Guild Wars 2

Ashen.2907:

Then again, I think that GW1 did a better job of teaching players, at least those who stuck with it, to improve their game. By the time people got to some of the more difficult content, the gradual difficulty ramp up had prepared them to some degree.

I wish GW2 was a better “teacher”. The amount of players who still don’t know what a breakbar is and how to break it is alarming. But the game never actually teaches you what a breakbar is so it’s not entirely their fault, their only fault is not reading map chat where everything is explained lol.

There are also so many people who want to skip the entire difficulty curve just to get their shinnies. LS1 would’ve helped with all this, teaching people by increasing the difficulty gradually and working as an excellent bridge for HoT, but then they thought it would be nice to remove it completely so we have this great gap now.

Need a better tutorial for sure

Reverence.6915:

Basically what I’m reading here is that you don’t want to play “MMORPGs”, but rather, “co-op/multiplayer RPGs”. MMORPGs have evolved past the “RPG” element towards a social experience. There’s no “role play” left in MMOs because “role play” (the way you want it to be done) can’t be done with a massive community – there’s too much disconnect between different players in expectations and time commitments.

In the past, when MMOs were smaller, role playing was indeed a main focus. I’m thinking back to late 90s/early 2000s Runescape, where the concept of instances and dungeons didn’t exist and many people simply played to make their character reflect them as a person (whether it was combat focused or a complete pacifist). In other words, role playing.

MMOs now don’t have that because they aren’t, if we’re going into semantics, RPGs. They’re more or less an interactive social network, pioneered by the likes of “Second Life”, “IMVU” and such. When we put time into these games, we expect adequate compensation equivalent to the time we put in. Whether we’re a PvP player or a dungeon raider, we expect that our time get adequately compensated.

I don’t disagree with your premise, but I strongly disagree with the way you talk down to people who want more out of this game for the way they want to play it.

How does 10 man make something more of an MMO than 5 man? This is an unreal statement to me.

Playing in a more organized instanced content isn’t what makes an MMO an MMO. Lobby games can be like that. What makes an MMO an MMO is a persistent world where you play with other players. For all intents and purposes, dynamic events better define the MMO concept than raids. What I’m hearing in a lot of these posts is people locked into an arbitrary definition of what an MMO is because of what an MMO has been. I find that the saddest part of this whole thing.

Anet really did want to do something different and a fan base that simple couldn’t adapt to it changed the plan in my opinion. That’s why we’re stuck with stuff like ascended gear and why raids have finally made it here. Because Anet couldn’t change the genre as much as they expected they would be able to. Fair enough I suppose. They have to make the games for players.

But saying I want a coop game because I don’t want to raid? Raiding is NOT what defines an MMO. Raiding has virtually always been an MMO sideshow for a small percentage of the playerbase. We know from many devs over the years that most MMO players don’t raid, so saying I don’t want an MMO because I don’t want to raid is simply not on.

been neat if dungeons was like the open world! (events chains/splits/alt at random)
like every run would never see the same events or bosses+the dungeon keys and maps from GW1 /dreaming

i dont really see legendary armor being locked behind raids as a issue its just ascended with stat swapping

but i can see people that WvW being annoyed about the trinkets tho

also i dont care if people think im lazy for not doing >>things they do << xD
i play games for my amusement not theirs.

Palador.2170:

Randulf.7614:

Except an entire tier isnt really locked behind raids. Legendary and ascended are essentially the same, except you can switch stats on the fly, something that is neglible outside of raids anyway and just something they added as a tiny extra.

Then raiders would have no problem with legendary functionality being obtainable outside of raids, right? I mean, it’s a little thing, apparently. A “tiny extra”.

I am quite certain they wouldnt and that you are correct.

The point was it leaves legendaries as exclusive skins, which is the same reward in essence as GW1, which was what the post was replying about.

Vayne.8563:

Reverence.6915:

Basically what I’m reading here is that you don’t want to play “MMORPGs”, but rather, “co-op/multiplayer RPGs”. MMORPGs have evolved past the “RPG” element towards a social experience. There’s no “role play” left in MMOs because “role play” (the way you want it to be done) can’t be done with a massive community – there’s too much disconnect between different players in expectations and time commitments.

In the past, when MMOs were smaller, role playing was indeed a main focus. I’m thinking back to late 90s/early 2000s Runescape, where the concept of instances and dungeons didn’t exist and many people simply played to make their character reflect them as a person (whether it was combat focused or a complete pacifist). In other words, role playing.

MMOs now don’t have that because they aren’t, if we’re going into semantics, RPGs. They’re more or less an interactive social network, pioneered by the likes of “Second Life”, “IMVU” and such. When we put time into these games, we expect adequate compensation equivalent to the time we put in. Whether we’re a PvP player or a dungeon raider, we expect that our time get adequately compensated.

I don’t disagree with your premise, but I strongly disagree with the way you talk down to people who want more out of this game for the way they want to play it.

How does 10 man make something more of an MMO than 5 man? This is an unreal statement to me.

Playing in a more organized instanced content isn’t what makes an MMO an MMO. Lobby games can be like that. What makes an MMO an MMO is a persistent world where you play with other players. For all intents and purposes, dynamic events better define the MMO concept than raids. What I’m hearing in a lot of these posts is people locked into an arbitrary definition of what an MMO is because of what an MMO has been. I find that the saddest part of this whole thing.

Anet really did want to do something different and a fan base that simple couldn’t adapt to it changed the plan in my opinion. That’s why we’re stuck with stuff like ascended gear and why raids have finally made it here. Because Anet couldn’t change the genre as much as they expected they would be able to. Fair enough I suppose. They have to make the games for players.

But saying I want a coop game because I don’t want to raid? Raiding is NOT what defines an MMO. Raiding has virtually always been an MMO sideshow for a small percentage of the playerbase. We know from many devs over the years that most MMO players don’t raid, so saying I don’t want an MMO because I don’t want to raid is simply not on.

As usual, you completely miss the point of the post.

My point is that you want to play RPGs. MMOs are no longer RPGs in the sense that they are more about the interactive social experiences between players moreso than the virtual roleplay aspect built from MUDs and D&D style games that older MMOs were founded on.

No where in my post did I say anything that raiding made an MMO. I also disagree with that concept because I don’t give two cahoots about it, considering I’m a PvP player.

Reverence.6915:

Vayne.8563:

Reverence.6915:

Basically what I’m reading here is that you don’t want to play “MMORPGs”, but rather, “co-op/multiplayer RPGs”. MMORPGs have evolved past the “RPG” element towards a social experience. There’s no “role play” left in MMOs because “role play” (the way you want it to be done) can’t be done with a massive community – there’s too much disconnect between different players in expectations and time commitments.

In the past, when MMOs were smaller, role playing was indeed a main focus. I’m thinking back to late 90s/early 2000s Runescape, where the concept of instances and dungeons didn’t exist and many people simply played to make their character reflect them as a person (whether it was combat focused or a complete pacifist). In other words, role playing.

MMOs now don’t have that because they aren’t, if we’re going into semantics, RPGs. They’re more or less an interactive social network, pioneered by the likes of “Second Life”, “IMVU” and such. When we put time into these games, we expect adequate compensation equivalent to the time we put in. Whether we’re a PvP player or a dungeon raider, we expect that our time get adequately compensated.

I don’t disagree with your premise, but I strongly disagree with the way you talk down to people who want more out of this game for the way they want to play it.

How does 10 man make something more of an MMO than 5 man? This is an unreal statement to me.

Playing in a more organized instanced content isn’t what makes an MMO an MMO. Lobby games can be like that. What makes an MMO an MMO is a persistent world where you play with other players. For all intents and purposes, dynamic events better define the MMO concept than raids. What I’m hearing in a lot of these posts is people locked into an arbitrary definition of what an MMO is because of what an MMO has been. I find that the saddest part of this whole thing.

Anet really did want to do something different and a fan base that simple couldn’t adapt to it changed the plan in my opinion. That’s why we’re stuck with stuff like ascended gear and why raids have finally made it here. Because Anet couldn’t change the genre as much as they expected they would be able to. Fair enough I suppose. They have to make the games for players.

But saying I want a coop game because I don’t want to raid? Raiding is NOT what defines an MMO. Raiding has virtually always been an MMO sideshow for a small percentage of the playerbase. We know from many devs over the years that most MMO players don’t raid, so saying I don’t want an MMO because I don’t want to raid is simply not on.

As usual, you completely miss the point of the post.

My point is that you want to play RPGs. MMOs are no longer RPGs in the sense that they are more about the interactive social experiences between players moreso than the virtual roleplay aspect built from MUDs and D&D style games that older MMOs were founded on.

No where in my post did I say anything that raiding made an MMO. I also disagree with that concept because I don’t give two cahoots about it, considering I’m a PvP player.

Well I am a social player. I run a guild of 200 plus people, so yeah, it’s not like I don’t have any friends to play with. However, MMOs have always been about progression and the ways I can progress are extremely limited to me right now.

First of all I live in Australia and while that’s not Anet’s problem I assume that other Australians and other people in Oceanic regions suffer from the same problems.

I tried PvPing and my lag right now is too great to do anything there. I’m pretty much useless. That would go for WvW as well naturally and probably raids.

I no longer get achievement points for dailies, so there’s no progression there. I no longer get experience since I’ve pretty much maxed out my masteries (I"m at 163). I already have 8 legendary weapons, three suits of ascended armor and stuff like the wintersday shoulders.

I could find SOMETHING to do, but very little that really progresses me and to me, RPGs and even MMOs are often about progression.

But my progression is limited, partly by game design, partly by circumstance and partly by personal preference as well.

