Guild Wars 2

I agree op, there is confusion in the way they sold the game on the premise of saying “we just don’t want people grinding in Guild Wars 2” yet it’s a grind on many levels. The term grind is very misleading and it can mean several things. I believe they made a mistake using this term so carelessly when in fact pretty much anything can be considered a grind.

Whenever disagreement is made about even raids or large-scale group play, we get told we don’t want people grinding. I get told this same little anecdote which distorts the conversation into irrelevancy. What about us picking and choosing what type of game-play we want? I personally would want to have raids with friends as long as the gear didn’t have an impact on the outside world with everyone else. It would be sort of like sPvP but in a different way that doesn’t effect the world gear.

This allows gear progression in the raid-format but it also doesn’t effect the world game-play as the stat gain would only be notice-able inside the instance. They have the technology to do amazing epic encounters, but it seems as if we’re limited to 5-player PvE or WvW. Please be bold with ideas and innovation with guilds. I want my 12+ friends to come back and do stuff together that is very challenging and has longevity.

To the people defending the fact that anything visually striking would take over a year to get (if you can beat inflation), I present this to you:

how many weapons do warriors use?
how often do you swap weapons
how often does ANet nerf weapon skills forcing you to retrait and perhaps regear?
how long do typical MMOs last before they’re EOL (guild wars 1 was on the high-end of this scale in terms of operating life).

I did the math based on my current rate of personal gather for charged lodestones, and it will take me 16 years at the rate of 0.5 a month from “just playing the game” to gather 100. Infinite light requires a lot more than that. Of course, by that time, the relevance of this game will be long gone.

The main point:
anything that takes longer than 3 months in this MMO for the average person to acquire represents an unreasonable amount of time, as you still have other slots to fill. That’s 9 months for the typical 2 1-handers and 1 two-hander weapon setup, and then you have the armor to work on.

Then there’s the issue with most weapon skins that don’t share the same, rough-hewn, disorganized look are cash sinks only.

I’d like to see weapons that are a testiment to skill, or to what aspect of the game you play most.

Wheres the reward for 10-on-1 victory in wvw.
Where’s the reward for jumping puzzle meta-completion (and it’s cooler reward for timed).
Where’s the reward for soloing x group events.
Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

In other games many of the coolest weapons are a testiment to skill.

I’m in agreement regarding reward one gets from the game.

Your best bet seems to be just killing lots of mobs period, not bothering to do any particular more difficult task.

Seems like veteran mobs should have better drops and champion mobs should have MUCH better drops. Not something to make you serious bank, but just roughly in line with the extra effort it took to deal with them. I can kill 50 lev 80 mobs much faster than a champion mob, yet the 50 mobs will give me much more loot.

Minion of Vey.4398:

I’m in agreement regarding reward one gets from the game.

Your best bet seems to be just killing lots of mobs period, not bothering to do any particular more difficult task.

Seems like veteran mobs should have better drops and champion mobs should have MUCH better drops. Not something to make you serious bank, but just roughly in line with the extra effort it took to deal with them. I can kill 50 lev 80 mobs much faster than a champion mob, yet the 50 mobs will give me much more loot.

The champion also requires more skill to kill.

More skill = less reward.

More cash = best items in the game.

something smells here.

I agree with the points made by plasmacutter and Minion of vey.

I’m just not intrigued right now with the killing of massive amounts of mobs endlessly for a long period of time for cosmetic gear. This is the very reason why my friends quit because it’s not enjoyable. It feels like a solo game rather than a guild game.

I personally would like to see objectives or encounters that are hard for guilds that have longevity to them. Will we ever see such content exist within Guild Wars 2? I’m just not sure right now and can only have hope.

Space Cow.2431:

-Legendaries should be difficult to acquire as a result of challenge, not how long it takes to gather materials (and perhaps creating quests giving them some flavor wouldn’t hurt).

I call Bogus. People have been saying this but they really don’t mean it. What they really mean is “Legendaries should be easier to acquire”.

If getting a precursor required something equality prohibitive as the current system (which, lets be honest, there are a lot of people with “Legendaries” so it’s really not all that exclusive) then it would be something like: vanquish (kill everything) all explorable mode dungeons solo without being downed. Then people would complain about how it’s unrealistic & how only certain classes could do it & how it required Ascended gear blah blah blah…

Making a “quest chain” would just make it 10x easier. The truth is “grind” is the only way to make the Legendaries accessible and prohibitive.

DarksunG.9537:

Space Cow.2431:

-Legendaries should be difficult to acquire as a result of challenge, not how long it takes to gather materials (and perhaps creating quests giving them some flavor wouldn’t hurt).

I call Bogus. People have been saying this but they really don’t mean it. What they really mean is “Legendaries should be easier to acquire”.

