Guild Wars 2

Mirta.5029:

Dangerkips.6035:

Sure, while you’re leveling. Then you hit a ceiling at level 80, which is what the thread is about.

But how far do you want the characters to progress? Until it’s too ridiculous to go well with the story?

I will confess Mirta, I do not care for the story at all. Having said that, I don’t think it would be too hard for Anet to come up with some kind of explanation or backstory as to why this dude is stronger than the last one etc. Dragonball Z did it all the time

Dangerkips.6035:

Well put it this way. Do you see yourself still playing 6 months from now?

Furthermore, you can put it any which way you like, improving in gear is an inescapable necessity if they ever do come out with new, challenging content. If it isn’t necessary, then clearly the new content wasn’t challenging.

1. Yes
2. Why would you need new gear for new content? Couldn’t you not give gear to people to upgrade to, but make the content challenging to beat? GW1 was challenging, but there wasn’t any gear progression. I have another question – if you upgrade your gear in a different MMO does the content feel any harder than the content that you did in the previous tier? No, it doesn’t. The difficulty level feels the same, but it feels unbeatable if you don’t go in with the proper gear tier. That’s not creating a challenge. Creating a challenge is literally upping the difficulty level. You don’t need to re-gear yourself for a higher difficulty level if you want the content to actually be challenging.

Dangerkips.6035:

I will confess Mirta, I do not care for the story at all. Having said that, I don’t think it would be too hard for Anet to come up with some kind of explanation or backstory as to why this dude is stronger than the last one etc. Dragonball Z did it all the time

Dragonball Z actually did it to ridiculous levels. So much that they created some severe plotholes while going along the way. And before you said that you need progression to fit the basic premise of an RPG. The premise of every RPG is different. You don’t progress indefinitely in Skyrim, Oblivion or any other RPG game. You progress as much as it is needed for the story. So if it is not to satisfy the premise of an RPG (because you say you don’t care about the story) and not for bragging rights, then why do you need the progression?

Well if your suggestion is to create more interesting combat mechanics, I’m all for it.

Let’s say I have a car that I race in. I beat everyone on that same race track that everyone uses in town. Do I need a new car to make that race track more compelling? Or do I need a new race track to make my currently owned car more enjoyable.

Would you feel the need to buy a new car for each new race track you were to compete on?

(this is the least wordy I can get, as my other posts are large blocks of philosophy, psychology, and rambling)

Dangerkips.6035:

Well put it this way. Do you see yourself still playing 6 months from now?

Furthermore, you can put it any which way you like, improving in gear is an inescapable necessity if they ever do come out with new, challenging content. If it isn’t necessary, then clearly the new content wasn’t challenging.

Yes I can see that but I can never know for sure, but it won’t be the games fault it would be RL fault.

I started doing Fractials when I was fully geared and it can still be challanging for me.
There are four explorable level 80 Dungeons in the world right now and they are all challenging and actually all other dungeons even though you are level 80 are challenging, the fire and ice dungeon that was out for a while was challenging and I guess or hope next dungeon with aetherblades is challenging too. None requires me to get better gear, none needs me to grind more levels all I need to do is getting good at the game and to learn how to beat the dungeons.

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

All that said I think gear grind is a mmo necessary evil that supports a games player base and addictive nature.. What do you people think?

No, an MMO should simply offer content that remains fun, even if you repeat it. And it should offer more goals to work toward, other than completing the personal story and making a legendary (which already is a huge grind, seriously, how did you get one already?).

Currently there isn’t much of an endgame to speak of. An elite endgame dungeon could fix that.

gtfo… Jk but in all seriousness, how about instead of asking for gear grinding in this game (which I am against), you try a different game that has it already. Players like me like this game without it and the game should not be changed in such a way to satisfy your need for that. Let Guild Wars be it’s own game.

I’ll play devil’s advocate, In this proposed elite endgame dungeon, what are the reward factors to address the risk involved?

Harder =/= compelling content.

Thus the crux of every game designer ever. How do I make it so people like to play my game?

