Guild Wars 2

Okay, I’m flat struggling with this, and I wanted to see if I’m just wildly off base.

I see content as having 3 major types of gate in GW2:

#1: Skill Gate. A skill gate is the best type of gate to access any content in a game (my opinion.) In order to progress past the gate, you have to play better. Not gear better, though you may have to re-evaluate stat choices in gear, but actually develop better tactics, communication and teamwork etc.

#2: Effort Gates. Effort gates are a middle ground in terms of gate. Here, you must invest a certain amount of effort, occasionally repeated effort, to reach a destination. Dungeon rewards are effort gated…. good skill will let you reach the rewards faster, but largely, simply repeating the effort will get you there. If you wish to invest more effort in smaller amounts of time (run the same dungeon over and over for an entire weekend) you can do that.

#3: Time gates. Doesn’t matter how much Skill or Effort you invest, you cannot get to the content any faster than anyone else. We all march in lock step.

And this is where I struggle. Lately, I log in, and perform the minimum effort required daily to get my A-net issued 1 Laural per account per day like a good little communist party member, ensuring that I acquire no more wealth than any other member of the Party, and then I try to figure out what I’m playing for. I try to organize a dungeon in my small guild, but half the guild members are saying “can’t, I need to get my daily done.”

And what’s behind this time gate? Ascended gear.

Yes, it’s optional gear…. but I’m a bit of a completionist. My 4 lvl 80s already have exotics, and this was the next step in the line for me…. but while I can hammer dungeons, gather mats, or do whatever else I want to get exotic gear…. if I want to work on ascended gear, I’m staring at time gates. 1 pristine fractal relic per day, 1 laural per day, not more than X comendations per week per guild event (asuming we manage to get to guild events in my small guild.)

So…. why do I want to play a game where content is locked behind time gates? Where I have to pick and choose which of my characters can have the good gear, and which will have to run on secondary gear….

I log on daily, I march next to my comrades in the zerg army, and I recieve my daily dole of rewards. Am I alone in this?

Here’s what I think is happening.

The developers can’t find a way to create content that is fun/challenging enough for a certain demographic to keep playing. In order to try to keep thier business, they’re placing these time gates on acsended gear in an effort to create a buffer of time to develop new content.

Personally I think this is a big mistake but, they’ll find out the hard way.

without dailies any hardcore player could be in BiS gear in less than a week easily, and then have nothing to do. It took me 2 days to go from my 1st lvl 80 to being in all exotic gear, about 5 days to have all the dungeon skins I wanted. The sad truth is there is really no endgame in gw2, there is 0 incentive to bring your realm glory in WvWvW by defeating the other 2 realms. The fractal “infinite” dungeon doesn’t get any harder with each successive level rather it just add artificial difficulty via agony (would it of been so hard to change the fight/level mechanics each tier and then scale damage and resists for those 10 levels?) oh and agony resists are based off of your RNG on getting loot.

Zepidel.5349:

without dailies any hardcore player could be in BiS gear in less than a week easily, and then have nothing to do. It took me 2 days to go from my 1st lvl 80 to being in all exotic gear, about 5 days to have all the dungeon skins I wanted. The sad truth is there is really no endgame in gw2, there is 0 incentive to bring your realm glory in WvWvW by defeating the other 2 realms. The fractal “infinite” dungeon doesn’t get any harder with each successive level rather it just add artificial difficulty via agony (would it of been so hard to change the fight/level mechanics each tier and then scale damage and resists for those 10 levels?) oh and agony resists are based off of your RNG on getting loot.

So,, time to bring back skill-based dungeons with extremely rare drops in end-chests (like new legendaries for example) & ecto alike mob drops. -> this will keep you playing for months until you got most of the rares u want, and it doesn’t feel like a grind, because it’s not easy content and you get great rewards from it. Also it would take you atleast a few weeks to properly do the dungeon. if not, then the dungeon is too easy.

