Rasimir.6239

I feel that the asynchronous friend system has considerable part in the success of casual, non-organized multiplayer content of this game. If I encounter a good commander in wvw or on the world boss train, or meet a cool person while pugging dungeons or fractals that mentions pugging them regularly, I can friend them and join in again at a later time without polluting their friend list. I support allowing people to opt out of having followers (e.g. only people that they follow can follow them back), and I support the idea that blocking somebody removes myself from their friend list (and doesn't allow them to follow me again as long as I block them), but I firmly oppose the idea to only allow mutual friendships, since that would seriously impact the non-/semi-organized multiplayer content and lining up with people and communities that suit your playing habits.

What about the glyphs? If we get legendary gathering tools in the armory, does that mean every character has to have their own gathering glyphs? Or do I have to slot/unslot glyphs and move them from/to shared storage every time I change characters? Are legendary gathering tool glyphs the next step, to return the convenience lost from switching to legendary tools straight out of the armory?

Very few things in this world are "generally agreed upon", and this forum and its topics aren't any exception. The internet, and more specifically social media with its algorithms that strive to show you topics relevant to you, have created an illusion that often leads to people seeing their own opinion mirrored more frequently than being confronted with other opinions, which leads to a feeling that what we think is the "general opinion". In reality we have a lot of different "bubbles" with people being led to exchange opinions with others of similar believes, but if you try to look outside your bubble (which isn't as easy as it sounds, not least due to the mentioned algorithms that make it pretty complicated to get an unbiased view of opinions prevalent in the different bubbles) you will find a lot of people with quite different views on reality than what you thought was the "general" opinion. It does give an indication on what posts spark a strong reaction in the readers. It's an in-between between a full-out discussion and just passively comsuming a discussion others are leading. If a post gets a dozend or more reactions, there's a good chance it has hit home with a lot more people than only those that choose to actively pursue the topic. A person can agree with, not agree with, or be honestly confused by what you say, but not care to be "forced" into a full-out discussion on the topic. It is a form of participation that we may not be used to, but I wouldn't say it's useless. It does give an indication of the more general opinion on the topic. If you do claim your opinion to be the "general" opinion, then you should be interested in getting the silent masses to at least indicate what side of the fence they're on. Now this doesn't fit in with the other posts you made. If you want to achieve change, then you need to include everyone, not silence those that don't participate in the discussion on your terms.

This so much! We have had threads complaining about "mastery grind" or "experience grind for masteries" on this forum before, but they all came down to people trying to rush to max mastery in the most efficient way instead of just playing the game any odd way you feel like. This game literally throws experience at you, you can't avoid it. Go anywhere your character hasn't been before, harvest any resource nodes you stumble upon, accidentally take part in an event you might not even have noticed, all of this gives you experience. The game doesn't just start when you have gained all mastery levels. The game starts when you pick it up. Just wander around aimlessly, take in the sights, figure out what parts of the game you actually enjoy and want to play, and mastery experience (and leveling experience before it if you don't want to use scrolls and tomes) will accumulate if you want it or not. My personal experience was the exact oposite of what the op describes: I have played whatever looked fun to me, and mastery levels just happened. To me that's the best thing about our mastery system: you don't have to worry about it. If you play, experience will come (and a good bunch of mastery points, too). No need to grind anything, nor to lament about lost experience if you play in the "wrong" region, because it won't be long and you'll be maxed out anyway. It's not the system that is flawed. It's the mindset of "getting it done in the most efficient way". You are trying to use the mastery system to "prepare for playing the game", but that is not what it is. The mastery system is playing the game. It's not the chore you need to do before you get to enjoy the rest of the day, it is part of that rest of the day that you can spend however you feel like.

Oh, I'm sure they can. What I'm questioning is how many people outside of Belgium will be upset because the bundle without the rng items is exactly the one they want, but they only have the more expensive bundle available.

And taking up a bank/inventory slot. To some people this doesn't matter, but I know several pack rats where every single inventory slot is crucial 🤣.

