Guild Wars 2

Recently people have made the false claim that GW2 is casual. This is a post to show just how wrong they are about that. My purpose for this is not only to inform the players of this game what casual means, it’s also to give the devs some pointers on what makes a game casual so that they might in the future consider adding these things to improve the game.

before I begin let me just say that I’m not naming these other games as an insult to the devs, I’m pointing out what specific types of activities (rules/prizes) came from which games, no offense intended.

Things I miss from other games that made them casual friendly:

1. fishing – WoW/torchlight II – complete with nets, spears, poles, chairs, umbrellas, with the ability to fish up valuable vendorfish, gear, hard to find crafting materials (lodestones is an idea ahem cough), minipets, and mounts (if this game had mounts), crafting recipes in all crafts (they even had oils for engineering/alchemy not just cooking).
2. hunting games – The Hunter MMO – in other mmo’s it might be that you need to capture or kill an animal for a hunting contest which would bring prizes and gear. A real hunting contest for the Norn perhaps?
3. farming – farmville/lotro – self explanatory. Might bring in the chance to find the materials usually difficult to get to like vanilla beans.
4. lotteries – RIFT/LOTRO – LOTRO had a daily lottery to get prizes and currency from similar to the dungeon badges, laurels, and karma we see in GW2. Rift had an hourly or bihourly scratchoff which allowed for the winning of rare crafting materials and currencies too (altho it was in a mobile app that they still have to this day).
5. housing – LOTRO/RIFT – Rift is hands down the best example of housing I can think of. The decorations and ability to customize are the best I’ve seen anywhere, however they both had the ability to pickup items from the experiences of the players (quests) where they’ve been what they were doing, and who they’ve defeated to place in the homes of the players.
6. collecting artifacts – RIFT/AoC – filled with lore that can combine to make items or for prizes. Items were usually end game gear or special items that created rare materials or were valuable to be sold for gold.
7. collecting mini pets – WoW – minipets has always been fun in any game but WoW to me had the best ways of doing such, buying them from dungeon only vendors, finding them in rare exotic places. They have a good start in this game, I’m just not seeing the taming of level 1 critters tho.
8. taming/care and feeding of pet companions – WoW/ AoC – In AoC and WoW they had certain animals that were babies when tamed and had special quests to help them grow up turning them into mounts. (now I know they don’t want to add mounts but what if this were used for Rangers instead of the instatame system it would be miles more fun). There was also an unspoken competition amongst hunters in WoW where players sought out and tamed rare pets with rare pet skins. That was the fun part of being a hunter in WoW! For a time there were pet buff foods that cooks could make to help give pets boons during combat, I miss pet food.
9. gambling – Star Trek Online – Dabo is a great time waster, and you can buy things with the gold pressed latinum you get from gambling on the table in Quark’s.

Things that are casual but that I didn’t participate in:

1. mini pet battles – WoW – never really played this since Cata but it looks like pokemon.
2. guild halls – Age of Conan – I was in guilds who had them but never made things or gathered resources to make the guild halls because they already had it and didn’t ask anything of me. Occasionally we had to defend the keeps from enemy guilds in a WvW style setting.

These are things that make a game casual friendly, it’s not simply the aspect of being able to put down a game and come back without having to regrind gear to continue playing where you left off, it’s the activities the fill the spaces between playing PVE PVP WVW or major evens like in the living story or meta boss fights.

Feel free to add anything I missed.

You are entitled to your opinion, but your last paragraph is what actually defines a casual game, so the game is still casual.

“…the aspect of being able to put down a game and come back without having to regrind gear to continue playing where you left off…”

In short, I don’t see how these activities you mention make the game casual at all-more diverse perhaps, but not necessarily “more casual”. Note that I am not saying that those additions would be “bad”, but that they have nothing to do with the current game NOT being casual because it may lack the stuff you like from other games.

There are a lot of things that make the game casual friendly. Most game push players into doing dungeons. There’s one single epic quest line in Rift and it ends in a raid. That, to me, is not casual. I guess it’s sort of the same in the personal story in Guild Wars 1 ending in a dungeon, but even worse.

Rift wasn’t casual because anyone who wanted to PvP had to go through all the levels to be effective, or you’d just die over and over again.

Gearing up in other games is much harder. The amount of karma you get in Guild Wars 2, and the very existence of karma means you don’t have to farm gold to equip yourself.

Add to this the fact that in Guild Wars 2 the world is really designed to explore, which is more of a casual activity than a hard core one. Things like vistas, and even jumping puzzles aren’t made for a hard core crowd. Stuff like Keg Brawl (which is hysterical) isn’t made for a hard core crowd.

Did you do the living world stuff? There was nothing hard core about it.

Most of the people who like challenging content find there isn’t enough of it in Guild Wars 2. Most of the game can be played by a single player without grouping, and that indeed makes it casual.

There are elements in this game that aren’t particularly alt friendly but the game surely appeals to casual players.

tigirius.9014:

