do it is because there’s “no reason to do it.”

“No reason” = lack of exclusive rewards, or lack of rewards in general

Let’s say I decide to run around in Timberline Falls for exactly one hour, do some gathering, and complete dynamic events along the way. What can I expect as far as rewards? Some crafting mats, probably a handful of blues and greens – and not necessarily any unique skins – and maybe 1 gold?

Okay, how about instead I run dungeons for that hour. I get maybe 5 or 6 gold directly, more blues and greens, a huge number of champ boxes, and dungeon tokens which can get me unique skins, exotic-level gear, or be converted into gold.

Why is Dry Top better for this? Well, you need Geodes for lots of recipes and skins. So you have to play those events.

If you went back into old zones, added a bunch more dynamic events, added map-specific progression, and gave map-specific rewards, I bet you’d see a lot more players in those zones as well.

The trick is that the rewards need to be 1) exclusive or 2) comparable in gold value to other forms of content. And if #2 is economy-breaking, you NEED #1.

Just my two cents.

OmaiGodman.2098:

timmyf.1490:

GM Talon.4851:

There’s no animation effect that plays when an account gets terminated in Guild Wars 2 at the moment.

GM Talon.4851:

There’s no effect at the moment.

GM Talon.4851:

at the moment.

Dhuum animations confirmed under development.

;-)

And this is why Anet never tells us anything anymore

It was a joke… was the winky face not enough of a giveaway?

We should buy guilds with Grumble Cakes. A stack of Grumble Cakes for each transfer!

Xivor’s next toon will be named Xivor the Loquacious.

GM Talon.4851:

There’s no animation effect that plays when an account gets terminated in Guild Wars 2 at the moment.

GM Talon.4851:

There’s no effect at the moment.

GM Talon.4851:

at the moment.

Dhuum animations confirmed under development.

;-)

Crise.9401:

I mean I know developers probably have access to similar things a these new official GM’s do, if needed, so besides it being clear distinction between the two technically not that much has changed.

Actually, ArenaNet has been pretty clear that developers do not have any special access on their live accounts. They can rep the ArenaNet guild to show the tag, but otherwise, they have the same options as we do.

Michael Henninger.7451:

timmyf.1490:

This is really cool information! Thanks Talon.

Also, and not to be overly snarky here, but this is a good example of one of the ways players can feel like we’re not receiving the necessary communication from ArenaNet. I’ve been playing this game for 731 days (though a paltry 2200 hours or so) and I just today learned that official communications from a GM have a special chat color.

We’ve only recently started using visible and active GMs in the game. Prior to say – 2 months ago? – you wouldn’t have seen a GM.

Look for us more as we’re slowly ramping up our presence.

That helps explain it. Does this mean we can finally do something about WvW trolls? ;-)

This is really cool information! Thanks Talon.

Also, and not to be overly snarky here, but this is a good example of one of the ways players can feel like we’re not receiving the necessary communication from ArenaNet. I’ve been playing this game for 731 days (though a paltry 2200 hours or so) and I just today learned that official communications from a GM have a special chat color.

There’s not always a good place to view this information even if we want to.

That’s not a criticism of GMs or anybody in particular, I just think it’s a good Teaching Moment for all of us. This is an undocumented – but in some cases very important – thing to know.

Or maybe it is documented somewhere and the Teaching Moment is that I haven’t done a good job reading the available documentation. :-)

^ I believe that’s a dev, not a GM, Lars.

Really pathetic attempts to say “I wasn’t impersonating ArenaNet” by UnicornGirl. You can play coy all you like, but it’s pretty obvious what you were trying to do. Having a toon named Banbot just makes it all that much more obvious. If I were ArenaNet, I’d give you a 3-day or just force you to change your character name. Probably not both.

That’s not to excuse the OP if he really was purposefully leading his followers to slaughter. But that’s a hard thing to prove.

That said, neither of you need to worry. My server has a Commander troll who we’ve reported time and time again and ArenaNet doesn’t do a thing about it. Hope you both have continued fun and success in your future trolling and I’m glad that I don’t ever play KarmaTrain of the Mists.

