Guild Wars 2

I see so many threads talking about various weaknesses and strengths of GW2. The question is, “Does GW2 have the staying power as-is?”

Loot
There are hundreds, perhaps more, of people on the forums and I’ve met many in game, especially at boss events like dragons and the Megadestroyer, that constantly complain about bad loot, lack of reward for effort, that sort of stuff. Let face it, with a pure RNG system loot should be well, random. This doesn’t seem the case and really doesn’t add up in game. You have some who have a mystic clover shoved up their butt and always seem to get good drops while others are perpetually cursed. The number of cursed certainly seems to out number those who are lucky. But is there a middle ground? Well, there used to be…in the pre-Nov patch days. In the last few months though, loot has gotten progressively worse and worse to the point of near hopelessness…at least for me. They tell us it’s in the name of fighting bots, but I don’t buy it. Perhaps this is the intent. Perhaps the intent is to drive people to the gem store. I think this is short sighted and not sustainable in the long run. When the fix affects your population in such a negative way they really should be considering whether it fixed anything. Bots are gone for the most part, yes, but how many players have left over loot issues?

Population
While I have read of problems on many servers, I’m not entirely sure game population is necessarily a problem…at least not on my server, Borlis Pass. The problem is once you get zone completion, there’s not usually any reason to go back to a zone. So, outside of starting areas, say the 1-15 and 16-25 areas, the 70+ areas and towns there usually isn’t any incentive to hang around, unless there’s a boss you like or unless you’re farming a certain item. So if you’re in an area like Timberline Falls, it’s virtually unpopulated save for bots I often saw farming grawl when I was completing the area. With waypoint costs, it all the highest level areas, it’s not necessarily feasible to just pop in, do an event and pop out. Especially with rewards the way they are. I do know that maps tend to be less populated than when I started out late summer/early fall, but yet I always go in to overflow at Lion’s Arch, which I rarely did back then. Does this mean more people are just hanging around and not actually playing? I don’t know. Are a lot of people leaving the game? I don’t know. I personally know many people who have left to the point that I had to change guilds. I’ve heard through guild chat that this is not uncommon. Many guilds have been failing due to people leaving the game or switching to different servers. I tend to agree with some the threads I’ve read that while some the servers might say “full” or “very high”, that is certainly not any indication of “active” population.

Why are people leaving? Lack of end-game content? I’ve seen this often mentioned. Being a relative MMO noob, I’m not even sure what it means, but it seems to be a big issue, especially with the introduction of the ascended gear. Some are leaving due to boredom to be sure. I know, like D3, many are leaving due to the horrible drop rates. I know some who have gone back to playing WoW or GW1 simply because they didn’t feel rewarded playing GW2. This I can certainly sympathize with, but I’ve learned to enjoy GW2 in other ways.

Future
So what will the future bring for GW2? Can they maintain a workable population with the current reward system and economy, a system many, including myself, consider to be broken? If the economy keep going like this, how long before it inevitably collapses? How many players are still playing just out of habit…going through the motions of dailies or doing the same dungeons over and over again? Is this sustainable? I don’t know. Elder Scrolls Online, probably one of the most anticipated MMOs perhaps since WoW was released, slated to be out later this year. Now, they’re really starting to ramp up their advertizing campaign. Is there some sort of damage plan, 1) to show players why GW2 is better and why they should stay and 2) to mitigate the potential exodus the release of ESO may cause? I don’t know, but I would certainly be interested to find out. Fixing loot and reigning in the economy would go a long way in making many many players very happy. Personally, to me, it seems ArenaNet is going the way of Blizzard, and GW2 the way of D3, and unfortunately, like D3, I don’t think they will fix things before doing irreversible damage to the game.

Bottom line…will GW2 have a 7 year life, like GW1? Only time will tell.

That’s my 2c anyway. Thoughts?

Time will tell indeed.

Stop playing if you’re not having fun, keep playing if you are. Cheers!

Hawkian.6580:

Time will tell indeed.

Stop playing if you’re not having fun, keep playing if you are. Cheers!

Not that infractions bother me, but no sense poking the bear. Therefore I’ll be as polite as I possibly can with this.

Would it perhaps be possible for you to actually respond to this thread with something that can help carry a discussion instead of the road to nowhere response you just gave?

The answer is NOT that cut and dry.

It may all be in my head, or the RNG is being kind to me lately, but I swear I’ve been getting more loot. From dragon chests and from trash mobs.

Especially salvageable items, which is just in the nick of time with the Feb. monthly.

Population, I don’t know. I see players everywhere. I don’t use a lot of WP because they cost too much so I run to where I need to go and I see them in all zones. But Orr areas. I don’t hang out there much, trying to get the POI’s and vistas with the super fast respanws and mob density is just too frustrating.

More fun to hang out in the middle to low zones.

