Guild Wars 2

vayne do you know how since first mmorpg having access to even 5% of difference in stuff is perceived as gamebreaking?

Its something that a mmorpg company for sure doesn t ignore.
people wants fair and balanced fights, and giving few players an unfair advantage because they have better stats is not accepted.

GW2 at release was an innovative game

That drifted every patch more towards a RANDOM F2P mmorpg out there.

@cesmode

The game is evolving. What happened or was said in a blog even a few months ago, might have changed by now. The first ascended backpack was released in November. Here we are eight months later, and we don’t even have the first piece of ascended armor.

Anet made a change, because they needed to keep people from leaving the game after getting exotics. It worked (for a lot of people anyway).

But now they have another mechanism to keep people in the game…the living story. I’m not saying they will or won’t do anything, but there’s certainly a possibility that if they no longer need the gear upgrades, if they found the mechanism that keeps people playing (achievements and living story), then they’ll be less likely to add stats to that gear.

Anything is possible until it happens. That’s sort of what iteration means.

But even if it does raise stats, it could still be relatively easy to get, which would make it far more palatable at least to me.

Remember, I’m not particularly troubled by the words vertical progression, I’m only troubled by a full on gear treadmill that locks me out of content.

Edit: And this from a guy claiming there’s no challenging content. lol

Ah, the evolving argument. So that is the last line of defense. When an argument is supported by fact and quote…it is viewed as obsolete because its months old. Then why on earth would arenanet go through the trouble of writing the blog, having it approved by PR and posting it for everyone to see if it was going to be obsoleted in a few months or a year. I completely disagree with you.

If arenanet promised us Dungeon X in January and in April we get Dungeon Y instead, I would be kitten ed. I wanted Dungeon X. They said we would be getting Dungeon X.

You can’t throw the “evolving” argument at supported facts every time. Yes its evolving. But why have any vision at all? Why tell us what they are doing, what their design teams look like…

I recognize the difference between gated content via gear and verticle progression. I do. I just see a lot of small carrots dangling in front of my face. They do a great job not to make these carrots huge, just large enough for you to want to go after them but small enough that they might be disguised as minimal treadmill/if any treadmill.

cesmode.4257:

Ah, the evolving argument. So that is the last line of defense. When an argument is supported by fact and quote…it is viewed as obsolete because its months old. Then why on earth would arenanet go through the trouble of writing the blog, having it approved by PR and posting it for everyone to see if it was going to be obsoleted in a few months or a year. I completely disagree with you.

If arenanet promised us Dungeon X in January and in April we get Dungeon Y instead, I would be kitten ed. I wanted Dungeon X. They said we would be getting Dungeon X.

You can’t throw the “evolving” argument at supported facts every time. Yes its evolving. But why have any vision at all? Why tell us what they are doing, what their design teams look like…

I recognize the difference between gated content via gear and verticle progression. I do. I just see a lot of small carrots dangling in front of my face. They do a great job not to make these carrots huge, just large enough for you to want to go after them but small enough that they might be disguised as minimal treadmill/if any treadmill.

How come you can quote other blogs, but you ignore the blog about iteration? Why would they do it? Because they iterate.

Do you know that for months on end, every single one of their columns had the word iterate in it and they even wrote a whole column just about iteration. Why is that one less important than any other.

Plans change all the time in MMOs. I saw Rift introduce a full PvP change and then change it back in four days.

If Anet doesn’t believe it’s in the game’s best interest to raise stats, then they won’t. Just like if Anet thought it was best to have the new stats in, they’d do that.

I’m not sure that just because an MMO plans to do something that it always happens.

I mean Anet spoke about Utopia and that never happened…and that was a lot more than a blog post.

So they feel free to contradict themselves? Thats probably going to be a largely unpopular practice.

If they say they will do one thing, and in a few months go in a different direction..that would be unpopular. Back lash. And ultimately leads to losses in consumer faith(aside from you )

And what is Utopia? Never heard of it in GW2 official blogs or interviews.

Evolution is a popular scientific term that’s misappropriated in order to give credence to nonsense. Frankly speaking it’s a buzzword. The actual mechanisms of evolution are completely blind and mindless (understanding, however isn’t), so not exactly a suitable term for a field in which innovation must be coupled with large degree of insight and knowledge.

If by “evolution” we’re talking about smart design and innovations, then ANet and their living story fail in that regard as well. The changes since launch seem to revolve around the backtracking of “innovations,” most likely because these “innovations” were built upon faulty premises. Even basic things like narrative structure fall short due in no small part to ANets “innovations.”The fact that people complain that there’s barely any lore to the recent updates while in fact there is a decent amount should be signal to this fire. Using the main website to dump important setting information instead of delivering it sensibly in-game is not innovative.

cesmode.4257:

So they feel free to contradict themselves? Thats probably going to be a largely unpopular practice.

If they say they will do one thing, and in a few months go in a different direction..that would be unpopular. Back lash. And ultimately leads to losses in consumer faith(aside from you )

And what is Utopia? Never heard of it in GW2 official blogs or interviews.

Utopia was an annouced expansion for Guild Wars 1. Anet annouced it. Everyone knew it was coming. Then, after months, they said, nevermind we’re making Guild Wars 2 instead.

Saying one thing and doing another is a ridiculous comment. It’s like you don’t understand the creative process at all…and this is a company of artists.

I’ve sold books to companies, told them what would be in the book and by the time the book was done, it was very different than what I originally sold them. That general topics of course where the same, but many individual details varied.

Then there were times publishers asked me to change things that I didn’t particularly want to change, but I did anyway. In the end, a creative process isn’t always something you can ink permanently in black and white. To think you can is ludicrous.

Anet understood that sometimes they say things, try them and they don’t work. That’s WHY Anet published a blog on iteration and how they work. They put things in, they take things out, they play around with things. Without doing that, there’s no way to know what works and what doesn’t work.

Anet said they couldn’t do eye color in the game and then fans complained so they found a way to add eye color. They didn’t lie, When they said it, there wasn’t a way to do eye color. They said there’s be energy and energy potions in the game, but they changed that.

The funny bit is, where you see this as a weakness, I see this as a strength.

