Guild Wars 2

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

I’ll make this brief:

I agree with OP and wish I didn’t have a 400+ member guild to look after, otherwise I would have left long ago!

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

I agree that tougher dungeons should have better rewards. The problem is what does better mean? To some if it is not the most expensive item on the tp it is not better.

CETheLucid.3964:

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

But it’s faster to run other stuff for the gold than to cross your fingers. It doesn’t take all that long to make 100s of gold just through daily dungeon tours anyway.

OP you make good points but a good way to alienate and distract from your discuss/argument is tell the rest of the readers/gamers how we feel and if we don’t agree with you then we are not being honest with ourselves.

I don’t follow the promises Anet made, same as I don’t care what promises politicians and other games make because most of the time they never materialize. As long as the game is a good hobby for me and my friends I will continue to play…and that is me being honest with myself.

I love pvp and think GW2 has the best engine for combat mechanics, would i love a team death match? Yeah of course and when it comes I will play it, if I find another game before TD comes to GW2 then so be it, I move on.

One Note Chord.5031:

CETheLucid.3964:

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

But it’s faster to run other stuff for the gold than to cross your fingers. It doesn’t take all that long to make 100s of gold just through daily dungeon tours anyway.

Okay but Xanthium of Dreams, among other Aetherpath weapons sell for more than several precursors. That’s some pretty great loot.

You have as many rolls at it as there are weapon types, and all of them are pricey. Do you begin to see the circular reasoning this is becoming?

“OMG Aetherpath is too hard, i can make hundreds of gold just doing the easier dungeon paths”
“Maybe if Anet made it worth it”
“Several aetherweapons are worth many times some precursor drops”
“Anet y u no make hm dungeons”

The most ironic thing is that, while ANet highlights on any occasion that their focus has been and will be living story, it is most likely the worst part of this game – dialogues, characters, storyline are so cheap and cheesy, and immature that “it’s like having a dagger in my eye”.

LS is like personal story + zerg events.

Not my cup of tea at all (I actually think a lot of the living story events in the open world could have been cool if Anet had figured out how to discourage or prevent massive zergs – the fun (i.e. challenge) of the events is ruined by the massive firepower of the zerg armada – basically because it trivializes the content and made it too easy).

The Living Story, many of us feel, is a poor substitute for the kind of content we want – new maps/zones, new dungeons, new classes, new weapons, new playable races, new enemies (get tired of fighting the same enemy models used over and over – at least last season introduced toxic enemies, though arguable these are just reused models with some new particle effects).

CETheLucid.3964:

One Note Chord.5031:

CETheLucid.3964:

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

But it’s faster to run other stuff for the gold than to cross your fingers. It doesn’t take all that long to make 100s of gold just through daily dungeon tours anyway.

Okay but Xanthium of Dreams, among other Aetherpath weapons sell for more than several precursors. That’s some pretty great loot.

You have as many rolls at it as there are weapon types, and all of them are pricey. Do you begin to see the circular reasoning this is becoming?

“OMG Aetherpath is too hard, i can make hundreds of gold just doing the easier dungeon paths”
“Maybe if Anet made it worth it”
“Several aetherweapons are worth many times some precursor drops”
“Anet y u no make hm dungeons”

Dream weapons are not an incentive to do Aetherpath, they have under 0.1% drop rate, most dedicated runners didn’t get one yet. I ran the patch over a hundred times now with my group, we still haven’t got a single weapon.

ipan.4356:

(get tired of fighting the same enemy models used over and over – at least last season introduced toxic enemies, though arguable these are just reused models with some new particle effects).

Mordrem. Dust mites. Beetles. Just off the top of my head.

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

Most players in Gw2 do not want challenging dungeon content. While there are some, i sincerely doubt it is a large portion of the player base.

Most players do not do dungeons if they can avoid it. If they can find a faster or easier way to accumulate gold, they will avoid dungeons.

Most players that do dungeons, avoid challenge….

Most players that do dungeons only spam specific paths because they ran them through a spreadsheet.

P= profit
E = Energy invested.
T= Time invested
R= Reward ( combination of exp, gold, materials, drops)
D = Difficulty of content faced.

P= (E x T x R)/D

they do a complex differential where different values of E, T, R and D are put into the equation, and see what leads to a maximum value for P.

Most players live in a skinner box. I did Not say all. I said most. And this can be seen when Anet nerfs one type of content, and a Lot of players stop doing that content, to do another. Is it because the old content no longer pleases? the new content is more fun?

Nope… when the new R was calculated for the old Content faced… P dropped….

Trice.4598:

CETheLucid.3964:

One Note Chord.5031:

CETheLucid.3964:

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

But it’s faster to run other stuff for the gold than to cross your fingers. It doesn’t take all that long to make 100s of gold just through daily dungeon tours anyway.

