Guild Wars 2

Introduction

There’s a common theme with GW2’s content, that I hope will be fixed in Path of Fire, but highly doubt: The content doesn’t last long enough. It’s clear that people are left to farm a few achievements for a number score, with no real rewards for doing so. I’m bringing this up, because I care about the game, but I find myself losing interest quite a lot of the time, particularly 3-4 days after the release of a Living World patch.

In its current format, the Living World doesn’t work. It provides a 2 hour story per episode, and a map that you enjoy for 1-2 days, and then, you rarely ever go back, unless you need an achievement here and there.

Something needs to change, and I have a few suggestions, that are listed below:

Map Meta Events

The best Map Meta in the game, IMO, is The Silverwastes. It’s a huge battle against a massive threat, and everything is thrown into it, and it thematically fits the tone of Heart of Thorns. However, it also serves a greater purpose, as it feels like a self-contained story without the instances. We’re pulled away from being a Commander, and we’re just another person fighting with others against an enemy that keeps coming.

My question is: Why aren’t other Map Meta Events this well-designed? Especially for the Living World, where narrative is particularly important, we need content that matches the tone of the story. A good example is Head Of The Snake. The Map Meta is entirely forgettable, as it includes a few kill events, with no end goal. Lake Doric was meant to be a battlefield, and while the zone felt like a dark war, the Map Meta didn’t reflect the hardship, and didn’t feel challenging in any way. It’s simply: ‘Go to point X, capture it, leather farm.’

To fix Lake Doric, in hindsight, it would’ve been better to start with an attack on Seraph’s Landing, and branch out from the base camp, towards Fort Evennia, and then raze the Fort to the ground and kill a White Mantle Commander, in a self contained, challenging boss fight. I know this sounds easier said than done, but it’d be better to have 3-4 maps that are well-designed and thought-out, than 6-8 hollow maps with nothing to give after the story’s over, other than achievements with no rewards.

Rewards

The other major aspect of why content isn’t lasting is the Rewards, and there’s an easy way to fix this: Stop putting the Black Lion Weapons in the Gem Store, and add them to the Living World Maps, to be bought with map currency. Charging people 2 Black Lion Claim Tickets for a single weapon is ridiculous, and doesn’t help a game in any way. If people feel compelled to return to the maps, to play the content, and earn worthwhile rewards, people will advertise your game as being fun. Given that Anet wants word of mouth marketing/advertising, they really aren’t helping themselves by putting the rewards that belong in the maps, on the Gem Store.

Weapon skins, armour skins, glider skins, etc. all belong in the maps and away from the Gem Store. If this requires us to pay a bit more for Gem Store items, I think it wouldn’t be that bad. The fact is: You can put Black Lion Weapons on the Gem Store, but there needs to be a set for each new map, to keep the maps populated, alongside having well-made maps and meta events.

Conclusion

I’m sure that people will agree and disagree with my opinion. I’ve learnt to just accept that fact. But it’s very clear that people are getting bored of the content very quickly, leading them to not advertise the game as being fun, but instead, being very dull and repetitive. It often feels to me that there’s no love in the maps, but they’re just being made because the story needs a map. If we have 2-3 large maps, that get unlocked in stages over time, I think that’d be a better design than the current system where it feels like the map is there to serve a story backdrop and nothing more.

I’d love to hear what you all think! Let the Hunger Games begin! <3

What makes it clear though that things aren’t working? I’ve gone through all the ls3 maps for Aurora recently and the maps are packed with players doing either the same or catching up as returning/new players.

There is always going to be a finite amount of content they can design and whilst I agree I’d like to see more things like unique skins in game rather than via the gemstore, I don’t think the maps would be any healthier for it. Players who really want them, will get them within a day or 2 and then leave, making no substantial impact on the situation. Taking the black lion weapons out entirely could never be a solution. I’m willing to bet a significant number of players put too much money into keys for the company not to continue down that road. For BL weapons ever to be implemented in the way you suggest, a concerted rebellion of not buying keys would have to occur and that is simply not going to happen.

As for your 2-3 maps suggestion, it is not without merit, but Silverwastes and Dry top had that approach. They linked much better to the story that way, but we didn’t really get much extra content/gameplay versus how the LS3 maps work now. I think a major draw for the community was the 1 map per episode philosophy and on that they delivered strongly – I only disliked 1 map (Sirens) for example.

Also remember, these newer maps were designed deliberately without full metas and big scale events compare to SW, HoT, World Bosses etc. That will be a conscious design decision knowing that too many metas split the population as time rolls on and are best served in key expansion maps rather than every map. It also ensures when the populations in the LS3 maps eventually die down, they don’t become uncompletable.

My criticism of the story itself aside, I personally think they’ve done brilliantly to make half a dozen maps which are different and fun to play in and still manage to keep themselves full.

Sounds to me that your conclusion is stating your own opinion as what “people” are feeling. Well I’ve played a lot of MMOs, and I’ve heard about every one of them the same I’m bored mantra by a percentage of the playerbase.

The events work because they are tied to rewards that require you to do them. If you don’t go for any of those rewards, you’ll have less impetus to do them.

I’m working on HoT legenday weapons so I’ll need HoT currency. In fact, I also use HoT currency to lower my karma cost for obsidian shards. That means I’ll be spending a lot of time in HoT maps.

And I’m not bored with the events the way they are.

Making events more rewarding generally would do nothing but increase inflation. Sure everyone wants more rewards. But that doesn’t make more rewards necessarily good for the game.

I don’t get anything done because im always re-playing events and here is one that is done with any map in 1-2 days….. whut?

Never played an MMO as replayable as this one tbh. Its pure genious, plain and simple.

Sounds to me you are rather easily bored OP.

Abakk.9176:

I don’t get anything done because im always re-playing events and here is one that is done with any map in 1-2 days….. whut?

Never played an MMO as replayable as this one tbh. Its pure genious, plain and simple.

Sounds to me you are rather easily bored OP.

Well, no, I’m not easily bored. I’m easily bored by content that gives no replay value. The only map that sees any kind of replay value in LWS3 is Bloodstone Fen, from my experience, and maybe the leather farm in Lake Doric, but that’s just a pointless grind for gold.

Vayne.8563:

Sounds to me that your conclusion is stating your own opinion as what “people” are feeling. Well I’ve played a lot of MMOs, and I’ve heard about every one of them the same I’m bored mantra by a percentage of the playerbase.

The events work because they are tied to rewards that require you to do them. If you don’t go for any of those rewards, you’ll have less impetus to do them.

I’m working on HoT legenday weapons so I’ll need HoT currency. In fact, I also use HoT currency to lower my karma cost for obsidian shards. That means I’ll be spending a lot of time in HoT maps.

And I’m not bored with the events the way they are.

Making events more rewarding generally would do nothing but increase inflation. Sure everyone wants more rewards. But that doesn’t make more rewards necessarily good for the game.

As for the ‘claiming my opinion is a percentage of the player-base’, my opinion is fuelled by the countless people across many guilds that I’m in who regularly drop out because there’s nothing to do, outside of maybe 3-4 PvP matches a day, and a WvW hour long zerg.

If you’re not bored, that’s fine. But there’s examples in GW2 of long-lasting content, and The Silverwastes is one of those things, that’s still regularly played even now.

Im curious to understand what silverwastes offers that differs from ls3 maps. Sure its an excellent meta map, but it is just the same replay each time, never offering anything new or varied.

Ls3 maps in contrast do not have metas, which as i said earlier is a welcomed and conscious design, but has hearts, many more events of various styles and a lot more acievements and exclusive rewards and skins in each map. Plus those maps are full and ma y players are enjoying them as much as they did silverwastes.

So where, ultimately does the difference lie?

