An Open Letter to ANet - Part 2

LOL?? No.. I mean the unlimited # of minions you could have. The need to have "reset" points to move stats around. Monsters sitting in, or running from (depending on what you like) aoe, The fact that favor was almost always in 1 continent (the current set up is meh, but the first was still unbalanced as anything) the amount of storage, I suppose you could put Monster level but I think it's good to have (at least some) over leveled mobs... there are lots of things that have been fixed or bettered over time or just sucked at the beginning and there are things that got worse. The 'sky is falling' attitude is disingenuous.

and i think it would only provide a little different path, they turned zig when can turn zag but it would arise another set of issues so they would turn zag to balance the zig and in the end we will be in the same place we are now.

Read Avarre post and espiecially his WoC quoting: path was set a lot earlier then 4 milion copies milestone.

I'm confused. Most of those things were changed for the better, but they're also not concerning the balance of the PvE game. This is about one of the more drastic of changes that became implemented in PvE: PvE skills and the titles that affected them, when GW truly seperated PvE from it's core mantra.

This isn't about us "wanting to go back to the Prophecy days", it's more about wanting the core of the PvE game to remain the same. Other things have come and gone, but none as drastic as what occurred with NF and later GW:EN.

We never know what the "other set of issues" will be. But I know one thing for certain: there were other paths to please the PvE crowd, and adding more classes would further stress the PvP game.

Thanks. I wasn't sure if it was the 3 million or 4 million when things went down hill, but that still doesn't toss down the point.

Let me state a problem.

Let's make this simple. There are a lot of players who believe that the game changed over the years. They believe:

Old Guild Wars = "good"
New Guild Wars = "bad"

Obviously it is more complicated than that, but lets keep it simple for purposes of the problem.

So saying that is true, only one of two situations is possible for Guild Wars 2:

1. Guild Wars 2 starts off "bad" because Anet wanted the franchise to go that direction.

2. Guild Wars 2 starts off "good" but changes to "bad" because Anet has a history of doing that (called Guild Wars 1).

I see no other option at the moment.

I couldn't be bothered to read the thread. Did any ANet employee answer yet? Just send me a PM with the answer. Thanks.

Excellent job with the post, Avarre!

Oh I see.. having 18 minions, unlimited energy from soul reaping, never being able to go to the Underworld, Having aoe always be effective on an enemy too stupid to move, being unable to change your build to a better one because you had to grind your "reset points" back up, and grinding your way through infusion 5 times for 1 set, none of that is PvE imbalance? Sorry, if that's not imbalance, then Ursan (something that isn't even that fun) isn't imbalance either. I think they are both problems, but nothing game-shattering.
I think the over-10 minions is worse than Ursan.

Have those problems been addressed? I guess I should change my wording to "current pve balance..."

But now that's bringing up more of a point: If ANet cared so heavily about PvE balance in the past, why not now?

Its not so much that "old" GW was better than the "new" GW.

Some changes were made, new things introduced, and content altered that effected the way some people play the game. For some it has improved but for others its gone downhill.

Anet is, and always has been, trying to please everyone. While some think this is a lossing cause I believe its the correct aproach to creating a game that will have both a long life and serve as a model for future games.

GuildWars2 will NOT be a carbon copy of GW with a few tweeks, it will most certainly have a very different feel to it but will retain some aspects that are indespencible to the franchise.

New players will not miss any of the "old" features that were removed or changed in GW and if "old" players are upset at the direction the game is taking they have already gotten a great deal out of it for the money they paid.

Of course. My point is that I think things have fluctuated throughout the growth of the game, and this mystical time when GW "died" is another point in the fluctuation, not an end all that made the entirety of GW "unbalanced"(as many people seem to act like). Also, the fact that they DID attend to problems doesn't jive with the accusations that people make about ANET always completely ignoring us (which tends to go hand in hand with the expressions of disappointment as to why the imbalances happened).