I think the laurel system is great and would love to see it expanded. I think if they are working on horizontal progression there will be long term stability. If they choose vertical progression, they will get players from other games who will play 15 hours a day for a few months and quit, never to be seen again, while having lost their loyal player base in the process.

And fishing. Seriously. The game will never survive without fishing :p

Halanna.3927:

It may all be in my head, or the RNG is being kind to me lately, but I swear I’ve been getting more loot. From dragon chests and from trash mobs.

Especially salvageable items, which is just in the nick of time with the Feb. monthly.

Population, I don’t know. I see players everywhere. I don’t use a lot of WP because they cost too much so I run to where I need to go and I see them in all zones. But Orr areas. I don’t hang out there much, trying to get the POI’s and vistas with the super fast respanws and mob density is just too frustrating.

More fun to hang out in the middle to low zones.

I think the laurel system is great and would love to see it expanded. I think if they are working on horizontal progression there will be long term stability. If they choose vertical progression, they will get players from other games who will play 15 hours a day for a few months and quit, never to be seen again, while having lost their loyal player base in the process.

And fishing. Seriously. The game will never survive without fishing :p

While I know full well I can be one heck of an argumentative narky bloke, there is nothing i would love more than fishing in this game!!!

DEAR GOD I MISS MY FISHING CRAZY DAYS IN WOW! D’:

Hellkaiser.6025:

The answer is NOT that cut and dry.

It wasn’t meant to be glib… I absolutely believe the answer is exactly that cut and dry. :-/

a. As far as how the game will fare long-term, only time will tell, as the OP concludes.
b. It might be a complex, layered dilemma for some, but I play the game because it’s fun for me to play, and if it stops being fun I’ll stop playing. I haven’t heard anything close to a legitimate explanation as to how there could possibly be more to it than that. If we were being charged a subscription fee I can see how there would be a different mindset on both sides of the equation.

Oh, I think GW2 is going to do just fine. They’ve had a decent start and overall, even with myriad concerns, the game seems to be fairly active. Having new content roll out every month, even if at times it is minimal, is fun, I think, though I’d love to see some more of the bugs fixed.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when TESO launches. I figure curiosity alone will drive players over to it for a while, at least. Time will tell if they’ll make a permanently large dent in the MMO genre. I expect it’s possible TESO will borrow some ideas from GW2, so it will be interesing to see how different/similar the two competitors are.

Great post, OP.

I think GW2 will be around for quite some time. It won’t have the same active user numbers as WoW, but I foresee it hanging around the top 5 (population-wise) in the coming years.

I feel Anet could be a little more engaging with the community about issues, but they still do a much better job than most other companies I’ve had experience with. They seem to be willing to address most of the issues holding the game back, let’s hope those changes are positive.

I’ve seen TESO mentioned a lot in these forums as of late and is surely the most hyped MMO releasing this year (I’m waiting to play Blade and Soul, personally). I feel a majority of that hype is the ES brand it carries. A lot of what I’ve seen is nothing new and it looks like a cash grab, but I really hope I’m wrong. I’m not playing beta so all I have is speculation.

Also, fishing.

RE: Loot

The only thing I’d like changed is incentive to kill veterns and champions. Maybe a vet is garenteed a blue and better and a champ green and better. Add a bit of incentive. Right now all I do is distract that champion to get to that chest, skill point or crafting material node.

Leamas.5803:

Loot

Unfortunately, the loot is like this because of the number of players. For example if you had 10.000.000 players doing events for 10s each, there’d be a massive gold influx in the market and things would get so much more expensive (the more gold you have for less items, items costs more gold to acquire).
So by having this kind of “miserable” loot, it’s balanced (I hope) to keep the economy somewhat balanced… though maybe too much balanced to the point they control everything about it…

In the end, even if you did get lots of rares everyday, they’d have the same value as today: game time.
For every Y time you play you get X items and sell for Z value to buy other items for K. Everyone else does it too.
If in the same Y time you get 2X items, you’d need to sell them for 2Z because the items you’re buying now cost 2K (or more).

So everyone gets X/100 and 1 gold costs roughly 1$!

Leamas.5803:

Population

[…]

Why are people leaving? Lack of end-game content? I’ve seen this often mentioned. Being a relative MMO noob, I’m not even sure what it means, but it seems to be a big issue, especially with the introduction of the ascended gear. Some are leaving due to boredom to be sure. I know, like D3, many are leaving due to the horrible drop rates. I know some who have gone back to playing WoW or GW1 simply because they didn’t feel rewarded playing GW2. This I can certainly sympathize with, but I’ve learned to enjoy GW2 in other ways.

I loved when the game launched, all maps were filled with players and you’d get overflow for pretty much every map you went.
It’s a shame the same areas aren’t as rewarding as Orr, especially now with the attribute nerfs, if you die in these areas you don’t need 2 events to recover the lost silver (repair + wp), but you need 3, 4 or more.
This is the reason I don’t go to low level maps when there’s a chance of me getting killed, even though I liked some of these places they’re not worth the time if you want to get some gold.