The problem is without progressing MMOs grow stale pretty quickly.

Obviously it’s not Anet’s fault that I live in Australia.

Vayne.8563:

Anet really did want to do something different and a fan base that simple couldn’t adapt to it changed the plan in my opinion. That’s why we’re stuck with stuff like ascended gear and why raids have finally made it here. Because Anet couldn’t change the genre as much as they expected they would be able to. Fair enough I suppose. They have to make the games for players.

I’m not sure if it was necessarily a community fault insomuch as it is design flaws in the system. GW2 was very much built on the backs of games that fully embraced gear grinds at the level cap and extremely finely tuned multiplayer content that requires this gear to be successful.

I mentioned it before, but it bears more elaboration. GW2 is a game that worked by stripping away the features of other games. Part of it was to deal with inequality. Part of it was for convenience. But, by taking away so much, the end result was a game that had a world that was aesthetically pleasing but functionally bland. In this essence, the failings of GW2 themselves serve as an interesting case study. Some of the issues were fixed, but think about this from the perspective of GW2’s launch.

#1: The loot and quest system. A lot of games have almost exclusively enemy specific drops, and these drops have a unique value for what they would be used for. Usually some kind of crafting or resource, or even the equipment types themselves. This drives players toward explorations, because each obscure monster in obscure corners of the world is a new capitalistic venture.

GW2 largely abandoned this feature, wanting all content to be equally rewarding. Some crafting components were “gatherable” at launch, via fighting a certain kind of enemy at a certain level, but the way the loot system handled everything made this slow and impractical. So, most enemies have a set of generic global drops and junk items that serve no purpose. The end result was that, there was little reason to care about enemy types or locations. If I find an obscure creature in a cave somewhere, you weren’t interesting in seeing what it “dropped”, because it dropped the same bland stuff. At launch, champion events roamed the map unhindered, because there was absolutely no reason to fight a champion mob.

The entire bestiary of GW2 existed so you could look at it. The heart quests and events themselves were also a bust. Heart quests were basically busywork with paltry rewards and vendors that sold items nobody would use. The dynamic events rewarded a paltry amount of coin and a useless currency that is karma. After having experienced them once, unless you hit a “grind spot” where you could mass slaughter enemies spawned by scaled up events, there wasn’t any reason to do dynamic events.

This also meant that there was no reason to visit lower level zones, even if you scaled down.

#2: Leveling and stats. Now, in games prior, your level carried over to everything. It was how strong you were, in PVE and PVP, bolstering both your physical presence and the techniques available to you. It was how much work you had put into your toon, and because the level was everything, it was a strong sense of growth and progression.

GW2, wanting to get rid of imbalances, made it so PVP and WvW auto scaled, fumble became mandatory as enemy level increased slowly, and made it so with the exception of Health and Armor, all players had identical stats no matter what class they started with. The end result was that leveling wasn’t a goal or even interesting. It was a content throttle. An obstacle for you to overcome in order to… be in GW2.

#3: Gear tiers and types. Now, previous MMOs had gear that was special, in that they did special or unique things, or had unique buffs or stats on them. The tiers themselves were important, as they bolstered your stats and gave you special advantages. You wanted to work toward new gear. Sometimes, it even changed what you could do or how your class performed.

GW2, wanting to remove imbalance and make everything fair, removed all special properties from gear (including its drop locations), and just made the tier and gear prefix important. This made all of the drops in the game bland: though weapons looked different, everything was functionally identical, so the new aesthetics of weapons entertained you for but a moment. You achieved the “peak” fairly quickly via exotic gear, but because everything was balanced around exotic gear, it is as if the entire gear system was a content throttle. Everything your class could do was decided and restricted very early on. Even legendary weapons were there just to look nice and boast about how much money you blew.

#4: Auto healing. Most MMOs were about the journey, in the sense that your health regenerated slowly and you used consumables regularly for healing. Many games had a “rest” command or something similar, where you could accelerate health growth.

GW2, wanting to be convenient and be about the duels and PVP, removed that for convenience. However, a lot of game’s economies and build systems were built around fighting that inconvenience. Now that you always auto-healed after a fight, we encountered something new in MMOs: the Berserker Meta. In a normal game, going full glass cannon is dangerous precisely because it magnified the wear and tear that you received as you wandered the world. But now, there was no reason not to go full cannon and obliterate enemies, healing away all damage afterward with wolverine like regeneration. Though this is a change I don’t mind too much personally, the fact is that a lot of people do, since it changed hard roles of combat into softer roles, and made body counts more important than anything else. This also lead to the WvW Zerg meta.

#5: Travel. A lot of games have a quicktravel or teleportation system of some kind, but a lot of the journey from one place to another was done by hopping onto a mount or a vehicle or a train of some kind, and traversing the dangerous but gorgeous terrain the world had built into it.

GW2, wanting to remove the wait and make things convenient, removed this system. This mean that traveling was something you did once and then you would just waypoint your way around to get to places. There was no exclusivity to locations other than their level throttle, and the entire “world” of GW2 effectively disappeared after you saw it once.

Keep in mind, these flaws compounded on each other, and quite heavily so. Any one of these would be a single flaw of a game, but when you put it together, you suddenly understand why it is that a large portion of the MMO community ended up not liking GW2 and requesting that it be changed. We had

A) A world that was basically a waypoint map
B) That was restricted by archaic systems that don’t fit into the game and would just throttle your performance
C) That lead to places that offered no unique capitalistic of functional ventures to gain
D) With a homogenized combat system that made everything feel very “samey” and a gear prefix system that reinforced this functionally
E) And the same old “fetch seven bear kitten” busywork disguised as hearts and “dynamic” events.

And this was all made by cutting things away from previous MMOs. It didn’t replace these with new features or built upon a new system. So of course there was a community falling out and a cry for something to “do” in the game. This wasn’t because there was fault in the community. GW2 was bland on the operational level.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Vayne.8563:

Anet really did want to do something different and a fan base that simple couldn’t adapt to it changed the plan in my opinion. That’s why we’re stuck with stuff like ascended gear and why raids have finally made it here. Because Anet couldn’t change the genre as much as they expected they would be able to. Fair enough I suppose. They have to make the games for players.

I’m not sure if it was necessarily a community fault insomuch as it is design flaws in the system. GW2 was very much built on the backs of games that fully embraced gear grinds at the level cap and extremely finely tuned multiplayer content that requires this gear to be successful.

I mentioned it before, but it bears more elaboration. GW2 is a game that worked by stripping away the features of other games. Part of it was to deal with inequality. Part of it was for convenience. But, by taking away so much, the end result was a game that had a world that was aesthetically pleasing but functionally bland. In this essence, the failings of GW2 themselves serve as an interesting case study. Some of the issues were fixed, but think about this from the perspective of GW2’s launch.

#1: The loot and quest system. A lot of games have almost exclusively enemy specific drops, and these drops have a unique value for what they would be used for. Usually some kind of crafting or resource, or even the equipment types themselves. This drives players toward explorations, because each obscure monster in obscure corners of the world is a new capitalistic venture.

GW2 largely abandoned this feature, wanting all content to be equally rewarding. Some crafting components were “gatherable” at launch, via fighting a certain kind of enemy at a certain level, but the way the loot system handled everything made this slow and impractical. So, most enemies have a set of generic global drops and junk items that serve no purpose. The end result was that, there was little reason to care about enemy types or locations. If I find an obscure creature in a cave somewhere, you weren’t interesting in seeing what it “dropped”, because it dropped the same bland stuff. At launch, champion events roamed the map unhindered, because there was absolutely no reason to fight a champion mob.

The entire bestiary of GW2 existed so you could look at it. The heart quests and events themselves were also a bust. Heart quests were basically busywork with paltry rewards and vendors that sold items nobody would use. The dynamic events rewarded a paltry amount of coin and a useless currency that is karma. After having experienced them once, unless you hit a “grind spot” where you could mass slaughter enemies spawned by scaled up events, there wasn’t any reason to do dynamic events.

This also meant that there was no reason to visit lower level zones, even if you scaled down.

#2: Leveling and stats. Now, in games prior, your level carried over to everything. It was how strong you were, in PVE and PVP, bolstering both your physical presence and the techniques available to you. It was how much work you had put into your toon, and because the level was everything, it was a strong sense of growth and progression.

GW2, wanting to get rid of imbalances, made it so PVP and WvW auto scaled, fumble became mandatory as enemy level increased slowly, and made it so with the exception of Health and Armor, all players had identical stats no matter what class they started with. The end result was that leveling wasn’t a goal or even interesting. It was a content throttle. An obstacle for you to overcome in order to… be in GW2.

#3: Gear tiers and types. Now, previous MMOs had gear that was special, in that they did special or unique things, or had unique buffs or stats on them. The tiers themselves were important, as they bolstered your stats and gave you special advantages. You wanted to work toward new gear. Sometimes, it even changed what you could do or how your class performed.

GW2, wanting to remove imbalance and make everything fair, removed all special properties from gear (including its drop locations), and just made the tier and gear prefix important. This made all of the drops in the game bland: though weapons looked different, everything was functionally identical, so the new aesthetics of weapons entertained you for but a moment. You achieved the “peak” fairly quickly via exotic gear, but because everything was balanced around exotic gear, it is as if the entire gear system was a content throttle. Everything your class could do was decided and restricted very early on. Even legendary weapons were there just to look nice and boast about how much money you blew.

#4: Auto healing. Most MMOs were about the journey, in the sense that your health regenerated slowly and you used consumables regularly for healing. Many games had a “rest” command or something similar, where you could accelerate health growth.

