Guild Wars 2

Linaeus.6253:

You don’t need anything above blues to complete almost every section this game offers. Blues and greens drop so much, you can outfit all your characters without even needing to buy from the trading post. YOU choose to use exotics and buy runes/sigils, but they are far from needed.

true, but that’s not the content that matters. good luck doing wvw, fractals, ANY dungeons, without at least rare quality gear. do you not realize how big the stat jump is from blue to exotic? it’s massive! you are likely to have trouble fighting even normal veterans once you hit 80 and still have blue/green gear, plus NOT adding runes and sigils to your gear SEVERELY gimps your character. i mean if you’re fine with farming everything you said is true. by farming i mean not champs, vets, or world bosses.

ipan.4356:

Ok, I just logged in to check the TP, so for example:

Yakkington’s and Reyna’s are 8 gold per piece right now, ’Zerker’s is almost 7.

That’s what I mean.

On average, exotic armor runs about 30-40 gold or so (give or take) just for the armor set.

Add in a full set of superior runes – Exuberance is almost 16g per rune, and Sigil of Bursting is about 16 1/2

Yeah, I was just thinking about zerker. I forgot about how bad that stuff is. The demand affects it stupid disproportionately.

Now I remember why I mostly just run rares and greens. :P

Again – I’m not saying that getting the best gear should be easy. I’m all for locking it behind extremely challenging content.

What I don’t want to do is to repeat that content over and over – i.e., farming.

Purple enemies in dungeons should drop an dungeon armor skin for that dungeon guaranteed, for example.

Legendary weapons should have a chance of dropping from world bosses, for example.

I shouldn’t have to “run” dungeons over and over and over to get something.

I should merely have to play it 1-3 times to get what I want – then move on to the next challenge.

If that meant actually making the content harder – I’d be fine with that.

I’m not complaining about difficulty – I’m complaining about repetitiveness. The grind.

The farming.

Stop the farming.

Gaming is not a second job. It’s not a chore.

It’s a kitten game, for god’s sake.

You are supposed to have fun.

Now, if “farming” is your idea of fun, then the changes I propose would in no way stop you from doing that.

You could still kill the same thing over and over and over again, if that’s your thing.

But, for those of us who like to experience content a couple times (at most), and then move on to something new, with the stuff we got from the last encounter – well, we would be able to do that.

Without farming for it.

What I’m asking for is an end to farming – even if it meant raising the difficulty.

Because the idea of ‘farming’ is quite literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to MMO’s (or any game) in the entire history of gaming.

Another way to look at is like this:

If you’ve already beaten a piece of content, then you’ve already proven that you can do it.

Why are you required to do it again, if you already know you are capable of overcoming that particular challenge?

ipan.4356:

Because the idea of ‘farming’ is quite literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to MMO’s (or any game) in the entire history of gaming.

It’s a staple of the MMO genre. Console games and single player PC games are relatively farming free. You may find more enjoyment from those if you dislike farming.

What I’m trying to show here, above all, is that the acceptance of such a practice, the very idea that ‘farming’ is normal itself really need to be questioned by the gaming community.

You’ve been conditioned to run a hamster wheel.

Why?

You should simply be able to play content, and when done with it, move on to the next piece of content.

The game should not require you to repeat the same thing over and over (but that should be available for you to do – repeating content should be a choice, because you enjoy that content – not a requisite to advance).

Farming is an artificial way to keep people playing a game for which you cannot create enough content – it uses psychological manipulation and conditioning (Skinner box/casino tactics) to get you to replay content you don’t want to for “rewards” that otherwise wouldn’t take as long to acquire.

End the farming.

Demand more content.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Because the idea of ‘farming’ is quite literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to MMO’s (or any game) in the entire history of gaming.

It’s a staple of the MMO genre. Console games and single player PC games are relatively farming free. You may find more enjoyment from those if you dislike farming.

But I don’t accept the status quo.

It’s time you demanded more from your developers.

Less grinding means less people playing the games once they’ve experienced it enough times to be bored. You can only do AC Story, for example, so many times before you’re bored of it. Games would fail if they did what you want them to.

E Tan.7385:

Balsa.3951:

U don’t need farm at all. The exotic gear is easy to get. .

i’am sorry, but

• Having to do more that 50time a boring dungeon to get a complet exotic armor + 2-3weapons for me its farming.
• Having to collect 900+ mcm insignia just for a complet exotic armor, for me its farming
• I dont speak about Ascended gear which is CLEARLY farming.
• And i dont even speak about the necessity to have serveral stats to be able to correctly play 2-3 differents builds per char : which mean repeat X time the previews farm to play decently ONE class.
• And i forget to add the necessity of having X version of the same armor / weapon because of runes / sigils.

Yeah sure, no need to farm in GW2.. sure ! Are we really playing the same game ?

You didn’t read his post. A full set of anything exotics is about 60-70 gold. That’s not an exceptional amount and it’s certainly not necessary to ‘farm boring content’ to get it either. You’re just being sensational.

ipan.4356:

It’s time you demanded more from your developers.

There is no need to demand more … regular, non-farmed play sets you up for decent gear; exactly what you are asking for. What it feels like is that you want BiS gear should rain into your mailbox.