I can’t tell you the number of books that I’ve edited that have been approved by drastic changes after the outline of the book had been finalized.

If every creative endeavor could only stick to an outline once created, this world would be a lot darker.

TwoBit.5903:

Evolution is a popular scientific term that’s misappropriated in order to give credence to nonsense. Frankly speaking it’s a buzzword. The actual mechanisms of evolution are completely blind and mindless (understanding, however isn’t), so not exactly a suitable term for a field in which innovation must be coupled with large degree of insight and knowledge.

If by “evolution” we’re talking about smart design and innovations, then ANet and their living story fail in that regard as well. The changes since launch seem to revolve around the backtracking of “innovations,” most likely because these “innovations” were built upon faulty premises. Even basic things like narrative structure fall short due in no small part to ANets “innovations.”The fact that people complain that there’s barely any lore to the recent updates while in fact there is a decent amount should be signal to this fire. Using the main website to dump important setting information instead of delivering it sensibly in-game is not innovative.

I disagree. I think this game HAS innovated and evolution has more than one meaning. It can be a passive concept.

The design of cars have evolved over many years, the designs of computers have evolved. You’re taking the scientific definition of evolution and trying to super-impose it over the common usage one.

If you don’t believe the genre is evolving because of design changes made in this game, take a look at ESO. It’s almost like GW2 set in their world.

And sure many of the things in this game have been done before in other games, but no one has brought them all together this way. It changes the way the game plays, testified to by the number of people who really don’t like MMOs but do like Guild Wars 2….myself included.

Still creative or not, I just cant wrap my head around a company that might back track on its word, every once in a while. You might be able to do this because of your chosen profession I suppose. You are subject to the “creative process” more than the next guy, so you are mentally able to step back and see that things change, etc.

I am a statistics guy, hard coded, etc. I work in a field where crunching numbers, metrics, and determining hard fact is my world. So when a dev says one thing, I take their word for it. If that word changes, I have a hard time adapting because I was already told one thing and understood it as fact.

Even the general populice: If they are told one thing…they expect it. Not everyone has the ability to put their creative thinking caps on. If I go to a store and purchase a gallon of whole milk, but get home and realize its actually skim milk, I’ll be kitten ed. If order a cheeseburger and fries and the person at Mcdonalds reads that order back to me, but gives me a cheeseburger and onion rings, I’ll go back and get my fries! Hell, she read it back to me! She understood what she was supposed to give to me.

Its all about managing expectations. This is the #1 thing my first boss taught me years ago. Manage expectations. Why give us any expectations at all, if they are all completely subject to change in a matter of months. Arenanet is in love with telling us their plans, how their teams work, etc. I like that. And they are giving us expectations. Going back on them would be a huge setback. And they did so a few times already in the eyes of many.

The manifesto is easy enough to find on the Guild Wars 2 website, but where, on the Guild Wars 2 website, is this alleged clarification? Where is it stated, in no uncertain terms, “Oops! Seems we explained things rather poorly in our manifesto video, producing an almost universal misunderstanding of almost all of it (except for the parts about the art style).

“Many people are quite understandably upset by the seeming discrepancies between how we said the game would be and how it actually is – even though those discrepancies don’t actually exist! They only seem to exist because we explained things so poorly! We are very, very sorry for all the confusion we’ve caused. We really should have been more clear in such an important and prominently placed promotional video. Rest assured we’ve slapped ourselves on the wrist so much over this dreadful communications faux pas that we’ve had to order a whole case of calamine lotion! Anyway, here’s what we really meant.

“Okay, here’s everybody says their stuff. Blah blah blah, so on and so forth.

“All right, we got it? Good. Whew. Let’s not do this again, guys. Holy cow. Okay, get this edited and posted a-sap, and don’t mess it up this time. I’m going to go watch some pony videos. Yeah, I really like that one where Luna is the Taxmare and takes everypony’s money and candy and stuff. That’s a really good video. Really good video. Perfect editing. We should hire whoever edited that. Wait, is the camera still rolling? I know it doesn’t roll! It’s a figure of speech, you—”

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I guess the one thing we can take away from this is that some people don’t know the difference between marketing and promises

Something can’t be both?

Vayne.8563:

and some people think that a company that makes an MMO will not try different things or change things around if things aren’t working.

A total revision of their vision for the game less than 2 months into it? A vision that was a major selling point for the game. Thats a sign of panic. Not to mention that they refuse to own up to it.

Agreed. Just like when they made fun of the playerbase the for the first set of noticeable loot issues (which still haven’t been completely looked at or addressed because of the sizeable difference between the haves and havenots in this game due to the consistant 95% of the time system of either getting everything or getting nothing while playing the same exact events in the same groups every week as guildies often do) there has been no apology, no talk of going back to their roots and giving the people what they bought the game for in the first place, freedom to actually play how they want and a literal focus on the entire open world, a combat system that isn’t a repeat spam system that is balanced thruout, etc etc.

People can argue for them all they want and try to discredit those of us who noticed this is not what we signed on for, but they can’t change the facts that just 1 month into the game they completely cutoff loot, and just 2 months into the game they completely changed their focus. Just look at the voting system they have now, deciding which items go into fractals??? seriously that’s what they think we’d like to see? That alone proves they haven’t read anything in these forums for a whole year now.

Farzo.8410:

We have had threads like these before, and they have been locked and deleted.

The reason? I believe the reasons was that you are writing the ArenaNet’s staff names in your thread, quoting them, and that is against the rule or something, I think.

But yes, it’s many things ArenaNet have done to sail away from what they said.

They didn’t sail away from what they said. If you read the entire quote, they don’t want people to have to play for thousands of hours to get gear with better stats. Yes you can do that for skins in GW2 but a full set of exotics is ridiculously easy to get.

And before you spit the word “ascended” out of your mouth, please go gear up for ToT raid in WoW and then decide if ascended gear is even remotely a grind by comparison. I spent over 200 hours over the course of 4 weeks gearing a character (in WoW) recently, and my friends tell me I was lucky and fast.

shimmerless.4560:

i think the OP has a bit too much spin here, some of these aren’t examples of “bait and switch” (although the dye one is certainly a frustrating and real one to be sure).

