Guild Wars 2

astrocanis.3195:

Kakeru.2873:

cesmode.4257:

Uhm, you cant level to 80 in 4 hrs. Assuming youare talking about being bumped ip to 80 for wvw, this is practical as they want people on some what level playing field…and adhere to the “level the way you want”.

Buying gold via the game wont get you kto 80. Explain this please.

It can with maxing multiple crafting proffestions .

The most I’ve ever seen going is about 12 levels.

You get 10 levels for taking a crafting skill 0→400 (well, a bit more if it’s a really low level character). Since you can have all crafting skills one one character and there are 8 crafting skills, it will give 80 levels in total.

Narkosys.5173:

They already let you buy the BIS weapons legendaries from the TP. Just buy gems and ->gold.
They will always be bumped to best in slot with new tiers so that is a huge advantage. You can buy this at level 1 if you want.
Everything can be bought in this game already with real money.
All they need to do now is make it so legendaries in the gem shop have better stats and purchased with real money only. You deserve a bonus if you support Anet outside the box price and better stats is a nice way to do it.

And how does that make you stronger than some one who didn’t pay money?

The term “pay 2 win” refers to the fact that you pay money to become stronger by getting gear or stats than some one who doesn’t. Which you can’t do in GW2.

So thus, not pay 2 win.

X The Manimal.5293:

Narkosys.5173:

They already let you buy the BIS weapons legendaries from the TP. Just buy gems and ->gold.
They will always be bumped to best in slot with new tiers so that is a huge advantage. You can buy this at level 1 if you want.
Everything can be bought in this game already with real money.
All they need to do now is make it so legendaries in the gem shop have better stats and purchased with real money only. You deserve a bonus if you support Anet outside the box price and better stats is a nice way to do it.

That’s actually the best argument I’ve heard so far. Can you even use legendaries at early levels though? Do they scale with your level? They’re pretty pricey on the TP if you think about it. The gems to gold conversion is such a SMALL payoff too. Not sure I’ve met anyone on forums or online who literally shelled out cash from their own wallets to get a legendary from the TP. Help from a Guild is another story though.

No. Legendaries are level 80. And see my points above why it’s not an argument at all, actually.

The only thing some one who pays money to advance in GW2 is getting in return for that investment is some saved time. That’s it.

Rainu.6871:

astrocanis.3195:

Kakeru.2873:

cesmode.4257:

Uhm, you cant level to 80 in 4 hrs. Assuming youare talking about being bumped ip to 80 for wvw, this is practical as they want people on some what level playing field…and adhere to the “level the way you want”.

Buying gold via the game wont get you kto 80. Explain this please.

It can with maxing multiple crafting proffestions .

The most I’ve ever seen going is about 12 levels.

You get 10 levels for taking a crafting skill 0->400 (well, a bit more if it’s a really low level character). Since you can have all crafting skills one one character and there are 8 crafting skills, it will give 80 levels in total.

Personally I LOVE this about the game. Not that I would do it myself but its still a neat design that crafters are rewarded for their gathering prowess lol. Leveling a character yourself lets you really fine tune your character though as you unlock abilities you get more educated on their best uses and utilities over time. Otherwise it’s like buying the game and going straight into sPvP. Confusing as heck! (for me atleast lol)

fellyn.5083:

Narkosys.5173:

They already let you buy the BIS weapons legendaries from the TP. Just buy gems and ->gold.
They will always be bumped to best in slot with new tiers so that is a huge advantage. You can buy this at level 1 if you want.
Everything can be bought in this game already with real money.
All they need to do now is make it so legendaries in the gem shop have better stats and purchased with real money only. You deserve a bonus if you support Anet outside the box price and better stats is a nice way to do it.

And how does that make you stronger than some one who didn’t pay money?

The term “pay 2 win” refers to the fact that you pay money to become stronger by getting gear or stats than some one who doesn’t. Which you can’t do in GW2.

So thus, not pay 2 win.

X The Manimal.5293:

Narkosys.5173:

They already let you buy the BIS weapons legendaries from the TP. Just buy gems and ->gold.
They will always be bumped to best in slot with new tiers so that is a huge advantage. You can buy this at level 1 if you want.
Everything can be bought in this game already with real money.
All they need to do now is make it so legendaries in the gem shop have better stats and purchased with real money only. You deserve a bonus if you support Anet outside the box price and better stats is a nice way to do it.

That’s actually the best argument I’ve heard so far. Can you even use legendaries at early levels though? Do they scale with your level? They’re pretty pricey on the TP if you think about it. The gems to gold conversion is such a SMALL payoff too. Not sure I’ve met anyone on forums or online who literally shelled out cash from their own wallets to get a legendary from the TP. Help from a Guild is another story though.

No. Legendaries are level 80. And see my points above why it’s not an argument at all, actually.

Thought so lol! I actually meant to put “Best argument… if its true”. =P

Sir, I believe that the title of your post was an oxymoron

Gohlar.3671:

fellyn.5083:

Gohlar.3671:

fellyn.5083:

cesmode.4257:

Uhm, you cant level to 80 in 4 hrs. Assuming youare talking about being bumped ip to 80 for wvw, this is practical as they want people on some what level playing field…and adhere to the “level the way you want”.

Buying gold via the game wont get you kto 80. Explain this please.

You can easily level to 80 in 3-4 hours by crafting.

That being said, Wasabi Kitty is correct. How other people level their characters has no affect on you so why worry about it? If people want to spend money to do that then I thank them for supporting Anet.

Hey, why not let people buy everything in the game? It doesn’t effect you right?

This is your logic.