IMO – GW2 maps and playable areas are rather large and there is always something to do. I don’t do Raids and gave up Fractals long ago. People stay and play MMOs for various reasons and leave for various reasons.

I have come to enjoy WvW along side the PvE content and would like to Raid but unfortunately time is of the essence and pugging has never worked out in any MMO I have played.

WoW is very comparable if not a tad better with the different types of personal instances but the constant money grab of content release, monthly fees and poor economy drove me away. With GW2 I give money for Gems if I wish but use gold mostly. Economy is not too bad and the payable updates of HoT and PoF are worth it to me.

Since there is no monthly fees I don’t feel pressured to play. End game ASC gear is easy to get whether crafting or RNGesus. New players can even get in on the action fairly quuickly.

5 years and I do not own a legendary because ug…I just don’t have the desire for them. BUT there is no stat advantage of legendary which is good for balance, though some will differ on the word “balance”. Exotic gear is cheap and easy and ASC gear is a little better but not necessary for most play if you spec right.

Everyone has there own tastes. The Gem store is right where it should be as this is how we don’t get charged monthly fees. There are people with money out there that buy $1000’s in Gems and they sustain our no monthly fee (btw thank you to them). You get a free glider in game with HoT and a possible second if you get the upgraded version… to make these RNG in maps is not the answer. many go on ale for less than 500 gems and available to those with hard cash or 150 so of gold. Not difficult.

Black lion boxes have been the same since I started with change ups of what is dropped. I got a glider from a wardrobe unlock and a Ghastly Shield that was going for 3k at the time I got it. Spoon feeding shinies to everyone would definitely make the game boring. The 2 tickets for a weapon skin was a shocker when they changed but it obviously is working for them OR they may go back to one ticket next rotation.

Anywho maybe ANET will like some of your ideas and maybe not. Not wanting to poo poo on them but there are obvious things we disagree on.

Agree with OP about Silverwastes, I consider it the best meta they ever made, followed by VB, AB TD and DS, nothng else compares to these maps, they are all fully replayable time and time again. The recent design of maps really is a step backwards, if PoF does not have proper meta maps like HoT or SW then I will be looking for a new game to play.

Twyn.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Sounds to me that your conclusion is stating your own opinion as what “people” are feeling. Well I’ve played a lot of MMOs, and I’ve heard about every one of them the same I’m bored mantra by a percentage of the playerbase.

The events work because they are tied to rewards that require you to do them. If you don’t go for any of those rewards, you’ll have less impetus to do them.

I’m working on HoT legenday weapons so I’ll need HoT currency. In fact, I also use HoT currency to lower my karma cost for obsidian shards. That means I’ll be spending a lot of time in HoT maps.

And I’m not bored with the events the way they are.

Making events more rewarding generally would do nothing but increase inflation. Sure everyone wants more rewards. But that doesn’t make more rewards necessarily good for the game.

As for the ‘claiming my opinion is a percentage of the player-base’, my opinion is fuelled by the countless people across many guilds that I’m in who regularly drop out because there’s nothing to do, outside of maybe 3-4 PvP matches a day, and a WvW hour long zerg.

If you’re not bored, that’s fine. But there’s examples in GW2 of long-lasting content, and The Silverwastes is one of those things, that’s still regularly played even now.

Same as every MMO in existence. WoW once had 12.4 million people, dropped down to 4 million So at least 8 million people left (maybe more since new people would have started). Everyone is bored of every MMO all the time. People come here from other MMOs and say I’m bored of this game or that game. Happens all the time.

The thing is, most games don’t have dynamic events at all, they have static quests and static quests are one offs. They’re not meant to be the thing you do over and over again at max level.

Saying you’re bored, your friends are bored, your guild is bored is nothing if it’s said in every single MMO across the bored. It’s a meaningless comment.

MMOs are all about having goals. Most MMOs predefine your goals for you, this one lets you choose your own goals. I prefer that to being told to farm this dungeon or this raid waiting for this specific piece of gear to drop.

Your mileage may vary.

Twyn.7320:

Weapon skins, armour skins, glider skins, etc. all belong in the maps and away from the Gem Store. If this requires us to pay a bit more for Gem Store items, I think it wouldn’t be that bad. The fact is: You can put Black Lion Weapons on the Gem Store, but there needs to be a set for each new map, to keep the maps populated, alongside having well-made maps and meta events.

So how should they earn money? The alternative to selling skins for real money is selling power-advantages, like special items that permanently increase the damage of the weapon they are applied to. I dont think people prefer this.

Assuming they need the current output on skins for the gemstore to maintain the game, getting more skins as map-rewards means more work for them and they probably dont have the ressources to do so for ls-episodes.

Jojo.6140:

Twyn.7320:

Weapon skins, armour skins, glider skins, etc. all belong in the maps and away from the Gem Store. If this requires us to pay a bit more for Gem Store items, I think it wouldn’t be that bad. The fact is: You can put Black Lion Weapons on the Gem Store, but there needs to be a set for each new map, to keep the maps populated, alongside having well-made maps and meta events.

So how should they earn money? The alternative to selling skins for real money is selling power-advantages, like special items that permanently increase the damage of the weapon they are applied to. I dont think people prefer this.

Assuming they need the current output on skins for the gemstore to maintain the game, getting more skins as map-rewards means more work for them and they probably dont have the ressources to do so for ls-episodes.

I was just going to point out this same thing. Selling gems is major income for Anet, even when you personally can buy them for in game gold. It still means someone has payed for them with real money. LS content is given out for free.

Making all the skins and available for grinding in the same map to get piles of account bound map currency just means players are forced to redo the same map many-many times over even if you do not enjoy doing it. It means you can no play the game in a way you like, and would end up players leaving the game. It does not make the game more interesting or fun, the maps more replayable, it just forces to grind.

I would much rather see all the account bound map currencies removed from the game and a lot more items made sellable through TP.

Premise: Map content gets old fast. Yes, it can. This is a common issue with MMO’s, which rely on people p(l)aying on an ongoing basis, when the developers are unable to generate new content as fast as old content loses its luster. Brain chemistry changes, producing anything from excitement to flow states to euphoria, when one is faced with something new and challenging. This type of experience only lasts as long as the content feels new and/or challenges the player. This can mean that interest will start to fall off after one play-through.

Map Meta Events: There is one and only one major difference between the Silverwastes meta and those in the four HoT zones. The HoT zones’ metas are available on timers, where the only timers in SW are on the boss fights and the period between cycles. Otherwise, the HoT metas seem as well or better designed than SW. LS3 maps seem like a reaction to complaints about map-wide meta events in HoT. Some people didn’t like taxis, didn’t like being on maps that felt empty and especially did not like the event cycle timers. If you’re asking why LS3 maps aren’t like SW, that’s probably why.

Rewards: Yes, rewards are what MMO developers use to extend the life of content past the point where the content no longer feels new. There are rewards in the HoT and LS3 zones. I’m still working on most of them. The problem with the inability of those rewards to sustain interest is rooted in desire for rapid gratification. ANet made them as hard to get as they dared, given the myriad complaints about “grind.” As to taking skins out of the store and putting them in as additional rewards… where do you think ANet gets the money to pay the company’s operating expenses, including dev salaries? What do you propose ANet sell instead? Hint: bringing more people to the game is not going to cut it if the only things for them to buy are bag slots and other such items.

Conclusion: I find it doubtful that the complainers would stop complaining if there were more rewards. Complaining is a constant in human history, and never stops.

Twyn.7320:

As for the ‘claiming my opinion is a percentage of the player-base’, my opinion is fuelled by the countless people across many guilds that I’m in who regularly drop out because there’s nothing to do, outside of maybe 3-4 PvP matches a day, and a WvW hour long zerg.

