It feels a bit artificial. Might as well put a cooldown on mob kills. Let’s have a good and steady 1 mob per minute so we can easier average the drops and maintain a stable economy. Better idea, don’t even give us the drops, only distribute them every 1-2 hours to all players simultaneously to even everything out. Give us tokens that I can exchange for the material I want. More tokens needed for higher tiers. There, done. We can all disperse to any map and do any event etc. and all get the same reward.
It feels a bit artificial. Might as well put a cooldown on mob kills. Let’s have a good and steady 1 mob per minute so we can easier average the drops and maintain a stable economy. Better idea, don’t even give us the drops, only distribute them every 1-2 hours to all players simultaneously to even everything out. Give us tokens that I can exchange for the material I want. More tokens needed for higher tiers. There, done. We can all disperse to any map and do any event etc. and all get the same reward.
I can’t tell if you are being serious or not haha, but this would be better than the current system.
the reason why we suffer no farm and no precursor policy is because at the beginning players speed run content getting everything so fast that arenanet decided to punish everyone else that came in the game later. the new comers must not have everything easily, or else what do we give them to do otherwise?
If it’s not mandatory in this game, it certainly is not mandatory in any other game. This game is built on farming, then they won’t let you. It’s the worst type of mandatory.
Actually it isn’t; the anti-farm code that has been in place since GW1 is proof enough of that. I’ll explain, but first allow a short digression to your other point.
Grinding and farming in other games is mandatory because of gear lockouts. That is to say systems in place that prevent you from even attempting late game content, and expansion content, without the current “best” gear. This gear often requires tons of farming, and the end goal of this farming is the ability to farm new content for new gear. It is an endless cycle of irrelevant progression; you farm existing content for the gear you need to farm new content for the gear you need to farm the content after that.
This is not the case with Guild Wars 2 as, aside from Fractals of the Mists (a purely optional dungeon), you don’t need to constantly upgrade gear to complete new content. We’ve seen tons of updates so far and even a few new dungeons, and yet none of those require anything new to access or complete, and most actually upscale your character to be able to compete. That is the exact opposite of other games. In Guild Wars 2 farming is not mandatory for content progression, in nearly every other MMO it is. That is a huge difference no matter how much you want to deny it.
But now back to the issue of GW2 being a farming game. As I said the anti-farm code prevents it. I don’t know how it works in GW2, only that it exists, but in GW1 that code was used not only for diminishing returns, but also to stall farming start ups. That is to say mobs didn’t drop anything good until you’ve completed some other zone objective first. Likewise elements of the code reduced drop rates if you weren’t in a party, preventing solo farming. Add to this constant nerfs to the ways the community farms and it is pretty clear that Arena Net doesn’t want you farming much of anything.
Now you see these long term goals that require such insane sums of gold or whatever to obtain, and your first thought is to farm for them. I understand that; it is just the toxic culture breed into you by the overall MMO genre. The problem is you’re not seeing these things for what they really are; veteran rewards. That is why you need ungodly high sums of this or that for legendary weapons but can’t farm for them, and this is why some ascended items take days or even months to obtain through daily quests. Veteran rewards, not farming goals. They are supposed to take time.
Just out of sheer curiosity, this argument:
GW2 – have fun. Do what YOU want to do, you are not forced to do this “objective” It’s YOUR personal objective. Hard and expensive.
has popped up again and again and again. But really, what is it you guys do to have fun? To keep you playing Guild Wars 2?
I for one have played about 1314hours total (with about a 3 month break), I have 7 classes at level 80 (just cannot bring myself to play engineer), obtaining level 80 exotics is easy as hell. I have had my fair share of WvW, Dungeons, Fractals and sPvP (still playing the latter from time to time), and the only goal that’s left is acquiring a really good looking weapon skin, namely a legendary. But contrary to what has been said over and over again, that there is no need for farming in guild wars 2, I have to farm like hell if I ever want to even have the chance of acquiring a legendary. But I do not like farming. And I haven’t done it. So my chances of attaining a legendary are really low.
So right now there really isn’t much left for me to do. “Then stop playing.” Sure, that’s an option. But I love this game, I love the lore, I love Guild Wars 1 and have read the books aswell. I want to keep playing it, but I am lacking the incentive. Doing stuff with guildmates is the last straw, the last activity that keeps me from taking a break again. It is the only thing that is fun. But that has nothing to do with Guild Wars 2, it’s simply about doing stuff together. We could also play any other game, as long as we do it together.
So what are you guys doing, that’s so fun? What is keeping you hooked?
They keep removing loot from dungeons, the personal story, events, even normal mobs now. Why not remove loot from the game?
I can see where you’re coming from. From the point of view of someone who sees getting stuff in a timely manner an issue, this is all problematical. But some players don’t play that way and don’t see that schizophrenia you’re talking about.
I’m pretty sure the percentage of players actually actively working on a legendary (instead of passively working on it) is probably a lot smaller than most people would believe. It’s just out of range of most people so they don’t really think about it. Instead, they do what they find fun and as they go they start accumulating stuff. Not because they’re trying to, but because that’s what happens. And you know, a year down the road, they have a bunch of stuff and then think, maybe now I’ll start my legendary.
You act as if the legendary is being forced on you. The legendary is something you choose to do. HOW you choose to do it is what makes the difference. These things were designed to be ultra long term goals, not the focus of everything you want to do.
Armor sets in dungeons? The same thing. If you do the same dungeon every day for weeks, of course you’ll be sick of it. If you do it once a week and five months later have what you want, you likely won’t be…or at least not nearly as sick of it.
This is where the problem exists in the game. It doesn’t cater to people who are focused on loot. I caters to people who aren’t. Until you understand that, the game will seem to be schizophrenic.
