Terrible timing of xpac announcement.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

1. A-net announced balance patch of june 27th couple of weeks prior
2. Player base is not happy as some changes are absolutely ridicilous (necros, mesmers)
3. On the day of patch we the players find out about xpac, whose big changes to combat explain some of the patch's.
4. Our feedback gets binned,  because from the start we didn't have a proper picture of things to come.
5. Now community is livid, because good feedback that is valid despite xpac, is still binned.

If you were going to make such earth shattering changes (new weapons for all professions, unlocking e-spec weapons to all of profession's specs) you should've given this info way sooner and both players and self more time to put this into perspective and balance around upcoming stuff.

All I can say now is that I wish you good sales on the newest xpac, and that you put that money into beefing up the dev team, especially the balance and testing.

Edited June 28, 2023 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[FiveBunnies.5730]

There is always someone who is unhappy with the updates. Before, some were unhappy with the complexity of the skyscales, now some are unhappy that it has become easier. Literally you can't release an update without someone being unhappy.  But if there aren't very many unhappy people, then it's already a success.

Personally, I'm inspired by the news. I suggest waiting until the release before getting discouraged.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Well my point was about profession balance patch that hit yesturday.
The profession forums (for necro and mesmer) are pretty much on fire.

That's because patch made drastic changes most likely due to upcoming xpac.
Xpac we knew nothing about and had no way to take things into perspective and provide feedback based on that.

Had they revealed xpac's combat system changes earlier, while delayed the balance patch,
there would be room for both better feedback and ironing out certain issues.
 As it is,  it's clear this round of changes was rushed and in some places things didn't get balanced, they got outright axed.

Edited June 28, 2023 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Chichimec.9364]

18 minutes ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

There is always someone who is unhappy with the updates. Before, some were unhappy with the complexity of the skyscales, now some are unhappy that it has become easier. Literally you can't release an update without someone being unhappy.  But if there aren't very many unhappy people, then it's already a success.

Personally, I'm inspired by the news. I suggest waiting until the release before getting discouraged.

This. Very much this. Personally I'm intrigued by the news of the upcoming xpac and I am going to pre-order it. Nice thing is, we can each make our own choices about it and vote one way or the other with our wallet.

[ilMasa.2546]

lol

[RobinotX.1604]

3 hours ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

There is always someone who is unhappy with the updates. Before, some were unhappy with the complexity of the skyscales, now some are unhappy that it has become easier. Literally you can't release an update without someone being unhappy.  But if there aren't very many unhappy people, then it's already a success.

Personally, I'm inspired by the news. I suggest waiting until the release before getting discouraged.

I mean this forum seems like a nest of very unhappy people in general so it feels like vocal minority in some cases. 

[Jianyu.7065]

4 hours ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

There is always someone who is unhappy with the updates. Before, some were unhappy with the complexity of the skyscales, now some are unhappy that it has become easier. Literally you can't release an update without someone being unhappy.  But if there aren't very many unhappy people, then it's already a success.

Personally, I'm inspired by the news. I suggest waiting until the release before getting discouraged.

This forum gets slightly more and more toxic as the years go by. But I do love that in all of gaming, this forum still retains one of the more sensible communities. 

[Farohna.6247]

People have been asking for what's to come, so here it is.   It's between festivals, and gets people prepared.  Why do you assume feedback gets binned...maybe it's simply not feedback that's fits their vision.  The GW2 community is one of the nicest in gaming but yikes they freak out.  

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

48 minutes ago, Farohna.6247 said:

People have been asking for what's to come, so here it is.   It's between festivals, and gets people prepared.  Why do you assume feedback gets binned...maybe it's simply not feedback that's fits their vision.  The GW2 community is one of the nicest in gaming but yikes they freak out.  

Welp first off congratulations on actually reading my first post. More than i can say about the first reply it got..

Feedback was binned. It's a fact. I can say this seeing the things that got pushed through despite overwhelmingly negative player feedback pre-patch. To make this short and sweet - take a look at mesmer and necro forums if you don't believe me.

The horrible timing of xpac announcement along with patch going live couldn't be worse if they tried.

It gave dev team a reason to take player feedback less seriously ("they don't know about xpac yet"), while the horrible patch made players doubtful about a-net's ability to balance things right, diminishing their trust.
And in 2 months if not less we get a huge balance shift with xpac. While this nuclear fallout we'll call "June 27th" on it's own looks like some months work to contain and restore...