If you’re not bored, that’s fine. But there’s examples in GW2 of long-lasting content, and The Silverwastes is one of those things, that’s still regularly played even now.

If you go by the players you know and play with, then I have the complete oposite to your experience. My guilds are full of people that have been playing for a long time, many up to five years, without taking serious breaks inbetween, and they are all over the maps all the time, enjoying themselves. If anything I’d have to say Silverwastes is the worst meta judging from my friends and guildies, since I next to never see any of them there.

I don’t believe my friends and guildies are representative of a large part of the playerbase, but neither do I believe that your friends and guildies are. This games playerbase looks to me like a healthy mix of people with different interests, and content catering to a wide variety of those interests. Personally, I’m not a big fan of meta events (due to rl time restrictions) but enjoy (re-)playing events on all kinds of maps all the time. Rewards to me are secondary to enjoying what I’m doing.

PvE content always is finite, and no MMO developer can put out enough PvE content to keep all players happy. Some go more towards hard-to-get rng rewards and are played by people who enjoy that kind of stuff. Some have a variety of bosses and instances to farm for specific loot, and a playerbase that enjoys that kind of content. This game offers a variety of different environments and activities for people who enjoy open world exploration and interaction (among other things).

A lot of people that play GW2 (myself included) play this game because it lets you just jump in and enjoy pretty much every activity in the game without a lot of preparation. The maps, especially HoT and Season 3, are perfect for my playstyle as there’s always something to do and I end up with a lot of shinies by just playing whatever I enjoy playing that moment. No need to farm this map or that event chain or those bosses, I get my loot from pretty much everywhere and playing never feels like a waste of time, unlike previous MMOs I played where I had to play the same dailies/dungeons/raids day in day out to get my shinies and often came out of a playsession with empty hands.

There’s an end to map content, but it’s different for every person, and for many people playing this game the possibilities are really endless. If it’s the rewards that drive you, not the content, and you have a lot of time on your hands, I can easily believe that this game does not offer you nearly as much replayability as it does offer to me, but don’t make the mistake and think it’s a general problem just because you play with like-minded people. There are lots of other people around who think this game has a pretty good balance of carrots vs. things to do .

This game has multiple problems, why its content doesn’t last:

1. Discontinued Content
ANet starts somewhere something, and then doesn’t finish the started job for the whole game to add new content everywhere, where it would be possible for that kind of content type they added. Example “Map Achievements”
With Season 2 Anet begun to add Map Achievements to the new Maps – why the hell don’t they do this sa well retroactively for all the older maps too??
This would help in revitalizing for some time the older Maps.

2. More Living World Content changing older maps
Within the first Seasons, Anet was focused on changing some of the older Maps.
In Season 3 they did nothing on that, but just focused only on pumping out new Maps to explore instead. however, you can#t just only continously release one new map after another. You have also to update and keep alive the older maps, to give continously people a reason to revisit them, so that these places stay alive, otherwise they will degenerate over time.

3. Terrible Rewards
This has always been a huge problem of ANet, in Season 3 they have at least improved a bit, by giving all of the Heart NPCs some unique Miniature Rewards, also as a nice Karma Sink as well – somethign that I proposed a long time ago, that ANet should make more usage of Karma Vendors in general for better Rewards, what wasn’t up till Season 3 not the case before.
You can feel and see also, that ANet is trying to reduce the Material Grind for T6 stuff, which is somethign I find good, as that way become alot of thigns in this game a bit more affordable finally for the broad mass of players and not only for the super rich ones. Otheriwse I do agree with it, that Anet should continue improving the rewards, by letting us somehow earn more oftenly Guaranteed Skin Unlock Items – thats basicalyl the most rewarding Item you could let us us as Map Meta Achievement Rewards or for doign some harder achievement,s or as part of reachign like every 1000 AP you get now guaranteed skin unlockers.
Aside of this I do agree also, that Black Lion Weapons need to become finally earnable.
By sure not instantly all of them – no, that would totally crash the market, but every BLW Skin Set should become earnable after like 6 months of release. This gives people which do the tradign post and gem sales enough of a head start to make with these things profit, while its new.
But after that head start, there should exist a way to earn these skins. Then you should be able to unlock some kind of way, which lets you become able to craft these skins.

4. Too less Tyrian Masteries
ANet makes currently by far not usage of all the potential that lies behind their Mastery System. anet should add alot of new Masteries, especially Tyrian Masteries, so that theres content to revitalize the older maps as well through this.
Theres alot of masteries, which could work simultanously as kind of character progression, while also beign a great help as quality of life improvement.
Masteries shouldn’t be something, thats only expansion map exclusive!! that would be the wrong way to use this gameplay mechanic
Masteries have to be a game wide feature and as such shoudl become part of all maps to improve them.
This would include adding also retroactively to all older maps new insights to gain more Mastery Points.

5. Map Currencies
Add to the older maps also a generic Map Currency that is for all the older maps the same (like you did with season 3 that share all the same map currency partwise with magic energy) to add to the heart npcs of the older maps through this new map currency new rewards as well, like miniature, liek stuff with that you can earn access to craftign BLW skins (Recipes), like new better food buffs with significantly longer DURATIONS than just lousy 30-60 minutes.. add finalyl buff items that have durations like 1 day and replace the effect of those gemstore items that increase the durations instead to an improve the efficiency of buff items by 50% (PvE only)

Btw, to clear something up: I’m not saying to put every single Gem Store item in the map meta events. I’m saying that there should be a new weapon set, a new glider etc in each map. If Anet wants to make sets purely for the Gem Store, that’s their choice. But the Gem Store shouldn’t be the go-to option to get all of the new skins, on an RNG chance that you get a Claim Ticket.

Twyn.7320:

Map Meta Events

The best Map Meta in the game, IMO, is The Silverwastes. It’s a huge battle against a massive threat, and everything is thrown into it, and it thematically fits the tone of Heart of Thorns. However, it also serves a greater purpose, as it feels like a self-contained story without the instances. We’re pulled away from being a Commander, and we’re just another person fighting with others against an enemy that keeps coming.

My question is: Why aren’t other Map Meta Events this well-designed?

I’ll answer this one. The long and short answer is time.

Now I don’t mean Anet’s time, I mean a players time. Not every player has an Hour or so to invest into a single map event, sometimes players want to log in, get something done and log out.

Long drawn out Meta’s are not productive to that player base, being able to log in, check their world boss timer, see a Jormag is up, run off and do that.. and… get logged out in about 30 min.. and feel like they did something important and had a lot of fast fun, is what keeps them coming back tomorrow, and maybe.. when their weekend rolls around they can play for a few hours and go farm Silverwastes.

As such, long drawn out Meta’s are not enticing to that group, so, it stands to reason that Anet will want to make maps that play well into various kinds of players, some with the time to play long drawn out Metas, some without.

In the end, if you love long drawn out Meta’s you can always enjoy HoT an SW, and the like, that content is not going away, so it will be there for you to enjoy.

See, to remove this from a criticising of concepts, and more to a discussion:

I don’t see the issue with time. A lot of the game’s content is about pouring days/weeks/months of work into something. Legendary Weapons take 3-4 months to craft; Legendary Armour can take between 6-12 months, depending on the type; Ascended Armour (for a casual player) can take 1-2 months to craft. Raids take around 1-2 hours to completely clear, 3 pvp daily matches takes 45 minutes (without queues/relative game match-ups), which is the average that someone has to play to stay on the ranked leaderboard. A full WvW skirmish takes 1.5-2 hours.

However, in Living World Season 3… we had 6 maps, but we didn’t see any story-driven, huge meta events. Even in the final episode, which should’ve had a Silverwastes style map as a pre-expansion event, to keep people interested until the release. A demo weekend is fine, if there’s something to go back to. And yes, Aurora is something that a select few are doing, but the average player isn’t.