CoRtex.2157:

Zepidel.5349:

without dailies any hardcore player could be in BiS gear in less than a week easily, and then have nothing to do. It took me 2 days to go from my 1st lvl 80 to being in all exotic gear, about 5 days to have all the dungeon skins I wanted. The sad truth is there is really no endgame in gw2, there is 0 incentive to bring your realm glory in WvWvW by defeating the other 2 realms. The fractal “infinite” dungeon doesn’t get any harder with each successive level rather it just add artificial difficulty via agony (would it of been so hard to change the fight/level mechanics each tier and then scale damage and resists for those 10 levels?) oh and agony resists are based off of your RNG on getting loot.

So,, time to bring back skill-based dungeons with extremely rare drops in end-chests (like new legendaries for example) & ecto alike mob drops. -> this will keep you playing for months until you got most of the rares u want, and it doesn’t feel like a grind, because it’s not easy content and you get great rewards from it.

Can they design content that is challenging enough though? Strategies to any encounter can be posted on youtube. The question is, can the developer create content that requires incredible coordination, communication and lightnig fast reflexes? So far from what I’ve seen; they can’t.

CassieGold.7460:

Okay, I’m flat struggling with this, and I wanted to see if I’m just wildly off base.
….

And what’s behind this time gate? Ascended gear. *

….

Ascended gear is more a symptom or distraction from the real insidious parasite – the cash shop. There are piles of articles on the topic of psychology and the hooks in MMOs and other games. Suffice to say the goal is to get you to log in everyday since if you do you are more closely attached to the game and therefore more likely to spend real money. Time gating and rewarding a specific currency accomplishes this goal, since you can’t ever catch up if you miss a day. Getting your friends to play and establishing social links that also pull you to play (Hello Guild Missions) is another psychological hook that is used to pretty good effect (see also EVERY facebook game).

Are Anet horrible people for doing this? Not really, it is after all a business. Like any other company you need to decide if their method of conducting business is one that you would like to support. In short, if time gates make you want to play less, then the correct decision is to play less.

CoRtex.2157:

Zepidel.5349:

without dailies any hardcore player could be in BiS gear in less than a week easily, and then have nothing to do. It took me 2 days to go from my 1st lvl 80 to being in all exotic gear, about 5 days to have all the dungeon skins I wanted. The sad truth is there is really no endgame in gw2, there is 0 incentive to bring your realm glory in WvWvW by defeating the other 2 realms. The fractal “infinite” dungeon doesn’t get any harder with each successive level rather it just add artificial difficulty via agony (would it of been so hard to change the fight/level mechanics each tier and then scale damage and resists for those 10 levels?) oh and agony resists are based off of your RNG on getting loot.

So,, time to bring back skill-based dungeons with extremely rare drops in end-chests (like new legendaries for example) & ecto alike mob drops. -> this will keep you playing for months until you got most of the rares u want, and it doesn’t feel like a grind, because it’s not easy content and you get great rewards from it. Also it would take you atleast a few weeks to properly do the dungeon. if not, then the dungeon is too easy.

There are plenty of games that do it exactly that way. I still wonder why people buy this one and then want to turn it into a carbon copy of some 20 MMOs already out there and ready for this type of player to buy.

For the record, I don’t mind somewhat challenging content, but I don’t want to play with sweat on my forehead all day long either and/or wipe 10,000 times in a row before a lucky critical hit finally downs the newest ridiculously overpowered gimmick boss. No thanks!

I love the “do what you want” approach in GW2 (and it’s not that there is no challenging stuff in the game) and would prefer it to stay that way. And yes, they need to make all Ascended gear buyable with Dungeon/Fractal tokens too, so people who don’t want to do dailies no longer have to. Problem solved.

thehipone.6812:

CassieGold.7460:

Okay, I’m flat struggling with this, and I wanted to see if I’m just wildly off base.
….

And what’s behind this time gate? Ascended gear. *

….

Ascended gear is more a symptom or distraction from the real insidious parasite – the cash shop. There are piles of articles on the topic of psychology and the hooks in MMOs and other games. Suffice to say the goal is to get you to log in everyday since if you do you are more closely attached to the game and therefore more likely to spend real money. Time gating and rewarding a specific currency accomplishes this goal, since you can’t ever catch up if you miss a day. Getting your friends to play and establishing social links that also pull you to play (Hello Guild Missions) is another psychological hook that is used to pretty good effect (see also EVERY facebook game).

