Guild Wars 2

- WvW:
WVW is by far my most favorite game mode that imo distinguished GW2 from other MMORPG games. At the time it was introduced, there wasn’t something like this with this many players and this kind of atmosphere, at least nothing that I played before.
I know Anet says WVW isn’t a fair game mode. I also don’t want to start a conversation about its balancing here. I just noticed some really concerning developments in my most favorite mode of the game and I wanted to point them out.
One serious problem in WvW is that a group of casual players with average equipment don’t stand a chance against a group half as big filled with serious hardcore gamers. There are a few – I use to call them “elite guilds” which practically dominate WvW. On most servers there’s also some sort of main zerg where some players without a WvW guild and some casual players meet at a TS Server and walk around together, but here you can see what I am complaining about in the part above. These groups are getting worse and worse while the “elite guild groups” are getting better and better. Along with this development, a lot of WvW players just stop playing WvW or they completely move on to another game. This leads to weaker groups of casual players which again drives more of them away.

One of the reasons why there are that many people leaving WvW is that you need a good group of people in order to face one or two good players. It happened to us several times that a single thief was able to disband a group of about 8 players, just by waiting till someone falls behind, then killing him with 2-3 backstabs and finishing him invisible. I know which build these people are using and I don’t really consider it what I call fair, but I accepted it. What makes this as terrible as I say is the fact that this one build I’m referring to is heavily benefitting from the better gear while casual players basically stay where they are. There are some other classes and builds that heavily profit from the new stat points, but thieves are probably the most known example of what I mean.

-PvP:
Like in every game that exists for a long time PvP is getting harder and harder, it’s really difficult to keep up with a good player that was thinking about its build for days and a player that just read a tutorial or is playing how he thinks it’s good. As far as I know there’s no possibility of getting a group with players of the same rank that are about as good as you. I don’t know what they changed here, but I noticed massive imbalance between the two teams recently and it happens more and more often to me that guilds try to get to the same team and the “noob team” is stuck with not that good players that leave the game after they realize it’s not working out that well.

Conclusion/Question:
After all, I have to ask myself whether GW2 is still worth my time, or if I should move on to another game. I really like GW2, otherwise I wouldn’t write a huge post of what is bugging me right now in order to convince the developers to take care of the problem. What do you think about the recent changes? Do you also think Anet should “rescue” the few casual players they have left?

Ascended gear is not as bad as people make it out to be. If you are following the crafting guides they are highly inflated. For multiple reasons. One being that the market is not quite stable yet. It went though a bit of a shock. Also It only feels extremely bad as you are already 80 and thought you were done.

Interesting tip: With WvW you can get the mats for ascended gear easier then PvE. Why? Because you don’t have to wait for timers and it is one per location. And you get it just by playing the game. PvEers have to go complete multiple dungeons in vastly diffrent locations or wait for world event timers.

WvW see Interesting tip.

Snowshadow.3105:

Is GW2 shifting its target group? from casual gamers to hardcore gamers?

I stopped reading at this part but can say absolutely no. They constantly release fluff content while ignoring the meat and potatos part of the game (dungeons/pvp/wvw). If anything they are shifting their target group to the asian mmo market with huge amounts of grind that can be bypassed with your wallet.

I really enjoy the new changes. My past MMO experience is mainly from Dark Age of Camelot. There it was a grind to do anything. They also had Realm vs Realm. This is what WvW is based off of if you kept up in the beginning. I was a more hardcore player back then. But I am a casual player now with time constaints and some days where I don’t play at all.

But I think the big difference between me and you is, I am still wired hardcore. I run dungeons whenever the chance comes up and I have the time. I also balance out my play to meet the needs I want. The new ascended weapons are not really the problem. They can be attained just by playing normally, either in PvE or WvW. The big problem with them is the leveling the crafting up to 500. Once your their, it is just a matter of time before you can craft one. I did some calculation last night. If you don’t buy any mats, and you get the mats you need to craft the time gated ones, you can craft your first ascended item in 9 days. That isn’t bad at all.

As for the state of WvW, I can say this is a kiddie version compared to how it was in DAoC. There was still stealth characters and such, but the fighting lasted longer, you could really defend a keep too. Stealth characters could also climb walls and take out players on the ramparts if they wasn’t paying attention. Ranger classes could shoot an arrow so far some times you wouldn’t even see if coming. But in GW2, the biggest zerg wins. No strategy, no real planning. I wish they would make it a little harder and add some of the strategy aspects that was required in DAoC.

In my opinion, I think casual players are looking to much into everything. Everything in the game is obtainable, just a little work here and there to get it. It just may take a casual player a month longer then someone else, but it is there for them to obtain. Just watch how many ascended mats you come up with just playing WvW, you will get more then you expect.

Apparently I’m even more of a casual player than you – I started on the first day of the headstart weekend, only got my first level 80 in April and still don’t have a single piece of Ascended gear. I could have done. I probably could have a lot of it but I’ve been spending my gold, laurels and guild commendations on other things and have never done Fractals.

