Guild Wars 2

Is this game supposed to be unfair?

First, this isn’t a complaint. It’s a question.

So i’m trying to get my elementalist a legendary at some point (probably not for a long time)
One way I was doing this was jormag farming. It was fun, lots of people came. lots of stuff dropped. Now I heard they reduced the drop rates, and the last few times i’ve done it, almost no one was there.

I try to go to orr to farm and get karma, but nobody is ever there. I finally did plinx for the first time, and there were only 4 others, who left right after.

And as an elementalist, I have to get 500 arah tokens. However, I haven’t been on a run that either didn’t fail completely, or take 2-4 hours.
Whereas my friends can all do cof and AC and stuff like that, for easily tokens in 15 min.

So essentially, if I want to get a legendary staff I’m forced to spend 4-8 hours a day doing arah. (assuming I can find a party). And then to get gold i’m forced to do dungeons or fractals.

Also unlike other jobs. I can’t really solo end-game events by myself. So if no one is in The lost shore, I can’t really do much. 5 risen kill me in seconds, regardless of what equip i use.

What I don’t understand is why the game is designed this way. Is it supposed to strongly favour some jobs over others? Or is this just a balancing issue? Or is it intentional to get people to spill out $100s in gems to buy gold?

I’m not saying that legendaries shouldn’t be challenging. I’m just wondering why some jobs have it really easy, while others are stuck doing incredibly hard dungeons that -no one- seems to ever care about or want to do.

Thanks :x

[Thread title edited by moderator for clarity.]

Bifrost has some of the easier/cheaper requirements of any of the legendary items. Be lucky you don’t have to get any lodestones (some of which can cost 2-3g apiece).

Honestly, don’t even worry about legendaries. They’re not even worth the time. The people who actually have them sat down and farmed all day since release, for the most part. The obscene karma requirement means you’re better off just getting it piece by piece without any real rush, as the karma will rack up regardless. Same with the gold. Just knock off the parts you can, as you can, and you’ll get it eventually.

how do i get arah done :x its pretty bad that even with the best gear outside of fractals i get 2-shotted by nearly every boss

Yes they want you in gem store that is why drops are crap

I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be unfair but it is right now because they shot themselves in the foot putting fractals in LA and a gear treadmill so of course everyone and their mother is going to be grinding that and that only. (meaning dead world)

Azurymber.5193:

And as an elementalist, I have to get 500 arah tokens. However, I haven’t been on a run that either didn’t fail completely, or take 2-4 hours.

I’m trying to make The Bifrost too and started farming Arah for the tokens. I thought, with what I heard from other players, that Arah farming for tokens will be extremely hard, painful, excruciating and nearly impossible.
I was so pleasantly surprised when I did my first Arah group yesterday.
Arah is the most fun dungeon I ever ran. Ever. It’s pure fun. I farmed almost 300 tokens in two days and all having fun. I keep running it for those 20 tokens because it’s fun. The groups do take a bit longer than other dungeons but not really 3 hours. Takes me 45 mins to an hour per full run (no exploits used but running through trash mobs). And if you use gw2lfg.com there is always some Arah groups.

The only problem with Arah is that I was somewhat disappointed that final bosses feel like they need some more love, compared to Lupi.

You have a lot in your post, so I’ll take it one at a time.

No offense intended, but a lot of this really sounds like a ‘learn to play’ issue, I hate to say it. 5 Risen kill you in seconds, regardless of your gear? I don’t know what brand of Elementalist you play, but my Elementalist eats Risen for breakfast in bigger numbers than that. Furthermore, every class handles certain types of enemies differently; if you ever level a Warrior and try that in Orr, you can solo most events! It also sounds like you really need to just find a good guild; it’s a game about socializing, and you’re trying to do it solo. My guild does runs of Arah in 1:30 tops legit (since they closed the exploits), and we have a lot of fun and basically never die. It’s good times.

The game is an MMORPG. If you won’t find a guild that will work with you, then well, I don’t know what to tell you. I use the qualifier “won’t” because there is no “can’t”; thousands of guilds want players that are active and smart and nice. Just from reading your post and the type of effort you put into it, I have no doubt that you’re of the right breed for a good guild and just haven’t gone looking.

If you want to earn gold fast, you can:
- Farm gold
- Buy gold
- Trade for gold

These are standard for every online game of this nature, so nothing should surprise you. All of these are really effective too, but of course, if you’re an amazing economist you will earn the fastest gold that way. It’s worth noting that there are lots of good ways to earn gold, but it should not surprise you that end-game content earns you the most gold. Yes, that means dungeons and Fractals. For the record, dungeons outside of Fractals also provide you with karma! I have earned something like 2 million karma just playing dungeons regularly and switching it up and doing different ones. I already have 2 stacks of Obsidian Shards from before just playing the game, so karma is no big deal.

