Guild Wars 2

Well if you not been on these forums the game been criticism a lot to the point of silliness. Its been so bad on these forums that criticism that are valid seem weaker due to the over exaggeration of other non valid criticism. I mean look at what Root.9415 is saying

Players can whip out their credit cards, buy gold, craft their toons to 80, buy all the best armor and weapons from the TP, all without ever leaving LA.

IMO this is P2W. Is it gamebreaking? Nope.

They have comply push off a talk about GW2 by adding a very off the wall view of the game being p2w that as been proven countless times to be no true.

That the problem with these forums and why criticism will be treated with a bit of unsureness.

Trinity sucks! I remember when used to play Lineage when you reach the endgame map you cant even go out and explore without buff from healers so you have to go to town buy a buff…. and yes they selling buffs!

There’s already a thread about P2W…

Pay to win means that you pay to access something that gives you a clear advantage over other players, which they cannot obtain without spending real currency themselves. This might be access to zones, it might be access to the top tier of gear, it might be a new level cap. Your argument that people can pay to win because of the gems to gold conversion would only be valid if gold were a currency gated behind gems. Your argument that the cosmetic sets of armor constitute a pay to win game is invalid because there’s no way to quantify aesthetics in this manner. Your arguments that people can pay to win because of boosters? Boosters are available in game. I’ve never bought one from the gemstore and I have a tab in my bank that’s half full of them. They came out of black lion chests- and I use the keys that drop in game to open those, so don’t argue with me about keys being pay to win, either.

The first game I ever played online was pay to win. GW2 is not.

There are plenty of valid issues to take with GW2; pay to win is not one of them.

Lots of guys in this thread need to seriously reevaluate their reading and comprehension skills.

GW2 has nothing to do with pay to win.

Now, on topic, what you say about endgame is relative, really, because there’s two distinct popular opinions among players.

What do you consider endgame? Raids? Grinding the same boss over and over again, dropping only a few loot to a huge amount of players so you keep wanting more and more until they release a new boss and invalidate your previous efforts/time every new patch?
Farming PvP for hours, days, weeks until you get an awesome gear that won’t be worth squats in the next expansion?

I, for one, welcome the endgame approach of Guild Wars 2. No grinding.
Well, now that Ascended Gear is out, this is subjected to change, as the grind for it does seem to be a huge step from the previous rarity. Still, reading topics on how they’re discussing this exact thing makes me think the developers do understand or at least care about what’s going on and how players feel about it.

So, dungeons are fun, WvW is fun, World Events are fun. There could have more “fun” in there but nothing is imperative and personally, I only log to do what I find it’s fun.

And as an example, a friend of mine recently started to play, and in less than a month (about 2~3 weeks) he got a Warrior from 1-80, never having played before, and just yesterday finished his full Exotic Set (all pieces: trinkets/back/armor/weapon).
Then I told him “Great, now you don’t have to farm anything else, whatever gold you get just buy gems, bags, more bank space, skins, dyes, whatever you want, and do whatever you think it’s fun.”
To which he replied: “I don’t know, dungeons are fun, WvW is fun too… let’s just play.”

So thank you but no, keep your “endgame” mentality of those millions of MMOs out there away from GW2 so I can keep playing for fun.

Also, this has been extensively discussed when the game launched and people reached their 80s and were looking for their “raids”. Been just a good time so I thought I’d post my (and many others) opinions again.

This thread has made me wonder, what exactly is the cut-off for P2W?

Ascended is only 5-7% stat boost, it was stated earlier, so it’s not significant enough to be counted. What is the threshold? 15% stat boost? 30%? 50%?

At what point, if you can put down cash for a stat boost, does a game become P2W?

Gibson.4036:

This thread has made me wonder, what exactly is the cut-off for P2W?

Ascended is only 5-7% stat boost, it was stated earlier, so it’s not significant enough to be counted. What is the threshold? 15% stat boost? 30%? 50%?

At what point, if you can put down cash for a stat boost, does a game become P2W?

