An Open Letter to ANet

[EDIT: Perhaps I misjudged the OP. Given this later post
it seems I have. Consider the following a commentary on many similar posts plaguing these forums, but not OP's post in particular.]

By and large, this post did not impress me. Most of it struck me as backhanded e-peen stroking - complaining about how easy the game is while simultaneously pointing out how incredibly great the author is. Most of the rest is the same elitist garbage we've seen in other threads, just with better spelling and grammar. Ultimately though, it boils down to: "OMG now everyone can play the hardest stage and get the coolest weapons, so I can't feel superior to them anymore, and... dammit... I want to feel superior. I want to be the best! <lisa simpson>grade me! grade me!</lisa simpson>" And, ultimately, that argument is not convincing to me no matter how you dress it up.

IMO, this was the first time a-net got things right with the difficulty level and item rarity. Finally a GW game where all the content is accessible to Joe Average. We haven't seen that with "elite" areas since prophecies. And we've never had that with items. Now I can play whatever zone I want to play, and attain whatever items I want to attain; and Joe can play whatever zones he wants to play, and attain whatever items he wants; and you can play whatever zone you want, and attain whatever items you want -- and everyone can be happy. Well,... except you, because you want to feel superior to me and Joe; you want some proof of your superiority built into the structure of the game. The problem with that is that, to satisfy your desire to feel superior, it is unavoidably necessary that Joe and I go unsatisfied in some way. That is a selfish and childish sentiment that a-net never should have indulged. And I am glad that they have finally stopped doing so.

Do not tell me this is about the game being too easy. That's not it. There are plenty of ways that you can make the game more difficult for yourself without affecting the rest of us: Play with a team of 7, or 6, or less. Restrict your party composition to something less than optimal. Play with a PUG. (Now there's a challenge!) I could go on. The point is: until you're doing slaver's exile solo with an assassin, you don't need to be whining for a-net to increase the difficulty; you can increase it perfectly well on your own. You're whining for a difficulty increase because you want to see it get increased on other people to the point that they fail and you can feel superior again. And that's not something I can support.

Despite my total disagreement with the main sentiment of the OP, in the following, OP is correct:

To the OP, you are, as has been said several times in this post, one in the minority.
A great majority of people do not have time to spend 10 or more consecutive hours playing.
A great majority of the people playing do not have the understanding of the game and skill synergies that you and your friends may possess.
As you wrote this post, there were countless people struggling to finish their first dungeon or limping through the storyline.
What Anet realized is that their core players were in fact, not the hardcore, spend 8 hours at a time gamer (evidenced by the exorbitant prices for tormented weapons), but instead one who may have time to play 1 or 2 hours a day.
As a player who has little time to play, maybe 4-5 hours a week, I am resigned to the fact that I may never own a tormented weapon, max out 10 titles or own Obsidian armor or elite armor for all of my toons (I have one for each profession in which only one has a complete set of elite armor, only 2 have completed more than 1 chapter and 3 are single digit levels). I do like the fact that I do not need those items to be on par with those that have them.
What Anet did was put in facets that they figured would please the casual gamer, i.e. resurrects in dungeons, no hard mode etc., while putting in the high requirement achievements to get the elite armor and some other items.

While I agree, some of the things they did were reprehensible (i.e. re-skinned armors), for the most part, I commend the job they have done with EotN and all of the other chapters.

Yet as the old adage goes "you can't please everyone all of the time."


Yeah, and what was it that lonesamurai said? anybody?

great post, well thought out and written.

That said, I think he's a bit more hardcore PvE than most of us, certainly myself. Fair enough. I'm not bothered that you can wipe in dungeons, and clear it. At full DP. That's the only way I could have gotten Fendi Nin.

My main beefs is that this was released half-finished. The HoM continues to be a debacle. A huge let down, considering this was the main aspect that EotN was marketed and hyped to us.

Also, there's shockingly little content. In terms of square footage, this is miniscule, in fact unworthy to charge $40, if you prorate what we got for $50. Most of the dungeons are merely different tiles mashed together, where you see the same rooms in many dungeons. Lazy.

The grind aspect is disappointing. A further step towards tying advancement to grind, not accomplishment or skill.