It’s very easy to say that there’s a lot of content, but how much of it is actually meaningful content? I don’t personally see Legendary grinding as ‘meaningful content’, especially when they purposefully lock stat-swapping there as the only incentive, showing how shallow the content really is. Of course, people will say: “Hun, why don’t you quit if you’re complaining this much?” But really, there’s a lot of concepts that GW2 gets right, but executes poorly. And things that people have wanted for years, such as build templates, is thrown aside for another feature that hardly anyone asked for.

Now, the saving grace of Path of Fire for me will be the Bounties. But they need to prepare amazing bosses for these Bounties, otherwise, they’ll become pointless. These are just my extended thoughts.

As with every thread in this forum the answer is and always will be ez mode raids! Here called it first. The answer to all our problems!

Twyn.7320:

It’s very easy to say that there’s a lot of content, but how much of it is actually meaningful content?

I think this is the key point of the discussion. Or even more abstract: what is meaningful content?

Ask 5 players, and you’ll probably end up with 10 different definitions. There’s no general rule what kind of content is “meaningful”, as it’s all about personal preferences.

For me, meaningful content is the kind of content that I enjoy playing. Maps that I enjoy moving around in, eents that I enjoy, discoveries that I enjoy. I don’t care half as much for the loot as I care for the enjoyable activity.

For a player like me (and many that I know), this game has a wealth of meaningful content, actually a lot more than I could ever hope to exhaust. For you it seems not so much, as the content available doesn’t seem to give you as much fun as it gives to me.

You’re looking for something else. I am sure there are many players that do, players that enjoy similar things as you do, players that like GW2 but it doesn’t quite give them enough of that. But I am just as sure that there are also many players like me, that enjoy this game the way it is, that love just jumping in and out of content as life allows, that don’t care for pvp leader boards or best-in-slot equipment but rather for something fun to do with more emphasis on fun activity than reward.

This game, and especially this game’s pve content, is perfect for some players and less so for others. But don’t just dismiss the voices of those who like the current pve maps just because you are looking for something else.

They really should have had some gliders available in-game, though, that much I agree with. Having literally all of them except the default (the legendary backpack ones don’t count, shut up) only in the gem store was a bit much.

Just out of curiousity, name one mmorpg with more replayable zones than Guild Wars 2? I can’t think of any, and I pretty much play them all. (all the big ones anyway)

Twyn.7320:

Abakk.9176:

I don’t get anything done because im always re-playing events and here is one that is done with any map in 1-2 days….. whut?

Never played an MMO as replayable as this one tbh. Its pure genious, plain and simple.

Sounds to me you are rather easily bored OP.

Well, no, I’m not easily bored. I’m easily bored by content that gives no replay value. The only map that sees any kind of replay value in LWS3 is Bloodstone Fen, from my experience, and maybe the leather farm in Lake Doric, but that’s just a pointless grind for gold.

I guess it all depends on what you think is ‘replay value’.

I keep going back to maps like Metrica Province and Gendarran (and many more) for their events but also because i love their specific area themes/atmosphere. I also enjoy gathering lootbags of all levels. That way i have something to do, something to wander around in and a few silver to look forward to when i sell everything at the end of yet another engaging session.

I tend to delete high level characters for the specific purpose of starting over fresh in one of my favorite maps.

I may be somewhat exentric in my way of playing but if all you have left to ‘enjoy’ is a high profit loot piñata map (because stuff, stuff, stuff) i really wonder what draws you to play an MMORPG.

Twyn.7320:

Abakk.9176:

I don’t get anything done because im always re-playing events and here is one that is done with any map in 1-2 days….. whut?

Never played an MMO as replayable as this one tbh. Its pure genious, plain and simple.

Sounds to me you are rather easily bored OP.

Well, no, I’m not easily bored. I’m easily bored by content that gives no replay value. The only map that sees any kind of replay value in LWS3 is Bloodstone Fen, from my experience, and maybe the leather farm in Lake Doric, but that’s just a pointless grind for gold.

I feel just the same and also analyzed the events of the Season 3 maps. With the exception of a few, they could easily be separated into the basic quest designs: Kill: 0/x, Gather 0/x and Protect/Escort. That’s where GW2 always wanted to be different compared to other MMORPGs but in the end, those smaller, independent events are just as or even more grindy than some WoW quests. The only difference is that events are happening right now and can be easily accessible for multiple players.

What was really different were meta events of HoT and Season 2 (Silverwastes) where several groups split up and did different things at once in order to progress the overall event.

Abbak, you said GW2 was the most replayable MMO you’ve played and it would be genious. Well to me, it isn’t. The large majority of events in the whole world are nothing but basic MMORPG quests disguised as dynamic events. In other games I was happy when I finally finished the “Kill 0/10 wolves” task and could move on with the story. In GW2, this event will repeat over and over and over again every 5 minutes.

1. I don’t even want to repeat that boring quest, I want to get rid of it as soon as possible
2. Our actions don’t have any impact on the world of Tyria. You’ve rescued a few allies? oh look, they’re trapped in there again. Rescue them again.

After leveling multiple characters to lvl 80, playing through the game, I have no reason to replay these events. They’re plain boring to me. Meta events changed that a little, but they alone also don’t last 2 years for me.

I guess it’s subjective as you liked to delete your characters and start all oved again. Other people would have liked to see more large meta events in lvl 80 zones.

The funny thing is that I could find several events in the PoF demo (lvl80) that were exactly the same as in Queensdale (lvl1-15):

• We should defend the Amnoon farm workers from the Forged just like we protected the ranchers in Queensdale from bandits.
• We should defend the water pipes of Amnoon from saboteurs just like we protected the water pipes in Queensdale from bandits.
• We should gather fish in Amnoon just like a level 10 heart quest in Queensdale told us to gather crabs for the fishermen.
• (n/A yet) We should escort people in Amnoon just like we escorted the trading post caravan, Moa Trainer Kappa, carnival caravan in Queensdale.

All in all, they’re all the same. I don’t care if I escort a caravan in Queensdale, Gendarran Fields, Wayfarer’s Foothills or Crystal Oasis. They’re all the same to me, copied over, reskinned, with changing enemies. There’s no way I still want to do that after the 100th time. They have to think of new concepts. In many games, the quests will change, be more complex over the time. Sadly, we’re seeing a step backwards in Living World Season 3 and thr PoF demo.

Maps are replayable but they are about as fun as getting stuck in a time loop forever. Nothing ever changes and player actions mean nothing. Living world lol.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Maps are replayable but they are about as fun as getting stuck in a time loop forever. Nothing ever changes and player actions mean nothing. Living world lol.

The world moved on without you. Everything is just a fractal……. once you realize that truth, you can truly embrace oblivion.

I like doing every thing on the map i like doing all the story
what i dislike is any thing gated/daily’s
and for the most part that’s all i see that’s new now a days

Tekey.7946:

Twyn.7320:

Abakk.9176:

I don’t get anything done because im always re-playing events and here is one that is done with any map in 1-2 days….. whut?

Never played an MMO as replayable as this one tbh. Its pure genious, plain and simple.

Sounds to me you are rather easily bored OP.

Well, no, I’m not easily bored. I’m easily bored by content that gives no replay value. The only map that sees any kind of replay value in LWS3 is Bloodstone Fen, from my experience, and maybe the leather farm in Lake Doric, but that’s just a pointless grind for gold.

I feel just the same and also analyzed the events of the Season 3 maps. With the exception of a few, they could easily be separated into the basic quest designs: Kill: 0/x, Gather 0/x and Protect/Escort. That’s where GW2 always wanted to be different compared to other MMORPGs but in the end, those smaller, independent events are just as or even more grindy than some WoW quests. The only difference is that events are happening right now and can be easily accessible for multiple players.

