GW2 Support Staff are Awesome

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

I kinda accidentally reskinned and stat-swapped and salvaged / deleted my "Veilrender" ascended PoF Specialization collection reward item 4 years back(or more i don't remember exactly what happened to that item) and i did something stupid with the "Primma Donna" EoD Collection reward itemas well  and I just recently realized that I don't have those 2 items in my inventory in any of my characters and thought to myself.. maybe give it a try with support ticket and get those unique items back if possible... I first thought they might not have data from 4 years back and if they cant help me, I'd just consider it lost forever.... but then to my surprise, they exactly told me what I did with those two items and gave me some instructions on what to do on my end (to rectify my silly mistake) and they restored my lost items...

This is really Awesome.. to restore something thats lost 4 years back(or more)

Even if we have unfixed bugs that are not brought to the devs attention or we hear some grumbling voices  among players about the class balance, It's those moments like these where GW2 support just shines and do the impossible that gives us overwhelming ecstacy, hope on the game and the feeling that we have an invisible helping hand that works on the background behind the curtains that whisper in our ears "its okay... u're fine... we got u.... we got your back dont u worry "

 

once again... Thanks to you GW2 support staff.. thank you so much

Edited April 4 by Crystal Paladin.3871
included img link from imgur

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

These 3 staff deserve appreciation: "GM GRID", "GM ENAJ", "GM PEEYO"..... hope gw2 forum staff convey these appreciation to the support staff 🤩

[Danikat.8537]

I agree, Support have always been good in this game. They haven't always done what I hoped for, but at least I've always gotten a prompt response and a reasonable answer. They have fixed some of my stupid mistakes too.

Incidentally I don't think they can fix bugs or make balance changes. I'm pretty sure support are specifically customer support - they can see a lot of account data and make limited changes to accounts but they can't edit the game itself, so those kinds of reports would have to be passed on to other departments and then it's in with all the other work they've got to do.

[Ashantara.8731]

25 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I agree, Support have always been good in this game.

Yes, I have also had a mostly positive experience with the GW2 Support Staff. Great people, very friendly and helpful.

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

35 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Incidentally I don't think they can fix bugs or make balance changes. I'm pretty sure support are specifically customer support - they can see a lot of account data and make limited changes to accounts but they can't edit the game itself, so those kinds of reports would have to be passed on to other departments and then it's in with all the other work they've got to do.

nonono.. I dint consider GW2 support staff to be devs.. maybe my wordings might've given u a wrong idea that i did.. sry if it did.. X)

I expressed the emotion that even though we come across players talking about some negative stuff in gw2, when we come across good moments like these with gw2 (customer)support staff, it gives an assurance a sense of confidence in the game....

again sry if i made a misleading post

Edited April 4 by Crystal Paladin.3871

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Same here. 

The support was always very helpful. 

The only people I know of that had bad experiences with support write tickets like:

REEEEEE! FIX MY SHYT! REEEEEE! 

Be nice to them and they will be nice to you. 

[Gehenna.3625]

My last interaction with them was less than stellar let's say. Something to do with a guild weapon being soulbound on pickup and another character having the crafting skill to upgrade and not being able to use soulbound items as a material to upgrade it.

Their reaction was that I needed to level the crafting skill on the character who acquired it...

I mean, seriously? Not even the suggestion of getting the guild weapon on the right character but straight out suggest that I level a crafting skill. Just bizarre.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

nonono.. I dint consider GW2 support staff to be devs.. maybe my wordings might've given u a wrong idea that i did.. sry if it did.. X)

I expressed the emotion that even though we come across players talking about some negative stuff in gw2, when we come across good moments like these with gw2 (customer)support staff, it gives an assurance a sense of confidence in the game....

again sry if i made a misleading post

You don't need to apologise, I misunderstood what you said. I understand it now. 🙂
 

10 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Same here. 

The support was always very helpful. 

The only people I know of that had bad experiences with support write tickets like:

REEEEEE! FIX MY SHYT! REEEEEE! 

Be nice to them and they will be nice to you. 

I've never worked for a game developer, but I have worked various customer service jobs and I can confirm that being polite and being specific about what you want make a big difference.