The rate of obtaining end game gear is ridiculously slow.
Your approach requires an almost zen like approach to gaming. Very few people are able to do that. I appreciate that you have obtained this particular nirvana but I bet you are in the minority. Most of us are more goal oriented.
My personal approach has been to stop wanting things from the game, which is similar to what you say, but subtly different. I know that any loot I want will be denied. Therefore, I don’t try. I rarely do dungeons, I rarely fight world bosses, I’m actively trying to kick the dailies habit, I don’t try to obtain gold. I just play my WvW, finish my daily, and log out.
Personally, I don’t think this is good for the game. I think a better approach is to dole out rewards are a more frequent basis. As thing stand, my personal investment in the game is limited. There’s no carrot to keep me playing when the next game comes around.
However, apparently ArenaNet disagrees.
(edited by TooBz.3065)
Veteran rewards, not farming goals. They are supposed to take time.
Then they could and should have time gated the process for these “veteran rewards” a hell of alot better than they have done.
Thousands of wvw kills, high rankings in spvp, solo dungeon paths, complete all the living story/dynamic events over the course of months/years.
But no, they opted for a system reliant on an inordinate amount of mats dropped for the main part from trash mobs. Blind Pew could see that is prone to grinding/farming.
If they are going for a no farm approach, well they have borked the system up from the start by the very methods used to achieve said “veteran items”.
Personally even with all the nerfs, it is pretty easy to get most of the stuff if you actually go after it. I’d make it harder if anything. But it is as clear as day how the current set up promotes farming.
There’s no carrot to keep me playing when the next game comes around.
Play for the game, not for the carrot.
I don’t mean to sound rude, I really don’t, but if there is nothing about the world, the lore, the mechanics, the story, or the community that you genuinely enjoy then you’re better off finding a different game. I’m not trying to defame you with that, it is the honest truth; Guild Wars 2 isn’t about the carrot, so if you’re just looking for lunch you would be happier elsewhere.
There’s no carrot to keep me playing when the next game comes around.
Play for the game, not for the carrot.
I don’t mean to sound rude, I really don’t, but if there is nothing about the world, the lore, the mechanics, the story, or the community that you genuinely enjoy then you’re better off finding a different game. I’m not trying to defame you with that, it is the honest truth; Guild Wars 2 isn’t about the carrot, so if you’re just looking for lunch you would be happier elsewhere.
If it isn’t about the carrot, what is it about then? “Having fun” I hear you say. How? How to have fun, if you have done everything there is already?
Veteran rewards, not farming goals. They are supposed to take time.
Then they could and should have time gated the process for these “veteran rewards” a hell of alot better than they have done.
Thousands of wvw kills, high rankings in spvp, solo dungeon paths, complete all the living story/dynamic events over the course of months/years.
But no, they opted for a system reliant on an inordinate amount of mats dropped for the main part from trash mobs. Blind Pew could see that is prone to grinding/farming.
If they are going for a no farm approach, well they have borked the system up from the start by the very methods used to achieve said “veteran items”.
Personally even with all the nerfs, it is pretty easy to get most of the stuff if you actually go after it. I’d make it harder if anything. But it is as clear as day how the current set up promotes farming.
Hindsight being 20/20 I’m pretty sure they agree the mat/physical currency based system wasn’t the best idea. But you are still failing to realize something; there is a difference between an account veteran and a content veteran. For example I have played GW1 for about five years. I am an account veteran, and get a few little rewards for that, such as birthday gifts on my characters. However I’m not much of a content veteran. I’ve completed all the story stuff and Guild Wars Beyond, but I have few titles and am basically still a PvP noob. Because of that the rewards for long term investment in these things are outside my grasp. I have the best armor stat wise, but I don’t have the most prestigious skins, or those respectable titles, or that neat holo-dragon emote from PvP.
Guild Wars has a history of rewarding content veterans; it doesn’t care how many hours your account has existed or how many hours you’ve been idle in Orr; it only cares what you’ve done. Those dungeon armors are not something to be farmed; they are a mark of mastery. You’ve clocked enough time in those dungeons to earn them. You know those paths backwards and forwards; you are a dungeon guru who can lead nearly any group to success. For that personal achievement you get armor and weapons themed to the dungeon. Mastery, veteran, whatever you want to call it, you’ve put in the hours and the work to earn those rewards.
Perhaps some sort of progress bar would have been a better choice than tokens, but again; hindsight is 20/20.
Problem is that it’s about 100 times harder to make a legendary now than it was when the game was released. At the forced slowed-down pace I may have one by the end of 2013, if the game can keep me interested that long…
There’s no carrot to keep me playing when the next game comes around.
Play for the game, not for the carrot.
I don’t mean to sound rude, I really don’t, but if there is nothing about the world, the lore, the mechanics, the story, or the community that you genuinely enjoy then you’re better off finding a different game. I’m not trying to defame you with that, it is the honest truth; Guild Wars 2 isn’t about the carrot, so if you’re just looking for lunch you would be happier elsewhere.
If it isn’t about the carrot, what is it about then? “Having fun” I hear you say. How? How to have fun, if you have done everything there is already?
You learn to love the little things. Like the simple pleasure of watching a swarm of spider hatchlings pop like little balloons as you charge them with a flamethower. Or the chance to see what old NPC allies are up to in the new updates. Or seeing the world change from one update to the next. Or kicking back with your guild and enjoying a game of kegbrawl. Or RPing with some close friends and making up new stories to tell over guild bonfires. The little things.
Do you play other games? Console games like Saints Row, shooters like BioShock, or strategy games like XCOM? What keeps you playing those without long term, persistent, progression based goals? Play the game because you like the game. And if you lose interest or finish everything before the next update take a break; you’re not being charged a sub fee after all. Leave, go play something else. Get your carrot fix and pop back in for the next update; we’ll still be here to play with you when you come back.