Large difficult events like the karka queen meta are now all but ignored because the incentive to do said content disappeared.

In the end, I am with you though, content needs to remain fun and interesting, even if repeating it is one of the desired interactions. Gear is not the end all to fun.

Dangerkips.6035:

Well put it this way. Do you see yourself still playing 6 months from now?

Furthermore, you can put it any which way you like, improving in gear is an inescapable necessity if they ever do come out with new, challenging content. If it isn’t necessary, then clearly the new content wasn’t challenging.

Sorry but the stupidity in this one is strong. I thought that becomes harder when it’s “power” increases while yours stays the same, so you overcome the challenge through theorycraft, strategizing and working on coordination and execution. If enemies get 10% more HP and you get 10% more power, aren’t we back to square one? Is every dungeon in MoP way harder than Molten Core because the characters are now level 90 or whatever? Please, these concepts are kinda basic.

Edit: of course there’s plenty of ways to make challenging content without ever increasing enemy statistics.

CMF.5461:

Let’s say I have a car that I race in. I beat everyone on that same race track that everyone uses in town. Do I need a new car to make that race track more compelling? Or do I need a new race track to make my currently owned car more enjoyable.

Would you feel the need to buy a new car for each new race track you were to compete on?

(this is the least wordy I can get, as my other posts are large blocks of philosophy, psychology, and rambling)

The answer depends on what is in it for me to compete on the new race track.

Wolfheart.1938:

Dangerkips.6035:

Well put it this way. Do you see yourself still playing 6 months from now?

Furthermore, you can put it any which way you like, improving in gear is an inescapable necessity if they ever do come out with new, challenging content. If it isn’t necessary, then clearly the new content wasn’t challenging.

Sorry but the stupidity in this one is strong. I thought that becomes harder when it’s “power” increases while yours stays the same, so you overcome the challenge through theorycraft, strategizing and working on coordination and execution. If enemies get 10% more HP and you get 10% more power, aren’t we back to square one? Is every dungeon in MoP way harder than Molten Core because the characters are now level 90 or whatever? Please, these concepts are kinda basic.

Edit: of course there’s plenty of ways to make challenging content without ever increasing enemy statistics.

Stupidity. Ok.

First of all. You wouldn’t just get 10% more powerful. I’m not saying the better gear should appear in your mailbox together with directions to the new, 10% harder dungeon.

Second, you should try killing even just a normal level 90 mob in your level 60 gear with your level 60 character. Tell me how that works out for you.

Basic concepts indeed.

I see what you got out of my analogy, but that isn’t what I meant.

Race track = Content
Car = Gear
Reward = Winning

Do I always need new Cars(gear) to get Rewards(win)? Or can I take my current Car(gear) and go to a new Race Track(content) to find new Rewards(wins).

I think we are hitting on the same thing though, with different answers.

What is the reward? For you, you think that gear itself could be the reward. I am looking for something other than gear to be my reward. Most of the time it comes with satisfaction of winning itself or bragging rights in essence.

In an MMO though, everyone has a chance to win at the PvE content, so it is hard to have bragging rights you can care about.

“I finished that dungeon!!”……..(other person) “yeah so what, so did I…”

Enter loot rewards- “I finished that dungeon and I got this awesome loot!”
(other person) “I finished the dungeon too, but I didn’t get anything, I’ll have to do it again to be like you”.

See it is a synthetic feeling of achievement in world meant for players to succeed at everything yet make them feel special at the same time.

This can be done with RNG, or with a dedicated grind with a reward at the end of the grind.

Dangerkips.6035:

Wolfheart.1938:

Dangerkips.6035:

Well put it this way. Do you see yourself still playing 6 months from now?

Furthermore, you can put it any which way you like, improving in gear is an inescapable necessity if they ever do come out with new, challenging content. If it isn’t necessary, then clearly the new content wasn’t challenging.

Sorry but the stupidity in this one is strong. I thought that becomes harder when it’s “power” increases while yours stays the same, so you overcome the challenge through theorycraft, strategizing and working on coordination and execution. If enemies get 10% more HP and you get 10% more power, aren’t we back to square one? Is every dungeon in MoP way harder than Molten Core because the characters are now level 90 or whatever? Please, these concepts are kinda basic.

