Guild Wars 2

*Loot? No…champ farming nerfed to oblivion as well as magic find…no more exotics for you!
*Dungeon running? No unless your a full time zerker, with like minded quick runs. No heroes so you can try on your own
*Armor? Well i suppose if you crafted 500 hours for mats, i guess some call it “fun”
*Weapons…don’t make me laugh
*Personal story? 3 80’s later and haven’t been able to complete it even once!
*World bosses…Tequatil says it all…fail fail fail
*PvP i.e. hotjoins, “we don’t care how good or bad you are…here’s your glory…mmmkay?”
WvW: Sorry if you joined the loser server..someone had to!

I’m trying to enjoy this game. It’s not GW1, but still, trying. You just keep making it so casuals cant get ahead in anything…ever. After 3 years of WoW kicking me in the teeth gearwise (pvp & pve), I learnt my lesson. It won’t 3 years here Anet, just saying.

loot? casual players does not care about loot that much. only farmers.
dungeons? nice dungeons runs with casual guilds members. no zerker gear required.
armor? buy exotic set with karma or dungeon tokens. ascended armor not upon us yet.
weapons? buy exotic weapons with dungeon tokens or badges of honor. close enough.
personal story? good casual experience for the first time.
world bosses? tequalt may have failed for casuals. others still not too bad.
sPvP? hotjoin is good simple fun. standardized glory / rank got its good and bads.
WvW? run with the zerg or roam with friends.

well, casual players play the game and have fun with whatever they can get, find etc. if you have lots of demands then perhaps you are not very casual.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

loot? casual players does not care about loot that much. only farmers.
dungeons? nice dungeons runs with casual guilds members. no zerker gear required.
armor? buy exotic set with karma or dungeon tokens. ascended armor not upon us yet.
weapons? buy exotic weapons with dungeon tokens or badges of honor. close enough.
personal story? good casual experience for the first time.
world bosses? tequalt may have failed for casuals. others still not too bad.
sPvP? hotjoin is good simple fun. standardized glory / rank got its good and bads.
WvW? run with the zerg or roam with friends.

well, casual players play the game and have fun with whatever they can get, find etc. if you have lots of demands then perhaps you are not very casual.

Obviously, you don’t get it.

Blakvalhalla.6170:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

loot? casual players does not care about loot that much. only farmers.
dungeons? nice dungeons runs with casual guilds members. no zerker gear required.
armor? buy exotic set with karma or dungeon tokens. ascended armor not upon us yet.
weapons? buy exotic weapons with dungeon tokens or badges of honor. close enough.
personal story? good casual experience for the first time.
world bosses? tequalt may have failed for casuals. others still not too bad.
sPvP? hotjoin is good simple fun. standardized glory / rank got its good and bads.
WvW? run with the zerg or roam with friends.

well, casual players play the game and have fun with whatever they can get, find etc. if you have lots of demands then perhaps you are not very casual.

Obviously, you don’t get it.

do you get it?

Sounds like anotehr casual player who wants to be on par with the hardcore player.

I casually play 1-3 hours a day average and can take breaks whenever I want and still get top tier gear. Even after a 5 month break it took me about a day to get re-acquainted with my characters (its like 14 buttons max) and in that time they’ve release 1 extra slot of ascended gear (weapons) and multiple other ways to get the old Ascended gear.

I’ve beaten their “Hardest” boss with equipment I already have, I’ve ran throug hall of their dungeons, fractals included, with pugs.

If I wanted to PvP, everything is free and I can swap anytime I like, try new builds ect.

WvW is persistent so I can join and play that mode anytime, join up with pug commanders or a guild of my chosing, there is no hard requirement other than my own wants.

GW2 is super casual if you stop comparing yourself to hardcores or just regulars.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

do you get it?

I dont think he does to be honest. This is game is ideal if youre a casual, as long as youre you’re content with the long and scenic route. You dont need to be full ascended/BiS to enjoy this game as a casual.

Play w/e you enjoy playing instead of trying to be efficient.

Join a friendly guild and exprience all content at a supercasual pace without the need for full zerker gear or to play optimal specs.

I never played in full zerkergear and i never had issues to get in to groups or people never complained how poorly i did.

GW2 launched with a lot of content that should appeal to most casual players. Most of that content is still there. The problem comes if you’re both casual and burnt out on the leveling content.

I can see an argument that the Living World stuff doesn’t add that much to the game for casuals due to the temporary nature of some of the content, and the grindy feel to many of the casually accessible achievements. The nature of the interaction between the player-base and the LW stuff can be unfriendly to casuals. The patch hits, the time-sinkers race out and get their achievements done in the first couple of days. Then, the casual who finally gets to it in week two finds the herd-oriented stuff mostly deserted.

BiS gear at launch was casual friendly, and is decidedly less so, especially if one had geared multiple characters in exotics (yes, yes, you don’t need Ascended, which is irrelevant).

The complaint about sPvP hotjoins seems more like that of someone who thinks glory should be earned, not given away. Is that a casual mindset?

The personal story is not casual-unfriendly. Whether you think it’s good or not is a different matter.

If you are casual, you probably arn’t lvl80 yet. there are many thing to do.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The nature of the interaction between the player-base and the LW stuff can be unfriendly to casuals. The patch hits, the time-sinkers race out and get their achievements done in the first couple of days. Then, the casual who finally gets to it in week two finds the herd-oriented stuff mostly deserted.

ya. i ran into some trouble trying to finish the “global toxic thing” achievement i.e. destroy toxic thing in 5 different maps.

gandarran fields was deserted mostly. almost no one was doing the achievement.

the golem siege master would always get zerged by the mobs and that event would fail.

then the 3 siege engineers manning the mortars would also get zerged.

finally i got lucky one time, there was another warrior attempting it. somehow he managed to keep 2 siege engineers alive.

i joined in and finally got that achievement done.

previously i was camping at kessix hills for the kill 25 spore infested creatures achievement. for me, that is quite a kittened grind. they say join the queensdale champ zerg train but i can’t be bothered with champ trains so i end up casually camping the 3 champs in kessix hills instead.

after a few attempts i finally got my 25 spore infested creature kills.