Well, this isn’t mindless qq, but I have to ask…

If ArenaNet’s policy – probably made by Mike O’Brien himself – is that they won’t talk about updates until those updates are basically ready to ship, how will a Community Management Team help?

I mean, having a larger team to post “we can’t discuss features in development” on more threads won’t help.

A larger and/or better Community Management Team also won’t help those features or content get built faster.

So I’m not really sure the point? I think ArenaNet needs to improve its communication, but that’s not a knock (necessarily) against the people doing the communicating, it’s a criticism of the policies they have in place for communicating with us.

1. Anet chooses

No use doing a CDI that players choose that ends up being 90% “we can’t comment on future plans.”

Was it really necessary to make this post?

Pifil.5193:

but I think the main reason for having this kind of group would be so that this kind of discussion (and any outcome from it) would be had before the feature was implemented so that it could feed into the design of that feature. As it is any discussion or feedback is too late to affect anything now.

This guy gets it.

No, Krall, you’re wrong.

Feedback about proposed changes SHOULD INCLUDE potential downsides, risks, and pain points, even if they don’t affect everybody equally or greatly. That’s a valid, important part of the development cycle. Within my own company, I’m frequently saying, “Hey, this thing we’re doing… it could negatively affect this use case.”

The feedback that 300 gold per color is too high, leading many commanders to stick with a single color, negating the utility of the feature is NEEDED FEEDBACK. It is responsible, accurate, necessary information.

Now, ArenaNet could still decide that the need for a gold sink for WvW commanders outweighs the potential downsides of commanders not having access to a feature seen as very important by the WvW community. But still, that feedback should have been given.

lordkrall.7241:

timmyf.1490:

If there exists a player feedback device that did not throw a fit over 300 gold per commander tag color, that feedback device is not working properly.

Why?
It is a completely optional improvement that will not change the dynamics of the game.
Just because YOU don’t see a reason behind it, doesn’t mean others don’t.

Fact remains that even on these forums in open threads people have been stating that they don’t have an issue with the cost. So why would a closed group be different?

Just because YOU don’t see why it’s bad doesn’t mean that others don’t.

See? We can play this game all day. I’d rather not. If you have something constructive to say other than “I’m wrong,” I’d be happy to discuss.

I’m fine with this:

SkylightMoon.1980:

As a player it feels like Anet chooses to do what they want more than what the players demand.

But this is where I see the problem:

SkylightMoon.1980:

A dev actually though we wanted it for combat purposes which is insane.

It seems like they are getting the message that “players want X,” but they’re missing the reason or the specifics and implementing the features poorly. I keep harping on colored commander tags because it’s such a perfect encapsulation of the problem.

The purpose of colors is to allow multiple commanders on a map to take on different roles and be easier to follow. The cost is so prohibitive, though, it will be hard to guarantee multiple commanders will have the right color to be able to switch. You’re going to have commanders having to negotiate and figure out who should be which color.

lordkrall.7241:

timmyf.1490:

If this exists and is active, either the players are not giving the right feedback, Anet is not giving enough detail to get the right feedback, or the feedback that is being given is being ignored.

And who are you to decide what is right feedback?
Right is a matter of opinion. Something that you feel is right might be the completely opposite for a couple of other people and so on.

If there exists a player feedback device that did not throw a fit over 300 gold per commander tag color, that feedback device is not working properly.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

So, who chooses this ‘Player Council’? Whose desires are given weight? I know most of mine are represented on the forums.

I can’t see anything good coming of making such a thing public. But hey!, that’s just me.

ArenaNet chooses the members, probably based on Anet employee selection. The community management folks here could easily pick out a handful of thoughtful folks for inclusion. I think community self-selection is a terrible idea and wouldn’t trust forum-goers to select responsible individuals.

Members should be kept private for (what I hope are) pretty obvious reasons.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

If this exists and is active, either the players are not giving the right feedback, Anet is not giving enough detail to get the right feedback, or the feedback that is being given is being ignored.

