Guild Wars 2

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

completely agree, whatever happened to “we don’t like to make it a grind” ? well getting to yet another max of crafting is not only an insult to the people who already spent time getting to max it’s and insult to the rest of the community that believed in you.

400 is the cap atm the are pushing it to 500 and now there a reason to be a craftier other then to level up alts.

you mean besides the fact of already being at max and making your own gear?

let’s clarify so now you think that crafting was not necessary to make the exotic gear, previously the max gear anyone could get, or be able to make all of the enchantments that go with it because they added a new tier which was completely unnecessary and instead of actually making the appropriate changes to the T6 mats to make them account bound and available from nodes and activities already in game like other games have done, they’ve made a whole new tier of T7 mats to make people have to grind even more (because there wasn’t enough grind in the game already) to get to a new max?

Did I cover everything?

You do not need crafting to get the “max” gear even after the update it just a chose that a player can make. But up to this point craftier had no reason to level up crafting other then for the free exp to level up.

Since the current update is weapons let’s talk about that. You can get one by crafting — or as a rare drop. Given that:

• The chance to get onto the rare table is small
• Once you’re on the rare table, you’ve got a better chance to get an event item you don’t want than a rare, a rare than an exotic — and maybe an exotic than an Ascended
• If the perfect storm happens and you get an Ascended weapon box drop, what are the odds you’ll get the stats you want?

are drops a realistic means to get an Ascended weapon?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

completely agree, whatever happened to “we don’t like to make it a grind” ? well getting to yet another max of crafting is not only an insult to the people who already spent time getting to max it’s and insult to the rest of the community that believed in you.

400 is the cap atm the are pushing it to 500 and now there a reason to be a craftier other then to level up alts.

you mean besides the fact of already being at max and making your own gear?

let’s clarify so now you think that crafting was not necessary to make the exotic gear, previously the max gear anyone could get, or be able to make all of the enchantments that go with it because they added a new tier which was completely unnecessary and instead of actually making the appropriate changes to the T6 mats to make them account bound and available from nodes and activities already in game like other games have done, they’ve made a whole new tier of T7 mats to make people have to grind even more (because there wasn’t enough grind in the game already) to get to a new max?

Did I cover everything?

You do not need crafting to get the “max” gear even after the update it just a chose that a player can make. But up to this point craftier had no reason to level up crafting other then for the free exp to level up.

Since the current update is weapons let’s talk about that. You can get one by crafting — or as a rare drop. Given that:

• The chance to get onto the rare table is small
• Once you’re on the rare table, you’ve got a better chance to get an event item you don’t want than a rare, a rare than an exotic — and maybe an exotic than an Ascended
• If the perfect storm happens and you get an Ascended weapon box drop, what are the odds you’ll get the stats you want?

are drops a realistic means to get an Ascended weapon?

Well you do not know nor do i.
Its pointless to even stress over the fact with out the update being there.
As things stand you can play the game with out Ascended items so all of this seems a lot of nothing but means of coming back to a game that some ppl more then likely have not played and try to say bad things about it. tigirius is an example of this type of player not to say he not been playing the game or has but they have not been on these forums for some time but NOW that there is something to complainer about they are back so i would take most of this argument with a very very big gran of salt.

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

People already stockpiled mats. The crap will hit the fan when majority actually find out what exactly is needed.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

If you look at Anet’s recent updates, you can see that they are big fans of time gating. Everything is now once-per-day-per-account.

The reason they are time gating is to give us the illusion of content. That way they make us log in every day without having to create real content.

Sollith.3502:

I still say they need to make crafting a mini game: something like ddr/guitarhero/rockband style where you hit certain crafting skill buttons at the right time to craft stuff. The better the item, the faster it becomes and more “beats” are added.

This is a great idea. The act of crafting right now is just horrible because it is so rote.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

Yeah the t6 mats have already been bought and you can see how much more expensive they have become. Now when ascended crafting comes out the mats are account bound and so are the weapons. So the economic impact of ascended crafting has already happened. There will be very little change after the wep come out

There are some days I Would do 3-4 dailies of possible. Others instead I am so tired of work and family that makes me sad unable To do Them. I agree with this post and with the one Who said that it’s not normal that If a person play 1h per 7 days is rewarded more than a person that can log 2 days for 12hours. Please change dailies and crystals! Make more Monthly achievements, like dailies but instead of 20 gathering you need 100. Or something like that. Thank you, Let this game more enjoyable

Or maybe Let people do all the dailies they missed since the last login time. It Would be better

arjeidi.2690:

This might be insightful.

http://youtu.be/_duqqVHTGRA?t=21m10s

That guy has more endgame plans for an iphone game than GW2 ever has. Lol

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

Is that not the fault of the developers making it so that there will only be one avenue to getting these weapons? They even said several times with all of the other Ascended item discussions that they want players to be able to obtain the gear in several ways, and yet they keep releasing them with one way to get them.

Ashen.2907:

Sollith.3502:

I still say they need to make crafting a mini game: something like ddr/guitarhero/rockband style where you hit certain crafting skill buttons at the right time to craft stuff. The better the item, the faster it becomes and more “beats” are added.

What an interesting idea.

I would play this game every day for the rest of my life if they did that. I’d play “Through the Fire and Flames” on expert hypermode if I had to.