What was really different were meta events of HoT and Season 2 (Silverwastes) where several groups split up and did different things at once in order to progress the overall event.

Abbak, you said GW2 was the most replayable MMO you’ve played and it would be genious. Well to me, it isn’t. The large majority of events in the whole world are nothing but basic MMORPG quests disguised as dynamic events. In other games I was happy when I finally finished the “Kill 0/10 wolves” task and could move on with the story. In GW2, this event will repeat over and over and over again every 5 minutes.

1. I don’t even want to repeat that boring quest, I want to get rid of it as soon as possible
2. Our actions don’t have any impact on the world of Tyria. You’ve rescued a few allies? oh look, they’re trapped in there again. Rescue them again.

After leveling multiple characters to lvl 80, playing through the game, I have no reason to replay these events. They’re plain boring to me. Meta events changed that a little, but they alone also don’t last 2 years for me.

I guess it’s subjective as you liked to delete your characters and start all oved again. Other people would have liked to see more large meta events in lvl 80 zones.

The funny thing is that I could find several events in the PoF demo (lvl80) that were exactly the same as in Queensdale (lvl1-15):

• We should defend the Amnoon farm workers from the Forged just like we protected the ranchers in Queensdale from bandits.
• We should defend the water pipes of Amnoon from saboteurs just like we protected the water pipes in Queensdale from bandits.
• We should gather fish in Amnoon just like a level 10 heart quest in Queensdale told us to gather crabs for the fishermen.
• (n/A yet) We should escort people in Amnoon just like we escorted the trading post caravan, Moa Trainer Kappa, carnival caravan in Queensdale.

All in all, they’re all the same. I don’t care if I escort a caravan in Queensdale, Gendarran Fields, Wayfarer’s Foothills or Crystal Oasis. They’re all the same to me, copied over, reskinned, with changing enemies. There’s no way I still want to do that after the 100th time. They have to think of new concepts. In many games, the quests will change, be more complex over the time. Sadly, we’re seeing a step backwards in Living World Season 3 and thr PoF demo.

What i think is really happening is that many of todays gamers are spoiled and jaded and all seem to know how a perfect game should look like.

Maybe you should go play WoW for a bit and level a character to 100. Then come back and look at this game again.

You cannot have a game where there are thousand of quests that are all unique. Just as you cannot have self-reprogramming events that are completely unpredictable.

At the end of the day these games are nothing more than interactive databases and bound to a certain amount of predictable programming. As far as GW2 goes i think it is one of the more cleverly wrapped databases and good looking as well.

But maybe coming from an age where gaming was done on boards around a table makes me appreciate what we have today more. Not to mention a rich imagination honed by reading a metric ton of comics, novels, etc..

Abakk.9176:

What i think is really happening is that many of todays gamers are spoiled and jaded and all seem to know how a perfect game should look like.

Maybe you should go play WoW for a bit and level a character to 100. Then come back and look at this game again.

You cannot have a game where there are thousand of quests that are all unique. Just as you cannot have self-reprogramming events that are completely unpredictable.

At the end of the day these games are nothing more than interactive databases and bound to a certain amount of predictable programming. As far as GW2 goes i think it is one of the more cleverly wrapped databases and good looking as well.

But maybe coming from an age where gaming was done on boards around a table makes me appreciate what we have today more. Not to mention a rich imagination honed by reading a metric ton of comics, novels, etc..

It seems more likely that you’re currently hooked by GW2 which influences your evaluation. You’re calling people easily bored and spoiled because they talked about their experience with GW2 events the design in general.

Abakk.9176:

You cannot have a game where there are thousand of quests that are all unique.

Honestly, how many of them do you find unique? You may list them here if you want to.

GW2 events are highly limited due to their nature. There’s no room for stealth/investigation missions, your decisions don’t have any impact on the story and it’s exactly the same event for every race and profession.

After playing a while you’ll see that you’re basically doing the same 3 events over and over again that were copied, reskinned and adapted to the new environment. And that makes me get bored faster and faster with every new map that’s been released. There are always exceptions, somtimes you can use your glider, PoF will probably make use of the mounts sometimes. But overall, the events of GW2 are mostly not different to some basic, shallow kill 0/x, gather 0/x quests. The only thing they really ‘revolutionized’ would be how they easily make people play together – especially with regards to meta events.

Tekey.7946:

Abakk.9176:

What i think is really happening is that many of todays gamers are spoiled and jaded and all seem to know how a perfect game should look like.

Maybe you should go play WoW for a bit and level a character to 100. Then come back and look at this game again.

You cannot have a game where there are thousand of quests that are all unique. Just as you cannot have self-reprogramming events that are completely unpredictable.

At the end of the day these games are nothing more than interactive databases and bound to a certain amount of predictable programming. As far as GW2 goes i think it is one of the more cleverly wrapped databases and good looking as well.

But maybe coming from an age where gaming was done on boards around a table makes me appreciate what we have today more. Not to mention a rich imagination honed by reading a metric ton of comics, novels, etc..

It seems more likely that you’re currently hooked by GW2 which influences your evaluation. You’re calling people easily bored and spoiled because they talked about their experience with GW2 events the design in general.

Abakk.9176:

You cannot have a game where there are thousand of quests that are all unique.

Honestly, how many of them do you find unique? You may list them here if you want to.

GW2 events are highly limited due to their nature. There’s no room for stealth/investigation missions, your decisions don’t have any impact on the story and it’s exactly the same event for every race and profession.

After playing a while you’ll see that you’re basically doing the same 3 events over and over again that were copied, reskinned and adapted to the new environment. And that makes me get bored faster and faster with every new map that’s been released. There are always exceptions, somtimes you can use your glider, PoF will probably make use of the mounts sometimes. But overall, the events of GW2 are mostly not different to some basic, shallow kill 0/x, gather 0/x quests. The only thing they really ‘revolutionized’ would be how they easily make people play together – especially with regards to meta events.

I don’t agree with you and explained why.

You think it’s boring and i think it’s brilliant. Not much use in trying to outbid one another.

Have fun in your next game. o/

I agree that metas would have made the maps more interesting to replay. But without those, a broader variety of available missions could have made those maps much more interesting to replay. There are countless fun and creative missions and quirky things to discover in the central Tyria area. The HoT area has those awesome metas, and still lots of interesting small missions that contribute to them. While there are some interesting places in the LS3 maps, it seems to me that there are very few interesting missions, and those repeat over and over and over and over. Perhaps it would have been better to put some time into creating more mission chains, so that the same thing is not always happening repeatedly in the same area, and nothing else.

On the other hand, if you view LS3 maps as being designed to be a glorified farming area, then they seem to be serving their purpose well. Lather, loot, repeat.

The release of PoF said that the devs were trying to return to focusing on discovery and exploration. I hope that means there will be lots of interesting, cool, and fun things to find and do, and not just that they will force us to find a hundred stupid tokens that they’ve hidden in a hundred pointless places that you would never have any reason to go to, except to find a stupid token. (Ember Island, I’m looking at you…)

(Central Tyria also had probably hundreds of entertaining casual background conversations that I love listening to, something that was not nearly as well done in later maps. I hope they put that kind of detail into the Crystal Desert, too.)

zoomborg.9462:

As with every thread in this forum the answer is and always will be ez mode raids! Here called it first. The answer to all our problems!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, raids should have been gated, either by some gear requirement like AR provides for high level fractals, nor maybe, needing to have done a level 100 fractal before you could enter a raid.. in any case, not gating the raid by some means gave the illusion that anyone should be able to do them, and that is where everything went wrong with them.