I’m in no place to say which of those is the case.

If this is true, though, ArenaNet should consider either shuffling the players involved, changing the level of detail they provide, or taking the feedback more seriously, respectively.

lordkrall.7241:

The fact is that we KNOW that they at least at one point after release DID have a player-based feedback group. Which may or may not have been scrapped after some people in said group started spreading secret and NDA:ed information from said group.

I hadn’t heard this, but shame on anybody who was involved in leaking that information. It’s maddening when jerks ruin good things for so many people.

munkiman.3068:

Either way, a group of players under NDA typically isn’t good, since at worst, a player losing his account is about all they could do.

Actually, legal action for violation of an NDA is definitely possible. Not that they’d go that far. Even if the only option is account termination, it’s certainly not a risk I would take.

I’m not sure that my particular recommendation is the right answer, but I hope we can agree that they need to do something to get feedback earlier in the development process.

Well, I do my best to remain optimistic. PM me for my digits, Anet. ;-)

Exactly. That said, having limited resources is a valid reason why the updates have been slow. That’s not my concern. My concern is, when we do get these updates, they often miss the mark in completely avoidable ways.

Commander Tag Colors don’t need to be a gold sink. Megaserver didn’t have to destroy intra-server communication. Wardrobe/Skin Locker didn’t have to be insanely expensive to keep your gear updated while leveling. Trait Hunting didn’t have to include incredibly time-consuming unlocks or level 80 unlocks for Adept traits.

I don’t have a lot of insight into ArenaNet, but what I see are VERY talented individuals who are just slightly missing the mark in really frustrating ways. But it’s very hard to step out of your situation, your particular point of view, to see little problems like this.

Players like us, though, can recognize these almost immediately. “Oh, we’ll be put on a map with people from all the servers? Cool. Wait, how am I going to broadcast info for my WvW event without giving that information to the enemy? At least guesting requires them to manually take those steps to join us. Now they’ll just be sitting with me in the same map?”

Also, Megaserver is a great example of this. There are, in my eyes, two things they either missed or undervalued in the design of megaservers.

1) No way to “force affinity.” It’s nice that Megaserver has an affinity system for placement, but it seems the only affinity we received was for home world, guild, and party. Friendslist was supposed to be implemented but was not. But what about communities which stretch beyond? RP folks are one huge example, but there are many others. Having a “Role” flag (Role Playing, Dungeons, Fractals, WvW, PvP, Casual, etc options) would have gone a long way in allowing players to find communities of players who are similar.

2) Huge challenges for WvW/guild recruiting and development. This could have been helped with the addition of world chat or leaving certain areas megaserver free.

I like the megaserver overall, but these are huge unsolved problems. It’s now been, what, 4 months? And there’s no word that they’re even trying to fix these, much less implementing and testing fixes.

Iason Evan.3806:

I just need to either enjoy what they make or stop playing.

This would be easier if they didn’t keep saying, “Oh, we hear what you’re saying, here’s a horribly-implemented version of that thing you requested.”

Zerk is definitely not used by 99% of the players. 99% of elite players, perhaps.

If you want to “fix” stacking, support skills need to have their ranges increased DRAMATICALLY. If shouts and trait buffs worked at a 2400 range, stacking would be less necessary.

I’m thinking about things like the 300g/color Commander Tags. Something got lost along the way. It’s entirely possible that ArenaNet expected the huge outpouring of negative feedback, but I think it’s far more likely that they’ve lost touch with the playerbase somewhat and are making poor decisions because of it.

If they went to a small group of players (I’m thinking in the 100 range) and said, “Hey guys, here’s an outline for what we were thinking, does anything stand out as a huge problem?” they’d have an opportunity for early feedback and design iteration.

Again, this information would be provided under an NDA, so the early design stages wouldn’t be seen by the broader community. It’s not intended as a fix for communication, it’s a fix for unintended consequences of updates.

Totally respect that, but here’s my concern: ArenaNet has shown an unwillingness to lay out detailed future plans in CDIs. If they don’t want to let us know what’s coming, smaller group + NDA seems like the only option.