There’s no carrot to keep me playing when the next game comes around.
Play for the game, not for the carrot.
I don’t mean to sound rude, I really don’t, but if there is nothing about the world, the lore, the mechanics, the story, or the community that you genuinely enjoy then you’re better off finding a different game. I’m not trying to defame you with that, it is the honest truth; Guild Wars 2 isn’t about the carrot, so if you’re just looking for lunch you would be happier elsewhere.
So stop being rude. I do play the game for the game (read my whole post). All I said is that I don’t try to obtain anything (except laurels and I’m kinda mad at myself that I keep doing that.) because the game is so stingy. Then I questioned (gasp) whether such an approach is good for the game.
If you don’t mind spending a moment thinking about the reward system from a design perspective.
When you first start the game you are constantly rewarded. Every 3-5 kills you unlock a new weapon skill, at level 5 you unlock your first slot skill, at level 7 you can swap weapons, at level 10 you unlock a second slot skill, at level 11 you start to get trait points, at level 20 you get another slot skill, at level 30 you unlock your elite, at level 40 you unlock master traits, at level 60 you unlock grandmaster traits.
So from level 1 to level 60 you are provided with a lot of reinforcement / rewards. It’s interesting to note that rewards are spaced further apart the longer you play. At early levels the gratification is almost constant. From level 40 to level 60 there’s very little. This is not accidental. It’s designed to get you psychologically addict to the win and to keep you playing by slowly dragging out the time between the wins.
They do this because they want players to keep playing the game long after they’ve run out of rewards. Compare this to a single player game, like Arkham Asylum (designed to be played for 14-20 hours) . In that game you regularly receive additional rewards evenly throughout the experience (new gadgets / skills / etc.)
Balancing the rewards in an MMO can’t be easy. But I don’t think it’s wrong for a player to notice that it’s been a long time since they feel like they had that kind of win. And I don’t think it’s appropriate to tell people who are having a discussion to go elsewhere.
(edited by TooBz.3065)
I think game isn’t the problem. The problem is players who want EVERYTHING AND NOW. I have 800 hrs and I never ran into such problems. I have exotic sets of armor and weapon with no farm gameplay at all. One week – few sets from dungeons with stats I want.
I’m really don’t get all those whining and crying.dont get? Think that way, the game has 1 big pve objective, Legendaries.
What do you need to make a legendary? Gold.
How do you get Gold? Farming.
Where? CoF or Flip the AH, if you try to farm T6 mats or lodestones you gonna waste your time.
Well, you just don’t get this game.
RPGg objective – finish the game(And enjoy the game by the way)
MMORPG – get the most cool equipment
GW2 – have fun. Do what YOU want to do, you are not forced to do this “objective” It’s YOUR personal objective. Hard and expensive.
Btw, I dont farm gold. I have enough gold from fotm, dungeons, wvw and guild missions. And I playing them just because I have fun from doing themAs long as what I want to do does not involve farming, right? What you really mean is “do what ANet tells us we want to do”, because I certainly do not get to play in the manner I want.
How can it be fair to ANY game developer to accuse them of not letting them “play the way they want”, even if they promised it, because they want the game to be something else it wasn’t designed to be? It is rather obvious that “play the way you want” is the direction they took with this game (even more so than with GW1,which I also love), but the term has to work within the constraints of the game’s design.
It all sounds like “I want to play the way I want-like I used to have fun with this or that game”. Which begs the question, why not play the games that you like, rather than complaining about GW2 for not offering you the play style that you prefer… and why did you buy the game in the first place?
I can buy a hose and find it difficult to use it as a leash… but it isn’t a leash, even though it may have similar characteristics as one. The hose isn’t defective; I am just wanting something out of it that it was never designed to do.
Play the way you want, within the constraints of the game’s design-no one needs to farm, they just want to (no offense intended, and I myself have farmed for very tiny bits, but never feel pressured to do so-I WANTED to farm to get something a bit earlier, it was not required of me.)
Feel free to disagree, not worth it anyone getting all angry about this stuff. I consider my point made in any case, and give you the right to believe as you please.
It’s true; Magic find boost last 1 hour and the DR kicks in at around 45 minutes.
LOL
I see a couple of issues.
1) The “best farm” spots always attract farmers in numbers. With larger numbers of players, the event scaling system kicks in and more mobs appear. Also, higher level mobs (with more favorable drop tables) appear. Any event attended by a large group of players is going to generate more drops than would be the case in most other games. This is so because the tagging requirements are generous enough that everyone present might get a drop from most of the mobs.
Everything ANet has done with regard to farm nerfs has been to try to spread players out throughout the game world. Spreading players out will reduce the overall number of drops because fewer players are tagging the “same” mobs and events are not scaling as much, meaning fewer mobs and less favorable drop tables.
More drops mean that to maintain a level of rarity, the drop rates on rare items have to be less favorable. If there were fewer drops per person, then the drop rate for something good could be higher — but the end result would likely be the same or maybe even less favorable than is currently the case.
I believe that ANet does not know how to fix this issue other than by continuing to encourage players to spread out by limiting the rewards available from staying in one place.
2) When the game launched, dungeons were on a token system, and some of the player-base (“ANet’s most dedicated fans”) taught ANet the folly of trying to use a token system for what they intended to be long-term goals. Since that happenstance, every potential reward introduced into the game has been gated behind time (laurels) or RNG. Attaining a Legendary was always based on RNG, now we have more goals gated by RNG or its second cousin, time gating.
