Ive noticed a pattern that’s such a blatant reward nerf across the ENTIRE Game in contrast with gem store designers knocking out item after item ( for a cost) that im even less motivated to start HoT than before especially with the time heavy gating mechanics.
1. Dungeons rewards nerfed – by a lot – people told to chill because Fractals are the new Dungeons. – Except that Fractals have been nerfed aswell unless you get the Fractal Mastery just to get the rewards you got BEFORE.
2. EotM rewards nerfed – by a lot – people told to chill because WvW always had bad rewards and now they arnt because EofM has been nerfed down rather than WvW being boosted up! – Incidentally the xp in WvW appears to have been nerfed possibly bags too and liquid xp has gone. The maps are too big and Borderlands is a ghost town.
3. Festivals/events – everyone knows about the Modrem event giving such skimpy currency for such a large time input and coming up against unrealistic prices for items – Halloween is actually almost as bad – only people that have played all previous years will notice and even then they may not but -you can NO LONGER use chattering skulls/nougat that drop in large numbers to buy anything – ALL of the items which now require only candy corn to buy have had their prices inflated from last year – Carlotta pet is at least 3 times the price it was, personalised bags that dropped some of these rare items no longer given out, the items that do drop in the ToT seems to have a very low drop rate. And of course the ‘unfortunate’ ‘bug’ that stops mastery acquisition in Halloween.
4. Salvaging – this looks fairly benign initially, you will be getting less mats from each salvage – but then start thinking about the constant push to allow less and less items actually drop from mobs which completely negates magic find, add in that champ bag farming is one of the few ways to make cash should you need to buy something and suddenly those bags are worth a lot less and the time you spent doing at aswell.
5. Pvp – A smaller issue but when you realise that transmutes can only be bought from the Gem shop if they arnt on tracks anymore…..
5. XP and Progression mechanics – yes I know these arnt rewards – neither should they be but in Hot they have artificially be turned into them – and then promptly ‘nerfed’ by requiring extended grinds of it to access CORE gameplay. Every poart of the gamem as far as I can tell in the last few weeks has been subject to XP nerf – you simply don’t get what you used to and in Hot are blocked from content.
6. Guilds – large guilds arnt as much affected ( apart from the obvious gold sink and gating) small guilds? you are pretty much kittened – many of your upgrades have been taken off you only for you to ‘re earn’ – through a gold and resources grind.
Think about that – you now have to do double or triple the work you did several years ago to get the same rewards or less rewards! – for OLD content – and cant access new content without hitting pay walls or grind walls.
You now have things that you have EARNED in the game taken away from you – Guilds lost a lot of utility for a new mechanic that many small guilds cant even access, Traits was the same all those tomes a waste of gold etc etc.
I can see the argument of creating scarcity for big ticket items like the Ghastly shield ( for a time), but the rest is unacceptable when you notice than in the 3 days since launch they are putting out new outfits, weapons ‘boosters’ – because lets face it you are going to need them now everything has been nerfed…who has the absolute lack of tact to start advertising Gem items when everything has been nerfed in the game int eh space of a couple of weeks?
Ive never seem such a blatant cash grab across ALL aspects of a game – GW2 design appears to be being controlled by some Neo Con Economics Loon – you just got a MASSIVE cash injection be respectful Anet and stop putting all your resourses into finding nefarious skinner boxes to get even more cash out of people or making the game increasingly hard to get any rewards from forcing you into getting ‘help’ through the Gem store.