What is your top 3 ArenaNet mistakes?

True. That's what I did; completed Prophecies and Factions with all-hench teams. Heroes just made it easier.

Yep. Horrible, horrible, idea, completely contrary to the spirit of GW.

I don't see that, to be honest. NCSoft sucks, but ANet doesn't; it all depends on who you get to deal with.

Amen!
I've always wondered - doesn't it annoy ANet that they put all that effort into these sucky "elite" areas, only to find that only a small percentage of players go there (and those who do are mostly farmers)? Wasted effort & money.

Add henches to that list of things which made Guildwars unique and good, and you've got my vote.

I am sure many can list tons of faults but most of us have been playing for over 2 years even with the faults. It doesn't matter, Anet made a great game and Guild Wars 2 will be even better.

As pissed as I can get about how much they ruined the original GW, I always come back. Even long absenses of 3-6 months of not playing a single minute results in returning to the game and playing it a bit.


I am NOT against title grind, not one single bit. I AM truely against tying pve skills related to titles and having them be so overpowered. Truth is I still play the game a lot, but I do think this thread is more constructive than it is unconstructive.

If anet reads this they can see what most medium-hardcore players disliked about their changes, because many of them have been repeated over and over again.


This won't give them an idea of the majority of the GW community, because not everyone reads GWGuru and posts what they think.

I just hope some of the ideas and changes that were good get transferred over to GW2 and some of the terrible ideas are left out. Going the way of WoW is a pretty bad idea, considering more than the majority play GW for its uniqueness and casual design. Remove the level cap, add in grind, leave instanced, remove heroes/henchmen, charge a monthly fee, and you'd be that much closer to being just like everyone else. Wait, some of that is already done....

1: Designing new hero/npc armor while we get re-skins.
2: Loot scaling.
3: Title based skills. Grind to win=fail.

Hear, Hear, for #3. Deeply annoyed, especially given the rarity (or over-demand) of some of the golds (Voltaic Spear, Silverwing Bows, anyone?). Would have been nice to see end-of-dungeon greens able to be put in HoM.

Otherwise:

#1 mistake: making the game that stole me from Madden and Need for Speed; making the series of games that have chewed up 2200 hours of my time.

#2: OK, I'll play fair. Closed-off elite areas requiring ferries, scrolls, or alligiance to a particular faction/alliance (I'm talking to you, the Deep), and elite areas requiring less skill and more raw power or more limited builds (yup, DoA. Hated my three trips in there.
I really like what's happened in EotN: mixed-class enemies with mixed mobs: but why NOT simply make mobs of, say, eight to ten level-22s or 24s, which might more closely mirror the team that's going out to fight? The 4-charr and 5-charr mobs...just not as challenging. The Realm of Torment: frustrating as hell sometimes, but way worth it to achieve victory.

#3: the construction of Factions (the game and the alliances) that splits players into halves of the map, and that therefore limits the numbers of people in missions across the bottom of the map.

1. Roadmap didn't really work, forcing an early sequel. An early sequel is an odd choice for an mmo unless they had to do it, which is probably true financially. In other words, we're being played a cup game about monthly fees rather than get one straight out.

2. Not necessarily caring about the community's biggest issues until it was too late. The PVE skill collecting/capturing system launched on day 1 was retarded for pvp players, and it took them years to fix, plus selling skill packs like a bunch of liars. So even with big tournaments, PVP just kept getting less popular in GW because they were obsessed with a bad design mechanic of "merging PVE and PVP" 100%. This shows bad judgment imo.

3. Little planning for long term play. Where were the dynamic content updates, the world events, the things to do for a level 20 that don't involve grinding less than a handful of areas. Instead of a growing fantasy world, we got real world holidays and things that were more often advertisment for something else than for everyone (like the rather noticeable additions to cities of GW:EN and BMP characters) It feels like we're looking at a cereal box with a different gimmick all the time rather than an mmo world at times.

Yeah, Prophecies armor sure sucked. Oh, wait, you're whining about EotN...

1. Loss of momentum--
Gw:en had so much potential but it feels to me they cut the game short of content. The Great D. could have been better looking and more challenging. But mostly the cut-n-paste dungeons kinda bothered me as well as the poor reskins of armors.