Above all, I am disappointed with the management and decision-making at Anet. There seems to be a major disconnect going on.

Sorry, but it's your choice to do it slow and boring.

Tank/nuker is the slowest and most boring way. Bring something more suitable, and HM becomes faster, due to mobs moving and attacking faster. Curses, mesmers, passive protection... and you breeze through it.

Fortunately, HM can still be done with holy trinity, or there would really be a lot of complaining.

But it's not the fastest way, not even fast, or interesting.

I like the OP thread. Anet should give us a sort of response.

But alot of people need to understand a few things about the Guild Wars community.

1. Guild Wars has no fees. Umm ok, but i have all three campaigns, have boughten GWEN and 10 character slots, plus another account. So that totals over $300 dollars. Well when you pay subscribtion you pay 10-15 a month. I know a majority of people have all campaigns and extra characters, plus alot of people that have 2+ accounts. Thats why they did not want to release the actual player ratio to the number of total guild wars copies. So to say Anet didnt have money is wrong.
2. We do complain because we do care. How else is Anet supposed to make the next great game if they dont know what is wrong with their current one.
2. Majority, the person on the interview always tries to cherry everything up. For example, most posters here are not mad but dissappointed in the new GWEN armors. Lets say 20,000 posters on guru vote on the topic asking if they were dissappointed in the armor(not that they are hideous), but dissappointed, it would be - yes dissappointed 80-90%, you take that graphic to the next level and say the entire GW community takes the poll, about 500,000, it would be - yes dissappointed 80-90%. Just because we are a smaller graphic, and casual people dont get on forums, doesnt mean we dont see something that is really wrong.
3. Catering to the casual player, Most hardcore players are the ones that dish out the $300+ on your games. Hardcore players need some love. My guild leader has 15 accounts! omg!

There will always be people upset at GW for some reason or another. But dont ignore the majority of the community. I can see ignoring people whos posts dont get responses, i can see ignoring people who complain about something you never heard of, but dont ignore the people speaking out in these forums about GWEN(they are flooded), dont ignore the people in towns complain about GWEN. These issues are majorly vast.

After all these "EoTN suxX" threads, someone wrote the truth! Great post, worth of reading. I fully share your opinion... :cry:

I was puzzled by the elitist attitude that only 10% of the players should control the content for the other 90%. I have been playing for 1.5yrs and find myself helping a lot of "noobs" who, as has been said, don't want to spend a lot of time reading, but rather playing. The "grind" to them is one of exploration and it is the elite who try to make it miserable by telling the new players to "shut up", buzz off and some things it is not polite to repeat. I spend a lot of time helping new players and trust me they are not "beating the game" in 11 hours. Congrats on seeing how fast you can polish it off.

While I agree with much of what the op said .. I actually like the direction Anet seems to be headed with gwen. I also beat gwen in about 11 hours and was like wtf till I started actually playing the game (not just rushing to the end).

Getting back to its roots with skills being a reward for quests is great. I have over 8,000 hours logged and playing since launch aka I needed a reason to actually do quests again instead of just blindly clicking buy at the skills guy.

Dungeons .. LOVE the idea they are like mini deeps that can be done with heroes and hench at your own pace .. not run x build lets get this done in 45 minutes so we can repeat it to help make those rare items worthless. If you want a dungeon challenge do Duncan with heroes and hench only it is fun.

The separation of pve skills from pvp is a long time coming and definitely the right direction assuming they never feel the need to nerf pve only skills. Before anyone assumes ... I am rank 10.

I would love to see them do that separation with some weapons and armors as well. Like make the chaos gauntlets an inherent plus 1 health regen or something. Make a few things over powered aka give people a reason to want to get them. They already started down that road with consumables so I would like to see them carry it over to weapons and armor. The skins will almost always be a rehash with a few wow look at that skin thrown in (saurian scythe). The sheer volume of items in these 4 chapters makes it impossible to have every skin be original.