I don’t think they should stop the CDIs, but I think they need to get more detailed feedback on ideas. Or at least have an avenue to ask questions.

When I hear things like, “Oh, we don’t want to do first-person mode because combat would suffer,” it makes me really question whether they understand why people want these features.

My self-summary

29-year old guild leader. Played GW since GW1 BWEs (though took a long break after Nightfall until GW2 BWEs). Played GW2 with tons of real-life friends until they quit 3 months after launch, only a few left. Spend more time in GW2 with girlfriend than we see each other outside of the game. Have made many new friends thanks to GW2 and am heavily invested in its future.

What I’m doing with my life

Working for a software company. Have a background in software engineering, though not specifically game development. Understand the limitations of resource prioritization, development challenges, mixing overall strategy with tactical changes to please userbase.

I’m really good at

Going between the customer and the engineers. Office Space had it right, you can’t just let the engineers talk to the customer.

The first things people usually notice about me

Altaholic. (Up to 10 toons now).

The six things I could not do without

Mesmer bug fixes.
Improved progression systems.
Regularly-scheduled additional permanent content.
More reasons to form guilds/communities.
Better balance of rewards across game modes.
Grumble cakes.

I spend a lot of time thinking about

Why doesn’t ArenaNet form a Players’ Council – a set of representatives from the community who actively play the game. Sign them to an NDA and get first-hand feedback about designs and plans. Not to necessarily guide long-term strategies (though it could serve that purpose as well), but to get a quick “design check” from the community on plans when there is still time to change them.

You know, so we don’t keep getting 300g/color commander tags.

On a typical Friday night I am

WvW server reset meeting. Playing Fractals with my guild. Doing some WvW. Spending my time ignoring my real life friends and hanging with my guildies.

The most private thing I am willing to admit

I play this game like a second job. I put in my 40+ hours of regular work and about the same in GW2.

I’m looking for

Developers Aged 18-99

You should message me if

There’s anything I can do to help. Programmers know that it’s helpful to get a second pair of eyes to look at your code; sometimes the mistake will be instantly obvious to somebody else even if you’ve spent hours looking at it. This is why real news sources have editors: you need that second perspective.

I know the CDI was supposed to be this initiative, but opening it up to everybody presents two problems: too much feedback and the inability for developers to openly discuss potential future plans. This is why you need small groups and NDAs.

tl;dr

This is an extension of some thoughts I had over on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2dvw7g/guild_wars_2_interview_part_1_general_game_living/cjtl2pg

I got enough upvotes over there that I figured I’d try posting here as well.

I love you, ArenaNet, but please start to get feedback directly from players in a more detailed, responsive, iterative manner instead of having community managers read through the forums and try to sum it up for you. (That is simply an impossible job and I have a lot of sympathy for the poor folks who are responsible for going through all the nonsense here.)

I feel like you’re missing the mark on some of these updates by simply not understanding why people want feature X and it’s depressing. At the very least, pilot this idea with a single new feature and see how it goes.

This is a pretty poor decision and really makes me question if ArenaNet understands why we want colors for tags in the first place. It’s not a vanity thing. It’s so that we can easily coordinate multiple groups on the same map.

This is a baffling decision and I urge ArenaNet to reconsider.

Is that Tagalog? Welcome back [WF]!

There’s definitely plenty of fighting spirit left on SoR. Sorry about your guild. You should checkout either RA or MCG. RA is a medium-sized (and growing) guild that’s mostly NA prime, but they have a reasonable group on during off-hours. MCG is a PvX guild that has an Australian-based core of WvWers, so their hours might be more in line with yours.

I love it when people who clearly have no background in coding, digital art, game design, QA, etc try to estimate how long features take.

It’s so hilariously wrong.

Hi Unhygienix!

I won’t give you the copy/pasta here, but consider Super Mega Happy Fun Time! Our full post is over here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/guilds/recruitment/Super-Mega-Happy-Fun-Time-MEGA-SoR-PvX

We fall into the “small guild” category, probably 10-20 active per day at this point, with our core being about 5-10. We do a lot of teaching – many of us are trainers or coaches of a sort in our real lives – so if you’re looking to learn more, we might be a great fit.

