Guild Wars 2

Lishtenbird.2814:

pdavis.8031:

Thats about all I can think of at the moment. Please feel free to add to the list, but I believe those cover most of the arguments against this change. Thanks!

I’m honestly surprised you haven’t listed the main con concern voiced many times:

• The source of slower, but steady AP gain which came from simply playing the game has been removed. Now you have to go out of your way to get 10AP (and experience for alts), and cannot get 5-8AP by simply playing the game the way you want.

That’s why for a PvE player with his preferences (be it Tequatl and Wurm or dungeons and fractals or Silverwastes and Dry Top) it’s next to impossible to get any achievement points unless he goes out of his way. And I bet that PvE players who know what they like to play each evening or each weekend are the majority.

I believe that concern was covered under:
1) Causes players to experience parts of the game they may be unfamiliar/not enjoy. (i.e getting out of comfort zone.)
2) AP hunters need to be more deliberate when getting dailies.

Any other “con” can be expressed with either one, or both of those answers. Feeling like you need to go out of your way? See 1 and 2. What if I only play PvP? See 1. But I don’t like WvW? See 1. I need to get AP to get the next chest but don’t like to feel pressured? See 1 and 2…

And so on and so forth.

Also, If I remember the experience items gained from doing the dailies are account bound and can be transferred to an alt you want to level.

Thaddeus.4891:

How GW2 does? I don’t know. We will need to compare it to other game to really know. But you can’t just assume that the game don’t keep its player base because about 50% of their player only play through the story and dungeon only once. That’s what most ppl do in most of their games.

I do agree with you: I don’t know how GW2 is doing as far as player retention. AP is a pretty poor estimate, it’s just the only way I can think of to estimate it.

But I disagree with the part I quoted: I do not think we need to compare GW2 to other games. I think we need to look at the game’s revenue and whether it’s sustainable. Last I saw, the game was bringing in something along the lines of $80-90MM/year. That’s pretty good! But it’s also dropping. And yes, you’d expect it to drop. But still:

If the game has declining population, declining revenue, and no (announced) way to bring players back into the fold, that means declining levels of content and ambition, more obvious cash-grabs, etc.

MMOs, in general, don’t see rising populations over time. But it feels like, with the number of sales we’ve seen especially, ArenaNet is making a strong push to add more players. This is happening because ArenaNet has concluded that the game NEEDS MORE PLAYERS.

I’m not necessarily trying to make a point here, I’m just trying to remind everybody: the NPE, the new dailies, the log on rewards, the Living Story… the entire point of these things is to encourage players to keep the game installed and to jump in from time to time.

My hope is that this is a bridge to new content in the future and not just the recognition that you can’t sell cosmetic items to players who have uninstalled your game.

timmyf.1490:

The real problem is that this is a distraction from the reality. Here’s what your real problem is:

Player retention in this game is bad. I don’t know how bad, but given that having 3500 Achievement Points puts you in the top 10% should give you an idea. 90% of accounts on this game have less than 3500 AP.

80% have less than 1800 AP.

Do you know what the 50/50 split is? It’s somewhere around 800 AP.

If half of the accounts in the game don’t even have 800 AP, that’s a pretty good sign that player retention is not great. For a game that needs people logging in to buy gem store stuff in order to continue to earn revenue, that’s a disaster in waiting.

Now, you need the revenue, so this means you have a couple options: try to bring your old players back (expansion) or try to create new players (sales and retention).

That’s rather interesting by itself; however:

• How different is it from other games? Is 50% at 800AP worth of time good, bad or normal for a B2P MMO? How long is this 800AP in terms of time, is it people who’re not logging in or people who’re playing but so “inefficiently” that they rarely get AP?
• What is the main source of income, who are the people who pay most? Is it those who buy the game and desert it in a couple of hours, those 50% who play till 800AP regularly buying gold, or those 10% above 4300AP who’re loyally playing the game?

Now the other part: why are solutions self-exclusive?

• When solving one problem (new player retention), why is it important to punish the other part of the players (loyal/veterans)?
• NPE as an example: why can’t you have all that spoonfeeding gating on only till you get one character at 80, and turned off afterwards? That would achieve the goal but also make altoholics happy.
• Dailies as an example: why can’t you have large generic dailies (“kill 50” or even “100” mobs) along with specific ones, even without extra rewards? That way, you achieve the goal and lure players who log in for 20-30 minutes into doing different stuff (and improving your metrics!), but you make loyal players who only do what they want but for 2-3 hours (and improve your metrics!) as happy as they were before.

This ^ is what is called an “improvement” IMO – making the lacking aspects better, and not sacrificing the stuff which was good for one type of players in favour of others. That’s simply a shift of paradigm.

What if Anet’s considers their game design philosophy of having groups of players playing together in underpopulated maps more important than your game playing philosophy of getting rewards for doing anything you want?