Okay but Xanthium of Dreams, among other Aetherpath weapons sell for more than several precursors. That’s some pretty great loot.

You have as many rolls at it as there are weapon types, and all of them are pricey. Do you begin to see the circular reasoning this is becoming?

“OMG Aetherpath is too hard, i can make hundreds of gold just doing the easier dungeon paths”
“Maybe if Anet made it worth it”
“Several aetherweapons are worth many times some precursor drops”
“Anet y u no make hm dungeons”

Dream weapons are not an incentive to do Aetherpath, they have under 0.1% drop rate, most dedicated runners didn’t get one yet. I ran the patch over a hundred times now with my group, we still haven’t got a single weapon.

Sure it is. When has an abysmal drop rate or ridiculous cost ever stopped anyone? Lots of people are still grinding for their favorite legendary are they not? I know several.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA.

You were never guaranteed a perfect Chaos Axe, Storm Bow, Shadow Blade. Often time, you might get an imperfect version which was essentially worthless.

Their drop rates were abysmal and they were among the most expensive and sought after items in the game.

Those tormented weapons were a nasty bit of grinding. One of the hardest weapon sets to get in the whole game.

The cost and mats needed for FoW armor was enormous, needed rare mats from both the UW and FoW, and they were not common drops.

It was rare to find a few after a full run of each area. All of it was arbitrary. That dungeon offered some of the best loot money wise and it was long and hard.

Here in GW2, you have dungeon that offers the same; and yet?

It’s not the game which isn’t for me anymore, it’s visiting the forums and reading all this which makes me want to pack up and depart.

Especially since we go from this . . . to this . . . in about 24 hours.

CETheLucid.3964:

Here in GW2, you have dungeon that offers the same; and yet?

And yet strangely they’re mandatory to do, when the GW1 “not-a-grind-I-swear” wasn’t.

I don’t get it either. Also, any time someone talks about how the armors got uglier I just look at the assassin armor skins, especially their ‘Ancient armor’ set.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s not the game which isn’t for me anymore, it’s visiting the forums and reading all this which makes me want to pack up and depart.

Especially since we go from this . . . to this . . . in about 24 hours.

Only reason I ended up here in the first place were the recent DDoS attacks.

I regret it in one respect, and in another I feel glad I was here to rebuke at least some of the enormous engine of BS and hate that comes out of this place…

And then I’m reminded why I pretty much abandon this place to it’s devices and use Reddit.

If he honestly got tired of this forums BS and said “well screw it, CDI’s cancelled”, I wouldn’t blame him.

So many bad decissions and lost opportunities They made a great game and keep abandoning it!

After listening to the interview on Reddit, it seems pretty clear that the devs are monitoring the entire game and do see what is happening in terms of players, hot areas etc. They talk about balance and the economy and I suspect that if you look at the game’s development from a larger perspective, it may be two to three more years before we get any real expansion. Beijing just started in July 2014 and it takes at least two full years to level up multiple characters if done properly so Anet is really in no hurry to put out an expansion for only one part of the player base when the largest part of the player base just started playing. The living story is just to keep high level players engaged and grinding until China players catch up, that’s why many of the new items and areas are so grindy. Anet is also trying to encourage more cooperation with these new areas as many regular areas with champs go unplayed and are deserted as I am seeing through the leveling process, like last night with the Inquest lab in Mount Malstreum, I was begging for help and no one ever came and it looks like no one was playing that dungeon either, so why should Anet waste all their time and money on dungeons , when many areas even regular areas are empty?? Areas from 50-80 should be full of North American and European players and lower level should be full of china players, that’s how Anet was planning when they had a delayed rollout, but it is not working as many early players just skipped though the middle of the game and now are bored, not Anet’s or my fault. I constantly see people just run pass monsters that I have to kill as they are too much in a hurry or too lazy to kill. This game is also designed for multiple characters and the different challenges and play styles of each so if you only play one or two characters, you are playing incorrectly. Develop and level at least 5 characters that will take up your time. I need at least two more years just to get all five of my characters to 100% world completion so I don’t see the problem. This game is for casuals like me who play about 2-3 hours a day for dailies/monthlies and maybe 15 hours max on the weekends. I even left the game for six months for personal reasons and when I came back the game was much better. Is it perfect, no and never will be. But if you just wander around in different areas and help people and do a few world bosses, it doesn’t get much better. I do a world boss every night before I quit and when we win, it feels like xmas, so much loot it fills all my bags so it is very nice. Anet many of us do GET what you are doing and are very happy with the slow pace as we need time to work on our alts. These other players can just leave for a while and they will come back in a few years when the expansion comes and burn through it in 2 months like the first time and then complain another 4 years about being bored. Just keep going slow and steady like the turtle, who as we all know, wins in the end.