People will leave the game. That’s the truth and no one can change that. People will join, and people will leave. The game is successful if more people join than people leave.
Other games such as WoW uses the “carrot on a stick” to keep players from leaving, where you keep running the same difficult content (so there’s little chance of success) that drops a single piece of gear for every 10~25 players. This keeps players playing to get their awesome gear while they develop new stuff, when they soft “reset” players (makes all these gear worthless) again.
It’s an awesome idea if you think about it, Guild Wars 2 have nothing of the sort and I hope it continues this way.

I just want to play more elaborate content, get a great gaming experience that other MMOs can’t deliver. GW2 wasn’t perfect for this in my opinion, but they’re still ahead of other MMOs I’ve played.

Leamas.5803:

Future

We pray, if it doesn’t work, we can always wait for Guild Wars 3…

culling will be the downfall of GW2

My honest opinion is unless Anet do some serious Overhauls to the open world loot systems, chests and the way dungeons and wvw work, i cannot see Guildwars 2 lasting 5 years let alone 7 years..

Also the Cash shop heavy and poor trading post effecting the games economy isn’t helping in my opinion.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Hawkian.6580:

Time will tell indeed.

Stop playing if you’re not having fun, keep playing if you are. Cheers!

Not that infractions bother me, but no sense poking the bear. Therefore I’ll be as polite as I possibly can with this.

Would it perhaps be possible for you to actually respond to this thread with something that can help carry a discussion instead of the road to nowhere response you just gave?

The answer is NOT that cut and dry.

The thing is it could become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you have player that come on the forms only to say the game is doing bad others will see this and chose not to get the game. The game it self is not causing the problem it becomes thoughts who can only go on these forms to say bad things. Effectively GW2 is 2 games atm GW2 the game it self and in game content and FW2 the forms and endless bashing of a game.

Any way my view on this game future is that its going to be here for at least a year or 2 (i can see this game fall into the same thing GW1 did where you had a small stable pop playing it for 6 years +) i think the pop. size will go up ever month and then go down once new content is exhausted well for the ppl who have been playing from day one. For the new ppl they will come in at some what dead times this could be both a good thing and a bad thing less ppl = less lag less time to wait etc.. at the same time less ppl means less ppl to play with. The best way to counter this is WvW and sPvP to keep ppl active beyond the once a month update (i still cant believe that ppl want more then this lol).

I don’t know about a self fulfilling prophecy. I love the game and think it’s incredibly well designed. I also think the economy is failing and loot nerfs both in dungeons, open world and WvW, isn’t helping. The loot nerfs are driving prices up in the store, while making people poorer. Eventually it will collapse if something isn’t done. New players and veteran players leveling new alts are already having a difficult time outfitting their toons with drops and the ever rising prices in the TP. Some are left with little choice but to run with gear many levels below where they are. Crafting depends on drops and, to a degree, on the TP. For many items I can sell the mats on the TP, buy the desired item and have money left over. To me this seems like a problematic crafting dynamic and essentially makes crafting nothing more than a power-leveling tool.

The only problems I have with this game are the loot, the economy and crafting. I consider it all broken. Being f2p, perhaps this is part of the motivation behind the November loot nerf…drive people to the gem store. If that’s the case, then I wish they would just come out and say it.

I don’t care about WvW, but do enjoy it, or PvP, or even new content. I would just like to have the game back that I bought…not the gear grinder it’s become. I participate in the forums in the hopes that some day this will be the case.

They seem to be focused on incentives to go out into the world. I feel that overall, laurels and Guild Missions are steps in the right direction. I truly hope that some guild missions and bounties take place in the areas with lower populations.

As far as loot goes, I don’t believe that poor loot is a problem. I think that the problem lies in the risk/reward ratio. As the game is right now, you are more likely to get a reward for killing a bunch of trash mobs for half an hour than spending an hour taking down a dragon. Champions are challenging, but why fight them if you can kill 20 normal mobs for a better chance at loot? Rewards need to scale properly with risk

That said, they have made sure to provide basic high end gear that is completely RNG free. It’s some of the cooler skins that require rare drops or Mystic Forge RNG that kitten people off.

As far as GW2’s life span, I believe that it is sustainable. As long as each month brings something new to the game (which seems to be the plan), there should not be a problem. WvW culling needs to be addressed and PvP needs some more loving (yay, new map!), but overall, the game should be fine.

From MMORPG.com:

• MMORPG: One last question: do you guys sleep?

• COLIN: We’ll stop to sleep when the game is the best possible game we think it can be. We’ve seen the population of the game steadily rising lately and we’re not going to sit on our butts and congratulate one another, we’re going to try and build on that momentum and make the game even better. There is so much coffee in Seattle no one can sleep anyway.

Point is that if i go and kill some bad kitten boss, i would think that i loot something better than some rusty blue sword. Why bosses are so poor in this game that they don’t even have anything worth stealing?

