Guild Wars - Terrible Customer Relations?

ArenaNet.

Community
Gaile Grey
Natasha Hoover
Andrew Patrick.

directly from the back of my nightfall manual.

gaile grey IS NOT the only C.R person.

it has been stated MANY times before, by her and Andrew patrick, that the Dev's read these forums.

despite your longish "omg pvp is ignored" rant, and thats all i saw when i read it, anet does listen.

and as you pointed out before, there are two aspects of the game, it is hard to balance both at the same time.

NO I WILL NOT ARGUE BETWEEN PVP AND PVE. so dont even respond to that.

there are, as stated before, over 2 MILLION customers to this game.

im not arguing on how many of them still actually play, but i highly DOUBT the fraction of the people that plague these forums constitutes a player base.

yes, i have seen a lack of cr lately, i will not argue that.

but what you have to realize, and everyone else needs to, that anet is working on an expansion, AND a sequel.

pissing and moaning will get you no where.

alot of the people on these forums need to do one of two things.

a.)enjoy the game. it is after all A GAME. some people just dont realize that.

b.)if you dont like the way the games going, FIND ANOTHER GAME.

and with all the "constructive criticism" gaile has been getting from these forums. ill tell ya now, i would tell you all to cram it with walnuts.

1) Anet has finite resources

2) From what we've been led to believe, they have two primary development teams, plus a smaller group doing big fixes and small enhancements

3) One team is working on GW:EN

4) The other team is working on GW2

5) This leaves the support group to deal with the current release.

Make sense?

Regardless of what you say, the community is being ignored. Gaile came into the HA section and assured us threads there were being read and we would have feedback. I am sure you can count her posts there on one hand.

The lack of skill balance is affecting the entire game. Hence the armor cap at +25. Now there have been a lot of threads crying about that but I am sure what some people don't realise is that ANet is not nerfing WARRIORS they are making adjustments because of Paragons buffing parties in PvP. Some of the imbalance in PvP can be attributed to the fact that people will find something that is quite imbalanced and run it. Sometimes these builds become FoTM (Paraholding anyone?) and lead to the need for change. However some changes are questionable at best. Really if you want to change paragons, as there have been a few threads on it, drop their base armor down some.

I do agree though that perhaps Gaile is not best suited to communicating on a PvP level. I have the Prima guide to Prophecies and it says she has Healing Prayers skills on a ranger, specifically she puts Infuse Health and Heal Area on the bar sometimes. That and as we were promised continual feedback in the HA section, but even with polls/thread on various subjects, we have received nothing.

Listening to what community has to say is one thing, implementing everything they demand/want/like is completely another.

Ok, I appreciate that you've put a lot of effort into this, and relatively politely too. Here's the thing..there're a lot of assumptions, your assumption that you know more about what Gaile's job description is.... She get's paid not by the community, but by Anet. Anet then decides what her role is, and what if any day to day interactions she will have. Specifically her boss @ Anet. Now, if you ass-ume that her job is to relay all of the QQing around here and other QQer posts on other boards to the Devs, it's my bet you are wrong.
If Gaile's boss felt she was doing a crappy job (and here's the key part) not at what you think her job is, but what her boss thinks it is don't you think that might be an issue?
The role Gaile has played historically has been simply to pass on nuggets of scripted info and pass on *some selected* questions to the Devs from the player base. Gaile has said that the Dev's (herself included) read the forums, and I'd say it's a safe bet that some of them do.
I'd say Gaile is doing her job quite well, she interacts with the community even when any sane person would flip them off and leave. You've decided that it's her job to inform Izzy of what the community *thinks* are imbalance issues. Perhaps she did, but not in the painful detail which you feel is important. Rather than Gaile bashing, which (unless one is utterly clueless) you'd know won't get you the desired results perhaps try another approach. Why not make an official fansite devoted to just working on 'community targetted' balance issues? As I'm sure anyone with half a brain could aggree too, there is a ton of waste and QQing to wade through for each and every halfway relevant point. Game balance isn't about FOTM, even 'encouraging build diversity' is not directly game balance. Ritspike and Hexway are major community concers which doesn't necessarily equal a balance issue, as far as Anet is concerned. Perhaps Anet feels it's more important to let an intelligent player figure out a viable counter before they go in with a nerfbat (which as we all know will cause as much or more whining than NOT fixing anything)? Now, where can we find smart players?

You are forgetting that some of the other games in question had no relations but things got fixed,whether by reading fan base forums or by active alpha testers, both of which are non existent in GW currently.

