ANET to developer - quit interacting so much

[murdoc]

http://www.joshuaforeman.blogspot.ca/2013/09/epic-weekend.html

Josh built the Mad King Jump Puzzle (which I loved) and SAB (which I originally loved and now have nothing to do with). He was extremely busy on the forums after World 2 came out and then suddenly went quiet. I imagine his blog won't go over well with his employer either, but it was an interesting peek into the other side.

Now, the subject I wrote is somewhat misleading and I can actually understand some of ANet's concerns, especially when you have official forums that are a cesspool to begin with and you're saying things that might be construed as promises (where's my account bound dyes goddammit), but the level of interaction Josh had was commendable and it's disappointing to learn it is being requested to be scaled back.

[Threash]

He's going to get in a whole lot more trouble over that post than for anything he did or said on the forums. And i think the reason for the lower numbers of logins is that the last month or so of event before this one were massive grindathons and gold giveaways, now thats gone and players are burned out.

[kildorn]

Mutter. It's not being upset that he was interacting with the community. It's that the community takes any random dev saying "We're totally looking at that" to mean it's a promised feature to be released soon. Not something that may or may not happen.

Josh is pretty awesome and has been awesome, but even he accepts the shit reason why we can't have constant dev interaction. The problem wasn't him posting and asking questions. It was that being a pretty open dude he was accidentally stating things that could be interpreted as company promises.  It's a dumb reality of life right now.

I'd totally dig ANet standing up for him and basically telling people that dev posts represent an insight into the development process and not any statement of official intent, but I suspect there's a lot more bullshit they have to deal with when they go down that route. He wasn't told to shut the fuck up, his blog post pretty much says he came to that conclusion himself because his personality can't mesh with anet's dev posting rules.

I can honestly see both positions are pretty valid. I like what Josh did as far as being an interactive developer and giving lots of feedback. But I also see how many people will use any statement by anyone with a company tag as an ironclad promise.

edit: reddit had a good point on this entire thing: players phrasing this as "Anet says stop talking to customers!" instead of what it actually was is just reinforcing the problem: by trying to say something about his habit of over-promising on the forums causing problems, the players took it as the company fucking the customers over. The best way to interact with customers sadly is to just let a PR person say meaningless nonsense, because anything else will be twisted into shit like how your company hates _____. The actual blog post is mostly the dev supporting ANet, echoing what they were trying to teach him about interaction, and complimenting specific people inside the company.

[Crumbs]

re: promises

One of the main draws of this game from the start was "we won't have gear disparity!"  Now, I'm still happy with the overall balance of the game, but the jump to ascended everything is a red flag.  There was a recent forum post asking that ascended weapons be scaled down to exotic levels for WvW.  The response from Devon Carver:

Doing so would invalidate the time people spend acquiring that gear. I think the heart of your post is in the right place, but what we would rather do is make possible for people to get the gear by playing WvW with a sprinkling of PvE, rather than the other way around.

My bullshit detector pretty much exploded there.  Ok, it's not the official Anet decree, but he's saying that players who invest the time should be able to have a statistical power advantage over other players.  In the beginning, the party line was that grinds would be for appearance, but now it's headed towards statistical advantage.  This gives me bad acid flashbacks of WOW, being in Alterac Valley and attempting to fight someone in full arena gear with my blues and non-arena purples.  It was a joke.  When my hits take off 3% of someone's HP and their hits take off 30% of mine, it's not a contest.  Rather, it's a validation of the MMO player who wants to do work hard for the opportunity to shoot fish in a barrel until the next tier is released.   

Am I off about the grind necessary for the ascended weapons? 

[tazelbain]

No it still grind and its betrayal of the principals that they set out with.  Only thing that changed it there is multiple paths to grind so you choose the least soul crushing to you.

[murdoc]

It's a grind and not being able to buy any mats or even weapons on the BLT makes it even more so. I have been grinding my first Ascended weapon and it's going to take me weeks to get enough Dragonite to make just ONE weapon, let alone the multiple ones I would need to fully gear out just one of my characters. Plus, I would have to get another crafter to 500 artificing if I even want to do it all.

It's awful and when ascended armor makes an appearance, it'll just keep getting worse.

[Crumbs]

No it still grind and its betrayal of the principals that they set out with.  Only thing that changed it there is multiple paths to grind so you choose the least soul crushing to you.

lol.... but lol

I'm still going to continue with the rare/exotic sets on my multiple characters and hope for the best.  Also, most of the stuff I do isn't all that gear dependent anyway.  Run with zergs (wvw and pve), group events, solo roaming, alts.  There's still a chance to avoid all of this.  Fingers crossed.

[Nija]

I wouldn't say he's to blame with anything. The group I ran with at release had about ~90 online during normal hours. Running WvW and stuff.

Not a single person out of that group plays anymore. I can't even talk people to reinstall to try out some of the monthly things that we've completely ignored since last years Halloween event.