Vorch.2985:

They seem to be focused on incentives to go out into the world. I feel that overall, laurels and Guild Missions are steps in the right direction. I truly hope that some guild missions and bounties take place in the areas with lower populations.

As far as loot goes, I don’t believe that poor loot is a problem. I think that they problem lies in the risk/reward ratio. As the game is right now, you are more likely to get a reward for killing a bunch of trash mobs for half an hour than spending an hour taking down a dragon. Champions are challenging, but why fight them if you can kill 20 normal mobs for a better chance at loot? Rewards need to scale properly with risk

That said, they have made sure to provide basic high end gear that is completely RNG free. It’s some of the cooler skins that require rare drops or Mystic Forge RNG that kitten people off.

As far as GW2’s life span, I believe that it is sustainable. As long as each month brings something new to the game (which seems to be the plan), there should not be a problem. WvW culling needs to be addressed and PvP needs some more loving (yay, new map!), but overall, the game should be fine.

From MMORPG.com:

MMORPG: One last question: do you guys sleep?

COLIN: We’ll stop to sleep when the game is the best possible game we think it can be. We’ve seen the population of the game steadily rising lately and we’re not going to sit on our butts and congratulate one another, we’re going to try and build on that momentum and make the game even better. There is so much coffee in Seattle no one can sleep anyway.

I was going to bring up Colin’s statement on the population growth, but you took care of it. I think this was a smart way for ANet to not seem desperate while letting the player-base know that the game isn’t slowly dying – in fact (quoting Colin) the population is growing steadily.

Just this statement alone makes me excited for Guild Wars 2’s future. The only thing that will be the determining factor for the future is the amount of players you can keep hooked.

But, of course, to hook players the other points brought up come into play. People don’t like the random system, but that is just how drop-systems work in many cases. Guild Wars 2, however, uses random elements in a ton of core mechanics and it upsets a lot of people. I may be one of very few, but I like the reward system. No, I’ve never been a lucky person, but I love the gamble. I like the chancing. For me this is an important part of the reason I play – you just never know. The reason I bring this up is because I enjoy this system and it makes me want to play… while on the other hand it may make other players quit. I think if they find a balance with their random system then it could please both crowds which would eventually help even more with the population growth. But, if there is actually some weird wizardry going on with their loot system, it would be nice if it was at least known. Literally anything can happen with a pure RNG, but it doesn’t appear to be pure.

In the end, I think Guild Wars 2 has a bright future.

Another reason I quoted Vorch was his signature. It has a link to an archived page for a forum of the early days of Guild Wars 1 and this may shed some light on what GW2 is going through. Every MMO that I’ve played at launch has went through the whole “[insert name here] is dying and will be dead by next year!” discussion. Most of these discussions are started by players that played the game expecting “this” and got ‘that" and these players were not satisfied with “that”. I feel that once the players that expected “that” realize this isn’t their game, we’ll be seeing much less of these topics. That could really make the forum a much more positive, bright area for the future.

I know I veered off topic here and there, but I got to it eventually!

Here’s that link:
http://tinyurl.com/atdw3yr
This will take you to an archived page at archive.org.

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Again, I don’t see leaving the current system resulting in a dead game, especially not soon. I do, however, think the game would start to grow at a higher rate if the system was tweaked.

I don’t know, maybe we just have different takes on what a “dead game” is.

Time will tell.
I have come to this game as i fought it will be free from gear trademil – GW1 fan… im disappointed – i havent loged since fractal update to show that i dont aprove where GW2 is going.
Im waiting for ESO.

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead? I can’t think of anything that can’t be obtained without farm except for fancy exotics and legendaries. There isn’t a particular item that allows you to use content that can only be achieved solely from farming. The only thing I can think of that a consistently flawed RNG would do is to inhibit farming thus not allowing players to “play the way they want to” (although I honestly don’t see the fun in farming).

Oh, and as far as where I think GW2 is heading, it’s definitely sailing and I can see it afloat for as long as concurrent hardware remains relevant to the engine GW2 runs on, given that the developers don’t decide to bail at some point. It’s just not sailing in the direction some players would want it to.

This my first MMO, so I don’t have a history of other MMO’s to compare GW2 against. However, I have a long history of single-player RGP’s and strategy games.

For me to keep on playing a game, there is one main factor. This is how well the developer responses to fixing bugs and poorly implemented mechanics, and customer communication (I don’t mean the PR bits ..).

I usually give a new game 6 months for it to ‘settle in’, for the devs to come to terms with patches, fixing the glaring and not so glaring problems and to establish communication channels and patterns. My 6 month ‘report card’ is due at the end of this month, This so happens to coincide with the end of Feb update.