GW2, wanting to be convenient and be about the duels and PVP, removed that for convenience. However, a lot of game’s economies and build systems were built around fighting that inconvenience. Now that you always auto-healed after a fight, we encountered something new in MMOs: the Berserker Meta. In a normal game, going full glass cannon is dangerous precisely because it magnified the wear and tear that you received as you wandered the world. But now, there was no reason not to go full cannon and obliterate enemies, healing away all damage afterward with wolverine like regeneration. Though this is a change I don’t mind too much personally, the fact is that a lot of people do, since it changed hard roles of combat into softer roles, and made body counts more important than anything else. This also lead to the WvW Zerg meta.

#5: Travel. A lot of games have a quicktravel or teleportation system of some kind, but a lot of the journey from one place to another was done by hopping onto a mount or a vehicle or a train of some kind, and traversing the dangerous but gorgeous terrain the world had built into it.

GW2, wanting to remove the wait and make things convenient, removed this system. This mean that traveling was something you did once and then you would just waypoint your way around to get to places. There was no exclusivity to locations other than their level throttle, and the entire “world” of GW2 effectively disappeared after you saw it once.

---

Keep in mind, these flaws compounded on each other, and quite heavily so. Any one of these would be a single flaw of a game, but when you put it together, you suddenly understand why it is that a large portion of the MMO community ended up not liking GW2 and requesting that it be changed. We had

A) A world that was basically a waypoint map
B) That was restricted by archaic systems that don’t fit into the game and would just throttle your performance
C) That lead to places that offered no unique capitalistic of functional ventures to gain
D) With a homogenized combat system that made everything feel very “samey” and a gear prefix system that reinforced this functionally
E) And the same old “fetch seven bear kitten” busywork disguised as hearts and “dynamic” events.

And this was all made by cutting things away from previous MMOs. It didn’t replace these with new features or built upon a new system. So of course there was a community falling out and a cry for something to “do” in the game. This wasn’t because there was fault in the community. GW2 was bland on the operational level.

This is a good post. This is why a lot of people didn’t like this game..but the point was many of us did. We stayed and others left. So now, in an attempt to capture them, you risk us.

Is that a worthwhile risk? I guess time will tell.

@Vayne: I lead a 100man roster guild based in Australia. We have no issues PvPing or WvWing. In fact, those are our core activities – we don’t do any PvE related activity (raid, dungeons or otherwise) as a guild. You’re using ping as an excuse and that’s just sad.

Our progression is our observation of our skills growing and our teamwork getting better. We don’t need an arbitrary number in a game to show that we’re progressing.

Reverence.6915:

@Vayne: I lead a 100man roster guild based in Australia. We have no issues PvPing or WvWing. In fact, those are our core activities – we don’t do any PvE related activity (raid, dungeons or otherwise) as a guild. You’re using ping as an excuse and that’s just sad.

I’m in Tasmania. You might have heard of the problem with the Tasman cable being cut off, or you might not have, but a tiny bit of research would have unearthed the problems that Tasmanians have right this minute. It’s in the newspapers down here.

I know the mainland doesn’t really care about Tassie, but it doesn’t change what I’ve said.

Telstra due to a lot of people sharing their bass strait line has throttled the bandwidth so you can’t even get what you’ve paid for.

And you know, I don’t care if you believe me but…

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-13/tasmanian-internet-users-assured-services-will-improve-by-week/7242728

you see very few people say " hey i wasted my time watching a very good movie. star wars, avengers, mad max ect"
the difference between games and movies are the fact that games have interactive story where you make your own character and go through story and make decisions(( despite the fact that it is illusion of choice but it is still fun)).
that is why i loved gw2 pre-hot with 40 episode of living story, i bought gw2 2000 gem card every single month which 24 euro and almost twice as much as subscription fee but after hot i stoped buying them.
if you look at ncsoft financial reports gw2 was doing good, it was doing fine, but after hot, we should wait and see.

As memory serves, Anet came down this path kicking and screaming the whole way. They wanted to implement level 80 progression “their way”, via optional and quartered off fractals. They wanted to have meaningful story impacts “their way”, via single time events and limit availability dungeons. They wanted to have hardcore content “their way” via open world gigantic bosses like Tequatl and Triple Trouble. They wanted to give unique rewards “their way” by making limited time skins that were hard to find, creating a pseudo-value to them. They wanted the game to expand “their way” by having the living story add new places and elements as things went along.

While ideally it seems like a good idea, ideals don’t pay the bills. It’s funnier if you think of me saying the word “bills” with a horrible rap accent, like “beelz”, so it rhymes. However I digress. The monetization system of GW2 functions in two ways. Either A) You get new people to buy the game/xpac, or B) You get people who already own the game to buy gems with real money. Raid and grind, those are the best way to do it. I’m not going to go into all the reasons why.

Personally I was a dungeon man. Though I despised the community for how it became highly aggressive anal retentives over frivolous things, making it the worst subcommunity in the game, I’m a fan of getting a small ragtag group together and crawling through a dungeon. What I’d really like to see is a good randomly generated dungeon system, a la Binding of Isaac or Runescape’s Dungeoneering. Though GW2 is so stripped away that I’m not sure you even could make an engaging randomly generated dungeon.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I really enjoyed your post Vayne. I come from a pencil and paper rpg background as well. While reading your post, I began to realize why I enjoyed season 1 living story so much more than season 2 living story. Season 1 was filled with exciting world events that changed the world. Season 2 seemed to be more about grinding AP points by repeating each story chapter ad nauseam.

I think i have not one single AP from those LS2 storys. I really liked LS1, that was what
you could call really a living changing world .. what changes had LS2 done ? So far
i can only think of some annyoing tendrils and 2 WPs that still haven’t fixed.

But in the end its fault of the players that were constantly crying how bad temp
content is ..and then we got LS2 .. and players complained they don’t want LS
anymore .. they want a “real” expansion and “challenging content” … and here we
are with HoT and nothing beside new Raids so far.

Oh .. and i say it the 1000th time .. also the lack of new armor-set was in the end
fault of the players, that complained constantly about that armor sets were only
in the gem-store. Oh and then ANet took the lazy way and said ok .. armor sets
only ingame now .. but they of course didn’t said that it means 1 set every year
instead of 1 ever 2-4 weeks.

Beldin.5498:

I really liked LS1, that was what you could call really a living changing world .. what changes had LS2 done ? So far i can only think of some annyoing tendrils and 2 WPs that still haven’t fixed.

Yes LS1 was superior to LS2, and LS2 was superior to the expansion model. Good luck convincing some of the more vocal pro-expansion posters around here though. If anyone is still online that is.

The one-time event system prior to LS1 was even better for a real living/breathing world than LS1, but I guess that had so many drawbacks it wasn’t going to work.

But what really matters in the end is the income, did the LS2 bring more cash than LS1 or not? If it did, it means it’s successful right? Therefore, that’s how LS3 will be like.

maddoctor.2738:

But what really matters in the end is the income, did the LS2 bring more cash than LS1 or not? If it did, it means it’s successful right? Therefore, that’s how LS3 will be like.

I guess it will be some more boring buggy instances that you have to repeat
from the beginning every time something goes wrong .. but hey .. they are
repeatable, even if i hated it to do most of them even once.

Oh .. and don’t forget those nice inskippable cutscenes.

Storm.1653:

If everyone was given the best stuff Just for participating there would be no progression, nothing to work for and would be very boring for the majority. Once you finish the story, then what?? The game is over?? Trying to get your niche experience from a game not designed for it is kind of crazy Tbh.

Hun I have to disagree with you on this one. GW1 remained that way through every expansion. It wasn’t about leveling since there were only 20 lvl’s, and the best stats on gear was readily available at vendors for a modest price.

That’s what I loved about it. It wasn’t gear wars like WoW. In fact we all started calling it build wars because it was more about how you played your class.

The more I watch this game turn into WoW the more disappointed I am.

Vayne.8563:

Absurdo.8309:

I appreciate how genuine this post is. But I fundamentally disagree with its conclusion.

I dabbled in a couple of mmo’s before guild wars 2, but never really got hooked on any others. What hooked me on guild wars 2 was the active combat and cooperative open world mechanics.

I can dodge. I can move while attacking. I don’t have 4 skill bars worth of skills. There’s no kill stealing. No node stealing.

For my first year, I enjoyed the open world. It’s beautiful. Quests appear to have meaning. There’s always another nook to explore.

But, eventually, you discover everything. Yes, anet had living story releases, but you beat those too. So what kept me in game? Fractals and dungeons. I just love the combat. Can’t get enough.

So raids? They help bring out some of those combat mechanics. And they do a really good job in doing it.

I can see why people are upset. There’s no real exploration in the new zones. Most are somewhat dangerous, so you can’t really stop and smell the roses. And the story was so short that you can beat it in a couple of days.

But you’re not looking for raid content. Please, don’t destroy it. You want more sandbox maps, events like the destruction of lions arch and the zephyrites, and bosses like the marionette. But please understand, we haven’t had new fractals or dungeons for over 2 years. For people like me, who enjoy the combat, this content is tantamount.

So ask for what you’re looking for. New maps. World events. But don’t neuter or slow down raids in the process. It’s ok for people to enjoy different content in this game.

How is not looking an entire tier behind raid rewards destroying raids? Or are you saying people will only raid if you force them to for rewards? I don’t believe dungeon runners are half the player base, even though more than half the player base as run dungeons. I’ve run dungeons dozens of times…each dungeon dozens of times, with the exception of TA Aetherblade and Arah path four which I’ve probably run a dozen times. I do it to help people in my guild if they want something for an achievement, but for much of the time I find it to be more of a chore.