Obtena.7952:

E Tan.7385:

Balsa.3951:

U don’t need farm at all. The exotic gear is easy to get. .

i’am sorry, but

• Having to do more that 50time a boring dungeon to get a complet exotic armor + 2-3weapons for me its farming.
• Having to collect 900+ mcm insignia just for a complet exotic armor, for me its farming
• I dont speak about Ascended gear which is CLEARLY farming.
• And i dont even speak about the necessity to have serveral stats to be able to correctly play 2-3 differents builds per char : which mean repeat X time the previews farm to play decently ONE class.
• And i forget to add the necessity of having X version of the same armor / weapon because of runes / sigils.

Yeah sure, no need to farm in GW2.. sure ! Are we really playing the same game ?

Wow … you don’t need to do any of that. A full set of anything exotics is about 60-70 gold. You’re just being sensational.

right and people should be able to play for 20 hours without extensively trying to farm money and make those amount of money.

SolviteSekai.9816:

Ayrilana.1396:

SolviteSekai.9816:

I cant believe nobody has suggested adding raids yet.

Is this just a “I wish this was WoW and I could google which boss drops my sword” thread?

100% drop or not? If 100% then what’s the point as everyone would have the item(s) within a week. If not 100% then it would fall under as a grind based in people’s definition.

You just explained why every WoW clone MMO ever has more or less failed commercially.

Farming keeps people playing the game.

Easy drop rates don’t.

Also to anyone who calls this game grindy.

LOL

I suggest some of you go play any of NCsofts other games besides Wildstar.

Aion laughs at what you call grinding.

Okay first of all LOL that’s the funniest thing I’ve read apparently you’ve not seen the large number of grind and loot complaints there in WS main forums. You see they did the same thing Anet did here, limit loot, reduce the amount of currency one gets from normal game activities so guess where everyone is going, away from the WS that’s where. We told them both this would happen. We posted multiple times about the dangers of limiting loot, making this game RNG fest 2000 and making it stingy and here we are. Seriously, surely they can see that it shouldn’t reward 5 silver for finishing a map there has to be a basic entry level of currency and there has to be a basic level of rewards. For example, the champions in this title only drop greens and blues and those chests out there more of the same. It’s pointless. It’s been well established by the psyche community that the majority people play games to feel rewarded properly for their time, if that element is missing then you lose players.

laokoko.7403:

Obtena.7952:

E Tan.7385:

Balsa.3951:

U don’t need farm at all. The exotic gear is easy to get. .

i’am sorry, but

• Having to do more that 50time a boring dungeon to get a complet exotic armor + 2-3weapons for me its farming.
• Having to collect 900+ mcm insignia just for a complet exotic armor, for me its farming
• I dont speak about Ascended gear which is CLEARLY farming.
• And i dont even speak about the necessity to have serveral stats to be able to correctly play 2-3 differents builds per char : which mean repeat X time the previews farm to play decently ONE class.
• And i forget to add the necessity of having X version of the same armor / weapon because of runes / sigils.

Yeah sure, no need to farm in GW2.. sure ! Are we really playing the same game ?

Wow … you don’t need to do any of that. A full set of anything exotics is about 60-70 gold. You’re just being sensational.

right and people should be able to play for 20 hours without extensively trying to farm money and make those amount of money.

I don’t get your point. You can play 20 hours, do what you LIKE and still make money. Just leveling to 80, completing maps and hearts gives you most the gold you need to get some exotic gear to start with … unless the player is a moron.

EVERYTHING in this game rewards with money in some way, so you aren’t restricted to certain activities if you want new, good quality gear. Giving the impression that there is only a select few ways to make gold necessary to equip yourself reasonably well is stupid.

The entire concept of ‘farming’ should never have entered into gaming in the first place.

This is the core of the issue – farming is a way for companies to make money, not a way for you to have fun.

I say abolish farming.

Demand more.

Raise your expectations higher.

Obtena.7952:

laokoko.7403:

Obtena.7952:

E Tan.7385:

Balsa.3951:

U don’t need farm at all. The exotic gear is easy to get. .

i’am sorry, but

• Having to do more that 50time a boring dungeon to get a complet exotic armor + 2-3weapons for me its farming.
• Having to collect 900+ mcm insignia just for a complet exotic armor, for me its farming
• I dont speak about Ascended gear which is CLEARLY farming.
• And i dont even speak about the necessity to have serveral stats to be able to correctly play 2-3 differents builds per char : which mean repeat X time the previews farm to play decently ONE class.
• And i forget to add the necessity of having X version of the same armor / weapon because of runes / sigils.

Yeah sure, no need to farm in GW2.. sure ! Are we really playing the same game ?

Wow … you don’t need to do any of that. A full set of anything exotics is about 60-70 gold. You’re just being sensational.

right and people should be able to play for 20 hours without extensively trying to farm money and make those amount of money.

I don’t get your point. You can play 20 hours, do what you LIKE and still make money. Just leveling to 80 gives you most the gold you need to get some exotic gear … unless the player is a moron. EVERYTHING in this game rewards with money in some way. Giving the impression that there is only a select few ways to make gold necessary to equip yourself reasonably well are stupid.

Do you have any idea how long that actually takes, and how often you have to repeat the same content over and over again?

This is the core of farming – being required to replay the content (again, not because it’s fun and you like it – that’s fine) to get anything.

