Guild Wars 2

Don’t get me wrong here! I mentioned these rewards as something that “enhanced” the joy of defeating these challenges. It’s merely a secondary thing at best in my opinion.

Currently when I ask people why they want to skip as much of the dungeons as possible, I usually get the answer that they do indeed just want the reward. To me, that is skipping all the fun. I think this is tied to the fact that the dungeons are so easy! I think that this culture becomes less and less of a factor the more challenging something gets.

Still though, rewards makes things a bit more fun.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think the gaming industry is really kind of past that ‘hardcore’ stage. People always talk about vanilla WoW and how good it was, and how the new WoW us catered to casuals and carebears, but WoW didn’t change so it could screw itself over, it changed because the gaming scene has changed from people who’s games are their lives to people with jobs, with families, who plays seldomly, so it adapted so it can stay big.

WS will probably get at least some sort if a niche audience, but I just don’t see it being a big thing. And it’s Facebook likes count seems to agree with that.

I am not sure that the “hardcore” crowd has gotten smaller so much as gaming has become more mainstream in general and so now includes those people with jobs, families, etc.

The gaming market is much larger while the hardcore market has perhaps remained static. Also, I would expect that even in the heyday of more hardcore games much of the playerbase would have been more casual, they just didn’t have many options for a casual MMO.

Now the money, the big money that is, is in casual segment. Not because the hardcore segment has gotten smaller but because the casual segment has gotten much much larger. This is compounded by the fact that MMOs are now much more corporate, big business, driven than was the case in the past.

Less time =/= less skill
less time =/= less interreset in “harder” content

More “harder” content =/= no content (or no rewards) for others.

Phadde.7362:

Don’t get me wrong here! I mentioned these rewards as something that “enhanced” the joy of defeating these challenges. It’s merely a secondary thing at best in my opinion.

Currently when I ask people why they want to skip as much of the dungeons as possible, I usually get the answer that they do indeed just want the reward. To me, that is skipping all the fun. I think this is tied to the fact that the dungeons are so easy! I think that this culture becomes less and less of a factor the more challenging something gets.

Still though, rewards makes things a bit more fun.

It’s path of least resistance.

If dungeons were truly fun, and not just in this game, ‘any’ MMO, since…we’ll say UO, just to give us a start, then you would be able to put metric collecting sniffers on a game, and give the same amount of monetary/token/item reward with dungeons, making a house, building a ship, tending to a farm, writing in a pretend book, fishing, dynamic events, doing quests, living world, keg brawl, WvW, PvP, RvR, GvG, [Consonant]v[Consonant], gathering, and I suspect the metrics for doing the 5-man dungeons would be considerably less.

I think there are 3 types of folks that like a 5-man (as an example of a place you usually find the challenging type of content you are referring):

1. People who truly love the content for the sake of the content and the reward is so secondary that if you could also get those same rewards through other means, it wouldn’t matter, because they choose to do the dungeon to get that reward vs the other thing because it is truly the most fun thing for them to do.

2. People who subject themselves to the dungeon, because it is the only way to get any sort of decent reward, and given free will and other means, would gladly choose another way to obtain that money/item, as it is not the most fun thing to do.

3. Could be a subset of 1 or 2, this is about obtaining the wealth/item, but not so much that they obtained the wealth/item, but that they know that a great number of people don’t have that same wealth/item, and that is what gives them their satisfaction or euphoria more than the item or wealth itself. Their winning is defined more in terms of someone else’s loss, so to speak.

Now, if you spread rewards around such that ‘all’ activities are reward equally (perhaps based on time alone, or I would even concede to a formula of time and some perceived value of risk reward, where you make people who don’t like the labeled ‘difficult content’ spend a little more time than the people doing the ‘difficult content’ to receive the same reward), 1 and 2 people should be super happy. 1 gets to continue to do the thing that is so much fun for them to do. 2 gets to do something else.

It’s the 3s that take exception to this. Whether they enjoy the dungeons or not, you have taken away that way for them to win at the expense of others. I have, but more importantly, you do not have.

So as long as your original request is all about being a 1. Then I support you, and hope you get your content.

If we’re talking about those 3s, then I hope you do not. And that’s not because I don’t wish for you to have your content, but because it starts creating this divide between haves and have nots based on some arbitrary, perceived activity that should be rewarded more than other activities.

