Guild Wars 2

i didnt do a survey,
but i think there is 3 types of players who could be interested im gw2 long term;
-fractal runners type of players, hardcore pve.
-wvw tactical mass pvp players.
-pvp players.

but right now the focus is on the open world.
its great, but its hard to nail…
and hard to create talks and such.
as it is, its the single player part of the game mostly.
i dont think its great for an “mmo”.
but i could be surprised after seeing the guild
missions.

Blacklight.2871:

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.

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.

The thing is, this statment is wrong. I know many a people who have out right quit the game. Just because it becomes free to play after you purchase it, it doesn’t mean u can never quit.

In saying that everyone free to play mmorpg people have played actually never quit becuase it’s free and they can go back any time they want just like GW". But that isn’t the case. Normally people quit for reasons like not liking mechanics or game breaking problems that aren’t fixed or never get fixed. Or a ever dying spvp community which is sending pvpers away to actual competitve pvp games they won’t come back.

Avatar.1923:

i didnt do a survey,
but i think there is 3 types of players who could be interested im gw2 long term;
-fractal runners type of players, hardcore pve.
-wvw tactical mass pvp players.
-pvp players.

but right now the focus is on the open world.
its great, but its hard to nail…
and hard to create talks and such.
as it is, its the single player part of the game mostly.
i dont think its great for an “mmo”.
but i could be surprised after seeing the guild
missions.

How did you come to that conclusion? I like all three of those play-styles and then some. I’m sure I’m not the only one, too.

I enjoy clearing dungeons, I enjoy teaming up with my guild for large-scale tactical PvP, and I’m guessing the third style is meant for the structured PvP? I also enjoy that.

I am pretty excited about the future of Guild Wars 2.

And yes, I think we’re in for a surprise with guild missions.

Kakeru.2873:

Blacklight.2871:

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.

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.

The thing is, this statment is wrong. I know many a people who have out right quit the game. Just because it becomes free to play after you purchase it, it doesn’t mean u can never quit.

In saying that everyone free to play mmorpg people have played actually never quit becuase it’s free and they can go back any time they want just like GW". But that isn’t the case. Normally people quit for reasons like not liking mechanics or game breaking problems that aren’t fixed or never get fixed. Or a ever dying spvp community which is sending pvpers away to actual competitve pvp games they won’t come back.

And I have to say I disagree. He said “higher chance that they will return” not that everyone will come back. It only seems logical that free-to-play games are more appealing to jump back in simply for the ease and the free part.

You saying you know people that quit and won’t come back doesn’t make his statement wrong. I’ve talked to many people that say they don’t worry to much about staying hooked to the game for the simple reason they can come and go as they please. I know many people that have this attitude.

I won’t say it is the general attitude, but I would say the percentage is quite a bit higher here than for a pay-to-play for obvious reasons.

I would also like to point out that I feel like many players that quit this early on in a game’s life are simply realizing it is not the game for them. Let’s just face it that many players came to GW2 without doing their research and expected the typical MMO.

Again, I’m trying to not generalize, but this is just the vibe I’m getting.

Anakin.9765:

Kakeru.2873:

Blacklight.2871:

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.

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.

The thing is, this statment is wrong. I know many a people who have out right quit the game. Just because it becomes free to play after you purchase it, it doesn’t mean u can never quit.

In saying that everyone free to play mmorpg people have played actually never quit becuase it’s free and they can go back any time they want just like GW". But that isn’t the case. Normally people quit for reasons like not liking mechanics or game breaking problems that aren’t fixed or never get fixed. Or a ever dying spvp community which is sending pvpers away to actual competitve pvp games they won’t come back.

And I have to say I disagree. He said “higher chance that they will return” not that everyone will come back. It only seems logical that free-to-play games are more appealing to jump back in simply for the ease and the free part.

You saying you know people that quit and won’t come back doesn’t make his statement wrong. I’ve talked to many people that say they don’t worry to much about staying hooked to the game for the simple reason they can come and go as they please. I know many people that have this attitude.

I won’t say it is the general attitude, but I would say the percentage is quite a bit higher here than for a pay-to-play for obvious reasons.

I would also like to point out that I feel like many players that quit this early on in a game’s life are simply realizing it is not the game for them. Let’s just face it that many players came to GW2 without doing their research and expected the typical MMO.

Again, I’m trying to not generalize, but this is just the vibe I’m getting.

Also your speaking too much from experience the cast is the competitive pvp community is drying up this is fact, the total amount of NA competitive teams is 2, and EU i’m not sure (even know i’m from eu :/).

There’s no way to tell we are both speaking out of experience neither of use are right. While I know a lot of people who once they dislike a product they move onto the next product. Not stating that as fact though.

Anakin.9765:

Avatar.1923:

i didnt do a survey,
but i think there is 3 types of players who could be interested im gw2 long term;
-fractal runners type of players, hardcore pve.
-wvw tactical mass pvp players.
-pvp players.

but right now the focus is on the open world.
its great, but its hard to nail…
and hard to create talks and such.
as it is, its the single player part of the game mostly.
i dont think its great for an “mmo”.
but i could be surprised after seeing the guild
missions.