Yes, there are those who love dungeons and raids, but if they’re not a majority you shouldn’t create rewards just for that group that include functionality. In Guild Wars 1, everyone could get top level stuff. What you couldn’t get were skins.

I don’t understand how applying that here would kill raids. I’m not anti raid. I’m anti-taking away goals that might help keep people playing who don’t want to raid.

If I started raiding, within months, I’d be looking for another MMO, because ultimately it’s too much time playing something I’m not personally enjoying. Since most of my other goals have been accomplished, why lock legendary armor behind raids exclusively? How does that help raiders?

I think we can find some common ground. I agree that legendary tier armor should not be exclusively behind raids. I don’t think raids should be changed to accomplish this goal. I wouldn’t be opposed, for example, to a wvw method to acquire legendary armor.

Requiring certain content with legendaries is new with HOT. Previously, if you hated map completion, you could just buy the legendary off the trading post. The flip side is there’s less “prestige” in the legendary. I’m personally ok with this.

This legendary problem is not limited to raids. You must do the HOT maps several times to unlock the new legendary weapons. (As an aside, you must also complete certain open world content for legendary armor, such as chak gerent). You must do pvp for the legendary backpiece. Eventually you’ll be able to do fractals.

At the pace anet is releasing legendary weapons, I doubt they’ll get to alternatives for legendary armor any time soon. But I wouldn’t be opposed to it.

In the meantime, consider that legendary armor is really just a skin. As for stat changing, exotic is 1000 times cheaper to experiment with. And, if you are serious about stats, then you care about sigils and runes. And you can’t change those with legendaries. It’s much cheaper to have alternate ascended sets.

Vayne congrats btw on your thread getting so many view so early. By forum standards that makes you a Rock Star now LOL.

BTW I’m also on TC and WvW often late night or early N.A. times.

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Kamara.4187:

Vayne congrats btw on your thread getting so many view so early. By forum standards that makes you a Rock Star now LOL.

BTW I’m also on TC and WvW often late night or early N.A. times.

I’m in Australia so you’d probably be sleeping what I’m WvWing…but I’ll add you to friend and keep an eye out for you of that’s okay.

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

No one forced me to watch the Lawrence Welk show either, yet there it was taking over the T.V. every saturday evening when it was all my grandparents would watch…..

And good deal Vayne. I’ve played hours where I run into many in your time zone. I keep pretty crazy hours lol.

((Edited because spellz r hard))

Vayne, I think some of your points are valid but I am also thinking about the number of game hours you have and that anyone who has played as much as you have is bound to be running out of stuff to do, or at least, running out of stuff that they truly like doing. It’s hard to generate content fast enough to keep the really active players going. I reckon I’ve got a few more months of “normal” play left before I start feeling like I have stalled. If HoT gets nerfed that will extend it a bit but then I’ll be in a holding pattern until I ether get bored and stop playing or until some new content lands.

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne, I think some of your points are valid but I am also thinking about the number of game hours you have and that anyone who has played as much as you have is bound to be running out of stuff to do, or at least, running out of stuff that they truly like doing. It’s hard to generate content fast enough to keep the really active players going. I reckon I’ve got a few more months of “normal” play left before I start feeling like I have stalled. If HoT gets nerfed that will extend it a bit but then I’ll be in a holding pattern until I ether get bored and stop playing or until some new content lands.

I’d normally agree with you, but I’m actually quite slow in the way I do things. For example, I still have a single achievement left from Living Story Season 2 that I haven’t done. I haven’t finished the badges in Silverwastes (the second set I mean).

Much of my time, most of my time, is helping guildies get their achievements. Or even random strangers sometimes.

I spend far more time in game hanging out with guldies that working on my own stuff.

In fact, now that I think about it, that what I probably should go back to doing. That fulfills me more than farming or grinding anyway.

This game shines most through that content designed for larger groups – guilds, servers (wvw) and map communities.

Going a few months (much less almost a year) without new content for those groups seems like a bad decision to me.

Vayne.8563:

There are a number of different ways to play an MMO. Consequently there are a number of different factions who expected different things from an MMO. I’ve danced around a lot of these ideas in posts prior to this, but only as I was waking up today did some of these ideas gel. This post is about the disconnect between different groups of players.

I’m an older gamer who cut my teeth on pinball long before computer games or even video games were a thing at all. My introduction to RPGs was through pen and paper, not arcade games. As a result, PvP isn’t infinitely fascinating to me, nor is raiding. Not because I want to take the easy road, or because I don’t want to put effort into something (anyone who knows me can vouch for that), but because my entire approach to gaming is based on trying to recapture pen and paper Rping, rather than playing a video game.

Actually single player games are more suited to my personal taste than MMOs. Because when we got together as a group to RP, with a real life GM, we didn’t play for dice rolls, or trying to the same D&D module over and over. In fact, we didn’t have modules at all. We had a dungeon master who created a world/story that we moved through. It was much more like a single player game, but with friends.

Here we are, now, 40 years later, and I still want to capture that experience, and for a long time, that’s precisely the experience Guild Wars 2 delivered for me. A living, breathing world I could move through, with friends, exploring, hanging out, having a great time.

Never in all my years of Rping did we fight the same battle over and over again until we beat the boss. That simply wasn’t the game. I guess I’ve sort of thought of MMORPGs as a massively multi player RPG, rather than a massive multiplayer war game (PVP), or a massively multiplayer dungeon crawl, because my D&D group wasn’t really about dungeon crawls. Dungeons were never an end in themselves. Dungeons were a way of telling a story that furthered the campaign we were playing. The Fellowship of the Ring didn’t repeatedly try to get through Moria until they made it. They got through Moria as part of the story. This is why I come to MMOs. I want to play through a story with my friends.

As such, it’s less about putting in effort to beat a single boss over and over and more about enjoying a living breathing world, as much as that’s possible in a computer game. That’s what drew me here. That’s why dungeons and fractals were never my focus. Not because I’m lazy. Not because I can’t beat a dungeon or a raid or a fractal, or I’m not good enough to PvP. It’s because my entire approach to the genre comes from what I want out of a game. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

I played games like Dungeon Master, the old infocom games, Prison (on the amiga). Prince of Persia. I liked puzzle games, and later games like Tombraider, which again, told a story. Which is probably also why I like jumping puzzles so much.

“Go play a single player game” is one of the comments I see a lot of these forums, followed by comments like “you want the rewards without doing any of the work”. The funny thing is, yeah, because I didn’t come from a game with challenging content that gave me better rewards. I came from a game where you progressed through the story, with friends, and got rewards as you played…not played the same dungeon over and over again, which we never did.

Some people might ask why I don’t RP in Guild Wars 2. Because RP in Guild Wars 2 is less like the Rping I did with pen and paper and more like cooperative writing. Rping has evolved into a very different beast, and it doesn’t fulfill me in the way that an RPG would. Games like Skyrim or Dragon Age or The Witcher are far more the type of experience I’m looking for…but with friends. And in none of those games are the best rewards locked away from me. And I’d be pretty annoyed if they were.

I’m sure people who came through mobas or FPS’s are more likely to not worry about dying in PvP. But I hate dying in PvP, because of where I came from. I’m sure people who came to this game from raiding in WoW are more interested in challenging content that they have to bang their head against by memorizing a pattern and moving out of red circles while attacking a boss before the rage timer goes off. . But I don’t think anyone should assume that because some of us want to play the type of game we’ve seen MMOs to be that we’re lazy, or we’re entitled or we want to deny people challenging content. We simply don’t want to be locked out of story and lore and loot because we’ve come here by a different route, and we’re looking for different things from our gaming altogether.

If years ago, a DM came to me and said, you can play in my world, but you can’t the best drops unless you run this one dungeon over and over again until you beat it, I’d have told him I wasn’t interested in playing in his world. This is where the disconnect between me and some other players come from. This is why I’m passionate about how this works in Guild Wars 2.

I’m going to stay away from future debates on raiding, because raiding is like a completely different game than the game I started playing. Dungeons were too for that matter, which is why they were never my focus. But if you want to beat raids, it’s sort of hard to do that without focusing on them and that would ruin the game for me.

Guild Wars 2 was once the game I wanted to play because it filled the need for an online RPG better than any other MMO. And that’s still largely true. Out of all the MMOs on the market, nothing fulfills me like Guild Wars 2. But with the addition of raids and the focus on PvP, something admittedly lacking in the early years of the game, it’s also moved away from my ideal.

Does everyone deserve content for them. Sure they do. Does everyone deserve exclusive rewards just for their content that no one else can get because they’re looking for a different in game experience? That one I’m not so sure about.

Either way, I’m going to be posting less here, because raiders aren’t wrong for wanting focus on raids, PvPers aren’t wrong for wanting focus on PvP and people like me, we’re not wrong for not wanting to be driven into game modes that do not interest us just to get specific rewards.

Edit: typo

Well written and it communicates a lot of the bigger points I hit on the head with a much larger hammer.

But don’t post less unless you are legitimately done with the game. Yes, no one is wrong for liking certain types of content, but the death of a game begins when it loses its identity and begins to try and be everything to everyone. Posting less just validates that this new “direction” (despite still unkept promises about how it’s not a new direction) is what the game community wants.

It’s not what I want and the addition of raids have accomplished nothing for me, but make me lose any interest in playing the game over the last 5 months.