If getting a precursor required something equality prohibitive as the current system (which, lets be honest, there are a lot of people with “Legendaries” so it’s really not all that exclusive) then it would be something like: vanquish (kill everything) all explorable mode dungeons solo without being downed. Then people would complain about how it’s unrealistic & how only certain classes could do it & how it required Ascended gear blah blah blah…

Making a “quest chain” would just make it 10x easier. The truth is “grind” is the only way to make the Legendaries accessible and prohibitive.

This is a classic example of poor argument:

Invent an absurdity, defeat the absurdity, baselessly claim victory over your opponent’s rational points.

Quest chains are easier? How many people in burning crusade achieved the title “hand of adal”?

plasmacutter.2709:

To the people defending the fact that anything visually striking would take over a year to get (if you can beat inflation), I present this to you:

how many weapons do warriors use?
how often do you swap weapons
how often does ANet nerf weapon skills forcing you to retrait and perhaps regear?
how long do typical MMOs last before they’re EOL (guild wars 1 was on the high-end of this scale in terms of operating life).

I did the math based on my current rate of personal gather for charged lodestones, and it will take me 16 years at the rate of 0.5 a month from “just playing the game” to gather 100. Infinite light requires a lot more than that. Of course, by that time, the relevance of this game will be long gone.

The main point:
anything that takes longer than 3 months in this MMO for the average person to acquire represents an unreasonable amount of time, as you still have other slots to fill. That’s 9 months for the typical 2 1-handers and 1 two-hander weapon setup, and then you have the armor to work on.

Then there’s the issue with most weapon skins that don’t share the same, rough-hewn, disorganized look are cash sinks only.

I’d like to see weapons that are a testiment to skill, or to what aspect of the game you play most.

Wheres the reward for 10-on-1 victory in wvw.
Where’s the reward for jumping puzzle meta-completion (and it’s cooler reward for timed).
Where’s the reward for soloing x group events.
Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

In other games many of the coolest weapons are a testiment to skill.

how is your drop rate 0.5 a month? Go to dungeons time to time. 2-3 per dungeon run.

Mirta.5029:

plasmacutter.2709:

To the people defending the fact that anything visually striking would take over a year to get (if you can beat inflation), I present this to you:

how many weapons do warriors use?
how often do you swap weapons
how often does ANet nerf weapon skills forcing you to retrait and perhaps regear?
how long do typical MMOs last before they’re EOL (guild wars 1 was on the high-end of this scale in terms of operating life).

I did the math based on my current rate of personal gather for charged lodestones, and it will take me 16 years at the rate of 0.5 a month from “just playing the game” to gather 100. Infinite light requires a lot more than that. Of course, by that time, the relevance of this game will be long gone.

The main point:
anything that takes longer than 3 months in this MMO for the average person to acquire represents an unreasonable amount of time, as you still have other slots to fill. That’s 9 months for the typical 2 1-handers and 1 two-hander weapon setup, and then you have the armor to work on.

Then there’s the issue with most weapon skins that don’t share the same, rough-hewn, disorganized look are cash sinks only.

I’d like to see weapons that are a testiment to skill, or to what aspect of the game you play most.

Wheres the reward for 10-on-1 victory in wvw.
Where’s the reward for jumping puzzle meta-completion (and it’s cooler reward for timed).
Where’s the reward for soloing x group events.
Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

In other games many of the coolest weapons are a testiment to skill.

how is your drop rate 0.5 a month? Go to dungeons time to time. 2-3 per dungeon run.

Welcome to the land of “DR Bug”.

I’m part of the 50% of the community consistently getting jacksquat from kill credits since 11/15 (heck, I often have mobs i SOLO not sparkle!).

Writetyper.1985:

I’m sorry, but this whole argument is made null and void by the fact that these “unattainable goals” are completely optional by design. Why not choose a goal that corresponds with how much you play the game? Seems like logic to me.

Nevermind the fact that every major weapon is 100% cosmetic and does not have any influence over the game outside that whatsoever. “Baaaaaww I need my legendary but it’s ‘unobtainable’”. So kittening what? How does a shiny skin stop you from enjoying the game?

Not sure why I even bothered replying to this thread considering it’s blatantly written by someone who dislikes it and is convinced that everyone thinks the same way as they do.

He said many times, “many people will disagree with me”. no need to rage. I disagree with your comment though. You say that we shouldn’t whine, BECAUSE legendarys are cosmetic. so what if they are cosmetic? the reason they people want them is because they want to set goals to get further in the game. Once you have your full exotic build with ori accessories, you basically are like, “now wtf do i do.”
you could go complete all the areas in the game. BUT why? what benefit or reward other than pleasure does that give? OH gift of exploration? you see where im going how basically gw2’s endgame is basicallllllly making legendary tier weapons. (which is an issue). Since this is the only post exotic thing that people wanna work for, it causes me upset people and posts like this. And i commonly believe that people who say they make 5 gold per hour easy blah blah blah are pretty much lying and spending big bucks on their credit card for gold. The whole point is that yes, im slightly biased since, Im done with all the gifts for twilight, all i need is dusk. However, That is physically impossible at this point do to it going up to 660g and rising. unless i spend 700 dollars. which ive researched and people rtw the ACTUAL twilight for 700$. so either way, if you slave away for 3 months straight nonstop farming gold, or but a leprachaun out of your kitten and get it off the forge, its a TRUE struggle. What people want isnt a easier way at precursors, they just want a way that isnt impossible for medium to high average players. but thats just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree

plasmacutter.2709:

To the people defending the fact that anything visually striking would take over a year to get (if you can beat inflation), I present this to you:

how many weapons do warriors use?
how often do you swap weapons
how often does ANet nerf weapon skills forcing you to retrait and perhaps regear?
how long do typical MMOs last before they’re EOL (guild wars 1 was on the high-end of this scale in terms of operating life).

