Guild Wars 2

Ok, i cant find a thread for this and it may have alredy been said, but i want to put this out there.

I feel there is no real risk and reward in gw2, items that you have to grind for in the game are easily overshadowed by the sheer quality of paid for skins in the gemstore, and while this gives you short term enjoyment, it means that nothing in the game is worth trying for.

Give me a real goal, achievements that make you proud to have, with rewards attached to them that show your efforts mean something, iv been playing for 4 years, and in that time the only items that created actual game content are ascended and legendary skins, but even those are basically gold gated, id be happy with the new raid Armour, but from the images iv seen, they really are not worth my time.

I want armours and weapon skins that have a true challenge applied to them, and are so amazing that they overshadow the gemstores constant influx of weapon skins and outfits, i want to see somebody wearing armour and know they are incredible, the pve side of guildwars just does not have this, and once uv beaten any form of story, all thts left is the endless gold grind for more gemstore items in order to grind again.

I completely understand the need to make money through this method, but when the best items in the game cosmetic wise come from the gemstore, i cant find a reason to play the game.

I feel Anet has to really start aiming for the hardcore player base now, because no matter what they do people will complain about difficulty, but once you’ve exhausted every other possible method of playing the game, all that is left is a meta filled gold grind.

I would absolutely love to hear the community’s opinion on this topic.

Regards

A loyal fan who wants to stay in Tyria forever

My problem with gw2 is kinda similar.

Once you have some 80s, and have full ascended sets… there isn’t really much to do from that point. Legendaries are kinda pointless for me cause I don’t really care too much about looks.. but I still made one out of boredom.

The game lacks some truly challenging content with actually good rewards…. and I’m not taking about tons of champ bags which will give me 100s of greens and blues..

I know a lot of people will be against this, but I personally would love to have the ability to gain even more combat stats/bonuses beyond what gear+runes+sigils+infusions offer. This would at least give me an incentive to out and farm maps again..
Right now going into any map to farm gold or whatever just feels pointless to me..
I don’t mind grinding a lot, as long as it is actually rewarding. But right now, nothing in gw2 feels like it’s worth the effort.

I agree with you, Gem store should be complementary, not the main source of new skins. I too feel the need for more goals in game and not just grind for gem store random items, heck, I can’t even work on a legendary as I have already all the ones I want and they stopped bringing new ones up!
My frustration is real, I want to play the game, I really do, then I log in and I have nothing to do, because as all people, I don’t like all things and if the ones I like are not available, I have no options but to log out and find entertainment elsewhere.

Vova.2640:

I know a lot of people will be against this, but I personally would love to have the ability to gain even more combat stats/bonuses beyond what gear+runes+sigils+infusions offer. This would at least give me an incentive to out and farm maps again..

You’re describing BDO… that’s completely opposite of GW2’s progression philosophy.

Welcome to the true endgame.

Even if they were to increase the difficulty for some event, there would then just be a flood of complaints to lower it. The masses have no interest for difficulty. They’d rather put more effort in complaining for change then to put in effort to improve themselves as a player. Gemstore helps make up for the failure to entice free players to convert – don’t expect that to change anytime soon- sadly.

Now you get to enjoy the breaks from gw2 as they get longer while the times you actually play get shorter.

I cannot agree more. It seems as though the reward doesn’t scale with the difficulty of the event. AB meta, sure…. but beyond that, you simply get a rare or two for completing an event. Regardless of difficulty.

To me, it breaks immersion when I don’t have to go on an epic adventure, scale a tall tower filled with enemies, or hop into a hardcore raid to acquire armor. All I have to do is whip out my wallet and buy it from the gemstore.

I really appreciate Anet’s effort to get rid of gear-grind, but the grind for gear is still there – it’s just for the cosmetic aspect.

Zarghoul.5687:

I want armours and weapon skins that have a true challenge applied to them, and are so amazing that they overshadow the gemstores constant influx of weapon skins and outfits, i want to see somebody wearing armour and know they are incredible, the pve side of guildwars just does not have this, and once uv beaten any form of story, all thts left is the endless gold grind for more gemstore items in order to grind again.

