Guild Wars 2

Well, as I said, perhaps GW2 really isn’t for you then. It’s not a dig at you or your style of play; everybody enjoys games in a different manner. But if what you enjoy is logging in and constantly completing new and different content, a subscription game or multiple F2P games are probably what you need rather than a single B2P game like GW2 (which by nature of its economic model, simply can’t pump out new content that quickly).

RoterFuchs.9216:

Cameirus.8407:

Are you having fun? if yes, who cares about the reward.
If no, then leave as why play a game you dont find fun.

If you only run content if it rewards you, then you are not really enjoying it. So why bother at all?

Why oh why is this “argument” coming up in every topic I seem to read?
Let me get this one straight. Just because people complain, doesn’t mean they don’t have fun. It actually means that they care. They express criticism and point out flaws. These flaws might just be true for a small part of the community, but that doesn’t make their opinion wrong, and neither does the flaw cease to exist.
I too love this game. I love the lore and the world and the books. But it has flaws. Be it the non-existent difficulty, the RNG issues or the grind required to obtain certain items (yes legendaries, I am looking at you).

People enjoy different parts about games. Most like to win. A lot like to try and get better and improve. Lots of people play to relax. Others are achievement hunters. And then there are those who like to be rewarded for completing difficult content, or content at all. The latter are probably those that like to win and / or improve, since winning in a PvE environment isn’t really… possible.

So if certain aspects are missing in the game, the affected part of the community will raise their voices in concern, pointing out a possible flaw, which might lead to improvements. That’s a good thing. And it should by no means be answered with “just quit if you don’t like it”. That’s ignorance.

It was not an if you dont like it quit post.

It was pointing out that content shoudl be fun in and of itself. If you need rewards to run it, then why run it at all? since you are effectively needing an incentive to bother?

Cameirus.8407:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Cameirus.8407:

Are you having fun? if yes, who cares about the reward.
If no, then leave as why play a game you dont find fun.

If you only run content if it rewards you, then you are not really enjoying it. So why bother at all?

Why oh why is this “argument” coming up in every topic I seem to read?
Let me get this one straight. Just because people complain, doesn’t mean they don’t have fun. It actually means that they care. They express criticism and point out flaws. These flaws might just be true for a small part of the community, but that doesn’t make their opinion wrong, and neither does the flaw cease to exist.
I too love this game. I love the lore and the world and the books. But it has flaws. Be it the non-existent difficulty, the RNG issues or the grind required to obtain certain items (yes legendaries, I am looking at you).

People enjoy different parts about games. Most like to win. A lot like to try and get better and improve. Lots of people play to relax. Others are achievement hunters. And then there are those who like to be rewarded for completing difficult content, or content at all. The latter are probably those that like to win and / or improve, since winning in a PvE environment isn’t really… possible.

So if certain aspects are missing in the game, the affected part of the community will raise their voices in concern, pointing out a possible flaw, which might lead to improvements. That’s a good thing. And it should by no means be answered with “just quit if you don’t like it”. That’s ignorance.

It was not an if you dont like it quit post.

It was pointing out that content shoudl be fun in and of itself. If you need rewards to run it, then why run it at all? since you are effectively needing an incentive to bother?

Oh! More quotes:

“If you’re good at something, never do it for free” – The Joker

Why can’t we enjoy hard content and still be rewarded for it? If I want to do something just to feel good about doing it, I’d go help homeless people and orphans all day. Instead, I prefer to play video games, have fun playing them, and get to show off (with armor or weapons) to other people that also play.

Cameirus.8407:

It was not an if you dont like it quit post.

It was pointing out that content shoudl be fun in and of itself. If you need rewards to run it, then why run it at all? since you are effectively needing an incentive to bother?

While (on a personal note) I do agree with content should be fun in and of itself; it is just one way to view and play the game. A lot of people play for the sole reason of being rewarded. People like being rewarded. They like to achieve something, why else did the current achievement-madness in the game industry occur? Every game has achievements for even the most minor stuff nowadays (Hooray! You managed to start the game!). And people like that.

And the fact that there is loot, dailies, loot chests for world bosses, dungeon rewards and special items that you have to work for in the game shows that ANet recognizes and acknowledges the need for rewards. It is a way of playing. It might not be your way of playing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Man, if you want to brag start a blog.

;)

Ok, well, that’s fine too.

The work→reward mechanic is a core function of MMOs and pretty much all video games since like, forever. It’s why there’s celebration music when Mario touches the flag. If the game just went to black and immediately started the next level, those reward centers in your brain wouldn’t light up and the work you put in during the level wouldn’t feel like it was paying off.

I mean, what if a particularly grueling round of Mario Party ended with a screen that said “ALL PLAYERS WIN!” It wouldn’t be very appealing. This kind of new agey nonsense about the pleasure being in the journey and not the destination is acting like one of the foundations of MMO design doesn’t exist. It’s marginally fun and entertaining to kill a group of monsters and see your xp bar tick upwards one tiny notch. It’s a lot more fun when you kill the last one you need and the huge flash of light goes off and you knock everything back and LEVEL UP! appears on your screen. Reward is integral to the process.

Hate to say it but this title is misleading, you should have added the “for me” at the end of it….

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Oh! More quotes:

“If you’re good at something, never do it for free” – The Joker

Why can’t we enjoy hard content and still be rewarded for it? If I want to do something just to feel good about doing it, I’d go help homeless people and orphans all day. Instead, I prefer to play video games, have fun playing them, and get to show off (with armor or weapons) to other people that also play.