How did you come to that conclusion? I like all three of those play-styles and then some. I’m sure I’m not the only one, too.

I enjoy clearing dungeons, I enjoy teaming up with my guild for large-scale tactical PvP, and I’m guessing the third style is meant for the structured PvP? I also enjoy that.

I am pretty excited about the future of Guild Wars 2.

And yes, I think we’re in for a surprise with guild missions.

thats allright to fit in all 3 categories!
question is; with your level 80, do you still do a lot of open world aside from grinding dailies and going to dragons “for a chance at precursors” when they re up?

case closed.

MaRko.3165:

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.

This would be a first step in helping crafting, but they also need to bring prices down in the TP so that crafting is worthwhile. Currently for many, or perhaps a majority of craftable items, it’s more profitable to sell the mats and buy the item you want, especially if those mats are one of the required items for legendaries.

With the exception of a handful, most exotics require ecto…where does that ecto come from? Mostly rares since I expect most people sell exotics and just buy ecto with the profit. No rare drops means no ecto, unless you craft rares specifically to salvage (I once heard this might be considered an exploit), or buy them. At 15 T5 mats to make one rare, it can take quite some time to farm with these drop rates. Since it’s been nerfed it’s only a small chance of getting ecto from the rare. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten ecto from a salvaged rare, even before the nerf and I used to salvage lots to recover upgrades. The 7 ecto I have all came from 3 exotics I salvaged to get the upgrades back.

As for exotics that do not require ecto, say the lodestone weapons. Well, lodestones drop so incredibly infrequently that it could take many months of farming, more, if you’re unlucky like me, to get the 30 lodestones required. While I have unsuccessfully tried farming destroyer lodestones, in approximately 600 hours of play, I have never had a lodestone or a core drop of any kind…ever. You’re more likely to gather the ~40G required to buy the mats long before gathering 30 lodestones…which is fine I guess, unless your loot drops are so bad overall that it takes several days to make one gold. Then, unless you have the level 400 crafting skill, you still need to find someone you trust to make it for you.

salvaged rares will give you ectos.

anyway, if you have difficulty gearing up in exotic stuff in this game (a 3-4 hours per pieces at max) then you need to buy the hint book

Vorch.2985:

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.

Colin can also be quoted on these forums stating the loot was not nerfed on November, calling it an “X-Files level conspiracy”. We have thousand of posts spanning many threads claiming the November patch(es) changed loot for the worse. Anyone who was around before November and does dungeons/dragons knows the loot is a far cry from what it was in those days. So don’t get all pious on quoting Colin since it’s obvious he’s either willing to lie, or can be just plain wrong.

Loot should and probably will be addressed, sooner or later – the current situation of getting more loot from a moa then from a legendary fractal boss is just crazy.

Population is no issue on my server – (EU) Desolation and the new dailies have given a boost to the number of players out in the world. It doesn’t matter if I’m leveling (on my 4th toon now) in low, mid or high level zones, there’s always people running around, making the world feel far more alive than WoW zones ever were, and that’s my baseline.

Right now, GW2 is a great game, but it can (and in my estimation will) become far, far more than it currently is, through new DE’s with more scope, more focus on guilds, added and hopefully even better general content (expansions) and constantly improving PvP experiences. Hopefully, some other MMO will arrive to match GW2’s high standards (I can’t think of any out right now), the competition will heat up, and MMO’s will have their first renaissance – or is it their second ?

The fact that it’s not sub based means there’ll always be people popping in and out.

Eventually I’ll get bored and mess with other stuff. I’ll still come back to the game to play the new stuff.

I think the Loot issue is overblown. I’ve leveled up all the crafts with stuff I’ve harvested and looted / sold. Sure, you run into shortages on mats…in which case, you either go play some more & make more coin. Sell excess mats, craft & sell rare items and buy more mats.

I never have a ton of coin, but I’m never so broke I can’t waypoint anywhere I want. Or make/buy anything I want.

And I’ve never had to buy gems to convert to gold. I’m not really sure what gripe is? The fact that the game won’t let you become rich as Croesus in a month or 2? How much gold is enough?

@raf

exactly my point of view.
best stuff is token based mostly.

i dont understand all those people crying over loot willing to stay 1h around halla.
but hey, to each their own.

Anakin.9765:

I would also like to point out that I feel like many players that quit this early on in a game’s life are simply realizing it is not the game for them. Let’s just face it that many players came to GW2 without doing their research and expected the typical MMO.

That, or they are discovering that GW2 is, in fact, a typical MMO when ANet advertised something different.

Raf.1078:

I think the Loot issue is overblown. I’ve leveled up all the crafts with stuff I’ve harvested and looted / sold. Sure, you run into shortages on mats…in which case, you either go play some more & make more coin. Sell excess mats, craft & sell rare items and buy more mats.

I never have a ton of coin, but I’m never so broke I can’t waypoint anywhere I want. Or make/buy anything I want.

