Guild Wars 2

Bough the game expecting to much from W vs W vs W, now its fun to chat with old guildies and have fun in pve.

its a game.

its really enjoyable to progress to lvl 80, finish the story, participate in some dungeon, finish the map explore, checkout pvp, do a few sunday afternoon of wvwvw.

i mean after 400h,, yeah, my “interest” will be less.

im not a “grinder/farmer”, and essentially, i feel some people need to grind to enjoy the game.
if there is a solution to keep these players playing witout grinding, please enlighten me…

at the end of the day, its a great game, but it isnt the only one.
and its probably the game ill have spend the most time in in the last few years!

amazing.

im not looking to “keep grinding” the same content over and over until i get +1% stat.
actually, i dont mind a all the treadmill or whatever, this isnt for me, and the game is still a huge amount of fun and hours without it.

1.As soon as enter the game in LA is read “lfg fractals level X”. Although I like the fractals, this somehow generates stress for me and makes me feel uncomfortable. I would like to make a new character or do the jumping puzzle/explorer achievements, but the “fractal preassure” keeps me in the fractals.

2. Ascended items. My character feels incomplete or “not finished” because i only have exotics, which do not have maximum stats anymore. Like with the fractal thing, i feel a preassure to get this new items again. This makes me not enjoy the game, but “work” for these ascended items. I want to relaxed atmosphere while playing the game, not this stress generating ascended fractals stuff.

I notice myself getting stressed out while playing the game and not relaxing. I somehow want to quit the game, but i still have hope that the development goes more in the Guild Wars 1 direction in the future. But if they add more grindy stuff i am going to quit. The day they add another gear tier past Ascended, i am 100% out.

I’ve been playing less and less and well not really at all in the past week
1. expecting to much from W vs W vs W was looking for a (daoc realm ranks) like game
2. After the 3nd day of Lost Shores.

Further to my previous post in this thread, I have now somewhat revised my opinion and reasons for no longer being the active GW2 player I was a month ago.

I no longer believe that ANet is in sole control of its’ own or GW2s’ destiny. And that Nexons’ 14.7% majority shareholding in ANets’ parent company NCSoft, is wholly responsible for the notable change of direction.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/08/nexon-invests-6-8m-in-ncsoft-becomes-largest-shareholder/

Majority shareholders may not have outright control of a companies day to day operations but they do exert significant influence in the boardroom and can be almost guaranteed a place on the board.

Without too much guesswork, it seems understandable that Nexon are looking to make a substantial return on their $687 million dollar investment. Who wouldn’t?

There is enough evidence to suggest that;

Guild Wars 2 was released earlier than ANet had originally intended because of Nexon pressure to recoup some of their substantial investment in NCSoft as quickly as possible. Ready or not!

The ANet design philosophy (as per the original manifesto) of horizontal progression, no gear grind etc. is not in keeping with the Nexon profitable business model of F2P, P2W, grind based gaming.

Now, for the more speculative part of my post.

Diminishing loot drops (despite claims to the contrary), more grind, vertical progression, expanded gem store, the seeming abandonment of the ANet manifesto within months of launch etc. all point to the Nexon influence in the boardroom having prevailed as the new corporate philosophy within NCSoft and ANet.

He, who pays the piper, calls the tune!

I realy enjoyed leveling my alts but when update come out with new super hiper gear grind with better stats i have decided to take break from Guild Wars 2 – i dont know for how long…
If with expansion they are going to add +10 levels and new hiper gear with better stats – this will mean that this mmo is not for me.
I don’t enjoy gear grind for stats i enjoy geard grind for look – GW1 model gear.
Maybe im to old for gear stats grind.

Playing less, because before the patch it was getting hard to find groups for the dungeons I wanted to do, due to bugs, glitches, and general stupidity of some of the dungeon mechanics.

Now it’s worse because the focus is Fractals, and that splintered the player base so even though EVERYBODY is doing fractals, it feels like everybody is doing 20 different dungeons at the same time = Even worse than before Lost Shores all around.

The new area, has absolutely no replay value what so ever.

Also because I’m getting a little ticked off with Guild Wars 2, I’m noticing stuff that was really wrong before but I was ignoring out of enthusiasm for the title. Like the lack of variety of enemy mobs. Coming from other lesser quality titles with WAY more that can be frustrating.

I’ve definitely been playing less. A few reasons off the top of my head

1. WvW is too shallow. Not only is there very few actual tactics, no progression, but it’s ultimately meaningless. It feels like they started working on WvW but got half way and gave up on it. The badge system is just bad, the maps too small, the copy and pasted maps get very boring very quick, and off hour populations are the key to winning.

2. Class balance- It feels like the classes were released half done. The necromancer is by far the worst offender as it has a ton of bugs, at release I think only half the traits worked. I cannot tell what balance they are working towards, some skills do tons of damage but similar skills on other classes do way less. Burst is a major issue yet they nerfed non-burst specs. They seem to be very inconsistent about balance on both skills and classes.