Pretty much no one cares about your armour and weapons other than you btw. Sorry to break that to you.

And I can understand that people want rewards, I just dont understand people saying “I wont do something unless I am rewarded”. for me the actual game is the reward, the fun I have doing the activity. Any shinies are a bonus ontop but not the reason I do it.

Well you don’t need to understand it. You just have to accept it. It’s a different playstyle, that’s all.

I think each page of this thread is the same looping discussion over and over.

OP and those like him want new PvE content that is “challenging and rewarding” to them. The only thing they want to find challenge in is scripted encounters and NOT PvP (saying you just dont enjoy it is fine, saying you dont like it because you are somehow pro at PvP and others are baddies is laughable). I think its time for most of the hardcore raiders/PvErs to either take a long break from GW2 to find a new MMO to consume.

I would be willing to bet the OP and those with him are MMO locusts who go from game to game when they launch, beat all the new content really quickly then complain that there is “no endgame” or “no challenge” then move on to the next MMO. The thing is, MMOs are all easy, if you want challenging PvE then play a bullet hell shooter or go back and play some oldschool NES games that punish you for playing. Hell go play a genre that rewards only points on a scoreboard and then see if you can beat others high scores.

Looking for PvE challenge in an MMO is a pointless exercise as many have already pointed out.

displacedTitan.6897:

I would be willing to bet the OP and those with him are MMO locusts who go from game to game when they launch, beat all the new content really quickly then complain that there is “no endgame” or “no challenge” then move on to the next MMO.

You see, though, this is where your argument fails. I’m not a locust. I’ve only played one other MMO as much as I have GW2, and that MMO would be GW1.

I’m not playing this game because I liked the friggin’ boxart. I’m playing it because I’m a huge fan of the first game. I’m not going to just “locust on over to the next MMO” because this is the MMO I want to play, it’s just that I think a few things could be different. Get it?

Cameirus.8407:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Oh! More quotes:

“If you’re good at something, never do it for free” – The Joker

Why can’t we enjoy hard content and still be rewarded for it? If I want to do something just to feel good about doing it, I’d go help homeless people and orphans all day. Instead, I prefer to play video games, have fun playing them, and get to show off (with armor or weapons) to other people that also play.

Pretty much no one cares about your armour and weapons other than you btw. Sorry to break that to you.

And I can understand that people want rewards, I just dont understand people saying “I wont do something unless I am rewarded”. for me the actual game is the reward, the fun I have doing the activity. Any shinies are a bonus ontop but not the reason I do it.

That was the same for me and probably for Brazil as well… The first couple of times you do content.

If Anet wants their players to keep playing their content, they need to give a reward for doing so. That’s basic MMO stuff. If content is unrewarding, players will not repeat it after they’ve done it a couple of times.

Drakonis.4579:

displacedTitan.6897:

I would be willing to bet the OP and those with him are MMO locusts who go from game to game when they launch, beat all the new content really quickly then complain that there is “no endgame” or “no challenge” then move on to the next MMO.

You see, though, this is where your argument fails. I’m not a locust. I’ve only played one other MMO as much as I have GW2, and that MMO would be GW1.

I’m not playing this game because I liked the friggin’ boxart. I’m playing it because I’m a huge fan of the first game. I’m not going to just “locust on over to the next MMO” because this is the MMO I want to play, it’s just that I think a few things could be different. Get it?

My bet doesnt invalidate anything else I had said, also I never said constructive criticism isnt a good thing. I was just saying that people who look to MMOs for some kind of personal challenge are playing the wrong genre, MMOs and RPGs in general are about abnegation and not competitive skill.

displacedTitan.6897:

My bet doesnt invalidate anything else I had said, also I never said constructive criticism isnt a good thing. I was just saying that people who look to MMOs for some kind of personal challenge are playing the wrong genre, MMOs and RPGs in general are about abnegation and not competitive skill.

Not really, take GW1 for example. It had a really active end game community, and it was actually pretty competitive as well. There were records and different tactics across guilds, all claiming of course their own was the best.

GW2 offers nothing of such kind. Because the dungeons in GW2 are linear paths of progression where you had to follow the path strictly.

GW1 had similar instances, but you almost always had more freedom than in GW2. UW and FoW were amazing in the sense that they offered you an open world instance where you had to complete a bunch of tasks. The order in which you did them was irrelevant, but this design offered a great deal of challenge to players because they had to decide what order would be optimal. At first, people usually stuck together and cleared it 1 by 1. After a while, people developed builds and tactics for splits.

Even in DoA, which was mostly linear, you still had a lot of options in what way you wanted to deal with an area.

Those factors gave a great kind of competitiveness to the PvE community in the form of records and finding the optimal tactics. The fact that a full DoA clear started off as a 12 hour endeavor, and ended as a 17min record, with the possibility of a 13min, is a good example of this.

Challenge does not need to come from foes alone. Challenge can come from a good design as well. Open world instances like UW or FoW, or half-open world instances like DoA gave such a challenge in the form of creativity and choice.

FotM is a strictly linear path, where you have no choice as to how/what to do, there is usually 1 way and 1 way only to deal with objectives. This makes the experience stale and repetitive, especially if there is very little reward tied to it.

The most fun I ever had in FoWsc was when people almost failed, there wasn’t much enjoyment from a run with no hiccups. But if the terras failed then that was it, you wasted your time.