Now, if that is all the better we all are. And the number of 3s we have is far bigger than I even expected…and growing, then by all means, lets let the bees have a shot at it, because we’re done.

And it is nurture vs nature. We don’t start this way, we learn it. There’s no reason we can’t end up like this (and hopefully do).

notebene.3190:

Phadde.7362:

Don’t get me wrong here! I mentioned these rewards as something that “enhanced” the joy of defeating these challenges. It’s merely a secondary thing at best in my opinion.

Currently when I ask people why they want to skip as much of the dungeons as possible, I usually get the answer that they do indeed just want the reward. To me, that is skipping all the fun. I think this is tied to the fact that the dungeons are so easy! I think that this culture becomes less and less of a factor the more challenging something gets.

Still though, rewards makes things a bit more fun.

It’s path of least resistance.

If dungeons were truly fun, and not just in this game, ‘any’ MMO, since…we’ll say UO, just to give us a start, then you would be able to put metric collecting sniffers on a game, and give the same amount of monetary/token/item reward with dungeons, making a house, building a ship, tending to a farm, writing in a pretend book, fishing, dynamic events, doing quests, living world, keg brawl, WvW, PvP, RvR, GvG, [Consonant]v[Consonant], gathering, and I suspect the metrics for doing the 5-man dungeons would be considerably less.

I think there are 3 types of folks that like a 5-man (as an example of a place you usually find the challenging type of content you are referring):

1. People who truly love the content for the sake of the content and the reward is so secondary that if you could also get those same rewards through other means, it wouldn’t matter, because they choose to do the dungeon to get that reward vs the other thing because it is truly the most fun thing for them to do.

2. People who subject themselves to the dungeon, because it is the only way to get any sort of decent reward, and given free will and other means, would gladly choose another way to obtain that money/item, as it is not the most fun thing to do.

3. Could be a subset of 1 or 2, this is about obtaining the wealth/item, but not so much that they obtained the wealth/item, but that they know that a great number of people don’t have that same wealth/item, and that is what gives them their satisfaction or euphoria more than the item or wealth itself. Their winning is defined more in terms of someone else’s loss, so to speak.

Now, if you spread rewards around such that ‘all’ activities are reward equally (perhaps based on time alone, or I would even concede to a formula of time and some perceived value of risk reward, where you make people who don’t like the labeled ‘difficult content’ spend a little more time than the people doing the ‘difficult content’ to receive the same reward), 1 and 2 people should be super happy. 1 gets to continue to do the thing that is so much fun for them to do. 2 gets to do something else.

It’s the 3s that take exception to this. Whether they enjoy the dungeons or not, you have taken away that way for them to win at the expense of others. I have, but more importantly, you do not have.

So as long as your original request is all about being a 1. Then I support you, and hope you get your content.

If we’re talking about those 3s, then I hope you do not. And that’s not because I don’t wish for you to have your content, but because it starts creating this divide between haves and have nots based on some arbitrary, perceived activity that should be rewarded more than other activities.

Now, if that is all the better we all are. And the number of 3s we have is far bigger than I even expected…and growing, then by all means, lets let the bees have a shot at it, because we’re done.

And it is nurture vs nature. We don’t start this way, we learn it. There’s no reason we can’t end up like this (and hopefully do).

Well, not all of us have to agree with your postmaterialistic ethos. And I´d reverse the nature vs nurture positions. But anyway, this is probably not the place to debate individualistic vs. collectivistic philosophies. Still, rewards given to someone who is better at something does not mean they are “taken away” from the less skillful, slothful, whatever. That is an old socialist parlor trick.

notebene.3190:

2. People who subject themselves to the dungeon, because it is the only way to get any sort of decent reward, and given free will and other means, would gladly choose another way to obtain that money/item, as it is not the most fun thing to do.

Call me to that group. And that was one of the main reasons to start GW2 .. that i don’t HAVE TO play dungeons

Phadde.7362:

Whilst playing WS, I encountered several “Elite”-ish mobs which actually forced me to think on the fly and utilize my abilities and movement the best I could in order to not get roflstomped. I’m not much for WS, but I’ve missed this so much that it’s enough to draw me in.

