State of the Game Letter

Arenanet is doing fine by me. I love what you've done to curb certain problems and hope you continue this. I have a minor problem here or there on certain things but they are not important enough to worry about for chapter one. I'm more interested in seeing stuff I suggested show up in Chapter Two. Since I know most of them are code intensive.

The only thing I can think of that would be nice to encourage more PvE people to come to PvP competitions. would be to allow PvE only to be able to get the Absolute Best Armors for each class (IE Fissure +5AC as it was in beta). and leave the Standard max Armors in PvP build mode. I'm thinking of the Disabled Silk Fissure Armor for the Monk AC 65 and the Warrior Dragon Fissure Armor AC 85. Both were nice options for PvE that wasn't available in builds for PvP. I liked that. made the PvE people have a reason to spend all that Gold for something other then the different look of fissure armor. And since PvP builds did not have access to fissure it was a fair trade.

Unlocks, with Faction Are Fantastic... all anyone has to do is win a few Guild matches to see its Very easy to attain faction. However most for whatever reason do not seem to play Guild battles. that's a shame since it is called GuildWars. the PvP groups seem to focus on Tombs only anymore. Which to me is nice for an occasional battle, but not as fun to play as GvG battles are.

Keep up the great work. and I am looking forward to Sorrows Furnace for PvE as well... This was a pleasant surprise for me as I did not expect to see another explorable area in Chapter one. So I consider that Icing on the cake. Thanks a lot Gaile and all the rest of the staff over there.

See you at the Chapter Two beta!!

Ingram of Haz.

NR is way too powerful. It makes all hexes and enchantments (which is a large portion of Necro, Mesmer, and Monk) all worthless. This is a powerful effect. And how hard is it to apply? It's not. Rather than the 10 second, single-target shutdown that Backfire gives (which can be removed with a simple hex removal), it's a 30-120 second shutdown for the majority of spells in three classes, and is not even multitarget, but broadcast! It both removes the spells and makes them stupidly hard to reapply, particularly when they will likely be removed in another 10 seconds (Oath Shot + QZ).

Make Oath Shot not affect spirits, and make NR not remove enchantments and hexes from someone already under NR's effect, and it still will be overpowered, but not nearly as much.


My biggest issue is with finding a Guild that suits you. My roommate and I both bought the game as soon as it came out, and he worked really hard to get a guild. We got a little more than a dozen people in it in a few weeks (mostly friends from another online RPG). Then he quit. He had not made anyone an officer, so we couldn't grow. After waiting over a month to see if he would come back, I left the guild looking for another one.

But how can I find one that has a similar balance of RP/PvP play that I like? That isn't full of lolzorznoobpwns people? And that help each other? In the roughly one month since I left the old guild, I've recieve one invite, but as near as I can tell, it was just a blind invite, which doesn't really help my confidence in them being a tight group.

Going back to my original post because i never read the "state of the game letter" previously... (silly me).

The mentioned changes sound exciting...especially the drops being increased for "nerf bat bruised" players like myself.

Does that mean you will also remove the enchant removal from jade scarabs? They never used to do that until nerf #1 came along...long long ago.

Can we please (when the bots are finally defeated as the letter states will happen) have a massive <[emphasis] area where it's a farmers paradise?

Give us millions of tengu braves of level 25 that don't stop chasing you like cowardly sand drakes do.
Give us a shallow lake full of level 30 lighting drakes.
Give us an area with 2000 hellhounds so our smiting monks can have a total blast!!
Yes, the farmers would be insanely rich and have the most uber maxed out gear but EVERYONE would benefit because they would be able to sell all this stuff at insanely low prices to EVERYONE.
Please don't act as if farmers can hold unlimited gold...i reached my cap for storage and had to buy a guild hall to make room for gold...even though i would never use the hall!

Please make sand worms use hamstring - it is so funny to see worms kill people who you are escorting around the desert. ROFL
Why ask for that specific nerf? Why not? That's a fun one. We all know where the worms show up, so those who can fight them don't care about hamstring...the junior players however....lol.

PvE arena - c'mon Gaile - i have mentioned this half a dozen times. Please just quote this paragraph and say you have seen it and discussed it over cookies and coffee and it's "on the way"
Wave after wave of monsters which get increasingly harder and more variable until you are defeated. Play solo (if you dare) or with henchies or friends/guild.