…and I would perhaps be able to take you seriously if you posted suggestions like that without using hyperbolic, inflammatory phrases like “Play How I Want is Gone” or “Freedom is Gone.”

Swamurabi.7890:

What if Anet’s considers their game design philosophy of having groups of players playing together in underpopulated maps more important than your game playing philosophy of getting rewards for doing anything you want?

This is exactly what is happening. Since I (and other players) am not happy with their new and enforced game design philosophy, we make this kind of threads to alert them about possible consequences of the shift and to give them a hint on how to get the best of the both worlds and retain both types of (potentially paying) customers.

Why are you trying to ruin ArenaNet’s ability to Design How They Want? #designhowiwant ;-)

sighs Reminds me that I play this game less and less…I see outfits I like such as the Explorer Outfit, but avoid buying them simply because I know I’m getting close to quitting the game. The trait changes alone badly damaged my love of this game. I can deal with the NPE, the achievement changes, EVERYTHING other than the trait changes.

Not having to go out to do X for Y trait is what made this game fun, because I could still do what I wanted to, and make numerous amounts of alts since the power of my character and myself was easily obtainable, and I was able to discover new builds by trying things out with new classes with minimal money spent. Now I cannot without spending a fortune I DO NOT HAVE, and I’ve already maxed out the map 8 times total. I don’t foresee me paying Anet anymore…they’ve gone the way of SWG.

timmyf.1490:

munkiman.3068:

3/4 total, fairly specific, daily tasks is a step back, no matter how you look at it.

Sure. But they are making a blatantly obvious attempt to get players who only do PvE to participate in the other game modes. Look at the “PvP 101” segment on Points of Interest for an additional example.

You can feel however you like about that, but in the end, it’s 3/12, not 3/4. It’s only by player choice that it becomes 3/4.

And that is “playing how you want.” You can get your dailies only in PvE. Or only in WvW. Or only in PvP. It may not be EASY, but it’s POSSIBLE. (And reasonably possible, it seems.)

munkiman.3068:

If they actually sat down in these design meetings and came up with new and interesting ways to get players to play certain content instead of trying to funnel players around through the daily reward program, they would actually see much better results and far less complaints. These band-aids are getting tiresome.

Now this I agree with completely. The problem is that changing the dailies to try to encourage these other game modes is a relatively easy change. And let’s be real: PvE is doing okay (at least comparatively). The goal is to encourage WvW and PvP.

There’s two huge problems, though. 1) How do you fix them? 2) How long will that take?

I haven’t heard a whole lot of solutions to #1 that don’t make #2 unmanageable.

The point was they’ve done this in the past with poor results. The initial intro of the dailies was more like this. Players that have no interest in PvP simply aren’t going to go to that mode.

I’m not interested in dabbling in the semantics of the play how you want quote though. The daily promotion of x-mode play has continued to prove highly unsuccessful, not only in GW2, but many other games. Possible and easy aren’t up for debate either, limiting player choice is more the factor. For example, there are only a couple options for world boss daily for my playtime, which makes the chances of me ever getting that one done, very limited.

There have actually been some decent suggestions on activities. One that was popular in the original game was Nicholas, who would exchange common items found in an area and trade for less common ones. Weekly bounties that you could hunt down also seems to be a popular one. How time-consuming those ideas might be, i have no idea, but they tend to be fairly successful, at least in PvE. But, then again, it really isn’t up to the players to come up with ideas to spread people around.

Lishtenbird.2814:

snip

To put into some perspective:

We have 115 or so guild members. Maybe 35 or so have played since early release. Of those 35 who have played since early release, 20 or so still play daily, the other 15 are every other day or so players. Of those 20, I would say 7-8 of us have over 10,000 AP, of those 7-8, 4 of us have over 15,000. Now, of the 13 others that still play daily, 10 of them have under 5000 AP. And here’s what’s extra interesting. Of those 10 with under 5000AP, 7 are under 2000AP. All 7 players have 3000+ hrs in-game time. I have ~15,000AP and my /age is 1600hrs.

You can legitimately play this game full-time and simply not get AP. Or not care to get AP or what. Personally I hunt for AP when I play. That’s my play-style. But people can and have played far longer thanI and still have under 2000AP. They may get the random daily done here and there, but most of their time is spent leveling up characters, maybe RPing, doing a random dungeon here and there, etc. It’s been said before and it still is true: AP is not an indication of experience or length of play, but rather play-style.

Draknar.5748:

Lishtenbird.2814:

snip

To put into some perspective:

We have 115 or so guild members. Maybe 35 or so have played since early release. Of those 35 who have played since early release, 20 or so still play daily, the other 15 are every other day or so players. Of those 20, I would say 7-8 of us have over 10,000 AP, of those 7-8, 4 of us have over 15,000. Now, of the 13 others that still play daily, 10 of them have under 5000 AP. And here’s what’s extra interesting. Of those 10 with under 5000AP, 7 are under 2000AP. All 7 players have 3000+ hrs in-game time. I have ~15,000AP and my /age is 1600hrs.