[captrowdy.9561]

You know not everyone had the same opinion. 

[azorean.1850]

people will complain about anything eh

[idpersona.3810]

5 minutes ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

You know not everyone had the same opinion. 

I have yet to see an even generally positive opinion of the balance patch. The initial announcement was overwhelmingly ratio'd.

I do think the expansion announcement has gone over generally well. It is/was weird to have both come out at the same time.

[captrowdy.9561]

1 minute ago, idpersona.3810 said:

I have yet to see an even generally positive opinion of the balance patch. The initial announcement was overwhelmingly ratio'd.

I do think the expansion announcement has gone over generally well. It is/was weird to have both come out at the same time.

Just like with a thing on the internet the positive people don’t have much to say. I’m a little bothered  about some things with the patch but I’m the general they have done a lot of good things this year. 

[Ruisenior.6342]

7 hours ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

But if there aren't very many unhappy people, then it's already a success

This time there are lots of people not happy, and mostly of them like me wont spend a a cent on this new exp, even less preordering it.

 

[idpersona.3810]

Anet this year has given me more reason for pause than any other point in my playing this game over the past decade.
EoD was lackluster, but still enjoyable. Gyala Delves was....severely underwhelming. I like the map design, but everything after that felt...misguided to me. And the story was just disappointing. I have high hopes for the next expansion, but I'm not going to say that my faith in this game hasn't been shaken some.

[Farohna.6247]

31 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Welp first off congratulations on actually reading my first post. More than i can say about the first reply it got..

Feedback was binned. It's a fact. I can say this seeing the things that got pushed through despite overwhelmingly negative player feedback pre-patch. To make this short and sweet - take a look at mesmer and necro forums if you don't believe me.

The horrible timing of xpac announcement along with patch going live couldn't be worse if they tried.

It gave dev team a reason to take player feedback less seriously ("they don't know about xpac yet"), while the horrible patch made players doubtful about a-net's ability to balance things right, diminishing their trust.
And in 2 months if not less we get a huge balance shift with xpac. While this nuclear fallout we'll call "June 27th" on it's own looks like some months work to contain and restore...

I appreciate your post, I think you bring up some good points to consider. 

Perhaps it's from playing another game that would occasionally change things and my preferred class would no longer be the same, and I would have to relearn, tweak, respec, or wait for them to alter again, that I tend to shrug in GW2.  I may not like the changes but also I don't think most companies really care what I think as it is what they want or create.  The answer is then don't buy their product.  That's really the only way they hear you, hit them in the proverbial wallet.  

I don't consider it mushroom cloud level screaming and waving hands.  But I'm also not a brand loyal person and expect very minimal regard to what customers think.  Should it influence how companies create or produce a product, yep.  But this becomes more like people who want to see the manager, and tell them how they have shopped here for years, and they won't come back.  And the manager listens, and nods, and then when the customer leaves they really don't give a kitten because there are more customers.  

Unfortunate timing maybe, or maybe a distraction from the perceived dumpster fire of June 27th?

 

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

The poor timing part I see here is, besides your OP's valid points, also the Beta already starting tomorrow.

Does that mean we hold off on the numerous bugs introduced in this patch untill after this beta weekend?

 

[Ashen.2907]

3 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Feedback was binned. It's a fact.

Feedback will always be binned. Whether it is in gaming, a restaurant's menu, a themepark experience, literally anything.

The reason is fairly simple. One piece of feedback will always contradict at least one other. Every request for X will have someone who prefers that X not happen. So, whichever way a company goes regarding X will mean ignoring at least one side of the issue.

The overwhelmingly negative feedback, and I am one of those who has such a negative opinion, is from a relatively small, notn-representative, number of people.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Astralporing.1957]

21 hours ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

There is always someone who is unhappy with the updates.

Oh, please, it's not just a matter of few people disliking some changes. This balance patch is just plain bad, especially as it highlight that currently Anet doesn't seem to have any idea how to properly balance a game and seems to just throw random stuff at the wall thinking something sticks.

[FiveBunnies.5730]

48 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Oh, please, it's not just a matter of few people disliking some changes. This balance patch is just plain bad, especially as it highlight that currently Anet doesn't seem to have any idea how to properly balance a game and seems to just throw random stuff at the wall thinking something sticks.