3. Gear treadmill- Sorry, but I don’t have 100 hours to grind FotM or mobs for mats. I don’t want others having a stat advantage over me in WvW either. So it’s pretty much down to don’t play. Want a dungeon set of armor? Only 20+ runs at 3 a day or 54 in a single day. I expected very hard content with good rewards and instead of got super easy or impossible content with breadcrumb rewards.

4. Dynamic events being under used/developed. The ancient crab event(with a few tweaks) is a good example of what I want to see more of. Not these overly repetitive events that finish in 5 minutes and have zero impact. Claw of jormag is a good example of an epic event simply because they visually put more into it. I mean the first time you see it you question why everything else is so lackluster. I could write a ton more on this but lets just leave it at dynamic events can be a whole lot more.

I made the mistake of switching over to GW2 hoping to get away from Nexon. I still made the switch even after I found out Nexon would be running the cash shop. I had hopes that ArenaNet’s reputation would win out over Nexon’s.

I was mistaken.

Nic above makes a pretty good point as to why I was mistaken, but I’ve also thought about it and realized that while their end does affect me, I honestly don’t care much about it. No more than those shareholders care about mine.

My issue is plain and simple. Their games aren’t fun. Their games aren’t fun because they are designed not to be games but money generators. Maybe if I was in a casino and playing with my money could earn me some back I might be willing to play along.

But even then it still wouldn’t be a true game. That is what I was here for and that is the only thing that I will be around for. And THAT is the reason why I play less.

most of the people playing less have already ‘finished’ the game for the most part. I see people all the time with 800+ hrs played in game…the games’ only been out for 3 months dont you guys work? lol.

Anyway, the other two groups of people playing less are all the people that somehow feel ‘duped’ and cheated that this game would be different than any other MMO (even if they didnt have vertical progression they would still have to have some kind of treadmill to keep you playing the game so I dont really understand what all the fuss is about this is an MMO after all) and the PvPers that are leaving because this game doesnt really have any sort of kitten measuring system (This is actually a legit gripe if you are into esport, with no ladder or ranking how is this an esport?)

I’m just really surprised because it doesnt seem like they actually thought this far ahead in the scope of the life of the game since this really isnt that far ahead.

I guess they are banking on bringing out more one time events and xpacs and taking advantage of the OCD personality types that have finished the game already. With no other major comp on the horizon even if they leave they’ll come back, thats basically how WoW has lived so long.

@HeeHee: the difference is WoW actually had end game pve raid content. Also WoW has a lot less RNG in the gearing process. Yes it has some (the boss never drops your item) but you can still get badges to buy something equivalent to tide you over. Easy or not the raids in WoW are actually something to do at endgame thats plausible. The dungeon boss mechanics in GW2 in comparison are pretty terrible and grinding them over and over makes people lose interest quick.

Now that progression and grind have become the name of the game there’s really no point to me playing this game where they were added as an afterthought.

There are many titles on the market where character progression and related grind were a part of the design philosphy and intent and they do these things far better than Anet can ever hope to.

The Halloween event was cool and all, but didn’t really do anything for the longevity of the game. but no problem, there’s a ‘real’ update just around the corner, they said. Well, that update turned out to be utter crap compared to Halloween, adding nothing of any substance to the game other than a new instance. Yeah, the island itself is worthless. I don’t even understand why they added it, except as an excuse to make that clusterkitten event.

I want to say I might be back, because there are some parts of the game I really loved, but they just don’t seem to be taking it in direction that appeals to me. I don’t do instances. At all. I consider them the bane of all that appeals to me about MMOs.
So it looks like after the extreme letdown that was The Lost Shores, I’m done.

Toxica.6749:

Now that progression and grind have become the name of the game there’s really no point to me playing this game where they were added as an afterthought.

There are many titles on the market where character progression and related grind were a part of the design philosphy and intent and they do these things far better than Anet can ever hope to.

how many hours did you play ?
there IS a point to the game until the grind kicks in.
still, some players actually do continue to play diablo 3 after finishing inferno, just to do it faster…

something i need a psycology class about human nature to understand i suppose.

Stupid fract fiasco and no one WvW’s anymore .

I didnt buy GW2 to PvE

Doubt ill be coming back

I’m playing much less. Certainly not playing any at lvl80 anyway.
I might fiddle around with some alts occasionally but, really, I’m biding my time to see if this
KITTEN KITTEN kitten kitten mudflation continues or not(those were actual kittens if you wonder).
If I see one sign of continued power creep then I’m uninstalling this pos asap-
and telling all my friends to stay away.