You can legitimately play this game full-time and simply not get AP. Or not care to get AP or what. Personally I hunt for AP when I play. That’s my play-style. But people can and have played far longer thanI and still have under 2000AP. They may get the random daily done here and there, but most of their time is spent leveling up characters, maybe RPing, doing a random dungeon here and there, etc. It’s been said before and it still is true: AP is not an indication of experience or length of play, but rather play-style.

Yeah, but if the 50% point is under 800AP, that’s pretty significant. I mean 800 isn’t all that hard to hit, even without trying at all.

Draknar inspired me. This should be fun. I went and took my guild’s leaderboard info, put it into Excel, and ran a histogram. I should note that we have a bit over 200 members. We do not remove members for inactivity. Many of our members are from our Allies program, members who do not represent us except for certain activities. They are included in these numbers, of course.

We have probably 20-30 active/day, 40-50 active regularly. I’d say 100+ roster spots haven’t logged in since 2013. Half of that probably quit within the first 4-6 months of the game. This also includes a substantial number of new players and second accounts.

Practically every single currently active player who hasn’t just bought the game in the past 6 months is represented within the 90% and 80% brackets.

Again, I don’t want to say that APs represent skill, time investment, or anything else, I just think the numbers are interesting. I’d LOVE to see this data for other guilds.

I’m in another guild that’s larger and does a ton of map-spam recruiting. I ran a histogram for them. They have just over 400 players. Same basic story: overwhelmingly representation in the 70-90% range.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a high quit rate, of course. But it does seem like the players we think of as “active” all have pretty high APs.

I’d love to see one of these for a guild that kicks players for inactivity. A TTS guild would be a really interesting indicator.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Swamurabi.7890:

What if Anet’s considers their game design philosophy of having groups of players playing together in underpopulated maps more important than your game playing philosophy of getting rewards for doing anything you want?

This is exactly what is happening. Since I (and other players) am not happy with their new and enforced game design philosophy, we make this kind of threads to alert them about possible consequences of the shift and to give them a hint on how to get the best of the both worlds and retain both types of (potentially paying) customers.

GW1 turned into a large number of players congregating into a very small number of places, with a large number of places having very minimal number of players.

As the game ages, there’s a huge difference between new and old players. Something that could discourage new players from continued play. By having dailies that temporarily move older players on maps with newer players, you won’t get the toxicity that was the Queensdale champ train. Plus some of those older players might decide to stay and help some of the newer players advance.

I think if there’s a choice between do what Anet wants for rewards or do whatever you want and get the same rewards, most players would choose the easier method. But what is easiest for the player is not necessarily what is best for the game in the long run.

Last night I was in Iron Marches for the 4 event achievement and there were players pointing out events that were active in chat. Other than World Bosses or champ trains, that’s something I haven’t seen since launch.

Also I was in Queensdale and was working on farming resources and saw another player who was on their way to an event. They were struggling with some wasps. I changed my route, helped them with the wasps and escorted them to the event. After the event I went on my farming ways. Didn’t take more than a couple minutes of my time. If I was playing how I wanted to play I’d have never been there.

I think Anet gets satisfaction from players playing how they want, but they get more from players helping and teaming up with other players.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Since many are still focusing on “PHIW means you get best gear” and ignoring everything else, added the following to OP:

Of course it’s not only about “most powerful rewards” (even if enjoyment is the best reward you can get from a game), but about the overall feeling of freedom the game had – which definitely existed and which is the reason “Play How I Want” quote became so popular and went far beyond the meaning of “get BiS gear anywhere” in the community.

People misquoting, perverting, or twisting another’s words to mean something other than what was actually said in order to have something to justify complaints is an example of dishonesty, not validity of those complaints.

I share many of those complaints. That doesn’t mean that they have anything to do with Colin’s quote. By tying the complaints to such a patently false argument it makes some very real issues seem like dishonest whinings, discrediting the concerns of anyone who subscribes to the criticisms.

Swamurabi.7890:

By having dailies that temporarily move older players on maps with newer players, you won’t get the toxicity that was the Queensdale champ train.

You haven’t seen the queensdale event train when that daily was on, did you? New players didn’t even have a chance to tag events before a zerg showed up from nearest waypoint and trampled everything underfoot.

Astralporing.1957:

Swamurabi.7890:

By having dailies that temporarily move older players on maps with newer players, you won’t get the toxicity that was the Queensdale champ train.

You haven’t seen the queensdale event train when that daily was on, did you? New players didn’t even have a chance to tag events before a zerg showed up from nearest waypoint and trampled everything underfoot.

