Taking steps backward in design

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

I've noticed there's a trend for both QoL and that cooperative-style gaming that GW2 has always been noted for that seems to be taking a step backward in the recent story steps. Notably, these issues include:

 

* Masteries that require us to run around and pick up stuff dropped on the ground

* Meta chests (with no keys) that don't open automatically with autoloot on

* Unscaled events, mechanics, and achievements that lead to competition with other players, including but not limited to: shooting helicopters and balloons out of the sky in competition with each other and the achievements for using stone cannons, pillage achievements in the new map are competitive

~~* Unconsumable items, particularly the special mission documents ~~ (fixed)

 

I imagine there may be other things, but these are the ones that came to mind easily. All of them have an existing remedy in the system: the masteries could use a kill count without requiring running around; autoloot works for other chests and/or a bouncy chest could be used; scaling for events, individualized targets (such as the shooting practice in Grothmar) and individualized drops could be used, and people could be getting pillage credit when not using siege, ~~and they could go back to a consume-for-karma option for the mission docs (don't know why this was taken out, could've been just lowered if it was too much, or autoconsume for nothing, even, on receipt)~~.

 

I don't know what is causing this sort of apparent general degradation of the QoL/cooperative environment, but I did want to offer this feedback to ANet to ask them to make sure that their story teams are up to speed on all the many things that GW2 is capable of doing and especially those things that are implemented QoL things that people have asked for and were given in the past, as that feels especially not good to take a step backward on. I do wonder if the changes in staffing over the past year + are instrumental in this trend and would just like to ask that there be some kind of communication/training/quality control to make sure that these little things that make the game so nice to play remain whole and consistent.

 

Thanks!

[Daniel.5428]

Anet lost a lot of good people. As a veteran I can assure you that the old days are not coming back. Secondly, GW2 is an outdated game from a technical point of view. But most important, the current way of doing things is just toxic. What do I mean by that? Well:

1. Trying to make story look longer by adding all those open world tasks.

 

2. Achievements being very blunt since Icebrood Saga. Nothing special except collect these and do this event 100 times. For example, during the previous episode they added a ton of strike mission achievements as LS episode achievement. Strike is its own game mode, it should have its own achievements. They somehow forced you to do strikes for the meta achievement chest. In this episode, there is nothing special than "collect 20.000 badges"

 

3. World map is ruined. Half of the game world map are lvl 80 zones and a big percentage of them are not populated at all. The new maps that come with the new episodes are abandoned very fast (that's why they decided to go back to adding pieces of a map). There is no point going back there except achievements (which cannot be done without more people and this is the vicious cycle)

 

4. The announcement of expansion 3 was a sign of desperation. Remember how the other 2 expansions were announced? Nicely done, with a short trailer, at the end of the last LS episode. Now they threw a picture at us and said "Look, we do content, please stay".

 

5. As you said, Anet fired or lost a lot of good people, people that made GW1 great and that made GW2 what it is today. The truth is that NcSoft will keep the game running as long as people still buy those nice skins from the market. The truth is the numbers (profit) are not great at all. Mobile games bring more money in the company that GW2. The MMORPG market was influenced by the other business models and now a game is alive as long as it brings profit. As subscription is not really accepted (people seems to run away from it), they either turn the game pay to win or move it to mobile where they flood you with ads. If there will ever be a GW3, it will be mobile only.

[Khisanth.2948]

Lack of autoloot might just an oversight. Some fractal chests were like that when autoloot was first added. Might be a thing that needs flagging on an individual chest.

 

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Bridget Morrigan.1752" said:

> the masteries could use a kill count without requiring running around;

That might actually end up as a nerf. Notice, how currently you can pick orbs from mobs that were killed by other players without your participation. Kill count would remove that option.

Besides i'd say that's one of the _least_ problematic things with the new masteries.

 

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Bridget Morrigan.1752" said:

> > the masteries could use a kill count without requiring running around;

> That might actually end up as a nerf. Notice, how currently you can pick orbs from mobs that were killed by other players without your participation. Kill count would remove that option.

> Besides i'd say that's one of the _least_ problematic things with the new masteries.

