Guild Wars 2

Yes another thread about the same topic. But I think we must get someone’s attention if we keep on posting the same on and on. Long story short:

• They nerf dungeon rewards to stop elitism but bring raids that are ten times more elitist than any dungeon run (at least in dungeons you could succeed after a lot of time with a mediocre group. Some of us liked to teach newbies to run dungeons, that’s not an option in raids).
• Goldsink, goldsink everywhere. Devs have to face that the economy won’t comeback as it once was and most people won’t be buying gems to convert to gold… Except a few special ones.
• New maps and Meta events are boring, fun of exploration and discovery is gone when you have to depend on a zerg and other people to succeed.
• Specializations are nice but it seems they’re just a buff to core classes, forcing players who chose not to buy HoT get it to be competitive.

Is the game migrating from its original, fresh and lovely business model to a PAY TO WIN model? The answer is yes, yes and yes.

What’s left to do? I won’t quit (don’t come here asking for my stuff) I log to do the PvP daily and I know that’s the sanctuary of a lot of veteran players. Not spending gold because since HoT it became more valuable than air. I f anyone has suggestions to get me into track I’ll be glad to hear them, I just can’t enjoy the game since the expansion came out.

Dungeon’s are not ‘nerfed’ they just fixed the amount of gold gotten from finishing to put it inline with everything else. Besides they just opened up the 10 man dungeon / raid.

What gold sink are you talking about? I am making the same amount of gold if not more since the expansion hit.

I am having loads of fun both in core and in HoT maps, doing events and stuff. Even leveling a new char and doing map completion in both core and HoT.

Specialization’s are a different way to play the same char. No need to keep it that way and no need to not change to whatever when you need to for what the content is at the time.

No it is not pay to win, never has been.

Been playing since headstart / beta every day. Never grinded, never felt there was nothing for me to do. I just play and have fun. I keep making gold, so much that I don’t know what to do with it all. I just sent 25g to the youngest son to help him out with something. Bought all the legendary stuff so that I am collecting all those while just playing. Went down to just under 200g with everything I did and within less than a week I am back to almost 300g without trying.

1) They nerfed dungeon reward because they can only put a certain amount of direct gold in the economy without creating inflation which is bad for everybody. It took them 2 years to stabilize the inflation, so It was a good decision. (Don’t mix offer and demand which is boosting price at the moment, with inflation). That have nothing to do with elitism.

That said, they made some mistake in their reward nerfing. They should have increase the amount of non gold reward to counterbalance and don’t leave such a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. They also screwed up with the gold reward from Fractal, making an even bigger mess of the whole thing.

But to be honest, we had some guildmate that need some dungeon tokens from special runes and we got back into them a bit and they are going so more quicly now than before the patch. The power creep is real, but it’s also easier than ever to keep perma full buff on the team. They maybe decreased the reward, but the speed is much faster and compensate. My friends and I will concentrate on Raids and on fractal after they fix it. But once that done, we surely gonna get back into dungeon.

2) True. But a big part of that is the demand and offer. A lot of people don’t know how to create or farm certain items that is needed. As more and more guild finish their guild hall and most people have their expensive raid gear like Viper done, the demand will drop by a lot.

3) I just disagree with you on that. I like those maps. Now, they probably gonna have the same problem as Dry Top over the long term. Meaning that their map currency have limited amount of reward to get. Once everybody have everything they need, the value of the reward in those map will drop by a lot, so will be the number of players on them. Silverwaste had a way better system for that. You always want Bandit Crest even when you alreayd have the exclusive reward of the map.
4) I agree. They was suppose to be alternative way to play a character, but pretty much all metas in both PvE and PvP use the elite spec. If there was 30-50% of the meta build that include an elite specs I could be comfortable with them, but it’s more like 90-99%.

Thaddeus.4891:

2) True. But a big part of that is the demand and offer. A lot of people don’t know how to create or farm certain items that is needed. As more and more guild finish their guild hall and most people have their expensive raid gear like Viper done, the demand will drop by a lot.