Being specific should be the obvious one. No one has a big "fix everything" button (and if they did they'd just push it constantly so you wouldn't even need to report problems) and they can't do anything about a problem without knowing what it actually is. "I can't log in" is like telling a mechanic "my car makes a weird noise", it tells them there is a problem but not what and where it is. At my work we're forever having to remind people that if they report software problems they need to tell us who it happened to, how far through they got and what exactly happened when it stopped working, including any errors. Instead we routinely get "Hi, one of my team can't use [system] can you fix it?"

Being polite is a bit more variable because there's often strict limits to what customer service are allowed to do, but even then being polite can be the difference between them trying all the options and immediately picking the one that gets you to stop talking to them as quickly as possible. In other situations (usually not called customer service) it can make a huge difference. In one previous job there were a few times I had the choice between making some calls to get a client a legal, official exemption to UK and EU laws which would allow them to do what they needed to do safely and legally but also much quicker and cheaper than the standard process, or telling them it was out of our jurisdiction and they'd need legal advice and a licence which could cost hundreds or thousands of pounds and how polite they were was absolutely a factor in which option they got.

(And that wasn't just me being petty about it, this required multiple people, several of them more senior than me, going out of their way to make it work so if I pushed for it too often for people who clearly did not appreciate the effort and thought they were entitled to demand anything they wanted it could have ceased to be an option for anyone.)

[Randulf.7614]

I’ve been in customer service for nearly 30 years and it’s nice to see the art is not lost. Support staff helping players benefits everyone involved and it’s good to hear their team is still as good as it ever was

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

My last interaction with them was less than stellar let's say. Something to do with a guild weapon being soulbound on pickup and another character having the crafting skill to upgrade and not being able to use soulbound items as a material to upgrade it.

Their reaction was that I needed to level the crafting skill on the character who acquired it...

I mean, seriously? Not even the suggestion of getting the guild weapon on the right character but straight out suggest that I level a crafting skill. Just bizarre.

Knowing many cases like that, it probably you unlocking the skins for these weapons. 

They can't remove these unlocks from your account. So returning you the cost of these weapons would be a net gain for you. 

Thats why they can refund you something like the crafting mats of a gift of might/magic. But not when unlocking something to your account in the process. 

[RoseofGilead.8907]

Totally agree. Every support person I've interacted with has been understanding, fair, and just generally great at their job. 

[Danikat.8537]

32 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Knowing many cases like that, it probably you unlocking the skins for these weapons. 

They can't remove these unlocks from your account. So returning you the cost of these weapons would be a net gain for you. 

Thats why they can refund you something like the crafting mats of a gift of might/magic. But not when unlocking something to your account in the process. 

They could maybe have done something like tell Gehenna to delete the weapon, then send a replacement to be picked up from the mail on the correct character.

I've heard they do something similar with mistaken gem store purchases - you have to delete it and reply to the ticket to confirm it's gone, then they refund the gems. They did the same when I accidentally got a duplicate account bound mount skin from a black lion chest, although in that case the precaution probably wasn't necessary because there was literally nothing I could do with the second one except delete it.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

8 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

They could maybe have done something like tell Gehenna to delete the weapon, then send a replacement to be picked up from the mail on the correct character.

I've heard they do something similar with mistaken gem store purchases - you have to delete it and reply to the ticket to confirm it's gone, then they refund the gems. They did the same when I accidentally got a duplicate account bound mount skin from a black lion chest, although in that case the precaution probably wasn't necessary because there was literally nothing I could do with the second one except delete it.

Even if he deleted the Items, he would keep the skins.

In your case, you got an item you already unlocked. So thats not a problem.

In his case, the support would have to give him items that are different from the items he deleted.

And im pretty sure the support is not allowed to give you "new" items to your account.

Just "repair" the game state by tacking steps back. With his problem, thats not possible.

 

[Danikat.8537]

29 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Even if he deleted the Items, he would keep the skins.

In your case, you got an item you already unlocked. So thats not a problem.

In his case, the support would have to give him items that are different from the items he deleted.

And im pretty sure the support is not allowed to give you "new" items to your account.

Just "repair" the game state by tacking steps back. With his problem, thats not possible.