I don’t see how the heck can they get more casual. Being any more casual and you may as well just give you loot for logging in, oh, they practically do that with dailies.

Champ trains aren’t ran by casuals, they’re ran by ‘hardcore’ grinders.

You can’t complete your PS? Their difficulty is about as difficult as running AC P3.

Failing world bosses? The last time we somehow failed the shatterer everyone was shocked beyond belief, but then we decided to take our anger out on golem 2 and decimated it in 5 mins.

Dungeons? I only see about 1 party per dungeon asking for full Zerker runs, and in Arah most of those full Zerker parties end up rating dirt.

There is a simple answer here and the OP gave a big hint :
“I’m trying to enjoy this game.”

Stop. It is useless. Why try so hard to like a game? There are hundreds and hundreds of games out there that I don’t like and I would certanly not force myself to like them.

Really… why? A game is about pleasure in playing. No fun no game. Period.

For me there are parts of this game that I don’t like only and I don’t do them. But I can get my daily one hour game time and go around enjoying other parts of the game.

The only times I get bored as a casual is when trying to play in grind mode to obtain something quickly; and this only happends with LS due to the temporal aspect of the events.

Just like to make a point about loot.

In the recent feedback threads on the general discussion forums. WvW and PvP forums, about 80-90% of players listed LACK OF REWARDS, as a MAJOR problem with GW2.

Anets response? NERF rewards even more…

They ask for feedback and then ignore it all.

Its no wonder the forums get toxic…those feedback threads are just PR, looks like they have no intention of listening.

^ there’s a reward system revamp coming for PvP, and a large part if the problem was that everything seemed like a lack of rewards because champ trains gave too much relative to to them. So nerfing champ bags actually helps to fix the problem.

You sound like you think the lead dev wakes up every morning and think ‘how do we screw over players even more?’

At time I checked, class balancing was a bigger problem there anyways..

Rewards need to be balanced against costs or else you’re get inflation.

If they buffed rewards so that 1 hr of farming champions gave you 1000g what would happen? would you then buy you legendary within 2 hours? no the people who take the trouble of building a legendary and spend say 500 hrs to build it will now charge 500,000g for it. Its logical, they’re selling it to make money if 2 hrs of farming will get you the same income as 500hrs of building a legendary thats what you’ll do.

Hence at the end of the day getting 1g per hour farming champions is no different then getting 1000g per hour. Only difference is someone new is going to be in trouble cause they will never be able to compete with people who’ve been playing for years.

I have a friend who stopped playing. She is what I would call casual.

She plays for having fun. She can not find fun lately.

- I showed her the labyrinth and she told me, this content is so stupid, she will never play it again.
- She thinks in general, that zerging is stupid, challenge-free and no fun.
- Crafting with a guide or wasting tons of resources? That is no fun.
- She likes, if I give her free items, but as ascended stuff is not tradeable, she thinks that stuff is not fun, as she will not be able to obtain it (grinding ressources is no fun for her).
- She likes to stay on a map and finish it. She does not like to be forced to go to special maps and do time gated events aka LS or missing out story.
- She likes challenge, so we go against champions together. She does not like, that challenge is not rewarded, but super easy farming is.
- She doesn’t like the story, as most of the time, there is no story, just events that are overfarmed and mindlessly boring.
- For her, Dailies are no fun, she does not want to be forced in doing content to get rewards that are necessary for other rewards. For her it feels like a grind in a grind in a grind.
.
.
.

I could go on. But for the idea of GW2 to be a fun game even for casuals, the content added is mostly not fun (subjective) for many players (educated guess).

We must be playing a different game as I find GW2 very casual-friendly:

- Leveling up is super-easy, and there’s none of the XP ramp as in many other games when you get to the higher levels. Getting from 70 to 80 is actually easier than getting from 1 to 10.
- The whole game is very solo-friendly. You can jump on and start playing right away, and log off whenever you want.
- Scaling allows you to participate even in high-level LS stuff. I was fighting the candy corn monstrosity less than a week after I joined.
- The difference between gear that costs a ton of time and money, and gear you can get dirt cheap, is minimal.

Etc.

Some of the OP’s points are rather poorly made as well. How does being on a ‘loser server’ for WvW make things worse for casual players? I’d say it’s the opposite. And do you have to be on a ‘winner server’ to have fun?

Honestly, if casuals are ok to be second grade citizens, they can play whatever game they want.

If they do not need the best gear in game, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need to be at level cap, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need the to see all content, they can play any other MMO.

What is the point in playing GW2? They expected GW2 to be different, and now it is like all those other games.

Hmm…I don’t have all ascended gear on my characters. In fact, I have very little. I was unaware that made me a second-class citizen. It takes little time to attain level cap, I’m not sure how being ‘casual’ prevents one from doing so. I can’t find the areas I am not allowed to enter, either. Dang it!

Most important thing for a game you play is that you have fun playing it.GW2 game segments:PVE,PVP,WVW are unrewarding and most importantly unbalanced with each other in terms of rewards.Dungeons are not intresting some are fast some longer but all are the same,cleaning a lot of OP trash and bursting bosses with little to none mechanics.PVE is turned into zerg fest,PVP is linear and over time boring,WvW is best segment of GW2 imo,but again very unrewarding.Ascended gear made things worse I remember after karka event some big dev guy said they will be implementing ascended gear across all segments of game,lots of time passed and we dont have ascended in dungeons,or for karma(prices ridiculous).Basicly people like me that play WvW and dungeons and hate dailys and crafting have hard time getting ascended becouse we get no laurels for things we like to do.I have insane amounts of dungeon tokens,karma and BoH so Anet says:we dont value segments of game you like to play and rewards you colected,we value daily and monthly grinds,gold and farming in general.Whay would my time spent in dungeons and rewards I got worth less then time someone spent on getting laurels?GW2 as it is now is so undefined on its future that I figured its best to leave it until they decide what they want to do and where they want to go with GW2.I am playing Neverwinter for 3 months now.Its far worse game then GW2 in almost all segments of the game.but dungeons are very fun,with good design and rewarding so I am having a lot of fun in Neverwinter so far.So yea I can sugest to post maker try something else,there are lots of good MMOs out there you just have to find 1 that suits your game segments prefrencess.Its pointless to complain on forums becouse they are filled with “soldiers” and trolls constantly recycleing same type of phrases.Trust me find something else and watch what hapens here if they make some good changes you can come back.I personaly wait for dungeon redesign and ascended implementation across the board.Until then dont forget to have fun and avoid forums