Hold the phone. This crap about the dyes is a bit frustrating when you consider how they changed and improved the system to make character bound dyes much more logical. Do you remember what the dye system was originally, when they were saying “account wide unlock”? You got a freakin’ seed. Maybe many seeds. However, to get dye from the seed you had to “plant” the seed with an NPC then wait 24 hrs to get the dye. You could do one dye per day that way. Due to the time gating of the access to dyes at one per day it made sense to have them account-wide. (Oh, you couldn’t trade them either.) Now we get dyes left and right with no limits on how many you can unlock in a day. It makes much more sense to have them be character based instead of account based if for no other reason than to keep the world from being inundated with nothing but one copper valued dyes that everyone has and no one wants.

They did NOT “bait and switch” on the dye system. They made it remarkably better and more convenient, with character-only serving as the trade off as opposed to “one per day”.

Ive played since beta. I loved how the game was until November 15th. And then every patch after seems to give the players exactly what we dont need or even ask for.

There was an enormous eruption of negativity when they announced ascended gear(new tier to acquire)..which had always been planned but they sat on announcing this for three months. Hmm?

Things we DONT have but CLAMOR for:
-LFG tool
-Scavenger hunt
-Difficult explorable mode dungeons / dungeons that you cannot glitch
-Additional story content
-A stop to nerfing farm spots
-Player/Guild Housing

Things that we have received that I dont think I’ve seen one whisper about:
-Living story
-Monthly updates
-Monthly updates increased to bi weekly
-More minigames
-Temporary content
-RNG boxes (also purchasable in the gem store).

Ive been playing firefall which is more of a “go do what you want” type of game than GW2. And it is reminding me about how a game can be fun when you just play to play. Dont worry about reward. In the end, this could have a positive effect on me. I could come back to GW2 and just enjoy the game again and ignore the stupid development direction.

We’ll see…

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

But didnt something like 5 million copies of GW1 sell or something? I have an inklink that GW1 was the second most successful MMO to date, next to WoW, in terms of box sales…or at least high up there. So if it sold that many, it HAD to be fun.

The thing with VP is that every game has it, and after the honeymoon period is over, people get bored and leave the game to either a new game promising new things(along with VP) or back to WoW or their old mainstay game. Or they complain for months on end comparing the new game to WoW.

Take VP out of the game. Make a hard-line announcement: No VP, at all. Cosmetic grind. Have fun. That is all.
Watch the fat fall off the body and then your core loyal customer base stays, and spends money happily.

cesmode.4257:

You do know that while ascended gear is currently limited to accessories, amulets, rings…they plan on releasing a full gear set of ascended? They said by the years end we will be able to fit out an entire gear set of ascended gear.

So no, it isnt limited to just accessories. We will have our ascended gear set. And if the level cap ever raises, that gear becomes obsolete(unless they allow ascended gear to scale with your level). And if they allow ascended gear to scale with your level, that pressures other people to grind for ascended gear so they can have their scalable gear.

Woa speculation I know.

And response from a small % of the playerbase? Try a thread containing 40,000+ posts in November, largely kitten ed off about ascended gear. And if ascended gear was always planned, as they claim, how come they didnt let us know about it for three months, or even in beta? They KNEW releasing ascended gear was going to annoy a lot of people, and they said they knew this. So why not avoid all trouble, release the game, and say “hey we do have more gear coming down in a few months., a higher tier. A one time treadmill only”. No, they didnt do that, instead they just annoyed a ton of people when they could have avoided a lot of it. So no, I really dont think it was planned.

I agree. I believe that Ascended was either not planned or was discussed as a contingency plan that would only be implemented if there was a strong negative reaction (e.g., nothing to work toward), which there was.

Yes, at one point they talked about full Ascended gear, including armor and weapons. However, it might be that the negative reaction to Ascended has caused them to think twice about continuing down that path. At least, I hope so. After all, at one point they talked about Exotic being the highest tier. If they changed their minds once, they can change it again.

cesmode.4257:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

But didnt something like 5 million copies of GW1 sell or something? I have an inklink that GW1 was the second most successful MMO to date, next to WoW, in terms of box sales…or at least high up there. So if it sold that many, it HAD to be fun.

The thing with VP is that every game has it, and after the honeymoon period is over, people get bored and leave the game to either a new game promising new things(along with VP) or back to WoW or their old mainstay game. Or they complain for months on end comparing the new game to WoW.

Take VP out of the game. Make a hard-line announcement: No VP, at all. Cosmetic grind. Have fun. That is all.
Watch the fat fall off the body and then your core loyal customer base stays, and spends money happily.

I have an idea Mike would phrase it differently today if he had the chance. You have to remember Anet had their backs up against a wall in November of last year and were scrambling.

I really don’t think the VP introduced here will satisfy the audience for which it was introduced, so I’m not sure how many players you would lose. But, yeah, the best course for Anet is to do a mea culpa, admit they were wrong, explain their good intentions in doing it, and then stop VP with the gear currently in the game. Problem solved and we could all get on with the game.

There would be a lot to unravel. Lot’s of stuff has been introduced (laurels, et al) in the reward system that, essentially, has VP as its driver. Just as it’s difficult to introduce and manage VP, there would be a cost in excising it.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

Gotta step in here, sorry Raine.

If you can do all content in Guild Wars with the gear you start out with, then there is no vertical progression. If there is at any point you needed to get “better” skills that are not available at the beginning of a new character in order to do content, or do it well, or need to get optimized, or need to do certain content in order to do other content, or if there are “prime” skill builds, then there was vertical progression in GW.

From my understanding, GW1 had a lot of those things. Content gating is a form of vertical progression. It’s not always just about the armor and the weapons.

I actually think we’re seeing ANet experiment with other forms of vertical progression rather than just adding gear with more stats. If you look at WvW skill ranks, it seems to me that they are trying to create a progression system that doesn’t confer a direct advantage in strict player-vs-player terms, but does give players something to work towards. Additionally, the account-wide bonuses (and skins) unlocked via achievement points could also be viewed as another alternative progression system that has been introduced to the game.

