Guild Wars 2

JaironKalach.4938:

While I totally agree with this sentiment, I think that almost all of the discontent stems from a certain amount of boredom with endgame content. What content is truly left to do that they haven’t done? What rewards are left for them but these grindy rewards?

Fair point, but when it comes down to it, we’re all adults. If you see no content worth playing besides painfully grinding for days/weeks/months for a virtual item, simply stop playing the game. Come up with another way to spend your down time. Yes, it may be disappointing for you to admit that you’ve milked this game for all it’s got, but imho, it’s not healthy to do something you find stressful/unenjoyable for extended periods of time, especially if the reason for doing so is simply to maintain the delusion that you are having fun in the game you’ve been anticipating for so long.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Yes because if people are trying to play they way they’d like to play and Anet is making that style of play absolutely maddening, then it’s clearly the fault of the player.

Can you be more specific about what play style you’re talking about?

^^ Those who are trying to accomplish gear/skin goals (whether dungeons, fractals, open world, etc)… It is really the player’s fault, in a skill-based game, that these goals prescribe more to the traditional MMO styles of acquisition and not through a series of skill-based challenges? And it’s not just these people complaining, there are WvW complaints, PvP complaints… I know Anet isn’t sitting on their hands, but I’m sure most of these complainers would like to enjoy their game now rather than later.

I ‘won’ GW1 by getting 50/50 in the HoM and earning GWAMM. As for GW2, well, I don’t have anything that feels like a win to me, so I just kind of do stuff and pretend that I’m making progress to some far off goal I haven’t yet identified. It’s worked for me thus far.

Bruno, I hear what you’re saying and I agree that the game isn’t perfect, but you yourself said that ANet is working on improving the game. I guess, as you say, the issue is that the game isn’t enjoyable for many people right now.

I myself am working toward my first set of TA exotics, which I find to be less than enjoyable, because I need ~20 TA runs for the set, assuming all are first-of-the-day runs with 60+ blooms per. I’ve already considered whether this is something I want to work toward and whether it’s just going to end up causing more frustration than reward, but it’s short-term enough that I decided to bite the bullet and get on the hamster wheel.

Now, what if ANet decided to change the dungeon token reward system to something more skill based, like you get many more tokens if your group completes the run with fewer than X amount of deaths, or in X amount of time. I think this stuff sounds good at first, but it’s just going to propagate elitism. All dungeon runs will be 80s only, people will be kicked and replaced at the first sign of inexperience, etc.

That said, I think there is room to do it correctly. The tokens can be distributed on a per player basis. If you do more than your fair share of DPS to one of the bosses, guess what? You get more tokens than the base reward. If you heal/revive teammates X amount of times or as X percentage of total heals given through the run, you get more. If you get an achievement during the run, like highest damage you’ve ever gotten in 1 hit, you get more tokens. If you get X amount of combos with teammates during the run, you get more. Promote teamwork to finish, increase the rewards for going the extra mile, but don’t make the rewards that the level 80 who has run the dungeon 100 times dependent upon the performance of the minimum level, 1st time dungeon runner.

Less mindless grind, more active engagement in each moment of the run in order to increase your own rewards.

Do you really want to win in this game that means the game is over “YOU WON” you beat the game. Do you really want that, I think not. I think the concept Anet came up with “No end game the whole game will contain end game content” all be it strange to most is a good one for an MMO, and may be the concept that most good MMOs will adopt in the future. The problems Anet faces it keeping old content fresh making the game repayable, adding events and content in already played threw areas to make you what to go back and replay threw that content again that will determine the success or failure if this game.

To be honest, yeah I do want to “win” the game. Winning means you can move on. For me in GW1, the two biggest accomplishments you could get in the game were GWAMM and the maxed HoM. After that, I stopped playing the game. Why? I felt accomplished, my memories of GW1 were nothing but positive, and I had achieved the ultimate in-game achievements. The game wasn’t subscription based, so ANet didn’t lose any money when I stopped playing. I don’t really see why GW2 has to be different.

Rising Dusk.2408:

To be honest, yeah I do want to “win” the game. Winning means you can move on. For me in GW1, the two biggest accomplishments you could get in the game were GWAMM and the maxed HoM. After that, I stopped playing the game. Why? I felt accomplished, my memories of GW1 were nothing but positive, and I had achieved the ultimate in-game achievements. The game wasn’t subscription based, so ANet didn’t lose any money when I stopped playing. I don’t really see why GW2 has to be different.

Because they’re not yet done with it? How long did it take before they even had that concept? IIRC, you had to get your obby armor to be able to get that full hall. How long did you have to spend just get to grind out that armor? How much PvP work did you have to do? Have you even come close to putting that much effort in, yet?

I made this question because I wanted to tie it in the P2W line of thinking, but now it seems its more effective to make players have an introspective understanding on why they play gw2, and games in general. I appreciate all the answers guys :P

JaironKalach.4938:

Because they’re not yet done with it? How long did it take before they even had that concept? IIRC, you had to get your obby armor to be able to get that full hall. How long did you have to spend just get to grind out that armor? How much PvP work did you have to do? Have you even come close to putting that much effort in, yet?

Well, they didn’t have titles for a long time in GW1, but once they did, GWAMM was there. I would have expected GW2 to have something similar as a super long-term goal at least listed, if not feasibly achievable as of yet. I have no issues with putting in more time, but it’d be nice to have something to actually work toward.

