Complistic
Member
I remember. But I seem to recall people getting banned for foxfire crystal gathering when their drop rates were too high.
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Guild Wars 2 |OT4| The only subscription you need is this thread.
- Thread starter Retro
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The game BADLY needs tutorials, not this "hand holding" bs that's spread out over the course of 1-80.
This is especially evident in WvW/PvP, where they are now "hiding" the buttons, but not actually gating access by level. It's such a silly idea. Either lock it out or don't, but don't simply "hide" the buttons. If you're that worried about lowbies in those gametypes not knowing what to do...then make a fucking tutorial. It doesn't even have to be that in-depth.
Some of the other changes are nice for QoL, but ultimately aren't "huge". I mean, yea it's nice to be able to get some stuff every time you level up, or to get items dependent on class/type, but some of the other stuff is just silly. I don't know about you guys, but I never thought to myself, "man, I really wish I could 'feel' myself leveling up and getting more powerful as I play", yet ANet puts a HUGE focus on that with this "feature" patch. Personally, I think the changes to the PS will be a stepbackwards(not because of keyfarming), as it sounds like you won't even be able to really start the PS chapters until an initial level(which I've always found MADDENING in MMOs when they do that). It's like, "hey, we want you to just run around grinding shit for the first 5-10 lvls, then we'll let you play. ok?".
I'm just crossing my fingers that all these "new player" changes are a lead-in for an upcoming expansion. Otherwise, it seems like a LOT of effort for...not much.
Complistic
Member
You don't see how that is exploiting their reward system? At all?
No? How is it? You're only as good as you are. And they've told repeatedly on the forums that it's perfectly acceptable to do so. So no, I don't at all.
How so? You're creating a new character. Playing up until X level. Then deleting it.
Plenty of people do that "innocently"(ie: non-key farmers) every day.
I've got a lot of 80s. They've all got Orr explored. Am I exploiting for getting all those exotic rewards from Orr, or the PS rewards for completing your story arc?
I don't even see why you're arguing this, as the devs themselves have said COUNTLESS times that it is NOT an exploit.
Complistic
Member
Whatever you say.
I always imagined that their economist is a leading deciding factor in what is considered exploitable vs what is not.
People grinding for keys brought down the price of the weapon skins to a number that people putting in the equal amount of time grinding for gold could afford. (vs something like glitched karma weapons being used to amass millions of gold when the game first started which was causing inflation)
People grinding for keys brought down the price of the weapon skins to a number that people putting in the equal amount of time grinding for gold could afford. (vs something like glitched karma weapons being used to amass millions of gold when the game first started which was causing inflation)
Foxfire drop rate has always been the same, they banned people and unbanned them because they acted like bot.
crazepharmacist
Member
As a veteran player this feature patch has been highly disappointing so far.
silvermember
Banned
Considering that veteran are getting all bulk of the LS content, it is only fair, don't you think?
crazepharmacist
Member
The second season of Living Story has also been highly disappointing for me so far. Every episode has consisted of instanced content that lasts for about an hour for the majority of the player base. What happened to the massive, open world events from Season 1, where it actually felt like a living, breathing world? Season 2 feels just like an extension of the personal story.
Kos Luftar
Member
People complained it was too zergy.
No iteration of storytelling methodology is going to please everyone, but generally the response to season 2's episodes has been markedly higher than the equivalent season 1 episodes. With regard to your specific "what happened?", it may be easy to forget that the content thus far hasn't only been instances, but... assuming you aren't willing to count Dry Top, the middle of Iron Marches is pretty shot to hell by vines and Mordrem creatures at the moment
I loved those too. I think I took part in 7 or 8 the first day. I really liked the citizen evacuations during Escape from Lion's Arch too.
I am not really sure what there is to complain about
We had 3 episodes i believe which where closed instances and the 4th one most of it was one big zerg event in Iron marches and frostgorge.
I understand people want another Marionete event and for all we know post break there will be notving but those events.
I will only give judgement on this season when it is over not halfway through it .
