An Open Letter to ANet - Part 2

At some point during the week the racketing monkeys of guru stopped jumping up and down long enough to give me some time away from moderating, and I figured it was time for a sequel to Sha Noran’s thread. Sha Noran mysteriously vanished after posting his letter, so it’s left to me to carry on. Without further ado, take it away, me.

Dear A-Net,

First, I would like to clarify that this isn't a flame, or a rant, but rather a collection of warranted complaints and questions that need real answers. Instead of attempting to email this to you (or deliver it in some other fashion) where I assume I would get an unfriendly automated response, I am posting this here where all of the community can also share in whatever answers you may have for me. I certainly hope the discussion in the thread doesn't get too heated, but it's hard to believe that that's avoidable.

Thank you Sha, for the above introduction, so that I did not actually have to type one myself.

I’d first like to ask you to read the previous letter again, because it gives us a good place to start. It sets the context for what I’m going to develop later, and allows us to trace what has happened since then. It sets out most of what I would have to put in my introduction otherwise, such as how Guild Wars was an experiment and an accidental success, and how you weren’t exactly sure what to do with it. Let’s see, you had just released GW:EN, free to develop GW2, and things were looking good. Then came the criticism of your design plan and community relations.

Fast forward 9 months, the time in which the baby of knowledge should have gestated within your developer minds, and we get you taking yet another step down the road Sha described, splitting the game. You continued to pander to the lowest denominator rather than improving your game. You know as well as everyone else does, that your game is dying. You’re milking that dying cow dry because you know Guild Wars 2 is coming, and in the process you’re killing your previous game off. Yes, you’ve already got the money from it and if you’re moving full support to Guild Wars 2, that’s probably the best for your company. I’ll go over in a little bit about why this isn’t necessarily the case. First, though, I want to talk about what you’ve done to the game lately.

I’m going to explain a thing called game depth. Imagine, if you will, a swimming pool, into which boatloads of unsuspecting new gamers are flung. This is your game. The depth of the pool relates to several things – replayability, volume of content, and most importantly as far as we’re concerned, skill cap. The deeper your game, the most these things are, and the more space in the pool there is for your little swimming players to explore. If your game is deep, people will play it longer, it will generally be a better experience, and this means more people are going to come to you with their money.

Now, I’m going to extend my analogy. As your gamers develop, they won’t be little children anymore. They’re going to grow, and the pool will shrink relatively. Let’s think back to when we, or since I’m the one giving the opinion here, I started playing. I remember a point where I was reading about tournament play and was hit with a burst of realization like a brick in the face that not only were there a gargantuan number of skills, but they had a huge array of possible organizations, each tuned towards possible aims, effectiveness, enemies, with thousands upon thousands of------- aaahghgh

And that was the point where my brain melted from the sheer volume of possibilities.

Cut forward a few years, and the game doesn’t seem so complicated. Instead of nearly drowning in your game’s depth, I can stand comfortably in it. I’ve grown as a player, and I now have the ability to fully enjoy your game as I can access and utilize everything you’ve put in it. I no longer get confused about the vast numbers of skills or tactics, but I appreciate and make use of all of them. I’ve grown to fit your pool, so to speak. That’s what made your game good – there was such a huge availability for player development which even at the higher ends of that offered a great deal of openness. I’d point to the PvP system as a pinnacle of this design: the sheer complexity of it as a dynamic form of competition was admirable.

At the same time, new players weren’t punished. While there were some hurdles (Thunderhead Keep), for the most part you didn’t need to be sponsored by a major Korean company to be among those completing the game. You could complete FoW even as a terrible player – it would take you forever, but it could be done, and therein was the reward for skill: better players did things quicker and more efficiently, while newer players weren’t excluded. I’m focusing on PvE in this part and the rest, not because I don’t know anything about PvP, but because it has its own issues that would fill a book.

ArenaNet, when you realized you were abandoning the chapter scheme, you started killing your game to exploit it before Guild Wars 2 came out. You made a lot of changes. Some of those were good, some of those were bad. Some of them changed the game, and that’s fine. But some of these changes need to be answered for, and I am going to tell you why, because I’d wager the bulk of you do not play the game.