If Anet were to focus on the things I just mentioned I think they would be shocked at the increase in their sales. It is hard to get excited about something if it does exactly the same thing as 100 other skins. Yes, it might exclude your casual player base but if they are casual players they won't / don't need the uber sword of doom to complete gwen. Those same casual players don't have the surplus skill points to use lots of consumables anyway. The scales have actually tipped in favor of the hardcore gamers and many didn't notice or carried on in the typical whine fashion they were used to. I view gwen as a nod to those that have put in the time as long time hardcore players. And NO I am NOT an Anet fanboi, if anything I have been a harsh critic since Tyria.

It has always seemed to me like Guildwars is exactly for hardcore PvE players...the new titles, and the last two expansions being nearly completely focused on PvE confirm this image.

Certainly if you had no life (as do many of us :P), nor a job, nor anything to distract you from playing Guildwars, you could do all of the PvE content, but to me, that's something beyond hardcore.

1. Agreed that they are a bit too easy.

2. Agreed that these skins are fugly.

4. Disagree: I like being able to rez in a dungeon. So what if some of the dungeons are too easy? You won't have to use them. As for me, it is cool to not have to completely restart a dungeon if I die (and that has only been one particularly challenging dungeon so far.) And I certainly don't mind giving lesser skilled players a better chance to finish something either.

6. Disagree: they have a very appropriate cost to acquire. Tormented weapons are WAY too much.

7. Agreed that many of the armors are lame.

8. Agreed that it needs to be added (and soon) for players such as yourself.

Bottom Line: Anet should respond to the community's concerns, and at least take an open, honest stance on them whatever they may be. I would also like to receive some word from them about the skill > time spent paradigm that they seem to have thrown out the window.

Good post. I think the OP really summed up his opinion well. On some points I agree, others not, but I understand his thinking. There is a lot of talk of "balance for the casual player" vs. the hardcore player, and that is what is key here. What is the payoff for the hardcore player? The rarer items, the elite missions, armor? It is not an elitist attitude to expect that you are unevenly compensated for being above the 'norm' when it comes to time spent playing. Equate it to the RL (it exists), if you have been at a job for a few years and have seen a few raises in that time, should a new person coming in be paid the same as you from their first day on the job? No. You are paid more for your experience and time on the job. The same could be said for the game, a new character creation does not automatically net you a birthday mini, that is a gift to mark your dedication to the game/toon. I don't have the luxury of being a hardcore player, I wish that I did, but I can't. I don't like that I can't get into a group for DoA or to go after Urgoz, I play the game same as anyone else, and I should have access to the unique items the same as anyone else. The diference being that when it comes down to the nutcut, I will not be as good for the team as the guy who's done the run a hundred times and knows it in and out, and that is the payoff for that player. I recognize that fact, and I am not a very smart person. At the same time of course, I don't want it rubbed in my face. The "casual player" is just that, a casual player. I don't have the time to sit down and dedicate a few hours to a DoA run, so I don't try, that is an area set up to reward the players that do. Pretty simple. I have still done very well for myself in the game, though. Plenty of Ascended armors, plenty of maxed titles, plenty of unique items. I enjoy the game because I have accepted my limitations with it. A-Net has fullfilled my expectations with the brand as a "casual" player, I agree with the OP that there is as of yet, no big payoff for the "hardcore" player.

The whole Guild Wars community reminds me of my friend from high school.

He was a magician in training. One of my favorite tricks he ever did, was he was asking for change to break a 10 dollar bill, and he opens up his wallet, and it was on fire.

It was interesting to talk to him, because he did amazing things, card tricks, sleight of hand, manipulation, etc. But Im a bit of a scientist and i always wanted to know how he did some things. Somethings he would tell me about. A lot he didnt.

But often, the secrets to a lot of magic tricks are very very simple. And not at all magical. Once you know the secret, the magic goes away a bit.

Its the same with Guild Wars. Those of us here know the tricks already. We've played the games, we've studied it, wikied it, made builds and beaten the challenges they've thrown our way.

To some, it feels disappointing that this new expansion doesn't deliver. I feel that for those people, the magic is gone. People are are jaded, and only see the negatives in everything and so quick to point out any error, minor or major.

People are rightfully allowed to have their own opinions, but be aware of how you perceive things is directly correlated by how well you do in the game already.

"...I am interested in being challenged, and I feel that Hard Mode will supply that challenge...." the OP said.