Personally I don’t see it as a problem. It definitely wasn’t when it was first released because as you said it was all self-contained in Fractals. You could only get ascended rings from Fractals, but the stat boost was so minor you only needed it for the agony resistance, and you only needed that for higher level fractals.

It is a bit different now when a full set of ascended gear will make a noticeable difference, but IMO it’s still not enough that it’s a problem. There’s still nothing outside of high level Fractals that actually requires it, everything can be done in exotics (or lower).

I’ll probably get a full set of ascended gear one day (I wanted to max crafting and unlock all the recipes anyway so that’s not an issue to me), but I’m not going to hold off on doing any of the content until I’ve got it. I’ll do things as and when I feel like it, in whatever gear I’ve got at the time.

And the fact that I can make that choice is the big difference between this game and ones with an actual gear treadmill, to me anyway.

not even close OP
their focus is quantity of concurrent sign-ins
zero discretion to who you are

Sounds like every other game out there (that isn’t a casual cell phone game lol).

It seems to me that ascended weapons are just being added because exotics weren’t at the level they wanted them to be at (and if they were to try and salvage exotics now, players would foam at the mouth because they are used to the current difficulty to obtain). So, instead of trying and salvaging exotics, they just go and add another tier at a point that they know players will have to work for them a bit (like they had intended for exotics to be?).

PvP in this game is just a spam fest and the combat just isn’t set up very well in either the old school tab-target/ui oriented style, nor is it set up well enough to be any where close to be a true action combat style. So, not only are skills just spammy now (and even those that play the game have to go “wtf is going on here” sometimes; ya, real easy to tell whats going on Anet when the screen is so full of spirits, clones, minions… add all the effects into that mix and gg).

Also, in any game, even when all the players are somewhat equal in skill level, a coordinated team that knows how to work together somewhat before hand versus a team that was just thrown together is going to have and should have the advantage. There isn’t really much you can do about that last bit unless you force players to fight in a solo queue only.

WvW The organized groups are always going to have an advantage here too. One thing they should do is make it so that stability and stealth doesn’t work while finishing a player (but then again that would just bring up other problems, as a lot of players used to complain that the downed state was too powerful at one point lol). Unfortunately there isn’t much they can do to really balance groups here and that is probably why it can be so unfair.

Forcing too much balance on players can be really detrimental to the game; you have to let players that are more skilled do better, you can’t just put a skill ceiling on them and expect a player that could do better (no I’m not talking about gear… that has nothing to do with how good a player is…) to not get bored and leave. In fact, that is one of the problems with GW2’s pvp at the moment is that they have watered down things so much into a spam fest that a lot of players have left for pvp in other games.

General PvE is currently fine as it is, although it would be nice to have the opportunity for more diversity in the areas of the game that you can “grind” in. They really need a system for better rewards from jump puzzles and other stuff. A crafting mini game would be nice too, although I feel that they may be at a point now where it would be difficult to add such a system into the game without major back lash from all the lazy kitten players in the game that feel entitled to everything at the press of like one button.

The only thing I really see that’s too bad about gearing in GW2 is that it requires a lot of gear to meet the needs of the diversity of the game and there are many players that just can’t keep up with that. I personally won’t ever change my gear from berserkers on my ranger due to several limiting factors (not to mention how much space it takes up to carry around even just one set of extra gear).

Snowshadow.3105:

Is GW2 shifting its target group? from casual gamers to hardcore gamers?

I think the way you worded your statement is a bit vague, considering how there are many definitions of “hardcore”. But I agree with your point – I think ArenaNet is changing its target audience.

Before release, ArenaNet said, paraphrasing, “if you like MMOs, you should try Guild Wars 2; if you don’t like MMOs, you REALLY should try Guild Wars 2”, hinting that they were aiming at the players who skewed classic MMO conventions. At release, we got a game filled with content for players focusing on having fun, with all the little bits of world dialogue, all the nice Easter eggs hidden in many out of the way places, and so on; sure, the game had its flaws, but it had a lot of potential to improve and become something truly unique.

Since release, ArenaNet took the game in the opposite direction. They have focused on introducing farming content, be it the second Southsun Cove with 200% Magic Find, or the Queen’s Pavillion, or the invasions. All of those had very shallow events repeated over and over, completely disconnected from the world around them, without the charm or care seen in much of the game at release. This content was not aimed at the players who “don’t like MMOs”; it was aimed at the MMO locusts who want to farm, grind, and exploit.

What probably happened is that ArenaNet noticed the MMO players not only are the majority of their current playerbase, but also the easiest to please. If you don’t have to worry about the quality of the content you build, only that it will give a reward shiny enough, it’s easier to make a game than if you are trying to please a group who wants fun content (and all the subjectivity implied there).

