My Positive Constructive letter to A-NEt

Hey all, I wanted some feed back on my letter to A-net, since they will definitely see it here. This is my first real post ever, other than putting in guild name.

Lil Cooters’ letter to A-net

To whom this may concern :

My main/first characters name is Lil Cooter, he is a war/?, followed by my 2nd char, a monk/?, Lil Gwynella C. Both have finished the game and only have around 6 or so bonuses left to complete. I have started a guild named “Lil Cooters Bar N guild”. The whole experience of forming a guild has been an incredible experience. I have met people of all ages and from all over the world. All I can say is WOW and thanks alot.

I am 29 yrs old and have been playing RPG’s since I was 10. Guild Wars is my first online gaming experience, and so far I can relate my experience to only one other instance in my life. I have been to one pro-football game and had corp. box seats, and to tell you the truth, Guild Wars beats that to a pulp (total exaggeration but you get my point, box seats rule). You have spoiled me, therefore, I feel it is my responsibility to let you know who I am and how I feel about your wonderful gaming environment. Now, since I have played your game for over 700+ hours, I have formed some of my own opinions about certain gaming aspects, and have tons of questions that people probably ask you everyday. However, my main purpose here is to give you another idea about how some of your customers think.

Here is a list of things I feel the need to comment on along with my opinions.

Skills –
Beautifully done, even though the update upset quite a few people. However, I had finished game once with warrior, and was ascended with monk before I even learned about the super monk build. What the update really accomplished, was making me look at the skills with a different understanding. It made me realize that I need to learn a lot more about how the skills work, and especially about how the other professions work. I am not at all PvP oriented, but I am starting to try it out. I just can’t fathom fighting 8 people being more fun than destroying a whole map worth of monsters and accomplishing missions and quests.

Forming Parties—
This is the least desirable aspect of the game for me. I have had problems with over 75% of my groups and this is the main reason I formed a guild. It seems to me that at least 1 or more persons in a formed group can really ruin the whole experience, either by not listening, not working together, not doing anything at all (this is the worst) or getting what they want (i.e. bonus/skill cap) and leaving in the middle of it. This detracts from the whole GW experience, and leaves a bad taste in people mouths. We need to have a way to boot and replace PvE players in groups, with at least a hench of same primary profession. This would make it much easier to form parties and make it a more friendly/accepting environment. And those who cap n’ leave or just sit so they get dragged through mission, should be put on a list and have a different color name, preferably brownish green with chunks in it. I understand that people have bad connections and all, but certain things are obvious and those people should be punished.

Loot—
I have been through the game well over 3 times (by assisting guildies) between my 2 characters and have never received a single black dye drop (still have not). I had to start farming just to get some different things, after I had 2 characters ascended. AFTER. I am happy with what I have found plus I am drooling about the update, but most people probably aren’t. 600 hours to not find a Sup Vigor, Sup Absorption, or a Black Dye, might make some people real unhappy. Also, I have seen 1 person get 2 gold drops and no one else get anything close to that, in 1 mission. That just isn’t cool or fair at all. Remember, it isn't about time played, it is about skill.

Henchies—
The henchies are quite exceptional in my opinion. I have used them extensively and have developed single and dual human character tricks to pull and get henchies where you want when you need them. However, I think we need more of a variety of henchmen. This would alleviate a lot of problems forming groups, and it would help people learn more about professions they don’t play by witnessing some of the half-decent effects. Which, trust me, henchies give lots of hope for real people to do their jobs right. The only hench that compare to humans are the monks (they continually heal and have great energy management skills). I really enjoy and take a lot of pride in playing my healing monk, but I have learned very few human monks heal better than the henchmen.

Quick ideas I have seen and really liked or pondered—
-An “Auction House” seems to be a wonderful idea with few drawbacks, might help stabilize trading system
-Guild Hall – pay for these upgrades – make all flags/banners your guild cape design, storage bins or even sheds, merchants, practice/spar arena, observation area (cheaper/free for guild members but all can watch), and I would really like weapon upgrade crafters available to at least the guild halls (give more incentive to become part of the community) where you can trade multiple upgrades in for better more consolidated ones
-add special content for people who have finished all story missions and/or all bonus missions
-Faction – does nothing for good PvE players, we should be able to trade faction in for gold or something tangible. Sorry but I have spent over 700 hours on my 2 char’s, and have no reason/desire not to use them in PvP. Finished game, ascended, infused, 30 ex att points, drok armor or better, why use someone else?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it was informative and useful.

Lil Cooter

All I can really say is that I hope Arena Net will look at this and consider some of the things you've stated.

Aye, I finished reading it.
Chees mate, its a good letter.
I hope ANET will get to look at too.

Cheers.

Thanks, I am prepared to get slammed anytime now, lol. I hope people take this seriously, there are tons of other things that might help, but this should be a good start.

good stuff. faction doesnt make sense, though. if you dont pvp, then how do you have faction?

I have tried PvP in arenas and have gotten Faction, but it is only good for a new PvP character, so I want to be able to use it on my PvE character. Why spend money to unlock something your favorite peep can't use. Now, with that said, I have less than 750 faction total, that was just an idea that I liked.

good letter, however, faction points ere never meant to be a important point of pve, 750 faction points is nothing anyway you wouldn t get much out of it

looks all good but you arnet the first person to post this but its all good

Yep, most of the suggestions have been given before but your letter is nicely worded. I would suggest sending it via email to the devs as well. I've not seen Alex or Gaile around here lately.

yesterday and today a bit ago no less

it is random and they cant guarantee a drop for everybody

i have gotten 14 including 3 double dye drops one of which was a black/silver and the other good double was silver/silver

it is chance

As polite and good this letter is, I'm afraid it won't do any good.
aNet is busy, getting the autum-update on the run.
They'll probably be even more busy removing bugs from the autum-update once it's out.

Then they'll be working on chapter 2 (if the company is still profitable at that time).

If they read letters like yours like they read support requests, you probably wasted your time.