Guild Wars 2

Suinz.5968:

Keneth.6490:

You will likely never see content in the game that only a few select people can do, and if you do, it likely won’t be particularly rewarding.

Anet’s goal, for the most part, is for everyone to be able to play their content and have fun doing it (though they often fail at the latter).

The number of people who want to play 10-20 man instanced raids is a niche crowd at best and pleasing those people at the expense of others is likely not worth the investment (although they’ve been experimenting with the implementation of different difficulties).

It’s bad enough that they’re trying to cater to people who want to be special snowflakes with super rare RNG gear and who get off on the misfortune of others. We certainly don’t need them catering to some hardcore minority who gets off on feeling elitist because other people can’t handle the same content.

They would be accessible to everyone. Just like how dungeons are. I don’t get the mindset of “ONLY A FEW AMOUNT OF PLAYERS ARE ABLE TO DO CHALLENGING INSTANCED CONTENT”. That makes absolutely no sense. ANYONE would be able to do the content. They would just have to put in the effort and not want to be carried by spamming auto-attack.

You know .. that the biggest challenge always is to beat the roster-boss ?

maha.7902:

open world content will pretty much only ever pose organisational challenges rather than challenging the individual skill of a player.

And this is the main reason we get all these discussions about challenging content. Those who ask for challenging content want that content to challenge their individual skills, unfortunately there is no event out there currently that does that.

The only event that even came close to challenge the individual skill of most players involved in it was the Marionette during the platform phase, because <drum roll> it split the big blob in dungeon-sized groups.

SW, VW, DT, TT, Tequatl do not challenge the individual skill of any player. They are just organisational challenges, once players learn to follow orders and organize they are doable in whites and blues because they are hardly any challenge on the skill-level of those participating.

So let’s repeat this, and I hope everyone understand it, when players are asking for challenging content, they mean content that is challenging to the individual, not organisational challenges. And as I say all the time on these types of threads, challenging content = content that challenges EVERYONE (or close to everyone) of those participating.

maddoctor.2738:

maha.7902:

open world content will pretty much only ever pose organisational challenges rather than challenging the individual skill of a player.

And this is the main reason we get all these discussions about challenging content. Those who ask for challenging content want that content to challenge their individual skills, unfortunately there is no event out there currently that does that.

The only event that even came close to challenge the individual skill of most players involved in it was the Marionette during the platform phase, because <drum roll> it split the big blob in dungeon-sized groups.

SW, VW, DT, TT, Tequatl do not challenge the individual skill of any player. They are just organisational challenges, once players learn to follow orders and organize they are doable in whites and blues because they are hardly any challenge on the skill-level of those participating.

So let’s repeat this, and I hope everyone understand it, when players are asking for challenging content, they mean content that is challenging to the individual, not organisational challenges. And as I say all the time on these types of threads, challenging content = content that challenges EVERYONE (or close to everyone) of those participating.

As I said, Liadri is in the open world and most people did consider that challenging. There are ways to put challenges for single people in the open world.

Liadri is basically an instance….

Theres no difference to being in the same map but only your party can access an encounter and an actual party instance. Apart from one has the possible issue of lag. Surely the option with less lag issues and freedom to use larger areas and story telling is a better idea.

spoj.9672:

Liadri is basically an instance….

Theres no difference to being in the same map but only your party can access an encounter and an actual party instance. Apart from one has the possible issue of lag. Surely the option with less lag issues and freedom to use larger areas and cutscenes is a better idea.

Just an example of how skill can be used. What if it was part of a challenge of some kind, where individuals had to progress through something to get further. People who say it can’t be done are determined for it not to be done, because they see only instances.

Liadri would’ve been better as an instanced fight because then you wouldn’t have to wait in line to fight her. Pointing out that it didn’t technically happen in an instance is really pedantic anyways. The discussion between open world and instanced content is really about if it’s restricted to a small number of players or an unrestricted number of players, and Liadri was obviously a restricted fight.

James Quall.6029:

Liadri would’ve been better as an instanced fight because then you wouldn’t have to wait in line to fight her. Pointing out that it didn’t technically happen in an instance is really pedantic anyways. The discussion between open world and instanced content is really about if it’s restricted to a small number of players or an unrestricted number of players, and Liadri was obviously a restricted fight.

But in a lot of ways, the Marionette was a restricted fight too. There are ways to make challenges in the open world. You can call it pendantic if you like, but it doesn’t change the truth of what I’m saying.

I’m having a really hard time understanding what the hell you’re actually trying to say. You’re not against them making content for individuals or small groups, but it just can’t be in a separate instance because that isn’t the game’s “focus”, which you interpreted from the grandiloquent way they describe the game world?

Earlier I said why do we have to choose between open world and dungeons. I think there should be both, and I never disagreed or implied that they can’t make challenging content in the open world. So it mystifies me that you’re hammering home some counter to a point I never made.

Vayne.8563:

Liadri was in the open world, not an instance. Just saying.

Sigh.

Really Vayne?

Yes, it was technically in the open world, but it was limited to a single player in the encounter. Others would just spectate. For all intents and purposes, it played like an instance, despite being visible from an open-world area.

Be honest mate — you trollin’?

And OMG James Quall. Love the name.

RIP in peace Richard Dunn

dlonie.6547:

And OMG James Quall. Love the name.

RIP in peace Richard Dunn

He was buried in a cemetery for actors, which is where he belonged.

RIP

DeWolfe.2174:

I highlighted the keyword for you, community. Instanced content for 5 players doesn’t build a community, large scale open world content does. And, asking for special content created just for 5 people to play IS acting far more entitled than asking for more open world content for everyone to play.