Thus, then, the reversal of GW2’s target audience. Not players who don’t like MMOs, but MMO players who play (farm?) Guild Wars 2. Those are who the game is currently being made for.

They aren’t shifting to the hardcore gamer, they’re shifting to no one. What hardcore content they added this patch, last patch, the one before or others? Nothing. All they did is add ascended weapons with a very very lazy and cheap mechanic to them which requires 2 weeks of your life waiting and metric tones of gold while forcing you to do things you dislike, like puzzles would be my personal example.

Hardcore? I consider myself an old school hardcore mmo gamer. GW2 is 100% kitten, there is no hardcore content. The only thing hardcore-like going on is Anet leading one huge farming zerg from end to end of the game world and back again, so much so they are going to flip Tyria over like a boat with too many people running to one side all of the sudden. Like one day you are doing the fire ele with five other people, the next day 250 people are there… and your connection drops heh. The only thing I see hardcore is Anet kiting MOB’s of farming zergs. Anet is hardcore, we are just the MOB’s lol

Daywolf.2630:

Hardcore? I consider myself an old school hardcore mmo gamer. GW2 is 100% kitten, there is no hardcore content. The only thing hardcore-like going on is Anet leading one huge farming zerg from end to end of the game world and back again, so much so they are going to flip Tyria over like a boat with too many people running to one side all of the sudden. Like one day you are doing the fire ele with five other people, the next day 250 people are there… and your connection drops heh. The only thing I see hardcore is Anet kiting MOB’s of farming zergs. Anet is hardcore, we are just the MOB’s lol

Wait till whole ascended tier is here, then calculate how much time/resources/grind you would need to get just 1 set for 1 character 1 build from scratch.

Just for the record, your concern about WvW is unfounded. You’ll win or lose a fight due to any number of other variables before ascended gear becomes the difference. I’m too cheap to bother with consumable buffs in WvW half the time, those alone make a bigger difference in stats than an ascended weapon and I do just fine in WvW.

It’s a convenient excuse to have when you lose a fight, sure, but you would’ve lost the same fights before the patch. Relax.

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

In fact, it isn’t just 90% time-gated on ascended. Almost all content in Guild Wars 2 is time-gated so as to level the playing field for casuals and hardcores.

Guild Wars 2 is still 100% casual. How can I assume that? Well, I’m a hardcore player myself, and I can say that there is absolutely, positively, no hardcore content in this game at this time.

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

In fact, it isn’t just 90% time-gated on ascended. Almost all content in Guild Wars 2 is time-gated so as to level the playing field for casuals and hardcores.

Guild Wars 2 is still 100% casual. How can I assume that? Well, I’m a hardcore player myself, and I can say that there is absolutely, positively, no hardcore content in this game at this time.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

ANet does not have a “target group”. Point blank questions to the developers regarding marketing segmentation are ignored.

The quotes from ANet indicate they see the playerbase as one entity.

Which means the “typical” GW2 player is one that has the title: Golden God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals Been There Done That Respected Achiever Dungeon Master who shoots rainbow ponies in WvW, while wearing a Super Adventure Box backpack except when competing in SPvP. And otherwise enjoys running with a large pack of lag inducing zergs with pitchforks trying to ensure every bi-monthly event loop fails in order to fund their gotta-craft-em-all ascended weapon for their one and only one alt who happens to be a warrior in order to successfully PuG using the soon-to-be-implemented™ in-game LFG.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

In fact, it isn’t just 90% time-gated on ascended. Almost all content in Guild Wars 2 is time-gated so as to level the playing field for casuals and hardcores.

Guild Wars 2 is still 100% casual. How can I assume that? Well, I’m a hardcore player myself, and I can say that there is absolutely, positively, no hardcore content in this game at this time.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

Nuka is correct. Ascended is about something to do for those who are in game enormous amounts of time. Anyone who plays sparingly is going to take months to get the content-related mats for one weapon, and even longer if they choose to farm the mats to level their crafting. Casual and hardcore are most decidedly not on an equal footing, regardless of the time gating.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

Actually, I think you are both correct, in a way.

Galtrix is right that the time-gating is to stop the ultra-hardcore for having their Ascended items in a day.

But it doesn’t put the ultra-hardcore and the casuals on the same footing. It puts the ultra-hardcore and the hardcore on the same footing.

Nuka Cola is correct that the casual players will never feel the time-gating because it will take them so long to collect the materials that they will never be slowed down waiting for cooldowns. Hell, I’m a bit of a packrat, I’ve got two level 80s and 500 hours played, and burning through my stash of mats, I only got one craft up to 430-something before I ran out of ancient wood. A two week time-gate is not going to be the bottleneck for me!

goldenwing.8473:

ANet does not have a “target group”. Point blank questions to the developers regarding marketing segmentation are ignored.

