Guild Wars 2

There’s been a lot of debate recently about whether this game is pay-to-win, and it never seems to go anywhere.

This is partially due to the fact that it’s an argument on an internet forum, which mean the vast majority of people involved are not interested in coming to an agreement, they’re just killing time until they can do something more interesting.

But I think it’s also because there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what actually constitutes winning in this game. Until you’ve got that it’s like trying to argue strategies for playing Mornington Crescent. (For those who don’t want to follow the link Mornington Crescent is an improvisation game with no rules or structure.)

So I thought it might be useful, or at least interesting, to start a discussion on how you win GW2. Whether you can pay for any of these methods, with real or in-game money, is irrelevant it’s only about whether completing them constitutes winning.

To kick things off here’s a few ideas I’ve seen used as examples of winning, and my thoughts on them:

1. Making your character look good.
It’s certainly something a lot of people want to do, and often put a lot of time and effort into. I would agree that it’s indisputably a goal. But to my mind it’s too ambiguous to qualify as winning. What I think looks good someone else will consider hideous and vice versa. There’s also the fact that it’s at best one of several goals you’re likely to be working towards concurrently and IMO closer to a side-track from the majority of game-play.

2. Getting the best stats/best-in-slot gear
This one has the advantage that it’s much easier to get a consensus on what you’re aiming for and when you’ve achieved it. But I think there are two very different mind-sets on whether it constitutes winning:

• To some players you play the game in order to acquire better equipment and you’ve won when you’ve got the best.
• To others you acquire better equipment in order to play the game. Your weapons, armor etc. are tools that enable you to complete other goals (or complete them faster/more easily), nothing more.

To the first group getting best in slot gear would definitely mean winning, to the second group it just means you’ve completed one step in the process, or laid the groundwork to make completing it easier. I don’t think I can say one group is right and the other is wrong, but I would say I’m definitely in the second group. IMO best-in-slot gear, or any gear at all, is meaningless if you’re not using it and if it’s only purpose is to enable you to complete other goals then it doesn’t qualify as a win condition.

3. Completing everything in PvE.
This is probably the closest to actually winning of the options I’ve covered so far. In single-player games this is quite clearly the win condition. When you’ve done everything available to you, beaten every enemy, completed every quest etc. then you’ve won the game. The problem here is that PvE is relatively easy and to many people completing all or most of it just means you’re shown you have a good enough understanding to take on the real challenge of the various forms of PvP. On the other hand some players are not interested in PvP at all. I suspect this is another one that comes down to personal opinion.

4. Winning PvP
Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about PvP so I may well be completely wrong. But as I understand it there are three goals that could qualify as winning this mode:

• Being on the team that wins one or more tournaments.
• Getting to the top of one or more leaderboards.
• Getting to the max rank.
  The first two have the (arguable) disadvantage that the vast majority of people playing will never achieve it, and therefore can never win. But then in most multi-player games only one person can win so maybe that’s not an issue. The third one I’m not sure about, as I said I don’t know much about PvP but I’d be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on this.

Continued in next post…

5. Winning WvW
I admit I’ve never seen anyone mention this but I thought it’d be unfair to skip a mode a lot of people play, some of them exclusively. The only way I can think of for an individual to win however is to be on the highest ranked server and be leader of a guild or one of the commanders that most of your server considers essential to your success. That would be pretty impressive, but whether it can be considered winning the game is debatable. (Especially when the entire point of WvW is that it never ends and therefore arguably can never be won.)

6. You can never win
The point of the game is simply to play (and hopefully to have fun) and anything you can achieve is simply a step in that process. IMO this isn’t a bad thing, some of my favourite games are ones you can never win, you just keep playing or stop. (Thinking mainly of an artificial life sim called Creatures, but Minecraft is probably a better known example.) But it does make the whole pay-to-win debate rather pointless.

So…thoughts?

