Guild Wars 2

You can keep a game fresh and interesting without going back on your word and betraying the customers that put you on the map.

GW2 players are not opposed to change. We are opposed being lied to.

Warkupo.1025:

What do you think levels are? Go take your level 10 character to level 80 content and see how well you do.

Getting to 80 is just a super-slow tutorial.

Warkupo.1025:

Better gear is just leveling up in a different sense. It’s much easier to keep the game balanced that way too, which is why every MMO I know of adopts this as their endgame strategy.

Then go try Guild Wars 1, maybe?

I don’t know how many times we can have this discussion:
“But every MMOG…”
“Yes, that is why we hate them and like this one!”

Amulrei.4973:

GW2 players are not opposed to change. We are opposed being lied to.

Siggied!

NaughtyProwler.8653:

I’m pretty sure you got the title wrong. It should read “This is now another stagnant MMO” because they are now officially offering identical mechanics to their competitors who have had years of perfect the art of vertical gear-based progression.

Well that wasn’t the original title to this thread. It was changed.

It seems to me that the gear level “Legendary” is the top tier currently and after the 16th. The addition of Ascended gear fills a large gap between Exotics and Legendary. We still have our gear cap at Legendary. My guess is they aren’t trying to replace those.

There was no gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

There was no stat gap. There was no achievement gap.

Crater.1625:

There was no gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

There was no stat gap. There was no achievement gap.

According to you or the developers. The developers felt there was a gap. Legendary still is the top – they haven’t added on top of that gear. There still isn’t a treadmill.

I don’t know. I’m taking my information from their post here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

I guess I understand that there isn’t legendary armor out yet.

Selon.7056:

Crater.1625:

There was no gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

There was no stat gap. There was no achievement gap.

According to you or the developers. The developers felt there was a gap. Legendary still is the top – they haven’t added on top of that gear. There still isn’t a treadmill.

Oh my goodness… he really believes what he is saying.

NaughtyProwler.8653:

Selon.7056:

Crater.1625:

There was no gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

There was no stat gap. There was no achievement gap.

According to you or the developers. The developers felt there was a gap. Legendary still is the top – they haven’t added on top of that gear. There still isn’t a treadmill.

Oh my goodness… he really believes what he is saying.

I guess I just don’t get as upset as you guys. I still have fun on a game that isn’t stringing me a long for subscription fees. I’m just playing the game. However the devs decide to take it – I’m just playing. I have a lot of other things to really be stressed about, and regardless how GW2 ends up that is still me escape from the real world – I’m not going to compound my life with this kind of stuff. Why shouldn’t I take the devs by their word? I’m still not seeing a treadmill, and frankly, if there was one like in WoW, at least I’m not doing it to pay them more money.

There is a treadmill, because my character who had equipment at 100% of the maximum power now has equipment at less than 100% of maximum. For me to get back to the exact same place I was (100% of maximum), I need to grind out three new pieces of equipment – one of which is approximately as difficult to obtain as a full set of dungeon armour.

The developers saying there was a gap is PR doublespeak. There was zero mechanical gap, and now they’ve added one. If you’re trying to “close a gap”, you don’t do so by increasing the gap by a factor of infinity. There was a smaller achievement gap between top-end Exotics and Legendaries – Foefire’s Essence, Mjolnir, etc are more difficult to obtain than the first three Ascended pieces, and are even more difficult to obtain than some actual Legendaries – than there is between the low-end Ascended pieces and Legendaries.

The only “gap” happens when you treat Exotics as though all Exotics were cheap, 2-3g crafted pieces, and you ignore the dozens and dozens of Exotics that bridge the gap with more and more fancy and intricate cosmetic designs. And that was the point of the game – that you could max out, mechanically, with only a reasonable investment of your time, and if you wanted to get cooler, high-end equipment that takes a lot of time and investment to get, you would get to look cooler – not just be arbitrarily stronger.

Selon.7056:

NaughtyProwler.8653:

Selon.7056:

Crater.1625:

There was no gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

There was no stat gap. There was no achievement gap.

According to you or the developers. The developers felt there was a gap. Legendary still is the top – they haven’t added on top of that gear. There still isn’t a treadmill.

Oh my goodness… he really believes what he is saying.

I guess I just don’t get as upset as you guys. I still have fun on a game that isn’t stringing me a long for subscription fees. I’m just playing the game. However the devs decide to take it – I’m just playing. I have a lot of other things to really be stressed about, and regardless how GW2 ends up that is still me escape from the real world – I’m not going to compound my life with this kind of stuff. Why shouldn’t I take the devs by their word? I’m still not seeing a treadmill, and frankly, if there was one like in WoW, at least I’m not doing it to pay them more money.

Hey, I’m glad you are enjoying it. Honestly, if you are just playing the game and having fun, that’s probably the best attitude a person can have. I’m just tired of being jerked around by MMO companies.

You’re right, this IS an MMO. As is common in the genre, more content will be added over time, content that is available to everyone and which doesn’t (according to the ideals set forth in GW1 and Anet’s own words for the last several years) discredit a large amount of invested time put in by other players.

Too bad so many people were too kittening impatient to wait for that content.

Also, that post is nothing but riot control. It doesn’t actually say anything other than “please calm down guys.”

ASP.8093:

Warkupo.1025:

What do you think levels are? Go take your level 10 character to level 80 content and see how well you do.

Getting to 80 is just a super-slow tutorial.

Warkupo.1025:

Better gear is just leveling up in a different sense. It’s much easier to keep the game balanced that way too, which is why every MMO I know of adopts this as their endgame strategy.

Then go try Guild Wars 1, maybe?