Anet will need to pull one out of their hat with this patch/update for me to carry on playing. There is just too much Anet has failed to address in the 6 months since release. Class balance is still in the same mess it was at release. Many classes are restricted to certain builds because of buggy or poorly implemented skills and/or mechanics. Any attempts to ‘fix’ these have been lame at best, and at worst created even more problems.

And then there are all the game world issues with DE’s, loot, dungeons, etc. Meanwhile, they release more and more new content that compounds the problems

So, the future of this game for me is very simple. It will take me one read of the 28 Feb patch notes to determine if I carry on playing or not.

Ravenear.8659:

Time will tell.
I have come to this game as i fought it will be free from gear trademil – GW1 fan… im disappointed – i havent loged since fractal update to show that i dont aprove where GW2 is going.
Im waiting for ESO.

The introduction of Fractals seems like nothing more than giving the people who wanted gear to grind for something to do. I don’t see an issue with this, to be honest. I would be turned off if we were required to grind Fractals for gear so we could do other content like all the other games, but we are not. Sure, there’s a slight increase in base stats, but the main part is AR for continuing on within Fractals.

Seeing as they have already added in a whole new system for getting the gear you’re talking about (laurels), I would bet on them expanding it even more.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Anakin.9765:

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Again, I don’t see leaving the current system resulting in a dead game, especially not soon. I do, however, think the game would start to grow at a higher rate if the system was tweaked.

I don’t know, maybe we just have different takes on what a “dead game” is.

By dead game I don’t mean nobody playing it. To me a dead game is one that is shrinking. Once a games player base starts shrinking it’s very difficult to pull it back into line. Investment gets cut, updates reduce, more people leave, difficult to attract new players and the cycle continues until they eventually pull the plug.

Kandrick.8054:

Anakin.9765:

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Again, I don’t see leaving the current system resulting in a dead game, especially not soon. I do, however, think the game would start to grow at a higher rate if the system was tweaked.

I don’t know, maybe we just have different takes on what a “dead game” is.

By dead game I don’t mean nobody playing it. To me a dead game is one that is shrinking. Once a games player base starts shrinking it’s very difficult to pull it back into line. Investment gets cut, updates reduce, more people leave, difficult to attract new players and the cycle continues until they eventually pull the plug.

A shrinking player base in the way you mentioned it takes on the assumption that the shrink is indefinite. There can be decreased sales, but eventually the population will hit an equilibrium in response to that. ANet would have to do something extremely appalling to get to that point however.

Heijincks.9267:

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead? I can’t think of anything that can’t be obtained without farm except for fancy exotics and legendaries. There isn’t a particular item that allows you to use content that can only be achieved solely from farming. The only thing I can think of that a consistently flawed RNG would do is to inhibit farming thus not allowing players to “play the way they want to” (although I honestly don’t see the fun in farming).
.

To a lot of people loot is one of the main reasons they play. It is the reward for the effort they put in, it’s what gives the sense of achievement. “Look I smited the big boss and looted from him the fabled pointy sword of pointyness”. Having poor loot in a loot based game surely makes that game poor no ?

Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed the game but I have played every dungeon, done a lot of WvW and am nearing my second map completion. After enjoying all the content for fun and giggles the incentive to repeat it is loot! Not with better stats, just enough loot so that I can make a little money to buy the things I want, to break down for mats to craft the things I want. If people are prevented from doing the things they want in game they will find a game that allows them to.

Kandrick.8054:

Anakin.9765:

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Again, I don’t see leaving the current system resulting in a dead game, especially not soon. I do, however, think the game would start to grow at a higher rate if the system was tweaked.

I don’t know, maybe we just have different takes on what a “dead game” is.

By dead game I don’t mean nobody playing it. To me a dead game is one that is shrinking. Once a games player base starts shrinking it’s very difficult to pull it back into line. Investment gets cut, updates reduce, more people leave, difficult to attract new players and the cycle continues until they eventually pull the plug.

By this definition I’ve realized “dead game” is a term used extremely loosely.

The point, though… do you actually think by leaving the current loot system the game will reach your version of a dead game? It has already been stated and quoted quite a few times that the player-base has seen steady growth. We can say this now with backup from Colin’s interview on MMORPG.

Kandrick.8054:

Having poor loot in a loot based game surely makes that game poor no ?

I’ve noticed many people doing exactly what you just did and it is quite silly. The game is in no way “poor” simply because of the loot.

You just said you’ve done aaallll of this awesome stuff, but then you say the loot is bad so the game is bad. What about all of that other stuff you’ve just discarded simply because you finished it? This one system does not solely determine the quality of the game.

So, no. That surely doesn’t make it poor.

I’m possibly not explaining myself well and we also possibly see things from a differnt viewpoint, which is fine., we represent different points of view. This is what makes a good discussion.

I was perhaps too simple saying that sweeping statemnt that poor loot makes a poor game, let me try and qualify it.

The game is a good game and I thoroughly enjoyed it first play through and seeing all the great content and artwork. Once that is done do you just shelve the game and play something else, marking it finished or perhaps just returning for new content ? It’s a valid question.

