Guild Wars 2

I have been playing this game 2 years in November, and in that time, I’ve seen this game go from something challenging and enjoyable, to something easy and repetitive
I understand they’re trying to make the game easier for new players, but come on, we’re going to be the ones spending more money in the long run! I don’t think i’m alone when i say I wish this game was slightly more challenging and they focused more on update on bugs and glitches and making new content for the veterans than spending time making a event that shows you how to dodge, stop spoon feeding us for god sake! we like the challenge we revel in it!
I have also spoken to people who have hundreds of euros into this game and feel cheated with the updates that do nothing for them, GW2 is a great game, I think it’s time for it to be the best game.

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

I take it you are new to the concept of gaming.

Here is a crash course:

Games are designed by developers who are gamers.
Games are published by publishers who are corporate suits.
Corporate suits care about the bottom line, which means increasing market share.
Increasing market share requires you to “dumb things down” in order to make the product appealing to a bigger segment of people.

This happens in all games that have a publisher.

Your options, unfortunately, are to either accept the changes or find a small game company that doesn’t use a publisher.

I understand they need to make money etc, but i don’t see how it will attract new players? or make them more money

Scaulder.5782:

I’ve seen this game go from something challenging

Are we playing the same game?

Not saying there isn’t some challenging content in this game, because I honestly believe there is, but as someone who has played practically every MMO on the market, GW2 is one of the easiest to get into and do decent in while having very little gaming skills/experience. It’s a very forgiving game for new players. That’s always been the case. Now it’s simply more “hand-holdy” for the first 10-15hrs of your play time.

mtpelion.4562:

I take it you are new to the concept of gaming.

Here is a crash course:

Games are designed by developers who are gamers.
Games are published by publishers who are corporate suits.
Corporate suits care about the bottom line, which means increasing market share.
Increasing market share requires you to “dumb things down” in order to make the product appealing to a bigger segment of people.

This happens in all games that have a publisher.

Your options, unfortunately, are to either accept the changes or find a small game company that doesn’t use a publisher.

Pretty much this. Though dumbing down effect is kind of drama gone wild these days.

Scaulder.5782:

I understand they need to make money etc, but i don’t see how it will attract new players? or make them more money

It’s not trying to attract new players, it’s trying not to drive off new players because everything gets introduced at once.

The game had a distinct lack of CONGRATS YOU’VE LEVELED, feeling to it. Every so often you’ll notice the Hero panel icon is lit because you had skill and trait points to spend. Maybe a new utility slot became available. I don’t even remember if we were told we got weapon swap before. Other than trying to swap weapons and being told I’m not high enough level yet. My stats increased but I didn’t know by how much for each level. And once you had unlocked the elite skill slot at level 30, now 40, you don’t notice leveling from 30 to 80. Other than noticing you now get green or yellow items at drops there was really no indication that anything changed. Even worse if you are playing mostly in lower level areas because you are always leveled down to match the map.

They are trying to make it more Skinner Boxish with reward notifications. I think Colin said that leveling to 40 to unlock the elite skill now takes about the same number of playing hours that it took to get to 30 before, because 1-15 so much faster. I’m planning on starting an elementalist soon so I can try this out first hand to see if it’s true.

Before it was usage based unlocks of the 2-5 attack slots for each weapon. Now it’s level based unlocks for all weapons. No need to acquire and use each weapon to unlock all of it’s skills. No slotting some new weapon only to find you hadn’t unlocked that weapon type yet. No swapping a weapon from primary to off hand and find you need to unlock slots 4 and 5. If they add more weapon types usable for your profession, then those will also be unlocked as well. So I can understand why they did that for weapons.

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

what you did there

I
see
it

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

what you did there

I
see
it

Errr… what did I do there… ?

Vesuvius.9874:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

what you did there

I
see
it

Errr… what did I do there… ?

He’s insinuating that leveling new characters is endgame content in GW2.

mtpelion.4562:

Vesuvius.9874:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

what you did there

I
see
it

Errr… what did I do there… ?

He’s insinuating that leveling new characters is endgame content in GW2.

I’m insinuating that there is no end game content.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

mtpelion.4562:

Vesuvius.9874:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

what you did there

I
see
it

Errr… what did I do there… ?

He’s insinuating that leveling new characters is endgame content in GW2.

I’m insinuating that there is no end game content.

Oh! xD looool

Every game has a life cycle. I’m personally upset because I didn’t realize such a drastic change would happen at this time, and just bought some gems and items in the recent sale.

I assume monetizing will occur and cash shops will become more necessary to enjoy game content… but never that early levels of the game would have a complete overhaul like this.

The one thing I found beyond refreshing about this game originally were the early hearts where you had to do stuff like feed a cow. And the underwater content in the beginning. What made it fun was all the different types of interactions, and the open world feel where even as a level 5 or 10 character you could enjoy the fullness of the game. Now that that is gone, my desire to make alts is nonexistent.

At this point, I’m probably going to drop the game, even though I have gems unused, and just look for an alternative. There’s always an alternative. And if there isn’t one now, a new company will use this opportunity and use what was good in gw2 and make an alternative.