If they do right.. well then I will cautiosly come back and probably enjoy it once more.
Hell I’d even spend some coin in that case! (soo glad that I haven’t done that yet though)

I’m too old and cynical to be fooled more than once anymore.

yeah, fractals screwed it up….

players are afraid to step out of the fractal hamster wheel because they might not find a group later on.
they should have done a grind that actually takes you to different dungeons/part of the world.

anyway, there is also the ultimate grinders, D3 style players, that account for a lot of the playerbase; an no matter what it is, they will repeat the same content over and over IF this is the most rewarding content.

sad, really.
thats a problem with mmos, until somebody come up with a better design.

I think I’ll stop playing altogether. Diminishing return on my tolerance to bugs in this game is kicking in.

A week ago I saw a MMO that had a path to endgame for me. Last week I saw a game that saw all players as deserving of endgame content and provided the player with the freedom of choice on what that endgame was going to be.

Today I just see a game that is closing those options, making dungeons the new raids and diminishing its own open world content in the process.

So pretty much lost my drive for the game at the moment until I see what direction this is going I’m off ….NEXT!

Columba.9730:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Honestly, I dont understand how people can compare 3 (yes 3) items to a geargrind such as WoWs or Rift or any other MMO.

I takes roughly 1-1½h per day to “grind” for it after you hit level 10. Once you have the 2 rings you like there is no more “grinding”. You can even save all the wrong stat rings for alts.

It takes much longer than that, I hate dungeons, this is only the beginning. Get it?

Ps. I don’t think fractals are fun at all.

Actually no it doesnt.

I started with a fractal 10 around 21.15 , it was done around 22.15. This is with no voice communication and just pure PuGing. Thats an easy hour or hour and a ½ that I happily do as a break from other things in the game.

And regarding whoever it was that remarked on getting this and that when it comes to cloak mats. Run ascendants if you dont wanna grind mats, you need roughly 1800 marks and you can make one with mats obtained from the fractal vendor and mist essences that drop in the fractals.

Logun.2349:

A week ago I saw a MMO that had a path to endgame for me. Last week I saw a game that saw all players as deserving of endgame content and provided the player with the freedom of choice on what that endgame was going to be.

Today I just see a game that is closing those options, making dungeons the new raids and diminishing its own open world content in the process.

So pretty much lost my drive for the game at the moment until I see what direction this is going I’m off ….NEXT!

a week ago many players complained about “lack of endgame” and “legendary too expensive”.
you know, we have to realize that mmo players are hamsters.
this is how its meant to be.
UO wasnt like that, and unfortunately the hamster model is far more profitable…
the game isnt the problem; its the players

I play less but only because I have a newborn baby to help with, I still love everything about the game

I’m playing a lot less, and it’s due to the new Ascended Gear tier being so far out of my expectations given the originally hyped GW2 game experience that I was so exuberant for. I suppose I’ll get over it and play more again in time; but it’s left me much less inclined to spend time logged-in, or in the gem store. I worry that I’ll never be able to keep up with the grinding crowd — I don’t really enjoy the dungeons, and certainly don’t want to run any of them more than a few times each, ever. And so, unless and until the new gear tier goes into normal open-world PvE, it might as well be on the far side of the moon to me.

In the mean time, I’ve re-upped my subscription to my previous MMO, and I’m enjoying it. It’s a very grindy game at max levels, but I never expected more from it, and they do it pretty well.

I have been playing significantly less due to not many other players wanting to do ALL the content anymore. Don’t get me wrong FOTM is a good dungeon I am just not the type of player who likes only playing 1 dungeon all the time to get an upgrade and progress a character. I usually like doing a different dungeon everyday, mixing in some wvwvw,spvp, and some de’s when wanting to mingle with other players on the server. Most of this is gone now, very rarely I see someone spamming for anything other than FOTM, wvwvw is seeing significantly less in participation so some nights can get frustrating, and DE’s are empty most of the time.

I have no problem with a gear progression system just don’t force everyone into 1 playstyle in 1 place.

I’ve logged well beyond 400 hours played across multiple characters. Since early launch I have been leveling a Mesmer, Elementalist, Thief, Ranger, and Warrior. All are various levels my highest three being Mesmer 70s, Ele and Ranger 50-60s. I continue to log in, even after the cluster of a phase 3 event, but I do so with much less enthusiasm than I used to. This is mostly due to bad manners in bug fixing and balancing. Bug fixing should be the primary issue at hand and yet we see sometimes sweeping nerfs to bugged out classes that doesn’t have anywhere else to turn from. Necro and Ele being my primary examples with both profession’s trait systems being totally screwed up in the sense that there is no synergy, save for a select few builds. Ele, during early BWE, was a force to be reckoned with. It had huge finishers and direct hits that could layout most people in 1-3 blows, this was a problem at first but as players learned the animations they knew when to dodge and evade making any fight with Ele a gamble and, most importantly, FUN. Ele has since been nerfed into a fraction of a ghost of what it used to be. Warriors, however, were allowed to keep this mindset of “well their moves are predictable let them have OP damage” and the community has swallowed that pill. But why was it ok for Warriors to keep their damage and survival but Elementalists lost both? Ele is the profession with the highest learning curve, lowest vitality and lowest damage. The risk vs reward is no where near proportional. Earth Grasp, Ride the Lightning, etc are all STILL bugged btw. On to Necro, Blood Magic trait line is horrid. It will actually heal your opponents (as tested and confirmed by MANY Necro players). The heal returns are not sufficient and Death Shroud is little more than a second HP bar.

