Guild Wars 2

It’s impossible to make two sides happy when one side won’t feel like they have something unless others can’t have it.

You always have to take a side.

With one side, you can still have prestige and merit while giving everyone a chance at something. The merit and prestige are in getting the things first. Like when achievements have timestamps. No matter how many people do something after you, nobody can take from you that you were the first one.

With the other side, you’ll have only a small group of players hijacking the game and keeping it from the rest. You can identify these because they tend to use the word ‘carebear’ quite often.

When something in the game lacks alternate ways of acquisition, those who do not have the luck, or the time to grind, or the mad skillz needed to get it.
You fix that with levels of difficulty, alternate ways of acquisition, trading and things like those, to allow everyone to be able to get things.
But if the alternate ways are disproportionately more time consuming than the main one, it’ll be as if they didn’t exist in the first place.

Zoul.1087:

You are arguing for the sake of arguing. Its pointless and a futile attempt to derail the subject.

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

You have no point in your discussion other than to argue. So please try to stay on topic.

Of course there is a point, discussion always has a point. Communication. Also, you’re not staying on topic either, because now you’re making this about the statistics of the items than human nature.

You’re also not hearing me. If Legendary was attainable without going through Ascended, and Legendary is either equal to or better than Ascended, why would you not bypass Ascended? Why in the name of whatever you choose would you duplicate your efforts to get an Ascended and possibly later on the line duplicate that effort to get a Legendary?

Naoko.7096:

Zoul.1087:

No people HAVE to progress.

Why do countries other than the U.S. feel the need to improve their weaponry?

Its about advantage. This stat buff forces you to go up to stay competitive. If everyone else has a gun and you have a knife then why would you want a gun?

Also these dungeons have already proven the dark side of this. “You don’t have full exotics, we are not going to dungeon with you.”

Its turning people into elitists.

In other words, it’s about competition.
Without competition between countries, there’s no progression. Without progression, people have no reason to set goals in life. It goes against human nature. Competition is important in life. Without it, we wouldn’t have skyrise buildings. We would probably still be in stone age.

It applies almost to every aspect in life. (E.g. If a smartphone company have no business rivals, they will make the same smartphone and won’t make effort to improve it. If they have business rivals like Samsung and Iphones, they constantly compete with each other to create a better smartphone. Each company wants to be at advantage than another. As they progresses, people now have better and better smartphones through the years.)

It applies in mmorpgs too. Human nature plays a big part in mmorpg.
There’s an analogy. – “There’s only light if there is darkness.”
Darkness existed in the first place. People have to create light. If everything is light in the beginning, there’s no place to create your own light.

Earth (Positive/Negative emotions) > Utopia (No human emotions)
Before 15th November, gw2 was very near to utopia-like. The game starts to improve on the basic needs of players which I feel they made a good effort. I naturally want a game world where I can feel different types of emotions when I play. It’s basic human needs since everyone is born with emotions. It’s normal to want to be in a world to experience all that. Mmorpg is a game in “world” setting instead of “console” setting.

Actually no. It went more towards a console settings.

PC players are more mature generally. When I play games like Left for Dead or innumerable pc games, generally the player base is better. This simply encourages more childish behavior and attitudes.

I have faith that Arena Net may find a way to bridge the divide and make both sides happy but I want to make sure my voice is heard on the issue. Right now I think i does more harm then good.

- Go to the cursed shore on many servers. You can’t even get to Arah.

- A tumbleweed could blow through the entire world. It has been reduced to a dungeon.

- Crafting is useless now unless they make some changes (which I hope they will)

My complaint is about adding ascended itself. Its how it is a cancer on the world of the game right now. I have no problems with them making the gear difficult to get. However right now it is ruining the entire game.

Hopefully they do something to balance everything out/fix it soon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

You are arguing for the sake of arguing. Its pointless and a futile attempt to derail the subject.

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

You have no point in your discussion other than to argue. So please try to stay on topic.

Of course there is a point, discussion always has a point. Communication. Also, you’re not staying on topic either, because now you’re making this about the statistics of the items than human nature.

You’re also not hearing me. If Legendary was attainable without going through Ascended, and Legendary is either equal to or better than Ascended, why would you not bypass Ascended? Why in the name of whatever you choose would you duplicate your efforts to get an Ascended and possibly later on the line duplicate that effort to get a Legendary?

No your discussion has no point if the information it provides is completely irrelevant.

Read up in the quoted text of your post. I clearly answered your question.

Naoko.7096:

Earth (Positive/Negative emotions) > Utopia (No human emotions)Before 15th November, gw2 was very near to utopia-like. The game starts to improve on the basic needs of players which I feel they made a good effort. I naturally want a game world where I can feel different types of emotions when I play. It’s basic human needs since everyone is born with emotions. It’s normal to want to be in a world to experience all that. Mmorpg is a game in “world” setting instead of “console” setting.

The game allowed you to experience different types of emotions without ascended gear.

The emotion you want to feel isn’t game related. What you get out of grinding for better gear that gives you a statistical advantage is a metagame experience of having your enjoyment at the expense of others who don’t have as much time.

You’re paying to win, just with time not money.

MithranArkanere.8957:

It’s impossible to make two sides happy when one side won’t feel like they have something unless others can’t have it.

You always have to take a side.

With one side, you can still have prestige and merit while giving everyone a chance at something. The merit and prestige are in getting the things first. Like when achievements have timestamps. No matter how many people do something after you, nobody can take from you that you were the first one.

With the other side, you’ll have only a small group of players hijacking the game and keeping it from the rest. You can identify these because they tend to use the word ‘carebear’ quite often.

When something in the game lacks alternate ways of acquisition, those who do not have the luck, or the time to grind, or the mad skillz needed to get it.
You fix that with levels of difficulty, alternate ways of acquisition, trading and things like those, to allow everyone to be able to get things.
But if the alternate ways are disproportionately more time consuming than the main one, it’ll be as if they didn’t exist in the first place.

Eh, people keep telling me I need to pick a side but I don’t. This “you’re with us or against us” mentality getting fostered is much more damaging than the point of contention in the first place, because it totally shuts down any kind of discussion on the matter. If you are obviously right, and the other person is monstrously wrong, then you’re not going to try to convince them, you’ll just say they’re the enemy and anything they say is worthless.

That said…

“With one side, you can still have prestige and merit while giving everyone a chance at something. The merit and prestige are in getting the things first. Like when achievements have timestamps. No matter how many people do something after you, nobody can take from you that you were the first one.”

I’d rather “when” wasn’t a factor so much as “if”, in this case.

“With the other side, you’ll have only a small group of players hijacking the game and keeping it from the rest. You can identify these because they tend to use the word ‘carebear’ quite often.”

In the games where that was even a question, the people who still wanted to play the game found ways around that . . . if player-killing was possible, and a bunch of players were actively doing that? There’s a posse of pissed off players just waiting to catch them somewhere unawares until they (the superiority-spouting player) relented. If they didn’t relent? “Well we’re hunting you til you reroll or quit. And if you reroll and start this again, we’ll be right back here again in a month.”

If you don’t have player-killing, or if it’s structured in such a way that the above can’t happen? Then you get the “underground resistance” where groups form specifically to get around the restrictions. Someone saying they perma-camped that spawn and you can’t have it because you’re not worthy, and you can’t put a shot through their face? Your buddies and you get together, sit right down on the same spawn point and go “we can play that game”.

All of this assumes it’s the playerbase being a problem and the GMs / Devs aren’t getting in the way. If they are, then that’s a whole different can of worms.

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

You are arguing for the sake of arguing. Its pointless and a futile attempt to derail the subject.

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

You have no point in your discussion other than to argue. So please try to stay on topic.

Of course there is a point, discussion always has a point. Communication. Also, you’re not staying on topic either, because now you’re making this about the statistics of the items than human nature.

You’re also not hearing me. If Legendary was attainable without going through Ascended, and Legendary is either equal to or better than Ascended, why would you not bypass Ascended? Why in the name of whatever you choose would you duplicate your efforts to get an Ascended and possibly later on the line duplicate that effort to get a Legendary?