1. fishing – WoW/torchlight II – complete with nets, spears, poles, chairs, umbrellas, with the ability to fish up valuable vendorfish, gear, hard to find crafting materials (lodestones is an idea ahem cough), minipets, and mounts (if this game had mounts), crafting recipes in all crafts (they even had oils for engineering/alchemy not just cooking).
2. hunting games – The Hunter MMO – in other mmo’s it might be that you need to capture or kill an animal for a hunting contest which would bring prizes and gear. A real hunting contest for the Norn perhaps?
3. farming – farmville/lotro – self explanatory. Might bring in the chance to find the materials usually difficult to get to like vanilla beans.
4. lotteries – RIFT/LOTRO – LOTRO had a daily lottery to get prizes and currency from similar to the dungeon badges, laurels, and karma we see in GW2. Rift had an hourly or bihourly scratchoff which allowed for the winning of rare crafting materials and currencies too (altho it was in a mobile app that they still have to this day).
5. housing – LOTRO/RIFT – Rift is hands down the best example of housing I can think of. The decorations and ability to customize are the best I’ve seen anywhere, however they both had the ability to pickup items from the experiences of the players (quests) where they’ve been what they were doing, and who they’ve defeated to place in the homes of the players.
6. collecting artifacts – RIFT/AoC – filled with lore that can combine to make items or for prizes. Items were usually end game gear or special items that created rare materials or were valuable to be sold for gold.
7. collecting mini pets – WoW – minipets has always been fun in any game but WoW to me had the best ways of doing such, buying them from dungeon only vendors, finding them in rare exotic places. They have a good start in this game, I’m just not seeing the taming of level 1 critters tho.
8. taming/care and feeding of pet companions – WoW/ AoC – In AoC and WoW they had certain animals that were babies when tamed and had special quests to help them grow up turning them into mounts. (now I know they don’t want to add mounts but what if this were used for Rangers instead of the instatame system it would be miles more fun). There was also an unspoken competition amongst hunters in WoW where players sought out and tamed rare pets with rare pet skins. That was the fun part of being a hunter in WoW! For a time there were pet buff foods that cooks could make to help give pets boons during combat, I miss pet food.
9. gambling – Star Trek Online – Dabo is a great time waster, and you can buy things with the gold pressed latinum you get from gambling on the table in Quark’s.

1. Fishing doesn’t really fit with the game, considering that we have underwater combat. Why would you go fish for that Barracuda when you can just jump in and kill it?
2. There is certainly basis in the game for making some hunting things
3. Farming wouldn’t really work and Queensdale is why. You go there and you’ll see that all the farmers have issues with monsters and bandits. And to quote the guy in Lion’s Arch, “If I get one more farmer selling me rotten vegetables…”
4. Lottery are a legal mess, especially since you can buy the in-game currency with money. You already get people complaining when they don’t get the rare skins from Black Lion Chests, can you imagine what would happen if they had lotteries like that?
5. Housing is something the developer team has said that they’re interested in, but not currently building, I believe.
6. You got legendaries and cultural gear, we even got achievements for those
7. But you can collect mini pets?
8. There’s only one profession in the game where that would make sense, so that’s probably not too high on anyone’s priority list.
9. Gambling is the same as lotteries: It’s a mess when it can involve real money.

I’m not really against any of these, since they would add to the realism of the world. But do I think it’s something the developer team should prioritize? Nope.

I like the idea of taming/care and feeding of pet companions.
get a rare pet for the ranger and have to feed it over time.

That way we can get unusual pets for our rangers.

Adding to what Vayne said, which I’m seconding, there was the happy funtime box, or whatever it was called – pretty darn casual. The holiday events tend to be pretty casual except for the scavenger hunts. The exploring and finding all the hidden stuff is just the thing for a casual player who wants a break from bashing stuff over the head. Exploring the cities and finding the nifty little easter eggs, pretty casual. Talking/listening to npcs, which you can do for a very long time just in a city even, pretty casual.

But most of all, being able to pick up the game for half an hour and have fun, then put it down for a month and come back without missing a beat, that’s about as casual as you get.

All that other stuff? Time sinks, some which might be fun, some which aren’t my buttered rum. But your casual and my casual – not the same thing.

You can leave Guild Wars 2 for months without getting behind anywhere, that is what makes the game very casual.

There is no forced, or mandatory grind. Sure there is grind, but that’s something the players put on themselves, not something ArenaNet force upon them.

Also other games have tons of dailies. The dailies in Guild Wars 2 are severally casual. To do all the dailies in Rift would take you a whole lot longer than to do all the dailies in Guild Wars 2. And in Guild Wars 2, most of them you can get just by playing normally.

Vayne.8563:

There are a lot of things that make the game casual friendly. Most game push players into doing dungeons. There’s one single epic quest line in Rift and it ends in a raid. That, to me, is not casual. I guess it’s sort of the same in the personal story in Guild Wars 1 ending in a dungeon, but even worse.

Most of the people who like challenging content find there isn’t enough of it in Guild Wars 2. Most of the game can be played by a single player without grouping, and that indeed makes it casual.

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

And saying “most” is your opinion that the thousands (i suspect due to the pre-guesting patch emptyness of the servers) who left in November wouldn’t agree with, because of their new dungeon only focus.

I did do the experimental living world, and was highly disappointed that it’s still yet to be the focus on the open world they promised they would have prelaunch.

Also, Rift didn’t force people into dungeons, they had solo dungeons and the lotteries gave plenty of currency that was needed to buy the gear one needed so your argument about that game is nul.

My statement stands.

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

There are a lot of things that make the game casual friendly. Most game push players into doing dungeons. There’s one single epic quest line in Rift and it ends in a raid. That, to me, is not casual. I guess it’s sort of the same in the personal story in Guild Wars 1 ending in a dungeon, but even worse.

Most of the people who like challenging content find there isn’t enough of it in Guild Wars 2. Most of the game can be played by a single player without grouping, and that indeed makes it casual.

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

And saying “most” is your opinion that the thousands (i suspect due to the pre-guesting patch emptyness of the servers) who left in November wouldn’t agree with, because of their new dungeon only focus.

I did do the experimental living world, and was highly disappointed that it’s still yet to be the focus on the open world they promised they would have prelaunch.

Also, Rift didn’t force people into dungeons, they had solo dungeons and the lotteries gave plenty of currency that was needed to buy the gear one needed so your argument about that game is nul.

My statement stands.

ArenaNet is not forcing anything on you, or the players. It’s your, or the other players choice.

Stop trying to blame the game, or ArenaNet for your own choices.

I’ve played this game for a long time (Played all beta weekends and since release) and I haven’t farmed a single dungeon for gold, nor farmed T6 mats for gold, I have just played the game, and I got full Cultural Tier 3, and another 100 gold on the bank, just by playing the game, doing what I enjoy.