Ding ding ding! Someone else gets it why the prices of stuff are fluctuating so much. Maybe by next year, this will be looked at and laughed. Maybe

For me, this sort of disenfranchised feeling first happened when Lost Shore was released way back when. There were some good things that came out of it for sure. Southsun Cove and fractals. New areas are always a welcome addition, but what became very obvious was just how badly open world rewards had been nerfed. A LOT of people were also VERY kittened of with the introduction of ascended gear. There was a patch, early November of 2012, that essentially killed all world boss/temple/dragon events because it made the rewards so bad that it wasn’t worth doing the events. It was an obvious ploy to push people out of the open world, in to fractals…as a result I developed an immediate and irrational hate for fractals. This was in the days before the megaserver so event groups were MUCH smaller and we still had to pay for our own armor repairs. When you only get blues and greens from an event, quite often the cost of repairs was higher than the reward. After Lost Shore, they broke it even more with champions never dropping anything. It took them 2 months to even acknowledge there was a problem and months more to “fix” it with the infamous champ chest. This was a very low time for GW2 with a lot of bitterness flowing freely on map chat. That winter, February/March range, was the first time I took a GW2 “vacation”. LW season 1 was a horribly designed mess and I was just so sick of getting nothing for my efforts I just couldn’t bring myself to play it anymore. I didn’t touch it again until Halloween, because I wanted to do the clock tower. Rewards today are a dream compared to what they were in that first year, but nothing compared to the first couple months.

So, why tell you my life’s story, so to speak? What’s left to do? What keeps me playing? I don’t look at “end-game” or content I cant solo, I set mini-goals for myself, goals that are achievable in a reasonable amount of time and these can change depending on circumstances. I work on the stuff I can do rather than stewing about the stuff I can’t, the rest, such as non-soloible HPs will come with time.

With some ascended crafting mats starting to go non account bound and showing up in the TP, which I don’t agree with, I do agree that it is moving dangerously close to a pay-to-win model. When ascended was first introduced it was all account bound, including mats, while trinkets were soulbound on use. It was an in-game goal that people couldn’t take shortcuts on. While you could buy the T5 mats you needed for the crafting You had to collect all of your own asc mats. Now, you still have the option to farm your own mats (Which takes a LONG time), but with ascended starting to appear on the TP it will put those with deeper pockets at an advantage. While it’s not truly pay-to-win, because there is no requirement, it’s starting to get dangerously close.

Leamas.5803:

So, why tell you my life’s story, so to speak? What’s left to do? What keeps me playing? I don’t look at “end-game” or content I cant solo, I set mini-goals for myself, goals that are achievable in a reasonable amount of time and these can change depending on circumstances. I work on the stuff I can do rather than stewing about the stuff I can’t, the rest, such as non-soloible HPs will come with time.

That’s a good piece of advice. Might try to do that because only PvP can be boring, Think I might start doing my personal story for starters.

NumenorLord.6539:

• They nerf dungeon rewards to stop elitism but bring raids that are ten times more elitist than any dungeon run (at least in dungeons you could succeed after a lot of time with a mediocre group. Some of us liked to teach newbies to run dungeons, that’s not an option in raids).

They didn’t nerf dungeons to stop elitism. They nerfed them to stop gold earning.

PyrateSilly.4710:

What gold sink are you talking about? I am making the same amount of gold if not more since the expansion hit.

The game has plenty of gold sinks. The fact that you’re able to make money doesn’t mean there aren’t gold sinks in the game.

I agree. People like to farm and now the game is no such fun as it was.

Farming isn’t fun at all; It’s mindless. I want to feel like I worked hard for things instead of sleeping at my keyboard to get things. Anet dropped the ball SO hard with F2p.

Anet thinks grinding for new op stuff is the way to provide content.
The change (read betrayal) to previous policy was too quick…game is full of emptyness now.