Maybe they learned that all the "balance" that made the game more challenging was contradictory to what the actual majority wanted. (remember when they talked about removing the frustration factor when they lowered the afflicted explosion & aoe scatter?) Which goes back to my point that the forum's voice may be an illusion. I only know they have talk about ways they've received feedback that have nothing to do with the forum, but I don't work there. I suspect that the SR spirit changes were made to shut people up an nothing more (izzy at one point said something about the data they collected from spirit death energy and that it's wasn't significant) but in truth, I don't know what goes on over there. None of this balance seems is as simple as we all pretend.

It's long so it must be good right.

Now lift my unreasoned ban from irc :<

Could think of a million things to say, but... just.. well..

PM me if you want to show that fortitude face to face. Being a prick on a site, when most others manage to give their points in a courteous manner...
you have no balls, boy.

I'm done with this shit.

/signed.

I've played a lot of games in my life (thankfully fewer now) and I've got to say that none have ever disappointed me as much as Guild Wars. Not even that god awful Diablo II clone, Sacred. I've gotten tired of enjoying playing the game, then not enjoying it, then enjoying it again, to once again not enjoying it ... frequent undesired changes do not make me a happy player. I don't have the time to relearn a bunch of skills, or worse, grind for them (like Ursan). I do know that killing this game off wasn't the best option if A-net wanted to convince players to move onto GW2 ... I'm thoroughly convinced not to buy it now myself. Once bitten, fool me once, and all that.

Darksun, the points you bring up about the "Old Guild Wars" being PvE imbalanced is true.

But the changes Anet has done to attempt to balance it, such as the Minion limit, the SR tweak, AOE tweak, etc. are NOT contradictory to the "Skill > Time" design.

Those changes improve or change the game but maintained its design integrity.

In fact changes like removing the refund points for attribute adjustment, and overall changes to the PvP only characters continue this design.

Ursan, Pve skills, and the like, however, are contradictory to this original design.

3. Guild Wars 2 starts off "good" and stays "good", but the perception of the players change. And instead of letting the game go, they cry a river.

I wouldn't agree with starts off good and stays good at all..but you mean the view of ANet changes, not the perception of players. They're the ones that changed their game to be more generic, not the players. Well they did listen to the players, but I sure as hell wasn't asking for anything we've gotten that shows me they've changed their view from 3 years ago.

Furthermore I don't see anyone crying a river, I see people that care about where the game goes and how it used to be trying to stand up for it. You might see it that way, but that would be your own tunnel vision.

No one is saying that "old" guild wars didn't have problems. They had been mostly fixed without causing the game to lose its unique identity. Anet continuing to ignore obvious problems with game balance like ursan show a lack of care for game balance and their "visionary" early ideas which worked (obviously, with 3+ million copies sold before GW went down the tube).

/signed

I don't know why we haven't seen a monster with a shock axe bar or even a boonprot bar on a monster. I know Boon prot is not really a competative build in PvP anymore, but if they can get a few monsters running it, that could be a tough fight.

/signed and 100% in support for Avarre's post(s).

Certainly, people may have different opinions, but I have little use for the grind of Nightfall titles (although otherwise it was a largely well-done game, DOA aside), and I have almost no use for EotN. What they introduced (especially the PvE skills, or at least most of them, and the title grinds) certainly seem to be geared towards dumbing down the game and, quite honestly, "make work" - providing something to keep people occupied until GW2. I don't think that's even disputed, or at least I hope not.

In and of itself, that's fine, and anyone who wants to do that is free to do so, except, as Avarre so eloquently described, they did so at the expense of the original concept of the game and of the original and/or long-term player base. That's the shame of it. It doesn't necessarily mean that GW2 will adopt the same ideas or follow the same path. In fact, I doubt that it will (at least, I hope that it won't) - something implemented to kill time is not the same thing as what we all (or most) hope is a new and innovative game. But it makes one pause to consider whether that will be the case. I, for one, am not ready to throw in the towel on GW2 yet, and I'm looking forward to a great product from ANet. As Avarre suggests, I'm hoping that the last year or so has been a learning experience for all involved. *keeps fingers crossed*

maybe they cannot make AI that use divine boon "smoothly", like my monk Heros, sometime one have to constantly "force" them to use it??