Edit: of course there’s plenty of ways to make challenging content without ever increasing enemy statistics.

Stupidity. Ok.

First of all. You wouldn’t just get 10% more powerful. I’m not saying the better gear should appear in your mailbox together with directions to the new, 10% harder dungeon.

Second, you should try killing even just a normal level 90 mob in your level 60 gear with your level 60 character. Tell me how that works out for you.

Basic concepts indeed.

Of course you can’t beat a level 90 mob on a level 60 character, so what? It probably required more effort to beat 1 level 60 mob at level 60 than one lv 90 mob at level 90. The only thing that changes is that to beat the level 90 mob you need to reach a certain level first, just like you need to grind better equip before attempting the next dungeon. I don’t see “challenging” content in there, I see a carrot on a stick for people to keep paying subs. True challenging, compelling content doesn’t need a gear treadmill to exist (and is terribly hard to create if I might add), while gear-check encounters and treadmills are the preferred way of lazy, uninspired designers.

Dangerkips.6035:

Mirta.5029:

Dangerkips.6035:

Sure, while you’re leveling. Then you hit a ceiling at level 80, which is what the thread is about.

But how far do you want the characters to progress? Until it’s too ridiculous to go well with the story?

I will confess Mirta, I do not care for the story at all. Having said that, I don’t think it would be too hard for Anet to come up with some kind of explanation or backstory as to why this dude is stronger than the last one etc. Dragonball Z did it all the time

But if you have new gear, the new guy isn’t really stronger nor more difficult. 10=10 just as much as 20=20. The numbers are bigger but nothing really changed. You are still beating content that’s just as challenging as the last content.

It’s a very strong illusion but people who know the trick only see smoke and mirrors. There’s no actual progression. David Copperfield didn’t vanish the Statue of Liberty either, once you know what he did, it’s a very simple trick.

Out of interest what did people farm/play end-game for in GW1?

That game had virtually no gear progression. You could get max stat gear very easily and cheaply (sometimes before you hit level 20) and even the cosmetic armor upgrades (elite armor sets) were relatively cheap. Sure the runes and insignias could be expensive for a popular build, but even then I managed to kit out 3 characters and their heroes without ever farming. There were some very expensive weapons, but they were purely cosmetic, any gold or green weapon had equal stats.

And yet people sent years at end-game, and many of them spent the majority of that time farming. This is a genuine question BTW, I could never understand why they did it, but I find it even stranger that if they could find a reason with no gear-grind at all people can’t find the same (or similar) reasons in GW2.

I think it was the search for efficiency and power.

With the large amount of skills in the game, and the various ways to put them together. People were trying to crack that code to figure out what was good and what was worthless.

Eventually the meta kicked in and popular builds were published for anyone to pick up. Grinding for loot and upgrades to swap builds and try new things was the challenge.

Also a lot of people soloed content, so finding a build that you could run to solo content helped you feel accomplished.

Lastly, there was the pvp. Finding a build and setup that could beat the opposing team in game based off magic the gathering bring your deck of cards style fight.

We as gamers have grown and evolved, so maybe the old things are less compelling than they used to be. Trying to recreate the past to enjoy it now is always challenging and not the same as the first time you experienced it.

I just started playing another game casually that has a gear grind.. I hate it! I had played wow for a few years and did the whole gear thing, at the time I saw no problem with it. Now that I have played gw2 I love the gw2 system and I really hope they never add this to the game.

I am a huge fan of the way this game is designed. Gear for looks, open world events, and going to lower areas with friends without 1 shoting everything. They are putting content out quickly and even if you do it all in a few days there is nothing wrong with taking a break and logging in to see the new stuff and then taking another break. In a gear grind game you cannot take a break or you can be severely behind.

Add a gear grind and people will leave… many people.