I don’t understand. What part of the game is “Pay to Win”? What items can I buy with cash that give me an absolute advantage over the rest of players who didn’t purchase it?

Lanaeris.3845:

Farming isn’t fun at all; It’s mindless. I want to feel like I worked hard for things instead of sleeping at my keyboard to get things. Anet dropped the ball SO hard with F2p.

Kicast.1459:

Anet thinks grinding for new op stuff is the way to provide content.
The change (read betrayal) to previous policy was too quick…game is full of emptyness now.

I remember sadly the first time I joined a CoF farm for Tyria masteries. I respect everyone’s choice of how to play a game but never before I’ve felt more like a mindless robot in my gaming life. It was sad. I know nobody asked me to do so and I’m not asking CoF farm to be addressed but, to me, that’s part of the new grindy things that make me not enjoy HoT at all, and it’s all over the game now.

Some psychologists say that repetition and compulsion are associated with self destruction, couldn’t agree more.

tluv.5821:

I don’t understand. What part of the game is “Pay to Win”? What items can I buy with cash that give me an absolute advantage over the rest of players who didn’t purchase it?

This thread isn’t about P2w. It’s about prestige and “effort to win”. Grinding is not about effort or intelligence, It’s about mindlessness. Hence the hatred towards grinding.

Lanaeris.3845:

tluv.5821:

I don’t understand. What part of the game is “Pay to Win”? What items can I buy with cash that give me an absolute advantage over the rest of players who didn’t purchase it?

This thread isn’t about P2w. It’s about prestige and “effort to win”. Grinding is not about effort or intelligence, It’s about mindlessness. Hence the hatred towards grinding.

Yes. Also, please note that I said the game is migrating to a P2W model. Why? Original model (which we all loved) is based in equal opportunities for everyone (we all bought the game, could do the same things, be casual or hardcore didn’t matter that much). F2P and expansion implied differences between HoT buyers and non HoT buyers. In PvP, someone who doesn’t have access to specializations is having a hard time now because specs are Meta (here are the builds used in Pro League http://competitivegw2.blogspot.com.co/). Raids, naturally, use a lot of specs builds. Difference of opportunities, first and second class players is what I see now in GW2.

I’m beginning to see guild ads in map chat where they say not to reply if you’re F2P.

Of course, they obviously forgot that F2P can’t respond to guild ads in map chat, anyway.

Still. Interesting trend.

tluv.5821:

I don’t understand. What part of the game is “Pay to Win”? What items can I buy with cash that give me an absolute advantage over the rest of players who didn’t purchase it?

It’s borderline, not truly P2W, but almost. If I can buy it with gold, I can buy it with IRL money. In a word, “ascended”. No, you can’t by ascended gear…yet. But more and more mats and recipes are showing up on the TP which makes for an elite market that very few can afford without using IRL money, especially as good in-game gold sources keep drying up and more and more things keep going account/soulbound.

Like I said, it’s not truly P2W, but more like a great golden wall. For A LOT of people when the option is to grind out mats and gold for 2 years versus just paying some IRL money, a lot take the pay route. Grinding for mats is not fun, especially when you can’t even do it effectively due to DR.

Then, of course, there is the disparity between those who bought HoT and those who didn’t, but that’s a different issue.

NumenorLord.6539:

Yes another thread about the same topic. But I think we must get someone’s attention if we keep on posting the same on and on. Long story short:

• They nerf dungeon rewards to stop elitism but bring raids that are ten times more elitist than any dungeon run (at least in dungeons you could succeed after a lot of time with a mediocre group. Some of us liked to teach newbies to run dungeons, that’s not an option in raids).
• Goldsink, goldsink everywhere. Devs have to face that the economy won’t comeback as it once was and most people won’t be buying gems to convert to gold… Except a few special ones.
• New maps and Meta events are boring, fun of exploration and discovery is gone when you have to depend on a zerg and other people to succeed.
• Specializations are nice but it seems they’re just a buff to core classes, forcing players who chose not to buy HoT get it to be competitive.