Completing “Queensdale event completer” on my alt required lighting reflexes and situation awareness – things I never needed in Queensdale before. I don’t think I managed to tag boar after doing the pre, though.

timmyf.1490:

We have probably 20-30 active/day, 40-50 active regularly. I’d say 100+ roster spots haven’t logged in since 2013. Half of that probably quit within the first 4-6 months of the game. This also includes a substantial number of new players and second accounts.

Practically every single currently active player who hasn’t just bought the game in the past 6 months is represented within the 90% and 80% brackets.

I’d say mine looks about the same, except that we’re doing seasonal cleaning.

Thaddeus.4891:

That’s between 100-200 hours. That’s a lot of hours for most games.

That’s a lot of hours for SINGLE PLAYER games. For games with multiplayer components, that’s laughably few. In one of my favorite games of ever, having only 100 hours of play will get you booted from most lobbies for being a noob (unless it’s a noob-only lobby).

NewTrain.7549:

Thaddeus.4891:

That’s between 100-200 hours. That’s a lot of hours for most games.

That’s a lot of hours for SINGLE PLAYER games. For games with multiplayer components, that’s laughably few. In one of my favorite games of ever, having only 100 hours of play will get you booted from most lobbies for being a noob (unless it’s a noob-only lobby).

Actually I think you’ll find that most people who try an MMO don’t last 100 hours in most of them. That’s why devs keep trying to retain more. Even WoW revamped their opening because too many people weren’t sticking with the game long term.

Playing since beta and still waiting for the GUILD vs GUILD feature in Guild Wars 2. I hope it will come eventually … though probably way to late as most of wvw guilds are gone or players left

GW2 is the best game with realm vs realm system on the market since release and still the biggest pearl that should be taken into main focus by ANET as it isnt polished as it should.
This game had an insane potential, now ANET has china market and probably does not … care anymore

NewTrain.7549:

Thaddeus.4891:

That’s between 100-200 hours. That’s a lot of hours for most games.

That’s a lot of hours for SINGLE PLAYER games. For games with multiplayer components, that’s laughably few. In one of my favorite games of ever, having only 100 hours of play will get you booted from most lobbies for being a noob (unless it’s a noob-only lobby).

Did you read my post or you pick that sentence and freak out? I said EXACTLY THAT. Most ppl play MMO like they play a single player RPG. Even when they join a guild, they stay in their corner, complete the storyline, do a couple dungeons, get some get and that’s it, they are out of the game, and right into the next one. I was like that with WoW and SWOTOR. I was in 3 different PvE guild in GW2 and it was the same kitten for all three. About 50-60% of the players were never mixing with the rest, played 100-200 hours and never came back.

They are single player gamers that try out MMO to get that single player rpg feeling. Whatever you do, you won’t keep them in the game, that’s not what they search.

lordkrall.7241:

I always wonder about people that always brings up the whole “Play as you want” thingy.

Where would you draw the line?
Should I be allowed to sit around in DR and chat all day and get everything in the game? If not, why not? Maybe that is how I want to play? Shouldn’t I, based on your adamant stance on the play as you want statement, be allowed to do just that and still get everything in the game?

This is a disingenuous argument and you know it. And you’re doing this on purpose to try to lessen the legitimacy of constructive criticism. People are asking to view A vista, not one in Kryta or do 4 events in general, not just in Iron Marches. The amount of effort to obtain rewards has not changed (only the location said effort is taking place in )whilst still allowing people a choice. It’s a completely reasonable compromise. But you’re being purposefully hyperbolic and trying to equate things that are in no way shape or form equal.

Lothirieth.3408:

lordkrall.7241:

I always wonder about people that always brings up the whole “Play as you want” thingy.

Where would you draw the line?
Should I be allowed to sit around in DR and chat all day and get everything in the game? If not, why not? Maybe that is how I want to play? Shouldn’t I, based on your adamant stance on the play as you want statement, be allowed to do just that and still get everything in the game?

This is a disingenuous argument and you know it. And you’re doing this on purpose to try to lessen the legitimacy of constructive criticism. People are asking to view A vista, not one in Kryta or do 4 events in general, not just in Iron Marches. The amount of effort to obtain rewards has not changed (only the location said effort is taking place in )whilst still allowing people a choice. It’s a completely reasonable compromise. But you’re being purposefully hyperbolic and trying to equate things that are in no way shape or form equal.

The purpose of the daily system is to get people out into other areas of the game. If people want to make the daily system be some sort of checklist resulting in them being chores, then that’s entirely on the players. Just about all of the rewards from before were removed and sent to the daily login reward system. Players that want to do the dailies are rewarded by the new loot rewards that were added. Those farming AP now only have to do 3 achievements to get 10 AP.

Players are not being forced to do daily achievements. The achievements are all optional. Also, please don’t do the whole “well the game is optional” statement as it’s not an argument and doesn’t change the fact that the daily achievements are optional. You can adjust your play style if the individual rewards or AP is desirable to you. If you don’t want to get the AP, luckily there are very quick and easy achievements across the three game modes to minimize how “out of the way” you have to go to get AP.