CETheLucid.3964:

Trice.4598:

CETheLucid.3964:

One Note Chord.5031:

CETheLucid.3964:

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

But it’s faster to run other stuff for the gold than to cross your fingers. It doesn’t take all that long to make 100s of gold just through daily dungeon tours anyway.

Okay but Xanthium of Dreams, among other Aetherpath weapons sell for more than several precursors. That’s some pretty great loot.

You have as many rolls at it as there are weapon types, and all of them are pricey. Do you begin to see the circular reasoning this is becoming?

“OMG Aetherpath is too hard, i can make hundreds of gold just doing the easier dungeon paths”
“Maybe if Anet made it worth it”
“Several aetherweapons are worth many times some precursor drops”
“Anet y u no make hm dungeons”

Dream weapons are not an incentive to do Aetherpath, they have under 0.1% drop rate, most dedicated runners didn’t get one yet. I ran the patch over a hundred times now with my group, we still haven’t got a single weapon.

Sure it is. When has an abysmal drop rate or ridiculous cost ever stopped anyone? Lots of people are still grinding for their favorite legendary are they not? I know several.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA.

You were never guaranteed a perfect Chaos Axe, Storm Bow, Shadow Blade. Often time, you might get an imperfect version which was essentially worthless.

Their drop rates were abysmal and they were among the most expensive and sought after items in the game.

Those tormented weapons were a nasty bit of grinding. One of the hardest weapon sets to get in the whole game.

The cost and mats needed for FoW armor was enormous, needed rare mats from both the UW and FoW, and they were not common drops.

It was rare to find a few after a full run of each area. All of it was arbitrary. That dungeon offered some of the best loot money wise and it was long and hard.

Here in GW2, you have dungeon that offers the same; and yet?

I personally prefer harder content with guaranteed item drops.

I’d rather try – and fail – at some really challenging content three times, then finally get the item I am playing it for – then have to farm the same content 30 times, even though I succeed at doing it every time.

Guaranteed drops behind more challenging content is way better than ‘farming’ lame, boring content over and over for a slight probability of getting something useful, or grinding some tiny amount of currency (which takes a massive amount of to get the item you want).

I prefer skill based reward systems.

If you beat the boss, you deserve the item.

Champs should have guaranteed exotic drops, and legendary bosses guaranteed legendary drops – they should also be harder.

And by ‘harder’ I don’t mean they should merely have larger health pools and be immune to CC – this is a cop-out.

They should have interesting mechanics that add to the ‘action combat’ system – they should have movement based abilities – like climbing on walls, flying, burrowing, etc.

They should have evasive maneuvers like dodge rolling and blocking. They should have a larger skill pool to choose from, that actually tries to detect what players are doing and respond to it (counter spells, blocking, parrying, etc.) They should be intelligent, is what I’m getting at, instead of just beefier.

And they should make more use of set design – some monsters can be made difficult just be their environment – archers that are difficult to reach (parapets, etc.) Serpents whose necks can reach out of the water (but the water is filled with pirahnas, etc.)

Bosses like Teq should be more mobile – chasing him around would be awesome – instead of just being a giant turret.

Partial victory conditions. What if bosses retreated through a dungeon, rather than just stand or die? What if they had conditions for regrouping with other monsters in the dungeon? Or retreating to some more defensible spot? But none of which is guaranteed to happen, it would just be a programmed behavior that they’d try to do if they were losing (meaning, not a scripted ‘phase’ – so things like this are preventable if you’re quick, or able to cut them off, etc.)?

I could go on and on brainstorming – I’m just chucking ideas out there, I bet we could come up with hundreds, if not thousands, of possibilities.

CETheLucid.3964:

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

I did the aetherpath now about 300 times.
I never got one of these weapons.
Nor did my teammates

Pretty sad, since I’m exclusively sPvP/WvW/Fractal player and I don’t even touch Living Story.

Two more things:

I want to be able to log out inside of a dungeon – a massive dungeon, that takes several days (or hours, depending on your pov) to fully explore.

I want to ‘camp out’ inside dungeons – so that I can pick up where I left off the next day.

The only way this is possible is if dungeons are large enough that they actually take a very long time to explore.

Current dungeons are often doable in 20-30 min. (I guess maybe others do it even faster – but this is the average playtime I’ve experienced).

20-30 min. is NOT a dungeon. It’s a movie clip. A short story. An interlude.

A DUNGEON takes days, maybe even WEEKS to fully explore.

Ok.

Next, I want something like fractals, but procedurally generated to be randomized – this would be the goto “new” content when you are waiting for more permanent style new content.

Honestly, with a full randomized dungeon (and, again, scaleable to solo or group play), I believe that many of us would be ok waiting for much longer between updates.