I don’t consider myself an elitist by any means. I don’t look for ways to speed run through a dungeon, I often PUG and I don’t tailor my builds toward purely pve since I enjoy all aspects of this game but I do agree that dungeons in this game are extremely lacking.

most bosses are very bland and time consuming due to their high HP offering no diversity of tactics A-Net made a step in the right direction with fractals by adding specific ways to beat an encounter but as pointed out fractals have been ignored for quite some time now and do not feel completely polished and most of the bosses need tuning. I really do wish dungeons and fractals would be revamped to add phases and strategy much like giganticus lupicus and tone down the trash mobs/hp time sink bosses.

Someone else has to be amused this is up on top with the other thread titled “Catering to Casuals is Ruining GW2”.

Kilaelya.1420:

Someone else has to be amused this is up on top with the other thread titled “Catering to Casuals is Ruining GW2”.

I guess they are topics that generate attention. The other one seems to include a lot more complaining, though, specifically about how casuals are ruining the game. I was really only saying that my approach to a casual game ruined the experience for me in the long run. Maybe if I had chosen another game instead I’d still be having fun, but Guild Wars 2 looked fun and kept me entertained for awhile, that’s why I bought it and stuck with it for ~2500 hours. I don’t have a vendetta against casual gamers, they want something to do just like I do. I look for increasing difficulty while constantly playing a game, casual gamers seem to be content with a more static environment that they only experience for maybe an hour a day, or even an hour a week.

There’s also sort of an in between from what I’ve observed, the members of my old guild seemed to be in that boat. They played for a few hours a day, but didn’t really care about doing dungeons over and over or learning new strategies, so I left and found a guild that was focused on that. I don’t really have a problem with any of those people, we just had a different style of play. It irritated me sometimes, but I still had fun playing with them when I was a member. Their approach may be better to a game like Guild Wars 2 is than an approach like I have, it may keep the game interesting to them longer than it managed to for me. Although, I don’t really see them online anymore, so maybe they ran out of things to do as well. I’m not sure what the case is.

I don’t really think hating on someone (while being serious about it, at least) is really productive. I think it’s better off just to talk about differences in play style or whatever the case, then try and contribute to helping the devs improve the game. That’s sort of what I had in mind by creating this thread.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

DeathMetal.8264:

If you want challenge, go against real players. Beating hard bosses, they become easy over time because you can predict the attack. Go against hard to predict foes: go against human players….

As for reward: seeing your name on top of that list as being the best of the best..

I’ve addressed this about 8 times.

Apology as I don’t really read all the replies, I just read the first post, and then replied. I did read back a few page up top when you said you replied already and fount this reply: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Elitism-is-ruining-this-game/2168776

I’ll go ahead and state my opinion on PvP again, since it doesn’t look like you read any further into the thread aside from the first post.
I don’t enjoy PvP. I’ve seen plenty of people playing in some form of PvP throughout my time as a gamer that would have done much better if they let basic AI play for them. Even people matched up at my “skill level” by the games ranking system.

Then you are correct: you are just a self-proclaimed elitist that isn’t really elite in any way, shape, or form. I can be a self-proclaimed elitist without being really elite myself. I even found many of so-called “elitist” in dungeon groups, and often times, they aren’t even really elite: died most of the time, died the first in the group, and when he left, the one that replaced him made us complete the dungeon. Now, I am not saying that self-proclaimed elitist are not elite at all, just saying, anyone can be a self-proclaimed elitist.

Again, my point is, if you really want to be the “elite”, let that title be bestowed upon you by the community, or at least, by Anet. You can post videos of how elite you are, how good you are in PvE, at the end of the day, it’s still PvE and it’s still just you (and your circle of friends) calling you “Pro”. Not discounting the “difficulty” of PvE, but saying, to be elite, the PvE must be extremely hard (only doable by certain percentage of the community i.e. less than certain percentage) or the player must be going against equally skilled real human players and not some “predictable mechanics”.

If you get your name here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/events/Authorized-Shoutcaster-Program

Then I will agree that you are indeed one of the real elites. Until then, you belong to majority of the group that may or may not be really elite.

p.s.
My post is not an insult, just stating that when someone call themselves elites, they may or may not tell the truth. They may not even know the real meaning of it. You may really be elite, only you and your friends know. But as far as Anet’s definition of elite, then you may not be really one. Good luck in your further endeavor. Anet says:

“We’re all really excited about the Authorized Shoutcaster Program and its potential to highlight the best PvP players and their strategies”

Note Anet’s term: BEST PvP players. For me, Best = Elite.

Broadicea.8294:

TooBz.3065:

Antara.3189:

Pretty funny post honestly, Little bit of boasting and flexing… haha. As long as it makes you feel like a boss though.

On point though, post this answer in many threads but this game does seem to be trending towards casual, giddy content that is more for the family, than the “core” gamer. Maybe soon, this game can be a personalized version of Sims. Cosmetics, homes, susie homemaker.

How do you define casual content? What do you consider a challenge?

I agree that much of the living story has been “meh” at best, although the dungeon at the end of flame and frost was cool.

My personal view is that ANet is trying to mix it up. You get some challenging content such as the Halloween jumping puzzles. You get dungeons like the flame and frost thing and the super adventure dohicky. They also throw in a lot of diversion stuff like crab toss.

The idea is to make the game generally entertaining.