Plus there are plenty of people that might buy the bundles now (because it's still good value even if you don't care for the keys or dye kits) that would gladly buy a cheaper bundle without keys/dyes instead, thus automatically loosing ANet money. If people from Belgium get the stuff I want cheaper because they don't have to buy unwanted keys bundled in with it, then I'd want access to that bundle, too. I'm really not sure if ANet would win or loose at this point, but I'm pretty confident that if they only offered the partial bundles in areas where key sales are illegal, that the number of complaint threads (and consequently the resulting bad publicity for the game) would increase because now the people not having access to the cheaper bundles (without rng items) would potentially feel like they are getting the short end of the stick.

There are lots of characters that show up throughout the story. Some of my favorites are Tegwen and Carys who first turn up in one of the early Sylvari stories, later on in a lvl 60 priory storyline, and ultimately during the advance into Orr, where Tegwen leads the Pale Reavers. Then there's the gear warband of course, that first shows up in the early Norn storyline, and ultimately ends up in Orr, too. Professor Gorr plays a prominent role in the asura racial storyline, but turns up again in later chapters, too, and Traherne himself is introduced in the Sylvari storyline long before the other races get to meet him on Claw Island. There's also lots of other characters that turn up multiple times throughout the story. One of my favorites is Shashoo, who first turns up in the personal story quaggan chapter and goes on to leading a pact camp in the northwestern parts of Verdant Brink. If you are interested in that kind of thing, create new characters and play through the different archs of the personal story. Once you know what you are looking for, you'll be surprised at how the familiar faces are woven all through the game 🙂 .

But that was the whole point Shining One.1635 was trying to make when you originally quoted them: The purchase page is not the page that informs you what the whole game is. It is a page that informs you about what you are buying (in that case, one expansion or an expansion bundle). If I want to get an overview of what releases are available for a game, I don't expect that on the purchase page, but go looking for a release page instead (which incidentally this game has prominently on the top bar of its main website).

Again: from a purely technical point of view this simply does not work. You can't play S3 maps (and stories, since those take place on those maps) without HoT masteries. They even warned players back when they released S3e1 that you need gliding to get anywhere on the map at all, and advanced gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map without having to port back to waypoints constantly.

But they do, both in game and out of it. If I go to the main GW2 webpage and check what releases are available for this game, the first bullet point (before the expansions) is "Living World - Content updates that add story, rewards & more to the world of GW2". If I go to the story journal in game it has all of the seasons listed, and leads me directly to their requirements if I haven't unlocked them. If I go to the release page on the wiki, it even offers separate filter options for "expansion" and "living world stories". I still stand by my point that while story is enjoyable for many, it is also not the kind of content the majority of players will spend the major part of their gametime on. As such, ANet can't put too much emphasis on story when advertising the game, else people that look for a primarily story focussed game will find it just as misleading as others do now. Every time a living world episode releases, we get countless of complaint threads stating "I finished the story in two hours, there is nothing to do in this episode". If they push players in general even more towards story by implying a "need" to unlock all story episodes, then those complaints are only going to multiply. Not everybody plays MMORPGs because of the story. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually a minority that gets involved in the story the way you and I seem to do. There is a story in GW2, and personally I enjoy it a lot, but it's just not that important for many players. For those that care for this kind of thing, there is plenty of information around, but if they prefer to blindly buy stuff based on assumptions rather than look around just a tiny bit, that's on them.

That very much depends on your priorities. I know plenty of players who don't care one bit for the story and enjoy the game without paying attention to it at all. Both my oldest daughter and my husband, for example, have played the expansions without living world, and even partially out of order, and didn't mind one bit. Game mechanics are important for them, and they usually buy expansions because of elite specs (both are heavily into wvw). Story is mostly just a nuisance they can't always avoid 😉 . Having to dig through "you are missing story parts a, b, and c, and maps x, y, and z if you buy this expansion" would've been meaningless at best, confusing or irritating at worst for that kind of player. I get where you come from. You like playing story, and so do I, but the story is really just a small part of this game, and there is a wealth of content you can play without ever paying attention to the story. It's not the only (and likely not even the main) selling point of this game for the majority of players, so putting that much extra emphasis on it is likely just as misleading (into making people think that story is more expansive than it actually is) as not mentioning the additional story parts (which, even if I repeat myself here, other games with expansion+dlc models don't mention either).

