Guild Wars 2

Soulbound Soldier.6148:

It clearly is a weapon that requires your leg to operate

Like a leg cannon?

That’s awesome. I want one of those. Maybe you fire them by pivoting your hips.

rook.4625:

More content does not mean raid content or gear progression. It is left vague for suggestions, as Yak posted some good ones.

I have not played WoW, but really, that’s not the issue here. I have said over and over again this game is a great game, and I’m going on a limb here to say that potentially set the standard for all games, but to do so it will simply require more things to do at level 80.

Suggestions? Let’s see:

World Bosses that require more than just everyone in the area to zerg it so one may generate a "rush" of intensity or adrenaline when they are fighting it. The World Boss would have meaning to this "dynamic world." Maybe even give a shoutout when it is downed. Hopefully this would also encourage more communication between players as seen in wvwvw.

Mass invasions on Lion’s Arch (where all the level 80s are at), and the possibility of losing control of it. If control is lost, TP and all merchant fees go up, the amount of guild influence points that are usually given for events goes down, and guild bonuses and orb bonuses are reduced in wvwvw - strictly for players with a level 80 on their account. During these events, players not 80 are scaled up (as seen as wvwvw) so they play a role in defending LA. If won, all players that participate receive gems, rare items/skins, wvwvw buffs, open for more suggestions, etc.

Master fights. Are you truly an expert at your profession? Duel one versus one with the master profession and be rewarded with "insert random awesome title of the gods" here and legendary, rare item skin, open for more suggestions, etc.. This fight should be hard though, seriously.

Just some suggestions I could come up in response to your reply, lol. Never really considered it until now.

Oh! *double and triple facepalm*

I may have mistaken you with someone else. Those are really nice and well thought suggestions imo, in fact, some of them are very similar in concept to the ones I posted.

Anyway, receive my apologies *respectfully bows before rook*

Good suggestions rook. Id go one step further and say that if we lost Lion’s arch, its lost. We need to regain it..no access to the NPCs, nothing.

There would still be other main cities to hangout in until we regained it. Make the 80s help out, and breathe even more life into an already living and breathing world.

I have never liked gear progression in PvP.
If you can’t rely on skill and teamwork you be playing the wrong game.
WoW’s biggest fail with PvP is the gear progression, the best players get the best gear furthering the gap between pvp’er and others. The end result? Less pvp participation.

In pve content your facing scripted fights that never change in difficulty or mechanics.
You can out gear the fight with little cry from most people.
In pvp it pushes the less crazy pvp crowd away, leaving a smaller PvP community =(
Especially in WvW I’d prefer max participation, and if gear is the only progression or point for playing a game, you may want to hop back on WoW which is soley focus’d on gear progression.

arrownin.3128:

Kwami.4356:

SpectacularYak.6518:

Kwami.4356:

There weren’t any battlegrounds in WoW, but there was world PvP. This included raids on the capital cities of the opposing faction. There were also duels. GW2 lacks both of these things, though it does have four WvW maps (kind of) and a handful of battlegrounds. So, GW2 probably wins on PvP. Though, it’s hard to call zerg vs. zerg "PvP’. :P

You’re right that WoW was probably the most meaningfully content rich game on release in MMO history (although it felt small, at the time, in comparison to Everquest). Open world PvP, though? You mean the Tarren Mill/Southshore shuffle? Please. Let’s not insult everyone’s intelligence by claiming WoW had any functionally integrated PvP at launch, because it didn’t.

Handwaving WvWvW, which is probably the best large scale PvP implementation in any game since DAoC, as “zerg vs zerg” makes you seem a little over-eager to slam GW2. Criticism rings a lot truer when it’s fair and objective. When I see people jumping out of their skin to blast every single element of a game…even its strengths…I don’t think “rational objective criticism”. I think “confirmation bias” and “Hate Dumb”.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HateDumb

I dismiss WvW as zerg vs. zerg because that’s what I’ve experienced thus far. I participated long enough to get my 50 kills for the month and then bailed because I disliked the game so much. If I wasn’t part of a zerg, I was picked off by an enemy zerg. You more or less need zergs to take towers and fortresses.

I don’t think that my criticism is unfounded or a result of confirmation bias. I assure you, I have plenty of problems with WoW, too. I post on their forums as Kwami. It shouldn’t be too hard to find something negative. :P

WvW is certainly advertised as a strength of GW2, but I don’t see it that way. I see it as I see many other elements in this game: a good start, but ultimately disappointing.

For someone who dislikes gw2 that much and WoW so much you sure do spend a lot of time on the forums expressing your opinions which are almost never constructive, and usually just consist of just that, opinions and hardly any real facts. So ill beg this question, why bother wasting so much time here on the forums? You obviously don’t like the game so are.you trolling? Just attention hungry? I really don’t get it.