I know that this is and older post in this thread but I just wanted to say how wrong this guy was
interaction between the players builds a community, which is way different from what is happening with the world events right now. What you have now is a faceless mindless mob, hence the name zerg. They could be npcs for all intents and purposes because all they do is stay on the same spot, and do the same thing, and usually the biggest interactivity you get is someone linking the next waypoint for the world boss train.
Players in the zerg, are not viewed by others as unique players who matter to the achieving of a goal as much as they are viewed as a little fragment of the zerg, just as their personal skill is not at all important because it all comes down to numbers.
Saying this mass event system provides a sense of community is like saying that riding a crowded train provides a sense of community irl

James Quall.6029:

I’m having a really hard time understanding what the hell you’re actually trying to say. You’re not against them making content for individuals or small groups, but it just can’t be in a separate instance because that isn’t the game’s “focus”, which you interpreted from the grandiloquent way they describe the game world?

Earlier I said why do we have to choose between open world and dungeons. I think there should be both, and I never disagreed or implied that they can’t make challenging content in the open world. So it mystifies me that you’re hammering home some counter to a point I never made.

I’m answering what you said directly about Liadri, but I’m also talking in the thread as a whole, not just talking to you. I quoted you in the last post, because I was specifically responding to you.

I understand all the advantages that instances have. But a lot of people in favor of instances don’t seem to understand the disadvantages, or they deny them when other people point them out.

Having played many games centered around instances, I think I know some of the problems they cause. You can even see some of them here. The divide between “elitist” speed runners and casuals. The abuse of people who aren’t quite as efficient because the people they’re running with are so pro. The exclusion of certain professions from runs altogether.

That stuff doesn’t happen in the open world. It’s an equalizer. It allows people to play what they want, not in the most efficient manner. And you know, not all people see an RPG is as a system that has to be beat.

So if you lock the challenging content away in instances that are so hard you need specific builds to beat them, as was sometimes the case in Guild Wars 1, you end up with people demanding certain builds and you have a more toxic community in general. You may not see this as a problem but I do.

Even in the open world, harder content can cause tensions but no one can stop you from participating. That’s a big thing to some people.

So as much as I’d like to see forms of content that are challenging in the open world, I don’t want to see this stuff locked away instances so a small percentage of gamers can do harder content, particularly if that harder content rewards them in such a way that people who don’t want to do it are pressured to do it for those rewards.

That’s how it works in most games and I’ve always thought it sucked.

Vayne.8563:

Liadri was in the open world, not an instance. Just saying.

are you kappaing us?

Vayne.8563:

So if you lock the challenging content away in instances that are so hard you need specific builds to beat them, as was sometimes the case in Guild Wars 1, you end up with people demanding certain builds and you have a more toxic community in general. You may not see this as a problem but I do.

here is the solution to this problem:
make raids, more room for different professions, only guilds can enter the raid instance.
problem solved.

“toxic community” in instanced pve content only exists because PHIW people think they are welcome in every single group and deserve to be carried trough content.

if instead of being ignorant, people learn to read and accept the requirements or make their own PHIW groups, there wouldnt be any toxicity at all.

btw challenging content isnt even meant for the PHIW crowd. its meant for the above average player and his like minded mates.

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

maha.7902:

open world content will pretty much only ever pose organisational challenges rather than challenging the individual skill of a player.

And this is the main reason we get all these discussions about challenging content. Those who ask for challenging content want that content to challenge their individual skills, unfortunately there is no event out there currently that does that.

The only event that even came close to challenge the individual skill of most players involved in it was the Marionette during the platform phase, because <drum roll> it split the big blob in dungeon-sized groups.

SW, VW, DT, TT, Tequatl do not challenge the individual skill of any player. They are just organisational challenges, once players learn to follow orders and organize they are doable in whites and blues because they are hardly any challenge on the skill-level of those participating.

So let’s repeat this, and I hope everyone understand it, when players are asking for challenging content, they mean content that is challenging to the individual, not organisational challenges. And as I say all the time on these types of threads, challenging content = content that challenges EVERYONE (or close to everyone) of those participating.

As I said, Liadri is in the open world and most people did consider that challenging. There are ways to put challenges for single people in the open world.

Liadri is in the open world but not a part of an open world encounter. If she was players would just afk zerg her to death.

I agree that there are ways to put challenges for single people (or small parties) in the open world that’s why I mentioned the only real open world that did that was the Marionette. I can imagine some content similar to that, that teleport players on a platform, each one facing Liadri alone. That would be fun :P

The problem with that type of event though is the randomness. There is no control over who you will end up with on a platform, and worse, if one of such platforms fails, the whole event suffers. I think they were going with something Marionette-styled for the Vinewrath, but changed it to regular blob content because of all the problems of the Marionette style.

My ultimate solution, the one that I’m posting on all similar threads, is to make them guild events (guild missions?) and allow only members of that guild to do the “instanced” part. So in the Marionette example, only pre-made small parties would fight on the platforms, while the random blob would only fight the lane defense part.

Solves the problems of the Marionette fight, makes the event challenging for those who want a real challenge (make some “platforms” very hard, like Liadri or Lupicus hard, keep others very easy so all skill levels can’t play etc), requires tactics, team / party building (some bosses might be like the Husk and require conditions, others might need lots of reflects etc), coordination, organization, individual player skill, gives guilds something good to strive for, creates content for the entire world to experience (part of it at least), stays completely true to the open world part of the game, integrates perfectly with the open world event structure of the game, integrates well with a current reward system (guild missions)

Potential Problems and answers:
People that are not with the activating guild wont’ get max rewards for participating. However, this is true for ALL Guild Missions, if your guild didn’t activate it, you won’t get merits, so that’s not a big deal.