Dont you have a bit of imagination? You rather prefer to whine

I also feel that HM would be nice.....lets wait....GWEN is 10 days old !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the mean time just equip your charac with a BASIC ARMOR (minimum lvl) without any RUNE......Try...& revert to us about how challenging it is or not........................

I don't understand why the majority of people in this forum think the armor is worthless, just go look around the towns and you can see lots of people with the new armor, so obviously people like it.

As for the "grind," this is an RPG, you are supposed to go out and kill bad guys. In Eye of the North, the bounties are for everything you kill, not just bugs or undead like in Nightfall, this is a step in the right direction. Just by doing quests along the way and one dungeon that wasn't part of the story line (Bloodstone something or other) I got my dwarven title up to rank 5 to buy the armor if I so wished [and I do, but I don't have the money =( ].

The hard mode will come in time, I'm 99.99% sure of this as this is a thread about not being able to get bounties after a certain rank, just like in Nightfall.

I consider myself to be little hard core as I like to frequent these forums and I play a lot across my five characters (I know that isn't much to many of you but it definitely feels like a lot to me) and there are spots that I had trouble with my first time through, but I tweak my builds a little bit and I'm through. So it is far from to easy and as I said, if it is a breeze for you, hard mode will come.

As to why destroyers didn't have healing skill, my best guess is because they are like orcs from lords of the rings, they prefer to just try to over run you with sheer force of numbers than to have to designate part of their forces as healers.

Like the armor response, I like the weapons skins also, I had been looking for a req 9 long sword to mod and in the end of Eye of the North I got one, with a blue tint to it, I was ecstatic. Just because some think they don't look great doesn't mean others won't. And even though you don't agree with the stats, they are the most popular ones.

I haven't done many dungeons so I can't comment on them. As to why it is impossible to "fail" a dungeon, maybe so that the people who won't play all night will be a able to finish? If you party wipe and you don't have much time to play, you won't want to restart the dungeon and you will be hesitant to do so the next time you have the time. Try these again in hard mode and you might be glad you can rez.

For destroyer weapons, they probably didn't want the prices to be so outrageous that people would try to dupe again like the tormented weapons were.

My comment was at best general in nature. I am a true believer in, not using the "holy trinity" to do everything in the game. For me its about the lesser know skill combos, utilizing necros, mesmers, paragons, etc. Lets do it different.

My post was highlighting only one aspect of the OP's discussion. I think HM is NOT the answer to improve GW:EN. It needs a total change to monster AI. Change the predictability. Skill sets are great, now give "them" the ability to use them. Maybe they use this skill, maybe they use that skill. Not the same scripted combos everytime. Could you see the look on the "hardcore" player the first time the AI spiked with some ridiculous skill combo?

There are enough mobs and skill combos available that you could make it so that the "perfect" build couldn't possibly cover the range of damage coming at you. Players would have to make choices. Which aspect of damage should we try to minimize this time?

Good post. I'm the friend he mentioned that played through the game with him. We had been talking about the problems he finally expressed in this post and couldn't really find an answer, hopefully Arena net will give us their answers.

I'm one of the people frustrated with the armor. I played guild wars since release focusing my efforts on PvP, I achieved rank 10 in less than a year and acquired the champion title as well, even though, for the lulz it was released far after GvG and many of the old school (good players) didn't get any of the points, not that they tend to care about titles. I quit immediately after what I considered to be the final blow to PvP (even though the real defeat came with factions release) when Nightfall was released. I then came back after being put on probation to play some PvE, I played for a month before GWEN and got I'm very important along with saving up around a million gold in hopes for some uber armor in GWEN. I was dissapointed. lame. THE CHAOS GLOVES ARE COOL THOUGH RIGHT?...

I was going to post a big reply on the OP's point about difficulty and rez shrines, but Woody says it all. I am an average player without the knowledge of all the right builds. For me the dungeons and all are hard enough and in some cases even a bit on the "harder then I'd like" side. I need the rez shrines to be able to finish at least most of the dungeons. I just hope Anet will offer the hardcore gamers their pleasures with a well build Hard Mode for Gwen.