Many of us neither need, nor desire gear grind in this game. GW1 vets didn’t desire it in GW1, and don’t desire it here. It’s not how we [loose use of the ‘we’ here, I am simply speaking for those I know, not for all] desire to play.

We do not wish to be locked into an endless cycle of never ending stat climbing. It does not contribute to the game, it does not make the game better. For those that would argue that you need stronger stats to take on harder content, I tell you plainly, no you don’t. You can have challenging content, without always needing to ‘prep’ for it by having to grind gear.

Please note that the keyword here is ‘challenging.’ Gear progression, aka stat progression, only allows for foes with bigger numbers. That’s not challenging. It’s not interesting. It’s simply going to be more of what we already have (what people are already kittening about). What we need are smarter AI, interesting mechanics, better implementation and required usage of support and control builds. Things that will require thought, tactics, and patience in order to accomplish the task. Simple stat progression and gear grind won’t do this.

Sadly, the day GW2 implements the traditional WoW hamster wheel, I will walk away and weep for what could have been a wonderful game.

CMF.5461:

I think it was the search for efficiency and power.

With the large amount of skills in the game, and the various ways to put them together. People were trying to crack that code to figure out what was good and what was worthless.

Eventually the meta kicked in and popular builds were published for anyone to pick up. Grinding for loot and upgrades to swap builds and try new things was the challenge.

Also a lot of people soloed content, so finding a build that you could run to solo content helped you feel accomplished.

Lastly, there was the pvp. Finding a build and setup that could beat the opposing team in game based off magic the gathering bring your deck of cards style fight.

We as gamers have grown and evolved, so maybe the old things are less compelling than they used to be. Trying to recreate the past to enjoy it now is always challenging and not the same as the first time you experienced it.

I hear you, but that’s an entirely different subject altogether. (Build diversity)

I have never played the original GW, but I think the consensus is that little carried over from it. GW2 is a different animal, with different problems.

In any event, the original question is still about incentive to keep playing at level cap.
I’ll be curious to see what the devs come up with, and hopeful that it is something more than temporary story.

Danikat.8537:

Out of interest what did people farm/play end-game for in GW1?

That game had virtually no gear progression. You could get max stat gear very easily and cheaply (sometimes before you hit level 20) and even the cosmetic armor upgrades (elite armor sets) were relatively cheap. Sure the runes and insignias could be expensive for a popular build, but even then I managed to kit out 3 characters and their heroes without ever farming. There were some very expensive weapons, but they were purely cosmetic, any gold or green weapon had equal stats.

And yet people sent years at end-game, and many of them spent the majority of that time farming. This is a genuine question BTW, I could never understand why they did it, but I find it even stranger that if they could find a reason with no gear-grind at all people can’t find the same (or similar) reasons in GW2.

It was all cosmetics. The kind of a big deal track involved tons of farming and grinding, yet no power boost was added. I farmed the entire Luxon title by clearing Mount Qinkai over and over, I did it because it was NOT bound to a power increase (the few shoddy title skills were of no interest to me).
While watching shows like Lost and Prison Break, I had a timer running for the drunkard title, which required 10 000 minutes of attention. Yet drunkard didn’t give me a power boost.

Farming can only hold my attention for any times if and only if it’s NOT bound to power increase.

It’s not only build diversity, it’s mechanics and fight dynamics. Things like improved AIs, faster reaction times,less room for errors,meaningfull positioning, synergy and coordination between players and enemies alike. Extremely hard to pull off especially in a non-trinity game. Anyways…

I’m assuming you are now convinced that challenging content doesn’t require gear grind, since you are sidestepping the subject. My work here is done, another brilliant success!

Also apologies for basically calling you stupid in my first post, I tend to be quite the unpolite guy.

TLDR: my idea of challenging content is less HP not more.

I am a huge proponent of risky combat as interesting content.

What i mean by that is faster combat with 1-3 hits and you can kill an enemy. The same goes for the player as well as far as minimal tolerance for being hit.

Now players have to time and evaluate their attacks so as not to be hit themselves.

This came to me after playing the simplistic, yet somehow interesting Super Adventure Box. It went back to old school games and gave you 3 hearts for HP and most mobs went down in 1-2 hits themselves.