People that are not with the activating guild won’t see the whole event, they will miss the platform parts. For this to be solved, allow guild leaders / officers to temporarily enlist the help of others. An easy way to do this, is to allow players in a party with a guild member to acquire full rewards from the event, that way players that belong to small guilds, guildless people or those whose guilds are mostly WvW, PvP oriented, can join in the fun, get the FULL rewards, and experience the hardest fights.

Did I miss something? Is there any problem I didn’t think of? Discuss.

tl;dr I see it as combining the benefits of instanced + open world content all at once.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

maha.7902:

open world content will pretty much only ever pose organisational challenges rather than challenging the individual skill of a player.

And this is the main reason we get all these discussions about challenging content. Those who ask for challenging content want that content to challenge their individual skills, unfortunately there is no event out there currently that does that.

The only event that even came close to challenge the individual skill of most players involved in it was the Marionette during the platform phase, because <drum roll> it split the big blob in dungeon-sized groups.

SW, VW, DT, TT, Tequatl do not challenge the individual skill of any player. They are just organisational challenges, once players learn to follow orders and organize they are doable in whites and blues because they are hardly any challenge on the skill-level of those participating.

So let’s repeat this, and I hope everyone understand it, when players are asking for challenging content, they mean content that is challenging to the individual, not organisational challenges. And as I say all the time on these types of threads, challenging content = content that challenges EVERYONE (or close to everyone) of those participating.

As I said, Liadri is in the open world and most people did consider that challenging. There are ways to put challenges for single people in the open world.

Liadri is in the open world but not a part of an open world encounter. If she was players would just afk zerg her to death.

I agree that there are ways to put challenges for single people (or small parties) in the open world that’s why I mentioned the only real open world that did that was the Marionette. I can imagine some content similar to that, that teleport players on a platform, each one facing Liadri alone. That would be fun :P

The problem with that type of event though is the randomness. There is no control over who you will end up with on a platform, and worse, if one of such platforms fails, the whole event suffers. I think they were going with something Marionette-styled for the Vinewrath, but changed it to regular blob content because of all the problems of the Marionette style.

My ultimate solution, the one that I’m posting on all similar threads, is to make them guild events (guild missions?) and allow only members of that guild to do the “instanced” part. So in the Marionette example, only pre-made small parties would fight on the platforms, while the random blob would only fight the lane defense part.

Solves the problems of the Marionette fight, makes the event challenging for those who want a real challenge (make some “platforms” very hard, like Liadri or Lupicus hard, keep others very easy so all skill levels can’t play etc), requires tactics, team / party building (some bosses might be like the Husk and require conditions, others might need lots of reflects etc), coordination, organization, individual player skill, gives guilds something good to strive for, creates content for the entire world to experience (part of it at least), stays completely true to the open world part of the game, integrates perfectly with the open world event structure of the game, integrates well with a current reward system (guild missions)

Potential Problems and answers:
People that are not with the activating guild wont’ get max rewards for participating. However, this is true for ALL Guild Missions, if your guild didn’t activate it, you won’t get merits, so that’s not a big deal.

People that are not with the activating guild won’t see the whole event, they will miss the platform parts. For this to be solved, allow guild leaders / officers to temporarily enlist the help of others. An easy way to do this, is to allow players in a party with a guild member to acquire full rewards from the event, that way players that belong to small guilds, guildless people or those whose guilds are mostly WvW, PvP oriented, can join in the fun, get the FULL rewards, and experience the hardest fights.

Did I miss something? Is there any problem I didn’t think of? Discuss.
I see it as combining the benefits of instanced + open world content all at once.

I actually agree with your solution of having stuff that has a guild component and an open world component. I’m interested to see what Anet has come up with for HoT though. Maybe it’s something we haven’t thought of.

Vayne.8563:

I understand all the advantages that instances have. But a lot of people in favor of instances don’t seem to understand the disadvantages, or they deny them when other people point them out.

Having played many games centered around instances, I think I know some of the problems they cause. You can even see some of them here. The divide between “elitist” speed runners and casuals. The abuse of people who aren’t quite as efficient because the people they’re running with are so pro. The exclusion of certain professions from runs altogether.

That stuff doesn’t happen in the open world. It’s an equalizer. It allows people to play what they want, not in the most efficient manner. And you know, not all people see an RPG is as a system that has to be beat.

So if you lock the challenging content away in instances that are so hard you need specific builds to beat them, as was sometimes the case in Guild Wars 1, you end up with people demanding certain builds and you have a more toxic community in general. You may not see this as a problem but I do.

Even in the open world, harder content can cause tensions but no one can stop you from participating. That’s a big thing to some people.

So as much as I’d like to see forms of content that are challenging in the open world, I don’t want to see this stuff locked away instances so a small percentage of gamers can do harder content, particularly if that harder content rewards them in such a way that people who don’t want to do it are pressured to do it for those rewards.

That’s how it works in most games and I’ve always thought it sucked.

Good lord please tell me you are joking.

Fenrir.3609:

Vayne.8563:

I understand all the advantages that instances have. But a lot of people in favor of instances don’t seem to understand the disadvantages, or they deny them when other people point them out.

Having played many games centered around instances, I think I know some of the problems they cause. You can even see some of them here. The divide between “elitist” speed runners and casuals. The abuse of people who aren’t quite as efficient because the people they’re running with are so pro. The exclusion of certain professions from runs altogether.

That stuff doesn’t happen in the open world. It’s an equalizer. It allows people to play what they want, not in the most efficient manner. And you know, not all people see an RPG is as a system that has to be beat.

So if you lock the challenging content away in instances that are so hard you need specific builds to beat them, as was sometimes the case in Guild Wars 1, you end up with people demanding certain builds and you have a more toxic community in general. You may not see this as a problem but I do.