If you actually look at my posting history for both games, I’ve had plenty of positive things to say, too. I actually enjoy both games quite a bit. That doesn’t mean that I need to agree with every game design choice that the developers make. When I see something that I don’t like, I try to bring attention to it. So, please, lay off the personal attacks.

To those who responded to my WoW vs. GW2 numbers post: If races and classes aren’t content, then why do you all keep telling me to roll another race/class combo in your lists of things to do once I’m 80? Either races and classes are content or you’ll have to strike that one from the list!

I agree that some GW2 zones offer more content than some WoW zones did at launch. I don’t agree that all GW2 zones offer more than all WoW zones. Overall, I think that WoW had more content. The average GW2 zone seems to have 10-20 heart quests and maybe 15-20 dynamic events. In contrast, WoW zones tend to have at least 50 quests and some zones have many more than that.

With regards to dungeons, I don’t feel that level scaling really makes every dungeon “max level”. It’s true that AC is more challenging and more rewarding at level 80 than Ragefire Chasm is at level 60, but the level scaling system isn’t perfect. You’re much more powerful at level 80 than you were at level 35, even with the scaling system in place. Only three dungeons were designed to require level 80 characters for explore mode, each with three paths. Count that as 9 dungeons, if you wish, but certainly not as 32. It’s worth pointing out that I didn’t count different branches of WoW dungeons separately in my tally. In that case, WoW would have 5 max-level dungeons at launch.

With all of that said, comparing the two games directly is kind of silly. I only did it because one poster kept insisting that GW2 launched with more content than any other MMO, which is demonstrably false. I don’t really have any interest in continuing this discussion. Time is better spent posting about how to improve GW2’s lack of content for max-level characters.

Gw2 did launch with more content than WoW, in my opinion.

Take a look…
Queensdale, 1-15 zone. As you stated, probably somewheres of 10-12 renown hearts, and if you follow the event chains from start to finish, probably 20-30 pieces of events. I would also argue that the Vistas, points of interest, and skill points could also be considered content because you are rewarded for reaching these points or participating in the skill events. Add another several dozen areas that you need to go to if you want that experience. In total, Id venture to guess that a level 1-15 zone is pushing 50 pieces of content to which you can be rewarded for.

In wow, the 1-15 content is stretched from, for example Elwynn forest to West fall.
You are level 3 or 4 within 5 minutes of rolling a character. That leves about 12 levels between the two zones. I dont think there are 50 quests, nor do I think there ever were about 50 questions in those two zones combined.

For arguements sake, lets say there are equal number of content between GW2 and WoW. The way that GW2 does it masks the mundane task of kill x and gather y, yet it is still there. Gw2 does it much better.

Also, concerning dungeon difficulty and scaling, I did AC explorable when I was around 60…a level 30-35 dungeon. Scaled down to 30 or 35, I can tell you it was HARD. Obviously we were just starting out which contributed to much of it, but I still think that AC exp is much harder than most of the dungeons.

Quotes are being silly, so I’ll have to respond the lame way. This is my last post on the GW2 vs. WoW content topic.

cesmode.4257: I have two points to make.

1. There were most definitely 50+ quests in my WoW zones at launch. In fact, here is the current list of quests in Elwynn Forest: http://www.wowwiki.com/Elwynn_Forest_quests. I don’t have a list of quests at launch, but most of the vanilla quests haven’t changed all that much (the rewards have). Since that zone has a lot of quests-that-aren’t-really-quests (e.g. one for each class, but they’re all the same), here’s Westfall, too: http://www.wowwiki.com/Westfall_quests.

2. How does GW2 do it better? Certainly clicking on exclamation points and question marks is tedious. I’m glad to be rid of that. But, I don’t much care for dynamic events getting in the way of me completing the task that I’ve assigned to myself (as they often do). I’m also not convinced that the heart & DE system somehow masks what the quests really are. By level 3, I could tell that every quest is essentially “gather X items”, “kill Y enemies”, “escort this guy”, or “click on Z objects”. That’s pretty standard MMO fare. I’m not complaining about it. I just don’t see how it’s somehow better than WoW’s system.

So pvp doesn’t interest you because you can’t beatdown players with crappy armor?

The main issue is that most players tend to see dynamic event, immediately finish it and run off completely far without even paying attention to its surroundings. Many others, my self included have done this, and for the most part, if we actually slow down and take a look around, you’ll actually find more to the game than you would have assumed

This person’s video examplifies exactly what people do in dynamic events – completely running through it.

Now for anyone who does watch the video, the person who made it, makes a great point, so please watch it to the end.

lacrimstein.5603:

DirtyDeeds.6075:

- You don’t need gear progression either. Gear progression is just another MMO’s ploy to get you to pay more monthly fees.

I quite enjoyed gear progression on WoW private servers, and I didn’t pay a dime. They sure got me with that ploy, oh boy!

“I stole a game for a long time. This let me play it for free.” — This is your argument? Congratulations?

ccrazool.2905:

lacrimstein.5603:

DirtyDeeds.6075:

- You don’t need gear progression either. Gear progression is just another MMO’s ploy to get you to pay more monthly fees.