I also believe that ANet does not know how to fix this issue, other than by the use of RNG and time-gating. Any system that allows people to reach their goals quickly by throwing their time at the game is going to generate more complaints about “nothing to do, nothing to strive for.” I believe ANet is trying to avoid this.
While those types of complaints are bad publicity, so are complaints about unrewarding RNG. For the sake of the game, I hope that someone at ANet is capable of figuring out how to address these issues without discouraging people from playing — because while I can see the problems, I can’t see solutions.
I completely agree with the OP, if you’re going to make people go thru the process of getting these materials not just for legendaries but also for the runes and sigils people need when you keep breaking the builds that are working on the weaker classes (forcing people to have to change builds with every new “balance” patch) then why not make it possible? Nerfing drop rates of one of the only places to get these items in game is not going to make it better it’s going to make it worse.
We’ve already seen the majority of the casual folks leave the game en mass when they made changes in November. This game is almost a year old and many a new F2P sandbox title are just around the corner. I’m wondering what they plan on doing to keep players after these other games release and the exodus begins.
As many a game reviewer has said about this game, there are plenty of other ways Anet could be rewarding their players for playing the way Anet wants their players to play, but we’re not seeing that at all.
I think game isn’t the problem. The problem is players who want EVERYTHING AND NOW. I have 800 hrs and I never ran into such problems. I have exotic sets of armor and weapon with no farm gameplay at all. One week – few sets from dungeons with stats I want.
I’m really don’t get all those whining and crying.dont get? Think that way, the game has 1 big pve objective, Legendaries.
What do you need to make a legendary? Gold.
How do you get Gold? Farming.
Where? CoF or Flip the AH, if you try to farm T6 mats or lodestones you gonna waste your time.
Well, you just don’t get this game.
RPGg objective – finish the game(And enjoy the game by the way)
MMORPG – get the most cool equipment
GW2 – have fun. Do what YOU want to do, you are not forced to do this “objective” It’s YOUR personal objective. Hard and expensive.
Btw, I dont farm gold. I have enough gold from fotm, dungeons, wvw and guild missions. And I playing them just because I have fun from doing themAs long as what I want to do does not involve farming, right? What you really mean is “do what ANet tells us we want to do”, because I certainly do not get to play in the manner I want.
How can it be fair to ANY game developer to accuse them of not letting them “play the way they want”, even if they promised it, because they want the game to be something else it wasn’t designed to be? It is rather obvious that “play the way you want” is the direction they took with this game (even more so than with GW1,which I also love), but the term has to work within the constraints of the game’s design.
It all sounds like “I want to play the way I want-like I used to have fun with this or that game”. Which begs the question, why not play the games that you like, rather than complaining about GW2 for not offering you the play style that you prefer… and why did you buy the game in the first place?
I can buy a hose and find it difficult to use it as a leash… but it isn’t a leash, even though it may have similar characteristics as one. The hose isn’t defective; I am just wanting something out of it that it was never designed to do.
Play the way you want, within the constraints of the game’s design-no one needs to farm, they just want to (no offense intended, and I myself have farmed for very tiny bits, but never feel pressured to do so-I WANTED to farm to get something a bit earlier, it was not required of me.)
Feel free to disagree, not worth it anyone getting all angry about this stuff. I consider my point made in any case, and give you the right to believe as you please.
I got the game for WvW (which, while not living up to it’s potential is still better than most other MMOs out there, DAoC excepted) and the graphics (some of the best in any MMO period). I am not really even a PvE kind of guy, though I have done my share over the years. I also have no need of gold as I have way more than enough to buy what ever I want. I do not want a legendary (way way too much effort for what is essentially nothing more than a skin), so that isn’t the issue. When I farm I do so because I truly enjoy the activity. That said I expect to get something worthwhile for doing that, or any other, activity.
The issue, for me, is that I find ANet’s decisions (and actions) on this topic honestly offensive as both a player and a consumer.
That’s it. Nothing more.
How can it be fair to ANY game developer to accuse them of not letting them “play the way they want”, even if they promised it, because they want the game to be something else it wasn’t designed to be?
If they didn’t mean it (and it is obvious they didn’t), perhaps they shouldn’t have used that phrase in advertising.
It’s not “play the way you want, within the constraints of the game”. It’s “any color you like… as long as it’s black”.
Hindsight being 20/20 I’m pretty sure they agree the mat/physical currency based system wasn’t the best idea. But you are still failing to realize something; there is a difference between an account veteran and a content veteran. For example I have played GW1 for about five years. I am an account veteran, and get a few little rewards for that, such as birthday gifts on my characters. However I’m not much of a content veteran. I’ve completed all the story stuff and Guild Wars Beyond, but I have few titles and am basically still a PvP noob. Because of that the rewards for long term investment in these things are outside my grasp. I have the best armor stat wise, but I don’t have the most prestigious skins, or those respectable titles, or that neat holo-dragon emote from PvP.
Guild Wars has a history of rewarding content veterans; it doesn’t care how many hours your account has existed or how many hours you’ve been idle in Orr; it only cares what you’ve done. Those dungeon armors are not something to be farmed; they are a mark of mastery. You’ve clocked enough time in those dungeons to earn them. You know those paths backwards and forwards; you are a dungeon guru who can lead nearly any group to success. For that personal achievement you get armor and weapons themed to the dungeon. Mastery, veteran, whatever you want to call it, you’ve put in the hours and the work to earn those rewards.
Perhaps some sort of progress bar would have been a better choice than tokens, but again; hindsight is 20/20.
I am not sure how am I failing to see the difference between account and content veterans. I mentioned time gating and I also mentioned activities which reward content veterans and top players.
Hindsight is indeed 20/20 and it is much easier to sit and pick holes in a system than to come up with a good one from scratch. But let’s be honest here, it should have been obvious from the earliest conceptual stage that having requirements based off oodles of mats dropped from trash mobs is a system which screams of a grind/farm approach.