I wished Anet had added more unique areas like Sorrows Furnace and UW/FOW to the existing campaigns--those were the best ideas and the best areas of the game. There is so much space on the Tyria/Elona/Cantha maps that have gone un-used as well, so much back story gone unused--there's just so much they could have done and added with out skimping or getting cheap like they did.

Gw:en was a good start, not a good ending, to what could have continued to be a great game.

2. Poor skill balancing--
There's just so many skills and proffessions in the game that did not seem properly tested or thought through. Mainly due to Nightfall, as I feel it really did ruin most pvp aspects of the game which caused most of my friends to quit playing.

There has been a bad trend of skills that are completely worthless (Quick Shot, Resurect are prime examples) or skills nerfed to the point of being rendered useless (LoD). If that needs to be done, lets leave them out of the game entirely in the first place or remove them. If a skill is going to be godly, it needs to have some kind of penalty--like blocking skills like Aegis or Guardian should only stack so high and cancel each other out if the block cap (which I feel should be no higher than 66%-75%), or Wards should effect everyone in the radius (enemies included), or Spirit Rift effects everyone in range (caster and friends included) so they would all be used in moderation, with thought and with planning. Included in this is how the "aoe scattering" and "aggro holding" issued were handled.

My biggest grief is with garbage like Ursan Blessing--wow did we really need a skill so over-powered it defeats the purpose of running a skill bar and removed what makes each character unique? Skills like this and other gimmick builds have made the game mindless and not fun--personally I like creating builds, and I assumed that was part of the fun and challenge of the game, but I guess challenging games are not the way of the future.

3. Changes to Hall of Heroes--
All of them--from taking it out of tombs, to the 6v6 garbage, to the map changes--I can't even go into full detail about how awful it has become, it hurts too much to see nothing but over powered gimmick builds running rampant and the old days of creating builds and using tactics long dead. The favor change was bad too IMO. I will say it again...Nightfall ruined pvp (it was good for pve, I love my heroes!).

#1 - Lack of a good trading system
#2 - Some really bad armor designs. To name a a few..most male Ele, all male Sin.
#3 - Loot scale and introduction of grind

1.After Prophecies, starting from Factions, unnecessarily adding in more useless- skills, greens, crap items, locked gate, timed mission, Anguish crap, more crap quests(in both faction & NF),
which in terms messing up the old/good system instead of focusing the
advancement of story-line.
(e.g my own Faction's story - take the hidden portal at the icy imp, to the mursaat home town to ally with them-not w/o sweat- to gain back their trust.
In order to deal with Titan & the white mantle-charrs allies which backup from new enemy- Shiro & his army.
But u had also backup from the Imperial amy in later stage.- nice story huh?)

2.Chopping GW2 from GW1. (That make me don’t feel like coming back to gw to try gw2 at all.)

3.Each episode move further away from the original core concept;
e.g:
Prophecies- at least decent storyline
& some thoughtful mission design.
Although could be more immersive
-->

Faction- rush rush kill kill, lock gate
here & there, elite area fedex fedex rush again kill kill end.
(That was the impression i played Factions.)

NF- quest quest, title to slow down ur proceed, kill this group,
kill that group(bandits), kill another groups, kill huge groups x 50 at
end game area.

My 2cent though

1. The fact that PVE AI cannot 'see' farther than your tank. (Would be a much different game if aggro would never hold on a tank but would always run by--maybe PVE would have some variety?).
2. Grind/Titles
3. Useless skills/balances

pve skills (linked to) titles (requiring massive) grind

ya i mean WTF is up with this game and all the trying to make it easyier!!!




i only want 15^50's if it is what the weapon started with.....the system now makes me feel all dirty



/sarcasm off

1. Making the hero battles objective capping shrines as opposed to RA style.
2. Eye of the north (nice scenery I'll give them that)

can't really think of 3 without forcing it. I've been playing for almost 2 years, and not once!!! have I ever tried to log on and not be able to. Steadiest game I've ever played. Servers always up.