I'd like to change your statement a little if I may Airstu?

SOME players don't like what Anet is doing!

MOST players LIKE WHAT ANET IS DOING!

That's the bottom line. Anet had to do something to give the newer players the ability to get through ALL the content since most of the OLD veteran experienced players were set in one part of the content farming their lil eyes out. lol The best thing they could do and make it fair was to input a lil grind into the game so the new players couldn't just rush through the content with the NEW/IMPROVED pve only skills like Ursans Blessing and Save yourselves. With the grind to get these skills for new players it comes out to about the same time most of us veterans spent to get to where we are now.

It balanced out and the new players are happy and the old players are being "grumpy old men" cause they don't think it's fair that EVERYONE can play and be at the same place they are.

They whine about challenge is gone, but, it's not. You can make the game as challenging as you want to. What other people do has no bearing on how challenging you can make the game for yourself. You could play that you must buy all the armors as you get to them instead of running to Droks or getting rides to Consolate docks when you are level 1 to get the highest armor stats in the game. Same for gear you could play that you can't have anything or use anything you haven't discovered for yourself, meaning no buying everything you need at level 1 from other players or even decking out your heroes in the best gear and runes.

Also, everyone isn't using UB in every single place in the game. I get into pugs when I want to and the majority of pugs that I see that want UB are only in the upper elite areas of the game. If a group of people want to have an easy run of the upper elite areas that is THEIR choice not other players like the whinning older vets who don't like change.

The obvious answer to every game is "you can't please all the people all of the time so it's best to please the most people who buy your product as much as you can." Veterans or bored people will leave anyways. People were leaving GW's even before UB or the PVE/PVP split. I see no reason to now try to lay all the blame on UB or PVE/PVP split or even grinding (which for the majority of chapters is OPTIONAL). Everyone has their boring point and every person has their line of allowance of what they want a game to do for them. I say if you don't like it, leave it, go play something else. We've all seen that Anet has a design decision and the game is going in THEIR direction not each individual players own personal direction they THINK it should go.

I also think Anets design decisions have moved a lot more players to PVP especially since the Zashien keys came about. I play and enjoy PVP a lot more now since I not only have chances to get vanity items, but, I also make easy money (selling amber/jadite) as well. It's nothing for me to make 100k a week now just playing PVP if I want to by selling my keys instead of using them. Get 20 Zashien keys and sell em for 100k had one guy give me 100k for just 10 of them.

So, the game is alive and well and doing fine. The whinners will of course always whine. When the game moves in a direction certain players don't like or agree with of course there's going to be a handful that whines. Count them up here though out of 5 million copies sold how many whinners are here whinning? 100? lol that's hardly a poll of people that Anet should be concerned about.

It's what's in the game that GAME DATA that Anet should be concerned about and mostly that. How many people are playing, how many are leaving per day, how many are coming back that left, how fast is the population dwindling, How many new players are joining per day? None of us have those figures so to say anything has such an adverse effect on the game on these kinds of forums is rediculous.

There are some things you can notice tho. Like the amount of GvG's played in the top 100 for certain timezones. Or how many people play in the MATs. There are days that there have been 5 or less GvG's played by top 100 guilds in an 16 hours period time. 16 hours which contain all of America's prime time.
So no, we don't have exact numbers about the complete game. But what we do know is that high end PvP outside of Europe is dead. I do know that rawr and dR manage to mask the problem nicely, but it is still there.
Same way you can also get an idea about other areas. Count the amount of district in RA, TA and HA. All three are far less then they were a year ago. I'm sure you can do similar things for the PvE part too. The amount of people playing has declined a lot over the years. You can't argue against that.

