Guild Wars 2

Subdue.5479:

@Guhracie:

See, here’s the thing. The dailies for all three modes follow a similar pattern, with PvP probably being slightly more convenient for one-mode-only players. Take today’s for example:

PvE:
Activity Participation > Quick & Easy
Krytan Lumberer > Quick & Easy
Metrica Event Completer > Potentially time consuming
Frozen Maw > Potentially time consuming

WvW:
Master of Ruins > Quick and Easy
Land Claimer > Quick and Easy
Camp Capturer > Potentially time consuming
Tower Capturer > Potentially time consuming

PvP:
50 Rank Points > Quick and Easy
Point Defender > Quick and Easy
Guardian Winner > Potentially time consuming
Engineer Winner > Potentially time consuming (This one is especially time consuming for me as I’m terrible with engineer lol)

It’s not like PvE has been dealt some sort of unfair hand here. Players are being encouraged to experience different content all across the board here, and that’s good for the game.

Think back to the dailies of old. Were you encouraged to explore different game modes? No not really. Were you encouraged to explore new content within your preferred game mode? No not really. What were the old dailies actually accomplishing? What purpose did they serve? At most they were an incentive to log in, locked behind mundane, grindish content (kill 50 ambients???). That’s been turned into a login reward now, without the grind, leaving AP the only incentive for those who want to do the daily.

And let’s be frank here. It’s not choice that you’ve “lost,” it’s rewards. The two are not the same, and you have options for getting those rewards, and more. The path to them is just slightly different. With 2 of the dailies always being easy in each section, you really should be able to pop into a different mode for 2 minutes to get your third and earn yourself double what you were probably earning before in terms of rewards. It really is that easy. I guarantee that the it takes you a fraction of the time it to complete the dailies today than it did before the patch if you’re willing to branch out for just a few minutes a day. But if even that is too much, you can do it every other day instead, and still be up to par with what you had before.

It’s hard to empathize with PvE only players complaining that they have been somehow displaced by the changes when all that’s required of them to make them even better off than they were before is a few minutes of travel time.

And now I feel as if we’re moving away from understanding, because I feel like you’re intentionally misunderstanding/ignoring vast swathes of my points.

First, and foremost, is that you’re responding to this as if the changes to the daily system are the only issue I’ve raised. It seems as if you want it to be, but it’s not.

Second, you’re arguing that PvE players haven’t been dealt an unfair hand, and they’re equal with all the other dailies. Again, my whole premise is that decreasing available options does not feel good. Just because you find fractals to be easy or PvP doesn’t make you despair for the world doesn’t mean that it would hurt your gameplay at all if there were more options.

Here’s kind of the crux of where I’m at, and I’m not sure if I can give a better example than this: I am totally, 100%, completely happy that there’s a PvP exclusive armor. Up with this sort of thing. I would have been extremely unhappy if that armor was plucked from the PvE sets and erased from everyone’s wardrobe.

I’m pretty frustrated right now, so I’m going to step away. Again, everyone, please be mindful of Gaile’s post, and remember that we’re having a discussion with other people. Please report posts that are in violation of the forum policy, rather than responding. Thank you all!

@Guhracie:

The thing is, I don’t necessarily disagree with all your individual points.

I can definitely see how the trait changes could be seen as harsh, but not necessarily a shift to less choice. I think it could have been implemented better. Heck, even tying the unlocks to the personal story would probably have been better, so that they would always be level appropriate. The concept behind the change is a good one, but the execution could use some work.

I’ve already given my viewpoint on gold gain, customization, etc, and at most I could concede that some of those might be neutral, if not a move to more choice.

But really the dailies… I simply can’t empathize even in the slightest with your plight. I know for me (primarily dungeon runner), the dailies were never completed after I finished my runs. I’d get some of them sure, maybe even 3 or 4, but I’d always have to go out of my way to go gather stuff, or WP over to Brisbane to revive some NPCs, and so on.

Now, yes, I’m still doing a few mundane tasks to complete my dailies, but I’m being rewarded more than 100% more, and they’re taking me less time to do!

I don’t mean this to sound rude but, perhaps you open world only, PvE players have been overly spoiled. The rest of us always had that one or two random tasks hanging around that we had to go out of our way to complete if we wanted the daily. Heck, in CoF Path 1 I would let the boss hit me with its painfully easy to dodge fire circle so that it would burn me and I could remove the condition for the dailies. It was ridiculous. It is just a normal part of the game. And if you wanted to get 10 AP, well hell, that’s an hour’s grind of checklisting if not more.

Subdue.5479:

But really the dailies… I simply can’t empathize even in the slightest with your plight. I know for me (primarily dungeon runner), the dailies were never completed after I finished my runs. I’d get some of them sure, maybe even 3 or 4, but I’d always have to go out of my way to go gather stuff, or WP over to Brisbane to revive some NPCs, and so on.

Now, yes, I’m still doing a few mundane tasks to complete my dailies, but I’m being rewarded more than 100% more, and they’re taking me less time to do!

I don’t mean this to sound rude but, perhaps you open world only, PvE players have been overly spoiled. The rest of us always had that one or two random tasks hanging around that we had to go out of our way to complete if we wanted the daily.

Oh please. Open-world-only players weren’t being overly spoiled. Everyone who spent some little time playing open world was getting their dailies done without much effort. Everyone, not just the open-world-only players. The problem was apparently with you restricting yourself, “staying in your dungeon run comfort zone” previously. A zone you’re so quick to tell people now they need to get out of if they want their rewards.

My opinion on the matter has already been stated by others. That the achievement list is a bit constrictive. Maybe adding 1 or 2 more options to the list will help lessen that a bit.

Though, I will really miss one thing about the old system, and that would be its better chances of Black Lion Salvage Kits drops. Now that all the only chance of a trading posts item falls on a single day a week, the chances of actually getting one fell substantially. At least with the old system, no matter how small the odds, you had a chance of getting one each day.

The daily issue is a complex one.

On the surface, it seems that the issue with the new dailies is the AP. If there were no AP reward, would people care?

Is it possible that those who prefer and have done a lot of open world have pretty much exhausted their options to get AP over 2+ years of play? Slayer, Weapon Master, Puzzle Jumper, etc. are all finite. I know most of those completed while I played. The ones that haven’t, like Giant Slayer and Shield Master, are extreme long-term goals (if I choose to do them at all). Are these players at the point where progress towards the next AP chest means Festival or LS Repetition only, absent the dailies? If you’ve done the current Festival Dance, and the current LS dance, then maybe dailies are the only AP you’ll get on a given day, or given week. With the various gaps between LS releases and Festivals, maybe in a given month?

Rewards make the MMO go round, and this game gets accused a lot of being unrewarding. If that’s the only issue, then it would seem that 10 AP per day would be better than 0 to 8 AP in PvE.

There’s other stuff going on, though. People resist change. They resist altering their patterns. In the RW, some people make themselves sick (psychosomatic) rather than step out of their comfort zone. This change is going to make some people choose to alter their patterns. They’ll do it, because they want those AP — but they’ll resent it. Of course there will be resistance.

IndigoSundown.5419:

There’s other stuff going on, though. People resist change. They resist altering their patterns. In the RW, some people make themselves sick (psychosomatic) rather than step out of their comfort zone. This change is going to make some people choose to alter their patterns. They’ll do it, because they want those AP — but they’ll resent it. Of course there will be resistance.

The question is: what is the purpose of the change. In many players’ opinion the point of the change is to force people to play in ways they are not playing. A game should be fun, if these activities are not fun for some players, why should they play them? If the activities were fun, more people would partake.

Regarding PvP, Anet should look at other games with PvP: they are niche games for a reason. Mainstream games that tried to force PvP quickly got rid of it or relegated it to separate areas or servers. Yes, it is in separate areas in GW2 already. My point is that other games had to separate it or get rid of it because most of their players didn’t want it. If Anet insists on continuing to try to force players into PvP (in which I include WvW), they will lose players.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Is it possible that those who prefer and have done a lot of open world have pretty much exhausted their options to get AP over 2+ years of play? Slayer, Weapon Master, Puzzle Jumper, etc. are all finite. I know most of those completed while I played. The ones that haven’t, like Giant Slayer and Shield Master, are extreme long-term goals (if I choose to do them at all). Are these players at the point where progress towards the next AP chest means Festival or LS Repetition only, absent the dailies? If you’ve done the current Festival Dance, and the current LS dance, then maybe dailies are the only AP you’ll get on a given day, or given week. With the various gaps between LS releases and Festivals, maybe in a given month?

