ribchop.1736

Yeah, that's the main reason why I think they need to monetize some of the guild content. People want more guild things / better guild halls / etc, and I don't think anyone has a problem with there being incentive to spend money there if it means we get something even just 50% better than the current system. On gemstore accessibility, that's where the original post went into detail, I don't think there is 'one' solution but could be a lot of solutions implemented simultaneously, and is why I was recommending collection (like the gryphons) as a way to get a discount on these items. Not from the standpoint of me wanting it cheaper, but from the point of the people who are putting in the work to get the gold for them anyway would now have acquiring these special items not just live in the UI. Outside of collections I think even just vendor NPCs that take you to the gem page, or even one that converts your coins to gems and vice versa, with the current stuff that is in the gemstore either in another NPC or a different tab of that NPC makes sense. It gives them another place to push you towards buying gems (they can make a button dead on the NPCs sell screen) and also will make the casual player feel like there is more rewards available to them (Because they'll come across them naturally in game)

Think you missed the point. I could care less if they're less expensive. The post is a discussion about how the main form of monetization isn't well integrated into the core game loop, and specifically explains how I think it could be further integrated to increase the amount of monetized content that is bought / purchased while offering benefits to the core game loop itself. It explains more natural ways to introduce the monetized content in the game that are already there, with the added benefit of the average Joe realizing there is all this content available to them. Think something has been misunderstood here, the main point of the post isn't to improve rewards, or to make them cheaper, it's to improve accessibility to what is already there. How that's implemented (whether it's a vendor who has them for a gold amount, or a vendor who you click in and it takes you to the gems screen) obviously is up to Arenanet. My point is that the gemstore itself is not a good enough way to introduce players to some of the monetized content, and it doesn't feel like a 'natural' part of the game. This (I believe, this is a bit of speculation on my part) I think is leading to players feeling like there is a lack of rewards in game, maybe not with the broader game as a whole, but definitely with EOD. The point of the post was less about the player's need for gemstore skins / content and more about the fact that they should want them and the game (And Arenanet) should push the player towards them. Can you make your character look good without them? Obviously yeah, there is plenty available. Should Arenanet encourage you to acquire the gemstore content more? I think that's also a definitely. This is where I think some improvements to how they introduce this content to the player will increase sales for them, and thereby increase the quality (and quantity) of content. Outside of that my only other argument is Guilds aren't monetized well and comparing the work done in Thousand Seas Pavillion pass to the new guild hall shows the difference that properly monetizing the content could have a positive effect on a part of the game that doesn't often get love.

Yeah this is coming from my perspective of course but also has been along the same lines as what I've seen people commenting on in the wider community as well. Yeah it was a wall of text, sorry about that. To be fair there is a reason it's a wall of text though as it's not just a surface level discussion, but yeah probably would have been better in a video format or something. You really need to read the full post to get where I'm going with this but the 'TLDR' of my post is below. I think the core problems are - The games monetization method prevents a lot of 'cosmetic loot' (weapons skins, skiff skins, etc) from being part of gameplay. - To people new to the game this is vexing as the connection of farm gold from in game content (or swiping their credit card) > gems > that cosmetic they see in the gemstore isn't clear. This is especially confusing from the standpoint of a player joining a game which incentivizes horizontal progression with a gear plateau that never changes, and with the bulk of the reward from progression being cosmetic. - The above ends up with the the in-game content feeling underwhelming with rewards (pretty wide regarded, well known public sentiment). This was especially apparent in EOD but also affects other areas of the game. Rewards are there (You can convert gold to gems to get them) but it doesn't feel like they are because they're not part of the gameplay loop. - A lack of certain features following the game's monetization method, the main thing I highlighted here is Guilds. There is little / no guild-level monetization incentives which makes features around Guilds (like the new guild hall) lackluster from lack of resource allocation. (Compare the new guild hall to the Thousand Seas pavilion) As far as solutions you can read those in the first posts TLDR, or read through each section I posted for more detail. I've added the TLDR to the top of the first post to make it easier to digest

