Guild Wars 2

SkiTz.4590:

What I’m saying is why can’t there be rewarding content for difficulty. Teq box is not rewarding at all. Triple threat is a tough open world raid as well and whats the reward? o more greens and blues. Thats just terrible. Spin it however you want to. Its always boiled down to being rewarded nothing but scraps at w/e you do.

So, what do you want as rewards? Let’s start getting some specifics down, or you’re just wasting space like ARWEN is saying the same thing over and over.

You want cool new skins but cant cash out real money? cool, just farm gold mindlessly. You cant farm any specific content to get a specific skin (outside fractal weapon skins which is stupidly rare btw and dung spec armors)

I’m amused you think any new content which would offer specific skins unrestricted and able to be sold/traded wouldn’t be farmed for it. Or wouldn’t have something in there to prevent repeated easy turnovers.

yerok.5469:

lol why do people keep defending gw2 in this? I love this game too, but after 2 years of promises and content being predominantly temporary, while also being just a rehash of last years same content I’ve given up hope. I know a lot of you are still new and it seems like there is so much more but soon you will hit the same wall.

I moved to WvW as an entertainment rather than PvE. It’s mostly more challenging to play a ranger there, but I have fun. And it makes money too.

As for defending GW2 in this? I don’t really want to defend the lack of “end game”, I would love to have something to do. But everyone seems to just want to talk about “rewarding” or “worth their time” rather than what they really want.

LS isn’t working, does anyone honestly know what the hell is going on? besides a giant sylvari brought robots and ufo’s to kill everyone? I would assume one would need an actual story to create a living one.

There’s a story, there’s lore in it, they made an entire instanced area during the Marionette chapters where it could recap what was going on. I’m really sorry you think there wasn’t one but in this case you are . . . unfortunately . . . mistaken.

Note, however, I’m not saying the story was amazingly good. It just managed to be serviceable.

cranos.5913:

Personally I’m hoping for a new lvl 80 dungeon that’s at least on the same difficulty level as a lvl 50 fractal and new fractal levels till 60… Yeah I know, I should keep dreaming. xD

I so could get behind this, it’d be like trying to fight the Mursaat in the Ice Floe area in Prophecies without infused armor!

(. . . tons of interrupt potential makes it almost viable.)

I see people doing at least ten different end games -

Dungeons,
PVP,
WvW,
Temples,
World bosses,
Champion Trains
Activities (e.g. Sanctum sprint)
Living Story
Farming
Map completion

If we were all forced into a single end game instance, like most MMOs, it would be a sad day.

The question A R W E N asked was where is the high level rewarding end game content. And everything you stated is not rewarding.

Farming does not exist in this game.

No one is asking to be forced into one single instance like most MMO.

A R W E N simply wants something new that is hard and rewarding.

bhcbose.9615:

The question A R W E N asked was where is the high level rewarding end game content. And everything you stated is not rewarding.

Farming does not exist in this game.

No one is asking to be forced into one single instance like most MMO.

A R W E N simply wants something new that is hard and rewarding.

And said person has not even begun to suggest what “rewarding” means for them. This is not unique to that particular poster.

Thats because A R W E N (which is my IRL friend) can’t reply anymore on any forum threads.

Wanderer.3248:

I see people doing at least ten different end games -

Dungeons,
PVP,
WvW,
Temples,
World bosses,
Champion Trains
Activities (e.g. Sanctum sprint)
Living Story
Farming
Map completion

If we were all forced into a single end game instance, like most MMOs, it would be a sad day.

A lot of these aren’t rewarding, almost none of these are challenging. Maybe read further then the topic title. ^^

bhcbose.9615:

The question A R W E N asked was where is the high level rewarding end game content. And everything you stated is not rewarding.

Farming does not exist in this game.

No one is asking to be forced into one single instance like most MMO.

A R W E N simply wants something new that is hard and rewarding.

Having one activity that rewards with BiS items does force everyone to do it.

And as soon as most players have it, they demand more, which creates a treadmill.

If you want rewards for cranking a handle, go play a slot machine.

cranos.5913:

Wanderer.3248:

I see people doing at least ten different end games -

Dungeons,
PVP,
WvW,
Temples,
World bosses,
Champion Trains
Activities (e.g. Sanctum sprint)
Living Story
Farming
Map completion

If we were all forced into a single end game instance, like most MMOs, it would be a sad day.

A lot of these aren’t rewarding, almost none of these are challenging. Maybe read further then the topic title. ^^

Nothing is a challenge in PVE. Not for longer than it takes someone to master it, blog it, and for everyone to put it on farm.

I think the game could benefit from more “high end” dungeons (e.g. Arah, stuff hard enough to cause people to pay for runs), dungeons with larger team size, and PvP content, the things that I consider “end game” content.

voidwater.2064:

I think the game could benefit from more “high end” dungeons (e.g. Arah, stuff hard enough to cause people to pay for runs), dungeons with larger team size, and PvP content, the things that I consider “end game” content.

Five is a holy number in dungeons for some reason, don’t ask me why.

honestly Wanderer what are you talking about lol?

Devata.6589:

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

I don’t really care about armor until I am level 80 and until 80 I get enough drops to keep upgrading my amour along the way. Now how you describe it it’s more like a tool. Thats fine but it’s not fun and thats what I am looking at in a game, fun. Let me craft fun items. Let me be a musician (woops they put that option in the cash-shop) or let me be a toy-maker. A nice new toy every 5 levels to work towards. Meanwhile let me hunt down recipe’s in the world or let me hunt down a special Item I need to create one of those recipe’s. Now then I have fun crafting.

One of the funnest moments I had On another game was levelling up engineering,…. and having made Target Dummies ( they are a Box you drop that when mobs come at you, and near it, Out pops something that draws agro… Kind of Like a Portable mechanical agro magnet.)…

I drop it, and the Mob rushes at me, and I see this … thing made of wood on a spring… flat, but it is the cut out of a female..the painting on it, shows she has a huge cleavage.. and hans her hand In the air, and a smile on her face… the Motion seems to attract the mob over, …although How a Big breasted female sporting cleavage, and waving is attractive to a boar I have no clue…

But it was funny as hell. Every other character I play on that game takes engineering, and makes stacks of target dummies. STILL fun.

Yeah indeed, that is a fun way of crafting, and it is a fun way of leveling because every few crafting levels there is another nice item to work towards and while doing that you explore the world (looking for the needed materials) and so level up. Now that is what I consider fun. I do like something like engineering where you make such funny little tools. But there can be much more like crafts where you tame pets for rangers or as mini creating your own unique looking ones. All fun stuff to do in an MMO.

I agree that something similar would be awesome for gw2.

Another fun item was mechanical squirrels… Completely useless In combat. But it was a mini-pet you needed to:

1. Level up engineering high enough to craft it.
2. Mine for the needed materials.
3. Craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the parts, to craft the squirrel.

End result.. a mechanical squirrel that followed you around.

A Mini pet you did not buy off the cash shop but that you could acquire, purely from playing the game.

Part of the problem with crafting in this game, and in many modern games is..( I know I will be flamed by a Lot of players for this..) That levelling to cap is TOO fast.

I know i Lost a Lot of you… for those still with me…

If I get from level 10 to 20 asap, and can get to level 20 with level 10 gear, then level 15 gear is a waste of time, and resources to craft.

if it takes me a MONTH to get from level 10 to 20…a few Interesting things happen.

1. There is suddenly a demand for level 15 gear.
2. There is subsequently a need to farm for gold… or.. to farm for materials that sell for gold… that can then be applied to either craft level 15 gear for either self use…. or for sale.
3. The Player economy for crafted gear suddenly has value pre-cap.

I keep mentioning EverQuest because yes, it was my first MMO…. but levelling up in EQ, was Glacial compared to WoW or Gw2.

Players would go into the Karanas to kill leapords, because the leapords dropped pelts… they would sell the pets on the bazaar, or they would trade them with armorers…

The armorers would either BUY the pelts at the bazaar or trade them for finished goods.

And the reason this all worked was, there was a demand…for a level 25 chest piece.