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

completely agree, whatever happened to “we don’t like to make it a grind” ? well getting to yet another max of crafting is not only an insult to the people who already spent time getting to max it’s and insult to the rest of the community that believed in you.

400 is the cap atm the are pushing it to 500 and now there a reason to be a craftier other then to level up alts.

you mean besides the fact of already being at max and making your own gear?

let’s clarify so now you think that crafting was not necessary to make the exotic gear, previously the max gear anyone could get, or be able to make all of the enchantments that go with it because they added a new tier which was completely unnecessary and instead of actually making the appropriate changes to the T6 mats to make them account bound and available from nodes and activities already in game like other games have done, they’ve made a whole new tier of T7 mats to make people have to grind even more (because there wasn’t enough grind in the game already) to get to a new max?

Did I cover everything?

You do not need crafting to get the “max” gear even after the update it just a chose that a player can make. But up to this point craftier had no reason to level up crafting other then for the free exp to level up.

Since the current update is weapons let’s talk about that. You can get one by crafting — or as a rare drop. Given that:

• The chance to get onto the rare table is small
• Once you’re on the rare table, you’ve got a better chance to get an event item you don’t want than a rare, a rare than an exotic — and maybe an exotic than an Ascended
• If the perfect storm happens and you get an Ascended weapon box drop, what are the odds you’ll get the stats you want?

are drops a realistic means to get an Ascended weapon?

Well you do not know nor do i.
Its pointless to even stress over the fact with out the update being there.
As things stand you can play the game with out Ascended items so all of this seems a lot of nothing but means of coming back to a game that some ppl more then likely have not played and try to say bad things about it. tigirius is an example of this type of player not to say he not been playing the game or has but they have not been on these forums for some time but NOW that there is something to complainer about they are back so i would take most of this argument with a very very big gran of salt.

There’s an axiom in business: the best indicator of future performance is past performance. Have you noticed that a lot of the better looking exotic armor/weapons that drop from chests and mobs have Cleric’s or Shaman’s stats? Are those the most desired stats in the game? Are the exotic crafted skins highly sought for their looks? I’ll be pleasantly surprised if that trend does not continue, but I won’t hold my breath.

As to people not posting for a while… it’s understandable that people post only if there’s something they’re concerned about. That’s no reason to say their opinion is less valuable than anyone else’s.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

completely agree, whatever happened to “we don’t like to make it a grind” ? well getting to yet another max of crafting is not only an insult to the people who already spent time getting to max it’s and insult to the rest of the community that believed in you.

400 is the cap atm the are pushing it to 500 and now there a reason to be a craftier other then to level up alts.

you mean besides the fact of already being at max and making your own gear?

let’s clarify so now you think that crafting was not necessary to make the exotic gear, previously the max gear anyone could get, or be able to make all of the enchantments that go with it because they added a new tier which was completely unnecessary and instead of actually making the appropriate changes to the T6 mats to make them account bound and available from nodes and activities already in game like other games have done, they’ve made a whole new tier of T7 mats to make people have to grind even more (because there wasn’t enough grind in the game already) to get to a new max?

Did I cover everything?

You do not need crafting to get the “max” gear even after the update it just a chose that a player can make. But up to this point craftier had no reason to level up crafting other then for the free exp to level up.

Since the current update is weapons let’s talk about that. You can get one by crafting — or as a rare drop. Given that:

• The chance to get onto the rare table is small
• Once you’re on the rare table, you’ve got a better chance to get an event item you don’t want than a rare, a rare than an exotic — and maybe an exotic than an Ascended
• If the perfect storm happens and you get an Ascended weapon box drop, what are the odds you’ll get the stats you want?

are drops a realistic means to get an Ascended weapon?

Well you do not know nor do i.
Its pointless to even stress over the fact with out the update being there.
As things stand you can play the game with out Ascended items so all of this seems a lot of nothing but means of coming back to a game that some ppl more then likely have not played and try to say bad things about it. tigirius is an example of this type of player not to say he not been playing the game or has but they have not been on these forums for some time but NOW that there is something to complainer about they are back so i would take most of this argument with a very very big gran of salt.

There’s an axiom in business: the best indicator of future performance is past performance. Have you noticed that a lot of the better looking exotic armor/weapons that drop from chests and mobs have Cleric’s or Shaman’s stats? Are those the most desired stats in the game? Are the exotic crafted skins highly sought for their looks? I’ll be pleasantly surprised if that trend does not continue, but I won’t hold my breath.

As to people not posting for a while… it’s understandable that people post only if there’s something they’re concerned about. That’s no reason to say their opinion is less valuable than anyone else’s.

Yes and axiom in business cause a lot of ppl problems who have nothing to do with that business. Just talking about thinking about coming up with a date to cut back on spending of the usa gov. caused a major fall in prices for stocks THIS effects ppl though out the usa. In a way ppl need to control there emotion and not just act on them we are the thinking animal we should use our brains some of the time.

I understand that but that person only talk in the negative to the point where they only post when they can say something negative about the game for the most part. In that view the fact they are getting on the forums over such a long time shows that there point of view is one way and only one way so there argument is always even if things are not in the favor of negativity going to be negative to GW2.