As for the ‘why should some legendaries be harder than others’, well, look at it this way. Half of the legendaries look terrible or lack effects, and you’re going after one of the most sought after and most attractive ones! Of course it’s going to be a little tougher and more expensive here and there. :P

Anyway, good luck gaming, and don’t give up hope. It’s really not that bad!

I would love to do arah on my server, aside from the fact that it is nearly -always- closed. It opens up once in a while for an hour or two. And I kind of have a life. So I’m basically stuck finding pick up groups cross-server. As I can’t always be on prime-time when it opens.

Nearly every run people want to skip all the mobs

And as a result nearly every run we wipe 10 times trying to run past mobs and people leave.

If it was like CoF or AC, even a bit harder. I’d have no complaints. But when i bought this game it was advertised as open-world, event heavy, etc. And now its just dungeons over and over and over again.

I’m fine with karma and gold. If i could get arah done i’d prob have a legendary within a month. My issue is that with the whole dungeon-heavy thing, there is nothing fun to do.

Repeating the same dungeons over and over again with a few people is boring. Events were fun. And when i started playing, people were doing them a lot. Now everything is suddenly instanced for some reason.

And the game seems completely out of whack. If you can seriously run past 5 risen in Arah explore. Please tell me your build. As nearly every mage that I have seen try it wipes.

1.) NO ONE – not any of the other classes or elementalist- can solo an end-game boss. It requires at least around 20 people to kill a temple risen priest in Orr effectively.

2.) Farming – imo, this is what’s wrong with what you’re doing. This game is explicitly against farming, despite people claiming that they have no other choice. Every single mechanism in the game I can think of e.g. non-mob specific loots, low-rewards system from area mobs and the current implementation of Diminishing Returns, is designed to go against player farming mentality. If you are frustrated, I believe it is largely because of this.

3.) A legendary is supposed to be just that. Legendary. I don’t expect that the developers meant for everybody in the game to be carrying a legendary item around at any point. Whether its acquired through sheer luck, months and years of hard work, or by illegal means – only VERY few people should have a ‘legendary’.

4.) That being said, the legendary tier of equipment is almost a joke, given the fact that the stats are the same with ascended and the only thing you can show for hard work and all that time and effort spent is a different skin and some effects. I can understand if anybody find it alluring, and I’m working for acquiring a legendary too myself someday – keyword being “SOMEDAY”. But if you’re focusing all of you’re current gameplay at getting a legendary, I’m pretty quite sure you’ll be very dissatisfied with the game.

so basically the game is just doing the same 7-10 dungeons repeadetly?
I run a business and pay people to do repetitive tasks… why would i do that for fun?

The game was advertised as open world and event driven. That was awesome and really fun. But nobody does any of that anymore because of “anti-farming”

So what is the game then?
Just dungeon runs forever? I could have played WoW for that.

Azurymber.5193:

so basically the game is just doing the same 7-10 dungeons repeadetly?
I run a business and pay people to do repetitive tasks… why would i do that for fun?

The game was advertised as open world and event driven. That was awesome and really fun. But nobody does any of that anymore because of “anti-farming”

So what is the game then?
Just dungeon runs forever? I could have played WoW for that.

How bout you pay your employees to run the dungeons ? lol

Yeah pretty much Azur, unfortunately that’s what the game has become.

Personally I have gone back to WoW, I’d rather not get disappointed every time I log in to GW2. Just waiting for ANet to stop evolving into nexonblizzardnet

At least Blizz doesn’t hide the fact that they’re greedy pigs and love charging me 15 a month.

Personally I dunno if anything will save this game other than a total makeover. No trinity really takes away from the team play. I at least need a dedicated healer in my MMO.

Makes setting up kills that much more fun dropping a CC chain then blowing someone up. GW2 pvp is total garbage… 10x worse than WoW and that is saying something, it really is.

This is my opinion, and I do not have any source (obviously) to back up my claim.

To me, the legendaries is the carrot on a stick of GW2. Some players need a carrot to keep playing. I personally do not need it, or seek it.

Since the game is pretty much founded on the principle of horizontal progression ( or benign horizontal progression since fractals was released), once you are geared in your favoured set of exotics, you have done it !

You can farm for your favourite armor skins, so that means a couple of weeks will be dedicated to dungeon runs to farm tokens/or gold…whichever.

The legendaries are very limited and super ultra mega farming does not appeal to me. I much prefer to spend the gold I make on alts, stupid tonics or wvwvw siege equipments.

I got a guildie who joined at the same time as me. We were both roughly the same level a the time and actually hit 80 on the same day.

His focus was the legendary, mine was 3 max level/max exotic characters.

Two months later, he’s still farming like crazy and has got about a third, nearly half of the requirements (still needs his precursor) so he’s making good progress really.

Me ? I got my thief and my mesmer to level 80, both in dashing armor sets and lovely looking weapons ( I really dig the mystic / CoE weapons look ) and my warrior is lvl45 at the moment so my guess is I’ll reach my goal by around new year’s time. I am swimming in gold from doing ori runs and dungeon runs with two characters, and soon will be able to do that with 3.