I quite enjoyed gear progression on WoW private servers, and I didn’t pay a dime. They sure got me with that ploy, oh boy!

“I stole a game for a long time. This let me play it for free.” — This is your argument? Congratulations?

No, my argument is that I actually had fun with the game and the gear progression system, and that your point that the fun I had was “illusional” because I mentally told myself its “fun” to justify a monthly subscription is moot. Don’t resort to personal attacks just for the sake of saying something. If you don’t have a solid argument against my point, don’t post a reply.

Also, I’d like to say that I don’t support adding gear progression into GW2. What I do support is adding something else to patch up the hole left by removing it.

Some great posts by Spectacular Yak, who displays a grasp of logic and an erudite turn of phrase that far exceeds what most of the opposition can muster. Not that he’s opposed to anyone – he talks sense and logic from the head, others appear to be channeling raw emotion from their bowels.

lacrimstein.5603:

Don’t resort to personal attacks just for the sake of saying something. If you don’t have a solid argument against my point, don’t post a reply.

I’ve not seen anyone address the reality that progression in MMOs is fundamentally illusory, because as you level, you are given new, equal leveled foes to fight. You get gear and progress so you can move into a new area, get gear, and progress. You’re not really progressing “towards” anything except more progression, which is where the term treadmill comes in…it gives you the illusion of movement when you are actually standing still.

The idea in GW2 was that they were going to give you the content without gating it behind progression. Now you don’t have to raid for 50 hours to get the gear to fight a dragon, you just fight a dragon. And some people are saying “Fighting dragons is BORING, I want my numbers to go up”. And that’s fine, you know. If they don’t like the game play, they don’t like the game play. What I don’t understand is the part where they claim they would like it MORE if they had to raid for 50 hours first.

lagrangeify.5641:

Some great posts by Spectacular Yak, who displays a grasp of logic and an erudite turn of phrase that far exceeds what most of the opposition can muster. Not that he’s opposed to anyone – he talks sense and logic from the head, others appear to be channeling raw emotion from their bowels.

I swear to GOD this isn’t me on an alternate account.

rook.4625:

Seriously though, where does your disdain for gear progression come from?

It’s less a question of disdain for gear progression (although there is certainly an element of that, now that I’ve spend over a decade exposed to it, and I’ve become quite familiar with the problems it presents) as it is a question of disdain for the attitude that an MMO must have gear progression. We’ve just got done with 8+ years of what has generally been accepted to be utter stagnation in the genre, to the point where Arena Net was able to drive sales of their game simply by promising something different from the status quo, and suddenly we have an angry minority insisting that stagnation was really the way to go all along. We’re less than 2 months in, and they want to throttle ANY form of innovation in its infancy. But fine, let’s talk about “progression”. Let’s talk about what it does, both good and bad, to your game.

PROS

1. It gives you a perpetual goal that you will never reach. Human beings are biologically hard-wired to strive, and we don’t do well with “being happy with what we have”. By constantly jerking the reward away from a player as soon as they reach it, you keep them feeling engaged, and you create the illusion that something tangible is being worked towards. This is very compelling.

2. It serves as a capable stand-in for actual content. Creating zones, monsters, dungeons, encounters, etc. takes a lot of developer time and resources. Creating one raid, slapping a lockout timer on it, pushing the drop rates down incredibly low, and tuning your next raid so that gear from the first raid is necessary to complete it introduces a HUGE drag chute on the achievement focused segment of your population. If the raid is released buggy and badly tuned, all the better. That’s a few weeks of them kept busy and not chirping for more expensive content.

(con’t)

CONS

1. The dark side to Pro #1, you never actually accomplish anything. You just chase a constantly moving target for years. Now, hypothetically you’re enjoying yourself along the way, but if the game play is enjoyable, the game play should be enjoyable whether your numbers are going up or not. If you’re spending years of your life enjoying yourself, that’s something I can get 100% behind. If you’re spending years of your life “working hard” or “grinding” towards completely intangible accomplishments that have no actual value and will swiftly be rendered irrelevant even in the virtual world with a new content patch, you have the very definition of “wasted time”. Now, I HATE people leveling that charge at hobbyists, because you love what you love, right? It’s not anyone’s business to tell you that you’re wasting your time. But time and time again it is made apparent to me that these people are not actually having any fun playing. They persistently refer to what they’re doing as “work”, then moan and wail and gnash their teeth if they’re forced to repeat a process or lose any of their imaginary “progress”, and they give every indication of being people who believe they are undertaking hard labor for a concrete reward. Maybe that reward is “feeling powerful” (again, illusory). I suspect, however, that the reward is feeling better than the other guy. Feeling like you have a leg up on them somehow. That you’re better, faster, more committed (to a game). In that respect, it might serve as an esteem crutch for people, which…I’m also not sure is something I’m eager to endorse. This brings us to…

2. The one thing you may actually accomplish is getting more powerful than other players. The world constantly scales to keep up with you, so instead of killing level 5 bears you’re killing level 50 UMBER bears or something, and if you’re really lucky they have a slightly different skin (progress!). But you’re now 10 times better than that poor dipstick who is stuck at level 5, killing regular bears, like a schnook. This transfers into a number of behaviors, including garden variety elitism (on forums and in-game), or getting a numerical advantage that allows them to dominate in PvP (thus destroying any hope of fair, skill based competition). This eventually results in the gentrification/stratification of your population, with the barrier of entry to fair competition getting higher and higher as your progression pyramid gets taller and taller.