While I agree on most things in Avarre's posting I feel I should say one more thing (no, did not read the previous 24 pages).

The PvE side of the game changed from a game with mainly team achievements (team being either humans or hench) to mainly individual achievements (the HoM titles).
This has a huge impact on how players play the game.
Why do players solo-farm or play the elite areas with Ursan teams?
Because that's the most efficient way to get the gold to achieve the titles.
And this is exactly what A-net seems to support at the moment, with the recent changes of Shadow Form and Mystic Regeneration clearly targeted at farming builds.

From A-net's perspective this is understandable, they made the choice to bridge the time between GW1 and GW2 with the EotN expansion and the HoM to take GW1 achievements to GW2.
Introducing overpowered PvE skills is also not strange, since the 'veteran' players would have a 2+ year advantage over the new players, given that the titles effect GW2 a lot. So most titles should be obtainable in reasonable time, even for new players.
So supporting more efficient ways to obtain gold is not that strange, since most titles are just gold sinks.

The thing that bothers me most is that the game moved from team to individual play.
I don't play a game like guild wars to team up with H&H or solo farm, I play to enjoy playing with others. I know others think different but I can't see why people would want to play an online game as single player game (though GW is/was good enough for that up to a certain point).

Even the elite areas are all about individual play now.
A lot of the players think they are god and act like that.
Not understanding that finishing such an area is team effort and has very little to do with individual achievement. Even when playing UB, when you have an inexperienced team you will fail if you can't play as a team.

Same with players who use hench and heroes, I see a lot of them fail when using heroes because they don't understand how to make a team instead of individually strong builds.

While I still enjoy playing GW it's something I'm concerned about in this bridging period.
I'd like to keep playing but prefer to do that with people who play for fun and not for individual achievement.

Guild Wars didn't "die", it just got worse. ANet took the latter meat of their game and tossed it over to a crowd that didn't want to think, didn't want to wait, and just in general wanted anything they wanted regardless of game design. I explain a bit more further down.

You'll never know what the actual majority wants, mainly for two reasons. The first is that the actual majority is huge and can never give a voice. The second is that they really don't care about what goes on in the game. They don't notice buffs, they don't notices nerfs, they don't notice...well, much. That's why it's not always good to keep the majority player at the front of priorities, but to keep everyone in with the same mind set.

Forums are always tough to listen to, since you're always listening to a minority. But that doesn't mean that feedback should be disregarded nonetheless. You don't have to "read everything with a grain of salt", you just have to pay attention, be careful, and don't be impulsive. Avarre's concerns aren't that "GW is dead", just that reversing on the initial core game design that brought many players to enjoy it is no longer the defining rule and that that is a terribly bad idea.

Balance is always difficult. Whether or not it was a good idea to add as many skills as they did we don't know. But it's hard to understand why they'd want to reverse the "skill > time" principle, the one thing that set it apart from being an MMO, when Guild Wars was doing incredibly well regardless.

I'd agree if Guild Wars *did* stay the same. It did not, and it changed for the worse.

No, most players don't know, don't care about what ANet is doing. Like I said, they're just enjoying themselves in the game, updates and patches be damned.

The only problem is that providing for faster ways to up the titles comes at the cost of challenge and gameplay. I would much rather wish that they just downsize the requirements for titles rather than dumb the game down in entirety (figure of speech).

but maybe creating challanging but accesible content is harder then you think.
Before PvE skills DoA was a joke in term of balance and skill, you could have all the skills you want with your mesmer and if you made into the team the best you could do was not to be a burden.
And is easy to say: they should have made AI better, closer to how players play in pvp, but who knows even if they succeded in this what impact it would have : like maybe elite areas being challanging and fun to play but it could also caused that just explorring normal areas would became tedious and frustrating for many players. -> another sets of balance issues.