Since there was a demand for it, there was value in crafting it, and value in buying it.

in Gw2, crafted items lack value. In EverQuest..Norrath had a GDP ranked number 30 when compared to real world countries.

Nothing succeeds Like success… but..I can Understand that today’s playerbase is not the same, players want things easier. Players want things with less effort, less time, less devotion… and then end up with a more boring, and shallow experience.

If you aren’t willing to work, the rewards will not be as rewarding. When something is just handed to you, there is less appreciation.

bhcbose.9615:

Thats because A R W E N (which is my IRL friend) can’t reply anymore on any forum threads.

I read that earlier, but still not an excuse – they didn’t answer it when I was asking the question and would just rephrase it over again. If they didn’t answer it then, I never really expected them to.

Nerelith.7360:

I agree that something similar would be awesome for gw2.

Another fun item was mechanical squirrels… Completely useless In combat. But it was a mini-pet you needed to:

1. Level up engineering high enough to craft it.
2. Mine for the needed materials.
3. Craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the parts, to craft the squirrel.

End result.. a mechanical squirrel that followed you around. A Mini pet you did not buy off the cash shop but that you could acquire, purely from playing the game.

I’d personally like mini-pets to be craftable through junk materials or something like that from what materials we have. I think I mentioned that during the horizontal progression CDI as a concept which I didn’t flesh out then.

Of course, we run into the other question: Is this sort of thing the reward those who want end-game challenges want? I don’t think it is, but I will let them speak for themselves on that score, if they choose.

Part of the problem with crafting in this game, and in many modern games is..( I know I will be flamed by a Lot of players for this..) That levelling to cap is TOO fast.

That’s not part of the problem with crafting in this game. Part of the problem of crafting in this game is how it’s uninspired for most of the crafting professions and nothing really fun to do with them beyond make weapons and armor. (Note, now with the Wardrobe it becomes easier to get good gear since Exotics are fine to craft with the stats you want and apply a skin on top.)

I know i Lost a Lot of you… for those still with me…

If I get from level 10 to 20 asap, and can get to level 20 with level 10 gear, then level 15 gear is a waste of time, and resources to craft.

if it takes me a MONTH to get from level 10 to 20…a few Interesting things happen.

1. There is suddenly a demand for level 15 gear.
2. There is subsequently a need to farm for gold… or.. to farm for materials that sell for gold… that can then be applied to either craft level 15 gear for either self use…. or for sale.
3. The Player economy for crafted gear suddenly has value pre-cap.

I do follow you on this, but I’ll also note it adds some other undesirable interesting things. Primarily in your point #2 – see, by forcing players to grind for more things as well as slowing the level gain, you’re risking sending the message it’s more important they spend time doing useless things rather than enjoying the game.

Related to this is your references to EverQuest, where leveling was definitely a chore and there was a small bit of accomplishment . . . but there was either never enough money for good gear at your level (due to them being very rare drops sold by players high enough to farm them constantly, also keeping people from farming them at the level they’re useful) . . . or gear was so freaking easy to get because trash drop equipment was better than anything at that level which could be earned. (Back in the early days, Minotaur Axes came to mind as highly desired weapons for low fighting characters . . . and they dropped from things which you had to be much higher to kill reasonably easily, were useless at that level, and were essentially dead weight.)

I keep mentioning EverQuest because yes, it was my first MMO…. but levelling up in EQ, was Glacial compared to WoW or Gw2.

To abuse a meme: “dat monthly fee!”

1/2

Players would go into the Karanas to kill leapords, because the leapords dropped pelts… they would sell the pets on the bazaar, or they would trade them with armorers…

Going to stop you . . . right . . . there. See, while this is possibly the case, my server (The Rathe)? None of this. Why? Oh . . . the armor which could be made by those hides was incredibly useless compared to what else could be worn by the classes. Reinforced Leather Tunic or Lockjaw Hide Vest . . . which could often just be gotten by people hanging out leveling in Oasis.

Crafting was a joke in EverQuest, as there wasn’t anything really useful you could make which wasn’t surpassed by something which could be dropped or purchased for a considerably easier time. Crafting was always a joke in EverQuest for sinking absurd amounts of money into for no return except for occasionally giving a fresh new character bettered than the crappy drops you’d get in starter zones.

The only ones which got a pass was Jewelcrafting and Fletching. Nobody bothered with Jewelcraft unless they had an Enchanter on tap for making magical jewelry, even still with that it was always a loss of value when sold. Nobody bothered with Fletching because archery was broken early on, and later it was just a waste when your archer could be standing in melee with two weapons.

I know all this because I, unfortunately for my sanity, crafted. I also played a ranger, a mage, and a cleric through various states of the game and witnessed what happened as the expansions piled on and there was revamping of content . . . stuff which used to be desired (Dwarven Ringmail Tunic) got replaced by much higher-tier stuff which was not level-limited and would get passed down. (Who would want the Green Silken Drape when you could go to the Temple of Solusek Ro and quest up something much nicer?)

in Gw2, crafted items lack value. In EverQuest..Norrath had a GDP ranked number 30 when compared to real world countries.

And in EvE Online some corporations/guilds have what is claimed to be absurd amounts of “value” in their ships and fleets. What’s your point with that?

If you aren’t willing to work, the rewards will not be as rewarding. When something is just handed to you, there is less appreciation.

We do agree on this part, but at the same time . . . what rewards are we really wanting in the game? Because apparently “the satisfaction of doing it” and “to look awesome” aren’t cutting it.

2/2

Wanderer.3248:

bhcbose.9615:

The question A R W E N asked was where is the high level rewarding end game content. And everything you stated is not rewarding.

Farming does not exist in this game.

No one is asking to be forced into one single instance like most MMO.

A R W E N simply wants something new that is hard and rewarding.

Having one activity that rewards with BiS items does force everyone to do it.

And as soon as most players have it, they demand more, which creates a treadmill.

If you want rewards for cranking a handle, go play a slot machine.

Where is the question for BiS items and how is playing a slot machine considered ‘hard’?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’m amused you think any new content which would offer specific skins unrestricted and able to be sold/traded wouldn’t be farmed for it. Or wouldn’t have something in there to prevent repeated easy turnovers.

Sure even when all rewards are specific some people will be farming that. However if you do that all over the game (specific rewards for specific content) you first of all make it possible to work directly towards the item you want where now for many things gold is the only viable option so people are more or less forced to grind gold if they want / need any of those items.

If people can go directly for what they want the need to grind gold is gone so more people will directly go for it. That also means a lower demand and farming an item might still be possible but if everybody farms the same thing prices will drop making it not rewarding to farm that one item any-more. So at that moment working directly towards the item you want is an option and it’s the best way to get it. While still having farming as an option but less ‘interesting’ as now.

Problem of course is that many items are cash-shop items so only ingame way to get them is by grinding gold.

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

~

~

Yeah indeed, that is a fun way of crafting, and it is a fun way of leveling because every few crafting levels there is another nice item to work towards and while doing that you explore the world (looking for the needed materials) and so level up. Now that is what I consider fun. I do like something like engineering where you make such funny little tools. But there can be much more like crafts where you tame pets for rangers or as mini creating your own unique looking ones. All fun stuff to do in an MMO.

I agree that something similar would be awesome for gw2.

Another fun item was mechanical squirrels… Completely useless In combat. But it was a mini-pet you needed to:

1. Level up engineering high enough to craft it.
2. Mine for the needed materials.
3. Craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the parts, to craft the squirrel.

End result.. a mechanical squirrel that followed you around.

A Mini pet you did not buy off the cash shop but that you could acquire, purely from playing the game.

Part of the problem with crafting in this game, and in many modern games is..( I know I will be flamed by a Lot of players for this..) That levelling to cap is TOO fast.

I know i Lost a Lot of you… for those still with me…

If I get from level 10 to 20 asap, and can get to level 20 with level 10 gear, then level 15 gear is a waste of time, and resources to craft.

if it takes me a MONTH to get from level 10 to 20…a few Interesting things happen.

1. There is suddenly a demand for level 15 gear.
2. There is subsequently a need to farm for gold… or.. to farm for materials that sell for gold… that can then be applied to either craft level 15 gear for either self use…. or for sale.
3. The Player economy for crafted gear suddenly has value pre-cap.

