Guild Wars 2

It’s been like this for awhile now, I remember this happening a couple of weeks ago also. It’s an event right beside Nebo Terrace, Level 28. Both of them show up with health at 0 but the event won’t complete.

We should keep the conversation away from discussing the patch and on the topic of how we can better discuss the patch.

Xar.6185:

I would absolutely be ecstatic if there was a direct engagement person from Anet to address current hot topics. I would love it. It just doesn’t seem to be their M.O.

They are not dumb people. They have the data they could explain why it is the way it is. The person doing so just has to be ready to counter the well thought out criticisms and the thick skin (or quick moderators) to ignore all of the ‘this sucks rollback people should be fired’ posts.

Can we put together a list of the qualities we want in a community/developer liason like the song in Mary Poppins?

phys.7689:

honestly talking about guilds at this point is just as important as talking about the current leveling.
If theoretically the CDI is a development tool, getting a CDI while they are in the brainstorming phase is just as neccessary as dealing with current issues.

Essentially a good CDI could theoretically reduce the chance of a bad implementation on any guild changes they come up with.

They need a seperate entity to deal with and come to an understanding on current content issues.

Yeah, plus, they’re not going to want to make ANY changes on leveling or the recent patch until they see what people are doing. If it turns out that the forum posters represent a majority opinion, then that’s one thing. If it turns out that people are actually doing more in the game, then that’s another. And they need to know what angle they should be approaching this at.

So we need to come to a detente.

Anet should give us the opportunity to have a clear back and forth with somebody about changes, even someone that just compiles an updated list of suggestions/likes/grievances and makes notes.

In turn, we need to calm down and realize that it’s not going to work to insist they make huge changes now. And also to not make the Anet team want to avoid these forums. That’s like the opposite of what we all want.

Can we make that happen? I think it would do everybody a lot of good.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

phys.7689:

• Someone should be engaging players and trying to see why so many are not liking the changes, and whether anything can or should be done about it. It shouldnt just be an im listening post, it should be a real discussion whereby someone is trying to come to an understanding or gain knowledge.

Good feedback thanks.

Chris

There’s got to be somebody currently not paying attention that you can volunteer for that, right?

Seriously, though, that’s a good suggestion, because I want this to work also.

Stephane, can you say whether there will be content updates beyond the two normal holidays in between now and the next living story update, or will it just be a period of very little activity for the next month or two? Don’t need any details whatsoever on what they might be, just want to know whether we should expect not to see new stuff for awhile like over the past month.

Xillllix.3485:

You can still use those level-up scrolls or craft your way up.

Last character I made I used 1 scroll, levelled up from 20 to 40, then crafted 6 professions.
Took 2 days for the levelling, 3 hours for the crafting.

I agree however that is seems like they are dumbing the game down.

I don’t exactly have a ton of scrolls. And here’s the thing, you NEED to level through those zones, that’s how you get most of your low level mats! Low characters are the only ones that get equipment drops that salvage as iron ore.

Astralporing.1957:

Pushing the unlocks further will not make those things go away. Nothing in these changes help people learn anything. Yes, there are people that still, after 2 years, didn’t learn to dodge. Does that mean that dodging should be available only after level 10 (for example)?

It’s not “pushing players into deep waters” (by having available everything from the start) that is a problem. It’s telling them to swim, without bothering to teach them how to do it.

A lot of players don’t realize they can go to other maps. Best lock them into the starter zone until level 50.

I’m looking forward to playing the new feature pack on my 80s. I’m now extremely pessimistic about the new characters I was making.

What I do know is that whoever is making these plans has no freaking clue how games work, I’m almost certain it’s the “dreamers” at the company and not the actual developers. When Tequatl came out, it failed every time. But they didn’t nerf it, players learned and taught each other, and now he is beaten every single time he comes out, it’s just a matter of whether people can get organized fast enough.

Lesson is: gamers ALWAYS whine that stuff is too hard, and then they adapt. That’s every freaking game since the beginning of time. You don’t listen to the whining, you respect them enough to tell them they’ll be fine if they just keep trying. I feel so bad for the new players in this system, they will be so far behind everyone else that they’ll quit.