I don’t know how many times we can have this discussion:
“But every MMOG…”
“Yes, that is why we hate them and like this one!”

I can just as easily say that about having to do content to aquire new gear to do new content. It’s literally the exact same thing as leveling up, except a hell of a lot easier to balance.

If you really feel like playing the game is a waste of time, just quit playing it. Whether or not you’re leveling up or grinding for gear, you’re still doing the same bloody thing; advancing your character to get to the next “stage” of the game.

Warkupo.1025:

I can just as easily say that about having to do content to aquire new gear to do new content. It’s literally the exact same thing as leveling up, except a hell of a lot easier to balance.

Yes, exactly. We would like the tutorial to stop at some point, preferably sooner rather than later, so that we can actually play the game part of the game, where you’re not trying to perpetually make some numbers go up.

I didn’t come to GW2 from GW1 but I have to admit I was a bit shocked by the introduction of a new tier of gear so soon. I come from grindy games but even they gave you a period of rest before it was time to step back on the treadmill. Even if you are going to set out to make a grindy game, you really need to allow some time to savor your accomplishments before getting back to work.

Warkupo.1025:

If you really feel like playing the game is a waste of time, just quit playing it. Whether or not you’re leveling up or grinding for gear, you’re still doing the same bloody thing; advancing your character to get to the next “stage” of the game.

… But I’m not.

I hit 80 and got all my exotic stuff set up. That meant, until today, that I had reached a stage where I can pursue whatever stupid thing I feel like doing at any given moment. That’s awesome. Do I want to explore the map? I can do map completion. Do I want jumping puzzles? I can find some jumping puzzles. Do I want to do WvW? (Yes, yes I do, constantly.) I can go do WvW.

For the most part, I don’t have to give two kitten about what the rewards are, because I have the stuff I need and now the stuff I’m getting is gravy. That’s fun. It’s relaxing. It’s liberating. I played GW1 for, like, five years in this mode.

Except now I’m not done building up my character, because we have ascended gear to grind for. And it’s quite the grind. Siiiigh.

ASP.8093:

… But I’m not.

I hit 80 and got all my exotic stuff set up. That meant, until today, that I had reached a stage where I can pursue whatever stupid thing I feel like doing at any given moment. That’s awesome. Do I want to explore the map? I can do map completion. Do I want jumping puzzles? I can find some jumping puzzles. Do I want to do WvW? (Yes, yes I do, constantly.) I can go do WvW.

For the most part, I don’t have to give two kitten about what the rewards are, because I have the stuff I need and now the stuff I’m getting is gravy. That’s fun. It’s relaxing. It’s liberating. I played GW1 for, like, five years in this mode.

Except now I’m not done building up my character, because we have ascended gear to grind for. And it’s quite the grind. Siiiigh.

Unfortunately, this is something you can’t explain to some people. The liberating and relaxing feeling I get when I log in without the need to grind, grind, grind… No rush to anywhere, no rush for anything… Just enjoying!

Malefactor.2971:

aliquis.9180:

GW2 was advertised as the MMO for those who don’t want to grind, so there’s that.

It may have been advertised as such, but even the launch content once you hit 80 there is significant grind. It’s a grind to get legendaries, it’s a grind to get dungeon sets/weapons, it’s a grind to get karma, gold etc etc.

I’m surprised people who claim to have experience playing MMOs in the past take any PR speak or advertising seriously. I’ve been playing this genre a long time, around 15 years, and learned long ago to take anything a developer says (especially pre-launch) about their game with a grain of salt. Their intentions may be good, they may even believe what they are saying, but it’s a business, and first a foremost businesses are about making money.

It’s an optional grind and truthfully not really a grind. A grind is something you’re forced to do over and over to progress that you don’t really enjoy doing.

In GW2 you can get max stat gear quite easily either by crafting it yourself or just buying it off the broker. Then if you want to do dungeons, or Orr, or WvW, that’s up to you. Basically after you have that set of gear, just play the game however you want to play it. Have fun, period.

You will be rewarded for that fun and if you want to do even more of that same type of fun you’ll get a new set of gear. But you don’t have to do any of it. Endgame is just about having fun in whatever type of gameplay you enjoy.

Most other MMO’s are about one thing – grinding better gear – and they have no substance outside of that.

Leiloni.7951:

In GW2 you can get max stat gear quite easily either by crafting it yourself or just buying it off the broker. Then if you want to do dungeons, or Orr, or WvW, that’s up to you. Basically after you have that set of gear, just play the game however you want to play it. Have fun, period.

But now we have ascended gear, with the promise of more to come later. So that’s no longer entirely truly. :/

10,000 SADFACES

ASP.8093:

Warkupo.1025:

If you really feel like playing the game is a waste of time, just quit playing it. Whether or not you’re leveling up or grinding for gear, you’re still doing the same bloody thing; advancing your character to get to the next “stage” of the game.

… But I’m not.

I hit 80 and got all my exotic stuff set up. That meant, until today, that I had reached a stage where I can pursue whatever stupid thing I feel like doing at any given moment. That’s awesome. Do I want to explore the map? I can do map completion. Do I want jumping puzzles? I can find some jumping puzzles. Do I want to do WvW? (Yes, yes I do, constantly.) I can go do WvW.

For the most part, I don’t have to give two kitten about what the rewards are, because I have the stuff I need and now the stuff I’m getting is gravy. That’s fun. It’s relaxing. It’s liberating.

I agree. It’s so refreshing to be able to log into a game and do whatever the kitten I want. I can just have fun. I love the idea of being finished. I have a huge “To Do” list at work, I don’t want a “To Do” list when I get home as well. I want to play games to relax.