Even in the open world, harder content can cause tensions but no one can stop you from participating. That’s a big thing to some people.

So as much as I’d like to see forms of content that are challenging in the open world, I don’t want to see this stuff locked away instances so a small percentage of gamers can do harder content, particularly if that harder content rewards them in such a way that people who don’t want to do it are pressured to do it for those rewards.

That’s how it works in most games and I’ve always thought it sucked.

Good lord please tell me you are joking.

Nope, I’m not joking. In every single game I’ve played with instances as a major part of the game, the community sucked pretty badly. The exception was Guild Wars 1, which wasn’t an MMO at all, and the entire game was instanced.

Now, you may not believe that the community devolves as the content gets harder, and that’s okay with me.

I believe it does.

Beldin.5498:

Oh .. i thought they were already all there because it was such a great game .. or do
you think that it gets sooo much better because its F2P ?

kek

Aenesthesia.1697:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not afraid of instanced content because I can’t beat it. I’m not afraid of instanced content at all. I just don’t find at as fun.

Well, i don’t know which aspects of this game you do like then, seeing that:

open world: instanced maps.
Dungeons: small, instanced maps
pvp: instanced conquest battles
wvwvw: instanced server against server maps.

In essence, everything is “instanced”, but WvW and “open world” are vastly different than those others, because they do not restrict the amount of people that can join (until the population cap hits).

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

NoTrigger.8396:

Beldin.5498:

Oh .. i thought they were already all there because it was such a great game .. or do
you think that it gets sooo much better because its F2P ?

kek

Heh, I’ll bet that if that was ArenaNet and not Carbine, timetravel would have lost his job right there.

Instances in PVE? Great Odin no!!!!

I see GW2 as a social game. Part of that is I can join in on an event in progress or someone else may join in on one I am already at.

uhohhotdog.3598:

I didn’t say it has no open world. You’re twisting my words.

My point was:

You should not take every advertisement as truth. They will always exaggerate.
When Anet tells you about “super innovative Events” you will get some kind of events. When Anet tells us about super challenging dungeons we get some dungeon stuff.
I showed you a dungeon interview. So if you want Anet to keep their promises (which is understandable) you should understand, that other players want Anet to keep their promises too. So where’s the underworld like content? There is none. But you don’t care, but you’re using not kept promises as an argument? …………

Anet has exaggerated. For all players. For open world players, for instance players – well…look at “esports PVP”. Should Anet now stop developing open world content until their pvp is good at esports? Should they stop developing open world content until their dungeons are “UW like”? No. No one wants that. But you, you ask Anet to stop developing everything and just develop open world content?

And this is why i twisted your words. To show you: there is open world content. Maybe Anet exagerated a bit, but there is an open world. There are event chains. There is pvp, there are dungeons. So maybe not as good as expected, but all modi are fine.
And all modi should be developed, improved. I’m not asking Anet to stop open world content. Many players like it, so ofc they should add open world content.
So why are you asking for “no instances”? Anet has broken other promises, too.

uhohhotdog.3598:

When a game sells you on the point that it would be filled with event chains that have a lasting affect on the world, they should try that. I don’t want “one time” events. I want event CHAINS.

Chains have no lasting effects on the world. Their effect will be gone in 2 minutes or so. Only one-time events can provide a lasting effect.
SW is a huge eventchain – if you fail to defend you have to invade the camp again, when defending phase is over bosses will spawn, then vinewrath starts.
Orr is full of eventchains. Fireelemental? Eventchain. Centaur events in harathi? Event chain. The game has tons of eventchains. You want improved eventchains? I can understand it. But thats no reason to block instanced content. HoT seems to become SW like, so its very likely Anet will improve their event system. It might not become perfekt, but Anet will try to offer some “better event chains”.
Image I would say “dungeons are not challenging enoug, stop all open world content until Anet brings challenging dungeons of my taste. They promised us challenging content.”. Well…I don’t ask for that. But you do.

serenke.4806:

On the flip side of the coin is the fact that digging up chests in the silverwastes is more rewarding than doing dungeons. Stupid game design.

And anet probably looks at the numbers like: “90% of the players play silverwastes while only 10% do dungeons. This means our players like openworld more and we should do more of that!” Totally missing the point that the players do the thing that is the easiest and gives you the best loot.

Broom.2561:

Well, thing is, there’s plenty of games that do things that way… why not have ONE game that’s different?

So you are saying the only thing that is different from GW2 and other MMOs is that it has no “challenging instanced PvE content”?

GW2:
-has no subscription fee and is NOT free 2 play
-has combat is fast paced
-has an awesome account bound system: Wardrobe and dye system for example
-has a ‘fair’ sPvP system

Now tell me a game that has these things and has “challenging group content”.

It’s not only “open world” that makes GW2.

Vayne.8563:

But in a lot of ways, the Marionette was a restricted fight too. There are ways to make challenges in the open world. You can call it pendantic if you like, but it doesn’t change the truth of what I’m saying.

So you are saying joining the same map over and over again to find a POTENTIALLY empty map, having to create taxi groups and telling people to joins these, to join the map and to leave the group again just to get on the same map is good?

Open world =/= Challenging

The harder something in open world is the more people want their own map so randoms don’t kitten it up which IS in theory instanced.

Menadena.7482:

Instances in PVE? Great Odin no!!!!

I see GW2 as a social game. Part of that is I can join in on an event in progress or someone else may join in on one I am already at.

Why do you think adding instanced content means that all other content disappears or will no longer be developed? It’s not a mutually exclusive situation.

Or do you only want ArenaNet to develop content that you like, and ignore what their other players want?

Menadena.7482:

Instances in PVE? Great Odin no!!!!

I see GW2 as a social game. Part of that is I can join in on an event in progress or someone else may join in on one I am already at.