[Threash]

Yeah, but he is talking about week to week.  The pavillion/gauntlet and scarlet events had tons of people participating, which has taken a dive since those ended.  It's mostly because those events threw shit tons of gold and crafting mats around, while the super adventure box is just something you do for the hell of it.  That said he did fuck it up by making the difficulty jump a lot more than it needed too.  Also the sword skin should've been the pixel katana from scott pilgrim.

[EWSpider]

The drop rate on Ascended weapons doesn't seem to be that bad, though.  In the Fractal group I was in today TWO Ascended weapons dropped from the daily chest (two people got weapons).  I think as long as you're patient and just keep playing the way you want to the Ascended stuff comes to you.  Even if you aren't lucky enough to get a drop eventually the prices on everything to craft one will come way down.  The grind kicks in when you MUST HAVE ASCENDED WEP NAO!  I'm close to crafting myself a sword and it has definitely been a grind.  I think I will take a break after my sword and not attempt to level Huntsmen for now (I need a pistol and short bow as well) and see if I can get additional weapons to drop randomly.

[Setanta]

I had an Ascended box drop ywo weeks ago. I love that you could choose the weapon from it but the stats were crap (power/health/armour I think). I started crafting to 500 last week and should have my first ascended weapon today with minimal fuss other than parking my alts at the Sharkmaw JP to collect 100 shards a day to make stars.

I can see how it would upset pure PvPers but for me it's fine.

[Threash]

They drop from champ bags also so pure pvpers can get them with luck.

[Fordel]

WvW'ers get excited when we see a YELLOW drop.

We ain't holding our breath on ascended shit. 

[Sjofn]

Hey, I got that oj shield for you from a WvW champ bag!

[Fordel]

So you say!

How can I really know though! 

[kildorn]

The main lack in WVW is a high volume source of dragonite ore for ascended stuff. And that champ bags per hour is crazy crazy low compared to pve champ trains.

There was a dev a bit ago saying they were looking into expanding wvw access to nice drops, but don't hold your breath.

[Ingmar]

I just don't understand why they don't cap WvW gear at exotic and be done with it.

[Fordel]

They want you to SPvP for even playing field stuff. They want you to SPvP period really, the core devs have a hard on for it.

[kildorn]

Well, like two or three have a hard on for SPVP. They're also sitting in the same tiny pool that WoW's Arena dudes were, desperately hoping people play the minigame they made the way they want them to. That's pretty much the reason there's only really one game mode and such.

I'd say the PVE side of the house gets the most time and effort right now, but seems to have no real balance devs. Just a metric fuckton ton of content folks.

[EWSpider]

I play sPvP off and on and some solo queue tPvP, but I'll never take it seriously as long as all they have is the stupid fucking capture point mechanic.  GvG in GW1 was/is 100x better than sPvP in GW2.

[Tannhauser]

Been back playing lately, PVE only.  Still the best combat/exploration MMO around.  Scratches that itch so well.  Fuck PVP for now.

[Fordel]

Well, like two or three have a hard on for SPVP. They're also sitting in the same tiny pool that WoW's Arena dudes were, desperately hoping people play the minigame they made the way they want them to. That's pretty much the reason there's only really one game mode and such.

I'd say the PVE side of the house gets the most time and effort right now, but seems to have no real balance devs. Just a metric fuckton ton of content folks.

Yea the balance dev's are all SPVP centric, otherwise known as the only dev's that actually matter. They are the ones that decide if your class will be fun or frustrating as fuck, all based around the 5x5 capture point square.

[Crumbs]

Might be worth its own thread, but relevant:  Anet Dev rages at people trying to GvG by logging in and trolling them in game:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/wuv/wuv/Some-ANET-interfered-with-our-GvG/page/13

Link is for the Anet response.  First post has the details.  What's going on over there??

[Fordel]

Some Dev's are idiots, news at 11?


With that said I find the GvG thing really dumb.

[Crumbs]

This is typical?  A dev rolling a toon and accosting players in their game for playing it wrong?

[Fordel]

Most companies don't allow their devs to play the game while tagged as a official employee (for this very reason), but yes, probably.

[rk47]

Never met these dudes in game but really, you should better know than to declare you're an employee and then acting like a dick in MMO.
I see nothing wrong in using WvW for GvG activity.
Most fights past the first 2 days signal the end of the winner anyway.
It still hasn't changed at launch, still hasn't months later.
And them not even creating a place for Guild to have actual Wars is ironic.
All they've been doing is focusing on e-sport 5v5s that nobody gave a fuck about anymore.
They also put in 10 v 10, but that's it.

[MediumHigh]

Anets fight with the playerbase is hilarious. I mean imagine if Riot decided that their esports scene would revolve around the Twisted Treeline or Dominion? It'll be suicidal and moronic.

[Fordel]

We listen and will try to post more blah blah https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development