There is one good thing about the LS3 maps not being big meta events like all the HoT maps and Silverwastes.. and that is there is no “fail maps”. If you jump straight into the silverwastes or Dragon’s Stand, chances are you’re going to be on a near empty map with no progress on the meta event and will likely never get anywhere with as few people on the map as there are. the DS map, being timed will just fail. There’s just no point in being on those maps (I guess you could do the JP in an empty silverwastes?

So for maps like that you have to deal with the janky LFG system looking for squads to taxi in on, since anet won’t let us choose a map “district” with their mega server system. We just get whatever map we get and if it’s a failure, we have to hope there’s a taxi in a not full map that’s actually going to progress. AB, TD, and VB I guess you can map complete on in the time between metas but there’s still maybe 1 or 2 maps at a time that will get anything done.

LS3 maps you can get in on and since it’s not meta event driven you can actually hope to do something in the map, organize a half dozen people to kill champs for group events and the like.

If every map were like the Silverwastes. that’d be frustrating. You’d just have to spam for taxis everywhere you went.

On this huge wall of comments i doubt anyone or even anet will read my comment but….

To the op I agree

Silverwastes I thought wss by far the greatest map in this game. The goal was very clear and made sense. I loved defending blue base and loved knowing each time I did it greatly helped the meta. Then fighting all the bosses with team work at the bases and going to other bases if needed was great.

Then we got to pick lanes and fight through while others faced bosses and then your lane was up was great.

After that the rewards felt great and the skins you got from the map are awesome and the rewards felt nice and while waiting for the meta to start again there was the pac man event going on for more loot.

I truly wish the new maps were more like this and player driven over these horrible timers that are all over now. I miss the Silverwastes alot and want more maps like this.

Devildoc.6721:

There is one good thing about the LS3 maps not being big meta events like all the HoT maps and Silverwastes.. and that is there is no “fail maps”.

Totally agree with this, I think it deserves extra attention. I have personally been very lucky with DS meta in particular, as I’ve completed it on all but 2 attempts. One of those attempts was just undermanned, and the mid team was just awful. The second failure involves not being able to taxi into a full map, which is not really a failure, just prevented me that particular day from notching my own goal. I think every single other map-wide meta I joined that made a serious attempt to clear, cleared for me.

Despite my own luck, I’ve heard from many other players I’ve run into online and the forums here (yes yes, I know it’s a very limited sample size) who have had much worse fortune in completing DS or other metas. I really like GW2’s “jump in and play” style, and I feel like the failure-prone HoT metas were a slight departure from that. The price of returning to a more casual event style would of course be less connected/complex/rewarding meta chains that may not even have map-wide consequences.

I’ll be happy so long as the other metas remain reasonably populated, such that those of us who still revisit them have a reasonable chance of running into a map that can clear it.

My issue, moreso with older maps is that with level 80 tokens now if I use one on my toon, what reason do I have to go back and go through the pre expansion maps? If I go into Caledon Forest with my level 80 necro, which has been lowered to the map level, and I finish it, what is my reward? Level 14 crap. Useless. If reward=level then suddenly I have a reason to go back and do older maps. A reason to complete older maps.

ShalmaneserIII.8571:

My issue, moreso with older maps is that with level 80 tokens now if I use one on my toon, what reason do I have to go back and go through the pre expansion maps? If I go into Caledon Forest with my level 80 necro, which has been lowered to the map level, and I finish it, what is my reward? Level 14 crap. Useless. If reward=level then suddenly I have a reason to go back and do older maps. A reason to complete older maps.

I just had a “Leftpaw’s Armor Chest” dropped from a Kessex Hills bandit boss or the Toxic Alchemist (cannot remember which because i do a lot of this stuff). The chest came out of a pouch or bag and contains a choice of an ascended piece of gear lvl 80. I can choose from any of 3 complete sets of armor (light, medium and heavy) and the chest is account bound.

(my luck is at 111%)

For the rest it is my experience that aside from heart quest rewards that are obviously appropriate for the area’s level and can be done just once, all the rest that drops (from events, mobs, elites, etc..) is always lvl. 80 (when done on a lvl 80 character.) or a few levels below that, as far as i can tell.

This way i can constantly re-do all my favorite maps and favorite events while getting lvl 80 rewards as a bonus.

So the game scales me down to map level (fights are fun and engaging, i can play with my main, help friends and newbro’s at their current level) and the rewards are scaled back up to my characters level (ingame financial value, crafting value, etc..).

I don’t think you can cram much more replay value into any game tbh.

If you insist on instant leveling a new character from 1 to 80 and then complain that the heart quest rewards aren’t scaled to your level, then i think you want too much tbh. Normal quest gear can’t be sold nor salvaged so why would you need them to be on-level at lvl 80 anyway?

Maybe someday we get selfprogramming realtime events that are totally different everytime and at unpredictable times. Until then i am afraid we are ‘stuck’ with pre-programmed content. And as far as that goes i think Anet has done a pretty great job.

Sylent.3165:

On this huge wall of comments i doubt anyone or even anet will read my comment but….

To the op I agree

Silverwastes I thought wss by far the greatest map in this game. The goal was very clear and made sense. I loved defending blue base and loved knowing each time I did it greatly helped the meta. Then fighting all the bosses with team work at the bases and going to other bases if needed was great.

Then we got to pick lanes and fight through while others faced bosses and then your lane was up was great.

After that the rewards felt great and the skins you got from the map are awesome and the rewards felt nice and while waiting for the meta to start again there was the pac man event going on for more loot.

I truly wish the new maps were more like this and player driven over these horrible timers that are all over now. I miss the Silverwastes alot and want more maps like this.

The Silverwastes are the reason Anet changed things, most likely. Too many people use LFG to jump in at the very end and don’t participate in the during. The new system doesn’t allow people to hop from map about to win to map about to win again.

Me, I like doing the events from the beginning, so I’m going to make less profit than someone who takes short cuts.

I couldn’t care less about story and actually enjoy endlessly repeating events, simply because I’m hooked on the combat. Different strokes, Sir.

STIHL.2489:

zoomborg.9462:

As with every thread in this forum the answer is and always will be ez mode raids! Here called it first. The answer to all our problems!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, raids should have been gated, either by some gear requirement like AR provides for high level fractals, nor maybe, needing to have done a level 100 fractal before you could enter a raid.. in any case, not gating the raid by some means gave the illusion that anyone should be able to do them, and that is where everything went wrong with them.

since a fraction of the player base plays or cares about raids i hardly think more gates or elitist attitudes is the answer to the lack of participation. There is a reason why WOW turned to more inclusive balance levels as well as tightly tuned.

vesica tempestas.1563:

STIHL.2489:

zoomborg.9462:

As with every thread in this forum the answer is and always will be ez mode raids! Here called it first. The answer to all our problems!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, raids should have been gated, either by some gear requirement like AR provides for high level fractals, nor maybe, needing to have done a level 100 fractal before you could enter a raid.. in any case, not gating the raid by some means gave the illusion that anyone should be able to do them, and that is where everything went wrong with them.

since a fraction of the player base plays or cares about raids i hardly think more gates or elitist attitudes is the answer to the lack of participation. There is a reason why WOW turned to more inclusive balance levels as well as tightly tuned.

What I am about to say may be against what you currently believe, but hear me out on this.

By gating the raid content with a hard fixed gate, a mechanical gate, this would ensure that anyone even remotely looking into getting involved with raids would need to be serious about their game play and game progression. This helps both groups, because it makes it so that the people who do raids or want to do raids, know that the hard fixed mechanical requirement means that pool they are picking from is only going to be occupied by other people that are equally invested into the game, or at least serious about doing raids. This helps eliminate the elitist attitude that many endure because it ensures that everyone walking into even trying to do a raid, is a serious player. It removes all problems of someone looking to “dabble” or “see what they are all about” or playing some “fancy fun” build.