Fine with me? It gives them no advantage what so ever and in fact probably puts them at a huge disadvantage because they won’t know how to play their character. Coupled with the fact they in fact can’t get more powerful by just paying money.. again, fine with me.

Besides that all the kitten they sell on the gem store I have more of sitting in my bank that I didn’t pay a single cent for. Thus making any argument you have for gw2 being p2w null and void.

P.S. In gw1 anet let people buy skill unlock packs. The horror.

So you don’t mind, that’s fine. Many do.

Comparing skill unlocks to the p2w features in gw2 comes off as a bit desperate. I don’tn think I really need to explain the difference. Now if you could buy all the armor sets in GW1 people would have a problem with that.

Yes you could, only trough gold-seller sites. And those are very easy to find. I rather see that money go into more game development then into some random chinese bot company.

IMO the cash shop is wel designed and buying a advantage(if any) only allows you to skip a part of the game. If you level the normal way you will be level 80 within 2 weeks anyway. That combined with the upscaling and downscaling should tell you enough about the ’advantage" if buying your character to level 80, which is also available for regular players that got a small amount of gold.

Oh, and players that buy something, with real money, should gain something from it. If people dont want:
-It giving a stat advantage
-Giving a time reduction
-Giving them a unique item

Then what is left to be bought in the gem store?

mavet.3047:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Buying gold, and 4 hours later you’ve got a max level toon, with full exotic gear… You can then go into WvW.

Isn’t this only slightly ridiculous. Giving people who buy the gold this advantage?

Um, you DO KNOW, that this game is PAY TO WIN – right?

Except that the items you can buy are only marginally better than the rest. As a PTW game, GW2 is quite poor in that respect. Having said that, I am enjoying the game.

astrocanis.3195:

mavet.3047:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Buying gold, and 4 hours later you’ve got a max level toon, with full exotic gear… You can then go into WvW.

Isn’t this only slightly ridiculous. Giving people who buy the gold this advantage?

Um, you DO KNOW, that this game is PAY TO WIN – right?

Except that the items you can buy are only marginally better than the rest. As a PTW game, GW2 is quite poor in that respect. Having said that, I am enjoying the game.

Just ignore him. If you look at his posting history it’s quite evident he’s a troll.

astrocanis.3195:

mavet.3047:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Buying gold, and 4 hours later you’ve got a max level toon, with full exotic gear... You can then go into WvW.

Isn’t this only slightly ridiculous. Giving people who buy the gold this advantage?

Um, you DO KNOW, that this game is PAY TO WIN - right?

Except that the items you can buy are only marginally better than the rest.

But the fact still remains

ITT: People who don’t know what pay to win means.

If Anet offered gear in the gem store that was more powerful than anything you could get in the game, that would be pay to win.

If Anet sold gear in the gem store that was incredibly powerful and the only way to get it in game was to grind for YEARS (literally) then that would be pay to win.

This game is not pay to win in any regards.

Black Regent.5897:

I’d really rather just pay a subscription fee….

It’s not as bad as LOTRO’s messed up pay to win model yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s headed there…

Vouch. I get the same feeling when it comes to gold in this game.

Best part of the game is leveling to 80. Once you hit 80 there’s no new content just repetition, so their loss imo.

I think it’s dumb that you can level through crafting though.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

ITT: People who don’t know what pay to win means.

If Anet offered gear in the gem store that was more powerful than anything you could get in the game, that would be pay to win.

If Anet sold gear in the gem store that was incredibly powerful and the only way to get it in game was to grind for YEARS (literally) then that would be pay to win.

This game is not pay to win in any regards.

your definition of “how long is too long” is subjective. Don’t misunderstand, I begrudgingly agree with at least some of the things you defend despite not liking them and of all those that post in defense of A-Nets current directions and paradigms you at least put some thought into it, but ultimately while you can’t claim it’s “pay to win” it’s certainly pay to not be bored stiff and not progress anywhere or grinding horribly because you refuse to turn this game into “TP Tycoon: Tyria edition”

Hellkaiser.6025:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

ITT: People who don’t know what pay to win means.

If Anet offered gear in the gem store that was more powerful than anything you could get in the game, that would be pay to win.

If Anet sold gear in the gem store that was incredibly powerful and the only way to get it in game was to grind for YEARS (literally) then that would be pay to win.

This game is not pay to win in any regards.

your definition of “how long is too long” is subjective. Don’t misunderstand, I begrudgingly agree with at least some of the things you defend despite not liking them and of all those that post in defense of A-Nets current directions and paradigms you at least put some thought into it, but ultimately while you can’t claim it’s “pay to win” it’s certainly pay to not be bored stiff and not progress anywhere or grinding horribly because you refuse to turn this game into “TP Tycoon: Tyria edition”

What does your post even mean? Wasabi Kitty is exactly correct. You cannot buy power through the gem store. At all.

For the game to meet the requirement of being “pay 2 win” anet would have to put the option to buy increased stats over those that ordinary players cannot get in the gem store.

As far as this is concerned there is nothing else to discuss. That is the complete definition of what “pay 2 win” means.

Now, how interesting you find the game or what direction anet is taking it in as far as it being a grindy game or gear progression is a completely different topic and has nothing to do with paying to gain power. Which is what your post seems to be talking about? I’m still not sure what you’re talking about.

In my experience pay to win games make it virtually impossible to progress without paying. Not just time consuming but almost absurdly impractical.

To get close to that GW2 would have to do something like remove all armor repair NPCs and all free drops of repair canisters and make them account bound so the only way you can repair your armor is by paying real money. You can play without it but you’ll have to somehow get good enough to never die right from the start, or keep buying new armor all the time.