I keep mentioning EverQuest because yes, it was my first MMO…. but levelling up in EQ, was Glacial compared to WoW or Gw2.

Players would go into the Karanas to kill leapords, because the leapords dropped pelts… they would sell the pets on the bazaar, or they would trade them with armorers…

The armorers would either BUY the pelts at the bazaar or trade them for finished goods.

And the reason this all worked was, there was a demand…for a level 25 chest piece.

Since there was a demand for it, there was value in crafting it, and value in buying it.

in Gw2, crafted items lack value. In EverQuest..Norrath had a GDP ranked number 30 when compared to real world countries.

Nothing succeeds Like success… but..I can Understand that today’s playerbase is not the same, players want things easier. Players want things with less effort, less time, less devotion… and then end up with a more boring, and shallow experience.

If you aren’t willing to work, the rewards will not be as rewarding. When something is just handed to you, there is less appreciation.

Problem with slowly levelling (for me) is mainly that levelling the alts will get boring. But for the main I don’t really care how long it takes. Another problems with leveling in general is what you do (as developer) when releasing an expansion. Up the level? But then it becomes to much for new players if you keep doing that. And if you don’t up the level then maybe don’t focus at leveling at all? I have seen some interesting ways to try and solve those problems but I do understand why it might be a problem from a development standpoint.

About crafting. Personally I never cared about armor that much and you could argue that if everybody can craft it anyway there is also no value for it. Giving room for Twinks in your game might then in my idea be more effective.

For me however what is interesting in crafting is if I can make fun items and there is always an next item jus around the corner to work towards. Like the example of your mechanical squirl. That was one of the first things an engineer could make but was a really fun item to work towards. Just like the parachute cape that came not long after it all up to the helicopter mount at the max level (back then). So there was always this next fun item to work towards. Compare that to crafting in GW2. What do people really craft for? Legendaries weapons and now ascended gear. So the item you want it at level 400 or 500 and the way up there is just boring crafting level grind. Not more.

The type of fun items they could put in fun crafts are in the cash-shop. Like the music instruments. Also not the bubble head thing would be great for some fun craft.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

But most of the rewards were skins, or ways to get skins, and the person I just replied to seemed to think that wasn’t enough.

So what is?

For me personally? Because you seem so hell-bent on me defining what rewarding would be, I’ll try to answer it.

For me, rewarding, challenging endgame content would be content that’s hard to complete in an unorganized/unskilled group, but fast/modestly hard in a skilled/organized group. Meaning that you need to learn the area to get proficient at it. Arah is something that comes close to this. It’s possible to do all the paths (bar p4) in <15minutes with an organized, skilled team, but it’s going to be hell to complete in an unskilled/unorganized team.

Rewarding, meaning for me that the amount of skill needed to proficiently complete the area is reflected in the rewards it gives, relative to content that doesn’t take much skill to complete. A good comparison to this is DoA. It was very rewarding if you completed it fast enough (~30-35mins for the teams I usually ran with), and it was more rewarding than all other content in the game, barring high-end GvG tournaments. But then again, I spent a lot of time learning all the roles and the area in order to be able to clear the content so fast.

The problem right now is that most content is either not proportionally rewarding, since content that takes barely any skill will reward you very similarly to the challenging content. And the few rewards you can actually get are usually accountbound, meaning you can’t make a profit out of it. Add to that the way most rewards are time gated (although with the current design, that’s reasonable).

I know many people will scold me for wanting to be able to do endgame areas to make money by selling the stuff I earn, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. It’s how I enjoyed playing GW1, and besides the benefits it yields me, it also benefits people that don’t want to play challenging content, but do want some of the cosmetic rewards. It’s a win-win in my eyes.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Boneheart.3561:

Errant.1942:

ARWEN never proposed anything like that…

ARWEN hasn’t proposed anything. This entire thread is bait.

It’s nice discussion, mostly. I mean, if you get past the people who think “having something of end-game difficulty” is going to automatically make the stuff they put in worth getting. That didn’t even work for War in Kryta, let alone Underworld and Domain of Anguish.

What, are you kidding me? The reason I got into DoA in the first place was the fact that it was so rewarding. The reason I fell in love with the area was because I actually enjoyed it a lot. After a while I was so stupidly rich (for reasons other than farming DoA, although DoA provided the starting capital) that running DoA for cash wasn’t a motivator anymore. And it wasn’t for many of my friends either. A lot of us were so rich that we ran out of ways to spend it. We kept running DoA though, not for the money, but because we actually liked the area. There were a lot of people like that, and if you would go back to GW1 right now, you’d find that there are still guilds who run DoA and who are very active 24/7. Tell me why people would run an elite area in a dead game if they didn’t actually like the area?

MMOs have “end game content” ? LOL. I play the games as if there wasn’t. IMO the end game result is reaching the maximum level.

Fuji.6284:

That’s where you’re wrong though. People play the game for different reasons. Some play it for the ultimate goal of getting a legendary. That’s their “win” feeling. If you want a legendary and is unwilling to grind for it, good luck playing for months on end without getting bored to death before you get it. There is really no sense of “living” in GW2 because the only two things it’s built around are 1) Combat 2) Jumping Puzzles. Beyond that, there is nothing that attributes to a sense of living (Housing, Farming, Fishing, Pets, ect.).

I am not disagreeing with you, you’re right some people, probably a lot of people the game is all about their goal be it getting a legendary or fully equip their chars with ascended gear. They just grind at various parts of the game to reach their goal.

Thing I dont understand is why? you’re playing in a way you dont enjoy in order to get a reward that technically you’re never going to use. I mean in order to get a legendary you have to literally play a bit of everything. I can say go do events in a mid level map and still progress towards my legendary in several ways. But if none of the what you can do do to get a legendary is appealing then why get the legendary in the first place you’re not going to use it because when you get it what is left is stuff thats unappealing to you right?

I agree there is a lot more then can do towards the living part… housing, guild housing, fishing, farming would all be nice. That being said I disagree with you that there is nothing there, there is in fact already a lot. A living breathing world that actually has passage of time in it which is lacking in a lot of other games.

Errant.1942:

For me personally? Because you seem so hell-bent on me defining what rewarding would be, I’ll try to answer it.

For me, rewarding, challenging endgame content would be content that’s hard to complete in an unorganized/unskilled group, but fast/modestly hard in a skilled/organized group. Meaning that you need to learn the area to get proficient at it. Arah is something that comes close to this. It’s possible to do all the paths (bar p4) in <15minutes with an organized, skilled team, but it’s going to be hell to complete in an unskilled/unorganized team.

That’s telling me the “end game” you want, but not the rewarding which keeps getting bandied about. There’s a lot of talk about how “rewarding” it was, but . . .

A good comparison to this is DoA. It was very rewarding if you completed it fast enough (~30-35mins for the teams I usually ran with), and it was more rewarding than all other content in the game, barring high-end GvG tournaments. But then again, I spent a lot of time learning all the roles and the area in order to be able to clear the content so fast.

. . . but we’re talking about farming end-game content in the next bit here. Do you see where this goes wrong so fast? If it’s rewarding, it will get farmed. If it’s farmed, it’s not nearly interesting enough to keep doing. The funny thing is, I don’t think DoA had all that much “reward” going for it outside the challenging nature of it.

It had the Gemstones which you could trade for Coffers or Armbraces, sure. But the Coffers are those lovely RNG boxes everyone seems to hate and the Armbraces are basically currency all over again (highly valued in trade). These both seem like rewards which are more a means than an actual reward.

The problem right now is that most content is either not proportionally rewarding, since content that takes barely any skill will reward you very similarly to the challenging content. And the few rewards you can actually get are usually accountbound, meaning you can’t make a profit out of it. Add to that the way most rewards are time gated (although with the current design, that’s reasonable).

And we move on to “reward = profit”, where I find once more we slide into “grind it for gold”. Which most people wanting end-game content want to not be doing since that’s lame.