My point ? It takes all kinds to make this world. Even if it’s digital. I am really enjoying my time in Tyria, and I have little issues with the game itself.If someone wants a lgendary, let him/her. If someone isn’t interested, there is plenty to do that doesn’t involve farming one.

I know when my guildie gets his legendary…eventually, he will rub it in my face xD and good for him, he worked for it afterall !

I’ll just woo him with my myriades of characters in return

As I said, if legendary is your thing. Go for it, otherwise don’t.
Maybe it will be hard for some players who really want one but don’t have the determination to see it through.
Myself , I never wanted one so I never had to swallow my pride lol

I hope I haven’t offended anyone, and if I did, I was simply expressing my point of view on the legendaries and what I’d rather do. But each to his own.

Azurymber.5193:

so basically the game is just doing the same 7-10 dungeons repeadetly?
I run a business and pay people to do repetitive tasks… why would i do that for fun?

The game was advertised as open world and event driven. That was awesome and really fun. But nobody does any of that anymore because of “anti-farming”

So what is the game then?
Just dungeon runs forever? I could have played WoW for that.

Admittedly, I also think that the current dungeon system is a mistake.

You can take it in two ways:

1.) Be deeply frustrated at this apparent selling-out of the initial principles of a game you paid 60 dollars for. You can find a thousand and one ways to express this, including quitting, raging on the forums, or you can try and even go so far as to sue the developers for misleading you.

or

2.) Realize that even though the only efficient way to acquire top-tier items currently is dungeon running, the game is NOT forcing you to grind dungeons. The game, in all its flaws and positives, offers us a lot of things to do other than dungeons.

I like to remind people that this game is after all an MMORPG. As we all know, the RPG stands for “role playing game”. This is not a competitive hack-and-slash like Diablo.

The game does not penalize you in any way if you don’t have top-tier gear, the acquisition of which is the main reason why anybody would grind dungeons so much. There are many other things that you can do that people argue reward so little, because it is a ROLE-PLAYING game.

Therefore, I find that if people are frustrated with the seemingly dungeon-grinding quality of the game currently, it is their own fault, not the game’s. It’s not like this is Megaten or the titular Dungeon Run, where the only thing you can ever do literally is to run dungeons.

fyi i spent the last hour trying to get into an arah party using that lfparty website.
One party i manged to get into the dungeon was glitched and we couldn’t get in together and they didn’t want to start over.

So basically I have to spend countless hours refreshing a website in the hopes that i land a party. Mainly because ANET took out the “shortcut” and “bag farming” (all of which allowed tons of people to get all the tokens they need with little effort, resulting in no one wanting to do it now)

No, it isn’t. Few games can really make all their “jobs” reward fairly. You always can find a guide/walkthru teaching you how to grind faster. GW2 did a rather good job before Nov. 15. It was unfair but you can’t tell which one was the best. After Nov.15, ACTF (AC, CoF, TA up and FOTM) is all you need.

Also, forget about solo, that is another empty promise. No matter how they told you per launch, the current state of the game is all about 5 man dungeon grind if you go after “reward”. There are plenty of funny things in game too, but don’t expect they reward you much except fun.

I don’t understand the dilemma you’re raising. 8 dungeons, not including Fractals or story modes, is 25 unique paths that you can experience daily. If you factor in Fractals, which has 9 different possible fractals currently, that is 34 unique end-game experiences you can do a day, in any order you want, with any level of repetition you want (be wary of DR). This is a huge amount of content. This is just dungeons, too, and doesn’t factor any of the other things that the game offers as a means to make money.

Azurymber.5193:

fyi i spent the last hour trying to get into an arah party using that lfparty website.
One party i manged to get into the dungeon was glitched and we couldn’t get in together and they didn’t want to start over.

So basically I have to spend countless hours refreshing a website in the hopes that i land a party. Mainly because ANET took out the “shortcut” and “bag farming” (all of which allowed tons of people to get all the tokens they need with little effort, resulting in no one wanting to do it now)

Again, why would you do this??

I’m not saying that you should think the way I do, but my first reaction if I also waited for even just an hour to find a party on a third-party website and failed to do so would naturally be to say to myself: “screw it, I’ll just do something else”.

Perhaps it would occur to you that maybe it was intended to be like that?

In fact, I believe that the lack of LFG system in-game is purposely done so as to discourage easy PuG’s and therefore prevent people from doing only one thing REPEATEDLY.

projectcedric.6951:

Azurymber.5193:

SNIP

Again, why would you do this??

I’m not saying that you should think the way I do, but my first reaction if I also waited for even just an hour to find a party on a third-party website and failed to do so would naturally be to say to myself: “screw it, I’ll just do something else”.

Perhaps it would occur to you that maybe it was intended to be like that?

In fact, I believe that the lack of LFG system in-game is purposely done so as to discourage easy PuG’s and therefore prevent people from doing only one thing REPEATEDLY.