To have said systems in place and then go about nerfing the kitten out of the open world mobs which drop the mats needed whilst at the same time to keep CoF running at it is, speaks of a rather haphazard approach.
I’ll point out that there is technically no such thing as farming spots (well, gathering nodes are, but they are totally unrelated to this conversation). what you consider ‘farming spots’ are simply places where there is an atypically large amount of loot dropped compared to all other areas of the game. A nerf to one of these areas just means that that area now drops the same amount of loot as all other areas of the game.
Every game wants zero ‘farming spots’, because that means that everything in their game is balanced. Why would they want everyone to play in one square of one area when there is an entire map out there? It would be silly if everyone on every server was on top of you because there is the most loot/per time possible in the game.
I’ll point out that there is technically no such thing as farming spots (well, gathering nodes are, but they are totally unrelated to this conversation). what you consider ‘farming spots’ are simply places where there is an atypically large amount of loot dropped compared to all other areas of the game. A nerf to one of these areas just means that that area now drops the same amount of loot as all other areas of the game.
Every game wants zero ‘farming spots’, because that means that everything in their game is balanced. Why would they want everyone to play in one square of one area when there is an entire map out there? It would be silly if everyone on every server was on top of you because there is the most loot/per time possible in the game.
Then make everything equal instead of random or broken. There really is nothing to argue any more on this point, the super harsh RNG in GW2 disables people who play with goals from having goals, because you can’t reliably make any progress. I could log in one day and get 5 bloods in 10 minutes, then play the next day and get 5 in 2 hours.
Fine, make the loot tables the same, but make killing things actually reward you reliably.
It’s become some kind of super casual MMO game play wise, but the farming aspect of this game makes Lineage 2 blush in embarrassment. It’s really discouraging to players who don’t log in to just look at the pretty colors and wander around for an hour and log off.
(edited by Aeonblade.8709)
I never understood the argument “play the game to enjoy it because it’s supposed to be fun”. The problem I have with this is that mmo’s are never just fun to play. The game mechanics are usually completely awful. I don’t know about anyone else but clicking on an enemy and pressing the same numbers over and over again until it is dead isn’t my idea of a fun time.
MMO’s are built around the carrot on a stick. Humans like being rewarded and mmo’s do that. That’s what makes them fun, not the incredible game mechanics of spamming 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 over and over again until your enemy is dead. If I want to play an rpg just for the fun of it without good rewards being necessary I’ll play skyrim or dark souls, not guild wars 2.
The main problem of this whole topic lies hidden in your post. Never. Ever. Play a game with gameplay you don’t like. A game can have a great story, interesting characters, good graphics and fitting rewards, it’s still not worth wasting your time if the gameplay isn’t fun. Good gameplay isn’t everything but without good gameplay, everything is nothing. So if you think that mmos aren’t supposed to be fun, don’t play mmos. Everything else is just cheating yourself.
Hindsight is indeed 20/20 and it is much easier to sit and pick holes in a system than to come up with a good one from scratch. But let’s be honest here, it should have been obvious from the earliest conceptual stage that having requirements based off oodles of mats dropped from trash mobs is a system which screams of a grind/farm approach.
It also should have been obvious from the beginning that designing a system wherein the primary form of late game progression is cosmetic, and then designing a profession that constantly replaces it’s weapon skin with a much uglier stock weapon as a primary mechanic (engineer) would cause problems. Especially in the case of legendary weapons. But I keep seeing threads on the subject and started a few myself.
I never said Arena Net didn’t have a…….habit, of overlooking important details that should be obvious. Sometimes they get tunnel-vision pretty bad in their design, and other times they focus too much on the big picture and miss little details. Nobody’s perfect.
I’ll point out that there is technically no such thing as farming spots (well, gathering nodes are, but they are totally unrelated to this conversation). what you consider ‘farming spots’ are simply places where there is an atypically large amount of loot dropped compared to all other areas of the game. A nerf to one of these areas just means that that area now drops the same amount of loot as all other areas of the game.
Every game wants zero ‘farming spots’, because that means that everything in their game is balanced. Why would they want everyone to play in one square of one area when there is an entire map out there? It would be silly if everyone on every server was on top of you because there is the most loot/per time possible in the game.
Nerfing every farming spot one after another will only result in (eventually) nothing dropping anywhere. So, if you eliminate farming spots, you should always remember to up the drop rate in other places to compensate. Just nuking everything from orbit doesn’t really solve the basic problem (that being the fact, that farming for your own use is just not viable in this game).
I am so bored of this “A-Net wants you to play the game” rubbish. The game is, in a nutshell, wandering about killing things, and thats it. How long can you expect that to occupy even an average mind, much less an intelligent one.
The only differential is WHERE you choose to wander about killing things and whether you choose to wander about on your own or in a group. Without an aim this becomes so boring very quickly. With an aim, you proceed to do the events and dungeons and kill the things that enable this aim. But where are they? The minute you find one, it gets removed. So you are back to wandering about killing things. Doesn’t matter if its world bosses, dungeon mobs, random mobs or event mobs.
You are wandering about killing stuff. With no easily identifiable reason. They come back, you kill them again. And again.
“Play the game”? I’ve played it. Ive killed everything twice, been everywhere (been there and done that). Man, I ’ve killed a lot of stuff. And I still dont have the resources withint the game to buy or craft the few remaining things that interest me.
Kill stuff. Get junk. Kill more stuff, get more junk. Do it again. New content. Kill it. Kill it again.
Wheres the stuff that motivates? Wheres the shinies, wheres the baubles that keep you interested? Cos its not porous bones and globby glooby goop….no Sir it isnt.