GW2 was initially such an attractive game because I could do just that. I don’t need to fill that time/effort gap between Exotics and Legendaries. I was ecstatic that I had a set of Exotics and was free. After that I had a list a mile long of things I wanted to do in game and the long term item on that last was getting the Legendary staff. I haven’t even really started it yet, but I was ok with the fact that it would likely take a long time. Because it was all just for fun. I did whatever the kitten I want to do and no one was there telling me there was a milestone I had to hit. I refuse to pay companies to tell me how to have fun in my free time. kitten, pay me and I’ll do what you want. Otherwise, I’ll go find another game.

Edit: Also truthfully, the people who want to have something to fill that gap between Exotic and Legendary, the people who also need vertical progression – they already went back to WoW. They go back to WoW every few months. My friend was one of them. And now with Rift’s expansion and SWTOR being back on the radar, they have even more games to satisfy that need. They’re not sticking around here and they never will. Stop trying to satisfy them. It’s like the ex you keep chasing who wants nothing to do with you. Get over him and move on ANet. They’re just not that into you.

ASP.8093:

Leiloni.7951:

In GW2 you can get max stat gear quite easily either by crafting it yourself or just buying it off the broker. Then if you want to do dungeons, or Orr, or WvW, that’s up to you. Basically after you have that set of gear, just play the game however you want to play it. Have fun, period.

But now we have ascended gear, with the promise of more to come later. So that’s no longer entirely truly. :/

10,000 SADFACES

Yea

Here’s a few things I can think off the top of my head to keep the game interesting without the need of gear progression.

• New dungeons. This Fractal dungeon concept seem good on its own without needing to add gear progression
• New monster type
• New maps
• New Events
• New world events like dragons and events chain similar to temples in Orr
• Mega events that could last weeks and affect a complete region of the world. (temple prove that they can affect more than one map)
• Better, more memorable champion fight that actually have skills other than Strong attack #1, fear and strong attack #2.
• More mini (and some less mini) dungeons like Fort of Rhand and Provernic Crypt.
• Challenge to acquire/unlock emotes (emotes could even be reward of mini dungeons/jumping puzzles instead of random items)
• More quests like the Halloween Scavenger Hunt
• Optional, more traditional, pre-WoW style quests for town clothes (there’s 1 so far.. we need a lot more)
• Those Mini games that are still not there. Cities were supposed to be place we want to go to with things to do. I don’t remember wanting to go anywhere else than LA after 100% a city. Unless I needed personal story or cultural armor/weapon
• Duel
• GvG
• More PvP game mode.
• Unique items skins that drop from certain bosses only (like greens in GW1)
• Reason to go back to old low level maps (unique skins would already help this a bit)
• Reason to party with people. Such as karma, money and exp boost for each party member.
• Fishing
• More titles
• New skill combo. I think they should greatly reduce skill effect, but boost combo effect and make majority of skills able to combo with others for various effect. This would make the game more interesting, It would also make fighting in group a lot better than just an epileptic nightmare.
• Open Coliseum where people can register to face challenge against fearsome beasts once a week. People who didn’t register to participate can be spectator, and bet on fight just before they start. It should be extremely challenging (other than just infinite HP and damage) and have limited registration entry, to make it a weekly event. Like a real coliseum. Reward could be money and unique looking armor and weapon skins unavailable anywhere else than this.
• Slayer Achievement could change to act more like a monster encyclopedia where we acquire information on each monster by killing them. Each time we kill a monster we could have a chance of getting an information such as its HP, skill it uses, where it is found, bits of lore related to it, what it drop. Having 100% of the information on a given monster race could give us a tonic recipe to craft, using some items that these monsters drop. Or like in Atlantica Online, raise drop rate of this monster and make these bits of information tradable with other player to make more community interaction and reduce grind for to people who hate it.
• Special quests from our chosen order (similar to guild quests in TES). Orders are so useless right now, it’s sad.
• One thing that GW has better than a lot of other MMO is lore. In GW1 EotN we had small books for dungeons and missions and for the baby moa quest. They should add similar books all over the place in GW2, and make a collection tab and achievement and title related to them. Instead of just being a resume of what the book is about, they should let us read them, collect them and keep them. We could even have tier for book. Common, uncommon and rare (like in TES). They could even get amateur writers to write a few. have song books, poem books, story book, children books, Asura science books. It could be whatever. Collecting every books was my favorite thing in every Elder Scrolls game.

There’s probably a million more thing than gear grinding to make a game fun to keep playing.

I played GW1. I read ANets manifesto and their discussion about how a game shouldn’t be about grind. I liked the fact that there were multiple ways to obtain armor in this game. But that’s not the main reason why I bought the game. I bought it because it looked like it would be fun to play. And it is.

I am not one of the people upset about the new Ascended gear. Why is that? Well, because I enjoy playing the game. To me this whole gear grind nonsense is not worth me quitting the game. I’d regret it far more if I did quit the game over it than if I didn’t. I personally believe that the people who are quitting the game over this are only hurting themselves if they truly enjoyed playing GW2 in the first place.

I’m not jumping on the bandwagon. I’m in it to play for the long haul no matter what happens. Because I enjoy playing the game. I have fun. And that’s the only thing that matters to me.

Selon.7056:

You can’t have a game where you get the best gear and then there is nothing to go to from there AND a game that continues to expand on itself by creating new content and, inevitably, gear.

Guild Wars 1 disagrees.

Space Cow.2431:

Selon.7056:

You can’t have a game where you get the best gear and then there is nothing to go to from there AND a game that continues to expand on itself by creating new content and, inevitably, gear.

Guild Wars 1 disagrees.