Working in Customer Service / Sales for over 14 years all I have to say is “Hats off to you Gail” keep your head up. You have big shoes, and remember until someone walks in your shoes the book is only half read.

/agree

In general i support this thread the bottom line is the support and information is there on forums for anet to act upon so many good discussions and suggestions have been given by players and everyone is feeling ignored frustrated and angry at the moment.

More than 12 months ago PvP'ers told anet give us regular balance updates every 2-4 weeks and do something about soul reaping and what happened? nothing its taken more than 12 months since the birth of necro spike to get SR changed to a resonable manner and we are still getting balance updates every 2-3 months.

The lack of communication during the ladder/AT changes was terrible and led to many guilds quitting the game it even forced anet to create the CT tourney to stave boredom for those that were left.

HA - the threads are there with good suggestions on what was needed but they took it too far added too much the changes might not have been required if they listened and did balance changes more often in the first place. What people wanted was for holding builds to be less prevelant nobody asked for all these strange and not so wonderful mechanics which introduce too much luck.

Anet created a really good game which kept me addicted for 2 years straight but they can and should do better IMO. I hope they do.

QFT

The problem with most of what people complain about is a matter of opinion. There is very rarely any real data to back up people's ideas on what should/shouldn't be changed. Just because some kid makes a 2 page post littered with hypotheticals & rants doesn't mean the ideas are good. The Whole SR thing is a perfect example. For all the moaning about how SR was "destroyed" I have yet to find my MM SS or Bip Necro crippled in any ways. Sounds like people just like power. I wonder how many complaints come down to that.

The main problem is that a lot of the players want answers to questions that frankly the community relations cannot give. While Gaile can come on here and say "yes were working on it and it should be coming soon" realistically she cannot give much more information than that without breaking the NDA (non disclosure agreement) that she signed for her job. She cannot give you a step by step time line of what the dev team is doing and an exact time line down to the second of when an update is going live.

This game, whether players like it or not, is divided into 2 basic groups. PvE and PvP, plain and simple. A PvP player, who spends most of their time in such environment, is going to have a differing view on things and the state of the game than a player who spends a vast majority of their time in PvE, where the state of the game is normally 180 degrees off from what the PvP aspect of the game is. Gaile does do a fine job of representing the PvE community, but she is going to make mistakes or give information thats given to her and report it, only to have it be late. The sunspear skills are a perfect example. Yes they were promised a while ago, the fell behind. It happens. The AT's were the same way. The problem is that when faced with a PvP question, from a player who spends a majority of their time in PvP, the answer we usually get is "I'll look into that" and a response is never given.

The skill updates are another example. While one or 2 people can theoretically balance the skills in the game, when they main skill balancers for This game are known to spend a vast amount of time playing a competitors game, they will not have an accurate view of what is going on in the game they represent. Take for example the recent snippet by Gaile from Izzy : "Bring out your hex builds and prove they are broken.." Hexes have been a problem in the meta due to the lack of decent hex removal. Same with other skills that only one was addressed in this recent update, although known to be a problem in competitive PvP. Ensign's June 2007 Skill Nerf Wishlist is a perfect example of how far off they development team is from their playerbase. A vast amount of useful information was posted in that thread of the current problems with the state of the game from players who actively participate and play this game, yet there was not a single skill update that even remotely resembled anything close to what anyone has suggested, when frankly the suggestions to those skills listed there made more sense than the suggestions that were given and implimented with the skill update (which isn't officially in game yet).

I do not think that its a case of terrible customer relations so much as it is a lack of value on their players input. Yes everyone and their brother has suggestions now and then and a lot of people feel that their new idea will be the next game breaker, something reasonable would suffice. Granted there are a lot of ideas that quite frankly have no real purpose in the game, from invisible ninjas, robots, guns, a stylist npc, pirates, sharks with laser beams on their heads to name a few. There are ideas and such that do serve a purpose; The skill balance wishlist, the Hardmode Complaints threads, the killcount in HA threads to name a few. These all address and bring up problems in the game that the playerbase is unhappy with and is causing players to quit playing the game and move on to another game. By ignoring your existing playerbase to focus on the "New Player" playerbase, you essentially shoot yourself in the foot. It is your existing and current players that have sold your game and helped you to make it into what the game is now and give it the attention it deserves. This game is dying in America due to it not having re-playable PvE and decent PvP updates more frequently. This is what killed the game in the Asian market as there are a lot of previously good to outstanding Asian guilds that had played the game at a competitive level that no longer play this game anymore due to the lack of frequent balance and skill updates. The European market seems to be the only spot where this game is actually increasing in size, rather than decreasing.

