Tuskeh.4697

Regarding the Elementalist changes: I'd like to see a different way of balancing Obsidian Flesh. Being unable to interact with the action bar for four seconds sounds like it'll be very frustrating, especially in PvE (where you're hitting buttons very quickly as a Weaver, which often uses a Focus for its condition build). Unlike in other games, like World of Warcraft, where you can remove buffs by right-clicking on them, there's nothing you can do if you accidentally hit Obsidian Flesh; no way to cancel it with by tapping ESC, dodge rolling, or canceling the aura. I get that having an instant, four-second invulnerability that you can cast while doing other things in PvP is pretty insane, so if it must be changed then I'd much rather see it turned into a four second channel, or giving it a sizeable 1-2 second cast time, rather than locking the player out of their abilities. Both of these allow the player to cancel the ability if it's accidentally cast, but still punishes them for accidentally pressing it without potentially wrecking their rotation. Adding a cast time (which I'd rather see as the nerf instead of preventing the Elementalist from using their abilities) also allows opponents to react to the ability in a PvP setting.

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 since launch, it's one of my all-time favorites. I've used the gem store plenty of times in the past, and I'm more than happy to drop some real money on gems every now and then, since there is no subscription fee and updates outside of expansions are free if you're a current player. I 100% understand the Gem Store's presence and have been happy with just about every purchase I've made. However, I will not be investing any gems, gold, or money into Mount Adoption. Having paid-for mount skins is completely acceptable and quite exciting, and some of the work put in to avoid simple color palette swaps is impressive - I'm a particular fan of the Canyon Spiketail Raptor - but, to me, the method of acquiring these skins is a step over the line into unacceptable as a method of monetization and an interaction with a player. I'll break that down now: As a method of monetization, Mount Adoption breaks many previous rules established by Guild Wars 2. The common gameplay loop for acquiring desirable items ("cool stuff", as I like to call it) involves an incentive, a challenge, and a reward. For instance, I recently got a Tequatl's Hoard chest from the World Boss in Sparkfly Fen, which contains the player's choice of one ascended weapon from a selection. These weapons are the highest-tier items in the game. I was ecstatic, leafing through my options like a kid in a candy store. I had an incentive (kill the big dragon knowing that I had a chance to get some cool stuff), a challenge (kill the big dragon with an army of other players), and a reward (big dragon falls into the water, chest of cool stuff). There was an element of randomization here in what loot I got, but once the loot was acquired, the reward was in my hands, and I could define what that reward could be with the weapon selection. Taking the example of incentive, challenge, and reward into the Gem Store is much, much more difficult; it's important that the experience itself be enjoyable, but the loop is much more direct, making this challenging. A player opens up the Gem Store, and their incentive is right in front of them - a store of cool stuff that they can buy. There's also a challenge involved, as players can technically convert gold into gems, but from my experience this requires an immense amount of grinding to achieve, especially for the Mount Adoption, which players are calculating will cost an average of $120 for a complete collection, so most players will likely not experience this challenge. The reward is found in being sent the cool thing directly to the player's mailbox. Since the loop here is so short and will, most of the time, involve a real money transaction, the only way this loop can be satisfying is through the reward itself; in short, the stuff bought from the Gem Store has to be unique, and it has to be really cool. Regarding Mount Adoption specifically, I understand the method from a business perspective - a player is probably only going to be interested in one or two mount skins, and they would spend a significantly smaller amount of money acquiring them directly than they would rolling for them with Mount Adoption. However, I also feel like this demonstrates a need for immediate gratification by utilizing a system that has performed extremely well, but garnered a huge amount of criticism in the wider gaming world, likely in an attempt to jump on the Loot Box train while it's still settling, so that future monetization systems can be similar without garnering as much controversy. That said, I do feel like this attempt for immediate gratification is going to damage Guild Wars 2; for every player that will happily drop approximately $120 to complete their collection or aim for a specific skin, there will be players who avoid the system on principle. These player - such as myself - tend to be outspoken, and will happily contribute to a wider conversation such as this and express their distaste for the system, or - and this could be much more dangerous - the game itself. I bring this up because Guild Wars 2 is a game that has fostered an incredible community, both within guilds and across the game as a whole. Every aspect of the game's core design (shared gathering nodes, no enemy tapping, scaling events, liberal use of group challenges, constant rewards) has, over the last 5 years, built a community that has become far more interconnected, inclusive, and open than any other community I've found in a video game. The game itself is designed around playing together. These are folks who talk to each other, and every time a system or a decision is made that upsets a portion of that community, the higher risk there is for those people to (quite rightly) discuss the