I suppose it’s better to say you can have a game where “best gear” is totally subjective, based on the player’s build and playstyle. Again, like Guild Wars

It still technically is, but now the grind wall has been thrown up between that power plateau and everyone, even the ones who disagree with all this “progression” crap.

What do you GW1 guys want from the game then? How are to keep a MMO fresh without introducing new content and gear?

• Story that’s so awesome that you want to do it again to make sure you understood the plot. And replaying your favorite story missions. Like reading a great book, I felt happiness, anger, sadness, excitement… the story really drew me in. But in GW2, story is… I have no words for it, it’s just one of the worst stories I’ve had the displeasure of seeing.
• Get any mission bonuses you might have missed
• Improving my own skill through re-doing story missions that I had trouble with, until I become a better player
• Elite areas like Tombs of Primeval Kings, Underworld, Fissure of Woe (with GOOD story not this silly Destiny’s Edge thing. Geez, reading the paperback books was bad enough, I really had to force myself to finish the books but I couldn’t. Again, in GW2, I had to force myself to finish and eventually gave up — though I picked it up again so I could do the last dungeon with my friend)
• Unlocking new skills
• Fighting world bosses to learn my profession better (GW2 bosses are so silly, only have high HP, no challenge)
• Along with fighting bosses, I loved to capture their elite skills, I’d like some sort of reward from fighting bosses that improves my character or gives a fun temporary boon.
• Skills and elite skills were at specific locations so on your hunt for them, you’d come across new places, new things, or might even spot a friend in town and start chatting and playing together
• Coming up with new skill bars/builds to enjoy a new fun play-style (this is completely missing in GW2, by Lv 80 it’s likely you’ve come across most possible builds)
• Going back to help friends, or new players (GW2 is so easy, no one needs help)
• Trying new pretty armors
• AND WEAPONS! There were so many awesome-looking weapons that you didn’t grind for, they were just average drops but looked so great!
• Holiday events lasted sooooo much longer than they do in GW2
• PvP was fantastic (though I was too shy and didn’t try it until I’d played GW1 for 3-4 years). In GW2 it’s just plain boring. I’d rather go do the dishes! Specially since there is not much variety to skills and maps.
• Doing the secondary quests

Just what I can think of now I played it for 7 fun years!

But most of all…
What made me love the game so much is that most story missions weren’t just “mash buttons and kill enemies to win the story” like GW2. The missions felt like this new Fractals dungeon (only got to the 3 wisps part though). And again, most important of all for me, Prophecies was challenging and required skill.
Without challenging content in dungeons or in the general world, and without skilled game-play, GW2 is pretty boring to me! Challenge and player-skill is the bread and butter of any game, and GW2 seriously lacks it. If it had it, I would probably be more than happy enough and would be able to overlook any negative aspect of the game.

Edit:

Another big thing I overlooked: I really loved playing with people in GW1, I did it all the time and loved to coordinate skills, strategy, learn who is good at what, weak at what, so we can help each other out. In GW2 not only is there no need to group, even if you do group it’s really awkward and the general PvE environment keeps pushing you away from each other. There’s no need to coordinate anything, not even your skills…!
When I play with my friends, even my boyfriend, it doesn’t really feel like I’m having a good time with them, it just feels like I’m playing alone as usual and there’s a NPC next to me ^^ Having a friend around actually makes my game more annoying, crazy uh?!?! It’s just easier playing alone, though I really want to play with friends! I thought grouping in dungeons would be better but it’s just spamming attacks until the end, just like general PvE.

The challenge, skilled game play, and coordination were definitely the reasons I logged on years after years, every time I logged in I knew I’d have a great time. In GW2 I log in because I feel like having fun, but once I’m in I say hello to friends, do and event or two… grimace… ALT-F4 in disgust :P

Crater.1625:

Selon.7056:

I created this thread to understand what you guys are really looking for. GW1 had these new armor upgrades (I forget the name). Just because they weren’t in the initial GW2 game doesn’t mean there will be a treadmill. It just means they have introduced it earlier than expected so that they can create the dungeons you are looking for. GW1 was an MMO, it just played differently than any other because the entire game was mostly an instance. What made the endgame of GW1 so great? Honest question.

What made the endgame of GW1 so great was that your character didn’t just arbitrarily get more powerful, which meant that 90% or more of the game was tuned to be in line with one baseline of power. They didn’t have to make encounters easier than they should have been because “Oh, most people will still be in Rares/Exotics”, and they didn’t have to try to constantly hit a moving target with game balance by making content that was appropriately difficult for the new maximum, which is 15% better than the old maximum, only it also has to be doable for people in the old old maximum…

GW1 was a masterpiece. It wasn’t a perfect game, but it is one of my all-time favorite games. I have more gameplay hours in GW1 than in any other game.

The low level cap and the lack of gear treadmill meant that the vast majority of the game content was designed for the same level of power. Sure, certain areas were more difficult than others, but success hinged on choosing proper builds and developing skill as a player. One you reached max level, you could reasonably go to any area in the game. Even starter areas could be revisited thanks to hard mode.

Selecting gear was like choosing a trait spec. You had to make choices like more health, more energy, or more attributes. You want that +3 rune to an attribute? Sure, but it will cost you a big chunk of health. Getting max stat gear was easy, which encouraged trying out different builds and even playing with different professions. Gear grind locks you not only into one character, but also limits you on builds for a character. Variety = exciting, locked into 1 character/build = boring.

Additionally, I found the skills to be more interesting in general. Skills mostly had shorter cooldowns (I don’t remember any longer than 60s, most were 30s or less), so each skill could see more use. Energy management was used instead of really long cooldowns, meaning that you could use skills besides “1” with more frequency. Many skills also require certain conditions to be met in order to have any/full effectiveness. This meant more intelligent use of skills was required.