Players can still play the game how they want like before. I’m starting to think that players do not understand what “play how they want” really means and instead think it means “reward me how I want”. They dislike that they’re forced to go to specific areas for the daily. Well, the achievements in the WvW sections have you go to, you guessed it, WvW. It seems none of them took the time to read what the intention of the daily system was in that article from January 2013 and also their blog recently.

lordkrall.7241:

I always wonder about people that always brings up the whole “Play as you want” thingy.

Where would you draw the line?
Should I be allowed to sit around in DR and chat all day and get everything in the game? If not, why not? Maybe that is how I want to play? Shouldn’t I, based on your adamant stance on the play as you want statement, be allowed to do just that and still get everything in the game?

Why do people feel the need to make absurd comparisons like this? Standing there is not playing. Although, logging in isn’t either.

Swamurabi.7890:

I think Anet gets satisfaction from players playing how they want, but they get more from players helping and teaming up with other players.

Under the old way of doing daily, I would come upon an event and do it with the few other players around. We helped each other.

Under the new way of doing daily, I see someone call an event. Then a big zerg of many dozen players come up to do the event, following mindlessly the NPC and killing mindlessly any mobs foolish enough to come too close to the blob of players. I certainly don’t have the feeling of “helping and teaming up with other players” anymore….

All that did was to bring the zerg of WvWvW’s daily to PvE’s daily.

Blanche Neige.7241:

Swamurabi.7890:

I think Anet gets satisfaction from players playing how they want, but they get more from players helping and teaming up with other players.

Under the old way of doing daily, I would come upon an event and do it with the few other players around. We helped each other.

Under the new way of doing daily, I see someone call an event. Then a big zerg of many dozen players come up to do the event, following mindlessly the NPC and killing mindlessly any mobs foolish enough to come too close to the blob of players. I certainly don’t have the feeling of “helping and teaming up with other players” anymore….

All that did was to bring the zerg of WvWvW’s daily to PvE’s daily.

Getting the event daily, I hit 1 and hope I actually tag something to get credit for the event. Particularly frustrating with my Ele since the cast times are longer even for skil one.

Vayne.8563:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Vayne.8563:

Why is it that people who criticize assume they’re right while people who like stuff are wrong? Why isn’t it possible that someone can like a game without being a white knight?

The idea of play how you want has been taken so far out of it’s original context, it’s lost all it’s meaning. Anet was pretty clear on what they meant.

In most games, you level by going quest hub to quest hub and that’s pretty much what you do, until you get to a high enough level to go to the next quest hub, afterwhich you do dungeons then you raid. That’s the PvE experience of most themepark MMOs.

Anet wanted to be different, and this game is different. You can jump into WvW. You can level in Edge of the Mists. You can now level in PvP. You can craft. You can do a bunch of everything. You can never leave Queensdale if you like and still make max level. Hell someone leveled to max in the tutorial.

That’s what Anet meant and it continues to be true to this day.

I think you missed the point. One step forward two steps back.

I didn’t miss the point. Other people in the thread are commenting on play how you want, and I wanted to stop that.

The one step forward two back thing is not fact, it’s opinion. Everyone is entitled to believe what they want.

I completely agree, I don’t see anything wrong with the changes OP brought up.

IMO the changes were for the better. It’s like we have megaservers and people complain that everyone in bunched together or things are too easy, but at the same time if we don’t have megaservers people will complain that the game is too empty.

The only point I can agree with is the Exploration thing at the early levels. However there is a counter argument for everything. When we didn’t have the arrows we had some new players complaining that they were confused on what to do in the beginning of the game.

The great thing about the arrows is that they don’t require you to do anything, you can even turn them off.

munkiman.3068:

timmyf.1490:

munkiman.3068:

3/4 total, fairly specific, daily tasks is a step back, no matter how you look at it.

Sure. But they are making a blatantly obvious attempt to get players who only do PvE to participate in the other game modes. Look at the “PvP 101” segment on Points of Interest for an additional example.

You can feel however you like about that, but in the end, it’s 3/12, not 3/4. It’s only by player choice that it becomes 3/4.

And that is “playing how you want.” You can get your dailies only in PvE. Or only in WvW. Or only in PvP. It may not be EASY, but it’s POSSIBLE. (And reasonably possible, it seems.)

munkiman.3068:

If they actually sat down in these design meetings and came up with new and interesting ways to get players to play certain content instead of trying to funnel players around through the daily reward program, they would actually see much better results and far less complaints. These band-aids are getting tiresome.

Now this I agree with completely. The problem is that changing the dailies to try to encourage these other game modes is a relatively easy change. And let’s be real: PvE is doing okay (at least comparatively). The goal is to encourage WvW and PvP.

There’s two huge problems, though. 1) How do you fix them? 2) How long will that take?

I haven’t heard a whole lot of solutions to #1 that don’t make #2 unmanageable.