Then fix Mesmers and not sacrifice the entire game?

And regarding making "challenging content accessible", I suggested to make the Normal modes of elite areas easier so they become more possible to complete by inexperienced players. They did this with DoA, making Normal mode so simple that my "newbie" friend was able to come with me with mending on his sin's bar.

It would be an entirely different game. Whether that challenge could be achieved or not we don't know, since the AI would need to be able to handle all of the variables you could find in a team build.

Either way, neither point excuses reversing on the "skill > time" principle.

@Fenix: That's probably my favorite - Whoa nevermind

Thats why we had normal mode/storyline/quests set apart from hardmode/elite missions/masters quests.

Players who don't want to get frustrated had cool option of staying in normal mode.

Yes I've come across players with emote that gets kill by me (mainly PvE players who play lots of AB/RA) in AB :P~, GvG players play in a team, AB players have to "mostly" try to survive on their own since you rarely get monk in your team, theres the different. I am not saying all rank players are bad, but there are bad ones out there with a tiger emote lol, and its true. On some rare occasions, you get kill by "mysterious high damages" or "really fast degen" sometime you can't even get up after they knock you down, the next minute you're dead! that's when you know you've met the really good players who know what they are doing and that they've truly earn their emotes.

I think the problem lies with people who have played the game for numerous years and still think like that ^.

I'm happy with the way things are going and hope they continue to go the same route in GW2. Grind is great, time>skill is great and NO MONTHLY FEE with these principles is great. Just want to make sure in this "Letter to Anet" that Anet is sure to see that others are enjoying what they have done even though most of us are PLAYING it and not whinning on a forum about it. So for everyone that likes it Anet be sure that 10 others like it as well not the 1's that don't like it singularly.

It's not that "10 others like it", it's that "10 others don't care about it", just like they don't care about *not* including these things. The majority of players aren't farming or maxing titles or using full PvE skills and Ursanway, they're just playing in the middle of the games.

It's funny how SOME people speak, without right, on the behalf of the community, assuming their opinion is that of the majority.

Without bias, the FACTS remain that areas such as Fissure of Woe, Underworld, Deep, Urgoz, Mallyx, all elite areas were designed originally to be tough. And all those areas are now easily accessible to anyone.

Now the PROBLEM is that the sole purpose of having elite areas was to give players an aim, a goal, a direction, "you'll be able to go there eventually". But with ursan and all skill changes, anyone can go there. A new player can skip the whole story, go straight to level 20 and access these areas with ease. Is it really that much of a problem?

YES it is, and that's exactly what Avarre is trying to saying. That makes Guild Wars like any other online game. Seriously, if the sole reason you are playing GW is because you don't have money for WoW, don't even voice your opinion in this thread.

Guild Wars had a unique style, it filled a niche, as said by Avarre. And it's turned like any other game. Why is that? Because it's been listening to the bad part of the community. That part which wants to play WoW, but cannot. That part which in Guild Wars, sees a free WoW. The real, solid, fanbase, that which you must keep and not lose, is those players who bought the game and have stuck to it because of its formerly unique concept, and not the one which keeps asking for changes constantly in order to make it feel more like any MMO.

But's that not how the things were/are.

So it's ok that mesmer class even if player is very skilled with gw is pretty much useless in elite areas and in hard mode ? that's is your balance ? thank you very much.

Once again how ? mesmers were receiving constant nerfs being too strong in pvp.

cerb, for your information:

I don't use Ursan/pve skills, they just seem confusing to me and i don't like them, the only one I use a lot a while back is nercosis. I already have level 6 (norn) on 2 of my favourite characters, and level 3-5 on 3 others characters, and I've not even enter slaver exile or any elite areas YET, I am enjoying myself "until eventually I get there", my question: how come I can do the "eventually get there" style of play with no problems playing the same game with all the "broken skills" that I choose not to use? I suspect that's the different between people who wishes to enjoy the game and eventually get to the things that they wanted and then there are players who probably do not have as much patient or time as I have, maybe some players just simply wants to feel HURRAY!!!!!! I BEAT THE GAME IN 3 HOURS... so wheres the problem in that? Different styles of play. Currently you can do it the old ways, and you can do it the "Ursan" way. so where's the problem?