The first problem is this. I don’t know who’s making changes to PvE. I don’t know why these changes are being made. Oh sure, I see you providing reason, but all I hear is community relations jargon. Whoever is making these changes evidently does not play the game, or at least has not played the game since its introduction. I imagine a lot of people are going to tell me 'Leave the devs alone, they're doing what's good for the game'. Short answer folks, no, because this is not good for the game.

ANet, you do not change a game for the new players. I love the new players, and how the game gets a constant inflow of new blood which is essential for supporting the community, but you do not change an established game for them. We played for several years in an environment that had balance, of a sort, because balance was tied to an ultimate factor of judging – the equalization of competitive play. Granted, you didn’t always do a good job, but it was there. Now, you’ve come in and said ‘nonono, we're going to give you skills that are ten times stronger so that you can have infinite success even if you're bad.’ New people in the game are great, but you are not supposed to have the same level of success as me if you just picked this game up. This is not out of ego or jealousy, I have long since given away my items and stopped playing the game outside the occasional mission. A game that supports skill as a defining factor needs to adequately reward player skill, and this is the exact opposite. If you’re so desperately trying to drag in new players, market your game better, don’t screw it up.

The changes to PvE are not improving the game. They might make you some friends, and make some people happy, but you’re moving the game towards mediocrity. There’s a huge market for mediocre games, you and I both know that, and if that’s your aim, then godspeed – but the veterans of the game would like to ask, if not implore, that you try to remember you had a unique game that was a shining gem among a mountain of other games. Your PvE design is not being done by anyone with respect to the title, or with experience in the game. This is evident to everyone that does have said experience – every ‘fix’ does little, because it targets symptoms rather than the root problem, which I have to finally admit to myself is something you do not recognize. You haven't removed the possibilities and openness present in the game, but every subsequent change shows a lack of understanding of how central these are to the game itself.

Most of the old players for PvE who were revolutionary or skillful are gone. The few that are left, or the ones that come back every once in awhile, are either horribly shocked by the newer changes, or ends up just laughing at the hopeless madness of it all. I’m going to take a little bit of time to outline what you’ve done wrong, and then try to offer some solutions, because I want to help you produce the best game possible.

Back to the pool metaphor, firstly. Guild Wars, in all its complexity, was built on a set of very basic principles – classes, and attributes. This was a huge success, it allowed for a very interesting style of M:TG skill setup and emphasized the importance of character skill design, while not punishing people for making the wrong choices (removing refund points was brilliant). This was what balance was built on, and it was part of the depth of your game. So I need to ask you something, with all this said.

Which one of you thought it was a good idea to throw this out the window with super-powered, no-attribute skills? Who was in the room when this suggestion was thrown out and thought this was a good idea? Who was in this room that allowed this to happen? Do you listen when people speak, at all? Can you even imagine how radical a change is this is to your entire game design?

Suddenly, not only is the game extraordinarily easier, thanks to skills that were so broken they had to be prohibited from actual competitive play, and were designed with this in mind. Yes, I know a lot of players wanted these because balance was laughable in your newer elite PvE areas. That is the problem that needed addressing in the first place. If the PvE and PvP portions of your game were closer together, it would improve cohesion among your playerbase – letting them separate would kill PvP by creating huge barriers for new players to join in, and more importantly for some, it would remove the collateral damage of skill rebalancing.

You let PvE design fall apart. It became a situation where new players were butchered and only top players could squeeze through, until a suitable AI exploit was found that allowed everyone past, because the area wasn't balanced. I went over this in my previous article here. Then, you proceeded to break the game further by allowing broken skills. Would you like to talk about the greatest offender? You know, you have to know, by now what that is. It is Ursan. It is a skill that allows you to play the game at a level of effectiveness that was unheard of before Nightfall without any attributes or other skills on your bar. It is essentially a skill that takes all that game depth, all that potential, and lets players bypass it completely. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT.