Uhm…everything it did on release?
Sorry, I just don’t see your problem. I’ve always considered myself a casual player, and I have completed the personal story with no problems (did the later ‘chapters’ with a friend for fun, but I have also helped out total strangers with theirs), have managed to find, nice, sociable teams for dungeons (both story and explorable), have managed to gain all the equipment I wanted without too much hassle (or doing something I really hate) (but I don’t care about legendary), there are still tons of decent worldbosses around, the people I play with are nice and helpful, I have no problem achieving personal goals (like world completion – although the WvW part was kind of annoying)…
I just don’t see your problem. But then, I simply choose not to deal with content and players I dislike. The game is big enough for that, after all.

Nowadays GW2 is all about grinding.

Living story content is released, I lack the motivation to even look at the achievments and save them for later, new living story content is released same thing, and then another 2 weeks later they remove the previous one and it got left undone which removes my motivation even more for next content, I wont ever catch up with everyone else.

This new Living Story that was released gave me good impressions, but I’ll never do the achievments.. The last nice Living Story to me was the Dragon Bash one, it was fun and calming, and didn’t force me into grindfest.

So the last thing I really worked for in GW2 was the title Champion Shadow, and I was really close to go out on the leaderboard as well, but looking at the rank one in solo arena with 15-0 makes it demotivating when I’ve seen a lot of other players working really hard and have hundreds of wins and hundreds of losses mostly because they’ve been unlucky with solo teams and are not even near the top, unlucky and get inexperienced players on teams or end up playing 4 vs 5 which happens a lot recently.

Crafting is a pain and isn’t rewarding enough, I worked really hard and even spent irl money to buy gems to convert to gold to level up huntsman from 400 to 500, just to get a slight touch in stats and getting the same items as everyone else.

I really wanted to make Arachnophobia when halloween arrived, but guess what, the grinding required to make it got increased a lot and made me sell the mats and forget about it.

WvW, just huge blobs running around spamming skills.

Dungeons? Why would I spam the same dungeons over and over again when there is nothing I want from there and not really anything to gain.

And heavy RNG reliance kills pretty much everything else with the game.

Daily, eew.. I go to hotjoin and stand afk on a point til the daily is finished, and get top stats for afk or something else irrelevant.

Some days ago I bought this chest piece http://www.gw2armor.com/human/male/k6/medium/front.jpg
Dyed it white, it makes a nice slacking coat and I stand mostly idle in Divinity’s Reach chatting to my friends.

So why do I still play this game? Idk.. I just don’t have much else to do under my current personal circumstances.

GW2 wasn’t like all other mmos when I started playing, it was really fun and relaxing to play, now it’s worse than all other mmo’s, with the things it was said to be better with. :/

Ghostwolf.9863:

Nowadays GW2 is all about grinding.

Only if all you care about is having the best ‘stuff’.

This game actually has a huge variety of things you can do. Grinding is a choice.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Crafting is a pain and isn’t rewarding enough, I worked really hard and even spent irl money to buy gems to convert to gold to level up huntsman from 400 to 500, just to get a slight touch in stats and getting the same items as everyone else.

Well there you go. So if it doesn’t make a big difference, why bother grinding it? Just do what you enjoy.

Or if you’re burned out, take a break. Happens with most people in every game after a while.

Qaelyn.7612:

Ghostwolf.9863:

Nowadays GW2 is all about grinding.

Only if all you care about is having the best ‘stuff’.

This game actually has a huge variety of things you can do. Grinding is a choice.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Crafting is a pain and isn’t rewarding enough, I worked really hard and even spent irl money to buy gems to convert to gold to level up huntsman from 400 to 500, just to get a slight touch in stats and getting the same items as everyone else.

Well there you go. So if it doesn’t make a big difference, why bother grinding it? Just do what you enjoy.

Or if you’re burned out, take a break. Happens with most people in every game after a while.

What can you do that is rewarding and not related to a grind at 80?

If you have to ask the question, then for you it probably has no answer, and you might be better off playing something else.

I’m new and recognize that I’m still in the ‘honeymoon’ period of the game, but I’ll never get to the point where I feel I have to grind junk. I’ll do stuff I find fun, and if I no longer find it fun, I’ll leave.

The problem is that people get attached to a game and feel like it’s a marriage or something. If you don’t enjoy it, do something else. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the game itself.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Honestly, if casuals are ok to be second grade citizens, they can play whatever game they want.

If they do not need the best gear in game, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need to be at level cap, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need the to see all content, they can play any other MMO.

What is the point in playing GW2? They expected GW2 to be different, and now it is like all those other games.

Ok, brace yourselves for a post typed with frowning eyebrows and clinched lips.

The difference here is that you can hit 80 very quickly and the road to 80 on your first character isn’t a case of ‘oh, you actually want to play the game? Get max level and we’ll talk) like in other games.

You don’t need BiS gear to see all the content nor to be competitive or to not feel like dead weight. I challenge you to name one area of the game that needs Ascended gear to do.

My Mes is the one responsible for most of my BoHs, the character I got world comp on, and the character that have my Guardian full dungeon armour the moment he hit 80. Yet you could say she was my abandoned stepchild because she was in exotic gear with rare trinklets until very recently because all the good stuff went to her younger Guardian brother (yes, I feel guilty).

