Lack of Communication

ArenaNet,

We need better communication about long-term goals. To us, the players, looking through the glass window, it seems that there is a lack of vision on what is going on behind the scenes; balance, WvW, PvP, etc. There are players who are invested in this title and subsequently ArenaNet at the helm. You folks did a great job with Path of Fire, but the communication issues are still rampant even prior to the Heart of Thorns launch and one could argue you have had this problem all along. Better communication not only allows players to feel more confident in your decisions but also will invest more in the title.

The issues we face:

• Profession Balance and Revitalization. Every game suffers from balance issues. We need communication from the balance team on a regular basis and preferably more frequent balance patches. As it stands, both of these things are critical to the overall long-term health of GW2 but are non-existent. Core specializations need to be re-tuned due to all the power and condition creep that was brought with Elite Specializations. Perhaps the community can vote on an ambassador for their profession and this individual would have the responsibility of communicating to the balance team?
• Power vs Condition Damage and Damage Mitigation. This is primarily an issue in pvp-ish type play (WvW, sPvP, et al.). Power and Condition damage are completely over-tuned since the introduction of elite specializations. There is no valuable counter-play and that makes these modes suffer. We need a vision for what ArenaNet plans on doing about this glaring issue.
• Long-term goals and transitions of content. I think it's important to get a bi-annual letter to the community from the game director regarding the overall health of the game and moderate-length goals of the various systems in the game.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game. It is truly a FUN experience. I want to continue playing and supporting ArenaNet through the Gem store. I'm going to post this over on Reddit as well. I know there are probably a plethora of these posts but it's important to at least attempt to put my thoughts on "paper."

Sincerely,Dhamir

Google may offer you ability to find the statements made by Mike O'Brien, and others, on some of the topics in your post. I know some are on the old forums, and, I think, others on Reddit in the AMAs. (Also, I just read some statements about balance here in this forum; try the Dev Tracker. :))

Good luck.

Basically, the playerbase killed any chance of communication happening. Every time something was announced as a plan in progress, or they said they were looking into doing a certain feature, or they posted any sort of timeline it came back in the form of pure rage and ire when anything in their plans changed. This compounded with the hype train from HoT that totally didnt deliver for several reasons. They now only give us content and dont tell us anything until it is ready to be shipped. And, this forums are to blame for that.

Notice that for the expansion they didnt announce raids, or fractals, or wvw changes, or pvp maps, or the living story. All those things are coming, but because they weren´t available at launch of PoF they werent included in the announcement. ANET now knows that if they dont give the players on day one it will be a dissaster, so now they only announce things when they are ready to go.

I understand where your coming from Beorn. However, I think that's shooting themselves in the foot. That's like the local supermarket closing their doors because people are stealing things. You don't cut your nose off to spite your face. In addition to that, the kind of communication I'm talking about is not about content but more about balance and issues with systems in the game; not content.

I can see where you were going with your supermarket analogy but it's not comparable as communication isn't necessary to provide content whereas opening the doors is kind of required to sell groceries. Advertisements would have been closer to communication.

Communication, is however, supportive of instilling confidence in your customer base for staying in-game longer and subsequently making purchases via the gem store. Either way, it might not have been the best analogy, but the point of it is clear.

How does communication on anticipated content goals impact player confidence in the game forwards playing longer and making purchases? They're only going to do this if there's something to do (as in they're currently playing) and they like what is in the gemstore.

Knowing what's being worked on isn't going to impact players playing longer. If they've exhausted all of the content that interests them then they could likely just not play until future content comes out which interests them. Knowing that something is coming out isn't going to suddenly making exhausted content interesting for them.

Knowing what's being worked on isn't going to impact players purchasing from the store. If a player is still playing the game (not on a break), and they see something they like, they will purchase it. They're not going to suddenly purchase a choya dressed up in a bunny costume mini because build templates are coming with the next expansion.

Essentially, I'm not seeing a correlation.

Then we simply disagree and no amount of text is going to change anything.

The player base on these forums tends to be really toxic if things don't go exactly as the Dev's intended; and then we get a million individual threads with people complaining about it.

@padreadamo.3986 said:Core specializations need to be re-tuned due to all the power and condition creep that was brought with Elite Specializations. Perhaps the community can vote on an ambassador for their profession and this individual would have the responsibility of communicating to the balance team?

Yes, this would definitely make everyone happy <_<

For once I gotta agree with Ayrilana. :o

Communication for sure has never been a strong point with GW2, but then again pretty much any MMO I've played over the last 15 yrs tends to suffer from the same thing for large periods, until they have something to share, something to hint or like we actually have had more recently, a road map.Pretty sure I read a road map somewhere a short whiles back.