Only in Guild Wars 2 have I ever seen a call for more challenging PvE content met with “well you got a hard jumping puzzle for a month” as a serious response.

Yah, this place is carebears gone wild, a taste as to what it might feel like to be an “elite” in another game. I’m quite glad sandbox is trying to make a comeback, hopefully some mind boggling challenges will be in tow as well. I’ll shush, someone might get mad.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

[…]
In closing, perhaps taking a casual approach to Guild Wars 2 is the best way to go about playing this game, but being an elitist and mastering the PvE content the game offers eradicated any sort of drive to continue playing a game that doesn’t seem to be targeted towards someone like me

Yeah no, on principle I appreciate your realism and the acknowledgement of the limits of personal desires, but your defeatist, almost cynical attitude doesn’t help the players or Anet themselves either.
We need to continue pressuring them on it. It’s not to far fetched a demand that Anet slightly shift their focus to include more “hardcore” content. They don’t need to abandon their favouring of the casual playerbase (and despite devs assuring that they’re treating both sides equally, they are not). On the contrary, some of the most popular online games follow this model, including of course WoW.

Ultimately it benefits the casual player as well, because the hardcore content of today will become the regular or even casual content of tomorrow once the players become better at it and get new powecreepy stats & web guides, as GW1 proves.

Anet should introduce “balancing” for PVE content so that the elite players who can solo 90% of GW2 content are forced to pair up with the worst players and it becomes a massive win win situation. Elitists get the kind of challenge they always wanted and noobs/nubs (probably all casuals in some people’s opinions) learn how to play the game better.

Fletch.3572:

Broadicea.8294:

TooBz.3065:

Antara.3189:

Pretty funny post honestly, Little bit of boasting and flexing… haha. As long as it makes you feel like a boss though.

On point though, post this answer in many threads but this game does seem to be trending towards casual, giddy content that is more for the family, than the “core” gamer. Maybe soon, this game can be a personalized version of Sims. Cosmetics, homes, susie homemaker.

How do you define casual content? What do you consider a challenge?

I agree that much of the living story has been “meh” at best, although the dungeon at the end of flame and frost was cool.

My personal view is that ANet is trying to mix it up. You get some challenging content such as the Halloween jumping puzzles. You get dungeons like the flame and frost thing and the super adventure dohicky. They also throw in a lot of diversion stuff like crab toss.

The idea is to make the game generally entertaining.

Only in Guild Wars 2 have I ever seen a call for more challenging PvE content met with “well you got a hard jumping puzzle for a month” as a serious response.

Yah, this place is carebears gone wild, a taste as to what it might feel like to be an “elite” in another game. I’m quite glad sandbox is trying to make a comeback, hopefully some mind boggling challenges will be in tow as well. I’ll shush, someone might get mad.

We could do with a good sandbox MMO. I was rooting hard for Vanguard, but it never got off the ground, really. Shame, because it has so much potential. Bugs and bad optimization killed it before it ever had a chance.

DeathMetal.8264:

Then you are correct: you are just a self-proclaimed elitist that isn’t really elite in any way, shape, or form. I can be a self-proclaimed elitist without being really elite myself. I even found many of so-called “elitist” in dungeon groups, and often times, they aren’t even really elite: died most of the time, died the first in the group, and when he left, the one that replaced him made us complete the dungeon. Now, I am not saying that self-proclaimed elitist are not elite at all, just saying, anyone can be a self-proclaimed elitist.

So this is my dungeon group, I was one of the Mesmers in this video. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAK-QYShjro

So this is my dungeon group, I was one of the Mesmers in this video. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?

To be fair, min maxing DPS speed run kill isnt really a test of individual skill, more like group coordination. I am far more impressed by solo run kills of Lupi, esp by the necro regardless of the time limit.

RedCobra.7693:

…
I feel like saying darn this game im going to play TESO but i have a funny feeling it will follow the same path, all mmos seem to be doing this lately whyyyyyy?

Exactyl! That’s what’s bugging me the most. Companies make MMOs for masses because they want to be next WoW. And we all know why they want to be WoW, because of the money they’re making. But that’s also the reason why 99% of MMOs fail.

I have hope for Camelot Unchained. They raised funding trough KickStarter and they’re going for RvR only MMO. No kitten, no bad PvE, sucky PvP, just over the top RvR content. And I salute to them for doing it this way!

I really hope new upcoming MMOs start inovating and doing something new not just copying everyone else… :/

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

As the title says, being an elitist has completely destroyed this game for me. My inner elitist drove me to learn strategies for each dungeon and boss, execute them flawlessly, become the self-declared best Guardian in Guild Wars 2, and create top-of-the-food chain-guides for Warrior and Ranger. After accomplishing feats like killing Lupicus in 46 seconds with my super group of guildies and clearing Arah path 4 in 30 minutes, I’ve realized something that really took me all too long: Guild Wars 2 is a casual’s game, and that isn’t going to change.

The last few patches have brought nothing but temporary content that has taken me no longer than a few hours to complete at most, and very little changes to dungeons, if any at all. Fractals are in a state of chaos and the only people that have motivation to do them are people that enjoy harming themselves or people caught in an infinite loop of grinding for a weapon skin that will most likely never drop for them. I cannot keep myself entertained with a game that offers no new challenge, and the little challenges that did exist were destroyed after discovering the trinity of Warrior, Guardian, and Mesmer. I can understand that someone with no desire to master dungeon content or someone that only wants to log on and do dailies would have trouble with this game, but Guild Wars 2 simply offers nothing for the hardcore player, and I don’t think that I’m alone in thinking this.