How is the lack of LFG discouraging players from looking for groups ? Have you not been to Lion’s Arch and not seen the map chat overflowing with “lfg” spams throughout the day ?

The problem is not people looking for group, but people struggling to find groups. Fractals has put a massive dent in the overall world pve content.

Before the 15th, I remember a lot more people running various dungeons and partaking in various dynamic events. Also Orr wasn’t as dead as it is now ( no pun intended), and there was enough windows of opportunity each day where you could finally get this or that temple “unlocked”.
This is much harder now. Hell even to get a fractal of your desired level can be a pain.

This is coming from someone who isn’t interested in the legendary, hence not really into that level of farming and just want to actually to do the dungeons. Just for your informations, I nearly have 3 lvl80s now, and I still haven’t done 3 dungeons out of the original 8.
Isn’t that a bit weird ?

LFG will help the community to achieve what it wants to do without wasting valuable time (spamming for an hour isn’t quality gameplay in my world).

Also I don’t think it occurs to anyone sensible that a flawed system like that would be deliberate. And if it was, then thank god there are people out there who turn around and complain about it because it shouldn’t be like that.
This is not runescape v0.1, we are in 2012 and the means to make grouping easy are available. No excuses other than poor judgement OR laziness.

one: i already have a bunch of my gifts worth around 600gold + so if i don’t do it i wasted 600gold
Two: ive got 2 parties today
1st one the dungeon glitched and we couldnt get into the same one so party broke
second one lupicus glitched and reset 5 times

I don’t have hours to waste dealing with glitces, overly difficult dungeons, and players constantly quitting. And i’ve tried countless times to get ppl on my server to do it but no one wants to -for good reason-

To be honest i wish i could get all my money and time back, and i never realized how much of a time sink this game is due to poor design and glitches :x
Everyone said arah is really easy because it was, until they took away the benefits of bag farming and the shortcut.
Now its a huge headache, and as i actually have a job, i can’t spend 5 hours a day trying to get one completion :x

Groovy.6749:

How is the lack of LFG discouraging players from looking for groups ? Have you not been to Lion’s Arch and not seen the map chat overflowing with “lfg” spams throughout the day ?

My theory -and mind you, it’s only my theory- is that it discourages PuG’s.

The lack of LFG system indeed forces people to spam “lfg” messages in LA – as one of the ways players can find PuG’s for dungeons more efficiently. But, in my understanding, this is a major inconvenience and frustrates people. Which is the point!

Again, my theory is that we are supposed to established a deeper connection with fellow players -pretty much like getting a constant in-game or r/l group of friends, or guild, to run dungeons. That’s why a guild is tied to an account, not the character.

PuG’s are a shallow, cold, and machinistic social construct arising from a temporary necessity.

Groovy.6749:

The problem is not people looking for group, but people struggling to find groups. Fractals has put a massive dent in the overall world pve content.

Before the 15th, I remember a lot more people running various dungeons and partaking in various dynamic events. Also Orr wasn’t as dead as it is now ( no pun intended), and there was enough windows of opportunity each day where you could finally get this or that temple “unlocked”.
This is much harder now. Hell even to get a fractal of your desired level can be a pain.

This is coming from someone who isn’t interested in the legendary, hence not really into that level of farming and just want to actually to do the dungeons. Just for your informations, I nearly have 3 lvl80s now, and I still haven’t done 3 dungeons out of the original 8.
Isn’t that a bit weird ?

LFG will help the community to achieve what it wants to do without wasting valuable time (spamming for an hour isn’t quality gameplay in my world).

It’s not weird, I agree.

The problem is not with the LFG system though, but other things.

One, I agree that the current dungeon rewards system and the focus on Fractals is crap. It naturally herds people to focus on dungeons as end-game. Although, again this is not forced and half of the blame should be pointed towards players’ mentality.

Two, the social system is mainly broken too. Mainly manifesting in the guild system. We wouldn’t to LFG so much if we have reliable guilds.

But it’s hard to point out for certain what exactly is the root of the problem and what is the correct solution, even though many pseudo analysts -myself included- in these forums would claim their own perfect solutions.

Azurymber.5193:

To be honest i wish i could get all my money and time back, and i never realized how much of a time sink this game is due to poor design and glitches :x
Everyone said arah is really easy because it was, until they took away the benefits of bag farming and the shortcut.
Now its a huge headache, and as i actually have a job, i can’t spend 5 hours a day trying to get one completion :x

To be honest too, you really are too intense.

EVERY GAME is a time sink. It’s just a matter of how much do you enjoy playing a game. And half of that is up to you.

I can understand you are a goal-driven individual, and seem to tend to calculate things between costs and rewards. This kind of mentality can work 100% for you in real-life; but games are games. If you are not enjoying what you are playing, regardless of whether you have achieved your goals or not, then you ARE indeed wasting your time.

like i said, i’d happily trade my gifts for money if I could. if the dungeon wasn’t full of bugs i’d be fine. But when you have ppl dc/ing or bailing, and are unable to replace them after 2 hours. its not fun. When you have to do the same boss 10 times because it randomly resets due to you moving in the wrong spot in the room, its not fun.

