Guild Wars 2

Seriously, why don’t the mods just a make a general feedback thread with every release forum?

This is my first impressions: Wintersday is back, hurray! It’s roughly similar to last year, but that’s fine for me. It’s a holiday, aren’t holidays about tradition? Yeah, it’d be cool if we got something new, like the Bloody Prince story with Blood and Madness, but it’s a holiday release, so I won’t complain.

I don’t mind the rebalancing. Whenever they do it, my characters are never affected in a way that I notice. The new skills are welcome, I wish they were less expensive though. I suppose they’re for level 80 characters, but it’d be nice if they were more accessible to lower levels.

The End of Nightmares thing is awesome. Kessex Hills has returned (relatively) to its sunny self, but there’s some noticeable changes too. I wish, like F&F that the Towers releases weren’t spread out so much, mainly that the ToN and Nightmares Within were combined somehow, but too late for that. The instance was nice, I’m glad it’s repeatable. I like how the NPC’s at Thunder ridge provide some background on Scarlet for those who don’t read the short stories, which seem to have mysteriously disappeared.

Merry Wintersday is the kind of release that should be the standard for future releases. It’s big, has more than just one main feature or event going on, and things change. I’m happy with how LW 2013 is ending. This is may become my favorite release of the year. And I’m super hyped for what’s going to happen next year!

Your thoughts on everything in this release?

Selling experience on the Gem Store would not make people very happy. Wouldn’t a better solution be to have it where if the party leader leaves, a new one is automatically appointed so that the rest of the party can stay in the dungeon?

I know the frustration, it’s happened to me.

Nice constructive criticism there, OP. “I don’t like this event, remove it!” Maybe it would be better to suggest something like removing Scarlet invasions from just Sparkfly, or better, starting them elsewhere if Teq will be up within a 10 minute window.

@Asko. I agree about scaling. Every event should scale, really. Not every one can have a large base of players doing them.

With the Tower now 3 weeks old, I’ve had plenty of time to visit it at different times of the day. My conclusion is similar to yours now. I agree with the positives, but there’s two things that kind of kill it for me.

1. Scaling, like OP said, is crazy. If a zerg just passed through floor one or something, and you and a small band of players are jogging to catch up with them, you’ll be dealing with the mess that zerg left behind. Everytime you kill one mob, a new one spawns in just as tough. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you can’t keep up with the zerg. Poisons, confusion, and mines are everywhere and don’t make it any easier.

2. With scaling like it is, it would have been nice to have a travel golem or WP for the top floor in addition to the other three. I’ve wanted to repeat that instance and maybe help fill that bar in, but I can’t without having to brave through the wonky scaling of the tower. If a WP was at the top, I could just go up there and do it. I guess if that was the case, the tower would be destroyed much faster though.

So, I guess it’s just the scaling that kills it for me in the end. But I encourage the devs to continue experimenting. This was a nice try. And I do like that it is open world.

So no release on the 24th. Okay then. The only thing I want to know is when the next release will be launched. I assume it’ll be announced and previewed a week after Wintersday like usual, but when will it come out?

This is a “post ’em here” thread. What are you posting? Your ideas for better effects on certain skills. Which ones do you think could be made to look more appealing, more powerful, etc. Yeah, these will all be small suggestions, but It’ll be neat to see what people come up with.

I’ll start with Life Siphoning. I never liked the way it looked. It’s like a bunch ham is floating towards your character. It just doesn’t represent lifestealing very well. More like gorging on meat. I always thought Life Siphon skills should have a red, wispy effect. Not necessarily blood but very close.

This goes also for Life Force on necro’s. When something dies a little green glob drifts over to my character, like I’m collecting ectoplasm or something. I’d say the same effect should be used as the one I suggested for Life Siphon for Life Transfer and Life Force gain, but green in color.

I don’t see why they wouldn’t release it on the 24th. Okay, I do see it, but I don’t think it’ll hurt if they do. I don’t know about others, but for most of the 24th, I’m just waiting for Christmas Eve night to show up. Having the content to keep me occupied for the day would be nice.