Vayne.8563:

Also other games have tons of dailies. The dailies in Guild Wars 2 are severally casual. To do all the dailies in Rift would take you a whole lot longer than to do all the dailies in Guild Wars 2. And in Guild Wars 2, most of them you can get just by playing normally.

Dailies in GW2 aren’t the same thing, because they aren’t quests and with the requirements that some on the list they have they do sometimes require an entire day to finish due to the requirements they impose. We were supposed to have more of a choice now randomly not being able to finish dailies because suddenly the game decides to have all dungeons/FotM/WvW/150 invaders suddenly. Still not casual and others have attested to this when they first allowed us to choose, it wasn’t enough of a choice/should never have been randomized.

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

There are a lot of things that make the game casual friendly. Most game push players into doing dungeons. There’s one single epic quest line in Rift and it ends in a raid. That, to me, is not casual. I guess it’s sort of the same in the personal story in Guild Wars 1 ending in a dungeon, but even worse.

Most of the people who like challenging content find there isn’t enough of it in Guild Wars 2. Most of the game can be played by a single player without grouping, and that indeed makes it casual.

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

And saying “most” is your opinion that the thousands (i suspect due to the pre-guesting patch emptyness of the servers) who left in November wouldn’t agree with, because of their new dungeon only focus.

I did do the experimental living world, and was highly disappointed that it’s still yet to be the focus on the open world they promised they would have prelaunch.

Also, Rift didn’t force people into dungeons, they had solo dungeons and the lotteries gave plenty of currency that was needed to buy the gear one needed so your argument about that game is nul.

My statement stands.

Casual players very often aren’t the people who are searching for money. Farming itself isn’t really something casual. It requires considerable dedication to be a farmer. I don’t know why anyone would put farmers into the casual boat.

I mean what do you NEED T6 mats for? Legendaries? Not a casual goal. High end crafting? Not a casual goal. Upgrading your ascended gear? Not a casual goal.

The only thing a person MIGHT need T6 materials for is to craft their own exotic armor. But that armor isn’t all that expensive anymore, and you can still get exotics with karma, not to mention dungeon runs, if you like that sort of thing.

Aquistion of T6 mats has nothing to do with casual play. Indeed many of the people in my guild play casually in greens and rares and do fine.

Farzo.8410:

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

There are a lot of things that make the game casual friendly. Most game push players into doing dungeons. There’s one single epic quest line in Rift and it ends in a raid. That, to me, is not casual. I guess it’s sort of the same in the personal story in Guild Wars 1 ending in a dungeon, but even worse.

Most of the people who like challenging content find there isn’t enough of it in Guild Wars 2. Most of the game can be played by a single player without grouping, and that indeed makes it casual.

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

And saying “most” is your opinion that the thousands (i suspect due to the pre-guesting patch emptyness of the servers) who left in November wouldn’t agree with, because of their new dungeon only focus.

I did do the experimental living world, and was highly disappointed that it’s still yet to be the focus on the open world they promised they would have prelaunch.

Also, Rift didn’t force people into dungeons, they had solo dungeons and the lotteries gave plenty of currency that was needed to buy the gear one needed so your argument about that game is nul.

My statement stands.

ArenaNet is not forcing anything on you, or the players. It’s your, or the other players choice.

Stop trying to blame the game, or ArenaNet for your own choices.

Not, deflation of loot in November led to this, look up all of the complaints when they did this.

This isn’t what this thread is about I’ll thank you for not derailing it.

Gee, I don’t do dungeons much (lol, I have two story modes done, and two explorer modes), I don’t do WvW and I don’t farm T6 materials. I am not even sure which ones are T6. And I make money – halfway to Golden, not that that is a LOT of money. I don’t understand why so many people make statements like ‘everyone must do X, or ArenaNet is forcing everyone to do X’, etc. It sure doesn’t apply to me, or those in my guild or my friends.

So, although your statement stands, it is not entirely true.

Olba.5376:

tigirius.9014:

1. fishing – WoW/torchlight II – complete with nets, spears, poles, chairs, umbrellas, with the ability to fish up valuable vendorfish, gear, hard to find crafting materials (lodestones is an idea ahem cough), minipets, and mounts (if this game had mounts), crafting recipes in all crafts (they even had oils for engineering/alchemy not just cooking).
2. hunting games – The Hunter MMO – in other mmo’s it might be that you need to capture or kill an animal for a hunting contest which would bring prizes and gear. A real hunting contest for the Norn perhaps?
3. farming – farmville/lotro – self explanatory. Might bring in the chance to find the materials usually difficult to get to like vanilla beans.
4. lotteries – RIFT/LOTRO – LOTRO had a daily lottery to get prizes and currency from similar to the dungeon badges, laurels, and karma we see in GW2. Rift had an hourly or bihourly scratchoff which allowed for the winning of rare crafting materials and currencies too (altho it was in a mobile app that they still have to this day).
5. housing – LOTRO/RIFT – Rift is hands down the best example of housing I can think of. The decorations and ability to customize are the best I’ve seen anywhere, however they both had the ability to pickup items from the experiences of the players (quests) where they’ve been what they were doing, and who they’ve defeated to place in the homes of the players.
6. collecting artifacts – RIFT/AoC – filled with lore that can combine to make items or for prizes. Items were usually end game gear or special items that created rare materials or were valuable to be sold for gold.
7. collecting mini pets – WoW – minipets has always been fun in any game but WoW to me had the best ways of doing such, buying them from dungeon only vendors, finding them in rare exotic places. They have a good start in this game, I’m just not seeing the taming of level 1 critters tho.
8. taming/care and feeding of pet companions – WoW/ AoC – In AoC and WoW they had certain animals that were babies when tamed and had special quests to help them grow up turning them into mounts. (now I know they don’t want to add mounts but what if this were used for Rangers instead of the instatame system it would be miles more fun). There was also an unspoken competition amongst hunters in WoW where players sought out and tamed rare pets with rare pet skins. That was the fun part of being a hunter in WoW! For a time there were pet buff foods that cooks could make to help give pets boons during combat, I miss pet food.
9. gambling – Star Trek Online – Dabo is a great time waster, and you can buy things with the gold pressed latinum you get from gambling on the table in Quark’s.