Some people think it's bad, some people think it's good.  And we really don't know which of them are more. Do not rush to be categorical. 

[Astralporing.1957]

6 minutes ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

Some people think it's bad, some people think it's good.  And we really don't know which of them are more. Do not rush to be categorical. 

I don't rush to be categorical. It's not a matter of preference. It's a matter of stuff being plain broken. And even if someone likes them being broken, it does not fix them in the slightest. 

I mean, sure, i bet lot of people liked the immortal Herald build with 95% damage reduction. It was still bad. Scourge lost a lot of its healing, a huge chunk of its dps, and some utility all in exchange for alacrity support option... that doesn;t even work well. Again, i bet some people liked that - especially those that never liked Scourge and are fine with it getting nerfed to the ground. Did that make those changes a good idea? Not at all.

And i can go more...

Edited June 29, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[mercury ranique.2170]

21 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Well my point was about profession balance patch that hit yesturday.
The profession forums (for necro and mesmer) are pretty much on fire.
 

After any profession balance patch, some classes are on fire. The main reason is not an unrelated xpac release, but as it is what a balance patch does. It brings balance by  toning some classes/combo's down and improving others. And yes, there is always debate and there are always people saying they got it wrong. So please do not start about that.  bottom line is already discussed; 

 

 

22 hours ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

There is always someone who is unhappy

I shortened the quote a bit to it's essence. You ar ecurrently unhappy, so for you the timing might be bad, but you are not a majority, the people voicing themself on a forum are not a majority (as most come here to complain in the first place, those who are happy play the game). As you can see on this thread, most people on this forum seems to disagree with you..

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

11 minutes ago, mercury ranique.2170 said:

After any profession balance patch, some classes are on fire. The main reason is not an unrelated xpac release, but as it is what a balance patch does. It brings balance by  toning some classes/combo's down and improving others. And yes, there is always debate and there are always people saying they got it wrong. So please do not start about that.  bottom line is already discussed;

I said forums not classes. This patch did many thing wrong and many professions suffered.
This is not your regular patch issues, this particular one was a disaster on a whole different level compared to most.

And that is a big xpac related issue, because xpac will introduce huge shifts in profession balance.
If your town's 3rd league football team just lost 0:5 to average kitten guest team, would you go bet money on them winning the next match which is vs 1st league team? Cause I wouldn't.
And there's a fair chance a lot of player will close their wallets fearing that game balance will be a major dumpster fire for which they do not want to pay until it's actually fixed. And that may take a long while..

Edited June 29, 2023 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[FortyTwo.8697]

This entire discussion can be summed up like this:

Some people want to mindlessly consume without actually giving a dawn about what it is they stuff in their mouths. Negative feedback disturbs their peaceful mindless consuming.

Other people are mindful customers who genuinely care and are worried about the direction this game is heading. The carelessness of the mindless consumer increases their worries makes them lose hope.

If this gets out of hand the core audience that actually cares will leave for greener pastures and never return. The mindless consumer that doesn't actually care wonders why the game is getting less populated, then act surprised when the consumer slob stops falling in their feed bins because the game died and the company went out of business without them realizing it.

Companies need to relearn that they do need their core customer base to build and maintain a sustainable business. Investment money is like a band aid on an open festering wound. Even giants will be toppled once they stop caring about what happens around their feet.

Edited June 29, 2023 by FortyTwo.8697

[mercury ranique.2170]

Ah, it seems we have entered the white knighting part of the discussion.

Everyone is entitled to have an opinion and voice this. I have no objection to this. The topic (to try and stop any derailment) is that  cause (some) people are unhappy about a balance update, the timing of an expansion pack announcement is terrible.

I'm reacting to that. I',m not someone swallowing everything as a mindless consumer and such a statement derails this discussion and is just vile and unfair. Just as it should be unfair to say people who express their anger are bad. 

I can be critical and I might even voice this from time to time. I personally prefer to do this in a constructive way, but that is just cause I believe that is more efficient.

Back on topic, I do not think that this announcement is terrible timed just cause some people are hurt cause of a balance update. On the contrary, I think they know perfectly well people are not often happy with a balance update, specially when their build is affected. Having some perspective of the course of the game is a good way to counter this.

But then again ,as proven in this topic, some people just want to express anger. I'm not here for anger management and appeal to everyone to stay constructive. This does not mean it is not ok to express criticism, but also agree to disagree and stay civilized.