For me, I wouldn’t really want to ‘win’ this game, as that would mean ‘game over’. I’m not interested in PvP, which is the only place in-game I would think ‘winning’ has any purpose. I just like playing the game because it offers enjoyment to do so. I don’t really care what others’ stats are, as I don’t plan on fighting them, and what they wear is of little interest to me, because unless they are standing still in LA or somewhere like that, I don’t really notice. Lol, I rarely notice even if the are standing in LA. Occasionally, someone’s color scheme or something might catch my eye, but 99% of the time, it doesn’t. Only my gear really means much to me, and that’s just the looks. Silly me! =P

Well, the whole idea of an MMO is you can never win.
That said, in GW2 you can convert Gems to gold and gold can buy almost anything, and that’s why people say it is P2W.
I don’t consider it P2W, but I am frustrated that most progression in this game revolves around gold farming or converting gems into gold.

The steps to Winning Guild Wars 2:
1. Having 8 level 80 characters (1 for each profession)
2. Having completely Legendary gear from Armor, to Weapons (all weapons), to Trinkets to swap stats at will
3. Having a free superior rune dispenser
4. Having a free superior sigil dispenser
5. Having 100% waypoint completion
6. Having a free skin dispenser

This will allow you to do whatever you want whenever you want.

Easy mode for achieving the above
1. Dev hacks
2. Money

I am on the, there is no winning in this game. Maybe especially seeing it is so individual what people aim for.
I do think they should add armor to the game thats not through gemstore, and I don’t particularly like that you can buy your legendary (legendary should not be tradeable imo). But that said I don’t consider it winning and thus not pay to win.

IF it was so that you could not access vital parts of the story or traitlines without paying… that would P2W for me, but that is, thank goodness, not what we are dealing with. Using money is completely optional.

The game doesn’t have the same restrictions a P2W game has. But you can win with cash for sure.

I buy gems with credit card. I got a job, i got a life, i have to work overtime usually. So i bought gem for character slot, transmulate crystal, gem armor skin. Is that pay to win too? I pay cash to avoid the needs to convert my hard earned gold into gems.

What else can my cash to gem do?

Speed up my progress of legendery? I haven’t done making clover, please tell me how can i optain obsidian shard with gem? I used up all my kama and only able to make 62 clover so far. I got 15 ascaulon tears left and spent over 3k tears before i got a precursor and decided to craft a legendery; anyway i can buy tears with gem to avoid doind AC again?

I do, i really do wish i can use gem to buy all these mat so that i can pay-to-win.

I find it hard to consider “winning” as an issue in any area where there is no competition. Therefore, the only winning that takes place in GW2 takes place in competitive play, that being PvP or WvW.

I make my own goals for myself in any game I play. As a completionist, usually it’s a combination of “do every single quest, get to maximum level, get the best gear that also looks good to my eyes, and learn every single spell/recipe”. When I complete those personal goals, I regard the game as being “won”. What other players do to “win” the game is their own choice and I really don’t care about.

OMG…. how about we just ban these threads of any such mention of pay to win…

Before online gaming, you beat the game when you beat the final boss. To extend it, you could say you need to have everything, unlocked every secret, beat every optional boss and such. Nothing left that appeals you to play the game again. This is also how I think it is for me for MMOs, including Guild Wars 2. I’ll beat it once there is nothing appeling left for me to do. I might not be able to make a “perfect save” as the old days since the game continues to grow, but if I outgrow what the Devs can come up with then the game becomes un appealing, it no longer have a play value. I have beaten the Devs, they have nothing new to offer me.

FuriousPop.2789:

OMG…. how about we just ban these threads of any such mention of pay to win…

Clearly you haven’t seen the new gemstore item called “Win”.

I’ll win on the day that I establish my own harem guild of beautiful girl gamers.

You win by having the most money. Play the BLTC. That’s how you win.

When someone came up to me and said that they wished Anet would make a plushy of my toon and sell it to the masses, I felt like I had won the game.

You win GW2 if you’re having fun. It’s that simple.

Now, this is actually markedly different from, say, pay to win style games where “win” is a number of enemy kills in a PvP environment where purchased power gives you a huge edge over those that don’t pay, so we don’t need to pull pay to win into the equation.

If you’re having fun, you’ve already won and can continue to keep on winning. So give us a grin and go keep having fun, you bunch of winners you!

VOLKON.1290:

You win GW2 if you’re having fun. It’s that simple.