You don’t go mass market by targeting one group – and millions of sales is mass market. WoW proved this by showing that the way to millions of players is to target everyone from the most insanely casual, to the hardcore raiders willing to eat hundreds of wipes in pursuit of a world first.

goldenwing.8473:

ANet does not have a “target group”. Point blank questions to the developers regarding marketing segmentation are ignored.

The quotes from ANet indicate they see the playerbase as one entity.

Which means the “typical” GW2 player is one that has the title: Golden God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals Been There Done That Respected Achiever Dungeon Master who shoots rainbow ponies in WvW, while wearing a Super Adventure Box backpack except when competing in SPvP. And otherwise enjoys running with a large pack of lag inducing zergs with pitchforks trying to ensure every bi-monthly event loop fails in order to fund their gotta-craft-em-all ascended weapon for their one and only one alt who happens to be a warrior in order to successfully PuG using the soon-to-be-implemented™ in-game LFG.

lol that was good.

Nuka Cola.8520:

goldenwing.8473:

ANet does not have a “target group”. Point blank questions to the developers regarding marketing segmentation are ignored.

The quotes from ANet indicate they see the playerbase as one entity.

Which means the “typical” GW2 player is one that has the title: Golden God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals Been There Done That Respected Achiever Dungeon Master who shoots rainbow ponies in WvW, while wearing a Super Adventure Box backpack except when competing in SPvP. And otherwise enjoys running with a large pack of lag inducing zergs with pitchforks trying to ensure every bi-monthly event loop fails in order to fund their gotta-craft-em-all ascended weapon for their one and only one alt who happens to be a warrior in order to successfully PuG using the soon-to-be-implemented™ in-game LFG.

lol that was good.

And true.

MikaHR.1978:

Daywolf.2630:

Hardcore? I consider myself an old school hardcore mmo gamer. GW2 is 100% kitten, there is no hardcore content. The only thing hardcore-like going on is Anet leading one huge farming zerg from end to end of the game world and back again, so much so they are going to flip Tyria over like a boat with too many people running to one side all of the sudden. Like one day you are doing the fire ele with five other people, the next day 250 people are there… and your connection drops heh. The only thing I see hardcore is Anet kiting MOB’s of farming zergs. Anet is hardcore, we are just the MOB’s lol

Wait till whole ascended tier is here, then calculate how much time/resources/grind you would need to get just 1 set for 1 character 1 build from scratch.

That’s not hardcore content, that’s incremental gear grind. You still get achievements every 20m, you can log in 20m a day and then go play your other game and return tomorrow. WoW introduced this constant feel-good casual play, creating endorphin responses to keep players coming back. Hardcore players are a different breed entirely. I think Beau Hindman at massively defined the difference between hardcore, core and casual players the best a year ago or so “the soapbox: demise of the core gamer”.

Banquetto.9521:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

Actually, I think you are both correct, in a way.

Galtrix is right that the time-gating is to stop the ultra-hardcore for having their Ascended items in a day.

But it doesn’t put the ultra-hardcore and the casuals on the same footing. It puts the ultra-hardcore and the hardcore on the same footing.

Nuka Cola is correct that the casual players will never feel the time-gating because it will take them so long to collect the materials that they will never be slowed down waiting for cooldowns. Hell, I’m a bit of a packrat, I’ve got two level 80s and 500 hours played, and burning through my stash of mats, I only got one craft up to 430-something before I ran out of ancient wood. A two week time-gate is not going to be the bottleneck for me!

goldenwing.8473:

ANet does not have a “target group”. Point blank questions to the developers regarding marketing segmentation are ignored.

You don’t go mass market by targeting one group – and millions of sales is mass market. WoW proved this by showing that the way to millions of players is to target everyone from the most insanely casual, to the hardcore raiders willing to eat hundreds of wipes in pursuit of a world first.

WoW is exception, not a rule. Many games tried to do exactly what WoW did and failed miserably.

OTOH EvE, which mostly kept to its own niche is 2nd most successful MMO in the west and still growing. Food for thought.

Yes. Their original target group were casuals and those who didn’t want to grind for gear stats. But the game launched beyond expectations, with a large number of buyers who were used to, and wanted stats grind. This got Anet greedy. When these new customers began to complain that there was no stats to grind for, Anet panicked and introduced Ascended gear.

Now we have a game that was developed for the no-stat-grind crowd, but has shifted its model to the stat-grind-fans. In the end, neither of these two customer bases will be happy.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Yes. Their original target group were casuals and those who didn’t want to grind for gear stats. But the game launched beyond expectations, with a large number of buyers who were used to, and wanted stats grind. This got Anet greedy. When these new customers began to complain that there was no stats to grind for, Anet panicked and introduced Ascended gear.

Now we have a game that was developed for the no-stat-grind crowd, but has shifted its model to the stat-grind-fans. In the end, neither of these two customer bases will be happy.