I know many people will scold me for wanting to be able to do endgame areas to make money by selling the stuff I earn, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. It’s how I enjoyed playing GW1, and besides the benefits it yields me, it also benefits people that don’t want to play challenging content, but do want some of the cosmetic rewards. It’s a win-win in my eyes.

I agree, but at the same time, then we get the same kind of farming we had in GW1 where you never had to set foot in any of these end game areas to walk around with the “exclusive” goods for beating them. Which, if I dare say, sapped a lot of meaning out of the rewards since anyone could plop down some hard-farmed Ecto/Plat and say “I’m buying myself a Tormented set”.

Sort of like how we have it now with people playing the Trading Post for gold or feeling like they need to drop cash for Gems-to-Gold to get things. We’re going in circles here right back to the same problem of “end game content”. Only this time, it’s so rewarding nobody would not be doing it. (Yes, I know it’s a double negative, so sue me.)

Tell me why people would run an elite area in a dead game if they didn’t actually like the area?

Should I? Let’s roll back the tape.

After a while I was so stupidly rich (for reasons other than farming DoA, although DoA provided the starting capital) that running DoA for cash wasn’t a motivator anymore.

Yes, I think I should. “Why would you run it if they didn’t like it?” Because it’s profitable against the other things you could be doing.

Look, I got nothing against adding some “end-game content” but we’re cruising for another debacle here. Such as when people complained there was nothing to do and we got Ascended and Fractals, two things which got both barrels to the gut for trying to fill what people were saying they wanted. Such as the one where they added champion bags and there was the Queensdale Train which was so terrible it had to end.

You want “rewarding” you had better be darn clear about what sort of reward you want out of it. And if it smells like “a better farm for gold”, then you should probably re-evaluate why you want it.

Wanderer.3248:

cranos.5913:

Wanderer.3248:

I see people doing at least ten different end games -

Dungeons,
PVP,
WvW,
Temples,
World bosses,
Champion Trains
Activities (e.g. Sanctum sprint)
Living Story
Farming
Map completion

If we were all forced into a single end game instance, like most MMOs, it would be a sad day.

A lot of these aren’t rewarding, almost none of these are challenging. Maybe read further then the topic title. ^^

Nothing is a challenge in PVE. Not for longer than it takes someone to master it, blog it, and for everyone to put it on farm.

It is, if it’s fairly newly released. Of course if they sit on their kitten for 2 years releasing nothing new, it won’t be challenging anymore. Even if you know how to do it, you still gotta learn the fights.

Unless we’re talking world bosses, that’s more organisation then personal skill.

cranos.5913:

Wanderer.3248:

Nothing is a challenge in PVE. Not for longer than it takes someone to master it, blog it, and for everyone to put it on farm.

It is, if it’s fairly newly released. Of course if they sit on their kitten for 2 years releasing nothing new, it won’t be challenging anymore. Even if you know how to do it, you still gotta learn the fights.

Unless we’re talking world bosses, that’s more organisation then personal skill.

It takes all of a day for the hardcore players to figure out how to organize and turn around to beat new released content. With perhaps the only exception being Triple Trouble (Great Jungle Wurm) because of it being three different bosses at once.

And I’ve seen other games where the same day, there’s walkthroughs which are out for significant portions of full video games which got released that morning. I’ve worked a counter where someone bought the game before lunch then was back before dinner having beaten it.

About the only mystery left in MMOs PvE wise would be “How are we really supposed to kill Absolute Vitrue?”

Edit: Okay, one of them got solved :P

Wanderer.3248:

I see people doing at least ten different end games -

Dungeons,
PVP,
WvW,
Temples,
World bosses,
Champion Trains
Activities (e.g. Sanctum sprint)
Living Story
Farming
Map completion

If we were all forced into a single end game instance, like most MMOs, it would be a sad day.

in ALL other games this would be called filler content – only in gw2 people call this endgame cause nothing to do in this game^^

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Errant.1942:

~

~

The problem right now is that most content is either not proportionally rewarding, since content that takes barely any skill will reward you very similarly to the challenging content. And the few rewards you can actually get are usually accountbound, meaning you can’t make a profit out of it. Add to that the way most rewards are time gated (although with the current design, that’s reasonable).

And we move on to “reward = profit”, where I find once more we slide into “grind it for gold”. Which most people wanting end-game content want to not be doing since that’s lame.

I know many people will scold me for wanting to be able to do endgame areas to make money by selling the stuff I earn, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. It’s how I enjoyed playing GW1, and besides the benefits it yields me, it also benefits people that don’t want to play challenging content, but do want some of the cosmetic rewards. It’s a win-win in my eyes.

I agree, but at the same time, then we get the same kind of farming we had in GW1 where you never had to set foot in any of these end game areas to walk around with the “exclusive” goods for beating them. Which, if I dare say, sapped a lot of meaning out of the rewards since anyone could plop down some hard-farmed Ecto/Plat and say “I’m buying myself a Tormented set”.

Sort of like how we have it now with people playing the Trading Post for gold or feeling like they need to drop cash for Gems-to-Gold to get things. We’re going in circles here right back to the same problem of “end game content”. Only this time, it’s so rewarding nobody would not be doing it. (Yes, I know it’s a double negative, so sue me.)

Tell me why people would run an elite area in a dead game if they didn’t actually like the area?

Should I? Let’s roll back the tape.

After a while I was so stupidly rich (for reasons other than farming DoA, although DoA provided the starting capital) that running DoA for cash wasn’t a motivator anymore.

Yes, I think I should. “Why would you run it if they didn’t like it?” Because it’s profitable against the other things you could be doing.

Look, I got nothing against adding some “end-game content” but we’re cruising for another debacle here. Such as when people complained there was nothing to do and we got Ascended and Fractals, two things which got both barrels to the gut for trying to fill what people were saying they wanted. Such as the one where they added champion bags and there was the Queensdale Train which was so terrible it had to end.

You want “rewarding” you had better be darn clear about what sort of reward you want out of it. And if it smells like “a better farm for gold”, then you should probably re-evaluate why you want it.

The complains are now indeed that everything is a gold-grind. You will however always have people who prefer to grind gold and that’s fine.

However the ‘rewarding’ should be done in a way that it is not so much of requirement to get the items. Then again how will that ever change if items are in the cash-shop.

You do also have a valid point how if everything is easy to get with gold that is devalues the items. There is nothing special about an item any-more if you can easily get it with gold. However if the best way to get items is to work directly for them (what is doable by having a lot of content and all the items being rewarded with such content, every content having it own rewards, so that the possible gold-grinders also have to split out.) then going directly for an item is the best way to do it. That means that there are far less gold-grinders and so less items on the TP so now the item is still special because the person had to do that hard content or had to pay a lot of gold.

Tequatl/ Wurm and Fractals are probably the only thing close to endgame that GW2 has, but they are heavily gated under massive repetition (fractals) or randomness and waiting time (timed world events where zergs will naturally happen and ruin organization). They also are not rewarding enough, requiring you to farm them over and over until the RNG loot smiles upon you.

It’s perfectly possible to make a highly rewarding game, because almost every single good game out there does it. But there are many problems that prevent GW2 from being highly rewarding:

• Trading Post – you can’t get rare exotic weapons and skins frequently enough to keep rewarding loot steady, because the trading post would be filled with endless copies of rare items after a time, breaking the economy. Some games like FFXI toned down the economy problems by making soul/account-bound items drop more frequently than tradeable items;
• Gear Loot – One of the most exciting things about getting new loot in any RPG ever, is the feeling of obtaining stronger gear, equipping it, and using it in battle with clear gains in effectiveness. Because GW2 is a game that focus on horizontal progression, and because leveling is not a journey but a tutorial, gear loot quickly becomes nothing but salveagable filler for even more materials. To fix this, Anet must find alternative items or mechanics to reward players. Skin unlocking and magic find are sone of them, but it’s not enough. For example, I rarely see consumables being dropped, except some niche ones that only work on the dungeons they drop from. The game is also lacking at horizontal progression unlocks and privileges, outside of the gem shop convenience items, where all you need is (gems) gold, which you can get from anywhere.
• Broken difficulty/ balance – When 90% of the stats are useless in pve, collecting gear for the sake of horizontal progression becomes a lot less exciting.