Preface I think everyone has been thinking a lot about the current problems with EOD (and in general, most of the game) rewards feeling very underwhelming. I want to emphasize the word feeling here, as from a gold per hour standpoint / gold per effort standpoint, there is a good bit of content that does actually give good gold, which can translate to good rewards. There are some areas of EOD specifically that need love here, but I don't think this is the big problem that is going to cause friction in the coming year as the Steam release grows closer. I'm painting the below from the perspective of your average Joe who doesn't know anything about GW2, but plays other MMOs. TLDR I think the core problems are - The games monetization method prevents a lot of 'cosmetic loot' (weapons skins, skiff skins, etc) from being part of gameplay. - To people new to the game this is vexing as the connection of farm gold from in game content (or swiping their credit card) > gems > that cosmetic they see in the gemstore isn't clear. This is especially confusing from the standpoint of a player joining a game which incentivizes horizontal progression with a gear plateau that never changes, and with the bulk of the reward from progression being cosmetic. - The above ends up with the the in-game content feeling underwhelming with rewards (pretty wide regarded, well known public sentiment). This was especially apparent in EOD but also affects other areas of the game. Rewards are there (You can convert gold to gems to get them) but it doesn't feel like they are because they're not part of the gameplay loop. - A lack of certain features following the game's monetization method, the main thing I highlighted here is Guilds. There is little / no guild-level monetization incentives which makes features around Guilds (like the new guild hall) lackluster from lack of resource allocation. (Compare the new guild hall to the Thousand Seas pavilion) I think possible solutions are 1. Select Gemstore skins tied to in-game, gryphon like, content 2. More Guild Rewards / Content, Changes to guild hall acquiring and costs 3. Strike / End game content rewards buff 4. Discounted Gemstore skin NPCs behind content. Buy gemstore skins directly from an NPC with gold after completing 'x' content 5. How this ties into the 'new player' experience and how a new player perceives the game. TLDR Ended And now for the text dump with further detail Looking at the game from an outsider perspective if you were to take EOD at face value without spending money or in game currency on gems, the amount of skins / armor sets / fishing poles / skiff skins available was insanely small. Some of the gemstore sets have helped with this (Especially with the skiff & Fishing pole, the fishing pole being the one I'm most disappointed about only having a small amount of skins) but I'd argue that from a player perspective it doesn't really feel as great as it could to get these, even if you've grinded for the gold to convert to gems for them. At the end of the day you're just going into the cash shop menu and clicking purchase. I understand there is a hard balance here where the business model requires selling of some of (or in my opinion most of) the best cosmetics, but I think there is room where that can still be done, while improving the player experience, and encouraging people to spend more of their money on the game. I'd also like to preface the below with the fact that I don't think anything should be removed from the cash shop, it should always be there as a convenience, which will continue to fund the game for years to come. The first thing I'd like to see is something similar to the gryphon system, but for other cosmetics, not every cosmetic but the really cool ones. A good example is the new Shrio skins, these are by far some of the coolest skins I've ever seen, but the only way I'm introduced to them is directly via the gemstore menu. I feel like the gryphon system would work well here, placing NPCs across Cantha that you have to visit and spend a certain amount of gold in total to get the collection, to unlock the skins for yourself. This could even cost more gold than if you straight up bought gems with gold to buy the collection, but I feel like having the cool skins tied to gameplay in game, rather than just in the cash shop menu would make obtaining them feel more rewarding, and thus also making EOD feel like it has more rewards available, without having to add new currencies, and without requiring a whole lotta work. There will still always be the incentive there of 'You can swipe to get this instantly' (In fact this is exactly what I did to pay for my gryphon lmao) and if anything it would only increase sales as the average casual player who sees those cool skins, grind for part of them and say 'screw it' and just swipe. It's also a good place to tie in more lore to get the player even more immersed in the world. The second thing I'd love to see is more guild based rewards. Guilds are an area which I feel could have more reward structures in place for completing content together, while also offering a good place for a money sink (which in-turn means a potential gemstore purchase area). There is so much that could be done here from more guild unlockable armor / skins (that aren't just the guild's emblem on something), WvW specific stuff (Dolyak skins, siege equipment skins, when alliances come even things like dedicated banner spots at spawn that refill with the consumables already in the guild bank, etc), guild skiff / fishing skins, gemstore guild cosmetic unlocks, etc. This isn't something many will agree with I'd think, but personally I'd love to see the costs associated with a guild go up, if it meant there was room for more guild related content. Increasing the cost for higher guild caps, having a maintenance cost over a certain sized guild, making guild consumables cost more, etc. As an aside here, one place I thought EOD was a little disappointing was the guild hall. It's clear that the lack of it being a monetized feature impacted both the look, feel and polish of the new guild hall and I think that's something that should be addressed. A good way to see this is to look at the Thousand Seas Pavilion, this map / area is amazing and I think it even as is would have made a better guild hall than the current one. If it meant we could have more / better guild halls in the game, I'd love to see some halls being locked behind a very large sum of gold + progression that's currently there. There is an issue here where smaller guilds would have to work harder for these things (or swipe harder) but being honest having a guild of 3-4 active players with 10 people total, that's already a problem and something I don't mind personally as when our small group works for something big in our guild, it feels very rewarding already. The third thing I'll mention is strike rewards, and in general end-game content rewards. I think yall have done a great job at improving the rewards behind things like the final meta, and I hope to see this move to strikes and other end game content as well. LFG UI problems aside, the incentive to do strikes vs / amount of work to set one up is heavily weighted against them. The new challenge mode was wicked fun, but given the amount of setup and effort you have to put into it, feels underwhelming when you beat it after the first few times. I think yall are already on the right path for this however, and it's only a matter of time before this will be fixed. If I had one gripe here I'd say I wished there were just a few more skins available, in EOD specifically it'd be great to see some void related stuff. Getting to the end of EOD it didn't feel like there was a whole lot of rewards to get, especially with this being the grandiose 'end' to the dragon franchise. I (and I think most people) have the feeling that we're gonna see some of this as LWS5 approaches, more of the dragon legendries for example, maybe a void themed one, but it would have been good for 2-3 more available before you beat the game. The fourth thing I'll discuss, which slightly ties into the first, is a new type of NPC. These new NPCs would carry current gemstore skins, maybe (or maybe not) at a discounted rate of the current gold value of gems, but more importantly would be in the world where they make sense. These could (or could not) be gated behind certain content / masteries etc, which would influence unlocking them for a discount, or even for exclusive skins, but either way would be a more natural way to acquire the item, and also could leave room for a 'buy it with gems' button in that NPC to increase sales / encourage people to invest in the game. Part of what makes getting a new cosmetic feel good is the actual process of going to get it, and I think this will add to that feeling for the cash-shop related content even if it just was a 1-1 conversion of gold to gems. It may seem like a silly thing, but having them in the world, as silly as it may seem, I think would make it feel to players that there are more rewards available than there are currently (Even though they're there, it doesn't feel like they are because they're behind a menu). Lastly I'll talk a bit about the new player experience. As an avid Guild Wars 1 fan, most cosmetics in that game always felt like a reward. From getting a good chaos axe, to farming for the torment weapons, to getting a fellblade or from getting your first voltaic spear, getting every single one of those felt like an accomplishment. I'll agree however that the model of just having a ton of detailed cosmetics in the game at no cost is not a sustainable one in a game that is buy once play forever, and I think this is where Guild Wars 2 has lost some of it's magic. As I've explained above, this is where I think tieing some of the cosmetics into gameplay would make the game feel more appealing. For the game being known as Fashion Wars 2, and there being no stat progression past 80, I think it would be beneficial for the new players to understand that obtaining these nice new cosmetics is part of the end game, and pushing them toward that will ensure they're a long-time player. Thanks for sticking in with me if you read this far, curious to hear others' thoughts about the above as well! Edit I moved the TLDR up to the top for those who don't wanna read through the whole thing 🙂