I won’t go into any more detail or through all the classes but the combined outlook is grim for the state of the game. If I have friends wanting to join up the first thing I tell them is to roll a warrior or guardian since these to professions seem the most catered to and would be least effected by sweeping changes. Thief is also an option on the table due to it’s many available tools and risk vs reward system that actually feels quite balanced. I’m not offended by Anet’s position of Warrior being the “most balanced profession” but it does make me wonder what the f happened to the others…

Couple these profession problems with the latest event, various bugged events/quests/NPCs, and the new addition of FotM which is allowing the “this high to ride” mentality to develop I’ve been playing less and less and am anxiously awaiting another game to surprise me. Mechwarrior Online is approaching and DCUO (best wardrobe system EVER) is still keeping my interests. I strongly, desperately, hope that Areanet will find a way to turn this around and get people more interested in this game again. Let’s be honest, this game is outstanding and fun, but it’s still littered with issues and from my friend’s testimonies feels unfinished at 80 unless you wvw to no end.

Apologies for the wall of text, any improper grammar, and extended rant. Good cheers!

Avatar.1923:

Toxica.6749:

Now that progression and grind have become the name of the game there’s really no point to me playing this game where they were added as an afterthought.

There are many titles on the market where character progression and related grind were a part of the design philosphy and intent and they do these things far better than Anet can ever hope to.

how many hours did you play ?
there IS a point to the game until the grind kicks in.
still, some players actually do continue to play diablo 3 after finishing inferno, just to do it faster…

something i need a psycology class about human nature to understand i suppose.

Thank you for explaining that there is a point to levelling before the grind kicks in.
I only have 4 lvl 80 toons and 3 in the 20’s and i’m failing to see that point in those empty early zones to be honest.
Having lvl’d 6/8 professions I’d have to argue that the grind actually kicks in at lvl 2 if you craft.

I have given this game more than its fair share of chances, have watched it erode from the first beta to what it currently is. Infact this current gear controversy has its roots in beta w’end one where whiners successfully lobbied anet into making the game ezmode. This allowed players to burn through the content a lot faster than expected and lead to the ascended gear introduction sooner rather than later.

If you think this game has merit in gear progress, good for you, I’m not stopping you from enjoying it.
TSW offers the exact same sort of gear progress PLUS you can pick and choose which skills you develop, can totally customise your skill bar, no skills are linked to weapons, you can evolve your build to be more healy, tanky or have more dps, you can be a hybrid of all. All of these options simply because a gear treadmill was never an afterthought but a design intent.

Deadcell.9052:

I have been playing significantly less due to not many other players wanting to do ALL the content anymore. Don’t get me wrong FOTM is a good dungeon I am just not the type of player who likes only playing 1 dungeon all the time to get an upgrade and progress a character. I usually like doing a different dungeon everyday, mixing in some wvwvw,spvp, and some de’s when wanting to mingle with other players on the server. Most of this is gone now, very rarely I see someone spamming for anything other than FOTM, wvwvw is seeing significantly less in participation so some nights can get frustrating, and DE’s are empty most of the time.

I have no problem with a gear progression system just don’t force everyone into 1 playstyle in 1 place.

that is also exactly my situation.
i expect anet will take care of that.

i hope.
i want to be able to finish the story mode dungeons one day…
anni already did fractals (that have no story element, are just random vignette, dont feel alive in the world) more than 5 times.

ridiculous!
fear drives me, im afraid of being left out of the “gang” if i dont do fractals.

weird design choice.
or terrible mistake.
or profitable reason that im too stupid to understand.

Avatar.1923:

Logun.2349:

A week ago I saw a MMO that had a path to endgame for me. Last week I saw a game that saw all players as deserving of endgame content and provided the player with the freedom of choice on what that endgame was going to be.

Today I just see a game that is closing those options, making dungeons the new raids and diminishing its own open world content in the process.

So pretty much lost my drive for the game at the moment until I see what direction this is going I’m off ….NEXT!

a week ago many players complained about “lack of endgame” and “legendary too expensive”.
you know, we have to realize that mmo players are hamsters.
this is how its meant to be.
UO wasnt like that, and unfortunately the hamster model is far more profitable…
the game isnt the problem; its the players

No, UO got kinda silly towards the end. Check out “the Harrower” and how that raid had to happen, for a small patch of loot. And more similar things were added later, encouraging large organized battles PvE style for a limited amount of loot at the end. Also, the top-tiered gear in that game still wasn’t going to be enough to save you if you were properly ambushed – it took skill and knowing how to get away rather than raw stat advantages.