You have missed a very important factor here. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Khisanth.2948:

Zarghoul.5687:

I want armours and weapon skins that have a true challenge applied to them, and are so amazing that they overshadow the gemstores constant influx of weapon skins and outfits, i want to see somebody wearing armour and know they are incredible, the pve side of guildwars just does not have this, and once uv beaten any form of story, all thts left is the endless gold grind for more gemstore items in order to grind again.

You have missed a very important factor here. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I was thinking that. I’ve never been tempted by any of the gem store armour sets because whilst they’re not bad there are equally good ones available in-game IMO. So I get the in-game ones instead.

Somewhere on my current to-do list is finishing the Season 2 achievements to get Bioluminescent armour (and the Light in the Darkness title which is perfect for my main character), doing the new WvW/PvP reward track for the Tribal and Stalwart pieces I’m missing, getting some of the Bloodstone items, either running Arah or doing the reward track for some of the dungeon-exclusive skins because I want them for one of my newer characters and possibly collecting some more cultural skins.

Now admittedly some people who either have more time than me or are more focused on collecting skins (and don’t prioritise other things, in my case usually mini pets) will have done all that and more. But I think it’s an exaggeration to say GW2 doesn’t offer any skins as in-game rewards or that all the ones in the gem store are automatically better.

i understand that there are plenty of in game skins, and yes its down to everybodys preference as to what they like, Im questioning more the fact that 90% of these items are gained through a gold grind, and no real skill is required to achieve any of it, what i would like to see is real challenge and not personally seeing all my effort go to waste, when a new shiny outfit or skin appears on the tp.

the vast majority of new content in the game comes from the tp, its really not the right way to go about extending the lifespan of a game, i love the lore i love the maps, there is no other that has this style of gameplay, there just is not enough reward for anybody’s efforts outside of a meta based gold grind.

Zarghoul.5687:

i understand that there are plenty of in game skins, and yes its down to everybodys preference as to what they like, Im questioning more the fact that 90% of these items are gained through a gold grind, and no real skill is required to achieve any of it, what i would like to see is real challenge and not personally seeing all my effort go to waste, when a new shiny outfit or skin appears on the tp.

the vast majority of new content in the game comes from the tp, its really not the right way to go about extending the lifespan of a game, i love the lore i love the maps, there is no other that has this style of gameplay, there just is not enough reward for anybody’s efforts outside of a meta based gold grind.

Reason seems pretty obvious and likely the same reason why additional legendaries got cancelled. That type of thing requires relatively high amount of developer resources to make but ultimately it only applies to a minority of players.

What about the radiant set? You need to amass a big number of achievement points to get that set. I think it looks great, well what I have of it so far at least anyway (helm, shoulders, gloves and legs). Also only on heavy class that is, don’t care too much for it on light/medium.

So that is one example right there which is not a pure gold grind. Also from the sounds of things new weapon skins are coming with the next map which will be from pure drops, not gemstore. If this pays off for them this could easily be added for armours later on.

So what you are asking for Anet are aware of and I think they are starting to do. Now the question is, will it only be from “RNG” drops only (Invisible Shoes as an example and incoming map skins) or will they also extend this to other content that may be challenging such as raids is?

Oh and I would also like to respond to:

“but once you’ve exhausted every other possible method of playing the game, all that is left is a meta filled gold grind”

Rewarding gameplay does not always have to have cool shiny rewards to them. What about play modes within the game that are actually just fun to play? You know 2 such modes do exist already for some people. PvP and WvW.

Yes there are rewards for playing those modes but I think the vast number of people play them like I do – more for the fun. I mean after all look at FPS games, people play them for the pure fun of it. It’s only really recently they have been trying to add RPG elements to it by adding rewards and level ups.

Ive always thought there should be more difficulty content throughout the game – with (cosmetic only) rewards to show for it.

One event I actually enjoyed was the time trial test from the LA counsel seat election. I honestly think they could incorporate something like that into open world – waves of ever increasingly difficult enemies that only reset once the player has been pushed back – with prestigious rewards awaiting those that hold out through the end.

Imagine a “defend the gates of arah” that eventually included waves of Giganticus Lupici or a Southsun chain that resulted in the return of the Ancient Karka (now that lag is less of an issue).