This is indeed the case for me. The only permanently available AP left for me are the extreme ones and the ones for content I don’t enjoy doing.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Subdue.5479:

But really the dailies… I simply can’t empathize even in the slightest with your plight. I know for me (primarily dungeon runner), the dailies were never completed after I finished my runs. I’d get some of them sure, maybe even 3 or 4, but I’d always have to go out of my way to go gather stuff, or WP over to Brisbane to revive some NPCs, and so on.

Now, yes, I’m still doing a few mundane tasks to complete my dailies, but I’m being rewarded more than 100% more, and they’re taking me less time to do!

I don’t mean this to sound rude but, perhaps you open world only, PvE players have been overly spoiled. The rest of us always had that one or two random tasks hanging around that we had to go out of our way to complete if we wanted the daily.

Oh please. Open-world-only players weren’t being overly spoiled. Everyone who spent some little time playing open world was getting their dailies done without much effort. Everyone, not just the open-world-only players. The problem was apparently with you restricting yourself, “staying in your dungeon run comfort zone” previously. A zone you’re so quick to tell people now they need to get out of if they want their rewards.

I found this response pretty funny. You clearly didn’t read through the whole post, or you’d see how silly your comment is. I’ll help you out though.

Subdue.5479:

I don’t mean this to sound rude but, perhaps you open world only, PvE players have been overly spoiled. The rest of us always had that one or two random tasks hanging around that we had to go out of our way to complete if we wanted the daily. Heck, in CoF Path 1 I would let the boss hit me with its painfully easy to dodge fire circle so that it would burn me and I could remove the condition for the dailies. It was ridiculous. It is just a normal part of the game. And if you wanted to get 10 AP, well hell, that’s an hour’s grind of checklisting if not more.

Subdue.5479:

The rest of us always had that one or two random tasks hanging around that we had to go out of our way to complete if we wanted the daily. It is just a normal part of the game.

Subdue.5479:

we had to go out of our way to complete if we wanted the daily. It is just a normal part of the game.

Subdue.5479:

It is just a normal part of the game.

Subdue.5479:

It is just a normal part of the game.

lol…

I was mostly just challenging your ridiculous claim that the previous system was spoiling open-world-only players when obviously any player who took part in the open world had the exact same benefit as they had.

Yeah, so I only skimmed the rest of the post after you so ignorantly divided the player base into 2 groups: “open world only PvE players” and “the rest of us”. I wasn’t expecting anything useful to follow that cracker of a fallacy. Mea culpa.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I was mostly just challenging your ridiculous claim that the previous system was spoiling open-world-only players when obviously any player who took part in the open world had the exact same benefit as they had.

Yeah, so I only skimmed the rest of the post after you so ignorantly divided the player base into 2 groups: “open world only PvE players” and “the rest of us”. I wasn’t expecting anything useful to follow that cracker of a fallacy. Mea culpa.

I like your reasoning though. You’ve basically confirmed that you agree it’s okay to have to stray from your comfort zone to complete the dailies. Thank you for that!

Am I the only player who wasn’t too hung up on the daily rewards? I just liked having the dailies as a framework for a night’s play. It made the game less repetitive to have random background tasks I’d complete while going about my normal business. They were a key part to how I was playing the game.

The new dailies lack that easy integration with play. They tend to be: Go to this exact spot and do this exact thing — I can do that before or after, but not during play. It’s busy work and I avoid busy work (yes, some old dailies were also busy work, but I could usually avoid those).

To me that’s the big loss — old dailies I did while I played, new dailies I get out of the way before I play. Actually, I just don’t bother…

I realize other play styles already had to go out of their way with old dailies — that doesn’t mean you have to rip out my content to improve those areas.

And I realize this is meant to encourage me to play other types of content. I’m fine with that sort of thing — offer me new incentives. This strange fixation with removing content, I just don’t get…

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Am I the only player who wasn’t too hung up on the daily rewards? I just liked having the dailies as a framework for a night’s play. It made the game less repetitive to have random background tasks I’d complete while going about my normal business. They were a key part to how I was playing the game.

The new dailies lack that easy integration with play. They tend to be: Go to this exact spot and do this exact thing — I can do that before or after, but not during play. It’s busy work and I avoid busy work (yes, some old dailies were also busy work, but I could usually avoid those).

To me that’s the big loss — old dailies I did while I played, new dailies I get out of the way before I play. Actually, I just don’t bother…

I realize other play styles already had to go out of their way with old dailies — that doesn’t mean you have to rip out my content to improve those areas.

And I realize this is meant to encourage me to play other types of content. I’m fine with that sort of thing — offer me new incentives. This strange fixation with removing content, I just don’t get…

Rewards =/= content. They didn’t remove content; they reallocated rewards. You can do everything you were doing before exactly the way you were doing it before. Nothing is stopping you from doing that.

Subdue.5479:

I like your reasoning though. You’ve basically confirmed that you agree it’s okay to have to stray from your comfort zone to complete the dailies. Thank you for that!

I’ve never disagreed with that notion. I just disagree with the idea that they have to be stupid pet tricks. Remember? I’m the “stupid pet trick” guy.

Standing on top of a building in a city and harvesting a specific node type in a specific region, or standing in a square in a WvW ruin and killing a dolyak, none of that is outside of my comfort zone, all of that is just too bloody stupid for words.

And what of the ones they removed? Daily puzzle jumper. Somewhat interesting if you didn’t go the lazy mesmer portal way. Gone. Story dungeon completer and the one for explorables? Gone. Personal story completer? Gone. Weren’t those actually achievements that did fit the mold of encouraging people to try other things? What about the current mix of PvE dailies would inspire WvW/PvP players to play more PvE? They didn’t just remove the painless ones, they also removed the interesting ones and replaced them with stupid pet tricks, making PvE actually seem less interesting instead of more. If those achievements must be easy and stupid, at least let them be painless so I don’t have to feel like a dog when trying to gain some AP.

Give me something interesting to do instead of hollowing out the game with every significant update.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Subdue.5479:

I like your reasoning though. You’ve basically confirmed that you agree it’s okay to have to stray from your comfort zone to complete the dailies. Thank you for that!

I’ve never disagreed with that notion. I just disagree with the idea that they have to be stupid pet tricks. Remember? I’m the “stupid pet trick” guy.

Standing on top of a building in a city and harvesting a specific node type in a specific region, or standing in a square in a WvW ruin and killing a dolyak, none of that is outside of my comfort zone, all of that is just too bloody stupid for words.

And what of the ones they removed? Daily puzzle jumper. Somewhat interesting if you didn’t go the lazy mesmer portal way. Gone. Story dungeon completer and the one for explorables? Gone. Personal story completer? Gone. Weren’t those actually achievements that did fit the mold of encouraging people to try other things? What about the current mix of PvE dailies would inspire WvW/PvP players to play more PvE? They didn’t just remove the painless ones, they also removed the interesting ones and replaced them with stupid pet tricks, making PvE actually seem less interesting instead of more. If those achievements must be easy and stupid, at least let them be painless so I don’t have to feel like a dog when trying to gain some AP.

Give me something interesting to do instead of hollowing out the game with every significant update.

kitten … well with this new incarnation of your views I don’t disagree as much. I think puzzles and dungeons should be part of the rotation.

The easy stuff is going to stay there to pacify some people, but having puzzles and stuff in place of the events or world boss dailies I wouldn’t disagree with. Going along with this notion though, the vista one could probably be fixed by making it a more specific vistas. Some vistas can be somewhat tricky to reach. Wall Breach Blitz comes to mind, for one.

This isn’t a new incarnation of my views. They’ve always been like this. I’ve just stopped expressing them a few days ago and instead started attacking the stupid “don’t complain, you get your laurel for free now” rebuttals that were leveled at any and all critiques of the new dailies. I’ve asked “where are the puzzle jumper dailies?” before. No one noticed. I’ve asked for more interesting tasks. No one cares. People just obsess over the new reward structure and totally ignore discussion of the quality of the tasks. It’s infuriating.