By putting in a mechanically set high bar to even walk into a Raid would establish that everyone involved would have a predetermined seriousness about raiding that we currently do not have. That serious intent, hat drive to work towards being ready to even enter a raid would eliminate all the people who basically are not even remotely close to being ready to raid and yet try anyway, which forces the player base to put in their own requirements and demands, and thus we have that “elitist” attitude problem.

While it is very elitist to be just dump hate and scorn upon anyone you feel is ‘below’ you, it’s not elitist to want everyone who enters the encounter to be up to par.

Case in point, I’ll use fractals, it would be snotty and elitist to say ‘No rangers’ in a fractal run, and I’d agree with that, even more so if it was like a T2 run, however, it is not elitist to expect everyone who joins a T4 fractal to have the AR to be there. And getting that AR requires looking into how to get it, and getting the gear and items to make it happen.

While it does not eliminate people spouting off elitist drudgery upon this forum about ‘noobs’ in T4 fractals, the reality is that it is so painfully rare it’s laughable to read it, in fact I can’t remember a single time I had to deal with a under-geared individual in a T3 fractal, thanks to that AR hard requirement, while I have had to kick people for not meeting it, I don’t view that as elitist, the game set that hard requirement, I don’t feel bad about expecting everyone in my group to meet it. In fact this has led to me teaching people about how to get AR and be ready or next time.

Thus the hard AR Requirement helps new players or players looking to get int Fractals by giving them a direction to work in to be ready, it motivates them to look up what they need to do, and often enough, because it requires research and expensive/time consuming gear upgrades, they will also look into making the best build possible for doing fractals (there are always exceptions, but.. thankfully they are the exceptions., not the rule), as well as maybe look into what Fractals are about.

But without that gear requirement, I suddenly become the ‘bad guy’ for kicking someone who had no place even being in a T4 fractal to start with.

Thus, that hard Requirement helps everyone. It gives the person looking to get into higher level fractals something to work towards, assuming they even want to do so, they may decide that it is too much work, and just stick with T1 fractals, much respect for that. On top of that, it saves that player who is not really ready for the content nor has the seriousness about putting in the work to do it from dealing with any of the elitist attitudes that are prevalent in the higher level fractal areas.

Everyone wins.

Without the hard mechanical requirement it’s too easy for people to want to get involved in raids without any serious intent, without knowledge, proper build, without a clue, and what happens to people that walk into content clueless.. that’s right, they often get hazed.

A Firmly Set minimum to even enter a raid would stop the majority of players from walking into them woefully unprepared, with some illusion that they should be able to do them.

In the end, a hard meter to pass helps everyone involved. if gives people looking into getting into raids a direction and a demand to meet to allow them to judge if they are serious enough to want to do this, and it ensures that to the people doing raids that the people looking to join them at the very least, put in the work to be ready for this.

I do not see any downside to putting in that fixed requirement, in fact it would help everyone in the long run. If you feel there is a downside, I am willing to hear it, but, it would need to a logical rational downside, not simply that you do not like it.

STIHL.2489:

vesica tempestas.1563:

STIHL.2489:

zoomborg.9462:

As with every thread in this forum the answer is and always will be ez mode raids! Here called it first. The answer to all our problems!

snip

since a fraction of the player base plays or cares about raids i hardly think more gates or elitist attitudes is the answer to the lack of participation. There is a reason why WOW turned to more inclusive balance levels as well as tightly tuned.

What I am about to say may be against what you currently believe, but hear me out on this.

By gating the raid content with a hard fixed gate, a mechanical gate, this would ensure that anyone even remotely looking into getting involved with raids would need to be serious about their game play and game progression. This helps both groups, because it makes it so that the people who do raids or want to do raids, know that the hard fixed mechanical requirement means that pool they are picking from is only going to be occupied by other people that are equally invested into the game, or at least serious about doing raids. This helps eliminate the elitist attitude that many endure because it ensures that everyone walking into even trying to do a raid, is a serious player. It removes all problems of someone looking to “dabble” or “see what they are all about” or playing some “fancy fun” build.

By putting in a mechanically set high bar to even walk into a Raid would establish that everyone involved would have a predetermined seriousness about raiding that we currently do not have. That serious intent, hat drive to work towards being ready to even enter a raid would eliminate all the people who basically are not even remotely close to being ready to raid and yet try anyway, which forces the player base to put in their own requirements and demands, and thus we have that “elitist” attitude problem.

While it is very elitist to be just dump hate and scorn upon anyone you feel is ‘below’ you, it’s not elitist to want everyone who enters the encounter to be up to par.

Case in point, I’ll use fractals, it would be snotty and elitist to say ‘No rangers’ in a fractal run, and I’d agree with that, even more so if it was like a T2 run, however, it is not elitist to expect everyone who joins a T4 fractal to have the AR to be there. And getting that AR requires looking into how to get it, and getting the gear and items to make it happen.

While it does not eliminate people spouting off elitist drudgery upon this forum about ‘noobs’ in T4 fractals, the reality is that it is so painfully rare it’s laughable to read it, in fact I can’t remember a single time I had to deal with a under-geared individual in a T3 fractal, thanks to that AR hard requirement, while I have had to kick people for not meeting it, I don’t view that as elitist, the game set that hard requirement, I don’t feel bad about expecting everyone in my group to meet it. In fact this has led to me teaching people about how to get AR and be ready or next time.

Thus the hard AR Requirement helps new players or players looking to get int Fractals by giving them a direction to work in to be ready, it motivates them to look up what they need to do, and often enough, because it requires research and expensive/time consuming gear upgrades, they will also look into making the best build possible for doing fractals (there are always exceptions, but.. thankfully they are the exceptions., not the rule), as well as maybe look into what Fractals are about.

But without that gear requirement, I suddenly become the ‘bad guy’ for kicking someone who had no place even being in a T4 fractal to start with.

Thus, that hard Requirement helps everyone. It gives the person looking to get into higher level fractals something to work towards, assuming they even want to do so, they may decide that it is too much work, and just stick with T1 fractals, much respect for that. On top of that, it saves that player who is not really ready for the content nor has the seriousness about putting in the work to do it from dealing with any of the elitist attitudes that are prevalent in the higher level fractal areas.

Everyone wins.

Without the hard mechanical requirement it’s too easy for people to want to get involved in raids without any serious intent, without knowledge, proper build, without a clue, and what happens to people that walk into content clueless.. that’s right, they often get hazed.

A Firmly Set minimum to even enter a raid would stop the majority of players from walking into them woefully unprepared, with some illusion that they should be able to do them.

In the end, a hard meter to pass helps everyone involved. if gives people looking into getting into raids a direction and a demand to meet to allow them to judge if they are serious enough to want to do this, and it ensures that to the people doing raids that the people looking to join them at the very least, put in the work to be ready for this.

I do not see any downside to putting in that fixed requirement, in fact it would help everyone in the long run. If you feel there is a downside, I am willing to hear it, but, it would need to a logical rational downside, not simply that you do not like it.

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Raids were never meant for the casual player, or to be run casually. The were intended to be GW2 hard content, and should be treated as such. While I think raids were a bad Idea to start with, that not an excuse to forgo putting them in correctly and in a way that is best for the community as a whole.

If that means your guild that can’t even gather up 10 people to show serious interest do not raid, then that is what it means.

Raids were never supposed to be a casual affair in this game, but the lack of a gate makes people think they are.. which is exactly where everything went wrong.

To that end, Gating the raid would have helped your guild see who was serious from the start, if you were a tight knit small guild, you could help each other get ready, have it be a bonding experience, and maybe even get more of your members to take the raid seriously.