The easiest way to solve it would to increase the odds that bosses (especially purples) drop exotic loot, including sigils and runes – and even legendary’s.

Farming is a completely artificial means to produce revenue for Anet – and has nothing to do with making the game more fun for it’s players.

Down with farming!!!

Your cause is a good one IMO, ipan, but it has to be replaced with something. The vacuum it leaves is essentially no PvE content. We can’t just demand for faster content updates because it’s not a realistic request; developers simply don’t have enough time, even working 24/7, to produce original content at a rate that will prevent people from having to repeat.

As far as I can tell, you need a system that is somewhat dynamic. It has to give players the tools to make their own content, in a sense (not necessarily in a literal sense – they just need the tools to challenge/entertain themselves in new and interesting ways).

Like the spirit of being able to choose difficulty settings in a game, only more robust and varied.

But it’s not as though no devs have ever thought of this fact. I’m sure many have gone down the rabbit hole, only to find nothing particularly useful/workable. I still think it’s a good thing to talk about, but if the answer was easy, we’d probably have it right now.

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

Which is not what ESO is, unfortunately

So let me ask this.

How do you suggest you acquire armor in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire wepons in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire gold in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire legendaries in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire runes in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire sigils in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

Ayrilana.1396:

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

That’s about it, in a nutshell.

It’s ironic you should mention Skyrim, because I’ve been thinking of picking that up soon.

But yeah, Skyrim in an MMO format – that is, the ability to play with other people.

Sure.

dancingmonkey.4902:

So let me ask this.

How do you suggest you acquire armor in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire wepons in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire gold in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire legendaries in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire runes in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire sigils in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

By making all of the challenges (i.e. bosses/dungeons) that drop those things more difficult, but much higher (perhaps even guaranteed) chance to drop those things.

Raise the difficulty, but also raise the chance (perhaps to 100%) of drops.

ipan.4356:

Again – I’m not saying that getting the best gear should be easy. I’m all for locking it behind extremely challenging content.

What I don’t want to do is to repeat that content over and over – i.e., farming.

Purple enemies in dungeons should drop an dungeon armor skin for that dungeon guaranteed, for example.

Legendary weapons should have a chance of dropping from world bosses, for example.

I shouldn’t have to “run” dungeons over and over and over to get something.

I should merely have to play it 1-3 times to get what I want – then move on to the next challenge.

If that meant actually making the content harder – I’d be fine with that.

I’m not complaining about difficulty – I’m complaining about repetitiveness. The grind.

The farming.

Stop the farming.

Gaming is not a second job. It’s not a chore.

It’s a kitten game, for god’s sake.

You are supposed to have fun.

Now, if “farming” is your idea of fun, then the changes I propose would in no way stop you from doing that.

You could still kill the same thing over and over and over again, if that’s your thing.

But, for those of us who like to experience content a couple times (at most), and then move on to something new, with the stuff we got from the last encounter – well, we would be able to do that.

Without farming for it.

What I’m asking for is an end to farming – even if it meant raising the difficulty.

Yes. Lets have items worth over 3000-4000 gold drop off world bosses to decrease their value and prestige exponentially!
/sarcasm
Dumbest thing I’ve read on this forum to date.

Labjax.2465:

Your cause is a good one IMO, ipan, but it has to be replaced with something. The vacuum it leaves is essentially no PvE content. We can’t just demand for faster content updates because it’s not a realistic request; developers simply don’t have enough time, even working 24/7, to produce original content at a rate that will prevent people from having to repeat.

As far as I can tell, you need a system that is somewhat dynamic. It has to give players the tools to make their own content, in a sense (not necessarily in a literal sense – they just need the tools to challenge/entertain themselves in new and interesting ways).

Like the spirit of being able to choose difficulty settings in a game, only more robust and varied.

But it’s not as though no devs have ever thought of this fact. I’m sure many have gone down the rabbit hole, only to find nothing particularly useful/workable. I still think it’s a good thing to talk about, but if the answer was easy, we’d probably have it right now.

I’d love to see what they could do by combing user created content with procedural generation with developer created content.

By leveraging all of these together, they could create a level of content never before seen in any game.

As to whether it’s “realistic” or not – I simply believe that the dev’s don’t do enough.

They have over 100 people, or so I hear – what do they do all day?

Labjax.2465:

As far as I can tell, you need a system that is somewhat dynamic. It has to give players the tools to make their own content, in a sense (not necessarily in a literal sense – they just need the tools to challenge/entertain themselves in new and interesting ways).

I found this paragraph particularly telling, because it’s ironic that you use the word ‘dynamic’, because this has a lot to do with people’s disappointment over what was promised in the Manifesto.

What you are describing is what we were told we would get – what we actually got was far less than that.

ipan.4356:

Do you have any idea how long that actually takes, and how often you have to repeat the same content over and over again?

Yes, I do know how long it takes to level to 80 and earn enough gold for full exotic gear and yes, I do know how many times you need to repeat the same content over and over again to do that on a character … exactly ZERO.

As a matter of fact, there is so much content available to players in PVE that you can’t even do it all ONCE before having leveled to 80 AND outfitted yourself with full exotic gear. The premise that there is too much farming in this game just shows you have a lack of exposure to the game.