I think there are definitely ways to retain the casual feel of the game and still add in eyebleedingly difficult content (with appropriate rewards) – in pretty much every part of the game.

onevstheworld.2419:

Vova.2640:

I know a lot of people will be against this, but I personally would love to have the ability to gain even more combat stats/bonuses beyond what gear+runes+sigils+infusions offer. This would at least give me an incentive to out and farm maps again..

You’re describing BDO… that’s completely opposite of GW2’s progression philosophy.

BDO is a pay2win fiesta so no ty.
Like I said I’m okay to grind for items.. not spend tons of real money for them.

If you want something to work toward, feel free to try and craft Mjolnir without buying anything.

Paulytnz.7619:

Rewarding gameplay does not always have to have cool shiny rewards to them. What about play modes within the game that are actually just fun to play? You know 2 such modes do exist already for some people. PvP and WvW.

spvp rewards had to be completely overhauled and a shiny added these seasonal nonsense just to retain a slight interest in the mode. The high majority of the time matches end up as having to carry the other teammates which is very muuuuccch the complete opposite of fun.

They attempted to do the same for wvw but more people ended up leaving and so they stopped the seasons altogether. It is but a shadow of what it once was.

I do wonder what would happen if Anet released some rewards through non-timegated, highly challenging, solo content that required a high degree of personal skill.

I dont think that new challenging content will really help. Some ppl will just finish it as soon as possible and then they complain again that there is no goal in the end.
I think tons of new skills will help the game a lot more because then you can start to experiment with your existing characters and try new builds in PvE, WvW and PvP.
This way the game would be fun to play again for most ppl who got bored.
Youre asking for a carrot on a stick aka grinding for a reward.. which is usually not fun at all :/
At least this is my opinion.

p.s. pls no more solo content. the game lacks interaction between players. just started new characters with a friend and we did not even reach lvl 10 because it felt like we were random guys who do the same quest. For example the summoned weapons from the ele could offer interaction between those 2 ppl who use them instead of just being another source of burst damage (icebow).

Vova.2640:

onevstheworld.2419:

Vova.2640:

I know a lot of people will be against this, but I personally would love to have the ability to gain even more combat stats/bonuses beyond what gear+runes+sigils+infusions offer. This would at least give me an incentive to out and farm maps again..

You’re describing BDO… that’s completely opposite of GW2’s progression philosophy.

BDO is a pay2win fiesta so no ty.
Like I said I’m okay to grind for items.. not spend tons of real money for them.

I wasn’t referring to the monetization system. I was referring to progression system:
Character – soft level cap of 50, but you can keep on grinding to increase that further, with no apparent limit.
Equipment – the upgrade system requires you to grind in order to afford the upgrade costs (RNG process which can fail at higher levels).

I was using it as a real-life example of the “ability to gain even more combat stats/bonuses” you suggested.

echo.2053:

Welcome to the true endgame.

Even if they were to increase the difficulty for some event, there would then just be a flood of complaints to lower it. The masses have no interest for difficulty. They’d rather put more effort in complaining for change then to put in effort to improve themselves as a player. Gemstore helps make up for the failure to entice free players to convert – don’t expect that to change anytime soon- sadly.

Now you get to enjoy the breaks from gw2 as they get longer while the times you actually play get shorter.

If you hate the people that play GW2 so much, why are you even still here?

echo.2053:

Paulytnz.7619:

Rewarding gameplay does not always have to have cool shiny rewards to them. What about play modes within the game that are actually just fun to play? You know 2 such modes do exist already for some people. PvP and WvW.

spvp rewards had to be completely overhauled and a shiny added these seasonal nonsense just to retain a slight interest in the mode. The high majority of the time matches end up as having to carry the other teammates which is very muuuuccch the complete opposite of fun.

They attempted to do the same for wvw but more people ended up leaving and so they stopped the seasons altogether. It is but a shadow of what it once was.

I never said the current season/system was perfect. Indeed at this point for PvP it is horrid. My main point was the modes are usually good and rewards in themselves just for playing (when they are working great before anet tries to push them too hard on to EVERYONE by adding shiny shinies that can only be obtained there).

Zarghoul.5687:

I feel Anet has to really start aiming for the hardcore player base now, because no matter what they do people will complain about difficulty, but once you’ve exhausted every other possible method of playing the game, all that is left is a meta filled gold grind.