 

They absolutely can give you items. The OP's post has an example of the mail used to send them. (Someone with an Anet tag hanging out in LA a few years ago said any time an item is manually created it's logged and they have to justify why they did it, so Anet staff can't just make themselves free legendaries or whatever, but they can create items.) They did the same with me, they didn't roll back my account to before I opened the chest, they just sent me a golden black lion key (the ones which guarantee an uncommon or better drop), which I didn't have before, to replace the mount skin I deleted.

With the problem Gehenna had it also wouldn't matter that the skin was already unlocked because they did want the guild weapon, just on a different character so they could upgrade it to make a Shimmering or Tenebrous weapon. (For some reason the base guild weapons are soulbound on acquire, so if you want to upgrade them you have to make sure to buy them on a character with the crafting skills.) The fix I suggested is that Gehenna delete the useless soulbound weapon and then support mails the exact same weapon, so Gehenna can remove it from the mail on the right character.

[ZephyrSpirit.5230]

Can also confirm. Great support.

[Gop.8713]

Whenever I see threads like this it always makes me wonder why other ppls need customer service so much. Twenty-six thousand hours in and I can recall trying them once, way back at the very beginning, then realizing I didn't need them I was just a moron and clearing the ticket before they even replied. So on the one hand wtf but on the other like, seriously, what do y'all use them for so much . . ?

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

2 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

Whenever I see threads like this it always makes me wonder why other ppls need customer service so much. Twenty-six thousand hours in and I can recall trying them once, way back at the very beginning, then realizing I didn't need them I was just a moron and clearing the ticket before they even replied. So on the one hand wtf but on the other like, seriously, what do y'all use them for so much . . ?

You'd be surprised... well, you are surprised at how much slips through the cracks.  I had to issue a ticket once because I deleted a PoF collection item that couldn't be re-acquired.  Turns out, one of those random collection items needed to be handed in directly instead of being a junk bit that gets shoved into your inventory like all of the others.  

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

4 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

Whenever I see threads like this it always makes me wonder why other ppls need customer service so much. Twenty-six thousand hours in and I can recall trying them once, way back at the very beginning, then realizing I didn't need them I was just a moron and clearing the ticket before they even replied. So on the one hand wtf but on the other like, seriously, what do y'all use them for so much . . ?

Becuz they are genuinely helpful, and even do things for people who are new and made stupid mistakes.

I yeeted/salvaged my Fractal Capacitor thinking I didnt need it further for Ad Infi.
After asking for help they just restored it anyway, even tho it was 100% my fault for not doing research.
Being new to the game without experience/gear to farm CMs made it very long to re-acquire 1350 Relics, which they basically made a non-issue for me when I was first starting out, and that help made the process MUCH easier.
Again, they didn't have to do anything, its 100% my fault, but they helped anyway.

The CS department is just goated.
And theres nothing wrong with showing some public appreciation.

Edited April 5 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974

[Gop.8713]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

You'd be surprised... well, you are surprised at how much slips through the cracks.  I had to issue a ticket once because I deleted a PoF collection item that couldn't be re-acquired.  Turns out, one of those random collection items needed to be handed in directly instead of being a junk bit that gets shoved into your inventory like all of the others.  

Thx, yes, I am lol ; p

And this is a great example, but to me that's not a cs issue, that's a design issue. There just shouldn't be a way that this could happen, should always be a way to reaquire the item. I actually had a similar issue in pof where I sent my 'I love joko' back item box to a bag opener and lost it, but to me that's a my bad I'll run another toon through the story to fix it so that's what I did . . .

IRL there are provider responsibilities and customer responsibilities and then bc it's an imperfect world there are things that happen in the gap between those things and that's where cs comes in. But to me, in a game there's either it doesn't work and devs need to fix -- ie, bug reports -- and I screwed up I need to fix -- ie, player error. I just don't see the middle ground there where cs could be useful . . .

But I appreciate your reply it does provide some insight into another perspective . . .

44 minutes ago, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

Becuz they are genuinely helpful, and even do things for people who are new and made stupid mistakes.

I yeeted/salvaged my Fractal Capacitor thinking I didnt need it further for Ad Infi.
After asking for help they just restored it anyway, even tho it was 100% my fault for not doing research.
Being new to the game without experience/gear to farm CMs made it very long to re-acquire 1350 Relics, which they basically made a non-issue for me when I was first starting out, and that help made the process MUCH easier.
Again, they didn't have to do anything, its 100% my fault, but they helped anyway.