To the OP, great post and thanks for starting an informed and civil discussion on the topic.

There seems to be this bizarre assumption that 10% of players are in the same situation as the OP. I think the figure would more accurately be represented by the top 25%-33%. Think back to the PCGamer exclusive coverage of GWEN, where ANet stated that "a shockingly large number of GW players have logged more than 2,000 hours of playtime". Anyone who has played that number of hours has a good grasp of the game mechanics and could have easily breezed through Eye of the North in a similar time frame to the OP. I'm not that far above the 2000 hour mark, and although I didn't play through GWEN in one sitting, in total it didn't make me a whole lot longer either. So to those who claim this is a minority elite complaining, it's really not as much of a minority as you might believe.

To keep to the topic...in response to the OP's points:
1. Agreed. Destroyer creatures really never posed much of a challenge compared to any other monsters, which was odd considering the ingame lore.

2. Terrible, terrible endgame items, I agree. I've never been a fan of the endgame items personally, but more than anything these reskins just seemed lazy.

3. I'm fine with varying dungeon bosses and difficulties, but I would prefer it if the rest of the dungeon reflected the difficulty of the boss at the end of it.

4. I like the fact that there is permanent rezzes in dungeons. You can't enter most dungeons from outposts, so factor in the 5-15 minutes it generally takes to reach a dungeon. It got incredibly frustrating in previous missions when one person royally messed up (sometimes deliberately) to cause a party wipe, and all the work you've done for the past hour is gone. Now, if a team gets to 60% DP and has the perseverance to continue to press on, then I say fair game to them.

5. I too, am disappointed at only one elite dungeon. Let's hope that HM fixes that, if not in name then at least in perceptive difficulty. Where is our new Deep, our new DoA, our new Sorrows?

6. Destroyer weapons - More than anything, I'm mystified as to why these qualify for the Hall of Monuments, and Tormented Weapons don't. Perhaps ANet felt that Tormented Weapons were "too" elite? I disagree if that is the case. As we are all too quick to forget sometimes, high end weapons don't function any differently to collector ones, so the elite weapons are there NOT for the casual player but for the dedicated gamer.

However, there is some salvation in the fact that there does seem to be some nice gold skins out there worth hunting in dungeons for. I like that a lot of the coolest skins only drop from dungeon chests and not from random chests in explorables.

7. This is possibly my biggest gripe with GWEN. Having studied all the armor pictures on wiki, and even bought a few myself, there is no armors at all that I will be purchasing to use on any characters. The few that I have bought have gone straight on my storage characters to collect dust. I like the one-off items, some of the gloves and the glasses especially... but why do all the rest of the armors have to look so, well...poorly (re)designed?
It wouldn't be so bad if some of the reskinned armor mixed well with the old armor; a lot of people prefer mixing parts than full sets. But the fact dye affects only small portions of many armors, with the base colour still showing through, makes them really poor in my opinion.

8. In all honesty, I didn't even think there was going to BE a Hard Mode before GWEN was released. Why should there be, I thought, since this whole expansion is designed for max level characters. Hard Mode was originally introduced to revitilize old content, which really shouldn't be necesary in a new expansion. I now realise how wrong I was to think there would be no Hard Mode. The complete lack of communication from ANet on that front is, quite frankly, baffling. Are they really just holding it back to give us some "new" content in the coming months?

In conclusion: the expansion really has left many players wondering what to do with themselves. All that cash saved up, and really not very much to buy.. all that time to play and well, really not all that much to do. As much as I enjoyed the scenery, music, lore and all else that came with Eye of the North, after less than one week, I found myself back in Prophecies monking for pugs for fun. Which really, isn't my idea of fun.

i think the lesson everyone is grappling w/ and articulating in different ways is that they(anet) lie. I think this is a good post cause unlike the rest ppl are contrasting what was promised and what was delivered. Vote with your wallet.Personaly ill pass on gw2, the pr/marketing driven cash grab that was gwen was the last straw for me.

I would say that in general, I am happy with the expansion. I can play it for an hour and make some progress through quests, or I can pull a several hour session with guildies to clear a dungeon. I can H/H a dungeon and NOT always finish it (that Remanents of Antquities guy... beat him on my third trip into the dungeon, or the necro boss in Vloxen Excavations).