Guhracie.3419:

Instead of bickering over semantics and whinging and complainers and white knights, I’d really like to have an actual conversation with people (actual people, so let’s throw out all usage of the aforementioned forum slurs that are so prevalent everywhere else) about the shift in design philosophy we’ve seen from anet in the last year.

The first thing to do is explain the design choices that I perceive to be making this shift. Then I’ll tell you why I don’t like it. Ideally, you’ll read what I’ve written and respond with your own facts, and then your opinion about why it makes for a better or more interesting or engaging game, one way or the other.

This year has seen a drastic decline in the amount of choice and flexibility offered in my chosen game mode, which is open world PvE.

Please note: I am all for more choice for the other game modes, but I do not believe it has to be at the expense of choice in any one game mode.

The recent change to dailies is a small part of a larger whole, but it is the impetus to this discussion. The April feature patch saw fewer options in the daily list, and now there are even fewer options (again, please remember that I am speaking about my preferred game mode, PvE), and those options are incredibly specific.

I think it is fantastic that PvP and WvW now have more options, though it could be argued that many PvE objectives translated over to, at least, WvW (gatherer, reviver, recycler, kill variety and others). I am merely confused about why it had to be at the expense of the selection that was previously available.

The festival meta achievements used to have a ton of options. Wintersday has absolutely no flexibility in it. You do the specific 11 achievements, or you don’t get the meta rewards.

Leveling and trait acquisition is not only narrow in scope (do specific, time intensive, buggy and/or level inappropriate tasks), but it is repetitive; utterly without variation (except for the location of a couple of the tasks on the trait tree) among the professions. Leveling has become a checklist of chores, or a grind for skillpoints and/or gold. Why take a crucial part of character building and make it so inaccessible?

Some of you will argue that the idea is to force players into other modes of gameplay. Perhaps this is true, but is it necessary? Are we really too stupid to know what we find fun and entertaining? Should ‘force’ even come into the equation when we’re talking about leisure time? Does the removal of options register as fun to anyone out there? Is doing it worthy of defending?

I feel like this has all distinctly impacted how I choose to spend my time in game and, ultimately, if I choose to spend time in game.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond thoughtfully.

Why would you write this? You’re going to give them the wrong idea. It’s fine the way it is.

Subdue.5479:

Rewards =/= content. They didn’t remove content; they reallocated rewards. You can do everything you were doing before exactly the way you were doing it before. Nothing is stopping you from doing that.

The difference is that I used to be able to choose which content I was rewarded by to much higher extent than I can now. Dailies like kills, events, leveller, recycler, skill point accumulator, interrupter, dodger, reviver, condition applier and condition remover could be progressed virtually anywhere in the game. The new dailies, on the other hand, require me to choose between having fun or being rewarded, which is not a good choice.

Coldtart.4785:

Subdue.5479:

Rewards =/= content. They didn’t remove content; they reallocated rewards. You can do everything you were doing before exactly the way you were doing it before. Nothing is stopping you from doing that.

The difference is that I used to be able to choose which content I was rewarded by to much higher extent than I can now. Dailies like kills, events, leveller, recycler, skill point accumulator, interrupter, dodger, reviver, condition applier and condition remover could be progressed virtually anywhere in the game. The new dailies, on the other hand, require me to choose between having fun or being rewarded, which is not a good choice.

Actually most activities in the game have their intrinsic rewards, and dailies just added AP on top of that. So to say you’re not getting rewarded is simply untrue. That said, chances are what you were doing was earning you less AP per day than what you could earn for a fraction of the time now. Honestly though, I would hope whatever you were doing was fun for you, not just for the AP.

Subdue.5479

Actually most activities in the game have their intrinsic rewards, and dailies just added AP on top of that. So to say you’re not getting rewarded is simply untrue. That said, chances are what you were doing was earning you less AP per day than what you could earn for a fraction of the time now. Honestly though, I would hope whatever you were doing was fun for you, not just for the AP.

My point is that before I could do what is fun and get AP for it, now if I want to get daily AP I have to do things that are not fun. This means I have to choose one or the other where previously I could choose both.

Subdue.5479:

I like your reasoning though. You’ve basically confirmed that you agree it’s okay to have to stray from your comfort zone to complete the dailies. Thank you for that!

Weird, some of your arguments before were about how those changes are good, because now WvW players do not need to stray from their comfort zone. So, apparently, you think it is okay, but only for PvE. And then you wonder why people disagree with you.

Subdue.5479:

Okay, two points here. First of all, one of the fractal events was “finish 1 fractal.” That takes less than 5 minutes.

…for an extremely tiny minority, perhaps. For a huge majority of the players it takes a “bit” longer. It’s certainly not easier than zone event completion, and you yourself classified that one as “potentially time consuming”.

Subdue.5479:

Furthermore, world bosses and such in pve are on a timer. Yes, you might have to wait to do them, or your timing might conflict, but they’re predictable, and if you want to do them, you can. This is not the same as the “Take a keep” option in WvW.

True, in WvW, i can usually take a keep within 5 minutes from logging. 10 minutes at worst. No need to wait. Completely unlike PvE when i log in to find that Shatterer has just ended.

Subdue.5479:

There’s no timer. There is no way to tell outside of playing for long periods of time when your server may attempt to take a keep. There’s no way to tell if they will attempt it at all. And if they do, there’s no way to tell it will be successful. And then there’s the opposite scenario. It’s also possible that your server is dominating and there are no keeps to take!

You forgot about the Edge.

@Astralporing:

1. I’m pretty sure I’ve been consistent in thinking there’s nothing wrong with having to move around and into different modes for the daily. I don’t know what you’re on about.

2. Yes, for some doing the first round of a level 1 fractal might take longer than 5 minutes, but the same can be said about taking camps in WvW. I don’t know what you’re getting at with this.

3. I don’t know what server you’re on, and what your specific situation is guild-wise, but I can’t log into WvW and have a keep under my belt in 10 minutes. I’m on Yak’s Bend, and unless one of the commanders is swooping around with a zerg, I end up just running around camps and sentries when I WvW. Maybe your experience is different. Some days the train will just rack up objective after objective, and some days it’s just an endless stalemate.

4. I’m not sure how EotM interacts with the dailies exactly, but I can’t imagine that taking a keep is that much faster than completing 4 events in a PvE zone, especially if the enemy is contesting that keep.

What you’re picking at here are balance issues, not “OMFG THE NEW DAILIES SUCK” issues. If it turns out the effort required to complete the dailies in one mode are too far gone compared to the others, that can be tweaked. That doesn’t change the obvious goal of the changes.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Am I the only player who wasn’t too hung up on the daily rewards? I just liked having the dailies as a framework for a night’s play. It made the game less repetitive to have random background tasks I’d complete while going about my normal business. They were a key part to how I was playing the game.

Well, I wasn’t hung up on the rewards either, but that’s because I no longer really could perceive anything worthwhile in them. I did use them as a framework because “what the skritt, why not?” was as valid as “let’s go harvest me a stack of Elder Wood today”.

. . . mostly because I still needed it for my craft practice.

Subdue.5479:

Furthermore, world bosses and such in pve are on a timer. Yes, you might have to wait to do them, or your timing might conflict, but they’re predictable, and if you want to do them, you can.

So, because I want them, I can get them? Please tell me your secret how you manage to kill a world boss when you’re offline… Take Maw for instance. His timer is so that he is active at 19:15 my time. I usually can come online at 19:30. And I can usually stay online for an hour/hour and a half. So, no Maw because my timing conflicts and I haven’t found that mysterious way you can still get him when you offline.

Ashen.2907:

naughteblonde.7194:

Ashen.2907:

There is no strangling of options. Players have more choices under the new system than the old.

Actually I’ve found one particular option removed in terms of laurels. Previously when doing a monthly I would usually log on and blast through my personal choices quite quickly (12 JP, 100 events, X kills, 4 dailies) which would take a maximum of 4 days to achieve 14 laurels (10 monthly + 4 daily). I’m not into maximizing output but that would be enough for me. I have personal reasons that limit my ability to log on often.
Now in order to get at least 14 laurels I have to log on for 16 days rather than 4 (Day 2, 7, 9, and 16) which will take me 4 times as long for a similar reward and require that I be available for a minimum time for at least 16 days as opposed to within my free time during 4 days.