And I’ve never had to buy gems to convert to gold. I’m not really sure what gripe is? The fact that the game won’t let you become rich as Croesus in a month or 2? How much gold is enough?

It’s not even so much that loot is such a huge issue, for most. For some loot drops are well below average, and there is a 31 page sticky thread related to this (And a 46 page thread before that), as if people are stuck in permanent diminished returns or are persistently getting a bad RNG, well beyond what would be considered average.

It’s more that for this group, the problem is insultingly being referred to as “perceived” as if it’s all in our heads or an “X-files level conspiracy”. This is a real problem for a lot of people and one which after 3 months, ANet still has not officially acknowledged or even really commented on. It’s their handling of the situation that is more the problem here. By not doing damage control early on, ArenaNet has allowed it to become incredibly overblown.

As for how much gold is enough, to quote a famous book, “There is no such thing as rich enough, only poor enough”.

EasymodeX.4062:

Anakin.9765:

I would also like to point out that I feel like many players that quit this early on in a game’s life are simply realizing it is not the game for them. Let’s just face it that many players came to GW2 without doing their research and expected the typical MMO.

That, or they are discovering that GW2 is, in fact, a typical MMO when ANet advertised something different.

This (Only referring to loot)!! But before November, this was not the case. Which is why I said, I wanted the game back that I actually bought.

EasymodeX.4062:

Anakin.9765:

I would also like to point out that I feel like many players that quit this early on in a game’s life are simply realizing it is not the game for them. Let’s just face it that many players came to GW2 without doing their research and expected the typical MMO.

That, or they are discovering that GW2 is, in fact, a typical MMO when ANet advertised something different.

Only if they were painfully myopic or absurdly obstinate. Still, that’s a lot of gamers.

There was a game that I played quite some time ago, where you could read the same doom and gloom in its forums. A decade later and WoW is still going.

I don’t see any reason currently that says GW2 won’t be here a decade from now. I didn’t enjoy GW1 (really, level 10 before I could play with 3 other people in a group?) all that much, and I never really gave it a shot. Here I am now playing the heck out of GW2, having dropped WoW, WoT, Champions and STO.

If you think the only real problem is random and boss loot, GW2 is in decent shape.

Halanna.3927:

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.

Have you been to Orr recently? The mobs have been cut down quite a bit. I used to hate it now it’s not so bad really. And fishing? Yes please. I found it fun enough in two of the last MMOs I played. Especially with a chance at random loot for whatever crazy reason.

@Hellkaiser, Haha, I fired up WoW yesterday in the first time in over a month…and went fishing. First cast I caught the Flying Tiger Gourami which you bring back to Nat Pagle for a rep reward. I almost went to Dal to look for a sewer rat. +1 for fishing.

OP, No, the game can’t continue on in it’s present form. And, I’ll correct you somewhat around the loot system. It’s not pure RNG. You will never get 1,000 exotics out of a chest. Why? Because there are rules to prevent it. The loot system is a rules-based system that uses RNG. It can be tuned in any manner they wish and that’s why there was a improvement in the past month. They are responding to the common experience around loot because they know that exodus follows the prolonged experience of a loot wasteland. When there is no food in the land, the people move on. I’m Irish, when the potatoes dried up in Ireland my ancestors moved to the US. And, there are people at Anet who play the game themselves. They know the loot system is tuned poorly. But, they need to balance it with a RMT monetization scheme. I don’t know how this will work out in the end. D3 has taken some radical steps of late following their exodus (I was one of the exitees) of players. At some point they will have to move the dials to make GW2 a rewarding game to play.

In terms of population, it pretty much determines the quality of your daily playing experience. I noticed this after 11/15 emptied the open world on my server. I made two server tranfers to get to TC and it has made all the difference in the world. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to play on my original home server. I believe Anet is in touch with this problem as well. Guesting is a good start, but we need something like instanced zones to provide the ultimate solution.

In terms of the future my magic 8-ball says: “Reply hazy, try again”. They have shown the ability to make huge missteps such as the addition of vertical progression. We saw it empty the open world, fragment the community, and introduce, perhaps, the steepest grind for gear in the history of gaming. 30 days for an amulet. Really?

GW2 is one of the best games I have ever played. In order for it to fail Anet will have to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s up to them and, yes, in this sense time will tell.

crimsonbro.3126:

Halanna.3927:

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.

Have you been to Orr recently? The mobs have been cut down quite a bit. I used to hate it now it’s not so bad really. And fishing? Yes please. I found it fun enough in two of the last MMOs I played. Especially with a chance at random loot for whatever crazy reason.

I liked the old Orr better, soloed most of it with a necro and didn’t find it that terribly hard, but it really gave you a sense of accomplishment. My only complaint is how most waypoints in the Straits and Malchor’s Leap are contested most of the time. Running from point to point is so time consuming. It’s not bad in Cursed Shore. Did Promenade of the Gods the other night and it was way too easy, no one even went down and we really didn’t have a big group. This is the PvE end zone…it should be hard. But…the reward should also reflect the difficulty. Perhaps this is the goal…if they make it easy, then they don’t have to improve rewards. :/

Goettel.4389:

Loot should and probably will be addressed, sooner or later – the current situation of getting more loot from a moa then from a legendary fractal boss is just crazy.

