Guild Wars 2

I’ve loved GW2 and hope to love it again. Some things I’ll be waiting for:

• More options for mastery points that don’t involve being forced to do content I don’t want to do (mini-games,. dungeons)
• Less arbitrary gates of content (2 hour zone cycles, content behind master gates, agony resistance)
• More skins: either a game needs end-game gear grind or cosmetics to go for. Currently, there is neither

Fundamentally, the game’s effort to fun ratio is way off. I’m up for grinding things (just finished fossil weapons), so I am not averse to some repetition but currently, the things to work toward and the goals available, do not work for me,

I fear Anet is in a death spiral: too much content to support, spread too thin. The recent, “we’ll pay you a gold for opening a black lion chest” was just sad, kind of drove home that currently, there’s insufficient dev mass to do anything.

Hope it changes; I’ll keep an eye out but time to do something else for now.,

qbalrog.8017:

More skins: either a game needs end-game gear grind or cosmetics to go for. Currently, there is neither

Eh? A game doesn’t need either of those things to start off with and besides GW2 is FULL of skins and cosmetics. If you’ve got all the machined, plated, bladed, specialization, dungeon, cultural, BL ticket etc etc skins then go you.

Masteries are rewards for mastering the game. You can’t master some content? You won’t get mastery for it. It is a simple endgame progress system.

Mortifer.2946:

Masteries are rewards for mastering the game. You can’t master some content? You won’t get mastery for it. It is a simple endgame progress system.

Oooof, never realised masteries required so much skill, and weren’t… you know… menial boring tasks.

I agree mostly with what the OP is saying. But there are a lot of cosmetics in the game mate. Anet have pretty well-established that they’ll kitten skins out on the TP. As for the legendaries… well…. yeah… can’t get them unless you grind content which you don’t want to play. Fun times eh?

Grinding masteries does suck. That being said, I wouldn’t want them handed to me. I get a sense of accomplishment from working hard and finally getting those mastery points. Where’s the challenge in having everything handed to you?

It seems the OP wants instant gratification without having to put forth any effort. If they can’t deal with actually working towards some some modest goals then I’ve only one thing to say… “Bye Felicia”

Why does the mental image of arms crossed tapping toes spring to mind?
Why do I just laugh at that mental image?

‘I fear Anet is in a death spiral: too much content to support, spread too thin. The recent, “we’ll pay you a gold for opening a black lion chest” was just sad, kind of drove home that currently, there’s insufficient dev mass to do anything.’

ah another guild wars is dying thread lol. Its interesting, there’s too much content, but devs don’t have time to do anything, where did the content come from then, its twisting my mind!!

I will at least agree with the OP that mastery points are a problem. They were handled poorly.

Should it matter that I found my way to a couple of strongboxes in Tangled Depths? Should that somehow push me over the edge of being capable of learning how to mine some mineral in Auric Basin? Well… no. No, it shouldn’t. And doing “adventures” for mastery points is even less logical.

If they want to keep the basic idea of mastery points, then they should show just that, mastery. Let them be a test to see if you’ve mastered what you already have, and are ready to move on.

For an example, let’s look at gliding. That unlocks naturally in the story, and you earn the basic level of it to glide. To unlock the second level, you need to reach a point that you can only get to with gliding. Then, the one after that is unlocked by a point where you need to ride updrafts, and so on. You still need the EXP to gain the levels, but you’re not hunting down masses of random points on the map.

And if someone’s looking at that example and thinking “what about Mesmer portals, and other bypasses?”, well… what about them? The devs wanted this to feel like a Metroidvania game, and in a good Metroidvania game, there are ways for smart or skilled players to bypass some of the restrictions. (Just watch a video of someone doing a speedrun of Super Metroid for some good examples of this.) You would still need to gain the EXP for the mastery levels, you’d just be bypassing a test every now and then.

“Waiting”

Maybe stop waiting and start playing the game ?

The OP asked for more mastery points in more places. A solid suggestion that points to the obvious fact that because there is so much different content in the game, not everybody is going to like everything there is in the game.
Failure to acknowledge this fact has cost the game lost player after lost player.

I understand the desire to maintain the difficulty of achievements we have achieved.
But why so much effort to prevent others from obtaining achievements in the area’s of the game that they enjoy? Are you saying “If I had to do it, you should have to too”? Sure, I remember that, from 3rd grade.

Were any of you planning on listing these achievements on a resume? Come on.
No matter how much you want more players in the areas you want to play, the methods used now prevent it. The daily’s are not moving masses of players into any specific area for any longer than it takes to get the gold. Then they are gone. That’s human nature. Continuing to try to gate achievements behind specific areas that players don’t enjoy will only result in fewer players. More paths to success, more players.
I’m playing the game, but waiting for changes before ever trying to complete certain content, and there are plenty of others doing the same. Nope, I have no idea what the Mastery number is behind my name because it’s not important to me. It could become important though.