Yep, real good idea (sarcasm inside).
Wildstar catered to hardcore and not casual…. where are they ?
DDO, listened to hardcore player at one time and upped the difficulty… a lot of player left the game (and did not come back when they “fixed” it).
So in my experience, catering to the 10 % or less hardcore is a good way to kitten off 90 % of your players.

There is no risk in this game, and that is normal. This is a game. You should not even be able to risk your health, family, job, or fun here, because this is a game designed for entertainment. So I do not think we will ever see any risk in this game.

Regarding reward that is a big understandable problem in my opinion, as it is channeled with marketing, and from a designer point of view… that is normal. Some professions and builds are better, faster, and easier, to balance the game or make the game sell; while other professions are harder, more complex with many spells to combine, making rewards harder to get, but more stable with time and experience. Sometimes PvP is more rewarding (see PvP legendary backpack), other times WvW is promoted (see Mistforged Hero’s weapons), while PvE is constantly promoted as most players love it more (see all other items).

Neural.1824:

echo.2053:

Now you get to enjoy the breaks from gw2 as they get longer while the times you actually play get shorter.

If you hate the people that play GW2 so much, why are you even still here?

Because playing the forums is more fun than the actual game, it’s why you are here too though your welcome to attempt to deny this. You CHOSE to comment on someone whose view differed from yours rather than play the game you enjoy even though their view has no bearing on yours. XD

Paulytnz.7619:

I never said the current season/system was perfect. Indeed at this point for PvP it is horrid. My main point was the modes are usually good and rewards in themselves just for playing (when they are working great before anet tries to push them too hard on to EVERYONE by adding shiny shinies that can only be obtained there).

It’s not about whether the season is perfect or not. Had the original reward system stayed in place pvp would have been a even more desolate area. If you even take a moment to view the season you’ll see that the divisions are locked and you don’t even lose tiers until ruby… where is the risk? It’s reduced considerably because we know what would occur if there was any indications that players weren’t as good as they thought – thus most of this game is blob oriented.

echo.2053:

Neural.1824:

echo.2053:

Now you get to enjoy the breaks from gw2 as they get longer while the times you actually play get shorter.

If you hate the people that play GW2 so much, why are you even still here?

Because playing the forums is more fun than the actual game, it’s why you are here too though your welcome to attempt to deny this. You CHOSE to comment on someone whose view differed from yours rather than play the game you enjoy even though their view has no bearing on yours. XD

Paulytnz.7619:

I never said the current season/system was perfect. Indeed at this point for PvP it is horrid. My main point was the modes are usually good and rewards in themselves just for playing (when they are working great before anet tries to push them too hard on to EVERYONE by adding shiny shinies that can only be obtained there).

It’s not about whether the season is perfect or not. Had the original reward system stayed in place pvp would have been a even more desolate area. If you even take a moment to view the season you’ll see that the divisions are locked and you don’t even lose tiers until ruby… where is the risk? It’s reduced considerably because we know what would occur if there was any indications that players weren’t as good as they thought – thus most of this game is blob oriented.

I don’t agree with you that the fun is not there anymore or that the place is deserted. It’s still there for people who purely play the mode for that, sure there may be less people playing “ranked”. But you can’t tell me that you can’t still play in the unranked matches and not have fun. There is also the private rooms/maps as well which I am sure many people have fun in. It’s not ALL about ranked and any rewards that or even the reward chests bring.

I stand by my original remarks that fun rewarding gameplay can actually come from just the fun of doing what you are doing and not just some carrot on the end of a stick that you will never reach or have to grind for.

You can disagree with me of course, that is your right but I would say that’s probably because you are biased more towards the rewards side of it.

Paulytnz.7619:

echo.2053:

Neural.1824:

echo.2053:

Now you get to enjoy the breaks from gw2 as they get longer while the times you actually play get shorter.

If you hate the people that play GW2 so much, why are you even still here?