People thought that GW2 had challenging mobs that require active, dynamic gameplay to defeat at first too.

Once players get leveled up, learn the mechanics and find the stats/traits/etc. that are most effective, mobs like the ones you faced will become trivial.

However, GW2 does definitely need the max-level content difficulty increased for small encounters. So far they’ve just made the massive encounters ‘difficult’, but that’s another beast entirely since player size plays such a big role in that.

Sartharina.3542:

So, yes they could create this kind of content and have aesthetic rewards — but I don’t think that aesthetic rewards are generally very satisfying to the kinds of players that you would be trying to reach with that content to begin with.

Ah yes.. giving the best gear to the people who need it least. Real hardcore players wear Whites, and still wipe the floor with everyone else.
[/quote]

I’m so glad someone else said this! The notion that “elite players need the best gear” is a false one. Elite players need challenging mechanics in PvE and balanced choices in PvP. That’s all.
The gear treadmill is little more than ego-feeding the craving for high numbers. That’s not all bad, but it’s not necessary. It results in number inflation where bosses have millions of hitpoints, but their kill times stay the same. (coughWoWcough) It’s also why WoW is bringing all their numbers down and smoothing their gear curves for their next expansion. (There’s going to be so. much. kittening.)

Dahkeus.8243:

Phadde.7362:

Whilst playing WS, I encountered several “Elite”-ish mobs which actually forced me to think on the fly and utilize my abilities and movement the best I could in order to not get roflstomped. I’m not much for WS, but I’ve missed this so much that it’s enough to draw me in.

People thought that GW2 had challenging mobs that require active, dynamic gameplay to defeat at first too.

Once players get leveled up, learn the mechanics and find the stats/traits/etc. that are most effective, mobs like the ones you faced will become trivial.

However, GW2 does definitely need the max-level content difficulty increased for small encounters. So far they’ve just made the massive encounters ‘difficult’, but that’s another beast entirely since player size plays such a big role in that.

Well, I can say for a fact that the mobs I’m referring to here are different. Not sure how the game looks in the end though, but that’s beside the point, as the thread’s purpose is to discuss this kind of difficulty in Gw2.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Draknar.5748:

tolunart.2095:

knightblaster.7420:

It’s a pretty fundamental philosophical/design difference.

WildStar has been envisioned from the beginning as being a game that was trying to feature the kind of difficulty that existed in MMOs (even the leveling game) prior to WoW’s expansions. The concept was to create a game that was, from the very beginning of it, tailored to meet the needs and desires of the most hardcore, high-skill-cap players in the MMO community — a group which often feels like its needs are overlooked in MMOs these days. So, WildStar from soup to nuts is catering to the most intense, hardcore, high skill gamer — that’s it’s own niche. I think it will be successful in that niche, but there are many other players who play MMOs these days who are moderately skilled at best and are not hardcore — they will be punished by WildStar’s design, and will not find it rewarding --> and, that’s okay because they are not WildStar’s target audience. The most hardcore, skill-cap oriented players are what they are going for.

And when they realize that this is the smallest and hardest to please niche in the MMO market, they’ll dumb down the content and make everything easier to attract the mainstream players, in much the same way that GW2 devs added ascended gear and fractal dungeons to appeal to the rush of hardcore gamers who complained that there was nothing to do when they hit the level cap after 10 days of play.

Agreed. I don’t think people actually realize how small the hard-core niche is compared to casual players these days.

I foresee a constant stream of “content too hard! content too inaccesible!” complaints. Can’t find a group to do X, it shouldn’t require X people to do Y content, when are they adding solo dungeons, I don’t have time to play hard-core but I want all of the same stuff!

It’s going to happen. You will all see.

Wait so which is it? Hardcore players are such a small niche that they can’t support the game, or hardcore players are such a large portion of the playerbase that they had to add in ascended gear, fractals, teq and wurm because the game can’t survive without the hardcore players?

You can’t have both… either hardcore players are a small niche or they are essential for the games survival…Which is it?

Small niche, most vocal/loudest complainers. You can have both….

EDIT: These were the ones that hit level cap within the first month, complained there was nothing to do, content was too easy, we all remember it. The majority of players (i.e. the casuals) were not on the forums complaining about such things because they were still busy playing the game and leveling up.