3. If your interest is fair competition…say you’re competing directly in PvP, or indirectly in PvE for party spots, etc…you’re forced to keep pace with the most ardent players, because they set the pace for development. You end up with raids that 0-3% of the population ever sees, and people working the game like a 2nd job, playing long past the point that it is fun or rewarding for them because they need to “keep up”. Now this is a human psychology problem and not necessarily a game design problem, but I think if you’ll ask around, anyone who has played an MMO for any meaningful length of time has experienced this phenomenon. It’s part of the reason why so many people, upon eventually quitting, tend to turn on their old games with almost vitriolic disgust. The games become COMPULSIVE, rather than FUN.

(con’t)

For my own part, I have no interest in seeing GW2 wedded to an infinite progression treadmill. I want to be able to put the game down for a month, and come back and not find that all my gear is now hopelessly obsolete. I want to be able to fight a guy in PvP and know he beat me because he was better than me, not because he spent 5000 hours on his rump to get the Sword of Now I Am Better Than You Because Of Math. I want to be able to play a game that does not shove some of its best content behind transparent and punitive gating mechanisms specifically DESIGNED to soak up your time and keep you busy while they prepare content. I have to admit, I never thought I’d see the day where people embraced the busywork and turned their noses up at the actual game, but here we are, I guess.

Do I think the game needs more content? Of course it does. Do I think the content we have now is working properly/working to its full potential? No it most certainly is not. There is a LOT of room for improvement. But you can’t “improve” the game by slapping in infinite progression without fundamentally BREAKING it, and turning into something it was never advertised as. There are other games for that. Many, many other games for that. You can go check out their forums, and hear people screaming there about how obnoxious progression is. Because it was always the wont of the MMO fan to complain about everything they are given.

rook.4625:

I think we can agree most of the audience that spend the majority of their time in-game and not on the forums are ages 16-18, and that’s being generous. I even think it’s fair to say they make up most of the players in-game.

No, we can’t agree on that. A few years back the average gamer was 35. If that suddenly plummeted to 16-18 in the intervening months, I’d be incredibly surprised.

me too! and no rerolling is not something to do at the endgame.

I want epic quests that make you complete certain dynamic events, kill special bosses in dungeons and go deep in my second suggestion.
I want huge multigroup NON instanced dungeons with tons of bosses and cool rare loot drops
I want Dynamic events that aren’t zergathons. Dynamic events that DON’T scale that players HAVE to band together to defeat or else the whole zone changes and gets more difficult. (this is what i was expecting at the endgame zones)

is that too much to ask.

I love the “look at the topic that ‘80 things that bla bla’”.
Please, I already do all things that counted on that list
but ppl still looking for more encounters/dungeons that designed for maxed toons.
Yes, maybe anet couldn’t predict that they would have this much PVE players but they do now. So i hope they care about us.

And what is funny you know? Every time someone says something like this, they get “go, play wow” reaction.
What is your problem? Your education system doesn’t teach you another sentence?

Khallis.5708:

I want huge multigroup NON instanced dungeons with tons of bosses and cool rare loot drops

100% agreed. It IS odd that they do have lower level open dungeons, but never expand on those ideas at max level. There is a fully open dungeon in Gendarren Fields with a dungeon style spider boss and it is fun when I ran through there with people.

I would love to see some NON instanced – dungeon difficulty content. Have them drop some neat skins and be set.

Now how to do that is a bit harder. Just making a boss with dungeon mechanics/difficulty scale is rather difficult. People complain about dungeon difficulty now, just think of raid difficulty (which would be dungeon ramped up) with a mobile boss with zero agro abilities. He would run about like a mad house smacking people dead quickly .that. (*edit: Ha it censored “that” so I had to toss in a period to bypass it oddly) aren’t specced right.

Khallis.5708:

I want Dynamic events that aren’t zergathons. Dynamic events that DON’T scale that players HAVE to band together to defeat or else the whole zone changes and gets more difficult. (this is what i was expecting at the endgame zones)

They do need some tougher DE’s. Oddly another poster came up with a great idea. Have Meta Events that scale based on kill count. For example – Ice dragon. You fight it and it is base difficulty we have now. It is killed – twice – It then adds a star indicating that it has grown in strength. It will spawn tougher adds + more adds + more devastating AE abilties for each star (which adds based on kill streak). Toss in a leaderboard for each server to see who can beat the mob with the highest Star count and I think that would boost playing for guilds especially. It would also promote server “pride”.