Population is no issue on my server – (EU) Desolation and the new dailies have given a boost to the number of players out in the world. It doesn’t matter if I’m leveling (on my 4th toon now) in low, mid or high level zones, there’s always people running around, making the world feel far more alive than WoW zones ever were, and that’s my baseline.

Right now, GW2 is a great game, but it can (and in my estimation will) become far, far more than it currently is, through new DE’s with more scope, more focus on guilds, added and hopefully even better general content (expansions) and constantly improving PvP experiences. Hopefully, some other MMO will arrive to match GW2’s high standards (I can’t think of any out right now), the competition will heat up, and MMO’s will have their first renaissance – or is it their second ?

The Problem is not more loot but better loot and if the fix the loot like they did in the veterans/champions well we will see a big change (Sarcarm)

Raine.1394:

They have shown the ability to make huge missteps such as the addition of vertical progression. We saw it empty the open world, fragment the community, and introduce, perhaps, the steepest grind for gear in the history of gaming. 30 days for an amulet. Really?

Steepest grind in gaming history? Really? Really?

Come on, you and I both know that isn’t remotely close to being the case.

the game tries to make it “difficult” for farmers and grinders to break the economy.

and personally, i’m very happy with that.

the amulet after 30days, thats a reward for your time played, not a grind.
and by all means, really not “necessary”.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

They have shown the ability to make huge missteps such as the addition of vertical progression. We saw it empty the open world, fragment the community, and introduce, perhaps, the steepest grind for gear in the history of gaming. 30 days for an amulet. Really?

Steepest grind in gaming history? Really? Really?

Come on, you and I both know that isn’t remotely close to being the case.

I actually chose my words carefully and said what I believe to be the truth. Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

in reality you can get the ammulet in 20 days, right? monthly gives 10 laurels, so that cuts the ‘grind’ by 33.33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333n%, yeah?

what do you prefer to do with your level 80?

if its pve, well then, it have “small” progression.
not having the amulet right away wont slow down you getting dungeon tokens or finishing dailies..
and if you do fotm, the rings are so easy to get. and if you are at lvl like 30… then by all means, youll have the amulet.
so
have fun

if its wvw, well, here is the thing… wvwvw aint fair.
the stronger the toon in pve, the stronger he his in wvw.
but by such a small margin.
and if you want “everybody” to be equal in wvw… then its spvp.

now, just sayin since you asked for it;
you dont need the amulets.

now, ill flush.

Medazolam.3058:

in reality you can get the ammulet in 20 days, right? monthly gives 10 laurels, so that cuts the ‘grind’ by 33.33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333n%, yeah?

In a gaming forum you should always follow the Leeroy Jenkins convention and say “.33…repeating, of course”. I don’t do dungeons so it’s actually 30 days for me. But, yes, for those who enjoy dungeoneering it is 20 days.

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

They have shown the ability to make huge missteps such as the addition of vertical progression. We saw it empty the open world, fragment the community, and introduce, perhaps, the steepest grind for gear in the history of gaming. 30 days for an amulet. Really?

Steepest grind in gaming history? Really? Really?

Come on, you and I both know that isn’t remotely close to being the case.

I actually chose my words carefully and said what I believe to be the truth. Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

Let’s assume they are not going to add more ways to get laurels which is not true. 30 days isn’t that long to get 1 piece of loot, just from casually playing.

Also all comparison should be done with 1 character because at any rate 8 character is more of a personal choice and not the average.

Anyways, when you run an instance for 2 years and not get a piece of REQUIRE armor, come back and complain. Amulet on the other hand are things you can just from playing the game naturally, very few games ever allow you such a thing.

This isn’t a political debate where hyperbole wins point for your base.

Raine.1394:

I actually chose my words carefully and said what I believe to be the truth. Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

First, you understand that costing 30 laurels does not mean that you have to play for 30 days, right? People who have attained every laurel so far will able to get theirs tonight after the daily- that’s 18 days.

Second, there’s an extreme assumption that eight months from now, the only options to get ascended amulets will be the same as they are now, and that obtaining laurels will be possible only at the same rate they are now. I don’t know why you’d think that. Ascended gear has only been made easier to get over time already. This trend will continue.

Third, the language you used really implies that an Ascended amulet is the only type of item in the game that can occupy that slot. Surely you will agree that you can obtain an exotic amulet in less than a day, correct?

Fourth, I would appreciate your response to the speculative point you offered. I have yet to see a compelling answer for it and I wouldn’t mind hearing your perspective.

Hawkian.6580:

Raine.1394:

I actually chose my words carefully and said what I believe to be the truth. Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

First, you understand that costing 30 laurels does not mean that you have to play for 30 days, right? People who have attained every laurel so far will able to get theirs tonight after the daily- that’s 18 days.