Let’s get something straight. I’m not upset because people are achieving things without effort that I worked for. I’m not annoyed that people are using it. I don’t even care. What I do have a problem with is you have shown, time and again, that you as developers and you as a company are willing to flat-out ignore your game design and make changes that are devastating to the overall depth of your game. My consumer confidence, such as it was, was shattered to a point that ‘rape’ is the most appropriate word; because I now know that anything you put out is unlikely to be final. The depth of the game due to skill cap is practically non-existent: there is very little benefit for being actually good at the game due to how one-dimensional the PvE skills are. The mere fact that someone thought this was a good thing causes me almost physical pain at how ridiculous it is.

Here’s why all this is bad. If you constantly change the rules, and make the game easier, there is no point for anyone to really care about development in your game. Much like water supports the body mass of a whale, the depth of your game supports player development. Make your game shallow, and players won’t develop, and you end up with a community of ’elite’ people that try to air spike Mallyx to death. Swing the rules around, on top of that, and there’s no point in developing because we have no idea what you might do next. Why should we even commit to your game, when we don’t know what it will look like tomorrow? More to the point, why should we buy it, when other games reward those who play the game? You can say that the forums are not representative to the whole playerbase, but I'd say that the forums are representatives of the playerbase, and the discussion over these issues is undeniable.

This trend of development was really continued by your splitting of PvE and PvP. You knew the PvP playerbase was shrinking. You cut off support for it, and the top left. Then you allowed HA to fall apart, the entryway for new players into GvG, and the bottom shriveled. The rest stagnated. You split the style of play from PvE and PvP, so that no longer did enemies generally resemble what players might use: instead, you gave us Enraged and Anor mobs. Then, you split the skills of the game so that even if a new player wanted to get into PvP, they would have to first relearn the game. What does it say to new players, that you are knowingly strangling an entire section of your most committed fanbase in order to provide changes for the new players? While some might be thrilled at the kindness towards them, anyone who looks pasts that realizes that you, ANet, not only do not care about the veteran players or the game itself, but are willing to allow parts of it to die in order to pursue profit.

I’ve written quite a bit about how these changes aren’t good for me, as a veteran player, but I want to cover why they aren’t good for you, ArenaNet. I want to dispel any notions you have that your current method of development is a gold-plated road to booze and hookers on top of a giant pile of money.

Firstly, as already mentioned, you wreck the confidence of your playerbase. Not only did you drive a great number away with ridiculous changes, but you encourage them to not come back. Look at Fury – a game that only existed before it was actually released, and how it drew a lot of the Guild Wars scene to it. It provided what you stopped providing, and offered the hope that maybe this time, it will be a game that rewards its players. Even though Fury was buggy, had brutal system requirements, and never even survived release, it attracted players, and a lot of notable ones at that. All this means your profit for Guild Wars 2 is going to take a hit.

Second, and more importantly. Guild Wars succeeded in sustaining its own large playerbase in a market that is severely over-saturated with online games. It did this, firstly, by being unique – filling a niche that attracted a great number of players and then allowed that to grow. Yes, you can talk about ‘free to play’, but I guarantee you a lot of your playerbase would pay you to let them play Guild Wars at its peak of quality. This all has an end point, though. When Guild Wars 2 comes out, and Guild Wars dies, it’s not going to be like releasing another chapter. You won’t be building on what you’ve already set up, you’ll be trying to attract customers to what will be seen as yet another online game. And all these changes to your design, all these little things done for the new players, all this shallowing of the game depth puts you in the path of an obstacle.

You will have to compete with every other game, including WoW, on their own terms, having lost your uniqueness.

ANet, unless you pull something out that’s new, people won’t buy your game. I really, really hope you do this, because I want to play Guild Wars 2, or rather, I want to want to play it. If you produce a game that is just like every other game, and try to gather in a new playerbase, you will be wrecked. I think you know this too, because you are doing a huge amount to keep your old playerbase within the franchise – the Hall of Monuments is a way of saying ‘please come play Guild Wars 2, we’ll give you benefits if you do!’ You’re bribing your old playerbase to stay with you, and that’s not a problem at all, but not everyone will stay with you in the jump.

