What is your top 3 ArenaNet mistakes?

1. Awarding skills for solo quests.

2. It's the economy, stupid! I shouldn't have to grind for money.

3. Removing all the fun exploits - HoS chest runs, 8-man siege devour runs, etc.. Games are supposed to be fun, aren't they?

creating inscriptions tops all the mistakes in my eyes, so no need for 2nd and third.

That last bit is the kicker, isn't it? Lightbringer, norn, vanguard, asura - those titles do change something in the game, they BREAK the game. Ursan with consumables is very close to godmode.

I have no problem with titles in general even though, like someone pointed out, the introduction of titles was when GW went grinder and switched from skill over time to time over skill.
I have a problem with titles which are obtained through brainless grind and which have a huge, massive, disproportionate effect on the game.

1) Virtually no solo content
2) Heroes
3) Title-grind PvE skills

1) A general tendency to try to "encourage" large group and PUG play in a game whose principle strengths are its accessibility to small group and solo players. No full hero parties, PvE skills, no henchmen in elite zones, etc etc.

2) Listening too much to a user base that is forever pressing a great action RPG to become a mediocre MMORPG. I hold that tendency responsible for title linked PvE skills, which are a quiet way to circumvent the level cap and introduce power creep, not to mention consumables. I hold it responsible to some degree for point 1 as well, along with many other unfortunate decisions.

3) Abandoning their principles and design vision to create a game for those individuals I mentioned in (2), namely GW2. A persistent world game with a dumbed down, twitch based skill system and a high level cap is exactly what the "we wish this game was WoW but free" crowd has been dreaming of. I suppose they'll finally get their wish, and I'll go find a new game to play.

Not going to state what's already been stated, but I'll bet they'll cheekily release auction houses the day before GW2 is released.

1.) The AT system. Honestly having a better worked PvP structured tournament like the GWWC and the GWFC were probably the best times of PvP in this game.

2.) Lack of decent or misleading information from Anet/NC Soft reguarding their product. Honestly don't tell players that youre working on something and it should be here within a week or two and have it arrive 4 months late.

3.) Overabundance of conformity to other online MMO's. When Guildwars first came out, it attracted me because of the fact that it was different than almost every other game on the market and actually set a really damn high bar for themselves. But instead of keeping that bar at the top, they dropped the bar to conform to the grind wishes of everyone that wanted to play WoW but wouldn't/couldn't pay the monthly fee, thus introducing our wonderous title grind, PvE only skills that are so far above and beyond what it should be its pathetic, as well as the lack of general support/incentives to keep their playerbase that has been with the game since the conception of it.

That being said, this is still probably the best game out atm which is kinda sad.

( I could go on but we're limited to three )

1) making a WoW like GW2
2) Not making a 4th campaign for GW
3) factions could have been a little better...

Top three? Well I can't really point out three that are really worthy of it. As much as I have complained about some recent things it will take some time to know if they qualify or not.

As is the only mistake I think they have made is the strange way they have, in the last year or so, catered to the two different groups. Namely increasing drop rate of rare skins and rare items and adding in more grind based titles. You are effectively giving neither side what they want: hardcore want visual aids to differentiate themselves and the casual want little to no power differential and they did the opposite. While the hardcore may very well want the power differential, it isn't anywhere close enough for them to even bother yet the casual player feels left behind (better off making the increasing ranks make more a difference).

Add in that most of the newer title grinds (GWEN allegiance ranks outside of Deldrimor) have no effective 10-20 minute farm and casual players are at a real disadvantage. Then you have the Zaishen chests that makes it such that casual players have a real chance at most ultra-rares that desire for said skins dropped to zero and they are no longer "ultra-rares". It would have been MUCH better to do the opposite - weapon skins that require more grind (Hey look at me - I spent 4000 hours to get this thing!!!) and easier to obtain PvE skill titles (Hey look at me - I *own* at this game!!!).

Plus it seems that where they have had a true high end (mini-pets) the high end people don't really want them - and I think a large part of that comes down to customizing them in you HoM. You pay a fortune for something you "can't use" (personally if I had the gold I wouldn't care, they would be in my HoM in a heartbeat - I'm only expressing what I have seen said by those that can afford such things), or at least use of them devalues them so much that they become worthless. However, I expect that as GW2 gets closer to release this will change (as they internalize that the HoM will carry over).