Fast forward to now and ascended gear is one of the touchiest subjects there is: too much grind, not enough time to play to get it, and all that. You know who hasn’t been complaining about the ascended gear? Hard core players because they have been fully outfitted in it since the month after it was released. What % of the player base would you say is doing FoTM 40-50? 5%? Maybe? If that.

Or when they released Teq/Wurm. The sheer number of complaints about it being too hard, impossible, too much coordination, etc etc. You know who wasn’t complaining about it? The hard-core players/guilds that screamed for that kind of content early on and that can regularly complete it.

Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be content for the hard-core players, my point was, if a game caters only to that hard-core player, they will quickly find out that it will be unsustainable. The core demographic of gamers is older now and doesn’t have the time to invest in hard-core content. They need a good balance, which IMO is like 70/30 casual/hardcore content. Just an opinion.

Algreg.3629:

Well, not all of us have to agree with your postmaterialistic ethos. And I´d reverse the nature vs nurture positions. But anyway, this is probably not the place to debate individualistic vs. collectivistic philosophies. Still, rewards given to someone who is better at something does not mean they are “taken away” from the less skillful, slothful, whatever. That is an old socialist parlor trick.

But that’s the whole point.

Why is that the thing that shall be rewarded and not other things?

Why do we not reward all things, and then you pick that thing that is most exciting and challenging and fun for you to obtain your rewards, and I’ll do those things that are the most exciting and challenging and fun to obtain my rewards?

If what is missing is that fun thing for some people, then by all means, lets add that! More content types for more people, choices and options, that’s my motto!

It’s when it starts to turn the way of, “Ok, now that we have that new content we asked for that some of us like, let’s pick ‘that’ as the type of content you get the Sword of Tal Fortgang.”

Because if that’s all that it’s about, then you are admitting it has nothing to do with wanting challenging content for the sake of challenging content that is missing because it’s fun in and of itself. What you want is to implement an economic system that favors what you like and are skilled at.

In America and some other Western-esque cultures, I suppose you could get away with saying, "Well, Free Market, that’s just how it works, you gotta get on board or get out, sorry, this has been building up for 1,000s of years … " (well, 100s if you are a Creationist, I suppose) " … and this is where we are at now and there you go."

But to take something that is nothing and build that into it on purpose is kinda sad and mean and selfish.

Beldin.5498:

Really ? Harder Zones ? Sorry but i don’t think we need more Karka Islands. That zone is still dead with Megaserver beside the time when the Queen Event is running.

And that zone was especially created because so many players cried for their harder zones and that everything is too easy.

I’d rather see more zones like Frostgorge instead.

Hah, Karkaland… The main problem with that one is the mobs have so many cheesekitten dodge-or-die abilities (Li’l karka needles, megaconfuse lizards, big karka rollover). No room for error. It actually doesn’t make for very good gameplay. Instead of it being a skillful fight, it’s “watch for this ONE THING” then autoattack for a few seconds.

Sadly, early game for GW2 just got easier. That’s not a good thing. :\

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Wait so which is it? Hardcore players are such a small niche that they can’t support the game, or hardcore players are such a large portion of the playerbase that they had to add in ascended gear, fractals, teq and wurm because the game can’t survive without the hardcore players?

Depends whom you ask. If you ask hardcores, it is the second. If you ask anyone else, it’s the first.
And it’s not that hardcores can’t support the game – there can be good niche games dedicated specifically for them. What they cannot support is the AAA title. There’s simply not enough of them – and in the truly Massive Multiplayer segment, it’s the casuals that bring in the money.

So of course catering for hardcores by the way of ascended gear for example, was a mistake.

Rauderi.8706:

I’m so glad someone else said this! The notion that “elite players need the best gear” is a false one. Elite players need challenging mechanics in PvE and balanced choices in PvP. That’s all.
The gear treadmill is little more than ego-feeding the craving for high numbers. That’s not all bad, but it’s not necessary. It results in number inflation where bosses have millions of hitpoints, but their kill times stay the same. (coughWoWcough) It’s also why WoW is bringing all their numbers down and smoothing their gear curves for their next expansion. (There’s going to be so. much. kittening.)