People that play casually don’t really bother me, they can do what they want and that’s fine. If the idea of Guild Wars 2 is to produce temporary content for someone to log on and see once a month and buy some minis from the gem store, then I don’t have a problem with that either; I just don’t feel I can be a part of it any longer. I’m quite disappointed, because I had fun playing this game for several months, whether it was hunting for Final Rest when it was hiding with Shadow Behemoth all along, or practicing Lupicus alone for hours so I could master his mechanics and teach them to other people. I’m not posting this thread to trash Anet or to make drama and cause people to quit the game, I’m posting it so people can read my thoughts on Guild Wars 2 and discuss them in hopes that maybe some day there will be some content that challenges hardcore players.

In closing, perhaps taking a casual approach to Guild Wars 2 is the best way to go about playing this game, but being an elitist and mastering the PvE content the game offers eradicated any sort of drive to continue playing a game that doesn’t seem to be targeted towards someone like me

I wouldn’t call myself elitist if I was after the rewards, I have been doing dungeons Solo/2-man/3-man/4-man I have challanged Champions I know have no specific chest reward, I do it becouse I wanna know how good I am and se if I can do it… The myself knowing “I soloed a champion” is more of a reward for me. (But that is just me)

I may have missed it totaly but…
If you would wan’t a change what would you wan’t, what reward would you wan’t for being “Elitist”?

Also it was said earlier in the post that games are made for Highscores, yes the old games was about highscores but then again did you get a reward for speedrunning or getting the highest score in Super Mario Bros. ? No? Oh… …
Wait! Yes, Metroid! You got a reward for compleating that game under a specific amount of time, you got Samus to remove her helmet and armor.
So is that an enough reward for “Elitists” to speedrun dungeons, just a few changes to your charecter or are you actually looking for some Bragging rights? Well I wouldn’t mind a Title for those so called “Elitists”.

Anyway I myself are against better stats and EQ so as long A-net not makes an ElitstsAscended gear I wouldn’t mind a little bragging rights for the “Elitists”.

Why am I against better gear? Well I like how this game is built atm, that the player behind the computer is the good one and not the gear and that is being the best is all about “To master the game”.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

As the title says, being an elitist has completely destroyed this game for me. My inner elitist drove me to learn strategies for each dungeon and boss, execute them flawlessly, become the self-declared best Guardian in Guild Wars 2, and create top-of-the-food chain-guides for Warrior and Ranger. After accomplishing feats like killing Lupicus in 46 seconds with my super group of guildies and clearing Arah path 4 in 30 minutes, I’ve realized something that really took me all too long: Guild Wars 2 is a casual’s game, and that isn’t going to change.

The last few patches have brought nothing but temporary content that has taken me no longer than a few hours to complete at most, and very little changes to dungeons, if any at all. Fractals are in a state of chaos and the only people that have motivation to do them are people that enjoy harming themselves or people caught in an infinite loop of grinding for a weapon skin that will most likely never drop for them. I cannot keep myself entertained with a game that offers no new challenge, and the little challenges that did exist were destroyed after discovering the trinity of Warrior, Guardian, and Mesmer. I can understand that someone with no desire to master dungeon content or someone that only wants to log on and do dailies would have trouble with this game, but Guild Wars 2 simply offers nothing for the hardcore player, and I don’t think that I’m alone in thinking this.

People that play casually don’t really bother me, they can do what they want and that’s fine. If the idea of Guild Wars 2 is to produce temporary content for someone to log on and see once a month and buy some minis from the gem store, then I don’t have a problem with that either; I just don’t feel I can be a part of it any longer. I’m quite disappointed, because I had fun playing this game for several months, whether it was hunting for Final Rest when it was hiding with Shadow Behemoth all along, or practicing Lupicus alone for hours so I could master his mechanics and teach them to other people. I’m not posting this thread to trash Anet or to make drama and cause people to quit the game, I’m posting it so people can read my thoughts on Guild Wars 2 and discuss them in hopes that maybe some day there will be some content that challenges hardcore players.

In closing, perhaps taking a casual approach to Guild Wars 2 is the best way to go about playing this game, but being an elitist and mastering the PvE content the game offers eradicated any sort of drive to continue playing a game that doesn’t seem to be targeted towards someone like me

I wouldn’t call myself elitist if I was after the rewards, I have been doing dungeons Solo/2-man/3-man/4-man I have challanged Champions I know have no specific chest reward, I do it becouse I wanna know how good I am and se if I can do it… The myself knowing “I soloed a champion” is more of a reward for me. (But that is just me)

I may have missed it totaly but…
If you would wan’t a change what would you wan’t, what reward would you wan’t for being “Elitist”?

Also it was said earlier in the post that games are made for Highscores, yes the old games was about highscores but then again did you get a reward for speedrunning or getting the highest score in Super Mario Bros. ? No? Oh… …
Wait! Yes, Metroid! You got a reward for compleating that game under a specific amount of time, you got Samus to remove her helmet and armor.
So is that an enough reward for “Elitists” to speedrun dungeons, just a few changes to your charecter or are you actually looking for some Bragging rights? Well I wouldn’t mind a Title for those so called “Elitists”.

Anyway I myself are against better stats and EQ so as long A-net not makes an ElitstsAscended gear I wouldn’t mind a little bragging rights for the “Elitists”.