I see you, Vayne, your point is valid. But I don’t like raids mostly because I CAN’T Raid. I’ve tried so many times and I don’t have the coordination. So I will never have Legendary Armor and that makes me sad. For me all this so-called easy content over the years has never been easy. I’ve hated feeling like a second class citizen because things others found easy were near-impossible for me to do. I really wish people could get alone and stop polarizing others. Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO that I’ve actually felt I had some success at. It’s casual nature spoke to my heart because it was something I could do to some degree and feel accomplished. I’ll never be the best, I’ll never have everything, but I shouldn’t be locked out of rewards in a GAME because I am not good enough at something. I don’t need lectures about how life doesn’t give you everything. Trust I struggle in my daily life every, single day, about things not being handed to me. Things people find simple and easy tasks are hard for me. But in a game I shouldn’t always have to worry about that. I should at least have the option to struggle my way through it. It’s taken me near 4 years to get three legendaries and I worked so hard for them. I am proud of my accomplishments and I should be allowed access to legendary armor regardless of the reason I want it. I dislike rewards being locked off to one game-type. I’m all for more options, more paths with the same goal. The special snowflake status some people feel at being elite should not dictate the rewards I get for my investments. I paid the same 50$ they did.

Paradox.1380:

I see you, Vayne, your point is valid. But I don’t like raids mostly because I CAN’T Raid. I’ve tried so many times and I don’t have the coordination. So I will never have Legendary Armor and that makes me sad. For me all this so-called easy content over the years has never been easy for me. I’ve hated feeling like a second class citizen because things others found easy were near-impossible for me to do. I really wish people could get alone and stop polarizing others. I shouldn’t be locked out of rewards in a GAME because I am not good enough at something. I should at least have the option to struggle my way through it. It’s taken me near 4 years to get three legendaries and I worked so hard for them. I am proud of my accomplishments and I should be allowed access to legendary armor regardless of the reason I want it. I dislike rewards being locked off to one game-type. I’m all for more options, more paths with the same goal. The special snowflake status some people feel at being elite should not dictate the rewards I get for my investments. I paid the same 50$ they did.

The exclusive rewards in raids are mostly cosmetic. I think it’s healthy for hard content to offer exclusive rewards.

As for legendary armor, it’s really only a skin. It has the same stats as ascended and its stat switching ability is a questionable quality of life improvement.

That said, I’m not opposed to alternate methods for legendary armor. But this probably won’t come for a while. We have 3 new legendary weapons that can only be attained through pve. A lot more to go. And the fractal backpiece isn’t done yet.

There’s plenty to aim for that’s not legendary armor. And if that’s the only thing you have left, the you probably have the time to master raids.

Vayne.8563:

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne, I think some of your points are valid but I am also thinking about the number of game hours you have and that anyone who has played as much as you have is bound to be running out of stuff to do, or at least, running out of stuff that they truly like doing. It’s hard to generate content fast enough to keep the really active players going. I reckon I’ve got a few more months of “normal” play left before I start feeling like I have stalled. If HoT gets nerfed that will extend it a bit but then I’ll be in a holding pattern until I ether get bored and stop playing or until some new content lands.

I’d normally agree with you, but I’m actually quite slow in the way I do things. For example, I still have a single achievement left from Living Story Season 2 that I haven’t done. I haven’t finished the badges in Silverwastes (the second set I mean).

Much of my time, most of my time, is helping guildies get their achievements. Or even random strangers sometimes.

I spend far more time in game hanging out with guldies that working on my own stuff.

In fact, now that I think about it, that what I probably should go back to doing. That fulfills me more than farming or grinding anyway.

Lol that’s likely more than I will ever accomplish in the game so don’t sell yourself short.

One aspect of the game I do appreciate is that it allows the player to take breaks from the game to do other things. Odd, I think at least 20% of the fun I get from the game is re-learning how to use my characters after taking a 4+ month break. It leaves you free to play something else when you get bored because there is no commitment to the game and costs you nothing if you want to just log in and chat with folks for a few minutes just to keep in touch.

Remember, older MMOs weren’t like that! You had subscriptions to deal with, gear to grind, limited time quests and such. I still kind of feel bad that my FFXIV account, my 2 (only!) level 80 jobs and my low craft/gathering skills as well as the new FC I had joined and was really chummy with may or may not still be there. Oh and my Chocobo! He’s probably starved to death T_T and if you had personal housing, may the gods have mercy on your soul

Thank goodness GW2 isn’t like that ^.^;

Absurdo.8309:

Paradox.1380:

I see you, Vayne, your point is valid. But I don’t like raids mostly because I CAN’T Raid. I’ve tried so many times and I don’t have the coordination. So I will never have Legendary Armor and that makes me sad. For me all this so-called easy content over the years has never been easy for me. I’ve hated feeling like a second class citizen because things others found easy were near-impossible for me to do. I really wish people could get alone and stop polarizing others. I shouldn’t be locked out of rewards in a GAME because I am not good enough at something. I should at least have the option to struggle my way through it. It’s taken me near 4 years to get three legendaries and I worked so hard for them. I am proud of my accomplishments and I should be allowed access to legendary armor regardless of the reason I want it. I dislike rewards being locked off to one game-type. I’m all for more options, more paths with the same goal. The special snowflake status some people feel at being elite should not dictate the rewards I get for my investments. I paid the same 50$ they did.

The exclusive rewards in raids are mostly cosmetic. I think it’s healthy for hard content to offer exclusive rewards.

As for legendary armor, it’s really only a skin. It has the same stats as ascended and its stat switching ability is a questionable quality of life improvement.

That said, I’m not opposed to alternate methods for legendary armor. But this probably won’t come for a while. We have 3 new legendary weapons that can only be attained through pve. A lot more to go. And the fractal backpiece isn’t done yet.

There’s plenty to aim for that’s not legendary armor. And if that’s the only thing you have left, the you probably have the time to master raids.

Mostly cosmetic is okay. Purely cosmetic would be better.

The simple fact is, I can’t think of any good reason to hinder people from having swappable stats, regardless of whether it offers a huge advantage or a tiny one. It’s a different tier of gear because it has a different color. People will perceive it as a different tier. It’s listed in the wiki as a different tier.

For some people that’s enough to work for it, but won’t be enough to raid for it. And since the raiding crowd pretty much want to show off, a skin would do the same thing, without disenfranchising as many people.

It’s not like you can stand around in LA and show off stat swapping, so it doesn’t need to be a unique part of the reward.

But of course that’s only one example. I also wouldn’t mind getting vipers trinkets for my viper character, but again, not at the price of raiding. So again, something I might have to work toward is removed from my equation and I really can’t think of a good reason for it.

Vayne.8563:

Leo G.4501:

Vayne.8563:

So what do you say to people who want viper trinkets to finish their build? Do they also have an agenda?

Not to sound dismissive, I’d tell them to stop feeling so entitled. It’s just a stat distribution, not gear. If you can’t use Viper’s, use something else to complete your build. If you’re OCD and you just have to have everything the same nomenclature, it’s called a disorder for a reason…

The game shouldn’t just hand you everything you want your way all the time. And I’m not saying people who complain want everything handed to them but as a gamer, games should challenge you and push you out of your comfort zone for specific rewards. So long as the game doesn’t force you to have it, it’s not an actual issue, but a manufactured issue that is case-by-case depending on the player.

That all said, I’d just suggest the devs release those gear sets through other means but that doesn’t really solve anything, it just quiets those who would be satisfied with the solution and leave all else excluded.

There’s a big big difference between asking for a hand out and asking for multiple ways to get things. That’s my whole point and your responses are backing up my very need for this thread.

We don’t want to run this particular content so we’re entitled. You’ve said the word. You find the content okay, you’re not disliking it, so anyone who does either has to force themselves to do that content or they’re entitled.

I don’t know about you but I think people play games to have fun. Not to run content they don’t enjoy.

And I still maintain that WvW players would want this stuff as much as PvE’ers would, and yet they’d be forced to PvE to get it. Do you think they’re entitled too? Ugly word if you ask me.

People are using the word entitled to make it seem like people want something for nothing. I simply want to have options to get stuff without having to do something long term that I don’t have fun in a game.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what entitled means.

I completely agree with you. I’d LOVE to be able to unlock legendary gear/weapons through PvP/WvW as those are the gametypes I enjoy. No, I don’t want to HAVE to do crafting/gold farming just to get legendary weapons. That’s super boring to me. I play this game for PvP, so why do I have to always be broke and not get rewarded at all for things I do? PvP reward tracks are a bit rewarding, but after a while, they’re just pointless.

If you PvP, you’ll never be getting as much gold as someone who raids/fractals and I’d argue PvP is much more mechanically challenging than raids and fractals, but that’s a conversation wormhole I’d rather not dive into right now.

Point being, the game should be rewarding in any aspect you play it in. Just like with the legendary PvP back piece, people should be able to get that in other game modes because PvP now has an influx of people PvP’ing that generally don’t want to, or like to. On top of the fact that it’s locked behind RANKED PvP which caters to a very small group of people. Now we have people trying to get into PvP but realize that ranked PvP is a pretty toxic and uninviting community, so the population issues with PvP continues when those people may have been more inclined to stay in PvP if the rewards were more accessible in other modes than just ranked.

Anet is getting too much into the “all or nothing” mindset with their content. With HoT maps, you either join a squad and zerg the map, or you just won’t get the rewards and have fun experiencing the new maps as they’re basically designed around having multiple squads at various points of the maps. With the legendary backpack, you need to do ranked PvP and get to legendary/diamond which almost requires a full premade and voice to get to, as well as having an intense skillset that’s built up over a long period of time and lots of study/practice. People don’t want to have to do that. They just want to play and be rewarded. Now with legendary armor, you either get in a guild that raids, or you just won’t have the armor as pugging is almost impossible unless you somehow already have a lot of AP and experience in the brand new raids. (Seriously though, the raid hasn’t been out that long and people expect experienced players?)