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

Jski.6180:

tigirius.9014:

completely agree, whatever happened to “we don’t like to make it a grind” ? well getting to yet another max of crafting is not only an insult to the people who already spent time getting to max it’s and insult to the rest of the community that believed in you.

400 is the cap atm the are pushing it to 500 and now there a reason to be a craftier other then to level up alts.

you mean besides the fact of already being at max and making your own gear?

let’s clarify so now you think that crafting was not necessary to make the exotic gear, previously the max gear anyone could get, or be able to make all of the enchantments that go with it because they added a new tier which was completely unnecessary and instead of actually making the appropriate changes to the T6 mats to make them account bound and available from nodes and activities already in game like other games have done, they’ve made a whole new tier of T7 mats to make people have to grind even more (because there wasn’t enough grind in the game already) to get to a new max?

Did I cover everything?

You do not need crafting to get the “max” gear even after the update it just a chose that a player can make. But up to this point craftier had no reason to level up crafting other then for the free exp to level up.

Since the current update is weapons let’s talk about that. You can get one by crafting — or as a rare drop. Given that:

• The chance to get onto the rare table is small
• Once you’re on the rare table, you’ve got a better chance to get an event item you don’t want than a rare, a rare than an exotic — and maybe an exotic than an Ascended
• If the perfect storm happens and you get an Ascended weapon box drop, what are the odds you’ll get the stats you want?

are drops a realistic means to get an Ascended weapon?

Well you do not know nor do i.
Its pointless to even stress over the fact with out the update being there.
As things stand you can play the game with out Ascended items so all of this seems a lot of nothing but means of coming back to a game that some ppl more then likely have not played and try to say bad things about it. tigirius is an example of this type of player not to say he not been playing the game or has but they have not been on these forums for some time but NOW that there is something to complainer about they are back so i would take most of this argument with a very very big gran of salt.

My absence neither invalidates my concerns nor makes you correct in the slightest and straw man arguments aren’t going to improve your credibility. Since the update is being talked about I assumed that the devs wanted to hear from the people who paid them money for the original content of this game (as well as the original promises made about it’s future which is where they’re sales came from btw) so that they can hear everyone’s voice in the process of fine tuning the update in question.

umm gating refers to the opening (activation) or closing (by deactivation or inactivation) of ion channels.?

AlietteFaye.7316:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

Is that not the fault of the developers making it so that there will only be one avenue to getting these weapons? They even said several times with all of the other Ascended item discussions that they want players to be able to obtain the gear in several ways, and yet they keep releasing them with one way to get them.

The game is now on single path.

In the end, introducing one “true way” and one “crap way” is not really good.

They just removed “crap way” out of the picture.

Oh, btw, some things will “drop full ascended weapons”. Guess “crap way” is not out of the picture lol, but you better have been winning lottery/gambling a lot if you hope to actually get one (…cough…precursors…cough…)

Implementing time gated stuff is a really bad decision. Yes, it makes the player play every day but it is frustrating as kitten! Which is less fun = less motivation to play the game = less play time = less $$$ for NCsoft. Easy as that.

Supported. Time gating is only okay when you can plan the required action to happen even if you are not online, or if you get the result while doing other things (like daily achievements). Having to log in to do something as trivial as “transmute my daily quartz” just enhances that awkward I-log-in-to-do-boring-things feeling, which naturally leads to “the game is boring”.

Bad decision imo.

They should put a cap per month instead if they absolutely wanted to limit it. This way if you wanted to make an ascended in the first week you could.

Having to charge gems everyday was tedious. At least you should be able to charge 2 if you forgot to charge them on the previous day, and so on.

I think a lot of people miss the idea behind time gating. I keep hearing forcing people to log over day but seriously time gating doesnt do that at all not in any effective way.

Consider this… You want to make it so it takes 2 weeks to craft an item. How would you go about that? If you go with time gates its easy… 15 charged crystals and you boom done. Player wise its also the less intrusive. 2 minutes per day and wonder of wonders you’ve just forced players to play a specific type of content for just 30 minutes over 15 days which means those same players were free to play any content they want for the rest of the time. Great.

How would you go about it with out time gating? hmm you have to charge 15 days worth of material. So for simplistic reason lets assume you’re going with karka shells. If farmers can farm 50 karka shells per day then you have to charge 750 karka shells so those farmers take 15 days to complete their item. What does that mean for the players? 15 days of farming karka 8 hrs per day. Or 15 days of playing 8hrs per day some high rewarding content to buy those karka shells. In any case you’re binding players for those 15 days to play specific content and left them no free time to do what they enjoy.

Now for the important part, how does any one of these 2 methods force players to log every day more then the other? the general premise of being forced to log every day is that with a time gate resource if I dont log on today, I will miss todays whatever and thus have an extra day to play before I can get whatever. Is that any different with the non time gate resource? If anything its worst with the non time gated resource cause just logging there is no longer enough, I have to log in and play for 8hrs. If I log in an play for just 2hrs I still will need to log in an extra day where that doesnt happen if the resource I need is time gated.

Honestly I think people feel time gated is stuff is much worst than it is. Its actually making our lives much easier not harder

I just wanna farm 20 weapons fast as possible and then actually play this game. Much better idea would be just give those weapons so i could start to play straight away.

Galen Grey.4709:

Consider this… You want to make it so it takes 2 weeks to craft an item.