The only real complaints I have are the armor, which everyone has stressed to death, and I only feel mildly about (although, if they were just going to reskin armor, why couldn't they have done the Woven armor for monks? I like that one), and the lack of Hard Mode (mostly because I find some areas like that funny ooze dungeon just a bit too easy).

In summary, while I can understand many of the OPs points, I am not as bothered by them. And while I may have some doubts about GW2, as long as they don't remove the player-run economy, I am there. I anticipate that A-net will be tweaking GW:EN for some time to come. Post-release armor here, hard mode there, fix the running bugs in town soon (please!).

But I would like to hear (see :P) Anet's response to the OP.

I'm not sure about what I think about the difficulty of EotN so far. Sure, I haven't had any trouble tearing through overworld or most dungeons with herohench groups; at the same time, the difficulty of many those areas is on par or even higher than what you encounter in the Fissure of Woe or Underworld. Those areas are interesting challenges for a lot of the playerbase.

The dungeons really are designed to be idiot proofed. I didn't know that you continued to res with a full 60ed team, never had that much trouble with a dungeon; the constant 7% morale bonuses from scoring kills make it pretty difficult to accumulate a significant amount of DP unless you're blowing up on the same mob over and over again. Of course those go away when you reach rank 8 Delver, but are you still having trouble with the game by then?

A.Net did neglect content that would appeal to their most serious gamers. A big aspect of PvE is playing Barbie with your avatar, and the abysmal selection of endgame armors was a pretty serious letdown. The dungeons, ostensibly our endgame content, are very uneven. Some of them are well designed with interesting gameplay, such as Raven's Point, Sepulchre, Frostmaw, and Cathedral. Others are just bad; much of Slaver's Exile is more annoying than difficult (who decided that constantly respawning spirits all over the first two levels was fun?), while other dungeons, like Arachni's Lair or Oola's Lab, are incredibly slow and repetitive - I found myself reading forums while tapping C+Space when completing much of Oola's. Are big updates to the gameplay of those dungeons coming, or are they simply to be cast aside as the slop of EotN?

A.Net got enough right with EotN for it to be enjoyable; the same goes for the franchise as a whole. You have to get an awful lot right for people to care about your mistakes. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be pointed out, especially when they continue to be made the same way.

Great post OP and I would also like to see Anet's response to any of the hot debate topics that have popped up since the release of GWEN. It seems they've been trying to hide in the shadows after the release of the expansion with the lack of replies lately.

I'm not going to itemize my response but here's my thoughts.

I'm an experienced player as well with close to 3000 hours in GW, I too can beat EN in 10-11 hours if I wished so but I choose not to. I play with my wife and friends, we take it slow, methodically clearing all the quests in an area, then do the dungeons. So far we've spent over 40 hours in EN and havent even reached the Asura yet.

More to the point: We have fun. We're not rushing ahead, taking our time, enjoying ourselves and reaping the rewards of it, YMMV but for us it has been a joy and, quite nice as well, profitable.

Reskins dont bother me and never have, I dont own any Torment weapons because I think that they are ugly, I have had 3 sets of 15K armor and I will buy the Dwarven warrior armor from EN to replace my Primeval.

One point I take serious issue with...Arenanet never lied to us. People let their expectations take on ludicrous forms and when they did not get what their inflated expectations made them believe was there they turned on Anet.
To me that is truly pathetic, but thats just me.

EN to me is the best Arenanet has so far produced, they learned from Factions and Nightfall, removed the fedex'ing, made it challenging without being impossible and gave us some of the most stunning designs yet seen in GW. Monsters behave smarter or is it my imagination that Charr warriors bodyblock access to monks and casters? Didnt think so.

Frankly, I think Arenanet would be unwise to actually answer this OP and stick to what Strain has said on the subject, someone posted it already so it wont repeat it.

Jeez! I think some people need an account purge and start over. Especially you, OP.

As for hard mode: You know it will come. So stop acting like you are a God among gamers who knows it all, demands a game being made for him and him alone,assumes his taste is the world-wide accepted standard and percieves everything he doesn't like in GW as a personal insult.