I did the math based on my current rate of personal gather for charged lodestones, and it will take me 16 years at the rate of 0.5 a month from “just playing the game” to gather 100. Infinite light requires a lot more than that. Of course, by that time, the relevance of this game will be long gone.

The main point:
anything that takes longer than 3 months in this MMO for the average person to acquire represents an unreasonable amount of time, as you still have other slots to fill. That’s 9 months for the typical 2 1-handers and 1 two-hander weapon setup, and then you have the armor to work on.

Then there’s the issue with most weapon skins that don’t share the same, rough-hewn, disorganized look are cash sinks only.

I’d like to see weapons that are a testiment to skill, or to what aspect of the game you play most.

Wheres the reward for 10-on-1 victory in wvw.
Where’s the reward for jumping puzzle meta-completion (and it’s cooler reward for timed).
Where’s the reward for soloing x group events.
Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

In other games many of the coolest weapons are a testiment to skill.

^ everything i was gonna type already typed. thanks

lol i put another 9g in the bank yesterday, and i honestly can’t remember how I got it, it’s that easy, all i did was 2 dungeon runs (working towards the all dungeon path achievement), 1 fractal daily in hope of a skin and 100% map completion (working on 100% world completion).

I did a bit of everything, nothing that I would class as a grind or boring, I had fun and still made plenty of gold.

plasmacutter.2709:

I did the math based on my current rate of personal gather for charged lodestones, and it will take me 16 years at the rate of 0.5 a month from “just playing the game” to gather 100. Infinite light requires a lot more than that. Of course, by that time, the relevance of this game will be long gone.

lol 0.5 per month, do 1 fractal run and you would have the gold to buy 2 (1-2 hours having fun)

Its a great game, if you all honestly dont like it go back to GW1 or WoW?

Not everyone wants the END GAME armour/weapons within 3 months, thats just sad.

Nibiru.1423:

lol i put another 9g in the bank yesterday, and i honestly can’t remember how I got it, it’s that easy, all i did was 2 dungeon runs (working towards the all dungeon path achievement), 1 fractal daily in hope of a skin and 100% map completion (working on 100% world completion).

I did a bit of everything, nothing that I would class as a grind or boring, I had fun and still made plenty of gold.

plasmacutter.2709:

I did the math based on my current rate of personal gather for charged lodestones, and it will take me 16 years at the rate of 0.5 a month from “just playing the game” to gather 100. Infinite light requires a lot more than that. Of course, by that time, the relevance of this game will be long gone.

lol 0.5 per month, do 1 fractal run and you would have the gold to buy 2 (1-2 hours having fun)

Its a great game, if you all honestly dont like it go back to GW1 or WoW?

Not everyone wants the END GAME armour/weapons within 3 months, thats just sad.

“It’s fine for me so everyone else should go pound sand” is not a sound argument. I’m sure this economic crash was “just fine” from the personal experiences of the bailed-out execs of Goldman and AIG

plasmacutter.2709:

“It’s fine for me so everyone else should go pound sand” is not a sound argument.

That argument works both ways.

Same as saying, the game is too hard so it must change because I’m too lazy to work for my stuff. I want everything in 3 months, stuff everyone else if they get bored because the game is too easy.

If people want to play an easy to complete game, go play ofline games and complete them in 3 days, others like me enjoy the chase.

Mirta.5029:

how is your drop rate 0.5 a month? Go to dungeons time to time. 2-3 per dungeon run.

I’d love to have that sort of luck in dungeons.

Nibiru.1423:

plasmacutter.2709:

“It’s fine for me so everyone else should go pound sand” is not a sound argument.

That argument works both ways.

Same as saying, the game is too hard so it must change because I’m too lazy to work (emphasis mine) for my stuff. I want everything in 3 months, stuff everyone else if they get bored because the game is too easy.

If people want to play an easy to complete game, go play ofline games and complete them in 3 days, others like me enjoy the chase.

I provided mathematical proof that the goal was unattainable at the current personal drop rate. 16 years… I could have a kid next year, and perhaps see my lodestone weapon when she’s almost ready for college.

I emphasized “work” for a reason.

from Merriam Webster:

game
noun \?g?m\
Definition of GAME
1
a (1) : activity engaged in for diversion or amusement : play

You believe your “fun” should be “work”.