What makes instances not social? I play instances with my friends and many of these friends I’ve met by using the LFG system. Seems quite social to me.

I’d also echo dlonie’s comments

Vayne.8563:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Vayne.8563:

spoj.9672:

The dynamic events was focused on because it was innovative and good for marketing. Dont try to spin it any other way. They have never said that one particular area is the focus of the game. Thats just your opinion.

Its certainly true they have focused more on open world content over time for various reasons. But that doesnt mean its the main focus of the game. Its just easier and more popular to develop. But it doesnt really have the same longevity as other content.

Sorry they did say their goal was to create a living/breathing world. Not just once but many many times. Now I’m not sure how anyone things an instance would be a part of that.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/

First page now of the description of the game. Bold letters:

“Enter a living, breathing fantasy world”

It’s always what was talked about. In your OPINION it was marketing which is why they said it, but my OPINION is not only backed up by what they said, but also by what they’ve done.

Yeah a living breathing world full of meaningful epic dynamic event that very few do or are able to do should a failtrain zerg take claim….
The only real epic events are simply cheesed because the lack of any meaningful scaleability and “consequence” and merely require the zerg to WP in, crush the mobs in seconds and WP to the next map moments later.. yeah epic dynamic events with such meaningful consequences ftw!!

They also said something about not wanting the “swing sword, swing a sword again, swing it 10 times…” – I guess like the many other words laid out in their original idea of the game.. things change and instanced content would be a welcome change for me personally. This WP in with a full zerg and autoattack for a few seconds then off to the next just isn’t cutting it for a leading AAA MMO, we may as well be back in the 80’s on our ATARI’s playing space invaders for the endless resets of same “epic dynamic event”… then again at least when you cleared a screen of mobs in space invaders the next one got progressively more difficult.

Whether they were successful or not doesn’t alter my point even a little. As for the swung a sword line, I’m pretty sure what Colin meant by it isn’t what most people think he meant by it.

Edited to be less offensive.

So you felt the need to be offensive Vayne… or is that just how you want to jump on the defensive as usual. I didn’t even set about changing your point of view, it’s yours afterall so your entitled to it, but maybe you need to realise others are also entitled to theirs and when the two don’t marry up it doesn’t mean your the one everyone should back cause you won’t have a bad word said about ANET or the game.

As for what Colin meant.. ooh please it’s as clear as day what he meant by that and many other things as well that have since fallen by the wayside, stop trying to polish that armour every post. It was a very direct way of saying they dislike that kind of stuff other MMO’s have thrived on and they believed GW2 was going to be something different.. well I guess in some respect it is cos instead of always swinging the sword all the time sometimes we have to go fetch an apple, then another, then 10 more or maybe some feathers, maybe some rocks or … eeerm I think you get the jist.

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Vayne.8563:

Liadri was in the open world, not an instance. Just saying.

Actually Liadri is an instance placed within Open world.. unless of course you could somehow get your zerg to come with you. You spoke to an NPC and it sent you into the arena to fight a series of challenges.. yes they were skill based challenges and decent ones as well but they were instanced.. amazing what such a mechanic can do for content replay value… but it’s strangely funny how you seemed to miss that.

Edited – not for anything offensive Vayne, simply spelling mistakes…

Vayne.8563:

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Or you will simply be able to buy the stuff you want from the “instances” off the TP with the gold you farmed the last days pressing “1” all the time.
Or maybe they add these “unique” rewards as super very rare drops in the open world too so you can farm the open world if you can’t do the instanced content.

Easy fixes.

I don’t enjoy clicking through LS episodes or trying to stay awake through them repeatedly while grinding for achievements, but gear rewards are locked behind that.

And you know what? I say “Those rewards are for the people who enjoy that content, and if I want them, I’ll have to suck it up and spend a few minutes doing them.” So I don’t get the rewards, but I don’t complain about it either. I’m not entitled to everything.

After all — all gear rewards in this game are cosmetic only. It’s not like you’re actually at any sort of gameplay disadvantage by not having them.

Besides, the existing dungeon rewards are also easily available from PvP, so there are alternate routes to get them. Just like adding instances doesn’t have to mean all other development stops, it also doesn’t mean unique rewards must be locked behind it. That’s a false argument.

I’ve never understood why they didn’t implement a sort of trials/skulls/optional hardmode for dungeons with additional rewards like WP has suggested. They could even make interesting difficulty settings, like you take damage if you’re too close to other players. This wouldn’t even require any substantial new content creation on their part. Offering more challenges to players using existing content isn’t too far of a stretch from their current philosophy of inspiring players to keep playing “old” content.

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

And we have repeatedly said that that isnt an issue with GW2. Ascended is the BiS gear and it will remain so. The only rewards will be skins and monetary rewards. And theres no reason challenging instanced content cant be accessible to other players. They might have a more difficult time completing it. But if they want exclusive skins then thats fair that they have to step up to reach those purely optional rewards. Its no different to being forced to do Triple Trouble for wurm armour or fractals for fractal weapons.

Although i would argue that trying to do Triple Trouble is far less accessible to most players than any instance has ever been. So your accessibility arguement doesnt hold up in the slightest.

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Good thing GW2 isn’t most games.

Your entire argument here hinges on the idea of a change in BiS gear, that’d be downright stupid for ANet to do. It’s one of the best things they’ve done keeping the gear treadmill under control and adding better than ascended would be silly.

However, of course people want explusive rewards. But, why is that bad? PVP gets it with balthazar back/glorioius sets, WvW with it’s hero weapons, Dungeons/pvp share gear/weapon styles. Fractals have their weapons. Open world stuff has various things including Luminescent for SW. I don’t see why this wouldn’t get something exclusive too, but just like the other things, do it or don’t it’s up to you. I’m not a big fan of PVP so I only have one glorious piece, couldn’t get myself to finish farming it. I don’t really love the luminescent stuff but I also found most of the achievements to be more annoying than fun or challenging, so I haven’t completed that. But it was my choice and I love that I get to have it even if I choose to ignore it.