What keeps (a lot) of players playing after completing the content is their own goals. That could be legendary or kitting out a new toon or whatever. Those goals tend to require loot, not for the loot itself but for the money, mats etc that loot gives in order to facilitate that goal. If people do not feel in any way rewarded for the time they put in to achieving their goal and cannot see progress then, on the whole, they leave.

Once players leave they tend not to return, moving onto that ‘next’ mmo. If the playerbase shrinks then it is difficult to attract new players into the game to see the great content for the first time.

I may not have a crystal ball but I have seen enough very good games fall by the wayside due to what at first seem to be petty problems but problems not addressed leaving to a downward spiral. SWTOR being one of the most recent.

In my last MMO, SWtOR, I played mostly for the class story lines, but after hitting level cap in one and then working on alts, I reached a point where the effort of playing the same content to get the reward of the story content didn’t seem worth it anymore, so I left.

Now in this game, I’ve gotten two to 80, with both fully PvE explored and one nearly 100% explored, so exploration is pretty much out as a motivation. The draws are leveling other classes for the gameplay novelty and collecting some good gear so alts are not dying every other minute in dungeons later. But the hours needed to do that while engaging in repetitive content are starting to wear on me. The rewards are tending to be below the threshold that would prompt me to keep up my time investment.

What I can say is that I don’t feel rewarded for what I’m doing at lvl 80.

Made cof, arah and ac more than 50 times each and I don’t feel fine with having to farm months to get legendary stuff that adds just a different “look” and no special stats to your character.

Meeting everyday people with full mf set and having to carry them and their “pirate bird” all the way through the dungeons makes me angry.

Plague.3174:

What I can say is that I don’t feel rewarded for what I’m doing at lvl 80.

Made cof, arah and ac more than 50 times each and I don’t feel fine with having to farm months to get legendary stuff that adds just a different “look” and no special stats to your character.

Meeting everyday people with full mf set and having to carry them and their “pirate bird” all the way through the dungeons makes me angry.

Yarrr!

You said it in away that made me think you think everyone feels that way. You, and many others, may disagree with that specific mechanic, but that doesn’t qualify the rating of a poor game, does it? It may help you form that opinion, though.

I do agree that the system is a bit too much, but it is not a complete make or break “too much”. I wouldn’t mind seeing them tweak some variables, but that would anger another crowd I would assume.

Also, my experience has shown that players that leave do tend to return, if not only for new content. That’s just my experience, though.

Apparently something is working if Colin can claim to have an increasing population, though. Of course there are no facts to support this – only his quote.

Plague.3174:

What I can say is that I don’t feel rewarded for what I’m doing at lvl 80.

Made cof, arah and ac more than 50 times each and I don’t feel fine with having to farm months to get legendary stuff that adds just a different “look” and no special stats to your character.

Meeting everyday people with full mf set and having to carry them and their “pirate bird” all the way through the dungeons makes me angry.

That’s pretty much Guild Wars, though. They tend to not focus on stat progression, but on cosmetic progression.

Although they did add in a bit of stat progression to please the crowd.

Crowds of people complain there’s too much of a “gear treadmill” then there’s crowds of people complaining there’s not enough.

Who do you please? Can you please both? How?

Ill say that the problem is not the RNG but the loot table if a dragon have a loot table of 200greens 400blues 100rares and 50exotics ofc the loot will be crap because most of the times we will get blues and greens and sometimes with alot of lucky rares thats the problem the loot is not right.

Anet read this : WE dont want more loot WE want BETTER loot

LOOT: i dont see any problem with it. its relatively easy to get a character maxed out. i only wish sigils/runes werent destroyed when switching them.
i dont see otherwise why you need more loot.

MAPS POP: the staying power of the game is in rolling an alt. when you start to feel your toon has nothing more to gain and that you own every low level zones etc, its probably true. its time to move on to wvw, pvp, or roll an alt.
you can always come back to your main if you ever need, or new high level content/gear progression is released.

Q: “Does GW2 have the staying power as-is?”

A: I have no idea. GW2 will evolve over time just as GW1 did. I cannot foretell the future. All I can say is what I like to do, which is very different from what others like to do.
I plan to leisurely get 8 characters (which includes each profession and at least one of each race) through the storyline and map completion. I’m not sure what I will do once that has been completed as I have no interest in dungeons, although I’m sure I’ll get around to doing each of them at least once. PvP is not my thing and WvW is okay every once in a while.
So I guess, if Anet continues to bring new things to the world for me to do and complete, then I will continue to play the game. If they focus on Dungeons, PvP and WvW, then once I no longer have anything I want to do…..I will move on.
Since I’m a casual player, I don’t foresee me “losing interest” in the game anytime this year.

As far as MMO’s go I think GW2 will fair well, there are enough ‘innovative features’ to keep players interested, until of course something better comes out (it is 2013 after all).