So while to some people ascended gear may represent ANet going back to the old standard form of vertical gear progression, I see other systems that have been introduced as a sign that ANet is still trying different things to help give players a sense of progression once they’ve “been everywhere and done everything”.

Raine, perhaps it would not be that hard to unravel.

As you stated, as far as the ascended crap goes, yes it would merely stop at the trinkets. But the Laurel system itself is actually a pretty good idea. And there are an endless number of directions they could take with it. For example: X number of laurels equals 1 rare dye of your choice … X number of laurels equals 1 skin of 1 dungeon armor/weapon skin of your choice … X number of laurels (a really high number) equals 1 precursor of your choice … and on and on.

In my opinion the game returning to its roots, and simply being what it was marketed as being for years, would not lose any significant portion of players whatsoever. What’s more, I would venture that the overwhelming majority of that small segment of the community that whines the most about wanting vertical progression and a trinity/healer system are quite young and often living on daddies credit card. So I sincerely doubt that their return to WoW or Lotro would have much of a financial impact on Anet.

killcannon.2576:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

Gotta step in here, sorry Raine.

If you can do all content in Guild Wars with the gear you start out with, then there is no vertical progression. If there is at any point you needed to get “better” skills that are not available at the beginning of a new character in order to do content, or do it well, or need to get optimized, or need to do certain content in order to do other content, or if there are “prime” skill builds, then there was vertical progression in GW.

From my understanding, GW1 had a lot of those things. Content gating is a form of vertical progression. It’s not always just about the armor and the weapons.

I think I’ll stick with the conventional meaning of VP which allowed the co-founder of Anet to say that GW had “no VP ever, year after year.” How could he say that? Simple. There was no VP in GW post max level gear at max level. Again, VP, is simply a process which increases the power level of the game. Anet folks often used “stat progression” to describe it, but essentially it is simply an increase in the power level of the game. Content gating is not a form of VP. It is a frequent consequence of VP. But, you could use any made up element to gate content. There is a correspondence to VP, though, which naturally gates content.

I agree it’s not only about gear. Theoretically, it could be through potions or enchants, as long as it described a process that raised the power level (vertical) of the game over time (progression).

Edit: But, I’ll give you a hint. There was progression in GW1.

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Stat based vertical progression is the topic at hand. It is this regard, and only this regard, where VP has a negative effect on gameplay. All of the other forms of VP people have mentioned do not create a combat power disparity between players. And NO, the long (too long) 1-80 leveling (aka: learn your class) process you have to go through before reaching the exotic weapon/armor power plateau (that was meant to be final), that in itself is not the introduction of stat-based vertical progression – because that process has (or was supposed to have) a definite and easily achievable end point.

Look it’s this simple, some people, perhaps a small percentage of gamers – I don’t know —- but some players would like to play a 100% skill-based horizontal progression mmo. One that once you reach max level and attain max gear through your learning process (leveling) then leaves you with a 100% equal footing (stat wise) with others that have done the same. And these players would like this for every aspect of the game (PvE, WvW, PvP …). And this, precisely this, was what GW2 was marketed as for years.

So please, PLEASE allow me this one small corner of the MMO market for my gaming style. And in exchange, I promise, I will never-ever whine and throw temper tantrums in the WoW or Lotro forums for them to re-invent their games to suit my play style, and at the expense of the people that play those games precisely because they have stat-based vertical progression.

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

Ision.3207:

Stat based vertical progression is the topic at hand. It is this regard, and only this regard, where VP has a negative effect on gameplay. All of the other forms of VP people have mentioned do not create a combat power disparity between players. And NO, the long (too long) 1-80 leveling (aka: learn your class) process you have to go through before reaching the exotic weapon/armor power plateau (that was meant to be final), that in itself is not the introduction of stat-based vertical progression – because that process has (or was supposed to have) a definite and easily achievable end point.

Look it’s this simple, some people, perhaps a small percentage of gamers – I don’t know —- but some players would like to play a 100% skill-based horizontal progression mmo. One that once you reach max level and attain max gear through your learning process (leveling) then leaves you with a 100% equal footing (stat wise) with others that have done the same. And these players would like this for every aspect of the game (PvE, WvW, PvP …). And this, precisely this, was what GW2 was marketed as for years.

So please, PLEASE allow me this one small corner of the MMO market for my gaming style. And in exchange, I promise, I will never-ever whine and throw temper tantrums in the WoW or Lotro forums for them to re-invent their games to suit my play style, and at the expense of the people that play those games precisely because they have stat-based vertical progression.

Well then…I think you found a home here. or not?

This is the most shallow, and friendly vertical gear progression mmo game I have ever seen. And they essentially give you the high end stuff just for showing up and killing ten bandits everyday regardless, or doing a jumping puzzles or just getting normal achievement points now. In almost any other game you have to do specific content to get the top gear, here you just do what you want. It’s a haven for Casual MMO players.

And you don’t even need it when it comes down to it.

Raine.1394:

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

lol.
Raine answer the question.
Can a new player do all the same content a veteran player can in GW1 without looking for or attaining better skills? Do these other skills you do not start with make the content easier?

Honestly, I don’t care one way or another simply because this isn’t GW1.

killcannon.2576:

Raine.1394:

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

lol.
Raine answer the question.
Can a new player do all the same content a veteran player can in GW1 without looking for or attaining better skills? Do these other skills you do not start with make the content easier?

Honestly, I don’t care one way or another simply because this isn’t GW1.

My answer is that I don’t know. I’ve never played GW1. Everything I know about GW1 I know from the developers and players. I came to GW2 from WoW to escape the vertical progression, among other things.

But, I can tell you that the answer to the question would not have anything to do with whether GW1 had vertical progression or not. It didn’t because there was no vertical progression post max level gear at max level. I have that on the authority of the game developer.