A simple randomized dungeon is all it would take to quell complaints.

The third thing (I know I only said two things, but oh well….)

Is a much bigger, expanded costume shop.

Cosmetics is how we were supposed to support this game.

I actually love cosmetic items, especially costumes, but the selection is so small, there just aren’t enough choices.

Expand the costume shop – double it, triple it, quadruple it. The more choices there are, the more people will buy from it.

Yargesh.4965:

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

That’s the thing, though.

They abandoned dungeon development and SAB development after releasing new content that was terrifically different than what the players had previously enjoyed about those activities.

I dunno.. seems to me like they oughta fiddle with the recipe, not toss the cook book.

Lheimroo.2947:

Yargesh.4965:

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

That’s the thing, though.

They abandoned dungeon development and SAB development after releasing new content that was terrifically different than what the players had previously enjoyed about those activities.

I dunno.. seems to me like they oughta fiddle with the recipe, not toss the cook book.

At this point I wouldn’t blame them if they threw down the apron while they’re at it. There is literally nothing they could develop which would both be good for the game and make the vocal parts of the player base happy.

Not even if they grabbed people to make SAB return on an automated cycle of “one week on, one week off”.

ipan.4356:

I personally prefer harder content with guaranteed item drops.

Dungeons. Tokens. Use them. Good stuff, guaranteed reward which can be converted into money. Get things you want.

Your work = guaranteed reward. Use it to your hearts desire.

ipan.4356:

I’d rather try – and fail – at some really challenging content three times, then finally get the item I am playing it for – then have to farm the same content 30 times, even though I succeed at doing it every time.

Guaranteed drops behind more challenging content is way better than ‘farming’ lame, boring content over and over for a slight probability of getting something useful, or grinding some tiny amount of currency (which takes a massive amount of to get the item you want).

Then don’t farm. It’s not mandatory in the least. Or do you happen to be grinding for a legendary? Some other expensive skin?

Because that’s also a choice my friend, a peripheral one; not necessary.

If you want to do that however, that’s totally fine. It’s your choice to make. And there will be grinding. But you can’t blame Anet for that.

You impose that on yourself.

ipan.4356:

I prefer skill based reward systems.

So does GW2. Players tend to circumvent it with cheap tactics whenever they can though. And you know what?

Even if Anet were using some of the most sophisticated of AI (and they’re not), people would still find a way to trivialize the encounter any way that they could.

That’s just the nature of the beast. We’d probably be having this same conversation. “Encounters are too easy when I’ve mastered them! Make them challenging again!”

ipan.4356:

Champs should have guaranteed exotic drops

They do at 80 and depending on the area I believe.

Pre-80 areas might give you a rare or green bag I think; which can end up giving you the lower tier mats like linen. Which is a good thing.

ipan.4356:

legendary bosses guaranteed legendary drops

That’s just broken, man. You’d kitten off the hundreds of gamers who worked for their legendary.

Legendary’s were always supposed to be an optional grind.

CETheLucid.3964:

ipan.4356:

Champs should have guaranteed exotic drops

They do at 80 and depending on the area I believe.

Pre-80 areas might give you a rare or green bag I think; which can end up giving you the lower tier mats like linen. Which is a good thing.

They do not “guarantee” exotic drops.

ipan.4356:

legendary bosses guaranteed legendary drops

That’s just broken, man. You’d kitten off the hundreds of gamers who worked for their legendary.

Legendary’s were always supposed to be an optional grind.

Not just annoying them, but crashing the economy which has the legendary acquisition as a cornerstone of the high-end purchase side of things.

It’d be great if they had “unique” items again.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They do not “guarantee” exotic drops.

Right. I meant the bag, but I see what you mean. That processed wrong in my head. lol

QQ and give me your gold

CETheLucid.3964:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They do not “guarantee” exotic drops.

Right. I meant the bag, but I see what you mean. That processed wrong in my head. lol

On the other hand, I think there are five zones which guarantee exotics as part of the map completion. Fireheart Rise, Frostgorge Sound, Strait of Devastation, Malchor’s Leap, and Cursed Shore.

I got my exotic longbow from Fireheart Rise and a coat out of Frostgorge, which served me well until I said “eh, why do I have all this Karma again?” and did a Temple for those exotics.

. . . which really are guaranteed, mind you, and not all that troublesome to acquire.

Veltoss.9135:

Agreed. All of their focuses and big selling points at launch have been abandoned for the living story. Sad part is, it’s not even the cool living world they originally advertised it as, it’s just a personal story expansion in season 2. Everything people loved and bought the game for has been abandoned by arenanet, and it makes no sense at all.