I could be wrong. It could be a huge success regardless, and topple WoW and every other game, and Korea will raise an ANet flag over a mountain of hydralisk skulls to proclaim you the new major game for their country. I’ll be glad if it is a success. But I don’t have the faith that you can do that, when you’re showing your community now that you don’t understand your own game, and are breaking it over and over in a desperate effort to improve it.

So what can you do?

1. Firstly, go ahead with Guild Wars 2. You need that fresh start so badly, and if you take all the mistakes you made in what can only be called ‘trial and error development’ in Guild Wars 1 and learn from them, you could release a game that fixes the problems of Guild Wars from the ground up, exactly what needed to be done but was, perhaps, beyond possibility in the original. Keep all the mistakes in mind, because they are what will help you avoid the design flaws that hurt now.

2. Community relations. You need this. Players need to understand why you are doing things, and they need to see clearly what you attempt to achieve, right from the start, with the game. This will increase our trust in you as a developer, and make us more willing to help and provide community feedback regarding changes. This was brought out in Sha Noran’s letter, and it needs to be said again.

3. Organize community feedback. Devs spend time developing, and maybe not playing the game. Ok. Most of you probably, if not definitely, are not spending the same amount of time understanding and excelling at Guild Wars as parts of your playerbase. Find out which parts of the community are experienced and have valuable feedback, and listen to it, because these are the people who know the game better than you do and want to make it a success. Do not just pick GWO or GWG members that just have the highest post count.

4. Make amends with the GW1 community. You need their support, and putting all your effort into finding new ways to piss them off is not good for you. This doesn’t mean revert all changes, it means find ways to appease all the players you can to some degree. This is impossible, but you got yourselves into this situation.

5. Sit down with your staff, and really, finally, work out what you want to achieve. This is the basis of developing a build in Guild Wars, and it is what you need to do – unless you know exactly what you’re aiming for, you’ll end up building the game poorly. I get the impression that your view of the game’s goal wavers, and that makes me uneasy.

ANet, I know why, in general terms, you’ve made each change you’ve made to the game. I get your logic, such as it is. The problem is I can see where these things are heading, because, possibly regrettably, I and other veterans devoted a large amount of time to knowing your game better than you do. The biggest issue you face is community relations – we don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t do what makes sense to the players.

I'll make you an offer, right now. If one of your representatives, doesn't matter who, comes into this thread and posts 'I, <name>, announce that ArenaNet has given up the goal of Skill over Time within the game of Guild Wars', I will accept. I will promise to never criticize game development again. I will even support and defend your developments that follow your new vision. And after I do that, I'm going to log into Guild Wars, give all my stuff away, and /wave to all my ex-guildies. Then I'm going to call Cerb, and tell him not to bother with guides, because skill isn't important. You'll have told me our kind aren't welcome, and I'll accept that, because it's your game. Until you say that though, I'm left with the feeling you just don't know what you're doing.

Ultimately, until you finalize your goal, your game will have less focus than I did in the 3,600 words of this letter. It’s painfully visible in Guild Wars 1: and now you have the chance to fix all of that in Guild Wars 2. You have the chance to prepare everything to be ready, by handling your community well now. By showing clearly that you are capable of upholding a strong game design.

The ball, as always, is in your court.

Sincerely,
A loyal and concerned player,
Avarre

tl;dr.



Haha, just kidding.

Quoted. For. Truth.


/signed x 5000.

I'd at least like to see a huge ass balance for once that shook crap up instead of a bunch of small monthly ones.

First post in an epic thread. +1

EDIT: DAMNIT

In true Sardelac style: /signed

i am one of those older veteran players, played it since day 1 of release and the beta games.
my friends list that was almost full has over the year shrunk down to just one player that still comes on often, and she only does PvP. I myself dont bother too much with PvE now because of this Ursan thing, its ruined the game so bad and i refuse to play with it!

Good stuff, and things I agree with, except for:

They will be building on what they've already set up. It's a sequel. It's going to get the same benefits and suffer from the same problems all sequels do: there are going to be a ton of people who will at least buy and try the game solely because it's named Guild Wars--and the opposite is true as well, of course--some people will avoid it for the same reason.

