Guild Wars 2

Rednik.3809:

Then how we got 0 dungeons, 2 fractals and 4 raid wings?

Because we got 4 HoT maps, 4 Living World maps, and 3 PvP maps?

Emm, what? Difficulty modes serves for widening raid audience and keeping mid and high-end raiding community saturated with fresh blood. Otherwise old model with different difficulty of encounters during a single raid would be enough.

That’s not how raid modes in traditional mmorpgs work though. In a traditional design, the easiest mode of raid is designed to be equivalent of the hardest mode of the previous raid, the idea being to create one continuous progression track from the easiest mode of the first raid to the hardest mode of the last raid, with expansion level-cap raises being the time for resetting the progression.

Gw2 took a different approach of each boss being more difficult than the previous, thus creating continuous progression through the bosses.

castlemanic.3198:

OniGiri.9461:

Rednik.3809:

Crinn.7864:

Raids aren’t receiving more development time than anything.

Then how we got 0 dungeons, 2 fractals and 4 raid wings?

You don’t understand why other rpgs use “modes.” The entire concept of variable difficulty encounters was created for vertical progression mmos in order to keep a raid relevant after it’s original difficulty got power creeped out of relevance. Since GW2 does not use vertical progression there is no need for variable difficulty encounters.

Emm, what? Difficulty modes serves for widening raid audience and keeping mid and high-end raiding community saturated with fresh blood. Otherwise old model with different difficulty of encounters during a single raid would be enough.

Bringing up dungeons is just a joke since they stated that their won’t ever be any new dungeons.

You do realize that one fractal has about 5 different levels. You have to adjust 5 different difficulty settings, instability composition, mobs, bosses, agony calculation, etc.
A raid wing has 3 to 4 encounters. Most of them are just huge monsters who stand in the middle of an arena and wait for you to hit them.

Id say its pretty clear why its easier to spit out new raids then fractals.

Then Rednik’s point stands. Raids ARE receiving more development time. Objectively so.

Actually all his point proves, is that the other teams were not providing as much content in comparison, not that raids are receiving more development time.

I feel that exclusivity harms games that can provide new experiences to players. All it does is make those players unhappy. If the content were designed from the beginning to be all inclusive, then hardcore players can get the challenge that they want while casual gamers can get the experience without the difficulty. The game was designed for a ton of people, I see no reason to exclude them from specific content if difficulty levels can be placed.

Fatalyz.7168:

Then Rednik’s point stands. Raids ARE receiving more development time. Objectively so.

Actually all his point proves, is that the other teams were not providing as much content in comparison, not that raids are receiving more development time.[/quote]

That….. means that raids are receiving more development time. If other teams are not providing as much content, that means that raids are seeing more development time. Literally, that’s what it means.

castlemanic.3198:

That….. means that raids are receiving more development time. If other teams are not providing as much content, that means that raids are seeing more development time. Literally, that’s what it means.

So does that mean, if you spent 4 hours creating and building something, and I spent 4 minutes creating and building something, that my project received more development time?

Fatalyz.7168:

So does that mean, if you spent 4 hours creating and building something, and I spent 4 minutes creating something, that my project received more development time?

Yes, actually. Because you’d still have to do the building of that thing later on, which would count as more development time.

castlemanic.3198:

Fatalyz.7168:

So does that mean, if you spent 4 hours creating and building something, and I spent 4 minutes creating something, that my project received more development time?

Yes, actually. Because you’d still have to do the building of that thing later on, which would count as more development time.

Should have said “and building”. Edited original post to reflect.

Fatalyz.7168:

castlemanic.3198:

Fatalyz.7168:

So does that mean, if you spent 4 hours creating and building something, and I spent 4 minutes creating something, that my project received more development time?

Yes, actually. Because you’d still have to do the building of that thing later on, which would count as more development time.

Should have said “and building”. Edited original post to reflect.

So that THEN makes your point void, because if the other teams aren’t releasing content, then more time is being spent on raids.

If we both spend 4 hours creating and building two different things, those two things have equal development time. Now, lets assume we’re part of a three person team, with a third teammate called Bob. If Bob doesn’t create or build anything, then the both of our projects have more development time than Bob’s by default.

Unless there’s a sudden surge in content other than raids, you have no ground to stand on.

EDIT: I made a post and immediately realised my own error in this assumption, so I’m keeping the original post and modifying it so that people can see both what I wrote and what I’m going to write.

The argument you should have been standing on was “just because we don’t see other things being released does not mean other things aren’t being worked on”. I assume that this must have been an underlying assumption of yours that you were’t able to express (happens ALL the kittining time to me).

We only have what’s been released to go on, so it’s hard to see this point of view. We also don’t know how many things were being developed on and then scrapped for various reasons.

Considering all that, it is definitely flawed to argue that just because we’ve seen four raid wings, 2 fractals and 0 dungeons does not mean that raids are getting the lion’s share of development time/costs.

Also, on my way to writing this I saw a brief post that said the following. I wanna give you credit whoever it was, but I can’t find your post so I can’t quote. Sorry dude!

Also, we’ve received 5 sets of current events, three of those having multiple ‘events’, 4 living world stories and 4 HoT maps.

There is an argument that could be made that the above does not represent “group content” but I’m not buying it, content is the argument and the above stands as content.

castlemanic.3198:

Fatalyz.7168:

castlemanic.3198:

Fatalyz.7168:

So does that mean, if you spent 4 hours creating and building something, and I spent 4 minutes creating something, that my project received more development time?

Yes, actually. Because you’d still have to do the building of that thing later on, which would count as more development time.

Should have said “and building”. Edited original post to reflect.

So that THEN makes your point void, because if the other teams aren’t releasing content, then more time is being spent on raids.

If we both spend 4 hours creating and building two different things, those two things have equal development time. Now, lets assume we’re part of a three person team, with a third teammate called Bob. If Bob doesn’t create or build anything, then the both of our projects have more development time than Bob’s by default.

Unless there’s a sudden surge in content other than raids, you have no ground to stand on.

Unless the content that my team is creating is easier to produce than your teams.

I’m also assuming that all members of the team are working equally, and that my team was able to finish it’s project in (let’s expand the time frame a bit) 4 days, where it takes your team 4 weeks to finish its project. I think it would be pretty safe to say that your project received more development time, even if your team “produced” less.

I use “produced” in quotes because we have no information of the amount of effort it took to produce what your team did. My project could have require very little effort to “produce” a lot, while yours could have required a major amount of effort to “produce” a little.

Just because my team was able to “produce more” in less time, doesn’t mean more time was spent.

Edit: I saw your edit after my post. I believe we are on the same page now. Maybe I should have tried that angle, but I’ll remember for next time.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

What do you mean it didn’t stop any complaints about them?

The PVP forums had a lot of pve players who couldn’t get their shinny pvp backpack even though they had access to the fractal backpack. Same types of players also complain about how they changed the ascended acquisition method from pvp. They were pve players, not pvp players.

We’ve seen several people say that they believe the identity of the game changed, and those people are right to them. To those people the identity of the game has changed. And though raids all by themselves aren’t the cause of anything, they’re a very visible poster boy for the way the game is changing.

This goes to the phrase of the OP:

TLDR; What makes GW2 different than any other generic MMO right now?