As it stands people who pay to level to 80 and fully equip their character have no real advantage over anyone else because, as other people have said, if you want to you can do the same without spending any real world money in a matter of hours. (I think I first saw a level 80 character on the second day of the headstart weekend.) They’ve also missed a big chunk of the game they paid for. They don’t even have anything to brag about because everyone else can get exactly the same gear, skills, traits etc.

The key word in “Pay to Win” is Win. It doesn’t mean pay to get to the same point other people reached for free.

fellyn.5083:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

ITT: People who don’t know what pay to win means.

If Anet offered gear in the gem store that was more powerful than anything you could get in the game, that would be pay to win.

If Anet sold gear in the gem store that was incredibly powerful and the only way to get it in game was to grind for YEARS (literally) then that would be pay to win.

This game is not pay to win in any regards.

your definition of “how long is too long” is subjective. Don’t misunderstand, I begrudgingly agree with at least some of the things you defend despite not liking them and of all those that post in defense of A-Nets current directions and paradigms you at least put some thought into it, but ultimately while you can’t claim it’s “pay to win” it’s certainly pay to not be bored stiff and not progress anywhere or grinding horribly because you refuse to turn this game into “TP Tycoon: Tyria edition”

What does your post even mean? Wasabi Kitty is exactly correct. You cannot buy power through the gem store. At all.

For the game to meet the requirement of being “pay 2 win” anet would have to put the option to buy increased stats over those that ordinary players cannot get in the gem store.

As far as this is concerned there is nothing else to discuss. That is the complete definition of what “pay 2 win” means.

Now, how interesting you find the game or what direction anet is taking it in as far as it being a grindy game or gear progression is a completely different topic and has nothing to do with paying to gain power. Which is what your post seems to be talking about? I’m still not sure what you’re talking about.

TL;DR (you clearly didn’t anyways)

Just because it’s not pay to win, doesn’t mean that it’s not something that slowly irritates you til your only perceived recourse is to push cash into the cash shop. And that is what a lot of players are feeling, even though it’s subtle it’s the same feeling of being slowly given the temptation of lessening the torment of their badly designed goals. Sure pay to win is a cancerous thing, but pay to not feel like you’re grinding your genitalia on a cheese grater is certainly not much better.
It’s not just that it’s bad game design it’s just simply unnecessary. Or are you telling me that the highly unhealthy aspects of this games design in terms of drops markets and goals is all fine and dandy?

By all means if you can come up with some decent arguments to help sway the feelings instead of a “tough luck” approach, with some logical justification outside of “they gotta eat too” which isn’t easily defeated by examples from other games who are doing just fine financially without the terrible practices of random chance boxes in their CS, then sure your input does warrant being listened to.

Look at another aspect of what A-net is doing here:

There has always been a market of people who buy gold for $$ and people who sell it. And has always been against the Terms of service. But it clearly communicates something to the company making the game: People want to buy things they could get in game by playing with $$

Fair enough. I’m not one of those people. Oddly, some of the people I play with are people who like to spnd real $$ for in game gear. But none of those people (that I’ve been playing with since GW1) were buying from goldsellers because it was against the rules, could get you banned, and risked the security of your account.

Now, A-net has a two fold victory. 1) the people who want to spend real $$ for in game items can do so, via a legitimate sanctioned process and not risk the security of their account…. they are free to play the game to their hearts content. And 2) Having a legitimate way to convert $$ to Gold takes incentive away from players seeking out gold sellers.

Don’t think this is true? In the late 90s and early 2000s Music file sharing was rampant because there was no other option. Not saying it doesn’t still go on now, but it is much less prolific because other companies / services (iTunes, Amazon, etc) have stepped up to fill that demand in a legitimate fashion.

A-net is doing the same thing. They’re tapping a demand that has existed in MMOs since Ultima Online. I would rather funnel the dollars of people wanting to spend $$ for Gold to the company that made the game than to chinese gold farmers, any day, any time.

And side effect bonus? We can buy GEMS FOR GOLD! So, people like me, who get thwapped over the head by the wife for spending too much $$ on silly games, get full access to the items in the cash shop, just by playing the game. I call that a serious win!

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

Hellkaiser.6025:

fellyn.5083:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

ITT: People who don’t know what pay to win means.

If Anet offered gear in the gem store that was more powerful than anything you could get in the game, that would be pay to win.

If Anet sold gear in the gem store that was incredibly powerful and the only way to get it in game was to grind for YEARS (literally) then that would be pay to win.

This game is not pay to win in any regards.

your definition of “how long is too long” is subjective. Don’t misunderstand, I begrudgingly agree with at least some of the things you defend despite not liking them and of all those that post in defense of A-Nets current directions and paradigms you at least put some thought into it, but ultimately while you can’t claim it’s “pay to win” it’s certainly pay to not be bored stiff and not progress anywhere or grinding horribly because you refuse to turn this game into “TP Tycoon: Tyria edition”

What does your post even mean? Wasabi Kitty is exactly correct. You cannot buy power through the gem store. At all.

For the game to meet the requirement of being “pay 2 win” anet would have to put the option to buy increased stats over those that ordinary players cannot get in the gem store.

As far as this is concerned there is nothing else to discuss. That is the complete definition of what “pay 2 win” means.

Now, how interesting you find the game or what direction anet is taking it in as far as it being a grindy game or gear progression is a completely different topic and has nothing to do with paying to gain power. Which is what your post seems to be talking about? I’m still not sure what you’re talking about.