In Guild Wars 1, a new character could be made, leveled to 20, given the skill bar of your choice, and outfitted with appropriate max-stat gear in a relatively short amount of time. The one (unfortunate) area where grinding increased power was PvE skills that were linked to faction reputation.

Even without vertical progression, did I get bored? The answer is a resounding no! Since almost all the game content was designed for the same power level, I had a huge number of gameplay options. Vanquishing, hard mode missions, and yes even grindy tasks to achieve titles.

you know after reading a lot of the ideas shown in this post, made me really wanna go back to GW1. seriously though, the ideas here are great, if they even implement half of them I would come back in a heartbeat. I think I am going back to GW1 for a while. maybe see some of you peeps there.

siepher.9408:

you know after reading a lot of the ideas shown in this post, made me really wanna go back to GW1. seriously though, the ideas here are great, if they even implement half of them I would come back in a heartbeat. I think I am going back to GW1 for a while. maybe see some of you peeps there.

Tempting. At least my heroes would team up with me no matter what gear I had on. And after we finished doing something none of them ever pestered me to join their guilds, either.

Last time I logged into GW1, I was annoyed at how static it was. You really do grow to love all the dodging and stuff. There’s something about the overall pace of GW2 combat that’s highly exciting and addictive.

But, despite that, I honestly have to admit that GW1 had more strategic depth. The stuff I do in GW2 is much closer to just playing a “gimmick build.”

Last time I logged into GW1, I was annoyed at how static it was.

Oh, I just get upset that I can’t jump :-S Wish I’d never played GW2, that way I wouldn’t miss jumping so much!

Honestly!

Because it’s not worth coming up with new ways to say it for people that 99% of the time are too stoneheaded to listen or consider a new thought.

vox.5019:

Mike.9185:

if they didnt add gear than we would have had a thousand posts saying “whats the point of new content if the stats are the same QQ” theres new stuff to do that is more challenging thus requires better rewards.

why would you do an insanely hard dungeon (fractals of the mists) if you get the same awards grinding an easy 1

This and posts like it completely miss the mark. We did areas harder than anything GW2 has, and I would put money on being harder than the fractals. Areas where the difficulty was a skill check not a gear check. And we did it for rewards that were no more powerful than anything else you could get within a day of making your character. Why? Because they were the rarest and most difficult to obtain items. We got all of the prestige of the rarest and coolest looking items plus the prestige of completing content that many couldn’t even though they had the exact same tools as us.

We also knew beyond any doubt that the item we worked so hard to obtain, months in some cases, would never be made worthless by new content updates. It would be with us for years or as long as we cared to use it. That creates a true and lasting attachment to your gear, your rewards, that you can never have with progression gear.

And if someone had no interest, was casual, took a break for a few months, just started a new character, w/e, it didn’t matter, they could still play in the same world as us. They could even do the exact same content with us if they ever did want to because there was no artificial gear barrier that they would have to grind for half a year to pass. How much have you heard them say that GW2 is about bringing players together? How much of the launch content was designed to do exactly that? Well guess what, horizontal progression goes hand in hand with that concept. Vertical progression tosses it out of the window.

That’s the Guild Wars paradigm. That’s what horizontal progression and ungated content means. That’s what separated it from the ocean of generic gear grinds. That’s what we played for years. That’s what we expected in GW2, and were lead to believe we would have. And that’s why we’re angry.

Some conditioned to running in a hamster wheel say “things change.” I say, why are you trying to make them the same?

ASP.8093:

Warkupo.1025:

If you really feel like playing the game is a waste of time, just quit playing it. Whether or not you’re leveling up or grinding for gear, you’re still doing the same bloody thing; advancing your character to get to the next “stage” of the game.

… But I’m not.

I hit 80 and got all my exotic stuff set up. That meant, until today, that I had reached a stage where I can pursue whatever stupid thing I feel like doing at any given moment. That’s awesome. Do I want to explore the map? I can do map completion. Do I want jumping puzzles? I can find some jumping puzzles. Do I want to do WvW? (Yes, yes I do, constantly.) I can go do WvW.

For the most part, I don’t have to give two kitten about what the rewards are, because I have the stuff I need and now the stuff I’m getting is gravy. That’s fun. It’s relaxing. It’s liberating. I played GW1 for, like, five years in this mode.

Except now I’m not done building up my character, because we have ascended gear to grind for. And it’s quite the grind. Siiiigh.

I’m afraid I must throw up my hands in defeat of your logic. You grinded the entire game just to have a moment of realization after you had acquired all the armor you could ever want and say, “you know what gosh darnit, I really just want to walk around the map.”

Something you could have just done whenever. Think of all the time you could have saved if you had just… you know, done that.

Again I ask, why the play the game? Why not just… I guess walk around the map until you are bored of that and then go do something else?

I’m sorry, I just don’t follow any of the thought processes here.

Crater.1625:

Warkupo.1025:

I can just as easily say that about having to do content to aquire new gear to do new content. It’s literally the exact same thing as leveling up, except a hell of a lot easier to balance.

Yes, exactly. We would like the tutorial to stop at some point, preferably sooner rather than later, so that we can actually play the game part of the game, where you’re not trying to perpetually make some numbers go up.

Which part of the game is this for you? If it’s not level 1-80 and its’ not endgame what part are you playing exactly?

Warkupo.1025:

Crater.1625:

Warkupo.1025:

I can just as easily say that about having to do content to aquire new gear to do new content. It’s literally the exact same thing as leveling up, except a hell of a lot easier to balance.