No your discussion has no point if the information it provides is completely irrelevant.

Read up in the quoted text of your post. I clearly answered your question.

I read your answer, and I’m quoting the whole thing again, but you aren’t discussing, you are just saying it’s irrelevant and dismissing it.

I’ll keep the same assumptions from before. Ascended is superior to Exotic in all ways. Is it also superior to Legendary, and if not then why would I waste effort grinding for Ascended if Legendary is available and better?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

You are arguing for the sake of arguing. Its pointless and a futile attempt to derail the subject.

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

You have no point in your discussion other than to argue. So please try to stay on topic.

Of course there is a point, discussion always has a point. Communication. Also, you’re not staying on topic either, because now you’re making this about the statistics of the items than human nature.

You’re also not hearing me. If Legendary was attainable without going through Ascended, and Legendary is either equal to or better than Ascended, why would you not bypass Ascended? Why in the name of whatever you choose would you duplicate your efforts to get an Ascended and possibly later on the line duplicate that effort to get a Legendary?

No your discussion has no point if the information it provides is completely irrelevant.

Read up in the quoted text of your post. I clearly answered your question.

I read your answer, and I’m quoting the whole thing again, but you aren’t discussing, you are just saying it’s irrelevant and dismissing it.

I’ll keep the same assumptions from before. Ascended is superior to Exotic in all ways. Is it also superior to Legendary, and if not then why would I waste effort grinding for Ascended if Legendary is available and better?

copy paste

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

You are arguing for the sake of arguing. Its pointless and a futile attempt to derail the subject.

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

You have no point in your discussion other than to argue. So please try to stay on topic.

Of course there is a point, discussion always has a point. Communication. Also, you’re not staying on topic either, because now you’re making this about the statistics of the items than human nature.

You’re also not hearing me. If Legendary was attainable without going through Ascended, and Legendary is either equal to or better than Ascended, why would you not bypass Ascended? Why in the name of whatever you choose would you duplicate your efforts to get an Ascended and possibly later on the line duplicate that effort to get a Legendary?

No your discussion has no point if the information it provides is completely irrelevant.

Read up in the quoted text of your post. I clearly answered your question.

I read your answer, and I’m quoting the whole thing again, but you aren’t discussing, you are just saying it’s irrelevant and dismissing it.

I’ll keep the same assumptions from before. Ascended is superior to Exotic in all ways. Is it also superior to Legendary, and if not then why would I waste effort grinding for Ascended if Legendary is available and better?

copy paste

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?

“Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?”

No.

My answer is:

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Zoul.1087:

“Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?”

No.

My answer is:

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Your answer isn’t accurate enough, and has irrelevant information in it considering the question I asked.

If you could have the tier above Ascended without needing to do it, would you still be going for Ascended?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

“Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?”

No.

My answer is:

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Your answer isn’t accurate enough, and has irrelevant information in it considering the question I asked.

If you could have the tier above Ascended without needing to do it, would you still be going for Ascended?

The question seems like a hard attempt to twist my words.

Let me say it a different way. Its simple.

Lets say there was some tier of items that had the highest stats. (lets call it nothing)

Then yes people would compete for nothing with the highest tier of stats.

I am saying people will compete for the highest stats, no matter what you call the item.

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

“Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?”

No.

My answer is:

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Your answer isn’t accurate enough, and has irrelevant information in it considering the question I asked.

If you could have the tier above Ascended without needing to do it, would you still be going for Ascended?

The question seems like a hard attempt to twist my words.

Let me say it a different way. Its simple.

Lets say there was some tier of items that had the highest stats. (lets call it nothing)

Then yes people would compete for nothing with the highest tier of stats.

I am saying people will compete for the highest stats, no matter what you call the item.

My friend, if I wanted to twist your words, I’d “frankenquote” you :P What I’m trying to do is get to the heart of your issue so I know whether or not to agree.

In this case, I’d agree with the qualifier of “some people will always compete for the highest stats”. Mostly because I wouldn’t be, and if one person isn’t then everyone isn’t.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

“Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?”

No.

My answer is:

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Your answer isn’t accurate enough, and has irrelevant information in it considering the question I asked.

If you could have the tier above Ascended without needing to do it, would you still be going for Ascended?

The question seems like a hard attempt to twist my words.

Let me say it a different way. Its simple.

Lets say there was some tier of items that had the highest stats. (lets call it nothing)

Then yes people would compete for nothing with the highest tier of stats.

I am saying people will compete for the highest stats, no matter what you call the item.

My friend, if I wanted to twist your words, I’d “frankenquote” you :P What I’m trying to do is get to the heart of your issue so I know whether or not to agree.

In this case, I’d agree with the qualifier of “some people will always compete for the highest stats”. Mostly because I wouldn’t be, and if one person isn’t then everyone isn’t.

-Also let me clarify, having a top tier (legendary or ascended) is not bad.
-Making it an end all is not bad.
-Ruining the whole game by making everyone some something time consuming, repetitive, and not creative to get it is.
-I like that the path to legendary is diverse and complex. Its requires a lot of work. However the path to ascended is one dungeon.

Zoul.1087:

- Go to the cursed shore on many servers. You can’t even get to Arah.

- A tumbleweed could blow through the entire world. It has been reduced to a dungeon.

- Crafting is useless now unless they make some changes (which I hope they will)

I agree that these 3 points needs improvement. But I doubt ascended or fractal are the main causes for those 3 points. Before 15th Nov, Arah was already inaccessible and no one wants to clear it. Crafting was already meaningless at lv80 end-game before the 15th Nov because it’s human nature to do something that only benefits them. Hardly players were playing dungeons except for CoF and AC because other dungeons were too long and draggy for their liking.

It’s human nature to go towards the best spot for best gains. With these problems you pointed out above, it means they’ve not perfected human nature -> in-game. They’ve not mastered how to design the game with consideration of human nature but I know they’re making efforts on it from the new content and future. I heard from the latest news that they’re revamping the older dungeons. It’ll probably ease down the side-effects if they know how to design it around with human nature further in order to spread out the player concurrency on each map. Imo, ascended/fractal dungeon has include quite good potential towards the human nature element. It’s the reason why players naturally go there. The only improvement they need to do is to spread it throughout Tyria.

There’re many other anticipating updates which can help to improve in the human nature -> in-game element. Guild Halls are one. I heard they’re going to create more activities that create memories with each other, so I can’t wait for it. ^^ The current guild system doesn’t plays around with human nature at all. Imo, a good guild system should make players feel like their guild is their home and guildmates as their family. Guilds should be where players create real bonds and many memories together instead of like a FB chat list. Just like in real life, 20 good friends is better than 200 acquintances. That’s why mmorpg needs to have strong elements of human nature.

I play games because I enjoy their competitive nature. I couldn’t care less about Ascended gear in PvE, but it does bother me for WvW. I don’t want to fight somebody and get one-shotted because they simply have a lot more time to farm gear than I do, I’ve already had enough of that in MMOs. That doesn’t mean that I think everyone should be rewarded without effort though. If a game is designed properly, then it will reward skillful play and these more experienced players will win more often. This is a more dynamic form of vertical progression because while vertical gear progression is almost entirely dependent on the time you spend, vertical skill progression also takes into account your ability to learn and adapt. I think players should be rewarded for their intelligence and creativity rather than the amount of free time they have.

Waffler.1257:

I play games because I enjoy their competitive nature. I couldn’t care less about Ascended gear in PvE, but it does bother me for WvW. I don’t want to fight somebody and get one-shotted because they simply have a lot more time to farm gear than I do, I’ve already had enough of that in MMOs. That doesn’t mean that I think everyone should be rewarded without effort though. If a game is designed properly, then it will reward skillful play and these more experienced players will win more often. This is a more dynamic form of vertical progression because while vertical gear progression is almost entirely dependent on the time you spend, vertical skill progression also takes into account your ability to learn and adapt. I think players should be rewarded for their intelligence and creativity rather than the amount of free time they have.