If you perceive there is too much farming, it’s because your perception is limited by your experience.

ipan.4356:

Ayrilana.1396:

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

That’s about it, in a nutshell.

It’s ironic you should mention Skyrim, because I’ve been thinking of picking that up soon.

But yeah, Skyrim in an MMO format – that is, the ability to play with other people.

Sure.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say the upcoming feature pack removes all grind. We can use the repetive action of three or more times as the definition as this is consistent with what those against grind claim that grind is.

Drop rates would dramatically increase. Since farming is grinding, players would not have problems getting everything they need in a timely fashion. Crafting materials would be easy to come by, all armor sets would be easy to get, everyone could have the legendary weapon(s) that they crave, and so on. Everything in the game is within their grasp with little to no effort required on their part.

The economy would crash as players would have zero need for the TP. With such easy access to items, what need would players have to go to the TP or for other players to list their items on the TP? Everything not needed would be be vendored or trashed. Gold would have zero value. What reason is there for gold if everything is easily obtainable?

All gem store items would have to be purchased with cash. Converting gold would no longer be an issue as players would have so much that the rates would be incredibly high. There’s nothing to prevent inflation anymore but then that isn’t an issue as you don’t need gold.

Players now have nothing to work towards in the game. All that they have left is the content such as WvW, PvP, and PvE. Unfortunately, this gets stale eventually. Players can only do dungeons existing campaigns for so long before they’re bored. Most likely no more than a few times.

Player activity takes a dive as a result. With nothing to do in the game, they move on to other things. Group content becomes increasingly difficult to do because of the lack of players. This is then scaled down to be doable by yourself. Some may or may not remain challenging. There are also no champ trains, Orr trains, EotM trains, and so on. What reason is there for them to exist if you don’t need to grind for your rewards that you get from them? Player interaction also becomes less frequent.

ArenaNet eventually consolidates servers as there’s no longer enough players to justify a large number of servers. They also start charging for all additional content as the lack of players has reduced the income that they receive from gem store transactions. There will likely be less frequent content updates as they may not receive enough purchases to warrant keep all of their existing staff.

The game devolves into a single player game where players have easy access to everything and can experience everything within a month of playing. After that the game is discarded like so many other console games and PC games. How many of you continued to play Ocarina of Time after you got everything in the game and beat it? Did you continue to roam around for hours on end? Likely not.

With this, the MMO genre dies because people did not want nor understood what role grind played.

EDIT: Bolded part for ipan to read.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Ayrilana.1396:

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

That’s about it, in a nutshell.

It’s ironic you should mention Skyrim, because I’ve been thinking of picking that up soon.

But yeah, Skyrim in an MMO format – that is, the ability to play with other people.

Sure.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say the upcoming feature pack removes all grind. We can use the repetive action of three or more times as the definition as this is consistent with what those against grind claim that grind is.

Drop rates would dramatically increase. Since farming is grinding, players would not have problems getting everything they need in a timely fashion. Crafting materials would be easy to come by, all armor sets would be easy to get, everyone could have the legendary weapon(s) that they crave, and so on. Everything in the game is within their grasp with little to no effort required on their part.

The economy would crash as players would have zero need for the TP. With such easy access to items, what need would players have to go to the TP or for other players to list their items on the TP? Everything not needed would be be vendored or trashed. Gold would have zero value. What reason is there for gold if everything is easily obtainable?

All gem store items would have to be purchased with cash. Converting gold would no longer be an issue as players would have so much that the rates would be incredibly high. There’s nothing to prevent inflation anymore but then that isn’t an issue as you don’t need gold.

Players now have nothing to work towards in the game. All that they have left is the content such as WvW, PvP, and PvE. Unfortunately, this gets stale eventually. Players can only do dungeons existing campaigns for so long before they’re bored. Most likely no more than a few times.

Player activity takes a dive as a result. With nothing to do in the game, they move on to other things. Group content becomes increasingly difficult to do because of the lack of players. This is then scaled down to be doable by yourself. Some may or may not remain challenging. There are also no champ trains, Orr trains, EotM trains, and so on. What reason is there for them to exist if you don’t need to grind for your rewards that you get from them? Player interaction also becomes less frequent.

ArenaNet eventually consolidates servers as there’s no longer enough players to justify a large number of servers. They also start charging for all additional content as the lack of players has reduced the in one that they receive from gem store transactions. There will likely be less frequent content updates as they may not receive enough purchases to warrant keep all if their existing staff.

The game devolves into a single player game where players have easy access to everything and can experience everything within a month of playing. After that the game is discarded like so many other console games and PC games. How many of you continued to play Ocarina of Time after you got everything in the game and beat it? Did you continue to roam around for hours on end? Likely not.

With this, the MMO genre dies because people did not want nor understood what role grind played.

I am Pdavis, and I approve this post.

Suinz.5968:

ipan.4356:

Again – I’m not saying that getting the best gear should be easy. I’m all for locking it behind extremely challenging content.

What I don’t want to do is to repeat that content over and over – i.e., farming.

Purple enemies in dungeons should drop an dungeon armor skin for that dungeon guaranteed, for example.

Legendary weapons should have a chance of dropping from world bosses, for example.

I shouldn’t have to “run” dungeons over and over and over to get something.