People make it sound like the game is a candy colured lane of never ending possibilities. It’s not…its a place where you wander about and kill stuff repeatedly with no effect on the world, no loot and little to no variety.
Wake up.
Playing 1 day a week for 10 hours and playing 5 days a week for 2 hours should yield the same reward.
Playing 1 day a week for 10 hours and playing 5 days a week for 2 hours should yield the same reward.
Use this as a road map Anet. This is where you should start.
Thanks OP and many others for putting into words exactly how I feel. While I do believe the Malchor’s wall bug was an exploit and deserved to be fixed, I don’t think there is anything wrong with a player grinding on mobs for material drops. Honestly, I like a mindless grind every once in a while…it’s quite relaxing.
Plus the TP prices have skyrocketed out of control… I remember when pre cursors were between 20-100g. So to all of you saying “just take your time and play, don’t try making one now” That means in a year precursors will be 10k and t6 mats will be 20g each
Playing 1 day a week for 10 hours and playing 5 days a week for 2 hours should yield the same reward.
No, it shouldn’t. And it doesn’t in any MMO I know of.
Playing 1 day a week for 10 hours and playing 5 days a week for 2 hours should yield the same reward.
No, it shouldn’t. And it doesn’t in any MMO I know of.
Yes, it should, and it does in most good games. If other mmos don’t do it it just means that they’re also wrong.
Remember the stealth nerf to the Lyssa farm that we called out? Well this time Anet chose to reveal their nerf:
BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
General
World: Southsun – Reduced density of reef skelk around Pearl Islet
bye bye shelk farm.
Pretty the devs hate farming in their heart of hearts, but they know it’s good for the bottom line.
Playing 1 day a week for 10 hours and playing 5 days a week for 2 hours should yield the same reward.
No, it shouldn’t. And it doesn’t in any MMO I know of.
Yes, it should, and it does in most good games. If other mmos don’t do it it just means that they’re also wrong.
I agree with this to an extent, WoW / Blizzard did it right an example is with the LFR vs Scheduled raids, though gear progression is different in terms of stat amount, players can progress once a week casually or hardcore it through the week and be rewarded with similar items.
I’m not comparing GW2 to WoW before you start to jump me, I’m just saying that there are systems there in other titles that are doing things successfully, and the devs here aren’t really at least to me aren’t looking at this stuff and saying, yeah this works, how can we reimagine this and make this work for us?
I do agree with the OP with all his points, this game is sending out mixed and confusing messages, I swear at one point I saw an ANET video saying they don’t want people grinding and how it wasn’t fun, reading blocks of quest text etc etc, it seems with every update they ignored this completely.
Who knows! At this rate we might start adding back the trinity system……..
Make up your minds on a direction and follow it through….!
See also the entire history of Guild Wars 1. Well, until the game was put into (entirely understandable) low-maintenance mode and we got to feather farm unhindered.
I do agree with the OP with all his points, this game is sending out mixed and confusing messages, I swear at one point I saw an ANET video saying they don’t want people grinding and how it wasn’t fun, reading blocks of quest text etc etc, it seems with every update they ignored this completely.
You don’t need to swear it. I remember it clearly (as I do with most GW2 related stuff, was so hyped for this game I simply absorbed everything about it prior to its release). They said no grind. They said quest text is boring and instead the stuff should just happen in the world, while all the npc does is basically saying “Help me!”.
The “we don’t want grind in our game” is what’s bugging me completly. That was such an important thing they said that has burned itself into my mind. And yet here we are. To achieve certain stuff in this game we actually have to grind. And don’t you dare telling me that I don’t have to do it, because it’s my choice. That’s bullkitten and past the point. Whether I want to do it or not – it is grind. It contradicts a major statement about the game. Sure you might say that the mats for it simply gather over time if you don’t pay attention, but it is still grind. “Get 250 of this, get 300 of that…”. That’s grind. Whether you do it in within an hour or a year doesn’t matter. Heck, I hate that hypocrisy. I never understood why they decided to go this way. It is one of the big "WHY"s that’s bugging me. Dammit.
It’s like everyone who argues that the game is only farming with anti-farming tactics refuse to see that it isn’t all about farming. If you want me to elaborate at all, feel free to ask and I’ll do my best.
The game is not only about farming. But it’s too much about farming.
All rewards in the game require some sort of grind. Want a full dungeon armor set? Be ready to do that dungeon 23 times. Despite how someone who can do a given path twice can do the same thing 5 more times without anything more than time.
“But I like to mix and match” – nice for you, but the dungeon armor pieces have clearly been made to be used together, with those mixing and matching being the exception.
Want cultural armor? Go grind your eyes away farming gold. Want to craft your own exotic gear? Good luck grinding globs of ectoplasm (which is the worst grind in the game). Want to craft Legendary items? You’re in for the grind of your life.
Grind is bad. Doing content that is not fun just to get a shining reward in the end is not something a human being would do, it’s what a donkey with a carrot in front of its head would do. It’s not only mindless, but it’s also something that a bot can do better than a human being. It simply does not deserve a reward, much less to the main source of rewards in a game.
MMO developers love grind, since they believe it will allow them to get rich by making shallow, mediocre games. But players should have be better than that (and unfortunately they aren’t). And ArenaNet claimed they were better than that, but it appears the GW2 community has convinced them to change their ways.
You are going in circles again Vayne. You always tell everyone farming isn’t “mandatory” and nothing in game is “mandatory” and here you are saying other games have a mandatory end game.
I have no idea the his/her intent, but saying it isn’t mandatory in this game and that is why he/she came here to get away from games that do make it mandatory is not contradictory.