All the things that GW2 did differently than other games somehow stopped existing because they added Raids?

Did they stop adding dynamics events and went to a traditional quest system? No.
Did they made it so you curse when other players are around and steal your mobs and your nodes? No.
Did they made the combat static with passive defenses? No.
Did they remove the ability to enter pvp and be at max level and have access to nearly everything? No. (Expansion excluded, you don’t have to level up, nor grind to be effective in pvp)

The identity of the game is still there and nothing changed. They added new things you can safely ignore and go focus on the things that you like. How can anyone say that the identity of the game changed when all the pillars of the game are still intact? I believe those that say that the identity of the game changed should go play some other mmorpgs for a while to REMEMBER what GW2 did better than those games, and still does.

You can say nothing’s changed over and over again, but in fact, some stuff has changed. The way new legendaries are is different from the way old legendaries are. That’s a change. Something has changed. Raids have been added to the game and for a surprising number of people that seems to be a change. And it is in fact a change.

The difficulty level of the game has changed, and that’s a change.

The way mastery points were added is a change, and the way elite specializations were added was a change.

Hero points that require groups to do, that’s a change.

Just because core elements are in a game, doesn’t mean nothing’s changed. As I’ve already said, more than once, this game doesn’t have an identity with a capital I. A roleplayer playign this game won’t perceive the same identity that I do.

But yes, I believe the game has changed significantly, mostly for the better.

I don’t know why you think people would not speak up if they see changes they don’t like.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

But you can get a legendary backpack from PvP or Fractals.

They added multiple legendary backpacks because it’s easy for them to do so. Legendary armor takes an insane amount of time to finish as we’ve already seen. Who is to say that they won’t add another method of acquiring Legendary armor (different skin) once the first one is out? It happened with ascended rings, it happened with legendary backpacks.

The problem here is how long it takes for them to finish one set of armor. If the reason this discussion even exist is because they don’t have multiple ways of giving out Legendary armor, then that has little to do with identity or direction and it’s all about the developer being so slow in creating armor skins.

See you’re saying what I’ve said all along. Legendary armor takes an insane amount of time (read resources) in addition to the resources of making raids, but only a small percentage of the population will benefit from it.

I’m not a game developer and maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about but this seems counter intuitive to me. In a game where fashion wars is the game, raiders just won.

I’m not sure how that can possibly be good for the game.

Don’t you think its just a small subset of people interested in legendary armor? We have had legendary items for over 4 years now and maybe 25% of the playerbase has one (or more) of these items. So putting this high end reward in the high end end game content will alienate only a subset of the group of people that are interested in legendary items.

No, I don’t think this at all. I think when people see cool animated armor they’re going to want it. And that will be a larger subset, in my opinion, than you think it will be.

It’s like the snow shoulders. Lots of people wanted it, even though not everyone would grind for it.

castlemanic.3198:

OniGiri.9461:

Astralporing.1957:

…

I don’t understand how there can be any debate on “If you complete the biggest challange – you get the biggest reward”.

What does the reward have to do with the position of the game mode?

You realize legendary armor is inheretly exclusive! They will never, ever, ever be availabe for the broad playerbase. Just like every other legendary item. We had legendary items for about 5 years now. If you check statistics for players who own at least one legendary item you will see its about 25%.

You are arguing like raids will lock away very demanded items. They are not.
So the people on this thread demanding a change in raids or the system to make it easier for them to get to this item – you belong in this small subset of players who want this new legendary item and who don’t want to raid.

Still think its reasonable?

This is my argument, so I claim to speak for no one else.

But

Legendary gear should NOT be exclusive, not the way legendary gear is right this moment.

This is what legendary gear was like when the game was first released:

Same stats as the widely acquireable exotic gear, fancy graphics.

It was cosmetic. Purely. Cosmetic.

That’s how legendaries were made, designed and placed in the game world.

That’s acceptable, that’s even favourable to what we have now, because the legendary gear did not affect gameplay.

The game did NOT have gear treadmills. Everyone could be just as strong as the next person, only some people would have something shiny that others didn’t have.

THEN, ascended gear was released. One of the worst decisions ArenaNet could have made. They made a gear treadmill. They buffed the stats of legendaries and now, there were stats that were out of the reach of the vast majority of players.

There’s a caveat at this point, in that legendaries were STILL fancy shinies of acquireable gear, they were NOT superior to ascended gear.

Now we have the state of legendaries as they are now. Where legendaries can have their stats changed on the fly at no cost.

That’s kittining horrible. The worst. Even worse than the ascended gear disaster. Now legendaries are superior to every other form of gear available to players, including ascended.

But it didn’t REALLY matter, since so few players would have this massive quality of life improvement. At this time they were still only weapons. Having ONE equippable item be legendary, be able to change your stats on the fly, was not too big of a deal, as the changed stats would still require a ton of other replacement gear for whenever you changed your build.

Then the legendary backpieces were released. NO, this is the worst. This quality of life improvement should be available to everyone.

And now they’re adding a FULL set of legendary armour.

Are you KITTINING ME?

Now, we have a full set of gear that’s able to change stats on the fly if a player changes builds on the fly.

Legendaries were always exclusive. What they did was not. Now they’ve made a gear treadmill, they’ve added one more category of gear that needs to be had to be able to be the ‘best’ in the game. That’s pure bull. Complete. Utter. Bull.

So, unless all players are given the ability to swap stats on their gear, legendaries ARE a huge problem.

Just because other games get away with this kittiny design does NOT make it right.

The biggest rewards should be shiny, not improved ability to play the game. That’s where the problem lies.

Where exactly is this mystical gear threadmill? The only change was ascended equipment, introduced over 4 years ago. Legendaries were put on par with ascended equipment because they are so expensive. Stat swap just saves you transmutation charges. It is still build for the skin.

How is legendary equipment better than ascended?

A gear threadmill is a gradually increasing equipment cap, not a one time increase 4 years ago. You are four years too late.

… the ability to change stats on the fly with Legendary weapons/backpieces/armor is simply a way to not screw players over when they do want to change stats. It’s far cheaper to craft multiple Ascended weapons and armor.

You can’t change the sigils/runes (And runes are more important than sigils, I think), so it’s not much of a benefit, anyway.

Vayne.8563:

You can say nothing’s changed over and over again, but in fact, some stuff has changed.

There is a difference between saying something changed and the game “lost its identity”.
There are important things that make GW2 the game it is, and none of that changed. The core philosophies of the game never changed. Sure they made other changes here and there but the core game is still there and it’s the same as ever. If the core game is the same how can you say that the identity changed?

Maybe there is a huge difference in how we interpret the word “identity” when used for a game. As I said, if you go play another mmorpg just for a couple of hours, you will miss things of GW2 for certain. Those things you will miss are the game’s identity, and it has near nothing to do with hero points requiring a party, the difficulty being increased in the expansion and the way you get new legendary weapons. To me those really CORE features (that are still there) are the identity of the game, not a minor little feature.

Sartharina.3542:

… the ability to change stats on the fly with Legendary weapons/backpieces/armor is simply a way to not screw players over when they do want to change stats. It’s far cheaper to craft multiple Ascended weapons and armor.