What is this I don’t even…

Can I just quickly ask why everyone seems to not want to do something they find fun if it doesn’t give a reward?

I remember people playing Quake 3 a lot (and still playing) and it sure as hell didn’t give you any kind of internet money for winning a game.

Grinding things you don’t like just because they give you gold sounds too much like work to me. Is this the mentality of every mmo player? I’m new to mmos.

EDIT: Replying to rainbow:

He said many times, “many people will disagree with me”. no need to rage.[/quote]

It’s not rage, it’s wonder. Why are people forcing themselves to grind then complaining about grinding?

Rainbow.3496:

I disagree with your comment though. You say that we shouldn’t whine, BECAUSE legendarys are cosmetic. so what if they are cosmetic? the reason they people want them is because they want to set goals to get further in the game. Once you have your full exotic build with ori accessories, you basically are like, “now wtf do i do.”
you could go complete all the areas in the game. BUT why? what benefit or reward other than pleasure does that give?

f-for fun? Why are you forcing yourself to play a game if you don’t like it? The way I see it what you’re doing is working your kitten off grinding for stuff you can only exchange for other stuff in Guild Wars 2 when you don’t actually enjoy Guild Wars 2. What is the point of getting all this stuff if you don’t like the game? Are you saying once you’ve grinded everything you’re just going to stop playing? What did that achieve?

Rainbow.3496:

OH gift of exploration? you see where im going how basically gw2’s endgame is basicallllllly making legendary tier weapons. (which is an issue).

big words with no backup.

Rainbow.3496:

The whole point is that yes, im slightly biased since, Im done with all the gifts for twilight, all i need is dusk. However, That is physically impossible at this point do to it going up to 660g and rising. unless i spend 700 dollars. which ive researched and people rtw the ACTUAL twilight for 700$. so either way, if you slave away for 3 months straight nonstop farming gold, or but a leprachaun out of your kitten and get it off the forge, its a TRUE struggle.

But you don’t need it. For anything. There is literally no point to twilight. Basically what you’re saying is that you’re working towards something you want but you don’t actually want to get it. You fall into this category of people who deliberately and in full knowledge of how much work it takes, set their goal to be grinding for something, and then complain when they end up grinding for something. See above.

Tell me, why do I not see people complaining in Dota that they have to play so many matches just to get enough chests to trade for a cosmetic invoker hood, or something? I don’t get it, is this just what mmo players do, leftover impusles from WoW where I hear you do need to grind to get your money’s worth? I’m really quite confused.

I like WORKING hard at PLAYING this game; I have plenty of fun and amusement, when I achieve something I feel like i have really earned it.

If you don’t find the game FUN then this type of game isn’t for you, don’t play it!!.

Writetyper.1985:

Grinding things you don’t like just because they give you gold sounds too much like work to me. Is this the mentality of every mmo player? I’m new to mmos.

Some people just dont find the game FUN and I agree why play if you dont enjoy it.

Writetyper.1985:

Can I just quickly ask why everyone seems to not want to do something they find fun if it doesn’t give a reward?

I remember people playing Quake 3 a lot (and still playing) and it sure as hell didn’t give you any kind of internet money for winning a game.

Grinding things you don’t like just because they give you gold sounds too much like work too me. Is this the mentality of every mmo player? I’m new to mmos.

The MMO industry has been dominated by blizzard, which was not a very creative gaming house. Their idea of content was to run the same thing over and over for 6 months to get more powerful gear so you could become a player-controlled raid boss in PVP.

For those of us who played other action rpgs like FFCC or FPS games, the concept of playing for the gaming experience is not foreign, but to those swallowed by the likes of wow it’s a very, very foreign concept. There were a good 40% of threads prior to 11/15 complaining they had no “gear treadmill”.

Like the denizens of the matrix, they have become so dependent upon the system they are literally fighting those of us trying to free them, and ourselves, from that stupid paradigm.

This game was supposed to break this mold, and it comes pretty close, but the 11/15 patch sort of messed this up by introducing DR bugs and ascended gear that requires ludicrous amounts of T6 mats.

One can only hope ANet turns this around and learns how to say “no” to people who honestly don’t want to play the game they designed.

plasmacutter.2709:

This game was supposed to break this mold, and it comes pretty close, but the 11/15 patch sort of messed this up by introducing DR bugs and ascended gear that requires ludicrous amounts of T6 mats.

This is so FALSE, one item the back piece requires a high amount of mats, only if you want to infuse it, and more if you want it to glow. Rings drop and can be infused in the forge from mats that also drop in the fractals.

Clearly you’ve never done fractals and your quoting other people that are as clueless as you?

I have the back piece that requires 500 globs of ectoplasm but ONLY BY CHOICE. It wasnt forced on me.

Nibiru.1423:

plasmacutter.2709:

This game was supposed to break this mold, and it comes pretty close, but the 11/15 patch sort of messed this up by introducing DR bugs and ascended gear that requires ludicrous amounts of T6 mats.