Is the game migrating from its original, fresh and lovely business model to a PAY TO WIN model? The answer is yes, yes and yes.

What’s left to do? I won’t quit (don’t come here asking for my stuff) I log to do the PvP daily and I know that’s the sanctuary of a lot of veteran players. Not spending gold because since HoT it became more valuable than air. I f anyone has suggestions to get me into track I’ll be glad to hear them, I just can’t enjoy the game since the expansion came out.

1. They did not nerf dungeon rewards to stop elitism.
2. Every MMO has and needs gold sinks. Can you imagine if it didn’t?!!!! GW2 has actually done reasonably well to keep the economy fairly stable for a game that is over 3 years old. While some end game stuff needed only for the most hard-core player (ie. high level fracs) has definitely gone up, most things necessary to play, enjoy and be competitive in most game modes are still very affordable to even the most casual player.
3. You personally might find the new maps boring and too hard to solo, but that is purely a subjective opinion and a learn-to-play issue for the most part. Every good MMO has some champs/bosses that need a group/party/zerg to kill. Nothing wrong with having a balance of some maps that are solo friendly and some that are party-orientated.
4. Agreed, I am strongly against forms of power-creep that divide the community into the “haves” and “have-nots”. The implementation strategy for specializations was a clear means of pressuring players into forking out cash for HoT.
5. With the one exception of having to purchase Hot to get specializations, I strongly disagree that this is a pay-to-win model. Go play some other “free” MMO’s on the market and you will understand what “pay-to-win” really means. With GW2, anyone who buys the base-game/expansion can easily enjoy and be reasonably competitive in any game mode with casual playing time without spending more rl money. If you have the expansion, its still a “play-to-win” game.

I agree with some of the things said in this thread, but I would caution statements like “maps aren’t fun because they are dependent on groups/zerg.” This is entirely your own opinion, and many (myself included) might disagree. I rather enjoy the events. The maps are bursting with enough activity that events don’t require any effort on my part to find help. I start a Hero Challenge, and a few seconds later 2-3 people randomly appear to lend a hand. We all work collectively toward progressing the stage of the map, which usually leads to some big final event that everyone can participate in. On occasion, there aren’t enough people on the map and we end up failing, but it wouldn’t be fun if you were guaranteed to win every time. I usually sign in with a goal in mind, and end up getting completely sidetracked because of all the opportunities on the newer maps.

I agree that the rewards for dungeons was a nerf, but since I haven’t done a dungeon in over 6 months, I really can’t comment on this. I have attempted the Raids a few times, all with completely random people. We didn’t win, and I can’t say we came very close to beating the boss, but it was still an enjoyable learning experience. The leaders of the Raids were more than welcoming and patient. I was invited into Teamspeaks/Ventrillo servers by complete strangers in order to have better communication and collaboration. Ideas and guides were shared openly as we strategized with strangers. Sure, I imagine eventually I will want to partner with a pool of more experienced players to win the raid, but I haven’t seen elitism prevent anyone from enjoying the game. There are probably those groups that require you to post all your gear, but there are plenty of groups willing to put a newb raid together for the sake of the experience.

As for specializations, I haven’t unlocked or used a single specialization yet. I main a guardian, and I haven’t even bothered to read any of the new traits/abilities for Dragon Hunter. I am having plenty of fun (and successes) playing my plain old, vanilla guardian. I haven’t run into any road blocks in raids, PvE, or PvP by choosing not to play a Dragon Hunter. This is just my own experience, and I am willing to admit this might not be the case for other classes.

I admit that even I am growing weary of the goldsinks. I loath crafting, and spending hours grinding for materials is my least favorite thing to do. I have succumbed to the realization that I will never own a Legendary, and it is HIGHLY unlikely that I will get even close being fully geared with ascended stats, unless I manage to find an entire set over time through chests because I do not have the patients or mind-frame to spend time crafting. Other people may enjoy it, so I will not go into all the nitty-gritty details of why I loath the crafting system. Until not having full ascended gear or legendaries actually prevents me from participating in certain content in the game, I could care less about acquiring them.