We can be choosy about who we invite into our little group, but if you’re the sort of person who likes voice chat, ping me and you can come hang out with us tonight/whenever.

Just a reminder, our weekly WvW player and commander training events are coming up this Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm Eastern Time (6pm Pacific/Server), co-hosted with FIRE. If you’re on Sanctum of Rall and new to WvW, you should join us!

As somebody who is generally supportive of the ArenaNet developers, perhaps to a fault (as I’m often called a “white knight”), and somebody who has mostly stopped reading/responding to these boards because of the toxicity, I have this to say…

Devs are busy. They do read (let’s say “skim” because that’s probably more accurate?) these threads. Understood. Taking the time to develop a well-crafted response is probably not something they can all do.

But please, please: it would go leaps and bounds for them to just put a quick, “Interesting ideas here, keep going” every so often. It would take 30 seconds but would lead to so much more red-tag visibility here.

A little bit of positive encouragement goes a long way. Any manager knows it. Heck, any guild leader knows it. It might be worth trying here to see if things improve.

One time, I saw a guild with the tag [kitten]. “It must mean something. I mean, it can’t possibly just be [kitten],” thought I. So I clicked on it. Guild name: “kittenes.”

I really don’t know what I was expecting.

Side note: if the forum replaces this all with “kitten,” the guild name was the last four letters of the second-furthest planet from the sun in our solar system.

Some information I forgot: we primarily are active during US prime time, but we’re looking to expand our EU prime/US day forces, especially in WvW.

Super Mega Happy Fun Time [MEGA] is a small-to-medium-sized PvX guild on Sanctum of Rall, our home since headstart. Our guild does not specialize in a particular type of content and we welcome players of all levels of experience, time investment, and skill. A player who is a good fit to join MEGA might have this internal dialogue…

I enjoy this game, but I feel like I’d enjoy it more playing with friends. I’d really love a group of people I can join up with for dungeons, Fractals, WvW, the new story stuff, whatever I feel like doing. I just don’t want the hassle of required activities/raids, 100% rep, or the drama that comes with a large guild of strangers.

Or this…

I’m not the best at this game, but I’m always looking to be better. I love learning, I love helping, and I love teaching others as well. I want a fun, laid-back environment where I can grow and I can help others grow and succeed as well.

The best way to see if you’re a good fit is to come hang out with us! If you’ve used the Sanctum of Rall Teamspeak before, you can find us down in the [MEGA] guild channel. If you don’t know the TS info, just message me and I’ll send it over.

Things we might do on any given night:

• Dungeons
• Living Story Stuff
• Fractals
• Dance Parties
• Idling + Drinking + Shenanigans
• World vs World
• Guild Missions
• Tonic Parties
• Guild Wars 1 (Yes, really!)
• Anything For Love
• Training/Coaching

If you’re looking for some new friends and want to play in a relaxed-but-still-skilled environment, we might be a good fit! Come say hello.

I don’t think you should worry about choosing a class. I use different classes for different content. Necro in WvW, Warrior and Engineer for dungeons, Mesmer for Fractals and sPvP, etc. I think multi-classing makes you better, not worse, at the game, especially for PvP scenarios.

We ticked 695 last night. Are you sure we need OCX/SEA coverage? :-D

Hey RA, hope you guys show up for Commander Training on Thursday at 9pm Eastern. Could use a few experienced hands. Find me on TS for details.

-Karaoke

As a guild leader, I must say that this is EXACTLY what I’d like to see when somebody posts looking for a guild. I know precisely what you want and whether my guild would work. (In my guild’s case, probably not, as we’re on SoR, probably a bit smaller than you’d want, and we do stop to smell the flowers from time-to-time.)

Good luck! (And prepare for the forum spam…)

But that would mean taking a break from mind-blowing, gut-wrenching war!

OP is correct. Zerker is not the only damage build. It just tends to be the best in most PvE encounters.