I’m pretty tired of this all or nothing mindset that Anet is pushing, but I guess they’ve done it on purpose as the longer people are grinding, the longer they’re in game, and the more exposure to the gemstore they have which will likely result in the purchase of extra character slots, extra inventory slots to hold all the loot and garbage they give out, outfits, gliders, bank space, gems to gold, etc. It’s a really sneaky business model, but it seems to be working. Until it’s no longer working, I wouldn’t expect much change. The only way to make a company change something so fundamental like this is to hit them where it counts, their sales. If no one is playing their content and buying their outfits/gliders/gems, then they’ll be forced to make changes. Which is exactly what I’m doing. I’ve basically quit the game. I login for the daily rewards, then log right back out. The game is just simply not rewarding enough in many aspects, and they know it. I just hope they make some changes that they say they’re going to in terms of rewarding players more.

Thank you for your amazing post, Vayne.

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

So why are you doing it?

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

In your earnestness to invoke fact, you miss the entire argument.

It’s a fact that right now there isn’t anything in game I really want to do, so I don’t really want to log in at this time.

It’s a fact that I could take a break, but if I do, I might or might not come back at a later date. You might be happy for me to walk away for periods of time, I’m not sure Anet is as keen as you on the idea. And obviously I’m not really talking about me. We’re talking about players like me. Not everyone comes back.

It’s a fact that if I had something to work for like legendary armor, I’d work for it, as long as I didn’t have to devote huge swathes of time to something I didn’t like.

Those are all facts.

I don’t have to do them. I can stop playing.

Are you suggesting everyone who wants to stop playing because they have nothing to do shouldn’t give suggestions on things that would keep them in game? Because it sure sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

In your earnestness to invoke fact, you miss the entire argument.

It’s a fact that right now there isn’t anything in game I really want to do, so I don’t really want to log in at this time.

It’s a fact that I could take a break, but if I do, I might or might not come back at a later date. You might be happy for me to walk away for periods of time, I’m not sure Anet is as keen as you on the idea. And obviously I’m not really talking about me. We’re talking about players like me. Not everyone comes back.

It’s a fact that if I had something to work for like legendary armor, I’d work for it, as long as I didn’t have to devote huge swathes of time to something I didn’t like.

Those are all facts.

I don’t have to do them. I can stop playing.

Are you suggesting everyone who wants to stop playing because they have nothing to do shouldn’t give suggestions on things that would keep them in game? Because it sure sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.

OK, so instead of making kitten up about you being forced to raid, which even you seem to agree is factually UNTRUE, even though you yourself previously claimed it wasn’t, instead of that how’s about we comment on the aforementioned content drought? Why make kitten up instead of constructively discussing an actual legitimate issue? Why base your argument on something that is, essentially, a lie? And why are you avoiding directly answering my question about being forced or not? Interesting, I wonder why you would do that.

As for the content drought – they are aware of it, due to the way they (badly) handled things in 2014, they spent most of 2015 working only on HoT and had nothing in the pipes for post-HoT. They have acknowledged it, gave us a relatively clear time-window when we are getting new stuff and have hinted at what that stuff might be.

So essentially, even if we forget, again, the factual untruth that you are forced into raids, which undermines your entire thread, even if we forget that, we are left with a discussion that, while valid, has already ran its course. It’s a valid issue, but one Anet acknowledged THREE MONTHS AGO when they said they will focus on content from now on in the State of the Game blog post and one they addressed again in the AMA.

In conclusion – what exactly is constructive and new here, because I see nothing. If you wanna vent – fine, but venting isn’t constructive. Neither is making stuff up and using it as an argument.

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

In your earnestness to invoke fact, you miss the entire argument.

It’s a fact that right now there isn’t anything in game I really want to do, so I don’t really want to log in at this time.

It’s a fact that I could take a break, but if I do, I might or might not come back at a later date. You might be happy for me to walk away for periods of time, I’m not sure Anet is as keen as you on the idea. And obviously I’m not really talking about me. We’re talking about players like me. Not everyone comes back.

It’s a fact that if I had something to work for like legendary armor, I’d work for it, as long as I didn’t have to devote huge swathes of time to something I didn’t like.

Those are all facts.

I don’t have to do them. I can stop playing.

Are you suggesting everyone who wants to stop playing because they have nothing to do shouldn’t give suggestions on things that would keep them in game? Because it sure sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.

OK, so instead of making kitten up about you being forced to raid, which even you seem to agree is factually UNTRUE, even though you yourself previously claimed it wasn’t, instead of that how’s about we comment on the aforementioned content drought? Why make kitten up instead of constructively discussing an actual legitimate issue? Why base your argument on something that is, essentially, a lie? And why are you avoiding directly answering my question about being forced or not? Interesting, I wonder why you would do that.

As for the content drought – they are aware of it, due to the way they (badly) handled things in 2014, they spent most of 2015 working only on HoT and had nothing in the pipes for post-HoT. They have acknowledged it, gave us a relatively clear time-window when we are getting new stuff and have hinted at what that stuff might be.

So essentially, even if we forget, again, the factual untruth that you are forced into raids, which undermines your entire thread, even if we forget that, we are left with a discussion that, while valid, has already ran its course. It’s a valid issue, but one Anet acknowledged THREE MONTHS AGO when they said they will focus on content from now on in the State of the Game blog post and one they addressed again in the AMA.

In conclusion – what exactly is constructive and new here, because I see nothing. If you wanna vent – fine, but venting isn’t constructive. Neither is making stuff up and using it as an argument.

At this point IF You want legendary armor, you are going to have to raid. That, at this time is a fact. If they have plans of bringing out legendary armor in any other format, I sure haven’t heard about it.

Sometimes context is everything. So I’ll clarify. If you want legendary armor, from what we know now, you will be indeed forced to raid. That is to say that’s the only way to get that reward when it finally comes out, that we know about.

That PUSHES people to do something they might not like. It doesn’t make them do it, but it strongly encourages them, puts pressure on them, exerts a certain force upon them.

You can keep saying I’m lying till the cows come home, but it doesn’t help anything.

If I can’t get legendary armor by any other method than raids, then the game is forcing me to raid for legendary armor.

Now, you can say I don’t need legendary armor, and you’b be quite correct. But I personally need goals that appeal to me, and none of the existing goals right now do. Legendary armor would appeal to me, but not at the price of doing raids.

Why would you want to push players that have a different opinion from the game, particularly because there are many of us? How is what you’re saying helping the game?

Yes, the content drought is part of the problem but I’m not sure it’s the whole problem.

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

In your earnestness to invoke fact, you miss the entire argument.

It’s a fact that right now there isn’t anything in game I really want to do, so I don’t really want to log in at this time.

It’s a fact that I could take a break, but if I do, I might or might not come back at a later date. You might be happy for me to walk away for periods of time, I’m not sure Anet is as keen as you on the idea. And obviously I’m not really talking about me. We’re talking about players like me. Not everyone comes back.

It’s a fact that if I had something to work for like legendary armor, I’d work for it, as long as I didn’t have to devote huge swathes of time to something I didn’t like.

Those are all facts.

I don’t have to do them. I can stop playing.

Are you suggesting everyone who wants to stop playing because they have nothing to do shouldn’t give suggestions on things that would keep them in game? Because it sure sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.

OK, so instead of making kitten up about you being forced to raid, which even you seem to agree is factually UNTRUE, even though you yourself previously claimed it wasn’t, instead of that how’s about we comment on the aforementioned content drought? Why make kitten up instead of constructively discussing an actual legitimate issue? Why base your argument on something that is, essentially, a lie? And why are you avoiding directly answering my question about being forced or not? Interesting, I wonder why you would do that.

As for the content drought – they are aware of it, due to the way they (badly) handled things in 2014, they spent most of 2015 working only on HoT and had nothing in the pipes for post-HoT. They have acknowledged it, gave us a relatively clear time-window when we are getting new stuff and have hinted at what that stuff might be.

So essentially, even if we forget, again, the factual untruth that you are forced into raids, which undermines your entire thread, even if we forget that, we are left with a discussion that, while valid, has already ran its course. It’s a valid issue, but one Anet acknowledged THREE MONTHS AGO when they said they will focus on content from now on in the State of the Game blog post and one they addressed again in the AMA.

In conclusion – what exactly is constructive and new here, because I see nothing. If you wanna vent – fine, but venting isn’t constructive. Neither is making stuff up and using it as an argument.

At this point IF You want legendary armor, you are going to have to raid. That, at this time is a fact. If they have plans of bringing out legendary armor in any other format, I sure haven’t heard about it.

Sometimes context is everything. So I’ll clarify. If you want legendary armor, from what we know now, you will be indeed forced to raid. That is to say that’s the only way to get that reward when it finally comes out, that we know about.

That PUSHES people to do something they might not like. It doesn’t make them do it, but it strongly encourages them, puts pressure on them, exerts a certain force upon them.

You can keep saying I’m lying till the cows come home, but it doesn’t help anything.

If I can’t get legendary armor by any other method than raids, then the game is forcing me to raid for legendary armor.

Now, you can say I don’t need legendary armor, and you’b be quite correct. But I personally need goals that appeal to me, and none of the existing goals right now do. Legendary armor would appeal to me, but not at the price of doing raids.

Why would you want to push players that have a different opinion from the game, particularly because there are many of us? How is what you’re saying helping the game?

Yes, the content drought is part of the problem but I’m not sure it’s the whole problem.

I agree with Andulias — the content drought is the problem, not raids.