Winning doesn’t necessarily have to be final. In a good horizontal progression system, the actions/inactions of your server affect the server (accounting for pop count). Maybe by consistently doing well in WvW and having a good density of participation in events scattered throughout all the maps, your Tyria falls under a “Golden Age” that prompts different changes (like better RNG/xp-gain, whatever) as well as events (maybe they get tougher yet more rewarding or change entirely)… The flipside being a server that barely participates and does poorly in WvW and confines itself to a few events in a few maps is more in a “Dark Ages” where things are also drastically different. In a sense, winning depending on your server could be continuing the “Golden Age”, getting your server to the “Golden Age” or pulling your server out of the “Dark Ages”.

JaironKalach.4938:

Rising Dusk.2408:

To be honest, yeah I do want to “win” the game. Winning means you can move on. For me in GW1, the two biggest accomplishments you could get in the game were GWAMM and the maxed HoM. After that, I stopped playing the game. Why? I felt accomplished, my memories of GW1 were nothing but positive, and I had achieved the ultimate in-game achievements. The game wasn’t subscription based, so ANet didn’t lose any money when I stopped playing. I don’t really see why GW2 has to be different.

Because they’re not yet done with it? How long did it take before they even had that concept? IIRC, you had to get your obby armor to be able to get that full hall. How long did you have to spend just get to grind out that armor? How much PvP work did you have to do? Have you even come close to putting that much effort in, yet?

Pvp titles never bothered me because it was actually good in GW1 and took half a brain to excel, not roll thief and lolderp. Obby armor was never that hard to get except for the beginning of the game because DR wasn’t nearly as horrible as it is in GW2 and I don’t remember DR at all in the beginning of the original GW. I can SC dungeons all day if I want in GW1.

And personally no I haven’t put that much effort in because what’s the point, you hit a brick wall with DR if you play this game as an actual MMO instead of some casual facebook app. Like I said, winning in GW2 is being rich IRL.

I’m working towards the obliteration of the dragon and the freeing of Tyria. My main objection is that no matter what I do, the people of Tyria seem no freer. Yet, that remains my goal. Along the GW1 vein, though…. I consider the achievements equivalent to titles and Legendaries the equivalent of Obby and Vabbi armors. (Yes, I know some people can buy them. IIRC, some people bought their stuff in GW1 as well, through shadier means.)

Lord Kuru.3685:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

If I’m having fun, I win.

Wrong! it’s when you:

crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

KROM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My guildies and I agree on this, but they are norns and cannot cry (of joy) so I am crying for them.

jumping into an epic battle with your buddy against 5 enemies and defeating them all.

- Win

I’ve already won the game. Everything I currently do in the game is repetitive and boring.

I have a L80 Guardian. I was going to finish his personal story, but then I read that there is forced grouping to finish it. So that pretty much ended that goal.

I wanted to get to 400 in armor crafting but grinding for materials is a hellish grind. So I stopped at 370.

Then I was going to get him exotics but after doing a couple of the group events in endzones I found out i’d need over 200K Karma, just for armor. He has 60K right now and I just do not want to grind out the rest. I’m not even sure how to get that much and I don’t care to find out.

I was going to get 100% map, managed to get 60%, but found out the rewards for completing the low level areas are worthless for my L80. And had the rewards been appropriate for my level, I doubt I would have completed it because there would be some other obstacle which I would not want to grind.

Then I tried an alt with a different profession and race. It was fun up to around L30. Now, everything feels like a grind. I grind hearts, point’s of interest, vistas, skill points, crafting levels, and occasionaly DE’s. She’s now L61, and I have to force myself to play for more than 30 mins because everything feels like a grind.

I haven’t tried sPvP or WvWvW and have no inclination to do so. Besides, I’ve done it before in other mmo’s. I haven’t done any dungeons by choice. Ugh. No, I will not grind dungeons ever again. They are torture.

I don’t think this game has anything left to offer. The only fun I had was randomly meeting people while doing DE’s. But the frequency of that interaction is incredibly too low to justify loggin in to the game.

I think I may have finished the game. Winning in an MMO is subjective.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

If I’m having fun, I win.

You win. Same as me

penatbater.4710:

With all the haloobaloo in the other threads, I wanna ask the other people what they consider “winning” in gw2. In most games, winning is attaining the highest-tier BIS items, or reaching max level, etc. Since gw2 clearly is quite different from those games, what do you think should be the definition of “win” for gw2?

If in most games having the highest tier BiS items is winning, as you say, then I would say that in GW2 having the highest tier BiS items by paying instead of grinding (to some extent) is winning and is pay-to-win. It’s really that simple; paying instead of grinding will be the pay-to-win in this game. Did you forget that they said in the AMA “we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.” Vertical progression “progresses” by periodically raising the stats on gear. GW2 is no longer distinctive in terms of not having a gear grind treadmill.

This has been an interesting and remarkably civil discussion so far. The concept of winning is associated with competition, the concept of fun is associated with recreation. The question is if a single game can please both recreational and competitive gamers. Or is the reality that a competitive game will not be enjoyable to recreational gamers and a recreational game will not be interesting to competitive ones? And, any attempt to produce a game that pleases both will end up pleasing neither. Special thanks to the OP for creating a thread that is more a discussion than a shouting match.

I paid $60 and am pushing 1000 hours of play time. Compare to SPRPG’s, where my $60 nets 40-60 hours of play. Compare to PtP MMO’s where playing for ~4 months and 1000 hours would have cost me ($60 box + 3 months x $15 =) $105. Since I can continue to enjoy GW2 going forward, the gap with both comparisons will just get bigger. Within the game, winning is being able to do what I want, when I want to, for as long as I want to.

So, I won and am continuing to win.

Depends totally in the person, is very subjective and biased.

My “win” is when I’m 1v1ing someone in WvW, being eyed by the 5-7 bodies of his team mates I just killed, waiting and watching for a res that will never come. Then I land the stomp and watch as their bodies disappear, one by one.

Other than that, I’m just having fun. And when we’re having fun, we’re all winners. (>o.o)>