If everything is a bad as the people here seem to think they are, why do they still play? Just find another game join one of their fan forums and rant and rave about how bad their game is. The point is those who complain here would do so with any game they play. ANET isn't perfect but they give us a damn good game to play. Just because they don't do every little thing people whine about doesn't mean they have bad customer relations. For all you complainers please repeat the following, "It is only a game, It is only a game,........."

Doesn't matter about any kind of cycle. Every time we get a "Balance Update" someone, somewhere at Anet puts time into it, although we could even question this much haha. Monkeys can buff skills add higher value>here.

We already know what they obviously prioritize after every release note posted, same goes with break-fixes. How long was SR seen as a potential problematic mechanic? I assure you since release. They finally changed it, and should have left the [email protected] secs and move on, obviously though someone decided it needed even more attention. This soon to come update and will likely be the second last update,and has shown over the months what has clearly been ignored and what is being priorotized. This thread should have been made a year ago.
So we can either play what we currently have which isn't too bad could use one REAL UPDATE though to help prolong any longevity currently left, or pack our bags up. I know I won't be buying GW:EN.

Hats off to the OP

I honestly believe Anet needs to take a leaf from EA's book. Let the community decide what balance is. Game developers are biased in the sense that they have an "ideal way" in which the game should be played. The community, however, usually feels quite differently. Nobody is better suited to decide what the community wants than the community itself.

I used to work for the fansite that created all the balance patches for EA's RTS games...and it was a resounding success. Since we were a fansite and naturally kept track of every thread regarding balance issues, we knew what needed to be done. We knew what the players wanted, and we knew a bad/good idea when we saw it. EA was cool enough to let us take a stab at balancing one of their games, and we did so well that they let us do it with their other games.

What we did was put together a team of players who represented every aspect of the game. We had our die-hard clanwars players (PvP, in the GW aspect), as well as campaign players (PvE, in the GW aspect), and of course bean counters and coders who made the numbers add up. The players LOVED it and our patches were even touted as "the patches that saved the game". And it didn't cost EA an extra penny. We saved their games for them simply out of love for the games. EA clearly had no clue how to balance it themselves, so they did what any good company would do...let the experts have at it.

Anet says they listen to us...but honestly, from the updates we've seen, they only have selective hearing. If they really wanted to know what the big issues are, they'd at least ask and really listen to the responses.

People only complain because they love the game and don't want to see it ruined.

Yeah, there's been less community relations lately, wanna know why?
Because the 'community' ignorantly wants to blame her, and does, and guess what? She probably doesn't care for it.

Gaile's not required to do nearly as much as she does, so she puts in overtime because: a) She likes to be abused by QQers b) She actually cares about her role and would like to see GW improve within the limitations of her position or c) She needs the OT pay for a new car.

Sharks with laser beams are cool, where can I get one?

Yeah I think we all understand that Billiard, the only problem there is that A-net chose to do 2 projects at one time. Yes we got ticked off and people started to complain about the campaign module system, but A-net was the one who took on all that work. See it would have been better to work on the concepts for GW 2 but primarily focused on EotN as the last entry of GW. So that way they are not totally understaffed on the servers. Then once EotN was out the door, then relay all that attention on GW 2.

However I bring up the question: Why in the world can some development teams keep in close proximity to their fans and A-net sends over one person (or 2) to deal with the community? Bungie, Lionhead Studios, Firaxis games and so on, keeps in constant contact with their fans; even when they are in a huge development cycles.

That’s why I believe the communication is poor, because some of the community’s statements also get twisted. Like for instance the Sunspear and Lightbringer Titles; we stated they were great for their PvE skills, but not for the grind. However Ben Miller stated in one of his interviews about EotN, “In Nightfall, the Sunspear and Lightbringer titles were well received.” I’m sorry but there is some miscommunication going on there.

I think the two above quotes really drive home some of the difficulties a representative like Gaile has, from both a PvP and a PvE side.

Believe it or not, people that post on forums comprise a very small component of the GW playerbase, from both a PvP and a PvE standpoint.

Yet, when you get 20 or 30 people on a forum to agree with a concept on a thread, many people will conclude "well, the entire PvP or PvE community must want this."

After that illogical extrapolation occurs, anger is generally the next emotion. "Why hasn't A-Net responded to something that clearly the entire playerbase of GW wants???" "Why is the opinion of the entire community being ignored?"