You can’t change the sigils/runes (And runes are more important than sigils, I think), so it’s not much of a benefit, anyway.

What I find more interesting in the last couple of pages is that the identity of GW2 apparently changed because they didn’t add multiple ways of getting Legendary Armor. So the Legendary Armor being only available in Raids is a “loss of identity” for the game… How can anyone take this discussion seriously, if all it devolved into is a discussion about Raids and legendary armor?

maddoctor.2738:

Sartharina.3542:

… the ability to change stats on the fly with Legendary weapons/backpieces/armor is simply a way to not screw players over when they do want to change stats. It’s far cheaper to craft multiple Ascended weapons and armor.

You can’t change the sigils/runes (And runes are more important than sigils, I think), so it’s not much of a benefit, anyway.

What I find more interesting in the last couple of pages is that the identity of GW2 apparently changed because they didn’t add multiple ways of getting Legendary Armor. So the Legendary Armor being only available in Raids is a “loss of identity” for the game… How can anyone take this discussion seriously, if all it devolved into is a discussion about Raids and legendary armor?

So you’re ignoring everything else I said? Because it seems that way to me. I said, straight out, raids are not the issue, but they’re symptomatic of the issue. You don’t think increased grind changes the game? Grind for say the wintersday shoulders, which I brought up several times.

Or the fact that normal game mechanics like rezzing don’t seem to work in raids. Or that raids are the only place in the game you need a healer, after I bought a game that said you don’t need healers.

No, this is a symptom of something going on for a long time. You want to try to make this just about legendary armor, but I was saying the same thing, in raid threads, before raids ever made it to the game.

Raids create kitten and them mentality. You can see it throughout this thread. Sure if you’re one of “them” there’s no problem. It’s only when you’re one of us that the problem arises.

You’re fine, because you enjoy raids and so you can have the best rewards and there’s no issue.

But it’s not what I signed on for, and the more important issues like not being able to buy things like legendaries are on the TP, which were originally possible are major changes in the way the game makes you do things.

Before a casual player or a rich player could buy almost anything he wanted. People who have money or want to spend money on the game could. Now, you can’t spend the same amount of money because you may have to do things you don’t enjoy to get certain rewards.

Is it better for the game? I’m not thinking so.

Vayne.8563:

So you’re ignoring everything else I said?

Check out the posts above yours, it wasn’t a response to you. All the posts above yours belong to your “average anti-Raid thread” and not here. Now we go back to how much development time is spent on Raids, how adding multiple difficulties will help with Raids and so on, things had been discussed a million times in other threads, yet they are being brought here too.

I gave my response on the topic of identity:

Maybe there is a huge difference in how we interpret the word “identity” when used for a game.

Changes in mechanics only inside Raids (like not allowing rez, or requiring healers), the grind for a specific item (winter’s presence) or not having things for sale on the tp for gold, to me has nothing to do with a game’s identity. Those either affect very specific content, or very specific rewards, not the game as a whole.

I call a “game’s identity” the big picture and the core aspects of it, that are still there for the vast majority of the game’s content. And besides, even the OP said what he meant with identity change:

TLDR; What makes GW2 different than any other generic MMO right now?

And we can all agree that despite the changes, the game is still different to most other generic MMO out there and the identity change the op was talking about is wrong.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

So you’re ignoring everything else I said?

Check out the posts above yours, it wasn’t a response to you. All the posts above yours belong to your “average anti-Raid thread” and not here. Now we go back to how much development time is spent on Raids, how adding multiple difficulties will help with Raids and so on, things had been discussed a million times in other threads, yet they are being brought here too.

I gave my response on the topic of identity:

Maybe there is a huge difference in how we interpret the word “identity” when used for a game.

Changes in mechanics only inside Raids (like not allowing rez, or requiring healers), the grind for a specific item (winter’s presence) or not having things for sale on the tp for gold, to me has nothing to do with a game’s identity. Those either affect very specific content, or very specific rewards, not the game as a whole.

I call a “game’s identity” the big picture and the core aspects of it, that are still there for the vast majority of the game’s content. And besides, even the OP said what he meant with identity change:

TLDR; What makes GW2 different than any other generic MMO right now?

And we can all agree that despite the changes, the game is still different to most other generic MMO out there and the identity change the op was talking about is wrong.

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity. I came to this game, in part, specifically because it didn’t have raids, having had bad experience with raids in other games.

So yeah, simply adding raids will affect the identity of the game for some people.

Changing the way rewards are, ie making rewards more grindy, when the original grind wasn’t the same, that’s another change.

Saying something hasn’t changed when it obviously has isn’t really helping the discussion.

No one gets to pic the game’s identity. You can only see how you identify the game itself.

If you saw this as a largely casual game, in which you could do everything, and then suddenly a bunch of stuff was added you either couldn’t do or didn’t find fun doing, you might think the identity of the game has changed.

Before HoT, do you know the amount of PvE content I “couldn’t” do?

Liadri.

A single boss from a single festival. That’s it.

Since HOT there are adventures I can’t get gold on (and living in Australia doesn’t help that), there are raids I have no real interest in, that offer rewards I’d probably like, there’s a push to PvP more and more, when I used to do it casually sometimes for fun.

And I still don’t believe the identity of the game has changed for me, but I can definitely see why other people would say so.

OniGiri.9461:

Bringing up dungeons is just a joke since they stated that their won’t ever be any new dungeons.

So, they switched dungeon development resources to fractals, that’s why now we have much more new fractals than raid… oh wait, raids got more EVERYTHING than fractals.

You do realize that one fractal has about 5 different levels. You have to adjust 5 different difficulty settings, instability composition, mobs, bosses, agony calculation, etc.

So, basically sit there and change a few numbers in a script. Sounds like a lot of work, really.
And ofc Anet doesn’t bother with allowing players to betatest fractals, only raids are entitled for that.

Rednik.3809:

OniGiri.9461:

Bringing up dungeons is just a joke since they stated that their won’t ever be any new dungeons.

So, they switched dungeon development resources to fractals, that’s why now we have much more new fractals than raid… oh wait, raids got more EVERYTHING than fractals.

You do realize that one fractal has about 5 different levels. You have to adjust 5 different difficulty settings, instability composition, mobs, bosses, agony calculation, etc.

So, basically sit there and change a few numbers in a script. Sounds like a lot of work, really.
And ofc Anet doesn’t bother with allowing players to betatest fractals, only raids are entitled for that.

Guilds are invited to test raids, because they’re “experts”. Which I suppose tells the whole story right there.

If raids were “so easy” to get into, as many insist, why have guilds from the game been invited to test them, when that situation exists for no other content?

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Some new content that you can always ignore was added and it changed the game’s identity… how is adding something, without affecting the rest of the game, changing the identity of a game? And because you said it bellow, was adding Liadri to the game a change in identity?

Changing the way rewards are, ie making rewards more grindy, when the original grind wasn’t the same, that’s another change.

Changing how some rewards are and making them require more grind, doesn’t make the entire game more grind-y. A game’s identity is about the game as a whole, not a couple of things here and a couple of things there. And there have always been legendary weapons in the game, those are the at the top of the list of “grind”

Saying something hasn’t changed when it obviously has isn’t really helping the discussion.

