Guild Wars 2

Hello Everybody,
I would like to share my views about how GW2 is being percieved by the big chunk of the player base.

In its core, the focus of the majority of the players became farming. This is something, which many MMOs suffer from. In their nature, MMOs biggest difficulity is to deliver what we call “End-Game Content” which should keep the players entertained after they finished the main story. Although I think the Living World approach of Anet is good, this farming problem does not occur because the lack of creativity and originality in the content. Ther Farming problem is more something what the players create.

Ultimately the goal of many players is to amass as much as Gold possible in the least of time. This approach drives the players which do not consider themselves “casual” anymore, to play only content which fulfills this equation.

This is actually the MAIN reason of many problems players are complaining about.

An Example :
This farm minded “pro” players will try to find out the best dungeon possible, in which the income/time invested is the highest. They will also search for exploits, bugs, actualla anything which makes the Dungeon Run faster and faster.
This results in, bans, many of the runs being “rushes”, ignoring complete stories, not being “noob” friendly community, as they would slow down the pace etc etc…

This pattern can be applied to the WHOLE game, including WvW, PvP, PvE.
Think about how the players exploited PvP maps, where the points were captured again and again in an organized pattern to maximize gains. Same Ideology. You can break down this kind of behaviour always to the same reason : Profit.

Now I am writing Profit instead of Loot with a reason. What is worse than dumb farming of many players is, that they dont even Farm for Loot but for Gold!!! So they can buy the Item they are seeking in the TP.

In my opinion this kind of behaviour destroys the whole game. It creates a pseude-competitive community, in which players race to get the most Gold in shortest time.
PvP Ladders, WvW ladders, PvE Achievement Ladders, nothing matters, it comes all to the amount of Gold you amass. Why? Because of the TP System. You can literally Buy
almost EVERYTHING.

Need materials? Why go harvest them? Just run one CoF Path 1 and buy what you need! Need Pre-Cursors? Insted of farming for drops, go amass gold so you can farm it.

Heck the poeple are creating new Chars to get Black Lion keys, instead of having toons and trying different classes.

People rush to level 80 so they can open more Boss chests per day.

The whole Game is about money-making and TP.

This destroys also the feeling of accomplishment in the game. A legendary, crafted with a dropped Pre-Cursor and harvested materials will feel 1000 % more valuable to the player as a legendary bought straight from TP by doing 1000 Cof Runs.

Therfore in my opinion, excluding a very small percentage of players, everyone focuses farming Gold. This overrules many of the hottest discussions here in Forums about the game. Why bother making better stories when the player base will anyway skip the cutscenes. Why bother making new dungeons when the players will play the fastest one?

Please Anet do something about this Problem. Without fixing this you cant fix the game. The same player base who are shouting for more content are the same who never listened to a NPC or did a proper story dungeon run. Disencourage this Gold Farming so the players come to the realisation of how beautiful the game actually is.

It’s not my place to judge farmers on what they do. But from the way I see things about these farmers, like most gamers want instant gratification for doing something easy. What makes an MMO stand strong in my eyes is the number of options available on how to achieve your task. Sure you can buy the mats, exotic loot and perhaps precursors and legendaries you want at the Trading Post but you could always pull this off through other means. It’s just that because farming stuff is the easiest thing to do and understand, it’s an option that a majority of players, myself included would pick in a heartbeat because it’s more or less their mindset.

That’s what I think anyway.

you are wrong.

Whether it be for gold, rare items, ingredients or just xp, people farm in every rpg to some extent. More dedicated players especially so. And no, they do not just play the part that gives the best result – they play content like everyone else, but they play it ONCE. I don´t need to “experience” CoF path 1 every time I step in there, I have seen what it has to offer.

Of cause people run content known to them efficiently. You want to take that away from people to the benefit of “noobs”. But that will not achieve much good. Dedicated players would have nothing to do and your “noobs” would have even less teams to play in. Unless you create that phantasmographic infinite instant content machine, which I doubt you will.

Why does everyone seem to be so obsessed with the way other people want to play around here? It is way worse than in every other MMORPG I have ever seen.

There is nothing wrong with farming. From time to time I farm a content because I want to reward. Sometimes i want to reward and like the content, like when I played fractal to reach level 50 on the first time. I did one or two level per day and it was super fun to do even if you could consider that farming. Other time I forced myself to do a lot of dungeon because I wanted the gold for my legendary. I like dungeon, but I did a bit more than I could enjoy. Still, that was my decision and I don’t regret it each time I see my Legendary. Other time, I don’t give a crap about the reward and I just play what I think is fun.

I also find competitive play fun. I like to do a dungeon run over and over to improve with my guild until we can do it super fast. I like to pass several hours in a dungeon for a solo run just to know that I can do it. I like to be in a competitive wvw guild where everybody have something specific to do and if I screw up somebody is gonna point it out.

These are not problem to the community. That’s is the community and what keep it going. People need to invest themselve in a part of the game to be competitive or go after a specific goal (aka farm) or otherwise they will go through the story and quit the game. Farming and competitivity are what make a MMO.

I think what the OP is trying to say is (correct me if I am wrong) is that map and dungeon farming stands out way too much above the rest that the other ways to play the game don’t seem as popular.