>

 

The point isn't that any of these things should be changed at this point, but that their implementation in the first place suggests that there are people designing how things work without taking into consideration the QoL / cooperative culture already in GW2. This suggests a lack of communication or training for people who are coming on new in the past year or so, and that should probably be a focus because we don't want to continue heading the direction these oversights are taking us.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Just wondering how we know it's new/untrained/uninformed Devs that created the Masteries in question.

The Team Lead for the Episode that introduced Essence Masteries has been with ArenaNet 4 years. Others that worked on the Episode have been with ArenaNet longer.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Chat_-_Episode_95

[Zoid.2568]

Unscaled events is the biggest issue as everything melts in 1 or 2 seconds.

 

The masteries that were introduced in HoT were very good and a game changer, the new Essence Mastery isn't bad but it's not perfect either.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Just wondering how we know it's new/untrained/uninformed Devs that created the Masteries in question.

> The Team Lead for the Episode that introduced Essence Masteries has been with ArenaNet 4 years. Others that worked on the Episode have been with ArenaNet longer.

>

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Chat_-_Episode_95

 

Agreed. Tbh some of the other things mentioned in this thread also do not line up.

 

Open world tasks for extending the episode? Those have been present every step of the way since Season 2, 3 and 4. Funny how biased players memories are. I would agree though that recent episodes have been shorter than past ones, which would make sense if production on an expansion is happening in the back.

 

Achievements have definitely been scaled up. Mostly because the 2 days to completion from Bjora Marches episode 1 was met with a lot of criticism (or more likely, with a lot less players spending time in the game from a metric standpoint. Turns out, giving players stuff to do, even if grindy, keeps many in the game longer).

 

The constant world map growth with new zones is indeed a problem. For the first time since Season 2 tackled in this season 5.

 

It's basically just subjective complaints and half truths. Some have valid core argument to them, but get presented by biased players without at least trying to acknowledge the progress made or putting them into a framework or context.

[Leablo.2651]

As far as I can tell the balloons in Grothmar are individualized. I have never seen one disappear due to someone else's shooting.

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Bridget Morrigan.1752" said:

> * Masteries that require us to run around and pick up stuff dropped on the ground

 

I don't actually mind this, as generally those tokens drops are plentiful, and I Max out those stacks without even thinking about it. On the other hand, if I actually need them, I focus less on the fight and just run around picking them up from other players. Also, in strike missions I just hold 1 at the totem to let the new arrivals stack up fast. As it is, it's been quite okay in my opinion.

 

> * Meta chests (with no keys) that don't open automatically with autoloot on

 

I actually prefer this. It's a little perplexing when finishing a meta, a big chest spawns, and it's just already looted (and sometimes it doesn't even display open, like kourna's meta chest). Autoloot is awesome for the rain of drops from general enemies, but I think the big boss's reward from meta events requires a bit more of attention. I may be in a minority with this opinion, though.

 

> * Unscaled events, mechanics, and achievements that lead to competition with other players, including but not limited to: shooting helicopters and balloons out of the sky in competition with each other and the achievements for using stone cannons, pillage achievements in the new map are competitive

 

I agree wholeheartedly here. Though I haven't actually noticed any competition with not scaled events in level 80 areas, they seem to scale mostly fine. It's lower level, core Tyria maps, where I've noticed this can be a huge ordeal.

[Kodama.6453]

> @"Skotlex.7580" said:

> I actually prefer this. It's a little perplexing when finishing a meta, a big chest spawns, and it's just already looted (and sometimes it doesn't even display open, like kourna's meta chest). Autoloot is awesome for the rain of drops from general enemies, but I think the big boss's reward from meta events requires a bit more of attention. I may be in a minority with this opinion, though.

 

Agreed. While auto loot is convenient, it still kinda takes away some of the satisfaction for me.

Looting that big chest, hoping that you will get an awesome rare drop is just more satisfying than defeating the boss and having the loot for it already in your inventory. But I still want to keep auto loot for all the small mobs I kill.

 

 

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Zoid.2568" said:

> Unscaled events is the biggest issue as everything melts in 1 or 2 seconds.

>

> The masteries that were introduced in HoT were very good and a game changer, the new Essence Mastery isn't bad but it's not perfect either.

 

Many duds in there too. Itzel Leadership, itzel poison, Exalted Assistance, Gathering, purification, Nuhoch wallows, proving, alchemy, counter magic, thermal propulsion, koda's flame, oakheart's reach, and siren of orr.