All MMOs that have an economy must have gold sinks otherwise the game suffers from runaway inflation.
Even the current gold sinks arnt good enough to prevent inflation as they are all discressionary, ie you arnt forced to spend the gold .
And all MMOs must have grind simply because the time it takes players to experiance new content is far less than the time it takes for the Devs to make the new content.
With no grind , players would be forever complaining that there is nothing left for them to do, as they have done it all.
Blizzards WOW is the master of grind , but it works , as people keep playing it and keep complaining that they hate the grind.
Bottom line though is simple.
If you dont like a game ,DONT PLAY IT.
No point playing it and continually complaining that you dont like it.

PyrateSilly.4710:

Went down to just under 200g with everything I did and within less than a week I am back to almost 300g without trying.

Congratulations!
I’ve been playing since beta weekend of GW2 and have NEVER earned that much gold in a year let alone in a week. I guess I should just consider myself unlucky(?) as playing “without trying” to earn gold and I think I earn maybe 5 gold in a week.

I like to farm and I think the game should allow anyone play the way they want. Forcing everyone to follow one pattern – “work hard for a nice stuff” is not appealing to everyone. When I want to work hard to do something I do, when I want to farm – I want to be able to do so. I am playing this game as a form of entertainment. Maybe younger people enjoy spending hours here but not me…

I play the game as if gold does nothing. I’ve been playing since the first guild wars 2 beta, I’ve never needed money. Gold is completely worthless. I pretty much adventure and fractals, I’ve been doing fractals since they came out. Where is the money sink my friend? I’ve never lost money doing a fractal even back in the days when we had to pay for repairs

Legendary items were made to take forever and still are made for it

NumenorLord.6539:

Lanaeris.3845:

tluv.5821:

I don’t understand. What part of the game is “Pay to Win”? What items can I buy with cash that give me an absolute advantage over the rest of players who didn’t purchase it?

This thread isn’t about P2w. It’s about prestige and “effort to win”. Grinding is not about effort or intelligence, It’s about mindlessness. Hence the hatred towards grinding.

Yes. Also, please note that I said the game is migrating to a P2W model. Why? Original model (which we all loved) is based in equal opportunities for everyone (we all bought the game, could do the same things, be casual or hardcore didn’t matter that much). F2P and expansion implied differences between HoT buyers and non HoT buyers. In PvP, someone who doesn’t have access to specializations is having a hard time now because specs are Meta (here are the builds used in Pro League http://competitivegw2.blogspot.com.co/). Raids, naturally, use a lot of specs builds. Difference of opportunities, first and second class players is what I see now in GW2.

So every MMO that has ever released an expansion is P2W? I guess that makes GW1 pay to win as well as buying factions, nightfall, and EotN gives you an advantage over prophecies only players. In fact, since buying an expansion is P2W, and nearly every MMO releases expansions, why is this an issue? It’s something to expect as it is the norm.

Expansions are not pay to win.

Especially in a buy to play game.

Don’t let the “play for free” hype fool you. GW2, just like GW1, is built in such a way that they expct players to buy major releases to continue playing. The only change they’ve made is to have it be cheaper to new players to get in to the game.

Pay to win models directly correlate money spent with character power, usually through lossy crafting models or seriously potent consumable buffs.

This expansion does neither. It’s simply asking you, after three years of release, that they’re now technically giving away free, to pony up fifty bucks for features and content between now and the next major release. This is standard for for MMOs for a reason. You either get people to pay directly for content access, or you give it away for free and structure your cash shop in such a way that players need what’s in it to play the game effectively. GW2 has gone stupid with the cash shop recently, but those items are cosmetic in nature. It costs money to develop content updates, and it’s just plain unrealistic to believe the majority of your player base will purchase cosmetic microtransactions often enough to fund that long term for a game of the scope and player base of GW2.