The discussion is about the game’s identity, not if something changed here and there, obviously many things changed, but the core game (its identity) is still there.

There were loads of reviews for Guild Wars 2 at release. They all praised certain aspects of the game, and that’s what the core experience of the game is, that’s it’s identity, what many/most consider the actual strengths of this game. A couple of rewards changed, and a couple of new bosses or encounters added that are different/harder yes but that didn’t change the core of the game. The same reasons someone started playing GW2, still apply

For me, the game changed by moving to a much worse ratio of adding content I find desirable to adding content I have no interest in whatsoever. Resulting in the simple fact that I went from playing almost daily to a few minutes whenever there’s been an update, with very infrequent peaks when a new LS chapter is released.

The game’s direction most definitely changed. Whether or not that means its ‘identity’ changed is an inconsequential matter of semantics.

Rednik.3809:

OniGiri.9461:

Bringing up dungeons is just a joke since they stated that their won’t ever be any new dungeons.

So, they switched dungeon development resources to fractals, that’s why now we have much more new fractals than raid… oh wait, raids got more EVERYTHING than fractals.

I am a software developer. We have different teams for different parts of the application. If one team delievers faster then another team it is (almost) NEVER due to not enough people working on it.

The raid team does work seperatly from the other game modes. One wing or boss has no effect on another. Even without being involved in their development process i can see that fractal development is much more complex (due to the reasons i already mentioned in the previous post).

Rednik.3809:

So, basically sit there and change a few numbers in a script. Sounds like a lot of work, really.

If you are going to stoop to this level – a discussion has become meaningless.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Some new content that you can always ignore was added and it changed the game’s identity… how is adding something, without affecting the rest of the game, changing the identity of a game? And because you said it bellow, was adding Liadri to the game a change in identity?

Changing the way rewards are, ie making rewards more grindy, when the original grind wasn’t the same, that’s another change.

Changing how some rewards are and making them require more grind, doesn’t make the entire game more grind-y. A game’s identity is about the game as a whole, not a couple of things here and a couple of things there. And there have always been legendary weapons in the game, those are the at the top of the list of “grind”

Saying something hasn’t changed when it obviously has isn’t really helping the discussion.

The discussion is about the game’s identity, not if something changed here and there, obviously many things changed, but the core game (its identity) is still there.

There were loads of reviews for Guild Wars 2 at release. They all praised certain aspects of the game, and that’s what the core experience of the game is, that’s it’s identity, what many/most consider the actual strengths of this game. A couple of rewards changed, and a couple of new bosses or encounters added that are different/harder yes but that didn’t change the core of the game. The same reasons someone started playing GW2, still apply

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

You see it always starts this way with raids. There’s only a couple, but we just want challenging content, we don’t want rewards. Then we want the best rewards, because we’re doing the most challenging content.

Rewards are part of the reason people play MMOs. When the best rewards, which weren’t locked away, are now locked away, when content becomes more and more exclusive, the game changes identity.

Essentially I came to a game that was inclusive, the is becoming more and more exclusive. How can you possibly say that inclusion isn’t part of a game’s identity?

Vayne.8563:

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

How is something that is self-contained in its own world affecting the rest of the game?
How is something you can ignore affecting how much fun you are having in the game?

Would you say that having big pvp tournaments (with cash rewards even) is affecting your enjoyment of the game? They also have unique rewards.
Would you say that having one encounter (like Liadri) is affecting your enjoyment of the game? It also has unique rewards.

If simple encounters are what’s affecting your overall enjoyment of the game then you probably didn’t find the rest of the game compelling enough to begin with. Or you are looking for excuses.

very simple.
Gw2 used to stand for innovative and game play.

As i bought the game, i thought it would stay innovativ, no raid, different quest system. I really thought they would bring new things never seen and maybe change they way mmo are now.

But nowadays what identifies GW2, what make gw2 special?
nothing, it is just a simple mmo like most of the others mmo, with raid, toxic pvp and dungeon.

Huge disappointment for those who bought it in the past for what it stand.

did they live to the expectation of the customers? No.
I won’t say it is a bad game, I say they changed their color.

So there is no reason not to play others MMO.

This is why my wife, my friends and myself stopped playing.

This game is not the game i bought.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Gw2 used to stand for innovative and game play.

They changed the quest system of GW2 and I didn’t notice? No they didn’t.
Did they change how pvp works and making all players equal? No they didn’t.
They changed the gameplay of the game? If anything, they improved the gameplay of the game by making encounters harder so you actually have to use more than your auto attacks in a fight. They improved the combat system of the game by making encounters more engaging (and deadly)
What exactly did they change?

Seyiwaji.4082:

very simple.
Gw2 used to stand for innovative and game play.

As i bought the game, i thought it would stay innovativ, no raid, different quest system. I really thought they would bring new things never seen and maybe change they way mmo are now.

But nowadays what identifies GW2, what make gw2 special?
nothing, it is just a simple mmo like most of the others mmo, with raid, toxic pvp and dungeon.

Huge disappointment for those who bought it in the past for what it stand.

did they live to the expectation of the customers? No.
I won’t say it is a bad game, I say they changed their color.

So there is no reason not to play others MMO.

This is why my wife, my friends and myself stopped playing.

This game is not the game i bought.

Interesting. You and everyone you know stopped playing – but you still care enough to be on the games forums.

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Vayne.8563:

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

You see it always starts this way with raids. There’s only a couple, but we just want challenging content, we don’t want rewards. Then we want the best rewards, because we’re doing the most challenging content.

I can see how this would be harmful in the long run. IF this would become the mindset of the game it would mean that the “best” rewards can only be had by doing raids. But we are nowhere near that point.

Vayne.8563:

Rewards are part of the reason people play MMOs. When the best rewards, which weren’t locked away, are now locked away, when content becomes more and more exclusive, the game changes identity.

Essentially I came to a game that was inclusive, the is becoming more and more exclusive. How can you possibly say that inclusion isn’t part of a game’s identity?

The exclusivity of an item is what makes it so desireable. If i can buy the same armor from every vendor and literally everyone can buy and wear it – it looses its appeal and value. This concept is not exclusive to games.

Even though you could buy legendaries from TP before – the grind to get the gold was the same.

OniGiri.9461:

I am a software developer. We have different teams for different parts of the application. If one team delievers faster then another team it is (almost) NEVER due to not enough people working on it.

The raid team does work seperatly from the other game modes. One wing or boss has no effect on another. Even without being involved in their development process i can see that fractal development is much more complex (due to the reasons i already mentioned in the previous post).

First, Anet already mentioned that they do have shared resources. “Raid team” is team that works exclusively on raids (also they not said that this team was small during HoT development, where majority of work for first 3 wings was made), they are not making everything. So development resources are being moved here and there.
Second, existing two fractals were made on existing assets from previous fractals and LS1. They don’t even have a single new boss model. Only new thing was what, fractal backpack? While raids got their own line of unique White Mantle weapons, plus unique boss drops, pls THREE new legendary armor sets. And ofc unique bosses, unique maps, unique mechanics and so on.
We have raw development output. Everyone can see it. And that output is showing something quite different than “small side content, nothing to worry about”.

Rednik.3809:

We have raw development output. Everyone can see it. And that output is showing something quite different than “small side content, nothing to worry about”.