Edit: To give a better answer to your question: If you watch Taugrim’s video he talks about the acquisition and leveling of skills under horizontal scaling as opposed to vertical. I agree with you that progression is important and present in games. Vertical progression is the way its almost always been done. There are other ways to do it that, I believe, are better.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Vayne.8563:

Are you still pitching the “it was two years old” argument…despite the fact that the main guild wars 2 site had a direct link to it (complete with graphics) on the main page basically right up until release?

http://web.archive.org/web/20120510235808/http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

Having it linked off of the very front page made it every bit at launch as the day it was created.

It’s bait and switch, even more so since the product was pre-purchased in many cases. Look, its an OK game. It wasn’t what was promised on a lot of fronts. That was disapointing. They promised epic and delived Meh.

I can still find and do things that i find are entertaining if I try. However, for me ( a casual player ) I feel that I’ve done just about everything worth doing in game. Now, most of the stuff is just to kill time. I’ve leved the professions, got my exotics, and played through almost all the content.

I’m sure as heck not going to start a legendary. There’s really not much left for me besides repetition. I’ll pass on that. but hey, to each their own.

Vayne.8563:

They abandoned? Really?

You’re trying to say this game has full on vertical progression. So far, it has ONE TIER OF GEAR. That’s it. Actually sorry I’m wrong.

It was one tier of ACCESSORIES.

I think abandoning their vision, all things considering is a little strong.

What Anet did was compromise. Reasonable people are usually for compromise. If you have to have it all your own way, then in my opinion you’re not being reasonable.

It’s not reasonable to say I want this and Anet didn’t do this so I’ve been betrayed. Particularly when so many Guild Wars 1 players ARE playing and enjoying this game.

And if you continue to compare this to Guild Wars 1, which remained a niche game and was always a niche game, I’ll remind you, again, that the staff is five times the size and a niche game won’t pay their salaries.

From what I see, a bunch of Guild Wars 1 people got it in their head that ALL vertical progression is a gear grind and thus a bad thing. I don’t ever feel like I’m grinding in this game. Because I choose not to grind. We don’t have a gear treadmill. And since vertical progression was in the game AT LAUNCH, Anet abandoned nothing.

I think some people are way to attached to vertical progression being negative automatically. It can BECOME negative, if not watched, but Anet hasn’t flooded the market with gear tier after gear tier.

Sorry but the response of a small portion of the fan base doesn’t indicate Anet abandoned anything.

In fact, this game is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1. Want to know why? Because Anet is innovating and trying different things, and that’s precisely what Anet did with Guild Wars 1.

Guild Wars 1 players wanted Guild Wars 1.5…but then that wouldn’t be a true successor to Guild Wars 1. Because it wouldn’t have been as innovative.

Guild Wars 1 was hailed as a landmark game because it innovated. Now Anet is experimenting and innovating again. So Guild Wars 2 is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1.

They have added vertical progression to what they do, no one is saying it’s the same degree as other MMOs. The “innovation” they’ve done with vertical progression is what you are calling a compromise. They took something from other games, something they didn’t do and made it less painful by (hopefully) not continuing to add tiers of gear.

Did other games not already do that by just sticking with the gear power they had at launch? I wouldn’t know, because I didn’t play any online RPGs before Guild Wars due to the rediculous amount of emphasis placed on powering up your character, Guild Wars was my compromise for vertical progression (because it stopped quickly). People do play games without power progression.

An even greater degree of innovation would have been to be the first MMO where power progression stopped early on in their overall content. Lots of people thought they were going to just have the illusion of power progression because of their original intentions with scaling, they were going to up and down level scaling, but they cut out up scaling (except for WvW).

Regardless of the number of tiers of gear, if players could obtain the top tier of gear from a playthrough of the story, people like me wouldn’t care how much progression there is in between, because there would be little to no need of having to think about managing our resources or currencies. People would just play through and they can focus so much more on the content, the challenges, and combat due to there being no need to worry about vertical progression at all.

Instead, players have to worry about managing their game currencies on not just for gear, but seemingly everything else from repairs, to waypoints, to a virtual stock market.

Guild Wars was a game, where that kind of thing was never a worry. If you had time constraints and were only willing or able to play 10 hours a week, it didn’t matter. Because in under a month you were on the same playing field as everyone else.

You never had to use anymore of your currency after half way through a campaign, because you were at peak power by then.

cesmode.4257:

-Grind was bad choice of words. Get laurels yes. Still takes a month to get them. Time vs reward.

But it is a grind, its doing repetitive tasks over and over again for a reward. I find really only 1 daily out of the cycle I get from simply just playing the way I normally play. And as someone with 4 lvl 80s and soon to have a 5th it certainly feels like something of a treadmill to outfit all those characters. I don’t necessarilly need ascended to just play the game but the majority of the characters I take into WvW where having BiS gear is an advantage and it certainly makes the PvE side of the game slightly easier.

Vayne.8563:

If you don’t believe the genre is evolving because of design changes made in this game, take a look at ESO. It’s almost like GW2 set in their world.

Only not, GW2 is influencing some aspects but its not GW2 set in TES world.

To me it wouldn’t be nearly as frustrating if GW2 had just been its own game and not the original’s successor, because pretty much the entire game seems like a bait and switch at this point. Why even make a sequel to Guild Wars if you’re just going to abandon 90% of everything that made it a great game to begin with? It has literally NOTHING in common with the original besides the art style and the music. The fact that it was marketed as a sequel at all is more of a bait and switch than anything else and I’ve more or less given up on it ever being the game that was promised; the amount of core system changes necessary would be far too great.

The next time Arenanet wants to make a shallow, grindy, unbalanced MMO perhaps they shouldn’t market it as the successor to a game that’s was it’s complete antithesis.

cesmode.4257:

Still creative or not, I just cant wrap my head around a company that might back track on its word, every once in a while. You might be able to do this because of your chosen profession I suppose. You are subject to the “creative process” more than the next guy, so you are mentally able to step back and see that things change, etc.

I am a statistics guy, hard coded, etc. I work in a field where crunching numbers, metrics, and determining hard fact is my world. So when a dev says one thing, I take their word for it. If that word changes, I have a hard time adapting because I was already told one thing and understood it as fact.