Starting level (round 1) 1 x level 1 river skale tad
Later level (round 50) 25 x lvel 20 hydras.
Even later (round 80) 90 x level 25 drake bosses.
Later still (round 150) 120 x level 35 bone dragons.
Yes it goes on... (round 280) 300 U***** Ruriks

How fun and replayable would that be? ENORMOUSLY FUN! Stand your ground like the undead hordes and thunderhead keep...hold them off or be defeated.

"Beast Master Archer has reached level 100 in the tombs of endurance and won a place in PvE heroes history!"

"Beast Master Archer has reached level 200 in the tombs of endurance and won a place in PvE heroes history!"

"Beast Master Archer has reached level 300 in the tombs of endurance and won a place in PvE heroes history and become the ALL TIME HIGH!" lol

hes your roomate ... go knock on his door!

secondly, there are many good guilds out there, it takes time trying to find a good guild.

if your looking, heres a few suggestions, ... go to tough places where guilds tend to build up and work together, like underworld or fissure. When looking for an invite, say (lfg */*20 ... preferrably seeking a group of guildies who have experience and work together, ts / vent capable)

this will get a few serious peoples attention ... moreso than ... NEED 1 MONK FOR FISSURE ... JOIN NOW HURRY! NO NOOBZ!

Is there a reason why every single thread lately has to turn into a NR debate?

To answer your first point...I don't feel there is anything wrong with this game other than the majority of the people that play it. I can find hundreds upon hundreds of little things that I enjoy about the game. It makes the little things that I don't enjoy pale in comparison.... To the point where little crap that alot of you complain about isn't even worth mentioning. I don't feel the need to nerf builds because I can't counter it...I don't feel the need to complain endlessly about not getting updates every week....I don't feel the need to bitch and moan about nerfing....I don't feel the need to whine about unfair skills.....because this game is the most balanced fair game I've ever had the pleasure of picking up.

To answer your second point(about my problem with you)....I don't have any idea who you are....or recall conversing with you in the past.

Because people are to lazy to develop builds to beat it, so they try to complain it to death?

Maybe not... just a guess..

Like many here, I started out as a PvE player, and now that I've finished the game I find myself drifting towards PvP until the new explorable areas or chapter comes. I enjoy PvP, but to be honest I'm not terribly good at it, I think. What I would REALLY like is an opportunity for me to practice and hone my skills at organized PvP in some low-key, no-stakes way. It's hard to get into Tombs teams, especially as a confessed noob, when there are so many hardcore players there. It's very difficult to arrange unrated guild matches, and difficult to get 8 guildmembers online to play. Intra-guild scrimmage would be very helpful, and I've heard that that's coming. Observer mode, so I could watch the pros, would also be a big help and I'm REALLY looking forward to that.

I realize that arena is supposed to fill the hole I'm talking about, but random 4v4 is a completely different game, and even organized 4v4 is quite different from 8v8. And since 8v8 (whether Tombs or GvG) is currently the pinnacle of GW PvP, that is what I want to be practicing.

To that end, it would be nice if there were easier ways of finding and organizing people in-game. Guild members are great but are often not online. I have a lot of friends on my list, but there is no way to broadcast to them "hey anyone want to do a cap run?" - you have to ask each of them individually, and they're usually willing but in a mission or something. It would be great if there was an ability to create and subscribe to a particular channel of people, maybe populated by invite to prevent trolls, where you could hang out and announce your availability to do stuff - and once you were doing said stuff, you could drop out of the channel or flag yourself as unavailable for partying.

This is a great game, and I'm totally addicted - thank you for developing it. Playing with a quality group is dizzying fun, but at the same time one or two bad apples - and there are a lot of them in there - makes it rather miserable. I'd love to see a better process for filtering out the jerks and meeting other like-minded players.

EDIT:
I have to say I LOVE Tactical-Delusions PvE Arena idea. Maybe it could calibrate its difficulty based on the number of players on your team - a great solution for when you and a friend or two are on and want to do something together, but don't want to deal with the hassle of finding 5-6 other players to team up with.

You had me fooled

This is the worst arguement against NR as I have yet to see a build that effectively counters it. Of course, feel free to prove me wrong. And when I say effectively, I mean to the point that you can use enchantments/hexes effectivley.

It sounds like if the things you talk about are actually impletmented, and implemented to the correct extent, there might be some life breathed into this game.

And do you see me complaining a lot?

You don't see me complaining at all. I mentioned one thing in a thread that specifically asks for opinions from a game rep. I don't ever post "I'm going to quit unless..." threads or "the dev's need to do something about this" threads.