TL;DR (you clearly didn’t anyways)

Just because it’s not pay to win, doesn’t mean that it’s not something that slowly irritates you til your only perceived recourse is to push cash into the cash shop. And that is what a lot of players are feeling, even though it’s subtle it’s the same feeling of being slowly given the temptation of lessening the torment of their badly designed goals. Sure pay to win is a cancerous thing, but pay to not feel like you’re grinding your genitalia on a cheese grater is certainly not much better.
It’s not just that it’s bad game design it’s just simply unnecessary. Or are you telling me that the highly unhealthy aspects of this games design in terms of drops markets and goals is all fine and dandy?

By all means if you can come up with some decent arguments to help sway the feelings instead of a “tough luck” approach, with some logical justification outside of “they gotta eat too” which isn’t easily defeated by examples from other games who are doing just fine financially without the terrible practices of random chance boxes in their CS, then sure your input does warrant being listened to.

You use the words “a lot”, but come on now, when you say that you really mean just you. Unless you’ve managed to ask every player who plays the game how they feel about being able to pay real money to level up and can show real hard facts and statistics that “a lot of people” feel that way?

I understand. You have to make your argument more dramatic by making such claims but lets be a little honest at least.

I could also make the claim that “a lot of players” don’t care and are fine with how it is. But who would be right? Me or you? Neither one of us has backed our claims up with proof.

Besides that what you’re talking about has literally nothing to do with pay 2 win and to be honest your post is pretty incoherent so I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

Actually, with Anet “winning” and being successful, I gain a game that I rather enjoy playing, and the endless entertainment of reading posts like yours on the forums. Pure comedy gold.

Thank you Arenanet. Keep up the good work.

Also, please stop this socialist whiteknight garbage and accept the fact that some of us have disposable income and like to burn it on silly kitten like boosts, gems—>gold, and makeover kits.

Get over yourself.

CassieGold.7460:

Nirvash.3018:

How much does it cost to get to lvl 80? with gold?

I’ve been looking at this since I’m spam crafting an alt past 30-40 levels… feels like some of the crafts cost very little (1-2g) while some cost quite a bit more (4-5g), though I’ve never spent more than that to max a craft, I do also have mats that I collected to offset the cost….

If I had to estimate, I would say 4g / craft for an average, or 32g to max a character…. that’s approximate though, and I’ve never maxed Huntsman or Leatherworker

I’m about to hit master crafter and this is about what I’d estimate it as as well.

I’ve never seen a game I play as being Me vs The Publisher. If the game designer wins, I win. They stay in business, release more content, and everyone wins.

Also: Putting the gold sellers out of business is good for all of us. It gives us a more stable economy in the long run, maintains the value of items in the long run, and if the demand to buy black-market gold is less, then ultimately, they move on to a more profitable game and we deal with less spam. Less people data mining for accounts to comprimise too. We get wins out of this.

I will however say that A-net’s success in dramatically reducing the bot population has shown us that the scarcity of somethings feels a bit…. over tuned. That, or it’s working like intended, and the first few months after launch gave us an unrealistic expectation about what things are worth, and how scarce they are. Lodestones are a prime example… I don’t know if they drop less than before or not, I’ve only ever had one drop for me, but I know that we had bots farming them like mad and artifically depressing the value they had.

Time will tell. I played GW1 for years, and I’ve planned to play GW2 for years. The best thing we can do as players is a) not be hesitant to speak our mind and share our perceptions, and b) give a-net an opportunity to listen to feedback and make improvements.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

He did also mention the benefit that comes from being able to buy gems with gold and thus getting things from the gem store without having to spend real cash.

Gearing up at lvl 80 isn’t that much of a grind, specially not if you do dungeons. It’s not exactly quick but I’d still say it’s quicker than most other MMOs.

We keep seeing how people had this miraculous gold appear in their accounts from just a few hours a day. Well that was fine some months ago when the drops functioned properly. You could get gold easily back then. Now you have to struggle and many a new player is feeling it.

Not everyone is getting drops equally. We’ve been trying to report to the devs this for weeks now and we keep getting these people replying to these threads who A: have played since day one so they DID get the good loot bubble when it existed and then comment on their early drops like it’s happening 24/7 now (almost guarantee you it’s not) B: people who haven’t been touched by the DR bug who think others don’t know what they are talking about because in their tiny universe their drops are fine. It doesn’t help, these people who are posting these things should definitely be concerned because if this continues you won’t have anyone to run dungeons, play WvW, or sPVP with as more and more new and old players leave because the loot drops are so bad for their accounts.

It’s not melodrama it’s a fact. It’s happened in multiple accounts now heck one thread was 1200 posts long concerning this very thing. When it reaches the thousands on the forums how many others are we NOT seeing in the game that don’t bother reporting this and just leave for something better? And we’ve seen how lack of loot completely decimates the population of lesser games, like D3 where they lost 60% of their population all at once because people got tired of the devs not listening to their pleas about how bad the loot was until it was too late.

I’m not even talking about getting legendaries I’m talking about simply gearing your level 80 even in crafted exotics and crafted runes is a huge chore. Some people have said it’s been done on purpose. I’m not sure at this point it either is (because we’ve all known the greed corporations can get) or there’s something seriously wrong with their data collection software causing it to not show them what’s happening to most people.

What gets me as well is how people think it’s working perfectly fine when they are doing pvp. You shouldn’t have to pvp, you shouldn’t have to dungeon run, you shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to get common loot to drop for materials that are necessary to make the crafted armors and weapons or even the mystic weaponry. That’s the whole point of threads like these and until the rest of the playerbase actually becomes concerned that their fellow player citizens are being affected like this then there will always be the threat of too many people leaving a title for better things to do then waste their time.

The people reporting these things don’t want a free handout, they want to be rewarded for their time spent in the game and it’s so not a selfish or bad request.

postman.6915:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

Actually, with Anet “winning” and being successful, I gain a game that I rather enjoy playing, and the endless entertainment of reading posts like yours on the forums. Pure comedy gold.