I hope, Avarre, that someone, anyone, from AreaNet reads this and understands it. Not the understanding of 'the' and 'PvE', but understanding the meaning as a whole, seeing your point and the point of the rest of us who feel this way or similarly.

Well done, your signature sets off the letter nicely as well.

Edit: Bryant, I second you there for Sticky. Maybe a CR will notice it there?

This needs to be sticky'd - and I know you can do it. Don't try to tell me the italics in your name don't exist, son!

It's very brave of you to post this thing,after Anet abducted Noran.
anyway: 100%true,don't think Anet will take notice.

Great letter. I agree with much of what has been said. Good work. Add my /signature.

First page in an epic Thread.

/signed !

Excellent letter that really voices the common opinion of the players that actually think the game should be played, rather than being steamrolled through without any effort, skill or balance (in PvE lol).

/signed

... I came.

Pretty much everything up there is a big 'QFT', I'd post a LOLcat in support except Avarre would [[[email protected]] me for it

And for the people who'll turn this into another Ursan-rant - no, this isn't about Ursan. It all started long before Ursan (Lightbringer's Gaze? Urgoz' Warren? No more big GvG tournaments?). All these and lots of other little things have detracted from what GW was originally, everything special about GW that made it stand out from every other MMO out there.

It just so happens that Ursan is the seemingly ultimate example of ANet's failure with GW.

Anyho, in light of a kitty picture... Avarre gets a hug.

/signed

This outlines in excruciating detail exactly what the majority of the experienced players feel,- me included!

A lot of the things you can do to "fix" your game might take a lot of careful thoughts and planing to implement, but others like toning down the skills you get in GW:EN should be relatively easy.
I can suggest a even faster way of making things better: nerf Ursan's Blessing today!

Avarre: thanks buddy for putting into so (many) eloquent words what we all feel. Hope A-net will at least read it before they ignore it.

Could some brave someone sum this up for me in one paragraph?

ANet, we love you and all, but you're making bad descisions worse and people are leaving because of that, but the way your game is designed you're blind to that.

Kind of like that, but it lacks the finesse of Avarre's.

True, so true +1

Yeah I do hope that someone from Anet will read this, highly doubt it though. Did someone from Anet respond to Sha's post at all?

Massive Epic Uber Unbelievable QFT!!!

/signed i agree with most of that not all but enogh to know when im beat

Stick it plz

/signed x 666

epic post!

Here are some of the key snippets from Avarre's very eloquently written letter.

I have to admit that I am bummed that I actually agree with this post. After almost 3 years I have stopped playing recently as there is nothing enjoyable/challenging left to do (I won't go into the laundry list of things I am not interested in doing anymore in a dumbed down state that is based on mindless grinding). I really hope somebody reads this and takes it to heart for GW2 design (and more importantly, stays true to the vision throughout).

Bring back the magic that was GW in chapter 1!

A few suggestions from back in those days (and looking at what I like in other games):
- Do tie skill acquisition to achievements (quests)
- Don't make all skills available at the first trainer you come across once they are unlocked. I don't want my level 5-10 to have a rockstar build - he shouldn't.
- Don't give me IMBA skills tied to mindless grinding.
- Do tie PVE skills to classes/attributes so they are not abused and overused.
- Do put in challenging missions that require groups to form and learn to work together to proceed in storyline. Learning to work together is a key factor in player growth, and leads to more competent PUGs (and enjoyment of the game) in the long run
- Do have fewer classes in GW2 and give each a specific and useful role.
- Do not give uber skills so weak/unwanted classes can do areas/etc where they are not typically welcome. See point above...
- Do improve monster group balance/AI/change their builds regularly in harder areas and try to give us more balanced and unexpected teams to fight.
- etc

/signed

Edited to add list

He acknowledges that PvE is badly designed with the overpowered monster skills/levels and that it would have been better to change that instead of introducing Ursan. And I agree.

But the whole "player development" is something that has been rejected by the majority of the PvE playerbase and it is good that ANet didn´t desperately cling to it. Most people don´t want to develop there "player skills", they want to have fun and relax after work.

What can I say besides for /signed everything.