And the fun thing is also that those people, as soon as they have the best gear start to cry that everything is too easy, and they want again harder content so that in the end they are not better than they were before with their old stuff.

Ouimette.5902:

I guess that would be mostly because I was just grinding my way up level after level. So I went on my 80’s in Gw2 and did what I usually do. Some daily PvP, dungeon runs, world bosses and ascended crafting. But while I was playing I got reminded about what I missed. The hardcore stuff, which WildStar has. So I went back and continued to level in WS and yet I became bored doing the leveling.

The point is. Guild Wars 2 really has a solid casual gameplay but in more recent times. I just log on daily and do the thing I least don’t feel like doing. Cause I’ve done everything in the game 100 times over and I’m growing further and further away from GW2. And I hate it. Because I love the game and I see so much potential it has. But it comes from an egoistic point of view since not everyone wants the hardcore stuff(since megaservers, teq and wurm doesn’t count).

WildStar is a game where you have to haul your kitten through all the boring low level zones all the way to the “elder(end)-games”. I maybe will give it a chance but I rather want GW2 to get that.

ArenaNet has spoken alot about “creating a foundation for the game”. So I’d guess they are speaking about alot to do regarding to the dungeons, achievements, daily rewards and so forth. But with their constant temporary content from the living story the game will never actually be any different and create a dull game. Dungeons as the aetherpirates hideout and the molten facility dissapears and queen’s gauntlet is still closed. Instead the game get new added permanent things such as crab toss, belcher’s bluff and sanctum sprint.

Very fine points. I’m wanting to give WildStar a chance. They made so many ambitious end-game statements, but they left their opening game to rot. :\

It’s just so slow to get to anything interesting. The quest hubs are a mess (WoW has that solid by now). By level 13, I have all of 5 skills. Compared to GW2, I’d have 2 full weapon switches (10 skills), the self-heal, and two of at least 6 different skills (depending on skill point costs and how ambitious I am in getting map points). As much as people complain that GW2 locks you into weapon sets, when those sets are fully optimized through active switching, you get a lot of flexibility.

By level 13, I’d be knee deep in crafting, even making decent gear. In WildStar, I was just starting, and I never felt I had what I needed.

Something GW2 could kidnap from WildStar (and Rift): Crafting quests. Imagine if we could turn gear orders from NPCs into karma, ascended mats, Black Lion keys, Black Lion ticket scraps, skill points, gold, or other more unique rewards. There wouldn’t need to be (for example) arbitrary formulas in Ascended crafting to de-bloat the silk market. Heck, they could even read the Trading Post inventory and develop daily crafting quests based on whatever has the most inventory at the time!

WildStar was just.. exhausting to go through. I could play for maybe two hours before I got bored and went pet-battle farming in WoW or skill-point roaming in GW2.

Though, I do have to wonder if GW2 could kidnap the development paths as well. The choice between Soldier/Scientist/Settler/Explorer felt good in WildStar. It would certainly let us feel like we’ve got an impact on the world. (Settler made me happy knowing what I was doing was bringing convenience to myself and others. Squee.)

Beldin.5498:

I wonder if a game only for hardcore players works, since i often have the feeling that one of the main aspects from the hardcore folks is to get “better” stuff and show off what they have, and that means they need other players around that DON’T have that stuff.

However if now a game has only these hardcore players and everyone has the good stuff, will that not lead to the feeling that everyone of these hardcores in the end is just a casual / medium player and not the soooo much better than the rest player ?

Hah! Interesting existential question. =P

Astralporing.1957:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Wait so which is it? Hardcore players are such a small niche that they can’t support the game, or hardcore players are such a large portion of the playerbase that they had to add in ascended gear, fractals, teq and wurm because the game can’t survive without the hardcore players?

Depends whom you ask. If you ask hardcores, it is the second. If you ask anyone else, it’s the first.
And it’s not that hardcores can’t support the game – there can be good niche games dedicated specifically for them. What they cannot support is the AAA title. There’s simply not enough of them – and in the truly Massive Multiplayer segment, it’s the casuals that bring in the money.

It’s unlikely that big-name MMO developers are going to deliberately reduce their potential customer base by catering only to the laid back or the intense demographics. The MMO genre’s customer base expanded hugely when WoW went mainstream. Since, that customer base has shown little to no growth, and may even be in decline. There are multiple games (many, if you count all the F2P offerings) competing for the same customers.