Second, there’s an extreme assumption that eight months from now, the only options to get ascended amulets will be the same as they are now, and that obtaining laurels will be possible only at the same rate they are now. I don’t know why you’d think that. Ascended gear has only been made easier to get over time already. This trend will continue.

Third, the language you used really implies that an Ascended amulet is the only type of item in the game that can occupy that slot. Surely you will agree that you can obtain an exotic amulet in less than a day, correct?

Fourth, I would appreciate your response to the speculative point you offered. I have yet to see a compelling answer for it and I wouldn’t mind hearing your perspective.

They did it by doing monthly which gives 10, but he doesn’t want to do the monthly because he hate dungeons. to some degree I agree, but 5 dungeons can be done in 2 hours which is what I did and found them fun enough to now actively trying to do them every day. I had avoided them since release.

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

They have shown the ability to make huge missteps such as the addition of vertical progression. We saw it empty the open world, fragment the community, and introduce, perhaps, the steepest grind for gear in the history of gaming. 30 days for an amulet. Really?

Steepest grind in gaming history? Really? Really?

Come on, you and I both know that isn’t remotely close to being the case.

Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

You did say gaming history, then moved goalposts to one item for one slot. I’d argue that you haven’t played enough 90s JRPGs. Those are some of the longest grinds in gaming history (I’m looking at you Dragonquest).

As for my example I pick the low hanging fruit: WoW. Grind heroics to clear a raid once a week to have a chance at gear you want, not even guaranteed BiS. Keep in mind, I’m talking the whole of WoW, not its current incarnation.

People in my guild during WotLK never got their best in slot weapons despite perfect raid attendance. The time between content patches was much longer than 30 days.

Then there’s WoW’s legendary weapons.

And this is just a casual glance. I’m sure you could look at EQ, EQ2, DaoC and find grinds that are much more than 45 minutes a day for 30 days.

Still want to contend that laurels are the biggest grind in gaming history?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

No, it seems like you have that concept understood pretty well by now.

Now the alt situation you bring up is easily the biggest flaw of the laurel system (one month of waiting per alt, per build? That’s some bullskritt), and I completely agree with you that it needs to be addressed ASAP.

Leamas.5803:

MaRko.3165:

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.

This would be a first step in helping crafting, but they also need to bring prices down in the TP so that crafting is worthwhile. Currently for many, or perhaps a majority of craftable items, it’s more profitable to sell the mats and buy the item you want, especially if those mats are one of the required items for legendaries.

With the exception of a handful, most exotics require ecto…where does that ecto come from? Mostly rares since I expect most people sell exotics and just buy ecto with the profit. No rare drops means no ecto, unless you craft rares specifically to salvage (I once heard this might be considered an exploit), or buy them. At 15 T5 mats to make one rare, it can take quite some time to farm with these drop rates. Since it’s been nerfed it’s only a small chance of getting ecto from the rare. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten ecto from a salvaged rare, even before the nerf and I used to salvage lots to recover upgrades. The 7 ecto I have all came from 3 exotics I salvaged to get the upgrades back.

As for exotics that do not require ecto, say the lodestone weapons. Well, lodestones drop so incredibly infrequently that it could take many months of farming, more, if you’re unlucky like me, to get the 30 lodestones required. While I have unsuccessfully tried farming destroyer lodestones, in approximately 600 hours of play, I have never had a lodestone or a core drop of any kind…ever. You’re more likely to gather the ~40G required to buy the mats long before gathering 30 lodestones…which is fine I guess, unless your loot drops are so bad overall that it takes several days to make one gold. Then, unless you have the level 400 crafting skill, you still need to find someone you trust to make it for you.

Thats sad really. I had a blast with the crafting in Skyrim. Not only were mats easy to find but you could make items WAY more powerful than what you could purchase or find in the game. This was the underlying incentive to get into crafting – better gear!

In GW2 its cheaper to just buy what you want rather than make it. There’s no incentive to make it yourself as the items you craft are just as good as drops.

Personally I think they should just remove Legendary weapons from the game or have them be very rare drops like “Final Rest” is. I can’t belief how many people are ‘grinding away’ for the mats/precursor just to have one.

Monday night or Tuesday I’ll be playing Crysis3. While this game was ‘fun’, I’m not quite sure I like the inherent limitations and mechanics that the MMO genera offers and those presently out weigh the positives.

MaRko.3165:

Leamas.5803:

MaRko.3165:

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.

This would be a first step in helping crafting, but they also need to bring prices down in the TP so that crafting is worthwhile. Currently for many, or perhaps a majority of craftable items, it’s more profitable to sell the mats and buy the item you want, especially if those mats are one of the required items for legendaries.

With the exception of a handful, most exotics require ecto…where does that ecto come from? Mostly rares since I expect most people sell exotics and just buy ecto with the profit. No rare drops means no ecto, unless you craft rares specifically to salvage (I once heard this might be considered an exploit), or buy them. At 15 T5 mats to make one rare, it can take quite some time to farm with these drop rates. Since it’s been nerfed it’s only a small chance of getting ecto from the rare. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten ecto from a salvaged rare, even before the nerf and I used to salvage lots to recover upgrades. The 7 ecto I have all came from 3 exotics I salvaged to get the upgrades back.