The last Fractal update before Heart of Thorns was added on November 2013
Chaos Isles was added on July 2016, that’s 3 years of 0 Fractals. For an actual Fractal player the pace of Fractal releases now is amazing compared to what it used to be. You don’t compare fractals with raids, which is something completely different, but with fractals. And the pace of new fractal releases is absolutely great.

They added 2 completely new Fractals, Chaos and Nightmare. They added a new version for Nightmare fractal (CM). They completely reworked Swampland and Thaumanova Fractals (they are like different Fractals now), they changed Snowblind drastically.

Don’t say that the Fractals team hasn’t been doing a good job because they are doing an amazing job. Also, you need to recall that Fractal releases started in July 2016, Raid releases started in November 2015, that’s a huge head start for the Raids. Since Fractals started releases we had 2+1 new and 3 greatly reworked Fractals versus 1 single Raid Wing. Again, you are devaluing the very important and great work the new Fractals team is doing.

Though to be fair, it’s not just the FotM pace which is very slow.

If I had to give one big advise to the devs, it’s that you need either a) improve the snail’s-pace at which development currently works, significantly so or b) work out how to provide meaningful game development in spite of it.

Because right now, everything from Fractals over PvE, Living Story, WvW, UI, QoL, it’s all extremely slow.

A good example here is Edge of the Mists: It was meant to be an “overflow” map, to fix a problem which was very common after release, long queues for WvW. Yet by the time it finally came out, a mix of slow EotM development and no WvW development had fixed the problem a wholly different way.

It was a kitten good solution. Only it came out far too late to be meaningful.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Vayne.8563:

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

You see it always starts this way with raids. There’s only a couple, but we just want challenging content, we don’t want rewards. Then we want the best rewards, because we’re doing the most challenging content.

I can see how this would be harmful in the long run. IF this would become the mindset of the game it would mean that the “best” rewards can only be had by doing raids. But we are nowhere near that point.

Vayne.8563:

Rewards are part of the reason people play MMOs. When the best rewards, which weren’t locked away, are now locked away, when content becomes more and more exclusive, the game changes identity.

Essentially I came to a game that was inclusive, the is becoming more and more exclusive. How can you possibly say that inclusion isn’t part of a game’s identity?

The exclusivity of an item is what makes it so desireable. If i can buy the same armor from every vendor and literally everyone can buy and wear it – it looses its appeal and value. This concept is not exclusive to games.

Even though you could buy legendaries from TP before – the grind to get the gold was the same.

Right so why not have a grind to get the legendary armor that’s equal? That would solve my issue. The point is when this game launched you could farm yourself to death and buy a legendary. You could gamble to get a precursor and make a legendary. You could buy a precursor and make a legendary. You could take out your credit card, buy gems, convert them to cash, and buy a legendary. That’s how the game WAS at launch.

It’s now different. I don’t like that difference.

Carighan.6758:

Though to be fair, it’s not just the FotM pace which is very slow.

If I had to give one big advise to the devs, it’s that you need either a) improve the snail’s-pace at which development currently works, significantly so or b) work out how to provide meaningful game development in spite of it.

Because right now, everything from Fractals over PvE, Living Story, WvW, UI, QoL, it’s all extremely slow.

A good example here is Edge of the Mists: It was meant to be an “overflow” map, to fix a problem which was very common after release, long queues for WvW. Yet by the time it finally came out, a mix of slow EotM development and no WvW development had fixed the problem a wholly different way.

It was a kitten good solution. Only it came out far too late to be meaningful.

Well said.
I have rarely seen a game with such polished and well developed content as this one, even if players are constantly complaining about how kittenty everything is and how well their old game looks when seen through rose-colored glasses.
The major issue is and has always been their slow pace. They need to pick up the pace a little or even a lot sometimes.

The game didn’t lose it’s identity. It managed to mature into a full fletched AAA MMO over the years. I for one am happy the game is no longer the GW2 that I started playing during the beta.

Vayne.8563:

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Vayne.8563:

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

You see it always starts this way with raids. There’s only a couple, but we just want challenging content, we don’t want rewards. Then we want the best rewards, because we’re doing the most challenging content.

I can see how this would be harmful in the long run. IF this would become the mindset of the game it would mean that the “best” rewards can only be had by doing raids. But we are nowhere near that point.

Vayne.8563:

Rewards are part of the reason people play MMOs. When the best rewards, which weren’t locked away, are now locked away, when content becomes more and more exclusive, the game changes identity.

Essentially I came to a game that was inclusive, the is becoming more and more exclusive. How can you possibly say that inclusion isn’t part of a game’s identity?

The exclusivity of an item is what makes it so desireable. If i can buy the same armor from every vendor and literally everyone can buy and wear it – it looses its appeal and value. This concept is not exclusive to games.

Even though you could buy legendaries from TP before – the grind to get the gold was the same.

Right so why not have a grind to get the legendary armor that’s equal? That would solve my issue. The point is when this game launched you could farm yourself to death and buy a legendary. You could gamble to get a precursor and make a legendary. You could buy a precursor and make a legendary. You could take out your credit card, buy gems, convert them to cash, and buy a legendary. That’s how the game WAS at launch.

It’s now different. I don’t like that difference.

You perfectly describe a core aspect of the game that I dislike the most about the game. I personally dislike your views about legendary armor because you introduce, according to me, the idea of a skin treadmill with legendary armor being at the top. The thing is, not everyone will have the time nor the energy to get into that long grind that could represent the legendary armor and besides there is also a matter of economic balance to take into account to not completely crash the market regarding the necessary materials to craft the different pieces of armor. And this is even more troublesome if one could take a credit, buy the gems to convert to gold and buy all materials needed.

Carighan.6758:

Though to be fair, it’s not just the FotM pace which is very slow.

FotM pace is slow compared to what?
3 years → 0 Fractals compared to 8 months → 6 fractals. How do you call this “slow pace”?
I guess the 4 brand new pve maps weren’t released either.
In 8 months since LS3 started we got 4 new maps. In 3 years before Heart of Thorns we got 3 new maps. Heart of Thorns itself had 4 maps.

How is that SLOW PACE? It’s the fastest pace the game has ever seen since release.

flog.3485:

Vayne.8563:

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Vayne.8563:

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

You see it always starts this way with raids. There’s only a couple, but we just want challenging content, we don’t want rewards. Then we want the best rewards, because we’re doing the most challenging content.

I can see how this would be harmful in the long run. IF this would become the mindset of the game it would mean that the “best” rewards can only be had by doing raids. But we are nowhere near that point.

Vayne.8563:

Rewards are part of the reason people play MMOs. When the best rewards, which weren’t locked away, are now locked away, when content becomes more and more exclusive, the game changes identity.

Essentially I came to a game that was inclusive, the is becoming more and more exclusive. How can you possibly say that inclusion isn’t part of a game’s identity?

The exclusivity of an item is what makes it so desireable. If i can buy the same armor from every vendor and literally everyone can buy and wear it – it looses its appeal and value. This concept is not exclusive to games.

Even though you could buy legendaries from TP before – the grind to get the gold was the same.