Are Anet horrible people for doing this? Not really, it is after all a business. Like any other company you need to decide if their method of conducting business is one that you would like to support. In short, if time gates make you want to play less, then the correct decision is to play less.

Yeah, I get the business angle of it all. This kind of reward system is likely what’s driving the increase in concurancy that A-net is reporting, and without doubt, the cash shop is doing well (see the results of the recent storage sale.)

And I agree, ultimately my options are: March on the treadmill with the zerg army, or … don’t.

Makes me sad though that after so many years with GW1, I never had this feeling….. and yet, now it’s there.

The only other thing I can think to do is exactly what I’m doing now: Provide feedback and hope that the feedback gets attention.

You do realize you could use skill or effort and get ascended items via fractals as well right? Though it won’t have utility slots it will have options for all the same defensive and offensive infusions as the laurel gear.

The laurel gear is added as an option for people who 1. don’t want to use the skill/effort paths to getting ascendant items or 2. have maxed out on the skill/effort returns and want more still.

In either case I have no issue with time being the alternative to skill/effort.

TabMorte.5297:

You do realize you could use skill or effort and get ascended items via fractals as well right? Though it won’t have utility slots it will have options for all the same defensive and offensive infusions as the laurel gear.

The laurel gear is added as an option for people who 1. don’t want to use the skill/effort paths to getting ascendant items or 2. have maxed out on the skill/effort returns and want more still.

In either case I have no issue with time being the alternative to skill/effort.

Of coarse. That particular demographic doesn’t mind repeating an easy task for long periods of time. The sad part is that there is no equivelent reward for the player who enjoys extremely challeging content.

The fractals are the hardest difficulty content we have. We can’t get accessories or amulets from there. The funny part about all of this is that this is the only content in the game that actualy requires acsended items. No other content in this game requires acsended items.

TabMorte.5297:

You do realize you could use skill or effort and get ascended items via fractals as well right? Though it won’t have utility slots it will have options for all the same defensive and offensive infusions as the laurel gear.

The laurel gear is added as an option for people who 1. don’t want to use the skill/effort paths to getting ascendant items or 2. have maxed out on the skill/effort returns and want more still.

In either case I have no issue with time being the alternative to skill/effort.

>skill and effort
You do realize rings only have a chance to drop once a day right? its just another daily. Unless you are referring to the 250 or so fractals it takes to finish your back piece?

They are constantly adding in new ways of getting gear. I don’t see how something that makes you have an incentive to log on every day is a bad thing honestly.

Skill gates are difficult and cause a lot of complications and problems unfortunately. The new AC dungeon fixes are a pretty interesting way of looking at them, but here’s the thing:

They -can’t-, let me repeat CAN’T, waste a huge amount of time designing content that only 1% of the population will utilize. That’s a waste of resources. So they need to balance it so that even with skill gating, a good proportion of the community will be able to do it.

I mean, look at the backlash from the holiday jumping puzzles. Ouch.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

They are constantly adding in new ways of getting gear. I don’t see how something that makes you have an incentive to log on every day is a bad thing honestly.

Skill gates are difficult and cause a lot of complications and problems unfortunately. The new AC dungeon fixes are a pretty interesting way of looking at them, but here’s the thing:

They -can’t-, let me repeat CAN’T, waste a huge amount of time designing content that only 1% of the population will utilize. That’s a waste of resources. So they need to balance it so that even with skill gating, a good proportion of the community will be able to do it.

I mean, look at the backlash from the holiday jumping puzzles. Ouch.

ya thats because no one gave a kitten about AC the loot is the same as every other dungeon, and the skins are awful. If they added something challenging with decent rewards people would be all over it.

I honestly don’t mind. Anet is significantly lengthening the game for me.

I’m not being sarcastic at all. It gives me a long-term goal to work towards. Before the Lost Shores patch, a Legendary was the only thing I played for. Now I have many many goals to work towards, and I’m pretty happy about it.

BTW Cassie, I disagree at what you call “gated content.” I don’t view gear as “content.” The only content that’s really gated right now is high level fractals and guild missions. Not having those ascended gear isn’t gating you from anything at all.

Calae.1738:

Here’s what I think is happening.