I think the real question here is, why do we want it to take 2 weeks to craft the item? With many goals in game accomplishing them is a matter of effort (or luck, but let’s not get distracted) rather than calendar days. Why do we need to use calendar days as a metric at all?

If something takes X-amount of hours to complete, would it not be more fun if I could choose for myself how to divide up that X? If I want to finish world exploration I can do it gradually over 5 months or I can grind it out in a few weeks, but the amount of work put into it is the same and the choice was mine about how I wanted to split up doing the work. Can you imagine if Anet introduced a time-gate on world exploration? Or levels? That would be crazy. So why is it fine for them to do so with crafting?

In your example you compare logging in a few minutes a day vs. farming for 750 karka shells. I don’t think anybody would prefer to farm 750 karka shells but at least if that was what was required I could choose when I wanted to do it. If I understand your example correctly you are claiming that if you have to farm an average of 8 hours a day for 15 days, then being able to only farm 2 hours one of those days is the same as missing a time-gated day. But that fails to take into account the fact that you could choose to farm more than 8 hours a day on other days. If I have to farm 8 hours a day for 15 days but I’m gone for a weekend, I can farm those extra 16 hours over other days in the time period to not fall behind. If the reward is time-gated to once a day and I can’t log in for a weekend then I am simply out of luck.

I realize that the idea behind time-gating content is to narrow the gap between people who have hours a day to invest and those that don’t. But the point here is that it is not fun. Players want to be rewarded for their efforts, not their attendance.

Starting from the fact that content needs to be gated in order to create longevity for the majority of players, you then have the choice between grind gating, RNG gating and time gating.
Of all 3, time gating is the most fair and least time-consuming.
Is it perfect? No. If you don’t like time gating the best you can do is moving to a game with grind/RNG gating.

You’re forgetting the other kind of gate…skill gating. But they would never dare to do that

If you want to change a companies philosophy, use number’s not word’s

kind regard’s

champ.7021:

You’re forgetting the other kind of gate…skill gating. But they would never dare to do that

Plenty of other games out there if that’s what you’re after, champ

arjeidi.2690:

champ.7021:

You’re forgetting the other kind of gate…skill gating. But they would never dare to do that

Plenty of other games out there if that’s what you’re after, champ

Not really the point of what i was trying to say. It seems that people including Anet think there are only a few ways to gate things. Either through time or through RNG. But they keep forgetting that you can gate things through skill level required. Now i dont mean to say that they should make elitist content in the sense that you can only complete it with certain builds. What i mean is that making something skill gated also makes it time gated but in a more natural way. What they should have done with ascended weapons is made them exclusive drops to harder dungeons or made the mats drop from harder dungeons. For example you would get x amount of mat drops from high level fractal or a dungeon like arah p4 that takes pug groups a long time to get through. This way it would make people better at the game while trying to get weapons they want. And if people dont like dungeons than make open world pve events that are difficult as well like revamping some champs / world bosses which they have started to do. Im not that annoyed with the ascended weapons because im not going to even try to get them until it becomes absolutely necessary, im just starting to see a pattern (a blatantly obvious one) of time gating which is starting to define this game. And im not all that happy with it.

Time gating means you can’t get gear faster than me. For me, that’s fun because I won’t lag behind with my mere 1.5 hours played on the usual days.

Chiuna.2538:

Galen Grey.4709:

Consider this… You want to make it so it takes 2 weeks to craft an item.

I think the real question here is, why do we want it to take 2 weeks to craft the item? With many goals in game accomplishing them is a matter of effort (or luck, but let’s not get distracted) rather than calendar days. Why do we need to use calendar days as a metric at all?

If something takes X-amount of hours to complete, would it not be more fun if I could choose for myself how to divide up that X? If I want to finish world exploration I can do it gradually over 5 months or I can grind it out in a few weeks, but the amount of work put into it is the same and the choice was mine about how I wanted to split up doing the work. Can you imagine if Anet introduced a time-gate on world exploration? Or levels? That would be crazy. So why is it fine for them to do so with crafting?

In your example you compare logging in a few minutes a day vs. farming for 750 karka shells. I don’t think anybody would prefer to farm 750 karka shells but at least if that was what was required I could choose when I wanted to do it. If I understand your example correctly you are claiming that if you have to farm an average of 8 hours a day for 15 days, then being able to only farm 2 hours one of those days is the same as missing a time-gated day. But that fails to take into account the fact that you could choose to farm more than 8 hours a day on other days. If I have to farm 8 hours a day for 15 days but I’m gone for a weekend, I can farm those extra 16 hours over other days in the time period to not fall behind. If the reward is time-gated to once a day and I can’t log in for a weekend then I am simply out of luck.

I realize that the idea behind time-gating content is to narrow the gap between people who have hours a day to invest and those that don’t. But the point here is that it is not fun. Players want to be rewarded for their efforts, not their attendance.

I dont know why they chose 15 days. My theory is so it takes at least 1/2 a year to fully gear a single character thus making ascended gear last for at least 3 years in order to avoid having to introduce a new tier before then. Thats my theory.

Well so is this. Its just the time requirement is much smaller. You need 20 laurels for a single ascended gear. You can divide that over 5 months as well if you so choose. If you want to get it done quickly you can get it in 15 days. The fact that it takes 30 mins to complete it doesnt mean you dont have scheduling freedom.

