Guild Wars 2

What happened to the full dungeon revamp? AC got a make over, and now the first dungeon of the world gives more gold per run than any other? Does that confuse anyone else? Meanwhile dungeons that have bugs/exploits from the release of the game are ignored while more “Living World” stuff is added. A new path to TA, yet 7 other dungeons original paths that require reworking sit. Dungeons should be an intricate part of GW2, like they were advertised. Some work well, others fail miserably. You haven’t fixed any of them, yet you’ve nerfed running paths more than once forcing us to run a very limited # of dungeons. Look at your own LFG tool. Over half of the dungeons are ignored by majority of all servers unless someone HAS to go there for tokens for a Legendary. Doesn’t that tell you something? Don’t force us to go use other dungeons when you haven’t even fixed the dungeons you’re forcing us into, all that’s done is push dungeons away from being used!

The newest offenses to the grind of GW2 are crafting recipes like this Halloween. I’m talking about, “The Crossing, Arachnophobia, and The Mad Moon” new recipes. Do you even look at the tp market or take into account how little drops happen before simply creating a recipe you release into the world?

Look at just one ingredient for The Crossing. The Tyrian’s Best Nougat. 1 Best Nougat = 1000 Nougat Centers. 100 Best Nougats are needed for the gift. Farming these items are on a time sensitive frame which means you will likely need to buy. However, unlike candy corn you cannot guarantee this item will drop vs the other 2 Halloween so grinding is inefficient. Instead grinding for gold is required because looking at the TP and the current market, which will only go up after the event ends and Nougats cannot be acquired, there is no other viable option. 16g will get you 100 Nougat Centers. That’s 1600g minimum to craft an item. Is this what precursors are going to be like?! Are you going to make crafting an exotic harder than a legendary or ascended?

T6 mats. Another offence of forcing the community to look for ways to grind gold because all other options are not worth the time to reward or have been completely nerfed. T6 are required for so many end game things, yet no new end game stuff as been released that would help us acquire them. I don’t want them given away. That is not my complaint, however, if I want T5 mats there are over 5 zones I can do map completion on to get T5 mats since they start dropping at level 50-55ish. Level 70 and 80 zones do not guarantee T6 mats. In fact, even level 80+ creatures like in Southsun Cove don’t even give good odds. Creatures that require 2 or more people to move through the zone don’t give good odds. That means we’re pigeon holed into looking for ways to grind out gold. Champ train for cash to buy them off the TP and MAYBE getting 1-3 after farming and hour and 1 heavy bag for a random 3.

Southsun cove is an area a step above Orr and almost requires 2 people to kill things quickly or one reason to do it very carefully. This is the perfect solution as all these creatures that are above 80 shouldn’t even drop T5 mats. That will bring people back into dead zones and at least if nothing else split up the mindset of the only thing to do at 80 is run champ zerg.

You advertise this as a game of choices, however, with each update you seem to be forcing a direction on the community. Level 80 zones are dead because dynamic events have massive DR. Orr should be constantly alive and yet look at Malchor’s Leap, Dire Striats and Cursed Shores. Almost every wp that can be contested is contested 99.9% of the time. Dungeons remain broken and DR prevents you from running good dungeons more than once or twice without being penalized. You have limited the options of ways we can play successfully as an END GAME community. The beginning of the game is great, the options of zones, renown, etc, but that casual mentality of when you first build a character and beginning level to the end game when you are level 80 changes dramatically. It no longer is fun, and it’s not even the repetitive fun of say Diablo 2 where you’re rewarded for persistence runs or boss killing. Do you not see that the community as a whole is now basically only doing Champ Zerg in FG or Queensdale? Sure each new content gives us about a week of something different but even when that’s going on the zerg still exists. I’m NOT calling for the disbanning or NERF to the champ zerg. I’m asking Anet to look at where they’ve forced players. Is THAT what they want to be the most rewarding experience in the game?

I never did understand why they penalize people for working hard towards a goal. They really overdid the DR thing. Farming events and dungeons is a lot of work. Shouldn’t we be rewarded for it?

If the game is about choices and what you choose to do, then DR shouldn’t even be an option, especially since Orr being without renown is solely based on dynamic events. It’s the main area we’re supposed to be playing when we hit 80.

Same with dungeons, other than Orr it’s our main area as 80s we’re supposed to be running. Since many dungeons are broken and the reward system is broken for the effort naturally people are going to run the easiest dungeons for profit until things are fixed. IE Cof and AC.