It’s mandatory in most other MMOs, because the entire progression path is what the game is about. That’s ALL those games are about. Here, if I want exotic armor and weapons, I can PvE, WvW, do dungeons, do open world content, do nothing but dailies and eventually I’ll have exotic armor and exotic weapons. In other games, if you dont’ do dungeons then raids, you’re locked out. You can do daily quests, but they don’t usually give you anything.
In Rift, I maxed out my planarite cap, finished all the dungeons, OUTGEARED all the dungeons and there was nothing left to do but raid. That was it. I wasn’t “forced” to raid. I was forced to either raid, quit, or do absolutely nothing, because nothing else (while I was there) could be done. I couldn’t finish zone events by myself (and no one on my server was doing them), I could do Rifts, but I’d receive no reward because I’d maxed out how much of that currency I was allowed to have and I’d already bought everything there was to buy with it, including a variety of elemental squirrel minipets) and that was it. There was nothing to do.
So yes, in Rift, you either raided or your faded…at least back then. Just the idea that I can go back to earlier zones in this game (you sorta could in Rift but nothing would attack you, because you were too high a level)…you raided or you went home.
So no, I’m not contradicting myself. Going for an item isn’t content. This game has content for those who want to hang around in the open world. Rift really didn’t (again back then anyway).
I still am not sure you ever played Rift. I have played since beta ,then a short break, and 4-5 months after release until now and have only raided a total of 3 times, and have had a ton of fun doing zone events, carnage quests, instant adventures, dungeons, hard modes, chronicles, chapter events, etc. Over the past 1.5 years. Never once did I feel obligated to raid to be competitive. In fact, one of my characters is decked out in raid gear and as I said, only did 3 raids. You can get raid currency in dungeons, and have always been able to, since they released the dang daily dungeon quests. Not to mention raid tier gear from open world zone event currency.
Man GW2 could learn a lot about open world content from a themepark. And you don’t see a problem with this?
The time I played Rift was from beta 4 until 3 months after launch. You missed the time I’m talking about. You weren’t sufficiently geared at that point if you took that break to be completely over-geared like I was. You weren’t there, apparently for all the server closes, because no one was on the servers. Before they instituted the free server change that you could do once per week.
I was on the Corthana server, and I’m telling you for a fact, Shimmersands, IP and Stillmore events zone events weren’t being completed because no one had any use at all for planarite. Do you remember them raising the planarite cap? Do you remember the major event they had that they had to apologize and compensate people for because no one could do it? I’m sure by the time you came back, the good stuff probably did start happening, but there was a mass outflux of people, much like Guild Wars 2 in November, and the only thing that made it better was an influx of new people, or in your case returning people.
I played the game. There were plenty of people on those forums who felt exactly as I did. Not one or two.
In fact, there’s a bit of irony going on here. I was the guy on the Rift forums complaining about that game, though I never called anyone fan boy if they didn’t agree with me.
Playing 1 day a week for 10 hours and playing 5 days a week for 2 hours should yield the same reward.
No, it shouldn’t. And it doesn’t in any MMO I know of.
Yes, it should, and it does in most good games. If other mmos don’t do it it just means that they’re also wrong.
Non-mmos aren’t as time-consuming as mmos and in non-mmos a gap between casual players and hardcore players is less problematic. That’s why mmos reward repeated but short playing sessions by offering dailies or rest bonus. These features are there to help casuals on the way. Without such features MMOs would just lose many casuals because they would feel left behind.
I think the game was made with the intent to play at your own pace and have fun with it. In my own opinion, for the most part I think they have done a great job with this. Legendary are meant to be rare, and that’s fine most of the parts can be got with casual daily play, the exceptions being loadstones and the precursor. That being said its ok with me since the content will always be there and I can continue to play looking forward to my first pre without worrying about a time limit. The part that troubles me and probably most players are the limited content such as the Sclerite Weapon Claim Ticket in the new southsun event. This is limited time only, also currently there is only one way to obtain them; this being LUCK. They are account bound and require luck for the chest drop, and even more luck to get a ticket from the chest. The gem store isn’t any better, having bought a very large number and resulting in 0 Sclerite Weapon Claim Tickets; thus returning to the southsun shores trying my hardest to luck into one before event ends. This is the only part I see needs changed; luck is fine, where there is no constricting time limits and being account bound means those without luck are……well for lack of a better term out of luck me being one of them. Other content there is always tomorrow to get what you want but limited time only really seams to frustrate those left out. That’s really only thing I can see that could make a good game even better.
good luck and have fun all
Want cultural armor? Go grind your eyes away farming gold. Want to craft your own exotic gear? Good luck grinding globs of ectoplasm (which is the worst grind in the game). Want to craft Legendary items? You’re in for the grind of your life.
This is also where the anti-farming mentality breaks down. Some people think farmers are “selfish” or are “gaming the game,” yet farming for these kinds of items negatively affects no one except someone who doesn’t like your choice of aesthetics after you finally get your cultural armor or legendary (or whatever it is you were seeking).
Take cultural armor, for example. One way to get it is to farm materials and sell them on the TP. You provide those materials to someone else who wants them and doesn’t want to farm, saving them time. You also play your part in the all-necessary virtual economy gold sink, as a heap of gold is flushed out of the economy through the TP tax and in purchasing the final pieces of armor.
How, again, is this “selfish” or behavior that is “exploitative”?
Maybe someone will say, “Just play the game and it will come naturally.” Sorry, 100% map exploration and lots of other time spent in this game, and farming is actually more enjoyable than the vapid PvE content currently on offer in this game.
The problem is, if Anet institutes the mid term goals what would keep some players happy, a host of other players still start screaming “vertical progression, Anet lied!”. As a result, Anet sort of has their hands tied.
No the real problem is they can’t come up with horizontal progression goals. It doesn’t have to be vertical progression.