1. Fishing doesn’t really fit with the game, considering that we have underwater combat. Why would you go fish for that Barracuda when you can just jump in and kill it?
2. There is certainly basis in the game for making some hunting things
3. Farming wouldn’t really work and Queensdale is why. You go there and you’ll see that all the farmers have issues with monsters and bandits. And to quote the guy in Lion’s Arch, “If I get one more farmer selling me rotten vegetables…”
4. Lottery are a legal mess, especially since you can buy the in-game currency with money. You already get people complaining when they don’t get the rare skins from Black Lion Chests, can you imagine what would happen if they had lotteries like that?
5. Housing is something the developer team has said that they’re interested in, but not currently building, I believe.
6. You got legendaries and cultural gear, we even got achievements for those
7. But you can collect mini pets?
8. There’s only one profession in the game where that would make sense, so that’s probably not too high on anyone’s priority list.
9. Gambling is the same as lotteries: It’s a mess when it can involve real money.

I’m not really against any of these, since they would add to the realism of the world. But do I think it’s something the developer team should prioritize? Nope.

While your argument is a tad lopsided you actually did take the time to read what I posted. Thanks for that.

The problem with cosmetics is they didn’t add enough, I’m certainly not the first one to mention that it’s been a big discussion on multiple forums recently across the web. (all of the new ones seemingly being only from dungeon tokens and from the store doesn’t make it casual either).

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, I don’t do dungeons much (lol, I have two story modes done, and two explorer modes), I don’t do WvW and I don’t farm T6 materials. I am not even sure which ones are T6. And I make money – halfway to Golden, not that that is a LOT of money. I don’t understand why so many people make statements like ‘everyone must do X, or ArenaNet is forcing everyone to do X’, etc. It sure doesn’t apply to me, or those in my guild or my friends.

So, although your statement stands, it is not entirely true.

It actually is true, you see the there’s a heavily RNG system here with a mysterious MF system that they’ve yet to explain to anyone how it works, when you have those two things, all things are not equal in the world of loot. There are plenty of us who are not receiving what some receive without a hitch in massive numbers compared to others and who usually come onto these forums as you have and spout the “i’ve got mine so you’re wrong” statements.

here is it is 7 months later and they still haven’t fixed loot.

But that’s not what this is about please stop derailing my post.

why do you think that casuals want to play a life simulation? That’s all what I’ve seen. “there is no farming, no fishing, no housing” oh and casuals can’t, I don’t know, slowly explore the world? I don’t consider any of your points to make a game “casual friendly”.
Someone in another similar thread said something smart “don’t tell me what I can and can not play because I’m casual”.
Now when we come to lotteries – big guilds do do games for casuals. Like just yesterday I joined a game of darts – we all stand on a tall rock, the person that started the event jumps down first, others jump and attempt to fall as close to him as possible. The one that falls the closest wins the prize. There are other games that people do play in this game. Just because it’s not official doesn’t mean that it’s not done

How do you define “casual gaming”?

I define it by the exact opposite of “hardcore gaming” where you melt the chair with your butt sitting for weeee tons of hours playing the game.

I believe GW2 is casual friendly based on the description I provided. I was unable to play for nearly 3 months and when I came back, the only thing I missed are some skins – cosmetics, which I like – but can live without. I was not left behind. Try leaving for 3 months in other MMO and when you come back, you’d be like “wth are those gears??”

I can play for 2-3 hours a day and not be pressured of getting the top tier (ascended) gear. I settled for Exotics and I observed that Ascended doesn’t have much much difference. Okay, maybe the group wearing ascended would finish a dungeon 10seconds faster than us, but it’s not a big deal for me.

GW2 has a modest amount of casual things to do but the game tries to push people together, not a bad thing but not always done is the best way IMO. A nice group finder interface not just for dungeons but everything a person can do with others would have made a big difference. I know its in the works but its very late IMO. I’m an old school MMO player from way back and have played a LOT of these games. What usually happens when an interface like this is late is players have already adopted a habit of using other means and just don’t use the interface. I hope this time will be different but honestly Anet your team is crawling at a snails pace on this one. Other than that casual endeavors are rather few but are involved enough to be time consuming so if looking for time syncs I guess they are there. Another problem though is the hardness factor in increasing level zones, people are just simply blown off by the frustrations . Zones are popular only by the highest for rewards or the lowest for getting out from under threats. The middle just seems to suffer from a lack of players IMO for just those reasons.

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

There are a lot of things that make the game casual friendly. Most game push players into doing dungeons. There’s one single epic quest line in Rift and it ends in a raid. That, to me, is not casual. I guess it’s sort of the same in the personal story in Guild Wars 1 ending in a dungeon, but even worse.

Most of the people who like challenging content find there isn’t enough of it in Guild Wars 2. Most of the game can be played by a single player without grouping, and that indeed makes it casual.

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

And saying “most” is your opinion that the thousands (i suspect due to the pre-guesting patch emptyness of the servers) who left in November wouldn’t agree with, because of their new dungeon only focus.

I did do the experimental living world, and was highly disappointed that it’s still yet to be the focus on the open world they promised they would have prelaunch.

Also, Rift didn’t force people into dungeons, they had solo dungeons and the lotteries gave plenty of currency that was needed to buy the gear one needed so your argument about that game is nul.

My statement stands.

As I was replying directly to your own post, I fail to see how I am derailing your post. If you do not desire others to respond to your posts, then perhaps a disclaimer would be helpful.