Personally this is a significant restriction.

Understood, but that can also be expressed as 15 seconds per day x 16 = 4 minutes total vs how many hours per day for those 4 days ?

Dont get me wrong, I get that we all have different play styles and schedules. The point I was making in the post you quoted was that there are now more choices in how to earn the actual rewards. I dont doubt that some individuals might find that some choices are slower/faster than others.

In my personal case it ends up being that I have to find 8 days more access that I might not have, or wait 3 months to gain what previously had been one month’s worth of reward. In my opinion it says something that Anet would rather have 16×15 seconds of my play than 4x a few hours.

With the changes to the trait system and now to the dailies requiring specific content rather than an ‘earn-as-you-play’ system I find I’m building a level of resentment towards Anet for herding me in the direction they want me to play. I’m seeing areas I normally enjoy playing (EG the monthlies and dailies) now having rewards tweaked and moved to gain particular behavior from me. I started avoiding the systems they were tinkering with. Now I’m running out of things to avoid and find I’m avoiding the game instead which is sad. Instead of logging on, picking one of my many characters in progress, picking a random unexplored map and blasting through it and accomplishing my daily and a chunk of my monthly – I’m logging on, picking my log in reward, and logging off. Perhaps I’m unique in that. I don’t know.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Subdue.5479:

Furthermore, world bosses and such in pve are on a timer. Yes, you might have to wait to do them, or your timing might conflict, but they’re predictable, and if you want to do them, you can.

So, because I want them, I can get them? Please tell me your secret how you manage to kill a world boss when you’re offline… Take Maw for instance. His timer is so that he is active at 19:15 my time. I usually can come online at 19:30. And I can usually stay online for an hour/hour and a half. So, no Maw because my timing conflicts and I haven’t found that mysterious way you can still get him when you offline.

I’m pretty sure the post you quoted already states that your timing might conflict. The point is, if you want to do Maw, you can schedule yourself to show up 15 minutes earlier. Now I understand that because of work or other obligations, you might not be able to do that, but at the same time, there are plenty of easy options for completing the daily. I’ve yet to take longer than 10 minutes, and I’ve only caught the Maw once. Don’t act like it’s “Catch the Maw or daily is impossible.” That’s not the case.

naughteblonde.7194:

Ashen.2907:

naughteblonde.7194:

Ashen.2907:

There is no strangling of options. Players have more choices under the new system than the old.

Actually I’ve found one particular option removed in terms of laurels. Previously when doing a monthly I would usually log on and blast through my personal choices quite quickly (12 JP, 100 events, X kills, 4 dailies) which would take a maximum of 4 days to achieve 14 laurels (10 monthly + 4 daily). I’m not into maximizing output but that would be enough for me. I have personal reasons that limit my ability to log on often.
Now in order to get at least 14 laurels I have to log on for 16 days rather than 4 (Day 2, 7, 9, and 16) which will take me 4 times as long for a similar reward and require that I be available for a minimum time for at least 16 days as opposed to within my free time during 4 days.

Personally this is a significant restriction.

Understood, but that can also be expressed as 15 seconds per day x 16 = 4 minutes total vs how many hours per day for those 4 days ?

Dont get me wrong, I get that we all have different play styles and schedules. The point I was making in the post you quoted was that there are now more choices in how to earn the actual rewards. I dont doubt that some individuals might find that some choices are slower/faster than others.

In my personal case it ends up being that I have to find 8 days more access that I might not have, or wait 3 months to gain what previously had been one month’s worth of reward. In my opinion it says something that Anet would rather have 16×15 seconds of my play than 4x a few hours.

With the changes to the trait system and now to the dailies requiring specific content rather than an ‘earn-as-you-play’ system I find I’m building a level of resentment towards Anet for herding me in the direction they want me to play. I’m seeing areas I normally enjoy playing (EG the monthlies and dailies) now having rewards tweaked and moved to gain particular behavior from me. I started avoiding the systems they were tinkering with. Now I’m running out of things to avoid and find I’m avoiding the game instead which is sad. Instead of logging on, picking one of my many characters in progress, picking a random unexplored map and blasting through it and accomplishing my daily and a chunk of my monthly – I’m logging on, picking my log in reward, and logging off. Perhaps I’m unique in that. I don’t know.

I think your particular situation is rather unique, and yes I can agree it is materially worse for you if you really only get 4 hour blocks 4 times a month to play. That said, it seems you’re perfectly capable of logging in to trigger the daily and logging back off, and like you said, it’s 15s a day to do that.

As far as what you’re able to do now, well, you already get most of the reward just for showing up, so more than ever you can just go off and do whatever you like. If it was the AP that was significant for you, then you have to do far less to earn it now than you did before, as 10 AP a day before used to take hours. And if the AP wasn’t significant, then you haven’t lost anything at all.

Subdue.5479:

4. I’m not sure how EotM interacts with the dailies exactly, but I can’t imagine that taking a keep is that much faster than completing 4 events in a PvE zone, especially if the enemy is contesting that keep.

You… have never been to EotM, right? Basically, if the zerg decides to take the keep, the keep gets taken. The enemy is likely taking a different keep in that time, noone in the karma train has time to defend objectives.

Subdue.5479:

What you’re picking at here are balance issues, not “OMFG THE NEW DAILIES SUCK” issues.

I’m doing both, actually. The imbalance is huge, and the PvE dailies, compared to the WvW ones do “suck”.

Subdue.5479:

If it turns out the effort required to complete the dailies in one mode are too far gone compared to the others, that can be tweaked. That doesn’t change the obvious goal of the changes.

Well, the goal is one of the things i am set against. I don’t like straightjackets and railroading. I am grown enough that i don’t need others to tell me what i should consider fun, and what i shouldn’t. Especially since it doesn’t work anyway.
But then those new dailies were never about fun, but only about metrics.

Astralporing.1957:

Subdue.5479:

4. I’m not sure how EotM interacts with the dailies exactly, but I can’t imagine that taking a keep is that much faster than completing 4 events in a PvE zone, especially if the enemy is contesting that keep.

You… have never been to EotM, right? Basically, if the zerg decides to take the keep, the keep gets taken. The enemy is likely taking a different keep in that time, noone in the karma train has time to defend objectives.

Subdue.5479:

What you’re picking at here are balance issues, not “OMFG THE NEW DAILIES SUCK” issues.

I’m doing both, actually. The imbalance is huge, and the PvE dailies, compared to the WvW ones do “suck”.

Subdue.5479:

If it turns out the effort required to complete the dailies in one mode are too far gone compared to the others, that can be tweaked. That doesn’t change the obvious goal of the changes.

Well, the goal is one of the things i am set against. I don’t like straightjackets and railroading. I am grown enough that i don’t need others to tell me what i should consider fun, and what i shouldn’t. Especially since it doesn’t work anyway.
But then those new dailies were never about fun, but only about metrics.

Like I said, your experience in WvW has been different than mine, and I’ve not tried to get the WvW dailies in EotM, so I can’t really comment.

That said, you’re not really straightjacketed by the game to anything. If anything, with the bulk of the rewards shifted off the dailies, you’re less required to do them. If anything, you’re straightjacketed by the your own compulsion to complete optional content.

There is a gold reward at the end of every dungeon. Do you feel straightjacketed to complete those?

How about jumping puzzles?

PvP reward tracks?

I would certainly hope not.

Subdue.5479:

I think your particular situation is rather unique, and yes I can agree it is materially worse for you if you really only get 4 hour blocks 4 times a month to play. That said, it seems you’re perfectly capable of logging in to trigger the daily and logging back off, and like you said, it’s 15s a day to do that.

As far as what you’re able to do now, well, you already get most of the reward just for showing up, so more than ever you can just go off and do whatever you like. If it was the AP that was significant for you, then you have to do far less to earn it now than you did before, as 10 AP a day before used to take hours. And if the AP wasn’t significant, then you haven’t lost anything at all.