But again, you’re implying that ANet would not only add raids but also change their whole stance on gear…

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

No one is talking about having exclusive rewards.. the rewards are the same for all instanced or not.. it would just be nice to not have to plan my life around when things like a 3HW are going to pop today and ensure I have that additional hour needed to have a chance to be included in it. Its the events that have become exclusive not the rewards… the megaserver lottery makes getting into one of those “epic dynamic events” often impossible because the next map copy often has too few to run it due to lame/lack of scaling. I wouldn’t even mind if the rewards were scaled down based on the difficulty scale.

Open world events as is are either a 30 second faceplant or megaserver ip lottery.
Instanced takes that way, its reduces lag issues, it makes organising around it easier, it takes away exclusivity of the event and likely allows the content to be better scaled/controlled… nothing wrong with any of that imo.

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Good thing GW2 isn’t most games.

Your entire argument here hinges on the idea of a change in BiS gear, that’d be downright stupid for ANet to do. It’s one of the best things they’ve done keeping the gear treadmill under control and adding better than ascended would be silly.

However, of course people want explusive rewards. But, why is that bad? PVP gets it with balthazar back/glorioius sets, WvW with it’s hero weapons, Dungeons/pvp share gear/weapon styles. Fractals have their weapons. Open world stuff has various things including Luminescent for SW. I don’t see why this wouldn’t get something exclusive too, but just like the other things, do it or don’t it’s up to you. I’m not a big fan of PVP so I only have one glorious piece, couldn’t get myself to finish farming it. I don’t really love the luminescent stuff but I also found most of the achievements to be more annoying than fun or challenging, so I haven’t completed that. But it was my choice and I love that I get to have it even if I choose to ignore it.

But again, you’re implying that ANet would not only add raids but also change their whole stance on gear…

You need to read my argument again. I didn’t say BIS gear. I said rewards. Let’s pretend Anet puts the coolest mini or coolest tonic in a raid. It’s possible. A cool outfit. A cool skin. Now, if there becomes enough of those things that people can’t get, people will feel disenfranchised. That situation doesn’t exist now.

But you start adding raids, and you’ll find the raid crowd will demand more rewards for the greater risk. We’ve seen it in every raid thread around. We are working harder. This is harder content. We want better rewards.

So far the game hasn’t worked much like that. There are still rewards I want that I haven’t gotten, because I don’t like the content.

But this isn’t about BIS gear. It’s about unique rewards. Again, just from my experience in other games, it creates haves and have nots. There’s a lot less of that in this game, so far.

Well its pretty simple. Dont go overboard with those types of rewards? Or add them in with alternative methods of aquisition? Or make them tradeable?

Oh look! Problem solved.

well actually there’s a whole load of rewards I wish I had but would involve having to grind a ton of borefest content I don’t care about, so yeah the exclusivity situation does exist right now, it’s just it happens the source of most rewards (brain afk open world or living story) is content which you do and therefore you don’t see the problem.

or do I need to remind you about the threads of people foaming at the mouth because they had to do fractals to finish the mawdrey backpiece or whatever the **** it was

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Good thing GW2 isn’t most games.

Your entire argument here hinges on the idea of a change in BiS gear, that’d be downright stupid for ANet to do. It’s one of the best things they’ve done keeping the gear treadmill under control and adding better than ascended would be silly.

However, of course people want explusive rewards. But, why is that bad? PVP gets it with balthazar back/glorioius sets, WvW with it’s hero weapons, Dungeons/pvp share gear/weapon styles. Fractals have their weapons. Open world stuff has various things including Luminescent for SW. I don’t see why this wouldn’t get something exclusive too, but just like the other things, do it or don’t it’s up to you. I’m not a big fan of PVP so I only have one glorious piece, couldn’t get myself to finish farming it. I don’t really love the luminescent stuff but I also found most of the achievements to be more annoying than fun or challenging, so I haven’t completed that. But it was my choice and I love that I get to have it even if I choose to ignore it.

But again, you’re implying that ANet would not only add raids but also change their whole stance on gear…

You need to read my argument again. I didn’t say BIS gear. I said rewards. Let’s pretend Anet puts the coolest mini or coolest tonic in a raid. It’s possible. A cool outfit. A cool skin. Now, if there becomes enough of those things that people can’t get, people will feel disenfranchised. That situation doesn’t exist now.

It doesn’t?

You should read his argument again, paying close attention to the bits about Luminescent, etc gear.

So what I’m gathering is that in your ideal game, you’d be presented with everything the game had to offer as a reward upon rolling your first toon, since nothing should be locked behind content…?

spoj.9672:

Well its pretty simple. Dont go overboard with those types of rewards? Or add them in with alternative methods of aquisition? Or make them tradeable?

Sure it’s a balance. It’s not always done right. If the rewards are sellable on the trading post, I’d actually have a lot less problems with it. But my point is it has to be handled very carefully. It’s not just a matter of putting in challenging content. There are other ramifications that other people seem not to consider. How that challenging content is put in will decide how many casual people are disenfranchised by it.

Vayne.8563:

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Seriously you’re in shambles here and once again I can’t wrap my head around what it is you’re advocating. First you talk about how we don’t need instanced stuff because it’s possible to make challenging open world stuff, but then you talk about how anything challenging is bad for the community because if it’s hard then only a small amount of people will do it which would automatically create some kind of elitest superculture.

