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Guild Wars 2: Colin Johanson Takes to Forums to Allay Concerns
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Arena.Net's Colin Johanson has taken to the Guild Wars 2 forums to talk with players about concerns and misconceptions that are being discussed regarding this week's "quality of life" update, most specifically about the new player experience. In the post, Johanson acknowledges some oversights and bugs that are currently being ironed out, and addresses the notion that the new player experience is properly designed to give new players a good sense of progression and reward.
Not all of these changes were made as ways to teach the game, some of them are to provide a better sense of pacing, reward and progression. Early on we want to give a sense that you’re rapidly gaining new abilities, rewards, and learning new things as you level up. We added the level up reward messages, and the actual rewards themselves, and took abilities you’d usually use around that point in total game hours and presented them as unlocks (or things we teach that are already unlocked) to help give a better sense of pacing and progression.
With the addition of the new rewards, messaging, and level up screen to make leveling more exciting: we also wanted to make sure you had that feeling of excitement more often early on in the game, and presented new learning on a more regular cadence. So we greatly sped up leveling from levels 1-15. Many of the things unlocked at later levels are earned at about the same time period you used to start using them in the old system in actual real game time, we just staggered them out across the levels since we sped up leveling to make the game feel more rewarding early on.
Read the full post on the Guild Wars 2 forum.
Comments
One of the major complaints when the game first came out was the fact that most players learned all of their weapon skills by level 6 or 7 and felt like there wasn't much to look forward too in terms of skills after that.
Now that ANet paced (or gated) the skill progression on weapons, it should address those types of complaints but at the expense of angering veteran players who intend to roll alts.
It's a tough situation for ANet, I do not envy them right now.
ANet is becoming victims of their hubris. They've made tons of changes, that very little people actually asked for, yet they ignore the glaring concerns that have been brought up numerous times among their most veteran and loyal players.
I don't mind that they've redone the leveling experience, although the timing of such seems a bit off, but they added nothing substantial to the veteran.
Now we have just shy of two months of nothing even remotely new as Season 2 continues November 4th. Which seems like an awfully strange way to break the season up.
We've had these veiled comments about how they are working on some larger things in the background, but we've seen very little in the way of ANet actually showing what they are working on. Each and every time we are shown something new, it's mostly disappointing.
If ANet truly has something grand up their sleeve, which I am beginning to doubt, then they need to show their apple card already. ANet could take a lesson from Blizzard when it comes to WoW expansions. Blizzard shows their fanbase, pretty much everything as they are working on the next expansion, and they take the good comments with the bad.
ANet has seemingly lost their touch with their playerbase. They've lost the trust of their fans (take a look at the GW2 forums), and if they don't do something soon. They will begin to lose active players.
I already have an 80 of every class, so starting a new character is not something that is inline for me or really a concern for me.
That being said, I had my GF start a new character and play it so I could see how things have been changed. After doing it the old way and seeing how it is now, I don't like it at all. knowing how it used to be just makes it feel more restricted in how or what I choose to do things.
Ya, I have the same thoughts as you. My two sons and me started the game (played beta also) from release, and one just didn't like it because you get all your skills straight away. He likes the idea of looking forward to new skills as you gain levels. Now that he has played the game, he may not come back anyway because now it feels like they broke it just to be like the others.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Why would they listen to the "I'm not paying a penny more than I have to entitlement players". When you make a commitment to actually support the game and company then you can have a voice.
Till then your box price has already been delivered and you got more then your monies worth..
Once they add actual content and continue the main story not living story one after another I might consider a visit.
Wish they would increase the weapon skill choices tough. (Hint. Have abilities unlocked like in Guild Wars 1 among normal obtainable ones)
to bad the combat and feeling of group play didnt make it with gw2..
I enjoyed the teamplay in gw1 alot it was very nice..
neven made till endgame with gw2 :S
Sorry, but that's what B2P is all about. They have supported the game and company, they bought the box therefore they have a voice.
Unfortunately the people expressing those concerns weren't, aren't and will never be the target audience of GW2.
You will find many of the same that complained about those things in the past complaining now that it has changed.
Anet listen to feedback but sometimes the feedback is not from their actual players.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
There is no MMO with better combat that GW2. That is not an opinion.
However, you are correct in that group play is extremely lacking in PvE.
Seriously? We complained there wasn't enough. So instead of introducing more, they spread the already lacking amount thinner.
This patch is the equivalent of cutting a pizza into 10 slices instead of 8 and trying to sell it as an improvement. I am so glad i wrote this game off a long time ago. Honestly should of never bought it, but, the couple months i put into it wasnt "wasted" per se.
I do agree with some of the above posters, that this is just more examples of anet's hubris.
Oh well, what can you do.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The game is getting destroyed by the development team. They want to insult a new players when they thing you would not learn the new weapon skill till lvl something. It is bad. Gating things like elementalist elements?! That is just pure idiocy of them and a way to break this game even further.
Its like Warhammer online when people just scratch head and dont find a single reason behind actions of the team. In WHO it was not going f2p and here it is "features" packs.
Dont repair something that isnt broken. Dont insult and alienate player base. Dont think anybody will buy PR shit.
Dont do this, people will go to you game and will rally on your banner to defend the game. Just dont fuck up.
ANet Fucked Up!.
I had more fun with the combat in EQ2 by far, so, yes, it is an opinion. I also know lots of people who would argue that Tera's combat was superior.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Seriously? You might want to look up the definition of 'opinion', because your claim is the very much an opinion.
And a ludicrously laughable one, in my opinion.
This pretty much sums it up.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
my initial response is basically ^.
they just replaced a bad(arguably broken) system, with one that was worse.
LOL WOW so your opinion is not an opinion it's the gospel, holy cow some people amaze me.
No, you misunderstand him. What he means is that it is such an absurd statement that no one could possibly hold it as an opinion.
Here's to hoping that they change the cost of getting traits to either Karma or to the Tier 7 materials because Veterans all have a surplus of both of those as WoodenPotatoes has pointed out even.
Everything in progression shouldn't be tied to gold. If they truly wanted a system that allowed people to respec on the fly they'd have elastic stats on gear and the sigils/runes would all be purchaseable with Karma.
Sometimes games send out surveys to know why you left or your history before you play in beta but never about changes being made in the game. They look at forum feedback. The problem is a lot of people never post on the forums. So all the players who just play the game with little or no problems never contribute to the games future. Email surveys would help with this.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Unfortunately....according to Colin.... you are wrong. He states, "Testing was done predominantly in the west focused on players who played guild wars 2 today, people who played gw2 at launch and left, people who heavily play other MMORPG’s, and people who heavily play RPG’s." He is obviously targeting those people too.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
It is the 80 levels imo. To me it feels as if character progression is spread out over too many levels. Levels feel already pointless in GW2 because of the automatic downlvling when you go back to old areas (which I think is a cool feature, but then why such a high lvl cap?).
There is nothing wrong with still learning how to play your character while already at max lvl. They did it in GW1 too. You kept some form of character progression because of the way you obtained skills way after you reached max lvl. Now in GW2 everything seems to happen during the first 40 lvls and then continues with 40 more quite pointless lvls imo. Which as character progression just feels boring.