When it comes to ‘loot’, I think there ought to be more raw materials dropped then finished items. This would energize the crafting in the game. ‘Rare’ and ‘Exotic’ items need to be just that – rare and exotic – the drop rates for these things ought to be poor.

The long term playability boils down to the competitive modes or how much fun you had leveling a toon in PvE mode.

Here’s where the ‘split’ comes, if the #1 reason your playing GW2 is because its a MMO and you enjoy playing with/against others then you might stick around until something better comes out. If however the #1 reason you purchased GW2 is because of the ‘RPG’ or ‘Action’ nature (and the mmo aspect is ignored or idk) there is a constant stream of new single player titles in which GW2 would have difficulty competing with for your game play time.

Since I’m a member of the later camp, come Tuesday Feb 19th I know what game I’ll be playing.

I think the new changes coming and the living story are arenanets counter to these new mmo releases like neverwinter and ESO.

Until ESO’s business model comes out in the open i really think they are more worried about neverwinter as itsfree to play and free to download..

Kandrick.8054:

Anakin.9765:

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Again, I don’t see leaving the current system resulting in a dead game, especially not soon. I do, however, think the game would start to grow at a higher rate if the system was tweaked.

I don’t know, maybe we just have different takes on what a “dead game” is.

By dead game I don’t mean nobody playing it. To me a dead game is one that is shrinking. Once a games player base starts shrinking it’s very difficult to pull it back into line. Investment gets cut, updates reduce, more people leave, difficult to attract new players and the cycle continues until they eventually pull the plug.

Population shrinking is going to be difficult to observe since the payment model this game uses, frees up players to traverse freely to other games, but puts up no barriers for returning.

Sub-based games require that up front payment to unlock the game again, so most people are going to need to be really interested in returning before they’ll drop cash on it. GW2 let’s you come back with ease, so you don’t need to be committed enough to spend money to do it.

Additionally, there are no add-ons. That’s a personal bugbear of mine and something that kept me from returning to WoW many times. In fact, it’s also keeping me from returning to Skyrim right now. It’s that need to re-identify, locate, update and re-install those add-ons. I had a handful of them for WoW that I felt were required to play the game effectively. Skyrim has even more, which are even more critical to enjoying it for me (never could adjust to the native console experience). Not a problem with GW2. No add-ons means no headaches trying to deal with them after a hiatus.

The bottom line is that most other games make returning to them a bit of a chore and something you need to be committed to. GW2 keeps the red carpet rolled out long after you’ve left, so you are always welcomed back. They even hold the door open for you. So when people leave, it will tend to be for shorter periods, with a much higher chance that they will return. That’s how the game will stay alive.

You never need to quit GW2. You just go off and play something else for a while.

Jezath.7395:

I think the new changes coming and the living story are arenanets counter to these new mmo releases like neverwinter and ESO.

Until ESO’s business model comes out in the open i really think they are more worried about neverwinter as itsfree to play and free to download..

Living Story is a concept developed by ArenaNet well before anyone had the first inkling of what a Neverwinter MMO would look or play like (and I’m not saying they invented it, so you trolls can simmer the kitten down). An ever-changing world has always been part of the game plan. It’s been little things like Halloween and Christmas that’s prevented it from being implemented already. Now they have a clear stretch of time to work with to start introducing these new mechanics.

Besides, I’ve watched a few hours of NWN footage and read a good deal about it. ANet has nothing to worry about. Rooted combat? Can’t imagine ever going back to those dark old days again. People will leave to try it, play it for a while, then come back. That’s how it’s always going to be with this game.

Heijincks.9267:

Kandrick.8054:

The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.

I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead?

Yes.

Dante.1508:

Heijincks.9267:

Kandrick.8054:

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead?

Yes.

Does anyone else feel like GW2 is quite simply not a loot-driven game?

If anyone out there considers the GW2 loot to be this much of an issue (and especially if you also disliked Diablo 3), I wanna take a moment and plug Path of Exile. It’s completely free.

Jezath.7395:

I think the new changes coming and the living story are arenanets counter to these new mmo releases like neverwinter and ESO.

Until ESO’s business model comes out in the open i really think they are more worried about neverwinter as itsfree to play and free to download..

problem is; neverwinter looks and play like kitten, there is almost no customization, every class can only use “1” weapon. animations are choppy. it isnt true to d&d 4th ed at all,
overall this game is almost dead on arrival in my book.

I would like to see likelihood of good loot go up based on the bonus xp a mob gives, as well as the difficulty of that mob.
Example, if a mob gives 100 xp and 300 bonus xp, it should be 3x more likely to drop worthwhile loot. If it’s a veteran, more, and a champ, even more. That might be incentive to hunt in weird places instead of farming in the same area as everyone else. And if you and some others actually put 5 minutes into getting rid of that awful champ mob roaming somewhere? You should get good loot to make up for that time that was otherwise wasted.