Do you play in Tombs? If you did play in the Tombs you'd know that this is a problem.

I know you can defeat an NR team, beating them isn't my point.

My point about NR is that it Limits the game. You can't stop a good NR team from casting the spirit and you can't play an enchantment build or a hex build against it.

I'd be ok with those two aspects of an NR team if it took skill or used up one player on your team but Any secondary ranger with zero skill points can cast NR and strip every enchantment and hex.

Zero skill for a spell that ruins so many builds is a bad thing in my opinion. Even though I think that you've never seen me start a thread about NR or complain or whine about it in a thread someone else has started because I do like the game and don't complain.

So when a thread comes along that asks for my opinion I find it very offensive that you treat me like a complainer. What's more I still think you're lying through your teeth because there would be no need to go on about how you respect their builds as if it's some great secret.

A couple of caveats before I begin:

1) I'm a 75% PvE 25% PvP player.
2) I've only played three primary classes very extensively at all: Mesmer, Monk, and Elementalist.
3) Although I've logged a huge number of hours, I'm certainly not an "elite" or power player. I play just to have fun and to amuse my guild and PUGmates.

Those caveats stated, I'm really excited about the new PvE content. The Sorrow's Furnace shots look beautiful. Please give us more of these breathtakingly stunning areas to explore, re-explore, and quest within. I'll happily pay you for them (just not each month...hehe).

The RP world certainly has a wealth of material you could draw from to expand the game. I'd like, for instance, to gain my revenge against all those Charr! In the beginning of each character's life, they're Enemy #1, and then, poof, they just disappear. Bring us a high-level Charr zone.

I'm also looking forward to more easily obtainable drops. We all like finding those golden goodies, but they're currently so rare that it's virtually impossible to find them through casual play. Please screw those bots and restore drops to useful levels as quickly as possible!

In PvP there are some balance issues, but I'm sure you're aware of them. I'd just like to actually be able to play my Monk or Mesmer again as *I* enjoy playing them with at least some possibility of success. My gameplay type percentages would likely shift if this were to become the case again. Till then, I guess I'm stuck running UW with the Monk or Elementalist. I *enjoy* this, but it does get a little old sometimes.

If you could point the development team toward the Mesmer elite skill line for a second and get them to make more of those skills useable (or even add a couple of new ones to the mix), I'd be ecstatic. Don't get me wrong, I love a handfull of them! The rest of them are "once in a blue moon" utility-level.

Thanks for the great game and the dedicated developers.

So Gaile,

You have decided again to jump on these boards to look for community feedback and again help improve the game and make all of us happy again ... thats what you think ...

(secretly pulls out communty feedback nerf bat) *smack*

heeeheee ... actually the game is fine, I like the direction of balancing the pvp and pve ... so both can unlock stuff equally.

the only thing i believe that needs to be addressed is the town spammed with WTS WTB ... (the need for an auction house). If I really wanted that r0xx0r sword that pwns all n00bs ... I would rather buy it from an AI auction house than deal with some of these human interfaces.

Although I meant the original comment to be more toungue-in-cheek than anything, I'm going to have to follow up and ask why you have the requirement to be able to use enchantments/hexes effectively against something which specifically targets those? Makes no sense. If you go against a team that uses various protections against physical damage, do you only consider it beating them if you do so with physical damage? Sure, you may want to use enchantments/hexes by your definition of 'effectively', but too bad.

If your pant are on fire, don't stand there crying for a bucket of water, find another way to put the fire out. Your future kids will thank you.

...but MY future kids might thank you for NOT putting out that fire


(sorry - I just couldn't resist...)

There's a Nature's Renewal build? Here I was thinking there were around a dozen builds, all designed to at least ignore Nature's Renewal even if they weren't shoving it down someone's throats.


Builds that pull all relevant Enchantments and Hexes out of them have already gotten smashed by Nature's Renewal. The problem is *not* just that Nature's Renewal is grossly overpowered in the games that it's in - it's that it so radically constricts build design and skews balance in the process.


Because some ignorant little shit always insists on stating that Nature's Renewal is balanced despite backing that assertion up with absolutely nothing, then proceeds to insult everyone who's stated otherwise by calling them some combination of idiotic, lazy, or whiners.

