Guild Wars 2

This game is just an ever evolving contradiction. They’ve always advertised this game as a game where you choose your pace and playstyle, but with each new announcement, it becomes more and more of a game they want you to play their way.

It amazes me how much effort they’ve put into preventing people from letting them farm. An over-aggressive diminishing returns system is one thing, but now they are even going so far as to drastically reduce any bonuses you have toward farming. Not only that, but new gear will now be gated not only by your reduced effectiveness at farming but also by the arbitrary time limits they’ve put on making new materials.

Is anyone else reminded of Bloomberg and his incessant nannying of the NY populace? Because some people are getting fat off fast food and soda, he changes laws to ban trans fats and large soft drinks at the cost of the enjoyment of responsible adults. Because some people think MF and CoF are ruining their enjoyment of the game, the coddlers decided to make them so bad, people no longer use them. What a joke.

While I agree with the farming bit, I disagree with the MF bit. Yes, solo players should be allowed to farm as much as they want, if that is how they want to play. No one should HAVE to farm, but you should be able to if you want.

That said, MF affects more than just the solo player, so it’s a different beast. You are giving up group friendly stats for self-only stats, which means the team pays the price for your own rewards. That can’t be lumped together with the farming in terms of “play your way”

All games, with the exception of those where the players create the content, are ‘play their way.’ They all have rules, end points, certain places the devs want you to go or be at a given time. ‘Play your way’ has always been an illusion. It is true within limits, but only within the limits of the rules set by the game makers.

I’m not a farmer, so I really can’t speak to the farming issue. Yes, I run around gathering mats and such, but not in the way a ‘true farmer’ goes about doing their thing. That is probably a key difference in results.

As for the time locks on new gear, I can completely see their reasoning behind this, and can understand it. Am I the happiest about it? No. Can I live with it? Sure. The gear isn’t locking you out of doing anything. Its not like there’s content ‘waiting for you’ that you can’t play without it. So, to me, its not a huge deal to have to wait a bit to be able to craft it to begin with; however it does give me something else on my todo list each day.

Tolmos.8395:

That said, MF affects more than just the solo player, so it’s a different beast. You are giving up group friendly stats for self-only stats, which means the team pays the price for your own rewards. That can’t be lumped together with the farming in terms of “play your way”

You said yourself, if people want to play solo, they should be able to. Just because there are a handful of bad players who can’t hold their weight with MF gear in dungeons, all players everywhere should be punished? Grouping is entirely within your own control, as you can clearly see with circle-zerking CoF scrubs. If you’re so serous about someone’s gear in a dungeon, make them ping it. And if they are constantly weighing you down, boot them. Your minor inconveniences should not constitute a major inconvenience to everyone.

Technically, you can do whatever you want. Play however you want. Are you always going to be ideal for everything in game? Probably not.
You can still farm, but after awhile you don’t get as great of rewards. You don’t NEED the new gear that they’ll release in order to play the game.

There are plenty of “sandbox” games out there that you can truly play your way. MMORPG’s are and always will be full of strong restrictions and rules for the sake of the majority’s enjoyment. They are trying to minimize the path of least resistance that has been tunnel visioning one dungeon and spread people out to enjoy more content.

This is a good thing, unless you enjoy spending dozens of hours speed farming the same dungeon over and over.

I certainly don’t.

Pandabro.8743:

There are plenty of “sandbox” games out there that you can truly play your way. MMORPG’s are and always will be full of strong restrictions and rules for the sake of the majority’s enjoyment. They are trying to minimize the path of least resistance that has been tunnel visioning one dungeon and spread people out to enjoy more content.

This is a good thing, unless you enjoy spending dozens of hours speed farming the same dungeon over and over.

I certainly don’t.

We are all in this for the extrinsic motivation. That’s essentially what the entirety of gaming, and especially MMOs are built upon. I agree the rewards in this game are greatly overjustified, but that’s the cost of “playing your way”. Now, the overjustification effect has no redeeming factors. It’s grind their way or stop playing.

Timegating: The Game.