 

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"Skotlex.7580" said:

> > I actually prefer this. It's a little perplexing when finishing a meta, a big chest spawns, and it's just already looted (and sometimes it doesn't even display open, like kourna's meta chest). Autoloot is awesome for the rain of drops from general enemies, but I think the big boss's reward from meta events requires a bit more of attention. I may be in a minority with this opinion, though.

>

> Agreed. While auto loot is convenient, it still kinda takes away some of the satisfaction for me.

> Looting that big chest, hoping that you will get an awesome rare drop is just more satisfying than defeating the boss and having the loot for it already in your inventory. But I still want to keep auto loot for all the small mobs I kill.

>

>

 

The problem with that kind of inconsistency is that it makes it very easy to miss.

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Just wondering how we know it's new/untrained/uninformed Devs that created the Masteries in question.

> The Team Lead for the Episode that introduced Essence Masteries has been with ArenaNet 4 years. Others that worked on the Episode have been with ArenaNet longer.

>

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Chat_-_Episode_95

 

We don't. I'm being polite by not laying blame on a specific individual but rather the systems in place to communicate between developers.

 

ETA: speaking more specifically, even if some of the devs are more tenured, there needs to be in place a continuous communication for the sake of continuity: there have always been some issues with this, like with the LS4 hearts where some hearts allowed you to buy five of the currencies at a time and others where you had to click and repeat. Silly things. Nothing I'm suggesting ANet needs to go fix. What I am suggesting is that the apparent uptick in these things seems more pronounced recently, these issues may have to do with personnel and training, and this suggests a lapse in communication that would be expected after so many layoffs, people quitting, and people being replaced and shuffled around.

 

My feedback to ANet is that the recent episodes suggest a review or revision of these practices may be necessary.

 

[Einlanzer.1627]

> @"Daniel.5428" said:

> Anet lost a lot of good people. As a veteran I can assure you that the old days are not coming back. Secondly, GW2 is an outdated game from a technical point of view. But most important, the current way of doing things is just toxic. What do I mean by that? Well:

> 1. Trying to make story look longer by adding all those open world tasks.

>

> 2. Achievements being very blunt since Icebrood Saga. Nothing special except collect these and do this event 100 times. For example, during the previous episode they added a ton of strike mission achievements as LS episode achievement. Strike is its own game mode, it should have its own achievements. They somehow forced you to do strikes for the meta achievement chest. In this episode, there is nothing special than "collect 20.000 badges"

>

> 3. World map is ruined. Half of the game world map are lvl 80 zones and a big percentage of them are not populated at all. The new maps that come with the new episodes are abandoned very fast (that's why they decided to go back to adding pieces of a map). There is no point going back there except achievements (which cannot be done without more people and this is the vicious cycle)

>

> 4. The announcement of expansion 3 was a sign of desperation. Remember how the other 2 expansions were announced? Nicely done, with a short trailer, at the end of the last LS episode. Now they threw a picture at us and said "Look, we do content, please stay".

>

> 5. As you said, Anet fired or lost a lot of good people, people that made GW1 great and that made GW2 what it is today. The truth is that NcSoft will keep the game running as long as people still buy those nice skins from the market. The truth is the numbers (profit) are not great at all. Mobile games bring more money in the company that GW2. The MMORPG market was influenced by the other business models and now a game is alive as long as it brings profit. As subscription is not really accepted (people seems to run away from it), they either turn the game pay to win or move it to mobile where they flood you with ads. If there will ever be a GW3, it will be mobile only.

 

Your item 3 is something I've been saying for years would be a problem. What they should have been doing the whole time is alternating types of content for Living World episodes between PVP/WVW maps/mods, dungeons, raids, casual exploration zones, and meta driven open world maps instead of MASSIVELY over-focusing on only the last category listed there at the expense of everything else for virtually all LW episodes AND expansion content alike.

 

Anet has always seemed to think their open world content is the best thing since sliced bread when in reality, while sometimes being really fun, it ultimately fails to capture the essence of what makes MMOs desirable to play _as MMOs_ - intimate "adventure" systems built around small-group camaraderie and build strategy. Not anonymous spam fests with dozens of players and a screen full of particle effects. Most MMOs achieve this primarily through dungeons. It was utterly stupid for Anet to abandon them years ago instead of investing more heavily in making them better, richer experiences.