Unlocking titles through acchievements that are actually challenging enough to feel like acchievements, is also a form of reward, and probably the most consistent, satisfying rewards this game has to offer at the moment (for Liadri, and the two world bosses).

Nerelith.7360:

There is a difference between being a competitor In the 100 meter hurdles, against Olympic Athletes… and deciding since the only thing available to use is racing against turtles, … tying your own left leg behind your back.

While I realize BOTH extremes are nit satisfactory, I expect something close to the ffirst …provided by anet…. than having to do the second…. so that anet is let off the hook, and I can …entertain myself.

Why do we let Anet off the hook for providing a sub-par product?

Thing is they didnt create a sub-par product they created a product different than what people expected. They didnt make encounters easy because they werent able to create difficult content, they made them easy because the core of what they did was a game that’s accessible to all kind of players. They provided choice but choice always comes with a cost. You want to be the uber casual that never worries about build / armor / weapons and just goes with the first thing they find. Cool you can do that but regular content is going to feel a bit hard and group content will require you to have good support or you’ll loose. Still with your far from optimal setup you can take part in any content and be successful at it as well. That being said for such a setup to work you cannot make your content targeted at the hardcore player who gets all their best in slot and spends hours in a spreadsheet to extract every last dps from that build etc.. That means that the person seeing the challenge is not going to find it because contented is tuned towards a much easier to acquire build.

What they delivered isnt sub-par, its exactly what they promised but what they promised doesnt align 100% with what everyone wants, it never can.

Simply speaking to go with your analogy Gw2 gives you freedom, you can join a bicycle race with a bicycle or you can go with a motorcycle. The race is geared towards bicycles simply because it is a lot easier for people to get a bicycle then a motorcycle and you can finish it just fine using a bicycle but it will feel way to easy if you use a motorcycle for obvious reasons.

And this is not just about gear… people do this in a lot of areas in the game, group events that scale up to 10 players are tackled with zergs that goes into numbers far larger then that. Speed runs. Focus on pure dps. etc.. If you ….. hmm the only world that comes to mind is abuse but it isnt the right word cause you’re not really abusing the system you’re doing what the system allows you to do…. hmm shortcut is perhaps a better word… if you take shortcuts dont be surprised that the journey felt too short.

By default the game is easy, no doubt about that and its not a flaw its a design choice they made to be casual friendly. But beyond that people also play in a manner that trivializes it more but joining together and refusing to spread out that makes the issue that much worst.

All this being said I love a challenge as much as you or anyone else and although I understand why there arent more challenges because of their design choices (not because I accept sub-par content) I am hopeful S2 might include more peripheral challenging content since its one thing they specifically mentioned as a major request they heard loud and clear from a large part of the community. I am curious to see what they’ve come up with. 2 more weeks to go

Galen Grey.4709:

By default the game is easy, no doubt about that and its not a flaw its a design choice they made to be casual friendly.

Having content that appeals to casuals is a design choice, but having everything being easy is a design flaw, because professions were designed and balanced around a much more competitive and complex combat environment.

When you look at, say, the Mesmer, with boon stripping, confusion and reliance on burst damage, and then you look at PvE, where sustained damage is king and burst damage is bad, where confusion does not have the power it was meant to have, and where mobs barely have any boons to strip, then we can only reach one of two conclusions:

Either the mob design is flawed
or
Mob design was always meant to be like this, but anet wasted too many resources adding useless tools to professions.

Either way you see it, there’s a flaw in design here. There’s a contradiction between how the professions were designed, and how the pve mobs were meant to be fought against.

EDIT NOTE: Challenging content does not always mean something ultra hard for hardcore players, nor does it always means that its only purpose is to make players feel like they have acchieved something. Challenging content is also good for another thing: to make us improve, to make us diversify our experience and, in turn, to make professions more distinct from each other and more fun to play.

Galen Grey.4709:

….

By default the game is easy, no doubt about that and its not a flaw its a design choice they made to be casual friendly. But beyond that people also play in a manner that trivializes it more but joining together and refusing to spread out that makes the issue that much worst.

All this being said I love a challenge as much as you or anyone else and although I understand why there arent more challenges because of their design choices (not because I accept sub-par content) I am hopeful S2 might include more peripheral challenging content since its one thing they specifically mentioned as a major request they heard loud and clear from a large part of the community. I am curious to see what they’ve come up with. 2 more weeks to go

you are actually mistaken in assuming that you can only design for casuals, or hardcores, good well designed systems work for both and appropriately give them something to do at all levels of play.
Basketball, playable by 5 year olds, all the way up to 60 year olds
Chess, learnable at 8, mastered for a lifetime

good game design does not choose casual or hardcore, is made for both. Now we are talking about hardcore in terms of skill here, (which doesnt really always map to time spent) And it really has to in order to last, because eventually if they keep playing, even the casuals become hardcore (skill wise) If they dont build for more depth, you will end up getting greater turnaround.

IE many players will come, enjoy the game, then leave when it offers nothing deeper. You can bring in new players by being casual, but eventually you will have used up your market.

This pattern seems to be anecdotally correct from my observation. Many many people have come, and gone.

The only way anet can keep people going without creating depth of play, is to keep creating new interesting stories, and places, In this respect both the casual and the hardcore could enjoy it. However, this would basically be like creating a hit TV show/comic book on your first attempt, its not really what they built themselves for, its unlikely they can do it, and probably not the best course of action to depend on that.

Best bet is for them to try to make a deep and compelling game, that you can keep getting better at playing, and have things to do as you progress in skill. They also have to design the reward system to lead people.

I do understand the idea of being supportive etc. etc., but come on, guys. It’s not a matter of different opinions. These are facts speaking: within the 2 years of game’s existence, we’ve got hardly any quality, permanent content ( and please, do not even mention gem store ).
Sure, we may get it now, in Season 2, but it’s beyond any dispute that the first 2 years of the game’s existence were mediocre at most, mostly because of the bi-weekly updates which were poorly executed.

Nerelith.7360:

Let’s make everyone equally poor, then that Lambhorghini Diablo will sell for $4000!!!!

There is no such thing as everyone equally poor. Money is a representation of value nothing else.

If I convert 2000 euros to 2,773,330 korean won I would not suddenly become a rich person just cause I now have 7 digits.

Likewise if everyone had exactly the same amount of money there would be no such thing as poverty. The worst you could have is scarcity. Poverty is defined as not having enough money to live at a comfortable living standard. That happens mainly for 2 reasons. 1 you don’t have a job and are thus not generating an income. Your income compared to others is too low. If Everyone had exactly the same amount of money then that wouldnt exist would it?

Now in the real world things are a lot more complicated then in a virtual economy since unlike a virtual economy, in a real economy raw material has actual value so you cannot simply price things based on the amount of time it takes to make them. That being said the argument holds true all along the chain so while extremely generalized it probably still applies. Anyhow back on subject..

everyone wants to sell so if everyone had exactly the same income prices for everything would be targeted at that income range and essentially everyone would afford everything meaning there would be no actual poverty. It will also mean there would be no such thing as luxury items, which are items intended to sell to people who have wages which are way above average. That would essentially mean that yes everyone would afford a Lambhorghini Diablo if they decided to continue making and selling them of course. That would definitely not mean everyone is poor.

Besides this is something that happens in the real world too. Minimum wages. price control, anti monopoly rules, tax bands, etc.. are all real world tools that more or less have the same effect as this kind of nerf.

phys.7689:

you are actually mistaken in assuming that you can only design for casuals, or hardcores, good well designed systems work for both and appropriately give them something to do at all levels of play.
Basketball, playable by 5 year olds, all the way up to 60 year olds
Chess, learnable at 8, mastered for a lifetime

One little problem with your analogy, in basket ball 5 year olds dont get to play with 60 year olds in the same game and both have a chance at being competitive like the situation is in Gw2. but lets forget analogies how specifically would you make a game like Gw2 playable by casuals who dont want to care about gear or skill just enjoy the game and hardcores at the same time without barring reward from anyone group?

phys.7689:

good game design does not choose casual or hardcore, is made for both. Now we are talking about hardcore in terms of skill here, (which doesnt really always map to time spent) And it really has to in order to last, because eventually if they keep playing, even the casuals become hardcore (skill wise) If they dont build for more depth, you will end up getting greater turnaround.