I don't agree - a group finder would allow people to actually play instanced content where otherwise they'd have to form their own group to do so. Revamping the LFG categories won't fix the fact that a good chunk of the game's content is hidden in a menu, and (outside of EOD which has you do strikes as part of the story) only alluded to via in game mail. Think it's a bit ignorant to say a group finder would be 'dead on arrival' and not have any backing to what you're saying. There is a good portion of people I've ran into that only learned how to use the crappy LFG in pursuit of the turtle, and even then groups are hard to come by unless you're watching it like a hawk.

First of let me just say having completed the kaining overlook strike, the strike itself is a 11/10 - am very excited to see what comes of CM versions of these, the mechanics were fun to learn and the whole fight felt interesting. Something I think everyone talks about already is how not good LFG is currently. I think this has gotten even worse with everyone who wants the turtle (so everyone) being forced to do a strike mission for it. Even figuring out how to join a Strike for the first time, was super confusing, I have a feeling a good portion of the population does not know that they even exist currently as they're hidden in the bottom of the LFG menu. As someone who hasn't previously frequented something that requires the LFG tool as a solo - the experience is horrible, especially if you're a DPS. We really need to have some form of strike 'queue' as well with some types of role selections. If you're not running with a guild / people you know you're basically forced to start your own group, or sit there and stare and refresh till someone starts one. I really hope we see some form of queue system for strikes at some point because if the others are anything like Kaining overlook, it'd be a shame if a good part of the population is missing out on a core game feature as good as this.