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

> @"Zoid.2568" said:

> The masteries that were introduced in HoT were very good and a game changer, the new Essence Mastery isn't bad but it's not perfect either.

Let's be honest, the non-gliding masteries in HoT were hit or miss at best.

[Zoid.2568]

> @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> > @"Zoid.2568" said:

> > The masteries that were introduced in HoT were very good and a game changer, the new Essence Mastery isn't bad but it's not perfect either.

> Let's be honest, the non-gliding masteries in HoT were hit or miss at best.

 

They were essential to progress in the jungle and to get certain mastery points.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Zoid.2568" said:

> > @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> > > @"Zoid.2568" said:

> > > The masteries that were introduced in HoT were very good and a game changer, the new Essence Mastery isn't bad but it's not perfect either.

> > Let's be honest, the non-gliding masteries in HoT were hit or miss at best.

>

> They were essential to progress in the jungle and to get certain mastery points.

 

That's taking a generous view of pointless time gating. A lot of masteries gate progress, but there's a right and wrong way of doing that. Filler masteries that are purely a time gate and have little or no functionality outside of that are always going to be a poor design choice. On the other hand, gating the way they handled it with HoT masteries like the gliding line and PoF mount system is the way to go. Not only does it create the feeling of progression due to the time gating, but those skills are actually fun and useful in and of themselves, too. That's how it should be with the mastery system.

[Daniel.5428]

> Your item 3 is something I've been saying for years would be a problem. What they should have been doing the whole time is alternating types of content for Living World episodes between PVP/WVW maps/mods, dungeons, raids, casual exploration zones, and meta driven open world maps instead of MASSIVELY over-focusing on only the last category listed there at the expense of everything else for virtually all LW episodes AND expansion content alike.

>

> Anet has always seemed to think their open world content is the best thing since sliced bread when in reality, while sometimes being really fun, it ultimately fails to capture the essence of what makes MMOs desirable to play _as MMOs_ - intimate "adventure" systems built around small-group camaraderie and build strategy. Not anonymous spam fests with dozens of players and a screen full of particle effects. Most MMOs achieve this primarily through dungeons. It was utterly stupid for Anet to abandon them years ago instead of investing more heavily in making them better, richer experiences.

 

Exactly. Let's take ESO as an example. A lot of people said that ESO is half MMO, half single-player, cuz you can do most of the things (explore, quests etc) solo. GW2's main blessing was that it was very community oriented, but at the same time this was it's main weakness. If the game will ever drop in playerbase, a lot of open world content (achievements, metas, most of the events) will become unavailable for the new players. Imagine being a new GW2 player now, doing season 3 and going back to those maps, wishing to do meta....it would be hard, most of them are empty. But for a game like ESO where only end-game content is community oriented (same for the classic mmorpgs like WoW), even if a map is empty, you can still get most of the value out of it. GW2 turned into a farm fest where, every time a new map is released, you play on it for 2-3 weeks to get everything because you know it will just go empty afterwards.

[Zoid.2568]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"Zoid.2568" said:

> > > @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> > > > @"Zoid.2568" said:

> > > > The masteries that were introduced in HoT were very good and a game changer, the new Essence Mastery isn't bad but it's not perfect either.

> > > Let's be honest, the non-gliding masteries in HoT were hit or miss at best.

> >

> > They were essential to progress in the jungle and to get certain mastery points.

>

> That's taking a generous view of pointless time gating. A lot of masteries gate progress, but there's a right and wrong way of doing that. Filler masteries that are purely a time gate and have little or no functionality outside of that are always going to be a poor design choice. On the other hand, gating the way they handled it with HoT masteries like the gliding line and PoF mount system is the way to go. Not only does it create the feeling of progression due to the time gating, but those skills are actually fun and useful in and of themselves, too. That's how it should be with the mastery system.

 

Yeah gliding and mounts were the best masteries for sure.

