Guild Wars 2

Ultimately, MMO developers (meaning the companies, not the workers) are going to produce games based on ideas many businesses use.

• Broad-based appeal — the secret to financial success in the modern age is to sell to as many people as possible.
• Appeal to the lowest common denominator — this is a corollary of broad-based appeal; if you target your product at a niche population only, you’re limiting your customer base — and discernment is in short supply among consumers.
• Cost-effective production — spend as little as possible to produce your product or service; quality is a distant second or worse place consideration in today’s markets.
• Advertising — get them in the door; once they’re in, then worry about keeping them there. Look at many comedy movies, where the only really funny scenes are the ones chosen for the trailer.
• Public relations — obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate. Never pin yourself down when you can avoid it.

ANet tried to paint itself as different than other game-producing companies. However, I’m sure we can point to GW2 and find all of the above qualities present.

IndigoSundown.5419:

…

• Advertising — get them in the door; once they’re in, then worry about keeping them there. Look at many comedy movies, where the only really funny scenes are the ones chosen for the trailer.
  …

But this has to be the main problem for Anet. As for the PR guys, they were doing an effective job knocking Hearthstone (at least to me) until I watched Totalbiscuit actually playing it. It is a game I would enjoy as I played a small amount of trading card games in my youth and its not too complicated.

Pull out dem credit cards folks! :D

One other thing that is really desmotivating, is that at the end of all of this, the players that purely focus on farming and faming only, will once again end up richer.

Why? Let’s look at what a farmer needs to farm:
-> A top-tier profession for farming (usually the Warrior), with a two-handed weapon, because it takes less time to make than two single-handed weapons, and one that focuses on aoe and low cooldowns (like, for example, the Warrior’s Greatsword), usually with berzerker stats; There you have it, the perfect farming tool for champion train zergs, that also happens to be one of the best setups for any challenging content in this game. Miraculous!

Now, let’s look at several different kind of players:
1. Completionists who enjoy having their entire weaponry at max level;
2. Alt players who enjoy having all their alts at max level;
3. Build-driven players who enjoy creating and switching between different builds;

What is happening in all this ascended mess? Something very simple.

Non-farming players need to farm more than farmers, and will ultimately end up being poorer than farmers, even if they farm as often as farmers. By then, once farmers are swimming in gold again while non-farmers are wasting their resources on extra equipment, Anet will need to create additional content to make sure farmers don’t break the economy, further punishing non-farmers.

Do you see the failure of logic in all of this?

This new content is designed to appeal to farmers, but it’s the farmers that need to farm less, and it’s the non-farmers that need to farm more. Likewise, because the non-farmers will have to farm more, they will keep the economy going.

In the end, and this is not hyperbole, non-farming players are being treated almost as economy-driven slaves here. We have to work as much as farmers do in this boring content, but we will ultimately end up being poorer for doing so. It’s a mess.

DiogoSilva.7089:

One other thing that is really desmotivating, is that at the end of all of this, the players that purely focus on farming and faming only, will once again end up richer.

Let me make sure I understand your argument. The players that focus on making gold the fastest way possible, will get gold faster than the players who wait for gold to come to them? It kind of sounds like real life. The guy that works 2 jobs to put himself through college and then works 100hrs a week as a lawyer will make more money than the guy who works 20hrs a week at a party time cushy job.

Yes I understand you want to play the game a certain way. However, don’t complain that it will take you too long to get an ascended weapon playing it the way you like it. It’s still 100% possible for you to get an ascended playing the game your way, it will just take a lot longer and you don’t have the patience. At least you have the option that, if you don’t want to wait, you can go farm up some mats or gold.

What is the alternative? Anet just gives away ascended weapons to anyone who walks up to an asceneded vending machine in LA? People want to work towards something so that when they finally get it, they feel a sense of achievement. This is what MMO’s strive for. Not just making people grind. The ultimate key is they want people to feel a sense of accomplishment, then set another goal post that people work towards to get that feeling again.

TorsoReaper.8530:

People want to work towards something so that when they finally get it, they feel a sense of achievement. This is what MMO’s strive for. Not just making people grind. The ultimate key is they want people to feel a sense of accomplishment, then set another goal post that people work towards to get that feeling again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

Im sure you get that fuzzy feeling.