What we are discussing here are the symptoms of:

Incomplete (or nonexistent) measurements of what players care about, and as a result an incomplete market segmentation against which proposed features, feature packs, or development directions can be measured. By contrast (as a U.S. example), my Congressman’s staff knows to a tenth of a percent how his constituents view, and say they view, and how strongly they feel about probably the top 50 issues of the day. Oh, and that same data, dollar weighted, on their campaign contributors. On a tiny fraction of Anet’s annual budget.

Limited resources (money, people, time) resulting in extraordinarily difficult management decisions about which segments to delight, which to satisfy, and which to let go. The lack of a monthly subscription fee, which I would gladly have paid at release, causes Anet’s choices not to be aligned with my gameplay priorities.

Developer comfort zone seems to be aligned with an amalgamation of one time game releases (no sense of stewardship of that which is already in customer hands), campaign games rather than self directed play (the hallmark of MMO’s), and Nintendo (I haven’t seen this year’s living story because the start of it was behind a platforming wall).

This is the capitalist system, the developers have the sole authority to choose how to spend their game development resources, and the customers have the sole authority over their spending choices. The sad thing about the capitalist system is how easy it is for the choices made by the execs at a company to waste its accumulated assets (in this case the existing game, the very capable team put together over many years, and the collected player base which is the result of past successes).

SkylightMoon:

thank you for the post and the interview link.

I’m very aware of the state of the game and have had on-going discussions with other members from my guild, as we have been watching feedback for over 18 months. At this time, we are not allowed to talk about the development regarding our attrition at this time.

I don’t expect there will be a large post of that sort until we are at the point where we have given up trying to stay with GW2, this is the direction our guild is going over the long term. That being said, it’s not entirely impossible that we will remain with GW2. I don’t expect to see us remaining long term anytime soon.

/failed attempt at parody

I’ve used the phrase “this game had so much potential at release” before, but never with quite as much sadness.

I’ve been saying this for over a year. The Living Story is their main form of new content, while everything else is neglected.

All the fanboys ever said, “this game is not for you”, or, “then stop playing”. Well guess what, a lot of people did, and that’s why your gameplay is suffering due to megaservers and lack of content.

If you enjoy 1-2 hour Living Story updates, then this game is for you. For everyone else? Too bad.

How about you just leave and let me stay where I want to stay? I play multiple games so I don’t have to worry about what this game does or doesn’t do. I don’t understand why people are always “this is MY game is it has to be EVERYTHING i could ever want in a game or its just not good enough and I am taking my toys and leaving the playground so NEENER!” That is honestly what this thread sounds like. Maybe play some different games at the same time? Its not like this game requires significant time sinks to get places. If you don’t like one thing about this game find another game that offers that, but don’t begrudge someone else’s feelings if they don’t share your own. I happen to adore GW2 and all that if offers. If it doesn’t give me something I need from a game, I find one that does, but the fact is GW2 offers a lot more than you give it credit for. Also as a side note: ANet adds A LOT to their games as far as QoL and Story goes, just because you didn’t like the way it was delivered doesn’t mean you get to say it never happened at all.

Paradox.1380:

How about you just leave and let me stay where I want to stay? I play multiple games so I don’t have to worry about what this game does or doesn’t do. I don’t understand why people are always “this is MY game is it has to be EVERYTHING i could ever want in a game or its just not good enough and I am taking my toys and leaving the playground so NEENER!” That is honestly what this thread sounds like. Maybe play some different games at the same time? Its not like this game requires significant time sinks to get places. If you don’t like one thing about this game find another game that offers that, but don’t begrudge someone else’s feelings if they don’t share your own. I happen to adore GW2 and all that if offers. If it doesn’t give me something I need from a game, I find one that does, but the fact is GW2 offers a lot more than you give it credit for. Also as a side note: ANet adds A LOT to their games as far as QoL and Story goes, just because you didn’t like the way it was delivered doesn’t mean you get to say it never happened at all.

As a customer, I need to invest about a thousand hours in a game before I have learned the world, found the right class/profession for my main, and become proficient at playing that main.

This isn’t about neener-neener, it’s about I made that investment based not just on the game at release but also based on expectations which were set at release as to how it would evolve.

Those expectations are, in the words of a certain historical U.S. presidential administration, “no longer operative.”

So the question is, do I cut my losses and go invest the thousand hours over again somewhere else.

Glad the current direction of GW2 meets your needs and the expectations you have of the game.

bewhatever.2390:

Paradox.1380:

How about you just leave and let me stay where I want to stay? I play multiple games so I don’t have to worry about what this game does or doesn’t do. I don’t understand why people are always “this is MY game is it has to be EVERYTHING i could ever want in a game or its just not good enough and I am taking my toys and leaving the playground so NEENER!” That is honestly what this thread sounds like. Maybe play some different games at the same time? Its not like this game requires significant time sinks to get places. If you don’t like one thing about this game find another game that offers that, but don’t begrudge someone else’s feelings if they don’t share your own. I happen to adore GW2 and all that if offers. If it doesn’t give me something I need from a game, I find one that does, but the fact is GW2 offers a lot more than you give it credit for. Also as a side note: ANet adds A LOT to their games as far as QoL and Story goes, just because you didn’t like the way it was delivered doesn’t mean you get to say it never happened at all.

