[[Hot Take] Gem store cosmetics suck [Merged]]

12 hours ago, Sgt Bubbles.4908 said:

And if it continues I worry it will feel less and less like a polished top 3 MMO in the market game that it is

Well, it isn't. It's never been. Perhaps you meant the top 3 MMO you've played recently, though, which I obviously can respect.

 

The idea that gem store cosmetics could ruin the game confuses me, though. Especially when there's been more serious issues slowly "ruining" the game and Anet insists in taking one step forward followed by two steps backwards in every department. I really don't understand how cosmetics could be that big of an issue but I wish this was my biggest problem with the game, or that something so silly could be the huge thing threatening to ruin the game for me too, I gotta admit that.

[May 2 Balance Update Preview]

Am I tripping or did they say they'd do something about support (and many builds not support-focused, really) having to spam utilities far too much? Cause they didn't do anything to alleviate that in the slightest, right?

[Just a thank you!]

14 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I know there's some disappointment in recent releases, but the appearance of forum negativity is exacerbated by the fact that positive posts don't generate arguments, and arguments keep posts at the top of the forum.

Sometimes, ironically, it's the game defenders that make the forums look negative with their relentless attemts to tear down the criticism, thereby repeatedly bumping the critical OP back to the top. It can also make a small critique seem like a passionate rage over time as post count grows in the "discussion".

Positive ones get a few emoji responses, maybe a reply or two, then quickly sink down and off the front page.

I veeery much agree with this.

 

I could be wrong, but I think that people don't feel like they need to elaborate so much when the feedback is positive, and getting good things is what's expected already - you're getting your time/money's worth. Personally, I find it odd when people act like Anet is doing them favors by doing the bare minimum, like releasing products for people to buy from the gem store. I have so many good things to tell people about this game (far more than negative things) but I don't see the point in talking too much about them here, among people who's probably been experiencing the game for longer than I have. What some people call "negativity", though, I think it's more important to be expressed, especially in places where Anet "might" see it. I understand that this can be hard for the most passionate defenders to deal with, since anything Anet does is more than enough to make them happy. However, that's obviously not the case for the whole player-base and it's ok for people to want to make sure their criticism is heard, especially in times like these when the company is changing their business model.

[Did Chromium Embedded Framework go live? [Merged]]

1 hour ago, LSD.4673 said:

Visible impact. As in, it'll look the same.

Hopefully it'll run faster though. I had no idea those other parts of the game that_shaman noted pulled stuff from the web. Makes perfect sense why they're so sluggish though...

Guess I interpreted "any visible impact on the player experience" like "any noticeable changes for you" or something. If they meant that there won't be any impact in the graphics, that's fine, I understand that no one should be expecting that. I'm just actually excited for the BLTC/TP to run smoother.

[Did Chromium Embedded Framework go live? [Merged]]

Wait, we won't notice any impact? I thought it was supposed to make the BLTC/TP run a lot smoother (I could be wrong). 

[(UPDATED) February 14 WvW Rewards Update]

• Adjusted the rewards granted by Objective Scaling Rewards.

So, that's what they say in the patch notes. What does it mean? What changed about the rewards? How does it work now? Do you guys always have to figure stuff out for yourselves when it comes to WvW?

[Reflecting on Anet's recent blog post, what type of content do you find engaging, what deserves more emphasis from Arenanet?]

3 minutes ago, GEGEZZ.7563 said:

i'm sorry but i can't vote, because what i enjoy these days the most isn't there in your list.

 

I like fishing, cooking, gathering, collecting food recipes, work on my home instance and serve food to people, and use my gold to either buy things or run quizzes to make people more knowledgeable.

 

I have played over 60k hours of video games, with like 20-25k of GW2. In most games combat is everywhere and i have seen enough of it. So i'm mostly playing with the other things there are ingame now that don't involve combat.

 

Cheers

I came back from BDO to GW2 hoping that those things you mentioned would have been worked on but I still don't find them very enjoyable to do. Anet could improve those areas so much... Gathering, cooking and "life-skills" in general (including home instances) are the only things making me miss other games. Besides the awful input lag I'm having in GW2, but that's another story.

 

I voted for everything except Story. I don't like the way Anet does it. I'm currently playing Living World Season 2 and finding it to be borderline torture. I hope it gets better, but from what I heard the story content just keeps having highs and lows. And I mean mechanically, not the story itself. Sometimes the mechanics and the way the story is presented are so bad that it almost seems like a bad joke. Plenty of great content in the game, though. Love doing metas and world bosses. WvW can be so much fun! Instanced group content, or any group content for that matter are awesome.

[Can GW2 be ruining my SSD?]

Way faster than it should, at least? Cause something strange has been happening. I returned to the game almost two months ago and for the first time installed it on an SSD. It ran fine for a couple of weeks. Super smooth, just like the MMORPG I had been playing during my GW2 break. However, the performance is getting noticeably worse every week. It's baffling, really. I've been getting awful stutters seemingly out of nowhere, and stutters that would be somewhat expected (here and there during metas and wvw, for instance) if the game weren't on an SSD (16 GB RAM, RTX 2060, i5 9600k running between 60-75 °C, for reference). Actually, models and textures are taking a good 10 seconds or so to load when I reach the Trader's Forum, for instance. This didn't happen before and I'm assuming it shouldn't be happening now. Summon your mount there for the first time? Stutter. First dash? Have another stutter! To emphasize: the game was running far smoother when I started playing early January. No stutters, no matter the chaos on the screen. I'd never see models and textures load out of a sudden in front of me as I explored a map or even as I TP'd somewhere, everything would just load during the loading screens (those are taking longer too, by the way).

 

I haven't been playing any other game, haven't installed anything, haven't messed with the settings - I've done nothing. It just really feels like playing the game is damaging my system so I thought I should ask if, by any chance, GW2 isn't a good game to have installed on an SSD. Perhaps something in the way the game's coded, perhaps it does a lot of rewriting of data or some old features don't go well with the way SSDs work? Does anyone have any advice to share, or has gone through something similar? Thanks in advance.

[GEMSTORE REQUESTS: New Items; Items offered again - [Merged]]

Hey, guys. Do they ever sell Character Slots bundles? Like the ones on sale right now for Shared Inventory? I need more slots sooo bad 😖 but just so there's no risk that this message is considered off-topic, consider this a request. Moooar Character Slots sales, with a bunch of them in a bundle (or not, regular separate slots are fine too! 💖)

[Ping issue [Merged]]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:26 AM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

The devs likely can't help you with this issue, as they don't run the servers. Its Amazon Web Services (AWS), so the most they can do is communicate with the Amazon engineers on your behalf.

Well, not to be rude, but... duh?

It's not like we're supposed to seek AWS and investigate ourselves. I wonder if the devs/support team are aware of the problem and doing something about it. I thought their communication with their community had gotten better and that's one of the reasons I returned to the game recently.

Those lag spikes, though... Worst part is - and I'm not blaming Anet's team, before someone gets all defensive in their behalf - I actually paid for a annual subscription to a VPN (or GPN as some would say) to make sure I wouldn't have latency issues but it's been terrible. At least it helps a lot with other mmos, just not so much with GW2.