After the patch I noticed a few things The breakbar being broke doesn't prevent her from switching sides / enabling tail mechanic. This makes the recent change worthless as she just dashes during the time now, or summons a tail so you can't damage her. The breakbar happens with RNG. We had one breakbar one fight, and two another. This makes no way to 'plan' or 'coordinate' for the breakbar, Having to count on luck to get breakbars to win isn't fun. The dash attack between 0-40% is way too frequent. It seems like the changes to remove the time inbetween phases may have affected this and made it worse. The tail mechanic happens too frequently after 20% - Once you get past 20% you have to do the three bosses, this is already complex enough to coordinate. Even if you perfectly coordinate that, and get everyone back to the platform, a single tail phase with her dashing can ruin it. We had 3 minutes AFTER the 3 champions were down with everyone back on the platform. We were doing a lot of DPS, but between 4 dash swaps, 2 tail phases and half the team being in bubbles / tornados (see below) we lost. After 20% - the amount of bubbles / tornados caused by the tail phase is ridiculous. We had a team of maybe 40~ and more than half the people were stuck in bubbles / tornados for the last 3 minutes of the fight. What people were left were trying to pop them, but as people respawned and flew back in they would get bubbled again. Edit: To add to the above, to be clear I'm not advocating for making the fight easy, but between the break bar not preventing some of the other mechanics, and the RNG of which events happen in general (esp after 20% when you've just had to coordinate a 3 way team split) adds up to make this too hard for the average player. I think this is by far the best fight in the game, but the RNG in some of the mechanics makes 'securing' the win not skill based, which I don't think is what yall are going for. One of our post-patch runs we did everything we could right as a PUG team (We 'failed' both wisp phases but no one died during the wave, most of our top DPS had the buff, this is probably as good as a 'pug' group can expect), we hit every breakbar we got, we DPSed all the bosses perfectly evenly without slowing down, we swapped to tail each time it came up, had 3 minutes at the end to kill her and lost every advantage we had gained from coordination to the lack of a break bar past 20%, two tail phases (we broke the first one quickly, and proceeded to DPS as fast as we could, but the second one screwed us). If we had gotten one Poison mechanic, or a break bar during the final part, or one less tail, we would have cleared it. The tail bubbles mixed with the vortexes made getting teammates back almost impossible.

I've not seen a single one of these in all 16 runs I've done, the only time I've seen this is when MightyTeapot's guild did this - your experience is not everyone's. You can win this fight no matter what classes with sub-optimal DPS and CCs, you just need a lil coordination. If you don't like loosing start running and explaining the mechanics to the new people. You'll find more and more runs get closer to passing.

Thank you for not just nerfing it. These changes should definitely address the problems we've been having with it. Having ran this 16 times now and in a leading / commanding role for about half of those, these changes should address everything. The extra 90 seconds from the orb phase itself is enough to make 6 of the 18 failed runs pass, other runs failed due to lack of CC, or people not going to the tail. Each of those was caused by lack of communication when the person with the commander tag wasn't calling things out. I and many others love the difficulty of the content, please don't make this a spam one fest, make people learn the game, and keep up the good work! EOD is by far the best expansion the game has seen