TorsoReaper.8530:

DiogoSilva.7089:

One other thing that is really desmotivating, is that at the end of all of this, the players that purely focus on farming and faming only, will once again end up richer.

Let me make sure I understand your argument. The players that focus on making gold the fastest way possible, will get gold faster than the players who wait for gold to come to them? It kind of sounds like real life. The guy that works 2 jobs to put himself through college and then works 100hrs a week as a lawyer will make more money than the guy who works 20hrs a week at a party time cushy job.

Yes I understand you want to play the game a certain way. However, don’t complain that it will take you too long to get an ascended weapon playing it the way you like it. It’s still 100% possible for you to get an ascended playing the game your way, it will just take a lot longer and you don’t have the patience. At least you have the option that, if you don’t want to wait, you can go farm up some mats or gold.

What is the alternative? Anet just gives away ascended weapons to anyone who walks up to an asceneded vending machine in LA? People want to work towards something so that when they finally get it, they feel a sense of achievement. This is what MMO’s strive for. Not just making people grind. The ultimate key is they want people to feel a sense of accomplishment, then set another goal post that people work towards to get that feeling again.

Either you did not read anything here or you just do not understand. Yes, other MMOs have gear you have to work for, work for hard in many cases. Yes, that creates a feeling of achievement, one which I enjoy myself by the way. But there it is usually part of the normal gameplay, farm this quest or that raid for x kind of item – when I feel like running that special quest, maybe today I´d rather go for another item or xp farm or whatever. GW2 continues to force you into tighter and tighter schedules the game dictates. And yes, it is “optional”, that is not the point. Call it a personal flaw of mine, but I do not want to be a mediocre player. And I want to work towards my gratification. I don´t want games to be easy. But I do not want a game that offers me less freedom of choices than my kitten normal job.

Um… every merchant in the game is a vending machine that takes different types of coins/currency. But that is beside the point.
This game was touted as horizontally progressive. Meaning (from what developers have stated) that to get the best stats should be mildly easy. Not walk in the park handed to a player but obtainable in multiple ways and not something you grind for weeks to do.
However if you want the aesthetically pleasing, desirable skins, you better plan for an intense grind.
That was perfectly fine for me and many others. I didn’t need the fancy skins but I darned sure worked to get as many of my characters into exotics as possible to have the stats. Now it is to the point that the time factor is so daunting to gear up multiple characters, I’m not sure I’m up for it. I play 3 mains and each for different reasons. I have 9 total characters for fun. Since launch I’ve changed the builds on those three multiple times and have more than one set of gear (Pve/WvW).
The new gear is not a molehill but Mt. Everest, from my perspective. I’ll start this journey but I am not sure I have the heart to make it.

Infernia.9847:

Not walk in the park handed to a player but obtainable in multiple ways and not something you grind for weeks to do.
However if you want the aesthetically pleasing, desirable skins, you better plan for an intense grind.

The game has only been out for a year. What if the point of ascended weapons is that if someone plays the game normally, does dungeons the way they want, world events they way they want, does it all on their schedule. Maybe in 2 years they’ll get an ascended “naturally”. For most people on this thread the recurring theme I see is impatience and jealousy. People are jealous other people will get the ascended first, or that they already have the gold “farmed up” to get one. Or they are impatient that they will “never” get an ascended and by never they mean that if they can’t get it in a month it’s BS and a-net is screwing everything up.

At the end of the day, and I have seen the recipe sheets, either you grind and get it fast, or you don’t and get it VERY slowly. But either way, unlike a legendary, there’s at least a set formula to get one vs throwing exotics in the furnace.

I 100% agree with the OP.

I love the combat system in this game. Even when encounters are horribly designed (thanks to things like Defiant, the preponderance of one-kitten kills, and invisible damage sources), I still have fun because of how vibrant and slick the combat system is.

I love the little touches all over the place in this game too. Like the two Asura brothers trying to make perfume from Harpy glands in Blazeridge Steppes, or this one dialogue between two NPCs in Ascalon Settlement. I love walking around and stumbling into a what was clear a labor of love from the devs.

I love the lore, the history, the professions, the graphics, I even love running dungeons.

