Guild Wars 2

Kalarchis.8635:

As for developer involvement in the forums….make a post about not being able to buy gems, or ask how to put in custom music. The devs have no problem responding to those right away.

I don’t mean this in an insulting way, but how old are you? Have you held a job in a corporate environment before?

I’ll give you an example. My company has a big message board where people can ask questions. We’re an enterprise software company. I work within my company’s Education group, so if people have questions related to training, I’ll pop in and answer. I’ll occasionally also answer questions about the product when I know the answer.

Sometimes people have questions about the next version of our product. I might know the answer. Or at least think I know it. But it could have changed. I’m not directly involved in those talks. Or the meetings they have about how to communicate the changes. etc.

So yeah, somebody came in and gave the link for the playlists. What makes you think he is in ANY way knowledgeable or authorized to respond on behalf of the company on THIS thread?

He isn’t.

You guys keep acting like every single human being at ArenaNet is equally capable of answering your demands here. They are not. And the guys who are? They’re busy with China.

You don’t have to like it, but you should at least understand what’s happening.

Eurhetemec.9052:

timmyf.1490:

Headline: Angry Mob Demands Target of Protest “Be Reasonable and Come Join Us”

If you want more dev interaction on these forums, it’ll take months of you guys exercising self-control and not attacking them or their work.

These forums haven’t been respectful enough to earn further dev interaction. If I worked for ArenaNet, I’d NEVER come here.

And if you’re so entitled as to think they “owe” us that interaction, there’s not really anything I can say. You’re wrong. Your $60 bought you a game, not the ability to force people to listen to you yell about how much you hate them and the work they’ve done.

If you think this is about “hate”, you should leave the discussion, because you clearly are not reading what people are saying. It is about criticism and dissatisfaction, and many people here have spent far, far more than $60. Whether they are “owed” a response isn’t the question. The question is whether it is smart to stay silent. I figure the devs have a week, at the outside, before people get really frustrated, so they need to respond by then if they want to avoid hurting the game.

Also, a guild leader who can’t distinguish “hate” from criticism is a guildsplosion waiting to happen, so you might want to look into that.

I’d prefer to leave my guild out of it, if that’s okay with you.

These forums are incredibly confrontational to developers. While some developers receive positive responses, others are met with huge amounts of vitriol every time they post. There are threads with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of posts, and there are dozens or perhaps hundreds of threads.

There are people who have the job of reading those posts. They are not developers. They are community managers or moderators. They collect feedback and give it to the developers.

The developers themselves are busy building the game, not browsing forums. They’ll pop in to the forums to read, maybe comment occasionally, but they’re busy. And even if they have the time to respond, it’s not always their call. ArenaNet, as a company, has a policy of not talking about future features or current development. It’s up to a select few developers – when authorized – to share that information.

I have no doubt that Anet is discussing Megaserver and potential changes. The discussion are unlikely to be finished. They could very well decide that it works fine. They CLEARLY think some changes need to be made as they’ve already been playing with the language options for you guys in the EU.

What I tire of is the constant demands for attention. We sound like a bunch of 3-year olds. While some threads and some posts are simply presenting relevant feedback in a way that can be consumed, the vast majority are just “ANET PLZ” threads that provide no real actionable information for the developers.

That is why we hear nothing but silence.

Edit: I re-read this post and feel terrible for saying that developers have “real jobs,” potentially implying community managers and moderators do not. Being a CM is a hard, often thankless job, and those of us who have worked a bit in the real world know the crap you have to deal with regularly. Love you guys, especially Danicia for the impromptu dance session yesterday at Balthazaar. Good running into you. :-D

Well, didn’t take us long to get off topic, huh?

Chris, I have a lot of feelings about this because this has definitely affected my enjoyment of the game. I would say that I’m torn on the subject, and here’s why…

I Bought the Game For The Grind-Free Gearing

I play about 2-3 hours per day, but I hate farming. As a player who had played Guild Wars all the way from early-purchase, I was happy to have another game that continued with that style of easy leveling, easy gearing. For stats, at least.

All My Real Life Friends Quit Because “There’s Nothing To Do”

When GW2 came out, I had about 8-10 real life friends who got the game with me. Around October or November, when they all had exotics, they didn’t know what to do. So they left.