Yeah but that doesn’t mean it’s geared for the hardcore gamer. Quite the opposite, GW2 set out to lure the core gamer but had started to shift to the casual play group. You can dump a lot of time into it and do it all fast (great for core gamers), but generally, especially with time gates now, it’s curved towards the casual player that is going to get on for a little time in the day and then move to some other game.

A good example of a hardcore gamer (not to be confused with core gamers) would be such as in early SWG, where these players would come together and create player built faction towns (similar to EVE). There would always be someone there ready to send out alerts to buddies even off-line to come in and defend an attack against their town/city. No great reward but the honor of dedication to get something done. EQ1, standing out in the middle of non-instanced nowhere waiting hours, days, weeks for a certain MOB or raid to spawn. No mini-rewards every 20m, just dedication to achieving something and maybe have a chance for something worth the time of doing it, down the road.

Here now, you have constant farming zergs, you can just jump in for an hour and then log out. You have daily this and daily that, each giving a reward every 20m or less. Add all these rewards up over time and trade it in for a greater reward. Or even just sell your micro-rewards and buy most of what you need for that bigger reward if part of what it takes to get it is beyond your interest. All very casual minded. Really, you should google that article I mentioned in my previous post, it’ll give you a better perspective of what’s going on.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Yes. Their original target group were casuals and those who didn’t want to grind for gear stats. But the game launched beyond expectations, with a large number of buyers who were used to, and wanted stats grind. This got Anet greedy. When these new customers began to complain that there was no stats to grind for, Anet panicked and introduced Ascended gear.

Now we have a game that was developed for the no-stat-grind crowd, but has shifted its model to the stat-grind-fans. In the end, neither of these two customer bases will be happy.

GW1 was 100% cosmetic grind. Who complained? no one. No one forced you to grind an eternal sword but you may have wanted to for a lot of reasons.

Daywolf.2630:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Yes. Their original target group were casuals and those who didn’t want to grind for gear stats. But the game launched beyond expectations, with a large number of buyers who were used to, and wanted stats grind. This got Anet greedy. When these new customers began to complain that there was no stats to grind for, Anet panicked and introduced Ascended gear.

Now we have a game that was developed for the no-stat-grind crowd, but has shifted its model to the stat-grind-fans. In the end, neither of these two customer bases will be happy.

Yeah but that doesn’t mean it’s geared for the hardcore gamer. Quite the opposite, GW2 set out to lure the core gamer but had started to shift to the casual play group. You can dump a lot of time into it and do it all fast (great for core gamers), but generally, especially with time gates now, it’s curved towards the casual player that is going to get on for a little time in the day and then move to some other game.

A good example of a hardcore gamer (not to be confused with core gamers) would be such as in early SWG, where these players would come together and create player built faction towns (similar to EVE). There would always be someone there ready to send out alerts to buddies even off-line to come in and defend an attack against their town/city. No great reward but the honor of dedication to get something done. EQ1, standing out in the middle of non-instanced nowhere waiting hours, days, weeks for a certain MOB or raid to spawn. No mini-rewards every 20m, just dedication to achieving something and maybe have a chance for something worth the time of doing it, down the road.

Here now, you have constant farming zergs, you can just jump in for an hour and then log out. You have daily this and daily that, each giving a reward every 20m or less. Add all these rewards up over time and trade it in for a greater reward. Or even just sell your micro-rewards and buy most of what you need for that bigger reward if part of what it takes to get it is beyond your interest. All very casual minded.

I see it differently.

The way I see it, the time gating is for what you call the “core gamer” — which I interpret as the “usual” MMO audience (those who wish to grind stats).

Considering the amount of materials necessary to craft Ascended gear, the casual gamer will take a very long time to gather enough material for even 1 weapon; forget about a whole set for one toon or alts. So time gating doesn’t affect these people negatively. (However the crazy amount of materials needed for the crafting does, as they will feel more and more left behind as time passes.)

I believe the time gating is for what you call the core gamers. They run through the content really fast and then complain that there’s not enough content. The time gating is to stop them from running through the content so fast. Though the amount of content is the same whether you time gate or not, time gating gives these people the illusion of more content (and almost everyone falls for it). Thus, the core gamers are satisfied.

As for hardcore games: I believe Anet is pretty ambivalent about them — they’re a small enough audience that Anet just doesn’t bother.

Lord Kuru.3685:

I see it differently.

The way I see it, the time gating is for what you call the “core gamer” — which I interpret as the “usual” MMO audience (those who wish to grind stats).

Considering the amount of materials necessary to craft Ascended gear, the casual gamer will take a very long time to gather enough material for even 1 weapon; forget about a whole set for one toon or alts. So time gating doesn’t affect these people negatively. (However the crazy amount of materials needed for the crafting does, as they will feel more and more left behind as time passes.)

I believe the time gating is for what you call the core gamers. They run through the content really fast and then complain that there’s not enough content. The time gating is to stop them from running through the content so fast. Though the amount of content is the same whether you time gate or not, time gating gives these people the illusion of more content (and almost everyone falls for it). Thus, the core gamers are satisfied.