I don’t understand all this complaint about farming resources. Load yourself with salvage kits and you’ll drown in ori and ancients for doing anything in PvE. Ive maybe went and bought/farmed 100 bars/planks during my entire playtime and I’ve made Sunrise, 3 Ascended weapons etc, etc.

Want challenging content? Try Arah, TA Aether, some hair losing JPs or high levelled fractals, amongst a list of whole load of other stuff. I see everyone complaining the game’s too shallow and easy…. whilst they spam CoF P1 and champ trains. If there’s so many pros out there why are we still having problems following instructions like ’don’t aggro the cultist’?

Sorry for the wall of rant-ish text but complaints like those just get on my nerves.

Qaelyn.7612:

If you have to ask the question, then for you it probably has no answer, and you might be better off playing something else.

I’m new and recognize that I’m still in the ‘honeymoon’ period of the game, but I’ll never get to the point where I feel I have to grind junk. I’ll do stuff I find fun, and if I no longer find it fun, I’ll leave.

The problem is that people get attached to a game and feel like it’s a marriage or something. If you don’t enjoy it, do something else. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the game itself.

Look, I am not a casual player. Why would I care?

The problem is that all those non-hardcore players I liked to play with decided to do just what you said, they left.

They get out of honeymoon (enjoy it while you can) and than see that brick wall of grind to get anywhere near the content offered. They already missed out achievements, which sets them further back (AP farming is a progression after all with the bonuses offered).
It starts to look and feel futile to even try to catch up. So they stop.

If this is the aim of ANet, they did a good job. Otherwise they have to rethink what they are doing here…

Kaiyanwan.8521:

I have a friend who stopped playing. She is what I would call casual.

She plays for having fun. She can not find fun lately.

- I showed her the labyrinth and she told me, this content is so stupid, she will never play it again.
- She thinks in general, that zerging is stupid, challenge-free and no fun.
- Crafting with a guide or wasting tons of resources? That is no fun.
- She likes, if I give her free items, but as ascended stuff is not tradeable, she thinks that stuff is not fun, as she will not be able to obtain it (grinding ressources is no fun for her).
- She likes to stay on a map and finish it. She does not like to be forced to go to special maps and do time gated events aka LS or missing out story.
- She likes challenge, so we go against champions together. She does not like, that challenge is not rewarded, but super easy farming is.
- She doesn’t like the story, as most of the time, there is no story, just events that are overfarmed and mindlessly boring.
- For her, Dailies are no fun, she does not want to be forced in doing content to get rewards that are necessary for other rewards. For her it feels like a grind in a grind in a grind.
.
.
.

I could go on. But for the idea of GW2 to be a fun game even for casuals, the content added is mostly not fun (subjective) for many players (educated guess).

You do know that everything is not for everyone, right?
Obviously, she doesn’t like the game. That’s all you could have written. There is no matter if she’s casual or pro, the fact that she doesn’t like a single aspect of the game, would more than likely mean that she doesn’t like the game.

I can be as subjective as her if I wish to, and go through all your points and “show you how you’re wrong”, but that would be pointless as we all think different.

Bottomline, she needs to stop playing if she’s not having fun.
Go outside, find a bf/gf and go do the dirty…that’s waaaaay more fun

EDIT;
I’m a casual myself. Every single living world event I go and check out. If I like them, I try to finish them. If I don’t like them, well, guess what, noone is forcing me to do it.

I have half rare/half exotic gear with various stats and don’t play the “cookie cutter” spec, but play what I enjoy. If I want to go in a dungeon, I make myself my own team of people who won’t force me to be in berserker gear.

If I want to play WvW I try to be useful. I die alot (1v1), yes, but I don’t care as long as I’m having fun. If I feel like zerging, I’ll zerg. If I feel like scouting, I’ll scout. Again, noone is forcing me to do anything, so I do what I have fun doing.

That’s the entire point of this game, right? To have fun?

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Honestly, if casuals are ok to be second grade citizens, they can play whatever game they want.

If they do not need the best gear in game, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need to be at level cap, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need the to see all content, they can play any other MMO.

What is the point in playing GW2? They expected GW2 to be different, and now it is like all those other games.

Ok, brace yourselves for a post typed with frowning eyebrows and clinched lips.

The difference here is that you can hit 80 very quickly and the road to 80 on your first character isn’t a case of ‘oh, you actually want to play the game? Get max level and we’ll talk) like in other games.

You don’t need BiS gear to see all the content nor to be competitive or to not feel like dead weight. I challenge you to name one area of the game that needs Ascended gear to do.

My Mes is the one responsible for most of my BoHs, the character I got world comp on, and the character that have my Guardian full dungeon armour the moment he hit 80. Yet you could say she was my abandoned stepchild because she was in exotic gear with rare trinklets until very recently because all the good stuff went to her younger Guardian brother (yes, I feel guilty).

I don’t understand all this complaint about farming resources. Load yourself with salvage kits and you’ll drown in ori and ancients for doing anything in PvE. Ive maybe went and bought/farmed 100 bars/planks during my entire playtime and I’ve made Sunrise, 3 Ascended weapons etc, etc.

Want challenging content? Try Arah, TA Aether, some hair losing JPs or high levelled fractals, amongst a list of whole load of other stuff. I see everyone complaining the game’s too shallow and easy…. whilst they spam CoF P1 and champ trains. If there’s so many pros out there why are we still having problems following instructions like ’don’t aggro the cultist’?

Sorry for the wall of rant-ish text but complaints like those just get on my nerves.

You sir are a hardcore player, why would you think your playstyle would work for casuals to enjoy the game?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Honestly, if casuals are ok to be second grade citizens, they can play whatever game they want.

If they do not need the best gear in game, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need to be at level cap, they can play any other MMO.
If they do not need the to see all content, they can play any other MMO.

What is the point in playing GW2? They expected GW2 to be different, and now it is like all those other games.

Ok, brace yourselves for a post typed with frowning eyebrows and clinched lips.