You Can’t Please Everybody

In theory, adding another tier of gear should have kept my friends around longer. But truthfully, once they got their Ascended gear, they probably would have left anyway. Meanwhile, I now feel the pressure to gear out 8 characters in very expensive, long-term-goal gear that isn’t supposed to be in the game. Or at least wasn’t supposed to be in the game at the time I purchased it.

Whatever You Choose, Please Make It Clear

If Ascended is the end of the treadmill, that’s fine. I can manage. Most of my toons will never have Ascended armor, but Exotic is good enough. If, however, you continue to add more vertical progression, you should make that known. I don’t want a vertical gear treadmill and I can leave and find another game.

It is your decision to make, but all I ask is that you respect the player-base enough to let us know your plans.

tl;dr “the prices are out of whack, so to fix them, we’re doing nothing and hoping they’ll fix themselves”

This is why I’m not an economist. :-)

I believe the main problem is that it creates a TERRIBLE first impression of the game for anybody who begins with a human character. (Which is the plurality choice.) Those champ train folks can get rather nasty in map chat.

I think I’ve felt both frustration and optimism about this game. The way I think about it is this….

Playing Guild Wars 2 is like taking your second-choice date to prom.

You’re happy. You will have a good time. There’s nothing wrong with your date. But it wasn’t the date you really wanted. And the more you think about wanting that other person, the less happy you’ll be.

I think most of us wanted more from GW2. That doesn’t mean the content we got is bad, though. I’ve gone back and forth with the Living World strategy – it reached a high point around the Bazaar stage and I remember saying, “Oh man! They’re getting their feet under them! This is going to be great!”

Then we had a few more disappointing releases and a lot more open-world zergfests.

I believe ArenaNet is a company of smart people who care deeply about this game but are working in a severely limited development environment. I don’t know if it’s because the code is a mess or the tools aren’t quite right or the engine just can’t handle the art they wish they could do or what. I’m utterly perplexed that they haven’t expanded the world we play in yet, 18 months in. I question whether zergy overflow fests are really the way of the future. I mourn the loss of each guild member who leaves (or stops representing) my small community so they can kill Tequatl or Wurm with TTS instead.

All that said, because ArenaNet is full of smart people who care, I think they’re also able to take the feedback we’re giving them and do better. Remember, they’re trying something new and expecting them to get it right the first time is maybe expecting too much.

I think Living World Season 2 will be a bellweather for this game’s future and I really hope they succeed.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

Proposal Overview

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Goal of Proposal

As leader of a small guild, I routinely find that new and experienced players alike have a fear of getting started with Fractals. They don’t know what Fractals are, how they work, or what they should be doing. I’ll offer to take them on some low level runs and explain the maps, but given the large number of Fractals, it can take awhile before we run into certain Fractals.

This makes it considerably harder to get them up to speed.

Also: I do not do higher-level Fractals with instabilities, but I could see this functionality being useful for practicing Instability X with Fractal Y.

Proposal Functionality

By speaking to Dessa, you can take your party into a single, specific Fractal of your choosing. (Over time, as Fractals deactivate, this could also be a way to play Fractals that are no longer in the main rotation.)

Associated Risks

Loot is my primary concern. If Practice Fractals have the same drops and rewards as regular Fractals, I could see them being farmed. I therefore propose that no loot drop AT ALL in Practice Mode Fractals so they are ONLY used for their intended purpose: learning the encounters so you can play regular Fractals with a group.

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.

Top 3:

1) Dredge
2) Ease of getting started with Fractals/Practice Mode (see my proposal)
3) Fractal rewards compared to risk/reward of other game types

chronometria.3708:

So I say unto those venturing into the edge of the mists – come armed and come determined enough that when you fall, you get back up and you hunt out the one who felled you so that you can drive him or her from the mists and into the hands of Grenth himself.

The time to ignore us is over – you`re in our world now.

Except for the part where you can’t see anybody’s name, so hunting them out is pretty hard. Oh, and the zergs can make hunting pretty hard. Or other roamers.