As a customer, I need to invest about a thousand hours in a game before I have learned the world, found the right class/profession for my main, and become proficient at playing that main.

This isn’t about neener-neener, it’s about I made that investment based not just on the game at release but also based on expectations which were set at release as to how it would evolve.

Those expectations are, in the words of a certain historical U.S. presidential administration, “no longer operative.”

So the question is, do I cut my losses and go invest the thousand hours over again somewhere else.

Glad the current direction of GW2 meets your needs and the expectations you have of the game.

I don’t know how you feel about space sims, but Star Citizen is looking awfully awesome right now – of course, it will be 2 years before it’s released

bewhatever.2390:

Paradox.1380:

How about you just leave and let me stay where I want to stay? I play multiple games so I don’t have to worry about what this game does or doesn’t do. I don’t understand why people are always “this is MY game is it has to be EVERYTHING i could ever want in a game or its just not good enough and I am taking my toys and leaving the playground so NEENER!” That is honestly what this thread sounds like. Maybe play some different games at the same time? Its not like this game requires significant time sinks to get places. If you don’t like one thing about this game find another game that offers that, but don’t begrudge someone else’s feelings if they don’t share your own. I happen to adore GW2 and all that if offers. If it doesn’t give me something I need from a game, I find one that does, but the fact is GW2 offers a lot more than you give it credit for. Also as a side note: ANet adds A LOT to their games as far as QoL and Story goes, just because you didn’t like the way it was delivered doesn’t mean you get to say it never happened at all.

As a customer, I need to invest about a thousand hours in a game before I have learned the world, found the right class/profession for my main, and become proficient at playing that main.

This isn’t about neener-neener, it’s about I made that investment based not just on the game at release but also based on expectations which were set at release as to how it would evolve.

Those expectations are, in the words of a certain historical U.S. presidential administration, “no longer operative.”

So the question is, do I cut my losses and go invest the thousand hours over again somewhere else.

Glad the current direction of GW2 meets your needs and the expectations you have of the game.

How you choose to use your time is up to YOU. You cannot tell me that I have to feel how you do (as the OP clearly did telling me I should open my eyes and see what all is wrong when I actually don’t agree with what they think is wrong).

Fact is this is a pick up and put down game. You don’t have to put thousands of hours in if you don’t want to. See the point here is that you WANT to do something, and if you want it you have to do it the way its implemented in the game, or you don’t get it. Why is that a bad concept?

In Wow I want the best gear, not gonna get it if you don’t do Raiding….. even if you HATE raiding. (just using it as an example, I don’t play WoW so I don’t know exactly how it works that’s just how I heard)

In GW2 I actually HATE the way precursors are handled. As such its the reason I don’t have a legendary in the game. It’s never hurt me to not have a legendary. I simply didn’t do it yet. When and if ANet changes how it is gotten I may get my legendary. But I’m not about to come on here and yell, scream, throw things and tell people they HAVE to agree with me simply because I dislike how something was handled. I might make a thread about how to make it better, or reply to a CDI about said subject… but in a suggestive and constructive manner. Not a whiny one.

@Paradox

You are only calling people whiny because you disagree with them about what they want.

Actually no, I am only calling people who are nonconstructive driveling parroting of random things they have heard but actually have no real insight about, but still want to throw their weight around, whiny. If you want to voice your opinion go right ahead. But the moment you go off and tell me I have to feel a certain way, is the moment that I say something back.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

Cept dungeons will no longer be their focus from here on out. They announced the problems with dungeons and the maintenance of dungeons in another post, which is why the discussion of removing the rewards from dungeons and placing them firmly back into the open world where they should have been all along in the first place has come up again. You see some of you are too new and don’t recall the discussion some of the devs had prelaunch about why dungeons would not be the focus of this game, the open world originally was to be updated regularly with new open world events and new metas. When the game launched you could actually find exotics in chests you found around the world, they were randomized for this reason. You could get actual loot without grouping without magic find by killing veterans and champions alike. Just by participating in the game you were rewarded for your time. There were places to farm for Tier 6 materials and as some have said it was a very bad idea to make them more RNG and to not allow people who craft to buy these things directly from vendors instead of having crafting bags with more RNG.