Even the general populice: If they are told one thing…they expect it. Not everyone has the ability to put their creative thinking caps on. If I go to a store and purchase a gallon of whole milk, but get home and realize its actually skim milk, I’ll be kitten ed. If order a cheeseburger and fries and the person at Mcdonalds reads that order back to me, but gives me a cheeseburger and onion rings, I’ll go back and get my fries! Hell, she read it back to me! She understood what she was supposed to give to me.

Its all about managing expectations. This is the #1 thing my first boss taught me years ago. Manage expectations. Why give us any expectations at all, if they are all completely subject to change in a matter of months. Arenanet is in love with telling us their plans, how their teams work, etc. I like that. And they are giving us expectations. Going back on them would be a huge setback. And they did so a few times already in the eyes of many.

This is why I rail against uses of things like “their word” or “promise”. When an intention is stated, and something else comes up…everyone understands that in the real world.

I say to my kids I’m taking you to the movies. Work calls on the phone and I have to go in. Sure my kids might be disappointed, but they don’t blame me. They don’t say I lied to them. I had no way of knowing work was going to call.

Anet made a game centered around cosmetic progression. They attempted it. It didn’t take with the masses. Anet had a couple of choices. Stay with their original plan, and don’t adapt and resign itself to the fact that this game won’t long term be the game it could have been…or compromise.

Sure there are some people who are against compromise. They believe what they believe to be right…and that’s it. Vertical progression is bad…black and white. But the only vertical progression we’ve seen in most MMOs…all the ones I can think of, is full on gear grind.

Anet knows the difference between a gear grind and some vertical progression. We know this from Guild Wars 1 where they did have vertical progression through skills, but it wasn’t linked to gear. It was still vertical progression.

And there was vertical progression in this game from day one. Not November. Day one. But most people weren’t complaining about it.

And again, you make it sound like most people even knew what vertical progression was, but most don’t. Most people just play the game. Only a very small percentage of the playerbase cares about concepts like vertical progression and of those, not all are against it. Not in the black and white sense you seem to be.

So you’d rather have no game, watch it fall apart and go play Rift and Neverwinter than strike a compromise that allows work on the game to move forward?

Okay. I think that would have been a huge betrayal of those who like the game and want to keep playing it.

tigirius.9014:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I guess the one thing we can take away from this is that some people don’t know the difference between marketing and promises

Something can’t be both?

Vayne.8563:

and some people think that a company that makes an MMO will not try different things or change things around if things aren’t working.

A total revision of their vision for the game less than 2 months into it? A vision that was a major selling point for the game. Thats a sign of panic. Not to mention that they refuse to own up to it.

Agreed. Just like when they made fun of the playerbase the for the first set of noticeable loot issues (which still haven’t been completely looked at or addressed because of the sizeable difference between the haves and havenots in this game due to the consistant 95% of the time system of either getting everything or getting nothing while playing the same exact events in the same groups every week as guildies often do) there has been no apology, no talk of going back to their roots and giving the people what they bought the game for in the first place, freedom to actually play how they want and a literal focus on the entire open world, a combat system that isn’t a repeat spam system that is balanced thruout, etc etc.

People can argue for them all they want and try to discredit those of us who noticed this is not what we signed on for, but they can’t change the facts that just 1 month into the game they completely cutoff loot, and just 2 months into the game they completely changed their focus. Just look at the voting system they have now, deciding which items go into fractals??? seriously that’s what they think we’d like to see? That alone proves they haven’t read anything in these forums for a whole year now.

I’m not discrediting you for that. I am discrediting the OP for using the words bait and switch when it’s simply not true. It’s hyperbole pure and simple.

And yes, I love the idea of voting to see which fractal gets in. I absolutely love it. Because the whole idea of the living story is for the game to be affected by it. For players to have some say in it. People are ASKING for this in other threads.

Because you personally don’t like something doesn’t mean a bevy of players don’t. In fact, there’s a lot of excitement about it. People campaigning and getting into the spirit of things.

In fact, I strongly suspect if you didn’t have your loot issues, perceived or real, you’d judge the game differently over all. Since you’re so miserable about something so important to you, you could hardly be called unbiased judge.

The Sixteenth.2561:

You don’t have to do dailies or grind a lengendary to have the BIS, and they made ascended gear quite easy to get for casual, no need for grinding, just wander through its beautiful landscape and look at the cute little crabs on the beach, and you can get all 6 ascended items. No, you just have to play and, well sometimes you only need 1 more thing to end your daily, just do it, let’s say you do one daily a week, you still will get your ascended gear, nice and slow. Grind if you want to rush things like a 10yo, or just have fun with your friends and do some RPevent with the major RP guild or just watch them. You still will get your ascended, and even your legendary, with no grind of any kind.

No grinding for a legendary would be hilarious, that would take years and I doubt anyone wants to be here that long.

And this new achievement system, just another grind, the rewards are kinda lame, they could of at least came out with cultural based weapons for this and the chests are just full of boosters, gimme a break Anet, don’t you all have any imaginations or does NcSoft do all the thinking there?

cesmode.4257:

Ive played since beta. I loved how the game was until November 15th. And then every patch after seems to give the players exactly what we dont need or even ask for.

There was an enormous eruption of negativity when they announced ascended gear(new tier to acquire)..which had always been planned but they sat on announcing this for three months. Hmm?

Things we DONT have but CLAMOR for:
-LFG tool
-Scavenger hunt
-Difficult explorable mode dungeons / dungeons that you cannot glitch
-Additional story content
-A stop to nerfing farm spots
-Player/Guild Housing

Things that we have received that I dont think I’ve seen one whisper about:
-Living story
-Monthly updates
-Monthly updates increased to bi weekly
-More minigames
-Temporary content
-RNG boxes (also purchasable in the gem store).

Pure fallacy. You say the playerbase has been asking for certain things but you mean part of the playerbase, including the part you represent.

I believe that many people DID ask for more minigames. I believe many people ran out of content and wanted more stuff to do (such as monthly updates). They may not have said we want an update every month but they definitely wanted more content.

Now, no one could have asked for the Living Story. Why? Because no one had any idea it was in the works. No other game does it. In order for someone to have asked for it, would mean it would have had to been invented. I mean, before Anet put a jumping puzzle in the game, I never asked for more jumping puzzles…because they weren’t in the game. Simple concept really.