Representatives like Gaile are required to "make calls" about items like this. But, unfortunately, forum posts are likely only one (and generally a relatively minor) input to decision making on game structure from a PvP and PvE standpoint.

For those of us that love these forums, it is an insanely difficult concept to grasp, as we feel (as many people have posted) that "we paid for the game. We demand that our voice be heard. We demand that our wishes be attended to." Unfortunately, we can't hear the millions of other voices out there above our own.

I'm not sure I've seen this information. Can you give us a link or some information showing the game is "dying"? # of US/Asian Players decreasing by day/month? Anywhere?

While I've seen fans make games 10x better than they originally were, I think this may be the worst idea ever. You had success because YOU had input. The reason balance works is because 1 (or a few) people have a good view of what balance is.

"We knew what the players wanted, and we knew a bad/good idea when we saw it."

Most people don't. I don't want a game where people are lvl 40, have 20 skills, have Minion armies of 30, 3 Elite skills etc... They may sound stupid to you & me, but many people WANT that crap. And if you decide against it, you're the new "ANurfT". I think the idea that ANET can look at the data of what is going on (see though the statistics of actual game play) they can see if something is wonky or not.

Although I (as I said) agree, that there is a communication issue, the last thing I want to do is throw control to the masses. It's 2 Wolves & a Sheep deciding on what to have for dinner. I think people blow the updates way out of proportion.

Very nice OP.

Although you did focus a bit heavily on the PvP side of things. There are lots of things the PvEers are very unhappy about too. And of course things that both sides are unhappy about, namely fixing bugs related to skills. The simple fact is Anet don't seem to be doing anything on a regular basis.

Its obvious that some things get through, i remember seeing lots of threads about how the Locked Chests in Hard Mode were dropping utter shite for alot of people and people were unhappy considering how much they paid for the lockpicks. Shortly after, its announce theres going to be a 'double rare drops on chests' weekend. Well it shows Anet are actually out there and that Gaile is at least passing something across, but the simple fact is, thats all Anet do in response? Another frigging 'special' weekend event?

But i'm still waiting on things in the Bug forum to actually be addressed. It has taken them months to fix the problem with Barrage removing Glyphs, its not really that much of a problem to 99% of people, but the fact its taken them so long to resolve it. Fixing bugs should be a priority, i would be much happier with Anet if i knew they were at least fixing things, hell, they could even try and pass that off as a reason why those Sunspear Skills they promised us are so late. But considering they seem to do next to nothing, this recent Skill update, that the OP stated, has addressed almost nothing that people are unhappy with. The list of changes is minute compared to some they have released. So why the hell are they been so slow?

Course it can't be long till some fanboy comes along to whine about how 'its because they're focusing on GW2/GWEN'. Why? If they keep this crap up they will have lost much of there player base before they can actually release them. Hard Mode was a huge let down for almost everyone. Its only use now seems to be mass farming improved gold drop-rate after they suceeded in pissing off almost the entire community with loot-scaling. The GW2/GWEN playing card is getting used all too often now as an excuse as to why things aren't been resolved. Of course the only thing we ever hear this from is Gaile. As the OP stated Gaile seems to have little to no PvP experience. But how do we even know she has any PvE experience? I'm still yet to see screenshots of her actually doing anything in PvE, has she even tried Hard Mode? Does she actually have a clue what people are so annoyed about?

/applaud.

this post and this post alone should be stickied on top of every part of these forums.

OP: Your post is pure conjecture. If an A.Net employee (or even ex-intern) came on making the same claims of miscommunication, I might agree.

You don't know how Gaile translates information to the rest of her company. You don't know what NCSoft puts the kabosh on even though A.Net wants to do it. You don't know what the A.Net brass vetos because it is not in their vision. You don't have a computer next to your work station with constantly running Obs Mode to watch metagame. You don't have access to volumes of statistics that spell out how the game is actually played. Etc. ad infinitum.

Until anybody has that kind of knowledge, they have no basis to say what should be ESPECIALLY where it deals with an alleged communication breakdown.

It has been said time and time again that what is most helpful to A.Net are posts that say: [feature] is not fun because [reasoning]. That's all they need. Most people skip the "because" portion and go straight into how to fix it, if that.

My heart goes out to Gaile because she wouldn't lash out unless she got hurt, and she would not get hurt unless she had some stake in how the community feels about her and her company. The fact that she does speaks volumes, and I for one am grateful for everything she does.

Yeah..That GW:EN/GW2 copout is real lame.Especially when you ask yourself,who wants to buy an Expansion to a game where they were fed up with the way the game's been handled?