*shrug* I kinda float in between the two crowds so I kinda like the way things work - I can get the benefit to both sides without really either downside. However I have always seemed to be strange in that sense and I think they would have been better off doing things the opposite way, but then again if they had maybe I would be making pretty much the same posts just swapping the two arguments.

1. yet all you do is AB, as a luxon, while your guild is kurzick, & you have to use this flawed system to win.
2. so, last I saw you you was working on title 15, got that yet?
3. yet if they hit your overused skilled you'd demand that something else be nerfed or you'd quit playing again like when you threw your fit for BoA sins to be nerfed.
4. um...... riiiiiiiggghhhhtttttt
5. this is an rpg, you want to shoot something play a fps
6 & 7. just like your wanting for attention, which btw, killed your alliance, wtg.

Why does everyone grind when you can get your titles by vanquishing and dungeon raiding?

Oh wait: Not everyone has only one PvE character. You see, i believe this is the way it was always intended to be from the start: One PvE char and a whole bunch of PvP's.

1) 'Abandoning' GW1 and announcing GW2 way to soon.
Expected them to have a model like Magic the gathering which has proven to be very succesful.

2) Either the use of seven heroes at once or none at all. Now nobody is fully pleased. The main problem here is that they let the population spread very thin and that's because they released 3 stand alone games in a row instead of going for expansions first. Prophecies could have had 3 expansions in a row if you look at the space Tyria has. Droknar's forge and Lion Arch would have been the main towns for a couple of years.

3) Farming used to be fun, now it's part of the grinding fest just like achieving certain titles and pumping up skills. Or in other words moving from skill>time played to time played>skill.

On a side note: Anet often seems to choose the middle sollution that is expected to work for different type of players but is that a good thing I wonder. Anet has become the jack of all trades. Decent overall but no excellence in specific.
In addition, they take their game way too serious. They took a lot of fun things out of the game like someone posted earlier. Do they even know the word 'fun' at Anet these days.

1. Making a bad tutorial that doesn't alert people that tanking and Paladins fail in this game.
2. Neglecting PvP for the sake of people that want this to be a free WoW.
3. PvE Skills.

This thread will be closed if people insist on trolling it.

I agree...
Btw. most of the posts in this thread is sad. I mean come on, it was so lame when the monsters just were standing in AoE...

1. Not nerfing Ursan Blessing
2. Making Ursan Blessing
3. Thinking of making Ursan Blessing

1) Ending GW1 and creating WoW copycat GW2
2) Kaineng centre (I don't mind the rest of Factions)
3) Not selling BMP in bricks and mortar stores (I'll never be able to get it )

Mistakes?

1. One single gw.dat file. It get's fragmented like hell.
2. Lack of retroactivity: No challenges in prophecies; no inscriptions worldwide; 'not talk to NPC to start Mission' system for Prophecies and Factions; primary quests players can skip; no End-game area and end-game greens in Prophecies; no end-game animal companion in Prophecies, Nightfall and Eye of the North; no End-Boss chest in Sorrow's Furnace and the Tombs, no new armors and no weapon drops for new professions in old campaigns; no skills for new professions in old campaigns... GW NEEDS retroactivity. A whole lot of it.
3. Titles that can't be retaken anytime: Survivor and LDoA.

1. Loot scaling
2. World of Guildcraft aka GW2
3. Introducing grind (for anything), despite skill > time and saying no grind necessary

Depending on your connection speed, do a -image when you go to bed. It will be finished by the time you wake up with ease. I do this once a month.

Or there are several line-item defragmenters out there that are free to download that can defrag it in a matter of like 3 minutes.

Yeah. I know that. I use sysinternal's contig.

I got it in one piece once. But in the last updates since Eye of the North it got horribly fragmented again. Now I have it in 4 pieces.

I need 15% of free space to defragment it competely and make it completely contiguous. T-T...

1) The Elite Skill Searing Flames.
2) Anything that involves the mission Gate of Madness.
3) The Great Destroyer

1. Ursan Blessing.
2. In game announcements. (Bla bla bla gains a skill point! Etc.)
3. "Fear Me!" nerf.

1- Assassins (shoudn't even exist in a "balanced" game)
2- Searing Flames (Hope you will understand why ....)
3- Hummmm, would say skills balancing, a bit better now, but some skills are still way overpowered (Who said Searing Flames ? ^^) and some builds too (zergway .... in HA)

actually one of the three biggest mistakes ANet made was buffing a farming build involving enchantments by nerfing a skill.