[Zoid.2568]

> @"Daniel.5428" said:

> > Your item 3 is something I've been saying for years would be a problem. What they should have been doing the whole time is alternating types of content for Living World episodes between PVP/WVW maps/mods, dungeons, raids, casual exploration zones, and meta driven open world maps instead of MASSIVELY over-focusing on only the last category listed there at the expense of everything else for virtually all LW episodes AND expansion content alike.

> >

> > Anet has always seemed to think their open world content is the best thing since sliced bread when in reality, while sometimes being really fun, it ultimately fails to capture the essence of what makes MMOs desirable to play _as MMOs_ - intimate "adventure" systems built around small-group camaraderie and build strategy. Not anonymous spam fests with dozens of players and a screen full of particle effects. Most MMOs achieve this primarily through dungeons. It was utterly stupid for Anet to abandon them years ago instead of investing more heavily in making them better, richer experiences.

>

> Exactly. Let's take ESO as an example. A lot of people said that ESO is half MMO, half single-player, cuz you can do most of the things (explore, quests etc) solo. GW2's main blessing was that it was very community oriented, but at the same time this was it's main weakness. If the game will ever drop in playerbase, a lot of open world content (achievements, metas, most of the events) will become unavailable for the new players. Imagine being a new GW2 player now, doing season 3 and going back to those maps, wishing to do meta....it would be hard, most of them are empty. But for a game like ESO where only end-game content is community oriented (same for the classic mmorpgs like WoW), even if a map is empty, you can still get most of the value out of it. GW2 turned into a farm fest where, every time a new map is released, you play on it for 2-3 weeks to get everything because you know it will just go empty afterwards.

 

ESO is a single player game pretending to be an mmorpg. Vet dungeons can be soloed with the best builds in the game and only trials are the real endgame content. So if you buy the new expansion and plan to do endgame content you will be done with the expansion in 1 trial run and that takes 1 hour, as you get all drops from each boss and the only RNG are the stats on the gear, so if you want full divine you will have to farm the trial.

 

If you are not into single player then ESO is a bad game and GW2 is the best mmorpg in existence.

[Etria.3642]

I missed the first two chests because I assumed they were auto looting. My daughter had to point out that I actually had to go over and get it.

 

On the one hand, Bleh, on the other we discovered you can just pop over to a chest you didn't help with and still open it.

[TheNecrosanct.4028]

I must be playing a different game. These dead maps people keep referencing, I don't see them. There's always population in the maps I visit, whether they be core, expansion or LS maps. It certainly isn't a problem on days certain maps come up in the daily rotation, but even outside of dailies I don't have any trouble completing content in open world maps.

 

One thing I do agree with is the scaling. It's not that I have a problem with the way they handled scaling so far. While not perfect it's certainly not an issue for me during play. No, it's the new map specifically, Drizzlewood Coast. I see lvl 83 and 84 mobs that melt so fast, a lot faster than scaled mobs in other maps. Considering all the longbow Rangers and staff Necromancers running around in open world tagging everything, it's sometimes very hard to tag even 1 or 2 mobs out of a dozen. Even a hot knife doesn't cut through butter as fast as 10 people cut through a group of a dozen mobs in Drizzlewood Coast. I've found it is absolutely necessary to equip ranged options to tag even a decent amount. Or 20 people finishing a mine event in 20 seconds, giving you hardly any time to locate and defuse said mines, thereby missing event participation. Event mobs should be a lot tougher and participation events should fill a lot slower. It's just ridiculous how out of tune it is with the rest of scaling in the game. It certainly doesn't fit with the "play what you like" mantra this game has been espousing for years. Full melee? Ranged with slow cast times? Prepare to be left behind in Drizzlewood Coast.

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> Anet has always seemed to think their open world content is the best thing since sliced bread when in reality, while sometimes being really fun, it ultimately fails to capture the essence of what makes MMOs desirable to play _as MMOs_ - intimate "adventure" systems built around small-group camaraderie and build strategy. Not anonymous spam fests with dozens of players and a screen full of particle effects. Most MMOs achieve this primarily through dungeons. It was utterly stupid for Anet to abandon them years ago instead of investing more heavily in making them better, richer experiences.

 

Perhaps their data and metrics say differently? What you may consider "desirable" in an MMO may not be what their data suggests. To claim that their decisions have been "utterly stupid" is ignorant (meaning uninformed, not as an insult) as no one here has all of the facts that were available when those decisions were made.