(What is “Properly”? Paralyze, Harm, Poison, Harm. Paralyze, Energy Bolt, Flamestrike . . . Paralyze, Poisoned Weapon strikes on a horse while you didn’t have one . . . and if someone wanted you D-E-D dead, they got a buddy or two to come help. If I recall rightly, three people going “Corp Por” was a sign you were either going to die or need to log off in “safety” very quickly.)

UO also had players who were essentially told by the designers “go ahead and kill other players for their stuff” on the grounds it would be more fun. I quit that game after I had the same group of 5 stake out my mining hut invisible at the times when I’d play and wait for me to come back with the ore. One even said: “Hey, lemme know if you find some Valorite, I need a new BP” to my dead body / ghost.

And to top it off later expansions DID make it possible to overshoot the 100% Grandmaster skill level. Since the game was less about your gear and more about how efficient you were executing your kills? It made a difference.

UO had some good ideas but, my friend, it had a whole different kind of hate for its playerbase.

I pretty much stopped. The progression content makes GW2 redundant. It has a few minor interesting things other games don’t have, but overall the flat stats/non-stat oriented progression (aside for what was there at launch) was the niche, killer feature of the game. Without it, a lot of other games do what this one is trying to do better. The gear progression isn’t too big a deal (its only a few pieces, and aside for one, they’re easy to get), but the artifical content gating, omg >.> I can’t play with my friends anymore unless I want to repeat fractal level 1-2 over and over for every single ones of them.

So i just peek around forums looking at what people are saying, and waiting to see if Anet will turn around (though I don’t have my hopes up…but who knows, after all, they already did it).

There’s millions over millions of gamers who avoid MMORPGs because of the type of mindset you need to play a progression/gate oriented game, many of which didn’t even know there was a new one that didn’t have that, but Anet killed it before it even reached their ears, deciding to fight with all the others over the 20 or so million players who actively (and very vocally) seek the current standard.

Its just a shame that we’re denied variety/choice (though gaming is far from being the only industry where it happens, so its not surprising). Maybe someone will make an indie game with the concepts this one had, someday. Or just a newer GW1 clone maybe.

Until then, back to playing Monster Hunter (if i want gear progression, Ill play a game that does it well)

SneakyErvin.3056:

Columba.9730:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Honestly, I dont understand how people can compare 3 (yes 3) items to a geargrind such as WoWs or Rift or any other MMO.

I takes roughly 1-1½h per day to “grind” for it after you hit level 10. Once you have the 2 rings you like there is no more “grinding”. You can even save all the wrong stat rings for alts.

It takes much longer than that, I hate dungeons, this is only the beginning. Get it?

Ps. I don’t think fractals are fun at all.

Actually no it doesnt.

I started with a fractal 10 around 21.15 , it was done around 22.15. This is with no voice communication and just pure PuGing. Thats an easy hour or hour and a ½ that I happily do as a break from other things in the game.

And regarding whoever it was that remarked on getting this and that when it comes to cloak mats. Run ascendants if you dont wanna grind mats, you need roughly 1800 marks and you can make one with mats obtained from the fractal vendor and mist essences that drop in the fractals.

10 levels x 3 per level divided by 50% ring drop rate = 60 fractals. if you are lucky….. that’s 60 hours, lol.

i won’t write a novel, but I haven’t logged in since the lost shores event launch.

i have 2 80s, and was working on getting them geared in full exotics, but then i had to wonder what i was gearing them for… I can already do the dungeons to get the exotics in greens and yellows, i can WvW fine in yellows. there’s nothing to do once you get the gear.

why am i bothering to farm all this gold for stuff that i can’t use for much of anything beyond WvW (assuming it isn’t a mass zerg where egar doesn’t mean anything anyway).

now i like gear progression in PVE, but i have no desire to do fractals over and over to get the next gear tier…. and then have nothing to do when i get it.

anyway, I was loving the game and playing everyday (250h in 46 days) until overnight my interest tanked.

glad you enjoyed the game for over 200h.

now go on exploring the map/dungeons, or do pvp.
gear grind is “endgame” for players who likes it.

otherwise we hope an expension will bring us more exploration!

i should add i already have 100% map on my first character and a second 80 that i played through the maps i like. i’ve done the exploration portion of the game. i’ve played the dungeons several times as well.

wvwvw is not what i want in pvp. i’d love to see the addition of arenas for casual 1v1. i don’t find zerging enjoyable in the least. i love open world pvp, but not the way it turned out in this game. i prefer smaller scale battles than the 30 vs 30 spam fest outside keeps.