We had 3 episodes i believe which where closed instances and the 4th one most of it was one big zerg event in Iron marches and frostgorge.
I understand people want another Marionete event and for all we know post break there will be notving but those events.
I will only give judgement on this season when it is over not halfway through it .
The Iron Marches and Frostgorge stuff was actually in Episode 3 (The Dragon's Reach: Pt. 1), and Ep 4 was mostly instances. Meanwhile 1 and 2 each had both instances and stuff you had to do in open world Dry Top. The aesthetics of Prosperity also changed dramatically from Episode 1 to Episode 2 (plus, of course, the Oasis was opened up, and then the Uplands in Episode 4). Personally I think they've done a great job so far, very balanced.
I definitely wouldn't mind another gigantic open world boss like the Marionette though.
I definitely wouldn't mind another gigantic open world boss like the Marionette though.
Just going off the sound of it, I'm not so sure I'm crazy about 1-79 becoming more complicated. I really preferred the old system for traits, too. Things were simple, and direct. I could focus on enjoying the world, and learning the combat.
I did approach the game as if 1-79 was the tutorial, and 80 was the real meat & potatoes. Maybe ANet wants to change this. I'm not entirely sure how. To be blunt, most of the rewards and content pre-80 is fairly meaningless. No items you get 1-79 are going to mean much beyond crafting mats, no amazing skins will unlock-- I doubt lowbies can afford cultural armor. Dungeon pugs aren't suddenly going to accept non-80s in any great number. WvW upscales aren't going to be any less squishy.
I like the sound of personal story improvements, but this will *only* affect non 80s? That is bothersome. Haven't finished the personal storyline on most of my characters because its awful. Now its less awful, but only for new characters? What.
Not digging most of this. That's ignoring keyfarming, which I'm sure won't be changed.
I did approach the game as if 1-79 was the tutorial, and 80 was the real meat & potatoes. Maybe ANet wants to change this. I'm not entirely sure how. To be blunt, most of the rewards and content pre-80 is fairly meaningless. No items you get 1-79 are going to mean much beyond crafting mats, no amazing skins will unlock-- I doubt lowbies can afford cultural armor. Dungeon pugs aren't suddenly going to accept non-80s in any great number. WvW upscales aren't going to be any less squishy.
I like the sound of personal story improvements, but this will *only* affect non 80s? That is bothersome. Haven't finished the personal storyline on most of my characters because its awful. Now its less awful, but only for new characters? What.
Not digging most of this. That's ignoring keyfarming, which I'm sure won't be changed.
i'm sure you'll get whatever the new story rewards are for completing steps you have remaining. since you're 80 you do not have any story "chunks" to unlock so that can't really affect you. i'm not convinced the personal story will be any less awful though, just more tangibly rewarding.
i don't think they're aiming to make 1-79 leveling more complicated at all. if anything it throws way, way less at you at one time. I think the idea is that calling individual attention to more aspects of the game at certain breakpoints will make it less overwhelming- overwhelming having been noted as one of the most common negative adjectives applied to the new player experience so far. I never had that sensation personally, but I also really took things at my own pace.
rather than ANet wanting to "change" what your experience was, I would caution against assuming it's the same for everyone. I certainly did not consider the rewards and especially not the content I experienced from 1-79 meaningless on my first character. I did most of my leveling in dungeons and amassed a pretty substantial pool of tokens by the time I hit 80. I also found a number of exotics with skins that I'm using on my 80s now, and this was prior to the ability to unlock skins at all. furthermore new players will be earning laurels from day one, which is pertinent to 80-tier rewards, and laurels didn't even exist while I was getting to 80. furthermore there was no content in the game that I could do at 80 that I wouldn't have been able to complete successfully at 79, which was a clear differentiator for me between Guild Wars 2 and other games.
i don't think they're aiming to make 1-79 leveling more complicated at all. if anything it throws way, way less at you at one time. I think the idea is that calling individual attention to more aspects of the game at certain breakpoints will make it less overwhelming- overwhelming having been noted as one of the most common negative adjectives applied to the new player experience so far. I never had that sensation personally, but I also really took things at my own pace.