Hardcore and casual have opposite needs most of the time, you simply cannot achieve both in the same game, satisfactorly! To be honest Gw2 is the best attempt I’ve experianced so far but it too is far from perfect and its perfectly understandable because how can you have combat thats both challenging and easy at the same time, how can you have goals that take a big effort to achieve but that can be done quickly at the same time. How can you have challenges that are hard to overcome with the best gear and build but at the same time easy to overcome with the worst gear and random build? You just cant! you can try to marry the two as best as you can which is what Arenanet did but both are going to suffer here and there because of the compromises that have to be made.

phys.7689:

IE many players will come, enjoy the game, then leave when it offers nothing deeper. You can bring in new players by being casual, but eventually you will have used up your market.

This pattern seems to be anecdotally correct from my observation. Many many people have come, and gone.

well considering they’ve maintained the same income level through the past 2 years I think your observation is incorrect. Thing is your premise is based on no one appreciating what a casual game has to offer in the long term which I dont feel is true. Like i said multiple times, I miss challenging content as much as the next guy and wish it was there but yet for me they more then made up for that by the sheer variety of content they provided.

phys.7689:

The only way anet can keep people going without creating depth of play, is to keep creating new interesting stories, and places, In this respect both the casual and the hardcore could enjoy it. However, this would basically be like creating a hit TV show/comic book on your first attempt, its not really what they built themselves for, its unlikely they can do it, and probably not the best course of action to depend on that.

Also I think we need to make a distinction between depth of play and challenge. The combat system in Gw2 is actually pretty deep more so then majority of other MMOs out there I would say it just lacks the challenges where it can truly shine. That being said like I said in a pervious post you can still enjoy the occational challenge by staying with very small groups. fighting champions solo or just with 2 people for example is enjoyable and allows you to use the full depth of the combat system to stay alive.

phys.7689:

Best bet is for them to try to make a deep and compelling game, that you can keep getting better at playing, and have things to do as you progress in skill. They also have to design the reward system to lead people.

Well I wouldnt say no to more depth of course

as for a reward system to lead people … thats tricky for them to do too due to one of the casual friendly system they employeed is to have rewards acquirable doing a variety of content the player can decided on. though thats not true everywhere to be honest like say dungeon armor sets so maybe they can still do it. I am curious to see what they will come up with in S2.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Galen Grey.4709:

By default the game is easy, no doubt about that and its not a flaw its a design choice they made to be casual friendly.

Having content that appeals to casuals is a design choice, but having everything being easy is a design flaw, because professions were designed and balanced around a much more competitive and complex combat environment.

When you look at, say, the Mesmer, with boon stripping, confusion and reliance on burst damage, and then you look at PvE, where sustained damage is king and burst damage is bad, where confusion does not have the power it was meant to have, and where mobs barely have any boons to strip, then we can only reach one of two conclusions:

Either the mob design is flawed
or
Mob design was always meant to be like this, but anet wasted too many resources adding useless tools to professions.

Either way you see it, there’s a flaw in design here. There’s a contradiction between how the professions were designed, and how the pve mobs were meant to be fought against.

EDIT NOTE: Challenging content does not always mean something ultra hard for hardcore players, nor does it always means that its only purpose is to make players feel like they have acchieved something. Challenging content is also good for another thing: to make us improve, to make us diversify our experience and, in turn, to make professions more distinct from each other and more fun to play.

Yes and no… Like I said Anet didnt set out to do a casual only game but a game that appeals to both as much as possible. While PvE is mostly easy the combat system is pretty complex and its not all wasted because you also have to consider PvP where the system can definitely be leveraged to its full potential.

Do we really need the game to hold a gun to one’s head so to speak for that person to improve? Does the game need to enforce mob tagging so that group events arent tackled with more then 5 people ever? Do you need a challenging encounter to try out and test some CC and Support rather then focus exclusively on Damage in PvE? Do you need the game to have you fail in order to try being more group focused?

There is punishment and there is reward, why does it have to be a punishment to be an effective incentive? I honestly dont understand this part. People complain of zerging yet I personally had no trouble with it, just leave the big group and join up with small groups. The game doesnt need to specifically forbit me from doing it in order for me not to do it, I happily do it because it makes the game slightly harder thus more enjoyable. Same with CC and Support.. If I focus exclusively on Damage I am sure I would do a ton more damage myself overall but I bet that by also including CC and support in my skill usage I boost the damage of the group Overall much more then the extra damage I would be doing had i focused more on damage. I dont need the game to have me fail if I dont do it, I do it because

1. I get better at the game by being more diverse in my play and build more muscle memory to be quicker to tackle different situation when the need arises.

2. you get rewarded faster

3. These are skills you need in a real challenge such as coming across a group event and you’re just 2 people around. in such a situation survivability is more important than damage imho.

yerok.5469:

lol why do people keep defending gw2 in this? I love this game too, but after 2 years of promises and content being predominantly temporary, while also being just a rehash of last years same content I’ve given up hope. I know a lot of you are still new and it seems like there is so much more but soon you will hit the same wall.
LS isn’t working, does anyone honestly know what the hell is going on? besides a giant sylvari brought robots and ufo’s to kill everyone? I would assume one would need an actual story to create a living one.

have legendary and several lvl 80’s, i beat the game i guess.

because we like it?

There most definitely was a story in S1 of the living story and yes some people followed it closely too. You should visit the lore sub forum now and then while its going on to see people engaged in theories and speculation.

in anycase here is the story for Season 1:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1

pay special attention to the little see also links that have support stories that further expand the story for the characters or events involved.

Galen Grey.4709:

One little problem with your analogy, in basket ball 5 year olds dont get to play with 60 year olds….

Hardcore and casual have opposite needs most of the time, you simply cannot achieve both in the same game, satisfactorly! …

well considering they’ve maintained the same income level through the past 2 years I think your observation is incorrect…..

Also I think we need to make a distinction between depth of play and challenge. The combat system in Gw2 is actually pretty deep more so then majority of other MMOs out there I would say it just lacks the challenges where it can truly shine. …

Well I wouldnt say no to more depth of course

as for a reward system to lead people … thats tricky for them to do….

1) now that they have megaservers, there is no reason for them to fear splitting the playerbase any more, they can add new modes that better adapt to the skill level of the player. They can literally create a hard mode, and extreme mode map without fear of splitting the playerbase, in fact they will keep like minded people together. If this is too drastic, the simple solution is to make more instances, but i think the best solution is to do both.

2) Hardcore and casual is a is a simplified term lets just say people of various skill levels 1-10. Their needs are somewhat different, but they arent really in different realms. Basketball has the same rules for kid to adults, its just more forgiving, and properly matched difficulty. Now if we start talking about other facets of hardcore, like time investment, etc, that is a different beast.

3) They maintained the same income, in a market where your income would normally increase if you are doing well. They are treading water. MMOs are supposed to be long term profits and players, if you are continuing to sell new boxes, but your income from the shop is the same, either people have stopped spending money, or you are simply replacing players who leave. In either case, you have a problem. 2 years into the big name MMOs they were just getting started.

The ideal curve for an MMO is to start high go a little lower, then continue to build with time, getting more players than you have leaving, being more comfortable with spending money, because they love your product. I could be wrong, but at this moment i dont think thats where the game is at. Its not the end of the world, and its not guaranteed, but my feeling is they have a slow drain on population, which probably increased recently due to a lack of new content, big changes, etc, and a population that is not as excited about spending as they once were. This of course is just my gut instinct, it could be completely wrong.

4) there is no depth if you are in shallow water. While i do agree the system has a lot of depth possible, If you dont have the a deep pool, it doesnt matter if theoretically you could dive, use high level swimming techniques like the mermaid, or butterfly. You can the pool is only deep enough for so many things to actually matter/have use.