Then provide for them without ruining the game for everyone.

Upier already said it, that would mean to completly redesign PvE! It is too much work for a 3 year old game. So hope that GW2 does it better.

Where does that notion come from to think that a game has to be fun even after 3 years of constant playing??

*asks for a sticky*

You have, sir, won the internet, and my heart :3
Anet, read this, and learn.

No, my suggestion was to-

Shit, just read the other thread.

Where does the notion come from that a game has to be turned into crap after 3 years of success?

Completely agree with the OP. Well written and said Avarre.

Well I did manage to skim through most of the post in more depth. I just can't say I'm in agreement with the "keeping PvE closer tied tied to PvP" because ultimately that was GW's PvP downfall, lack of thought, and testing, meeting deadlines, or simply a lack of understanding on newly released skills really turned many PvP'ers off time after time.

I do agree with the Ursan thing though, and indeed dumbing down the game isn't good for keeping the more dedicated crowd around.

Overall however I think Anet did a fairly good job in many departments, it seemed though over time they lost direction or simply could not cater to all the issues surrounding;
-keeping old players from leaving
-getting new players in
-balance for Pve and PvP

Shoo it was so long that I kind of got tired reading it half way through but it was good stuff good stuff.

/agree with everything you said even in the half I didn't read.

What I meant by that was designing PvE closer to PvP - in that mob groups were given decent skillbars and balanced groups rather than level 30 and supercharged skills. In that way something imbalanced in PvP would be similarly so in PvE, and hence balance for the sake of PvP would cause less disruption in PvE. At the same time, it would reduce the reliance on tanking/prot spirit etc, while rewarding skillful play as the mobs actually, to a degree, acted like players in their group. This wouldn't need to be in place in all areas, but it would make more interesting elite zones, in my view.

I don't think this would cripple PvP - it might actually help the movement of players across as PvE would be more similar to PvP. Balance would still be focused on PvP play, this would simply lessen the disruption of balance on PvE from balance changes not made for it.

Awesome post. Completely agree.
/signed

Ahh I see, but too an extent no matter the skill bars used in PvE at least for the mobs, they will always be linear. PvP is always dynamic, changing, evolving, and if changes are ever made they break the mob skill bars, something which Anet could never keep up with. Hence the whole keeping PvE balanced or challenging at the same time as PvP never occurred.

Sure, but I'd enjoy playing against level 20-24 mobs with real skillbars than mobs with 1000 health and 400 damage invoke lightning. Even if it's just as static and linear (and it would be), it would still reward better play to go faster and more effectively.

Changes might cause problems with that, but then again, they do that for henchmen bars as well. As long as ANet has to think up mob skillbars, they might as well do a good job for the high-level areas. This makes sense, because using the same set of skills for two different playtypes (PvE being more one-dimensional with high-stat mobs rather than cohesive groups) clearly didn't work. ANet instead chose to create two games instead of refining one, which I did not agree with.

Alright, I read through the whole thing and I have to say, extremely good post.

I hardly ever sign anything...

/SIGNED

Influence also goes the other way.

PvP benefits PvE because of balances. Keeping power creep away and stuff. Besides, most of "awesome" skills we use are result of PvP buffs.

10e 1c 10r
For 15-60 seconds, target ally has a Splinter Weapon. Target ally's next successful attack deals 5-50 damage to all adjacent foes.

Remember this one?

Extremely good post. Someone finally said it.
/signed

Nice post. Besides a few spelling-mistakes (Sorry, but I just can't ignore them ), it was written pretty easy and well.

I actually WAS expecting a QQ-post, and it actually is. You do, however, have good points, and you're pretty much "whining" for what we all want to know: "Anet, what's the deal? U still give a shit about us, or should we uninstall right now?" -I bought the game few weeks after official release, played at a friend's house during beta-

The problem is that Anet's community relations are still bad. Obviously you're trying to reach them, but you can't tell a deaf man he's deaf...

I can only hope Regina (Or Andrew, any staff...) comes posting here: "We're working on some sever overhaul in GW1, to satisfy the GW1 community untill GW2 release", but then again, I doubt we'll get any anwser at all...