Running past 50 3-shot kill mobs is not fun

The arah dungeon is not meant to be fun. If it was, people wouldn’t run past all the mobs and just try boss fights. Its boring and repetetive and glitchy.

I would be willing to trade 10 tokens, from other dungeons, for 1 arah token. That would at least let me have fun. But Anet seems to want to force you in 1 direction in this game. Just like forcing fractals on people to get the best gear.

the fact that nearly everyone only did arah p3 with shortcut is proof people don’t enjoy the dungeon.

And i invite anet to look at my logs and see a room full of 5 ppl all fighting giganticus lupicus and having it reset while ppl are hitting it and alive in the room

How is that fun? Its a waste of my time.

(just realized there is an edit function lol)

Edit: Now we decided to try a new path. everyone left. cant reset the dungeon. some ppl gated out. and some ppl left.

its the huge amount of messed up glitches that make this fail so hard.

Reformed entire party (every one left, reformed) still can’t reset instance

Giving up on this :x A-net sure managed to rip me out of a good couple hundred dollars

I don’t understand why you still keep to dungeons then.

Again, game is not forcing anybody to run dungeons and kill the same boss 10 times a day. In fact, as far as I can tell, it is actually discouraging you from doing that.

The Arah dungeon is fun. What is not fun is if you do it repetitively for countless number of times.

You say you NEED tokens. Specifically, Arah tokens. Why do you NEED Arah tokens so badly for any reason? Is there only one set and one tier of equipment that you can possibly have in this game that you have no choice at all?

@ projectcedric

I can see where you are coming from. Indeed it would be fantastic if we got to play a MMO where joining a guild and running dungeons regurlarly together was just THE OBVIOUS thing to do, as obvious as using the keyboard to control your character.

But sadly, as you rightly pointed out, it isn’t. The social system is broken, and the PUGs system is very much existant in this game too.
It probably is the result of the developers having not pumped enough money/ or grey matter into the problem of guild vs pugs.

Also before I forget, do not forget this game is/was intented mainly for casuals. Many who have never joined a guild,or find it weird ( it is a bit weird to make genuine online friends for certain people, and fair enough to them if that’s the case).

So if the developers know they havent found an adequate solution to the problem and that many players will find themselves “forced” (if you like) to do pugs… then why punish them for it ?
It does seem a bit hypocritical if that was the case.

It reminds me a bit of SWTOR who refused for ages to put in a LFG tool into their game because they wanted their community to “bond” and work together. The community just said “no”. Yes I still used the word community because people who do play the game know each other to the degree MMOs allow one player to know another.
Are we supposed to genuinely ask ingame " Hello kind ladies and sirs, I am venturing to the harsh lands of FireRise and wish to banish the Flame legion from these lands ? Who will give me his or her sword ?"

…Every time we want to do it ? With the same excitement as the first time we cleared it ?

Eventually the kind hero is just going to say “looking for group, lets get that done, chop chop chop”.

Just you know, I am not mocking your view, ideally I see where you are coming from I really do…but like I said before, with a flawed system in place how can you not expect people to just want to get the “seeking” of the group done and over with as quickly as possible.

Even with a guild there are the times when you login, and there just aren’t enough people (for whatever reason : others busy, only levelers online, etc…) to get it done. Which forces even the guild people to join pugs.

I am not an MMO developer so sadly I do not have the answer to this dilemna between cold grouping mechanics ( as you rightly described it) and social bonding between fellow adventurers (which would be fun AND awesome).

But since Anet hasn’t found the answer either, why should we pay the price ?

About my SWTOR anecdote; eventually they caved in and delivered the LFG tool, even if it took 6months to get there. All they did is annoy the community, because they too wished for the community to bond but did not put enough tools in the game for it to happen as they hoped for.

I feel for ya having to complete the Arah dungeon. Ive tried twice with PUG groups and it was a nightmare, never again.

I on the other hand need 100 charged lodestones to make my legendary, which is another joke IMO.

@Groovy

By right, the developer should somewhat appease and design according to what the player community needs, not strictly to the top-down ideal.

BY RIGHT.

And conventionally, this is what happens in most mmorpg I play. That or they eventually shut down.

But there is something different about GW2 that we should not be forgetting. As far as I know, it is intended to be break conventions and be a pioneer in explorations in new mmorpg systems. Whether they have successfully done this or not is a different topic.

But more importantly, this kind of goal comes at a price. It means that a lot of in-game social issues and problems with mechanics will be unprecedented.

It is justified to “punish” players who go against the game ideals (no PuG’s), even if its a convenient solution to a problem, because it has been clear from the start what they are trying to do.