Peace,
-CxE

Hi. I think the only way that this game can be brought back to life is through two or more major expansion packs. Until then, it's pointless to re-balance stuff. The expansion packs should do it instead, and atleast one of them should be free (I'm not talking about addition of towns/monsters here. I'm talking about fixing the current imbalances).


P.S. I have already sold my copy of GW, so what I say might not count, but then again it might because many others such as myself have done the same thing - which is put the game up for sale after getting bored two weeks into its release. So until I see some worthy patches/fixes put into place, I see no reason in spending (and possibly going back to GW) any more of my money on your company's products.

This is not a troll post, but a suggestion. After all, it is what you've asked of the community.

I like the idea of having a state of the game address very much, its interesting to see what you guys are planning on for the game. It gives us not only an idea of what to expect, but it can help guide our ideas and suggestions. If we know that something is not in your overall plan for the game then the chances are that we won't invest our time thinking about it as much as if we never heard anything from you.

The only request I would like to put forth is that something like this be done with more frequency. I realize that it is something of a difficulty as you can't really talk about upcoming features unless you are certain that they will in fact be implemented, but even if it was just a short paragraph or two outlining one or two things that you guys are working on... well, it would be great.

Regarding the content of the message, I have to say that I am very much looking forward to seeing everything that was written there. In particular the new content and the playbalancing.

Thanks for the message guys, we (at very least I) truly appreciate everything you all are doing and are really trying to be patient. Its just hard sometimes

Everything looks very promising,
one more than other. But the thing Im missing is Guild Features. We need those in a game called Guildwars. I know Storage and inner guild fighting is coming. But those are just 2 features ^^
Great job anyhow.
Realy nice to see you read what the community wants

Kind of you to ask.

I am currently enjoying Guild Wars greatly, both PvE and PvP. I don't play as much PvP as I'd like, due to not having a guild of people to really play with.

However, I can probably accomplish more by listing my priorities.

• General polish
  
  
  
  There's a lot of things that I like, but there's a lot of relatively small things that bother me. For instance, the fact that ignore only works on private tells, not on local chat. I'm sure anyone could come up with a large number of small issues like this. I'd really like to see this existing technology more polished before pushing out newer stuff.

• Usability enhancements

This includes much larger tasks that feel like smaller issues. Examples include Minion control, Henchmen control, the size of buttons that need pushing (like most software, they are often too small), the ability to see the energy bars of your allies. This is going to be a highly debatable list, but I feel there are a lot of tasks that would only require a moderate amount of work yet would provide vastly improved gameplay.

• Auction system of some kind

As has been often established, the current methods for buying and selling most items is annoying and unfun. A lot of people could be made significantly happier through this. I realize this is a mammoth task to get done right, and don't expect it to happen overnight, but do hope to keep hearing periodic updates about the fact that it's happening.

• Increased communication about The State of the Game!

Fansite Friday's help greatly in telling people what's going on. I'd really like to also see a public list of items with Arena Net's own personal priorities. I'm sure there are excellent reasons that Arena and NCSoft don't want to do this, but even if it's something as simple as a list of things that Arena is aware of, I could at least feel that Arena has a clue. =) Even better would be something saying what Arena Net is activel working on, even if there's no ETA.

• Additional gameplay modes

I think that GuildWars could be a much more expansive game than it currently is. For instance, the only supported modes right now include teams. I can only imagine that there would be many fine gameplay modes that are Every Man For Himself (and each woman, too). Additionally, more competitive modes vs. monsters would be interesting (i.e. groups compete to race to a destination blocked by monsters). Or a system or special ladder with some kind of handicapping, to ensure balanced games even if the teams aren't balanced. (In particular, this would be great for random arenas or vs. people you know. Presumably unrated only.)

Again, thank you for this opportunity.

I feel the same way

I dunno, I am jaded in MMOs, I left EQ2 for guild wars and boy, at the time (it may not be like this now) the game changed every single update, and not always in the way other players and sometimes myself wanted it to. You had to keep re-adjusting to the game and it morphed into something different from what it was when it came out at release.

Blah, blah, long story short, I love how the team behind guild wars actually thinks about what the players wants and try to make a rational fix for their cries. Instead of giving them the illusion that those cries will be answered unlike some MMOs! (Hmph!) And on a second thought I can say I am honestly impressed that they do all this work without the funding of monthly fees! Also, all of you who complain about the grind in this game and the likes have never really tasted a real grind :P

But, that's just me

more.. character.. slots..