^ Exactly this.

I thought everybody knew that the only way to win was to not play the game.

EgonVenkman.1907:

I thought everybody knew that the only way to win was to not play the game.

I thought that was Global Thermonuclear War.

I think the big issue isn’t whether the game is P2W (I personally believe it is not) but what one considers “winning.”

Accodring to the Oxford Dictionary:

Win – verb (wins, winning; past and past participle won /w?n, wän/)
[with object]
– be successful or victorious in (a contest or conflict)

This implies that one can “win” by being victorious. This is especially true in WvW or sPvP. If you’re #1 at the end of the match (or season,) then you’ve “won.”

This also implies that there is no “winning” in PvE.

There is, however a sense of accomplishment. Whether that is getting every skin, leveling each profession to 80, or map completion, it isn’t “winning” because the game goes on whether you continue or not.

In short, to “win” means that you’re done. You came out ahead of every other player in the game and your time in GW2 is over.

If it’s all the same to y’all, I don’t want to “win.” I want to have a sense of accomplishment, and I want to continue playing the game. So far, GW2 is satisfying my wants, so I will keep playing.

Cheers!

LHound.8964:

VOLKON.1290:

You win GW2 if you’re having fun. It’s that simple.

^ Exactly this.

rofl @ attachment

VOLKON.1290:

You win GW2 if you’re having fun. It’s that simple.

Now, this is actually markedly different from, say, pay to win style games where “win” is a number of enemy kills in a PvP environment where purchased power gives you a huge edge over those that don’t pay, so we don’t need to pull pay to win into the equation.

If you’re having fun, you’ve already won and can continue to keep on winning. So give us a grin and go keep having fun, you bunch of winners you!

This ^^^^^^

MMO’s in general are not meant to have a end-game or final chapter, you win small chunks of a much bigger puzzle that hopefully changes over time through expansions to keep that carrot dangling in front of you and keeps you coming back for more chunks that you can accomplish and win.

Totally contrary to console games I’ve played even with DLC, there is a final boss there is a end-game, there is a point where you have accomplished everything in-game you can do and you put the game on the shelf and move on to the next title.

This would be a “game-killer” to any MMO, new content, challenges and rewards are what makes a MMO the type of game that you can not win, you can get frustrated, bored, tired, and just plain sick of playing it but winning….never ever.

It’s a video game, it has the same win condition every video game has. If you’re having fun, you’re winning.

If you’re scouting a tower in WvW and you hate doing it, you’re not winning even if your server finishes first that week.
If you’re running in a champ train bored out of your mind, you’re not winning even if you complete your legendary two weeks quicker.
If you’re running the fotm build on the fotm class in sPvP and are kitten ed off because your teammates aren’t, you’re not winning even if you finish first score.

If you’re not having fun, you’re not winning

Danikat.8537:

6. You can never win
The point of the game is simply to play (and hopefully to have fun) and anything you can achieve is simply a step in that process. IMO this isn’t a bad thing, some of my favourite games are ones you can never win, you just keep playing or stop. (Thinking mainly of an artificial life sim called Creatures, but Minecraft is probably a better known example.) But it does make the whole pay-to-win debate rather pointless.

^this, I don’t think this game has any room to be the “best of the best”, just have fun playing it

My character looks more fabulous than yours.

I WIN GW2!!!!!

gglolkthxbai

Majic.4801:

My character looks more fabulous than yours.

I WIN GW2!!!!!

gglolkthxbai

Well mine has a tiny moa in a hat. Pretty sure that should win.

Seriously though last night I wasn’t sure but I think I’m definitely leaning towards ‘you can never win’ and/or ‘you win if you’re having fun’. Although I’d argue that second one is more of an over-riding factor that makes winning (or losing) irrelevant. I wouldn’t say I won the Queens Gauntlet because I couldn’t quite beat that……let’s just call her a kitten, it’d be changed to that anyway. But I had a lot of fun playing it and I look forward to doing it again in future.

I’d like to ask any player who has played WoW for any length of time over a year, did you win? Did you beat the game? Did you get to the final boss and defeat him thus leaving you with nothing to do but cancel your sub and uninstall the game?