The difference here is that you can hit 80 very quickly and the road to 80 on your first character isn’t a case of ‘oh, you actually want to play the game? Get max level and we’ll talk) like in other games.

You don’t need BiS gear to see all the content nor to be competitive or to not feel like dead weight. I challenge you to name one area of the game that needs Ascended gear to do.

My Mes is the one responsible for most of my BoHs, the character I got world comp on, and the character that have my Guardian full dungeon armour the moment he hit 80. Yet you could say she was my abandoned stepchild because she was in exotic gear with rare trinklets until very recently because all the good stuff went to her younger Guardian brother (yes, I feel guilty).

I don’t understand all this complaint about farming resources. Load yourself with salvage kits and you’ll drown in ori and ancients for doing anything in PvE. Ive maybe went and bought/farmed 100 bars/planks during my entire playtime and I’ve made Sunrise, 3 Ascended weapons etc, etc.

Want challenging content? Try Arah, TA Aether, some hair losing JPs or high levelled fractals, amongst a list of whole load of other stuff. I see everyone complaining the game’s too shallow and easy…. whilst they spam CoF P1 and champ trains. If there’s so many pros out there why are we still having problems following instructions like ’don’t aggro the cultist’?

Sorry for the wall of rant-ish text but complaints like those just get on my nerves.

You sir are a hardcore player, why would you think your playstyle would work for casuals to enjoy the game?

I work long hours (was in the office until 11 pm on Friday night) and I’ve also got to study, so I can barely afford to be ‘hardcore’.

Besides that. Then what do you want? The challenging stuff that needs learning are too hard for the ‘casuals’ but the easy content you can jump in and okay aren’t challenging enough. So we need challenging stuff that isn’t challenging?

I said that I am a casual still having fun because I try to avoid all the grind.

But! And its a big but; if grinding ever becomes mandatory (for example impossible PVE strats without Ascended) then it will be the end for me.

I will quit, simply. I would not want my one hour daily game time turn into a second job.

So for me : yes, GW2 still keeps his promises because nothing obtained with grinding is really necessary to enjoy the game.
If this ever changes I leave. And really, if this changes I will try not to spend that one daily free hour crying here in the forums (can’t promise I will not though)

Kaiyanwan.8521:

They get out of honeymoon (enjoy it while you can) and than see that brick wall of grind to get anywhere near the content offered. They already missed out achievements, which sets them further back (AP farming is a progression after all with the bonuses offered).

“Brick wall of grind” to get near the content? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

This is BY FAR the most friendly game I have EVER played in terms of allowing new players to jump right into the thick of things. I started my first character on October 12th. The new Hallowe’en content came out on October 15th. And by October 19th I was running around in the labyrinth with the zerg, slaughtering mobs and getting candy corn and having a blast. In what other game would that be possible?

Also a week in I was able to participate in WvW. Didn’t have to wait until level 80. I died a lot, but so what? The death penalty in this game is practically zero.

I can go to any lower areas also any time I want to do whatever activities are going on.

And I haven’t even touched PvP yet, barely done any WvW, barely done any dungeons. On top of that, they put new stuff in every two weeks.

All of that for what, 40 bucks one time and no subscription fees.

What exactly is the problem? Because I’m not seeing it.

Ok, playing the numbers game.

If you devide the playerbase by casual and hardcore right in the middle, everyone below 800 (actually closer 770) achievment points is casual.
If you belong to the 50% of players that have more than 800 achievement points, you are a hardcore player.

But we can split that up, so it feels less artificial. The 50% of players below 800 AP are casuals, the 40% of players between 800 and 3500 AP are core players and the 10% of players above 3500 AP are the true hardcore players (including me).

Or you could split it up by time. Let’s say a casual player plays 5h a week and some time more in the honeymoon phase. So people that started at release and have less than 200 hours played are casuals. Players between 200 and 1000 hours are core players and everyone over 1000 hours (including me) is a hardcore player.

Check your achievement points and type /age for your playtime.

So here we go. The difference between a casual and a hardcore is, that they spend less time in game and therefore have less achievement points.

BUT, this tells you nothing about what kind of content they want. Casual does not mean, this player does not want challenging content. The players just do not want to spend hours and hours and hours to get to the challenging content. Or that this players want to grind hours and hours and hours to get BiS items.

If a player is casual or not will not tell you how skilled the player is. Otherwise, anyone who plays soccer 24/7 would be a Ronaldo at one point. They just do not want to play stuff that they find boring.

That is where the ANets marketing set in before release, and that is where the game has failed in the end. We get tons and tons of new content that is not challenging (The Zerg) and grindy (check the achievement of the LS), or totally out of place (Tequatl) instead of quality content that is challenging and entertaining.

People feel not entertained, people leave.

I don’t think anyone here has the slightest clue about what a “casual player” is or what they want. No one posting here is a casual player, no matter what Vayne may try to say (sorry man, you play way too much to claim that label).

The only thing I’ve seen “casual” used for is a justification to ignore the interests of a class of player “you’re casual, so this shouldn’t bother you”

Finally, comments suggesting that a casual player won’t have reached level 80 yet are ridiculous. The games been out for over a year.

Please, knock it off. If the game doesn’t have features to satisfy you say so. Don’t pretend to be speaking for a class of which you are not.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Ok, playing the numbers game.

If you devide the playerbase by casual and hardcore right in the middle, everyone below 800 (actually closer 770) achievment points is casual.
If you belong to the 50% of players that have more than 800 achievement points, you are a hardcore player.

But we can split that up, so it feels less artificial. The 50% of players below 800 AP are casuals, the 40% of players between 800 and 3500 AP are core players and the 10% of players above 3500 AP are the true hardcore players (including me).

Or you could split it up by time. Let’s say a casual player plays 5h a week and some time more in the honeymoon phase. So people that started at release and have less than 200 hours played are casuals. Players between 200 and 1000 hours are core players and everyone over 1000 hours (including me) is a hardcore player.

Check your achievement points and type /age for your playtime.