If they hold off for a while, fine. Either way, it’s no big deal to me.

No she won’t show up. If she didn’t for SAB and Halloween why would she for Wintersday? Besides Merry Wintersday is one of the usual two “break” releases we get inbetween story ones. Even though she makes a small appearance in Fractured I don’t count that as a story update, but I digress.

What’s up with the paranoia?

EDIT:

What does that tell us about the playerbase?

That a lot of players are panicky and overreact to things?

Greyfur.1082:

Its the same on TC

To me it seems to be moving at the same slow pace as it did in the beginning even though we have less people doing it.

Yeah, on Sorrow’s Furnace, it’s the same. So, I guess it it global. Fine by me. Whether a timer or player driven, the bar will probably fill by December 10th. I’m glad the Nightmares content (most of it) was left in long enough for people to have a good time window to complete or just try it.

Electro.4173:

The devs have claimed that the Antitoxin Injected bar is player-driven. Meaning the bar only advances when players do the top instance. And the tower only gets destroyed when the bar fills up.

Whether that’s true or its just a tricky timer, I don’t know. I’m leaning towards it being true, though, because it seems unlikely that they’d leave the tower in for over a month if it was just a timer.

I agree with you. At first, I thought it was a timer. But with them mentioning it in the Merry Wintersday Preview Page, I could believe it’s progress is player based, which is pretty cool. Last I looked the bar was like 3/4 full, but I don’t know if it’s different for each server or global for all servers. I imagine it’s global.

I doubt anyone could come up with a plausible lore explanation for that. But I’m fine with it just being for the sake of gameplay. Like when they revamped Tequatl, I was surprised that Anet had a yet unknown explanation for his new power. I would’ve been okay if that was just a gameplay thing.

So…some people are saying that because Anet wants to advertise their game by making a contest and putting it on sale for 40% off, it somehow shows desperation? Christmas is coming up, I’m almost certain that the reason why they’re doing all of this, is to get people to buy the game during the Holiday season…like one million other companies right now. It’s called marketing.

The contest itself is goofy (the video and the actual contest), but whatever. I don’t pay attention to marketing often and I don’t care how a game is marketed. All that matters is what the game itself is like.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Well i certainly understand where your coming from. So the other option is to run 3 on Monday and we go in knowing that we still have some way to go in terms of us all getting everything right in terms of the spirit of the initiative.

I am happy to do this to. Thoughts?

Chris

I’m fine with it. Either way, both plans will leave you with “some way to go in terms of the initiative”. I’d stay the course with 3 until a better solution is implemented. I’d rather keep the pace going with 3 at once than risk one thread going bad and lasting for a long, long time and dragging the process down.

EDIT: What Nike said.

Whatever all this is, I’m just glad they are doing another teaser thing like for Nightmares. I hope the pay off is better though.

And of course it’ll be Scarlet. She’s the main villain of the LS right now. Fractured and Wintersday will be the two break releases we always get between story ones. Those pillars are probably for the release after Wintersday which will be a story one.

Paulytnz.7619:

Read your in game mail, I had a message from Rox saying something along the lines of that we are getting new allies…..or that they have already arrived.

I read that and didn’t really get it. I assumed it had something to do with Fractured, but maybe not. If that’s the case, then it’s weird that we get no mail talking about the stuff happening in FotM.

Sorin.4310:

The DO NOT TOUCH is there on purpose. Once you do touch it it knocks you back and then a text box opens up saying something along the lines of “it said not to touch” or something like that.

Oh. My bad for only responding based on the image. :P

I guess my second statement applies then. Since there’s no real plot, it’s nearly impossible to speculate what those pillars could be hinting at. At least for me.

The biggest design disappointment for some posters is that a cosmetic item was put in the gem store? I could see people saying it’s kind of cheap to make it look like T3 Human Cultural, but the biggest disappointment? Disappointing is having 2 releases about Southsun Cove, neither of which made it Map completable. How can a gem store item be that horrible?

The fact that the objects are called DO NOT TOUCH I bet someone just messed up a prop or something. Like the DELETE ME achievement category around Dragon Bash and Sky Pirates.