This is why game companies try to offer diverse types of content — to get as large a market-share as possible. FotM, Teq, Wurm, Liadri, TA-AP — all were aimed at those who want more challenge in their MMO. At the same time, most of the LW content was aimed at the “want busywork” demographic. Ascended is aimed at the “want goals” demographic, not the hardcore. So, are game companies trying too hard to please everyone? Maybe so. Then again, the nature of the market drives them to do so.

Also, the nature of humanity ensures that even if content is aimed at a demographic, it’s never enough. The new-car feeling wears off long before the next content appears, especially if the developers are trying to please as many as possible. Meanwhile, some players in virtually every demographic complain bitterly if every addition to the game is not aimed at their play-style.

If anything, the explorer play style gets the short end of the straw. Since Sanctum of the 4 Winds, the last content added that had something to explore, the hardcore have seen FotM revamps, Teq, Wurm and Gauntlet/Liadri. Casual players have seen Ascended weapons and armor, as well as a lot of LW content.

Algreg.3629:

notebene.3190:

Phadde.7362:

Don’t get me wrong here! I mentioned these rewards as something that “enhanced” the joy of defeating these challenges. It’s merely a secondary thing at best in my opinion.

Currently when I ask people why they want to skip as much of the dungeons as possible, I usually get the answer that they do indeed just want the reward. To me, that is skipping all the fun. I think this is tied to the fact that the dungeons are so easy! I think that this culture becomes less and less of a factor the more challenging something gets.

Still though, rewards makes things a bit more fun.

It’s path of least resistance.

If dungeons were truly fun, and not just in this game, ‘any’ MMO, since…we’ll say UO, just to give us a start, then you would be able to put metric collecting sniffers on a game, and give the same amount of monetary/token/item reward with dungeons, making a house, building a ship, tending to a farm, writing in a pretend book, fishing, dynamic events, doing quests, living world, keg brawl, WvW, PvP, RvR, GvG, [Consonant]v[Consonant], gathering, and I suspect the metrics for doing the 5-man dungeons would be considerably less.

I think there are 3 types of folks that like a 5-man (as an example of a place you usually find the challenging type of content you are referring):

1. People who truly love the content for the sake of the content and the reward is so secondary that if you could also get those same rewards through other means, it wouldn’t matter, because they choose to do the dungeon to get that reward vs the other thing because it is truly the most fun thing for them to do.

2. People who subject themselves to the dungeon, because it is the only way to get any sort of decent reward, and given free will and other means, would gladly choose another way to obtain that money/item, as it is not the most fun thing to do.

3. Could be a subset of 1 or 2, this is about obtaining the wealth/item, but not so much that they obtained the wealth/item, but that they know that a great number of people don’t have that same wealth/item, and that is what gives them their satisfaction or euphoria more than the item or wealth itself. Their winning is defined more in terms of someone else’s loss, so to speak.

Now, if you spread rewards around such that ‘all’ activities are reward equally (perhaps based on time alone, or I would even concede to a formula of time and some perceived value of risk reward, where you make people who don’t like the labeled ‘difficult content’ spend a little more time than the people doing the ‘difficult content’ to receive the same reward), 1 and 2 people should be super happy. 1 gets to continue to do the thing that is so much fun for them to do. 2 gets to do something else.

It’s the 3s that take exception to this. Whether they enjoy the dungeons or not, you have taken away that way for them to win at the expense of others. I have, but more importantly, you do not have.

So as long as your original request is all about being a 1. Then I support you, and hope you get your content.

If we’re talking about those 3s, then I hope you do not. And that’s not because I don’t wish for you to have your content, but because it starts creating this divide between haves and have nots based on some arbitrary, perceived activity that should be rewarded more than other activities.

Now, if that is all the better we all are. And the number of 3s we have is far bigger than I even expected…and growing, then by all means, lets let the bees have a shot at it, because we’re done.

And it is nurture vs nature. We don’t start this way, we learn it. There’s no reason we can’t end up like this (and hopefully do).