Thank you Arenanet. Keep up the good work.

Also, please stop this socialist whiteknight garbage and accept the fact that some of us have disposable income and like to burn it on silly kitten like boosts, gems—>gold, and makeover kits.

Get over yourself.

0/10 like…not even worth pointing out how obvious that was.

Also it’s not so much “me vs the publisher” as much as it’s “stop with the lamesauce skinner box garbage” Random rewards are highly overused in this game, when you combine that with the cash shop you get those stupid random chance boxes, which players have had a HUGE bone of contention with already and many claim to have left about, am I being dramatic about things? well I’m not TRYING to be over-dramatic, I’m sure the game will limp on with or without changes that some at least feel are needed but I truly believe it could be better and make more sense.

I’d love to buy more aesthetic things for my toons contrary to the idiot troll post above. but if I open up the CS I’m extremely underwhelmed at the choices. It’s like a plethora of the worst ideas of CS history with the exception of the big “no no” that is Pay to Win.

So like I keep saying I agree the game is NOT pay to win, I repeat NOT pay to win, that’s totally wrong to claim. It’s however NOT outside the realm of possibility to claim that it’s geared towards making money in ways which are detrimental to the game and that erode the confidence and trust between players and the company however. Ultimately it feels stupidly short sighted.

By all means also, I may be (over time) making less sense in my posts or you might just not comprehend what I’m saying, there’s a lot of possibilities, i would hazard a guess that I’m just giving up giving a “kitten” at this point and making less of an effort to articulate what I’m saying, there seems to be such little enthusiasm save for the die hard defenders of A-Net and GW2 at this point on this forum or some tired and repeated points with so little hints towards any saving graces on the horizon that honestly, there seems to be no point anymore holding out to see them pull anything to get this game living up to it’s potential.

@tigirius – (not quoting a long post)

Being affect by a bug so that you are not getting any drops is one thing but making the claim that it’s hard to get crafted gear in this game is just silly. And even if it is hard to get crafted gear you can run each path of a single dungeon and get 1 piece of exotic level gear on average (180 tokens for all 3 paths) a day. Depending on your group and then dungeon this will take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours. You can of course get more than that a day but after clearing all 3 paths in a day it becomes less efficient.

But if it’s crafted gear we’re talking about that is what you just have to have. Farm orichalcum, sell it. 1.3g to 1.5g a day for 1 character, takes 45 minutes if you’re slow. Can be done in as little as 20-25 minutes if you know where the locations are. Do this 2 or 3 times and you can buy a piece of crafted armor from the market. Do it with more characters for even more profit.

Anyone who makes the claim it’s hard to get gear in gw2 has no idea what they are talking about. Unless your character is bugged somehow the above methods rely on no rng what so ever and involve very little actual grind. Unless you don’t like dungeons and see them as “grindy”, but that a personal issue.

And none of this has anything to do with pay 2 win.

Rainu.6871:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

He did also mention the benefit that comes from being able to buy gems with gold and thus getting things from the gem store without having to spend real cash.

Gearing up at lvl 80 isn’t that much of a grind, specially not if you do dungeons. It’s not exactly quick but I’d still say it’s quicker than most other MMOs.

and over time we’ve seen gem prices rise steadily in price as more and more people convert their gold to gems. Which in turn is making buying gems with real cash more of a tempting prospect to convert them to gold again.

So how is this really a “win” for us again?

fellyn.5083:

@tigirius – (not quoting a long post)

Being affect by a bug so that you are not getting any drops is one thing but making the claim that it’s hard to get crafted gear in this game is just silly. And even if it is hard to get crafted gear you can run each path of a single dungeon and get 1 piece of exotic level gear on average (180 tokens for all 3 paths) a day. Depending on your group and then dungeon this will take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours.

But if it’s crafted gear we’re talking about that is what you just have to have. Farm orichalcum, sell it. 1.3g to 1.5g a day for 1 character, takes 45 minutes if you’re slow. Can be done in as little as 20-25 minutes if you know where the locations are. Do this 2 or 3 times and you can buy a piece of crafted armor from the market.

Anyone who makes the claim it’s hard to get gear in gw2 has no idea what they are talking about. Unless your character is bugged somehow the above methods rely on no rng what so ever and involve very little actual grind. Unless you don’t like dungeons and see them as “grindy”, but that a personal issue.

And none of this has anything to do with pay 2 win.

Allowing people to completely buy every piece of gear with gold is p2w because yes the stats on gear does affect WvW(even if it’s not as much as some claims it is)

And yes I’m an open world pve farmer engineer ( the majority of the complaints come from my section of the community ) and shouldn’t have to rely on other people to get the materials i need which is what grouping for running dungeons entails basically or try to solo wvw to get something. Also, that doesn’t discount that this is how the game is designed now. You have to run twenty million dungeons or spend 4 hours a day to get three gold unless you happen to find something no one’s noticed yet in the TP. some niche purchase that gives you a temporary advantage when no one’s looking.
So yes, my original statement stands. It is far too difficult to get the basic gear players need at level 80 without having to buy gold (because even if you do farm wvw or you do farm dungeons there’s a huge startup cost for bags as well as bank space and you even need that to succeed or were you lucky and won multiple 20 slot bags somehow?)

Yes I do suffer from the Dr bug and it’s really annoying to not hear a single thing other then “it’s your imagination” when we report it for two months.

It’s really bad management to allow this game to get to this state and say there’s nothing wrong.

And from the sound of your post it sounds like you didn’t have any issues, did you play the game for the first month when loot was actually normalized?