But…wouldn’t DEs that require us to band together be proof that they are tough? o:

I think you’ve simply devoted time to a game and, without understanding this was not geared towards your preferred playstyle, are now seeing it won’t meet your expectations. There’s nothing wrong with players who prefer the gear treadmill, this just isn’t the game for that.

Belgrond.4583:

The main issue is that most players tend to see dynamic event, immediately finish it and run off completely far without even paying attention to its surroundings. Many others, my self included have done this, and for the most part, if we actually slow down and take a look around, you’ll actually find more to the game than you would have assumed

This person’s video examplifies exactly what people do in dynamic events – completely running through it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTF9T4oQ480

This hits the nail right on the head. It’s more about how you play the game than it is about the game. Anyone can make things like DEs (or any of the game’s magnificent content) seem black and white; I personally believe that if you play the game with the intention to have fun you won’t in turn end up dissecting it and later wasting your metaphorical breath about said dissection on the forums.

I made a suggestion that I think might help.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Explorer-Coins-A-possible-fix-to-multiple-issues/first#post337600

Oh, and SpectacularYak, you…sir or madam…are awesome. Love reading your posts.

Same tired arguments for fan boys just because people don’t see it your way doesn’t mean they are wrong. if I don’t find some aspects of the game fun I can complain or make a suggestion on my forum account about the game I spent money on. I love how there is some forest only a few selected people can see through and everyone else is stuck in WoW limbo give me a break.

I don’t like spending 70 runs in 1 dungeon for gear that is worst than running a raid/heroics for gear

I don’t like the anti farm code to restrict my farming of crafting mats

Necro has tons of bugs and we mostly get tooltip fixes

I don’t want to get 100% world completion it’s just tedious to do heart events I don’t mind finding vistas and POI’s tho.

Spvp isn’t fun with the same maps and 1 game mode

WvW is to imbalanced but that isn’t an A-Net problem

That word adapted and exploited is used so often like it’s a new word discovered no I don’t have an issue ’’ADAPTING’’ if I did I wouldn’t have 5 toons I obviously like some aspects of the game and for the people that claims get a life if you have a maxed out toon you need to get over yourself. If in my game time I can get max level doesn’t mean I don’t have a life it’s the fact my life style enables me to play more than you.

From my understanding

You can’t adapt= You have an issue with a game I find so super and you must be in WoW limbo lolololol go play WoW

No life = kitten you can play more than me let me insult you

Exploit = If you find a efficient way to farm tokens/mats and tons of people didn’t find out about it and A-Net didn’t see that way of farming in the testing stage.

You’re free to complain all you want…but why bother? what benefit are you taking from playing a game and finding something negative to droll on and on about with it?

But I do respect and agree with your points; WoW is WoW and guild wars 2 is guild wars 2.

SpectacularYak.6518:

I have to admit, I never thought I’d see the day where people embraced the busywork and turned their noses up at the actual game, but here we are, I guess.

Gotta say I’ve been extremely surprised at this as well.

I love WoW, it it is a great polished game. When it came out really captured my imagination. Over the years though I’ve become very tired of keeping up with the fastest progressing players or trying to figure out how to come up with some formula for playing with my buddies who all play on different servers and different factions. I’ve ended up playing more standard multiplayer games because of it. For a lot of us I think it’s just exciting to see an MMO that is trying to spin that around and make a strong attempt to not keep us gated.

I desire more content and polish in the end game (who wouldn’t) but really for the first time feel like I can put this game down for a couple of months, wait for them to fix and add things then come back and see what’s there.

Allow me a moment to offer some background on myself. I was there when WoW launched Cataclysm. I stayed up all night and well into the afternoon powering my way through levels to score realm first 85 Priest. I am a powergamer, that’s the sort of thing that I like to do (an Anet developer might say that I’m “playing my way”).

I chose to progress slowly when I started this game. I spent about 10 days going from 1 to 80, starting off by burning down Wayfarer Foothills, then casually working my way through the levels until I hit Straits of Devastation, where I then ramped up again. I took my time with crafting, eventually capping my cooking and leatherworking.

I opted not to rush into explorables, instead choosing to go out and enjoy a dozen or so zones, picking up all kinds of rewards for zone completion.

I tried out WvW and found it enjoyable, and I often tell the story of how myself and a guildmate managed to succeed against much stronger players by using the landscape to misdirect and confuse the enemy while chipping away at their health. I find that it helps sway the undecided players toward at least trying WvW.

So, I’ve hit 80, and I’ve sampled much of the game. Jumping puzzles, map completion, zone events, WvW, explorables, working the trading post to make a nice pile of cash for myself, and even a bit of RP here and there, I’ve done it all. I now find myself wondering what’s left for me to do.