If not, I have absolutely no idea. There still isn’t much of a plot going for the LS so, those objects could be anything.

No, today is not the last day. It says specifically in the Fractured release page the Tower is staying for the length of Fractured:

The Nightmare Continues

The Tower of Nightmares is heading towards its collapse, but the fight isn’t over yet! Join in the fight against the vile Toxic Alliance and destroy the foul structure. Bring it to ruin before its evil spreads any further! Learn more.

EDIT: I agree that they should have the end date somewhere, though!

Maybe this has been suggested before, but why not have CDI specific forums? Like maybe one overall where all CDI threads (PvP, WvW, PvE, etc.) go and people can go through and read and devs can start new CDI threads within this one forum and have them all in one convenient place? All the devs could go to this centralized forum and be able to respond to multiple threads easier. Maybe then multiple CDI’s could be made at once and be looked at more often?

I don’t know about other servers, but on Sorrow’s Furnace it’s a little under half full. The bar seems to be moving at a crawl, even in the first few days of the release. On SE the tower is usually only got one or two smaller groups with no commanders in it. I imagine the bar is either actually a timer to the next part of the story, where it’ll fill in time for Scarlet’s next appearance, or it’s universal among all servers and few people are doing the tower so it’s moving really slow (or maybe the bar is just that big).

Honestly, I think the timer is the most likely possibility here.

EDIT: After reviewing the Fractured Release Page, I think the bar will fill when Fractured is over. Since they advertise specifically that Nightmares will continue through it. If its progress is player based they wouldn’t advertise the continuation of the event because it could go on for several releases (several releases that would pull players away from the tower and further drag it out). So yeah, I’m certain it’s actually just on a timer.

BobbyStein.2315:

Some folks seem to appreciate the option to “catch up” with the story when the releases are additive.

I see what you mean there, it was just a thought. But maybe there could be a way for the story to develop without having to “wait” for independent gameplay features to fill in a release. Like what Bonefield was saying.

Bonefield.9813:

One thing that I very much enjoyed about the monthly-ish cadence was the idea that the story could continue at any time, with new stuff being dropped in as a surprise. With the two-week cycle, it seems like there’s much less opportunity for that sort of thing, and so the progression of the story doesn’t feel as organic.

Having guaranteed updates every two weeks is great, but I’m not sure that it’s great for the story. I don’t want to speak too far from under my armchair developer hat, but I think it’d be better overall if the story pacing had more flexibility and didn’t have to be tied to things like gameplay polishing and basic feature additions. Those things are great to have on a two-week schedule, but maybe not having to make stuff fit thematically would give everyone more freedom?

That’s something I liked about the old “phase” system they had with SotMK and Lost Shores. Things could happen in the story without needing a set deadline for an update. Maybe they should revisit that system?

I definitely second the complaints about the story’s pace. I figured that since it’s the end of the year, the Scarlet story would start picking up and we’d learn more, but instead, we only learn that she was behind the Molten and Toxic Alliances, which most people already knew. In the overall Living Story, nothing has escalated or changed really.

I think that’s the problem, releases like the Nightmare ones don’t have a sense of escalation. The TA showed up and was defeated and that’s it. Nothing else happens in the story. Scarlet’s arc has been going on for a while now and there’s no sign of a developing plot or a climax being built. It’s fine for two or three or however many releases to have their own stories that happen and end, but the overall plot should advance as a result. Remember how Flame and Frost transitioned into Secret of Southsun, following the refugees and leaving the question of who formed the MA a secret? When SS was released I was certain we’d get some sort of answer to who was behind them, but we had to wait until Clockwork Chaos for the villain to even appear, and then (even though there were Molten Alliance guys in the invasions) we needed to wait until now (November) for official confirmation that Scarlet was behind the MA.

Future stories should be more concise and not spread out so far. I know that not every release is about the current LS Arc, I’d say use non-arc releases to space out the story, and when there’s a story release, develop the story further. No story release should feel like it’s just spinning the plot’s wheels giving players only tidbits of information and leaving them to speculate for months at a time what that information means.