Yeah, if there’s a place where I have any concerns at all about the gear it’s WvWvW . . . it’s that this mentality will get so bad that you will be asked to leave so “someone more useful” can get in.

(This can happen anyway, if you’re in a very tight points race and you just aren’t any good. Speaking from experience here.)

I’d say the application of the two ideas is mutually exclusive if we’re speaking of MMOs in general. Just by the simple laws of nature one who puts in the “work” to be the top dog rarely also has the resources (mainly time) to do so in real life. This isn’t always the case but in general.

As far as options allowing one to be rewarded without hard work? Well I suppose they would be the exceptions to that rule. I suppose one could be a Columbian drug lord or the next Bernie Madoff and be “top dog” financially and what not in real life and still have the spare time to do the same in MMOs. People with disabilities I guess? I had a broken back a couple years ago and had nothing to do but play games most of my day (especially in the winter).

I wouldn’t say this could really be the case in GW2 though, at least in today’s incarnation. We aren’t required to rope together 40 people at the same time and march them into some raid dugeon for hours every week and for month after month to complete that “best in slot” gear set up to be the e-bully on the e-block. Oh, and only so that they can do so again a few more months down the road to get the next “best gear set up”.

I don’t know maybe some can pull that off, in my experience though, putting in that amount of time and effort in a game invariably meant other facets of my life were neglected. In your early 20’s though, going to school, working a kitteny monotonous job, living on ramen and beer and a girlfriend who is in pretty much the same situation in life and doesn’t expect much from you, there isn’t a lot to neglect anyway!

Fritz.5026:

cegorach.5624:

So you would have a problem in real life about an option that would allow you to be rewarded without working hard?

I am curious why you think an online game should have easy access to fun while real life shouldn’t.

reading things like this makes me die a little inside.

on one hand you have real life where people go through school, get jobs, live, love, and die.
on the other hand you have a video game that people purchased for entertainment.

…and then you seriously ask why people view them differently?

you cannot go into a store and purchase a new life in a shrink wrapped box for 60$ for starters…

Actually Fritz, you can stand up from your computer, take a deep breath, and purchase a new life right now.

What you think, and the choices you make from this second on, define your ‘life’.

If these are relatively static, you will feel like you are living a ‘rigid’ life (of course you won’t be).

You can change them quite radically should you so desire, and bingo, there’s your new life.

Leave your wife, quit your job, go herd kittens in Tibet or be a mercenary in the Congo.

The number of options available to any human are almost limitless – the only boundaries are willpower, imagination and desire – wrapped up in a cocoon of social and ideological programming.

This is also true when it comes to approaching a video game.

Mayam.8976:

I’d say the application of the two ideas is mutually exclusive if we’re speaking of MMOs in general. Just by the simple laws of nature one who puts in the “work” to be the top dog rarely also has the resources (mainly time) to do so in real life. This isn’t always the case but in general.

As far as options allowing one to be rewarded without hard work? Well I suppose they would be the exceptions to that rule. I suppose one could be a Columbian drug lord or the next Bernie Madoff and be “top dog” financially and what not in real life and still have the spare time to do the same in MMOs. People with disabilities I guess? I had a broken back a couple years ago and had nothing to do but play games most of my day (especially in the winter).

I wouldn’t say this could really be the case in GW2 though, at least in today’s incarnation. We aren’t required to rope together 40 people at the same time and march them into some raid dugeon for hours every week and for month after month to complete that “best in slot” gear set up to be the e-bully on the e-block. Oh, and only so that they can do so again a few more months down the road to get the next “best gear set up”.

I don’t know maybe some can pull that off, in my experience though, putting in that amount of time and effort in a game invariably meant other facets of my life were neglected. In your early 20’s though, going to school, working a kitteny monotonous job, living on ramen and beer and a girlfriend who is in pretty much the same situation in life and doesn’t expect much from you, there isn’t a lot to neglect anyway!

Well, I think you may be missing my point.

I agree that the ‘elitist’ people are likely to be those who lack the time in real life to put in the ‘hard work’ to get ‘rewards’.

My question is though whether that is how they think – particularly in relation to others.

That kind of cognitive dissonance operation is very common in extreme viewpoints – for example, you don’t need to look far in terms of political views to see that most people advocating extremes on either side are horrendously hypocritical.

Latte-sipping communists and Tea Party hoverround dwellers ranting about healthcare are both clear examples of people preaching ideals they are a lot happier to impose on others than take on themselves.

And I’d argue that games are a great enabler of this, given the disconnect from reality.

If you’re a basement dwelling neckbearded l88tist who would rather raid all day than get a job, it’s not a stretch to imagine the cognitive rebound of you pouring scorn on others who refuse to do the ‘work’ to have uber gear like you do, for example.

And I wonder about the other direction – are those in-game egalitarian folks exactly the same outside?

Naoko.7096:

Yeah, mmo needs to relate to human nature.
It must be built around human nature.

Some players said that games are supposed to be a leisure. I agree and disagree on this. In console games where it’s the world that only one player exists, yes it can be a leisure. However, mmorpg is a virtual reality with massive people. A world of virtual reality is a reflection of the real world. Human nature inevitably exists in-game. If some forgotten, life itself is a game. A good mmorpg revolves around both leisure and human nature.

It can be evidently seen. Players wants to feel special by standing out in crowds. Players want perfection and completion. Players wants to have something that 90% of the population doesn’t have. Players want to climb higher and higher. If we achieve some sort of rare item of use that most do not have, we feel like a “winner”. I believe everyone has some form of adhd traits in us. These are all human nature.

Imo back before 15th November, gw2 was pretty weak in playing around human nature in the game. I see that they’re already making efforts to improve in the basic needs of players. After the fractal and ascended release, they must have noticed in their database that their online players concurrency has increased.

“We’re very excited about the new content, and from the reactions we have seen, so are many of you. Players have already spent an incredible amount of time in the new Fractals dungeon, and their reaction to it has been phenomenal.” – by Chris Whiteside

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/chris-whiteside-on-the-lost-shores-and-beyond/

Keep up the good work.

I disagree that this is fundamental human nature, though I’ll add your point wasn’t possibly articulated well to the discussion.

You said ‘people want to feel like winners’ as being human nature.

I don’t think that is the case.

Some people simply don’t.

Some people definitely don’t if it means others suffer, or feel bad.

Some people want EVERYONE to feel like winners, not just themselves.

Some people want themselves and those they care about to feel that way but don’t care about others.

And it goes on.

You’re describing one end of the spectrum – the ‘I got mine’ crew – as being definitive of human nature.

I’d say that’s one extreme end of a spectrum.

So my question is about how that entire spectrum translates to and from a game world.

cegorach.5624:

I’d say that’s one extreme end of a spectrum.

So my question is about how that entire spectrum translates to and from a game world.

I’m going to reach out and say that there’s a problem with trying to model human nature like that. While you’re mostly correct, I also think “human nature” is a very slippery thing.

Humans are complicated beings who (mostly) reason. Because every individual is unique in the sum of their experiences, the full of their understanding is also unique. This leads to two people who otherwise grew up together in the same place, at the same age, with the same parenting . . . looking at a painting and disagreeing on the meaning of it. And that’s just a very simplified analogy.

There is no “singular human nature” other than to draw it back to such broad generalizations you lost track of the things that differentiate us entirely. These are important, as minute as the differences might be, to make us all individual beings.

So -

Saying that grinding out content is human nature is true. Saying that taking it at their own pace and enjoying the scenery is human nature . . . is also true.

Saying that it’s human nature to get upset that you didn’t get a Precursor from a loot drop is true. Saying that it’s human nature not to care about the loot is also true.

We are one species, but we are not of one mind. That is how we get disagreements, and that is why it’s okay to disagree. It is however . . . not okay to demonize people who don’t agree.

Unfortunately, that also is human nature. And it’s a sad thing.

Your explanation Is like… “We are animals: we don’t have opinions…. but instincts.”
Humankind Is not at risk due to volcanos, earthquakes, or wars: but Generalization.