Sad, but true. I hope the developers will listen to it.
Since the release, as I was hoping the developers will focus on innovation things of this game. You know… like Improve personal story. The exploration aspects (new secrets, dialogues, puzzles, rewards), increasing the “depth” of the world. Will evolve the idea with personality (charisma, ferocity, nobility) of character. Improve the role-playing aspects. Add a variety of mini-games, events in the cities. Hidden in open world quests like in thaumanova. Will evolve the idea of karma, increasing its usefulness (not just reduce its flow). Thoughtful vertical progress, cycling skill points. Will finish the dungeons, adding more freedom, optionality, tactics and secrets.

Some of them are slowly being implemented. It’s nice. A new dungeon is good. Tequila is interesting (though needs the right scaling). But about the other things, the developers seem to have forgotten. They add a whole locations, in order to … just delete them! Where is the promised 30-36 mini-games? They make the lore aspect of the living world as a small scene instance, which you can get once per account! I do not understand this. Various characters, personal stories, different personalizations. Why once per account?! Maybe I want to try on the amplua of the scientist asura, and then norn warrior, and then human mage. And you deprive me this opportunity, tearing off the story from the world.

Developers add things (such as the pavilion) that logically should have stayed. But takes them away with no reason. Colossal waste of potential that can be used to something else. Why? To force the farm there things that will disappear with it and will no longer be available. Devs turn the game into grind. One-per-account things are killing the opportunity to gain something on twinks, killing the desire to create them, killing the different ways of personal stories, killing the very essence of the game.

Personally, I absolutley love this game. I can tell that I am fan boy. However, even to me it allready seems that the strategy of dev-s is aimed at gaining more profit from the gem store rather than on improving the game.

I’m so sad to admit, but most of that the developers added so far – is grind. More and more grind.
Moreover.
This is the wrong grind! How is it? – You might ask. The bottom line is that the whole process of getting this or that thing often comes down to the accumulation of gold. A massive amount of gold. Do not get me wrong. I do not mind grind. It should be in any MMO hame. BUT. Here’s compare: I can gladly spend a few evenings, collecting… donno… skulls(?) of enemies to make a handsome sword from them. However, as Zboss showed on example of halloween weapons – I just do not have time to collect skulls on reserved for this weeks. Their falls so much that they are completely worthless, and they did not earn. And they needed at SUCH Amount, that nor any wealth will be enough, even with regard to “skulls” cheapness. In other words, I just have to find the most profitable way to grind money and buy all I need, instead of directly collecting it.

One of the most terrible thing – it’s miniatures. You know, I have a friend. Just a couple of months ago, he said, “I love miniatures. Collectibles keeps me in this game.” Yesterday, he sold all that is possible, saying “they add so crazy number of miniatures that I did not have time to buy them”. In the first part you can find a miniatures by exploraion. For some quests. Dungeons. It was interesting to collect them. What do we see here? 99% of them just bought. And (it looks like a mockery) you have to buy some to 2 times to turn them into different one. NONE of minis is can be found in open world. The idea with the MF has failed because it is easier to buy the right than to get it randomly. And once again it came down to the accumulation of gold. Many hundreds of gold.
The game, in fact, does not allow normal farming gold in those quantities in which it should be spent on a variety of interestings. From here is born 2 options – donate, or (as is preferred by most) to leave the idea at all.

I want to believe that the developers are taking the right course. With this permanent content, bosses, dungeons. I do not lose hope to see an improvement of role-play elements, and the things that really.. well… fun. Which are forcing to be in the game because it is interesting. And not because require a crazy amounts of time to getting. But so far, I see overly much new grind.

seriously, A-net, think about it

Kyrus.7218:

I never did understand why they penalize people for working hard towards a goal. They really overdid the DR thing. Farming events and dungeons is a lot of work. Shouldn’t we be rewarded for it?

Don’t understand why they still have it? Neither do I. Saw a bot in DReach today. Apparently it did nothing in 1 years time to get rid of them because they are still port farming the nodes.

So why have something in your game that harms your players but doesn’t do anything about botting?

I’ve been hoping for them to buff gadgets in the engineer, to make it possible to trap-combat play (where you lead the enemy to their death) totally can’t do that with mines or with ranger traps at all in PVE they keep messing with them so they hardly do any damage now.

I still can’t believe that they have two people working on class balance at this point with the lists upon lists of problems in every class except for warrior and guardian in PVE. smh

I would hope that this report on some large patch that’s coming will do the trick but after todays patch I’m just not hopeful anymore I’m quite conflicted about playing now. I mean sure they did alot of fixes like magic find, the ui like the wallet, that have certainly improved the game but the recent patch and the way it was handled really made me start looking at going and playing another older title today.