Agreed. I’d be fine if they didn’t convert all old skins to that skin window in achieve’s, but it’d be great if all future skins you unlock were added to it, so that all your characters could use them.

On the gameplay side of things, yeah, it’s unique and pretty good. I like how everyone can contribute to bringing the tower down. The way people have been zerging through it reminds me of Mad King’s Labyrinth, which I thought was also fun in short bouts. Also, the Gas mask skin is cool.

Story-wise, I finally have a detailed impression of Scarlet, and she’s annoying and out of place as crap. I hope the next big villain, and all afterward are, for lack of a better term, more “adult”. With her I feel like she’s the villain of a kid’s show who wandered into the GW universe. You can have “adult” villains who are crazy or comedic, but they should fit the tone of the game better.

My other big problem with the story and writing is the fact that nothing seems to have been accomplished again. I know nothing more about Scarlet’s plot or character, and the threat of the Toxic Alliance has been foiled. Everything’s back to square one. It feels like nothing changed in the story whatsoever. There’s no sense of escalation. Things happened and were then resolved.

First impression of Nightmares Within is just like most other releases, pretty good in terms of gameplay, really mediocre for the writing. I hope the next one has better writing. At some point we should be seeing the results of all the feedback Anet has received.

You know with everything I’ve learned over the course of 2013 and all the “future plans” hints for 2014. I can safely say that I have hope that next year will be better than this year. The general theme for 2013’s releases and story for me have been “eh, it was okay” (the least interesting, least strong of positive reactions is what I mean). With a couple exceptions of course.

If you want people’s opinions on their favorite and least favorite releases, Chris, there’s a thread in the Living World Forum just for that (though people do only address particular features instead of whole releases sometimes):

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Best-and-Worst-of-GW2-Releases-Year-1/first

I posted my thoughts on the first page of the thread:

Top 5 (in no order or preference, and sorry if its lengthy):

1. Flame and Frost Retribution: I’ve said it before, but once everything was out F&F was much better. That arc could have seriously benefited I think from the 2 week release schedule (with Retribution lasting 1 month, and the two “teaser” releases combined into one.), but it was still good in the end.

2. Southsun Cove: I think I enjoy Southsun more in theory than I do in practice, but it’s had cool stuff happen on it, and more importantly, it expanded both the physical game world and the game’s lore. Like many other players, I seriously want more zones in the near future.

3. Shadow of the Mad King: Out of all the holiday releases so far, this one was easily the most fun.

4. Labyrinthine Cliffs: Like what I said about Southsun, it’s more the idea of it than the actual zone I like. LC had a unique design and layout. I wish they’d put that kind of work into future zones.

5. Super Adventure Box: I know players were divided about SAB, but I thought it was a fun little surprise.

Top 5 Worst (in no order or preference, sorry for the length):

1. Lost Shores: Lot of cool ideas in theory, not so much in practice.

2. Cutthroat Election: I’m not against players deciding the future of the game by any means, but I don’t understand why people got to vote for both. Most people I knew who voted only did it for the achievements, so they voted for both. Wouldn’t that have skewed the results?

3. Last Stand at Southsun: Secret was great, but proportionally, Last Stand didn’t offer much, I thought.

4. Return of the Aetherblades: Why did they have to reappear during another celebration after Dragon Bash? It kind of just made them seem like party crashers.

5. Current Overall LS Story: The year’s only got so many months left in it. 2013 has so many seemingly unrelated LS arcs in it, I can’t imagine how they could tie these together without it being unbelievable. I’m not fond of Scarlet either. I’m hoping future LS Story arcs are bigger in scope and better connected. I’d rather the LS be like the rough equivalent to the campaigns/expansions added to GW 1, where major things happen each time (not immediately, but by the end of each year, things should have noticeably changed).

I think I’ll only add that Blood and Madness is as good as Shadow of the Mad King, in my opinion, and Secret of Southsun should have been number 2 on my Best. And clarify, that I was referring to the first SAB on point 5. No real problems with the second one, but it wasn’t as much of a surprise.