This is so FALSE, one item the back piece requires a high amount of mats, only if you want to infuse it, and more if you want it to glow. Rings drop and can be infused in the forge from mats that also drop in the fractals.

Clearly you’ve never done fractals and your quoting other people that are as clueless as you?

Please do your research on mats for infusions, upcoming recipes, etc.

The MM-matrix has you, Nibiru. Free your mind.

lol i have the highest agony resist you can get, i dont need research its called experience.

like i said “I have the back piece that requires 500 globs of ectoplasm but ONLY BY CHOICE. It wasnt forced on me.”

Infused ring = 1 Shard of Crystallized Mists Essence + 3 Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence + 5 Vial of Condensed Mists Essence + Non infused ring

(ALL DROP INSIDE FRACTALS)

How about you do your research??

Nibiru.1423:

plasmacutter.2709:

This game was supposed to break this mold, and it comes pretty close, but the 11/15 patch sort of messed this up by introducing DR bugs and ascended gear that requires ludicrous amounts of T6 mats.

This is so FALSE, one item the back piece requires a high amount of mats, only if you want to infuse it, and more if you want it to glow. Rings drop and can be infused in the forge from mats that also drop in the fractals.

Clearly you’ve never done fractals and your quoting other people that are as clueless as you?

I have the back piece that requires 500 globs of ectoplasm but ONLY BY CHOICE. It wasnt forced on me.

I don’t know man, I don’t agree with you but this thread is not about ascended. I do agree that it kind of forces some work you might not want to do (I didn’t mind it, but there are others who hate fractals) in order to be on literal “even ground” with other players. I feel it doesn’t matter because I can slay people in blues in WvW if I wanted, but I don’t like the idea of it. I probably don’t mind provided they don’t make it too rediculous to get.

Anyway this is not one of the many ascended threads you see everywhere, let’s keep it on topic.

Writetyper.1985:

I don’t know man, I don’t agree with you but this thread is not about ascended. I do agree that it kind of forces some work you might not want to do (I didn’t mind it, but there are others who hate fractals) in order to be on literal “even ground” with other players. I feel it doesn’t matter because I can slay people in blues in WvW if I wanted, but I don’t like the idea of it. I probably don’t mind provided they don’t make it too rediculous to get.

Anyway this is not one of the many ascended threads you see everywhere, let’s keep it on topic.

Agreed to disagree :P

I’m just saying play the game how you ENJOY the game, don’t force yourself to grind things you don’t like, don’t set yourself a goal that you know you’re going to hate doing.

I personally don’t like PvP so I would never set myself any goal that requires me to grind PvP.

plasmacutter.2709:

Please do your research on mats for infusions, upcoming recipes, etc.

The MM-matrix has you, Nibiru. Free your mind.

You should do your research first, because you clearly haven’t done it.\

If you disregard your quest to get a legendary, the gold cost for making an infusion or infusing anything isn’t high. But of course, the main problem we have is that players are saving for their legendaries, and then complain that everything else is also expensive when it isn’t. Stop saving for a legendary and suddenly everything will be super cheap, yes even that 20g Abyss dye isn’t very expensive once you stop hoarding your gold and instead try using it.

maddoctor.2738:

plasmacutter.2709:

Please do your research on mats for infusions, upcoming recipes, etc.

The MM-matrix has you, Nibiru. Free your mind.

You should do your research first, because you clearly haven’t done it.\

If you disregard your quest to get a legendary, the gold cost for making an infusion or infusing anything isn’t high. But of course, the main problem we have is that players are saving for their legendaries, and then complain that everything else is also expensive when it isn’t. Stop saving for a legendary and suddenly everything will be super cheap, yes even that 20g Abyss dye isn’t very expensive once you stop hoarding your gold and instead try using it.

Please google the mats for infinite light and the foefire series, among others.

Nearly every skin worth having requires stacks of lodestones that go between 2.9 and 4g a pop.

ifinite light costs more than a legendary.

I think many people don’t really consider the implications of game design. The end goal with desirable prestige items is:

1. To keep them rare
2. To make it so that everyone can get them.

Seemingly opposing goals. The only way to ensure that both goals are met is to create a system which is basic enough so that anyone, regardless of their gaming skills and preferences, can get the prestige items and yet difficult enough so that those items do not become common.

The ONLY way this can be achieved is to introduce some sort of long term requirements. Whether you create a quest that literally has about a 1000 game hours in it, or create a system which requires player to gather crafting materials for the same 1000 hours or more, is irrelevant.
Now consider how much content would be involved in a quest that has 1000 gameplay hours included. And then consider the cost of paying a team to write, produce, code and Q&A said quest.
And finally compare that cost to the cost of paying a single programmer to adjust some numbers in a database table.

And now on to some finer points:

Wheres the reward for 10-on-1 victory in wvw.

You mean when people set things up with their pals from another server to have “10 vs 1” victories where 10 people stand and wait to be killed, so that everyone in the group can have cool rewards?