The point was they’ve done this in the past with poor results. The initial intro of the dailies was more like this. Players that have no interest in PvP simply aren’t going to go to that mode.

Actually…. they do: they enter a game, die, and then leave. This further reinforces their dislike for that game mode. Not exactly what ANet was aiming for I’m guessing.

Nokaru.7831:

“Play how I want” is just some entitled community drivel that’s chanted to justify, “I don’t like this, change it because [reasons].” This is a game, and by the definition of “playing the game” you are playing by (and therefore confined to) the rules set forth by this game.

Play the game, or don’t; but you don’t make the rules unless you make the game.

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

I have to disagree with the OP about dailies. They’re headed in the right direction. A daily should be something you have to actively pursue, not something that just miraculously finishes without having even looked at the list. Previously, there were very few times I even looked at dailies unless they weren’t finished an hour or so before reset.

dank.3680:

Nokaru.7831:

“Play how I want” is just some entitled community drivel that’s chanted to justify, “I don’t like this, change it because [reasons].” This is a game, and by the definition of “playing the game” you are playing by (and therefore confined to) the rules set forth by this game.

Play the game, or don’t; but you don’t make the rules unless you make the game.

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

It also referred specifically to getting the most powerful gear, not doing dailies, cosmetics, etc.

dank.3680:

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

Yes, but constantly changing the meaning out of context, that’s what the players do. These days it seems best to just simply say nothing as a game developer.

rhapsody.3615:

I have to disagree with the OP about dailies. They’re headed in the right direction. A daily should be something you have to actively pursue, not something that just miraculously finishes without having even looked at the list. Previously, there were very few times I even looked at dailies unless they weren’t finished an hour or so before reset.

So basically they should be a chore you need to do, got it. The point was the old way didn’t feel like one, but ok.

Regardless, there is more meat to the OP than dailies, which people are sort of glossing over and playing semantics with. The point being there is a lot of back-peddling and/or iteration that seems to speak to player retention and that’s fair. However, they are really between a rock and a hard place. Some of the bigger flaws aren’t easily solved and this patchwork of just give the players more stuff isn’t really helping matters.

While the only problem i really have with the new dailies is the limits, it continually shows to me that it isn’t all that creative. I’m guessing it takes them an exuberant amount of time to make these minor changes, which is a REALLY big problem in mmo terms.

Sitting here, i’m at an utter loss as to how to budget fixes for some of the bigger problems in the game. Things like being frustrated when you do a heart, that says do X, when X doesn’t exist as an option. Going to a trainer that does absolutely nothing, no matter what level you are (why are these still in the game again?). The camera, the extremely limited additions to the game itself, the lack of communication (both inside and outside of the game), the rather poor tutorial which leaves the player guessing or moves them in the wrong direction, the dumbing down of the NPE, the trait system that still lingers. I could actually go on and on about new player experience with the game as i’ve actually sat down with several brand new players and watched them struggle. It makes me sad and it makes new players mostly frustrated…

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

Coulter.2315:

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

But…. they actually can. If they’d stop reducing the number of dailies for artificial reasons, there are plenty of things to please everyone, or at least most of everyone.

Coulter.2315:

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

Those dailies? Most certainly can’t. But by making them more general, or adding more choices, they could make them fit far more playstyles, and thus please more people.

Carighan.6758:

dank.3680:

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

Yes, but constantly changing the meaning out of context, that’s what the players do. These days it seems best to just simply say nothing as a game developer.

And people wonder why Anet doesn’t talk to us before hand about what they are working on…

Guhracie.3419:

Coulter.2315:

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

But…. they actually can. If they’d stop reducing the number of dailies for artificial reasons, there are plenty of things to please everyone, or at least most of everyone.

Dailies are themselves artificial. They exist to offer incentives for stepping outside of one’s norm.

And no they can’t. There is nothing that can be done that will, “please everyone all of the time,” as the person you quoted said.

Ashen.2907:

Guhracie.3419:

Coulter.2315:

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

But…. they actually can. If they’d stop reducing the number of dailies for artificial reasons, there are plenty of things to please everyone, or at least most of everyone.

Dailies are themselves artificial. They exist to offer incentives for stepping outside of one’s norm.

And no they can’t. There is nothing that can be done that will, “please everyone all of the time,” as the person you quoted said.

….yes, and I acknowledged this by saying “most of everyone.”

The whole game is artificial, by that reasoning. Nice cherry-picking of my overall point.

Carighan.6758:

dank.3680:

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

Yes, but constantly changing the meaning out of context, that’s what the players do. These days it seems best to just simply say nothing as a game developer.

Wrong, this is why we have this pseudo cluster we have now. While the game should tell the players generally about changes to the game and the future changes planned, this is not Arenas strategy. I think this policy is in place (it was even in gw days, really) because we simply cannot understand the industry or the limits placed on them, both in time and simply in budget. This is a flaw of the industry and also a flaw of the tools needed to deliver, both of which are out of anyone’s hands, so to speak. Do they have content tools to deliver stuff in a better timetable? Probably not.