As for hardcore games: I believe Anet is pretty ambivalent about them — they’re a small enough audience that Anet just doesn’t bother.

Time gating levels the time it takes for grind progression, I don’t see how that benefits the core gamer. You need laurels to progress in that, of which you cant buy or trade. Daily can be done in 20m or less. Monthly in three days or less. An hour a day is all you need. This is clearly cut for a casual player that is going to play GW2 for 30m-1h then go spend a few hours in WoW or a bunch of freemium games. As for any crazy amount of materials (looked in TP and found most stuff I needed on the first day – though didn’t want to buy), like with legendarily those materials will be easier to get as time goes by. The curve is towards casual players, as I mentioned, and the current trend will curve as something new is introduced.

They changed their target group last November.

A core issue with the whole “casual” label, is that it can be read in two ways.

1. having little time to spend in the game because of real life obligations.

2. having lots of time to spend on the game, but spending it in a unfocused manner (a little crafting now, running a dungeon for the views and story, running around a zone to look at the sites).

In both cases the progress towards some “goal” will be slow, but for different reasons.

As best i can tell, ANet is operating on the second definition of casual. That you spend some time on the dailies, some time on the personal story, some time on the living story and some time on simply exploring the PVE world.

Their early designs, like Flame and Frost, may have catered to the first kind of casual, as the storyline and achievements were spread over several months. But feedback from the second kind of casual players, and the hardcores, about slow progression, resulted in the shift we have seen since.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Yes. Their original target group were casuals and those who didn’t want to grind for gear stats. But the game launched beyond expectations, with a large number of buyers who were used to, and wanted stats grind. This got Anet greedy. When these new customers began to complain that there was no stats to grind for, Anet panicked and introduced Ascended gear.

Now we have a game that was developed for the no-stat-grind crowd, but has shifted its model to the stat-grind-fans. In the end, neither of these two customer bases will be happy.

GW1 was 100% cosmetic grind. Who complained? no one. No one forced you to grind an eternal sword but you may have wanted to for a lot of reasons.

Also, little of the “grind” was “miss it and it is forever gone”. I think this part of Living Story is what is getting a lot of bad blood and burned out players. Because they feel that unless they keep up with the events and the related prices, they miss out on the game.

I’m going to disagree with you I’d say this is probably the most casual MMO I’ve ever played. Everything can be crafted or purchased. Nothing requires any skill whatsoever it’s all just RNG and crafting.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Yes. Their original target group were casuals and those who didn’t want to grind for gear stats. But the game launched beyond expectations, with a large number of buyers who were used to, and wanted stats grind. This got Anet greedy. When these new customers began to complain that there was no stats to grind for, Anet panicked and introduced Ascended gear.

Now we have a game that was developed for the no-stat-grind crowd, but has shifted its model to the stat-grind-fans. In the end, neither of these two customer bases will be happy.

GW1 was 100% cosmetic grind. Who complained? no one. No one forced you to grind an eternal sword but you may have wanted to for a lot of reasons.

For once I agree with Nuka Cola. I loved GW1 for the simple fact that you had the maximum stats on your gear halfway through the storyline. From there things just got harder and the rewards got better looking.

Daywolf.2630:

Time gating levels the time it takes for grind progression, I don’t see how that benefits the core gamer. You need laurels to progress in that, of which you cant buy or trade. Daily can be done in 20m or less. Monthly in three days or less. An hour a day is all you need. This is clearly cut for a casual player that is going to play GW2 for 30m-1h then go spend a few hours in WoW or a bunch of freemium games. As for any crazy amount of materials (looked in TP and found most stuff I needed on the first day – though didn’t want to buy), like with legendarily those materials will be easier to get as time goes by. The curve is towards casual players, as I mentioned, and the current trend will curve as something new is introduced.

Whatever gave anyone the idea that ANet’s implementation of Ascended is designed to benefit anyone but ANet?

IMHO, I think they are revving this up to be an asian mmo with all the grinds. China on the horizon..wouldn’t doubt it. They love this stuff.

Easy way to tell if you are GW2’s target audience:
1.) Do you have a internet connection?
If the answer is yes then you are their target audience. What I mean by this is Anet has very intentionally not over specialized to avoid making themselves a “niche” game. As such, they have watered down the elements that would attract a focused audience to the game. It is to the point that it if you are a player who likes to specialize your playtime you probably won’t be satisfied here. It feels like to me they are trying to wear too many hats, I am sure there are many who would disagree with this but eh, it’s more or less how I see it now. I suppose it’s the price a developer pays for wanting to be a commercial powerhouse in today’s market. Generic and bland like fast food.

I’ve played a couple asian grinders, one of them I actually got help on their forums setting up an autohotkey script lol.