As for exotics that do not require ecto, say the lodestone weapons. Well, lodestones drop so incredibly infrequently that it could take many months of farming, more, if you’re unlucky like me, to get the 30 lodestones required. While I have unsuccessfully tried farming destroyer lodestones, in approximately 600 hours of play, I have never had a lodestone or a core drop of any kind…ever. You’re more likely to gather the ~40G required to buy the mats long before gathering 30 lodestones…which is fine I guess, unless your loot drops are so bad overall that it takes several days to make one gold. Then, unless you have the level 400 crafting skill, you still need to find someone you trust to make it for you.

Thats sad really. I had a blast with the crafting in Skyrim. Not only were mats easy to find but you could make items WAY more powerful than what you could purchase or find in the game. This was the underlying incentive to get into crafting – better gear!

In GW2 its cheaper to just buy what you want rather than make it. There’s no incentive to make it yourself as the items you craft are just as good as drops.

Personally I think they should just remove Legendary weapons from the game or have them be very rare drops like “Final Rest” is. I can’t belief how many people are ‘grinding away’ for the mats/precursor just to have one.

Monday night or Tuesday I’ll be playing Crysis3. While this game was ‘fun’, I’m not quite sure I like the inherent limitations and mechanics that the MMO genera offers and those presently out weigh the positives.

edit

An MMO with a subscription is meant to stall you. GW2 shouldn’t have to do that.

Some sub MMOs aren’t even as a pain in the kitten as this one.

Frega.9247:

An MMO with a subscription is meant to stall you. GW2 shouldn’t have to do that.

Some sub MMOs aren’t even as a pain in the kitten as this one.

Guild wars 2 did nto stall you the first few weeks and you know what happen. A lot of people burn through the content, got everything THEN turn around and complain how the game had very little content. I was there in orr when after the 5 day when people just grind and grind and did orr and CoF for hours straight.

Reality is that given perpetual nature of MMOs, they needs to be a reason to slow/stall for from achieving everything. Arenanet mistakenly thought people would play for the sake of fun, but if you read the forum long enough you would find that it isn’t true.

Just to add unlike single player gamers, MMO player feel that an MMO game should be able to sustain their 8 hours a day play styles forever and unless you can find the algorithms to generate infinite content, stalling via grind and a combination of RNG and limted tokens is the most effectieve method.

Games with monthly sub do this by making raids and sometimes putting a 1 week timer and then having you compete against other player when something you need actually drops.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/15/camelot-unchained-aims-to-be-unattractive-to-gold-sellers-and-fa/

thats the future, and gw2 is a tiny step in that direction.

farmers and compusilve looters and all this bunch, are killing mmos slowly.
ultima online was right.

lets get back to the root of a virtual world.

Avatar.1923:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/15/camelot-unchained-aims-to-be-unattractive-to-gold-sellers-and-fa/

thats the future, and gw2 is a tiny step in that direction.

farmers and compusilve looters and all this bunch, are killing mmos slowly.
ultima online was right.

lets get back to the root of a virtual world.

Hype don’t you love it. You havent actually seen it in action and yet you come here and proclaim or try to imply it is better than something out there.

Beside it is from Mark Jacobs, instead of being excited about something nonexistent or haven’t actually seen in action how about you wait and see.

Btw you should read my sig.

silvermember.8941:

Let me stop you right there. MMOs and single player games only have one real thing in common, they are both games. What works for single player games will not work for an MMO, every few things can translate well from a sp to an MMO.

The goal of any MMO is to stall you for as long as posible, while a single player is actually for you to have fun, not to say MMO are not fall. But MMO are not designed for instant gratification because it will far apart.

I think the ‘goal’ of just about every title I’ve played is to offer some repeatability and ‘value’ for the purchase. (the only ‘stall’ as you’d call it is from subscription based theme parks) I picked up this title for the ‘RPG’ and ‘action’ aspect. No ‘instant gratification’ needed. (after all, thats what ‘Angry Birds’ is for and that genera is not the discussion)

silvermember.8941:

They did it by doing monthly which gives 10, but he doesn’t want to do the monthly because he hate dungeons. to some degree I agree, but 5 dungeons can be done in 2 hours which is what I did and found them fun enough to now actively trying to do them every day. I had avoided them since release.

That’s more or less irrelevant, isn’t it? It doesn’t take 30 days just because he in particular is unwilling to do the (largely reasonable for the course of a couple days or a week) things it would take to obtain it in less…

EasymodeX.4062:

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.

Finaly someone who realy understand what is wrong with GW2
+1.

silvermember.8941:

I was there in orr when after the 5 day when people just grind and grind and did orr and CoF for hours straight.

