Best and Worst Decisions Anet has made?

[Ashantara.8731]

Since I only started actively playing around Christmas 2015, even though I bought the game at release, I cannot speak of the early days.

 

**Best decisions:**

* Personal story choices

* A choice of personality

* Authentic race behavior in the core game

 

**Worst decisions:**

* Removing all of the above from the past-core story content, making it **a lot** less compelling to replay with a different, non-human character

.

 

**Other good decisions:**

* Making achievements account-bound

* Introducing gliding

* Having great core Tyria maps with beautiful designs (landscapes, architecture like Ebonhawke, etc.) and exciting variety (e.g., Frostgorge Sound's vast underwater world)

* Having a stressfree, fun event system in core Tyria

* Great character animation and player models (except for some flaws with females)

* Very precise movement controls

 

**Other bad decisions:**

* No tutorials for beginners, which is unfortunate, because in this game nothing is self-explanatory

* Forcing people new to the world of Tyria to consult the wiki for lore knowledge, as nothing is self-explanatory

* Changing design style from classic (core Tyria maps, armor sets and weapons) to ugly, and often futuristic, designs (LWS3)

* Change to stressful event system (since HoT), overloading maps with events and notifications, keeping you from immerging into the world

* Introducing too many currencies (see LWS3)

* Turning the game into a grindfest (since HoT)

* Introduction of elite specializations instead of adding new (or old, beloved) professions

* Refusal to add more playable races

* The lack of professional writers, which has immensely diminished the quality of story-telling and dialogue in the past year (sometimes to a downright infantile level)

[maddoctor.2738]

> @Ashantara.8731 said:

> * The lack of professional writers, which has immensely diminished the quality of story-telling and dialogue in the past year (sometimes to a downright infantile level)

 

Huh? They do have professional writers. For every person who didn't like the story, there is another one who liked it.

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

Pro :

- Fractals

- Ascending Gear

- Legendary Path

- Mounts

- Gliding

 

Contra :

- Grind

- Transmutation Charges and the System how it is working

- Outfits -> Boring

[Chadramar.8156]

Forgot another "worst" one:

* Asura magitech. Like mesmer magic, it seems to have no rules or restrictions whatsoever (in the hands of NPCs), and is overused at the expense of everything else (especially with Taimi being Anet's biggest pet NPC). Where's norn spirituality, charr martial power and technology, sylvari plant-magic and Dream-lore? The personal story had at least some of that, and everything was supposed to be involved in making the second-gen Pact airships just as all the races came together to form the Pact itself. I loved that concept. I'm tired of magitech. Some of the only parts of LS3 that I liked were the kodan fire-spirit and the druids, because 1) new lore and 2) something unrelated to Taimi and her omnipotent toy collection.

[Scipion.7548]

Good :

- Puzzles

- HoT open world difficulty

- Play as you want (until bad people force you to play meta or kick you from group even if you optimized your character for the non-meta role you choose)

- Dyes

- Charrs

- Events and meta events

 

Bad :

- nothing to replace the trinity system have led to a **"repressed" trinity system**

- Giving the first true healer spec to the ranger class although players with **"healer mentality" usually play guardians** (you know, the heir of the GW1 monk class)

- Giving the first true tank spec to the pink wizard in light armor aka the mesmer although players with **"tank mentality" usually play heavy armor classes** (well, because its logic)

- **Often forced to play meta**. Maybe it is too easy to level up. Seems a good idea but if you can reroll too easily it is also easy to force you to play meta. At WoW you aren't forced to play the "flavour of the month" class because it takes weeks or even months to level and gear up. And maybe this game is more balanced with an assumed trinity system.

- Just **one PvP mode** : conquest.

- **Storyline is meh**. I don't expect a GoT (seasons 1-5) level but hey, I'm an educated adult with an university degree like a good part of your player base and I expect better than a bad disney movie.