rather than ANet wanting to "change" what your experience was, I would caution against assuming it's the same for everyone. I certainly did not consider the rewards and especially not the content I experienced from 1-79 meaningless on my first character. I did most of my leveling in dungeons and amassed a pretty substantial pool of tokens by the time I hit 80. I also found a number of exotics with skins that I'm using on my 80s now, and this was prior to the ability to unlock skins at all. furthermore new players will be earning laurels from day one, which is pertinent to 80-tier rewards, and laurels didn't even exist while I was getting to 80. furthermore there was no content in the game that I could do at 80 that I wouldn't have been able to complete successfully at 79, which was a clear differentiator for me between Guild Wars 2 and other games.
Skim the OT1, count how many people ask where to go and what to do. Count the complaints about how 'grindy' the game is from people who have only been doing hearts. It's been one of the most consistent complaints about the game, so having the game constantly give you a goal is going to help with that.
I'm also not a fan of extended tutorials or hand-holding, but considering the nature of MMOs there has to be some way to teach players how to dodge, swap weapons, etc. We know from interviews and dev posts that some players never spend trait points or even use utility skills, and I imagine that for those people nothing short of a giant, full-screen flashing sign that says "LOOK OVER HERE! NEW THING!" will get the message across. Tooltips are too easily dismissed and ignored, and having them all sort of pop up in the first hour or so of play can lead to a little bit of fatigue, I guess. So... spacing them out a bit and making them seem like big rewards will probably help.
Remember that a lot of us were following the game pretty heavily years before launch, played the shit out of every BWE and dove into headstart fully aware of what to do. I also consider GAFers to be experienced gamers just by virtue of their level of involvement (it follows that if you want to post on a gaming forum, you probably play a lot of games). We're extremely poor judges of what the game needs in terms of tutorials, that's all.
I'm also not a fan of extended tutorials or hand-holding, but considering the nature of MMOs there has to be some way to teach players how to dodge, swap weapons, etc. We know from interviews and dev posts that some players never spend trait points or even use utility skills, and I imagine that for those people nothing short of a giant, full-screen flashing sign that says "LOOK OVER HERE! NEW THING!" will get the message across. Tooltips are too easily dismissed and ignored, and having them all sort of pop up in the first hour or so of play can lead to a little bit of fatigue, I guess. So... spacing them out a bit and making them seem like big rewards will probably help.
Remember that a lot of us were following the game pretty heavily years before launch, played the shit out of every BWE and dove into headstart fully aware of what to do. I also consider GAFers to be experienced gamers just by virtue of their level of involvement (it follows that if you want to post on a gaming forum, you probably play a lot of games). We're extremely poor judges of what the game needs in terms of tutorials, that's all.
Shut up with your logic you stupid head.
There's a thread on Reddit right now literally titled "How disappointed are you with the 'Feature Pack?" that completely ignores there's an entire week of features still to reveal. You'd think most people would realize that, but.... eh.
Back when the game was new, or if a person has a lot of friends/guildmates, dungeon leveling might work. But for the average bloke wandering in now, there's the very real risk of having a horrible expensive and never wanting to go back. I've heard it too much to believe otherwise, but its part of a bigger issue with dungeons.
There's nothing wrong with the game pointing people in a general direction. It does that already to some degree. I'm just not keen on wrangling stats, traits, and mechanics into that. Level-gating stuff doesn't bother me, but can't see how its going to be any more understandable. Why not focus more early hearts on explaining these things? There's some already in the game, but most are spread out to an extent people might not even see them outside world completion.
There's nothing wrong with the game pointing people in a general direction. It does that already to some degree. I'm just not keen on wrangling stats, traits, and mechanics into that. Level-gating stuff doesn't bother me, but can't see how its going to be any more understandable. Why not focus more early hearts on explaining these things? There's some already in the game, but most are spread out to an extent people might not even see them outside world completion.
People are just as likely to walk past a heart as they are anything else in the game though. It's simply a case of too much direction and game " has too much hand holding", too little and the game "doesn't tell you where to go next". Zelda and Final Fantasy games have the same problem; their tutorials stretch on for hours, but without them you have folks saying the game is confusing.