The CS department is just goated.
And theres nothing wrong with showing some public appreciation.

Okay so this is also helpful. You're saying cs exists to fix player errors, and when I screw up I should be tasking cs to fix my errors rather than use the existing in game methods to correct them. Is this what cs is generally used for then . . ?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Once, when traveling, my account was banned for RMT.  I had to contact the CS Team to assure them that no one had hacked my account, it was just me playing from another location.  Thank goodness for the CS Team. 

[Gop.8713]

ty again, that's another great example. Something that's more the 'gap' that happens in irl transactions . . .

[Manasa Devi.7958]

I once accidentally crafted a wrong legendary component, wasting a lot of time and effort. Someone on the forum told me CS could help me reverse that, so I emailed them explaining the situation. They asked me to delete the wrong item. Less than 4 hours after my mistake I got the wasted resources back. User error of course, but very helpful and lenient assistance there. Another time I broke the device I used for two step authentication and was locked out of my account. Also solved within a day. CS has always been great for me.

[Gop.8713]

While I appreciate all responses, I think @Inculpatus cedo.9234 actually addressed the confusion I had. I consider my question answered . . .

[Danikat.8537]

5 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

Whenever I see threads like this it always makes me wonder why other ppls need customer service so much. Twenty-six thousand hours in and I can recall trying them once, way back at the very beginning, then realizing I didn't need them I was just a moron and clearing the ticket before they even replied. So on the one hand wtf but on the other like, seriously, what do y'all use them for so much . . ?

I've submitted 11 tickets in almost 12 years, so I wouldn't say it's a lot. Here's the reasons:

1. To claim the refund Anet offered on town clothes that became outfits. I bought the pirate costume specifically to mix-and-match the pieces and have rarely used it since.
2. To ask about a refund for duplicate gathering tools when shared inventory slots came in, which was turned down. (I think some people got one, but I'd had the duplicate tools too long.)
3. To report another company using screenshots of GW2 to advertise their (probably fake) game. At the time I couldn't find an email address to use.
4. Asked to swap a black lion chest drop I didn't want for a more common one I wanted, I'd heard they'd do it sometimes but they turned me down.
5. I missed a 24 gem store offer because of connection problems, they removed the gems from my account and sent the item.
6. Questions about Anet policy on a promotion run through another company's app.
7. Asking them to fix a Trading Post bug. I'd offered just over 89g for a mini pet and paid 2 copper for it. That used to happen if someone clicked 'sell instantly' before the window had fully loaded, it would sell to the highest offer for minimum price, in this case just the sales taxes, so the seller would have gotten nothing. Because the TP is anonymous I had no way to identify them, but I'd heard Anet can see the names of buyers and sellers on transactions. They said they couldn't take my gold and send it to the seller but they did pass on the bug report.
8. I got 2 identical mount skins from black lion chests, one after the other. This was due to a problem with the item's set-up - it didn't unlock in the wardrobe when you got it, so it didn't prevent you getting a duplicate like other black lion exclusives. I wanted to both report the bug and ask them to replace one of the skins. They had me use one, delete the other and then sent a gold black lion key (which guarantees an uncommon or better item) as a replacement.
9. My account was blocked from buying gems with a debit card or Paypal (the only methods I had). Apparently my account was getting stuck in the security checks, which they fixed.
10. I bought the wrong thing from the gem store by mistake. They had me delete it and refunded the gems.
11. I asked them to roll-back my account because a stupid mistake combined with the Character Adventure Guide achievements caused me to fail a DIY 'survivor' challenge, I accidentally triggered a whole load of the achievements at once which caused me to skip several levels. They said they couldn't fix it so I had to delete the character and restart the challenge, which is what I expected but I wanted to make them aware (again) that those achievements are a problem for some players.

[Gop.8713]

Well that's incredibly detailed but for the most part very personal so not that helpful ; p

I do appreciate the effort, but again I think @Inculpatus cedo.9234 pretty much answered the question, which a couple of your points line up with. It's just when I see this in the forums it's not usually things I can relate to so I thought I'd ask. I do think I have a better understanding of the issue now which is the point of a discussion forum so ty all : )