The frog king boss fight was interesting and difficult until you learned how to avoid being hit and expose the frog king to take damage.

Take those fight mechanic ideas and apply them to a more rampped up scale of combat. Now fighting in this game is risky and heart thumping.

Effective builds and players can clear groups of mobs quickly and efficently, but they have to play smart or they can die too.

Groups of mobs become a challenge for solo players, but can be doable. Group play balances the playing field and helps players handle large amount of mobs.

Control skills become pivotal as ways to buy time before you get over run.

AE skills can be powerful, but would have a limitation such as long cast time and/or long cooldown time, so as to not be a I win button.

Healing/support skills become about preventing a hit rather than healing from damage.

The only downside to a combat system like this is that ranged attacks would prevail. Why get in close when I can kill from a distance. There are projectile blocks and absorbs available, but they should also become more control oriented in a system like this, or slower in combat versus melee fighting.

This is all a pipe dream, but I just want to spread the inspiration is all.

@Wolfheart: The subject has been sidestepped a few times already during this thread, it’s all there for you to look up though. Don’t let me stop you from patting yourself on the back however. Agree to disagree etc.

I’ll just say this before I take my leave: hate on WoW and gear progression all you want guys, but WoW is still doing well after nearly a decade. Will we be able to say the same about GW2? Only time will tell.

Dangerkips.6035:

I’ll just say this before I take my leave: hate on WoW and gear progression all you want guys, but WoW is still doing well after nearly a decade. Will we be able to say the same about GW2? Only time will tell.

So is Ultima Online and that doesn’t have gear grind.

Well i can give you my opinion as a player who already ‘beat’ this game and left it long time ago.

This game mainly has 2 options. Is either turn its sail to WoW direction and make this infinite Gear Grind so players could burn their time grinding all day long OR go to its origins and make this pvp/title grind oriented game as guild wars 1 was.

It has no future for how it is today ( or atleast was months ago , but as far as im following ‘news’ nothing has changed since ) . Yes you have open world full of stuff to do but people are not like that, they need goals in mmos. As movie needs ending. You need to be constantly heading to something or you quit and guild wars 2 has few goals and they are reached very quickly .

Im not complaining about game, for a one-time purchase this is best game ever produced. What you get for ~50 euros from single player game these days ? 10-15hours of content? at best. I’ve spent 500-600 hours on guild wars 2 and that was 500-600 hours or awesomness to be exact.

Im really looking forward to comeback to this game one day , but for now i cant see any reason to do it since i still have completed game as i was months ago.

Cheers

Dangerkips.6035:

I’ll just say this before I take my leave: hate on WoW and gear progression all you want guys, but WoW is still doing well after nearly a decade. Will we be able to say the same about GW2? Only time will tell.

Is it really? WoW is losing subs monthly. You might say that “But WoW has a lot of subs, so what that it’s falling?”, but think of it this way – a boss has 10 000 liters of blood and it’s losing 1 liter a day with no way to stop it, sure you might think that the boss is okay, because of how long it will take him to bleed down, but it is bleeding down and one day it will reach its final liter.
You might say that WoW survived for so long that it doesn’t matter, but why did it? What kind of games were on the market at that point? I can answer that – even grindier ones. WoW gained a lot of popularity because it was not only intriguing and new, but because it was less grindy then most MMOs out there. And afterwards we only saw similar games to WoW come out. How can a giant fall if it wasn’t challenged? And eventually it did get challenged. And it is falling.
If WoW came out today I don’t think that it would reach as many subs as it did. What’s my proof? Look at WoW like games that came out at about the same time as new MMOs. For example Rift – it never gained even 1/7th of WoW popularity. And then it fell. It fell so badly that it needed to go free to play and pay to win (you can buy boosts to max level, max level tier gear on their in game store). If the old model was so great, why can’t new games get popular when they use such a model?

Danikat.8537:

Dangerkips.6035:

I’ll just say this before I take my leave: hate on WoW and gear progression all you want guys, but WoW is still doing well after nearly a decade. Will we be able to say the same about GW2? Only time will tell.