I think you underestimate just how popular the living story is. Anet knows it’s popular. Dungeons are also popular. But both of these things are popular with different areas of the player base. I’m pretty sure you think that you represent the majority. And I’m also pretty sure you don’t.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

Vertical progression means after you get to level cap, you still get more powerful. Getting more skills doesn’t necessarily equal vertical progression. Getting a new skill and then having to level it, does equal vertical progression.

It’s entirely possible the dev was talking about gear only and not skills when he made that statement, but no one can say having to level a skill to get a specific build to work that everyone is asking for is not vertical progression. If you try to argue it, you’d be wrong and everyone can see that. Other people in this thread have already agreed it was vertical progression

And it took far longer to level Save Yourselves to a usable level than it does to get a set of ascended gear…maybe not in time, but certainly in actual hours played.

Ision.3207:

Raine.1394

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

Perfectly stated, Raine. Bravo

BTW, don’t bother engaging any of the “self-appointed” spokesmen for Anet that pollute nearly every single thread with dozens of posts. These types are easily spotted because they spend most of their time lecturing others on nearly every topic imaginable. Always at pains to give the impression they actually know why the game company’s developers made certain decisions or changes, truth be told, they haven’t a clue. Unfortunately, these types have become more common in MMO forums; usually polite, but always pretentious, these creeps are nothing more than dedicated reverse-trolls. However, if you do choose to engage them, be very careful, because reverse trolls adore the report option.

It’s perfectly stated, and perfectly incorrect. People in AMAs talk quickly and gear was being discussed. I’m pretty sure if you brought up the PvE only skills, any dev would tell you it was a form of vertical progression. But since they were talking about gear at the time that’s what they were talking about.

There’s no way in the world you can claim that having to level skills seperately after you hit max level is not vertical progression. Well you can claim it…but you’d be demonstrably wrong.

killcannon.2576:

Raine.1394:

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

lol.
Raine answer the question.
Can a new player do all the same content a veteran player can in GW1 without looking for or attaining better skills? Do these other skills you do not start with make the content easier?

Honestly, I don’t care one way or another simply because this isn’t GW1.

You, in theory, could do the content without the PvE only skills, but you’d be seriously gimping yourself to do so. Let me give you an example.

There was a PvE only skill called pain inverter. What pain inverter did was this:

Hex Spell. For 6…10 seconds, every time target foe deals damage that foe takes 100…140% of the damage it causes (maximum 80 damage).

Now this might seem relatively innocuous as it stands…BUT…if it did damage to just you, it would take a maximum of 80 damage. However, if it did AOE damage to you and your party of 8 people, it would do 80 damage for each of the 8 people or 640 damage (keeping in mind the level 20 cap…hit points were quite low). But it gets better.

If you had a minion master with you…it would do damage to you, 8 members of your party and up to ten minions. You’d take this powerful elementalists, that would use one skill and kill themselves with that one skill.

At higher levels, it did more damage, and lasted longer. Pain inverter so so powerful I stopped using it because it made the game far too easy.

The skill save yourselve’s was even worse. At max level it literally mitigated 90% of the damage done to your ENTIRE PARTY and could be kept up indefinitely. While you could do DOA without an imbagon paragon, you couldn’t find a group that went without one. In other words, if you weren’t one of the prescribed FoTM builds, you didnt’ get to do DOA.

Eventually, my wife and I finished DOA by ourselves with six heroes…but yes, I was an Imbagon paragon.

The point is you only got 1 second of protection at lower luxon levels and had to level the skill.

Oh and if you look it up now, Anet changed it last year so that all the PvE only skills maxed out at power level when you hit rank 5 in that particular title track. Back when I was playing, you had to go all the way to max level of any title track in order to get max power for any skill.

Raine.1394:

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

So if Ascended gear was the last gear tier ever introduced, would that continue to mean power creep?

Vayne.8563:

The Manifesto is like a teaser…it gives you an overview. It can confuse, but by the time the explanations came out they were far more detailed than the clarification.

So………. where is the clarification?

SHM.7628:

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Vayne.8563:

Are you still pitching the “it was two years old” argument…despite the fact that the main guild wars 2 site had a direct link to it (complete with graphics) on the main page basically right up until release?

http://web.archive.org/web/20120510235808/http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

Having it linked off of the very front page made it every bit at launch as the day it was created.

It’s bait and switch, even more so since the product was pre-purchased in many cases. Look, its an OK game. It wasn’t what was promised on a lot of fronts. That was disapointing. They promised epic and delived Meh.

I can still find and do things that i find are entertaining if I try. However, for me ( a casual player ) I feel that I’ve done just about everything worth doing in game. Now, most of the stuff is just to kill time. I’ve leved the professions, got my exotics, and played through almost all the content.

I’m sure as heck not going to start a legendary. There’s really not much left for me besides repetition. I’ll pass on that. but hey, to each their own.

Promising epic and delivery meh, even if that’s what they did, is not bait and switch. Words like epic are strictly matters of opinion, and anyone can say it. As long as a handful of players do find it epic, there’s no way you can say it’s bait and switch. What’s epic do you might very well be meh to me.

People who love jumping puzzles, and there are a lot of them, probably like this game a lot more than people who don’t.

Games expand and grow and what was delivered on launch is what the game was supposed to be at launch. But all MMOs evolve and change. Every one of them. So if you don’t like the direction that it evolved and changed from launch, you might stop playing…but most of what was said prior to the game launching is true.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

They abandoned? Really?

You’re trying to say this game has full on vertical progression. So far, it has ONE TIER OF GEAR. That’s it. Actually sorry I’m wrong.

It was one tier of ACCESSORIES.

I think abandoning their vision, all things considering is a little strong.

What Anet did was compromise. Reasonable people are usually for compromise. If you have to have it all your own way, then in my opinion you’re not being reasonable.

It’s not reasonable to say I want this and Anet didn’t do this so I’ve been betrayed. Particularly when so many Guild Wars 1 players ARE playing and enjoying this game.