Does your suggestion include the option to buy a living world season without an expansion? Else it doesn't make sense, since for example while season 3 sets up the PoF story, at the same time you CAN'T play season 3 without HoT, since a lot of the HoT masteries are crucial to get anywhere in the story instances and on the maps. Try playing Bloodstone Fen without gliding or mounts (since you're coming from the angle of wanting to play story in order), it's simply unplayable. While each living world season's story leads into the following expansion, its mechanics are tied to the preceeding expansion. That's why access to season 3 is currently tied to HoT, and same with season 4/PoF . You can't sell PoF + season 3 unless you make sure people have to buy HoT too/have HoT included due to technical/mastery limitations, then have to add season 2 from the story point of view ... and soon you end up with only "everything up front", which in return drives away a considerable number of potential players that prefer to piecemeal buy only the parts they want to play now. What about the player that doesn't care for story enough to pay real money for living world seasons, but buys the bundle because it is offered on the expansion purchase page, only to realize later that they could've easily gotten those seasons with in-game resources instead? Won't they be just as numerous and just as upset in your scenario as the story lovers that are irritated by the current model? Of course ANet could offer all kind of packages on their purchase page ... the one for the story lover, the one for the feature fan that doesn't care for story and just wants their mounts, the one for the "I want to have it all up front" kind of person, the one for the picky shopper that picks and chooses each expansion/season/episode individually ... but you'd need a college diploma and a year's worth of research to even understand the difference between the packages. Somehow I doubt that we would end up with less complaints though ... different ones for sure, but not less.

The problem here is that the poll question itself is incorrect. As has been discussed countless times, in the now locked threads as well as others, technically there is no such things as "shoulders" on an outfit. Outfits are one-piece (or in rare cases two- or three-piece with separate hats and/or gloves) designs that don't have any information that could separate e.g. the shoulders from the chest armor. There's no shirt below the shoulders, they are simply part of the whole. If you hide them, you'll be left with a hole in your character. Directing the person that created this poll (and anybody else interested) to old threads that explain the technical impossibility of "hiding outfit shoulders" is a valid response, although it probably would've helped to give a quick summary of the basic problem so the reader had an idea of what they were looking for in those old threads. As the number of threads that were dug up show, the topic has been discussed again and again, and at this point there isn't really anything to add anymore beyond "there is no such thing as shoulders on an outfit".

Are dungeons dead? I must've missed the memo, and so apparently did a lot of other people, because every time I feel like playing dungeons, I get a party filled through lfg in a matter of minutes.

If you're looking for a game that you can no-life for a month or two, then drop again, you're better off looking for a subscription game. Buy-to-play games are usually set up to give good value for money for people that play less intensively over a longer period of time. The game is aimed at people that play less per day, but many more months, and for them it's probably among the best value for money you can find in today's MMO market. There are plenty of MMO players for whom subscription MMOs are much more of a rip-off than what this game charges one-time. Those the main target audience of this game's purchase model, not the ones who rush through the content for a few weeks, then drop the game like a hot potatoe.

Because they don't afk. They stand in one spot (most likely doing stuff on another monitor at the time) and re-summon their minions every couple of minutes. The minions do the rest of the "work". It's unfortunate, but they've found their way to game the system. They're technically not doing anything that's not allowed (as long as they re-summon their minions manually ... once they use a script, we're getting into the topic of botting, which is quite different). The consolation is that their "gain" is fairly low compared to players actively playing the game.