GuildWars CAN be a good game.But as of right now,Anet seems to be ignoring glaring issues that community have been asking for, for a while now.

There is nothing wrong with the community relations here. The problem is that some people ask for too much. Just enjoy the game we like to play. Is that so hard ?

Until all of those people get themselves onto forums so they can voice there opinions, they have no say in what goes on in game. If they object to it, they can sign upto a fan forum and bloody well say so. Bitching about it ingame amongst people who also don't voice there opinions does what exactly?

Thanks to the OP for posting a polite complaint. Any other way (considering the subject of the topic), would have been shut down by the mods/admins here.

I feel the points raised are slanted too much towards PVP. However....each point is just as valid in the PVE arena.

I also share the notion that the Anet PR isn't doing their job. Back during the HUGE HM drying up thread, all we could eek out of Anet's PR mounted to the relevence of "my cat's breath smells like cat food".

Any responses that Gaile gave were not relevent to the disscusion (and they rarely are). Hey, it's easier to answer questions that don't have any responsibility to real discussion. I just had enough of the song and dance and said F#$% IT...... let sleeping dogs lie right?

I would almost prefer they didn't post on fan forums. At least that way one knew where they stood. i.e. ignoring the community.

So what kind of mini pet do you want?

This should be the new disclaimer for everyone wanting to point out problems in the game. There is nothing wrong with doing it, by my goodness does it need a reality check. What we think needs to be changed, needs to be put in perspective. I don't agree with all the nerfs, but the numbers may veto that opinion.

That would solve nothing: PVP skill balance affects PVE play and vice versa. You cant think of PVP and PVE seperately since they use the same mechanics yet operate in totally different environments.

Threads like this kinda make me throw up a little in my mouth.

First off, Guild Wars is not a service, it is a product. You PAID, past tense for the product. Them providing Customer Service to try and keep you playing is not something they have to do. Plenty of games got along just fine with little to no customer service - look at Diablo 2, sooooo many things wrong with that game, yet people still play it(myself included), because it is a great game. You paid for the Game, you didn't pay for the updates. They have your money, if you leave, it really doesn't matter to them. With a game like WoW, you can cancel your subscription and take that moeny away from them each month, but even then that's nothing to them.

The point is, Anet has no responsibility when it comes to game updates. They promised them, but us expecting these updates to appease everyone(PvP and PvE) is ridiculous and unfair to them. I understand that if they are gonna have a Customer Relations Department, they gotta be committed to it and do what they can to appease both aspects of the game.

In order to appease both PvPer's and PvEer's they need to separate the skills and attributes and such for each and have a CR person for PvP and PvE.

I fully support this idea but DO NOT support the manner in which it was suggested. The personal attacks are not necessary and pointing out faults in how Gaile may or may not have handled certain situations is not the correct way to handle it. Being a CR rep is not an easy job, especially when there are so many people to listen to.

Actually, they do by their actions, not by their complaints.

As I stated above, posts on a forum are likely a relatively minor consideration by A-Net in making game mechanic changes. I'm relatively certain that the developers and their staff continually monitor both PvP and PvE arenas for:

(1) Amount of players participating in that area;
(2) The prevalence of skills and builds being utilized by those players;
(3) The prevalance of abuses of certain skill combinations.

A-Net has much more access to this type of data than any individual player or group of players can provide to A-Net via a post on a forum.

For example, on gwonline, one of Tiyuri's major PvP complaints is that the hex-based metagame needs to be nerfed. I'd say that over 100 individual posters have posted in that thread, with a majority of them supporting a "nerf" to certain hex skills and/or a buff to hex removal.

What he and the other posters in that thread do not have access to is what is happening in all of those PvP matches that they do NOT participate in. Has A-Net analyzed the concern posted in that thread? Possibly. Should they make a change? According to Tiyuri..."absolutely. The entire PvP community has chimed in, and a nerf is in order."

Unfortunately, the outcries of 100 posters in a sea of millions of sold copies probably gets outweighed by what is actually happening in game.

I die inside everytime people like you show up with this same OP. It's one of the big reasons we have WALMARTS filled with shitty messy stores, crappy poorly made products, the list goes on. People like you buy crap don't say anything and keep fueling the fire. If anything people should voice their OP, for the better of all products in general, make a stand, boycott. Let it be none who makes a crap product and do something to help better everyone. The game industry is no exception.

Honestly, what is this thread doing open? This has simply gone WAY too far.