I’m developing an extremely negative opinion of dungeon design, thanks to the numerous bugs that can completely ruin a run, I’ve grown bored with the Player vs. Wall-ness of WvW, I’ve already seen every zone, the novelty of dynamic events has worn off, and I’m honestly getting tired of the game as whole, even when I try to look at it with new eyes as a different profession/race.

I really want to justify the $160 I spent on this game, but I’m finding it extremely difficult. There doesn’t seem to be anything left for me to do that isn’t simply more of the same. I don’t want to believe I’ve got terminal Geartreadmillitis, but it sure looks that way, so I challenge this thread to recommend something to me that is new, unique and can keep me entertained.

Soulbound Soldier.6148:

You’re free to complain all you want…but why bother? what benefit are you taking from playing a game and finding something negative to droll on and on about with it?

But I do respect and agree with your points; WoW is WoW and guild wars 2 is guild wars 2.

Companies listen to customers complaints and build on it. Every single customer has the potentially to bring in 1-2 people with them from word to mouth

pixelrevision.5192:

SpectacularYak.6518:

I have to admit, I never thought I’d see the day where people embraced the busywork and turned their noses up at the actual game, but here we are, I guess.

Gotta say I’ve been extremely surprised at this as well.

I love WoW, it it is a great polished game. When it came out really captured my imagination. Over the years though I’ve become very tired of keeping up with the fastest progressing players or trying to figure out how to come up with some formula for playing with my buddies who all play on different servers and different factions. I’ve ended up playing more standard multiplayer games because of it. For a lot of us I think it’s just exciting to see an MMO that is trying to spin that around and make a strong attempt to not keep us gated.

I desire more content and polish in the end game (who wouldn’t) but really for the first time feel like I can put this game down for a couple of months, wait for them to fix and add things then come back and see what’s there.

We are gated there are loads of restrictions on the way you actually want to play. I listed them above but ill recap.

Anti farm code
Punished for trying to get things done efficiently farming tokens/crafting mats
Personal story is the same for all races around level 40 It’s fun up until then
Everything that’s efficient is an exploit (Nearly)
The dungeon armor grind is worst than 2 WoW heroics put together.
World completion is not fun with heart events IMO I do like POI’s and vistas.
Orr is the only level 80 area
Mobs are stationed at nodes/trees/herbs at least 3+ most of the time (5+ in Orr)
Locked trait system ( changed from beta when you could pick any trait you wanted 10 points could get you the ’’Grandmaster’’ traits if you wanted) It’s now a boring talent tree.

I don’t mind slow patches I would rather slow big patches than fast small patches.

I have news for you. This is a theme park MMORPG. Nicely and smartly done and probably one of the most enjoyable theme park games in long time….but it is still a game with finite game content with some re-playability mostly focused around pvp.

The end game argument makes no sense with theme park games and I suggest you stop believing in the mythical end game. It doesn’t exist. Every game ends at one point.

That said, I have five characters and most of them around lvl 30, one getting close to 40. I easily have clocked around 120-150 hours of gameplay and I’m no where close to finishing the existing game content.

To keep you entertained with something which is not a huge grind and a pointless chase of marginally better gear the game had to stop being just a theme park. Of course if you aren’t one of those sad people who think chasing a slightly bigger carrot on a stick while repeating the same dungeons over and over again is fun.

It would need to introduce sandbox content. Maybe a new ripe for guild conquest continent with clan owned castles, mines, trade towns, new resources needed for craft able gear which gets damaged and can be lost in battle. Maybe with some pve invasions and dynamic events with dragons burning down guild towns Most likely build around clan politics and pvp, which would obviously wouldn’t please many people who simply dislike pvp. Well at least it would have some replaybility value. You can clearly see on this forum that people never stop disagreeing and fighting over smaller things then who owns a piece of land, a castle or a mine in a this or other zone.

I would much much much rather play a game for an hour or two a day and have fun while doing whatever else I wanted with my time in real life/in game than grinding for a few hours for a bracer that I will just replace (wasting all the time I spent to get it) in a couple months.

Seems this game is meant for you to log in play for 1 hour get DR capped and log out and go play something else or go outside. It even says so in the “Things to do at 80” thread lol sad.

Velvet.4678:

I have leveled a Thief to 80 and find that there is nothing to attract me to the game anymore. I mostly play PvP in MMOs but since there is no real gear progression like in WoW I am not drawn to it. I am unable to play PvP simply for “fun” because the fun for me is in the progression. PvE does not offer anything that interests me either.

That said, I do love the combat, graphics style and surprisingly, leveling. Leveling in this game is the funnest thing for me so far, but with nothing to look forward to at the top of the ladder, that too loses purpose.

I would suggest Arenanet to add more endgame material.

1, There’s Legendary weapons that look incredibly great and are pretty hard to get
2, PvP progression in here is as it should be in every game, is based on Skill, the more you play, the better you get
if u want a PvP game that u can win by gear, go play a P2W MMo and get max gear and beat everyone,
personally i’d rather beat someone in equally grounded gear than just beating people because i have better items

Yes when will there be an expansion? 6months from now.
Oh and how much?