Then you complain that there are exclusive rewards from doing stuff that you might not want to do and that would make you quit. That’s INSANE because that’s how it has been since day 1 and it’s not just from dungeons! There is equipment that only comes from dungeons, equipment you can only get from spvp, a set of weapons that only comes from wvw during tournaments, gear that only comes from specific world bosses like Tequatl and the evolved jungle wurm, and luminescent armor requires that (among other things) you complete all the achievements of living story episodes. The entire philosophy of this game is that getting gear is easy, getting the impressive and cool looking gear (which is statistically not better in any way) takes some time and effort.

So is it just when it’s from instanced dungeons that you have an issue, or do you have a problem with all of those things? Cause to me it’s starting to sound like you want to turn this game into a bland flavorless gray mush where nothing is hard and you can get any item you want without trying anything new or challenging.

dlonie.6547:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

snip

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Good thing GW2 isn’t most games.

Your entire argument here hinges on the idea of a change in BiS gear, that’d be downright stupid for ANet to do. It’s one of the best things they’ve done keeping the gear treadmill under control and adding better than ascended would be silly.

However, of course people want explusive rewards. But, why is that bad? PVP gets it with balthazar back/glorioius sets, WvW with it’s hero weapons, Dungeons/pvp share gear/weapon styles. Fractals have their weapons. Open world stuff has various things including Luminescent for SW. I don’t see why this wouldn’t get something exclusive too, but just like the other things, do it or don’t it’s up to you. I’m not a big fan of PVP so I only have one glorious piece, couldn’t get myself to finish farming it. I don’t really love the luminescent stuff but I also found most of the achievements to be more annoying than fun or challenging, so I haven’t completed that. But it was my choice and I love that I get to have it even if I choose to ignore it.

But again, you’re implying that ANet would not only add raids but also change their whole stance on gear…

You need to read my argument again. I didn’t say BIS gear. I said rewards. Let’s pretend Anet puts the coolest mini or coolest tonic in a raid. It’s possible. A cool outfit. A cool skin. Now, if there becomes enough of those things that people can’t get, people will feel disenfranchised. That situation doesn’t exist now.

It doesn’t?

You should read his argument again, paying close attention to the bits about Luminescent, etc gear.

So what I’m gathering is that in your ideal game, you’d be presented with everything the game had to offer as a reward upon rolling your first toon, since nothing should be locked behind content…?

Nope, what I’m arguing for is multiple paths to get rewards instead of rewards being locked into specific content, hard or otherwise, but particularly hard content that not everyone is going to do.

Fractal tonics are a perfect example. I know I’ll not likely ever have one. They’re so rare and I do fractals rarely enough where I won’t see one. It’s only one reward, but it’s a reward I’d like to have. Before that I was collecting everlasting tonics, but it’s not worth ruining my enjoyment of the game to run fractals a zillion times, particularly because there’s no guarantee of getting it. That’s just one reward of course.

As time goes on, if there are too many rewards that require me to do stuff I don’t enjoy, I’ll just give up on the game. This doesn’t mean I want everything without doing any work. It means I want alternate paths to get rewards, so I’m not forced for a reward I want to do something over and over again that I don’t enjoy at all.

I’m not sure why anyone would think that’s unreasonable.

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.

It is all in the way the community handles it.

It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.

Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Good thing GW2 isn’t most games.

Your entire argument here hinges on the idea of a change in BiS gear, that’d be downright stupid for ANet to do. It’s one of the best things they’ve done keeping the gear treadmill under control and adding better than ascended would be silly.

However, of course people want explusive rewards. But, why is that bad? PVP gets it with balthazar back/glorioius sets, WvW with it’s hero weapons, Dungeons/pvp share gear/weapon styles. Fractals have their weapons. Open world stuff has various things including Luminescent for SW. I don’t see why this wouldn’t get something exclusive too, but just like the other things, do it or don’t it’s up to you. I’m not a big fan of PVP so I only have one glorious piece, couldn’t get myself to finish farming it. I don’t really love the luminescent stuff but I also found most of the achievements to be more annoying than fun or challenging, so I haven’t completed that. But it was my choice and I love that I get to have it even if I choose to ignore it.

But again, you’re implying that ANet would not only add raids but also change their whole stance on gear…

You need to read my argument again. I didn’t say BIS gear. I said rewards. Let’s pretend Anet puts the coolest mini or coolest tonic in a raid. It’s possible. A cool outfit. A cool skin. Now, if there becomes enough of those things that people can’t get, people will feel disenfranchised. That situation doesn’t exist now.

But you start adding raids, and you’ll find the raid crowd will demand more rewards for the greater risk. We’ve seen it in every raid thread around. We are working harder. This is harder content. We want better rewards.

So far the game hasn’t worked much like that. There are still rewards I want that I haven’t gotten, because I don’t like the content.

But this isn’t about BIS gear. It’s about unique rewards. Again, just from my experience in other games, it creates haves and have nots. There’s a lot less of that in this game, so far.

What?

Glorious Armor, Mini Llamas, Hero Forged weapons, Wurm armor, Teq Hoard, Fractal Weapons, Luminescent Gear, Sinister/Nomad Stats…

Unique rewards alraedy exist.

but you can get most of them doing brain afk content so vayne is ok with it

you need to be able to shut your brain off and watch tv to get rewards for gw2 to be going in the right path according to our saviour

James Quall.6029:

Vayne.8563:

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Seriously you’re in shambles here and once again I can’t wrap my head around what it is you’re advocating. First you talk about how we don’t need instanced stuff because it’s possible to make challenging open world stuff, but then you talk about how anything challenging is bad for the community because if it’s hard then only a small amount of people will do it which would automatically create some kind of elitest superculture.