One thing, why are several people listing the zaishen chest as a bad thing? Man.. finally something to do with my 35k faction which had no purpose before that chest. And now I can make money by doing pvp. I got bored of pve long ago and now that I can make money this way.. I'll be able to pimp out some of my characters. I'd list that chest as one of their better ideas.

1. Assassins
2. AoE nerf
3. Splinter weapon nerf

1. Mini's
2. Mini's
3. Lootscaling

1. Overpowered PvE-only skills.
2. Making enemies lvl 28+ and autattacking for 100+ instead of making their skillbars/mob setups better.
3. Spirits, or just make that ritualists in general.

Titles that had an effect on PvE skills....

Greens.......

Oh lookie! Most skill balances!!

And a fourth one: Overpowered & Underpowered skills...

@Orange Milk - Heroes didn't kill PuG's...PuG's killed PuG's...and Ursan made it worse.

1. Loot scaling:Ruined most of the farming and didn't solve the problem of botting

2.Grinding titles:because this game hasn't got too much elitism alrdy...

3.Everything they tried to change in HA,and the introduction of HB

When you're listing mistakes, what does titles, AoE nerf, Ursan, Zaishen Chest, grind, lack of auction house (which isn't even true), Drok's run and PvP characters have to do with anything?

This board runs on some strange logic that I'm never able to comprehend. Let's start with titles. How many of you are offended by other people showing some bling bling under their toons' names? AoE nerf and Ursan, contradiction says hello! When dev team fixes stupid AI mistake that makes monsters stay on AoE damage, fixing that bug is a mistake? Ursan - haven't yet found any reason why full districts of DoA and people PUGing can be a bad thing, especially since it's all voluntary. Zaishen Chest... so Balthazar faction has been useless for us veterans for years now and when ANET implements some use for it, this qualifies as top three mistake they've ever made, what the bloody ****? And the old favourite auction house. You're saying auction house is not in the game, tell me what rune traders are? What are dye traders? What are material and scroll traders? Prices based on supply & demand sounds familiar? Leave a message at party search for the win? I mean do you people even play the fricking game? Drok's run - don't like it don't use it? PvP characters... since we all think grinding best stuff just to play the game we want to play is the most fun thing you can do?

You could probably get full districts in DoA if you made every monster drop 50 ectos if it was a full human party. Is it getting people to play together? Ja. Is it good for the game? No. Titles are just PvE's varient of /rank, and it's terribly annoying (even more so with benefits attached to them.) Not so bad if they weren't displayable.

1 i think anets bigest mistake is making things not universal like the hom
2 the non implintaion of things they said they where going to do.
3 how they have balanced the game or rather the lack there of theres still alot of skills new and old that have no use. and some time skill updates nerff a skill so badly that its made unusable.

1. Leaving crappy skills crappy, like healing breeze (well I don't know if that could be helped). Basically, not thinking enough about them.
2. Prophecies and it having a lack of direction compared to the other GWs.
3. Probably HoM weapons monument.

Yea Anet has done really well.

Btw, top 3 things I hate about the GW community:
1. People who thinks nerfs are bad when they aren't overkill, like splinter weapon.
2. People who hate things that make stuff easy to the extent of not wanting others to use them, like UB and consumables.
3. People that want moar EZ, like no aoe nerfs.

Its not that crappy now. Try using it with a damage reducing prot like shielding hands or prot spirit and see what happens.

Why not use prot and dwayna's kiss? Save your energy. regen is a very bad substitute for healing.

- I doubt it. If ectos were that easy to get they would cost 100g at trader and people wouldn't even bother. See what happened to amber and jadeite.

- If Kurzick/Luxon/Sunspear/EotN skills weren't there, people would have absolutely no "reason" to play PvE after finishing the campaign. And as far as rewarding continued playing goes (alright, please try to think which reward you would most rather have), isn't it much better to give something very tangible for it? Slightly better skill - I'm in. Another 15K armor to replace my other five 15K sets... not quite. Another title to replace my 20 other title tracks... I'll pass. Not having anything to do besides FoW armor grind after you've finished the game was downright the most glaring design mistake in PvE side, don't you agree?