I guess the life cycle of an MMO is just much faster – like everything else – today.

I didn’t expect GW2 to bomb after just 2 years, but there you have it.

There are already half a dozen new games on the horizon. At least I didn’t pay a sub for this one – I spent maybe about $200 or so, and played for a year – 1K hours.

I wouldn’t say I was “ripped off”, because I got quite a bit of play – I am disappointed to see wasted potential, however. GW2 could have been much greater than it is, if it weren’t being destroyed by corporate culture.

I blame NCSoft.

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

The popular phrase “the whole game is endgame” comes to mind here.

I think there is a huge divide now within the gamer community. 5 or 10 years ago, less people played games, and before that it was even more of a niche. So as games really get into the mass public view and it becomes a go-to form of entertainment, like television, companies will want to appease the majority. It makes sense on a financial level.

MMOs are always hard though, because you need to have game upkeep. An indie company can make a single player game, make a decent profit and then move on, with minimal to no updates. It’s a shame gw2 didn’t take more of a pay for an expansion model direction like gw1. This is actually why I sometimes prefer a pay to play monthly fee, because then there is more of an incentive to keep veteran players.

I’m just glad there are a lot of awesome titles coming out this year and next. A lot on the rpg front too, which is unusual.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

mtpelion.4562:

Vesuvius.9874:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Vesuvius.9874:

Did they make the end game content easier with the new feature pack?

what you did there

I
see
it

Errr… what did I do there… ?

He’s insinuating that leveling new characters is endgame content in GW2.

I’m insinuating that there is no end game content.

Oh there is end game, but it consists almost entirely of mind-numbingly dull farming of vast amounts of mats/gold to craft/buy ascended and legendary gear.

They have made the end game content easier to access (gemstore) by placing more buy gold or buy gems icons in the UI
There is unfortunately not much that Anet can do to make the game interesting anymore. Hell I won’t even buy an expansion now. Too bad they killed a once great IP.
GL people still playing the game, pretty soon you can let your pet turtle play while you go make a hot pocket

I don’t get why people feel that the game was “dumbed down” in the recent patch. Yes, there is a much more elaborated tutorial phase now. Yes, they made changes to how some systems work. Yes, they’re aimed at new players. None of that means they’re “dumbed down”.

If you’re a veteran player (of this game and/or of others) then these changes will obviously not appeal to you. But! On the other hand, I’ve had a couple of friends try out pc video gaming for the first time, and leveling with the new system was very helpful to them. (And before anyone says anything, no, they aren’t mentally kittened or anything. Just regular people who are not as adept at video gaming.)

Saying that this game is dying and that they’re ruining it because they added an expanded tutorial is like saying the army is hurting their chances at victory for training its soldiers. That doesn’t make ANY sense.

If you want content, wait for the November patch. If you want content that’s not Living Story and that you think Living Story is a waste of time and Anet should spend more time following your every whim, then I got nothing for you.

The game itself before the patch was “dumbed down”.
Stack and smack and zerging are still the order of the day.
Wait for the November patch? For what!!!! 30 min of content followed by the same meta events and dungeons!
Personally I think that the game needs :
1. Better AI. No more stack and smack.
2. An expansion…..give me something to friggen do!!! Does Anet realize what the definition of theme park gaming is???
3. A challenge. How about some high risk/high reward content.
4. Less gemstore focus overall. I understand you want to make money but the gemstore feels like Herb Tarlek trying to sell me something.

Those are just off the top of my head. I guess I will check back in 3 friggen months to see if there is a viable reason to login.

There was a time when it was challenging? Really?

Every MMO was dumbed down considrably. And it was “dumbed down” for first few levels. Bif fricking deal lol. WS tried it the hard way and is tanking 2 months after launch. You migth wanna thimk about that for a while.

You either deal with it or….not.

Stormcrow.7513:

The game itself before the patch was “dumbed down”.
Stack and smack and zerging are still the order of the day.
Wait for the November patch? For what!!!! 30 min of content followed by the same meta events and dungeons!
Personally I think that the game needs :
1. Better AI. No more stack and smack.
2. An expansion…..give me something to friggen do!!! Does Anet realize what the definition of theme park gaming is???
3. A challenge. How about some high risk/high reward content.
4. Less gemstore focus overall. I understand you want to make money but the gemstore feels like Herb Tarlek trying to sell me something.

Those are just off the top of my head. I guess I will check back in 3 friggen months to see if there is a viable reason to login.

1. Yeah. But its a waste of time. Majority doesnt wan it
2. So you can do it in few hours and whine again?
3. Waste of development, mojority doesnt want it
4. Im sorry, wheres this gem store focus? Go play SWTOR (among others), THEN you will see what cash shop focus really looks like

And lastly, GW2 was somewhat made to do just that, dropin and out without being left behind on gameplay level. Opposed to other MMOs out there (which is somewhat moot point atm as they have so slow content delivery you can miss out a year and not be behind lol)