I have stopped playing the game entirely, as it just stopped being fun for me. There’s just nothing worth doing at max level for a pve-er if you don’t care about gear grinding (ascended, legendary, or whatever). I explained my reasons in this post, which will already be familiar to some of you. Basically, the ascended gear announcement was the final splash (definitely more than a drop) for me, although it’s far from the only reason. I’m definitely watching where ArenaNet go with this game, and in time, if I like the changes they make, I may return to playing.

i’ve completely abandoned tyria; i only log in to compete in the mists for wvw and spvp

Enjoyed pent and shelt farming for gold/ectos/rares before an update just before Lost Shores. Seems like things have changed and running that area is 1/4 as productive as it used to be. Less reward and less ability to be part of the economy = less enjoyment and enthusiasm.

As far as Lost Shores final event, didn’t enjoy it, the map wiped to many times to be fun with out getting a precursor.

I keep coming back to the forums to look for some good news or at least positive Dev response… or really bad news like all T6 mats are only avail on the gem store.

drifter.8453:

…So between the event that ruffled a lot of feathers on people that DID NOT GET A PRECURSOR DROP. To the content locust, To the Mats, gold and Karma grind for a Legendary, to the Exotic Karma grind, and now the Acsended gear treadmill,…

This…exactly this…so depressing… add to that Tyria is a ghost land now, rarely see players around, zones are just…empty…

Logun.2349:

A week ago I saw a MMO that had a path to endgame for me. Last week I saw a game that saw all players as deserving of endgame content and provided the player with the freedom of choice on what that endgame was going to be.

Today I just see a game that is closing those options, making dungeons the new raids and diminishing its own open world content in the process.

True.

Zepour.4965:

I think I’ll stop playing altogether. Diminishing return on my tolerance to bugs in this game is kicking in.

I seriously laughed, well done!

Avatar.1923:

UO wasnt like that, and unfortunately the hamster model is far more profitable…
the game isnt the problem; its the players

Sad, but true. Too often games are altered from their miraculous creations to fit the form of what is more profitable.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, UO got kinda silly towards the end.

UO also had players who were essentially told by the designers “go ahead and kill other players for their stuff” on the grounds it would be more fun. I quit that game after I had the same group of 5 stake out my mining hut invisible at the times when I’d play and wait for me to come back with the ore. One even said: “Hey, lemme know if you find some Valorite, I need a new BP” to my dead body / ghost.

And to top it off later expansions DID make it possible to overshoot the 100% Grandmaster skill level. Since the game was less about your gear and more about how efficient you were executing your kills? It made a difference.

UO had some good ideas but, my friend, it had a whole different kind of hate for its playerbase.

A few comments & corrections on those UO statements:

UO did start to sink and get “silly”, ie Trammel, Cast Times altered, Insurance, Artifacts, Magic Resist change to armor resist, etc.

Ultima Online never said they were a PvE(PvM) game, it was strictly open world until the Renaissance Patch introduced Trammel to widen the playerbase to those who sought safety and wanted to PvE (aka PvM in UO). Sadly that introduction killed it for many of the players who had bought and payed monthly for what the game was known for.
UO was sold as an open world mmorpg where you could kill anyone, loot anyone, speak to in-game customer support, role play, own homes, form communities, form guilds, declare war/peace on other guilds, steal from others, Order/Chaos fight, etc. It was sold as a mmorpg where the community drove the content, not the otherway around, that we see today: The content drives the community.

Ultima Online didn’t have a different kind of hate for it’s playerbase. The playerbase altered the game to fit their “care-bear” outlook on what a games model should be, and it set the tone for every mmorpg you play today.

Or…you can simply blame EA. After Origins sold UO to EA, that’s when things really started going bad.

1. Fractual dungeons gets boring and repetitive,clogs lions arch,as if its not full enough
2. needs to play TP to get that amount of gold for legendary,where is the PVE?
3. low level areas still unrewarding for lvl 80s
4. BLC and new gems chest are garbage
5. ways to get and purpose of ascended gear is complete nonsense
6. Town clothes,costume brawl doesn’t make sense,people wants to wear wacky costumes or sunglasses and fight a dragon,why towns clothes only? I still can’t understand,you could have earned extra meals each day from cosmetic sales.Total lackluster cosmetic customization.

Just my rant >:(

With most games, I go through two phases. Note: I don’t expect anyone else to play games like I do, though I will say my wife plays in much the same fashion, if a bit more causally.

The first phase is one of exhilaration and intense play, exploring every nook and cranny, digging into the depths of game play. Depending on the game, this can last from a week to several months. With Guild Wars 2, it ran about six weeks.

After the game is thoroughly explored, one of two things will happen: I abandon the game, or I play is more reasonably and with less intensity. The best games are those that become a pleasant diversion, where I play them simply for fun, where logging in is a “it’s been a long day and I need to kill something” or “I need a mini vacation.” I often write in my head (I am a published author) while playing such games, and listen to music. Very therapeutic, very stimulating.