Firebaall.5127:

The fact that they can be sold/bought makes them not only RNG. It doesn’t matter if it was a lucky drop for the original owner. If they ONLY came from the forge or as a drop then you’d have a logical leg to stand on.

Listen to yourself…. “I refuse to do that” (purchase off the TP). Entitled, does not a legendary make.

What they’re saying is actually considering more sides than you are. I don’t like the idea of spending hours and hours and hours grinding more gold than I’ve ever gotten before, strategizing and saving… then handing it over to some other player who got a lucky drop. It’s crappy, I’d much rather spend hours grinding and just throwing it into a gold sink.

If it were clear that all accounts were wired to provide similar levels of “luck”, then it might not be a problem, but that is not the case. And I don’t want to subsidize someone else’s burgeoning career flipping stuff on the TP.

I love how condescending people are about the game, “you don’t understand, the newbies aren’t like you and me, they don’t know any better and they’ll love whatever they’re given”. It’s like, just because we all loved this game when we played it doesn’t mean we’d have loved this new game.

And it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean that all the veteran players should love having to deal with this nonsense if we want to make a new character. No, this is not just a feature for new players, it is a hindrance for old players.

Coolio, so now not only will players unlock Ascalonian Catacombs before getting traits, they’ll unlock it before having a full skill bar. This. is. stupid.

So crappy! I was looking forward to trying this new system and making classes I’d never made before. Now I know that the game has been redesigned for people who have never played in their life. I wish they’d been honest with this, I’d have started way earlier. Maybe if I create new characters now, I won’t have to deal with it.

Kaldrys.1978:

Well I’m sitting on a stack of pristines and have most of the fractal skins (all but one acquired post-fractured) so I think that would qualify as running fractals on a regular basis. At one point I had half a bank tab of ascended armor and weapon chests with terrible attributes and I know other members of my fractal group had even more. I even managed to put together a full celestial set from all the healer/defender chests that I got, which is convenient for wvw I guess.

That still doesn’t mean there would be thousands of precursors dropping onto the market at once. Because of course the item you get from this is one per account and account-bound. So you’d need to get the precursor you want and then have the drive to complete the achievements to craft a legendary.

And frankly, if a huge number of people who do high-level fractals frequently haven’t gotten the precursor they want enough to get it from this, then that says a lot about how much this is needed, no?

I seriously ask ANet to reconsider this. A way to get a precursor without RNG or buying off the TP is far more important to players than you seem to realize. This is an elegant solution to make that happen without totally wrecking the economy OR the price of precursors. Do this and you won’t hear us whining about it for quite awhile, you’ll win so much goodwill, and without even really changing much of anything.

You’ve changed stuff before based on feedback. CHANGE THIS PLAN TO GIVE PRECURSORS. Implement a scavenger hunt in the future, rethink how precursors work later. Make this a path to get one now and give yourselves a break to not have this constantly as a request. I don’t think you know how many people get tired of the game because of this, I’ve heard this without prompting from 2 people tonight alone.

Mine did, thank you!!

I’m having this problem also, so I’ll be presumptuous and give you my ticket number as well: #878816

I just wanted to say that I noticed I have barely touched the achievements for living story and in some cases for Dry Top, and I wanted to stop and say that I hope no developer or manager takes that to mean that the achievements were wasted or a bad idea. To the contrary, I want to say thanks for creating so many of them in a format that I can complete anytime. It would be nice if we could unlock them the first time through, but in general, it’s pretty fantastic to know that if I need to get some points, I can round up a posse and blaze through the living story at any time.

I love this direction, I hope it continues and I just wanted to share my own opinion of that. I’d hate if it turned out that statistics showed more people were like me and it was decided that adding achievements for living story completion was a flop. Just my two cents.

I think there are times when it works and times when it doesn’t. I actually like the changes in Kessex Hills, but I think the toxic events in Queensdale and other maps are absolutely a blight on the landscape and far too difficult for new players to complete without a group, they really need to be removed. In general, I think if an event is clearly much more difficult than its surrounding area, it really should be nerfed way down unless it’s a clearly demarcated and easily avoidable world event like Tequatl or Jungle Wurm. And I definitely think that these sorts of things shouldn’t be in starter zones, those should be like sanctuaries.