I should merely have to play it 1-3 times to get what I want – then move on to the next challenge.

If that meant actually making the content harder – I’d be fine with that.

I’m not complaining about difficulty – I’m complaining about repetitiveness. The grind.

The farming.

Stop the farming.

Gaming is not a second job. It’s not a chore.

It’s a kitten game, for god’s sake.

You are supposed to have fun.

Now, if “farming” is your idea of fun, then the changes I propose would in no way stop you from doing that.

You could still kill the same thing over and over and over again, if that’s your thing.

But, for those of us who like to experience content a couple times (at most), and then move on to something new, with the stuff we got from the last encounter – well, we would be able to do that.

Without farming for it.

What I’m asking for is an end to farming – even if it meant raising the difficulty.

Yes. Lets have items worth over 3000-4000 gold drop off world bosses to decrease their value and prestige exponentially!
/sarcasm
Dumbest thing I’ve read on this forum to date.

They only cost 3000-4000 gold because they don’t drop often. There’s no inherent value to these items, only the value that supply and demand ascribes.

Oh, and prestige…lol. How can you decrease from 0?

ipan.4356:

I’d love to see what they could do by combing user created content with procedural generation with developer created content.

By leveraging all of these together, they could create a level of content never before seen in any game.

I’m just trying to imagine what this would look like though? I like your spirit, but ideas are cheap, as they say. Execution is unforgiving hard work.

ipan.4356:

As to whether it’s “realistic” or not – I simply believe that the dev’s don’t do enough.

They have over 100 people, or so I hear – what do they do all day?

You gotta keep in mind that not all of those employees are working on traditional PvE content, or even directly developing the game at all. There is the community team (which may or may not include marketing – I’m not sure if they’d be considered separate “groups”) and the testing team, for example. None of those are technically “developers,” though they certainly play an integral part in making the whole process run smoothly.

Then there’s the “focus” part; depending on staff size, some employees are going to be focused specifically on certain types of gameplay, such as the WvW-specific people (they can’t be expected to work around the clock to develop open-world PvE content).

And then there’s the problem of player allocation. In a game like this, every time you create another map or another event, you risk dispersing players more, causing the less-interesting pieces of content to be virtually abandoned.

I know I’m throwing a lot at you that you probably aren’t interested in delving into, but despite abandoning the career choice, I studied game design and have made a few simple games myself. I don’t make excuses for devs often because I know they’re professionals and they’re getting paid to do good work, but I can tell you with confidence that game development is not a field where the answer to most questions is as simple as, “Let’s make this amazing idea a reality – hey, it worked!”

More often, it’s a question of, “Is this amazing-sounding idea something that works long-term, is largely enjoyable to players, and doesn’t drain all of our development time trying to get it to work?” And then it’s a time-consuming process that can, at times, stump people with realities that no one could have anticipated.

Yes, even professionals. I would bet money on it. You just aren’t going to hear it from them in a space like this because then they’ll just get mocked by people who don’t understand the process.

ipan.4356:

I found this paragraph particularly telling, because it’s ironic that you use the word ‘dynamic’, because this has a lot to do with people’s disappointment over what was promised in the Manifesto.

What you are describing is what we were told we would get – what we actually got was far less than that.

I don’t know enough about the origins of this game to say anything here. I could give you a line about how development plans change or how marketing is often a lot of BS, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been said before.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Ayrilana.1396:

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

That’s about it, in a nutshell.

It’s ironic you should mention Skyrim, because I’ve been thinking of picking that up soon.

But yeah, Skyrim in an MMO format – that is, the ability to play with other people.

Sure.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say the upcoming feature pack removes all grind. We can use the repetive action of three or more times as the definition as this is consistent with what those against grind claim that grind is.

Drop rates would dramatically increase. Since farming is grinding, players would not have problems getting everything they need in a timely fashion. Crafting materials would be easy to come by, all armor sets would be easy to get, everyone could have the legendary weapon(s) that they crave, and so on. Everything in the game is within their grasp with little to no effort required on their part.

The economy would crash as players would have zero need for the TP. With such easy access to items, what need would players have to go to the TP or for other players to list their items on the TP? Everything not needed would be be vendored or trashed. Gold would have zero value. What reason is there for gold if everything is easily obtainable?

All gem store items would have to be purchased with cash. Converting gold would no longer be an issue as players would have so much that the rates would be incredibly high. There’s nothing to prevent inflation anymore but then that isn’t an issue as you don’t need gold.

Players now have nothing to work towards in the game. All that they have left is the content such as WvW, PvP, and PvE. Unfortunately, this gets stale eventually. Players can only do dungeons existing campaigns for so long before they’re bored. Most likely no more than a few times.

Player activity takes a dive as a result. With nothing to do in the game, they move on to other things. Group content becomes increasingly difficult to do because of the lack of players. This is then scaled down to be doable by yourself. Some may or may not remain challenging. There are also no champ trains, Orr trains, EotM trains, and so on. What reason is there for them to exist if you don’t need to grind for your rewards that you get from them? Player interaction also becomes less frequent.

ArenaNet eventually consolidates servers as there’s no longer enough players to justify a large number of servers. They also start charging for all additional content as the lack of players has reduced the in one that they receive from gem store transactions. There will likely be less frequent content updates as they may not receive enough purchases to warrant keep all if their existing staff.