Right so why not have a grind to get the legendary armor that’s equal? That would solve my issue. The point is when this game launched you could farm yourself to death and buy a legendary. You could gamble to get a precursor and make a legendary. You could buy a precursor and make a legendary. You could take out your credit card, buy gems, convert them to cash, and buy a legendary. That’s how the game WAS at launch.

It’s now different. I don’t like that difference.

You perfectly describe a core aspect of the game that I dislike the most about the game. I personally dislike your views about legendary armor because you introduce, according to me, the idea of a skin treadmill with legendary armor being at the top. The thing is, not everyone will have the time nor the energy to get into that long grind that could represent the legendary armor and besides there is also a matter of economic balance to take into account to not completely crash the market regarding the necessary materials to craft the different pieces of armor. And this is even more troublesome if one could take a credit, buy the gems to convert to gold and buy all materials needed.

I’m not talking about a skin treadmill at all. Not even a little. Legendaries were somethign I was interested in and I did. But nothing in this game has the same “overhead” as getting into raids. Not in time or dedication. If you don’t find raids fun, you’re out of that reward.

I’ve made 12 legendaries. I didn’t buy them (though I have bought precursors). I’ve also done precursor collections. I look forward to this sort of long adventure crafting process when it’s casual and I can work on it at my own pace.

I can’t work on raids at my own pace. If I wanted to raid for 15 minutes a week, I’d never really learn to raid. Do you know how I know I don’t like raids? I"ve been raiding, that’s how.

So basically do this high overhead content, or don’t get this reward. Okay but the new legendaries coming out have no real path associated with them, there’s nothing to do but craft them. I made Shooshadoo in like a couple of hours. I had most of the mats anyway.

So yeah a legendary journey for armor that didn’t include me spending a lot of time doing something I don’t like would have been something more for me to do in the game. As of now, I won’t be doing it, because I won’t spend that much time raiding. If I did, I’d end up hating the game.

That’s just not working for me.

Vayne.8563:

Right so why not have a grind to get the legendary armor that’s equal? That would solve my issue. The point is when this game launched you could farm yourself to death and buy a legendary. You could gamble to get a precursor and make a legendary. You could buy a precursor and make a legendary. You could take out your credit card, buy gems, convert them to cash, and buy a legendary. That’s how the game WAS at launch.

It’s now different. I don’t like that difference.

To be honest only a little has changed in regards to that.

If you look at the legendary journey (the collections you need to make a precursor).
The journeys for the 2nd generation of precursors/legendaries consist of four collections. Only one of those is “forcing you to play the game you claim to love” (sorry for being so confrontational) the others are literally gold sinks. Apart from the tokens you need from the silverwastes you can buy everything needed from the tp to complete those three other collections.

Now lets look at the coming legendary armor. The thing you need from raids are the two precursor collections and 150 Legendary Insights. There are a lot of LFG-Groups out there that sell you raid spots every week. You can sink all that gold you were mentioning (either grinded or credit card) into joining these groups. Anet already said that selling group spots is not illegal. You don’t have to know anything – join, die immidiatly and they do the rest. They will even help you with completing your collections.

If you are ok with buying legendaries from tp – buying Legendary Insights is no difference.

Miellyn.6847:

Where exactly is this mystical gear threadmill? The only change was ascended equipment, introduced over 4 years ago. Legendaries were put on par with ascended equipment because they are so expensive. Stat swap just saves you transmutation charges. It is still build for the skin.

How is legendary equipment better than ascended?

A gear threadmill is a gradually increasing equipment cap, not a one time increase 4 years ago. You are four years too late.

And legendaries are a new equipment cap because they now have an increased quality of life over every other gear type. It is no longer “just a skin” it is now a must have because of both it’s higher than the casually acquireable exotic stats and the quality of life changing stats on the fly. Legendaries are objectively better because of the quality of life change.

Also I complained about ascended then, I’m complaining about it now.

There’s a simple solution. Make new casually acquireable legendaries that aren’t as shiny and don’t have the fancy arm/footsteps effects etc while maintaing legendary stats and the quality of life changing stats on the fly.

Like Vayne has been saying, legendaries and raids aren’t “the” problems, they are representative of a shift in the identity of the game, the shift to increasingly exclusive content, playstyles and leaving those who play the exclusive content with better abilities to play said exclusive content AND better ability to change playstyles as they see fit without needing bag space for every possible build you might want to try.

There are other things too, but Vayne is infinitely better at explaining the nuances of how things have changed than I could ever hope to do, so I’m just gonna go.

(Side note, I’m also not saying that every change is bad, masteries stuck to the promise of horizontal progression, no matter how much I disagree with the grind challenge it presents and there are other changes that improve the game while also changing it’s identity)

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

Right so why not have a grind to get the legendary armor that’s equal? That would solve my issue. The point is when this game launched you could farm yourself to death and buy a legendary. You could gamble to get a precursor and make a legendary. You could buy a precursor and make a legendary. You could take out your credit card, buy gems, convert them to cash, and buy a legendary. That’s how the game WAS at launch.

It’s now different. I don’t like that difference.

To be honest only a little has changed in regards to that.

If you look at the legendary journey (the collections you need to make a precursor).
The journeys for the 2nd generation of precursors/legendaries consist of four collections. Only one of those is “forcing you to play the game you claim to love” (sorry for being so confrontational) the others are literally gold sinks. Apart from the tokens you need from the silverwastes you can buy everything needed from the tp to complete those three other collections.

Now lets look at the coming legendary armor. The thing you need from raids are the two precursor collections and 150 Legendary Insights. There are a lot of LFG-Groups out there that sell you raid spots every week. You can sink all that gold you were mentioning (either grinded or credit card) into joining these groups. Anet already said that selling group spots is not illegal. You don’t have to know anything – join, die immidiatly and they do the rest. They will even help you with completing your collections.

If you are ok with buying legendaries from tp – buying Legendary Insights is no difference.

So you’re saying give money to players, not Anet, and if they rip me off, then what? If I gave 150 or 200 gold to someone and didn’t get the raid, I’d leave the game, period. Sorry that’s not an answer at all.

castlemanic.3198:

Miellyn.6847:

Where exactly is this mystical gear threadmill? The only change was ascended equipment, introduced over 4 years ago. Legendaries were put on par with ascended equipment because they are so expensive. Stat swap just saves you transmutation charges. It is still build for the skin.

How is legendary equipment better than ascended?

A gear threadmill is a gradually increasing equipment cap, not a one time increase 4 years ago. You are four years too late.

And legendaries are a new equipment cap because they now have an increased quality of life over every other gear type. It is no longer “just a skin” it is now a must have because of both it’s higher than the casually acquireable exotic stats and the quality of life changing stats on the fly. Legendaries are objectively better because of the quality of life change.

Also I complained about ascended then, I’m complaining about it now.

There’s a simple solution. Make new casually acquireable legendaries that aren’t as shiny and don’t have the fancy arm/footsteps effects etc while maintaing legendary stats and the quality of life changing stats on the fly.

Like Vayne has been saying, legendaries and raids aren’t “the” problems, they are representative of a shift in the identity of the game, the shift to increasingly exclusive content, playstyles and leaving those who play the exclusive content with better abilities to play said exclusive content AND better ability to change playstyles as they see fit without needing bag space for every possible build you might want to try.