- **Bunny ears, wings and baseball caps break the immersion**

- **Dungeons should be improved** instead of abandoned. Before GW2 release when I heard about exploration dungeons I dreamed about procedural built dungeons with random bosses ... but no.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Best: Gliding, Mounts (soon), Raids, Fractals

Worst: Abandoning dungeons, the whole LS1 desaster without any expansions, months without update before HoT, months without update after HoT, no templates, ancient DX9c, no individual UI, lack of sidebars etc.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Ashantara.8731 said:

> > * The lack of professional writers, which has immensely diminished the quality of story-telling and dialogue in the past year (sometimes to a downright infantile level)

> Huh? They do have professional writers. For every person who didn't like the story, there is another one who liked it.

 

When interviewed during Guild Chat, the devs often declared that "Yes, I came up with that dialogue." So, it is safe to say that the parts that lack quality (and have taken a rather infantile direction) are not written by the professionals.

 

As for the story, could be (a lot?) better, but the dialogue is what is killing it for me the most.

[bobsort.4097]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Ashantara.8731 said:

> > * The lack of professional writers, which has immensely diminished the quality of story-telling and dialogue in the past year (sometimes to a downright infantile level)

>

> Huh? They do have professional writers. For every person who didn't like the story, there is another one who liked it.

 

Could you please name them? I would love to read some of their other stories.

[Shifted.6912]

Best:

- The feeling of cooperation between players - not having to fight over mob XP, quest objectives or gathering nodes. Still pretty unique in the MMO world.

- Classes that actually feel different to play (for an MMO - after all there's only so much you can do with "1234" based combat)

- Large scale open world events. This is what MMO is about.

- Wardrobe system

 

Worst:

- Horrible quality to performance ratio. CPU getting slammed 100% for no real reason. (Perhaps shouldn't have used an old engine?)

- Not enough stat combos for gear.

- Requiring the use of awful crafting to reliably acquire ascended gear.

- Some of the fixes promised back in vanilla being locked behind expansions.

- Story content - I honestly couldn't care less about it. Generic storyline; cringy, forgettable(post-vanilla, living story) characters ; "Hero complex" (having to make the player character someone special... which is awkward when everyone else is also that special someone)

- Most armor on Asura / Charr characters. - seriously, what the hell.

[Wolfheart.7483]

> @bobsort.4097 said:

> > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > @Ashantara.8731 said:

> > > * The lack of professional writers, which has immensely diminished the quality of story-telling and dialogue in the past year (sometimes to a downright infantile level)

> >

> > Huh? They do have professional writers. For every person who didn't like the story, there is another one who liked it.

>

> Could you please name them? I would love to read some of their other stories.

 

So if they aren't a published author outside of video games they are not acceptable? That is absurd. Do you ask how many solo albums a game's music composer has released?

[Rennie.6750]

Best: adding mounts.

 

Worst: jumping ship and abandoning casual content almost entirely in favour of raid-like design everywhere. Where am I supposed to go in the newer content if I just want to spam skills and not figure out what I'm supposed to do after 2h of tedious fractal farming?

 

Also, no new dungeon in 5 years, that's really terrible.

 

Last but not least, since I left core tyria and began to play endgame, I have to look things up on the wiki or youtube ALL THE TIME. Can't they just make things I can figure out by myself without spending hours reading through multiple wiki pages? Like crafting...

[STIHL.2489]

> @Wolfheart.7483 said:

> > @bobsort.4097 said:

> > > @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > > > @Ashantara.8731 said:

> > > > * The lack of professional writers, which has immensely diminished the quality of story-telling and dialogue in the past year (sometimes to a downright infantile level)

> > >

> > > Huh? They do have professional writers. For every person who didn't like the story, there is another one who liked it.

> >

> > Could you please name them? I would love to read some of their other stories.

>

> So if they aren't a published author outside of video games they are not acceptable? That is absurd. Do you ask how many solo albums a game's music composer has released?

It's a legit question to ask what other credited work they have done, even if it is all video game related.

[firadesunna.9275]

Best: Mechanics of the Weaver Elite Spec

 

Worst: calling it a weaver - it sounds too much like a Mesmer thing

[Tekoneiric.6817]

Best - adding gliding to the game.