The same goes for Iron Marches, the events in that area are at about twice the difficulty of anything else. I get that it’s because they’re intended to be challenging at level 80, but I’d rather have easy enemies that feel immersive than have super-challenging enemies that make things weird when just trying to do map completion.

That being said, I’m not sure how to reconcile my opinion with the OP, because like I said, I think Kessex Hills is the only example of the look being done 100% right. If there’s going to be a change to the living world, I want it to feel completely immersive within a map, not like it’s just a layer put on top of what was there before. I’d like if Iron Marches had mordrem spread even more across the map, maybe more vines in odd places. I just wish there wasn’t a champion more difficult than the world boss in that zone that was constantly present.

Even in Tequatl, everyone runs in for a burn phase. Once he’s low in health and you know it, run in and help finish the job. The mechanic that you complain about is also what prevents afkers from just instantly having access to rewards.

Please announce whether this is going to be fixed or not, I was actually going to roll my first ranger on Tuesday to try out the new character system!!

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

They weren’t able to get the face-blurring technology ready in time and John’s too proud to wear a mask.

So now that info on the new trading post is out, can you tell us what parts (if any) you’re most excited about?

Dahkeus.8243:

To put it in nerd terms:

Karl stacks tons of Int and Wisdom because that’s what he needs for his role, so don’t get all bent out of shape just because he’s not rolling on +Charisma gear.

/thread.

Why people making fun of Karl? That’s awful, dude looks slightly terrified of being on camera. No offense intended to Karl, I’m reminded of my days in comp classes in college, most developers simply aren’t typically wired to give presentations. Usually that corresponds directly with how technically proficient said developer is.

JonPeters.5630:

felessan.9587:

JonPeters.5630:

Lazuli.2098:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

JonPeters.5630:

Thanks. I’ll pass this on.

So, this is how it works? Cherry pick ONE PERSON’s “list of things I don’t like”, while ignoring 40 pages of really good feedback and ideas? OK. I’m done with this thread.

From this response from JonPeters and his initial post it is obvious that Anet is not going to fix their new leveling process or trait system except the individual tasks themselves.

I’m discouraged since I used to like leveling new alts but can live with just playing my level 80s instead.

To be clear we are looking at the system as a whole but recognize that changing that will take longer than is satisfying and are looking for ways to improve the current system until a time at which we can make a better overall system from the ground up. Specific suggestions on what traits are poorly placed are helpful for #1, specific suggestions on #2 are also welcome but are going to be read but not responded too right now.

Thank you, that is nice to hear.

Please be more honest and straight-forward like this in the future.

To be fair, we love being this honest and straight forward normally though it just ends up sounding like a bunch of talk and not a lot of walk and that is because it takes time to be this active on the boards. After today I’ll be a bit less “forum active” again but that means I am working on making the game better.

Well, anytime you have a question about what players think about something, what direction we might prefer, what we would consider to be worth it/not worth it, please feel free to ask or even just pass along a request for a community manager to ask. Just seeing a red response is enough to demonstrate that stuff is being read.

Also, imho, completing Obsidian Sanctum is way too difficult for a tier one trait unlock. And anything that requires level 80 should be relegated to tier 3 unlocks. The trait unlocks involving Frostgorge should be tier 3. Replace Arundon Vale with Obsidian Sanctum and make the Tier 1 unlock something like “Kill the imp lord” in Dredgehaunt Cliffs.

I want to add in the feature I would most like to see for guilds: alliances. Ways in which small social guilds can formally team up for events, dungeons and chat while still able to chat and act within the normal guild.

Preferably done so that no alliance can have as many members as a single guild. That way we would prevent an alliance from taking over a server or something.

Technically, Thursday is September 4th, not sure if Donari was trying to trick you or not, but…

Simple solution to all of this: Rainbow text.

But in regards to the shatterer, I think a couple of things are in order. It really shouldn’t be possible to stand immediately off to the side and afk the fight, so attacking that area should be an essential part to improving him. Maybe making crystals fall all over the place similar to jormag. After that, the rest is optional, but attacking the crystals that heal him is an excellent boss mechanic unique to Shatterer, so I’d be fully on board with making that part essential to a win.