And if you continue to compare this to Guild Wars 1, which remained a niche game and was always a niche game, I’ll remind you, again, that the staff is five times the size and a niche game won’t pay their salaries.

From what I see, a bunch of Guild Wars 1 people got it in their head that ALL vertical progression is a gear grind and thus a bad thing. I don’t ever feel like I’m grinding in this game. Because I choose not to grind. We don’t have a gear treadmill. And since vertical progression was in the game AT LAUNCH, Anet abandoned nothing.

I think some people are way to attached to vertical progression being negative automatically. It can BECOME negative, if not watched, but Anet hasn’t flooded the market with gear tier after gear tier.

Sorry but the response of a small portion of the fan base doesn’t indicate Anet abandoned anything.

In fact, this game is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1. Want to know why? Because Anet is innovating and trying different things, and that’s precisely what Anet did with Guild Wars 1.

Guild Wars 1 players wanted Guild Wars 1.5…but then that wouldn’t be a true successor to Guild Wars 1. Because it wouldn’t have been as innovative.

Guild Wars 1 was hailed as a landmark game because it innovated. Now Anet is experimenting and innovating again. So Guild Wars 2 is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1.

They have added vertical progression to what they do, no one is saying it’s the same degree as other MMOs. The “innovation” they’ve done with vertical progression is what you are calling a compromise. They took something from other games, something they didn’t do and made it less painful by (hopefully) not continuing to add tiers of gear.

Did other games not already do that by just sticking with the gear power they had at launch? I wouldn’t know, because I didn’t play any online RPGs before Guild Wars due to the rediculous amount of emphasis placed on powering up your character, Guild Wars was my compromise for vertical progression (because it stopped quickly). People do play games without power progression.

An even greater degree of innovation would have been to be the first MMO where power progression stopped early on in their overall content. Lots of people thought they were going to just have the illusion of power progression because of their original intentions with scaling, they were going to up and down level scaling, but they cut out up scaling (except for WvW).

Regardless of the number of tiers of gear, if players could obtain the top tier of gear from a playthrough of the story, people like me wouldn’t care how much progression there is in between, because there would be little to no need of having to think about managing our resources or currencies. People would just play through and they can focus so much more on the content, the challenges, and combat due to there being no need to worry about vertical progression at all.

Instead, players have to worry about managing their game currencies on not just for gear, but seemingly everything else from repairs, to waypoints, to a virtual stock market.

Guild Wars was a game, where that kind of thing was never a worry. If you had time constraints and were only willing or able to play 10 hours a week, it didn’t matter. Because in under a month you were on the same playing field as everyone else.

You never had to use anymore of your currency after half way through a campaign, because you were at peak power by then.

Guild Wars 2 was never a worry depending upon what you wanted to do in it. It was often a worry to me, forced to grind through zillions of levels of PvE only skills to be accepted into a group for DOA.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

The Manifesto is like a teaser…it gives you an overview. It can confuse, but by the time the explanations came out they were far more detailed than the clarification.

So………. where is the clarification?

It’s not needed anymore because the articles on the website clarify the issue BETTER than the original clarification did. You see, unlike you, most people recognize as more information comes out, it modifies previous information.

I don’t look at last years patch notes to see what skills do today, even though last years patchs notes are still available for view.

All the videos and pages on the main page explain exactly what a dynamic event is, exactly what the personal story is, and exactly how combat works.

You think you’d get it by now.

morrolan.9608:

cesmode.4257:

-Grind was bad choice of words. Get laurels yes. Still takes a month to get them. Time vs reward.

But it is a grind, its doing repetitive tasks over and over again for a reward. I find really only 1 daily out of the cycle I get from simply just playing the way I normally play. And as someone with 4 lvl 80s and soon to have a 5th it certainly feels like something of a treadmill to outfit all those characters. I don’t necessarilly need ascended to just play the game but the majority of the characters I take into WvW where having BiS gear is an advantage and it certainly makes the PvE side of the game slightly easier.

Doing something over and over again for a reward isn’t what grind means.

For example, in every MMO you kill stuff over and over again. But if you can move around and do different stuff for the same rewards, it’s not grind.

The reason the word grind was invented was to explain killing mobs to level your character because there were no quests in early games. The ONLY way to level was to grind mobs. That was it.

In Guild Wars 2 you can craft, explore, do your personal story, do WvW, grind mobs, do dynamic events…there’s tons of ways to level.

And there are tons of ways to get dailies. If you’re going for laurels, all you have to do is play your normal game (for most people) and you’ll get most of them. People in WvW now usually get them without too much effort at all.

I mean every MMO has you doing the same thing every day no matter what you’re doing. Kill stuff and questing. Running dungeons. Whatever you’re doing, it’s repetitive, even PvP. It’s the same thing. And you get rewarded for it. Therefore, by your definition MMOs are grind.

It doesn’t work that way.

Vayne.8563:

Anyone with half a brain

a fool

Nice. Nevertheless, you failed to provide what I asked for.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone with half a brain

a fool

Nice. Nevertheless, you failed to provide what I asked for.

No, I didn’t. You’re making it sound like a clarification can only come in the form of a fast post to explain something. That post was supplanted by actual detailed information presented on the main site.

I can’t help it if you’re attached to a post that was made that moved up a list and eventually got forgotten because it was no longer necessary.

In other words, video comes out, people are confused, Anet clarified. Then Anet went and put a lot of time and effort to explain even better than the clarification just what a dynamic event was, just what personal story was, and all that information is there. For anyone to see. On the main page.

The need for clarification at this point is null and void because the information that’s being given on the page surpasses the clarification.

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone with half a brain

a fool

Nice. Nevertheless, you failed to provide what I asked for.

No, I didn’t.

You said, in this very thread:

Vayne.8563:

Yes, actually. After the manifesto came out, due to the confusion it caused, Anet posted a clarification of the manifesto. It was widely talked about at the time.

Vayne.8563:

“Anet posted a clarification of the manifesto.”

Your words. That’s what you said. A clarification of the manifesto.

And so I asked, where is this clarification?

It may have been ‘widely talked about at the time’, but here today you have failed to provide a link to this alleged ‘clarification of the manifesto’.

So. I guess we’re done here.