The game devolves into a single player game where players have easy access to everything and can experience everything within a month of playing. After that the game is discarded like so many other console games and PC games. How many of you continued to play Ocarina of Time after you got everything in the game and beat it? Did you continue to roam around for hours on end? Likely not.

With this, the MMO genre dies because people did not want nor understood what role grind played.

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

In GW1 one of my alliance’s players completed Factions within 18 hours of it going live. People were at 80 in GW2 within a few days.

How do you propose that game developers keep up with that ? A new expansion every day ?

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

This confirms your lack of experience. The frequency of new content in this game is VERY high relative to other MMO’s out there. You should really try expanding your experience before spouting off about things you know little or nothing about.

ipan.4356:

Again – I’m not saying that getting the best gear should be easy. I’m all for locking it behind extremely challenging content.

What I don’t want to do is to repeat that content over and over – i.e., farming.

Purple enemies in dungeons should drop an dungeon armor skin for that dungeon guaranteed, for example.

Legendary weapons should have a chance of dropping from world bosses, for example.

I shouldn’t have to “run” dungeons over and over and over to get something.

I should merely have to play it 1-3 times to get what I want – then move on to the next challenge.

If that meant actually making the content harder – I’d be fine with that.

I’m not complaining about difficulty – I’m complaining about repetitiveness. The grind.

The farming.

Stop the farming.

Gaming is not a second job. It’s not a chore.

It’s a kitten game, for god’s sake.

You are supposed to have fun.

Now, if “farming” is your idea of fun, then the changes I propose would in no way stop you from doing that.

You could still kill the same thing over and over and over again, if that’s your thing.

But, for those of us who like to experience content a couple times (at most), and then move on to something new, with the stuff we got from the last encounter – well, we would be able to do that.

Without farming for it.

What I’m asking for is an end to farming – even if it meant raising the difficulty.

The only problem with locking something behind a high difficulty challenge is that it excludes certain segments of the player population which Anet has gone out of their way to avoid. Also no matter how difficult you make something, some people will always be able to chew through the content at break necks speeds, so in order to keep people playing you get the grind to keep them busy. Personally I think the most challenging content in the game should be involved in obtaining a legendary weapon since in it’s current state the only thing legendary about a legendary is the patience required to make it.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

ipan.4356:

Again – I’m not saying that getting the best gear should be easy. I’m all for locking it behind extremely challenging content.

What I don’t want to do is to repeat that content over and over – i.e., farming.

Purple enemies in dungeons should drop an dungeon armor skin for that dungeon guaranteed, for example.

Legendary weapons should have a chance of dropping from world bosses, for example.

I shouldn’t have to “run” dungeons over and over and over to get something.

I should merely have to play it 1-3 times to get what I want – then move on to the next challenge.

If that meant actually making the content harder – I’d be fine with that.

I’m not complaining about difficulty – I’m complaining about repetitiveness. The grind.

The farming.

Stop the farming.

Gaming is not a second job. It’s not a chore.

It’s a kitten game, for god’s sake.

You are supposed to have fun.

Now, if “farming” is your idea of fun, then the changes I propose would in no way stop you from doing that.

You could still kill the same thing over and over and over again, if that’s your thing.

But, for those of us who like to experience content a couple times (at most), and then move on to something new, with the stuff we got from the last encounter – well, we would be able to do that.

Without farming for it.

What I’m asking for is an end to farming – even if it meant raising the difficulty.

The only problem with locking something behind a high difficulty challenge is that it excludes certain segments of the player population which Anet has gone out of their way to avoid. Also no matter how difficult you make something, some people will always be able to chew through the content at break necks speeds, so in order to keep people playing you get the grind to keep them busy. Personally I think the most challenging content in the game should be involved in obtaining a legendary weapon since in it’s current state the only thing legendary about a legendary is the patience required to make it.

That was just a suggestion.

I personally enjoy challenging content.

But regardless, I don’t want to do any farming for anything.

I don’t want to have to repeat any content more than three times – that means I should be able to that content, get the rewards for it, the first 2-3 times I play it.

That means that legendary bosses need to drop exotics and legendary items.

And also that Anet needs to produce more content.

Ashen.2907:

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

In GW1 one of my alliance’s players completed Factions within 18 hours of it going live. People were at 80 in GW2 within a few days.

How do you propose that game developers keep up with that ? A new expansion every day ?

Well, there’s a couple possible answers to this.

1) Hire more people.

2) User generated content.

3) Procedural generation (randomized, infinite dungeons, for example).

To say it short and simple :
without grind / farming you have beaten a game in 2-4 weeks and then need to buy a new one ..

ipan, there is a symbiotic relationship between MMO fans and MMO developers. The fans want to play the game forever (it seems). The developers cannot provide new stuff to do at the rate that you seem to want, so they use repetition to fill the void, as it were. It isn’t just developers foisting repetitive tasks on you, it’s also MMO fans forcing them to use repetition to fill their otherwise empty hours.

Based on the op’s responses he’s either a spoiled kid who doesnt know how a game runs. Or a troll.

All his, iwant this, i want that, they must do this, they must do that only shows how much of a spoiled kid you are.

Guess what? Anet is not your parents who gives in on your every whim.