GW2 got so many great stuff in the archives it should never be a time when not a big open world stuff happening,yes I want Boss Blitz and challenge those champions again

qbalrog.8017:

I’ve loved GW2 and hope to love it again. Some things I’ll be waiting for:

• More skins: either a game needs end-game gear grind or cosmetics to go for. Currently, there is neither

Isn’t the DS armor your “end game gear”? Also, legendaries are mostly end game gear. Technically, being 80 is end game, so anything for an 80 is end game gear.

There is plenty. If you have every piece congrats, maybe you do need a break. Otherwise, there is plenty of skins in the game.

Tumult.2578:

I’m playing the game, but waiting for changes before ever trying to complete certain content, and there are plenty of others doing the same. Nope, I have no idea what the Mastery number is behind my name because it’s not important to me. It could become important though.

Good reply; thanks for the follow up.

I was patiently playing while waiting for some changes as well but at this point, I think I think I’ll wait it out doing something else. It doesn’t feel like I’ll miss anything going else where for a while and I am pretty sure they will address at least some of what I’d like to see at some point.

Was thinking more about what has got me turned off at this time. It’s a number of things but it mostly having to do things I don’t like doing. This is supposed to be a form of entertainment, afterall.

It’s not that I don’t actually like grind at times. I remember grinding out the frost saber in WoW (after the first nerf- it still took 2 months). So what is it about masteries and hot zones? I think it is the frustration of the grind requiring so many things I don’t like. Each mini-game requires its own little grind to get good at something that will never matter again. If it was just a do once and you were done, probably okay (but not thrilled) but it isn’t- it requires hours sometimes to get through these. Plus there’s the difficulty of getting to a minigame: I might be mentally prepped but by the time it is available or I manage to reach it, I’ve lost the will to do it.

And the lack of new skins is a fairly big problem for me. I’m not a big fan of gear treadmills (for stats) and I do like the old GW2 focus on doing stuff for fun and aesthetics. But HOT added hardly any new gear compared to the number of old sets (which I do have most of) and the ones they added do not tickle my aesthetics fancy except for some of the new black lion ones (and not even the recent ones) and those aren’t really farmable anyway- they require keys from the cash shop for more than 1 or 2 a month.

Anyway, for those enjoying it, have at it. I think I’ll sit it out for a while and see if Anet makes the logical changes. As I said, for me the current effort to fun ratio is way off. It was only a memory of former good times that kept me going for a while. Once I stepped back, it wasn’t a hard choice. Again, this is my personal feeling. Doubt I’m alone though.

Yargesh.4965:

Why does the mental image of arms crossed tapping toes spring to mind?
Why do I just laugh at that mental image?

and then Jaleel White appears and says “I’m waiiiting…!”

Mortifer.2946:

Masteries are rewards for mastering the game. You can’t master some content? You won’t get mastery for it. It is a simple endgame progress system.

There’s no mastery in tedious, braindead grind. The content locked behind masteries is content that should have been available on release. The only reason that masteries were created was to artificially lengthen the progress of players through “content.”

qbalrog.8017:

Good reply; thanks for the follow up.

I was patiently playing while waiting for some changes as well but at this point, I think I think I’ll wait it out doing something else. It doesn’t feel like I’ll miss anything going else where for a while and I am pretty sure they will address at least some of what I’d like to see at some point.

Was thinking more about what has got me turned off at this time. It’s a number of things but it mostly having to do things I don’t like doing. This is supposed to be a form of entertainment, afterall.

The other day I was watching a TV series on Netflix I had wanted to watch when it premiered but never got around to. The first few episodes were good, but after a while the plot got very weird and convoluted and I started to lose interest. But I kept watching because I wanted to see where it went. My wife watched a bit with me and went off to do other things. A few hours later she asked me what was happening in the show and I told her I wasn’t sure, I had lost interest in it and didn’t really follow the latest plot twists.

“So why are you still watching?” she asked. I realized I didn’t really know why I was still watching. This is supposed to entertain, not confuse and distract. I thought it would end soon but it didn’t. The next episode came on, and it was “Season 2, Episode 2.” I realized there would probably be hours more of this, and so I turned it off.

Play the game because you enjoy it. Play the way that you like, play the content that you like. If you’re not having fun, walk away. The devs have the next year or three planned out, and while those plans could change, they probably won’t change based on a forum thread or two. You can put down the game and pick it up again later. If it still doesn’t grab you, walk away again.

After dabbling in WoW and SWToR, I’ve returned to GW2… have to say I am enjoying it. Living story added a reasonable number of ways to get more HoT mastery, the LW itself is rather nice and its fun to be back.

Note to devs: a big draw for GW2 is both the cool combat system and the superior graphics. My recommendation is to lay off the outfits and go back to making skins. It’s really one of the strengths of the game.

Anyway, nice job on LW, looking forward to the xpac and more LW chapters… just give us more armor skins :P

Every MMO in existance loses players over time, even WOW.
Its pointless arguing things like <if the Devs dont do something about this , then players will leave .>
No MMO ever made will make everyone happy , and there will never be content in an MMO that everyone can do.
Grind exists in all MMOs, and is essential for making them work.