Why am I against better gear? Well I like how this game is built atm, that the player behind the computer is the good one and not the gear and that is being the best is all about “To master the game”.

Thats what I want, for Dwayna and Lyssa to strip naked if you beat them solo. Now THAT’S L33T. {;þ

Im Mudbone.1437:

Thats what I want, for Dwayna and Lyssa to strip naked if you beat them solo. Now THAT’S L33T. {;þ

You’d like to see some undead, rotten corpses to strip down naked? Whatever floats your boat I guess.

Although that would be unfair to the female GW2 crowd. If you want Dwayna/Lyssa to go naked, to be fair, so should Balthazar and Grenth.

People like the Op can play a korean mmo if they likes ‘challenges’. Oh…they won’t. Wonder why that is. I leave mmos because of people like the op who whine at casual players/and like grinds that suit them. casuals like difficulty but hate the grindiness that is needed to counter no-lifer players.

wolfie.7296:

People like the Op can play a korean mmo if they likes ‘challenges’. Oh…they won’t. Wonder why that is. I leave mmos because of people like the op who whine at casual players/and like grinds that suit them. casuals like difficulty but hate the grindiness that is needed to counter no-lifer players.

Read the op again, then come back.

Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Post something even slightly challenging in game.

That’s like posting a video of who can tie their shoes the fastest.

Just to get this straight, you guys talking about elitism and PvE?
I mean really? This sounds paradox?

MakersMark.8420:

That’s like posting a video of who can tie their shoes the fastest.

Kontrolle.3514:

Just to get this straight, you guys talking about elitism and PvE?
I mean really? This sounds paradox?

I think what needs to be understood is this type of thing isnt really about challenge. Its about satiating ego and being able to show that off to others. I suppose most people will take that to be a negative accusation, but it just is what it is.

So, you will see that they tend to choose the easiest things to do, figure out the absolute best way to do them, and then complain about how easy it is/was. This all plays into a theme of self-gratification. Its not even a matter of whether or not others even see it, only that the individual believes others care about their achievements.

There are also those of us that seek challenge above all else, tend to actively find ways to do so with the tool set that is provided in any given game or activity. Is it too easy if I do everything to make it as easy as possible? If the answer is yes, some of us will find ways to make that more challenging. Anything from aggroing more and more mobs to limiting what gear we can wear. This concept is foreign to others though, because it does not fit into placating a certain experience/playstyle (which I illustrated above).

Its not even a matter of one being bad, or the other being good. Its just two different ways to approach a game. Though, like I said, I would venture a guess that most who are truly seeking a challenge will start to create it for themselves after being let down enough times. That is when the real fun started, for me at least.

The biggest difference is that one will never be satisfied regardless of what the game developers do with their software. The reason why game companies are not catering to this anymore is because they have realized it is more trouble than its worth in the mass majority of cases. It is a blackhole of resources.

The attitude of some players isnt relegated to any specific playstyle though, and I think thats important. You will find egomaniacs in all levels of play and in every game, and in every mode within those games. You will also find amazing people who have great stories to tell.

The point is, game companies are going in this direction for a reason. And regardless of if you or I feel that reason is “valid,” it wont change the course the gaming world is headed. My only suggestion is to find and make the challenge for yourself instead of expecting to have it all handed to you. That will only lead to disappointment in the majority of cases.

Adapt or die, as its said. ;P

Out of subject, I hate it when the term Carebear is thrown around as a pejorative. It is not synonymous with “casual”, and “hardcore” isn’t better than casual anyway. A casual could care less about others too. There could also be good players that aren’t “hardcore.” It is not wrong to care about others, nor does it make you more “cool” to be uncaring-it won’t make you more “competitive”, or “better” at GW2.

Plus there’s nothing wrong with liking those old cartoons anyway. In short, “I am hardcore, and you are just a Carebear casual!” is such a silly thing to state, especially because no one is any worse by being caring, or any better by being ultra-competitive.

Oh I didn’t really know GW2 had an elitist PvE scene, that always seemed kind of paradoxical to me because once you learn the coding behind the classes/fight you’re done you know, knowledge = skill. Not to sound negative or belittling, i just thought the classes were too imbalanced PvE wise to spawn a proper competitive scene, aren’t you just narrowed to using a bunch of warr/mes/guards or something.

When GW2 came out people told me it was a PvP game and PvE was just in there for the sake of it, i believed that after a few days of playing on release. So when i got to 80 i didn’t really expect to find myself striving for the best gear in the top dungeons, i just played for fun and took GW2 as a way to step away from my elite playstyle because i am far from casual.

I mean you have to expect a game to be casual when the game has dyes, sims clothing, and a whole store full of other cosmetic jibber jabber, because that’s what the developers are payed to put their time into. Also the game isn’t sub based, so we shouldn’t be asking for new content every month like people do to Blizzard.

But then people ask the question “What is Anet doing to make the game more difficult?”, well lets look at what they are trying to do atm – One thing that comes to mind here is they are trying to get tpvp into esports, so that’s obviously part of the focus of their game. Next is WvW, where they just released a new matchmaking system, again more focus on PvP.

You can kind of see here how their look on PvP is more serious in terms of pushing it to be noticed and highly looked upon, where as their look on PvE is more casual with all the fun new easy achievements, super adventure box, holiday events etc. I mean they do a pretty good job with their new PvE content but the people who will enjoy it most and for weeks after its released will be casual players because that’s all Living Story and that are aimed at.