With a full set of exotic without runs and sigils you have access to almost everything the game has to offer. You can do dungeons, explore and do events.

The things you need to grind for are all optional. You grind it for looks, for achievement and for a sense of accomplishment.

By your statements im guessing you dont know what i mean by “a sense of accomplishment” since all you do is whine and cry. It is a feeling you get once you reached your goal by exerting effort towards it.

Anet already hands almlst all their content to all the players without hard work. Go to 80, get exotics and youre done.

You want legendaries and ascended stuffs handed to you by the time your 80? Youre funny kid. If anet does that, they will lose majority of their players. Most people in game are staying because they want to reach a certain goal. Majority of the gamers are like that.

Only a minority are lazy people who wants to get everything on the get go. Better play a private server or something if you want it easy.

For your suggestion of anet to keep on releasing new content on a weekly basis, then thet will run out of ideas quickly and will not avoid making similar content and once again will become a grind for you.

You want user generated content? Go play minecraft.

By the way you are acting up clearly mmos are not for you. You should play single player rpgs.

ipan.4356:

Regardless, you guys are focusing on the wrong problem.

My point isn’t about how hard it is or isn’t to get gear – I would prefer a game where gear like that was obtained from challenging content. I prefer gear to drop directly from bosses, or chests.

That’s not the point.

The point is what they force you to do to get it.

You can argue all day that no one is forcing you to do it, but the point is what else is there to do?

Ideally, as you play new content in the game, you should naturally just acquire whatever you need – whether this is the gear itself, or the currency (of any kind) that you need to get that gear.

You shouldn’t be required to repeat any content more than 3 times to get something.

I have repeated content hundreds of times. And I have quite a bit of exotic gear, but not quite complete on all toons. Almost there.

The point is that cool loot, like Superior Runes and Sigils, Exotic weapons and armor, should drop directly from bosses and boss chests more often – I haven’t seen a single one.

The best I ever get are a few rares, which occasionally sell for 30+ silver – which I then eventually turn into Exotics – after repeated runs doing the same content over and over and over again.

My point is that we shouldn’t have to run the same content as many times as we are required to get the same gear (or the money to get it).

It’s not challenging, when all you’re doing is farming.

It’s just repetitive. It’s a time sink.

Do you think it challenges my gaming skills, or my patience, to do dungeon runs over and over to just to accumulate gold?

There’s no challenge in that – it’s all farming.

I want a reduction in farming, because it isn’t challenging.

And I want more new content on a regular basis. NOt this LS crap – that whole thing is just another zerg fest. There’s almost no challenge there, either.

I want more zones. More dungeons. More solo content.

New stuff to do, while saving up the money to get all that other stuff.

In short, new content. Lots of new content.

Like double the size of the world, new content.

Well if that’s what you’d prefer and this game isn’t offering it, what is that telling you.

This game was designed for players like me, not players like you. I don’t really want to feel like I HAVE TO do challenging content to get gear. It’s not why I play games. I can do it, I just don’t want to be forced to raid. Which in most games is where you get BIS gear.

Different games are made for different mindsets. This game is made for mine. All the other games pretty much are made for yours.

You should feel lucky, rather than trying to get the one game that does it differently to do it like everyone else does.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan, there is a symbiotic relationship between MMO fans and MMO developers. The fans want to play the game forever (it seems). The developers cannot provide new stuff to do at the rate that you seem to want, so they use repetition to fill the void, as it were. It isn’t just developers foisting repetitive tasks on you, it’s also MMO fans forcing them to use repetition to fill their otherwise empty hours.

Well, again, here is where we disagree on what developers can or cannot do.

I think they can do better (and more).

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

You obviously did not read and/or understood what I stated in my post. With a lower player base, as a result of your suggestion, they will be unable to do so. Your suggestion, if implemented, would severely shorten the lifespan of an MMO to the length of any console or PC game.

Scroll up to my post. I bolded at least one part you did not read that pertains to this post.

It also seems that you do not know what it takes to develop content. They don’t snap their fingers and “poof” there it is. It takes time. It takes people. It takes money. All of which is impossible if they did it your way. It’s impossible to create constant content without grind while maintaining a profit.

ipan.4356:

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan, there is a symbiotic relationship between MMO fans and MMO developers. The fans want to play the game forever (it seems). The developers cannot provide new stuff to do at the rate that you seem to want, so they use repetition to fill the void, as it were. It isn’t just developers foisting repetitive tasks on you, it’s also MMO fans forcing them to use repetition to fill their otherwise empty hours.

Well, again, here is where we disagree on what developers can or cannot do.

I think they can do better (and more).

Many single player games take 2+ years to create. GW2 took 5+. Those SP games last for 100 hours, if you’re lucky (40 if you’re not). Based on that “standard,” an MMO built on the same principles GW2 would last somewhere around 120-500 hours. How many hours have you played?

ipan.4356:

Epic loot was supposed to be indicative of completing epic challenges – hence, once you defeated a really difficult boss, you got an incredibly powerful weapon for doing so.

It’s an indication that you have done something very difficult.

Not an indication of how much time you spent repeating easy content.

Legendaries currently cost, what, like about 3K gold or so (varying depending on weapon)?