So is Ultima Online and that doesn’t have gear grind.

UO actually exists since double the time WoW exists… WoW (gear grind) = 8 years, UO (no gear grind) = 16 years.

And then there is Asheron’s Call… 12 years old… no gear grind either, no forced grouping, best gear is available to any play style…

Go figure… 2 out of the 3 oldest AAA MMORPGs are NOT gear grind based.

I personally think gear grind is a negative for longevity.
A person can only take so much of grinding to acquire things that replace things they grinded for previously.
In my opinion, longevity comes from exploration and experimentation, and content that challenges the player to do so. Most mmorpgs put obstacles in the way of experimentation, with time sinks such as respec costs and professions that can tackle most pve content using a single build. It might be worth looking into changing that.

Dangerkips.6035:

I’ll just say this before I take my leave: hate on WoW and gear progression all you want guys, but WoW is still doing well after nearly a decade. Will we be able to say the same about GW2? Only time will tell.

Fun fact is that it is extremely fast in wow now aswell. Especially if your lucky with some LFR drops.

I dinged my hunter in wow the 14th of this month. 3 days later i had 495 ilvl which is allready quite close to being maxed out in LFR gear.

And what do you do with that 495 ilvl gear? You use that as a gateway to join real raids to get 500 ilvl gear, or what ever the true version of that gear is.

If you take that 495 ilvl gear into battlegrounds or arenas, you wont have resilience, but can still be somewhat effective. I stopped playing a long time ago but heard they were making resilience matter more, so pve gear in pvp is even less useful now.

Open world pvp is pretty much dead in wow, minus a few high level gankers in low level zones. So you could play hero and protect the lowbies if you like for a little bit.

Compare that to before the expansion. You had the top ilvl gear or near the top. Nothing else to grind other than maybe raids to try to get better drops. It is the same thing here.

GW2 has minimized the gear incentive and tried to provide us with other goals (somewhat unsucessfully, but they are trying). Our rewards are gold, crafting mats, weapon and armor skins, and a chance at precursors and legendaries.

Instead of raiding a specific instance once a week, we are given the ability to do this anywhere in the game. In wvw, in lower level zones, or in dungeons.

It sounds good, but plays less interesting for some. In the end they do the same thing.

Dangerkips.6035:

Seeing as gear has all the stats on it, and stat increases are what makes your character quantifiably better, no. Like you say, it has to be in tandem with new, challenging content, of course.

Since you can get full exotic gear without grinding, at that point wouldn’t your character “getting better” rest solely with you, the player?

You know how you get your character better? Playing your character, learning their intricacies, playing against human players, etc.

You know how many people I’ve seen in full exotic/ascended gear be utterly terrible players? Would you consider that progress? I wouldn’t. When they are dying left and right in dungeon runs because they can’t dodge properly, don’t use boons/conditions/removals properly, treat dungeons like they are running a solo event in like Caledon Forest or some kitten.

To me all the gear grind in the world won’t progress a bad player into a good player.

Now if your definition of progression is eventually getting such great gear that even being terrible makes it almost impossible to die, well then you might just be playing the wrong game.

CMF.5461:

And what do you do with that 495 ilvl gear? You use that as a gateway to join real raids to get 500 ilvl gear, or what ever the true version of that gear is.

If you take that 495 ilvl gear into battlegrounds or arenas, you wont have resilience, but can still be somewhat effective. I stopped playing a long time ago but heard they were making resilience matter more, so pve gear in pvp is even less useful now.

You mean a higher tier of the same raid.

You heard wrong. They removed resilience from all gear and gave everyone 65% baseline resi. Next to that they reduced the effectiveness of pvp power and resi and nerfed the gems with pvp stats.

So PvE gear is far more usefull then it used to be and in some cases its far superiour even.

On top of that they introduced a pvp catch up system which allows newly dinged chars to get top tier pvp geared in a matter of days.

Point is that people use wow as an example of how it should be done. While gearing in wow is just as fast as it is in GW2 nowadays.