Worse - Not updating core maps to include updrafts and as many expect to leave gliding support (updrafts, gliding objectives, etc) out of PoF maps.

Worse 2 - Invisible walls everywhere. Not only do they lack creativity but they also are put in some of the most annoying places they shouldn't be. Example: I was on a Orr map trying to glide down from a HP to a POI and got blocked by an invisible wall that was put there for no reason. Adjust the map content to block with rocks when really needed, use large creature sounds followed by fear, low lighting and weather effects (white out conditions) at the edge of maps or just dump players onto the next map. Don't use invisible walls!

[Myrdreth.6829]

> @Rennie.6750 said:

> Last but not least, since I left core tyria and began to play endgame, I have to look things up on the wiki or youtube ALL THE TIME. Can't they just make things I can figure out by myself without spending hours reading through multiple wiki pages? Like crafting...

 

That's actually something I really enjoy :x It's fun to do research and figuring everything out...

 

[Blaeys.3102]

Best:

- Adding new open world maps with periodic living story updates

- Guild halls and tying missions to both personal and guild rewards

- Gliding (and Mounts) - pretty much the mastery system as a whole really works for me

- Specializations instead of vertical progression

 

Worst:

- No new guild missions in 4.5 years (by FAR the biggest issue in the game for me)

- Putting interesting GW1 lore-focused storyline in content they admit is designed for a small percentage of the game population

- Single difficulty mode raids

- Lack of updates/support for EOTM (always saw it as a place to test potential new wvw improvements before pushing them to the competitive maps, but they seem to have forgotten it is there)

[sorudo.9054]

worst: generally GW2, it's a huge step down from GW1 just to get jumping work.

best: the collections. (so wardrobe, dye, outfits)

[Sariel V.7024]

Someone already mentioned the wardrobe. Tying a space-saving measure to an always-expanding collection which you can use to customize your character would be genius if it weren't so obvious. It's definitely an excellent addition.

 

Best: Rewind the clock to release and look at the state of traits. Anything regarding them required gold. Unlock a tier for your character? Lots of gold. Want to respec those points? More gold. The change here was actually good and bad, by allowing you to earn the traits for free but sending you off on an errand for each one. Or you could pay for EACH. The next change finally removed gold from the equation. Why require money for this at all? ArenaNet went through the same thing with Guild Wars 1 and got rid of that crap within a few months of the initial release. Talk about not learning from the past.

 

Other good updates: Icons. The game initially shipped with every item largely using one per type. Looking at your inventory, you couldn't tell what was treasure and what was trash. Autostore - click the icon to send your crafting materials to the bank.

 

Worst change.... [look over here](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/1731/i-hate-what-dps-meters-have-done-to-pve-endgame#latest "https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/1731/i-hate-what-dps-meters-have-done-to-pve-endgame#latest"). Letting sociopaths represent your endgame isn't a good strategy.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Best:

Gliding

Soft Gear Grind

 

Worst:

Stability Change before HoT

Esports

[Makai.3429]

> @"Sariel V.7024" said:

> Someone already mentioned the wardrobe. Tying a space-saving measure to an always-expanding collection which you can use to customize your character would be genius if it weren't so obvious. It's definitely an excellent addition.

>

> Best: Rewind the clock to release and look at the state of traits. Anything regarding them required gold. Unlock a tier for your character? Lots of gold. Want to respec those points? More gold. The change here was actually good and bad, by allowing you to earn the traits for free but sending you off on an errand for each one. Or you could pay for EACH. The next change finally removed gold from the equation. Why require money for this at all? ArenaNet went through the same thing with Guild Wars 1 and got rid of that crap within a few months of the initial release. Talk about not learning from the past.

>

> Other good updates: Icons. The game initially shipped with every item largely using one per type. Looking at your inventory, you couldn't tell what was treasure and what was trash. Autostore - click the icon to send your crafting materials to the bank.

>

> Worst change.... [look over here](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/1731/i-hate-what-dps-meters-have-done-to-pve-endgame#latest "https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/1731/i-hate-what-dps-meters-have-done-to-pve-endgame#latest"). **Letting sociopaths represent your endgame isn't a good strategy.**

 

Thank you. I'm glad someone else understands. This community used to be wonderful, but since raids, the Patrick Batemans of the world now run the show.