Then you complain that there are exclusive rewards from doing stuff that you might not want to do and that would make you quit. That’s INSANE because that’s how it has been since day 1 and it’s not just from dungeons! There is equipment that only comes from dungeons, equipment you can only get from spvp, a set of weapons that only comes from wvw during tournaments, gear that only comes from specific world bosses like Tequatl and the evolved jungle wurm, and luminescent armor requires that (among other things) you complete all the achievements of living story episodes. The entire philosophy of this game is that getting gear is easy, getting the impressive and cool looking gear (which is statistically not better in any way) takes some time and effort.

So is it just when it’s from instanced dungeons that you have an issue, or do you have a problem with all of those things? Cause to me it’s starting to sound like you want to turn this game into a bland flavorless gray mush where nothing is hard and you can get any item you want without trying anything new or challenging.

Look this isn’t really rocket science, but I’ll break it down for you. The most prestigious weapons in Guild Wars 1 could be bought for gold if you had enough gold. Tormented weapons, celestial compass, voltaic spear, all of them could be bought for gold. So if I didn’t want to run DOA (I beat it once and swore never again), then I could still access those rewards. So it didn’t particularly bother me.

Many of the rewards in Guild Wars 2 however are going account bound which means that I’d have to do content I might not enjoy to get rewards I want.

On TOP of that, there’s the issue of the community. In Guild Wars 1, I didn’t LIKE the community the grew up around DOA and UW. This build or get out is not my idea of fun, particularly in a game about builds. Again, because I had the option to buy most of those rewards, I didn’t have to deal with that kind of annoyance and I could enjoy the parts of the game I enjoyed.

So there is more than a one fold problem. You don’t understand what I’m saying because I’m replying to posts and not writing a term paper. Each post deals with a small piece of what I’m saying.

And you know, if you don’t get it, that’s okay. I’m sure some people do.

Vayne.8563:

Nope, what I’m arguing for is multiple paths to get rewards instead of rewards being locked into specific content, hard or otherwise, but particularly hard content that not everyone is going to do.

Oh look, you just solved your own problem. Now can you stop with the stance that “hard content must lead to exclusive rewards and disenfranchised players”?

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

Isnip.

In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.

Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.

Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.

On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.

So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.

I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.

This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.

One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.

Good thing GW2 isn’t most games.

Your entire argument here hinges on the idea of a change in BiS gear, that’d be downright stupid for ANet to do. It’s one of the best things they’ve done keeping the gear treadmill under control and adding better than ascended would be silly.

However, of course people want explusive rewards. But, why is that bad? PVP gets it with balthazar back/glorioius sets, WvW with it’s hero weapons, Dungeons/pvp share gear/weapon styles. Fractals have their weapons. Open world stuff has various things including Luminescent for SW. I don’t see why this wouldn’t get something exclusive too, but just like the other things, do it or don’t it’s up to you. I’m not a big fan of PVP so I only have one glorious piece, couldn’t get myself to finish farming it. I don’t really love the luminescent stuff but I also found most of the achievements to be more annoying than fun or challenging, so I haven’t completed that. But it was my choice and I love that I get to have it even if I choose to ignore it.

But again, you’re implying that ANet would not only add raids but also change their whole stance on gear…

You need to read my argument again. I didn’t say BIS gear. I said rewards. Let’s pretend Anet puts the coolest mini or coolest tonic in a raid. It’s possible. A cool outfit. A cool skin. Now, if there becomes enough of those things that people can’t get, people will feel disenfranchised. That situation doesn’t exist now.

But you start adding raids, and you’ll find the raid crowd will demand more rewards for the greater risk. We’ve seen it in every raid thread around. We are working harder. This is harder content. We want better rewards.

So far the game hasn’t worked much like that. There are still rewards I want that I haven’t gotten, because I don’t like the content.

But this isn’t about BIS gear. It’s about unique rewards. Again, just from my experience in other games, it creates haves and have nots. There’s a lot less of that in this game, so far.

What?

Glorious Armor, Mini Llamas, Hero Forged weapons, Wurm armor, Teq Hoard, Fractal Weapons, Luminescent Gear, Sinister/Nomad Stats…

Unique rewards alraedy exist.

Yep, and I don’t want MORE of them. There were unique rewards in Guild Wars 1 also but most of them could be bought. If I didn’t want to run DOA I could still get a tormented weapon. If I didn’t want to do War in Kryta I could still get an Oppressor weapon. And if I didn’t want to play Eye of the North at all, I could still get a destroyer weapon.

Now as it happened I beat DOA, I beat War in Kryta several times and I beat Eye of the North more times than I can count…but I didn’t have to that’s my point. I didn’t enjoy DOA. I didn’t enjoy the communties that spawned around that area, so I was able to avoid it and still get what I wanted by saving gold.

dlonie.6547:

Vayne.8563:

Nope, what I’m arguing for is multiple paths to get rewards instead of rewards being locked into specific content, hard or otherwise, but particularly hard content that not everyone is going to do.

Oh look, you just solved your own problem. Now can you stop with the stance that “hard content must lead to exclusive rewards and disenfranchised players”?

If Anet continues the trend of making those rewards account bound than nothing is solved.

Vayne.8563:

dlonie.6547:

Vayne.8563:

Nope, what I’m arguing for is multiple paths to get rewards instead of rewards being locked into specific content, hard or otherwise, but particularly hard content that not everyone is going to do.

Oh look, you just solved your own problem. Now can you stop with the stance that “hard content must lead to exclusive rewards and disenfranchised players”?

If Anet continues the trend of making those rewards account bound than nothing is solved.

Even if they add:

Vayne.8563:

multiple paths to get rewards instead of rewards being locked into specific content

?

I’m confused, is your point supposed to argue with me, or you?

Or perhaps you should be arguing against account bound rewards instead of instanced content?