I play WvW rarely. It’s not really my thing. I don’t have as much of a hang-up as others, but I’ll say this:

Taking a PvE player who does not enjoy PvP experiences and putting them into a PvP situation where the PvP players want to grief the PvE player as much as possible is a terrible idea.

Look, I just want to add that I personally don’t see much evidence that the OP is homophobic. Or that the posters here defending him are homophobic. I think that’s a pretty strong word and we shouldn’t just casually toss it around.

What I do think is that you are privileged. As am I – a white, college-educated, straight male.

What do I mean by privileged? Specifically, in this case: a relationship which mirrors the kind that I would have in real-life can be represented in game without being seen as social activism or social commentary.

When we make a big deal over this sort of thing, we’re sending small, (I assume) painful messages to people who are already marginalized that the behavior or choices they find most natural are somehow unnatural, strange, unwanted, or wrong.

For my LGBT friends who constantly have to deal with this nonsense: don’t let the kittens grind you down. <3

Mireles Lore.5942:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Look. All we want, is consistency.

2 Iron Ores > 1 Iron Ingot
2 Silk Scraps > 1 Bolt of Silk
2 Thick Leather Sections > 1 Cured Thick Leather Square
2 Hardened Leather Sections > 1 Cured Hardened Leather Square
3 Softwood Logs > 1 Softwood Plank

Please fix it, thank you.

They really cant fix that because the players decide how many ingots, bolts, and squares are in the game. They don’t actually drop on a loot table.

The raw has more value than refined because the raw materials can provide crafting exp by producing the refined version. So people leveling crafting buy the raw version more often.

I think “>” here is meant to represent the recipe/crafting process, not a comparison of value. Think of it as “→” instead.

Rezz.8019:

The kiss was completely unnecessary and pushed. A hug would have been perfect for that situation.

“Oh hey, person I’ve grown to love over time, in small ways at first, but now truly and deeply, who just rushed in to capture the person responsible for destroying a great city and was knocked out, who I thought was dead, taken from me suddenly, who now has just woken up in my arms…

Hug time! Glad you’re still with me, pal!"

Here’s a few things that I’d like:

1) Skin Locker for PvE with all the skins I’ve put on a character.
2) Account-bound Legendary Dyes which put special effects on my gear (fire, mirror, glow, black hole, electricity, etc)
3) Minipet slot with Visibility checkbox (like we have for helm)
4) Inventory Bag Type: Shared Bag – same items across all characters to keep from constantly having to hit Bank. Could put my unlimited gathering tools, Salvage-O-Matic, etc in there

Just a few quick thoughts, don’t want to blow up everybody’s screen… (wink wink Diogo! :-P)

Question(s) for you, Mo. These Legendaries have seemed to take an absolutely exorbitant amount of time to create. Is that primarily due to the precursor crafting elements of them? Despite being happy with the final result, do you think the labor required to create these expansive collections has been way too high for the “playable content” most players experience?

Basically, any lessons learned from the journey?

(For what it’s worth, my questions are a bit leading because I don’t see collections as “content” per se, just a system that makes you do other content. It doesn’t really make the game world bigger, it just serves to drive you toward specific things. This game, to me, has a huge lack of new content, and shifting six people from building collections to building new content is a change I support.)

There are lots of good lists of problems here, but I believe a huge number of them are tied to the same core issue:

Because of the Personal Story, the Living World can only modify the game in very limited ways.

(Ignoring the irony that story you shipped with the game has limited the story you can tell afterward,) I have a few suggestions/comments for how you may be able to handle this issue.

1) There is a reluctance to add new zones so as to not stretch out the player-base. I understand this, but you have to let this one go. For many of us, having new areas to explore is one of the reasons we bought this game! That sense of adventure, exploring someplace new, is my favorite thing about this game.

2) If you add new zones, you can build those zones to properly change based on the Living World. You can have cities build or destroyed over the long-term. You can have massive changes to the landscape. You can have enemy types wiped out. Give yourself a new region of the world with the Living Story in mind and you’ll be able to do so much more.

3) To keep players in the old zones, scale rewards for DEs based on the last time they were completed. You get small rewards for events that are finished every 10 minutes, but if it’s been several hours (or days!) since an event has been completed, the rewards should be significantly higher. This will keep players in old zones even if there’s a shiny new area.