I guess when they put FOTM in the game they were hoping the level system and random world thing would be enough in terms of longevity in the endgame PvE dungeon scene.

I guess the game will only be fun for you if you go into it expecting exactly what it is – A casual MMO with a greater focus on PvP and fun social events than Hardcore PvE. That’s my view on this discussion.

- Tobby

Tuluum.9638:

MakersMark.8420:

That’s like posting a video of who can tie their shoes the fastest.

Kontrolle.3514:

Just to get this straight, you guys talking about elitism and PvE?
I mean really? This sounds paradox?

I think what needs to be understood is this type of thing isnt really about challenge. Its about satiating ego and being able to show that off to others. I suppose most people will take that to be a negative accusation, but it just is what it is.

So, you will see that they tend to choose the easiest things to do, figure out the absolute best way to do them, and then complain about how easy it is/was. This all plays into a theme of self-gratification. Its not even a matter of whether or not others even see it, only that the individual believes others care about their achievements.

There are also those of us that seek challenge above all else, tend to actively find ways to do so with the tool set that is provided in any given game or activity. Is it too easy if I do everything to make it as easy as possible? If the answer is yes, some of us will find ways to make that more challenging. Anything from aggroing more and more mobs to limiting what gear we can wear. This concept is foreign to others though, because it does not fit into placating a certain experience/playstyle (which I illustrated above).

Its not even a matter of one being bad, or the other being good. Its just two different ways to approach a game. Though, like I said, I would venture a guess that most who are truly seeking a challenge will start to create it for themselves after being let down enough times. That is when the real fun started, for me at least.

The biggest difference is that one will never be satisfied regardless of what the game developers do with their software. The reason why game companies are not catering to this anymore is because they have realized it is more trouble than its worth in the mass majority of cases. It is a blackhole of resources.

The attitude of some players isnt relegated to any specific playstyle though, and I think thats important. You will find egomaniacs in all levels of play and in every game, and in every mode within those games. You will also find amazing people who have great stories to tell.

The point is, game companies are going in this direction for a reason. And regardless of if you or I feel that reason is “valid,” it wont change the course the gaming world is headed. My only suggestion is to find and make the challenge for yourself instead of expecting to have it all handed to you. That will only lead to disappointment in the majority of cases.

Adapt or die, as its said. ;P

This is exactly why I propose The Necro Alliance, a group of necros who frequently create all-necro groups and do various content together. (Tried this once in a tournament and won)

This creates challenge to make a balanced team with limited skill availability and also rubs in the faces of those who think war/mes/guard are the only classes in existence. They’ll be having necro nightmares. I really would like to do this necro alliance deal. Let’s make videos to prove necros are potent.

Honestly the game needs and overhaul in challenge and mechanics.;.. the base mechanics are fine but the actual content in the game is underwhealming from both a story and gameplay side of things not just the poor loot and lack of a difficulty challenge anywhere for players.

In my opinion they could use the “transformation into branded” that we saw in beta 2 finale at the shatterer if we got caught by a certain attack and then like the melandru temple keep people in that form with a 2 hour condition that applies to them in that zone and transforms them into a risen whenever they enter it (sure people will use alts but not all the time)

Then get the shaterer to move about, have multiple phases, start a battle across the entire map.

Make meta events big… maybe not all the time, have other less inspired meta events take the place of what we currently have but have world boss fights be engaging and take hold of the dynamic idea. oh and yeah put gauntlets of enemies between you and the spawn points.

I mean there are so many events that could be rigged that make more sense than attacking it’s feet. lots of ruins it could sit on and show it’s full size.

Scale everyone up to 80 when it comes too…

You made the game boring on your own. Not everything has to be rehearsed with the same classes over and over again you know. Exploiting boss mechanics isn’t impressive.

Players who figure out the best tactics to beat any encounter, and who stat to fit those tactics, are not going to find challenge in a game whose encounters are tuned to be doable with high difficulty by people in sub-optimal builds using a less efficient strategy. If you’re rocking close-to-max DPS and stack to take advantage of all the buffs and defenses a party can generate, your experience will be much easier than people running in whatever gear and freelancing. The latter will struggle in dungeons, the former will breeze.

Big damage is so broken in this game. Those riding the damage wave will not find real challenge until this is fixed.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

snip

the title you chose is misleading … i thought it will be another post how hard GW2 is and how only zerker wars are invited to do dailies.

I agree.
this game is super casual, all the “Elitists” are gone or slowly going away…
when all the “Elitists” will leave, all the rest can have fun with your living story adventure box of dragonbashing.

“Elitists” are the ones who make the game playable.

To be super casual is not a problem for the game. i know many casual who looks for hardmode and hardcore gaming… time spent is not the final goal, only achievments and challenge should be.

Elitism is not an issue but should not be implement by gears check, never !

we need panda players like my young sister, and we need elistist bad guys too

I would’ve said that elitism isn’t a problem; until the last few days in dungeons and fractals… and elitism really is sucking the fun out of it – but not in the way you might expect.

World of Warcraftism

“Stack here”, “Pull”, “HOW YOU AGGRO THE WELPS! MINUS 50 DKP!”

A wise person once said GW2 is an art, WoW is a science, but there are increasing numbers of people trying to play GW2 like WoW, forcing the party to stack in certain places, execute pulls in certain ways. In the dredge fractal yesterday some guy made us stack on the pipes (for some reason?) and we wiped 3 times, each time getting nuked down by the combined AoE shockwaves and melee of the dredge.