—

All of this “drama” Is happening due to a “manifesto violation”, or a “ANet’s idealogy has been corrupted by money and capitalism”. Not the Ascended gear itself. I think one of the devs already mentioned that the Ascended gear will not be exclusive to dungeons only; but obtainable elsewhere.

MisterEction.9382:

Naoko.7096:

Zoul.1087:

They are spending time in the fractals a lot, because they can’t spend it anywhere else since nothing else will improve their character.

Yes. It’s because it’s human nature to constantly keep ourselves improve all the time. If it isn’t human nature to not improve themselves, they wouldn’t naturally chose to do fractals. In reality, people sub-consciously wants to keep improving and progress too.

Here’s the thing – they aren’t improving themselves by grinding.

The idea that people constantly want to improve themselves runs completely counter to the idea that people should be willing to spend an excessive amount of time grinding for gear in a MMO.

They really aren’t improving their characters either, since content is being adjusted to meet the new tier. Hamster meet wheel…

Agree. Perhaps I am the odd one out, but do you know when I really started to enjoy GW1? When i was done with the grind of getting my characters and their heroes done, and I could simply enjoy the content. Same with GW2 really. when I was done with the karma grind for exotics, I started to enjoy the content again.

When I was karma grinding I was doing events in areas that gave the most karma. It wasn’t fun. It was a chore. Now I have to do it fractals? No, Not gonna happen. I am done.

Was this all necessary? I mean we are three months in. Exept for the hardocre, I dobt everyone has all their characters in exotics. I don’t even think the elite are in all legendary weapons yet.

GustavoM.7605:

Your explanation Is like… “We are animals: we don’t have opinions…. but instincts.”
Humankind Is not at risk due to volcanos, earthquakes, or wars: but Generalization.

—

All of this “drama” Is happening due to a “manifesto violation”, or a “ANet’s idealogy has been corrupted by money and capitalism”. Not the Ascended gear itself. I think one of the devs already mentioned that the Ascended gear will not be exclusive to dungeons only; but obtainable elsewhere.

They’ve said that, but it hasn’t materialized yet so people don’t know the details and thus are making assumptions on how it will work. Some of those assumptions have an incredible amount of life experiences behind them, but they remain assumptions.

And to note, the general claim is the existence of the Ascended gear is the violation, therefore that is what they are talking about.

SHM.7628:

When I was karma grinding I was doing events in areas that gave the most karma. It wasn’t fun. It was a chore.

You were grinding for Karma for your Exotics? I was working my crafting up and going on Black Lion for Ectoplasm (my luck is terrible) to make my own armor rather than chasing the Karma cost.

The benefit to my approach is that once I get to 400 Leatherworking, I can do the same for anyone else who wants it done and can fork over the materials.

The detriment is I was almost constantly going: “. . . okay now where the heck do I go to get Fine materials . . . they want HOW much on the trading post?”

GustavoM.7605:

Your explanation Is like… “We are animals: we don’t have opinions…. but instincts.”
Humankind Is not at risk due to volcanos, earthquakes, or wars: but Generalization.

—

All of this “drama” Is happening due to a “manifesto violation”, or a “ANet’s idealogy has been corrupted by money and capitalism”. Not the Ascended gear itself. I think one of the devs already mentioned that the Ascended gear will not be exclusive to dungeons only; but obtainable elsewhere.

If the price tag/grinding asociated with it will be similar for these new approaches, it’s not going to change much, i’m afraid. Too much grind is too much grind.

I think relating attitudes to an extra few items added to a videogame to attitudes towards the well-being of other people is problematic. Interesting, perhaps, but problematic all the same.

As an example, I consider myself quite a progressive person – I value ethics and social justice strongly, I try to live a vegan lifestyle to reduce suffering as much as I can, and I vote for social and economic policies that tend to benefit the community as a whole over certain individuals or interest groups. On the other hand, I don’t really mind playing games or watching movies which involve or discuss killing, destruction, capitalism and individualism – provided I can find the enjoyment that I’m looking for. Sure, I may seek out media that have at least some resonance in places with my values, beliefs and interests – for example, I usually play MMORPGs because they generate complex social and political gameplay that can’t be dynamically simulated in single-player games – but I don’t just play games where no virtual living creatures are harmed.

Personally, I would say that the opposing values at play in the furore over Ascended gear aren’t necessarily ‘capitalism’ (work) vs ‘communism’ (equality). That would seem somewhat ridiculous given the amount of work that separates different levels of players, or the work involved in map completion, or in attaining any gear set, or so on (in fact, any activity in the game could be described as work).

Instead, I wonder if the issue has arisen because there are two competing motivations of play that are at odds with each other. Nick Yee in his paper Motivations of Play comes up with 10 motivational factors for why people play MMORPGs, separated into three broad categories: Achievement (comprised of Advancement, Mechanics, Competition), Social (comprised of Socializing, Relationship, Teamwork) and Immersion (comprised of Discovery, Roleplaying, Customization and Escapism).

Clearly additional tiers of stats or gear will have little to no impact upon the Social or Immersion motivations (except for perhaps slightly improving the satisfaction from Customization). I think it will have a fairly significant and contradictory effect upon the Achievement motivations though:

• Yee defines Advancement as “The desire to gain power, progress rapidly, and accumulate in-game symbols of wealth or status”, and I think that Ascended gear would be viewed very positively by anyone with a strong aspect of Advancement motivation. They will have potentially more power and avenues of challenging progression to achieve it, along with better symbols of status through the difficult-to-obtain armour.
• Yee also defines Competition as “The desire to challenge and compete with others”, and I think that Ascended gear would be viewed very negatively by anyone with a strong aspect of this motivation. The introduction of Ascended gear has set back the relative position of those without it, and made it more difficult to ‘be on top’ with maximum power. I suspect it also negatively affects the perception that “player skill” should be the most important thing when considering the fairness of any challenge through the prism of comparison with competing players.

Neither motivation is right or wrong, they just represent different reasons to play. I don’t think I have a problem (or much excitement) over Ascended gear myself because I don’t think Achievement is a big part of my motivations (or maybe I have equally balanced motivations between Competition and Advancement).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SHM.7628:

When I was karma grinding I was doing events in areas that gave the most karma. It wasn’t fun. It was a chore.

You were grinding for Karma for your Exotics? I was working my crafting up and going on Black Lion for Ectoplasm (my luck is terrible) to make my own armor rather than chasing the Karma cost.

The benefit to my approach is that once I get to 400 Leatherworking, I can do the same for anyone else who wants it done and can fork over the materials.

The detriment is I was almost constantly going: “. . . okay now where the heck do I go to get Fine materials . . . they want HOW much on the trading post?”

One way or the other, The whole thing was more grind than I wated or had time for. I wanted to play the game they promised me. Remember the one where grind weasn’t present? where you could just enjoy the contenet?

That never happened! I wa always grinding karma,. Ok I didn’t craft and you did. You grinded materials or gold for them. who cares? It was grind all the same. Now there are fractals to grind.

You know when I had fun? When I wasn’t grinding but enjoying the content. There were some fun areas and DE’s but that all got lost in the shuffle.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

I think relating attitudes to an extra few items added to a videogame to attitudes towards the well-being of other people is problematic. Interesting, perhaps, but problematic all the same.

As an example, I consider myself quite a progressive person – I value ethics and social justice strongly, I try to live a vegan lifestyle to reduce suffering as much as I can, and I vote for social and economic policies that tend to benefit the community as a whole over certain individuals or interest groups. On the other hand, I don’t really mind playing games or watching movies which involve or discuss killing, destruction, capitalism and individualism – provided I can find the enjoyment that I’m looking for. Sure, I may seek out media that have at least some resonance in places with my values, beliefs and interests – for example, I usually play MMORPGs because they generate complex social and political gameplay that can’t be dynamically simulated in single-player games – but I don’t just play games where no virtual living creatures are harmed.