Heyo! Just figured I'd post my thoughts / feelings after completing the story today (took 13 hours with pretty much no breaks). Note: Some MILD spoilers obviously, but won't be going into any detail about the story. I apologies for the paragraphs but have a ton of thoughts to dump! First off: Important bugs / issues Kirin hero point doesn't respawn ever after it's first killed, this completely prevents map completion. Taimi intro had audio desync When arriving to Cantha with a party member when you're in the 'knocked out' sequence, if the other player has not downloaded their map, and it downloads slower than you, they spawn in and are stuck in a perpetual knocked out state. This 'Fixes' if the other player goes to the end of the instance. There is a part of a mission where you go 'beat up a thug' in the city. If you do the HP (which is the thug) before this quest, you have to wait a day to continue the story unless you wait for someone else to fight it. Jade bots can't be upgraded due to the new salvage mechanic not working (known) When holding the fishing pole on a skiff, when you mount the skiff, go to another fishing hole, and unmount, you have to re-pull out your fishing pole. This is a bad experience esp with no individual keybinds. Chef crafting recipes from fishing don't exist??? Might just be me but I can't find any Now to get back to some feedback. Story - 25/10 - By far (IMO) the best part of the expansion, I wont go into detail here but as someone with 4000 hours in both GW1 and GW2, this beat every expectation I had, only wish there was more! If I had one 'critique' it'd be as an existing gw2 player I wish it was more obvious to follow the story, and if you do the hearts will naturally complete (mostly in the beginning). I like this change but because the rest of the game is not like this, I went and did all the hearts, HP, etc only to find out I needed to do those tasks during the story 😛 Maps Seitung Province - Am a huge fan, overall 11/10, map flows well and there is a lot to do. The 'teaching' of the game / combat through the hearts should 100 PERCENT exist as a tutorial for new players. It's a shame its at the lvl 80 content. New Kaineng City - Again am speechless, 12/10, map both flows well, has a TON to do (Dynamic events / combat in the city is so refreshing). My only gripe was due to the issues with jade bots, which led to the 'hacked' together heart to get them, and not being able to use them was disappointing. Echovald Wilds - Read all below for context, 7/10 This may be anecdotal as I was focused on story but this map flowed a lot less than the others. Two of the heart quests seem to also be the same 'task' and didn't feel much different. I've yet to finish all the content (esp arborstone mastery) in here yet so take this with a grain of salt. Visually this zone is 12/10 easily. Dragons End - Let me just say WOW, 100/10, the map, the meta, where the finale goes down, the visuals, thus far everything about this map has been great. My only one complaint is it wasn't obvious how to get the siege turtle. I found out how after talking to people later but putting this info in the players hands at the hatchery would be good. The meta / environment of this map will make this a must visit map for years to come Masteries General - Make MORE masteries for each track. I'd love to have the ability to build up points over time and have more benefits. Fishing - Let me start by saying the Fishing "System" is perfect. It has the perfect balance of difficulty, with casualness / lighthearted ness of a gathering profession. As of a full 13-15 hours of play in however I will say it's not obvious immediately what the fishing materials are used for. When you catch a fish and hover it, it tells you to turn it into materials, it's not obvious if this is the best / only choice. Additionally am not sure if it's a bug, but I've not seen any recipes using the new fish materials yet. I tried to look at things with level 400 cooking in the 'discovery' but the fish don't show there at all. Secondly, I'd like to see more 'free' fishing rods. From what I can tell there are only two fishing rods, I expected as I went through the maps there would be a fishing vendor with a new rod, maybe locked behind masteries / achievements. It seems like this isn't the case and this may end up becoming just a place for cosmetics, but I'd love to see more progression than just "here is one pole then here is your final one" - Same with the bobbers, there is a 'jade' one in the final zone, but I was hoping for more variety here. I look forward to the future of this skill either way though. Skiff - 100/10 - Only complaint is it needs it's own keybind, the lack of that made me jump to using my skimmer instead of skiff which was disappointing, but every bit about using it (with friends too) was great. Jade Bots - 9/10 - Despite the issues above, I'm giving Jade bots a 8/10. I've made it up to the third mastery and find the first ability, and the interactions in the world with it to be great. Once the upgrading of bots is fixed, I am pretty pumped for customizing it. My only 'complaint' there will be please give us more ways to customize them, more upgrades, and more masteries. Something that ties with fishing (maybe scanning the water to increase rare fish chance) or other things. Arborstone - n/a - I've not done this really at all except the initial bit - will report back later on this Turtle - n/a - I expect this to be a 100 / 10 if it was anything like the beta test, but I've not unlocked the mastery yet. Gems One spot I think yall shot yourselves in the foot was the gem store. There was a total of "3" new things in the gem store specific to this expansion (one is counting black lion chests), I'm sure others were like this too but was expecting more stuff to spend gems on (fishing pole skins, skiff skins, etc). Will save my gems till you do I suppose 🙂 Outside of all the above, I've not gotten to do much, I'm starting to look into the legendary weapons, strikes, and map completion. All in all I'm happy with EOD and think it only improves on IMO the best MMO out there. Looking forward to living world / updates to this content, and to the WVW and pvp patches that will follow this release. Thank you for an amazing game and all of your hardwork

Signet of illusions seems to have the same problem scepter 1 has (won't go past 3) I'm finding very often Thousand Cuts gets used (and goes on cd) but has no animation and does no damage