Because playing the forums is more fun than the actual game, it’s why you are here too though your welcome to attempt to deny this. You CHOSE to comment on someone whose view differed from yours rather than play the game you enjoy even though their view has no bearing on yours. XD

Paulytnz.7619:

I never said the current season/system was perfect. Indeed at this point for PvP it is horrid. My main point was the modes are usually good and rewards in themselves just for playing (when they are working great before anet tries to push them too hard on to EVERYONE by adding shiny shinies that can only be obtained there).

It’s not about whether the season is perfect or not. Had the original reward system stayed in place pvp would have been a even more desolate area. If you even take a moment to view the season you’ll see that the divisions are locked and you don’t even lose tiers until ruby… where is the risk? It’s reduced considerably because we know what would occur if there was any indications that players weren’t as good as they thought – thus most of this game is blob oriented.

I don’t agree with you that the fun is not there anymore or that the place is deserted. It’s still there for people who purely play the mode for that, sure there may be less people playing “ranked”. But you can’t tell me that you can’t still play in the unranked matches and not have fun. There is also the private rooms/maps as well which I am sure many people have fun in. It’s not ALL about ranked and any rewards that or even the reward chests bring.

I stand by my original remarks that fun rewarding gameplay can actually come from just the fun of doing what you are doing and not just some carrot on the end of a stick that you will never reach or have to grind for.

You can disagree with me of course, that is your right but I would say that’s probably because you are biased more towards the rewards side of it.

It’s not fun rewarding gameplay either and this isn’t talking about the end of match rewards. There is an increase in low risk builds as a result on the increase in passive traits. It is not even remotely fun to play against a player who can make multiple errors but still be ok due to this high sustain. Pvp has essentially gone from player vs player to plaver vs passives.

No im not really biased at all – I’ve played all game modes.

Merely suggesting hotjoin being fun indicates no further point on this side of the descussion as those are the players that zerg or double cap.

echo.2053:

Paulytnz.7619:

echo.2053:

Neural.1824:

echo.2053:

Now you get to enjoy the breaks from gw2 as they get longer while the times you actually play get shorter.

If you hate the people that play GW2 so much, why are you even still here?

Because playing the forums is more fun than the actual game, it’s why you are here too though your welcome to attempt to deny this. You CHOSE to comment on someone whose view differed from yours rather than play the game you enjoy even though their view has no bearing on yours. XD

Paulytnz.7619:

I never said the current season/system was perfect. Indeed at this point for PvP it is horrid. My main point was the modes are usually good and rewards in themselves just for playing (when they are working great before anet tries to push them too hard on to EVERYONE by adding shiny shinies that can only be obtained there).

It’s not about whether the season is perfect or not. Had the original reward system stayed in place pvp would have been a even more desolate area. If you even take a moment to view the season you’ll see that the divisions are locked and you don’t even lose tiers until ruby… where is the risk? It’s reduced considerably because we know what would occur if there was any indications that players weren’t as good as they thought – thus most of this game is blob oriented.

I don’t agree with you that the fun is not there anymore or that the place is deserted. It’s still there for people who purely play the mode for that, sure there may be less people playing “ranked”. But you can’t tell me that you can’t still play in the unranked matches and not have fun. There is also the private rooms/maps as well which I am sure many people have fun in. It’s not ALL about ranked and any rewards that or even the reward chests bring.

I stand by my original remarks that fun rewarding gameplay can actually come from just the fun of doing what you are doing and not just some carrot on the end of a stick that you will never reach or have to grind for.

You can disagree with me of course, that is your right but I would say that’s probably because you are biased more towards the rewards side of it.

It’s not fun rewarding gameplay either and this isn’t talking about the end of match rewards. There is an increase in low risk builds as a result on the increase in passive traits. It is not even remotely fun to play against a player who can make multiple errors but still be ok due to this high sustain. Pvp has essentially gone from player vs player to plaver vs passives.

No im not really biased at all – I’ve played all game modes.

Merely suggesting hotjoin being fun indicates no further point on this side of the descussion as those are the players that zerg or double cap.

Replying to that in bold:

It must be fun to some people as they are still playing it. I don’t believe for one minute that EVERY single person is forcing themselves to play (be that ranked or unranked) simply for the rewards. Most people would give up after a while for the share bordom/grind if they don’t find the mode somewhat fun.

I am one person that does play for just the fun of it and I am sure I am not alone. So really all you are giving is opinion.