You seem focused on raid armor as an end game goal. Let’s take a step back. There are other collections you can do without legendary armor. Specialization collections, chak collection, ambrite collection, and more. These seem like end game goals at your skill/time level.

But you want a legendary! Despite that it has the same stats as ascended. Despite that stat changing is mostly useless. Ok. Let’s take a look at other legendaries.

To get a legendary backpiece, you must pvp. You are “forced” into this content. Eventually, you’ll be able to get it through fractals. You’re still forced into that content.

To get the new legendary weapons, you are forced into the HOT maps.

For the old legendary weapons, you were forced into map completion (lets ignore the trading post for a second). You were forced into completing a particular dungeon, or, eventually, a pvp track. You were forced into wvw.

This idea of forced content is nothing new for legendaries. This time though, you don’t like what you’re “forced” into. The good news is that legendaries don’t provide a statistical advantage.

Now lets look at the trading post. Personally, I’m ok with legendaries (and precursors) on the trading post, because, like you, I’d prefer acquiring legendaries through gameplay I enjoy. But I know many players like the new system, because it imparts prestige. I’m ok with that. I just won’t get one of the legendary weapons. Ascended works for me.

Rail against the new legendary system. Fine with me — I’m not opposed to alternate methods to get legendary armor. Rail against the content drought — I agree new content is long overdue. But don’t blame raids.

It seems you’ve run out of goals in this game. Personally, I’d think raids would be a good next goal for you. But it’s ok if you don’t like them. No one is forcing you to play them.

Absurdo.8309:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

In your earnestness to invoke fact, you miss the entire argument.

It’s a fact that right now there isn’t anything in game I really want to do, so I don’t really want to log in at this time.

It’s a fact that I could take a break, but if I do, I might or might not come back at a later date. You might be happy for me to walk away for periods of time, I’m not sure Anet is as keen as you on the idea. And obviously I’m not really talking about me. We’re talking about players like me. Not everyone comes back.

It’s a fact that if I had something to work for like legendary armor, I’d work for it, as long as I didn’t have to devote huge swathes of time to something I didn’t like.

Those are all facts.

I don’t have to do them. I can stop playing.

Are you suggesting everyone who wants to stop playing because they have nothing to do shouldn’t give suggestions on things that would keep them in game? Because it sure sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.

OK, so instead of making kitten up about you being forced to raid, which even you seem to agree is factually UNTRUE, even though you yourself previously claimed it wasn’t, instead of that how’s about we comment on the aforementioned content drought? Why make kitten up instead of constructively discussing an actual legitimate issue? Why base your argument on something that is, essentially, a lie? And why are you avoiding directly answering my question about being forced or not? Interesting, I wonder why you would do that.

As for the content drought – they are aware of it, due to the way they (badly) handled things in 2014, they spent most of 2015 working only on HoT and had nothing in the pipes for post-HoT. They have acknowledged it, gave us a relatively clear time-window when we are getting new stuff and have hinted at what that stuff might be.

So essentially, even if we forget, again, the factual untruth that you are forced into raids, which undermines your entire thread, even if we forget that, we are left with a discussion that, while valid, has already ran its course. It’s a valid issue, but one Anet acknowledged THREE MONTHS AGO when they said they will focus on content from now on in the State of the Game blog post and one they addressed again in the AMA.

In conclusion – what exactly is constructive and new here, because I see nothing. If you wanna vent – fine, but venting isn’t constructive. Neither is making stuff up and using it as an argument.

At this point IF You want legendary armor, you are going to have to raid. That, at this time is a fact. If they have plans of bringing out legendary armor in any other format, I sure haven’t heard about it.

Sometimes context is everything. So I’ll clarify. If you want legendary armor, from what we know now, you will be indeed forced to raid. That is to say that’s the only way to get that reward when it finally comes out, that we know about.

That PUSHES people to do something they might not like. It doesn’t make them do it, but it strongly encourages them, puts pressure on them, exerts a certain force upon them.

You can keep saying I’m lying till the cows come home, but it doesn’t help anything.

If I can’t get legendary armor by any other method than raids, then the game is forcing me to raid for legendary armor.

Now, you can say I don’t need legendary armor, and you’b be quite correct. But I personally need goals that appeal to me, and none of the existing goals right now do. Legendary armor would appeal to me, but not at the price of doing raids.

Why would you want to push players that have a different opinion from the game, particularly because there are many of us? How is what you’re saying helping the game?

Yes, the content drought is part of the problem but I’m not sure it’s the whole problem.

I agree with Andulias — the content drought is the problem, not raids.

You seem focused on raid armor as an end game goal. Let’s take a step back. There are other collections you can do without legendary armor. Specialization collections, chak collection, ambrite collection, and more. These seem like end game goals at your skill/time level.

But you want a legendary! Despite that it has the same stats as ascended. Despite that stat changing is mostly useless. Ok. Let’s take a look at other legendaries.

To get a legendary backpiece, you must pvp. You are “forced” into this content. Eventually, you’ll be able to get it through fractals. You’re still forced into that content.

To get the new legendary weapons, you are forced into the HOT maps.

For the old legendary weapons, you were forced into map completion (lets ignore the trading post for a second). You were forced into completing a particular dungeon, or, eventually, a pvp track. You were forced into wvw.

This idea of forced content is nothing new for legendaries. This time though, you don’t like what you’re “forced” into. The good news is that legendaries don’t provide a statistical advantage.

Now lets look at the trading post. Personally, I’m ok with legendaries (and precursors) on the trading post, because, like you, I’d prefer acquiring legendaries through gameplay I enjoy. But I know many players like the new system, because it imparts prestige. I’m ok with that. I just won’t get one of the legendary weapons. Ascended works for me.

Rail against the new legendary system. Fine with me — I’m not opposed to alternate methods to get legendary armor. Rail against the content drought — I agree new content is long overdue. But don’t blame raids.

It seems you’ve run out of goals in this game. Personally, I’d think raids would be a good next goal for you. But it’s ok if you don’t like them. No one is forcing you to play them.

Yes, I’ve covered this in previous posts, but I’ll do it again now.

For the legendary backpiece, you can only get one in PvP at the moment but we also know you’ll be able to get one in Fractals as well, so therefore, there are two ways to get a legendary packpiece. We only know of one way to get legendary armor. The rest of your examples I’ve covered elsewhere.

I could get WvW world complete a tiny bit a time, 20 minutes here and there with no real dedicated time investment. I know this because that’s mostly how I did it.

I needed 9 dungeons but dungeons don’t take much prep. I can do one, take two weeks off and do another one. In a few months I’d have all my dungeons.

You can work on world complete in a completely casual mode. You can do a couple of points every time you enter a zone and eventually you’ll get them all. Sure it’ll take you time, but time isn’t really an issue for me.

Time all at one time IS an issue for me. That’s not casual. I’ve been able to get 8 legendaries without playing particularly hard.

I’m not able to get legendary armor, however, unless I run raids and if you can’t acknowledge that’s a whole different level of commitment than running a PvP match, or two or three…

I’m never going to have the PvP legendary back piece, because I’ll never get to diamond league. It’s not going to happen.

But I have a chance of running Fractals to get them.

Vayne.8563:

I’m never going to have the PvP legendary back piece, because I’ll never get to diamond league. It’s not going to happen.

Actually, you don’t need to. Twice ruby and twice sapphire would be enough. Or five times sapphire, if you’re willing to extend it into a second year. So yeah, getting pvp backpiece is way, way easier than legendary armor as far as commitment goes.

How is asking for alternatives whining? With that logic, you could call all those people who went to the forums asking for hard content and raids whiners. At that point, they weren’t happy with the game either. So I ask you. Were they whiners too?

I think I’ve made my point very clear – nobody is forcing you. Legendary armor is little more than a vanity item with a bit of added QoL. it’s not even in the game yet.

You are simply actively trying to put the blame somewhere, which is just kind of ridiculous.

“Oh no! I want Chak weapons, but the only way to get Chak weapons is by playing the TD meta”! is an argument that sounds rather stupid, doesn’kitten But it follows precisely your logic, Vayne.

Give up with this complete BS, Vayne. You. Don’t. NEED. Legendary armor. You don’t. Nobody does. It’s not required for anything. The entire basis of your argument is nothing but a balloon of hot air. Enough.

I still see NOTHING constructive here.

Vayne.8563:

Absurdo.8309:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

Vayne.8563:

Andulias.9516:

And yet again, for the upteenth time, you fail to mention that NOBODY is forcing you to play ANY game mode you don’t like. And that invalidates your entire post in my eyes.

I’m sorry you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m saying to progress in this game at this point, I pretty much have to do something I don’t enjoy. Obviously I can go level another character, but after over 30 characters probably not likely to happen.

The problem isn’t being forced to do content, so much as having very very little content available to me that advances me. If that’s okay for you, I’m actually happy for you.

Unfortunately it’s not okay for me.

Then take a short freaking break. Nobody is forcing you. You get nothing out of PvP or raids that you actually really need. You have played through all the content? Take a break, Guild Wars 2 was designed with that in mind. We are arguably in a content drought, that is of course a valid point of criticism, blaming it on PvP and raids is childish and a knee-jerk reaction.

The baseless and aimless whining (no, not constructive criticism, actual whining) on these forums never ceases to amaze me.

How is suggesting that giving people goals without forcing them into content that has a relatively narrow band of players non-constructive?

I’m saying there’s a way to make it so players like me have more to do, while still giving raiders a reward to show off. You may not agree with that, but that doesn’t make it non-constructive.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure labeling constructive crticism as non-constructive because you don’t personally agree with is particularly constructive either.