I guess my point is, dungeons and rewards only focused in dungeons/WvW environments were definitely not the original focus of the title. Before Fractals and Ascended were announced people were asking why dungeons wouldn’t be the focus and put pressure on the developers to make dungeons the new focus. We’ve all seen the problems that have come about from that design choice, players denied access because they weren’t the right class, class imbalance to the degree that only certain classes can solo and sell boss kills, exploits that allowed players to get extra rewards. I think it’s high time they delivered the game most of us were spending money on because of these things being left behind originally.

I looked forward when I first bought this game, to the thought of never having to step foot into a dungeon again for anything. ( this was after experiencing years of dungeons and raids and LFG in WoW) so you can imagine the disappointment when Nov 2012 came along.

Paradox.1380:

How you choose to use your time is up to YOU. You cannot tell me that I have to feel how you do (as the OP clearly did telling me I should open my eyes and see what all is wrong when I actually don’t agree with what they think is wrong).

Fact is this is a pick up and put down game. You don’t have to put thousands of hours in if you don’t want to. See the point here is that you WANT to do something, and if you want it you have to do it the way its implemented in the game, or you don’t get it. Why is that a bad concept?

In Wow I want the best gear, not gonna get it if you don’t do Raiding….. even if you HATE raiding. (just using it as an example, I don’t play WoW so I don’t know exactly how it works that’s just how I heard)

In GW2 I actually HATE the way precursors are handled. As such its the reason I don’t have a legendary in the game. It’s never hurt me to not have a legendary. I simply didn’t do it yet. When and if ANet changes how it is gotten I may get my legendary. But I’m not about to come on here and yell, scream, throw things and tell people they HAVE to agree with me simply because I dislike how something was handled. I might make a thread about how to make it better, or reply to a CDI about said subject… but in a suggestive and constructive manner. Not a whiny one.

We are in different player segments. That’s OK. Nothing I have said invalidates you, your playstyle, or the segment of players you are part of. By the way, we agree on precursors and legendaries: I have neither.

Please do me the same courtesy. In order to outfit the three professions I primarily play in Ascended gear, I have played a lot of content I love, but some content I truly detest. As you say about WoW raiding, that was what it took to get that BIS gear, which I needed in order to attack content I did want to play.

Anet needs to make difficult choices between player segments, because the financial model of GW2 (buy to play plus gem store) is not providing enough income to evolve the game in support of all playstyles. This is reality. Within that reality, it’s OK for you to advocate that resources be spent on content you enjoy, and for me to advocate that resources be spent on content I enjoy. That I would advocate something different than you do invalidates neither of us, and I hope both of us have the maturity to accept such differences.

tigirius.9014:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

Cept dungeons will no longer be their focus from here on out. They announced the problems with dungeons and the maintenance of dungeons in another post, which is why the discussion of removing the rewards from dungeons and placing them firmly back into the open world where they should have been all along in the first place has come up again. You see some of you are too new and don’t recall the discussion some of the devs had prelaunch about why dungeons would not be the focus of this game, the open world originally was to be updated regularly with new open world events and new metas. When the game launched you could actually find exotics in chests you found around the world, they were randomized for this reason. You could get actual loot without grouping without magic find by killing veterans and champions alike. Just by participating in the game you were rewarded for your time. There were places to farm for Tier 6 materials and as some have said it was a very bad idea to make them more RNG and to not allow people who craft to buy these things directly from vendors instead of having crafting bags with more RNG.

I guess my point is, dungeons and rewards only focused in dungeons/WvW environments were definitely not the original focus of the title. Before Fractals and Ascended were announced people were asking why dungeons wouldn’t be the focus and put pressure on the developers to make dungeons the new focus. We’ve all seen the problems that have come about from that design choice, players denied access because they weren’t the right class, class imbalance to the degree that only certain classes can solo and sell boss kills, exploits that allowed players to get extra rewards. I think it’s high time they delivered the game most of us were spending money on because of these things being left behind originally.

I looked forward when I first bought this game, to the thought of never having to step foot into a dungeon again for anything. ( this was after experiencing years of dungeons and raids and LFG in WoW) so you can imagine the disappointment when Nov 2012 came along.

It would be cool if you could acquire dungeon skins and exotics in the open world.

Wasn’t everything originally supposed to be purchasable through karma alone?

They should just make the dungeons part of the open world (and make them bigger….)

bewhatever.2390:

Paradox.1380:

How you choose to use your time is up to YOU. You cannot tell me that I have to feel how you do (as the OP clearly did telling me I should open my eyes and see what all is wrong when I actually don’t agree with what they think is wrong).

Fact is this is a pick up and put down game. You don’t have to put thousands of hours in if you don’t want to. See the point here is that you WANT to do something, and if you want it you have to do it the way its implemented in the game, or you don’t get it. Why is that a bad concept?