The developers can’t find a way to create content that is fun/challenging enough for a certain demographic to keep playing. In order to try to keep thier business, they’re placing these time gates on acsended gear in an effort to create a buffer of time to develop new content.

Personally I think this is a big mistake but, they’ll find out the hard way.

I think the dailies themselves, with laurels, are just damage control around the way they implemented vertical progression. Since they were following WoW’s lead they put it in a dungeon. It seems logical as that’s the way WoW does it. Here, an outrage ensued. I’m sure for most it was the manner of implementation, for others, those who understand VP, it was the VP itself.

Their solution to their failed implementation is the daily/monthly and the currency earned there. I’m sure this was something rushed from conception through implementation—remember it’s damage control. And, yes, I’m sure time-gating was implemented for a reason and they probably gave this some thought. Hopefully, not a lot of thought if this is what they came up with. I have 8 level 80 characters. That’s 8 months (sans dungeons/WvW) to get them 1 piece of gear. It’s silly on the face of it. The problem, of course, is that they don’t understand VP and how to manage it.

I do agree it’s a big mistake and Anet seems intent on learning game design the hard way. They would have had a far easier go of it if they just stuck with their manifesto.

Raine.1394:

Calae.1738:

Here’s what I think is happening.

The developers can’t find a way to create content that is fun/challenging enough for a certain demographic to keep playing. In order to try to keep thier business, they’re placing these time gates on acsended gear in an effort to create a buffer of time to develop new content.

Personally I think this is a big mistake but, they’ll find out the hard way.

I think the dailies themselves, with laurels, are just damage control around the way they implemented vertical progression. Since they were following WoW’s lead they put it in a dungeon. It seems logical as that’s the way WoW does it. Here, an outrage ensued. I’m sure for most it was the manner of implementation, for others, those who understand VP, it was the VP itself.

Their solution to their failed implementation is the daily/monthly and the currency earned there. I’m sure this was something rushed from conception through implementation—remember it’s damage control. And, yes, I’m sure time-gating was implemented for a reason and they probably gave this some thought. Hopefully, not a lot of thought if this is what they came up with. I have 8 level 80 characters. That’s 8 months (sans dungeons/WvW) to get them 1 piece of gear. It’s silly on the face of it. The problem, of course, is that they don’t understand VP and how to manage it.

I do agree it’s a big mistake and Anet seems intent on learning game design the hard way. They would have had a far easier go of it if they just stuck with their manifesto.

Oh my god.

One of the manifesto/vertical progression people rears their heads out from the mire again.

I thought you had all left or died or something.

I’ll have to document this for future generations.

But in all seriousness, your point is good about the needing 8 months to get one piece of gear for 8 characters (very good in fact, I had never thought about that before), however the fact that you used charged phrases and obviously just want to start a fight kind of negate any point you had. :/

Time gate is to prevent people from grinding out stuff faster than they should.
It works much better than requiring 8000 of 1 item.

I think many people (myself included) would not have an issue with the current daily system if Ascended amulets and accessories were also obtainable in Fractals (where it is required for further progress).

Toxyn.9608:

I think many people (myself included) would not have an issue with the current daily system if Ascended amulets and accessories were also obtainable in Fractals (where it is required for further progress).

Yea, with all these nerfs you don’t need even exotics outside the FotM.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Time gate is to prevent people from grinding out stuff faster than they should.
It works much better than requiring 8000 of 1 item.

That’s like saying people shouldn’t eat ice cream too fast because they’ll get to the bottom of the bowl too soon :P

Grind for token allows the player to pace their progress where hard time gates takes the choice away from the player.

Time gate is a horrible way to manage grinding. Basically, it works for the first batch of players but hurts the late comers. I’m fine with it now cause I’m part of the first batch; however, from experience when I encounter this in MMOs as a new player, I just find a new game completely.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Raine.1394:

Calae.1738:

Here’s what I think is happening.

The developers can’t find a way to create content that is fun/challenging enough for a certain demographic to keep playing. In order to try to keep thier business, they’re placing these time gates on acsended gear in an effort to create a buffer of time to develop new content.

Personally I think this is a big mistake but, they’ll find out the hard way.