So here we go. The difference between a casual and a hardcore is, that they spend less time in game and therefore have less achievement points.

BUT, this tells you nothing about what kind of content they want. Casual does not mean, this player does not want challenging content. The players just do not want to spend hours and hours and hours to get to the challenging content. Or that this players want to grind hours and hours and hours to get BiS items.

If a player is casual or not will not tell you how skilled the player is. Otherwise, anyone who plays soccer 24/7 would be a Ronaldo at one point. They just do not want to play stuff that they find boring.

That is where the ANets marketing set in before release, and that is where the game has failed in the end. We get tons and tons of new content that is not challenging (The Zerg) and grindy (check the achievement of the LS), or totally out of place (Tequatl) instead of quality content that is challenging and entertaining.

People feel not entertained, people leave.

Artherblade Retreat wasn’t challenging enough?
Too pro for Molten Facility?
Didn’t like jumping in the SAB?
Wasn’t entertained by the Queen’s Gauntlet?
Tequatl was implemented badly but it was a dang good fight if you’re in TTS. And how is a dragon’s champion out of place in a game about dragons?

I could go on but you get the point.

Not everyone wants to be challenged. Have you considered maybe some people liked running in a huge Zerg? I don’t but last time I was talking in my 250 man guild about the Halloween Zerg, a lot of people liked it. If you don’t like the zerg, don’t join it.

Content doesn’t need to be challenging to be good anyways. The Elder Scrolls games arent exactly challenging but I don’t think that was a flop.

Not every single LS achievement was a grind (remember the awesome jump into the haystack achievement?) and there’s dailies to cover the grindy ones if you don’t wanna do them. Sometimes I like watching numbers tick off a list, I do the grindy ones then.

Entertaining is very subjective. I think Harvest Moon is a very accurate representation of doing chores in a farmyard but clearly done people think otherwise because those games actually sold.

This is not about me. I played the labyrinth for a week to level a Necro from zero to 80 without wasting to much time on running to hearts and doing random events, that last way too long.
I have finished the meta achievements for PvE, as I just want distraction when playing GW2, not challenge (anymore). It would be futile to get enough challenge anyway to stay entertained.
I will not leave, at least not until I find something new and exciting.

That’s the difference. If you simply play for fun, you are in a tight spot with GW2.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Ok, playing the numbers game.

If you devide the playerbase by casual and hardcore right in the middle, everyone below 800 (actually closer 770) achievment points is casual.
If you belong to the 50% of players that have more than 800 achievement points, you are a hardcore player.

But we can split that up, so it feels less artificial. The 50% of players below 800 AP are casuals, the 40% of players between 800 and 3500 AP are core players and the 10% of players above 3500 AP are the true hardcore players (including me).

Or you could split it up by time. Let’s say a casual player plays 5h a week and some time more in the honeymoon phase. So people that started at release and have less than 200 hours played are casuals. Players between 200 and 1000 hours are core players and everyone over 1000 hours (including me) is a hardcore player.

Check your achievement points and type /age for your playtime.

So here we go. The difference between a casual and a hardcore is, that they spend less time in game and therefore have less achievement points.

BUT, this tells you nothing about what kind of content they want. Casual does not mean, this player does not want challenging content. The players just do not want to spend hours and hours and hours to get to the challenging content. Or that this players want to grind hours and hours and hours to get BiS items.

If a player is casual or not will not tell you how skilled the player is. Otherwise, anyone who plays soccer 24/7 would be a Ronaldo at one point. They just do not want to play stuff that they find boring.

That is where the ANets marketing set in before release, and that is where the game has failed in the end. We get tons and tons of new content that is not challenging (The Zerg) and grindy (check the achievement of the LS), or totally out of place (Tequatl) instead of quality content that is challenging and entertaining.

People feel not entertained, people leave.

By that metric, I would be a real hardcore player. But I am neither particularly good at the game (I miss dodges a lot because my necro made me lazy. I’d never survive anything real squishy in full zerker gear.), nor do I spend ungodly hours playing it, nor am I running after every carrot the game has to offer. I don’t own a single legendary and only bought to pieces of Ascended gear because I didn’t know what else to do with my laurels (already have that infinite cat tonic).

Why are people constantly complaining about lack of challenging content when they always take the easiest way to complete content?
You don’t have to run with the zerg – there are plenty of champions around which are not constantly part of a champion train. Go solo them! Too easy? Solo them naked!
Ever soloed (or duo-ed) a dungeon? Done group-events on your own, or heavily drunk?

It’s really not as if there weren’t any challenges in the game – they are just not all handed to you on a silver platter.

Hmmm…
I consider myself “casual” and I have more than 5000 AP and play every day.

How can I call myself “casual” then?
For me a hardcore player is someone that can spend hours and hours for one single task in the game, that can invest in grinding, that can obtain in less than a month those rare items that would take me one year or more to get.

The time and efforts you pour in the game is what separates casual and hardores for me.
Tequal? not for me. I don’t have one hour to waste in preparations for a 15 minutes game. Ginding mats for a Legendary? Not even thinking about it. Ascended? Maybe one day is I find myself with enough mats. I still haven’t completed the 100% map and never got the achievement of 200 golds.
What do I do then? I do some dungeons, I visit places that I never visited, level up alts, do events that I never knew existed. And over it all : I decided to never again look at the world boss timers. If I stumble upon them I do them, if not I go elsewhere.

I have a casual approach to the game, taking it by bits, visiting, doing the things I like and ignoring the rest.

If one day I am “required” something to continue playing what I like, then GW2 will end for me.

Time spent is an argument to distinguish “casuals”, but not only that. It is the way they play the game too.

Now my little twisted vision of players:
If you are a player that “wants” to grind for content but who has not enough time, you are not a “casual”: you are a “hardcore player” with not enough time in your hands.

… (but as I sad, this is my twisted idea of players)

Qaelyn.7612:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

They get out of honeymoon (enjoy it while you can) and than see that brick wall of grind to get anywhere near the content offered. They already missed out achievements, which sets them further back (AP farming is a progression after all with the bonuses offered).