Personally, I would say that the opposing values at play in the furore over Ascended gear aren’t necessarily ‘capitalism’ (work) vs ‘communism’ (equality). That would seem somewhat ridiculous given the amount of work that separates different levels of players, or the work involved in map completion, or in attaining any gear set, or so on (in fact, any activity in the game could be described as work).

Instead, I wonder if the issue has arisen because there are two competing motivations of play that are at odds with each other. Nick Yee in his paper Motivations of Play comes up with 10 motivational factors for why people play MMORPGs, separated into three broad categories: Achievement (comprised of Advancement, Mechanics, Competition), Social (comprised of Socializing, Relationship, Teamwork) and Immersion (comprised of Discovery, Roleplaying, Customization and Escapism).

Clearly additional tiers of stats or gear will have little to no impact upon the Social or Immersion motivations (except for perhaps slightly improving the satisfaction from Customization). I think it will have a fairly significant and contradictory effect upon the Achievement motivations though:

• Yee defines Advancement as “The desire to gain power, progress rapidly, and accumulate in-game symbols of wealth or status”, and I think that Ascended gear would be viewed very positively by anyone with a strong aspect of Advancement motivation. They will have potentially more power and avenues of challenging progression to achieve it, along with better symbols of status through the difficult-to-obtain armour.
• Yee also defines Competition as “The desire to challenge and compete with others”, and I think that Ascended gear would be viewed very negatively by anyone with a strong aspect of this motivation. The introduction of Ascended gear has set back the relative position of those without it, and made it more difficult to ‘be on top’ with maximum power. I suspect it also negatively affects the perception that “player skill” should be the most important thing when considering the fairness of any challenge through the prism of comparison with competing players.

Neither motivation is right or wrong, they just represent different reasons to play. I don’t think I have a problem (or much excitement) over Ascended gear myself because I don’t think Achievement is a big part of my motivations (or maybe I have equally balanced motivations between Competition and Advancement).

Had you considered that you may suffer an internal contradiction between some of your ‘progressive’ ideas and those that you may consider to be ‘conservative’?

I know I do, and I’d suggest most ‘progressives’ within Western society also do.

So the point of the thread is to discuss how that occurs. How you would view things in game differently to RL – and of course it relates to how most of us find that our self-declared positions tend to be closely tied to the environment in which they are being exercised.

I don’t think anyone (unless I missed it) was making a communism/capitalism direct line, more to do with the broader philosophical bent that informs those idealised ideologies.

There’s no such thing as human nature, only human behavior. Human behavior is shaped by the environment. The environment developers create in thier virtal world will ultimately shape the behavior of humans.

People who want to grind for gear have had thier brains re-wired and heavily re-inforced by other games of this sort over time. Some people’s behavior is shaped so profoundly that there really is no turning back. They’ll be stuck playing grinding games forever.

cegorach.5624:

Had you considered that you may suffer an internal contradiction between some of your ‘progressive’ ideas and those that you may consider to be ‘conservative’?

I know I do, and I’d suggest most ‘progressives’ within Western society also do.

I’m not sure what you mean by internal contradiction? I’m sure that I hold some values and beliefs that would be considered “conservative”, and none of the values and beliefs I consider “progressive” are absolute. Is that what you mean by contradiction?

So the point of the thread is to discuss how that occurs. How you would view things in game differently to RL – and of course it relates to how most of us find that our self-declared positions tend to be closely tied to the environment in which they are being exercised.

I don’t think anyone (unless I missed it) was making a communism/capitalism direct line, more to do with the broader philosophical bent that informs those idealised ideologies.

That was my mistake then, I was responding to your original post in which you related the division over Ascended gear to the difference between the value of “only those who work hard should be rewarded” (which I flippantly called capitalism, or more accurately the value of hard work giving you proportional rewards) and the value of “everyone deserves an equal chance and should be supported in order to reach their potential” (which again I flippantly referred to as communism, or the value of everyone having an equal proportion of rewards regardless of work).

I shouldn’t have mentioned those complex political ideologies because I know that’s not quite right, but my point was that those two broader perspectives don’t seem to reflect the issue over Ascended gear. It doesn’t seem to me like the core issue is work vs equality, so real-world values over work vs equality seems less helpful.

SHM.7628:

One way or the other, The whole thing was more grind than I wated or had time for. I wanted to play the game they promised me. Remember the one where grind weasn’t present? where you could just enjoy the contenet?

That never happened! I wa always grinding karma,. Ok I didn’t craft and you did. You grinded materials or gold for them. who cares? It was grind all the same. Now there are fractals to grind.

You know when I had fun? When I wasn’t grinding but enjoying the content. There were some fun areas and DE’s but that all got lost in the shuffle.

I wasn’t really grinding materials or gold, I think? Though you can define it that way if you wish. I would think about what materials I needed and where I could find them . . . I was running short on Gold Ore? Bloodtide Coast, I liked it there. Platinum Ore? Sparkfly Fen, and hey I really enjoy the Tequatl fight . . .

The only time it felt like a grind was towards the top side of a tier of crafting. Well, let me expand on that. You know how 225 to 300 in Weaponsmithing is Darksteel? Well you need to proceed through sets of Inscriptions rather than just make them all at once. Towards the end of each “set” of Inscriptions I was sometimes low on Fine materials and didn’t want to buy it. (Again, I could afford it . . . I just didn’t want to.)

And even then, it was a case of “what spot do I feel like today . . . well I don’t like Krait so that one’s out. That spot has Flame Legion so I could do that one . . .”

Further, I’m not about spending 6 hours in a block doing it. I’d do my daily achievements and if I felt like continuing I’d go do a little more, chatter with the guild if there was anyone on . . . once I got bored or frustrated? Log out, go do something else, come back tomorrow. Or the next day. There were days when I just would look at the game and go “nah, I’m cool, let’s see if I can boot UFO Enemy Unknown and grind . . . er . . . play past the initial Ethereal period.”

(I still haven’t beat that game. That last mission is brutal, and very unbalanced in favor of the enemy.)

I get what you’re saying . . . I know the feeling, but with me not needing to be on every day to do “the grind” as you call it I feel fine if I’m not logging in one day. If I do decide to go get revenge on the Ethereals for last night’s DISMAL outing I can do that. If I want to mess around looking for Minecraft mods I can do that. If I just want to walk away from the TV and catch up on my backlog of shows I watch? I can do that. GW2 is going to be there when I get back and when I’m willing to give it my attention.

So to answer your question:

“Remember the one where grind weasn’t present? where you could just enjoy the contenet?”

Yeah, the last game I played where there wasn’t some form of busywork and grind probably was Minecraft in creative when I was looking for a way to do Gothic arches and trying out measurements and different accents. I enjoyed that content immensely because I got to show it off to an artist friend of mine who said “That looks cool!”

If you mean inside GW2? I don’t play if I don’t enjoy the content. If I feel frustrated and it’s only getting worse I’ll beg off. (“/guild Okay folks that’s enough for me tonight, catch you later!” Alt+F4) If I don’t feel like “grinding for materials” then screw it, I’ll find a jumping puzzle I want to do.

(Loreclaw Expanse. Gods I am getting to hate that one. Want to talk about feeling like a grind? Yeah, failing that one over and over in the traps comes close. I don’t walk away because I want the satisfaction of finishing it.)

Or I’ll remember some DE chain I enjoyed, like “Assault on the Ascalon Settlement” in Gendarran . . . yeah that one is a bit of nostalgia. (“I saved this place from Titans, Mantle, and gods know what else I am not going to let centaurs overrun it.”)

I dunno, maybe the grind is lost in the enjoyment I’m having or it doesn’t have the frustration effect since I just don’t do it all at once. I don’t have to, and there’s no prompt forcing me to get 100 Tiny Venom Sacs before I can get back to the stuff I like.

(No, there isn’t. Don’t point to my crafting comments and recurse this into those. I just said I leave that alone unless I actually want to do it that day. Often I make it serve double-duty by deciding to see what my charr warrior feels like today, as he’s still in Plains of Ashford. Hence, Tiny Venom Sacs.)