You already said that. Stop spamming.

re: state of the game letter

I'm very much looking forward to the added content. I play PvE almost exclusively because, a) I like exploring the content and b) I suck at PvP. Yeah, I'd like to learn to become better, but as said above, there's precious little room for a lvl 20 character to learn new tricks well enough to fit in with the hardcore PvPers.

My only real concern about the latest announcement was Observer Mode. I was under the impression that we'd be able to see HoH battles as well, but the letter mentions battles around the Hall of Heroes. Does this mean we can't actually watch HoH battles or am I reading this wrong? Being a poor PvP fighter, this may be the only way for me to even see the hall.

re: the big bad nerf bat & drop rates

Granted, I've taken my sweet time getting to the so-called "good" farming areas, so I've probably missed the best season for farming, but since that's not been my goal, I really don't care. I ran the Fissure 3 times last night, those being my first 3 runs in either the Fissure or Underworld and I had a blast!

I've heard about how some players used to get 2-3 gold items per run and now they whine that they barely get 1 gold or purple drop per run. Last night, I managed to score a shard, a gold wand and a purple ankh -- the only items of note for 3 runs. On my last run, one teammate got 3 chaos axes and another got 1 ecto and 1 shard. I finally got my purple ankh which I sold at the merchant because it wasn't very good.

My point is this: I didn't complain. Sure, I would like to have gotten better drops, but I didn't. Even when my teammates were getting GREAT drops and I got mostly dust and shadow weapons, I didn't complain and I didn't ask them to share the wealth. Who am I to complain about the luck of the draw? Next time it could be me getting shards, ecto and cool weapons and my teammates may lose out. At least I got good xp and enough gold to cover my entry fee (125g in a party of 8) and then some.

re: Nature's Renewal

I play elementalist primarily, and I gave up on enchantments long ago. Fighting mesmer mobs out in PvE, the first thing they go for is stripping your enchantments and hexing you. It makes for a limited repertoire, but I'd rather be putting the hurt my enemy than trying to keep minor buffs alive on myself. If NR is so bad, I have two suggestions: 1)kill the spirit first, or 2) stay out of it's range. In a team of 8, it can't be that hard to kill, even at lvl 10 (spirits are always relatively weak).

There's my 2 cents. I love this game. I look forward to every session I get for playing. Keep up the good work.

Gaile, let me just repeat this again:

There is no "problem" with Nature's Renewal or Spirit Groups. Its just that many people are not good enough at the game to beat it, thus they want it nerfed.

PS- My spirit team just got beaten. Booya, its not invinvcible.

What new items?

Give us their names....

hey, admins, if i promise not to have the intention of flaming, or trying to start a flame, and make all my other posts as coherent, logical, and backed up with reason, can i just tell someone to stfu once a day, as opposed to the following rhetoric that i normally spew? ive got two weeks holiday so ifs thats ok with you ill store it up ???

nr does need a nerf. *boggles*. one skill kills smite (more or less), it kills healing balls, it kills some air builds (some use attunement), it kills half of the skills, and while that does leave another half to play with (so its buildable around of course), ask yourself this:

'did the person who invented this skill want to render half of the rest of them useless (that they probably conceptualised)?' if so, why did they even bother making any other skills?

its obviously limiting originality and that isnt good. its wasting entire lines to throw in skills, and that isnt good. its boring, and that isnt good. You can use enchants and hexes under nr, but is it really worth it? 99% of cases need not bother.

I think that Dan Mega's post might just be the perfect example of your point.

Like most other PvE'ers im looking forward to the new updates. I do have some concerns though. What happens 2 weeks after the update when we have explored and developed farming methods for the new area? Wait 3 months for another 2 weeks worth of content? Not me, I dont care to farm for worthless gold and weapons.

I am hoping the the good group of developers can come up with some replay value in other ways. What about a PvP free for all, similar to FPS deathmatch? I guess Im relying on the more creative minds to keep me playing because after this new area Im not sure that I will keep playing.

My biggest complaint currently is the econemy. Other then that everything that I do in the game is fine. I do PvP once in a great while but not to where I need to have a UAS button. I think the fact that they mentioned making gaining those skills easyer is another big step. Hopefully it will ease up on the flame wars between PvPers and what they call "carebears" & "Fan Boys". Personally I was getting tierd of having to sift through posts to find something Intelligent to read. The flaming and so called disscusions that had been going on were nothing but a word war and not to mention people saying fix this then not giving advice on what to fix.