Where’s the reward for jumping puzzle meta-completion (and it’s cooler reward for timed)

Let us say that I am way smarter than you. I like to amuse myself with quantum physics conundrums before breakfast just to warm myself up. So now let us say that ANet places a nice quantum physics related puzzle in the game with a cool reward (and a Nobel prize) at the end.
Would you like that? Would you think it is fair?

No. Well, some people find jumping puzzles extremely difficult. They might have disabilities, or might just be very, very bad at them. And now you just have content that is impossible to get by a portion of your playerbase.

Where’s the reward for soloing x group events.

Remember all the rage people spew in other games over “loot tagging”, “loot stealing” etc.?
Multiply that by ten and you begin to approach the amount of rage people would be spewing for “X ruined my group event solo attempt” and “Y is trolling people trying to solo group events”

Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

So you think funelling everyone and their dog into fractals is a good idea? People are already complaining about the open world being empty because everyone is running fractals for the ascended jewelry. And you’d add even more exclusive gear to that?

So please, think things through in the context of players abusing the hell out of everything you do before you post suggestions on how things should be done in an MMO. Sad, but true.

Gaudrath.6725:

I think many people don’t really consider the implications of game design. The end goal with desirable prestige items is:

1. To keep them rare
2. To make it so that everyone can get them.

Seemingly opposing goals. The only way to ensure that both goals are met is to create a system which is basic enough so that anyone, regardless of their gaming skills and preferences, can get the prestige items and yet difficult enough so that those items do not become common.

The ONLY way this can be achieved is to introduce some sort of long term requirements. Whether you create a quest that literally has about a 1000 game hours in it, or create a system which requires player to gather crafting materials for the same 1000 hours or more, is irrelevant.
Now consider how much content would be involved in a quest that has 1000 gameplay hours included. And then consider the cost of paying a team to write, produce, code and Q&A said quest.
And finally compare that cost to the cost of paying a single programmer to adjust some numbers in a database table.

And now on to some finer points:

Wheres the reward for 10-on-1 victory in wvw.

You mean when people set things up with their pals from another server to have “10 vs 1” victories where 10 people stand and wait to be killed, so that everyone in the group can have cool rewards?

Where’s the reward for jumping puzzle meta-completion (and it’s cooler reward for timed)

Let us say that I am way smarter than you. I like to amuse myself with quantum physics conundrums before breakfast just to warm myself up. So now let us say that ANet places a nice quantum physics related puzzle in the game with a cool reward (and a Nobel prize) at the end.
Would you like that? Would you think it is fair?

No. Well, some people find jumping puzzles extremely difficult. They might have disabilities, or might just be very, very bad at them. And now you just have content that is impossible to get by a portion of your playerbase.

Where’s the reward for soloing x group events.

Remember all the rage people spew in other games over “loot tagging”, “loot stealing” etc.?
Multiply that by ten and you begin to approach the amount of rage people would be spewing for “X ruined my group event solo attempt” and “Y is trolling people trying to solo group events”

Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

So you think funelling everyone and their dog into fractals is a good idea? People are already complaining about the open world being empty because everyone is running fractals for the ascended jewelry. And you’d add even more exclusive gear to that?

So please, think things through in the context of players abusing the hell out of everything you do before you post suggestions on how things should be done in an MMO. Sad, but true.

I was making examples, and there are ways to guard against exploitation.

Just because you could find holes in my completely off the cuff examples does not make your assertion that “only things involving massive gold sinks or time investment” will guarantee rarity.

What it has guaranteed so far is exploitation and people spending most of their time watching gw2spidy instead of playing the zones ANet’s dev team toiled for years to create.

Gaudrath.6725:

Where’s the reward ONLY associated with reaching fractal 40, or 80.

So you think funelling everyone and their dog into fractals is a good idea? People are already complaining about the open world being empty because everyone is running fractals for the ascended jewelry. And you’d add even more exclusive gear to that?

So please, think things through in the context of players abusing the hell out of everything you do before you post suggestions on how things should be done in an MMO. Sad, but true.

You act like this should be the only reward for something. But I think he means a reward among several others. So if you like to get a skin, a title or whatever from this particular part of the content you will try to get it.

Edit: I would like to add that I really like this game. I love to explore do DEs and also play in lower areas. All this is fine, but when it comes to goals like certain skins the game unfortunately has often enough quite alot of rather boring and grindy ways to accquire something.

The same thing is with dungeons. One of the most often used comments in this thread was “run dungeons and all is fine”. What if you don’t like dungeons? I think dungeon runs should not be the only way to gain money. I think the dungeon armors are enough as an reward. Add titles or whatever. But why should dungeons be the main way to make money within this game.

Simple fact that Anet can’t please everyone, you go into a dungeon and try get 5 people to agree on something, then think how impossible it is to please over 3 million people.

plasmacutter.2709:

What it has guaranteed so far is exploitation and people spending most of their time watching gw2spidy instead of playing the zones ANet’s dev team toiled for years to create.