As the way it should be. Its a failure as a developer for a patch or update to be that disruptive to the average player. Would them knowing what Anet is doing chance their perspective? Certainly not. In the end, the minority will moan no matter what they do and the majority of players wouldn't even think of going to the forums unless they were to have a patch that was that heavy handed.

the reason why anet didn't make pve reflect pvp (that is, making mobs using some gvg/ta builds) is because the average player won't be able to beat it, even if the monsters use level 20 and normal attribute spreads.

let's face it, the vast majority of pve'ers won't be able to crack rawr's fortressway build. hell, they can't even crack dR's old split build, which had much less defenses built in. gw AI has already progressed to the point where it can run these builds flawlessly. the only thing it couldn't do is adapt.

maybe anet should add this as a "pvp" mode, on top of hardmode. but using this system in general pve will cause the vast majority of players to fail. whether that's a good thing or not, i'll let you decide.

And how were/are things?

By not thrashing the entire game. I'll be honest, I haven't spent a whole lot of time with the Mesmer class to provide accurate feedback. But I do know that excusing the current atrocities in PvE because of the Mesmer class is the complete wrong way to go.

Not everyone sees the problems in the same light. Different players, different needs, different perspectives.

Why's this sound a bit like "don't like it don't use it"? But to answer anyways: Part of the problem is that it's ANet catering towards a minority of people who want things from the game that go completely opposite of what made Guild Wars unique in the process.

Then it comes down to which "minority" you, as a dev, are going to head to for feedback: the one that speaks more on the behalf of the game, or the one that speaks more on behalf of themselves? The one that admires Guild Wars' unique aspects, or the one that wants another MMO but without the monthly fees?

Create Ludicrous Mode: You cannot use PvE skills or consumables.

yeah, I sure know being uneducated about what your producer is doing is sure how I like to be in real life, that gets me everywhere as a consumer.


No.

Being uneducated about the people you are giving money to, is never a good idea.

The reason with Airtsu's statement is true and yours is unsubstantiated is based on the last statement you made above. Surmising that the majority of the playerbase enjoys the overpowered skills is just as faulty as those who state that a majority of the playerbase does not like the overpowered skills.

Since we unfortunately do not have access to that type of information (and I find it highly unlikely that A-Net does as well), all we can do is put forth our own opinions and let A-Net's developers (if they are getting the feedback via Regina) evaluate whether their design decisions are "good for the game" or not.

Dismissing forum opinions simply because "well, we ain't be knowin' whether everyone feels that way" is flawed logic, since none of us know whether those opinions are widely held or not.

form your perspective it probably is, but for ANet it probably it isn't, thay don't consider pve skills as atrocieities but as patch up issues to unbalancend content .

personally i wouldnt mind but it will be just reverting to pre pve skils/EoTN state where you can be masterfully skilled mesmer and your presence in some end game content (DoA) would be practicly not possible. So it won't be going back to skill>time period of gw.

You somehow believe that a game should be more than just for enjoyment. If speaking on behalf of themselves so they can enjoy said game, which itself is making the game fun to them, how is that not speaking on behalf of the game in their eyes? Making the game more fun is what everyone should be aiming for. The problem? What you and a few others find fun isn't what the majority of players find fun. The needs of many... You can paint it anyway you want in your head, but at the end of the day, its just two people with different opinions and only one of these groups run around with an elitist attitude attempting to put down people with an opposing viewpoint.

Really? They provide a service which you pay for. If you're happy about the service, end of transaction. If you want to play politics, go right ahead but don't be surprised when most people don't care.