Hayashi.3416:

Karka queen is overly easy atm, being summarised into:

1. Facetank melee.
2. Dodge when Stability procs on Queen.
3. Throw eggs when they appear.

That boss needs some sort of rework too.

She gets a lot harder when other karka appear nearby, if that became more of a thing, then that would fix that. Hard to facetank karka queen PLUS 5-6 other karka at the same time.

BobbyStein.2315:

If they weren’t presented as tours for other racial cities but instead shown with characters walking and talking about their surroundings (perhaps independent of player participation) it could get the information across while also differentiating the feel of the different races. Thoughts?

Could present it as a teacher holding a field trip and talking about the area. Or in Rata Sum, just part of a class being held. But I would like this too, when you enter a place like Rata Sum, it’s pretty easy to be like, “why is there this giant structure floating in mid-air?”

narwhalsbend.7059:

nethykins.7986:

T
Also, here’s a wild suggestion for the downed thing….Place the downed skills in the character skills UI area so i can see what skills I have BEFORE I’m downed!!!!

This is a good idea, look at this devs. The one thing that I found difficult when making a new character was finding out what my downed skills did before I got killed.

I will third this idea, this would be extremely beneficial.

LostBalloon.6423:

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

The Feature Pack announcements will continue next week and some of them will definitely contain information that’s relevant to those of you who’ve been playing the game for long. We won’t tell you about them until the articles are live though, to keep the element of surprise!

Can you guys at least post the titles (tomorrow) so that we can at least speculate over the weekend, and not just have them pop when the first article of the week gets released.
Nothing major, bit it would be cool.

I think after the grumbling that followed “Improvements Galore”, they’re not exactly clamoring to restart title hype.

Really really would love more of these hypothetical conversations, so thank you for posting. Obviously you wouldn’t be able to tell us if changes were going to happen, but it’s nice to be able to understand what WOULD be feasible if in fact changes were ever going to happen.

As for your question, does the camera know when it’s on the level of the player’s feet? Because that would be approximately the same, no? It might cause issues when on an incline, but it would be sufficient when on solid ground or even at very small inclines.

digitalruse.9085:

Letting people choose to replay the personal story (like they can the living story) and if it meets the conditions:

1.) Replay by an old character.
2.) First time replaying episode.

Then it gives those players the new items being introduced might be a good compromise.

Yes! I think that might be a relatively nice bone to throw at the veteran players, being able to replay for rewards they’d miss out on. Would definitely leave a less bitter taste in my mouth.

If this is going to be coupled with changes to make it faster to level to 10, then I suppose it’s not a terrible plan, it gets people out in the world and trying dynamic events and trying out weapons and what not. Like an immersive tutorial before the game really starts up.

But man, the personal story was the fastest way to level! If that’s gone, then it’s going to be a huge grind unless they are going to make the first 10 much easier to get through.

I think the thing that people like the original poster are responding to is that it’s hard to accept answers like “we didn’t have time to fit that request inside this feature pack” when so much of it is geared towards things that don’t actually seem to be requested by anyone.

chemiclord.3978:

It really does seem like this feature pack is targeted more towards new players rather than ones who have been sitting at “endgame” for over a year.

That’s not necessarily BAD, mind you, but for those “endgame” players, there understandably hasn’t been much to perk their ears.

Yeah, I’d be interested in an answer from someone at ANet as to what they think the balance is between appeal to new and returning players? There’s some things that seem nice and all, but it’s mostly stuff that as a veteran I’ll never use. If this feature pack is intended to be disproportionately aimed at new players, that’s fine, but I do hope that yall at least recognize that the number of benefits to long-term players with full character slots feels pretty non-existent beyond the crafting subrecipes and class balance updates. So if this is the last implementation of game improvements coming out until next spring or summer, it’s a little bit puzzling.

Do you know who named Mawdrey II? Because I just love that so much.

Going back and reading through all of this, especially your later refinements to the idea and suggested topics, I have totally lost the feeling that this is something I want. The CDI and dev feedback stuff at least gets into tangible fixes that go into the game. But how in the world can we have a conversation about what keeps me logging in without talking about things you might try to keep me logging in? This comes very close so solving the problem, but the place it would go best is in a forum like “we want more X type of content”, and at that point you just don’t have anything you can say at all. I really appreciate the effort, but frankly, I think as described with the caveats you listed, this wouldn’t be helpful to me at all. And if this became considered one of the key solutions to the current crisis that launched all of this, it would make me angry.