Because they have no reason to control time it takes to get to max level or time it takes to explore. But they do have a reason to control how fast ascended gear is acquired like I explained. This is just a trade off to make the game no be a boring grind fest. For example a lot of people feel legendary weapons are super grindy to get. How would that change if all it took was 360 laurels for example to get one? you could play 1 year of any content you enjoy and get the weapon with 0 grind.

Yes and No.

I mean the 8hrs was a number I chose as an average. If some people actually play 16hrs a day then 8hrs is a bad number because it doesnt reflect reality. What I mean is if you can make 50 karka shells in 8hrs of farming and some players farm for 16hrs then they can get their gear in 8 days instead of 15 so in that case Arenanet would need to choose a higher number.

But lets forget about that. lets say normally no one plays 16hrs and almost everyone who plays a lot plays 8hrs everyday. Why would you think its easier to find an extra 8hrs to play on a Saturday then it is to find 30 minutes to play on a weekday?

There is also another side. not everyone is able to play 8hrs per day. Some players can afford 1 or 2 hrs on a weekday if even that. Can these players make up for it by playing 23hrs on Saturday and 23hrs on Sunday? Not really. Chances are you’re not gonna manage to make up for lost time with no time gate. A very few people might but for the majority I believe it would be impossible

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

GOSU.9574:

Everyone knows Anet doesn’t make “grindy games”, just ask Anet, or watch their pre-release video. You know, the one that also states they won’t have a gear tread mill in GW2….yeah….that video.

Strange, I watched every Guild Wars 2 video and never saw one that said we won’t have a gear treadmill.

Like many companies, ANet uses vague terminology that can be interpreted multiple ways. Naturally, people make the interpretation that coincides with what they want to see.

Who could have known that when Colin Johanson wrote:

“When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.

But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?"

…that a subset of the players would convince GW2 to abandon this philosophy — with the exceptions of leveling speed, and that the loot drop systems with crazy low chance RNG are not in dungeons — within a year of launch.

I agree the game is grindier than it was originally supposed to be. I also think if the game wasn’t grindy and they just kept cosmetic upgrades, there wouldn’t be a game by now. That’s because people are conditioned to certain “universal MMO truths” that aren’t true, but they think they are.

So if Anet didn’t introduce the stuff, the five of us still playing could sit around in game and get a poker game. I’m exaggerating intentionally, but watching the reaction of people since launched has convinced me that the game I want isn’t the game most other people want. So I’m willing to live with the inconvenience to have an MMO I finally enjoy.

Because I don’t enjoy most other MMOs at all. I do enjoy/have fun in Guild Wars 2.

They simply can’t produce enough content fast enough to keep people playing. And if people don’t play…that’s not really good for the game either.

marnick.4305:

Time gating means you can’t get gear faster than me. For me, that’s fun because I won’t lag behind with my mere 1.5 hours played on the usual days.

Doesnt work for me because you’re going to get gear faster than me. I play 10+ hrs total on the weekend including friday which is about as much time as you spend in a week but i will get my gear much much slower. Like insanely slower

champ.7021:

You’re forgetting the other kind of gate…skill gating. But they would never dare to do that

I have yet to see skill gating implemented successfully in any game.
I dont think its possible to create content so difficult that people wouldnt be able to beat it for 15 days straight every single time.

I mean if they do it in the form of a dungeon / raid / JP or whatever we’re saying it has to be repeatable and you can only win once every about 15 days. It might be difficult enough to make you take 15 days to manage the first time but after that it will keep getting faster and faster. Its like the clocktower… that was quite difficult, took me 5 hrs or so to win it the first time. By the end of the event I could complete it every single time I tried it though.

Charrming Vase.4572:

Colin Johanson “A big part of our philosophy is to constantly evaluate how fun the game is”
Time to re-evaluate this boring boring boring, terrifyingly bad game design

Yeh but their evaluation process is also time gated….

You can never please the people who just rush through content. Would’ve been better off to give rare gear a more important role and make exotic gear take more effort to get.

Now, you buy exotic gear the moment you turn 80 and all that’s left to work for is ugly skins and some ascended stuff which is time gated. After doing dailies for a while, you just kinda forget what it was for again.

This time gating business is just symptomatic for a game that feels pretty much completely done when you are level 80.

Skill Gating will never match time gating in how much it slows down players. But what it does is help delineate between players who are good and spend alot of time playing the game, they will get weapons faster, and those who are not as good or do not spend as much time, they will get weapons slower. And the 15 days to get one weapon thing is ridiculous anyways. I dont think they should make it so it takes everyone the same amount of time to get a weapon.

Gehenna.3625:

Charrming Vase.4572:

Colin Johanson “A big part of our philosophy is to constantly evaluate how fun the game is”
Time to re-evaluate this boring boring boring, terrifyingly bad game design

Yeh but their evaluation process is also time gated….

You can never please the people who just rush through content. Would’ve been better off to give rare gear a more important role and make exotic gear take more effort to get.

Now, you buy exotic gear the moment you turn 80 and all that’s left to work for is ugly skins and some ascended stuff which is time gated. After doing dailies for a while, you just kinda forget what it was for again.