Want cultural armor? Go grind your eyes away farming gold. Want to craft your own exotic gear? Good luck grinding globs of ectoplasm (which is the worst grind in the game). Want to craft Legendary items? You’re in for the grind of your life.
This is also where the anti-farming mentality breaks down. Some people think farmers are “selfish” or are “gaming the game,” yet farming for these kinds of items negatively affects no one except someone who doesn’t like your choice of aesthetics after you finally get your cultural armor or legendary (or whatever it is you were seeking).
Take cultural armor, for example. One way to get it is to farm materials and sell them on the TP. You provide those materials to someone else who wants them and doesn’t want to farm, saving them time. You also play your part in the all-necessary virtual economy gold sink, as a heap of gold is flushed out of the economy through the TP tax and in purchasing the final pieces of armor.
How, again, is this “selfish” or behavior that is “exploitative”?
Maybe someone will say, “Just play the game and it will come naturally.” Sorry, 100% map exploration and lots of other time spent in this game, and farming is actually more enjoyable than the vapid PvE content currently on offer in this game.
So the farmers that stood by an event and griefed people trying to finish the event don’t exist at all? I was yelled at by some farmer for doing an event he was trying to farm (a completely different event). He didn’t curse me out, exactly but he was pretty kitten rude because I selfishly finished the event and he had a few choice words for me.
People who farm within the normal context of the game aren’t the problem. It’s the people who are so into farming that anyone trying to play the game normally is a hindrance to them. And they tell you.
On these forums right now, there’s a farmer complaining about the people who are now playing in South Sun because they ruined “his farm”.
Yeah, farmers are great supporters of the community.
Your response is a hasty generalization fallacy. Some guy was rude to you. Sorry to hear. Someone is complaining irrationally on the forums. Yes, and rain is wet. Move on instead of generalizing from it.
My post was predicated on farming for items like legendaries and cultural armor as a benefit to the game economy as intentionally designed. You didn’t interact with that. Your response is not related to Erasculio.2914’s point either.
Try something relevant next time.
whoever says that most part of getting a legendary is playing the game normally except for lodestone, i want to know how normally playing you can get 750 pile of crystalline dust to craft bifrost…
because in my normal gameplay i managed to have 100ish and this when loot and farming weren’t nerfed…
after the nerf i had to buy all of it and/or had it from friends
Your response is a hasty generalization fallacy. Some guy was rude to you. Sorry to hear. Someone is complaining irrationally on the forums. Yes, and rain is wet. Move on instead of generalizing from it.
My post was predicated on farming for items like legendaries and cultural armor as a benefit to the game economy as intentionally designed. You didn’t interact with that. Your response is not related to Erasculio.2914’s point either.
Try something relevant next time.
There have been more than one post about people being chased away by farmers in that Orr event. If you choose to ignore those posts, that’s your own issue.
There are farmers and there are FARMERS. Those who feel entitled to earn X amount per hour are the problem, not the people who play the game and farm generally. Those are the people we see posting on these forums, those are the people we’ll react to. This isn’t rocket science.
My response is more relevant than yours, because you’re talking about a subset of farmers we don’t get to see and hear from, yet those are the people you want us to react to?
Maybe you should look up relevant in the dictionary. I’m not sure you know what it means.
whoever says that most part of getting a legendary is playing the game normally except for lodestone, i want to know how normally playing you can get 750 pile of crystalline dust to craft bifrost…
because in my normal gameplay i managed to have 100ish and this when loot and farming weren’t nerfed…
after the nerf i had to buy all of it and/or had it from friends
But you’ve made gold and you can buy mats. That’s what most people do. Most people don’t farm all the mats they need themselves. They play the game however they want, slowly building up the money they need to buy the mats they want. They keep an eye on the prices of mats, because they do fluctuate, and they try to buy when the price is lower.
So some people love dungeons and run them for money. Or Fractals. Some people hate them and just run dynamic events, which takes longer, but they do it anyway. Some people follow the world events around and make money doing that.
I do a bit of everything and though I didn’t need 750 crystalline dust for my lengendary, I did need 100 onyx lodestones, which by today’s prices works out to roughly the same price. And Crystalline dust has gone up. It’ll go down again after the Southsun event when more people are farming in Orr.
The point is, you don’t have to farm the mats, you just play the game, save your gold, and buy your mats. That’s what I did.
There have been more than one post about people being chased away by farmers in that Orr event. If you choose to ignore those posts, that’s your own issue.
Um…and why is that my responsibility? My comment wasn’t about that issue. It was geared directly to one particular issue in response to Erasculio.2914. Why do your issues have to be my issues?
It’s like you want me to defend something I’m against (who supports rude people using broken events?) and something that’s ultimately irrelevant to what I said (and what does that have to do with the economic function of farmers?).
Enjoy the last word.
There have been more than one post about people being chased away by farmers in that Orr event. If you choose to ignore those posts, that’s your own issue.
Um…and why is that my responsibility? My comment wasn’t about that issue. It was geared directly to one particular issue in response to Erasculio.2914. Why do your issues have to be my issues?
It’s like you want me to defend something I’m against (who supports rude people using broken events?) and something that’s ultimately irrelevant to what I said (and what does that have to do with the economic function of farmers?).
Enjoy the last word.
Well I wouldn’t have to enjoy the last word if you’d stop saying things like what I’m saying are irrelevant. What I say certainly isn’t irrelevent to me, and it’s not irrelevant to anyone who has been verbally abused by these ‘farmers’. It shouldn’t even be irrelevant to the scores of nice farmers who get painted by the same brush for these people who are giving them a bad name.
Maybe you wouldn’t get such responses if you stopped misusing words like irrelevant.
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