Anybody who has joined this boat should be expecting the developers to kill every possible solution that identifies with already established mmorpg systems. In fact, that should be the main reason as to why anyone would play this game. Otherwise, might as well play WoW or any other conventional and established mmorpg.

This search for “different” has both its good and bad points. But they never said that the focus of the game is to consolidate two decades of lessons from the mmorpg industry and combine them into one game. What they said essentially is that they want to reinvent the genre.

It should be expected that a lot of established conveniences will be broken, in the hopes of finding new good ones. If anybody -casual or hardcore gamer- cannot be at peace with this, then seriously, I believe they will have a hard time understanding and enjoying GW2.

OP, haven’t you heard yet? The game only exists so you can grind FotM ad infinitum, or just buy gold with gems.

How silly of you to think you can actually simply play the game to meet your goals. Obviously you’re intended to grind FotM for thousands of hours or buy gold via gems if you actually want to meet any goals.

Welcome to Grind Wars 2 enjoy doing nothing but grinding dungeons.

Like i’ve said multiple times. I already have gift of might and magic

Only reason i converted the 100s of gold in items to them is because I kept reading on here that Anet account are in-secure and get hacked easily

I’ve also spent some irl money.

I have no problem with a dungeon that works and that can be completed without a huge hassle. Ex. I could spend an hour and a half a day doing arah.

But today I spent 5 hours and got 3tokens

I don’t have that -much- time to waste. I’d even be quite happy if they sold the tokens in the gem store at 25cents a piece or something.

I spent a lot of time because I wanted the bifrost for WVW which is the one part of the game i really do enjoy (when the other teams -actually- try and the commander is good)

And i’m very upset that i wasted so much money on it. Remember, when i started going for legendary Arah was easy. At first lots of ppl did it to bag farm, then lots of ppl used shortcut. Now I can’t even reset an instance to do a second path if one glitches out :x

I understand with someone that has hours to play (at a time) it woudn’t be that bad. But I don’t. And there is a difference between a 15-30min dungeon and a 3hour dungeon when a boss glitches out and you cant reset it so party breaks.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Obviously you’re intended to grind FotM for thousands of hours or buy gold via gems if you actually want to meet any goals.

Correction.

Obviously you’re intended to grind FotM for thousands of hours or buy gold via gems if you actually want to meet YOUR goals.

There’s a difference, mind you.

I must really be doing something wrong (or have the devil’s luck) because while dungeons are a great quick buck, I still find Orr profitable. For one, the recent buff to loot bags (which are next to impossible to find in the exp mode dungeons in their heavy versions) and the sharp rise in even the most easily acquired (T6) fine crafting materials (except bones… so many bones), has made farming Orrians decently effective. Certainly you’re not blasting through 9 minutes or 15 minutes of content for 1.5g+ (CoF p1, or all of AC, respectively) but there are two heavy limiting factors: you can only repeat the maximum gain twice or thrice, and you will not get any T6 mats (you can only get Heavy bags from all of like five mobs in all of CoF) which each sum up to a massive chunk of cash.

Perhaps, though, it is a matter of degrees and luck, and its certainly not as profitable as it once was or, better put, as easily profitable as it once was. In a couple of rotations through pent/shelt, as of recent off the top of my head lootings, you’ll walk away with a few dyes, a rare or two, ten or twenty bags, and a bunch of bones, dust, venom sacs, and more bones. Sell the dyes, salvage the rares, and do whatever you want with the bones.

I still do runs of p3 Arah at 1:30 a run post-fixes. It’s possible, you’re just having bad luck. Get with a good guild / group and you’ll have no problem.

I realize it’s possible. But with the instance glitches pug groups via lfg website are glitchy 75% of the time and fall apart
Or someone leave halfway through and we cant get someone else in so we break
etc

I don’t have the 10 hours it takes to hope i get lucky and get into a good pug group
And almost no one on my server seems to do arah or care about it. I’ve stood at the door for hours and seen no one show up (before i realized there was a lfg website)

Right now there are 5 mosts on gw2lfg across all servers (and they are generally ppl looking for a party save for 1 of them)
there are 13 for asc
13 for cof
and 104 for fotm

It’s not like there is a ton of choice.

I was interested in earning a legendary for my main character, and started working on it (got my Gift of Ascalon and some materials out of the way) then lost all interest when I learned you have to be heavily into PvP to earn one. I am not a fan of PvP at all, so there goes that. It would be cool if they made a PvE version of the Legendary weapons but meh, it’s just a weapon skin anyhoo.

I saw the legendary I was going for on the Trading Post for 1400 gold and moused over it…aparrently they are Soulbound on use, not Soulbound on aquire…so you could prolly just farm up the gold and buy one. Nabbing it that way is prolly faster too.

@OP

I really think you’re just having the wrong mentality for the wrong game.