Egads man!! (LOL!!) It took me almost 2 months of 2-4hrs a night to make it to Orr! (man I must play slow….. )

I think that the developers may have under estimated how quickly players can run through content. I think the ever lower drop rates will slow things down as well as if they rework the dungeons there will some delay as while players figure out the new mechanics. The new ‘guild quests’ sound interesting for those players and this title appears to have a dedicated development crew behind it that are devoted to making it better. I still think that crafting ought to be supported more and voice comm while in a dungeon instance would not be a bad thing.

IDK, I typically play through a dozen or more titles a year. Its very rare that a game will ‘grab’ me for more than a month. GW2 was one of the few that did.

(BTW: I like your sig….. too true….)

Completely agree there Leam. The loot problem is THE reason why I left the game. You don’t even get adequate rewards from completion of zones or finding chests in jump puzzles or just lying around, or events.

I’m one of the missing, they won’t be seeing me for a long long time until they get some of this under control. Missing entire chests is just the extent of it for me. And telling people that it’s not true when we have screenshots and videos showing them what’s happening definitely isn’t helping.

The population of many servers has been dwindling for quite some now. It’s amazing they haven’t merged the servers yet especially since this game requires multiple players mid way thru on many of the events.

Leamas.5803:

Vorch.2985:

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.

Colin can also be quoted on these forums stating the loot was not nerfed on November, calling it an “X-Files level conspiracy”. We have thousand of posts spanning many threads claiming the November patch(es) changed loot for the worse. Anyone who was around before November and does dungeons/dragons knows the loot is a far cry from what it was in those days. So don’t get all pious on quoting Colin since it’s obvious he’s either willing to lie, or can be just plain wrong.

Yay for ignoring THE REST OF MY POST, especially the part where I say that risk vs. reward is out of whack with loot.

Good job quoting only the parts you like.

Seriously…

Assyrian.4827:

Finaly someone who realy understand what is wrong with GW2
+1.

I don’t expect this to have any impact on your view, but I want to make a brief point…

While EasyModeX is more than entitled to his complaints and you’re more than entitled to agree with him, my fervent hope is that ArenaNet does not listen to or alter the game around them.

Changing the game to accomodate the things that bother players like you would be unwise from a developmental standpoint- counterintuitive as that might seem. I stand with the overwhelmingly content silent majority playing this game, and who will continue to do so- it makes much more sense to design based around what they want, retaining them and me, with the unfortunate tradeoff that players like you might get frustrated enough to abandon the game and move onto something else.

It sucks to have any player stop playing a game because they want it to be different, but it’s important to understand the sort of dynamics at play here.

Avatar.1923:

the game tries to make it “difficult” for farmers and grinders to break the economy.

and personally, i’m very happy with that.

the amulet after 30days, thats a reward for your time played, not a grind.
and by all means, really not “necessary”.

Except it does the exact OPPOSITE of that.

now ONLY people who:
a – are rich already (from farming pre-11/15) and control the TP
b – have no life, or
c – have extreme luck,
get to experience the full game because they’re the only ones who make enough gold.

If you want to just craft or work slowly toward a goal, you can’t go out and get your own mats. Because you can’t go out and get your own mats, you are at the mercy of the TP manipulators who think it’s fun in a dragon-slayer game to bean-count and play wall-street at everyone else’s expense.

A full set of exotics is too expensive at about 30g for anyone with this perma-dr bs to experiment with new builds or gear.

so you have the people with the “lucky accounts”, the people who made thousands of gold via godskull, and the people who play 24/7 from their parents’ basement actually able to experience the whole game, while the rest of us have a terrible experience.

This game isn’t like WoW, you don’t pick a weapon, shoot for it, and use it and only it. Your abilities depend on your weapons, you need a full set. You also don’t get one or two viable builds all based on the same stats, you need multiple sets of armor for build experimentation.

You can’t get that when you’re being kitten-blocked to one amulet a month, and a single legendary is perpetually out of reach due to 30% inflation of precursors month-after-month.

Danicco.3568:

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…

I feel that there are better ways to handle this though. For instance, leave the loot drop rates the same and give people more uses for the loot. Right now half the junk we find (and the myriad of low level mats from loot bags and the monthly salvaging) are only good for leveling alts. let’s face it, crafting is useless for the most part. I find the price to buy an item off of the TP is only slightly more expensive than buying the mats. This isn’t really a problem when you collect everything yourself but I imagine the majority don’t do that.

I know there are mat conversions you can do but the cost for those are so high and the turn around is so low. You get about 20ish of the next tier of mats by spending skill points and 250 of the previous mat. Terrible conversion rate. I am constantly vendoring elder wood and thick leather (I think that is the one) because they are so worthless and I have full stacks of them.

It gets worse when all of the end game (read: ascended) items are bought using completely unrelated tokens and now money is primarily used to get legendaries which not everyone will do anyways.

Oh and you can’t forget the people who got to come in the early game and exploited for tons and tons of money who now own some of the markets………. not really relevant but I never let a chance to whine about rich people go to waste.

Hawkian.6580:

Assyrian.4827:

Finaly someone who realy understand what is wrong with GW2
+1.