My point is also ask any new pve player that just reached level 80 who’s been affected by the loot issues, like not being able to join a group because they are either an engineer or they are not geared the way people want them to be, they start looking at bag storage both from the TP and the crafting standpoint and realize how ridiculous it is, they realize that magic find is just a prop and doesn’t work properly, they find out that large events don’t drop anything not even the dragon events……. the list goes on my friend, denying it just because you had really good luck doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

It’s not pay 2 win because pay 2 win implies you are buying an advantage. You in fact are not. You might have a point if ordinarily you could only equip rare armor and had to pay real money to get exotics.

Coupled with the fact that people come and go from the game all time it’s going to be an uneven playing field. People already have the best of the best in wvwvw. If anet didn’t want gear discrepancies in wvwvw they would have made it so you had to be level 80 to join it. Yes. stat on gear affect wvwvw, but so what? I’m not sure how this factors into p2w especially when people already have that gear.

At best all it does is save you some time. And if people want to spend money to save time then that is just fine with me, it has no affect in mine or even your game play, believe it or not. Fact is, you don’t know if the person that just killed you made the gear on their own by farming the mats or they paid real money to buy gems to sell so they could get it off the market. Again, all it’s done is save the person that paid money some time.

I listed 2 methods to get gear that in no way shape or form suffer from DR. One is solo and one relies on a group. Neither involves the tiniest bit of rng as well. And unless you are absolutely terrible they don’t require 4 hours a day, either.

As far as bags go (I thought you had dr issues so why do you need large bags…?) 15 slot bags will do just fine. They are roughly 60s. That aside, I have three 20 slot bags. One I got for free just for making my character, 1 I got for free from the lost shores event, and 1 I actually made myself. If you absolutely have to have 20 slot bags, you can run low level fractals and get 20 slot bags in a day or two of minor fractal grinding. For the absolutely best in slot bags I’d say that’s just fine considering how cheap 15 slots are.

You say you suffer from a “dr bug”. But are you sure you’re not getting the same drops as everyone else but just think they should be better for some reason? My drops have been relatively consistent since day 1 of the head start and I wouldn’t call them good at all. Unless you’re saying you get literally no drops at all..

And once again, none of that has to do with pay 2 win.

Not being able to join a group because you’re engineer has nothing to do with loot or dr. It has to do with anets kittenty balancing decisions.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Rainu.6871:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

He did also mention the benefit that comes from being able to buy gems with gold and thus getting things from the gem store without having to spend real cash.

Gearing up at lvl 80 isn’t that much of a grind, specially not if you do dungeons. It’s not exactly quick but I’d still say it’s quicker than most other MMOs.

and over time we’ve seen gem prices rise steadily in price as more and more people convert their gold to gems. Which in turn is making buying gems with real cash more of a tempting prospect to convert them to gold again.

So how is this really a “win” for us again?

It’s a win considering the other alternative would be to not be able to get gems via any other method than by using cash. It’s not a zero sum-situation, because some people benefit more doesn’t mean that other lose. If you’re convinced that gem prices will continue to rise (I’m not contradicting you there), then buy gems for gold now as an investment

The game is far, far from P2W. You can not buy BIS gear at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s headed that way or not, but neither is anyone else. Well, except, maybe for the devs.
It’s not P2W simply because with all the money in Tyria you can’t buy BIS gear. Like it or not you have to grind for it. Ascended rings which are better than exotics can’t be bought (again, atm), you have to grind for it (either through pristines or drops). So a character with full-bought-exotics is worse stat-wise than the one farming fractals for the rings. Marginal or not, it’s a fact.
And one more thing, I’m so much against all ascended kitten that I got banned 3 times for speaking out against fractals and ascended kitten.
I mind and have a problem with several things in this game and where, in my view, this game is headed, but I can’t with clear conscience say that this game is P2W, no matter how much I mind some of the “mechanisms” devs implemented.
So I honestly, can’t see where does P2W come from. You can pay not to grind, to take less time to get to 80 and stuff like that, but not to win.

No. Just no. P2W DOES NOT mean pay to level/gear/whatever faster. Stop, just stop. I don’t care if YOU think it means that. I can say the sky is green all I want…but it doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t. You don’t “win” by getting the same level as everyone, or getting the same gear faster. P2W has always meant paying money to be better than the rest (to win). Paying for gear, or paying for the best skills, etc.

If someone wants to pay the hundreds of dollars for an 80 and legendary skin (because legendaries ARE NOT BIS, they have ZERO advantage over any weapon), then go ahead. It’s their money, and them having a shiny sword or leveling faster than me MEANS NOTHING. In a month or even weeks, I’ll be on the same level. Which is a perfectly good time frame, imho.

As for gearing being too hard/long. You’re not serious…right? I hit 80, and am fully geared 2 weeks later. All exotic trinkets, weapon, armor, runes and sigil. I bought it all too (except my chest piece, which I got for karma).I didn’t grind for any of it. Nor did I play the TP). Hell, I haven’t even gotten many good drops to sell (seriously, one core and 4 exotics tops). I don’t spend hours grinding. I ran a few dungeons, completed maps, did jumping puzzles, some events, WvW etc. All things I enjoy. Want to know the easiest ways to not waste your gold? Don’t buy new gear while leveling. Not only do upgrade come often…generally it’s so easy to level you can do it in gear many levels below (I got to 80 in mostly level 50-60 greens). Use the TP! Sell the materials/dyes/greens whatever you have. Always make sure to check vendor price first though. Sure those crystals are selling on the TP for 1s 15c…but that’s without the tax. When selling, don’t sell for the buy order price. Seriously. Always always check how much people are SELLING for. Always do that by right clicking the item and going to buy more. The TP doesn’t update prices on the sell tab often. Many times the item I’m looking to sell will sell for 10-20s MORE than what was shown in the sell tab. If you’re buying…use a buy order! Patience makes your gold last longer. Sometimes the gain is a lot (1-2g), sometimes it’s small. It’s always saved money though. And last, but not least. Often you end up losing money putting it on the TP if you don’t pay attention.