Id like to see raids or 10 / 20 man dungeons added to the game. But let me tell you from an experienced raider from several mmo’s including wow. Any raiding added to GW2 needs to be totally optional. It needs to offer rewards that are the same stat wise as any other top gear in the game. Even just offer dungeon gear, make it an alternative way to farm for your dungeon set. It should also be content that has a 5 man mode so everyone can experience it.

Anyone who actually enjoyed raiding for the challenge and the teamwork it offered would be happy with that deal. With this GW2 could appeal to another demographic (bringing in more gem shop sales, in my opinion people who raid would spend more as they have a strong attachment to the game) without affecting its current ethos.

Detahmaio.2014:

Soulbound Soldier.6148:

You’re free to complain all you want…but why bother? what benefit are you taking from playing a game and finding something negative to droll on and on about with it?

But I do respect and agree with your points; WoW is WoW and guild wars 2 is guild wars 2.

Companies listen to customers complaints and build on it. Every single customer has the potentially to bring in 1-2 people with them from word to mouth

When it’s used constructively and I wasn’t necessarily aiming that at you, more so at people that claim WoW is better, or whine that there’s nothing for them to do cause they rushed the game in the first month. That’s different than, say, a suggestion

You know what is really the problem here? I have nothing to play, MMO wise until they release content or an expansion. That’s the real issue. Imagine if a game similar to GW2 was out now for me to hop to while waiting for content in GW2. I can guarantee I wouldn’t be criticizing GW2 as much because I would be busy in a game that is just as good. ;D Not Anet’s fault, I know but you see the issue here? It’s longevity! This game needs a healthy dose of SOMETHING to bring the Longevity score up to par and keep us logging in. I don’t care what it is it just has to be something, be it gear progression or not. It’s not my fault GW2 has one of the fastest leveling games I’ve ever seen(which I’m not knocking, it just needs to be balanced with longevity mechanics at the end of that leveling path).

Completely agree OP. About 100 hours in, hit level 80, got to level 12 in sPVP and I am just bored. I don’t think there is much that can be done to change that and I will wait for the next game to fill the void. Luckily, there is no monthly fee so I can come back to GW2 every few weeks or months and see if there is anything worth doing.

I think the problem with a lot of people, why they feel so disappointed at level 80 is that they had to level to 80 to begin with. In my opinion the game shouldnt have levels or gear tiers. It should be right from the start a game that isn’t about progession. Instead they get you going up up up and then it’s all flat. It should be flat from the start or it should never flatten. No levels, no one single story arc, just a free and open world full of stories. And if they question why people would play a game a with no levels and no upward direction then they have to question why people would play a game with no progression at level 80.

i was gona post a “fanboy” message but seeing how the op has stayed on topic and engaged in constructive dialog i’ll do my best to do the same.

“standing out through skill is something that requires a tremendous time commitment and coordination with other players. i simply do not want to invest that time.”

well, that pretty much rules out pvp as a source of endgame for you. in wvw you can progress in gear/traits/skills but only up to lvl 80 exotic. after that all your progression is through community ie building guilds/alliances/coordinating supply/siege deployment. i agree with spectacular yak in regars to spvp being a level playing field, but with a little less zeal – which has unfortunately snowballed out of civility. so for pvp endgame all i can advise is to try opening yourself to a new perspective of lvling your skill individually and as a team player instead of gear progression.

“something i would like to see would be real world pvp where different guild vie for non-instanced fortifications around the world”

i love this idea, but anet would never do it… unless they made it like factions in gw1 so guilds could claim locations similar to wvw using some currency (influence prolly) so it wouldn’t create progression dis/advantage in pve. i’m gona see the future now and say this is an expansion.

“while i do agree that a shift from destination to journey is a positive for mmos, i do not believe gw2 has done that quite yet and as a result the game does require end game content”

i almost agree with this. by definition END game content implies the journey is over and you’re now just doing something you find fun. so i challenge you to find what was fun for you in the journey and try to replicate it. you’ll likely find that doing things where you don’t know what you’re doing is the answer. many rewards scale to your level so you don’t have to worry about going back to lower lvl zones. have you done all the meta event chains in every zone? or every path of every dungeon? or every jumping puzzle? if not i challenge you to do them… with a party of people who haven’t done them… without looking up a guide to find them… without a youtube video on how to do them. now i realize eventually you’ll have experiance everything by this point, but unless you play 24/7 this will not be an easy challenge. bonus points for every event/dungeon/jumping puzzle etc you do with a group of strangers.

I know someone with a similar view – they don’t want to PvP because they don’t get rewarded (as in gear so they can feel powerful and faceroll).

The funny thing though is that in the WoW-clone they came from, they always complained about how the other guy only won because of the max rank epic gear they had.