You are correct that the AP isn’t significant to me so no, I don’t feel like I’ve lost that at all.
I’m my personal case I did what play during the time I could because it was (and still is) likely I will not be capable of the other 24-27 days, even for the 15 second log in. I would play to enjoy when I could then not worry after that. It means that 16 log in may end up spread over months rather than days. If I’m lucky I may get more time or someone else to log in, if not I’m stuffed.

Another point to me is the term reward – IMO the reward wasn’t just the laurels or the items in game. Part of the reward was the enjoyment of playing how I personally liked to. With the increasing tweaks to encourage players in the direction Anet wants I find my enjoyment of the game play (part of my reward) to be lessening.

I know my situation may be unique but with each update it brings a little more frustration to me. My monthlies gone, my dailies narrowed, my traits require specific play, my personal story handed only in chunks.
Its the little things rather than one big outrage to me.

naughteblonde.7194:

You are correct that the AP isn’t significant to me so no, I don’t feel like I’ve lost that at all.
I’m my personal case I did what play during the time I could because it was (and still is) likely I will not be capable of the other 24-27 days, even for the 15 second log in. I would play to enjoy when I could then not worry after that. It means that 16 log in may end up spread over months rather than days. If I’m lucky I may get more time or someone else to log in, if not I’m stuffed.

Another point to me is the term reward – IMO the reward wasn’t just the laurels or the items in game. Part of the reward was the enjoyment of playing how I personally liked to. With the increasing tweaks to encourage players in the direction Anet wants I find my enjoyment of the game play (part of my reward) to be lessening.

I know my situation may be unique but with each update it brings a little more frustration to me. My monthlies gone, my dailies narrowed, my traits require specific play, my personal story handed only in chunks.
Its the little things rather than one big outrage to me.

First of all I do want to state that I agree that the new system, specifically laurels being moved to a log in reward, is worse for you. No argument. Someone who does not have the option to log in more than a few days a month loses out. My sympathy.

As to the rest…

None of the stuff you could do as part of monthlies/dailies before has been removed. If you liked rezzing people, killing ambients, getting player kills in WvW, killing champions in PvE before, hopefully you still will….and you will still earn in game rewards for doing them.

In any case my sympathy for the loss of laurels and I hope that whatever tweaks Anet makes to the system help your situation.

naughteblonde.7194:

Subdue.5479:

I think your particular situation is rather unique, and yes I can agree it is materially worse for you if you really only get 4 hour blocks 4 times a month to play. That said, it seems you’re perfectly capable of logging in to trigger the daily and logging back off, and like you said, it’s 15s a day to do that.

As far as what you’re able to do now, well, you already get most of the reward just for showing up, so more than ever you can just go off and do whatever you like. If it was the AP that was significant for you, then you have to do far less to earn it now than you did before, as 10 AP a day before used to take hours. And if the AP wasn’t significant, then you haven’t lost anything at all.

You are correct that the AP isn’t significant to me so no, I don’t feel like I’ve lost that at all.
I’m my personal case I did what play during the time I could because it was (and still is) likely I will not be capable of the other 24-27 days, even for the 15 second log in. I would play to enjoy when I could then not worry after that. It means that 16 log in may end up spread over months rather than days. If I’m lucky I may get more time or someone else to log in, if not I’m stuffed.

Another point to me is the term reward – IMO the reward wasn’t just the laurels or the items in game. Part of the reward was the enjoyment of playing how I personally liked to. With the increasing tweaks to encourage players in the direction Anet wants I find my enjoyment of the game play (part of my reward) to be lessening.

I know my situation may be unique but with each update it brings a little more frustration to me. My monthlies gone, my dailies narrowed, my traits require specific play, my personal story handed only in chunks.
Its the little things rather than one big outrage to me.

This is Anet taking away more choice and trying to force people to play in a certain way. In this case forcing people to login more.

naughteblonde.7194:

Subdue.5479:

I think your particular situation is rather unique, and yes I can agree it is materially worse for you if you really only get 4 hour blocks 4 times a month to play. That said, it seems you’re perfectly capable of logging in to trigger the daily and logging back off, and like you said, it’s 15s a day to do that.

As far as what you’re able to do now, well, you already get most of the reward just for showing up, so more than ever you can just go off and do whatever you like. If it was the AP that was significant for you, then you have to do far less to earn it now than you did before, as 10 AP a day before used to take hours. And if the AP wasn’t significant, then you haven’t lost anything at all.

You are correct that the AP isn’t significant to me so no, I don’t feel like I’ve lost that at all.
I’m my personal case I did what play during the time I could because it was (and still is) likely I will not be capable of the other 24-27 days, even for the 15 second log in. I would play to enjoy when I could then not worry after that. It means that 16 log in may end up spread over months rather than days. If I’m lucky I may get more time or someone else to log in, if not I’m stuffed.

Another point to me is the term reward – IMO the reward wasn’t just the laurels or the items in game. Part of the reward was the enjoyment of playing how I personally liked to. With the increasing tweaks to encourage players in the direction Anet wants I find my enjoyment of the game play (part of my reward) to be lessening.

I know my situation may be unique but with each update it brings a little more frustration to me. My monthlies gone, my dailies narrowed, my traits require specific play, my personal story handed only in chunks.
Its the little things rather than one big outrage to me.

One thing I’d like to point out, which doesn’t really fix your situation, but it does give it a little bit more context:

You’re currently logging in 4 times a month, gaining 14 laurels a month, or 168 over the course of a year. At your current rate of 4 logins a month under the new system, you’d earn 84 laurels a year. However, if you were to increase your logins by just 3 days a month, or 7 days total a month, you would log in 84 times over the course of the year, for three full revolutions around the login track, for a net gain of 165 laurels, putting you at right about where you are now, in addition of course to all the other new rewards that you weren’t getting before.

Again, not ideal for you, I know, but certainly better than how it seems at first look.

Subdue.5479:

What you’re picking at here are balance issues, not “OMFG THE NEW DAILIES SUCK” issues.

This, right here, sums up what I have been trying to express all along. I do not think I’ve tried to promote any attitude that “OMFG THE NEW DAILIES SUCK LIFE AS WE KNOW IT IS OVER AAAAA” in any way, shape, or form.

I’m dismayed by the responses in other threads that seem directed at belittling this one. There’s no shortage of people trying to put words in other peoples’ mouths. And maybe I’m feeling a little thin-skinned right now, because the word “whiner” pointed in my general direction is making me unhappy. I know that name-calling is the most simplistic form of argument, but it’s really little comfort right now.

I’m tired of trying to express that the dailies are just a small part of a larger issue. But what I keep hearing, over and over again, is that I should be grateful for what I’ve been given, or simply move along. And I guess, at some point… maybe when this was implemented, or maybe when it became apparent that the trait system wasn’t going to get fixed, or maybe it was reading rabid vitriol today… I guess I realized that maybe GW2 is just a glorified chat room for me, now, and is no longer entertaining on its own merit. The people are what keep me coming back, and not the game, and it should be a combination of both.

Subdue.5479:

One thing I’d like to point out, which doesn’t really fix your situation, but it does give it a little bit more context:

You’re currently logging in 4 times a month, gaining 14 laurels a month, or 168 over the course of a year. At your current rate of 4 logins a month under the new system, you’d earn 84 laurels a year. However, if you were to increase your logins by just 3 days a month, or 7 days total a month, you would log in 84 times over the course of the year, for three full revolutions around the login track, for a net gain of 165 laurels, putting you at right about where you are now, in addition of course to all the other new rewards that you weren’t getting before.

Again, not ideal for you, I know, but certainly better than how it seems at first look.

I do appreciate you trying to find a way to help me. In my personal case though, those 3 days extra a month may be quite impossible. It is purely down to personal circumstance which is why the ‘play when I can, don’t worry about the rest’ system worked for me rather than having a minimum required attendance. I played what I could and felt satisfied with the reward, and didn’t feel I was missing out if I couldn’t play the rest of the time even if it was extended breaks and excluded me from other rewards (such as the rest of the dailies and AP).
What I can get now for my time frame has been cut which means I’m less inclined to play.
I know I am not representative of a large part of the playerbase who may find the changes very positive. I’m going to have to live with the reduced rewards or move on.

Ashen.2907:

First of all I do want to state that I agree that the new system, specifically laurels being moved to a log in reward, is worse for you. No argument. Someone who does not have the option to log in more than a few days a month loses out. My sympathy.