No one, and i mean literally, no one complains while they are enjoying the game (as a matter of fact, the launch of several games, including this one, the forums were basically DEAD). I’m also an anomaly, like maybe many others here (maybe even all of us reading this) in that offering feedback makes sense (to us, either good or bad), even if it’s utterly impossible for anet to “go with it”. But, end of the day, it’s not up to us to improve the game, it’s up to the devs, who get paid to improve it. Positive or negative feedback, while invaluable, is constantly met with budget constraints, available staff, time tables and previously planned things in the works. It’s always what is perceived as “best for the game, overall”. Sadly, that’s not what we generally see here, at least from long-term player perspective. That’s just it too, “what we see”…

There are 2 big problems i perceive here. First is, they game is too big, devs really can’t make the game they want to play, there is just too much at stake, they make the game that looks better with statistics. Second, and i mean this in a good way, is it’s grown to fast for management. Which is such a typical scenario in so many areas of business.

This might be straying off-topic, but it’s pretty much how i see why we keep getting what we do and why people feel it’s so out of touch from the original intent.

Guhracie.3419:

Ashen.2907:

Guhracie.3419:

Coulter.2315:

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

But…. they actually can. If they’d stop reducing the number of dailies for artificial reasons, there are plenty of things to please everyone, or at least most of everyone.

Dailies are themselves artificial. They exist to offer incentives for stepping outside of one’s norm.

And no they can’t. There is nothing that can be done that will, “please everyone all of the time,” as the person you quoted said.

….yes, and I acknowledged this by saying “most of everyone.”

The whole game is artificial, by that reasoning. Nice cherry-picking of my overall point.

Within the context of the game dailies are artificial.

I didnt cherry pick. You said specifically that they can please everyone all of the time.

samo.1054:

+1
Facts. I’ve been saying that “play how you want” died at the moment when the new Trait System was introduced. Worst call I have seen in MMORPGs in many years.

But what bothers me the most about all this, that there’s people there in Anet that keep making terrible calls for the game, that most people really dislike and even when the community makes a thread with 3400 replies and 160 000 views about how bad a certain change is, Anet refuses to do anything except adding more designs that ruin the game even further.

:S

Couldn’t agree more. It’s hard for me to justify buying stuff from the gem store when I only anticipate the game getting worse.

Ashen.2907:

Guhracie.3419:

Ashen.2907:

Guhracie.3419:

Coulter.2315:

Can you imagine there is something YOU like to do that another person doesn’t?
Can you imagine there is something another person likes doing that YOU don’t?
If you can then you must see that dailies cannot please everyone all the time.

But…. they actually can. If they’d stop reducing the number of dailies for artificial reasons, there are plenty of things to please everyone, or at least most of everyone.

Dailies are themselves artificial. They exist to offer incentives for stepping outside of one’s norm.

And no they can’t. There is nothing that can be done that will, “please everyone all of the time,” as the person you quoted said.

….yes, and I acknowledged this by saying “most of everyone.”

The whole game is artificial, by that reasoning. Nice cherry-picking of my overall point.

Within the context of the game dailies are artificial.

I didnt cherry pick. You said specifically that they can please everyone all of the time.

Looks like Guhracie said, most of everyone, twice? Hmm. Maybe you mistyped?

Lishtenbird.2814:

The game screamed “play how I want” and “freedom” back then, and now it screams “fool-proof”, “gated”, “spoonfed”.

No, it really didn’t.

I can’t get the Balthazar backpack skin by playing how I want. I can’t get fractal skins by playing how I want. I can’t get dungeon skins by playing how I want. I can’t get jumping puzzle rewards for playing how I want. I can’t get the new skins from Silverwastes or the bug weapons in Dry Top by playing how I want. I couldn’t even do all the dailies and monthlies before by playing how I want.

This game has never (caveat: since I started playing, well over a year ago) been about getting everything by playing how I want.

What it has had is the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want. Just like the quote says. It has never represented otherwise, and has never been otherwise.

If it cannot match up to your subjective standards for what you want it to be like, that is not the fault of the game, nor is it “going back” on their vision.

dank.3680:

Nokaru.7831:

“Play how I want” is just some entitled community drivel that’s chanted to justify, “I don’t like this, change it because [reasons].” This is a game, and by the definition of “playing the game” you are playing by (and therefore confined to) the rules set forth by this game.

Play the game, or don’t; but you don’t make the rules unless you make the game.

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

It was a main selling point. I agree with you there. Which is why I’m often nonplussed over how many people try to twist it to mean something it didn’t. Two, three years later, out of context, people try to make it sound like it means that I should be able to get specific rewards by doing anything I choose to do. That’s not how it was at launch and that’s not how it is now.