Seraki.2753:

GW2 has a modest amount of casual things to do but the game tries to push people together, not a bad thing but not always done is the best way IMO. A nice group finder interface not just for dungeons but everything a person can do with others would have made a big difference. I know its in the works but its very late IMO. I’m an old school MMO player from way back and have played a LOT of these games. What usually happens when an interface like this is late is players have already adopted a habit of using other means and just don’t use the interface. I hope this time will be different but honestly Anet your team is crawling at a snails pace on this one. Other than that casual endeavors are rather few but are involved enough to be time consuming so if looking for time syncs I guess they are there. Another problem though is the hardness factor in increasing level zones, people are just simply blown off by the frustrations . Zones are popular only by the highest for rewards or the lowest for getting out from under threats. The middle just seems to suffer from a lack of players IMO for just those reasons.

I often get the feeling the dev team thinks its in a contest with players and are just trying to kick tail more than offer enjoyable content. Just a feeling I know but it kind of hangs over everything like a dark cloud.

Thanks for your post, I agree they could do better with grouping, it would make a big difference if the lfg tool handled everything including events and locations of players on the same server doing certain DE’s/metas.

Forcing people to group for better loot for example is not my idea of a good idea either.

If they added these casual games I listed it would certainly make this game casual friendly and people could enjoy the game more when friends or guildies aren’t online as well as allow for an alternate means to acquire goods and mats. (I for one don’t always have the same schedule as people.)

People forget what the definition of casual actually is. Relaxed and unconcerned. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel obligated to participate in dungeons to earn as much money as people that play for 10 hours a day and I DO NOT get the “relaxed” feeling when I have to play for 3 hours or more to actually accomplish something. I have not seen Anet implement a single casual activity to do since the game was released. FoTM, Guild Missions, Ascended gear, all of those things are for hardcore players. And, if you disagree, think about the ways to get ascended gear. 30 laurels, which is 30 days of playing. 30 days is a ridiculous amount of time for a “casual” player. Guild Missions, which require massive amounts of time to organize, again, not a casual activity. Fractals, is the longest dungeon in GW2 and requires the most time. Tell me again how GW2 is made for casual players.

tigirius.9014:

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

Not true at all. You don’t need dungeons to earn money, you need to limit your expenses, I don’t get how anyone can have money problems in this game, I’ve never, ever done cof p1 farming, never gone t6 mat farming, never did anything that people “do” to make money. I have more than enough for all my alts, I can get anything I want, except for a precursor, that’s the absolutely only thing anyone might need money for. I fail to see how making a legendary is a process for casuals, you don’t need money for anything else.

And saying “most” is your opinion that the thousands (i suspect due to the pre-guesting patch emptyness of the servers) who left in November wouldn’t agree with, because of their new dungeon only focus.

The game hasn’t been focusing on dungeon for months, if anything dungeons have been neglected for a very long time. Dungeons-only in Guild Wars 2? Is that a joke?

I did do the experimental living world, and was highly disappointed that it’s still yet to be the focus on the open world they promised they would have prelaunch.

It’s not?

Also, Rift didn’t force people into dungeons, they had solo dungeons and the lotteries gave plenty of currency that was needed to buy the gear one needed so your argument about that game is nul.

My statement stands.

Guild Wars 2 isn’t forcing people into dungeons either, you can get max stat gear easily without ever stepping into a dungeon… what’s your argument?

Galtrix.7369:

People forget what the definition of casual actually is. Relaxed and unconcerned. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel obligated to participate in dungeons to earn as much money as people that play for 10 hours a day

You mean you are in a secret contest with those people who will get the most money? And do what with them? Look at who has the highest number? That’s it? You compare yourself with the cof p1 farmers and want for some obscure reason to have the same amount of money as them, while playing far less? Seriously?

Galtrix.7369:

People forget what the definition of casual actually is. Relaxed and unconcerned. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel obligated to participate in dungeons to earn as much money as people that play for 10 hours a day and I DO NOT get the “relaxed” feeling when I have to play for 3 hours or more to actually accomplish something. I have not seen Anet implement a single casual activity to do since the game was released. FoTM, Guild Missions, Ascended gear, all of those things are for hardcore players. And, if you disagree, think about the ways to get ascended gear. 30 laurels, which is 30 days of playing. 30 days is a ridiculous amount of time for a “casual” player. Guild Missions, which require massive amounts of time to organize, again, not a casual activity. Fractals, is the longest dungeon in GW2 and requires the most time. Tell me again how GW2 is made for casual players.

Part of the problem with Laurels is we still have yet to see the backpay so to speak for the achievements we’ve already been rewarded with. I have a long memory when it comes to promises made and that was a big one we still have yet to see.

I agree I am in the same boat as you as far as loot. there is still something uneven about their RNG loot system where some players get everything all the time and others get nothing even without using magic find bonuses that they still have yet to look into. It started in November 2012 because prior to that I would earn about 4-5 rares every 2-3 days. T6 mats could easily be farmed no problem in the open world without a care about a dungeon and that’s one of the things that made this game great.

I just think that if they gave us the above activities it would improve the loot situation as well as make the game casual friendly.

Galtrix.7369:

People forget what the definition of casual actually is. Relaxed and unconcerned. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel obligated to participate in dungeons to earn as much money as people that play for 10 hours a day and I DO NOT get the “relaxed” feeling when I have to play for 3 hours or more to actually accomplish something. I have not seen Anet implement a single casual activity to do since the game was released. FoTM, Guild Missions, Ascended gear, all of those things are for hardcore players. And, if you disagree, think about the ways to get ascended gear. 30 laurels, which is 30 days of playing. 30 days is a ridiculous amount of time for a “casual” player. Guild Missions, which require massive amounts of time to organize, again, not a casual activity. Fractals, is the longest dungeon in GW2 and requires the most time. Tell me again how GW2 is made for casual players.