I'll repeat the fallacy which prevails on these boards. Either you...
1. Have nothing to do besides repeat old areas
or
2. Have nothing to do besides repeat old areas and get some title for it
Someone please explain to me why second option is considered to be a mistake or something less than first one. If it's explicitly stated that you can repeat same stuff (i.e. titles), it doesn't change anything in game! And what people choose or choose not to do has nothing to do with ANET.

If you're saying "I'd rather have fun game than grind", heck who doesn't? But we're not living in fantasy world and game will stay pretty much how it was when it was released. Options are limited and at least I will appreciate what little ideas they had to keep people playing. We all know adding storyline is the road of diminishing returns. ANET spends several months for bonus mission pack - community plays it through in a few hours and comes here to ask "was that it? What will we do now?"

A game that is fun to play... I would say player involvement is one thing that is definite characteristic of such games. What this means in game design? Options, paths, viability, quality-emphasis, micromanagement, etc. Those things where player is doing something and not just clicking "target nearest enemy" and "attack button" ad nauseum; not just following finite linear storyline with "press spacebar to skip this cutscene" mentality. If there's one good thing to say about various grind titles in Guild Wars, it would be that they are indeed optional and you can choose if you want to improve your skillsets, unlike hundreds of other games where you are forced to do so in order to stay competitive and progress in storyline. Before there was one Arcane-Echo-SS build and one MM build and that's it. Now it's actually viable alternative to number of PvE skills in your bar. Your Mesmer can turn into something completely different with Signet of Illusions. This simply wasn't possible in Prophecies. Viability is a big plus.

That isnt Anet's fault, thats the result of childish attitudes from the players! It not something they can fix either, its something the community has to sort out and grow up.

1. Not adding an Aston Martin
2. Not adding Dachsunds(sp?)
3. Not adding Bears with lazer eyes

1.FoW armor (looks like crap)
2.Changing BLS to a lead...
3.Killing HoTo to almost useless.



Well in GvG (yeah we are just starting to play PvP together) I end up screaming at the flag runner for enemy morale boosts even though we had no chance to stop it lol. Although it just ends in just resign (1 guy wasnt on vent when I said it one time and pushed the other team back thank god he wasn't :P)

1.Soul Reaping nerf
2.Made some destroyer weapons that's less than crap
3.Banning everyone else other than the gold sellers at ToGB which are really the source of GW economy inflation.

Would it be easier to understand if I said 100000k dropped each kill instead of ectos? The point is that just because you're getting people to play together does not mean it's a good move.

So? It's not like there's a subscription fee or anything. Even ANet themselves said they were surprised that people were still in PvE long after they beat the game. Why do people *have* to keep playing? Why does ANet *have* to keep them addicted?

Let's See. Worst mistakes, becuz although I love anet they're still pushing me away from the game with these silly little changes and no realizing it.

1. Loot scaling (although I'm lovin the constant gold drops)
2. Scatter! I hate monster scatter!
3. Warrior stances and the paragon nerfs...grrr

People really don't think Paragons are totally screwed in PvE, do they??

1. the AoE nerf at the time ruined my ele build (Shield of Judgment, Balth Aura, and nukes )
2. /report people exploit this way too much
3. changing Incoming to uselessness and making Angelic Bond less appealing, while buffing defenseive anthem and inventing Blockway

Most of you said what I would say.
Loot Scaling
Grind Based titles
Nerfing Farming and Running
Locked Gates

The one thing there is a design flaw that makes pugging in a mission or missions themselves.It doesn't seem to address the cooperation between one another.I would make the missions like Eye of the North quests.

I dont really think so...I've got a few para builds that i keep up indeffinitely. Always Adren and always full nrgy using only para skills. Just "incomming!" and what else got nerfed? Oh yea "fall back!"

Of course they do, they're dumb/bad at GW. These are the same people who think Energy Storage is better than Soul Reaping.

Okay that's what I thought : )

Here's 3 of ArenaNet's mistakes that I think are the worst (I think this is what you meant, please correct me if I'm wrong)

1. Making the character (by character I mean Letters, Numbers, Symbols ect.) Limit for the Party Search Panel to small
2. Not being able to turn off the achievements announcements
3. Not having Official Forums

:P

3)BMP....

2)AoE Nerf....

1)No Iway Nerf GG...