I really think we (and the community as a whole) just don't understand how someone could possibly miss such obvious features, while they have data that shows just how much new players are missing. I also don't understand why the community is up in arms about it either beyond a vague "It's not for me, so I am angry!", because the article even says a lot of these things are account-wide unlocks they won't experience on alts.
I do think the way traits are unlocked needs work; trait points should be unlocked in a more logical fashion, and the challenges you have to accomplish to unlock them should be on the map somehow.
Great post over on reddit Hawk. I completely agree that people get some kind of attachment when it comes to MMOs, something they feel they cannot possibly break away from and that they have to be playing 24/7 otherwise their entire time playing has been for nothing. Just because you may not play the game everyday doesn't mean you've invalidated all the time you have spent with the game. As of late I've really only played for LS stuff cause I put over 2,000 hours into the game and I want to catch up on the absolutely massive backlog I have (yet I play PoE and CSGO).
I move in and out of games as they receive updates all the time, but they don't have to consume me like some people would like them to. It's horribly ironic that you'd see people who want infinite stuff to do, but if a developer tries to make that a reality by creating largely inflated goals, they then complain it's a grind. I really don't envy game developers, especially ones that provide updates to their games at no extra cost and get nothing but complaints thrown their way that the work they're doing is horrible because it's not what someone wanted. In the first feature pack I got one of my most wanted features which was the Wardrobe, I really had no expectations for this one and all I am hoping for is a TP revamp in week 3. I think that the first FP was hard to top if only because I think they had a lot more time to work on it, but at the same time it was more feature heavy where as this is more QoL heavy and changes more stuff for new players than veterans.
I move in and out of games as they receive updates all the time, but they don't have to consume me like some people would like them to. It's horribly ironic that you'd see people who want infinite stuff to do, but if a developer tries to make that a reality by creating largely inflated goals, they then complain it's a grind. I really don't envy game developers, especially ones that provide updates to their games at no extra cost and get nothing but complaints thrown their way that the work they're doing is horrible because it's not what someone wanted. In the first feature pack I got one of my most wanted features which was the Wardrobe, I really had no expectations for this one and all I am hoping for is a TP revamp in week 3. I think that the first FP was hard to top if only because I think they had a lot more time to work on it, but at the same time it was more feature heavy where as this is more QoL heavy and changes more stuff for new players than veterans.
I fail to see how it's manipulating anything. You're not exploiting the game in any way, just identifying the fastest way to logically obtain.
Both the Black Lion Key open world drop rates and ticket system for old weapons are utter nonsense. When I first started I was under the impression I could get them semi-regularly just through playing open world content, and 2 years later I've had a grand total of 3 drop in that manner. It blatantly screams "buy me with gems fool". The ticket system is ridiculous, who in their right mind would pay 5 tickets for old skins? It just leads to the Aetherized and Fused skins being absurdly priced for what are mediocre skins in the first place.
I was a little sad that the dude seemed to totally ignore my pay/no pay distinction, but yeah, It's something that jumps out at me more and more when there's a flare-up of complaints. It's a twofold problem because "special relationship" people can unknowingly construct this notion within themselves that the game must be able to entertain them every free moment they have- like it's necessarily a failing on the part of the developers if they log in and are not having fun- while at the same time they segue into becoming extremely vocal with their criticism centered around the game "not caring about players who have stuck around" or "what they need to do to keep players." The idea that keeping them, individually, playing every day is actually not a priority is unconscionable, because that would be totally contrary to the special relationship.
I used to tell people GW2 is "just a game" when I saw them getting upset in some comment thread or whatever. It means more than how I originally meant it now.