4) Tie the new area into GW1 lore! For example, we could explore the ruins of ancient asuran civilization on the way to defeating Primordus.

5) These zones could be rolled out over time. For example, the journey to defeat Primordus could take six months: you have to travel to a specific rift and there’s a new zone that leads you there. Then, when you get to the rift, you have to build a safe way in and out, so that takes a month… Next month, the entrance is complete and you can start to go inside… until you find a gigantic cavern of enemies which must be cleared. (Hello, Queen’s Pavilion round 2!) Then, a month later, you’ve cleared the cavern and can push further… etc.

That’s the kind of stuff that I would find compelling, anyway.

Phyxius Animus.7356:

The mentality of a Guild Wars 2 player….

“If someone affects me in any way I don’t like, it’s griefing and they should be banned for it. Unless I do the same thing… then it’s okay and they are whiners.”

Camping an area in a PvP environment (WvW IS a pvp environment as Players fight against Players) for the purpose of killing people (you know… the whole point of the zone) is not griefing. It’s not my style, but some people enjoy that. The Devs know this. If they didn’t want this to happen, they wouldn’t implement it in this way.

I don’t think the point that we’re trying to make is that WvW players are bad evil awful people for camping PvE players.

The point is that ArenaNet keeps trying to push PvE players into WvW in the hopes that it’ll increase the WvW population. Many PvE players avoid WvW because they don’t like it.

It creates a tension. “I want to see what’s up with Scarlet, but I don’t want to PvP. Why do I have to go into WvW and deal with this nonsense just to get the story that I’m interested in?”

The attitude of WvWers (“BAGS BAGS BAGS!!!!”) certainly doesn’t help with this.

If you don’t like Kas and Jory, that’s fine. You’re allowed to think the writing is poor or the story doesn’t make sense or it’s pandering to the audience.

What doesn’t seem right is complaining that there are now two lesbian relationships in game – seemingly at the expense of hetero relationships – when there are tons of hetero relationships that are being ignored. Including one in the Living Story that’s been just as much fun to follow: Penelopee and Bloomanoo.

A laser-focus on one particular piece – the lesbian relationship – while having blinders to the rest of the game and then crying oppression? That makes quaggan angry.

What’ Logan Thackeray’s favorite song? Flock of Seagulls – I Ran

Register for an account on Reddit. Post there. Problem solved.

I don’t have any suggestions for improving your damage, but I have dozens of suggestions for improving your fun…

Nope. I have hundreds of skins and hundreds of dyes to unlock. I also might delete a character and start a new one to try the new leveling system.

Sounds like you got your money’s worth. One cent per hour. Perhaps the best value in all of entertainment.

Reminds me of this. https://xkcd.com/1172/

I’ve seen people AFK for the entire match in LA. Those people deserve more than a kick.

This is a terrible idea.

The problem is with ArenaNet’s host, not their code. Posting lots of bug reports just inundates their support team and keeps them from being able to handle problems that are fixable.

Please. Please. Do not do this.

seabhac.5346:

This post reeks of misogyny.

I don’t think it’s misogyny, just immaturity. (Along with a genuine dislike for the skins and effects, which is fine.)

Not to be a total jerk here, but maybe just don’t do this event? If you don’t like it?

I have no interest in high-level Fractals, so I skip them. I don’t want to spend hours and hours in dungeons, so I avoid Arah Explorable.

I’m not a big MMO guy, I’ve only played the GW games, but I’m consistently surprised by people who seem to complain because they feel the need to do EVERYTHING. If you aren’t enjoying being a completionist, stop being a completionist!

Aidan Savage.2078:

timmyf.1490:

I just wanted to make a science joke. :-/

Most science logic in a game forces a “404: logic not found” error. Otherwise, how can you explain a character carrying up to 40 thousand gold ingots? Or 40 thousand planks of wood? Not only is the first example going to weigh quite a bit (possibly several tons), the second example is going to be awkward to carry considering the planks are going to be up to 6 feet in length.

Wormhole bags.

Duh. ;-)

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.

If we get a pure black dye, I’m also going to need more fire on my armor to make sure I hit all the stereotypes.