There are other things too, but Vayne is infinitely better at explaining the nuances of how things have changed than I could ever hope to do, so I’m just gonna go.

(Side note, I’m also not saying that every change is bad, masteries stuck to the promise of horizontal progression, no matter how much I disagree with the grind challenge it presents and there are other changes that improve the game while also changing it’s identity)

This got added with the introduction of ascended weapons, you are still four years too late. Switching stats without switching the rune or sigil is worthless most of the time.
This was a non-issue when weapons got it and now with armor it is evil?

Legendary items have the same stats as ascended items, there is still no gear threadmill. With the cost of legendary equipment you can change stats on ascended items more often then you will switch stats on your legendary items.

Vayne.8563:

flog.3485:

Vayne.8563:

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

Actually for me,. not having raids was part of this game’s identity.

Vayne.8563:

Well, no, because some of the things I started playing for aren’t there. The lack of raids is one of the reasons I started playing Guild Wars 2.

You see it always starts this way with raids. There’s only a couple, but we just want challenging content, we don’t want rewards. Then we want the best rewards, because we’re doing the most challenging content.

I can see how this would be harmful in the long run. IF this would become the mindset of the game it would mean that the “best” rewards can only be had by doing raids. But we are nowhere near that point.

Vayne.8563:

Rewards are part of the reason people play MMOs. When the best rewards, which weren’t locked away, are now locked away, when content becomes more and more exclusive, the game changes identity.

Essentially I came to a game that was inclusive, the is becoming more and more exclusive. How can you possibly say that inclusion isn’t part of a game’s identity?

The exclusivity of an item is what makes it so desireable. If i can buy the same armor from every vendor and literally everyone can buy and wear it – it looses its appeal and value. This concept is not exclusive to games.

Even though you could buy legendaries from TP before – the grind to get the gold was the same.

Right so why not have a grind to get the legendary armor that’s equal? That would solve my issue. The point is when this game launched you could farm yourself to death and buy a legendary. You could gamble to get a precursor and make a legendary. You could buy a precursor and make a legendary. You could take out your credit card, buy gems, convert them to cash, and buy a legendary. That’s how the game WAS at launch.

It’s now different. I don’t like that difference.

You perfectly describe a core aspect of the game that I dislike the most about the game. I personally dislike your views about legendary armor because you introduce, according to me, the idea of a skin treadmill with legendary armor being at the top. The thing is, not everyone will have the time nor the energy to get into that long grind that could represent the legendary armor and besides there is also a matter of economic balance to take into account to not completely crash the market regarding the necessary materials to craft the different pieces of armor. And this is even more troublesome if one could take a credit, buy the gems to convert to gold and buy all materials needed.

I’m not talking about a skin treadmill at all. Not even a little. Legendaries were somethign I was interested in and I did. But nothing in this game has the same “overhead” as getting into raids. Not in time or dedication. If you don’t find raids fun, you’re out of that reward.

I’ve made 12 legendaries. I didn’t buy them (though I have bought precursors). I’ve also done precursor collections. I look forward to this sort of long adventure crafting process when it’s casual and I can work on it at my own pace.

I can’t work on raids at my own pace. If I wanted to raid for 15 minutes a week, I’d never really learn to raid. Do you know how I know I don’t like raids? I"ve been raiding, that’s how.

So basically do this high overhead content, or don’t get this reward. Okay but the new legendaries coming out have no real path associated with them, there’s nothing to do but craft them. I made Shooshadoo in like a couple of hours. I had most of the mats anyway.

So yeah a legendary journey for armor that didn’t include me spending a lot of time doing something I don’t like would have been something more for me to do in the game. As of now, I won’t be doing it, because I won’t spend that much time raiding. If I did, I’d end up hating the game.

That’s just not working for me.

But you introduce the idea into the the game nevertheless. If everyone is able to get one you devalue it completely and that is when feelings of “second class citizen” truly arises because most will get the armor and a minority of other players won’t still be able get it due to the fact that they don’t enough time to get it. What you find being a matter of hours for you to craft shooshadoo could be a matter of months for others because the majority of players is casual and they simply can’t dedicate the time you can. Besides, what will happen to other future skins released in the game if the legendary armor with unique effect is just a huge easy grind ?That is where the true identity of the game lies in imo: the ability to choose one’s true personal grind and skin to chase based on how much time you have to play. Not having the content being dumbed down for everyone so that everyone gets to the “end” easily.

Vayne.8563:

OniGiri.9461:

To be honest only a little has changed in regards to that.

If you look at the legendary journey (the collections you need to make a precursor).
The journeys for the 2nd generation of precursors/legendaries consist of four collections. Only one of those is “forcing you to play the game you claim to love” (sorry for being so confrontational) the others are literally gold sinks. Apart from the tokens you need from the silverwastes you can buy everything needed from the tp to complete those three other collections.

Now lets look at the coming legendary armor. The thing you need from raids are the two precursor collections and 150 Legendary Insights. There are a lot of LFG-Groups out there that sell you raid spots every week. You can sink all that gold you were mentioning (either grinded or credit card) into joining these groups. Anet already said that selling group spots is not illegal. You don’t have to know anything – join, die immidiatly and they do the rest. They will even help you with completing your collections.

If you are ok with buying legendaries from tp – buying Legendary Insights is no difference.

So you’re saying give money to players, not Anet, and if they rip me off, then what? If I gave 150 or 200 gold to someone and didn’t get the raid, I’d leave the game, period. Sorry that’s not an answer at all.

How is Anet getting more with the old system of buying it from the tp?
Before you either grinded gold (literally no money for Anet) or you used your credit card – both of these still apply.
Then, with that aquired gold, you bought the item from the tp (you gave another player gold in exchange for the item he put on the tp – which also applies here).

Well scamming can be reported – but i admit its a bit risky.
But if you want to bypass the system anet intended – thats one way to go.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

OniGiri.9461:

To be honest only a little has changed in regards to that.

If you look at the legendary journey (the collections you need to make a precursor).
The journeys for the 2nd generation of precursors/legendaries consist of four collections. Only one of those is “forcing you to play the game you claim to love” (sorry for being so confrontational) the others are literally gold sinks. Apart from the tokens you need from the silverwastes you can buy everything needed from the tp to complete those three other collections.

Now lets look at the coming legendary armor. The thing you need from raids are the two precursor collections and 150 Legendary Insights. There are a lot of LFG-Groups out there that sell you raid spots every week. You can sink all that gold you were mentioning (either grinded or credit card) into joining these groups. Anet already said that selling group spots is not illegal. You don’t have to know anything – join, die immidiatly and they do the rest. They will even help you with completing your collections.

If you are ok with buying legendaries from tp – buying Legendary Insights is no difference.

So you’re saying give money to players, not Anet, and if they rip me off, then what? If I gave 150 or 200 gold to someone and didn’t get the raid, I’d leave the game, period. Sorry that’s not an answer at all.

How is Anet getting more with the old system of buying it from the tp?
Before you either grinded gold (literally no money for Anet) or you used your credit card – both of these still apply.
Then, with that aquired gold, you bought the item from the tp (you gave another player gold in exchange for the item he put on the tp – which also applies here).