As to the rest…

None of the stuff you could do as part of monthlies/dailies before has been removed. If you liked rezzing people, killing ambients, getting player kills in WvW, killing champions in PvE before, hopefully you still will….and you will still earn in game rewards for doing them.

In any case my sympathy for the loss of laurels and I hope that whatever tweaks Anet makes to the system help your situation.

Thanks for understanding. I’m never all that sure if I explain myself quite well in the written word
For me the completion of the monthlies both was and was not a goal (if that makes sense). I’d keep track of them but I wouldn’t go out of my way to look for ways to do them. They were pretty organic to complete just during my particular style of play – IE pick one of my characters and blast through a few map completions and within my time frame they would be done.
I can still do all of the monthly activities and hopefully still enjoy them but over time I see Anet slowly picking away at these things, what I play to enjoy, in order to try and direct me to what they want me to do. In this case it is lessening my personal in game rewards. Its a small annoyance but not game breaking by itself for me. Added to other changes it holds more weight and I wonder how much more will be chipped off in order to try to encourage me to play differently.
I may be in the minority who thinks this way but no matter how shiny the end reward of items is, I won’t play something I dislike. It defeats the point of gaming for pleasure to me. The more Anet try to encourage me towards things I dislike by making what I do like less rewarding, the more likely they are to encourage me to just stop playing.

It’s not that you have less choice, you have less freedom to ignore what the dailies are. Before you were able to simply play how you normally play and you would get at least some of the 12 dailies done within 30-60 minutes, unless you are a hard core PvP player.

But now you have to be keenly aware what the dailies are just to do three. If you normally don’t go into map X there is no way you could accidentally get the mining/lumbering/forging daily. If you’ve done all the Vistas why would you visit one in a specific region? Again if you don’t normally do map X you don’t know all the event spawn locations and frequency like the back of your hand. If you normally don’t do a particular boss event there isn’t a way accidentally get it.

And this is where players feel like they lost agency, they now, if they want AP the daily provides, must do specific activities rather than just stumbling over them. They are forced to choose now, 10 AP or playing how they like.

It’s not a shift to less choice but less freedom.

Behellagh.1468:

It’s not that you have less choice, you have less freedom to ignore what the dailies are. Before you were able to simply play how you normally play and you would get at least some of the 12 dailies done within 30-60 minutes, unless you are a hard core PvP player.

But now you have to be keenly aware what the dailies are just to do three. If you normally don’t go into map X there is no way you could accidentally get the mining/lumbering/forging daily. If you’ve done all the Vistas why would you visit one in a specific region? Again if you don’t normally do map X you don’t know all the event spawn locations and frequency like the back of your hand. If you normally don’t do a particular boss event there isn’t a way accidentally get it.

And this is where players feel like they lost agency, they now, if they want AP the daily provides, must do specific activities rather than just stumbling over them. They are forced to choose now, 10 AP or playing how they like.

It’s not a shift to less choice but less freedom.

Freedom is a funny word. I have more freedom under this system, because I wanted more achievement points, as did a lot of people.

Under the old system, it would take me an hour or more to get 10 achievement points, which forced me usually into other areas of play. I’m surely not alone in this.

Now, I get the same achievement points in less time, which means more freedom. Doing what I want for most of my play time.

In the old days if I spent an hour to an hour and a half to get ten points and now I spend 15 minutes, that gives me 1.25 hours free that I didn’t have before.

Yes, 15-20 minutes of my time isn’t dictated by what I want to do now, but before it was far more.

How much freedom is gives you, or how much lack of freedom depends on your play style and it depends on several factors.

1. If you don’t care about achievement points at all, then this gives you more freedom than before, because all the other rewards are obtained just by logging in.

2. If you got more than 5-6 achievement points a day, this might well give you more freedom than the old method.

3. Even if you only got 5 achievement points a day, that means this way you only have to do a daily every other day.

But there’s more. So far I’ve had 3 achievements that I’ve done to make an exotic item which takes no time at all on any character, as long as you save some luck essences, which anyone can do. That gives me 3 ectos.

To get 3 ectos before, would have meant farming more. To get the extra mats I get from the daily gatherer before was more time spent.

Having more mats and money (more rewards) means that I’m farming less. Not having to farm is more freedom.

It’s a very tight interpretation to say I have to teleport to this place and mine 4 nodes (which is all it is). Once you know where those nodes are, it’s literally 2 minutes.

I get more mats in those two minutes than I could have gotten before because of the reward. This is more freedom.

I used to do my daily on a character I was leveling (which I was usually doing). Now I can do the daily on any character I choose and give the experience to any character I choose. Even more freedom.

Whether this is more or less freedom is dependent on how you play.

The OP only cited Daily Achievements as one of several examples that ANet has been trending towards less choice. To debate the Dailies specifically, there is huge thread right here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-New-Dailies-Feedback-welcome/first

In the spirit of talking about choice, let me mention another recent ANet change that left us without any options: Targeting.

For 10+ years, the Guild Wars franchise targeting had been fairly consistent with regard to “Nearest Enemy” and “Next Enemy”. Both of these for the most part would choose a target that was on your screen, and able to be attacked. Ever since the recent change, “Nearest Enemy” is now literal, with no regard to whether or not you can see your target, or whether or not it is even attackable (under the floor, etc). “Next Enemy” used to move your target one step outward to the next furthest enemy, then the next, etc. After the change, distance doesn’t seem to be a factor – “next” doesn’t seem to follow any sort of pattern. Often “next target” is way out of attack range.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to start a debate about the new targeting. There are plenty of threads on that as well. To be fair, some people (primarily WvWers and PvPers it seems) are in favor of the new targeting. But after a decade of playing one way, old habits die hard for many of us.

I am not asking for ANet to take away the new targeting. I am asking them why they can’t give us a choice. Can’t you keep the new targeting and give us back the old targeting as an option? Choice is always preferable to change.
______________________________

Here are just a couple more things that affected me greatly where we could have been given a choice, but were forced to accept a change instead. (These could still be made into a choice!)

Town Clothes. – Why can’t we still have them exactly as they were? Practically none of the old Town Clothes made the transition into Outfits anyway. They’re still with us, locked into an accursed Tonic format. So why can’t Town Clothes be restored, and keep Outfits for people who want a non-armor look in combat? They didn’t need to be completely removed!

Megaserver – Not everyone likes crowds and zergs. We started the game being given a choice of population density, and that choice was taken away from us. They could set up a 3-tier Megaserver system giving us Low Population, Medium Population, and High Population Megaservers. That way they could let let people play in crowd sizes that they chose at the start, but still arrange to make sure zones aren’t completely empty either.

Just supplying some more food for thought, Guhracie. Some forced major changes that have significantly diminished my enjoyment of the game, which could have and should have been choices instead.

Hamfast.8719:

The OP only cited Daily Achievements as one of several examples that ANet has been trending towards less choice.

Yeah, but some of those choices . . . were a lot like a blemish on the skin. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but getting rid of it might be preferable. The removal of Town Clothing was to remove a system which got only token amounts of support and was . . . just . . . look, it was barely more robust than the Personality system. Which has no effect anywhere except when you pick certain dialogue prompts.

Megaservers, as much as they are a problem and as much as they impacted how WvW is felt . . . was one thing I’m not going to say was a bad move entirely. It was perhaps the only logical move aside from doing server merges as other games eventually do – and is basically close to how Districts behaved in GW1. Now if only you could intentionally select a megaserver instance . . . we’d be right back at how GW1 behaved.

The revamp to Traits was an interesting idea, with some good points . . . and a lot of uncomfortable ones which results in a system a lot of people have expressed anything from disappointment to murderous rage over. I think it could have been done better, and that is all I care to say now.

NPE was a change which I don’t know if anyone was asking for (and can’t see why they would think to have the requested final product of it). It’s not terrible, but it is just . . . odd. Having played FF14 for three months, I don’t think there’s much difference in how a normal MMO handles it, and how NPE handles it anymore. Whether this is good or bad depends on your perspective – I feel it might have been done because players of those typical MMOs might just not be comfortable otherwise. Sort of like moving out of a place where the neighborhood association had lots of strict rules about the property and into a place where “no cops, no problem” seems to be the mantra.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Hamfast.8719:

The OP only cited Daily Achievements as one of several examples that ANet has been trending towards less choice.