What do you need gold for if you are “casual”?

You said it yourself, casual should be “Relaxed and unconcerned” – yet you are concerned about gold, gears and dungeons. You are concerned about Ascended – which I believe you are concerned about gears. You are complaining about FoTM – means you’re concerned with dungeons.

You just contradicted your meaning of “casual”.

Oh and that 30 days for laurels? You can finish dailies within 30 minutes. That’s a lot less than the 3 hours/day you specified, plus you accomplished something – got a laurel.

maddoctor.2738:

tigirius.9014:

Actually that’s not entirely true there are many things you are leaving out like the farming of T6 materials which is the sole way of making any kind of meaningful money in this game. They are forcing people to play dungeons or WvW in order to make any money. The only other method is to buy gems and convert them.

Not true at all. You don’t need dungeons to earn money, you need to limit your expenses, I don’t get how anyone can have money problems in this game, I’ve never, ever done cof p1 farming, never gone t6 mat farming, never did anything that people “do” to make money. I have more than enough for all my alts, I can get anything I want, except for a precursor, that’s the absolutely only thing anyone might need money for. I fail to see how making a legendary is a process for casuals, you don’t need money for anything else.

It is true, just because you don’t have troubles doesn’t mean other people don’t and it has nothing to do with expenses. If we are truly to believe you make so much gold a day without doing dungeons then that means you are one of the few who don’t have the loot issue that still exists to this day. No wooden boxes, no T6 mats even from higher quality salvages etc.

That’s not the point of this thread however, the point of it is to show that even games who have a monthly sub are more casual friendly then GW2 is especially with their new Nov 2012 FotM dungeon focus including the unspoken requirement to run dungeons for a better chance at drops. (or WvW) because since then that’s been the only reported way of making gold in this game, unless you are the luck few who leave any event with about 4 times as much loot as anyone else does.

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

Also other games have tons of dailies. The dailies in Guild Wars 2 are severally casual. To do all the dailies in Rift would take you a whole lot longer than to do all the dailies in Guild Wars 2. And in Guild Wars 2, most of them you can get just by playing normally.

Dailies in GW2 aren’t the same thing, because they aren’t quests and with the requirements that some on the list they have they do sometimes require an entire day to finish due to the requirements they impose. We were supposed to have more of a choice now randomly not being able to finish dailies because suddenly the game decides to have all dungeons/FotM/WvW/150 invaders suddenly. Still not casual and others have attested to this when they first allowed us to choose, it wasn’t enough of a choice/should never have been randomized.

Did you misspeak or are you implying that daily quests include running all dungeons, every fractal, and killing 150 invaders in WvW? Each of those is completely false.

Biohazard.4196:

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

Also other games have tons of dailies. The dailies in Guild Wars 2 are severally casual. To do all the dailies in Rift would take you a whole lot longer than to do all the dailies in Guild Wars 2. And in Guild Wars 2, most of them you can get just by playing normally.

Dailies in GW2 aren’t the same thing, because they aren’t quests and with the requirements that some on the list they have they do sometimes require an entire day to finish due to the requirements they impose. We were supposed to have more of a choice now randomly not being able to finish dailies because suddenly the game decides to have all dungeons/FotM/WvW/150 invaders suddenly. Still not casual and others have attested to this when they first allowed us to choose, it wasn’t enough of a choice/should never have been randomized.

Did you misspeak or are you implying that daily quests include running all dungeons, every fractal, and killing 150 invaders in WvW? Each of those is completely false.

No there are some days tho that objectives that one must wait hours on (like meta bosses) and dungeon/WvW focused content are the only things that popup (ie there aren’t 5 open world items one can do in at most an hour and a half to complete the daily). Which means the daily takes about 8 hours to complete on those days and the “choice” of not doing them is unacceptable as a possible solution.

Galtrix.7369:

I have not seen Anet implement a single casual activity to do since the game was released. FoTM, Guild Missions, Ascended gear, all of those things are for hardcore players. And, if you disagree, think about the ways to get ascended gear. 30 laurels, which is 30 days of playing. 30 days is a ridiculous amount of time for a “casual” player. Guild Missions, which require massive amounts of time to organize, again, not a casual activity. Fractals, is the longest dungeon in GW2 and requires the most time. Tell me again how GW2 is made for casual players.

These activities were designed specifically for the million or so (out of 3-4 million) people who bought the game and demanded “hardcore” content. They are not casual because they are not intended to be casual.

Anet is doing what good companies do – listening to their customers and giving them what they want. The Living World content is casual friendly – takes place in low level zones so you aren’t left out if you don’t have a level 80 toon, consists mostly of cutscenes and some simple activities that can be completed in a few days or spread out over the months when it was released a piece at a time, and yields casual friendly rewards like titles and such.

The entire world is casual friendly – things like the random conversations between PC and NPCs or between NPCs themselves, are out there waiting to be discovered. Beautiful scenery for screenshots, various easy to do activities – you don’t HAVE to kill x enemies to complete every zone, a lot of the hearts can be done by collecting flowers or feeding the cows or whatever. Multiple choice dailies are only a problem for those compelled to do EVERY choice instead of stopping when they get the chest.

There are choices everywhere in the game – choices to do the dailies, choices to complete hearts, choices to join the zerg when you see “Troll’s up!” announced in chat, choices to go to different zones to level or explore… people who feel “forced” to do content are only forcing themselves.

You can level a toon to 80 by crafting, how casual is that, to go from the tutorial zone to level 80 without ever leaving Lion’s Arch? Or you can explore the five 1-15 zones, do some dynamic events, craft a bit, and by the time you venture outside of the newb zones you’re almost to 80 and dressed in level-appropriate greens or yellows. My latest toon is level 41 and she has only completed Celadon Forest and half of Queensdale. Currently wandering through Wayfarer Hills because one of the dailies last night was Shiverpeaks Killer.