Hawkian.6580:

Dante.1508:

Heijincks.9267:

Kandrick.8054:

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead?

Yes.

Does anyone else feel like GW2 is quite simply not a loot-driven game?

If anyone out there considers the GW2 loot to be this much of an issue (and especially if you also disliked Diablo 3), I wanna take a moment and plug Path of Exile. It’s completely free.

If Guildwars 2 isn’t loot driven to you what is it?

Guildwars 1 is what i’d call a non loot driven game, this version is pretty much 100% all about the loot, just look at Fotm to see that.

Hellkaiser.6025:

DEAR GOD I MISS MY FISHING CRAZY DAYS IN WOW! D’:

In other games as well. Would LOVE fishing with the ability to drag an old chest or soggy boot full of coins out of the many bodies of water.

:D

i dont think gw2 is “loot driven”.

why do you need the loot for ??
ascended and laurels is where its at, and they arent loot based.
dungeons have token too..

loot..
loot is to gear up in exotic gear, mostly.
and i find its no so hard to do…

people who complain, i dont get it.

-commander 100g was designed with the idea that “your guild should help you to pay after you worked your kitten in wvw”.
-legendaries are for obsessive compulsive people.

and everything else is fine.

Leamas.5803:

Bottom line…will GW2 have a 7 year life, like GW1? Only time will tell.

That’s my 2c anyway. Thoughts?

GW2 is no different from any other MMO.

The bottom line is that the gameplay must be fun for players to stick around. Gimmicks that “structure” the gameplay tend to erode it. Dailies, artificial ladders, “rules”, rails — these all tend to strangle the gameplay. They’re all band-aids to distract the player from the fact that the player can’t find fun gameplay.

If the actual combat is fun, if the PvE dungeons are fun (for PvE’ers), if the dynamic events are fun (again, for PvE’ers), if the WvW mechanics are fun, if sPvP is fun, then that’s all you need.

Everything else is fluff and/or the company trying to over-engineer the mechanics. Trying to inject random stuff into the game for various cross purposes.

GW2 will fail because ANet is falling into the same trap as other developers — they are adding trivial gimmicks and distractions, rather than focusing on making the core game fun / more fun.

Dante.1508:

Hawkian.6580:

Dante.1508:

Heijincks.9267:

Kandrick.8054:

So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.

Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead?

Yes.

Does anyone else feel like GW2 is quite simply not a loot-driven game?

If anyone out there considers the GW2 loot to be this much of an issue (and especially if you also disliked Diablo 3), I wanna take a moment and plug Path of Exile. It’s completely free.

If Guildwars 2 isn’t loot driven to you what is it?

If you’re really asking…

-I find the combat extremely enjoyble from a mere gameplay perspective. I play with a controller and I like to do anything in-game that involves combat. It’s fun.
-Exploring the world is one of the biggest factors for me. I’ve found a lot fo hidden stuff just by poking around and going “I wonder if I can get there!” I’m sure I haven’t seen half of it yet, either.
-Ever since I learned there were jumping puzzles in the game I was ecstatic. I love dexterity challenges and I’m on my way to completing them all, and I’ll attack every new one ANet adds to the game.
-Theorycrafting and experimenting with builds is deceptively deep. All of the three classes I’ve spent significant time with have a lot more trait/weapon/rune/sigil synergy than they appeared to at first glance. I swap between three complete specs (Support, Control, Damage) with my first character, and I’ll eventually be making three sets for every character I get to 80.
-I enjoy getting my characters to look the way I want them to (cosmetic skins)
-WvW is a blast, the dynamics and epic moments that can occur in a given session are really something. It’s filled with potential, too.
-I really enjoy the community aspect of doing things with my guild, running unofficial events and races in-game, helping out lowbies, showing people hidden things, etc. This would actually be my #1 reason for playing a game in this genre over other games.

I’m sure I’m forgetting other stuff too…. “everything but the loot” is probably a pretty accurate way to concisely answer your question.

Guildwars 1 is what i’d call a non loot driven game, this version is pretty much 100% all about the loot, just look at Fotm to see that.

100% about the loot? Are you sure you want to go that far….? Doesn’t the fact that FOTM wasn’t even part of the game at all at launch sort of invalidate this point, alongside the fact that plenty of people like me play fractals cause they’re fun regardless of the rewards (which have since been made guaranteed over time)?

It sounds a lot like Guild Wars 2 is all about the loot for you, and that’s fine, I’m just saying there are a lot of other games that would do a way better job of scratching that itch. Again, I’d contrast (and recommend, cause it’s awesome) Path of Exile, which is 100% loot-driven. If that game had GW2’s loot tables it would be absolutely intolerable. The base point-and-click combat is nothing particularly special and there’s nothing else to do in the game in terms of gameplay. Yet it remains awesome, because it is loot-driven and has great loot. You must see the difference.