Also, take note. Nowhere in here did I say you were an idiot, or that you were wrong. to not like that stuff. Please don’t take it that way, it’s what you feel and it’s what you think. It’s valuable to hear this laid out in detail rather than “it’s all a grind!!!!!” with no details. Maybe it’ll help developers for other games reading these forums? I dunno.

I will tell you “you are wrong” for telling me I must hate that stuff I mentioned above.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

cegorach.5624:

Had you considered that you may suffer an internal contradiction between some of your ‘progressive’ ideas and those that you may consider to be ‘conservative’?

I know I do, and I’d suggest most ‘progressives’ within Western society also do.

I’m not sure what you mean by internal contradiction? I’m sure that I hold some values and beliefs that would be considered “conservative”, and none of the values and beliefs I consider “progressive” are absolute. Is that what you mean by contradiction?

So the point of the thread is to discuss how that occurs. How you would view things in game differently to RL – and of course it relates to how most of us find that our self-declared positions tend to be closely tied to the environment in which they are being exercised.

I don’t think anyone (unless I missed it) was making a communism/capitalism direct line, more to do with the broader philosophical bent that informs those idealised ideologies.

That was my mistake then, I was responding to your original post in which you related the division over Ascended gear to the difference between the value of “only those who work hard should be rewarded” (which I flippantly called capitalism, or more accurately the value of hard work giving you proportional rewards) and the value of “everyone deserves an equal chance and should be supported in order to reach their potential” (which again I flippantly referred to as communism, or the value of everyone having an equal proportion of rewards regardless of work).

I shouldn’t have mentioned those complex political ideologies because I know that’s not quite right, but my point was that those two broader perspectives don’t seem to reflect the issue over Ascended gear. It doesn’t seem to me like the core issue is work vs equality, so real-world values over work vs equality seems less helpful.

Yep, that’s what I mean by contradiction, and I am referring to the process of investigating those, which can be very interesting

In terms of the work vs equality argument, the reason I mention it is because it is common theme over and over:

- people saying the ‘manifesto’ was all about equality

vs

- people claiming ascended gear is awesome as it rewards the ‘hard work’ and ‘skill’ they have demonstrated as opposed to other players

I agree it’s not a perfect fit so this thread is about discussing where it does and doesn’t fit and then how that translates to real world values.

cegorach.5624:

In terms of the work vs equality argument, the reason I mention it is because it is common theme over and over:

- people saying the ‘manifesto’ was all about equality

vs

- people claiming ascended gear is awesome as it rewards the ‘hard work’ and ‘skill’ they have demonstrated as opposed to other players

See, I’m not sure the latter claim is made very often at all – perhaps you can correct me though. That latter claim seems to be what a lot of people against the idea of new gear project onto those who do not agree with them. (And I note that not only did you place requirements of skill and work inside inverted quotes to indicate they were debatable, but you also included a competitive comparison to other players.)

Isn’t it possible that some people support Ascended gear because it gives them something meaningful to do at end-game, it’s an extra challenge to overcome, or because the extra progression towards anything is satisfying to achieve? Isn’t it possible that your first claim about ‘equality’ is equally as debatable as ‘skill’ and ‘hard work’?

Again, I see the ideological conflict as Competition vs Advancement. I even think that explains why the negative feedback tends to outweighs the positive, because as a game with a significant PvP component, GW2 will probably tend to attract more people motivated strongly by Competition than less PvP-capable MMORPGs.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zoul.1087:

“Thank you, your answer therefore is . . . Legendary is better and Ascended is a waste of effort?”

No.

My answer is:

If legendary were the top tier and had better stats, people would compete for legendary. If ascended is the top tier (which it is right now) everyone has to have it. To be on an even playing field.

Your answer isn’t accurate enough, and has irrelevant information in it considering the question I asked.

If you could have the tier above Ascended without needing to do it, would you still be going for Ascended?

The question seems like a hard attempt to twist my words.

Let me say it a different way. Its simple.

Lets say there was some tier of items that had the highest stats. (lets call it nothing)

Then yes people would compete for nothing with the highest tier of stats.

I am saying people will compete for the highest stats, no matter what you call the item.

My friend, if I wanted to twist your words, I’d “frankenquote” you :P What I’m trying to do is get to the heart of your issue so I know whether or not to agree.

In this case, I’d agree with the qualifier of “some people will always compete for the highest stats”. Mostly because I wouldn’t be, and if one person isn’t then everyone isn’t.

Pardon my intrusion, but I can understand Zoul’s frustration because you keep deflecting especially since he was quoting a line of thought regarding how there are so many people currently playing FotM. Granted Zoul also missed out mentioning one important thing, if people are none the wiser then they will attempt to achieve nothing.

For example, if everyone has a dollar and only a dollar most would be content while there will be those who will always be dissatisfied, however everyone would think the same ‘I am equal to my neighbor and they are equal to me. Neither of us have a greater advantage of wealth.’ If suddenly it becomes aware to the group that they can have two dollars verses one that is what begins the train of thought of ‘I am no longer equal to my neighbor and they have a greater advantage of wealth.’ This change in mentality then starts to create the ‘need’ to return to being equal or to be greater. That was what I am comprehending Zoul was try to bring up.

In context to the OP’s thread, what determines the ‘need’ is really how you perceive your time. Real life and human nature do bring themselves into video games, because unlike movies and books, you invest a bit of yourself into them. Those who say they clearly and distinctly do not probably don’t realize that they do. Little nuances of their personalities and mindsets affect not only the decisions they make in a game, but how they handle their in game gold, organize their banks, socially interact with other players, and play style of fighting.

What the OP proposes is that the there are only two groups of value of time in game correlated by the value of time outside of the game. That could not be farther from the truth, as this thread has proven. Time has value and how it’s measured is a mix of personal and worldly. However I think we can all agree that everyone wants a return on the investment of time they put into the game, whether it’s an enjoyable experience or higher stated armor everyone wants something for the time they sunk in.

To answer your question regarding chasing Ascended vs Legendaries, even with a lucky break, I would go for which ever was the best investment of my time. At this point, based on my own personal future predictions, that would be Legendaries unless Anet doubles back on their word on Legendaries always being the BiS as apposed to Ascended being the BiS until the next tier.

cegorach.5624:

If you’re someone who in real life believes that only those who work hard should be rewarded, is that a view you will transpose onto a game and vice versa?

If you believe that everyone deserves an equal chance and should be supported in order to reach their potential, do you apply that to both online and offline activities?

I’d be curious to hear from people who are strongly progressive or conservative in real life but reverse their position in an online game.

I just wanted to point out that if you believe in hard work, you kinda have to believe in equal opportunity. Hard work isn’t rewarded in an environment of unequal opportunity, such as a caste system or a system with a divine ruling class. The US political parties might muddy that with their rhetoric, but it’s really not an either/or choice. They’re simply arguing about how to ensure opportunity. Liberals seek to provide it through progressive legislation. Conservatives seek to protect it by reducing government involvement.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

cegorach.5624:

In terms of the work vs equality argument, the reason I mention it is because it is common theme over and over:

- people saying the ‘manifesto’ was all about equality

vs

- people claiming ascended gear is awesome as it rewards the ‘hard work’ and ‘skill’ they have demonstrated as opposed to other players

See, I’m not sure the latter claim is made very often at all – perhaps you can correct me though. That latter claim seems to be what a lot of people against the idea of new gear project onto those who do not agree with them. (And I note that not only did you place requirements of skill and work inside inverted quotes to indicate they were debatable, but you also included a competitive comparison to other players.)

Isn’t it possible that some people support Ascended gear because it gives them something meaningful to do at end-game, it’s an extra challenge to overcome, or because the extra progression towards anything is satisfying to achieve? Isn’t it possible that your first claim about ‘equality’ is equally as debatable as ‘skill’ and ‘hard work’?

Again, I see the ideological conflict as Competition vs Advancement. I even think that explains why the negative feedback tends to outweighs the positive, because as a game with a significant PvP component, GW2 will probably tend to attract more people motivated strongly by Competition than less PvP-capable MMORPGs.