I went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London today. It was absolutely awesome, great to see all of the crazy cool props and such in person, many of which I suspected were CG such as the Chamber of Secrets snake door. It's always awesome to get a behind the scenes peak, and in person it was all the cooler. Staying over at a hotel and then heading into London tomorrow for a day of sight seeing, should be good
razgriz417
Member
What contracts?
razgriz417
Member
Ah those crazy expensive ones...ok, yeah I'll never get one haha
that sounds awesome dammitI went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London today. It was absolutely awesome, great to see all of the crazy cool props and such in person, many of which I suspected were CG such as the Chamber of Secrets snake door. It's always awesome to get a behind the scenes peak, and in person it was all the cooler. Staying over at a hotel and then heading into London tomorrow for a day of sight seeing, should be good
Nemesis121
Member
As bored player this feature patch reveal so far is shit, waiting for more stuff but they need to make an expansion or tell me they are making GW3, I really wish they had stuck to their GW1 plan release an expansion every 6months...
LiveSpartan235
Neo Member
Colin explains why they made the changes to the new user experience
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...rt_the_new_player_experience_in_guild/ck35771
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...rt_the_new_player_experience_in_guild/ck35771
Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China - we learned we were wrong.
Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn't understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn't have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.
This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I'd say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn't mean we are the norm
Gasp. That sounds familiar.
I guess this is a "back in my day we went uphill both ways" kinda statement, but I definitely feel that DLC in general has made us into a bunch of Veruca Salts with our games. With consoles, you bought the game and that was it. If you wanted more, tough, but the sequel might be out in a year or so.
I mean, I paid for GW2, and that was that. I haven't been forced to give them anything else and they've added a lot of neat stuff to the game for free. It's nice thinking about what they could possibly add and there's a lot that I'd really like them to change, too. But in the end I got what I paid for and I'm happy with it so these blog posts are just icing on an already-good cupcake for me.
The next CDI topic being about Guilds makes me pretty happy, since additions to guild missions and guild management tools have been at the top of my wishlist for a while.
I mean, I paid for GW2, and that was that. I haven't been forced to give them anything else and they've added a lot of neat stuff to the game for free. It's nice thinking about what they could possibly add and there's a lot that I'd really like them to change, too. But in the end I got what I paid for and I'm happy with it so these blog posts are just icing on an already-good cupcake for me.
The next CDI topic being about Guilds makes me pretty happy, since additions to guild missions and guild management tools have been at the top of my wishlist for a while.
To piggyback on what Retro said, ANet had mentioned that the every 6 month campaign model was physically and mentally draining and that they wouldn't repeat it for GW2. That obviously doesn't rule out expansions as those are different, however they have to be very careful in how they design that.
gamergirl85
Member
I went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London today. It was absolutely awesome, great to see all of the crazy cool props and such in person, many of which I suspected were CG such as the Chamber of Secrets snake door. It's always awesome to get a behind the scenes peak, and in person it was all the cooler. Staying over at a hotel and then heading into London tomorrow for a day of sight seeing, should be good
Damn that sounds really cool. Bet you had a lot of fun. Harry Potter is awesome. Also GAF misses your dungeon train.
😊
Game is ded, didn't you get the memo?
No update, classes, brax's dead computer. Things are naturally a bit quiet.
But I'm actually kind of enjoying zoning out and not feeling the need to say much.
Spehornoob
Member
Still learning how to dungeon well as my thief! I'm used to playing my Warrior and not being so squishy! AC1 was fun though.
Hopefully some info will come next week that will placate the reddit users a bit, but not everyone will be happy. Meanwhile, I've been trying to level a Shammy in WoW for the expansion (not the biggest fan of WoW, but it's something to do with my cousins), and the game is exactly the same as it was a year ago. No content at all. While I wish we had a few new dungeons to run, Guild Wars 2 updates so much that I think it's kind of spoiled everyone.
PS. gg anet ded gaem.
Hopefully some info will come next week that will placate the reddit users a bit, but not everyone will be happy. Meanwhile, I've been trying to level a Shammy in WoW for the expansion (not the biggest fan of WoW, but it's something to do with my cousins), and the game is exactly the same as it was a year ago. No content at all. While I wish we had a few new dungeons to run, Guild Wars 2 updates so much that I think it's kind of spoiled everyone.
PS. gg anet ded gaem.
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