I think the dailies themselves, with laurels, are just damage control around the way they implemented vertical progression. Since they were following WoW’s lead they put it in a dungeon. It seems logical as that’s the way WoW does it. Here, an outrage ensued. I’m sure for most it was the manner of implementation, for others, those who understand VP, it was the VP itself.

Their solution to their failed implementation is the daily/monthly and the currency earned there. I’m sure this was something rushed from conception through implementation—remember it’s damage control. And, yes, I’m sure time-gating was implemented for a reason and they probably gave this some thought. Hopefully, not a lot of thought if this is what they came up with. I have 8 level 80 characters. That’s 8 months (sans dungeons/WvW) to get them 1 piece of gear. It’s silly on the face of it. The problem, of course, is that they don’t understand VP and how to manage it.

I do agree it’s a big mistake and Anet seems intent on learning game design the hard way. They would have had a far easier go of it if they just stuck with their manifesto.

Oh my god.

One of the manifesto/vertical progression people rears their heads out from the mire again.

I thought you had all left or died or something.

I’ll have to document this for future generations.

But in all seriousness, your point is good about the needing 8 months to get one piece of gear for 8 characters (very good in fact, I had never thought about that before), however the fact that you used charged phrases and obviously just want to start a fight kind of negate any point you had. :/

Charged phrases? Really? I was talking about an element of game design. For a good example of a charged phrase, let’s see, how about "Oh my god.

One of the manifesto/vertical progression people rears their heads out from the mire again."

That would be a good example of a charged phrase. It says absolutely nothing about the issue at hand and is directed to the man, that would be ad hominem in Latin. It is a device used as an admission that you have run out of intellectual gas but want to respond regardless.

The irony of this is that gating was created as a counter for grinders.

The habit of people in MMO to burn all content immediately greatly undermines the longevity of the game and creates big disparities from casual players and hardcore players, therefore companies are forced to counter this by placing gates that prevent players from exhausting content faster than they should.
These “gates” are a mere measure to prevent people to use grinding to get to things faster than it’s intended to.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

The irony of this is that gating was created as a counter for grinders.

The habit of people in MMO to burn all content immediately greatly undermines the longevity of the game and creates big disparities from casual players and hardcore players, therefore companies are forced to counter this by placing gates that prevent players from exhausting content faster than they should.
These “gates” are a mere measure to prevent people to use grinding to get to things faster than it’s intended to.

And you still have to grind
What happened to skill based game?

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

The irony of this is that gating was created as a counter for grinders.

The habit of people in MMO to burn all content immediately greatly undermines the longevity of the game and creates big disparities from casual players and hardcore players, therefore companies are forced to counter this by placing gates that prevent players from exhausting content faster than they should.
These “gates” are a mere measure to prevent people to use grinding to get to things faster than it’s intended to.

The funny part is, I never thought of the way I played as being paticularly grindy compared to how I played in Korean grindfest games 10 years ago. In general, I like to set up each of my characters, geared and built for specific types of play, and then play the game…. My guardian is my support character (duh), my mesmer is a utility based character for dungeons, my warrior is a fountain of DPS, and my thief is a platform for open world play and WvW.

In looking at ascended gear with utility infusions I thought to myself: “this is kind of perfect for how I play. A Magic Find infusion would be good for the open world play, the character that’s dungeon dwelling can maximize on a Gold from Monsters infusion, and I can keep working on Agony Resist for my guardian, since she’s the only character I take to fractals….”

Then I look at the time to accomplish such a goal….. and there is nothing that speeds that process up at all.

It’s very…. escalator system. When I taught martial arts, we talked a lot about belt tests that couldn’t be failed…. just show up to class for 3 months and get your next belt…. and how it felt that such systems devalued the achievement of the belt once it was ‘earned.’

So, Ascended gear, and the benefits it can confer, are not a goal to gain with skill or effort…. it’s something to recieve for logging on every day and punching the clock.

I’m less thrilled by that.