“Brick wall of grind” to get near the content? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

This is BY FAR the most friendly game I have EVER played in terms of allowing new players to jump right into the thick of things. I started my first character on October 12th. The new Hallowe’en content came out on October 15th. And by October 19th I was running around in the labyrinth with the zerg, slaughtering mobs and getting candy corn and having a blast. In what other game would that be possible?

Also a week in I was able to participate in WvW. Didn’t have to wait until level 80. I died a lot, but so what? The death penalty in this game is practically zero.

I can go to any lower areas also any time I want to do whatever activities are going on.

And I haven’t even touched PvP yet, barely done any WvW, barely done any dungeons. On top of that, they put new stuff in every two weeks.

All of that for what, 40 bucks one time and no subscription fees.

What exactly is the problem? Because I’m not seeing it.

The problem is that to many players are focused on achievement points and the reward chests, Legendaries and Ascended gear.
They don’t play games for enjoyment anymore, they play for bragging rights and to get everything ASAP.
They cry like a spoiled child.
‘UUAHHH!!! Mommy I have compleated everything in the game, I got some other small stuff to do but that isn’t fun!!! Give me more content that won’t take 1 hour for me to compleate, give me! Give me! … I’m gonna do these ascended weapons, Legendaries and farm AP and complain how much I have to farm them while I wait for you to give me more content I don’t have to farm’
Or
‘UUAHHH!!! Mommy I ate my last choco-cookie and I don’t wont these Vanilla-cookies!!! Give me choco-cookies!!! Give me! Give me! …. I’m gonna eat these bad tasting vanilla-cookies and complain about how bad they taste while I wait for you to get me some choco-cookies…

This post does not sound anything like a casual player but a player that does not like the game since he/she has grown bored of the content of the game.
And the other post about a friend where she didn’t like that, that, that and that… Well I don’t like NHL so I don’t play those games! Maby your friend shouldn’t try to play games she does not like?

BTW, I have played since pre-release of this game and I still havent farmed or grinded anything, atleast not in a manner i have disliked or in longer duration, max one hour and that was Queens Jubelie and the last Southsun LS.

Edit:

BeoErgon.9107:

Hmmm…
I consider myself “casual” and I have more than 5000 AP and play every day.

How can I call myself “casual” then?
For me a hardcore player is someone that can spend hours and hours for one single task in the game, that can invest in grinding, that can obtain in less than a month those rare items that would take me one year or more to get.

The time and efforts you pour in the game is what separates casual and hardores for me.
Tequal? not for me. I don’t have one hour to waste in preparations for a 15 minutes game. Ginding mats for a Legendary? Not even thinking about it. Ascended? Maybe one day is I find myself with enough mats. I still haven’t completed the 100% map and never got the achievement of 200 golds.
What do I do then? I do some dungeons, I visit places that I never visited, level up alts, do events that I never knew existed. And over it all : I decided to never again look at the world boss timers. If I stumble upon them I do them, if not I go elsewhere.

I have a casual approach to the game, taking it by bits, visiting, doing the things I like and ignoring the rest.

If one day I am “required” something to continue playing what I like, then GW2 will end for me.

Time spent is an argument to distinguish “casuals”, but not only that. It is the way they play the game too.

Now my little twisted vision of players:
If you are a player that “wants” to grind for content but who has not enough time, you are not a “casual”: you are a “hardcore player” with not enough time in your hands.

… (but as I sad, this is my twisted idea of players)

Well said and I agree!

Kaiyanwan.8521:

This is not about me. I played the labyrinth for a week to level a Necro from zero to 80 without wasting to much time on running to hearts and doing random events, that last way too long.
I have finished the meta achievements for PvE, as I just want distraction when playing GW2, not challenge (anymore). It would be futile to get enough challenge anyway to stay entertained.
I will not leave, at least not until I find something new and exciting.

That’s the difference. If you simply play for fun, you are in a tight spot with GW2.

What is fun?

People find chess fun, others find it boring.
People find drinking your bladder out in a nightclub fun, others don’t have a clue why would they do that.

What is challenge?

The challenge in RuneScape was having enough didication to get insane amounts if exp. there was entire leader boards for it and people respected those at the top.
The challenge -

You get the point.

Fun and challenge is different for everyone.

lol, I read “choo-choo cookie”

apparently I’m a “core” player then? I consider myself casual though. I only do what I feel like doing; and usually there are loads of content that I like and some that I don’t like. I like crafting, PvE, WvW, chatting with my guildies, leveling alts, doing (most) of my dailies… I don’t like jumping puzzles or PvE. so, you know, I don’t. end of story.

Blakvalhalla.6170:

*Loot? No…champ farming nerfed to oblivion as well as magic find…no more exotics for you!
*Dungeon running? No unless your a full time zerker, with like minded quick runs. No heroes so you can try on your own
*Armor? Well i suppose if you crafted 500 hours for mats, i guess some call it “fun”
*Weapons…don’t make me laugh
*Personal story? 3 80’s later and haven’t been able to complete it even once!
*World bosses…Tequatil says it all…fail fail fail
*PvP i.e. hotjoins, “we don’t care how good or bad you are…here’s your glory…mmmkay?”
WvW: Sorry if you joined the loser server..someone had to!

I’m trying to enjoy this game. It’s not GW1, but still, trying. You just keep making it so casuals cant get ahead in anything…ever. After 3 years of WoW kicking me in the teeth gearwise (pvp & pve), I learnt my lesson. It won’t 3 years here Anet, just saying.

chuckle

I’m a casual player myself and I don’t get your gripes honestly.

-Loot: I don’t run the champ hamster wheels often, but I’ve gotten a few exotics from them. I’ve also gotten some exotics from normal play, as well as from LS stuff. Am I rolling in exotics? No, but I don’t expect to be. I wear rares and can still roll my way thought this game tag teaming with my husband…. so it makes no difference to me.