Well scamming can be reported – but i admit its a bit risky.
But if you want to bypass the system anet intended – thats one way to go.

Scamming can be reported but you won’t get your money back, report or no report. Depending on the honesty of complete strangers in a game is a risk. That’s why buying on the TP or buying from the cash shop is acceptable and buying raids from strangers isn’t. That’s not something Anet sanctions.

I’m not worried about playing the game. I’m not worried even about hard content. I don’t like raiding. It destroys my enjoyment of the game. I don’t even like the idea of a rotation.

I’ve had fights before in real life, I never had a rotation.

I came to MMOs from RPGs, and I play games to immerse myself in the world and the game. Raids are the exact opposite of immersion. They’re a rotation, they’re by rote, they’re timed, they’re repetitive, they’re everything I don’t like about the genre.

And Anet is going to spend all kinds of time and resources making not just unique rewards or raids, but a type of reward available no other way?

I’m not in favor of it, I’m not going to support it, and I don’t really think most casual players do. Nor do I support the way story elements are included in raids. I think it was a bad decision on Anet’s part.

I mean generally speaking, people play for immersion or mechanics, or some combination of both. Raids leans far to mechanics. My play style leans far to immersion.

Because I don’t find them immersive, because I find them repetitive, because banging my head against the same boss over and over until I get it right and everyone else around me gets it right is annoying, raids don’t help me.

I used to run dungeons casually with my guild and we got through them, even if it wasn’t pretty. I can’t do that with raids.

Vayne.8563:

…

Its not like i don’t understand what it is that you want or disturbing you.
I tried showing you its not as bleek as it may feel to you.

Gw2 is my first (and only real) mmorpg. So raiding here is my first experience with raids AT ALL. I played a lot at launch, then on and off for years and since HoT i have been playing almost everyday.

I didn’t start out as raider. It was difficult in the beginning but gets better and easier every week. The difficulties where almost the same ones i had when i started doing dungeons. With the difference that its harder to find 9 other guys instead of 4.

After doing dungeons a lot it almost became second nature. Skipping mobs, positioning, boss mechanics and so on. I am noticing the same stuff happening with raids. You start playing on autopilot on the easier bosses.

I don’t see why this can’t be done by others.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

…

Its not like i don’t understand what it is that you want or disturbing you.
I tried showing you its not as bleek as it may feel to you.

Gw2 is my first (and only real) mmorpg. So raiding here is my first experience with raids AT ALL. I played a lot at launch, then on and off for years and since HoT i have been playing almost everyday.

I didn’t start out as raider. It was difficult in the beginning but gets better and easier every week. The difficulties where almost the same ones i had when i started doing dungeons. With the difference that its harder to find 9 other guys instead of 4.

After doing dungeons a lot it almost became second nature. Skipping mobs, positioning, boss mechanics and so on. I am noticing the same stuff happening with raids. You start playing on autopilot on the easier bosses.

I don’t see why this can’t be done by others.

Time, coordination and communication.

I’m sure I can do Raids with the skill I have, and I can follow instructions/understand mechanics quite well. I got no problem changing my build to something needed or more “meta”.

I still can’t get enough time, enough people or the correct communication method to do a raid as they are now.

Raids needs to offer a truly PUGable option.

A lot of arguments, I wish I could join in but too much to read so mehz.

I wish anet could have designed the raid differently, not because it is bad now but because of how partially unpolished and much delays the game contents is in now.

I always thought that they could have just expand the existing dungeons, simply adding one additional difficulty called raid or half raid. I am pretty sure the amount of development time would be greatly reduced and the time gain can be spent on polishing the game or getting the legendary delivered earlier. Then, if they really want to do a brand new raid instance, wait until they delivered what they should deliver and can comfortably set aside a group to do it.

Last time, anet mentioned they have two different teams working on living story, now I believe is only one. I also haven’t heard from the guild development team since their last post on guild hall statistic, maybe disbanded?

maddoctor.2738:

The last Fractal update before Heart of Thorns was added on November 2013
Chaos Isles was added on July 2016, that’s 3 years of 0 Fractals. For an actual Fractal player the pace of Fractal releases now is amazing compared to what it used to be. You don’t compare fractals with raids, which is something completely different, but with fractals. And the pace of new fractal releases is absolutely great.

They added 2 completely new Fractals, Chaos and Nightmare. They added a new version for Nightmare fractal (CM). They completely reworked Swampland and Thaumanova Fractals (they are like different Fractals now), they changed Snowblind drastically.

Don’t say that the Fractals team hasn’t been doing a good job because they are doing an amazing job. Also, you need to recall that Fractal releases started in July 2016, Raid releases started in November 2015, that’s a huge head start for the Raids. Since Fractals started releases we had 2+1 new and 3 greatly reworked Fractals versus 1 single Raid Wing. Again, you are devaluing the very important and great work the new Fractals team is doing.

For an actual Fractal player the pace of Fractal releases is mockery. They started to do something only after they realized how hard their shiny new raid-centered strategy backfired right into their core audience. Only then they made 2 fractals (out of already existing assets) and started to release LS3 chapters. And we still don’t have even a single brand new one fractal map (by “new” I mean made from zero, not reused old parts/models). Or fractal boss. Or even piece of fractal loot, outside of legendary backpack.

SkyShroud.2865:

Last time, anet mentioned they have two different teams working on living story, now I believe is only one. I also haven’t heard from the guild development team since their last post on guild hall statistic, maybe disbanded?

They have 3 teams working on Living Story. So far the first team has released episode 1 and 4, team 2 did Ember Bay and the upcoming episode, team 3 did Bitterfrost and episode 6 (if we get that far, which I believe we will).

If I remember correctly, they don’t have anyone working on guild specific enhancements, but I could be wrong.

Rednik.3809:

maddoctor.2738:

The last Fractal update before Heart of Thorns was added on November 2013
Chaos Isles was added on July 2016, that’s 3 years of 0 Fractals. For an actual Fractal player the pace of Fractal releases now is amazing compared to what it used to be. You don’t compare fractals with raids, which is something completely different, but with fractals. And the pace of new fractal releases is absolutely great.

They added 2 completely new Fractals, Chaos and Nightmare. They added a new version for Nightmare fractal (CM). They completely reworked Swampland and Thaumanova Fractals (they are like different Fractals now), they changed Snowblind drastically.

Don’t say that the Fractals team hasn’t been doing a good job because they are doing an amazing job. Also, you need to recall that Fractal releases started in July 2016, Raid releases started in November 2015, that’s a huge head start for the Raids. Since Fractals started releases we had 2+1 new and 3 greatly reworked Fractals versus 1 single Raid Wing. Again, you are devaluing the very important and great work the new Fractals team is doing.

For an actual Fractal player the pace of Fractal releases is mockery. They started to do something only after they realized how hard their shiny new raid-centered strategy backfired right into their core audience. Only then they made 2 fractals (out of already existing assets) and started to release LS3 chapters. And we still don’t have even a single brand new one fractal map (by “new” I mean made from zero, not reused old parts/models). Or fractal boss. Or even piece of fractal loot, outside of legendary backpack.

Do you have a source for the bolded or did you make it up?

Ayrilana.1396:

Do you have a source for the bolded or did you make it up?

You want me to link you NCSoft revenue page?