I’m a 29-year old man with a 25-year old girlfriend and we’ve both been cheering KasJory on this whole time. Those two are adorable.

http://less-l.deviantart.com/art/I-SAID-BLACK-432529661

Castrin.8972:

Yet there are those intent on removing all choice and limiting things based on their belief system.

The OP clearly states he has no problems with other people wearing skimpy armor and does not want those removed.

Did anybody bother to read the post?

I’m a dude and I’m sitting here in my sweet unicorn hat and just laughing so hard right now.

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.

I thought “play the way you want” just meant that there were multiple ways to get what you want. Want to level in WvW? Go for it! Want to grind out mats for your Legendary? You sure can! Prefer to just buy them off the TP? That’s valid too!

The idea was to give us options and freedom and multiple paths.

It was not to say that every option is allowed. Or encouraged. Or profitable. Or balanced.

We had a particularly bad troll on our server. We’ve had dozens of people report him over the course of a year, perhaps more. (He seems to have left now, thankfully.) He was so bad, in fact, that he was a part of our new player training.

Dropping blueprints gets expensive. He had a bunch of cheaper tricks… constantly repair walls that are actively being attacked… pull siege from Garrison while upgrades are running to build all the cannons, mortars, oil, etc.

You can devise as many systems as you like, but IF YOU DO NOT ADD IT TO THE TERMS OF SERVICE AND POLICE THE WORST OFFENDERS, NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

Sorry for the caps, but I find them necessary.

There is no accurate reporting function for “attempting to ruin the game for the rest of us.” In fact, when I’d ask people in map to report him, our troll would threaten them saying their accounts would be banned for wrongful reporting if they did. Scare tactics.

Update the TOS. Create an option for Competitive Event Manipulation. Hand out bans for the worst offenders. The problem will solve itself once players realize you’re not afraid to ban people.

Heck, don’t even ban them from the game, just WvW. “Sorry, you have to sit out of the rest of this matchup now” will go a long way.

I don’t like picking on people, but Rebound, I hope you and others will find these comments helpful. This certainly isn’t limited to you; this is a pervasive problem on these CDIs.

I see a lot of this.

Rebound.3409:

Associated Risks
Honestly i don’t see any.

But your suggestion was…

Rebound.3409:

Proposal Functionality
Make the number of guilds u could join max 2.

You don’t see any risks with that change? What about people who are in more than 2 guilds now? What about people who have guilds for different game modes… I could no longer have a guild for PvE, a guild for WvW, and a guild for sPvP. Heck, if I so much as have a guild for an extra bank, that limits me to just one guild!

Guys, PLEASE think about ways in which your proposals could:

• Hurt existing players by forcing them to change behavior
• Be exploited or abused
• Change the game balance by being excessively rewarding or unrewarding

It’s fun to think “I have the best idea ever and there’s nothing wrong with it and everybody will love it and it won’t do anything bad only good yaaaaay!” but that’s rarely the case.

Even as a guild leader, I don’t want people to only be able to rep 2 guilds. That change would absolutely tear some guilds apart.

I think it may depend on how quickly people figure it out: if we’re still failing with 80% health remaining in a couple weeks, I can’t imagine it being fun…

Nage.1520:

Malediktus.9250:

I do it because I have nothing else left to do in this game. PvE dailies take 1-2 hour a day, PvP dailies 2-6 hours a day (2 if 100% win rate, 6 if 1/3rd winrate, SoloQ is highly random).
But I am nearing a GW2 burnout so I preordered TESO to get rid of this.

I wish Anet would have sticked with the original 4 dailies everyone could complete in 20 minutes.

Why, if you already have nothing to do?

Addicts usually can’t stop themselves, they need somebody else to stop them.

John Smith.4610:

As an addendum OP, you salvaged 145 ectos for 279 dust.

ah aha ha John Smith is my kittening hero.

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.

A MAJOR point of this game is that “hitting max level” is meaningless. (More or less.) There is no endgame/the entire game is endgame.

It’s funny, I was just about to create a sylvari to replay through the Malyck storyline with some guildies ahead of the next living world season. Not that I think the story’s execution is fantastic or anything, but I still find reason to play it, especially the early parts.

Clawr Island is usually where I call it quits…