OP, I understand your frustration with certain issues, but seriously man, ArenaNet has the BEST community relations I have EVER seen in a game. I've played plenty of online games and the amount of content that ANet has put into this game at our request is staggering when compared to the competition.

Your proof for Gaile having no PvP knowledge is completely unconvincing. I can't comment on whether it is true or not because I don't know, but you'll need better evidence then that.

Honestly, you make it sound like GW is completely broken. NEWS FLASH: It ISN'T. I play both PvE and PvP and I have lots of fun in both. Of course, I see areas that could be improved, some of which have been mentioned by the community in large threads. However, I really don't see any reason to get THIS upset about this.

Last, please don't ever post such a direct, negative response to a single individual EVER again. I can't enforce that, but really man, there are PLENTY of other ways to criticize something without taking shots at others.

Sorry man, but you are delirious. The community's behavior has nothing to do with being ignored, and if you think Anet ignores you than you just have no idea what being ignored is. Try talking to a wall and you'll see how being ignored feels like. Anet does nothing but listen and ask for opinions and suggestions. The reason the community is unhappy is because most of this comunity is very very imature. They can't handle not having everything their way, even when the majority of Anet's action is taken because players brought their issues to them; they are unhappy either because their particular issue was not addressed at that moment or as soon as they'd like, or because it was not addressed the way they wanted it to be. They are even more imature when they then approach the issue by means of insults and flaming, sarcasm, etc, much like a child would nag their parents by making a fuss or an angst teen whose only means of dealing with anything is aggression.

The community is imature, much like a student who insults their teacher and demands reparation when they think the teacher gave them the wrong grade, and is mad later because the teacher wouldn't listen and is obviously wrong, is on his case, making it on purpose, or any other unfounded reasoning that will justify his own innapropriate actions.

1. I'm somewhat surprised that this thread is still open. It's a testament to the mods integrity that such a sensitive topic wasn't closed simply because of who it might upset.

2. The OP is just dripping with malice. It makes some points that I'm afraid I have to agree with, but I get the feeling that there's some deeper personal agenda going on here that I don't see.

3. Stop blaming PvE for a-net being out of touch with PvP. They are even more out of touch with us -- and we are even more pissed off about it -- than you are. The outrage over SR being broken for PvE is by far the longest thread ever in the history of this forum or any other. And don't say they "listened to the PvE whiners." They sure as hell did not listen to us -- look at the upcoming so-called "fix" for SR that leaves it nearly as broken as it is now. Armor stacking is another great example: At least they acknowledged that WY + SYG was a problem in PvP. They completely ignored the fact they were destroying one of the few viable strategies for PvE's hard mode when they gutted the entire mechanic to deal with just 2 skills. So, yeah, you've got a legitimate complaint: a-net is woefully out of touch with PvP. But they are even more out of touch with PvE.

4. Gaile is doing her job just fine. The problem is that her job doesn't include certain tasks that no one else is doing either. As far as I know, Gaile has never held herself out as a highly sophisticated conduit for highly technical balance concerns. As OP points out, rather rudely, she's not really qualified for that task anyway. But interacting with us on that level is not part of her job. Gaile's role has always been press releases and sunshine and congo lines. And that's fine. Congo lines make some people really happy. The problem is that a-net also needs to have someone interacting with the community on the technical balance concerns level, and they don't have that. A-net needs someone, who has adequately detailed knowledge of the mechanics to tell the grain from the dross, to be distilling and communicating the community's legitimate, well-thought-out concerns, reactions, and suggestions to the dev team, and then relay the dev team's potential responses back to the community for commentary. Contrary to OP's selfish, elitist attitude, feedback from both PvP and PvE is necessary. As I've said elsewhere, PvP is frequently more sensitive to balance concerns, but PvE is 9x more important; PvE needs to be considered, and often with decisive weight, on those rare occasions that it is truly sensitive to a particular balance concern.

5. This...
.. is wrong. It reflects the sad psychological conditioning of someone so used to being treated like crap by large corporations that you've become accustomed to it and expect it as the norm because you are too young, or too poorly traveled, or both, to understand that it is neither "normal" nor is it right. Gaile, just like every other person at a-net, from Strain and O'Brien on down, ultimately collects her pay from her customers. She, just like every other person at a-net, is ultimately answerable to us. There was a time when I thought that a-net understood that, and listened to customer feedback both because it was the right thing to do, and because it was a way to ensure the future business that comes with customer satisfaction. Sadly, that time has ended. I have little doubt that the only way I have left to speak loudly enough that they will pay attention is with my wallet. So be it. I'd prefer that they'd choose to make themselves answerable to their customers in some way short of the customer completely ending the relationship, but, one way or the other, they are answerable to us.