What to do…

I’d like to remind you on something you might not yet be aware of. This is only a part of GW2 we’re playing right now. Anet is working on tons of new content in expansions. There are still 2 maps of wich I’m 99% sure they will come back in later expansions, Elona and Cantha. Also there seem to be a lot of gates and portals that lead to places that look like playable area’s, but are just not yet available to acces (yet). In other words, a LOT of content has yet to arrive.

So yeah, lots of stuff to anticipate, lots of stuff to do, you just got to find your own way in this game. Check out the achievements tab, find some stuff that might interrest you, set your goals, and most importantly, find a guild that shares your interrests in this game.

To give an example; what I’m working on right now is getting all 8 professions to level 80 and get them geared in full exotic gear before any expansions come out. I do my daily dose of dungeons for the nice chunk of XP and the tokens so I can get geared up for very little cost. And whenever I’m bored of PvE, I just jump into some sPvP and get my glory rank up.
If I manage to get done with character development before any expansions get released there are still the Legendary weapons wich occupy you for quite a couple hours

Maybe if you can afford enough gems to buy your exotic gear then you’ll start to run out of things to do. For me, getting that gear will take a long time of saving my gold. That and I am having amazing fun in WvW, sPvP, PvE.

The fun about forum discussions like this is that nobody actually has real numbers but quite a few people act like they do.

The OP wants more things to do at max level. That by itself is a fair comment.

At the same time what is enough and to whom?

I would expect that when a number of players reach level 80 in less than a week, are not into playing alts and are willing to grind one area and the same event chain for weeks to get specific rewards but are not willing to repeat lower level events and are done with dungeon running because they also grinded those silly within the first month, that indeed the game will be boring by now.

But this is a relatively small group of players if we can believe the comment that most people aren’t even level 80 yet then it follows automatically that most people aren’t bored at level 80.

The second point is that the group of people that leveled to level 80 that quickly are generally (not all but mostly) the kind of people that are into efficient game and gear progression.

Then every MMO release has that group of people who rush to the end, rage over lack of content and quit.

So think about this. MMO makers know this group exists and know that most of them will quit. So why cater to them more? This group of people is relatively small and most of them will leave anyways. It’s a curve.

It’s development cost vs retention. If you can spend 100 milion (random number) on creating content and retain 85% of the players or spend 150 million on creating content and retain 90% of the players, then from a business point of view, you have to ask yourself if spending 50% more to retain 5% more players is worth it.

In my view it’s not.

Also with that there is the obvious element that Anet have advertised and spoken about GW2 in interviews for years now, explaining this game wasn’t about gear progression.

So then I have to ask the OP. If Anet used pretty much every opportunity to let people know this and you know that you like gear progression….why on earth would you buy this game?

And if you’ve played new MMOs before, how can you not know that you will go through the same thing again if you are the type of person who rushes through content.

Please just learn a MMO will never be able to satiate such rushing needs simply because the cost is to high in comparison to what the company gains from it.

I of course used made up numbers as I don’t know the real numbers but understanding the concept of cost vs return, especially that costs increase exponentially as the target goes up, can save you a lot of stress in you life.

Bottom line is that if you are the type of person who burns through content like there’s no tomorrow, you probably aren’t the target audience in GW2.

Think about it.

One thing that could add some “end-game” could be a places in lvl80 zones that only has veterans and champions, a good place for everyone to farm their t6 crafting mats and it might even offer some challenge. Also this would mean that current DR/anti-farm thingy needs to be reworked or removed so peoples could actually spend some time in there.

And imo farming spots are usually great places for social activity as there are alot of peoples doing same things as you are.

The problem with people that gets bored in this game is their own view in “life”

they trying to reach the Goal (Lv80 or w/e) so fast, that they forget about the journey and miss so much from it

im lv80, but i took my well ~200hrs to get to it
i dont have my exotic gear, nor 100% map completion,
right now i have around 450+ hrs played in 1 single character and i havent even seen all the maps in the world, lol
i dont understand how people can get bored of this game this quick

ConterK.3972:

right now i have around 450+ hrs played in 1 single character and i havent even seen all the maps in the world, lol
i dont understand how people can get bored of this game this quick

What are you, a tourist? Not everyone who plays MMOs is the explorer type who finds it interesting just to wander around through zones. Maybe if there were some spectacular story-telling that accompanied it, but there really isn’t.

Agenda.7935:

One thing that could add some “end-game” could be a places in lvl80 zones that only has veterans and champions, a good place for everyone to farm their t6 crafting mats and it might even offer some challenge. Also this would mean that current DR/anti-farm thingy needs to be reworked or removed so peoples could actually spend some time in there.

And imo farming spots are usually great places for social activity as there are alot of peoples doing same things as you are.

Seems like a good idea to me. It doesn’t get in the way of the solo player and allows an extra activity. DR all depends on how they set it up but in the end they have just stated that farming is a good thing in their vision so why not add a good place(s) to farm.