An Open Letter to ANet

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.