This time gating business is just symptomatic for a game that feels pretty much completely done when you are level 80.

Depends on how you play the game. If you’re into vertical progression then sure you’re right. It felt done and people complained about that and they got ascended gear.

For me I got to level 80 looked around and though geesss I still have another 18 zones to fully experiance… Plenty of stuff to do… Fast forward 1000 hours later I am still not done… I still have 8 zones I didnt complete yet…

It all depends on how you play the game.

champ.7021:

Skill Gating will never match time gating in how much it slows down players. But what it does is help delineate between players who are good and spend alot of time playing the game, they will get weapons faster, and those who are not as good or do not spend as much time, they will get weapons slower. And the 15 days to get one weapon thing is ridiculous anyways. I dont think they should make it so it takes everyone the same amount of time to get a weapon.

If I were a game designer on this game thats the last thing I would want.

Conceptually its a great idea but min/maxers, People into vertical progression and hardcore players will be the first to finish things off. I would be risking that these players gear on in weeks instead of months… Then what Introduce a new tier or hope they keep playing with no more rewards for them to get?

Mechanics wise is a good idea though. What I would do is have a time gate and a skill gate. Time gate gets you the weapon / armor piece. Skill gate gets you a unique skin for that piece.

That way those who have to have BiS can have it with no special effort. Those who have skills can feel they earned it + have something to show off for their achievement.

Galen Grey.4709:

champ.7021:

Skill Gating will never match time gating in how much it slows down players. But what it does is help delineate between players who are good and spend alot of time playing the game, they will get weapons faster, and those who are not as good or do not spend as much time, they will get weapons slower. And the 15 days to get one weapon thing is ridiculous anyways. I dont think they should make it so it takes everyone the same amount of time to get a weapon.

If I were a game designer on this game thats the last thing I would want.

Conceptually its a great idea but min/maxers, People into vertical progression and hardcore players will be the first to finish things off. I would be risking that these players gear on in weeks instead of months… Then what Introduce a new tier or hope they keep playing with no more rewards for them to get?

GW1 survived hardcore players because of the fact that they did skill gate and rng gate at the same time. The best looking skins were found in the hardest dungeons, FOW, UW, which were alot harder than gw2 dungeons. There was no time gating to the dungeons and yet somehow the game still survived :o. Why because back then anet released new content, permanent content, which gave hardcore players new dungeons to do and new skins to get. The problem with gw2 is that the devs have followed this living story idea (which is fine) but havent openend up new hardcore areas. So their only option to keep the game alive is to time gate things. You dont need another tier to keep people playing the game. You need more things for people to do to keep the game alive. And before the new tier even came out hardcore players had already finished the game off with multiple legendarys and many alts. yet most kept playing.

Galen Grey.4709:

Depends on how you play the game. If you’re into vertical progression then sure you’re right. It felt done and people complained about that and they got ascended gear.

For me I got to level 80 looked around and though geesss I still have another 18 zones to fully experiance… Plenty of stuff to do… Fast forward 1000 hours later I am still not done… I still have 8 zones I didnt complete yet…

It all depends on how you play the game.

Yes for vertical progresions it’s totally crap, but as GW1 I was expecting GW2 to have interesting horizontal progression. That’s missing for me.

I completed all zones on a toon in the first two months. Never felt the desire to do it again because clearing them became boring to me.

You’re right that it depends on how you play the game but I am fine with horizontal progression as well as long as I feel motivated, interested to do so. There are so few armour sets to collect that actually look good that it’s taken the fun out of collecting them (GW1 I collected over 50 elite sets including a couple of FoW sets).

In GW1 I have 10 characters that completed all missions on all continents and also I did a lot of vanquishing, which was the GW1 version of completing an area. Not sure whatever does it but GW2 has some similar ideas but they just don’t inspire me.

Back on topic again….time gating is just lame, but perhaps it’s a necessity in a game where almost everything is too easy.

+1 Ban time gating !!!

MikaHR.1978:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I skimmed over the messages in this thread and didn’t see anyone talk about this..

If the ascended weapons were not time gated, the economic impact of the mad rush of people trying to make them on the first day would be overwhelming.

I suggest that this is likely the most important rationale for it.

Is that not the fault of the developers making it so that there will only be one avenue to getting these weapons? They even said several times with all of the other Ascended item discussions that they want players to be able to obtain the gear in several ways, and yet they keep releasing them with one way to get them.

The game is now on single path.

In the end, introducing one “true way” and one “crap way” is not really good.

They just removed “crap way” out of the picture.

Oh, btw, some things will “drop full ascended weapons”. Guess “crap way” is not out of the picture lol, but you better have been winning lottery/gambling a lot if you hope to actually get one (…cough…precursors…cough…)

Totally agree there. We’ll see some people get like multiple ascended weapons off bosses because they still haven’t addressed the lopsided loot algorithm that these same people were using to get all of the big loot from dungeon runs or exploiting the chest from the karka queen original event. Mark my words. Meanwhile the people who are still suffering from this bug/design flaw will continue to be stuck with nothing from mobs. I think the only way we’ll see a change is if someone slips up and it starts to affect everyone.