And Factions and Nightfall were good games. No matter how many topics of these i read, you won't succeed in changing my mind about that.

Anyone tremember that patch in Diablo 2 in wich they introduced monster immunities and casting delays? There where tons of frighteningly serious posts just like this to whine about how the community had been "betrayed",how Blizzard had "lied", and how "the community" would not buy Lord of destruction. But in the end the game remained just fine.

An example of a serious lie, that cant be taken out of context:

Before GWEN was released there was a pre release video showing someone playing and explaining the game. One thing that was mentioned was that an important factor was the NPCs, and how you do on level 1 (keep a guide alive) helps you in level 2. If you make a mistake you could restart with the guide and try better, or continue disadvantaged.

Complete lie. I havent had a single guide, and the Dwarven Spirits you can find with LoD (pve) disappear when you go to the next level.

That was pretty disappointing, further showing how you can perform terribly (60DP) and still pass the dungeon (Rragger's Menagerie <_<) with no consequences.

The OP was very well written.

I think the only thing I disagreed with really was the nostalgia for Prophecies.

This post was excellently written, but more importantly for those who cite Jeff Strain:

It's difficult to appease everyone, but if you don't appease enough, you don't get a chance to appease at all.

The OP is imo pretty much spot on.

@EPO bot: About the hard mode, sure it is coming along. However, whats wrong with actually putting a finished product on the market?

Bug fixes i understand come along with time (even though the cracked armor bug was kind of embarrassing), and i can accept that some spelling errors slipped through. The lack of features such as hard mode however just shows that gw:en was a rush-job.

a pre release promo video is not the final product and as it actually says everywhere from the box to their site

*ONLINE CONTENT MAY CHANGE*

i am having fun playing slow and fun even without a guide

also my chests opened a second time in less than a month and all golds.

does anybody know if this reset is new Anet policy?

Have you played GvG lately?

I've been reading al posts here and i agree with most people.
As for the HM stuff give it time.
About armors ----> no comments
As for 1337 weapons Tormented/destroyer weapons (Zodiac in my eyes)
All need to be competeble in HoM or other weapons like end game.
But i admit i'm afraid GW wil die iff Anet Doesn't change stuff around there.
As for high end stuff i don't agree i'm your jow blow average.
i have zodiacs tormented and destroyer weapons in possession and other in my eyes high end stuff.
And i only play 3/4 hours a day 7 hours on max iff in free of work or in the weekends.
But only probblem i see with GW:EN is money i think most players can't affort a well filled HoM Correct me iff im wrong BTW but you need alot of ingame money to have protential off your Hall of Moneybag

I appologize iff didn't stick to the topic but this where a few things that cought my attention when playing the game last week
And i appologize for my bad english couse i'm only a crazy dutchman.

Greetzzz Sparda

I only read OP.

I only have one big question after finally beating the game on saturday.

Why in Kormir's name is The Great Destroyer (with capital letters) so insanely easy to kill? I loaded up the mission after playing it a huge amount for an entire week, expecting a challenge. I used my normal build, which is made sub-par on purpose (if you're wondering, it's 3 warriors, 1 paragon and an orders necro). I enter the room, see some destroyers. I expect some path to the boss. I kill the destroyers. I press tab and suddenly see the great destroyer.

I think back to Cyndr.

I think back to the invincible necro-boss.

I think back to the ritualist boss at the end of Bogroot growths.

But, instead of seeing my party get whiped to the extreme, they take some damage. A little damage. Whoops, 1 spell from The Great Destroyer and some burning. So I press LoD. And I look at the healthbar of The Great Destroyer, and see it's already at 30%. It was dead in about 20 seconds.

SIGNED and PERFECT...sums up all of my concerns and basically why I WON'T BUY GW2

Seeing as how almost every pug i get into is much less skilled then me, it's obvious that they kept the final boss doable for the average Joe on normal mode.

Also, there are a few people who don't use the mandatory overpowered build of the moment, but rather use a different skillbar every game they play. Just to make the most of the rather extensive spellbook you have in this game.