Draknar.5748:

To me all the gear grind in the world won’t progress a bad player into a good player.

That’s precisely why the bad players want a gear grind. Because better gear with better stats provides them the edge they need to win.

Locuz.2651:

They removed resilience from all gear and gave everyone 65% baseline resi.

This is wrong.

Lol, I love all the people saying “Introduce gear progression and people will leave” or “GW2 was built with no gear progression as a selling point”. That argument was dead 7 months ago with the introduction of Ascended.

People won’t leave, it will make people stay and play the game. Example? The current game.

GW2 has never said it would not contain gear progression. Never.

It doesn’t matter what the casuals, hardcores, elites, or baddies think. There will be progression simply because it keeps people playing more hours of the day.

And in the end, that’s what MMO publishers want.

While I don’t really agree that a game needs grind, a player just needs a purpose. You have, on multiple occasions, given yourself a purpose within the game.

“It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drives us; it is purpose that defines us, purpose that binds us.” -Agent Smith

The best thing a Dev can do to keep people interested in playing, is to give a player a purpose within the game.

Give them purpose and make it something they will enjoy and they will never want to stop playing. But not everyone enjoys doing the same things.

Yes, to echo what others have stated – this game does not need a gear grind, it just needs more/rewards in general and it needs to more effectively create sense of purpose and cohesion among its players.

A gear grind is probably the laziest and most unimaginative way to accomplish that, and GW2 is better than that.

marnick.4305:

Danikat.8537:

Out of interest what did people farm/play end-game for in GW1?

It was all cosmetics.

This is what it boiled down to. And let me add that even as someone who never actively participated in endgame content due to it having been un-soloable for the longest time(never had a guild), I still enjoyed the game for years.
In hindsight, it was all about personal achievements and feeling of not being pressured to play the game to become more powerful.Yes, they added stat progression with titles with each new expansion after the first, but the way they were implemented, how easy most of them could be maxed and how little situational benefit they would actually give you only took a way a fraction of the egalitarian, almost communist philosophy this game embodied progression wise. Everything remotely valuable or prestigious could be traded and you could easily be run through content by others – for a price. The result was an almost prestige, bragging and kitten-free game, where you felt that whoever you played with was always your equal, no matter if they played 40 hours or 4000. You literally had no game mechanical reason, except for a few non-stat altering titles, to do content, but that’s exactly what gave you the freedom to do what you want: Achieve personal victories nobody but you cared about.

Sounds more like a single player game with optional coop, right? Exactly. And guess what my main game I’m playing is right now?(hint: space ninjas)

GW1 wasn’t considered as grindy I think because there were multiple ways to make money. Be it FoW/UW/DoA/Deep etc. I loved that everyone was equal in stats and it was just a cosmetic prestige item that distinguished people. It gave me something to look forward too. That mini Oni or that Envoy weapon. But the main thing was doing those “elite” missions was fun! It didn’t feel like a grind because there was diversity and the game mechanics of each dungeon was very fun.

GW2 has CoF1, the gemstore(toss out that visa!) and World meta events. There is very little to no diversity in activities that a player can acquire wealth and even less items that are considered prestige. Precursors or limited offer lottery tickets.

GW2 has far less depth of activities to not only have fun with but also to gear up your character, and lets face it, all Guild Wars games are dressup in fancy skins with little to no stat benifits(which is fine!).

Even if you’re not into that sort of thing, there really isn’t all that much to do once you get a few characters to lvl 80 and explore the world. Why would I bother making an engineer? because they are fun?
GW1 each and every profession had a use and a role to play. GW2 is pretty much who has the best dps. I bet in 4 months you will only see Warriors, Mesmers and Guardians running around because they are the only professions that have roles(dps?).

I think that gear grind(of a sort) and RNG does have it’s place in GW2 as it did in GW1 but the implementation of these devices HAS to be done correctly in order for them to be effective.

marnick.4305:

Punctuation, grammar. If anything’s a must on forum’s, it’s those two.

Gear grind is not good for competitive games.