issue with others. One needs only look at the huge followings of outspoken critics of Loot Boxes such as Jim Sterling to see that this effect is very real, and with the colossal amount of outrage and anger surrounding Loot Boxes in the gaming world, I fear that Guild Wars could suffer as a result of dipping its toe into that discussion moreso than it already has. I have not really participated in the Black Lion Chest system, and from what I understand these chests have been in the game since close to launch (although I might be wrong), so I don't want to comment on them. In short, my concern from a monetization perspective is that bringing in (more) Loot Boxes during a period of extreme unrest and resentment over their inclusion could damage the game in the long run through player distrust and resentment. Loot Boxes are not a symbiotic relationship with the player, and for every player that gets what they want from a Mount Adoption roll, there will likely be others who try it once, end up feeling cheated, and will never get involved in a system like that again. This brings me onto clarifying my second point: that the Mount Adoption is a poor interaction with the player. As an avid MMO player, I thoroughly enjoy the account progress associated with these games, with every resource mined, every skin unlocked, and every achievement point earned going towards a visible, tangible amount of progression. These can be extremely long, challenging, and at times tedious, but at the core of the process is the player; I am the one that decides to grind materials for a Legendary Weapon, or travel across the Crystal Desert to unlock the Gryphon. Guild Wars 2 has always presented a challenge to the player and laid out what they need to do to get there (take a look at the Legendary Weapon achievement panel for a great example of this), and done very little to obscure or obstruct that process through deliberate randomization. This, I feel, is where the crux of the Loot Box problem lies; it just doesn't feel good to get something you don't want. This might very well be part of their success in the wider gaming world, but it is also very easy to resent a system that can, for lack of a better term, screw a player over. To me, the inclusion of a system that prevents repeat mount skins elevates it above being downright exploitative, but only just. The player has absolutely zero autonomy in these interactions. They are essentially playing a slot machine, and while that may be fine in a casino - or even in other genres of video games - MMOs have always been about player progression. As mentioned before, the player is the one deciding to go on these journeys to acquire gear, skins, collectibles, achievements, etc. If I don't want to grind for a legendary weapon skin, I still have plenty of others to choose from. If I don't want to craft an ascended piece of gear, I can find other ways to get one. This player choice, I want to reiterate, is what makes Guild Wars 2 fantastic. There is so rarely a predetermined path to a reward. The Mount Adoption is, at time of writing, the only way to acquire new skins for mounts; between the Halloween Skins and Mount Adoption, real money - or a massive amount of gold - has been the only method of unlocking these skins, and maybe that's okay. I have no issue with these skins being exclusive to the Gem Store, although I would adore seeing some become available as a result of finishing achievements, completing difficult challenges, collecting in-game currency (reindeer Springer for Winterberries, anyone?), or another means of collection in-game without real money. Again, I am perfectly fine with the Gem Store containing exclusive mount skins, just as it does so many other unique items. As discussed earlier, these items have to be cool and unique, otherwise they will hold no appeal to players. To conclude, I do feel like this is a poor debut for a system that a lot of players are no doubt going to be excited about. Being able to customize characters is a massive part of Guild Wars 2, and as soon as mounts were announced I watched the community theorize as to how they could customize them to be their own, and how ArenaNet would decide to inevitably monetize them. Hiding this customization behind randomization, I feel, is going to damage ArenaNet's relationship with the Guild Wars 2 community, could potentially harm the future of the game, and - in my opinion - utilizes a hugely controversial but (for now) highly effective system to monetize the player base. For solutions, I think variety is the spice of life. I'd love to see lots of ways to acquire these skins; mount adoption tickets could be added to Black Lion Chests, the skins themselves could be added to the Chests, and, most crucially, these skins should be directly purchasable. With these extra systems in place, I'd even argue that it would be fine to reintroduce the Mount Adoption as a means of gambling on a mount skin; slash the price down to 100-150 gems, remove the repeat protection (and make them possible to sell to vendors or even salvageable for a tiny amount of gems to help alleviate the blow of rolling poorly), and make it a cheap way to gamble for a skin that the player might not have, and a means of spending leftover gems from other purchases, much like a Black Lion Chest Key. With other systems in place to allow for other means of monetized acquisition (including, again, a way to directly purchase the skins), I feel like these mount skins could not only be an effective means of monetization, but a source of excitement for one of the most passionate communities I've ever been involved in. I, for one, would love to get involved in systems like these to support a developer that I feel has produced some incredible stuff with their community's best interests in mind, to further customize my character, and to get that sweet Canyon Spiketail Raptor. Whoever designed that thing gets a salute from me. Thanks for reading this, and accepting community feedback!