What is your top 3 ArenaNet mistakes?

1 titles
2 armor clipping
3 quests that STILL have bugs ....known since they came out, but not fixed.

1. Poor skill balancing, updates took way too long and still do.

2. Going too easy on botting, adding farming areas into the game just for botting alone, even in new chapters places like arborstone and yohlon haven were added and are still being botted to this day.
Botted cash just kills the economy and feeling of worth people attribute with the items, the duping bug just finished it off.

3. Dumbing down of PvE, since prohpecies the game had got easier and thats not just because my play has improved, things like heros and insanely overpowered skills being added in.
Also consumables, just making things way too easy.
I dont think theres a single area left in the game that requires skill and rewards for it.

#3 is a very good point.

I guess I'll contribute in the spirit of constructive criticism.

1. The Soul Reaping timer. It's ugly, clunky, very bad for PvE, and totally unnecessary. It didn't fix the problem it was meant to address, and, after a proper fix was implemented, it's still here for some stupid reason. It never should have been put it in, and it should have been taken out weeks ago.

2. The way skill balances are done. I mean that in several respects: The decision to have just one person pretty much in charge of it was just foolish -- one person is bound to make too many errors. Then it doesn't help that the one person they chose has proven pretty bad at it. The philosophy of treating symptoms instead of of dealing with root causes has caused a lot more harm than good (see the Soul Reaping timer for example). The philosophy of over-nerfing things so that they'll never ever cause balance issues again because no one will ever use them again is a terrible idea. Most of all, the philosophy of totally ignoring the PvE impact of skill changes (despite the fact that PvE players are the ones paying a-net's bills) is a huge mistake, and probably the largest reason that I am strongly inclined not to touch GW2 no matter how good its buzz may be.

3. DoA. From a gameplay point of view, it takes everything that was bad about previous "elite" zones and makes it worse, and it takes everything good about previous "elite" zones and throws it out the window. This area is overly ugly, overly long, overly hard with a "cheese" difficulty instead of real challenge, overly conducive to degenerate cookie-cutter play, and all-in-all just not fun. From an economic point of view, it creates the game's strongest incentives to cheat by offering "elite" rewards that are absolutely beyond the reach of most players through legitimate means. Aside from weak code, there's a good (psychological) reason that the two biggest cheating scandals in GW history happened in DoA.

Regarding heroes: It's really not that they're "overpowered", just that they're the best route to go when you've progressed in the game in terms of skill availability and the such. If you're a bad player, heroes won't do you much good. But if you know your stuff then the game is yours to shape, alone.

The rest is spot on, though.

1. Introducing lootscaling. Bots and gold sellers still exist with little damage done to them.
2. Titles. Minimal use. Titles giving you access to specific skills which aren't all that great.
3. Making destroyer weapons the only weapons that can be added to the Hall of Monuments.

1. Ending GW1 with EOTN being a bit of a downer
2. No appearance changers
3. CR and PR handling of various marketing and update aspects.

1) GW:EN weapons and armour
2) Poor implementation of BMP promotion, although the BMP itself is cool.
3) Telling us that our efforts in GW1 have not made the world a better place.

1. Dupe (surprised this hasn't come up yet)
2. Loot scaling
3. Green items

1. Removing trade value of gold items (introducing greens)
2. Changing Tombs of the primeval kings to Heroes Ascent
3. Changing HA, every time they touch something half the players quit
3.5 Fail skill balances

Quoted for /Agree.

Well Martin, given the context of the thread (and forums in general) it usually applies mistakes that are intentional, hence why I wouldn't put "duping" on the list.

- Lack of auction house; because selling stuff in-game is hell.
- Loot scaling; doesn't help the casual player, doesn't help the hardcore players, doesn't hurt the gold sellers...
- Switching priorities on GW2. Fix the bugs in the first before moving to the second?

1. Inscriptions (imo worst thing ever)
2. Dupe
3. The extreme slowness with dealing with an understaffed support team.

all skill updates failing and lack of support for PvP community......

1. grind based skills
2. grind based skills
3. grind based skills

1a. Assasins 1b. Paragons 1c. Dervishs
2. 6v6 HoH
3. Too little too late skill balancing, normally after the damage has been done.

1) Rushing an unpolished GW:EN to sales with major bugs in the HoM (customization without 20% bonus damage for example) rather then waiting to release a more polished product that would have a HoM that is actually worth something.

2) Changing HA to 6v6 based on the fact that a lot of people played it when it first came out under a double fame weekend. Duh, 2 variables means you can't tell what caused the change in outcome. You have to have a control group A.net.
I don't PvP in HA at all (not even rank 3), and I still think this was a bad move. It pushed a large amount of the good PvP player base away from the game. The exodus was obvious within a few weeks as the districts just died.

3) Inscriptions. Although they do allow new players to get better gear, it kinda defeated the purpose of PvP characters (if you can get a perfectly equiped PvE character in a matter of days, PvP characters become obsolete) and was the death blow to the rare item economy.

1. Deleted my friends account. Twice.

2. Never got the chance to play my GW:EN Pre-order trial.

3. Making NF Desolation - RoT too difficult..

1. Not being able to change your Toon's hair.
2. Not enough Storage
3. Being limited to 3 heroes. ( I like Heroes and could live with all Heroes and not Henchman).