Maybe if they did it for dungeons or other smaller scale battles, it’d be fine. But I think it breaks the flow of combat in big open world DE’s. I don’t like having to stop at one of hundreds of monsters to take extra time to dance around and smash his face in. I’d rather just knock him away with my hammer and move on to the next.

I appreciate that the devs. are experimenting, though.

Having played a bit more, I wish there was more to the achievements and DE’s than destroy the offshoot. It might help if the events were further spread out over Kessex Hills instead of in a long, narrow band. I wish more was going on. So far, this release is sort of like a mix of F&F and Secret of Southsun. But not quite as good as either of those two. Not awful (again things can always change), but not very engaging.

The next release is undoubtedly going to be a sequel to this one with the Tower being a dungeon. And judging by the release image, Scarlet as the dungeon boss. I’ll have to wait until then, though, to be sure.

Surprisingly, there isn’t one of these posted yet, and I always prefer visiting one thread for general feedback instead of several dozen. Simple topic, what do you think of Tower of Nightmares so far?

It just came out, so this is only a first impression. I like all the map changes, how Kessex is evolving and like the strong possibility of at least some of these changes staying. New DE’s are always a plus for me. Zergs never bother me, and I imagine there will be plenty of those for the next two weeks. The new skill, though, is kind of pointless for my characters.

I’m not crazy about the writing though. Another alliance between relatively unrelated foes seems like a rehash of the Molten Alliance (even borrowing the “Alliance” part of that name). I didn’t really like the cutscene, it felt bland, though better than two characters talking against a background. And I’m not happy about the potential for this new alliance to once again be crafted by Scarlet. Could always be wrong in that department though. What does everyone else think?

When Marjory said “norn fart” I couldn’t tell whether to laugh or facepalm. lol

“Toxic Alliance”? Didn’t we already have the Molten Alliance? Only a small nitpick, but no one could think of a better, more unique and sinister, name for them?

There are a couple of ideas I’ve been thinking about for the LW. First thing that does come to mind is how “alive” the world is. I don’t think the Living World feels very dynamic and alive. I had a suggestion that I thought might help. I won’t summarize it here, to keep this post as short as possible. And I’m not saying go with my idea, I am saying that something should be done to give the world a sense of current events and goings on.

On the achievement/story side of things, I usually finish what I’m interested in (which, admittedly isn’t always everything available) in only one or two days of playing any particular release (about 2 hours for each of those days). And I’m not a person who has the attention span to grind achievements. Usually achievements like “open X bags of Y” I won’t do. If a longer development cycle means less “X and Y” achievements and objectives for Living Stories go for it. Also, I wish the actual story was better connected. I keep hearing how things will connect eventually, but I can’t imagine how that could be accomplished without being a big stretch of the imagination. But I guess we’ll see when the time comes…

I think the problems of the LW could potentially be fixed with maybe a different release schedule. Someone (who’s post I can’t find) suggested that there shouldn’t be a fixed schedule for releases, period. That they should be released when they’re good and ready, and I agree. If there’s a way to make more substantial and less gradual two week releases, go for it, but if having an inconsistent schedule means “meatier” updates, I’d be all for that even more.

I think the LW concept is workable and a nice, free alternative to yearly expansions you have to pay for. I don’t at all think the current system is horrible or broken, it just doesn’t keep my attention very long. All I want from the Living World is just more going on with each release, in terms of story and lore, and in terms of features.

Nice theory, and I would love to see new conditions, but I don’t know. Something tells me there’s a good chance of it being exclusive to the Tower (that is assuming the Tower is a dungeon or instance of some kind).

Maybe on the outside it’s a Jumping Puzzle, but on the inside it’s a dungeon or new area. Maybe? Maybe not?

1. Living World and Larger, Permanent Content
2. New Skills, Traits, Weapon Skills for All Professions
3. New Zones and Expansion of Game World and Lore

I guess these all tie into each other. It’s kind of hard to think of new things (and I know none of these are new), when everyone has suggested just about everything I’m interested in. I guess all I want to talk about is how the game will build outward and not just stack on itself little by little each release.