Nobody should be spending rl money to progress significantly in any way. This is not an f2p with that kind of business model. And currently, I don’t see the gem store intended to be a tool to aid you considerably, aside from a few conveniences and a pathetic number of decorative skins. (This is despite what some people argue is a conspiracy on the developers’ part. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know)

But now you’re saying all the while you’ve been playing like this and now its sort of “forcing” you to complete the legendary, when you don’t really. Its a self-imposed goal. And clearly, you’re suffering for it. You don’t enjoy the process. And this process is something designed by players as what is deemed the most efficient way to achieve their self-imposed goal. Naturally, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the game should make it easier for you. In fact, its even more understandable that they should make it more difficult for you.

I was happy with the process

But now that they probably killed jormag (which i found incredibly fun and loved doing, as i could work, and take breaks when jormag popped) im assuming farming gold will be more boring. And this just happened recently

And now that they are forcing ppl to do arah the “correct” way i have an issue (especially since ppl that did it before me got the ‘easy way out’ by exploiting it)
If arah had no glitches id be ok. but it does. And the glitches kill it for me.
I spend more time trying to re-log, re-party, etc, to get over the dungeon glitches. Or giving up halfway through the dungeon. that I do having fun.

I’m not saying “don’t have a hard dungeon”. I’m just saying its unfair that only staff elementalists (which generally suck anyway) have to deal with a 1.5hour dungeon and countless glitches.

Azurymber.5193:

I’m not saying “don’t have a hard dungeon”. I’m just saying its unfair that only staff elementalists (which generally suck anyway) have to deal with a 1.5hour dungeon and countless glitches.

Ok. No contest with that. Maybe it’s true. Maybe staff elementalists really have the short end of the stick in that aspect of the game.

So the solution is simple, right? Just don’t put elementalist + staff + dungeon in one equation. Don’t try to fit a cube in a round hole.

@projectcedric

I think you are giving too much credit to Anet. They ARE great developers but they aren’t revolutionary either.

I am basing this assumption from some of the choices they made with their game ( token system, RNG, necessity to farm in order meet certain game goals, recent shift towards marginal vertical progression…).

What they did is a remarquable job with the open world aspect. No more running from quests to quests trying to dodge mobs on the way as fast as possible until the next zone gets “unlocked”, where the same cycle will repeat itself.

Now we have dynamic events that grab your attention and help create a sense of community in the moment; exploration that deserves your interest, a combat system that feels a lot more fluid and puts you more in the shoes of the characters we play; underwater combat feature that goes quite a way into giving a sense of immersion ( there is nothing weirder than being to play a character carrying epic deeds yet who’s afraid to wet his feet); the removal of the holy trinity thus enabling players to be much more autonomous and effective independently; and many other features that I can’t think of at this moment.

What they didn’t do is revolutionize the dungeon/ grouping system. The “only” point of dungeons besides testing your mettle as a player is to get nice looking gear ( other mmos encourage players to do this for stats, GW2 encourages you to do it for skin/ prestige…still kind of egotistical motivation).
You still “farm” tokens; you still have to go through tedious mobs inbetween bosses with mediocre mechanics supposed to “spice things up”; you still need other players to clear it (except that now their class doesn’t have that much of an impact) and without these players you find yourself locked out of experiencing this game content; you still pray to the RNGoddess that you may get a decent drop or two to make up for damaged gear if you aren’t into gearing up or skins.

Seems to me that they focused too much on solo content, and not enough on the social content. Which kind of defeats the point of making an MMO.

As someone else said in another thread, this game feels more like a Massive Co-Op Game. I do love guild wars 2, and I do enjoy the content they have released but not all of it is revolutionary.

So to me, one second they are “too good” for acceptable solutions to certain problems and other time it is absolutely fine for them to go for these “old fashioned” solutions.

I am just a player, and the ONLY rights I have are to play their game and to be able to voice my opinion on their content. I do not have the right to dictate what they are to do or not. It is THEIR game and I 100% support that, but I just think that when it comes to grouping, they should just bite the bullet and admit the current system is flawed and an hindrance to the general population. By all means when they DO find that revolutionary. out of the box solution to the social problem then by all means remove the LFG tool and put your gem into the game !

But to put a sticky on the forums saying “gw2lfg.com is a useful link for those looking for groups” comes across as either laziness, or refusal to admit they have made a poor decision.

You can’t support an old mechanic by giving it a sticky, and then say it is too good to actually be in your game.
They talk about immersion and how to avoid breaking it. If opening an internet tab, and then go through a 3rd party website just to experiment some of the content because you couldn’t find enough players to clear it isn’t called breaking immersion, then I don’t know what is.

If you are correct and they are only willing to “answer” that grouping issue when they get around to finding something truly fresh, then they also have to accept that their players are going to feel depraved in the meantime and most likely irritated.

Having a problem with that would be called having your cake and eating it too.

EDIT :

I realize reading back my previous posts that it sounds like I have a problem with the game.

I don’t. I love it. I just see where there is some small areas where there is room for improvement. Just my two cents :p

stupid question
can i get myself a bow legendary on my elementalist and then move it to a diff char?