I’m hoping someone over there had the good sense to tell the game to keep these resources that are account bound to not be affected by loot role algorithms or by DR so that people can actually get these crafting materials! here’s to hoping.

champ.7021:

Galen Grey.4709:

champ.7021:

Skill Gating will never match time gating in how much it slows down players. But what it does is help delineate between players who are good and spend alot of time playing the game, they will get weapons faster, and those who are not as good or do not spend as much time, they will get weapons slower. And the 15 days to get one weapon thing is ridiculous anyways. I dont think they should make it so it takes everyone the same amount of time to get a weapon.

If I were a game designer on this game thats the last thing I would want.

Conceptually its a great idea but min/maxers, People into vertical progression and hardcore players will be the first to finish things off. I would be risking that these players gear on in weeks instead of months… Then what Introduce a new tier or hope they keep playing with no more rewards for them to get?

GW1 survived hardcore players because of the fact that they did skill gate and rng gate at the same time. The best looking skins were found in the hardest dungeons, FOW, UW, which were alot harder than gw2 dungeons. There was no time gating to the dungeons and yet somehow the game still survived :o. Why because back then anet released new content, permanent content, which gave hardcore players new dungeons to do and new skins to get. The problem with gw2 is that the devs have followed this living story idea (which is fine) but havent openend up new hardcore areas. So their only option to keep the game alive is to time gate things. You dont need another tier to keep people playing the game. You need more things for people to do to keep the game alive. And before the new tier even came out hardcore players had already finished the game off with multiple legendarys and many alts. yet most kept playing.

Sure but Gw1 never had to juggle vertical progression and horizontal progression at the same time. It went all out horizontal progression. For that it had to pay a price which was less players and thus a smaller revenue revenue

I do agree they need more difficulty and it seems thats coming. Queen gauntlet was a good try imho. In 2 updates time we’ll also get the revamped world event if you watched the anniversary bash stream. Seems pretty hardcore the way they redesigned it. With unique skin rewards too… thats a great idea imho.

sigh, people are closed minded. Time-Gate is not meant to be fun but to balance the surge of needs from the market to avoid spike in material prices.

Right now, how many dumb people are buying ectos and shooting it up to 40 silver (still buying them at 40s peak) and then they realize oh you can use 5 ectos per day only. Why did I spend all my gold on 500 over price at 40silver.

40 silver is the peak at most, those who bought them at 20-22s thank you! We made a lot of money off you by selling it back.

Gehenna.3625:

Galen Grey.4709:

Depends on how you play the game. If you’re into vertical progression then sure you’re right. It felt done and people complained about that and they got ascended gear.

For me I got to level 80 looked around and though geesss I still have another 18 zones to fully experiance… Plenty of stuff to do… Fast forward 1000 hours later I am still not done… I still have 8 zones I didnt complete yet…

It all depends on how you play the game.

Yes for vertical progresions it’s totally crap, but as GW1 I was expecting GW2 to have interesting horizontal progression. That’s missing for me.

I completed all zones on a toon in the first two months. Never felt the desire to do it again because clearing them became boring to me.

You’re right that it depends on how you play the game but I am fine with horizontal progression as well as long as I feel motivated, interested to do so. There are so few armour sets to collect that actually look good that it’s taken the fun out of collecting them (GW1 I collected over 50 elite sets including a couple of FoW sets).

In GW1 I have 10 characters that completed all missions on all continents and also I did a lot of vanquishing, which was the GW1 version of completing an area. Not sure whatever does it but GW2 has some similar ideas but they just don’t inspire me.

Back on topic again….time gating is just lame, but perhaps it’s a necessity in a game where almost everything is too easy.

Thats the thing though, what completing a zone means to you is obviously different then what it means to me. This isnt just about vertical vs horizontal. I enjoy the story, the lore, the exploration etc… It takes me over 20 – 30 hrs of real time to complete a zone. It would be impossible to do them all in 2 months for me. But I understand that for you who I guess seems to enjoy challenge and horizontal progression waiting around for a dynamic even chain to start from the beginning would not be something you enjoy. In that regard Gw2 is even richer then Gw1.

In Gw1 I enjoyed never having to bother with Armor, I do that in Gw2 … not cause its easy to get BiS but because you just dont need BiS everything is just too easy. Time gates are perfect in that regards. I can get BiS playing whatever I enjoy, its not a question of grind its a question of time. Since its not required I dont mind if it takes 15 days. It can take twice as that np.

But not everyone is like me or you.

Its not even the same between us who given the choice would have voted no Ascended armor in game at all.

Its not an easy thing to balance so many requirements.

On top of it all I loved the flexiblity and power gw1 gave to a class. No more locked to a single role. Gw2 did that even better in my opinion but unfortunately because the game was easy it never got a chance to shine. Well that seems to be changing if they follow up on what they said this weekend during the panel. So thats great.

champ.7021:

marnick.4305:

Time gating means you can’t get gear faster than me. For me, that’s fun because I won’t lag behind with my mere 1.5 hours played on the usual days.

Doesnt work for me because you’re going to get gear faster than me. I play 10+ hrs total on the weekend including friday which is about as much time as you spend in a week but i will get my gear much much slower. Like insanely slower

Probably the largest issue with time gating… Now you have to dedicate a bit of time everyday towards a game if you want to progress like everyone else… marnick, you better hope you dont have internet-outtage for N days, or family issues, or any other life things that prevent you from logging in… with them you will lag behind. both players are dedicating roughly the same amount of time per week, yet one is getting rewarded more… why is that?