Well, not all of us have to agree with your postmaterialistic ethos. And I´d reverse the nature vs nurture positions. But anyway, this is probably not the place to debate individualistic vs. collectivistic philosophies. Still, rewards given to someone who is better at something does not mean they are “taken away” from the less skillful, slothful, whatever. That is an old socialist parlor trick.

Are you really saying that having the patience to AA through a dungeon for hours is more challenging than trying to consistently catch those ale barrels in the Shiverpeak Mountains, or rise to the top and triumph over others in WvW or sPvP?

The problem here is that you think the people are ‘better’ than others based on what activities they care about in-game. There are all sorts of challenges provided by Guild Wars 2.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind if they kept unique skins serving as “I survived Teq And Wurm” or “Fractal Victor 2014!” souvenirs for specific content types.

notebene.3190:

~

Never been into Treky, but I’ve known of that clip for years, love that concept!

Anyways, what I’m talking about is mostly about the #1 on your list: The actual gameplay and experience is king.
But I also dip into the #3.
I disagree that your joy of having a trophy that you find particularly awesome because it’s really hard to get is at the expense of those that cannot get it – It’s in a big respect as a result of that, but not at the expense;
This is subjective, but I’ve always loved to see people with gear that I could only dream do acquire, particularly as a noob. It gave the game more flavor, depth and it made it feel a lot more epic, in my opinion.
There is a reason why people are really proud of the trophies and golden goblets that they got as a price for winning some sport tournament; All pride an joy of having achieved that is tied to that trophy.
Again though, I’m going on a bit heavily about the reward-part which I also claimed wasn’t all that important =P I’m just saying that it would add a lot and in particular, it would draw a lot of people in.

Sartharina.3542:

Are you really saying that having the patience to AA through a dungeon for hours is more challenging than trying to consistently catch those ale barrels in the Shiverpeak Mountains, or rise to the top and triumph over others in WvW or sPvP?

The problem here is that you think the people are ‘better’ than others based on what activities they care about in-game. There are all sorts of challenges provided by Guild Wars 2.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind if they kept unique skins serving as “I survived Teq And Wurm” or “Fractal Victor 2014!” souvenirs for specific content types.

well, I did not touch gamemodes at all, but as you ask :P I think pvp should be rewarded good as playing against real people is the biggest challenge in a game usually. And I think effort also is a factor, if you have to spend hours for a dungeon/fractal (well, not because you completely suck at it obviously), that should be worth something.

Generally, my mindset is this: I sincerely believe almost all humans are capable of great or at least good things if ability is rewarded over inability/slothfulness – and it should be rewarded. And I also believe the thing people enjoy the most is improving themselves and overcoming obstacles if they give it a try.

^ PvP is also the most exploitable game mode of all.

Phadde.7362:

I disagree that your joy of having a trophy that you find particularly awesome because it’s really hard to get is at the expense of those that cannot get it – It’s in a big respect as a result of that, but not at the expense;

It depends on the kind of trophy. You have previously expressed that you’d love unique skins as rewards for hard content, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. There are quite a few trophies like that in game already (green and yellow SAB weapons as well as the mini Liadri come to my mind as the ones I’d love to have but simply wasn’t good enough to win), and I’d really like to see more stuff like that, even if I won’t be able to get it myself.

On the other hand, others on this thread have asked for unique, stronger equipment as reward for harder content, quite similar to how you only get the best in slot equipment from the top-end raids in other games (or not, if you are unlucky … I’ve myself gone a whole season in a previous game never getting my best in slot item despite raiding twice a week for a year because the drop-chance was so low that we never even got enough of those items for each of the original raid members).

I strongly disagree with locking best (stat-wise) gear behind hardcore challenges because all it does is increase the gap between players, thus actually leading to “gain on other people’s expenses”. That’s not what GW2 was about until now, and I hope it’ll never go that route.

Slightly off-topic, so to get back onto the original topic: I’d love harder challenges with unique decorative rewards (skins, toys, minis, …), but prefer them to be avoidable for people not into that kind of thing (e.g. crown pavilion challenges are great, but Tequatl on the road out of Divinity’s Reach most certainly would not be ok). Game-wise I’ll most likely stick with this one for a while yet, since it allows me to switch between challenging content (well, challenging for me) when I feel like it and casual outings all over the place when real life holds enough stress already.