When Ascended gear was first announced, I was livid. I even quit the game for a while. But then we had the Laurel system and I thought, hey, this isn’t too bad. I can just do my dailies and my monthlies (which I did anyway) and I can slowly but surely gear up at least my main. I don’t have to prepare to have fun, I can still just have fun.

But this… no, this is too much. I’m not going to put myself through weeks and weeks of grunt-work, grind, and massive gold expenditure just to get one slightly better weapon, then do it all over again 20-30 times to gear up my alts as well.

Because what I loved most about Guild Wars was how it had absolutely no grind requirements. Gearing up your first character may have been a bit tricky but all your subsequent characters was dead easy. Getting max-level gear and weapons took hardly any effort at all, and then you could go on to just play the game however you wanted. You played the game to have fun, but just because you needed bigger numbers.

I had thought GW2 was going to maintain that tradition, you know, because they explicitly and repeatedly said it would. The new gearing system wasn’t as good as GW1’s system, but I thought, ok, this still isn’t that bad, I can still get Exotic gear for my characters without breaking my back too much. I can use Karma, or tokens, or Badges of Honor, stuff I’ve been banking anyway. Then I can use Transmutation Crystals to make it all look how I want. Cool.

But this… this spits all over that. The manifesto is obsolete; I don’t want to say it was a lie because maybe the devs really believed all those things they said about the game a year ago, but they clearly don’t anymore. Now they just want to trap us into grinding forever, into running champ trains for 8 hours at a time.

Pass. There are other games out there which allow me to have fun, rather than preparing to have fun.

I was originally just going to post one line about how I agree with the OP, but I guess I’m more disappointed in this game than I thought. The sad thing is, I’ve spent most of my time on the forums defending it from pessimists and whiners. I’m not a pessimistic person. I just can’t see a good way to spin this.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Infernia.9847:

Not walk in the park handed to a player but obtainable in multiple ways and not something you grind for weeks to do.
However if you want the aesthetically pleasing, desirable skins, you better plan for an intense grind.

The game has only been out for a year. What if the point of ascended weapons is that if someone plays the game normally, does dungeons the way they want, world events they way they want, does it all on their schedule. Maybe in 2 years they’ll get an ascended “naturally”. For most people on this thread the recurring theme I see is impatience and jealousy. People are jealous other people will get the ascended first, or that they already have the gold “farmed up” to get one. Or they are impatient that they will “never” get an ascended and by never they mean that if they can’t get it in a month it’s BS and a-net is screwing everything up.

At the end of the day, and I have seen the recipe sheets, either you grind and get it fast, or you don’t and get it VERY slowly. But either way, unlike a legendary, there’s at least a set formula to get one vs throwing exotics in the furnace.

Well two years is a bit of a stretch. Personally I’m not jealous at all, nor am I in a rush. I don’t think the ascended is worth it at all. I am seriously considering just raising all the crafting levels to 500 and then waiting for the legendary armor. If I have to play normally and wait that long to get best stat armor and weapons then I’d much rather grind for Legendary everything and be done.

I always admired the great skins from afar but was very happy with my exotic stats. I worked for those exotics quickly so I could then concentrate on the look of each character. At this point it is a reinvestment of time, and a lot of it, to get back to best stats. Once again I don’t care if the crafted ascended looked like torn dirty rags, it’s best stats. Unlike exotics the ascended are behind a time gate and multiply that by the number of weapons you use and the number of characters. Then comes the armor. It’s daunting.

I guess if you waited for the game to come out, pre-purchased in April, listened to the hype and statements, got into the game at Beta and launch, and one year later we are here; it may seem a little disappointing.

Agree 100%. I did NOT purchase this game to do mindless grinding… If i did i would still be playing WoW or EQ2. Why can’t you idiots make more challenging content and not these kitten mini games shoved in our faces every 2 weeks… Its annoying. F this.. quitting and no you can’t have my stuff…

Infernia.9847:

I guess if you waited for the game to come out, pre-purchased in April, listened to the hype and statements, got into the game at Beta and launch, and one year later we are here; it may seem a little disappointing.