I don’t expect this to have any impact on your view, but I want to make a brief point…

While EasyModeX is more than entitled to his complaints and you’re more than entitled to agree with him, my fervent hope is that ArenaNet does not listen to or alter the game around them.

Changing the game to accomodate the things that bother players like you would be unwise from a developmental standpoint- counterintuitive as that might seem. I stand with the overwhelmingly content silent majority playing this game, and who will continue to do so- it makes much more sense to design based around what they want, retaining them and me, with the unfortunate tradeoff that players like you might get frustrated enough to abandon the game and move onto something else.

It sucks to have any player stop playing a game because they want it to be different, but it’s important to understand the sort of dynamics at play here.

For a game to be fun you need to use yor brain.
In GW2 I don’t need to do that, the only time I do is to dodge the red circle.

Raine.1394:

Medazolam.3058:

in reality you can get the ammulet in 20 days, right? monthly gives 10 laurels, so that cuts the ‘grind’ by 33.33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333n%, yeah?

In a gaming forum you should always follow the Leeroy Jenkins convention and say “.33…repeating, of course”. I don’t do dungeons so it’s actually 30 days for me. But, yes, for those who enjoy dungeoneering it is 20 days.

As of now, it takes awhile to get ascended amulets. I’m buying mine today once the daily comes back, but I must say that if you feel this is a steep grind, you would not enjoy other games. I worked for months in some other games just to get one piece of gear or bridge a few levels. This game is TAME compared to games that have come before it, as well as games out now. The gear grind in this game barely exists in comparison to games like FFXI/XIV, Lineage 2, WoW, etc etc. Furthermore, since when is daily a grind? Shoot, I can do my daily on a fresh level 1 character. It’s easy. The only thing it takes is time, it doesn’t take grinding effort like material farming/dungeon running.

Also, the Laurel system is in a beginning stage right now. Once they add them for achievements, getting more laurels will be more feasible for gearing other characters and the like.

Just my 2c. This isn’t my first rodeo so my experiences are likely different then others, but compared to other MMO’s, this game is extremely tame on gear progression/grinding.

Hawkian.6580:

Raine.1394:

I actually chose my words carefully and said what I believe to be the truth. Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

First, you understand that costing 30 laurels does not mean that you have to play for 30 days, right? People who have attained every laurel so far will able to get theirs tonight after the daily- that’s 18 days.

Second, there’s an extreme assumption that eight months from now, the only options to get ascended amulets will be the same as they are now, and that obtaining laurels will be possible only at the same rate they are now. I don’t know why you’d think that. Ascended gear has only been made easier to get over time already. This trend will continue.

Third, the language you used really implies that an Ascended amulet is the only type of item in the game that can occupy that slot. Surely you will agree that you can obtain an exotic amulet in less than a day, correct?

Fourth, I would appreciate your response to the speculative point you offered. I have yet to see a compelling answer for it and I wouldn’t mind hearing your perspective.

Sure, I’d be happy to respond to my question in the referenced post. But first let me respond to your points.

1) If you don’t do dungeons, the case this month, it takes 30 days to get an amulet. For me to obtain one it would be 30 days, that’s why I used that number.
2) I was actually avoiding assumptions not making an extreme one. I was simply dealing with what we know so far.
3) I understand that any gear level can occupy the slot. We are talking about a gear grind though. Ascended represents the max level gear for that slot. If you want the max level, it’s Ascended.

And, that is a perfect lead in to your final question. So, is Ascended gear optional? Let me set a backdrop for the question.

My issue is not with Ascended gear, per se, it’s vertical progression. What is vertical progression? Simply stated it’s a method to give players a sense of progression in a game. And, you only need to understand the words making up the concept to understand the concept itself. Vertical: the power level of the game increases. This occurs generally through stats on gear. Progression: It periodically and continually increases over time. In the AMA Anet confirmed that VP would be in the game going forward. We know that for a fact. And, if you understand the concept, you understand that the gear grind is not optional. Because we are talking about the power level of the game, there will come a point as vertical progression progresses that you will no longer be able to play the game in your current gear, in my case exotics.

This is why the amulet is significant. Do I need it to play the game currently? No. But it represents the path of the power curve and if I want to continue playing the game, I must (mandatory) follow the curve. Any player opting out of the gear grind will eventually find themselves as a level 60 player would be running around in Orr.

Btw, this is not a slippery slope argument. Google it. Those rely on leaving open a possibility for something to occur and then arguing that it’s likely to occur. I’m working from an understanding of a concept. A mandatory gear grind must occur in a vertically progressing game. That is not an opinion either, again just an understanding of the concept.

Opinions, or preferences, come in around whether you like vertical progression or not. I prefer horizontal progression in an MMO. I think it carries less baggage. That is my opinion.

Opinions, or preferences, come in around whether you like vertical progression or not. I prefer horizontal progression in an MMO. I think it carries less baggage. That is my opinion.

It may be your opinion but it’s well supported.

Scaling is a major balance issue in itself. I don’t like nerf patches at the beginning of cycles that cause professions to become irrelevant toward the end due to poor stat scaling interacting with vertical progression.