But as Ayrrilana said, a constant stream of .. we are introducing this, you can now buy that or were looking into these things going forward, isn't going to entice many players to stay in the game when they have sucked the life out of everything that's on offer in game currently. That's the beauty of this model.I would love to think that we could expect new content, new systems, more toys, more everything , every week but realistically that isn't and should happen. So to keep popping up and saying were still looking at things, were still doing this that etc serves very little purpose except to heighten the frustrations of those who are not content with the pace that things can be delivered.Be happy that we get things like road maps, we get some forum input from devs on the tracker, we get Gaile's go between titbits... there are much worse MMO teams out there.Rule of thumb, never promise things too early about too much cos too many times, too many things tend to change due to too many uncontrollable factors... damn that took toooo long to put that little gem together =)

@padreadamo.3986 said:ArenaNet,

We need better communication about long-term goals. To us, the players, looking through the glass window, it seems that there is a lack of vision on what is going on behind the scenes; balance, WvW, PvP, etc. There are players who are invested in this title and subsequently ArenaNet at the helm. You folks did a great job with Path of Fire, but the communication issues are still rampant even prior to the Heart of Thorns launch and one could argue you have had this problem all along. Better communication not only allows players to feel more confident in your decisions but also will invest more in the title.

The issues we face:

• Profession Balance and Revitalization. Every game suffers from balance issues. We need communication from the balance team on a regular basis and preferably more frequent balance patches. As it stands, both of these things are critical to the overall long-term health of GW2 but are non-existent. Core specializations need to be re-tuned due to all the power and condition creep that was brought with Elite Specializations. Perhaps the community can vote on an ambassador for their profession and this individual would have the responsibility of communicating to the balance team?
• Power vs Condition Damage and Damage Mitigation. This is primarily an issue in pvp-ish type play (WvW, sPvP, et al.). Power and Condition damage are completely over-tuned since the introduction of elite specializations. There is no valuable counter-play and that makes these modes suffer. We need a vision for what ArenaNet plans on doing about this glaring issue.
• Long-term goals and transitions of content. I think it's important to get a bi-annual letter to the community from the game director regarding the overall health of the game and moderate-length goals of the various systems in the game.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game. It is truly a FUN experience. I want to continue playing and supporting ArenaNet through the Gem store. I'm going to post this over on Reddit as well. I know there are probably a plethora of these posts but it's important to at least attempt to put my thoughts on "paper."

Sincerely,Dhamir

I had this exact conversation with a guildie last night, specifically pertaining to the issues in wvw. We concluded that the lack of response from Anet speaks for itself and that's no way to treat your customers. Again, this relates to wvw. I do understand that the forums have been toxic, but there are many current good threads that deserve responses and we just aren't getting them. We like gw2 and want our valid concerns acknowledged, please. I'd ask that this comment not be removed by moderators. If I didn't care about this game I would just remain silent. Think about the previous sentence for a while.

@Beorn Raukar.4328 said:Basically, the playerbase killed any chance of communication happening. Every time something was announced as a plan in progress, or they said they were looking into doing a certain feature, or they posted any sort of timeline it came back in the form of pure rage and ire when anything in their plans changed. This compounded with the hype train from HoT that totally didnt deliver for several reasons. They now only give us content and dont tell us anything until it is ready to be shipped. And, this forums are to blame for that.

Notice that for the expansion they didnt announce raids, or fractals, or wvw changes, or pvp maps, or the living story. All those things are coming, but because they weren´t available at launch of PoF they werent included in the announcement. ANET now knows that if they dont give the players on day one it will be a dissaster, so now they only announce things when they are ready to go.

ikr, when i saw the pof elite specs my friends and i turned the forums into a drinking game, 1 shot for opopop pls nerf, 1 sip for omg i hate, 2 sips for omg i love, 1 sip for any complaining about anything. game ended quickly lol

tho i did like deadeye and necro.

@TheSlothArmada.6709 said:

@padreadamo.3986 said:Core specializations need to be re-tuned due to all the power and condition creep that was brought with Elite Specializations.

Perhaps the community can vote on an ambassador for their profession and this individual would have the responsibility of communicating to the balance team?

It was just an idea. Other games have done this in the past and it worked quite well.

@padreadamo.3986 said:Perhaps the community can vote on an ambassador for their profession and this individual would have the responsibility of communicating to the balance team?

I propose as thief ambassador Sindrenerr.The King of Thieves.

ArenaNet makes new item for Gem Store = People purchase item because they want it.ArenaNet makes new item for Gem store (Quality of Life item) + The longer time people spend in the game (confidence+entertainment) = likelihood of a purchaseCommunication is a critical aspect of instilling confidence.

Gonna have to agree with the rest of the peanut gallery that we, the playerbase, are at fault for what feels like a lack of communication. I mean, people to this day are still complaining about how HoT legendaries for every single didn't come out Day 1 of the launch. Same with Raids. Devs can't even throw out a suggested timeline for features, QoL, or changes without us the players holding them to the second.