I do like the fact that IQ made a topic to disscuss what needs to be done and lots of Ideas on how to do it. Now if they could shape up some of their guildmates and tell them to stop flamming everyone they may get took seriously by A.Net Shensi dosnt help the guild name with all the Snide remarks to people and EXSPECIALLY Gaile. Other then that they are doing a good job of keeping things organized and to the point.

We need a real Crowd Control in place. A visable Force that stops Grievers,Abusers,Racists,Imature,Vulger,etc... people from ruining the game for others.

Minor offenses/First Times: Warnings, Public Jails/Stocks in town centers

Secondary offenses: Branding their Armor so everyone can see it. (Wave a mouse over their armor and we can see the offense.)

Major offenses: Banning with Public Executions of the banned character.

It would be nice to actually SEE these people being caught and judged for the violations of the EULA. Once this is in place then people will think twice before they commit a violation toward others.

I have to admit that Blackace is right on at least one thing: the letter didn't address the primary concerns of most players from these forums. I like the addition of new content and I don't care about the nerfs so much, but at least let us know that the major issues we've discovered for the game are at least on a docket to be reviewed in the near future.

Granted, you guys have your work cut out for you. I certainly don't envy the position you're in with the forums full of bickering amongst players and threads devoted to flame wars over tweaks that should/shouldn't be implemented. It can't be easy, and it's most certainly discouraging sometimes. That's why I say "keep up the good work." You've delivered a stable, functional product (for the most part) and are constantly making efforts to improve it while developing future content at the same time. Your plate is definitely full.

I don't know what happens in halls of ArenaNet, and I've never been privy to a board meeting, so I can't say this with credibility, but I think a restatement of your mission with Guild Wars needs to be made. Get back to your original vision and stick to it.

Nearly every complaint I've read has this basic sentiment between the lines: "It doesn't do what I want it to do. Make it easier for me." I don't care who denies it, everyone wants an experience that will cater to their idea of fun and deliver the maximum level of it. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same idea of what a fun game should be. In the end, with patches and nerfs and buffs and whatever, we're left with a game that tries to be everything to everyone and usually fails on both accounts. Do what you think is best for the game, not what you think will keep people from leaving. If it's the best it can be, it'll find it's niche.

And again, thanks for your hard work. I, for one, am fully enjoying GW and plan to for a long time.

Hello everyone

Since I've already deleted over ten posts, I'm going to say this once, and only once. This thread is going to be under heavy moderation. I don't want to see arguments about whether or not Nature's Renewal is overpowered, underpowered, etc, and I don't wish to see any type of near-flaming banter on any individual of this forum.

Please stick to the topic, or else your post will be deleted without warning. If you have something constructive to say about your thoughts on the game, whether they're positive OR negative, please please share your thoughts. However, please do so in a polite, non-inflammatory manner. Any attempts to derail this thread into one of the many other debates around here will be deleted. If you wish to go on at length about how runners are horrible human beings and ruin the moral integrity of the game, or share your conspiracy theories about Guild Wars and ANet, please do so in another thread.

Otherwise, let's keep this thread for what it's meant to do: a form of valuable feedback of not only the things that you appreciate, but those issues (good or bad) that you personally see foremost as crucial for a better experience of Guild Wars.

Guilty, apologies. For some reason buttons got pushed that shouldn't have.

I didn't get much from the letter. Yeah, we know the summer updates are coming. That's dandy, we've known that for a while. Yeah, we know there are some problems in PvP, we're the ones playing the game like hell.

Basically the letter was a great big "we're working on some things". And that's not saying much more than we already know. We know you're working on things, that's common sense. We know there will *eventually* be summer updates, that's great, we've known that for months as well. I guess the most depressing thing is that this "state of the game letter" has been in "production" for a while now, I remember a post from Gaile a while back about it. And this is it? We're the ones playing the game enthusiastically, we read the news whenever it's released, we know that you're working on things. What we don't know (and would like to) is just what the hell's going to happen with the game as a whole, some possible release dates, specific details on further updates possibly, that sort of thing I'd go for. The state of the game letter didn't reveal to me anything I hadn't known for a good week or two really.

Well this is in a nutshell the state of the game for me.

Stop playing over a week ago because its boring.

Ascended Content

Meh. More bots to kill. I'll play through it once, but if the money isn't better than solo underworld farming it really doesn't matter.