I did see that claim made repeatedly, especially in a few of the ‘gearscore’ threads/argument.

Though some of those seem to have disappeared…

It was one of the motivations for making the thread.

RoChan.1926:

Pardon my intrusion, but I can understand Zoul’s frustration because you keep deflecting especially since he was quoting a line of thought regarding how there are so many people currently playing FotM. Granted Zoul also missed out mentioning one important thing, if people are none the wiser then they will attempt to achieve nothing.

For example, if everyone has a dollar and only a dollar most would be content while there will be those who will always be dissatisfied, however everyone would think the same ‘I am equal to my neighbor and they are equal to me. Neither of us have a greater advantage of wealth.’ If suddenly it becomes aware to the group that they can have two dollars verses one that is what begins the train of thought of ‘I am no longer equal to my neighbor and they have a greater advantage of wealth.’ This change in mentality then starts to create the ‘need’ to return to being equal or to be greater. That was what I am comprehending Zoul was try to bring up.

To answer your question regarding chasing Ascended vs Legendaries, even with a lucky break, I would go for which ever was the best investment of my time. At this point, based on my own personal future predictions, that would be Legendaries unless Anet doubles back on their word on Legendaries always being the BiS as apposed to Ascended being the BiS until the next tier.

Thank you, no pardon is necessary because you’re giving me things to read and consider. Your analogy is about greed, and the need to “keep up with the Jones’s” I think it’s called in older idiom.

My problem, if you can call it that, is that I don’t see quite yet where it’s required. Wanted? Perhaps. Required? Only in the mind, not in the game.

(Except for Agony. You, yeah, might want to think about getting some if you plan on pushing to higher difficulties. Then again, I’m equating that to “Hard Mode” content on GW1; only through time and effort learning how to deal with the changed areas could you progress. It was a “grind” of a different sort, though if the Agony is connected to attacks which can be evaded . . . then skill is still rewarded. The gear becomes a safety net. Since I have not PERSONALLY experienced this and know nobody who has? I’ll just relate this and say “and that is what I have been told”.)

That’s where this topic kind of starts . . . human nature/human behavior. There’s not an easy answer here other than for people to accept their conclusions might not be shared, and it’s okay to not like something. I don’t like chopped onion on my burgers, but I kind of have to put up with it if I hit a McDonalds and they forget to leave them off.

On your last response to my question: You mean “BiS” as “Best in Show” right? Yeah that’s why I’m pondering it . . . the one thing Exotics and Legendaries don’t have is “Infusion” . . . currently. So far that’s only a problem if I choose to do Fractals at a difficulty of 10+, so I can just steer clear of it until I get my hands on some. Until then, I’ll be doing Daily and working on that Monthly . . .

(Dungeons? Well, okay, ANet . . . I’ll give it a shot. “/guild So who wants to make a plan? We do dungeons together rather than apart, and we hit WvW as a group and go knock over supply camps?” And if I don’t make the quota, well . . . meh, it’s a shame. I could have used those Jugs of Karma. Tough break.)

cegorach.5624:

Roven Leafsong.8917:

cegorach.5624:

In terms of the work vs equality argument, the reason I mention it is because it is common theme over and over:

- people saying the ‘manifesto’ was all about equality

vs

- people claiming ascended gear is awesome as it rewards the ‘hard work’ and ‘skill’ they have demonstrated as opposed to other players

See, I’m not sure the latter claim is made very often at all – perhaps you can correct me though. That latter claim seems to be what a lot of people against the idea of new gear project onto those who do not agree with them. (And I note that not only did you place requirements of skill and work inside inverted quotes to indicate they were debatable, but you also included a competitive comparison to other players.)

Isn’t it possible that some people support Ascended gear because it gives them something meaningful to do at end-game, it’s an extra challenge to overcome, or because the extra progression towards anything is satisfying to achieve? Isn’t it possible that your first claim about ‘equality’ is equally as debatable as ‘skill’ and ‘hard work’?

Again, I see the ideological conflict as Competition vs Advancement. I even think that explains why the negative feedback tends to outweighs the positive, because as a game with a significant PvP component, GW2 will probably tend to attract more people motivated strongly by Competition than less PvP-capable MMORPGs.

I did see that claim made repeatedly, especially in a few of the ‘gearscore’ threads/argument.

Though some of those seem to have disappeared…

It was one of the motivations for making the thread.

It possibly disappeared because it’s much easier to choose the statistics to discuss; in that case it’s math and you can’t argue with math.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It possibly disappeared because it’s much easier to choose the statistics to discuss; in that case it’s math and you can’t argue with math.

I’m not sure what you mean here, but I suspect that thread disappeared because it was essentially started with the intent of trolling. It seemed to have a lot of posters (especially the OP) requesting a feature not because they actually wanted it, but because it was provocative to do so. I suspect that by exaggerating the views of people that had different motivations to their own, they were hoping to build a strawman argument that would galvanise supporters into further outrage.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It possibly disappeared because it’s much easier to choose the statistics to discuss; in that case it’s math and you can’t argue with math.

I’m not sure what you mean here, but I suspect that thread disappeared because it was essentially started with the intent of trolling. It seemed to have a lot of posters (especially the OP) requesting a feature not because they actually wanted it, but because it was provocative to do so. I suspect that by exaggerating the views of people that had different motivations to their own, they were hoping to build a strawman argument that would galvanise supporters into further outrage.

Very likely, but I’d like to not talk ill of the dead (topic).

Love the post and discussion OP.

My 2 cents. Newly introduced game mechanics allow an extra avenue for exclusion that wasn’t there before. I think most people will agree that being excluded from an activity they wish to participate in based on their current situation by other or game mechanics is not ‘fun.’

The game has recently introduced new mechanics that encourage segregation. I cannot join a level 6 fractal group if I have not done every stage along the way. It can be difficult and frustrating to find a group to do the additional stages if I missed the bandwagon. This will only get worse with time as more people get to level 20+ fractals, no one will want to join you for 1 – 19 so you can play. This is even worse online as internet relationships are more and more fair weather friendships (as evidenced by studies that social media is leading to a loss of empathy in the current teen generation).

This gets worse when you add the gear requirements and gating for conditions like agony. Suddenly, I need to grind for gear as well as fractal levels to play with most people. Sure people will say get your guild to help you or make friends to help you do it but that is a false argument. How do I make friends if I am excluded from guilds and groups based on the fact that I am not in good enough gear/have right fractal level? It’s catch 22 and the train has left the station and getting further away all the time.

We have seen this time and again in other MMO’s. Blizzard had to introduce badges to try to help bridge the gap so more than 5% of the population could see high end raid content. Badges meant your could grind non gear gated dungeons for badges to get skip tiers of gear. Even then it was an imperfect solution.

Guild Wars 2 promised to be different. It promised a level playing field that all could participate in even if they had missed months of game play. Lost Shores changed that. Suddenly it said ‘you can’t play on the football team unless you have completed XYZ training camps and acquired X brand shoes.’

Anet can blame the changes on human nature and not their mechanics but the reality is they provided the tools for to enable exclusion. This is backed up by hard game mechanics (fractal level and agony condition).

To answer the OP’s question with an my opinion. This is not so much a left and right situation. It is about creating game mechanics which encourage or hardline reinforce anti social behaviour. I believe in working a certain amount for something, I don’t believe in spending huge amounts of time on a leisure activity to compete when their are no real world tangible rewards.

I believe game mechanics should encourage inclusive behaviours, they did it in Aion (rewards for high levels helping lower levels quest) rather than mechanics that encourage segregation, there is enough of that in the real world and it is a false argument. One of the early posters brought up laws of physics to justify a social argument. Firstly, that is a bad comparison, one is a set of laws not influenced by humanity/culture that is limited by our understanding, the other is a social concept that is dictated and manipulated by culture through media. There is a reason why theory X for management styles is on the decline in terms of credibility and sits at the bottom of Maslow’s triangle for hierarchy of needs. You can’t use laws of physics as a set of rules for human nature. That is like applying physical laws to the ability to my character to throw fireballs in game. Apples and oranges so to speak.