The thing is, if they made them more “available” everyone would have them in no time. The trick for me is to balance the difficulty to get them, now to get those items it’s not difficult in terms of challenge, even a braindead person can get Infite Light, Legendaries, whatever, but instead it takes a lot of time. What they should do is add a challenging way to acquire the materials, more challenge better rewards, less challenge less rewards.
For me that’s what is missing from the game now. As much as I hate that people can get Legendaries by paying real life money, I wouldn’t want them either to get acquired by people just farming one or two locations for a few days. A compromise is needed.

maddoctor.2738:

plasmacutter.2709:

What it has guaranteed so far is exploitation and people spending most of their time watching gw2spidy instead of playing the zones ANet’s dev team toiled for years to create.

The thing is, if they made them more “available” everyone would have them in no time. The trick for me is to balance the difficulty to get them, now to get those items it’s not difficult in terms of challenge, even a braindead person can get Infite Light, Legendaries, whatever, but instead it takes a lot of time. What they should do is add a challenging way to acquire the materials, more challenge better rewards, less challenge less rewards.
For me that’s what is missing from the game now. As much as I hate that people can get Legendaries by paying real life money, I wouldn’t want them either to get acquired by people just farming one or two locations for a few days. A compromise is needed.

Fair enough, and the dialogue should be had, but the current system is obscenely broken, and holds the gameplay of the vast majority of the playerbase to “the black lion 1%”.

I don’t think this game should be in serious need of “occupy lion’s arch”, but right now it is.

plasmacutter.2709:

I was making examples, and there are ways to guard against exploitation.

Just because you could find holes in my completely off the cuff examples does not make your assertion that “only things involving massive gold sinks or time investment” will guarantee rarity.

What it has guaranteed so far is exploitation and people spending most of their time watching gw2spidy instead of playing the zones ANet’s dev team toiled for years to create.

I quoted your examples just to show how easily they can be exploited. Believe me, game design is a passion of mine and I have put a lot of thought in how certain systems work and why.

You MUST make all prestige gear available to everyone, but not easy to attain. You must not make certain prestige rewards available only to people with certain skills, or make it too easily obtained because that simply shatters the whole point of having prestige items and alienates a good portion of your playerbase.

Good game design would tackle this with multiple skill-specific ways to attain the same rewards, so that’s what ANet did not do well, they funneled the effort into one avenue only, which is not good; but the way they did it was the cheapest and simplest for them so that’s why they used it.

Maybe they will change things up with the scavenger hunt, but I totally believe them when they say it is not a simple problem with an easy solution.

Personally, I would go with player-specific procedural questing (read: randomized quests). That way you can generate a ton of non-repetitive, impossible to farm and unique content per player. No online guides, no bots, just people playing the game.

Of course the whole system would have to be very carefully designed or there would be a ton of complaints that some people got it easy and some didn’t. Everyone would have to be very challenged by the system, but on an equal level, something that is definitely not easy to accomplish using any kind of randomization and procedural generation of content, especially in the context of a multiplayer environment.

Gaudrath.6725:

plasmacutter.2709:

I was making examples, and there are ways to guard against exploitation.

Just because you could find holes in my completely off the cuff examples does not make your assertion that “only things involving massive gold sinks or time investment” will guarantee rarity.

What it has guaranteed so far is exploitation and people spending most of their time watching gw2spidy instead of playing the zones ANet’s dev team toiled for years to create.

I quoted your examples just to show how easily they can be exploited. Believe me, game design is a passion of mine and I have put a lot of thought in how certain systems work and why.

You MUST make all prestige gear available to everyone, but not easy to attain. You must not make certain prestige rewards available only to people with certain skills, or make it too easily obtained because that simply shatters the whole point of having prestige items and alienates a good portion of your playerbase.

Good game design would tackle this with multiple skill-specific ways to attain the same rewards, so that’s what ANet did not do well, they funneled the effort into one avenue only, which is not good; but the way they did it was the cheapest and simplest for them so that’s why they used it.

Maybe they will change things up with the scavenger hunt, but I totally believe them when they say it is not a simple problem with an easy solution.

Personally, I would go with player-specific procedural questing (read: randomized quests). That way you can generate a ton of non-repetitive, impossible to farm and unique content per player. No online guides, no bots, just people playing the game.

Of course the whole system would have to be very carefully designed or there would be a ton of complaints that some people got it easy and some didn’t. Everyone would have to be very challenged by the system, but on an equal level, something that is definitely not easy to accomplish using any kind of randomization and procedural generation of content, especially in the context of a multiplayer environment.

Your last proposal is all fine and good.

Your arguments for the current system leave the elephant in the room that is inflation vs someone who has a real job, and thus can’t play a game like a second job.

The skins that are in the game and the way they are implemented is fine. They don’t need to change anything to that.