Guild Wars 1 was (and is) a pleasant diversion. When I want to relax, I hop on my ranger and take my Dune lizard on a solo run thru places like Haiju Lagoon. I’m not looking for fancy loot or social interaction; I’m in-game to relax. I still play GW1 this way, once a week or so, for old times sake. GW1 is now a very casual game for me. Note that I have a 31/50 HoM, and several world exploration and other titles. I was quite serious about GW1, and still hold it as my favorite game of all time, with seven years under my belt.

As for Guild Wars 2…

I vastly prefer my GW2 ranger over the one in GW1. Unlike many others, I don’t find my ranger weak in PvE; she can solo all areas of the world, including Lost Shores and Orr, dressed in full Exotics, including a very nice ring from the final Karka event. I am very fond of my lizards, particularly the new reef drake. Much like GW1, I spend much of my time wandering the maps, sometimes dropping into WvWvW, always finding something new even with the 100% exploration title. Some areas I like more than others; Mount Maelstrom and Frostgorge Sound are among my favorites, while Orr in any flavor is not a favored haunt. I redo low-level areas often, enjoying the events, saving a Tyrian here and there, getting a nice drop every once and a while.

I’m working on a Mesmer Alt, and a Warrior who is the image and embodiment of me in the game. Those are likely to be my only alts of significance, and they’re level 30 and 6 at the moment, with little chance of rapid progression any time soon. I’m usually a one-character man, and I’m happy with my Ranger. Yes, the Ranger needs improvements… which leads to my final topic.

ANet breaks promises and fails to fix the core game, all while producing buggy, inconsistent “expansions” like The Lost Shores. Note that I did get loot from the big karka; be that as it may, the event was poorly designed (no direction, poor server performance) and buggy as a swamp (I live in Florida; I know swamps).

What makes me particularly angry: when promised Ranger improvements don’t show up when promised; we were explicitly promised changes and upgrades in mid-November. Meanwhile, Warriors get BUFFED, a ridiculous decision on ANet’s part. Beyond that, there were broken events for WEEKS, and serious problems with everything from balance to drops, for which ANet was both obtuse and slow in reacting. Sometimes, the game pisses me off so much; I throw up my hands and stop playing for days at a time.

I strongly dislike the implementation of Ascended gear. I was very happy with having max gear, only to have a new gear treadmill thrown in my face. Grinding should be MY CHOICE, not a carrot-on-stick way of forcing people to play in ways they don;t want to. Ascended gear almost made me quit, and it did stop me form buying gems with Real World Money. I will buy nothing in the store until this situation is openly, honestly, and directly addressed. And I was spending 20-50 dollars per month there, in support of the game.

Here’s how to fix Ascended gear for me: Allow me to craft it, and give me a REASONABLE way to upgrade my current Exotics directly to Ascended quality.

In spite of my frustrations, I do keep coming back. I have the flu this weekend, so I’m doing a bit of gaming, and my choice is Guild Wars 2. I’m staying away from the Fractal dungeon; trying to find a starting level 1 group is a pain, and while I’m willing to (and enjoy) playing with others, I have no interest in spamming “LFG” in Lion’s Arch. The dungeon looks like fun; design it to scale like the rest of the game, and I’ll be much happier when soloing or playing it with 2-3 others. I have two daughters and a wife who play; we’d love to four-man fractals, but can’t because it doesn’t scale.

Yes, I’m still playing, but I’m much less enthused than I once was. Make the Fractal dungeon (and other dungeons for that matter) scale, give us crafting and other alternative methods of getting ascended gear, and my mood will improve. Improve my mood, and I spend more in the cash shop.

oh just slowing down trying to not rush and get burned out before they put in the next expansion

I am finding the lfg FotM spam more irritating than any of the gold seller adverts. I know I could just switch tabs but I like to have the chat open while crafting.

This is the thing I was hoping this game was going to be a haven for people that have either no inclination for the whole gear chasing thing or have long since grown out of it.

Somewhere that people who just like to play the game can do so and gear is collected while playing the game and not required in order to play it.

I suppose a lot of people have been conditioned to believe that always getting that next piece of gear with increased stats is what the so called end game is about and every game must have it.

There are many games offering that type of experience. Guild Wars 2 offered the vision of a new way to do things. Just a shame that Arenanet folded faster than Superman on laundry day. If they have a vision and promise made to customers they should stick with it.

Kymaera Stormweaver.1069:

A few comments & corrections on those UO statements:

UO did start to sink and get “silly”, ie Trammel, Cast Times altered, Insurance, Artifacts, Magic Resist change to armor resist, etc.