Thing is… For some reason, there’s not that many (any?) posts titled “Good thing Time gating came” or “Time gating will be awesome” or “Time gating the solution to all problems” or the likes… and the only person arguing (remotely) for time gating is Jski (and I respect you for arguing and taking a stand) and maybe a few others (not enough to count on two hands)… So why is that?

I didn’t read the posts, just my opinion on time gating:

It’s a good decision, so that the cleft between poor players and rich ones isn’t that visible. Everyone has a chance to get the item in a fair time with dedication. Not with pure gold which everyone could buy via gems.

Thanks Anet for time gating

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I didn’t read the posts, just my opinion on time gating:

*It’s a good decision, so that the cleft between poor players and rich ones isn’t that visible. Everyone has a chance to get the item in a fair time with dedication. Not with pure gold which everyone could buy via gems. *

Thanks Anet for time gating

(can’t tell if it’s sarcasm) That’s wrong…. You can buy off TP the time gated mats or their refined versions… So yeah the rich ones are going to get it sooner, and those that wield credit cards will also get it sooner. And it will be easier for them to change builds and have max-stats (to use for their likings, ie. WvW).

http://dulfy.net/2013/08/30/gw2-account-magic-find-ascended-crafting-and-legendary-weapons-revamp-preview/

and Wallace digested it here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Possibly-buy-all-the-mats-for-Asc-wep-off-TP

champ.7021:

arjeidi.2690:

champ.7021:

You’re forgetting the other kind of gate…skill gating. But they would never dare to do that

Plenty of other games out there if that’s what you’re after, champ

Not really the point of what i was trying to say. It seems that people including Anet think there are only a few ways to gate things. Either through time or through RNG. But they keep forgetting that you can gate things through skill level required. Now i dont mean to say that they should make elitist content in the sense that you can only complete it with certain builds. What i mean is that making something skill gated also makes it time gated but in a more natural way. What they should have done with ascended weapons is made them exclusive drops to harder dungeons or made the mats drop from harder dungeons. For example you would get x amount of mat drops from high level fractal or a dungeon like arah p4 that takes pug groups a long time to get through. This way it would make people better at the game while trying to get weapons they want. And if people dont like dungeons than make open world pve events that are difficult as well like revamping some champs / world bosses which they have started to do. Im not that annoyed with the ascended weapons because im not going to even try to get them until it becomes absolutely necessary, im just starting to see a pattern (a blatantly obvious one) of time gating which is starting to define this game. And im not all that happy with it.

I completely misunderstood your previous post. I apologize.

Galen Grey.4709:

But not everyone is like me or you.

Its not even the same between us who given the choice would have voted no Ascended armor in game at all.

Its not an easy thing to balance so many requirements.

On top of it all I loved the flexiblity and power gw1 gave to a class. No more locked to a single role. Gw2 did that even better in my opinion but unfortunately because the game was easy it never got a chance to shine. Well that seems to be changing if they follow up on what they said this weekend during the panel. So thats great.

I agree as such. We all have our personal preferences.

On the subject of classes, my view is that because they don’t have roles they all feel the same to me. What you can power for a class, I call lack of definition.

In essence it’s all dps with some support variations possible and that to me means the classes are meaningless. You could’ve had 2-3 classes to do what they use 8 classes for and even then it would just be a matter of look and weapon choice more than anything.

So yeh, everybody has their own preferences, but I like to feel that choosing a class matters, that what I do in the world matters and that my character is the hero and has many options to build up my character. That can be purely cosmetic as I enjoyed it in GW1 with many awesome looking armours to collect.

But to me GW2 feels a bit like a teenager who has all the flexibility and choices left but as he hasn’t made any real choices yet, but lacks character and definition.

The speculation had a temporary shock to the market, yes. If the time gating wasn’t in place, there would have a been a bigger shock.

If one assumes that every decision Arena.NET makes so solely based on business, one will never be able to enjoy the game for what it is – a game.

The only people who would be able to get Ascended Weapons on Day 1 are those with a lot of disposable gold (and/or stored up mats). These are usually the hardcore players (myself included)..

… if you’re one of those people, then buy a Legendary, or even better.. show how hardcore you are by making one.

You don’t NEED everything on the first day it comes out. Free yourself of the consumerist mentality and you will enjoy life, and games, more.

As for the ongoing “grind grind grind” cries, I’ve got a news flash for you: EVERY GAME IS A GRIND. Do you remember the legends of old – Pong, Pac Man, Donkey Kong… do you think these weren’t grinds?

We, as animals, live for grinds. Why? It’s the simple psychology of patterns – we look for patterns, we find comfort in them, because they are predictable and involve less stress of the unknown. It goes way back to the hunt for food.

Otherwise, if you are a hardcore player, check /age. What % of your account life is going to be spent in the pursuit of your ascended gear? Not much, I bet.

Casual gamers, on the other hand, are likely going to take more than 2 weeks to make their ascended weapons, because they don’t have the gold for the non-farmable items.

So relax, enjoy, and in two weeks you’ll have your ascended gear.. and all the stress you’ve gone through on the forums screaming about how time gating is a bad thing won’t matter.

Just in time for Tequatl…