Nobody is talking about PVP here dude.
pvp in gw2 is like a totally separate game.

Gear grind of some degree is needed to keep things interesting for the long run.

Why?

If you inflate the damage then you also have to inflate the health pools. The end result is just inflated numbers cluttering the whole screen. In WoW they do this to keep people addicted so that they can continue to fork out 15$ every month. Don’t need a grind if there is no subscription. It’s pointless.

Why is it that there’s ALWAYS someone who has to point out typing-errors, grammar errors and so on??? If you want to understand what the person means, you do. If you don’t then go do something else!

Now, back to topic: I see what the thread-starter means. I’ve got a few chars myself (all at lvl 80), and they all got exotics.. Don’t even have a legendary yets, but farming in this game isn’t even fun anymore since they always ruin the good farm-spots to get rid of bots (and to get what you want you have to farm! Don’t give me the crap about not needing to, cause you will not get you’re gears if you don’t farm a bit. That’s just how it is, unless you want to take out you’re VISA-card afcource). Oh well.. Guess they can’t please everyone..

Calae.1738:

Don’t need a grind if there is no subscription. It’s pointless.

NCSoft has to keep players playing ANets game and be potential gem buyers in order to decide favorably on GW2s future. Player retention matters just as much as it does for subscription fee games, if not more so, because there is no guaranteed revenue stream after the initial purchase.

And you do know what keeps the masses glued to the seat, don’t you? That’s right: “I’m better than you”-items.

Same with supermarkets putting items they know sell(food, hygiene) in the back so most customers have to “grind” through less popular isles once on their way in and on their way back out again. Maximum exposure increases impulse purchases.

What we need isn’t a gear grind. What we need is for the promised cosmetic progression to actually work. We’re in dire need of a wardrobe system which keeps track of unlocked skins. This, in my humble opinion, would serve as quite the carrot. I know I’d get right on unlocking all those precious skins.

Also, giving dungeon bosses a rare chance of dropping a mini in their likeness would be a neat way to get people back into dungeons. Just a suggestion.

Calae.1738:

Don’t need a grind if there is no subscription. It’s pointless.

Quoted for truth. Now, if people could get over the conditioning from other games, maybe the devs could get around to working on content rather than scrambling to keep the reward-hungry satiated.

Fungalfoot.7213:

Also, giving dungeon bosses a rare chance of dropping a mini in their likeness would be a neat way to get people back into dungeons. Just a suggestion.

I like the mini idea a lot. Also they need to place rare skins in order of difficulty of the dungeon and yes it has to be rng. Think Obby Edge and Eternal Blade etc.

vertical progression will be the end of GW2…..

killcannon.2576:

Lol, I love all the people saying “Introduce gear progression and people will leave” or “GW2 was built with no gear progression as a selling point”. That argument was dead 7 months ago with the introduction of Ascended.

People won’t leave, it will make people stay and play the game. Example? The current game.

GW2 has never said it would not contain gear progression. Never.

It doesn’t matter what the casuals, hardcores, elites, or baddies think. There will be progression simply because it keeps people playing more hours of the day.

And in the end, that’s what MMO publishers want.

Eric Flannum has said straight out in interviews that the game wouldn’t contain vertical progression. There are two examples of it that people commonly post. He was wrong, obviously but he did say it.

Yobculture.5786:

So you want a gear treadmill like WoW?

Please, for the love of God, no.

killcannon.2576:

People won’t leave, it will make people stay and play the game. Example? The current game.

You are factually wrong.

Where is my evidence? Every single WoW clone out there. All of them had gear grind and yet all of them had massive hemorrhages a few months after release, exactly like GW2.

Making a WoW clone is catering to a niche market. There aren’t that many people willing to be deceived by MMO developers, who believe players don’t know any better than donkeys being led by carrots in front of their faces.

ArenaNet’s main failure with GW2 is not failing to cater to MMORPG players; those just jump from MMO to MMO after complaining how each game is not enough like WoW. No, their failure was not catering enough to everyone else – to those who do not like MMOs.