<—- Playing since pre-release weekend.

I do think drops have diminished in recent updates. I know the price of common things (unidentified dye anyone?) have gone up considerably recently.

I think that in the War on Bots, open world PvE Farming has been a casualty.

I also think that I still have a fun game to play, I still end the day with more gold than I started with, and that improvements are still being made.

One of the biggest improvements A-Net made recently is to allow higher level loot to drop in lower level zones. Lvl 80 rares drop when you’re down leveled all the way to 55 and I’ve pulled lvl 74 rares of of level 12 harpies as recently as last week. Not max level, but still salvaged for 2 ecto.

I think the normal farming methodology: “I will put myself in Orr and farm the trash for hours” does not work. I hit Orr some days for a little while, hit Harathi Hinterlands and play with centaurs some days, I tend to rove around and not settle in any one spot. I think a savy PvE farmer needs to figure out a new set of skills in the current environment, but (based on my experience alone, your mileage may vary) I think PvE farming is still viable.

What is not feeling viable (sadly) is farming specific things. In GW1, if I wanted Destroyer Gauntlets, I could hunker down and farm Destroyers until I got enough Destroyer Cores to get my gauntlets. In GW2, with Lodestones, I don’t have the feeling that I can do this.

I do think that A-net is working on solutions. I do think that they listen. I remember participating in a discussion about Vanilla vs Omnomberry and the comment that we as players understood the need to limit the availability of Omnomberry Bars, but felt that Omnomberries should be the limiting factor, not Vanilla as Vanilla was needed in several different recipies. A-net’s response was to increase the rate at which Vanilla was available and set a higher respawn timer on Omnomberries. It was exactly what the player community had advocated.

Give it time, provide feedback, understand that in the A-net dev cycle, the Nov 15 patch was a substantial new content and balance patch and that the Dec patch was focused on a holiday event. They’re already talking about January – Feburary changes, so let’s give them a chance to get things implemented while we kick back and enjoy the holiday content.

Rainu.6871:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Rainu.6871:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

He did also mention the benefit that comes from being able to buy gems with gold and thus getting things from the gem store without having to spend real cash.

Gearing up at lvl 80 isn’t that much of a grind, specially not if you do dungeons. It’s not exactly quick but I’d still say it’s quicker than most other MMOs.

and over time we’ve seen gem prices rise steadily in price as more and more people convert their gold to gems. Which in turn is making buying gems with real cash more of a tempting prospect to convert them to gold again.

So how is this really a “win” for us again?

It’s a win considering the other alternative would be to not be able to get gems via any other method than by using cash. It’s not a zero sum-situation, because some people benefit more doesn’t mean that other lose. If you’re convinced that gem prices will continue to rise (I’m not contradicting you there), then buy gems for gold now as an investment

Yes, investment in time into a game that I no longer really play, and feels like it’s rapidly dying regardless of “promised content” because players felt it betrayed them… I don’t mean to sound so sarcastic, but I find your response and suggestion almost condescending in nature.

Gohlar.3671:

Pay to progress = pay to win. It’s not hard to understand. It’s also the reason the game is focused so heavily on grinds. See above, P2W games always follow this path.

sorry kid but this is not a Pay to Win game. Pay to Progress is not even pay to win, i have no idea where you came up with this logic.

pay to win is when you can purchase something in the cash shop that makes you more powerful than noobie nooberson next door if he chooses not to use the cash shop.

anet could even sell exotics or legendaries in the cash shop and it would NOT be pay to win. why? because mr. nooberson can grind for a couple weeks/months and be JUST as powerful as you are now.

as long as the items in the cash shop are available in game. and can be obtained without spending CASH, then the game is not pay to win

you’re welcome for educating you on what ‘pay to win’ actually means

CassieGold.7460:

<—- Playing since pre-release weekend.

I do think drops have diminished in recent updates. I know the price of common things (unidentified dye anyone?) have gone up considerably recently.

I think that in the War on Bots, open world PvE Farming has been a casualty.

I also think that I still have a fun game to play, I still end the day with more gold than I started with, and that improvements are still being made.

One of the biggest improvements A-Net made recently is to allow higher level loot to drop in lower level zones. Lvl 80 rares drop when you’re down leveled all the way to 55 and I’ve pulled lvl 74 rares of of level 12 harpies as recently as last week. Not max level, but still salvaged for 2 ecto.

I think the normal farming methodology: “I will put myself in Orr and farm the trash for hours” does not work. I hit Orr some days for a little while, hit Harathi Hinterlands and play with centaurs some days, I tend to rove around and not settle in any one spot. I think a savy PvE farmer needs to figure out a new set of skills in the current environment, but (based on my experience alone, your mileage may vary) I think PvE farming is still viable.

What is not feeling viable (sadly) is farming specific things. In GW1, if I wanted Destroyer Gauntlets, I could hunker down and farm Destroyers until I got enough Destroyer Cores to get my gauntlets. In GW2, with Lodestones, I don’t have the feeling that I can do this.

I do think that A-net is working on solutions. I do think that they listen. I remember participating in a discussion about Vanilla vs Omnomberry and the comment that we as players understood the need to limit the availability of Omnomberry Bars, but felt that Omnomberries should be the limiting factor, not Vanilla as Vanilla was needed in several different recipies. A-net’s response was to increase the rate at which Vanilla was available and set a higher respawn timer on Omnomberries. It was exactly what the player community had advocated.