After being out for a few months, I come back and witness this B.O.T.S phenomenon in Queensdale, and was instantly reminded of that old grinder. It’s essentially Orr 1.0 farm rotation in super easy mode. Reminded me of that grinder because there is no way I would sit at the keyboard and do that for hours on end lol.

One look at the achievement panel on the character select screen tells us with no uncertainty that yes, they are changing (or already have changed) their target audience.

Fletch.3572:

I’ve played a couple asian grinders, one of them I actually got help on their forums setting up an autohotkey script lol.

After being out for a few months, I come back and witness this B.O.T.S phenomenon in Queensdale, and was instantly reminded of that old grinder. It’s essentially Orr 1.0 farm rotation in super easy mode. Reminded me of that grinder because there is no way I would sit at the keyboard and do that for hours on end lol.

hah yeah, queensdale is even packed in the middle of the night now since the mega zergs of invasions had to turn elsewhere. Not just that but the farming zergs have turned to world bosses with this update.

Last week was really nice (I do bosses and temples regular even if solo some or all of it), do a few champs while waiting for SB, maybe 10 people at champs then 20 doing SB.

Now? lol. I tried to get into champs while I wait, wound up spending too much time putting people on block. Just like chickens pecking at one another, all the fighting, cursing at each other and crying over chat! SB came up, but I can’t tell you how many were there, in the middle of the night, just saw a huge sea of names and my connection dropped as I approached from doing the pre.

Got back 40secs later and it was already done while they were WPing out to the next zerg point. Hardly even enough time to get from the pre to SB before it’s dead lol. Just decided to log, not waiting for SB to come up again in hopes of getting a hit on it.

The thing with the old Orr farming, the content didn’t really funnel everyone into it. A lot of people did dungeons, world bosses, temples, frostgorge, FoTM etc etc, but I guess the direction of content development has changed.

I’m starting to enjoy all those “AN are traitors” threads…

Snowshadow.3105:

- Introduction of the ascended gear

Dude… The AC was the best thing that happened to the game! Look at this forum activity! And it’s all thanks to the AC gear!

Edit: but I must say that you took the whine to the next level! You’re whining about everything now! That’s so cool!

LFM FotM 10 daily. Min 45 ar, 50+ pvp rank, 60 wvw rank and 10k+ achievement score. Only warriors with GS.

Its that game.

TL:DR looked like it was going to be good, i read the question though. Yea, and i’m glad they did, BRINGIN THE BIG BOIS kittenERS

Nuka Cola.8520:

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

In fact, it isn’t just 90% time-gated on ascended. Almost all content in Guild Wars 2 is time-gated so as to level the playing field for casuals and hardcores.

Guild Wars 2 is still 100% casual. How can I assume that? Well, I’m a hardcore player myself, and I can say that there is absolutely, positively, no hardcore content in this game at this time.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

No… I’m really not wrong. The fact that Anet time-gated almost everything in this game should tell you that they want this to be a casual experience. You could play for half an hour a day and have the money you need in about 3 weeks. My brother barely plays GW2 anymore, and he still has over 120 gold because he plays once every few weeks and doesn’t spend any money.

The problem isn’t that casuals can’t get enough money. Your problem makes it seem like you don’t know how to save money. It’s a l2p issue.

Snowshadow.3105:

Is GW2 shifting its target group? from casual gamers to hardcore gamers?

Honestly, I have no idea what their intended target is.
I’m a casual player and these recent changes don’t appeal to me at all. There’s nothing casual about dangling a new time-gated, grindy carrot who’s only purpose is to be a carrot with nothing else to go with it. Once a day time-gating is alienating for this content. What if I can only play on weekends due to being away for work or whatever? There’s plenty of ‘weekend only’ players. 2 days a week we can refine this stuff? Casual implies that I can do this stuff on my own time as I can. The way it is now, I can’t.
But from a ‘hardcore’ standpoint, I couldn’t see how it could be appealing to them either, depending on your definition of hardcore. There’s certainly nothing ‘hard’ about it, its just incredibly tedious and requires no real thought. I would consider hardcore, those who want tough, challenging content that takes time to learn, strategize and conquer. I would not consider those with oodles of time on their hands to be called ‘hardcore’.
I have no idea who they are trying to appeal to at this point. Is there a category for “players who just want fluff”?

MrRuin.9740:

Snowshadow.3105:

Is GW2 shifting its target group? from casual gamers to hardcore gamers?

Honestly, I have no idea what their intended target is.
I’m a casual player and these recent changes don’t appeal to me at all. There’s nothing casual about dangling a new time-gated, grindy carrot who’s only purpose is to be a carrot with nothing else to go with it. Once a day time-gating is alienating for this content. What if I can only play on weekends due to being away for work or whatever? There’s plenty of ‘weekend only’ players. 2 days a week we can refine this stuff? Casual implies that I can do this stuff on my own time as I can. The way it is now, I can’t.
But from a ‘hardcore’ standpoint, I couldn’t see how it could be appealing to them either, depending on your definition of hardcore. There’s certainly nothing ‘hard’ about it, its just incredibly tedious and requires no real thought. I would consider hardcore, those who want tough, challenging content that takes time to learn, strategize and conquer. I would not consider those with oodles of time on their hands to be called ‘hardcore’.
I have no idea who they are trying to appeal to at this point. Is there a category for “players who just want fluff”?