Character Advancement

Cranking up the quality of loot that drops is a neccessary change. Changes to 'farming' so far have all been nerfs that made it increasingly difficult for people to acquire good equipment for their characters, when what should have happened is a raising of the quality of loot across the board. You see lots of botting and boring farming runs because there are very few areas in the game that still have reasonable value/time ratios. I assure you that if people could make comparable amounts of money simply running missions with their friends, they would.

As far as accessability issues, there are two serious ones at the moment. First, weapon upgrades. They are only available from rare weapons, which don't drop with any frequency, and even then it's unlikely that you'll pull an actually good upgrade. This would likely be addressed by changes to the drop rate. The other is collector items. There are still several important PvP-neccessary items that are not available from collectors - 15%>50 swords, hammers, and axes, 20/20 healing staves, strength shields - that need to be added still. Putting those into the game would allow PvE characters to be competitive with PvP characters.

Getting faction more quickly would be nice, but there's still one important step that needs to be taken - giving players the ability to spend their faction with a PvP character. You could unlock your account with faction in theory, except that you have to have a high-level PvE character with access to most of the map if you actually want to spend it.

On that note, why isn't there at least a storage agent in the Guild Hall? A lot of people use Guild Halls for things other than GvG, so why not improve their utility?


PvP Playbalance

"We have tried to balance Guild Wars to allow for this metagame without allowing the loss of balanced builds and diverse strategies."

Congratulations, you did a decent job for a first try but several mistakes still slipped through. This isn't a knock, no one has ever gotten balance right on the first try. But you have a ton of data from actual, competitive matches from top guilds now. Let Izzy do his job. That's all I have to say about this.

"With this in mind, we have been testing a variety of playbalance adjustments internally for some weeks now."

ZoS and Amazon Basin casting Searing Heat on each other does not constitute testing. Sorry. The good guilds are all out of the test now, and even besides that you have a much better source of data and feedback now - the thousands of matches being played every day on the live server. The closed test makes sense for finding bugs and doing a rough pass on new content, but balance should no longer be part of that process.

"We will let players know in advance when playbalance changes are coming so that private tournaments are not disrupted too abruptly."

That's good. I understand that you did not want to make playbalance changes in the past after what happened to KOR during the Korean tournament. But even with a week's notice of a new change, I don't think there would be a problem. Balance is a mess right now. As long as people have a chance to prepare for coming changes, they can take that into account as they progress through whatever tournament. Changing skills is always going to irk someone, but let's face it, it has to be done. Don't shy away from it.


Observer Mode

Just get it in already. It's an invaluable tool that's a neccessary step towards making this game more competitive.

Peace,
-CxE

I think Observer mode should be a priority for you. And please make it only for guild mates or with permission. IE:

If player X want to observe a top GvG he should ask for permission from two guilds, ofcorse ppl from same guild which is alredy fighting should be able to watch the match.

___________
My english is not so happy xD

I am very concerned by the number of players in general (lowered districts), my Guild members, and friends who have left the game permanently. I am also very concerned by how few new players I meet in pre-seared. I keep a pre character just for observing the world, and mostly I see veteran players recasting characters.

Is it because of replayability, grinding, or some other factor I am unaware of? I am also very concerned by the lack of marketing of the game outside of the hardcore game magazines. I earned my Degree in Marketing in 1974, and although I have not used my knowledge commercially in a few years, the basics till hold true. I've seen no MSM advertising that would appeal to the casual gamer who doesn't want to play their kids Xbox or Playstation. Even my Daughter, who is an avid PC gamer, has been hesitant to commit to the game because it hasn't caught her or her friends attention. And they are PC gamers, not just console fixated.

Just a few thoughts. I'd like to be sure that the longevity of GW is equal to or better than the powerhouse titles available.

Thanks.

Never a truer word spoken, and they removed the only counter, Unnatural Signet is gone.. nothing can be done about NR... it completely disables a mesmer who might aswell be carrying a banner saying interupt me!! and it strips all enchants of anything within 200yrds!! its crazed.

Life bond builds, spikes, everything like that has a counter, there is nothing to do against these NR teams.. I mean yeah you can interupt the ranger, black him out, spinal shivers the little swine, but if theres more than one? what ya gunna do.. black em both out, leave the healers alive, cant tangle it all at once.. but a NR can destroy an entire team.

I love your posts!! and agree with everything you say... BRING BACK THE FUN!!

Town invasions too!!! Wheres the ANET gone from the Beta days?