-Dungeon running: I don’t “run” dungeons. I play through them, take my time and enjoy them. Some of them only take 15-20 minutes, even massacring everything in our path. Others take longer, because we enjoy goofing off… a lot.

-Armor: You must be talking about ascended. Meh, I’ll get it when I get…if I bother. I have a slew of exotics that are massively easy to obtain. As I said though, I play in rares and find the game easy 99.9% of the time, I have no desire to make it easier. There’s no fun in that for me.

-Weapons: Ok, I might sort of see your point here. Maybe. Some weapons do seem outlandish in their obtainability, but I don’t mind setting long term goals to work towards… Maybe that makes me an odd casual.

-Personal Story: I have 3 80s as well, closing on 2 more. I haven’t bothered trying to complete the personal story yet. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m simply waiting for guildies to get to the point where they need to do it as well. Should make it easier than trying to find PuGs. I do very much miss heroes though.

-World Bosses: Personally , I love what they did to Tequatl. I’ve never been in a winning battle, but I still love it. People wanted a challenge, Anet gave it to them. Two thumbs WAY up from me.

PvP hot joins: … chuckle If you’re a casual…what precisely is your issue? You don’t have the time to devote to becoming some uber-tastic pvper. You play to enjoy, good bad or otherwise.

WvW: My server is at the bottom of the ranking, and I have no issue with that. We lose every match up, and have since…basically forever. As long as I’m enjoying myself, I really don’t care much. My server isn’t really WvW centric…

Label yourself as whatever you want, ANet will classify you by numbers.

And everyone who thinks that casuals come here on the board and moan about stuff, you are dead wrong. They do not give a kitten about the forums, they just disappear.

And declassifying players by making fun of them is very childish. ANet runs a business. They actually want feedback, preferably negative ones. Emotional ones. Glorifying the game as it is will not bring it or them forward.

Every lost player is a lost costumer and lost money. Everyone knows, that a lost costumer that has left because of disappointment is the hardest one to convince to come back. Kitten, it is already 10 time harder to recruit new players compared to keep existing customers satisfied (taken from recruiting costumers for any business).

If ANet wants one thing, than it is to keep their players. They won’t keep them by listening to the players who say everything is alright in the game…

casual with 3 80 without completing personal story?
come on, i compeleted mine on my 1st 80, i only have 2 btw..

This sounds like you are just not enjoying MMO’s anymore. If that is the case nothing is wrong with it, just take a little break from the game. Go play something else for a while. Then after a while you may want to come back on your own. I play casually, maybe an hour a night. And yet all of the things you listed are not what is offered as a casual players. It just sounds like you need a break, I did for a while and when I came back 3 months later everything seemed new and fun.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

The problem is that to many players are focused on achievement points and the reward chests, Legendaries and Ascended gear.
They don’t play games for enjoyment anymore, they play for bragging rights and to get everything ASAP.
They cry like a spoiled child.
‘UUAHHH!!! Mommy I have compleated everything in the game, I got some other small stuff to do but that isn’t fun!!! Give me more content that won’t take 1 hour for me to compleate, give me! Give me! … I’m gonna do these ascended weapons, Legendaries and farm AP and complain how much I have to farm them while I wait for you to give me more content I don’t have to farm’

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Common theme in the forums of most MMOs, I’ve found.

It’s impossible for any game developer to keep people who play 80 hours a week entertained, especially when those people deliberately do things they don’t enjoy and then complain about not having fun.

So far this game does a far better job of keeping things interesting than any other I’ve encountered.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Qaelyn.7612:

Ghostwolf.9863:

Nowadays GW2 is all about grinding.

Only if all you care about is having the best ‘stuff’.

This game actually has a huge variety of things you can do. Grinding is a choice.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Crafting is a pain and isn’t rewarding enough, I worked really hard and even spent irl money to buy gems to convert to gold to level up huntsman from 400 to 500, just to get a slight touch in stats and getting the same items as everyone else.

Well there you go. So if it doesn’t make a big difference, why bother grinding it? Just do what you enjoy.

Or if you’re burned out, take a break. Happens with most people in every game after a while.

What can you do that is rewarding and not related to a grind at 80?

wvw, pvp, level up your fotm, do different dungeons, level up crafting, map completion, kill all world bosses, finish personal story, guild mission. grind will always be more rewarding in every rpg game. there will always be grind if you can do a content repeatedly, by the end even they nerf everything that you can only do dungeon once a week (because once a day is a GRIND with so many dungeons!)
people will just farm npcs in open world and what, so they make the npcs spawn every 72 hours? so the world will be empty and people will still wait for 72 hours and farm them.
they already made it so that the more you do the less reward you get. so get over it, efftard.

Then why all the catering to the people that play so much and not to the ones that play 5 hours a week? Why the ascended stuff, if those people burn through it anyway? Why the achievement rewards?

What else is there to do that gives players at least the feeling that playing the game is rewarding. If there is nothing else people will go with what is available or quit.

The game feels stale, unless you decide to go for the grind towards ascended right now, or you are hunting AP. There must be more to entertain the masses.

And ANets answer was The Zerg. But that got old way too fast.

Lighter.5631:

… so get over it, efftard.

I do not have to get over it. The game is fine for me. I just tend to look beyond the egoistic lines of my own interests and try to see the bigger picture.

I see the flaws that will arise if you play below a certain level. I see the reasons behind people in a guild no longer logging in.
I don’t say the game is dying. I just say, the game that GW2 could have been is dying. A utopia, where hardcore and casual players can live side by side.

On my side, the sun shines bright enough, it is just the other side, that steadily drowns into darkness.

This game is already Ultra Casual, especially with the time gating that prevents the truly hardcore players from getting everything 5 minutes after release.

It simply can’t get anymore casual and still retain it’s population

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Then why all the catering to the people that play so much and not to the ones that play 5 hours a week? Why the ascended stuff, if those people burn through it anyway? Why the achievement rewards?

Can you please tell me what in this game requires legendary or ascended gear?