However, there should be some nice, unique skins for some parts of the game. One of the strengths that I haven’t seen return from Guild Wars 1 was (even though it was grindy) were unique skin drops from certain bosses. Then again that lead to people farming these bosses over and over, but hey.

The argument that getting enough lodestones would take you 16 years is your personal experience, and is likely because youre not interested in farming it.

So there’s a few things that I get from this is:
- That weapon is not a goal for you, (and I think the game shouldn’t change for this, tbh.)
- Farming lodestones isn’t fun, and makes you do the same thing over and over.
- Unfocussed adventuring (IE going which ever area you feel like going to) gives way less rewards than focussed adventuring (IE going to Orr every day).

However I find myself often looking at weapon galleries on the wiki if I want a specific weapon skin or specific armor. (IE for Scepters )
Also this list is pretty nice:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

Going from that I usually pick one I like and find myself to be reasonably attainable.
Which, yes, does bar most lodestone and ecto weapons. But hey, I cant have everything.

@ Space Cow

I have asked this of players before and I mean it as an honest question.

How much gold do you feel you need to meet your expectations to play this game?

I think it is unfair for players to say that Anet is not meeting expectations, but not let them know what are the player’s expectations. (and what I got from your original post was that the returns were just not enough)

I will agree that the returns for defeating epic events should be a little more representative of the effort. But, I don’t think anyone should get rich off of doing only events.

Concerning travel costs, I really do not see that as a problem. Just by playing the game, I seem to make enough to cover basic costs like travel and repairs. And I am talking about simply playing Pve content and running with WvW zergs, not purposely playing to make money.

I agree that I would love to see legendary weapons acquirable through other paths. This goes back to your first point about rewards equaling effort. But, at this point, Anet decided not to go down this path. It may change in the future. Luckily, those items are very few and do nothing in the game other then cosmetic.

plasmacutter.2709:

Nibiru.1423:

plasmacutter.2709:

This game was supposed to break this mold, and it comes pretty close, but the 11/15 patch sort of messed this up by introducing DR bugs and ascended gear that requires ludicrous amounts of T6 mats.

This is so FALSE, one item the back piece requires a high amount of mats, only if you want to infuse it, and more if you want it to glow. Rings drop and can be infused in the forge from mats that also drop in the fractals.

Clearly you’ve never done fractals and your quoting other people that are as clueless as you?

Please do your research on mats for infusions, upcoming recipes, etc.

The MM-matrix has you, Nibiru. Free your mind.

I did research on infusing rings (thought that it requires ectos too), no it only requires pink stuff that drops in fractals. The drop rate is low, but hell, I got 1 vial of mists essence and 4 globs of mists essence without going further than level 13 (I repeat daily level 10 a lot because I want to ring up my alts).
The back piece can be made solely from fractal relics too. You’ll need 1850 of them, but it’s doable.
Upcoming stuff so far is the necklaces that will be bought with laurels.

Mirta.5029:

I did research on infusing rings (thought that it requires ectos too), no it only requires pink stuff that drops in fractals. The drop rate is low, but hell, I got 1 vial of mists essence and 4 globs of mists essence without going further than level 13 (I repeat daily level 10 a lot because I want to ring up my alts).
The back piece can be made solely from fractal relics too. You’ll need 1850 of them, but it’s doable.
Upcoming stuff so far is the necklaces that will be bought with laurels.

If you just need pink mats, solo farm Fractals. Some of them are very very easy.
I’m not saying finish them, just get in, try some times until you get the easiest Fractals (Swamp) kill mobs, get out, get in again, repeat → all your pink mats

A bit offtopic, but how do you get into Fractals solo? I know I managed to do it once, but most of the time that stupid guard won’t let me! :p

Gaudrath.6725:

A bit offtopic, but how do you get into Fractals solo? I know I managed to do it once, but most of the time that stupid guard won’t let me! :p

Walk up to the Asura gate next to the guard, select difficulty, enter? Be sure not to be in a party, they will get that popup to press “ready”. Then just go in the middle to start a map, repeat until you get the Swamp, then farm and profit.

And yet the Gate seems turned off for me. Can’t enter. Very annoying and I have no clue what am I missing.

Edit

Let the above be the eternal monument to my dumbness… just because the Fractals gate seems turned off doesn’t actually mean it IS off… just tried to enter and of course it works.

So lols are on me, you can get back on topic! :p

Gaudrath.6725:

And yet the Gate seems turned off for me. Can’t enter. Very annoying and I have no clue what am I missing.

Odd. The gate in LA or the gate inside the Fractals dungeon? The Gate is 90% of the time “disabled” there is no purple glow like other Asura Gates, that doesn’t mean it’s offline, walk inside it and you should get the message to select Fractal Difficulty and enter.

Nibiru.1423:

Same as saying, the game is too hard so it must change because I’m too lazy to work for my stuff. I want everything in 3 months, stuff everyone else if they get bored because the game is too easy.

I would agree with you if this game wasn’t sold on the promise that it wouldn’t be like this.