Anyone can farm mats, or dungeons, or anything else until they have 3K gold and then buy a legendary.

You can get anything in this game through farming (or buying gems).

But can you get anything by achieving something difficult (such as defeating a really hard boss?).

Nope.

This game is all about farming – it’s not about difficulty or challenge. It’s a treadmill/slot machine.

It all deppends from which angle you look at it.
I was talking to a friend. Actually, two friends.
I told them “no matter what you do and enjoy in this game, you always progress. Sometimes more, sometimes less, just dont worry about it, play what you enjoy.”
You think its not awesome, I think it is.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

You obviously did not read and/or understood what I stated in my post. With a lower player base, as a result of your suggestion, they will be unable to do so. Your suggestion, if implemented, would severely shorten the lifespan of an MMO to the length of any console or PC game.

Scroll up to my post. I bolded at least one part you did not read that pertains to this post.

It also seems that you do not know what it takes to develop content. They don’t snap their fingers and “poof” there it is. It takes time. It takes people. It takes money. All of which is impossible if they did it your way. It’s impossible to create constant content without grind while maintaining a profit.

The point is that the threat of losing customers would light a fire under their kitten.

I disagree with you that it is impossible.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan.4356:

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan, there is a symbiotic relationship between MMO fans and MMO developers. The fans want to play the game forever (it seems). The developers cannot provide new stuff to do at the rate that you seem to want, so they use repetition to fill the void, as it were. It isn’t just developers foisting repetitive tasks on you, it’s also MMO fans forcing them to use repetition to fill their otherwise empty hours.

Well, again, here is where we disagree on what developers can or cannot do.

I think they can do better (and more).

Many single player games take 2+ years to create. GW2 took 5+. Those SP games last for 100 hours, if you’re lucky (40 if you’re not). Based on that “standard,” an MMO built on the same principles GW2 would last somewhere around 120-500 hours. How many hours have you played?

A lot of that work is building the engine, developing art assets and animations.

Most of the groundwork has already been laid, adding new content doesn’t take as long as creating the original game to begin with, because you are using a lot of what’s already been created.

I work a lot with game editors, like the world editors in Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 – and while an MMO is different than those, the same idea holds true – once you have a massive library of assets, you do not have to start over at the beginning.

You act as if they have to reinvent the wheel every time they want to add content to the game.

This is what I don’t get about you people – adding new contents – whether they be in the form of dungeons, or a new zone/map doesn’t take years like building the original game takes – it only takes a couple months.

GW2 has been out 2 years and has added minimal amount of new content (Southsun, Fractals, Dry Top, and Edge of Mists).

No new classes, 1 1/2 new maps (Dry Top counts as 1/2), no new weapons, only a handful of heal skills.

It’s just not enough.

Especially after two years. They should have – at bare minimum – a full expansion’s worth of new content out by now – and that means entirely new zones (like 10 more), new dungeons (at least 2-3), a new class, at least 1 new weapon for every existing class, and a bunch of new utility skills.

Instead, we get Living Story, which is mostly terrible, and doesn’t really add a lot of new play to the game.

Oh, and gem shop items. There seems to be plenty of that.

If I were saying all of this in the first six months of release, I think your reactions would be justified.

But it’s been two years.

Too little, too late.

Thankfully you’re not in charge.

ipan.4356:

Ashen.2907:

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

In GW1 one of my alliance’s players completed Factions within 18 hours of it going live. People were at 80 in GW2 within a few days.

How do you propose that game developers keep up with that ? A new expansion every day ?

Well, there’s a couple possible answers to this.

1) Hire more people.

2) User generated content.

3) Procedural generation (randomized, infinite dungeons, for example).

So if it takes 50 or so devs a year to produce content that can be played through in a day or so (perhaps even a week), that means that the company would potentially need more than eighteen thousand devs to keep up with player ability to plow through content. At $50k per year that works out to nine hundred million dollars. Double that for a more realistic payroll/benefits total (ignoring the cost of providing tools, workspace, increased non developer overhead such as HR, etc) and we are looking at close to two billion dollars a year in conservative estimated cost. The real number would probably be significantly higher.

Now if the average monthly expenditure on the game, per player, is eight bucks (or $100 per year) you will need close to twenty million players just to cover payroll. Yeah something like triple WoW’s player numbers (?) and you are still actually losing money.

UGC ? Not going to be produced in a combination of sufficient quality and quantity to address the issue at hand and has been very closely linked to farming in at least some of the games that have attempted to use it in the past.

Random dungeons ? What is the difference between killing mobs in the same farming spot and doing the same in the same series of random dungeon geo-tiles ?

ipan.4356:

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

You obviously did not read and/or understood what I stated in my post. With a lower player base, as a result of your suggestion, they will be unable to do so. Your suggestion, if implemented, would severely shorten the lifespan of an MMO to the length of any console or PC game.

Scroll up to my post. I bolded at least one part you did not read that pertains to this post.

It also seems that you do not know what it takes to develop content. They don’t snap their fingers and “poof” there it is. It takes time. It takes people. It takes money. All of which is impossible if they did it your way. It’s impossible to create constant content without grind while maintaining a profit.

The point is that the threat of losing customers would light a fire under their kitten.

I disagree with you that it is impossible.

I can guarantee you if they made the changes you want, they’d lose lots of customers.