At launch, if you specifically wanted armor from a dungeon, you had to do that dungeon. Now you can do that dungeon or PvP for that set.

When laurels were put in the game, we had to do dailies to get the laurels. Now we can just log in.

The new changes give you more and better rewards for doing specific content, and the only thing they don’t do it give you more achievement points for doing what you want.

Achievement points are a nicety. You can play this game and ignore achievements completely. But in the old method of doing dailies, for me to get 10 achievement points in a day, I definitely could not play how I want.

That may still be true. However, I’m more likely to find 3 things I can do with relatively little effort now to get those 10 points, than before.

People seem to be confusing the idea that the old daily reward is being withheld from us. We get that without doing anything.

In the old system I spent a lot more time doing random stuff to get a couple of achievement points. Now I can do what I want MORE..because getting 10 points takes me less time.

Filaha.1678:

Lishtenbird.2814:

The game screamed “play how I want” and “freedom” back then, and now it screams “fool-proof”, “gated”, “spoonfed”.

No, it really didn’t.

I can’t get the Balthazar backpack skin by playing how I want. I can’t get fractal skins by playing how I want. I can’t get dungeon skins by playing how I want. I can’t get jumping puzzle rewards for playing how I want. I can’t get the new skins from Silverwastes or the bug weapons in Dry Top by playing how I want. I couldn’t even do all the dailies and monthlies before by playing how I want.

This game has never (caveat: since I started playing, well over a year ago) been about getting everything by playing how I want.

What it has had is the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want. Just like the quote says. It has never represented otherwise, and has never been otherwise.

If it cannot match up to your subjective standards for what you want it to be like, that is not the fault of the game, nor is it “going back” on their vision.

Vayne.8563:

dank.3680:

Nokaru.7831:

“Play how I want” is just some entitled community drivel that’s chanted to justify, “I don’t like this, change it because [reasons].” This is a game, and by the definition of “playing the game” you are playing by (and therefore confined to) the rules set forth by this game.

Play the game, or don’t; but you don’t make the rules unless you make the game.

Actually “Play how I want” was a main selling point for GW2 and did not just come from thin air, it is a Dev quote- look it up.

It was a main selling point. I agree with you there. Which is why I’m often nonplussed over how many people try to twist it to mean something it didn’t. Two, three years later, out of context, people try to make it sound like it means that I should be able to get specific rewards by doing anything I choose to do. That’s not how it was at launch and that’s not how it is now.

At launch, if you specifically wanted armor from a dungeon, you had to do that dungeon. Now you can do that dungeon or PvP for that set.

When laurels were put in the game, we had to do dailies to get the laurels. Now we can just log in.

The new changes give you more and better rewards for doing specific content, and the only thing they don’t do it give you more achievement points for doing what you want.

Achievement points are a nicety. You can play this game and ignore achievements completely. But in the old method of doing dailies, for me to get 10 achievement points in a day, I definitely could not play how I want.

That may still be true. However, I’m more likely to find 3 things I can do with relatively little effort now to get those 10 points, than before.

People seem to be confusing the idea that the old daily reward is being withheld from us. We get that without doing anything.

In the old system I spent a lot more time doing random stuff to get a couple of achievement points. Now I can do what I want MORE..because getting 10 points takes me less time.

Well said, Filaha and Vayne. Completely agree.

Filaha.1678:

What it has had is the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want. Just like the quote says. It has never represented otherwise, and has never been otherwise.

“Top equipment” would be ascended gear which can only be obtained by crafting it for yourself. So, no, it never had the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want.

Deamhan.9538:

“Top equipment” would be ascended gear which can only be obtained by crafting it for yourself. So, no, it never had the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want.

Or doing world events.
Or doing Fractals.
Or doing WvW.

So basically doing most things in the game (except PvP, where it doesn’t even matter).

EDIT: Oh, apparently you can actually ALSO get them from PvP. So apparently you can get them for doing a grand total of everything in the game.

lordkrall.7241:

Deamhan.9538:

“Top equipment” would be ascended gear which can only be obtained by crafting it for yourself. So, no, it never had the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want.

Or doing world events.
Or doing Fractals.
Or doing WvW.

So basically doing most things in the game (except PvP, where it doesn’t even matter).

You can also get ascended armor from pvp chest, but that’s never been the real problem. They just want it to be delivered at their door.

BlueBoy.1236:

lordkrall.7241:

Deamhan.9538:

“Top equipment” would be ascended gear which can only be obtained by crafting it for yourself. So, no, it never had the ability to get the top equipment by playing how you want.

Or doing world events.
Or doing Fractals.
Or doing WvW.

So basically doing most things in the game (except PvP, where it doesn’t even matter).

You can also get ascended armor from pvp chest, but that’s never been the real problem. They just want it to be delivered at their door.

Shhh careful. ANet might think this is a great idea and start throwing them into login rewards.