The whole idea was stupid, counter-intuitive and ultimately didn’t work but when people have the ability to /kick you for disobeying, nobody dared question it.

After the 3rd wipe I said “screw this, I’m a mesmer, I have reflects coming out my kitten and dodges and AOE’s – this is NOT a natural or effective way of doing this”, so I just fought the trash mobs on open ground and, guess what, we suceeded this time because the mobs didn’t burst us all down as a group and actually couldn’t hit us with ranged attacks at all due to my chainned reflects and since we wern’t all stacked up, we didn’t all get downed simultaneously whenever we did get meleed by the champion

Should be obvious, but “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS DUNGEON HNEERRGGHHH” attitude is tiresome, frequently misguided and just takes all the fun out of things. I understand the importance of having a plan in many instances and how it can speed stuff up at times (ie. cliffside’s tunnel pulls and sparing the first two chanters), but some plans are just stupid, and the attitude you can only do a dungeon one way, or get kicked is rediculous.

I just think GW2 lacks general challenge. It’s a button-mashing game where you cut down gazillions of mobs and on occasion press F to “Repair” or “Whatever” on something. It’s pretty brain dead if you ask me. I want to make each fight count and want more of a challenge in general. How’s pressing F actually a challenge? Couldn’t I at least be forced to solve some kind of minor puzzle instead?

Couldn’t even finish reading this troll thread after reading “self-declared best guardian.” Good joke. People with that mindset that think because you drop a wall in front of a standing mob and in PvE 24/7 and don’t compete at a high level of PvP makes you the best guard need to leave the game then. With a mentality like that I can only imagine what else you had to say

I think ascended gear being barred from some players is part of the issue as well.. I talk about it in another thread but I don’t go into detail on this…. The elitist players all require you to ping all of your ascended gear to stay in group I’ve run into quiet a few like this over the past month If you don’t have 2x earrings , 2x rings , 1x amu , 1x backpack to ping they remove you from group and move on…

This isn’t the only thing with elitists I’ve seen groups that bar you from joining till you ping a stack of the dungeons tokens as well… The elitists in this game are getting bad but they are nowhere near as bad as they were in guild wars 1 for places like underworld or hall of heroes where they required you to ping spacific items / ranks and other things…..

Ryuujin.8236:

Should be obvious, but “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS DUNGEON HNEERRGGHHH” attitude is tiresome,.

sadly a broken PvE design and balance makes that sentence more offten true than wrong :|

As often happens groups of “elitist” that learnt to abuse a party composition made up of OP professions, found ways to completely negate damage in most situations.

With such tactics playing cof1, shatterer or arah has the same challenge thus they ask for difficult content…

Its exactly what your friend asked with the “pipes” tactic.
Its hard to explain, but if everybody knows it it makes the fight just matter of time.

At higher fotm level ignoring such tactics makes the game just impossible…

CC is useless, most defenses have been nerfed, mobs 1-2 hits you and there is no aggro management…

How you are supposed to survive if not finding tactics that makes the first run fun and evey other the copy paste of the first?

Simply you can t.

P.S: btw makes sense asking to ping ascended for fotm at least…

A bad examples are players asking for achievement points to join fotm groups.
You instantly know they don t have a clue on fractals.

What makes this game hard for me to enjoy is the inability to stand out as a stronger player than anyone else. Maybe it’s just the game mechanics, but in any group it just feels like you’re one big blob of dps. Maybe I’m too used to gw1 or maybe it’s just my undeserved sized ego talking, but the only reason I’m still playing is because I have nothing else to occupy the insane level of free time I have.

Syn Sity.5826:

What makes this game hard for me to enjoy is the inability to stand out as a stronger player than anyone else. Maybe it’s just the game mechanics, but in any group it just feels like you’re one big blob of dps. Maybe I’m too used to gw1 or maybe it’s just my undeserved sized ego talking, but the only reason I’m still playing is because I have nothing else to occupy the insane level of free time I have.

This is an interesting point, and a good one. I used to feel like that too. But I now feel like I bring a lot to a party. It’s not just the damage or not damage…it’s the level of awareness, the ability to get yourself out of situations when they arise, the ability to rez other people who aren’t necessarily as good.

One of the nice things about not playing with elitists is to realize that you’re much better than a whole lot of other people who might not ever get through the content without you.

I agree with Vayne on this.

If you have the perfect composition and a team that knows all the pulls, you can end up feeling like a blob of DPS. I’ve done enough CoF and CoE speed runs to know this. I think this is partly due to the way a some of the bosses in that dungeon work. Standing on top of the boss should never make you immune to damage, there is a reason Melee does more damage, and that’s because it’s meant to be more risky, this is just not true in all fights.

However running with a PuG group some of who don’t know the Dungeon like the back of the hand can be SO much more fun and challenging. I don’t run a full zerk in a PuG as it’s just too risky, and you need to be able to support the weaker players if you have them. This means running my Ele I have to keep an eye on all my team, try to heal people on low health, rez people that go down, buff people, throw up swirling winds to protect people, as well as DPSing. This is far more fun and definitely gives you somewhere to shine.

TLDR: If you run with a well oiled machine that knows every trick, it’s just playing by route and can be very easy to overcome any obstacle. Playing with a group where you have to deal with other players mistakes can be a lot more challenging and in turn much more fun and rewarding.