I’ve made my case. I believe it’s constructive. I believe it will help the game. I demonstrated why I feel the way I do and other people seem to agree with me. I’m not saying close down raids. I’m not saying don’t make raids. I am saying don’t lock a tier of gear behind one specific type of content that most people will never do. I don’t believe that’s good for the game.

If you disagree that’s perfectly okay. But that doesn’t make the suggestion non-constructive.

Because they are NOT forcing you! Your entire argument is based on something that is factually not true. And if it’s factually not true, it’s also not constructive in the slightest!

In your earnestness to invoke fact, you miss the entire argument.

It’s a fact that right now there isn’t anything in game I really want to do, so I don’t really want to log in at this time.

It’s a fact that I could take a break, but if I do, I might or might not come back at a later date. You might be happy for me to walk away for periods of time, I’m not sure Anet is as keen as you on the idea. And obviously I’m not really talking about me. We’re talking about players like me. Not everyone comes back.

It’s a fact that if I had something to work for like legendary armor, I’d work for it, as long as I didn’t have to devote huge swathes of time to something I didn’t like.

Those are all facts.

I don’t have to do them. I can stop playing.

Are you suggesting everyone who wants to stop playing because they have nothing to do shouldn’t give suggestions on things that would keep them in game? Because it sure sounds like that’s what you’re suggesting.

OK, so instead of making kitten up about you being forced to raid, which even you seem to agree is factually UNTRUE, even though you yourself previously claimed it wasn’t, instead of that how’s about we comment on the aforementioned content drought? Why make kitten up instead of constructively discussing an actual legitimate issue? Why base your argument on something that is, essentially, a lie? And why are you avoiding directly answering my question about being forced or not? Interesting, I wonder why you would do that.

As for the content drought – they are aware of it, due to the way they (badly) handled things in 2014, they spent most of 2015 working only on HoT and had nothing in the pipes for post-HoT. They have acknowledged it, gave us a relatively clear time-window when we are getting new stuff and have hinted at what that stuff might be.

So essentially, even if we forget, again, the factual untruth that you are forced into raids, which undermines your entire thread, even if we forget that, we are left with a discussion that, while valid, has already ran its course. It’s a valid issue, but one Anet acknowledged THREE MONTHS AGO when they said they will focus on content from now on in the State of the Game blog post and one they addressed again in the AMA.

In conclusion – what exactly is constructive and new here, because I see nothing. If you wanna vent – fine, but venting isn’t constructive. Neither is making stuff up and using it as an argument.

At this point IF You want legendary armor, you are going to have to raid. That, at this time is a fact. If they have plans of bringing out legendary armor in any other format, I sure haven’t heard about it.

Sometimes context is everything. So I’ll clarify. If you want legendary armor, from what we know now, you will be indeed forced to raid. That is to say that’s the only way to get that reward when it finally comes out, that we know about.

That PUSHES people to do something they might not like. It doesn’t make them do it, but it strongly encourages them, puts pressure on them, exerts a certain force upon them.

You can keep saying I’m lying till the cows come home, but it doesn’t help anything.

If I can’t get legendary armor by any other method than raids, then the game is forcing me to raid for legendary armor.

Now, you can say I don’t need legendary armor, and you’b be quite correct. But I personally need goals that appeal to me, and none of the existing goals right now do. Legendary armor would appeal to me, but not at the price of doing raids.

Why would you want to push players that have a different opinion from the game, particularly because there are many of us? How is what you’re saying helping the game?

Yes, the content drought is part of the problem but I’m not sure it’s the whole problem.

I agree with Andulias — the content drought is the problem, not raids.

You seem focused on raid armor as an end game goal. Let’s take a step back. There are other collections you can do without legendary armor. Specialization collections, chak collection, ambrite collection, and more. These seem like end game goals at your skill/time level.

But you want a legendary! Despite that it has the same stats as ascended. Despite that stat changing is mostly useless. Ok. Let’s take a look at other legendaries.

To get a legendary backpiece, you must pvp. You are “forced” into this content. Eventually, you’ll be able to get it through fractals. You’re still forced into that content.

To get the new legendary weapons, you are forced into the HOT maps.

For the old legendary weapons, you were forced into map completion (lets ignore the trading post for a second). You were forced into completing a particular dungeon, or, eventually, a pvp track. You were forced into wvw.

This idea of forced content is nothing new for legendaries. This time though, you don’t like what you’re “forced” into. The good news is that legendaries don’t provide a statistical advantage.

Now lets look at the trading post. Personally, I’m ok with legendaries (and precursors) on the trading post, because, like you, I’d prefer acquiring legendaries through gameplay I enjoy. But I know many players like the new system, because it imparts prestige. I’m ok with that. I just won’t get one of the legendary weapons. Ascended works for me.

Rail against the new legendary system. Fine with me — I’m not opposed to alternate methods to get legendary armor. Rail against the content drought — I agree new content is long overdue. But don’t blame raids.

It seems you’ve run out of goals in this game. Personally, I’d think raids would be a good next goal for you. But it’s ok if you don’t like them. No one is forcing you to play them.

Yes, I’ve covered this in previous posts, but I’ll do it again now.

For the legendary backpiece, you can only get one in PvP at the moment but we also know you’ll be able to get one in Fractals as well, so therefore, there are two ways to get a legendary packpiece. We only know of one way to get legendary armor. The rest of your examples I’ve covered elsewhere.

I could get WvW world complete a tiny bit a time, 20 minutes here and there with no real dedicated time investment. I know this because that’s mostly how I did it.

I needed 9 dungeons but dungeons don’t take much prep. I can do one, take two weeks off and do another one. In a few months I’d have all my dungeons.

You can work on world complete in a completely casual mode. You can do a couple of points every time you enter a zone and eventually you’ll get them all. Sure it’ll take you time, but time isn’t really an issue for me.

Time all at one time IS an issue for me. That’s not casual. I’ve been able to get 8 legendaries without playing particularly hard.

I’m not able to get legendary armor, however, unless I run raids and if you can’t acknowledge that’s a whole different level of commitment than running a PvP match, or two or three…

I’m never going to have the PvP legendary back piece, because I’ll never get to diamond league. It’s not going to happen.

But I have a chance of running Fractals to get them.

I know that some can’t commit to long stretches of time at once — I still contend that 1 hour chunks, especially when spread across months and years, would be sufficient.

You don’t need to beat the raid bosses that many times to complete the current collection. Some you only need to beat once. I believe the highest you need to beat right now is gorseval (5 times). Granted, I have no idea how many legendary insights (1 boss kill = 1 legendary insight) we’ll need to make the legendary.

That’s pretty quick compared to the pvp backpiece. Personally, it’ll take me three seasons to complete – that’s nine months. You mentioned it’s doable in five seasons – that’s over a year. I think most players could beat a raid boss if they were given a year to do it.

Ultimately, legendary items are a prestige skin with the same stats as ascended. Personally, I would be ok if, eventually, there’s an alternate method to get legendary armor. Just like, eventually, we’ll be able to get the legendary backpiece from fractals. But beating raids is a prestige accomplishment. And legendary armor is an appropriate prestige award.

This game is about acquiring skins. There is no gear grind. To put a legendary skin behind raids was an idiotic decision by Anet. Anet already knew before HoT that many in the gw2 community were averse to raiding and the raiding culture. Players have migrated here from other games just to get away from raiding. So Anet decides to implement raids having no idea whether they are going to be a success or not. They decide to put legendary armor as the carrot. Minimizing dungeon rewards and slapping legendary armor behind raids makes me wonder how confident Anet is on the popularity of raiding.

Dashingsteel.3410:

This game is about acquiring skins. There is no gear grind. To put a legendary skin behind raids was an idiotic decision by Anet. Anet already knew before HoT that many in the gw2 community were averse to raiding and the raiding culture. Players have migrated here from other games just to get away from raiding. So Anet decides to implement raids having no idea whether they are going to be a success or not. They decide to put legendary armor as the carrot. Minimizing dungeon rewards and slapping legendary armor behind raids makes me wonder how confident Anet is on the popularity of raiding.

Considering the official metrics, which show raids have been very popular, I’d say pretty confident.

Would you say that there are more people raiding now than people doing dungeons before the reward nerf? I would highly doubt it. So the metrics might be a little self-serving.

How popular would raiding be without the carrot?

I enjoy Pvping and Raids, but I do have to admit the one thing I really love(d?) about GW2 was that my actions, or at least the collective actions of the world, made a difference. The destruction of Lion’s Arch, the fall of the Toxic Alliance Tower, the marionette battle remain the single coolest moments in my gaming history which not as long as others, but is still long enough to remember the joy of 8 bit systems. Are there better moments in games sure, but what mattered to me was that I did something that was unique and it wasn’t repeatable. The world was altered forever and every time I see that fallen tower I can say, “I was there.”

The focus on pvp, which has largely served to only make both non-pvp players and pvp players angry, feels like it is taking away from that. I love pvp, but I also want to feel like my character is making a difference. Raids right now fill that hole. The story being told is fun and each path has bits and pieces in it that show that my actions made a difference. However, I want something more global.

Andulias.9516:

Considering the official metrics, which show raids have been very popular, I’d say pretty confident.

Where are those official metrics?

Dashingsteel.3410:

Would you say that there are more people raiding now than people doing dungeons before the reward nerf? I would highly doubt it. So the metrics might be a little self-serving.

How popular would raiding be without the carrot?

The carrot is pretty bad, if you raid just for gold. I sometimes spend more in food than I get back from the reward. The rewards are also only weekly, mitigating its farm-ability. I personally raid for the challenge, the skins, and the (low) chance for ascended gear.

If you want to make gold, silverwastes chest train wins every time.