The best example of p2w is Vindictus where you could buy weapons with only real life money that only lasted for a few days but these weapons where a great deal stronger then weapons in the game.

P2W only applies to buff and items that you can ONLY get with real life money if you can get it with in game gold then its not P2W.

Dang, I wish all those people that want to Pay2Win would do so. Then the exchange of Gold to Gems rate would drop considerably. Sadly, it seems few take advantage of said P2W. =(

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Dang, I wish all those people that want to Pay2Win would do so. Then the exchange of Gold to Gems rate would drop considerably. Sadly, it seems few take advantage of said P2W. =(

Since one can’t make enough gold to buy any amount of gems that would makes a difference, the P2W is semi-valid.

That said, I hate it. I’d like to see gems at level where they are “uncomfortable” but not “impossible”.

Gold isn’t easy to make in this game no matter what anyone says.

I ran my tail end off for all of WvW Season One in WvW for days, not hours, and all I had after one month? 150 gold 98% of which had to be used FOR WvW “end game” items that are needed just to stay alive solo in WvW.

There is nothing in this game that saves any player who is overwhelmed by a zerg, not a single one, oh, wait, mesmers and thieves can do it… Warriors and Guardians traited correctly can do it, and hmmm… Necros seem to make it out of fights even during a zerg, so that leaves… oh, the Ranger, who doesn’t have any of the tools to make enough DPS to make as much gold as others (how is this balanced in any way), the Ranger who doesn’t get half the badges because they can’t condition or DPS enough most of the time in a huge zerg hitting a tower or even sometimes a keep. So P2W somewhat – applies to some here as well, since with just a few badges and a tiny bit of gold you can be at least partially into good gear and ascended trinkets. The Ranger is the only one who gets left in the cold – even with the best of gear and the best of all traits available. P2W isn’t available as much to Rangers and the gap between Rangers and all others is blinding at times in WvW.

The P2W argument will be around forever but I think the real argument should be that there is very little documentation on this game for players to be able to learn enough to working around what information is lacking, is not balanced and is not accomplishable by anything except extraordinary means, i.e. days of time in which family, friends, job and home are ignored while trying to have “fun” when so many others don’t have jobs, don’t have obligations and don’t have anything but time. But even with time, money is the only logical and viable way to “buy gems” because of the cost ratio of gold to gems.

Enough of the P2W argument already. IF you think GW2 is pay to win, you’re an idiot.

What GW2 is, is grind to win, and roll a warrior to win. And this is the problem with the game.

Sube Dai.8496:

Enough of the P2W argument already. IF you think GW2 is pay to win, you’re an idiot.

What GW2 is, is grind to win, and roll a warrior to win. And this is the problem with the game.

+1 Top Comment

Just copy pasting my old reply from some old thread, Gw2 is not P2W

P2W is where you can clearly see that A is greater than B. If it’s subjective, i.e. different strokes for different folks, it doesn’t fall as P2W. In fact, your endgame is different than mine, totally subjective!

For simplicity:
If you buy an item that gives you 1000dps (and without it, you can only do 100dps) and you can only get that by spending real money (and NO OTHER way other than real money), then yes. If no one can deny that something is better than another thing, it’s P2W.

If you buy an item that makes you think you look pretty, but others looks at you like a fool coz in their eyes you look like a clown, then it’s not P2W. (Personally, those toxic shoulder and gloves are super ugly for me, but super pretty for others, so in my eyes those who bought it made themselves ugly).

I have seen forumers says some Legendary are “ugly” (and even Anet improved some of them) and in that case, you can’t say P2W coz you got ugly instead of looking pretty (which in the case of those saying getting gem skin means WIN).

Cosmetic might be one of the endgame offering of Gw2, but cosmetic is subjective, and if you get ugly, you lose instead of win.