I can understand that sentiment. I haven’t been playing since beta like a lot of people so the whole promise of “no grinding” was never made to me. However, I have played other games where you invest time and money only for something to get nerfed and ruin the game completely and I suppose for some people this is similar.

What happened to the manifesto is a great question.

That’s what I’ve been asking since November and I too have been met with “this game isn’t for you” well that’s not what they said at Pax both prior to launch and just this year. Apparently the game is for the players according to Colin.

So I have to wonder, who’s in charge of listening to their playerbase? Who’s in charge of bringing to the attention the numerous and large lists of suggestions (most of which were found by playing years of other mmo’s) suggestions concerning solving the combat issues, the ui elements that should be considered 100% standard just like antilock breaks on a car, problems that every other mmo out there has had since the beginning of mmos with 3D environments and have made solutions for, solutions that this team has largely ignored? Because I think it’s high time that someone else took over that and took over a team dedicated to improving the game.

It’s been a year, and yes there are tons of things to fix in this game and having 0 people working on it is absolutely unacceptable I agree OP. Heck I’d work on it myself if I could! This game is kind of like the governments of today, there doesn’t seem to be a close enough connection between the people in charge and the people in the environment dealing directly during the time it’s been out. They had loads of communication going with the community prior to launch but now it’s like they ignore the problems and continue on without even looking back at the beginning of the large number of suggestions people have given them to make the game improve and I’m not talking about the unreasonable ones I’m talking the the solutions we players have already experienced in other titles for the very same problems those other titles have had parallel to this title. On paper it’s still a numbers game.

I’m a fairly average player (only 1 character, though he has 500 hours on him) and I’ve been enjoying the game as much recently as when it launched.

I don’t grind. Ever. I play the game a) to have fun and b) to feel like I’m playing a role in the world, and circling the same champions or rushing through areas fulfills neither. I have picked up a full set of ascended trinkets from running the fractals many times, but I’ve never felt like it was needed for 99% of the content, its just not that challenging. I feel the same about legendaries and ascended weapons – its cool that they added them but I feel no need to stop having fun in order to get them (when they likely won’t change my access to content in any way).

I enjoy working through the story aspects of the living story, exploring areas, checking out the vistas (and re-visiting old ones from time to time), watching the antics that go on in the queensdale pub, and helping players learn the ropes in dungeons. As such, I’ve been glad to see new living world content come out on a regular basis, and I’ve been able to ignore repetition/grinding thus far. Now, that may change in the future, but from a -average- player point of view I’ve been having fun every time I log in.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I 100% agree with the OP.

I love the combat system in this game. Even when encounters are horribly designed (thanks to things like Defiant, the preponderance of one-kitten kills, and invisible damage sources), I still have fun because of how vibrant and slick the combat system is.

I love the little touches all over the place in this game too. Like the two Asura brothers trying to make perfume from Harpy glands in Blazeridge Steppes, or this one dialogue between two NPCs in Ascalon Settlement. I love walking around and stumbling into a what was clear a labor of love from the devs.

I love the lore, the history, the professions, the graphics, I even love running dungeons.

When Ascended gear was first announced, I was livid. I even quit the game for a while. But then we had the Laurel system and I thought, hey, this isn’t too bad. I can just do my dailies and my monthlies (which I did anyway) and I can slowly but surely gear up at least my main. I don’t have to prepare to have fun, I can still just have fun.

But this… no, this is too much. I’m not going to put myself through weeks and weeks of grunt-work, grind, and massive gold expenditure just to get one slightly better weapon, then do it all over again 20-30 times to gear up my alts as well.

Because what I loved most about Guild Wars was how it had absolutely no grind requirements. Gearing up your first character may have been a bit tricky but all your subsequent characters was dead easy. Getting max-level gear and weapons took hardly any effort at all, and then you could go on to just play the game however you wanted. You played the game to have fun, but just because you needed bigger numbers.

I had thought GW2 was going to maintain that tradition, you know, because they explicitly and repeatedly said it would. The new gearing system wasn’t as good as GW1’s system, but I thought, ok, this still isn’t that bad, I can still get Exotic gear for my characters without breaking my back too much. I can use Karma, or tokens, or Badges of Honor, stuff I’ve been banking anyway. Then I can use Transmutation Crystals to make it all look how I want. Cool.