Yeah, but some of those choices . . . were a lot like a blemish on the skin. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but getting rid of it might be preferable. The removal of Town Clothing was to remove a system which got only token amounts of support and was . . . just . . . look, it was barely more robust than the Personality system. Which has no effect anywhere except when you pick certain dialogue prompts.

But why did they have to make town clothes into a single piece? Fine, sell them as an outfit but allow them to be worn piece by piece (like armor from the store). Since they were designing a new wardrobe system anyway, they could have designed a system that offered the same choice (individual pieces of clothing “over” the armor) instead of less choice (which is the topic / issue).

Megaservers, as much as they are a problem and as much as they impacted how WvW is felt . . . was one thing I’m not going to say was a bad move entirely. It was perhaps the only logical move aside from doing server merges as other games eventually do – and is basically close to how Districts behaved in GW1. Now if only you could intentionally select a megaserver instance . . . we’d be right back at how GW1 behaved.

The biggest problem with the Megaserver is loss of individual server identity. But then people go into WvW and suddenly they’re part of a server they didn’t know was still there (as far as the rest of the game is concerned). People in chat talk about servers in regards to WvW and people respond “there are no servers”.

The revamp to Traits was an interesting idea, with some good points . . . and a lot of uncomfortable ones which results in a system a lot of people have expressed anything from disappointment to murderous rage over. I think it could have been done better, and that is all I care to say now.

I completely disagree with you here. They clearly wanted to force people to earn traits in content to avoid paying the increased (and ridiculous) cost in gold AND SP. Yet another tool for forcing people to play content. They shouldn’t have very specific things to get a trait and the alternate cost is too high.

If Anet is truly just trying to introduce players to content, create an incentive during leveling. Have players get mail or some other instruction that tells them if they try this content they will get a nice reward (once per account). There, now people will try the content if they want. There is some content that people won’t try no matter what you offer (sPvP) and there’s nothing any developer can or should do about that. Continually trying to railroad players into content is very frustrating, not fun.

NPE was a change which I don’t know if anyone was asking for (and can’t see why they would think to have the requested final product of it). It’s not terrible, but it is just . . . odd. Having played FF14 for three months, I don’t think there’s much difference in how a normal MMO handles it, and how NPE handles it anymore.

If you’re trying to say FF14 handles leveling the same as the NPE, no that is not “normal”. I have played almost every AAA MMO out there and “normal” is the same as it has always been: continual and gradual progress with every level, not some strange “save it up and then rush forward all at once” system.

Hamfast.8719:

Town Clothes. – Why can’t we still have them exactly as they were? Practically none of the old Town Clothes made the transition into Outfits anyway. They’re still with us, locked into an accursed Tonic format. So why can’t Town Clothes be restored, and keep Outfits for people who want a non-armor look in combat? They didn’t need to be completely removed!

It really hurt to lose the town clothes… Why was it not done better? A setting allowing the items in town clothes tab covering armor for those to who that is important, keeping the ability to make our own combinations.
Bit relatedly, the items really should’ve always been reclaimable, and I’m thinking that gem store armor should as well been. Or free to apply to the latter as the system is now.

What could have been…

Hamfast.8719:

Megaserver – Not everyone likes crowds and zergs. We started the game being given a choice of population density, and that choice was taken away from us. They could set up a 3-tier Megaserver system giving us Low Population, Medium Population, and High Population Megaservers. That way they could let let people play in crowd sizes that they chose at the start, but still arrange to make sure zones aren’t completely empty either.

I want to re-quote this for emphasis. The Megaserver change was a change which removed the choice of who, and how many people, you want to play with. Those of us who had paid to transfer to a smaller, more community based map, ( because zergs aren`t just boring, they`re usually irritating, for me at least) not only had our choice, our decisions in regards to something as fundamental as WHO WE PLAY WITH removed, we also had our previous choices, AND PURCHASES IF WE TRANSFERED, rendered null and void.

I understand that for a select few individuals that the megaservers can do no wrong, and that’s fine, but why, WHY, is EVERYONE forced into this system? If the “reason” for this system was honestly NOT “about the money” would it really kill you Anet to actually give players the choice to use your new “improved” system? Or are you too afraid that the actual majority of players would avoid it like the plague?

Djinn.9245:

But why did they have to make town clothes into a single piece? Fine, sell them as an outfit but allow them to be worn piece by piece (like armor from the store). Since they were designing a new wardrobe system anyway, they could have designed a system that offered the same choice (individual pieces of clothing “over” the armor) instead of less choice (which is the topic / issue).

I’m guessing because those were never ever meant to be armor and thus didn’t fit nicely into the armor system of Light/Medium/Heavy. Sure, it could possibly have been done, and I can think of at least three other ways but I don’t know what sort of constraints they were working under (time, or resources). Personally I would have just made a social set and an actual set, so you can wear whatever you like in the social set and that’s what everyone sees. Then have it not function that way in PvP/WvW.

And that’s how Terraria does it with their system.

The biggest problem with the Megaserver is loss of individual server identity. But then people go into WvW and suddenly they’re part of a server they didn’t know was still there (as far as the rest of the game is concerned). People in chat talk about servers in regards to WvW and people respond “there are no servers”.

Nope, no argument there. That’s completely the only problem I really see with how the servers were put together into the Megaserver system. Really needs a better way of integrating it to WvW, but since that would require potentially a problem of rewriting the way it works . . . we get to have this hybrid.

And before anyone says “lazy devs”, I can already tell you the headache it would be to try to dissolve that, refit it so there’s still three sides, and make it less likely you pick Red Team and your guildmates are on Blue Team . . . a worthy project? Sure. What don’t we get in exchange?

I completely disagree with you here. They clearly wanted to force people to earn traits in content to avoid paying the increased (and ridiculous) cost in gold AND SP. Yet another tool for forcing people to play content. They shouldn’t have very specific things to get a trait and the alternate cost is too high.

See, you’re not really completely in disagreement with me. I said the idea was good/interesting, but the execution is flawed. Really could have been done better, but it seems like they had an idea on paper and no time to really look at it closely.

If Anet is truly just trying to introduce players to content, create an incentive during leveling. Have players get mail or some other instruction that tells them if they try this content they will get a nice reward (once per account). There, now people will try the content if they want. There is some content that people won’t try no matter what you offer (sPvP) and there’s nothing any developer can or should do about that. Continually trying to railroad players into content is very frustrating, not fun.

I can tell you, right now, that would still get complaints posted here about how it was too invasive.

If you’re trying to say FF14 handles leveling the same as the NPE, no that is not “normal”.

No, I’m trying to say every MMO I’ve played has slowly and steadily introduced players to their skills until they have the full bit unlocked close to maximum level. EverQuest came to mind as well, because my ranger didn’t get some skills until the last 20% of the level range. One of these skills is darn near crucial for anyone in melee (Riposte).

FF14 has it worse than the NPE – the NPE doesn’t hold stuff hostage. FF14 held banking hostage, held equipment upgrades hostage, held the vaunted “you can change classes on the fly” hostage, and holds dungeon access hostage until you jump through an absurd amount of fetch quests for the storyline.

Earlier than EverQuest? Yeah, I didn’t have this sort of issue with things being slowly introduced and “you’re not trained enough to know how to kick at your foe (?!!) or block (?!!)”. . . yeah, game balance, sure, but . . . I need to level up to learn how to kick someone? Or to have the instinct to block incoming blows with a shield? But I’m all a-okay to forage for food and water from level 1, or track my enemies through the brush? But I’m not able to block.

Even the NPE isn’t that stupid.

I have played almost every AAA MMO out there and “normal” is the same as it has always been: continual and gradual progress with every level, not some strange “save it up and then rush forward all at once” system.

Most other recent MMOs also tend to have the bulk of your stats on your gear, and that being the real way you’re expected to progress. Again, pre-EverQuest was an exception. I almost miss those days until I remembered their love for non-consensual PvP.

Something naughteblonde posted crystallized something that’s been floating elusively about at the back of my brain for a while as discussion of the new dailies has gone on.

Daily achievements are a form of structure. The old ones provided somewhat less structure. The new ones provide somewhat more. The restrictions (i.e., the greater amount of structure) in the new dailies is primarily where you have to go to complete them.