What this person said speaks to me in all the ways I agree with

some months I just don’t even log in cause the event is nothing im interested in or the rewards IMO are just plain bad

a lot of things need work in this game if it is a game of the year …. why is it getting neglected so badly

I have to admit, while I don’t mind a certain level of ‘self induced’ grind (aka something I really DON’T have to do but just want to do) but farming 20,000 pieces of candy corn for a single 20 slot bag? 2000 would be ridiculous, but 20,000 is a kick straight to the “nougats”. It’s not even comparable to just crafting a normal 20 slot bag…not even close. I realize it’s a play for free game and that Anet needs to make money somehow, but I’d gladly spend another $60 for an expansion and maybe even another $20 just so some of the non-legendary skins had far fewer grind requirements or a significant increase to the drop rates for these materials. In the first day, I probably ran the labyrinth for 2-3 hours to get about 500 candy corn. 20 days of that still only gets me 10,000 candy corn. GW1 was free to play, but at least if I wanted to farm gargoyle skulls to trade in for candy canes the exchange rate was at least reasonable and I could mathematically ensure that for x amount of time I could get x amount of rewards. I don’t mind the grind for something like a Legendary since that IS something that warrants working towards, but many of the other items just don’t seem to be worth the effort. For as many twisted watchwork sprockets that I got, I never even traded 1 stack to get any of the special weapon skins. Why? Effort to reward ratio was not there, plus if I was going to get one skin I would have liked to go for all of the skins which without buying more sprockets just wasn’t worth it. I do appreciate all the work that the developers have put into this game, as well as all the work they will do even with the new grindy weapons, minis, and so on, but I do have to agree with the poster that much of the game has turned into a chore rather than a past time. I’m not saying I’m ready for it to end or that I would stop playing, but please let’s get back on the right track and add the fun content with reasonable and achievable goals, more engaging storylines, fixes and changes to dungeons that appeal to both the extreme and casual players (i.e. hard mode for the extremists, easy mode with dungeon hero NPCs for the casual players with rewards properly scaling for each), and more new content that stays longer such as SAB, for instance. I never even attempted the 2nd set of achievements because I really felt too much pressure to complete them in 2 weeks that I opted to not even try. At least if it was always available year round, I could do a little bit every now and then. I love this game, and I love the fact that there are so many items and skins to work towards, but it’s killing me to see how ridiculous it would be to even try to get most of the items. Black lion key drops are virtually non-existent so any special skins that can be obtained from opening the chests are just that much rarer, and even with the 13 chests I recently opened from keys I was saving up, I only got 4 scraps which buys me um nothing. I’m not saying make it rain keys or give anything away, but let’s not be ridiculous so that mostly only those players that spend real money are likely to get these skins. For well over a year of routine play I may have opened 30 chests…and that’s stretching it. I can’t even reliably expect to get a key drop more than once a month if that, unless I level a character to 10 via story, delete and start again. No way! As much as I feel I defend this game, I really am starting to feel much like this poster feels and I hate that.

I feel this topic speaks volumes for the guild wars 2 community as a whole.
As a veteran of gw1 + expansions and preorder gw2, I loved Guild Wars and the time in Guild Wars 2 when exotics were top tier.
Now it is going against everything they stood for in favor of grind and elitism. I play the game, but it feels like nothing is ever achievable because the lead programmer got trigger happy on the numbers.
If I play during the Halloween event, and i play for 8 hours a day for a week, i should be able to at least get something to show. I win the clock tower event and I get an exotic glove (which I expected to at least have a skin other than invader gear) and that’s about all i take from this event…. wow, great joke.

I consider myself a casual player, i can play only a couple of hours everyday. Before the ascended weapons i knew i could get top stat gear in different ways besides collecting mats and crafting, and i could do it with my guild and so having fun with them (an mmo should be a social thing too not just a continuous grind). With fractals ascended rings and backs were added but still i could get those doing fractals with my guild (1 ring 10 days at lvl 10+); when ascended amulets and earrings were added jewelcraft became useless (dungeon tokens couldn’t buy accessories so crafters had a fair business i think). Now with ascended weapons (and i suppose we’ll get ascended armors) i’d have to grind if i want them…and i find it alienating (as champion trains are), so i’d like some way to ascend exotic gear let’s say at the forge with a gift of ascension and a certain amount of fractals relics or dungeon tokens (and i would like to do dungeons again, wich i don’t since i have to chop wood and mine ores). Since who has a job at 500 should be fairly rewarded i’d say that they could craft not only weapons or armors but also cool skins (or something like that that only they can have without affecting how other players feel toward the game). As for having always different contents and rewards i have suggested in a topic (title is two ideas) treasure hunts…