Since this seems like the closest to a general reception thread on the release, I’ll put my two cents in:

It’s every bit as good as it was last year. Best festival releases since last year’s Shadow of the Mad king (possibly because it has much of the same, but that doesn’t bug me). I’m having fun, and I’m not concerned with rewards. B&M is a fun release so far, and that’s all that matters to me. I wish old achievements were unlocked, but that’s a minor complaint.

Also, I actually like the changes with skills and appreciate the additional information on traits and skills.

Well, he’d be a better “crazy” villain than the current one for the Living Story. I don’t know how he’d fit outside of Halloween though. I guess this is where experimentation comes in handy.

I think this is more about how needlessly angry some people get over the “direction” GW 2 is taking than simple opinions about it. I know it can be easy to be swept up in the drama of the forums, but there’s no point being so mad over a video game. I never take offense to an opposing opinion on the game, only when someone’s really snotty about it. (Doesn’t mean everyone should gift wrap criticism either, there’s a good middle-ground).

I don’t think the OP will do much though. If anything, it’ll just give some posters fuel.

…the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo?

With Waypoints and Swiftness, I don’t see why mounts would matter outside of aesthetic reasons. I guess along those lines, I’d be fine with that. But as a mode of transportation, they’d be practically pointless.

That’s cool, but I’m just wondering why the Living World Summary wasn’t updated either. In fact the release page hasn’t been updated either. It doesn’t even list Twilight Assault on there. (Also neither does the Release/Features list.)

Palador.2170:

I think that what you see is what you get.

The big balance stuff is apparently coming in the middle of the month.

That’s too bad, but I am excited for the balancing stuff later on. Hopefully it’ll be good.

Scarlet’s return is … well … a non-event. And I actually expect more small holiday updates like this as we move into the holiday season.

Well, the release after TA is going to be Halloween. For November they could do a Lost Shores size update, maybe make a little tradition out of it, I don’t know. Not sure what to expect for the first half of December. I bet halfway through the month though, it’ll be Wintersday. After that, anything’s possible.

Looking at the release page of Twilight Assault, it mentions a new path, which is apparently going to be permanent, but there’s no features section on the page. Things may be tweaked or revamped when the release comes out, but usually they have a small list of medium/big additions that are coming out along with the release. Will there be no such additions for TA? Or are the devs purposefully not saying what is coming out with this release?

alenaoreo.5206:

This was answered in a Reddit thread.
ArenaColin: “Confirmation for greens will be removed with the release of account magic find, we felt with how much people will be salvaging blues/greens it’s more annoying than useful. It’ll be staying on rares/exotics.”

Glad the devs agreed with us.

I seventh this request. It’s annoying now, it’ll be worse after the SaB is released.

Are people going to start arguing about the definition of “festival” again? Is that necessary? I think you know what people who complain about festivals means.

I’d normally be a bit frustrated about another release that fails to address any of the regular conflicts in the game (like the Centaurs, Flame Legion, Dragons, etc.), but I’m starting to expect it now, and SAB should at least be a good “festival” release the whole way through.

I’m starting to think that maybe releases every 3 weeks or more may not be so bad. Maybe they’ll have time for fuller, more significant releases then.

anzenketh.3759:

wookiee.4631:

I kind of figured that at a later date (like next April) we’d get SAB again with the 3rd world. Then the next time, it’d be another world or maybe a Super Adventure Box 2 world 1, and goes on like that. But I don’t think this is likely.

Isn’t SAB supposed to be recurring? Will they just keep successively adding worlds to it? Wouldn’t that get old quick?

The only recurring events that I am aware of is Halloween and Wintersday. Possibly Dragon Bash.

SAB and Bazaar of the Four winds reappear when ArenaNet feels a need for them.

Wouldn’t that still technically make them recurring? (Sorry for arguing about semantics. )

I kind of figured that at a later date (like next April) we’d get SAB again with the 3rd world. Then the next time, it’d be another world or maybe a Super Adventure Box 2 world 1, and goes on like that. But I don’t think this is likely.

Isn’t SAB supposed to be recurring? Will they just keep successively adding worlds to it? Wouldn’t that get old quick?