Yes, exactly. We would like the tutorial to stop at some point, preferably sooner rather than later, so that we can actually play the game part of the game, where you’re not trying to perpetually make some numbers go up.

Which part of the game is this for you? If it’s not level 1-80 and its’ not endgame what part are you playing exactly?

End was never supposed to be “grinding” it was the whole game. INCLUDING the time when you complete your characters build including traits and weapons and armor.

See we put UP with the grind to get to this point because we were told there was an end. We could be “done” with the grind to finish our characters abilities and then ONLY grind for the optional stuff like titles and skins.

Now we are forced to grind again to finish our characters, only to find we will have to do it AGAIN at a later date. There will never be an end to the treadmill now, and that is why we are very very disappointed.

Warkupo.1025:

I’m afraid I must throw up my hands in defeat of your logic. You grinded the entire game just to have a moment of realization after you had acquired all the armor you could ever want and say, “you know what gosh darnit, I really just want to walk around the map.”

Something you could have just done whenever. Think of all the time you could have saved if you had just… you know, done that.

Again I ask, why the play the game? Why not just… I guess walk around the map until you are bored of that and then go do something else?

I’m sorry, I just don’t follow any of the thought processes here.

I didn’t relentlessly grind my way to 80 + exotics. For the most part, I just did whatever stuff I wanted to do (except personal story, because that was broken until yesterday). And I continue to do that after I’ve “maxed out” my stats, except now I don’t have “vertical” advancement forcing goals on me or limiting my options.

Ascended stuff from Fractals is the opposite of that. You have to do one specific thing, repeatedly, to get max gear. And it’s explicitly designed to require much more time than getting exotics, on account of some silly “legendary wall.”

Having incomplete gear is just like leveling. You have a clear singular goal being pushed on you by the game mechanics (getting to the next character level / item level). When you’ve completed that, the game is straight-up better. It becomes open-ended instead of linear. That’s the whole point of a real, non-raid-gear-based “endgame.”

lorazcyk.8927:

Last time I logged into GW1, I was annoyed at how static it was.

Oh, I just get upset that I can’t jump :-S Wish I’d never played GW2, that way I wouldn’t miss jumping so much!

Honestly!

yup been playing ever since i made the post, really hard to not try and dodge/jump everwhere. also mountains are really startign to annoy me XD

Selon.7056:

What do you GW1 guys want from the game then? How are to keep a MMO fresh without introducing new content and gear? I’m just so confused by this – that’s what MMOs do. They continue to evolve. GW1 did change and it did have new gear. they had 5 (or something) expansions and I know I wasn’t sitting in the gear I got from vanilla GW1 that whole time.

Too bad the stats on all level 20 gear in GW1 had the same values (different armor values based on light/med/heavy).

YOU as a player decided what stats to put on armor.

ASP.8093:

Warkupo.1025:

I’m afraid I must throw up my hands in defeat of your logic. You grinded the entire game just to have a moment of realization after you had acquired all the armor you could ever want and say, “you know what gosh darnit, I really just want to walk around the map.”

Something you could have just done whenever. Think of all the time you could have saved if you had just… you know, done that.

Again I ask, why the play the game? Why not just… I guess walk around the map until you are bored of that and then go do something else?

I’m sorry, I just don’t follow any of the thought processes here.

I didn’t relentlessly grind my way to 80 + exotics. For the most part, I just did whatever stuff I wanted to do (except personal story, because that was broken until yesterday). And I continue to do that after I’ve “maxed out” my stats, except now I don’t have “vertical” advancement forcing goals on me or limiting my options.

Ascended stuff from Fractals is the opposite of that. You have to do one specific thing, repeatedly, to get max gear. And it’s explicitly designed to require much more time than getting exotics, on account of some silly “legendary wall.”

Having incomplete gear is just like leveling. You have a clear singular goal being pushed on you by the game mechanics (getting to the next character level / item level). When you’ve completed that, the game is straight-up better. It becomes open-ended instead of linear. That’s the whole point of a real, non-raid-gear-based “endgame.”

The point I’m trying to get at is that if you put up with leveling your character for 80 levels, why are you just now getting upset that, surprise, the game would like you to continue doing that. It gives the impression that the majority of the people playing this game don’t actually enjoy the game, at least, if they’re following the same train of thought as yourself.

Aside from that, you just said that you where glad to get to the end of the game because it meant you didn’t have to focus on goals, but then tell me you didn’t actually focus on goals at all and just kind of went at your own pace. Yet you express relief at attaining level 80 and meeting all your goals because now you are finally free to just do whatever you want which… you’ve apparently been doing the whole time?

Why do you feel like new gear attained from new content is going to stop you from doing whatever you want to do, especially now that you’re telling me you tend to just do whatever you want to do anyway?

So, here’s the thing with GW1… I updated my level-20 armor, like, seven times on one character during her lifetime in GW1. But I did that because I felt like it, with new expansion skins, fancy prestige skins, or just figuring out a new mix-and-match style that didn’t cross my mind previously. I did have to do it. The game wouldn’t penalize me for not doing it, unlike the way treadmill games punish you for not re-gearing for every expansion.

ASP.8093:

Selon.7056:

You can’t have a game where you get the best gear and then there is nothing to go to from there AND a game that continues to expand on itself by creating new content and, inevitably, gear.

You can have a thriving, successful game where there is still stuff to do all the time but it’s not “get better gear”.

And that game can retain a sizable player base for, like, 6 years while raking in close to $300 per player through cash shop upgrades and expansions.

It was called Guild Wars.

And that is The Legend!
Too bad most bought this game expecting to Relive The Legend in some ways.

As i’ve said. 250 years had gone. Let The Legend rest in peace.
Those were the days my friends
……and enermies lol!