Ur right but the game won’t change

I +1’d and wholeheartedly agree. I can’t believe that everything in this game comes down to blues and greens for rewards. It’s really pathetic. At least in other MMOs you can run a dungeon and actually expect something decent. Even GW1 had dungeon specific loot and a chance at something good.

GW2 does have dungeon loot, you just have to buy them with tokens…

Not anymore! That was before ascended weapons… which you can get only through craft, and are account/soulbound so crafting is the only way to get them. One of the best things of gw2 (i haven’t played the first) was that everyone could get top stat weapons or armors, in different ways… I knew i could craft a certain kind of items (and only if i wanted) through one job and for other characters i could do something else besides farming mats! now if one has 3 different characters, he has also to get 3 different jobs up to 500…and when ascended armors will be introduced, would be 6 jobs! This is slowly becoming an elitist and/or grinding game, not what Anet said it would really be…

Ascended stats are 6.02%-10% (depends on stat scaling) better than exotics. This difference is too small to care with skill having a much higher influence. And no content requires ascended gear, except maybe some of the world bosses, to make up for the damage contribution for those with less than whatever gear Anet balanced them here.

And besides, ascended equipment is not really dungeon loot…unless fractals has some.

a 10% better could do difference in some situations such as wvw…anyway Anet politic was that grinding and farming was not the way, or the only at least, to have top equipment (and it was announced loud and clear at launch). Anyway i think a lot of people could feel like me.. i have my characters full exotics so i have not real interest in doing the same dungeons all over again for a loot that can be just green or blue stuff…i find farming and the grind boring as hell (a game should be fun) and if i have just one or 2 hours each day to play i’d like to do something fun (and rewarding). I’m not saying that who has the will to get to 500 crafting shouldn’t be rewarded, on the contrary he should have exclusive stuff (i was making the example of cool skins like the legendaries have), but that should not affect the entire system that Anet was so proud of and that brought me in this game… all others MMOS are pay to win or almost pure grinding… please don’t make that mistake with GW2!

Havvy.4897:

Ascended stats are 6.02%-10% (depends on stat scaling) better than exotics. This difference is too small to care with skill having a much higher influence. And no content requires ascended gear, except maybe some of the world bosses, to make up for the damage contribution for those with less than whatever gear Anet balanced them here.

And besides, ascended equipment is not really dungeon loot…unless fractals has some.

Fractals has some. Even on Guild-Missions can drop an ascended-box.
But it is not about the percent. Even if it were only 2%, better is still better. And skills have a minor influence on your stats. The max what you can get for a stat is 300. Far more is what you can get through equipment..

Soon we will get the ascended armour and with that we will have the new level of equiptment complete. Regardless if you need it or not for the content, the best equiptment in the game is from that moment on: ascended.

I can understand why there are so many complains about the grind for ascended gear.
For exotics you had a lots of choices: dungeons, karma, WvW, crafting, world drop.
For ascended you have only one: grinding.
- Grinding for the mats, because the difference between the amount of mats you need for ascended in comparsion to the mats for exotic is extreme. If i wouldn’t know anything about the game and i would only see this difference, i would think ascended is at least 20% better than exotics. (still many people think, that legendary is better than everything else in the game, just because of the grind you need for one.)
- Grinding the fractales (hoping that the ring you would like drops) or running again and again until you have enough marks to buy it. The effort you need to have more than one set of ascended jewelry is not comparable to the effort you need for more than one exotic set.
- Grinding you daylies or your guild missions.

The chances that you get your ascended gear as drop, is like the chance for a prcursor. And even if you got an ascended-box, it is still lottery which stats you got. (the boxes has the samen names as the inscription for crafting, and it is random what typ of box drops)

+1
GW2 needs ex.: dungeons that takes a whole nighttime play. Then, the rewards would weight and people would respect it.

Thanks for all the support all. I just wish that someone in A-Net would look at this and look at the other posts very similar to mine and see that the community isn’t happy. We’re not crying kittens here, but the things that were promised, and the changes that have steadily been made are not what we were told GW2 was going to be. None of these changes are far fetched or all that difficult either.