And i don't see why so many people complain about the game "not being done". It's not like GW isn't an on line game that isn't updated all the time.I counted on things being added later. If you always expect perfection, you are just too optimistic and bound to live a life of dissapointment.

Another thing: You always had sidequests that were much more difficult the neven the final boss. Remember the villany of Galrath? Back when we were all newbies, this was a real achievement.Definitely a lot harder then beating the lich.

I completely agree with the OP.


Additionally, I still cannot fathom why -- for the love of Melandru, Dwayna and Lyssa -- they didn't add the remaining Realms of the Gods.

Another expansion, maybe?

Those will probably appear somewhere between now and the relase of GW2.

I personally love EotN. They did something with this expansion that was missing from Factions and Nightfall... but, there are some issues I have with it as well... some of which the OP pointed out.

First of all, I was able to race through to the end of the game with one of my characters using heroes/henchies. Sure, there were a few bosses or areas that gave me some grief due to the obvious limitations of my team, but after rethinking my strategy I was able to go back in and kick their butts. I didn't race through in 11 straight hours like you... I instead chose to spread that time out over a few days... but I'd say 11 hours, give or take a few hours/minutes/seconds is what it took me. Yea, disappointing, but I'm now going back through and doing all the quests/dungeons which add a lot of time to the game.

Secondly... the grind factor. Yes folks, we've seen many threads on this, but it's a problem... a big one. I'm not gonna grind to get armor... no way. I was patiently waiting for the expansion to be released before I got a new elite set for my ele, but after the whole grind thing, I think I'll go back to one of the previous campaigns to get my armor. To add to that, many of the armors are obvious reskins, but that doesn't bother me as much as grinding to get the armor. Some of the reskins are nicely done, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. A good example is the reskinned Ranger Ancient Armor... while I liked the basic look of the original, I hated the fact that I'd be wearing dead bugs. I mean... ew. The reskin is nice because now I can get that armor minus the bug carcasses. No offence to those that like the original armor, this is just an opinion.

Anyway, that's all I'll say for now. I do agree with most of your points, but I'd rather not write a book in response to what you wrote. Good points, and good post. Let's hope Anet listens to the concerns of the community.

Anet probaly has taken a vacation because they released GWEN and are expecting alot of negative feed back. So they need to go on vacation just to be able to handle the insaneness when they come back. Its to be expected.

Gaile already had her armor talk when GWEN was released on her Gaile talk discussion forum and she had to close it because it was getting to negative for her.

I'm pretty shure Anet get's a lot of negative feedback no matter what they do.

The only thing that would really piss me off would be the introduction of monthly fees. That would be instant GG for Anet. Or still having a level cap of 20 in GW 2 of course.

Yes, they're waiting for the dust to settle, PR wise.

When you peek at the Game & Dev tracker board here on guru, most topics that were responded on recently involved GW:EN sales. (availability, online store problems, pricing etc) while a very substantial part of the in-game related issues are either ignored or dismissed.

Personally, I love GW:EN, Nornbear insta-death to survivor notwithstanding...LOL.

Seriously, if you find you are not challenged, perhaps you could start another profession. Cause it sounds to me like you only play one profession. Perhaps a new profession will bring back some of the magic of gw that you seem to be missing.

Or well, GW has been around for awhile, maybe it's time to let the old girl go. Maybe go play something else for awhile. Or maybe stick to your uber, high class, elite area you've already been given, DOA anyone?

I find DOA to be totally boring and completely unforgiving, I'd much rather a game be semi-challenging, but beatable. Not "breaking the keyboard" hard.

I wish armor was better, but I always wish that. I've always found the armor for all chapters to be severely lacking. See? Opinions vary, because most people like the armor.

I do wish they would make the HoM less strict, put all the restrictions in gw2, but let us put whatever we want to in the Hall. It is OURS after all. I want to display my stormbow, I love the stormbow, it's the only bow I use, why can't I see the weapons I like and use?

Hard Mode will be here soon enough. There will be no Hard Mode before its time.

PS I wouldn't hold your breath for a direct Anet response, I believe they have answered all your questions in the thread "Jeff Strain, How to make an MMO". And if you do get a direct response from Anet, I can guarantee you won't like it, which is probably why you never get one.