6. This is true. It is perhaps the greatest truth that can come from these forums.

pretty wrong it's a service, diablo 2 is a product, plus free battlenet service, I can pull the plug to the internet connection and can still play for what I paid for.

That still means nothing. If they don't voice there opinions on anything they have absolutely no say in what should happen, whether they approve or not. If they do infact really oppose the changes made, tough, they should've commented on it on a forum. I'm pretty sure Anet knows exactly what skills are been used alot in PvE, something tells me top of the list is 'Protective Spirit' and 'Shield of Absorption' atm. All 3 things you listed mean nothing. Amount of players? So what... 99.9% of people entering Zehlon Reach are Mo/Ds running identical skillbars farming the same enemies. That must make for an awesome statistic at meeting about what needs to be altered.

What other statistics do Anet have to go on exactly? Its quite obvious the majority of PvPers that post on the forum absolutely despise the current Meta of Hex and Rits. Extrapolate that, you still get a majority of people hating this meta. Sorry but your logic is no better than Tiyuri's that you complain about so much. You say that a limited number of people saying this meta sucks just isn't enough. Yet theres a varied range of people posting here. And you simply counter this with 'people who don't voice there opinions must be all against this so we must therefore do nothing'. The latter is complete bullshit. Theres a reason why in weddings people say 'speak now or forever hold your peace'. If nobody speaks does the vicker then turn around and say 'well nobody said anything but there might be people not here that disagree so, its off'.

You can't instantly assume people outside these forums don't agree with anything and do nothing, thats more moronic than doing something based on the opinion of 1 person. That point has absolutely no weight to it, you may think its logical, but its not.

Simple. Go to www.guildwars.com and find the guild ladder. take the number of active competitive american guilds and add them to the number of active competitive asian guilds. then multiply these numbers by 3. youll get roughly the number of active competitive european guilds....

Its a known fact to anyone in the higher end PVP community that a lot of the good american and korean guilds/players in those guilds have quit due to the lack of skill balances/gameplay updates/stale meta/no championchips.

You seem intelligent at least superficially, so perhaps I'll attempt (yeah debate never was my strong suit) to point out what I see as your weak points here.
1) I'm 41, and speak several languages, lived on 3 continents and work in gene therapy research.
2) 'ultimately answerable to us' yes this is true, however it cannot invalidate what I said as they are not mutually exclusive. If the boss says to Gaile: do this, and she does It greatly improves her chances of maintaining a working relationship with her boss and thereby her job yes? If the company goes under because of it, who's fault is it? Gaile's or her boss'?

Obviously 2 is the key point here, 1 just points out that you may wanna work on your assumptions.


@Sod and anyone else arguing about Forum membership voicery. I think the major assumption you all are making which is far from proven is that forum posters, and for that matter players in general *do* have a significant voice in how the game is changed edited upgraded or developed. Yeah perhaps the nice folks at Anet come to the forums to double check their findings who knows really though.

I will quote this absent minded post as well. I am paying ArenaNet for a product. I have every right to question whether they are doing their part and making the product a good one or a bad one. The thing about America is, we have rights, over in Ireland, if y'all are communist or whatever, you may not have rights, but in America, we do, and I agree completely that Gaile does a fairly poor job addressing the community and the entire CR over at ArenaNet may need to be reestablished and revamped. Obviously, they are the ones that relay what the community is voicing, and the reason Guild Wars is dying is because of the craptastic changes made by themselves. Many people have left the game and many more are in the process.

Take for example my guild, all of us are decent PvP players and are holding a decent rank on the GvG ladder. Since we are into GvG, we have many contacts in other top guilds and nearly everyone that you talk to is fed up with the downright STUPID AND IGNORANT changes that have been made to the game. The GvG situation is horrible. Once certain guild that has been dominating the ladder since the beginning now have its main guild and several smurfs (guilds with players 2nd and 3rd accounts that they practice in) in the top 100. I think it is around 6 or 7 guilds that are in the top 20 American guilds are actually just smurfs of another guild. You can from the number of people active here on this forum and in the game that the game is losing players right and left, yet ArenaNet continues to have terrible CR in my opinion and many others it would seem.