You have to go out of your way to find NOT CASUAL content in this game. Which people do, they focus on the half dozen hardcore activities like Legendary Weapons and Fractal Dungeons and call the game hardcore. My wife is the ultimate casual player and I don’t think she even knows these things exist, or if she does then she doesn’t care at all about them. She explores the world, crafts, does the dailies when she feels like it, and doesn’t take anything in the game too seriously.

And chances are, she’s having a lot more fun than you are. And so am I.

tigirius.9014:

Biohazard.4196:

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

Also other games have tons of dailies. The dailies in Guild Wars 2 are severally casual. To do all the dailies in Rift would take you a whole lot longer than to do all the dailies in Guild Wars 2. And in Guild Wars 2, most of them you can get just by playing normally.

Dailies in GW2 aren’t the same thing, because they aren’t quests and with the requirements that some on the list they have they do sometimes require an entire day to finish due to the requirements they impose. We were supposed to have more of a choice now randomly not being able to finish dailies because suddenly the game decides to have all dungeons/FotM/WvW/150 invaders suddenly. Still not casual and others have attested to this when they first allowed us to choose, it wasn’t enough of a choice/should never have been randomized.

Did you misspeak or are you implying that daily quests include running all dungeons, every fractal, and killing 150 invaders in WvW? Each of those is completely false.

No there are some days tho that objectives that one must wait hours on (like meta bosses) and dungeon/WvW focused content are the only things that popup (ie there aren’t 5 open world items one can do in at most an hour and a half to complete the daily). Which means the daily takes about 8 hours to complete on those days and the “choice” of not doing them is unacceptable as a possible solution.

Take a look at the table. It shows the complete daily choices from the last fourteen days. Upon inspection, I see on each day five choices that have nothing at all to do with group events, dungeons, or WvW content. Which of the five non-group event, dungeon, or WvW daily items each day takes you so long to complete? Maybe I can give you some tips.

tigirius.9014:

This isn’t what this thread is about I’ll thank you for not derailing it.

No the thread is about a random list of meaningless things you personally like which have nothing to do with anything being used to claim that somehow their not being around or not in the form you personally prefer in your own little universe makes the game not ‘casual.’

Warped logic is warped.

As I said yesterday:

Some people will not be happy until the game has elves, orcs, two factions, raids, and is made by blizzard. Plus I guess now, fishing and mini-pet battles.

I get great enjoyment out of flushing things down the mystic toilet. That’s pretty casual haha. I just wish I could flush a few players that guild spam me non-stop down it as well.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I get great enjoyment out of flushing things down the mystic toilet. That’s pretty casual haha. I just wish I could flush a few players that guild spam me non-stop down it as well.

I got a lot of that when I first started playing. So I registered my own guild, the only members are my wife and I. As an added bonus, we have a shared bank, I can buy branded gear, and working on a larger bank to hold more equipment and crafting stuff so we can share items more easily. And no one tries to get me to join their guild any more.

So the lack of fishing, farming, and player housing makes GW2 a hardcore mmo? This forum…

/shakes head

darkace.8925:

So the lack of fishing, farming, and player housing makes GW2 a hardcore mmo? This forum…

/shakes head

When I was first thinking of getting not MMOs I asked a friend who played one about them.

He said he was in a guild that allowed him 3 characters max, and required installing xFire so they could see if he was in another MMO or even that one (but on an unapproved character) anytime his computer was on (and I think he had a requirement to leave it on – but this detail was not mentioned). When he wanted to try City of Heroes, he had to buy his guild GM a copy so that person could go into it and register the guild.

He thought he was casual though, because the girl he always chatted up in game had to keep a timesheet of hours played and items crafted / farmed for her guild, and was only allowed to have one character.

Lines, they move.

But that story is also why I first bought Guild Wars 1, and didn’t get “real” MMO for another year.

Kichwas.7152:

darkace.8925:

So the lack of fishing, farming, and player housing makes GW2 a hardcore mmo? This forum…

/shakes head

When I was first thinking of getting not MMOs I asked a friend who played one about them.

He said he was in a guild that allowed him 3 characters max, and required installing xFire so they could see if he was in another MMO or even that one (but on an unapproved character) anytime his computer was on (and I think he had a requirement to leave it on – but this detail was not mentioned). When he wanted to try City of Heroes, he had to buy his guild GM a copy so that person could go into it and register the guild.

Sounds like a decent job, how much does it pay, and it is salary or hourly?

I agree 100% Op.

tolunart.2095:

Galtrix.7369:

I have not seen Anet implement a single casual activity to do since the game was released. FoTM, Guild Missions, Ascended gear, all of those things are for hardcore players. And, if you disagree, think about the ways to get ascended gear. 30 laurels, which is 30 days of playing. 30 days is a ridiculous amount of time for a “casual” player. Guild Missions, which require massive amounts of time to organize, again, not a casual activity. Fractals, is the longest dungeon in GW2 and requires the most time. Tell me again how GW2 is made for casual players.

These activities were designed specifically for the million or so (out of 3-4 million) people who bought the game and demanded “hardcore” content. They are not casual because they are not intended to be casual.

Anet is doing what good companies do – listening to their customers and giving them what they want.

Hardly. These things you mention in the list of your casual-like benevolent offerings to the casual crowd are at worst broken for many of us which they still haven’t fixed yet or at best afterthoughts thrown in there or changed because people were actually earning gold and we know you can’t have that in the economy, characters with gold.

Casual players do not dungeon run, do not pvp/wvw, and expect side choices to advance the same way other players advance without a hitch just like what is promised HERE

Open world exploration is cutoff from casual players because it includes a PVP zone.

Rewards for open world are very lacking right now and the only people to say otherwise are those who have a stranglehold on the economy or who have been very lucky, with drops. Drops should never be limited anywhere. And the solution to RNG should never be more RNG.