Players in general use the dailies as a form of structure. That structure serves as motivation to play. Some people don’t mind the restriction in area within the daily structure. Some do. While that latter group can still go to the area of their choice and do the things they did before, there is now less structure in doing so. And, if they were using the old dailies as motivation (“Hey, I’ll get a reward!”), that’s now gone.

Thus, in order to continue playing where they want to, they have to provide their own motivation. For some, that’s not working out so well. Others will adjust over time, but are complaining in hopes their preferred structure will be reinstated.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Djinn.9245:

But why did they have to make town clothes into a single piece? Fine, sell them as an outfit but allow them to be worn piece by piece (like armor from the store). Since they were designing a new wardrobe system anyway, they could have designed a system that offered the same choice (individual pieces of clothing “over” the armor) instead of less choice (which is the topic / issue).

I’m guessing because those were never ever meant to be armor and thus didn’t fit nicely into the armor system of Light/Medium/Heavy.

I think you misunderstood what I wrote. Currently Town Clothes (Outfits) are worn over armor (i.e. you still gain the benefit of your armor but the appearance of the Outfit. Unlike the old way).

Instead of being forced to wear the complete outfit, you could have the choice of wearing single pieces of it over the armor.

The biggest problem with the Megaserver is loss of individual server identity. But then people go into WvW and suddenly they’re part of a server they didn’t know was still there (as far as the rest of the game is concerned). People in chat talk about servers in regards to WvW and people respond “there are no servers”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nope, no argument there. That’s completely the only problem I really see with how the servers were put together into the Megaserver system. Really needs a better way of integrating it to WvW, but since that would require potentially a problem of rewriting the way it works . . . we get to have this hybrid.

And before anyone says “lazy devs”, I can already tell you the headache it would be to try to dissolve that, refit it so there’s still three sides, and make it less likely you pick Red Team and your guildmates are on Blue Team . . . a worthy project? Sure. What don’t we get in exchange?

I call “lazy devs” for not doing it right in the first place. Its not like the megaserver needed to be in place for some specific date (like the content does).

I completely disagree with you here. They clearly wanted to force people to earn traits in content to avoid paying the increased (and ridiculous) cost in gold AND SP. Yet another tool for forcing people to play content. They shouldn’t have very specific things to get a trait and the alternate cost is too high.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

See, you’re not really completely in disagreement with me. I said the idea was good/interesting, but the execution is flawed. Really could have been done better, but it seems like they had an idea on paper and no time to really look at it closely.

Ok, so a generic idea of people “earning” their traits is not bad. Just the railroading and too high cost for the paying alternative are bad.

If Anet is truly just trying to introduce players to content, create an incentive during leveling. Have players get mail or some other instruction that tells them if they try this content they will get a nice reward (once per account). There, now people will try the content if they want. There is some content that people won’t try no matter what you offer (sPvP) and there’s nothing any developer can or should do about that. Continually trying to railroad players into content is very frustrating, not fun.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I can tell you, right now, that would still get complaints posted here about how it was too invasive.

You might be right, but an optional introduction to content for a reward is the least invasive method I can think of. And since Anet obviously wants to “encourage” players to do optional content, they should do it with a carrot rather than a stick.

If you’re trying to say FF14 handles leveling the same as the NPE, no that is not “normal”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, I’m trying to say every MMO I’ve played has slowly and steadily introduced players to their skills until they have the full bit unlocked close to maximum level. EverQuest came to mind as well, because my ranger didn’t get some skills until the last 20% of the level range. One of these skills is darn near crucial for anyone in melee (Riposte).

FF14 has it worse than the NPE – the NPE doesn’t hold stuff hostage. FF14 held banking hostage, held equipment upgrades hostage, held the vaunted “you can change classes on the fly” hostage, and holds dungeon access hostage until you jump through an absurd amount of fetch quests for the storyline.

K, I thought we were talking specifically about the way they hold back SP and then give you a bunch at once. There is more or less of what you’re talking about depending on the MMO.

Behellagh.1468:

It’s not that you have less choice, you have less freedom to ignore what the dailies are. Before you were able to simply play how you normally play and you would get at least some of the 12 dailies done within 30-60 minutes, unless you are a hard core PvP player.

But now you have to be keenly aware what the dailies are just to do three. If you normally don’t go into map X there is no way you could accidentally get the mining/lumbering/forging daily. If you’ve done all the Vistas why would you visit one in a specific region? Again if you don’t normally do map X you don’t know all the event spawn locations and frequency like the back of your hand. If you normally don’t do a particular boss event there isn’t a way accidentally get it.

And this is where players feel like they lost agency, they now, if they want AP the daily provides, must do specific activities rather than just stumbling over them. They are forced to choose now, 10 AP or playing how they like.

It’s not a shift to less choice but less freedom.

Some people see freedom and choice as similar. But beyond semantics I agree with your points 100%

IndigoSundown.5419:

Something naughteblonde posted crystallized something that’s been floating elusively about at the back of my brain for a while as discussion of the new dailies has gone on.

Daily achievements are a form of structure. The old ones provided somewhat less structure. The new ones provide somewhat more. The restrictions (i.e., the greater amount of structure) in the new dailies is primarily where you have to go to complete them.

Players in general use the dailies as a form of structure. That structure serves as motivation to play. Some people don’t mind the restriction in area within the daily structure. Some do. While that latter group can still go to the area of their choice and do the things they did before, there is now less structure in doing so. And, if they were using the old dailies as motivation (“Hey, I’ll get a reward!”), that’s now gone.

Thus, in order to continue playing where they want to, they have to provide their own motivation. For some, that’s not working out so well. Others will adjust over time, but are complaining in hopes their preferred structure will be reinstated.

So people who needed “structure” as motivation to “play the way they want” did what before being told exactly what zone to play in?

I disagree with your premise. If people don’t want to play any game activities unless the dailies instruct them to do so it sounds like they just don’t want to play the game.

Djinn.9245:

IndigoSundown.5419:

- snip -

So people who needed “structure” as motivation to “play the way they want” did what before being told exactly what zone to play in?

Presumably, they did their dailies in whatever zone they preferred. Liking certain zones/modes or disliking other zones/modes influences where one wants to play, not whether one chooses to play at all. Motivation to play at all is independent of those preferences.

Djinn.9245:

I disagree with your premise. If people don’t want to play any game activities unless the dailies instruct them to do so it sounds like they just don’t want to play the game.

Your final sentence and my premise are not mutually exclusive. Are you denying that the purpose of dailies is to motivate people to play, or that people are in fact playing to complete dailies? Are you also denying that some people log on only to do dailies, at least some of the time?

When a.net tries to make their PvP more desirable, they seem incapable of improving it without affecting PvE. PvE players complain about the affect.
Each attempt makes the PvP players smell potential new blood and they fill the forums with counter comments about PvE which they likely never play. Sadly, the net result is no new PvP players and angry PvE players even less likely to play PvP.
I don’t see what will make this pattern to stop.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Djinn.9245:

IndigoSundown.5419:

- snip -

So people who needed “structure” as motivation to “play the way they want” did what before being told exactly what zone to play in?

Presumably, they did their dailies in whatever zone they preferred. Liking certain zones/modes or disliking other zones/modes influences where one wants to play, not whether one chooses to play at all. Motivation to play at all is independent of those preferences.

This seems a bit wishy-washy: do they need structure in order to be motivated or not? And if some people require to be told exactly what to do in order to be motivated to play, this game wouldn’t have any players like that before the NPE and change to Dailies…

Djinn.9245:

I disagree with your premise. If people don’t want to play any game activities unless the dailies instruct them to do so it sounds like they just don’t want to play the game.

Your final sentence and my premise are not mutually exclusive. Are you denying that the purpose of dailies is to motivate people to play, or that people are in fact playing to complete dailies? Are you also denying that some people log on only to do dailies, at least some of the time?

I am speaking about playing all the time. And frankly these changes to Dailies have not motivated me to login more often. I used to accomplish my Dailies while I played. Now that I can’t, I sometimes don’t bother logging in when I normally would. I don’t feel like running around doing things I don’t want to do. And if I’m not going to do the Dailies anyway, why bother at all?