[Avectius.3271]

Everything involving the game's story.

 

I wish they'd stop playing it safe and took more chances; I want more serious, darker content, not something that sounds like it's straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

[Chadramar.8156]

> @"Sariel V.7024" said:

> Best: Rewind the clock to release and look at the state of traits. Anything regarding them required gold. Unlock a tier for your character? Lots of gold. Want to respec those points? More gold.

 

Oh goodness, I remember. People broke their bank for each unlock, especially if they were running multiple characters, and _especially_ if they were also levelling crafting at the same time. Such a pain.

[dagrdagaz.4913]

for Worst i have to add Dynamic Events

To often when i want to travel somehwere i am (seriously) hindered by Dynamic Events spawning more foes, or even blocking were i wanna go.

 

Something like, driving your car on a road to a destination. When suddenly garbage bags fall out of the sky to form a pile on the road big enough so that you cannot proceed further. The only option left is getting out of your car and manually move every garbage bag so u can drive onwards again.

Does this make u _like_ a pile of garbage baggs?! NO

Do u consider it _fun_ to suddenly have to move a pile of garbage bags?! NO

[Wolfheart.7483]

The Good:

* Game structure that does not force players to compete for nodes, loot, etc.

* Wardrobe (though, I wish it was earlier as I *really* miss my deathly shoulder skin)

* Dyes being infinite use once unlocked (see GW1 for why this was a fantastic change)

* Removing the endless vertical progression of other MMOs

* Achievements system

* Gliding

* Masteries (think it needs improving but I love the concept)

* Ascended/Legendary being Account bound rather than soul bound

* The concept of Living World releases (rough start but has come a long way)

* Learning from mistakes (see: original Karka event)

* Trying new ideas even when they may not quite succeed. (see: original Karka event, temporary nature of LWS1, etc.)

* I could probably go on and on. There are many things I love about this game and world.

 

The Bad:

* Skin appearance tied to physical equipment (separate skins into their own slot!)

* Back items not dyeable. (Especially back items with a corresponding glider that *can* be dyed.)

* No Heroes for original Dungeons.

* Zhaitan encounter

* No Tengu or Largos playable

* Lockdown of the UI

* Again, there are several more if I spend enough time thinking on it. As much as I love the game, there will always be mistakes or things I wish it had.

 

Edit, forgot to add this bad decision:

* Abandoning the April Fool's Day jokes, especially patch notes, they posted during the GW1 era. I would love for those to make a return.

 

The Ugly:

* Trahearne

 

 

 

[Rauderi.8706]

Best:

Convenience!:

Wardrobe

Deposit All

Fluid combat

Classes that feel unique

Sound option to Never Hear Dreamer Again

Charr

Defiance update

Condition cap removal

Current trait design

(Build Templates, eventually!)

 

*Leave now if you want to stay feeling good. :)*

>!Worst:

>!Town Clothes to Tonic conversion. *sadness*

>!A way-too-wide emote range

>!Not addressing widespread Charr clipping

>!Shelving Norn storyline/spirituality (and a sizeable chunk of the writing in general)

>!Some really regretful outfit/armor designs

>!Transformation skills being choppy and difficult to practice with

>!Tossing aside good design for Chalice of Tears lolz

>!Lack of achievement motes or story skips in older content

>!Achievements that rely on irritating grinds (Good Apple) or easy-mistake mechanics (don't get touched not even once!)

>!Meta events that block off large chunks of explorable map

>!Hero challenges/personal growth reliant upon needing map help

>!Having Dragon Stand rely on a clock instead of player presence (People are just *dying* to get in~)

>!Including the Largos, ever

>!Economics-driven design instead of player enticement (fun) or redesigning rewards

>!Thinking WvW was a good idea after DAoC failed / Gift of Battle

>!Allowing violations of TOS regarding:

>!Third party tools / DPS meters

>!Vulgarity in names and chat

>!Rudeness and abuse in public spaces