While I agree that it has a huge amount of beauty in the world, that’s not what this is about and surely you can agree that adding to that beauty activities that don’t require combat or hardcore gear/traits would add to the enjoyment of that beauty.

I was under the impression they took out leveling to 80 thru crafting alone because they didn’t want people to use that as the sole means of leveling, if they didn’t nerf that the I agree that is a casual activity.

I guess I should have been more specific but the leveling process isn’t in question here because their system of leveling is the best in any game I’ve ever played with DE’s and hearts. However, once you reach max level and have completed the explorations of the world what’s next. The living story is hardly enough casual content to actually be useful, their final temporary content patch (chapter 3) they just released was the most I’d seen, the first two patches were gone in a day and they weren’t stretched out in any meaningful way. When we want casual content we want a permanent solution not temporary content this is no different then what they gave casual players just after launch with the holidays being the only DE’s metas etc to do and even those actually lasted longer then the living story did. (I’m not one to rush through things either I take my time).

The other prospects that were left for casual players are broken open world. We can’t farm for goods because that’s nerfed or lopsided with their RNG system and DR, we can’t find any meaningful rewards in chests across the world those are nerfed, any kind of new cosmetics requires either the store or running a dungeon for some kind of currency. (unless I’m mistaken that’s all I’ve found on guildhead) so what’s left?

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this. Is Arenanet really listening to their customers? Because many of my kind left this game months ago never to return because they didn’t listen to us then, and despite people’s tendencies to spread hate on these forums instead of helping us find solutions to the problems the community faces (and instead of some people trying to discredit every negative thing someone has to say about their favorite game) how about let’s be mature about it and come to an understanding. (not necessarily directed at you Tolunart)

Semi-casual is one thing. Casual is another entirely, GW2 has yet to reach casual.

tigirius.9014:

I was under the impression they took out leveling to 80 thru crafting alone because they didn’t want people to use that as the sole means of leveling, if they didn’t nerf that the I agree that is a casual activity.

I haven’t maxed more than two crafts on one toon, so I don’t know if you can get to 80 that way or not. But the two crafts gave me @20 levels so it seems that you can at least get most of the way there.

As for the rest, I am firmly a casual player and so is my wife, and we have not seen anything in the game that is more than a minor annoyance. The hardcore stuff is tacked on and optional, and we simply take the option to ignore it.

The problem is that there is no single, “dictionary” definition of casual player. Everyone sees it differently, to me it’s the attitude people take towards the game. I don’t speedrun COF, I don’t grind for mats or gold or whatever, I go whereever I want to and I do whatever I want to, and my wife is even more casual about than I am. I generally make an effort to finish the daily (or five of the many options, that is) even if it means going slightly out of my way, like playing the alt that’s parked in Queensdale for 10 minutes. She only thinks about it when she’s already completed 3/5 and says hey, maybe I should complete the daily…

So, as I understand the term, you are not a casual player. You are far too invested in the game. In fact I’ve been thinking about taking a break from it and going back to Skyrim for a while, it’s getting to be too much like work to level a new alt to 80 and watch the dragon timers and such…

Well, most of the things you listed are in fact the opposite of being casual or casual-friendly. Being casual is all about giving people the option to log in for a short amount of time (let’s say about an hour) and do whatever they like without any preparation needed. And that’s pretty much exactly what GW2 is all about, except for higher fractal levels or WvW in higher brackets.
But I have to admit that in some ways GW2 is less casual-friendly than GW1 since it takes way to much time to get a toon to max level and geared with BiS items.

nachtnebel.9168:

But I have to admit that in some ways GW2 is less casual-friendly than GW1 since it takes way to much time to get a toon to max level and geared with BiS items.

Both games are a hybrid/compromise between different styles of games. GW1 is a single player game with multiplayer elements, GW2 is an MMO with single player elements.

nachtnebel.9168:

But I have to admit that in some ways GW2 is less casual-friendly than GW1 since it takes way to much time to get a toon to max level and geared with BiS items.

I would like to disagree. At some points I would start playing GW1 when I would only have 30 minutes or so and I would enter with the thought of “yeah, I’ll do a quest!”. 30 minutes have passed and after several different places that I went on the same instanced map I have to leave, but wait, if I leave now I’ll be ported to the closest city checkpoint and I’ll have to clear all of those enemies yet again and that’s the exact thing that takes the most time. So I have a choice between reverting some of my progress or continuing playing. On GW2 I can log out absolutely anywhere, yes when I’ll log back in the enemies around me will have respawned, but thank goodness I don’t have to fight my way here from the start of the map!

posts a thread about all the ways that GW2 is not casual….

gets this reaction.

tigirius.9014:

posts a thread about all the ways that GW2 is not casual….

gets this reaction.

Not exactly. What you got (from me, at least) were facts that you conveniently ignored.

tigirius.9014:

posts a thread about all the ways that GW2 is not casual….

gets this reaction.

I pointed out how most of your so called “casual” activities are just grindy activities that some games make you do if you want to be the highest level (see Runescape). It has nothing to do with being casual. I also pointed out that GW1 was less casual by not allowing you to log out whenever without resetting your progress.

Completely lost control in your own thread. GG

The game is still quite casual friendly.

I believe what you are asking for are non-combat related activities. I do believe that the game needs A LOT more of these.

Just waiting for them to close it now, not like they read this stuff anyways unless it’s got some derailing going on like it has here all over the place. But somehow I’m the bad guy I know for saying anything at all negative about the precious.

tigirius.9014:

Just waiting for them to close it now, not like they read this stuff anyways unless it’s got some derailing going on like it has here all over the place. But somehow I’m the bad guy I know for saying anything at all negative about the precious.

except that there’s very little derailing going. You made a topic, we’re answering your topic. And don’t act as if you’re being argued against because you “attacked” guild wars 2. We’re just arguing that those suggestions are not what makes a casual game casual. What you’re suggesting is just some bonus activities.