Ultima Online never said they were a PvE(PvM) game, it was strictly open world until the Renaissance Patch introduced Trammel to widen the playerbase to those who sought safety and wanted to PvE (aka PvM in UO). Sadly that introduction killed it for many of the players who had bought and payed monthly for what the game was known for.
UO was sold as an open world mmorpg where you could kill anyone, loot anyone, speak to in-game customer support, role play, own homes, form communities, form guilds, declare war/peace on other guilds, steal from others, Order/Chaos fight, etc. It was sold as a mmorpg where the community drove the content, not the otherway around, that we see today: The content drives the community.

Ultima Online didn’t have a different kind of hate for it’s playerbase. The playerbase altered the game to fit their “care-bear” outlook on what a games model should be, and it set the tone for every mmorpg you play today.

Or…you can simply blame EA. After Origins sold UO to EA, that’s when things really started going bad.

Ehhh, we can disagree on a couple points. (Except that it did decline. I got out sometime after I was mugged and hunted down until my house collapsed and was looted. But that’s another story.)

I will point out your comment about “the community drove the content”, and say if the end result is the game driving away a lot of the customers . . . it’s not much better than the content driving the community Game still fails.

. . . but I’ll always have Vesper and my log cabin in the woods two minutes from one of the Valorite veins. (sniff)

I’m waiting on Anet to do more polishing on the professions. They all feel unfinished. Traits are not nearly potent or game changing as they should be. Many weapons are near useless when compared to alternatives. Autotattack is often better than actually using skills. Most profession mechanics need work.

I can play a game with limited content, but unless the core vehicle of how you experience the game (your character) is setup properly I lose interest.

Not seeing the point in running fractals just so I can disconnect and receive absolutely nothing. And that’s all GW2 is right now. Running fractals.

I have played much less lately, but it isn’t due to the game, just other non game related reasons.

Yes I don’t agree with things they have done, but I still like this game the best. People are going to take breaks playing. It’s not like they can’t come back.

I’m taking a break from the game to see what gets added in the near future. I won’t stop playing completely, but the game has become a little stagnant as of late due to things being what they are. No, I’m not one of those people who rushed through the content or anything. I’ve not completed the whole map completion and have barely set foot inside of any dungeons.
I’ll be spending some time with Planetside 2 (crazy cause I’m not a big fps person, but it is addicting.) and I’ll probably play a little Diablo 3 around Christmas and maybe (if I’m lucky) Dark Souls. Anyway, I’ll pop into the game for the Holiday events, but beyond that I’ll need to see how the game develops in the future for it to be able to hold my attention for long.

1) I’ve gone from averaging an hour a day to not playing for the last week. I’ve been playing Master of Orion instead.
2) Stopped playing after the Sea of Sorrows event and trying FOTM for a bit.
3) The event was a buggy unplayable message, and the rewards for those who were able to make it are a kick in the gibbles. I’m not able to complete any FOTM levels since I don’t have 3 hrs to play nonstop to try to level up. And now that most of the dungeon-running playerbase has levelled up, it’s even harder to find a group. If I wanted to play a raid progression MMO, I’d play one of the raid progression MMOs out there.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that WvW has been a HUGE disappointment for me. I played over a year of Warhammer for the RvR and scenarios; WvW just doesn’t have the same appeal. I’m not exactly sure why, but it just isn’t fun like Warhammer was.

Arena’s got way better metrics than we do, so I suspect they’re seeing the drop in activity.

The week before the fractals opened , all the waypoints were open in orr. Now thay are all contested, and will more than likely stay that way.

300 gold thrown into the mystic forge trying to get a dusk or dawn.

Now they change everything turns out if i never tried i would of been in a position to buy one.

It sounds like to me the reason for this thread is, “GW2 is not the way I want it to be”, it is impossible to please everyone.

The only good reason I can see for not playing anymore is the DR crap they put in that hurt legitimate players just as much as bots and low population servers that make it seem like I’m playing a solo game. Also numerous bugs that can frustrate players to no end like dungeons that force players to reset because the npc got stuck.

Things such as new content like FotM and Lost Shores were introduced because of the game having no endgame content, you can’t blame Anet for trying to put some in at the players demand. FotM was a success in my eyes to give people some hardcore content, Sunshore Cove though seems stale.

The games PvP does seem to be suffering. WvW is only fun when your running around with an organized guild instead of a random zerg and I don’t know anyone interested in sPvP. At this rate it will never become an e-sport which is something Anet shouldn’t shoot for because people will take it too seriously and suck the fun right out of it. It’s a game, it’s supposed to be fun not a job.

If you gambled in the mystic forge that’s your own fault. Statistics now show that getting a precursor the Mystic Forge way is fool hearty.

I still play GW2 but my beefs with it are

1) Class imbalances.
2) Dungeon imbalances.
3) Irritating bugs(ex. hodgins doesn’t trigger the final cutscene in AC path 1 and no tokens).
4)The server I am on is low population therefore making zones empty and zero fun while leveling. This is probably due to people crowding in servers winning WvW constantly.