Azurymber.5193:

stupid question
can i get myself a bow legendary on my elementalist and then move it to a diff char?

Absolutely.

I got a mate who got a precursor from the karka chest. Sadly it didn’t fit his profession. He created an alt, and sent it to his new character.

Kind of a weird way to choose to create a character, but in his shoes, I probably would do the same thing.

The only issue in your way is the “soulbound” issue. If yu have not equipped the item, then you can pass it freely from your character to the next within the domain of your account through your bank. Just do not equip it :p

Azurymber.5193:

stupid question
can i get myself a bow legendary on my elementalist and then move it to a diff char?

Yes, if you haven’t used it yet.

ah maybe ill just get a bow or dawn then and make a warrior or ranger lol. thanks. i was told previously its auto-soul-bound

What’s with this “they need a carrot on a stick, those poor saps” garbage I’m hearing, that CARROT is a GOAL, the problem with GW2 is it’s lacking enough varied GOALS in the game that you can set yourself. Take a good look at some of the best games, they have inherent optional goals which challenge how you play the game, and reward you with achievements or unlockables by doing so, even the oldest games had high scores to keep you playing and offer a carrot and a stick ironically it was just a measuring stick, it’s part of gaming at it’s core.
Saying that “you don’t need a carrot on a stick” is like saying a game doesn’t need goals set out for you. And yet I’m aware you can set yourself goals, that’s great and all but usually that happens AFTER you’ve completed the ones the game sets for you, how many players don’t enjoy the path to what goals GW2 does have to the point they stop trying to achieve it? honestly? how many?

From where I’m standing quite a lot, and yes if you believe goals aren’t part of gaming, you’re looking for a simulation NOT an MMORPG the difference is key.

On the contrary, I think people are giving them (and most developers for that matter) too much negative critique.

For example, you made a contradiction. You said they aren’t revolutionary.

But you did say yourself:

Groovy.6749:

What they did is a remarquable job with the open world aspect. No more running from quests to quests trying to dodge mobs on the way as fast as possible until the next zone gets “unlocked”, where the same cycle will repeat itself.

Now we have dynamic events that grab your attention and help create a sense of community in the moment; exploration that deserves your interest, a combat system that feels a lot more fluid and puts you more in the shoes of the characters we play; underwater combat feature that goes quite a way into giving a sense of immersion ( there is nothing weirder than being to play a character carrying epic deeds yet who’s afraid to wet his feet); the removal of the holy trinity thus enabling players to be much more autonomous and effective independently; and many other features that I can’t think of at this moment.

Although you also said:

Groovy.6749:

What they didn’t do is revolutionize the dungeon/ grouping system. The “only” point of dungeons besides testing your mettle as a player is to get nice looking gear ( other mmos encourage players to do this for stats, GW2 encourages you to do it for skin/ prestige…still kind of egotistical motivation).

You still “farm” tokens; you still have to go through tedious mobs inbetween bosses with mediocre mechanics supposed to “spice things up”; you still need other players to clear it (except that now their class doesn’t have that much of an impact) and without these players you find yourself locked out of experiencing this game content; you still pray to the RNGoddess that you may get a decent drop or two to make up for damaged gear if you aren’t into gearing up or skins.

…and to some extent, I agree.

So some things they did were revolutionary and some things weren’t. That makes them still revolutionary, no?

Anet is far from the perfect company and GW2 is far from the perfect. In fact, I don’t believe in the perfect game. Or perfect anything, for that matter.

What I’m trying to defend is not exactly the game itself, but the right kind of mentality that people should be having when playing the right kind of games.

I enjoyed playing WoW, RO, SMT, Runescape, etc.. some of the other so-called conventional mmorpgs, just as much as I enjoy GW2. Each has its own good and bad. But then again, I tend to focus on what is there rather than what is NOT there.

If something is not there -whether its on purpose or a failure by the developers- just take it like its intended to be that way.

Most of time, we over-analyze kitten.

Azurymber.5193:

ah maybe ill just get a bow or dawn then and make a warrior or ranger lol. thanks. i was told previously its auto-soul-bound

THEN you can use your warrior or ranger with a legendary bow or dawn to farm for your legendary staff for your elementalist.

See, problem solved.

Starting off with “this isnt a complaint…” is like when someone says “No offense but…”

You arent forced to do dungeons 4-8 hours a day or anything else with legendaries.

projectcedric.6951:

Most of time, we over-analyze kitten.

I lol’d. This is 100% what happens in the forums of any game.

Anet made a great game, no doubt. I hope I didn’t come across as what isn’t ingame bugs me.
But if you asked if I didn’t notice a thing or two, that’d be a lie.

I’m glad you’re comfortable with the content purely as it is, so am I really. Just like you, I’m just throwing my opinion out there. I know probably only a peep or two is going to read it anyway :p

PS. Also I don’t see where I contradicted myself, but that doesn’t really matter to the overall discussion.