Zepidel.5349:

without dailies any hardcore player could be in BiS gear in less than a week easily, and then have nothing to do. It took me 2 days to go from my 1st lvl 80 to being in all exotic gear, about 5 days to have all the dungeon skins I wanted. The sad truth is there is really no endgame in gw2, there is 0 incentive to bring your realm glory in WvWvW by defeating the other 2 realms. The fractal “infinite” dungeon doesn’t get any harder with each successive level rather it just add artificial difficulty via agony (would it of been so hard to change the fight/level mechanics each tier and then scale damage and resists for those 10 levels?) oh and agony resists are based off of your RNG on getting loot.

Bullkitten. Gearing is not “something to do”. It’s a waste of kittening time. Doing dailies is a waste of 10-20 minutes and is boring as kitten.

Playing the game is what I want to do and I’m hardcore as kitten. I’m not going to stop WvWing or dungeoning once I get full gear(I didn’t stop once I got full exotics so your point is kittening kitten).

It’s a time gate. That’s all. They want you to wait upwards of a month to gear one character and that’s only with the gear they have currently. When all this gear gets fully released, you’ll probably be looking at a year for an alt to gear it up fully.

This is a STUPID system. You think I’m going to quit because I got fully geared quickly? No, I’m going to quit because it takes me MONTHS just to get an amulet and 2 earrings. kitten that kitten.

I agree. The time gates are starting to get ridiculous. I wouldn’t mind them so much if there were alternative methods of acquiring the gear, but alas, there are not.

It’s a silly, fun-wrecking mechanism.

im gonna use my laurels to buy two minies as a protest against gear treadmill. it is too bad it will take a few months though because of stupid gating.

Calae.1738:

Here’s what I think is happening.

The developers can’t find a way to create content that is fun/challenging enough for a certain demographic to keep playing. In order to try to keep thier business, they’re placing these time gates on acsended gear in an effort to create a buffer of time to develop new content.

Personally I think this is a big mistake but, they’ll find out the hard way.

World of Warcraft.

I love your communism comparison. I, myself, would also like some sort of activity that wouldn’t require me to have like 200 guild members to get those earrings. You need to be persistent for fractals. You need to do super easy dailies and repeat them for years to achieve anything. There should be more ways to get ascended items.

On some level I can understand Anet’s reasoning behind these heinous “time gates”.
They want to give the hardcore raiding robots a reason to stay without turning this into a true grind fest, loot treadmill, sad faced MMO.

My real problem is that they’re placing these shiny ascended baubles right outside my reach. Had this been another MMO clone I would just resign myself thinking that I’ll never get them by myself without some serious group effort or grind. Anet looked at the problem, removed the effort part and replaced it with time.

It’s all linear progression now. It doesn’t matter who you are or how you play. You simply log in and do the very easy daily tasks and you’re one step closer to the goal set by Anet. You can’t throw your money or your own personal time (grind) at it to move it faster.

Looking at the previous threads around here I believe that a truly enlightened solution would be to allow both ways so that players can play how they want, as advertised.
I would gladly brave the RNG or fractal relics/dungeon tokens/etc. so I can finally stop thinking about ascended gear and enjoy the game again.

Of course the truly enlightened thing would have been to never include these items, but once they’re in nobody should be surprised if the majority wants a piece.

It’s lazy development.

If you had put skins or convenience items behind the time gate, that would be one thing.

But now it’s statistical advantages. That’s NOT what I purchased this game for.

Mint Rubber.6543:

Looking at the previous threads around here I believe that a truly enlightened solution would be to allow both ways so that players can play how they want, as advertised.
I would gladly brave the RNG or fractal relics/dungeon tokens/etc. so I can finally stop thinking about ascended gear and enjoy the game again.

Of course the truly enlightened thing would have been to never include these items, but once they’re in nobody should be surprised if the majority wants a piece.

I’m with you here. I don’t even mind 50 ecto for a piece of gear…. but I would rather have 50 ecto + 250 t6 mats than 50 ecto + 40 days of dailies.

Making an item obtainable via Skilled play (Fractals), Elevator play (laurals), or alternate play (I do something completely different, gain resources and buy the item) should be a no-brainer….. people can choose their method.

You can still make alternate play methods prohibitively expensive vs the skilled play method and people will gravitate towards the skilled play content you want them playing.

But the hard Time Gate in an alternate method … that just flat hurts.