If ArenaNet really wants to make Guild Wars a good game again, they would make more threads here, on other forums, or on their site with links on the login page to polls to what the community thinks should be done. I have been a loyal Guild Wars player of 25 months and have no plans to quit. But, ever since Factions was released the CR has gotten progressively worse it would seem and the people making the decisions at ArenaNet are obviously making wrong and ignorant decisions which can be obviously cited by the dramatically decreasing number of players and the increasing number of threads criticizing them on here and other forums. It seems they have just abandoned the game. If ArenaNet would like a model to follow, Gaile can tell them about how Mythic still strongly supports DAoC even with their newer MMO's coming out.

ArenaNet is actually starting to remind me of one court case. A dozen teens rented a limousine for New Year's and the limo arrived 30 mins late to pick them up, was trashed inside, and never picked them up from the club where they went. The company collected the money, delivered their product, trashy it being, then ditched the customers after it had its profits. ArenaNet is releasing one more expansion with limited content (only 2 skills or so per attribute with it) and is just lying back in their hammocks playing with their money. ArenaNet has no incentive to keep their customers happy at the moment as their is no monthly fee. It seems that thousands of people post on forums with suggestions and when an update does eventually come out, being 2-4 weeks late normally, ArenaNet addresses very few of the concerns and makes worthless changes that no one cares about.

Gaile, the community, the CR at ArenaNet, ArenaNet, I am addressing you with pity. You have an unhappy community, as you can hopefully see, and you need to do something about and not keep making these worthless changes to the game and having people that make these decisions that make your customers unhappy. Thank you for 2 years of happy gaming and hopefully many more.

Thank you again.

~Chill

Veteran Guild Wars Player and Unhappy Veteran Guild Wars Player.

When it comes to balances, changes and updates, there are exactly two things that are considered.

1. What the community wants.
2. What the game actually needs.

Gaile has the unenviable task of being a liaison between a community that demands what it wants (even though as a whole the community can't agree on what that is) and the developers delivering what the game needs.

Everyone who plays this game does so from exactly one perspective, their own. That being said, what everyone sees as best for the game obviously isn't what is actually best for the game. Look at Soul Reaping! For years the talk has been how overpowered SR is. When a needed balance is implemented (or before fully being implemented in this case) you have enough whine being generated to put Napa Valley out of business.

This is ANets business. They're not going to blindly implement changes that will take food off of their tables or clothes off of their kids backs. I can only begin to imagine the work that goes into each update like this.

Balance is not a matter of PvE. The experience is: and what many PvP players do not realize is that the PvE experience is just as important as the PvP competition. That is why we PvE people purchase guild Wars. Its an escape from reality and the competition of real life. Its our market for purchasing this product.

PvE players in truth don't give a rats ass about balance. We want to feel like an Unstopable Tank, a Master of Fire, Commanding General, Subversive Mystic, Undead Master, etc etc...

When the reality of competitions collides with fantasy, those who choose fantasy will end up looking somewhere else for entertainment. Unless there is a happy medium. Both sides must sacrifice in order to survive in the same game enviroment, or both must split. It is the hope of ANET that both PvE and PvP can co exist but that cannot continue if one side believes the other side has more attention than the other.

It is the belief of most PvE players that Fantasy is being outweighed by competition. SR nerf, Ritual Lord nerf, Motivation nerf, Armor cap, etc. These nerfs affect the PvE illusion of fantasy.

Fact is PvP is about the reality of competition whereas PvE is about the Fantasy of escape.

We who play PvE are discouraged by the continued assault upon PvE fantasy and we love GW as much as the PvP community does. What else can we do but to draw a line sometimes.

I remember the open beta they had months ago when they moved Blood Song into the channeling line. There was a 90+ page discussion why this was a bad idea and where AwL was the better move for both PvP and PvE. That was a happy medium both sides could agree upon. It went on def ears. That alone created mass frustration in both sides of the Ritualist fence.

Does ANET listen? Sometimes but I would say no it does not listen the game base the majority of the time or only listens to a select few.

ANET and any game company is in the Customer Service business the worse the CR to the players the more likely the player base will move on.

Gaile has a tough job and I can understand her neutrality in PvP and PvE disagreements. BUT one wonders what the Devs are thinking when they make decisions that make absolutely no sense when there were better solutions brought forth from the community itself. Solutions both the PvP and PvE community can agree upon.

tiyuri: thank you. I feel *EXACTLY* the same way you do, and I'm 100% PVE.

/signed

inde: please keep this open. We've seen what might amount to a response, albeit in another thread, from AP. I consider this a very relevant issue, with the near complete lack of communication between Anet and the community, and some ill feelings going around. I just hope people don't get into pvp vs pve or poster vs poster attacks, and keep it to the issue at hand.