Gold is a currency with a very general use. As you say, it can be used for almost anything. You can also obtain gold from doing almost any type of content. This means that players can play the parts of the game they like playing, and not be restricted in the rewards they can get.

Does everyone focus on farming gold as their top priority? Not in my experience.

Is there anything broken? No. Do you have any suggestions on how to “fix” this that we could comment on? Also no.

Another Example : Think about the Berserker Meta Problem.
Many players play berserker because the speed they provide in finishing content.
Now, many discussions are about how to make other classes appealable, make changes in Champions or damage spikes, changing whole dungeons layouts etc.

NO! this is not the solution. Solution is to stop the players percieve the content as money runs. Thats how you actually fight the source of the Problem.

Malkavian got it right. And it is not about taking content from "pro"s (seriously per definiton everyone is a pro who is on this thread) to make the game more “casual”. My Point is the Gold Farming to buy stuff in TP is exactly the reason for many Problems Anet trying to countermeasure.
Again Its not Farming, but GOLD Farming. Harvesting resources is also a farming, but in that sense you farm resources in maps insted of earning gold to buy mats. Thats what makes you actually PLAY the content its meant to be, and not the other way around.
Actually solving this mindset would increase the amount of Content players percieve. I mind you, read what I said. Content players PERCIEVE. There is a lot content, it is just not being used because thry dont offer GOLD.

Olvendred you are correct, but the problem starts as you think about personal achievements, what you can call also personal goals of a player. Like an endgame content, creating a Legendary for an example is an ultimate goal.

Now for an example : Disabling its materials to be obtainable with Gold, you would utterly make its personal Value a lot more.

Suddenly you dont weight the worth of a legendary in its Gold value, but in the effort you put into it, farming for its materials, pre-cursors. etc.

Trading Post in my opinion is what makes us run after Gold again and again.

My solution would be to remove the majority of the Items from the Trading Post and making many equipments Soulbound.

You wouldnt farm Bandit Chests in SW for two Weeks without break as you are watching your favourite Series on your second Screen, if you cant sell the contents to get Gold.

You would go out and try other Stuff. Because then you wouldnt “have the feeling” you are wasting your time instead of farming Gold.

Playable content was always there.This would just take the shackels from you so you can go out and “waste your time” without feeling bad about it.

Revilrad.1962:

Another Example : Think about the Berserker Meta Problem.
Many players play berserker because the speed they provide in finishing content.
Now, many discussions are about how to make other classes appealable, make changes in Champions or damage spikes, changing whole dungeons layouts etc.

NO! this is not the solution. Solution is to stop the players percieve the content as money runs. Thats how you actually fight the source of the Problem.

In that example Berserker builds truly stand out because of that need but you can always go for a different playstyle based on what your personal needs are. If you want to, you could prioritize going for healing power if you want. While changes to meta are welcome, I also think that it all boils down to player’s choices.

The point is, even if Anet would make changes to address this, what makes metagaming exist is because a demand was created for it by the players of said MMOs out of all the choices there are.

In other words : Every playable modi of the game , let it be dungeon runs, PvP matches, WvW tournaments or boss runs… should be on the same level regarding the rewards they provide. But making everything exchangable with Gold enables the players to weight the Values directly with each other. Farming is not bad.
But farming CoF should be about getting that one skin drop from the Boss and not about the Gold/Minute so you end buying the skin from TP.

Its quite easy :
The rewards for doing normal events or hearts in the old zones are simply bad and
then they also made them even lower a while ago .. instead of 1s35c now only 95c
for an event that took 10 minutes .. yay.

In the end the whole reward system for the old zones has to be redone, however i
also have no clue how that can really done without either it would be abused for
another farm, or people cry that its unfair if it will be based on time/damage or
whatever else.

Also of course an MMO will ever be about either farming or grinding where you have
to kill 10.000 mobs for 1 level and it takes you years to max level.

Else you play through the game once .. maybe twice … have seen it all, and need a new
game each month.

Revilrad.1962:

Again Its not Farming, but GOLD Farming. Harvesting resources is also a farming, but in that sense you farm resources in maps insted of earning gold to buy mats. Thats what makes you actually PLAY the content its meant to be, and not the other way around.

In the end the only thing where you farm gold in that definition are dungeons.
I run around harvesting nodes all day .. but in the end i buy it at the TP to make
gold .. so i see that also as farming.

The difference of course is it doesn’t generate new gold like dungeons, so it doesn’t
push inflation.

I think it can also be aproblem of Measuring the Content. Almost everything in the game can be sold /bought over TP. This gives the poeple to measure the content directly in their gold value. Which pushes the majority to follow the most valuable Content, which in turn pushes the other content into history.

This is not bad. Id o not want you to flame back. It just becomes a Problem as it is now, when the majority is doing this. If there is a little elitist "pro"s doing their excel sheet calculations to get the most of their time. Let them be. But this reached such heights that almost everyone does the same content over and over again becasue its all over the place.
Things like “OMG this Farm is so good I did 60 Gold in 2 hours!” , “Farm this before anet Nerfs it”, “best gold farm guide in youtube”…

Disabling trading of end game content and successfuly decoupling it from gold, will ultimately lead to a situation, where the average players, who are not that “pro” to keep an excel file, just go to the most fun thing they find? This could lead to a massive shift into player behaviour.

And of course the most direct solution would be to make materials soulbound.