~ fyi i’m the famous Spinal Shivers N/D in TA & RA in Vabbian Armor and i always play the Violin in AB ~

Selon.7056:

Here are two complaints I see all the freaking time:

1) There is nothing to do once you’re level 80.
2) I wanted to get away from gear grinds and just play.

Ok complaints are going to come in many forms, understanding your core player and filtering the ones that matter are key.

The Crazy: You are always going to have the crazy content devourers that book 2 weeks off of work put on a set of depends and live on Mountain dew and twinkes to complete everything in the game in a week. Then jump on here and complain they got nothing to do.

You can’t design a game around them because they represent about the top 2% of players and no matter what you do you will never be able to make them happy.

Game Wreckers: Then you have the game wreckers, they will find any and all exploits in the early game. Most will have them mapped out in beta. When not in the game they will use every meta resource on the net to get a leg up. As soon as the game goes live they exploit or buy Gold from 3rd party sites cap out early and are in a set of Exotics in a matter of hours. Then they get on here and complain the game has nothing to work for.

You can’t toon your game for these guys either because they will just hint guide their way through the consumption of new content anyway.

The Endgame Centric: These guys think the endgame is where the game starts. WoW was likely there first MMO and they have no experiences with MMO’s prior to Instances dungeons becoming the popularised norm for endgame. To them WoW and MMO are transposable. WoW is the model all MMO’s should follow. As such they ignore all content that does not revolve around gear acquisition. These guys tunnel-vision their way into the top tier gear and when they don’t find a satisfying WoW like endgame they QQ and come here to complain. Sadly they still have some numbers they likely make up about 25 to 30% of MMO players but that’s just a wild guess. They are completely driven by the carrot on stick and need that fix.

Tuning your game for these guys is dangerous, you might be able to please them for a time but this is a rabbit hole that gets deep and wide really fast. Keeping up with this crowd’s appetite for gear can put off and discourage other players. Many MMO’s have failed to hold this crowd for long.

Then you have the core player, the core player will play 10 to 25 hours a week. It takes them about Month to get to cap. They play the game as intended and like to figure things out for themselves. They don’t look up every little walkthrough on the internet and to them the game still feels rich and full because they are still discovering things on their own. They might still not have a single character that has a total world map completion.

These guys will work through the content at their own pace they are happy to spend an evening working on a jumping puzzle. They take pride in building their own armor and weapons. Some may even spend hours on the trading post to find those hidden gems they can turn a profit on. They try different things out for themselves and test the synergies between different builds and weapons sets. Most of them likely play more than one character at level 80 by now but may still be debating which to declare as their main. Most of these guys might have an exotic or two but are yet to be capped out in gear.

This group can’t even imagine how anyone could be board of the game yet. They are happy exploring the more sandboxy elements of GW2 and some may even have a background with GW1 where gear progression was used very lightly as a retention mechanic.

Tuning your game to this crowd may net you your longest running and most dedicated fans as it just simply takes them longer to consume content then the other groups. That said they are also likely the lighter spenders on the in game store. Because they are less fast path centric they are not likely to spend allot of coin on fast tracking there characters and stick to more practical purchases like bag and character slots.

Tuning your game over the heads of this group to satisfy the for mentioned groups will bread discouragement as the victory condition of the top end gear gets farther out of reach, a rapid fall off will happen if not carful.

So there you have it, MMO communities are not a single group of players we are a collection of micro groups that come together because we all enjoy MMO’s in our own way. There will always be complaint the important thing is if you build a product that’s targeting one of these groups more than the other and you say your game is going to be (X Y Z) don’t 3 months later change it up to be (A B C) because if players lose trust in you it’s over. If you don’t believe me call Sony and ask about the how the NGE worked out for them.

ASP.8093:

So, here’s the thing with GW1… I updated my level-20 armor, like, seven times on one character during her lifetime in GW1. But I did that because I felt like it, with new expansion skins, fancy prestige skins, or just figuring out a new mix-and-match style that didn’t cross my mind previously. I did have to do it. The game wouldn’t penalize me for not doing it, unlike the way treadmill games punish you for not re-gearing for every expansion.

I’m sorry. I really just can’t get behind your reasoning, and I think we’ll just have to leave it at that. Your hesitation seems to be that you don’t like the game forcing you to do anything and would rather have the entire thing open to you from the get go with no regards to player advancement, levels, or gear. Kind of like Skyrim, I guess. I just don’t get why you’d play a game whose… I guess sequential nature you don’t enjoy for 80 levels and then only just now complain that the game continues to desire you make progress in this fashion. It seems masochistic to me.

I won’t grind.

When an activity is no longer engaging for me, I will stop doing it. I will not grind for levels, gear, or anything else. I did it once, got burned for it, and I will never do it again.

I’ve achieved levels in this game as a byproduct of simply playing it. My characters are at 80, 75, 48, 20 and 18, with not a moment of grind involved. I’ve so far achieved enough wealth to get what I want, when I want it, without any farming to speak of (for me, farming gets old fast). It took a little focus, but that’s about it.

The Ascended gear looks like it’s going to funnel me into a very particular scenario, and will require repetition of that scenario, in order to obtain it. I may enjoy the scenario and find it to be eminently replayable. But, no matter how fun something is, it’s going to eventually get stale. At that point, it becomes a grind. At that point, I stop doing it.

With the numbers I’ve seen thrown around here, it seems like it’s going to take a very long time for me to obtain this gear. I may not ever get it at all. This is not necessarily a problem.

However, if not having this gear starts barring me from content… then it’s a problem.

Personally, I’d like to know if that’s where we’re headed. If it is, I’d rather just jump ship now.