5) the reward system to lead people, its a bit tricky yes, but it really needs to lead people, since the game is also about progression, you will have people doing all sorts of things that are not adding to your game, unless the reward/penalty system encourages them to do things that add to the game. At the same time they are doing this, they are also dissatisfied, which is bad. They begin to associate the game with negative feelings. Other games defeat this by having really strong highs to go with the lows, but gw2 doesnt have that with the same easy to succeed design.

I think the people who best enjoy the game ignore the rewards, or care less about them, but even those people tend reach the point that the game isnt really giving them depth in terms of mastery and they have done most of the breadth content. But, once they start setting goals, they get drawn into the reward system that best rewards degenerative play, or stagnant play. So once again if they dont want to make people play with depth, and build better reward systems, they basically have to come up with compelling new stories/settings/toys for people to play with fairly often. But thats not easy at all, out of 100 tries at that maybe only 10% succeed, and to do that month after month? that will be hard.

Galen Grey.4709:

yerok.5469:

lol why do people keep defending gw2 in this? I love this game too, but after 2 years of promises and content being predominantly temporary, while also being just a rehash of last years same content I’ve given up hope. I know a lot of you are still new and it seems like there is so much more but soon you will hit the same wall.
LS isn’t working, does anyone honestly know what the hell is going on? besides a giant sylvari brought robots and ufo’s to kill everyone? I would assume one would need an actual story to create a living one.

have legendary and several lvl 80’s, i beat the game i guess.

because we like it?

There most definitely was a story in S1 of the living story and yes some people followed it closely too. You should visit the lore sub forum now and then while its going on to see people engaged in theories and speculation.

in anycase here is the story for Season 1:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1

pay special attention to the little see also links that have support stories that further expand the story for the characters or events involved.

Its all subjective, but subjectively i can say imo, the story of season one was very poor, and most times the content wasnt compelling, though their were a few exceptions to both.
Also, every one i know in game, said it was bad, now thats anecdotal at best, but id be willing to gamble that a large % of the playerbase either found it bad, it or felt neutral towards it.

But i concede, it could just be my circle, but like i said, i wouldnt bet on it.

edit, the page gives a summary of the plot, but a fairly large amount of the story is in the execution. You can have one film about a boy and his dog that dies that makes you cry, and the same premise handled by someone else makes you fall asleep, or fills you with cynicism.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SkiTz.4590:

What I’m saying is why can’t there be rewarding content for difficulty. Teq box is not rewarding at all. Triple threat is a tough open world raid as well and whats the reward? o more greens and blues. Thats just terrible. Spin it however you want to. Its always boiled down to being rewarded nothing but scraps at w/e you do.

So, what do you want as rewards? Let’s start getting some specifics down, or you’re just wasting space like ARWEN is saying the same thing over and over.

You want cool new skins but cant cash out real money? cool, just farm gold mindlessly. You cant farm any specific content to get a specific skin (outside fractal weapon skins which is stupidly rare btw and dung spec armors)

I’m amused you think any new content which would offer specific skins unrestricted and able to be sold/traded wouldn’t be farmed for it. Or wouldn’t have something in there to prevent repeated easy turnovers.

Whats wrong with having something to different to farm?
Farming content IS the endgame for most MMOs. As long as their is diversity in the content where I can go do x , y , z maps and feel rewarded
We just went through a ridiculous period of mindless champ zerg farming.
I’m not asking for that.
Theres plenty of ways to add more unique rewards to the challenging content this game has to offer.

I see some superior runes in the TP that I would love to get my hands on but they have some outrageous prices (might runes, bloodlusts, etc), why not offer some of those runes as rewards in the challenging content?

If anet just wants to keep rewarding scraps, then why not add stuff like bolts of damask to the loot tables? I want to work on getting my legendary but I can’t go farm a specific location for lodestones because it is terribly inefficient and a waste of time. Its better to just farm gold and buy em. Theres plenty of things you can add to loot tables to add at least something worth farming…. I’m not sayin to add these things into open world mobs for farming, but challenging things likes completeing a dung under x amount of time, capping a tower in wvw, winning multiple arena games in pvp, teq/wurm etc etc.

Devata.6589:

Problem with slowly levelling (for me) is mainly that levelling the alts will get boring. But for the main I don’t really care how long it takes. Another problems with leveling in general is what you do (as developer) when releasing an expansion. Up the level? But then it becomes to much for new players if you keep doing that. And if you don’t up the level then maybe don’t focus at leveling at all? I have seen some interesting ways to try and solve those problems but I do understand why it might be a problem from a development standpoint.

About crafting. Personally I never cared about armor that much and you could argue that if everybody can craft it anyway there is also no value for it. Giving room for Twinks in your game might then in my idea be more effective.

For me however what is interesting in crafting is if I can make fun items and there is always an next item jus around the corner to work towards. Like the example of your mechanical squirl. That was one of the first things an engineer could make but was a really fun item to work towards. Just like the parachute cape that came not long after it all up to the helicopter mount at the max level (back then). So there was always this next fun item to work towards. Compare that to crafting in GW2. What do people really craft for? Legendaries weapons and now ascended gear. So the item you want it at level 400 or 500 and the way up there is just boring crafting level grind. Not more.

The type of fun items they could put in fun crafts are in the cash-shop. Like the music instruments. Also not the bubble head thing would be great for some fun craft.

well there isnt a lot thats most certainly true but there are some fun stuff to craft…

like Tonics & endless tonics, dyes, some unique skins, a handful of minatures

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

yerok.5469:

lol why do people keep defending gw2 in this? I love this game too, but after 2 years of promises and content being predominantly temporary, while also being just a rehash of last years same content I’ve given up hope. I know a lot of you are still new and it seems like there is so much more but soon you will hit the same wall.
LS isn’t working, does anyone honestly know what the hell is going on? besides a giant sylvari brought robots and ufo’s to kill everyone? I would assume one would need an actual story to create a living one.

have legendary and several lvl 80’s, i beat the game i guess.

because we like it?

There most definitely was a story in S1 of the living story and yes some people followed it closely too. You should visit the lore sub forum now and then while its going on to see people engaged in theories and speculation.

in anycase here is the story for Season 1:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1

pay special attention to the little see also links that have support stories that further expand the story for the characters or events involved.

Its all subjective, but subjectively i can say imo, the story of season one was very poor, and most times the content wasnt compelling, though their were a few exceptions to both.
Also, every one i know in game, said it was bad, now thats anecdotal at best, but id be willing to gamble that a large % of the playerbase either found it bad, it or felt neutral towards it.

But i concede, it could just be my circle, but like i said, i wouldnt bet on it.

edit, the page gives a summary of the plot, but a fairly large amount of the story is in the execution. You can have one film about a boy and his dog that dies that makes you cry, and the same premise handled by someone else makes you fall asleep, or fills you with cynicism.

note just that an the heart and soul of it was in the short stories that gave characters a lot more depth. The execution wasnt perfect but I do think people are too kitten the story. Like you said its all subjective so it may be just me but I thought i was good and didnt go with the usual cliche’ of I did it for the power / riches. And I liked that there was this moral ambiguity of trying to do what you think is noble but doing it in the worst way possible. bad case of does the end justify the means.

@phys in reply to the post above that goes from 1-5

1. Thats a possible solution its true, I was hoping they’d implement MF for that instead they kinda removed it. I’d rather having something like MF would have say 3 stages, each stage multiplying your rewards while downleveling you so with MF 3 you’d get 3x the rewards but are say you’re underleveled by 4 levels I’d rather have something like that then a segregated community. (my MF wouldnt work in dungeons and WvW)

2. Agreed but in an MMO your skill 1s have to play with your skill 10s which is the problem.

3. Thats not how it happens. you have a build up at the begining as people try your game and then a downward slop as they leave with a potential boost when you release your next expansion. Except for Eve Online I dont think there is any game out there that has ever maintained an upward trend not even the big behemoth. Having a steady income means you have a healthy game (provided the level you settle on is a healthy one of course)

4. You can dive just no everywhere. The biggest trick is not to follow the crowd that likes to swim in shallow water! but yes it could definitely use other areas with more depth not denying that.

5. Not sure I follow. Can you give some specific example of what type of rewards would you give with which type of content that would make feel that content more rewarding?