So you come back to a game you haven't played for more than 7 years, and throw a fit because the developer dares to charge $110 for ALL of the content released in those 7+ years? Remind me again, which other games of similar scope offer access to that much content without monthly subscription or paid dlc in addition to expansions? Sorry, but I'm getting tired of these ever-repeating complaint threads. There is so much content in this game, it's dirt cheap compared to any MMO I've ever played (and I've played a lot of them), and you can even purchase the dlc parts with resources you gather in-game. Let me guess, the next argument is going to be "but I can't save that much gold from playing story". A word of advice here: trying to exclusively play story is setting yourself up for the next disaster (and likely the next complaint thread). The later parts of the story (starting right with the first expansion story actually) expects that players have experience in this game's combat and class mechanics that you likely only gain by playing the game beyond the story. This isn't the "play a few hours of interactive movie" kind of story games. It's a complex, 9-year old open world multiplayer roleplaying game with a skill-focussed combat system. There is a lot of content beyond the actual story instances, content that expands the world and the world's story. If you want to play this game, expect it to deliver weeks and months of entertainment exploring the world and the stories within. If you think that's not worth the investment (and invenstment you don't even have to make up-front), then that's a you problem, not a game problem.

That's one of the drawbacks of giving the players the freedom of playing how and what they want. If you want to force introductions of game mechanics on players, you need to force the players across a narrow gameplay path so they can't avoid said introductions. No more leveling by crafting, level boost tomes and scrolls, spvp at level 2 and similar, because the game would have to make sure that people go through all those introductions before they participate in high-level content. Somehow I don't think such a change would go over well with the playerbase ...

If you want something "future-proof" that you can use with any build you come up with, then celestial has always been that. No matter what build you choose, celestial equipment will give you stats to go with that build. What celestial equipment doesn't and won't ever do is give you the maximum possible stats to go with any build. You will always need specialized equipment if you want to min-max a specific build. The only real "news" here (if you were looking for some) is that players that boost to 80 now get moderately useful equipment from the start, instead of the defense-heavy stats they used to get. Whether or not they want to specialize from there on is up to them. Believe it or not, there are plenty of players even today that never moved on from the soldier's gear they got from boosting their characters.

Judging from the amount of confused reactions scattered across this thread, it looks like I'm not the only one confused by this topic 😂. I still don't get it though, even after reading through the tread. Those of you who agree with the OP's point (whatever that point may be), would you be willing to explain to me what this is all about? Do you have any examples of specific posts/topics?

I'm sorry, but your post left me confused. I don't use Twitter either, but I went and compared their Twitter feed to the official news blog just now, and aside from the brand-new elite spec teaser pic (which isn't something I'd expect a blog post for) there's nothing substantial on there that isn't in the news blog. Would you care to explain what kind of information you are missing that can't be found outside of Twitter?

Now you're twisting words to support your point. Living world episodes have never been free content. ANet made it clear from the start that those are unlockable dlc, and that there simply is an initial period with a separate, different unlock criteria (logging in as opposed .to purchasing on the gem store later on). There is a clear difference between a loyalty reward that you gain by playing at a certain time, and free content that you can just access whenever. Wanting the reward without meeting the criteria is entitlement.

Living world episodes are an odd one in the context of "getting cheaper and cheaper" in that ANet is giving them away as loyalty rewards when they are first released. They are never free though, either you buy them or you get them as reward for logging into the game at a specific time. Aside from some very enjoyable maps and interesting events, most of the living world episodes give you access to ascended trinkets in exchange for map currency, which often is more convenient than other ways of getting similar trinkets. Season 4 especially also gives access to exclusive weapon and armor skins and even two mounts (roller beetle and skyscale). Weapon and armor skins are also available in the Icebrood Saga episodes. If minis are your thing, then you'll find plenty of exclusive ones across all episodes. I don't know what rewards you might want, but you can figure that out by browsing the wiki that has a summary page for each episode. As far as need, there is nothing in this game that you absolutely need, since you can always get something comparable through other maps or different game modes. It all depends on your playstyle and what you actually enjoy.

You don't. You won't get all the details, and won't know all of the characters you meet, but the stories in themselves are pretty well-contained, so you can very well play and understand them on their own. You have the advantage that you don't need to buy HoT, the one expansion people used to pay $50 for, and that is bundled with PoF (for no extra charge) these days. On top of that, you can even get a discount on PoF if you buy it bundled with EoD. This game is 9 years old, and has continuously released content during those 9 years. It should come as no surprise to anybody that buying up all (or most) of those 9 years of content isn't the same price as buying a small, no-dlc single player game during steam sale.