For the time being, I’m sticking around to see how this all shakes out. But if a clear, concise, explicit answer is not provided by the developers, I will eventually opt to err on the side of caution, and assume that the silence/side-stepping is confirmation enough.

I seriously can’t believe how God kitten irrational some of these people are.

Anet introduces a new tier of gear — a few months into the game, no less, which may as well be considered launch — and people freak out about a gear treadmill? Do you have logical deduction issues?

Keep in mind that:

-Ascended gear is not as good as Legendary gear anyway, which means that there is factually no gear treadmill. A gear treadmill introduces gear which is better than gear that already existed. That is not the case here. Period.

-Because we’ve now established that Ascended items are not a “gear treadmill” in any form, the insinuation that they introduce a “grind” to the game is not even half-true, and to be honest, it’s not relevant. The fact is, whether one must grind for Ascended gear or not, that grind is not required, because Ascended items themselves are not required. There is literally zero difference between this and any number of prestige armours/weapons in the first game. Many of them required grind — sometimes a lot of grind — but it was totally optional grind. That is the case here as well. I don’t really see how anyone can object to optional grind. It’s like objecting to a restaurant having a dish that you don’t like on the menu.

-This is not ArenaNet introducing a “new gear tier already.” This is ArenaNet adding another gear tier that they would have shipped with the game had they felt it was necessary at the time. I don’t recall this amount of asinine whining when ArenaNet introduced inscribed weapons in Guild Wars 1, and that was several years into the game’s life; but now “Anet’s sold out and made a WoW clone, wahhhh.”

-You’re freaking out about new gear that literally makes a difference of a few DPS or HP than the average gear in the exotic tier. Please go away. You’re complaining about the Ascended “gear treadmill” while completely ignoring the fact that the absolutely insignificant difference in stats between Ascended items and exotic items wouldn’t even make a noticeable difference in the outcome of a fight between equally-skilled players. The difference between the two tiers would never in a million years allow a crap player to compensate for being a crap player. We’re talking about single-digit differences in stats, in most cases; eating a food item can give a player a boost in his choice of stats approaching +100, but God forbid an item give you an extra +2 power.

Never seen such a bunch of irrational nonsense in my life.

Nothing to do when you hit 80, god seriously? I bet you didn’t play GW1, max level there was 20 the last time I played yet I had a lot to do on end-game. Just because you finished all the dungeons and the map doesn’t mean that there’s nothing else to do.

Again, Guild Wars IS NOT ABOUT GEAR STATS, get it right already gosh!

Selon.7056:

Here are two complaints I see all the freaking time:

1) There is nothing to do once you’re level 80.
2) I wanted to get away from gear grinds and just play.

Here is the problem – this is a MMO. The world does not, and will not stay stagnant. You guys can’t have it both ways. You can’t have a game where you get the best gear and then there is nothing to go to from there AND a game that continues to expand on itself by creating new content and, inevitably, gear.

Everyone here is complaining about the POSSIBILITY of a gear grind – why are you complaining? Isn’t this what you guys are so adamant about? “There is nothing to do when I get to 80”. Well you know what? Now there will be. What is it you guys are really looking for from ANet? I’m personally very happy with the game. I feel it has nailed everything that I’m looking for in a MMO. Bring on the content, and bring on more gear and dungeons. Keep on keeping in fresh ANet.

You can expand the content without needing to increase the stats.
You can provide new equipment without needing to increase stats.
You can provide new equipment with new stat combinations without needing to increase stats.
You can provide new equipment effects without needing to increase stats. I can get a new staff with a blue fire glow on it! and it still has the stats of my exotic, really!
You can provide new game mechanics with new slot mechanics to counter it without needing to increase stats.
Do you see yet where I’m going with this?

You can also provide other ways than a dungeon to obtain these new equipment……. without needing to increase stats!

I didn’t run out of things to do at 80. I was quite happily running Arah EXP’s every day and getting started on personal storyline finally after 2 months of never having touched them b/c I was too busy playing my 80 every day for hours and hours on end.

However,
After the details on this update, I haven’t logged in, in 3 days now.

I’m not MAD. I’m just really disappointed that they’ve screwed the pooch so unbelievably fast already. And I definitely didn’t need this “new content”. I was being very very patient and discussing only dungeon bugs/issues that needed to be addressed before any new content got added. Those things STILL AREN’T FIXED YET. I also would have loved to see some WvW changes along the lines of what they already promised (helping out completely overwhelmend outmanned servers & diminishing Zerg dominations a notch). Now imagine my surprise when all that stuff takes a back seat to this Infusion system…. which the Executive Producer then comes in and flatly says “Oh we’re adding this to all the other aspects of the game eventually too, you’re welcome!” as if to rub a pound of salt in the wound.

A game I was gungho to play and couldn’t stop playing (and played 7 years / 5000 hours of its predecessor by the way) just days ago…. I can’t find the motivation in me anywhere to play even one minute of now because their Prioroties, Decisions, and Development process took so much of a shockingly illogical twist … that I’m too dumbfounded now to even know where to begin in rediscovering what drew me to this series.

All I can do is wait it out now I guess and hope they accidentally rediscover for themselves what it was that got them so much brand loyalty from us GW1 players in the first place. (It sure as heck wasn’t a sequel of the Ursan-Rep grind while ignoring huge bugs !!!)

Xenesis.6389:

You can expand the content without needing to increase the stats.
You can provide new equipment without needing to increase stats.
You can provide new equipment with new stat combinations without needing to increase stats.

Except they didn’t, as you say, “increase the stats.” Legendaries are still better. So you’re pretty much just flat-out wrong and that’s not really a matter of opinion, but fact.