But this… this spits all over that. The manifesto is obsolete; I don’t want to say it was a lie because maybe the devs really believed all those things they said about the game a year ago, but they clearly don’t anymore. Now they just want to trap us into grinding forever, into running champ trains for 8 hours at a time.

Pass. There are other games out there which allow me to have fun, rather than preparing to have fun.

I was originally just going to post one line about how I agree with the OP, but I guess I’m more disappointed in this game than I thought. The sad thing is, I’ve spent most of my time on the forums defending it from pessimists and whiners. I’m not a pessimistic person. I just can’t see a good way to spin this.

Agree 100%

Calae.1738:

Amen brother.

I play GW2 because there’s nothing else. I’m going to jump on the next triple A MMO that comes out; even if it has a subscription fee. Anything other than a boring grind fest for casual noobs would suffice.

I did too, the latest one that just came out, and even though its a traditional MMO i’m feeling far happier in it, less grind, less cash shop, less RNG and less toxic playerbase.

Gotta say i think Guildwars 2 has turned me off Cash shops and free to play forever.

To the OP great post totally agree, wish i could have said it that well.

The manifesto is not dead. There are still vestiges of the original intent in the game. There are still a lot of fun things to do. However, that list seems to be shrinking rather than growing.

The overall direction of the game does seem to be shifting away from the original design direction as perceived by a lot of the playerbase. Most of the decisions seem to be catering to players who demand: we want more/better loot; we want harder content, but we won’t do it if the rewards aren’t better than anything else; or we need something to work for.

No, the manifesto is not dead, but I don’t think it’s driving the game anymore.

I wish I had written the original post, and I hope the devs are going over it line by line to see what we players are upset about. Ascended crafting is just… sick, and completely breaks the promises of the manifesto.

The manifesto is dead. Long live the manifesto!

I think this deserves to be back at the top of the forum, at least once more before falling into eternal obscurity.

I’m just so, so sad at the direction this game is taking. And I used to be so excited about it.

“This game should be like this, however it turned out like this” -random gamer

Unless this is ur first mmo you should know by now that they can’t cater to every single gamers wants/needs. If you don’t enjoy playing it anymore there is MANY other games to play.

dwahvel.7356:

“This game should be like this, however it turned out like this” -random gamer

Unless this is ur first mmo you should know by now that they can’t cater to every single gamers wants/needs. If you don’t enjoy playing it anymore there is MANY other games to play.

People are upset because this game is slowly turning into all the other games, when it advertised itself as being different.

dwahvel.7356:

“This game should be like this, however it turned out like this” -random gamer

Unless this is ur first mmo you should know by now that they can’t cater to every single gamers wants/needs. If you don’t enjoy playing it anymore there is MANY other games to play.

Yes, and I intend to play those other games.

But the issue has never been about insufficient sources of entertainment. It’s been about insufficient sources of grind-light MMOs with fair business models, compelling lore, and dynamic combat. Can you name an MMO like that? Seriously, can you? Because it used to be just Guild Wars, and then GW2 was supposed to continue the tradition. And I’m not just making things up here: the manifesto was pretty clear about the design goals for the game, about the niche the game was intended to fill.

This thread is a attempt for GW2 fans unhappy with the change in direction the game is taking to communicate their displeasure to ANet. To hold ANet’s feet to the fire about how they’re morphing the game, homogenizing it. Games already exist where you can grind for months and months and still not have a completed character. I hate not having a completed character. I like nothing more than to have my character’s gear finished and done so I don’t have to think about it anymore. GW2 was supposed to be a game for me and people like me. But now it’s not, and that’s profoundly disappointing.

I played GW1 for 5 years intensely and then another 2 years sporadically. GW2 has only barely made it to the one year mark before losing me. I’m sure it’s going to go on to make a bunch more money, but I just can’t be happy about losing the one MMO on the market that had been advertised as exactly what I wanted to play.

Instead, I’m playing The Secret World. Combat’s a lot less interesting as are the abilities and I get the feeling that there’s a profound amount of grinding that goes on to get max gear, but the story and setting are amazing and at least the game hasn’t tried to sell itself as something that it’s not.

dwahvel.7356:

“This game should be like this, however it turned out like this” -random gamer

Unless this is ur first mmo you should know by now that they can’t cater to every single gamers wants/needs. If you don’t enjoy playing it anymore there is MANY other games to play.

