First of all I love GW2. I bought this game at launch and played it for months before I finally lost the enjoyment due to lack of meaningful endgame content and the grind that was the Legendary weapon.
Now, I came back, 2 weeks ago today, to get back into the game I once loved in time for the new expansion that is forthcoming in the next few months.
I decided first, to level my armorsmith profession to begin working on my ascended set.
I am an honest player, I couldn’t afford gems to sell for gold so I grinded for all my equipment. I had 6g when I came back to this game and had to farm for those two weeks just to be able to get armorsmithing to 500. When I hit that mark a few hours ago I had 11 silver left. However, I also had some ascended material components I had been desperately trying to secure for when I finally got to max crafting level.
I set myself a lofty goal of crafting one piece of ascended gear every day or every other day until I had my full set, then I’d work on lvling weaponsmithing to make my weapon.
So for me to quite suddenly realise that I could only craft ONE ascended spool and ONE ascended ingot a day made me think about how ludicrous the amount of time it would take for me to see the fruits of any labour I were to put in.
I play the game in a self contained manner, I take pride in farming my own mats and when I can’t I buy and supplement what I have. This system however is the most passive grindfest I have ever seen.
Anet has spoken many times about their philosophy of not wanting players to feel like they are grinding and this system has easily, easily surpassed any amount of grind I have seen in any game.
Yes, I could farm the gold and buy most of the components off the TP but that would not only take away my sense of accomplishment, it would make all the work I did mostly redundant(cept for leveling armorsmithing) as well as ruin the fun I could have, not having to min-max every activity I chose to do based on how much gold it would make me. That is in no way fun or in no way how I would want to spend my time in GW2.
To further compound the issue, confound and offend my senses is how RNG loot is. I have played this game for months now, approaching 4 actually ( 3 and a half back at launch and 2 weeks since being back) and I have NEVER gotten an item worth more than 5 gold.
I have farmed world boss events, dungeons, WvW, spvp, you name it, I don’t have the luck of the draw, so everything is that much harder. That also means I know that I will not enjoy having to farm or hope to win the loot lottery just to be able to feel like I am progressing in this game.
I have loved everything else since I came back and was setting up to play this til the expansion came and then drop whatever price they asked immediately. Now, I refuse to be taken for a fool who is being indirectly forced to “grind” the gear I could have in half the time or less. It is an unacceptable mechanic. ESPECIALLY since ascended armor doesn’t even offer a significant stat increase over exotic.
I believe if I farm the mats and put in the work, both of which take time, I should be able to reap my rewards and not have some arbitrary barrier placed solely for the purpose of keeping me logging in. It has done the exact OPPOSITE and from reading the crafting section I can glean that many people hate the mechanic.
The market being flooded doesn’t matter because people with enough gold can still buy the gear, same as always.
All I have to show for 2 weeks of work in this game is Deldrimor Steel Helmet Casing… lulz. To me that is unacceptable. Anet has not delivered what they promised, I am not getting a rewarding experience that is commensurate to the time I put in. I have to play the waiting game for components I already have the mats for, madness.
I have played other games for longer periods and even then I never faced a situation where I could not reap the rewards of my efforts after…ya know…sewing the seeds. Its akin to entering a dungeon and getting that weapon drop you always wanted, that you have been farming for, then seeing a 30 day countdown timer added to it until you can equip it. Ridiculous.
Shame on you Anet, I am extremely disappointed. Unfortunately, you already had my 60$ 2+ years ago so there is no reason for you to care about me. But rest assured, I will not recommend this game to anyone else knowing these kinds of surreptitious actions are occurring in a game that is otherwise the most polished MMO on the market.
TLDR
I am not sitting for 36 days looking at materials, incrementally crafting gear that I should have access to as soon as I finish putting in the work for it.
Where is the player loyalty?