I just think this is useless without changing your policy, I’m really sorry, and I hope that comes across as sincerely as it is intended. I beg you to stop thinking of rough outlines of what’s coming up as a deal-breaker sooner rather than later because you seriously will make people just increasingly upset if you don’t change that. I can’t see any scenario in which six months from now you still won’t announce anything regarding the future of the game, by that point too many people will have fallen off the vine (no Sylvari pun intended).

As always, I’m fully open to alternatives that you would feel more comfortable with, but I’m being honest, having everyone’s concerns about this part dismissed outright or ignored because it doesn’t fit arbitrary rules that the company created not that long ago is starting to make me feel like there’s no chance of anything improving and it makes me sad.

I love the effort being made and I think something like this could be invaluable. But I worry that if company policy still defines the statements “we will address/fix this” or “we won’t have time to get to this for a good while” as being announcements, they’ll ultimately not solve the communication problems.

There’s no real way to get around the lack of communication without relaxing that policy directly or indirectly. The way that policy has been implemented is directly responsible for the communication problem that made people upset. All we need are four options for a status to be included: “Has been addressed to our satisfaction”, “We’re working on this”, “We will be doing this sometime in the future”, “Not confident we can do this at the moment”. Ultra vague statements that tell us whether we should just stop asking for something, either because it’s being done or it’s not going to be done.

I know you’ve been very clear the line you have to tread and I feel really bad if this is a comment that is not productive. But I can’t see how you can really address suggestions without being able to acknowledge that action is being taken.

We’re not dismissing you because we want different things, we’re dismissing you because you’re using your turn at the microphone to say that the game is doomed rather than try to take the opportunity to steer things the way you want them to go.

I would like to see new skills too. I want to make sure it is addressed. I’m not going to insult people to try and get that done.

Maybe the devs can create a new thread to trick the haters into leaving us alone, maybe a thread called “What are we doing wrong?” and just every so often post a quick message just like the above so they feel like they’re still able to abuse the devs.

At this point, I think I can’t ask the dev team to do anything except make a valiant effort to ignore posters with nothing but complaints. The biggest fear I have is that we’ll completely lose the ability to communicate with the team because unproductive people keep cluttering the board with complaints about what hasn’t already been done.

Constructive criticism is good, but these polemics about how dissatisfied you are…. save that for another time.

They didn’t, they promised a living world. In fact, I think they have said all along they don’t really want to add more races or classes, so if that comes along, it’s just a nicety.

I enjoy playing the game, which is why I’m posting here and why I’m interacting with the developers to provide input now that they are trying to reopen that dialogue. If you don’t enjoy playing the game anymore, maybe sit this one out and chime in on the next one so that we can actually develop a communication system rather than just a bunch of threads cluttering the boards with ranting on a soapbox. It makes the whole thing unreadable.

These need to be craftable to higher levels like agony infusions. 2 level 20 scrolls gives you a level 40 scroll, 2 level 40 scrolls gives you a level 60 scroll, 2 level 60 scrolls gives you a level 80. If you have managed to accumulate 8 characters for a year, you have probably earned an insta-80.

Just want to chime in and add that I totally agree with the people saying that there needs to be a more measured approach to release of information. What we have now is a guaranteed recipe for disappointment without any of the added benefit of excitement we got from the older roadmaps.

I mean, right now I have zero idea what is going to come in Guild Wars 2 within the next year. None whatsoever in almost any possible regard. Maybe that’s what you’re going for, but it’s definitely not enough to keep me playing if I were to get tired of what’s available to do at any given time, because I have nothing to look forward to.

I love the survey idea, but I don’t know if it would be feasible to implement right away. I say Anet chooses for the first one, and then hopefully can get a survey in the game later on if that’s feasible, I’d just as soon start with something they’re planning on addressing anyway.

Even if the topic is something that we’re not as crazy about, I’d rather provide input on something they’re working on than something they’ll work on down the road.

Yeah, ANet chooses, it will give us an idea what is feasible and probably will be something faster to implement.