I dont know, I like a lot the LS format. New stories every 2 weeks, new gameplay elements every 2 weeks. I enjoyed doing it and have been missing it during this break though it helped me level some of my alts that were falling behind. I can see LS keeping me interested for a long time but thats just me you may be right maybe it wouldnt work for everyone… What I worry about is rewards in a non vertical progression game are a bad carrot so to speak. Cause what kind of rewards can they be? cosmetic have limited demand. I mean once I get my alts to where I want them to be will I care about getting the new shoulder piece with this forthnight’s update? And once I am done getting my chars to look how I like if my drive was rewards would I keep playing? I dont know, I just think good content is ultimately more crucial to good rewards (though good rewards are important too ofcourse) besides what makes a good reward when you dont have vertical progression?

@Tobias

You have been given many definitions of rewarding. Then please feel free to give us your definition of rewarding since it seems like none of all the things written here satisfies you.

Errant was pretty accurate with his definition of reward vs difficulty.

Want a definition of a good end game? Guild Wars 1.

- Underworld and Fissure Of Woe.
- Domain Of Anguish.
- Urgoz and The Deep

In Anet’s mind, Guild Wars 2 has a very robust end-game: it’s called the Gem Store.

bhcbose.9615:

@Tobias

You have been given many definitions of rewarding. Then please feel free to give us your definition of rewarding since it seems like none of all the things written here satisfies you.

Errant was pretty accurate with his definition of reward vs difficulty.

I’m completely satisfied with my “reward” for content being the experience of doing it. I’m old enough that I used to play games with a “high score” tracker on them or a scoreboard you could put initials into. I never got onto them, as usually it was hard enough to get to the finish line.

But games like the first Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy . . . there wasn’t any reward for them. There wasn’t even an Achievement list to check off. There was beating it. The first game I legitimately finished on my own with no help (guidebooks or other people pointing out solutions) was King’s Quest VI.

And that pretty much is why I play games: to play them. Shiny wonderful items? Achievements? That’s secondary to the experience. In MMOs, usually it’s more the experience with friends and other people which I find far more appealing than “get the shiny loot”.

. . . I am extraordinarily weird like that.

I played these game you stated because I am also old enough. But lets not compare these games to MMO.

If you truly played real mmo before you would clearly understand why there is currently an issue in Gw2 regarding reward vs difficulty.

Most of the people that player Gw1 can say that there was an endgame in Gw1 that was not cash shop related.

SkiTz.4590:

Whats wrong with having something to different to farm?

Because a lot of people seem to find it unsatisfying to just be given something to farm. It’s a dirty four-letter word, far as I can tell, which is strange as that was most if not all GW1 was after finishing off campaigns. Grind and farm.

Some of it was fun to do, and some had a challenging nature to it which kept it difficult to just “easy way”. (I mean, except the short time Perma-SF was doable.)

Farming content IS the endgame for most MMOs. As long as their is diversity in the content where I can go do x , y , z maps and feel rewarded

But that’s not usually what you get in MMOs. What you get is a couple “endgame areas” where people rush to so they can get the top tier gear or the shiniest of the shinies, while the rest of the game is populated by people trying to rush through it ASAP to get to “the fun stuff”.

Theres plenty of ways to add more unique rewards to the challenging content this game has to offer.

Agreed, there is plenty of ways to add rewards without needing to add new categories of things to be rewarded with (like mounts).

I see some superior runes in the TP that I would love to get my hands on but they have some outrageous prices (might runes, bloodlusts, etc), why not offer some of those runes as rewards in the challenging content?

Same reason there wasn’t Superior Runes of Vigor available cheap – a balance of supply and demand.

If anet just wants to keep rewarding scraps, then why not add stuff like bolts of damask to the loot tables? I want to work on getting my legendary but I can’t go farm a specific location for lodestones because it is terribly inefficient and a waste of time. Its better to just farm gold and buy em. Theres plenty of things you can add to loot tables to add at least something worth farming…. I’m not sayin to add these things into open world mobs for farming, but challenging things likes completeing a dung under x amount of time, capping a tower in wvw, winning multiple arena games in pvp, teq/wurm etc etc.

I do, strangely enough, get Lodestones and Cores from champion bags I get doing WvW combat. I don’t get great amounts of it but I do get some.

I’d also like to point out, just for the sake of pointing it out – gold farming to buy off the TP will almost always be the most time-efficient way of getting things which can be traded. At least until gold farming is made impossible to realistically do.

bhcbose.9615:

I played these game you stated because I am also old enough. But lets not compare these games to MMO.

Why not? It’s all valid to me, because we’re discussing what I find rewarding. Not why I play MMOs, which is almost the same reason I occasionally whip out my copy of Settlers of Catan when friends are over and three drinks down for the night.

Because it is fun.

If you truly played real mmo before you would clearly understand why there is currently an issue in Gw2 regarding reward vs difficulty.

“Real MMO”. Were you not reading when I listed that I played EverQuest? Often credited as one of the forefathers of the modern MMO? Or would you like me to list off others? Ultima Online, perhaps? Should I go for total oldschool cred and list Meridian 59, where endgame was all PvP and guild fights?

I played through to Plane of Time in EQ1, and before that I did Plane of Hate raids semi-regularly, Sebilis camps, I had a blast at one point just farming the everloving crap out of Velketor’s Labyrinth.

In Ultima Online, I was a miner, carpenter, and blacksmith. I enjoyed that immensely – dressing up a little tower in the woods with various things and staying the heck away from people who could crush me due to having everything prepared for “utter ownage”.

Meridian 59, last and oldest of them, I would routinely fight in Brax and off on the Island because it was fun, and it usually resulted in the most interesting and tense experiences I could have – no safety for a long way, and not an easy way to escape being caught there.

And you want to know what? All three of these games had a risk vs reward system which was usually completely out of balance. Meridian 59 had very little cool rewards which weren’t from the RNG box (yes, one existed there too), Ultima Online had no unique rewards which you didn’t hide in six layers of boxes in the bank so people wouldn’t take them. EverQuest was the first time I ran into the “gear treadmill” in the full absurdity of always chasing better loot with better stats as a reward for yet another absurd raid, ending with /random 0 100 to see if you got the privilege. (Or if you were in a certain raid and your guild chose to award that way, DKP.)

I honestly don’t miss the reward system of those three games.

Most of the people that player Gw1 can say that there was an endgame in Gw1 that was not cash shop related.

Sure, but I’ll still contemplate and point out the “rewarding” aspect of GW1’s endgame dungeons/missions/content was usually purely cosmetic or another aspect of gold-grinding.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

But games like the first Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy . . . there wasn’t any reward for them. There wasn’t even an Achievement list to check off. There was beating it. The first game I legitimately finished on my own with no help (guidebooks or other people pointing out solutions) was King’s Quest VI.

And that pretty much is why I play games: to play them. Shiny wonderful items? Achievements? That’s secondary to the experience. In MMOs, usually it’s more the experience with friends and other people which I find far more appealing than “get the shiny loot”.

. . . I am extraordinarily weird like that.

Games like Final Fantasy, and most RPGs, have extremely rewarding vertical progression, and sometimes horizontal as well. Becoming stronger by getting new gear, new magic to junction, new materias to equip and gear with more materia slots, or more spheres to fill the grid. Beating optional bosses or finding some more hidden treasure chests also rewarded you with significantly stronger weapons or items occasionally, and the same happened for some mini games, like Triple Triad and Chocobo Hot & Cold, and so on. We’re also talking about games with superior story telling and world immersion than what mmos (and gw2) usually offer.

I agree that the community can be a very interesting thing about a MMORPG, but it is one that GW2 has almost completely ignored. Most of the open end content was designed to be solo-able. Parties are created to farm a dungeon for 6 minutes and then dissolved. Resurrection and Dynamic Events make players play alongside each other, but the combat system does not promotes a more intimate relationship between players. Systems like guilds and commanders are not as expanded as they could be.

In GW2, everything is too easy and fast, to the point that players meet each other and then disappear forever every 5 minutes. Challenging content, more community-driven features, and a combat system that promotes teamplay all contribute to a better social experience, but unfortunately, that’s three things that GW2 is not that great at.