Ascended Armor/Weapon can be achieved via normal play, sure it will take time, but players have option to speed up (Gem to Gold which IS VERY expensive) or take the normal way. Imagine the Gem-2-Gold as “special delivery service overnight shipping” and normal playing as “7-10+ business day shipping”. If you buy stuff from a retailer, you still get the SAME STUFF, except the delivery is faster if you spend more cash. Both shipping will result in getting the SAME item (Armor/Weapon, etc) except those who went special shipping get theirs a lot faster.

So G2Gold = very expensive, in the end, they still get the same stat/look of item that players grind. It takes longer, but, the g2g never won in stat….

Another example is my real experience getting legendary. Those who paid real money to get theirs, got their legendary like in 2-3monts of the game’s release. While it took me a year. but in the end, their legendary looks the same as mine: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/My-Legendary-one-year-in-the-making/

wPVP is just shallow and determined by the server with a higher population

WvW is determined by off-hours. Bases just switch back and forth due to time zones.

Why did this thread turn into a p2w argument? Wtf?

From someone who has played the 2nd and 3rd betas, and started with the headstart at launch, I was so ecstatic about this game. I thought this was going to be THE game I was going to be actively playing for years to come. Turns out it wasn’t. In the 482 days I’ve had this game, I have a total of 1,362 hours played across all characters, and I don’t ponder in Lion’s Arch doing nothing too, so all my hours are from actually playing the game.

At one point I took a 3 or so month break, because there was nothing to do. I had nothing to look forward to. It’s as if hitting 80 and then gearing up was end game for me. Sure I still had dungeons to do, fractals, world completion, and more, but it was just boring. I felt like there was no sense of progression. The only thing that’s fun is WvW, which is probably where 800 or so hours is in from my play time.

I have a total of five maxed toons, all heavy and medium classes. They’re all pretty geared up, exotic wise. Which brings me to my next point. Fractals. I’ve never had the NEED to get ascended gear. I found doing dungeons pretty boring. The only ascended gear I have is the ones from the laurel and badges of honor vendors. Now with the introduction of ascended armor, I WAS planning on finally grinding to get some.. but I got lazy.

I still haven’t gotten world completion either. I have no need to, and I don’t have the urge to. At one point I wanted that shiny star next to my name, but I got over it. I also don’t have the urge to finish world completion because I have no urge to go for a legendary. My friends have legendaries and always ask me if I ever get jealous or feel the need to get a legendary. I always tell them, kitten no. For a couple reasons, I hate grinding, most of the legenaries look like total bullkitten, I hate grinding, and I hate grinding.

But I guess there are some really good points about this game. It’s not subscription based. Even though I don’t play this game much, I’ve still bought gems with real money. You’re probably wondering, “If he doesn’t enjoy the game why is he giving more money to ANet?” The answer is simple, if I wanna buy something from the gem store, I will. I’ve bought all the unlimited gathering tools, tons of transmutes, town clothes, gem store only armor skins, and others.

I’ve also never had the need to get gold. In all the other MMORPGs I’ve played, I’ve always felt the need to get money, and be rich. Even if I’ve already pretty much got the best gear. In GW2, I don’t feel the need to get the best gear, or get huge sums of money. I’ve never been “poor” though. I’ve always had plenty of money to buy all the stuff I need, and still have enough to buy a bunch more crap. I just wish WvW made you richer, besides following zergs, because that’s no fun.

And all this Living Story mumbo jumbo, I haven’t even paid attention to the story itself. I only did them for the skins when you finish a certain amount of achievements.

All in all, Guild Wars 2 is a pretty good game. You’re not forced to do anything you don’t want to. I’m a pretty casual GW2 player, and even if I go away for a while, I don’t feel like I’m behind. Sure I don’t have the BiS gear, but it’s alright. Dungeons are stack and zerk all day anyways, besides Fractals. In WvW, as long as you’re 80 with at least all exotic you’re fine. Then it just comes down to player skill(coming from solo and small team roaming), even though some classes are more powerful than others.

I just wish this game gave you more of a feeling of progression. But hey, at least WvW is fun.