Yes and i will actually play those other games because GW2 is pretty much exactly like those other games now and i prefer some other skin of the sam game.

they should take a leaf out of dragon’s dogma.

the experience is triple A especially dark arisen expansion content.

I can’t help but agree with many of the posts here. My experience with Guild Wars 2 has been one of a young, passionate love affair.

Starting back with the BWEs and articles about GW2, I fell in love. After launch, I continued to love the game and got to experience so much more content, and it seemed that ANet delivered all of the sweet promises it whispered in my ear when it all began. Now, just over a year later, I am struggling to keep playing. The only reasons I continue to play are hope and the lack of other games worth playing any more than GW2. Why? Because my sweet GW2 has changed. Or, perhaps, it was simply putting on an impressive act in the beginning to get me hooked.

Calae.1738:

Amen brother.

I play GW2 because there’s nothing else. I’m going to jump on the next triple A MMO that comes out; even if it has a subscription fee. Anything other than a boring grind fest for casual noobs would suffice.

Have a feeling you will be having this same discussion in whatever future MMO forums you choose to play. Grind will always happen. It’s the only way to keep people occupied who want to play 5+hrs/day, I mean, think about it. Every MMO has grind. EVERY MMO. All future ones will too. You can’t make a game that can be played for 3000+hrs without there being repetitive content. It is literally impossible. You have to cater to too wide a range of players. I play 1-2hrs a day and I feel like there’s little grind, some people play significantly more and feel there is a major grind.

Can’t please everyone.

For the hardcore (which I used to be and have evolved passed it): think of the game you epitomize as the ultimate perfect game back in the day. Explain how there was no grinding. Hell even UO was a grind fest, I remember rigging my keyboard so that my character would auto-attack a freaking dummy for hours every day to max my skills.

It’s all grind. You just have to choose which grind you prefer to play. It seems many are deciding GW2 grind isn’t for them. They have no other games to fall back on so they continue playing. They say when the next MMO comes out they are going to play that. $1000 says one year after that game’s release there will be grind complaints.

Embrace grind. It isn’t going anywhere.

TorsoReaper.8530:

DiogoSilva.7089:

The richer will become stronger faster, the poorer will have to work harder. The more skilled players will be forced to farm, as well, because unlike what was advertised to us at the beginning, being skilled in this game means zero.

I 100% agree. I was running around in the Gendarran Fields an this guy who was obviously a farmer came up and started stomping my character. I couldn’t fight back since he had a legendary weapon, legendary armor, an epic mount, etc… Obviously all farmed. I was dodge rolling, casting spells, everything, but my skill could not stop him from killing me.

No matter how skilled someone is, they will never beat a farmer and that is why they shouldn’t have open world PVP in this game anymore. They should do a different PVP mode where everyone is given the same gear, pre leveled up to 80, and you can’t farm your pvp equipment.

I needed that. Thank you.

I really like what you said here, OP, and it isn’t filled to the brim with bile that one usually runs into on an MMO forum. It further solidifies the belief that GW2 is not the game for me.

If you don’t enjoy endless 24/7 zerg framing and think grind for the shinnies are fun then I think GW2 is not for you.

The developers have make it clear there is no new expansions in the foreseeable future. Any new contents are drip feed through living stories where they must make money from germ store sales. Look at the last SAB World 2 for example. It is designed so you will buy the infinite coin. GW2 is slowly becoming a P2W.

Pakled Commander Reginod: We are strong.
Lieutenant Geordi La Forge: You’re armed to the teeth.
Pakled Captain Grebnedlog: Teeth are for chewing.
Commander William T. Riker: What brings you so far from home?
Pakled Captain Grebnedlog: We look for things.
Commander William T. Riker: What were you looking for?
Pakled Captain Grebnedlog: Things we need.
Commander William T. Riker: Can you be more specific?
Pakled Captain Grebnedlog: Things that make us go. We need help.
Commander William T. Riker: What is the nature of your mission?
Pakled Captain Grebnedlog: We look for things.