Yes, lemmings.

Galtrix.7369:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

In fact, it isn’t just 90% time-gated on ascended. Almost all content in Guild Wars 2 is time-gated so as to level the playing field for casuals and hardcores.

Guild Wars 2 is still 100% casual. How can I assume that? Well, I’m a hardcore player myself, and I can say that there is absolutely, positively, no hardcore content in this game at this time.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

No… I’m really not wrong. The fact that Anet time-gated almost everything in this game should tell you that they want this to be a casual experience. You could play for half an hour a day and have the money you need in about 3 weeks. My brother barely plays GW2 anymore, and he still has over 120 gold because he plays once every few weeks and doesn’t spend any money.

The problem isn’t that casuals can’t get enough money. Your problem makes it seem like you don’t know how to save money. It’s a l2p issue.

Read Nuka’s post history. People who want the best stuff to come from doing very hard content are not casuals.

For what it’s worth, if you want an Ascended weapon, the implementation is making the game very like a Facebook game. Rather than enticing people to play the game because there are fun things to do, ANet is enticing people to worry about whether they did their laundry list of tasks today. This is an insidious practice used by so-called “social” game designers.

Ascended may not be ANet’s fault. After all, some players demanded carrots. However, the weapon crafting implementation is ANet’s fault. It’s casual friendly only in that a casual can get one eventually. If Nuka had his way, most casuals wouldn’t see one. Other than that, Ascended weapons are not player-friendly — unless the player is borderline addicted to the game and wants to be led around by the nose from one thing to another because he wants to feel like he’s making progress.

Ichishi.9613:

LFM FotM 10 daily. Min 45 ar, 50+ pvp rank, 60 wvw rank and 10k+ achievement score. Only warriors with GS.

Its that game.

45 ar min? what are you some sort of casual? 55 ar min is the new standard

Think also about the living story…it’s providing content and achievements that must be completed within 2 weeks if you ever want to complete them. This sounds more like a hardcore gaming style to me.

IndigoSundown.5419:

If Nuka had his way, most casuals wouldn’t see one.

and they shouldn’t. this should have been gated by higher level fractals to advance further in fractals. Play how you want should not mean get everything just by logging in.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Think also about the living story…it’s providing content and achievements that must be completed within 2 weeks if you ever want to complete them. This sounds more like a hardcore gaming style to me.

insanely easy fluff content is not what hardcore players want. we want meat and potato content, (dungeons/pvp modes/wvw updates) 2 weeks to do a checklist to get a mini or tonic that noone cares about is not “hardcore”

IndigoSundown.5419:

Galtrix.7369:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Galtrix.7369:

90% of the ascended stuff is time-gated so the hardcore players can’t have their ascended items in a day. Instead, by time-gating this content, casual players and hardcore players are on equal footing.

In fact, it isn’t just 90% time-gated on ascended. Almost all content in Guild Wars 2 is time-gated so as to level the playing field for casuals and hardcores.

Guild Wars 2 is still 100% casual. How can I assume that? Well, I’m a hardcore player myself, and I can say that there is absolutely, positively, no hardcore content in this game at this time.

You’re soooo wrong… What kind of so called ‘casual’ have the astronomical amount of gold needed to reach 500 and then actually start crafting the weapon? This isn’t aimed at casuals but grind bots/hardcore crowd.

No… I’m really not wrong. The fact that Anet time-gated almost everything in this game should tell you that they want this to be a casual experience. You could play for half an hour a day and have the money you need in about 3 weeks. My brother barely plays GW2 anymore, and he still has over 120 gold because he plays once every few weeks and doesn’t spend any money.

The problem isn’t that casuals can’t get enough money. Your problem makes it seem like you don’t know how to save money. It’s a l2p issue.

Read Nuka’s post history. People who want the best stuff to come from doing very hard content are not casuals.

For what it’s worth, if you want an Ascended weapon, the implementation is making the game very like a Facebook game. Rather than enticing people to play the game because there are fun things to do, ANet is enticing people to worry about whether they did their laundry list of tasks today. This is an insidious practice used by so-called “social” game designers.

Ascended may not be ANet’s fault. After all, some players demanded carrots. However, the weapon crafting implementation is ANet’s fault. It’s casual friendly only in that a casual can get one eventually. If Nuka had his way, most casuals wouldn’t see one. Other than that, Ascended weapons are not player-friendly — unless the player is borderline addicted to the game and wants to be led around by the nose from one thing to another because he wants to feel like he’s making progress.

Sounds like you have listened to Jonathan Blow, now there is a game designer who gets it.