TLDR: Games should be designed to be inclusive with mechanics that encourage the best qualities in human nature, rewarding helping others. The current shift in game direction encourages exclusivity through hard coded mechanics and objectively is bad. You can create mechanics that reward people for being inclusive while encouraging higher skill caps or a sense of accomplishment. They are not mutually exclusive.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Very likely, but I’d like to not talk ill of the dead (topic).

Ah, very true. Well said, sir or madam.

cegorach.5624:

I did see that claim made repeatedly, especially in a few of the ‘gearscore’ threads/argument.

Though some of those seem to have disappeared…

It was one of the motivations for making the thread.

I just scanned the merged Ascended gear MegaThread for all instances of the phrase ‘hard work’, and not one of the matching posts involved someone saying that they liked Ascended gear because it rewarded their ‘hard work’. Almost all instances were posters characterising the opposing perspective as too work-oriented (including one poster who was indeed for the change, but was characterising his or her opponents as being worried about their ‘hard work’ to get exotics being superceded). One or two were references to Arenanet’s ‘hard work’ or the ‘hard work’ lost when PvP gains are lost due to disconnection, so they were irrelevant.

I know that a direct phrase search isn’t comprehensive, but with over 10,000 replies I would suggest that rewards for ‘hard work’ is not a commonly used argument at all. I’m not saying that it has never been said, but it certainly seems like a poor generalisation to me.

Instead, I think it is interesting how many arguments against Ascended gear use keywords like ‘compete’, ‘compared to others’, ‘skill-based’ and so on. Perspectives that I think reveal quite competitive motivations. Likewise, arguments for Ascended gear, at least that I’ve seen, tend to use keywords like ‘ways to advance’, ‘get better’, ‘more stuff’, ‘improve’, ‘show off’ and so on.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Snip

I have become conditioned to start off with that as some people get their undies in a bunch if you intrude on a not so private discussion. ;__; While it was greed in terms of money it is still a situation of “haves and have nots” which is also congruent with the terms of elitism.

Well, I don’t think it’s warranted for anything PvE related except as you mentioned in higher levels of FotM where it’s just a hardmode version thus avoidable to some extent. I say that because of the human condition of exclusion rather than inclusion making it hard to find and create parties after a certain amount of groups of people have moved passed those levels currently (that is both community and Anet’s problem in my opinion but that’s a debate for another time). In sPvP there is no need at all since everything is standardized, however in WvW that is where the argument holds ground since is unstandardized PvP where both skill and gearscore can make a difference between a win or a lose (zerg vs zerg included since it consists of a group of people acting as one usually.) Yet if you don’t do WvW actively then it won’t matter to have Ascended gear or not.

You are correct there is no easy or straight forward answer to what constitutes as a reward. However I don’t think it’s all just about the gear either but it’s not necessarily the human nature that the OP described. A lot of players were expressing it as a need to be at the top of the game, or that they received a gear grind they didn’t want but now needed but the problem with gamers and most consumers is that they really don’t know what they want or how to express their disappointments regarding products. There was a really great game article (that I can’t find now) where in the Borderlands 2 development a lot of what beta testers complained about were not truly what bothered them. One example was where they complained that the characters ran too slow, so Gearbox added more rocks to create the illusion of shorter distances. When the beta testers re-played they didn’t complain about the characters running too slow even though the speed was never changed. My sister and I had a similar experience with we first played GW2 as Humans and Norns complaining to each other how we hated that Norns ran so slow, until we realized that all races ran the same speed just the character models did not animate at the same speed we then stopped complaining because it no longer mattered.

The crux of the matter is that those who so strongly oppose the new gear is that they perceive a loss of choice. They reach this conclusion because they followed and studied the game as it was to be released and choose to play this game with those mindsets in mind. Suddenly the game does something different and they perceive they have lost their choice and that their decision to buy/play the game may have been altered if this had been privy to them prior to purchase. Moving along that it also causes a sense of unease to the future they also feel robbed of their choices to come. So the question then becomes is their perception wrong or their personalities effecting that perception?

What I feel though is happening is that instead of human nature to overcome/be greater it gets interchanged with the human condition as described in my money example an greed starts to rear it’s ugly head in the community. There have been instances of this occurring more frequently than before since the inception of the dungeon due to difficulty level with Ascended gear barely even making it into the equation.

[Edit]Sorry Tobias I kinda lost track of what I was trying to say in all that time and editing.
tl;dr: Reward is very subjective since time is hard to calculate. Human nature can often be interchanged with the Human condition causing fractures in the community due to power creeps. A lot of the uproar is really the perception of the loss of choice and not so much the OP or the power creep. However perception is everything, even down to if Ascended gear is good reward of time or not.

RoChan.1926:

[Edit]Sorry Tobias I kinda lost track of what I was trying to say in all that time and editing.
tl;dr: Reward is very subjective since time is hard to calculate. Human nature can often be interchanged with the Human condition causing fractures in the community due to power creeps. A lot of the uproar is really the perception of the loss of choice and not so much the OP or the power creep. However perception is everything, even down to if Ascended gear is good reward of time or not.

I have to use the tl:dr to quote you, otherwise I may not have room to reply

As I’ve said in other threads here, and elsewhere, and to a couple people in game . . . we really don’t know what the plan is. The rollout in phases may have seemed a good idea at the time but the way it turned out shows it probably . . . might have been best to get all the gear into the game at once, limit Fractals to difficulties < 10 until all the Ascended was ready in ways other than Fractals-trips . . . and then release it that way.

However, this isn’t my show to call the shots, and they might have had other considerations for doing it this way. I do not know, I only know what they say and what I would have done.

I think . . . if the gear was more widely available than from through Fractals the "grind’ feeling would have been better alleviated. I think if they were less coy about upcoming content and had explained themselves a little better about how they meant “the gap between Exotic and Legendary” which is thrown around a bit . . .
. . . if they had said this was a prelude to raising the level cap and they wanted this new level to fill “the gap” after they move from 80 to whatever next higher number, then maybe it’d make more sense.

Again, this is speculation and a healthy dose of “if I was there…”
(Assuming I hadn’t taken one look at the outcry and gone: “That’s it, I’m going home.”)

It’s part of why I was adopting “wait and see” and advocating patience. I’m wandering far afield now for this topic. Back on track.

Right now, most of the projections and stories are players trying to be bullies with a stick they figure ANet gave them to swing. It isn’t acceptable, and it’s not ANet who needs to handle that confrontation. If you want this sort of behavior to stop, you need to cut it off somehow else. I’m not talking about playing the social game back (LFG Fractals, casuals only!) I’m talking about . . . not playing that social game and shunning the elitism.

If they can’t get a group anymore and the people they thought were beneath their skill are having a good time . . . sweetest revenge there is. Living well.

I was pointed here by the OP from another thread, and am disappointed by it to be honest I do recommend the OP befriends some world class sociologists and behavioural psychologists to invite to the next dinner party too – they’ll get along great with his CERN-esque buddies and are fun to have around. I’ll refrain from including a Donnie Darko quote here, but a two dimensional over simplification of human behaviour is flawed and anything repeatedly presenting one is not really inspiring.

What is the purpose of your question – to identify if people act in opposition to their real values and nature when Role Playing? Well then the answer is yes, it has been observed and evidenced, tested and repeated, then finally accepted. The Stanford Prison Experiment is a VERY clear example of this and is over forty years old.

No one likes to be treated as a second class citizen. Right now, those of us who loathe dungeon grinds are being oppressed.

Columba.9730:

No one likes to be treated as a second class citizen. Right now, those of us who loathe dungeon grinds are being oppressed.

Well now we see the violence inherent in the system!

Riots in the street, mass panic, the dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together . . .

(. . . actually that sounds a lot like a standard day around Lion’s Arch.)

. . . again, though, this is why it would have been better (in my opinion) to not release this piecemail but “whole hog or none”.

Did you see that? He was oppressing me!