In Wow I want the best gear, not gonna get it if you don’t do Raiding….. even if you HATE raiding. (just using it as an example, I don’t play WoW so I don’t know exactly how it works that’s just how I heard)

In GW2 I actually HATE the way precursors are handled. As such its the reason I don’t have a legendary in the game. It’s never hurt me to not have a legendary. I simply didn’t do it yet. When and if ANet changes how it is gotten I may get my legendary. But I’m not about to come on here and yell, scream, throw things and tell people they HAVE to agree with me simply because I dislike how something was handled. I might make a thread about how to make it better, or reply to a CDI about said subject… but in a suggestive and constructive manner. Not a whiny one.

We are in different player segments. That’s OK. Nothing I have said invalidates you, your playstyle, or the segment of players you are part of. By the way, we agree on precursors and legendaries: I have neither.

Please do me the same courtesy. In order to outfit the three professions I primarily play in Ascended gear, I have played a lot of content I love, but some content I truly detest. As you say about WoW raiding, that was what it took to get that BIS gear, which I needed in order to attack content I did want to play.

Anet needs to make difficult choices between player segments, because the financial model of GW2 (buy to play plus gem store) is not providing enough income to evolve the game in support of all playstyles. This is reality. Within that reality, it’s OK for you to advocate that resources be spent on content you enjoy, and for me to advocate that resources be spent on content I enjoy. That I would advocate something different than you do invalidates neither of us, and I hope both of us have the maturity to accept such differences.

You’re the one that responded to me when my post was towards the OP telling me how I should feel and that I should do what they are doing or I am a Mindless fangirl who sees ANet as Gods….

Neither of which is true I just happen to have a different approach and yeah I’ll be an outlier and say I actually, truly love this game and many things about it.

I don’t’ think ANet is struggling at all, and I think there is a reason we aren’t seeing sweeping changes to the world. I don’t know what that reason is, but I believe it is there. I also know that they don’t HAVE to cater to everyone’s play styles. No other game does. You play what you are given.

Also, I have 15 characters between two accounts, all of which are geared to do endgame content. Only one has Ascended because there is no need to Ascended for anything in this game except late-mode Fractals. You are allowed to gear up your toons that way but no one is forcing you at all.

@Ipan yes it was supposed to be originally all about Karma which is why some of us were very confused when we saw that racial armors and weapons were gold based only at one point they changed only one sadly.

Here’s the interview talking about dungeons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpR6LhBhW4#t=256

I’m very happy about this myself because as I mentioned the reason I bought this game was due to the fact that it was originally supposed to have dungeons as more of an afterthought rather then the center of the content. When they started LS 1 I was even more disgruntled because at the end of each and every LS was a five man dungeon, that wasn’t open world either. In fact when they spoke originally about open world project updates they said it would be far far less work because of the framework for the open world which would save them time and money and make updates more frequent and more full, since they’ve been splitting their focus even the LS has suffered so it’s definitely time to refocus their efforts on what the game should have been from the start.

I’ve played since launch, and the gameplay keeps me coming back. One piece of advice I can give is, try downgrading your gear if you want pve challenge. I recently did this and it was almost a new experience pve wise.

I felt a strong need to quest and downgrading my gear made the quests more challenging and actually fun. Even dungeons are fresher this way. My good (ascended/exotic) gear is in the bank for wvw but I may continue to run this way.

Mazdan.2071:

I’ve played since launch, and the gameplay keeps me coming back. One piece of advice I can give is, try downgrading your gear if you want pve challenge. I recently did this and it was almost a new experience pve wise.

I felt a strong need to quest and downgrading my gear made the quests more challenging and actually fun. Even dungeons are fresher this way. My good (ascended/exotic) gear is in the bank for wvw but I may continue to run this way.

I would prefer they just designed enemies with more interesting mechanics.

I personally look for content to challenge myself/my character at my/his best. I could choose to play with my monitor turned so dark that I can barely see the screen, i could even choose to play only when severely intoxicated or after having been awake for several days. Handicapping myself, or my character may make winning a fight less certain, but its not what I consider a fun challenge.

While leveling, it’s fun to play in areas 5-8 levels higher than your character – this would provide some challenge.

Once you’re at 80 though, the only challenges are champs – and these often come down to whether or not you understand how to exploit a certain mechanic like dodging or not.

In other words, even champs aren’t hard in the sense that they have a diverse number of attacks and skills and strategies – they are really hard in the sense that they have extremely large health pools, immune to cc, and 1-shot attacks. Once you figure out the particular exploit needed to kill it, it’s not hard as much as it’s a test of endurance/patience (as in it takes a lot of time, you have to have a precise skill rotation, etc.)

I personally don’t like soloing champs for this reason, but I can see how the challenge is appealing – I might try champ hunting for a while if nothing else happens soon.

Not sure that using mechanics, such as dodge, as designed and intended constitutes exploiting in the sense the word is generally used in gaming.