Give it time, provide feedback, understand that in the A-net dev cycle, the Nov 15 patch was a substantial new content and balance patch and that the Dec patch was focused on a holiday event. They’re already talking about January – Feburary changes, so let’s give them a chance to get things implemented while we kick back and enjoy the holiday content.

this is a very positive post and something that i am glad to have read. gives me more confidence in the game.

Well hey, people that buy their way to the maximum are fine by me – easy kills when I meet them in WvW, because they have no idea how to play

Hellkaiser.6025:

Rainu.6871:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Rainu.6871:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Both of those “wins” are wins for A-Net and not for us.

Let me put it another way, we don’t praise liquor stores for holding sales because alcoholics can buy cheaper booze as a “win for alcoholics”

both of those are wins for A-Net and nothing more, we gain nothing from it

He did also mention the benefit that comes from being able to buy gems with gold and thus getting things from the gem store without having to spend real cash.

Gearing up at lvl 80 isn’t that much of a grind, specially not if you do dungeons. It’s not exactly quick but I’d still say it’s quicker than most other MMOs.

and over time we’ve seen gem prices rise steadily in price as more and more people convert their gold to gems. Which in turn is making buying gems with real cash more of a tempting prospect to convert them to gold again.

So how is this really a “win” for us again?

It’s a win considering the other alternative would be to not be able to get gems via any other method than by using cash. It’s not a zero sum-situation, because some people benefit more doesn’t mean that other lose. If you’re convinced that gem prices will continue to rise (I’m not contradicting you there), then buy gems for gold now as an investment

Yes, investment in time into a game that I no longer really play, and feels like it’s rapidly dying regardless of “promised content” because players felt it betrayed them… I don’t mean to sound so sarcastic, but I find your response and suggestion almost condescending in nature.

“Players”? Once again you’re speaking for the entire game population. How do you know exactly that the game is “rapidly dying” and that “players” feel anet “betrayed them”?

I’m honestly curious to know. But I won’t be surprised when you tell me you’re basing your opinions on a few threads in these forums.

I mean, I don’t feel that way and none of my friends do either. Nor my large guild or any of the people I play with almost daily. Yes not as many people play as used to but that is standard for mmos. The game is not rapidly dieing..

And once again none of that has anything to do with pay 2 win.

fellyn.5083:

“Players”? Once again you’re speaking for the entire game population. How do you know exactly that the game is “rapidly dying” and that “players” feel anet “betrayed them”?

I’m honestly curious to know. But I won’t be surprised when you tell me you’re basing your opinions on a few threads in these forums.

I mean, I don’t feel that way and none of my friends do either. Nor my large guild or any of the people I play with almost daily. Yes not as many people play as used to but that is standard for mmos. The game is not rapidly dieing..

And once again none of that has anything to do with pay 2 win.

Your constant crutch seems to be to add in “but it’s not pay to win” something that I’ve REPEATEDLY stressed that I agree the game is not, are you trying to argue for the sake of arguing? seriously. The point was it’s still not good game design, not by a long shot and the responses don’t do much to really help to change anyone’s opinion and convince them that it’s anything but terrible.
You then continually come back with the “well that’s just your opinion” defense which isn’t totally wrong so kindly don’t try and twist that into some perceived argument as well, you then elaborate with what can only be described as counter anecdotal responses. How is that going anywhere in terms of a discussion save to say

“we disagree and have different experiences in the game”

Friggin circular is not the word… we’re bordering on pointless… if you want to reduce this to my experience vs yours then that’s fine and dandy but responding with the same flaws?

I’ve watched the tone of the forums change from anger and outrage to just silence as only the most fanatical of the irate toss out complaints about the systems while the “devoted fanbase” of GW2 protects them usually with logic as clearly flawed and naive if not mores so than those complaining, I’m seeing a HUGE downturn in player activity and often that’s attributed to the old chestnut “well they’ll just take a break and come back” whereas often there’s a feeling that players are just quitting, and not taking a break, after all there are BETTER and more POPULAR games which are FREE to play and have much better micro-transaction options, please tell me I’m wrong about that one as I’m pretty sure you, like all gamers know exactly which games I’m referring to.

No, we’re not being given actual data so I cannot say for CERTAIN if the game is dying on it’s feet, in fact the only way we can be certain is to get A-Net to break their icy cold christmas silence and actually tell us out straight, but what are the chances of that happening? but that DOESN’T mean that it isn’t highly unusual to see general gripes in the ingame chat for months, then suddenly seeing large guilds up and disappearing often with the odd straggler popping in every now and then and being shocked at the change in activity.

Yes we may see changes in the next patches, or we may just see more of the same limited thinking, and honestly I don’t want to spend all that time arguing a point that can only be validated when they make a telling move as a company that the game is in dire financial or technical straits… while at the same time dealing with condescending and often aggressive crap from the likes of you.

Do I speak for ALL of them?

NO

Do you speak for everyone still currently playing the game, as some guarantee that they’re all happy and not just staying for social obligations (a very strong pull in an mmo)

NO

So what’s the point of the often slightly aggressive responses? every time a condescending response or pseudo attack at a posts structure is spewed out on the forum it defeats the whole point of the discussion, and yet that’s often what I’m seeing
and each time someone defending this game comes out all guns blazing, I can’t help but envision them sitting in the corner of their room, with a crazed look in their eyes clutching their limited edition charr plushie muttering “It’s not losing players, it’s not losing players.. it was worth the money” repeatedly…

:S why so aggro? we can disagree peacefully until A-Net post the statistics… their silence however is NOT inciting much confidence.