So yeah, overall Anet made the business move to limit their communication. Sure, there are players that are upset about that, but I imagine the number of upset players is dramatically less than what it used to be when they had more of an open-door policy with update inquiries.

@savacli.8172 said:Gonna have to agree with the rest of the peanut gallery that we, the playerbase, are at fault for what feels like a lack of communication. I mean, people to this day are still complaining about how HoT legendaries for every single didn't come out Day 1 of the launch. Same with Raids. Devs can't even throw out a suggested timeline for features, QoL, or changes without us the players holding them to the second.

So yeah, overall Anet made the business move to limit their communication. Sure, there are players that are upset about that, but I imagine the number of upset players is dramatically less than what it used to be when they had more of an open-door policy with update inquiries.

I didn't mention timelines. I think that's unrealistic communication and agree that it causes an uproar when its not met. I merely want to invoke the kind of communication such as this, " overall health of the game and moderate-length goals of the various systems in the game." We need some kind of dialog about what they are thinking, why they want to make certain decisions. For example, If they don't think PVP is a problem, tells us it's as intended or this is what we are thinking... et al. Content timelines I'm in agreement with your post.

@padreadamo.3986 said:

I didn't mention timelines. I think that's unrealistic communication and agree that it causes an uproar when its not meant. I merely want to invoke the kind of communication such as this, " overall health of the game and moderate-length goals of the various systems in the game." We need some kind of dialog about what they are thinking, why they want to make certain decisions. For example, If they don't think PVP is a problem, tells us it's as intended or this is what we are thinking... et al. Content timelines I'm in agreement with your post.

Can't even do that much really. Let's say they decide that PvP is a problem. Even that alone will have players coming back with:

• What's the problem with PvP?
• What's features are you guys pushing out to make it better?
• What defines better?
• When are the changes going to be implemented?
• Will there be a beta?

Unless the team has something concrete in the making (concept, timing, implementation) they have pulled way back on any information sharing. And that's totally fine since they don't have a requirement to keep players in the loop. Will that make the game lose players? Maybe, for those select few that are interested in that sort of stuff. But for the most part, people are more interested in skins than they are in game updates.

Edit: When the player base is more concerned with Charr tail clipping than bug-fixing you know where their expectations lie.

@savacli.8172 said:Can't even do that much really. Let's say they decide that PvP is a problem. Even that alone will have players coming back with:

• What's the problem with PvP?
• What's features are you guys pushing out to make it better?
• What defines better?
• When are the changes going to be implemented?
• Will there be a beta?

Why is this kind of discussion a bad thing? This is exactly what I'm advocating for in my post; PVP just an example of course.

Unless the team has something concrete in the making (concept, timing, implementation) they have pulled way back on any information sharing.

I don't think you need something concrete to spark a dialog. What about more polling?

@padreadamo.3986 said:ArenaNet makes new item for Gem Store = People purchase item because they want it.ArenaNet makes new item for Gem store (Quality of Life item) + The longer time people spend in the game (confidence+entertainment) = likelihood of a purchaseCommunication is a critical aspect of instilling confidence.

Confidence is easily obtained with how a player feels about content and the perceived direction that Anet is taking the game towards. If either is negative then a purchase is less likely to occur.

I personally wouldn't purchase anything for a game that I was starting to lose interest in and wouldn't come back when something interesting was added. How many players are even at that point though? Probably something that none of us can answer. We've seen people trod along waiting for new content as well as those that take extended breaks only to come back for new releases which we saw with the LS3 episodes and most recently with PoF.

Communication, imo, would only really have an impact on someone who was on the fence in regards to leaving the game entirely and not coming back. If someone was bored with the game now, hearing about future planned content isn't going to suddenly make the game less boring. They'd likely take a break from the game whether or not there was communication of future planned content. They'd likely come back whether or not there had been communication beforehand or not.

I'm personally seeing any benefit to communication in regards to future planned content to be rather limited beyond hype. We've all seen what happens when things get hyped and then don't happen or at least not as expected.

This isn't to say that I'm against communication either. I just see it as more of a "gee wiz" kind of thing rather than something that would impact me playing the game at all. Now if I was discontented with the game and tempted to leave, that "could" change my mind but only if I was satisfied with what I saw. On the flip side, it could cause me to leave if I disliked what I saw.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@padreadamo.3986 said:ArenaNet makes new item for Gem Store = People purchase item because they want it.ArenaNet makes new item for Gem store (Quality of Life item) + The longer time people spend in the game (confidence+entertainment) = likelihood of a purchaseCommunication is a critical aspect of instilling confidence.

Perhaps I should rephrase my post to be communication about design decisions and balance, not content. They are equally as beneficial to the likelihood of a purchase as content is, yet I would think content more-so. Creating a bond between players and developers is a good thing. I agree with your post regarding content though :-)