Remember the annoying chilblains where enchantment removal effect is PBAoE. Well, they changed into target foe requirement. Meaning, shadow form boss farming has been buffed and builds that involve with anti-spell skills are buffed as well (the only way to remove these kinds of spells is when you target chilblains on the adjacent guy next to the guy under shadow form.

The other two mistakes often involve with farming, particularly the loot scale.

1. Hoto Nerf.
2. Nightfall (I Love my dervish...but... nightfall can go to hell)
3. Windows Only Game,

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

1)After faction poor story (gwen nightfall and a little factions are banals)
2)Loot scaling
3)The deep and urgoz warren they must be since the factions came out free to play. now is to late

1)Nightfall.
2)Eye of the North.
3)Hall of Monuments.

Though to be fair the game went pretty much south after Nightfall.

1) Lack of auction house or a stall in outpost (I spam more than i farm -_-)

2) Not nerfing ursan

3) Not combining PvP+PvE weekend event

1. Badly thought out professions in expansions. A profession designed to instagib people is not good for the game. A profession designed to spam unremovable party wide buffs is not good for the game.

2. Title grinding affecting skills / giving buffs. If you want to make us grind for power stop beating around the bush and make the max level 30 in PvE.

3. Giving pre-searing warriors frenzy and healing signet. Just the skills I wanted all of my PuG warriors to be using together. As a bonus, the first skill quest you do in post-searing ascalon will give you mending.

1. AoE nerf.
2. Making a load of EotN PvE skills, many of which suck, all which you have to grind titles to make useful.
3. Making the 95% of legitimate GW players suffer to stop the 5% of GW players who use bots. For lack of better example, Dying Nightmares.

1-nerf of all AoE skills
2-general constant nerf of any form of farming
3-random uber-rare minipets. Standard minipets are ok, but money should be a reward for dedication, not pure luck.

1) Falling into the same trap as every other game maker: They give up on their own rules. Bosses dealing double damage & Hard Mode boost to monsters. Stick to your guns!!! Don't cheat, just make the monsters smarter. NO game developer has ever ante'd up and made BETTER AI, they just cheat and make them stupidly strong.

2) Necromancers and Soul Reaping in general. A PvE class in a PvP game. This is the core of the problem with Necros and SR. Either solution is fine, but don't mix and match.

3) Titles that matter in PvE for PvE skills.

4) PvE skills.

5) Death of the economy. There should be super expensive items, it's a sign of a healthy economy . These items should gradually rotate so that everyone can eventually get one. This means introducing new items fairly often. The economy is the pulse of the PvE end-game. A poor economy should set off RED ALERT signs at Anet HQ.

1.faction
2.nightfall
3.fun seasons

1. 4 skill slots for Prophecies when it was released. I mean, wtf what that all about? 6 professions, 4 character slots. So many people with multiple accounts without any way to link them. That was one really stupid mistake.

2. Titles (Particularly KoaBD title) which force you to pick one main character to work on. Introducing these after people had things like 2 accounts and multiple characters completely took away the non-grind lightheartedness of Guild Wars.

3. HoM. It's just a mistake for so many reasons.

1. Loot scaling
2. Chest keys
3. Lack of an auction house

Why is it you all have a problem with this? I just don't understand it. If you don't like it, don't use it.

I thought -image was just for downloading?

- If it takes more time to spam than to get the item... why on earth do you think someone is going to buy your crap whether you list it on auction house or not?

- Oh never mind, I must be discussing with total retard.

I think the "lack of an auction house" is less than a mistake and much more a limitation. I think it's something that's safe to say that adding one would make everyone happy and make everything a hell of a lot more convenient. So why deny it to your playerbase? All signs point to engine limitation.

Critical Missing of the point.

Not that I blame you. Most discussion about it has been pretty off-topic. The only ones on topic have been massive failures of discussion from both sides, for and against.

IIRC its a limitation of the database (SQL) and somehow would be very hard to implement. GW2 will be architected differently and have an AH.

1. Ursan Blessing

2. Titles

3. Lootscaling