Otherwise this reads like a “I don’t like that”.. which I already said, I don’t care if it’s simply about your feelings.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Raids were never meant for the casual player, or to be run casually. The were intended to be GW2 hard content, and should be treated as such.

If that means your guild that can’t even gather up 10 people to show serious interest do not raid, then that is what it means.

However Gating the raid would have helped your guild see who was serious from the start, if you were a tight knit small guild, you could help each other get ready, have it be a bonding experience, and maybe even get more of your members to take the raid seriously.

Otherwise this reads like a “I don’t like that”.. which I already said, I don’t care if it’s simply about your feelings.

Sounds to me like a handfull of elitists want a very expensive playground that only they can enter.

If you insist on going at it with a highly trained group of special commando’s you should organise that for yourself. Shouldn’t be too hard for a tight knit group of specialists to seperate themselves from the common folks…. right?

The very notion of wanting to fence off a part of the game for one group at the cost of another group is so anti-MMO, it’s just…. brrrr.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Raids were never meant for the casual player, or to be run casually. The were intended to be GW2 hard content, and should be treated as such. While I think raids were a bad Idea to start with, that not an excuse to forgo putting them in correctly and in a way that is best for the community as a whole.

If that means your guild that can’t even gather up 10 people to show serious interest do not raid, then that is what it means.

Raids were never supposed to be a casual affair in this game, but the lack of a gate makes people think they are.. which is exactly where everything went wrong.

To that end, Gating the raid would have helped your guild see who was serious from the start, if you were a tight knit small guild, you could help each other get ready, have it be a bonding experience, and maybe even get more of your members to take the raid seriously.

Otherwise this reads like a “I don’t like that”.. which I already said, I don’t care if it’s simply about your feelings.

Raids were added to a causal game as part of the expansion. No matter how they were intended, they were given to an audience that is largely casual. Saying all those people should be ignored in favor of a small percentage of people who want what you want is probably bad for business.

I do agree raids didn’t belong in the game in the first place, but that ship has obviously sailed. Giving the casual community more reason to be annoyed by them, ie to feel excluded, is just bad for business in my opinion.

Abakk.9176:

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Raids were never meant for the casual player, or to be run casually. The were intended to be GW2 hard content, and should be treated as such.

If that means your guild that can’t even gather up 10 people to show serious interest do not raid, then that is what it means.

However Gating the raid would have helped your guild see who was serious from the start, if you were a tight knit small guild, you could help each other get ready, have it be a bonding experience, and maybe even get more of your members to take the raid seriously.

Otherwise this reads like a “I don’t like that”.. which I already said, I don’t care if it’s simply about your feelings.

Sounds to me like a handfull of elitists want a very expensive playground that only they can enter.

If you insist on going at it with a highly trained group of special commando’s you should organise that for yourself. Shouldn’t be too hard for a tight knit group of specialists to seperate themselves from the common folks…. right?

The very notion of wanting to fence off a part of the game for one group at the cost of another group is so anti-MMO, it’s just…. brrrr.

WHAT? This game is full of gates already.

What MMO’s have you played that don’t have gates? Name it!

From needing AR to do Fractals, all the way down to even the personal story has level gates, this was further expounded upon with the HoT Story having mastery gates, this game is full of gates, just like pretty much every single MMO out there.

Expecting the raid to have some kind of gate, makes sense to the way this very game is set up.

Vayne.8563:

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Raids were never meant for the casual player, or to be run casually. The were intended to be GW2 hard content, and should be treated as such. While I think raids were a bad Idea to start with, that not an excuse to forgo putting them in correctly and in a way that is best for the community as a whole.

If that means your guild that can’t even gather up 10 people to show serious interest do not raid, then that is what it means.

Raids were never supposed to be a casual affair in this game, but the lack of a gate makes people think they are.. which is exactly where everything went wrong.

To that end, Gating the raid would have helped your guild see who was serious from the start, if you were a tight knit small guild, you could help each other get ready, have it be a bonding experience, and maybe even get more of your members to take the raid seriously.

Otherwise this reads like a “I don’t like that”.. which I already said, I don’t care if it’s simply about your feelings.

Raids were added to a causal game as part of the expansion. No matter how they were intended, they were given to an audience that is largely casual. Saying all those people should be ignored in favor of a small percentage of people who want what you want is probably bad for business.

I do agree raids didn’t belong in the game in the first place, but that ship has obviously sailed. Giving the casual community more reason to be annoyed by them, ie to feel excluded, is just bad for business in my opinion.

nahh, it just removes the illusion that Raids can be treated like a T1 fractals or Dungeons, which is an illusion that for the betterment of the game as a whole, is best shattered.

ShalmaneserIII.8571:

My issue, moreso with older maps is that with level 80 tokens now if I use one on my toon, what reason do I have to go back and go through the pre expansion maps? If I go into Caledon Forest with my level 80 necro, which has been lowered to the map level, and I finish it, what is my reward? Level 14 crap. Useless. If reward=level then suddenly I have a reason to go back and do older maps. A reason to complete older maps.

Well, those map completion rewards were designed for people leveling up through map completion, you’re not going to get anet encouraging people not to map complete until they’re 80 and hand them exotics for every zone, that’d be just stupid and screw over the people who are NOT boosting to 80, or people who already did it in the past. There’s other reasons for map completion anyway. Gifts of exploration, transmutation charges and possibly keys,

voltaicbore.8012:

Devildoc.6721:

There is one good thing about the LS3 maps not being big meta events like all the HoT maps and Silverwastes.. and that is there is no “fail maps”.

Totally agree with this, I think it deserves extra attention. I have personally been very lucky with DS meta in particular, as I’ve completed it on all but 2 attempts. One of those attempts was just undermanned, and the mid team was just awful. The second failure involves not being able to taxi into a full map, which is not really a failure, just prevented me that particular day from notching my own goal. I think every single other map-wide meta I joined that made a serious attempt to clear, cleared for me.

Despite my own luck, I’ve heard from many other players I’ve run into online and the forums here (yes yes, I know it’s a very limited sample size) who have had much worse fortune in completing DS or other metas. I really like GW2’s “jump in and play” style, and I feel like the failure-prone HoT metas were a slight departure from that. The price of returning to a more casual event style would of course be less connected/complex/rewarding meta chains that may not even have map-wide consequences.

I’ll be happy so long as the other metas remain reasonably populated, such that those of us who still revisit them have a reasonable chance of running into a map that can clear it.

I don’t have that kind of luck. Unless I jump in at the exact start of a DS cycle, I end up on an empty map with 0 progress and not enough people to even push 1 lane, and the maps in LFG are already full. So it’s pointless to even try unless you plan out 15 minutes before reset. It’s not a very fun map for that reason. It would be if mega server wasn’t a thing maybe as long as you weren’t on a dead server. But the current way with you being unable to select a map and having to try taxiing in via LFG.. complete waste of time if you weren’t lucky enough to get in one of the 1 or 2 maps that will actually have the people to do the event.

I have to agree, being on a fail map sucks for everyone involved, which might be why they are moving away from that design.

STIHL.2489:

In the end, a hard meter to pass helps everyone involved. if gives people looking into getting into raids a direction and a demand to meet to allow them to judge if they are serious enough to want to do this, and it ensures that to the people doing raids that the people looking to join them at the very least, put in the work to be ready for this.

I do not see any downside to putting in that fixed requirement, in fact it would help everyone in the long run. If you feel there is a downside, I am willing to hear it, but, it would need to a logical rational downside, not simply that you do not like it.

This is a game. Entertainment. I don’t want to work in a game. I don’t want to be serious about a game. I want to play a game and be entertained.

This is the game where you spend your time having fun, not preparing to have fun. ANet has said so time and time again. And it works for the vast majority of players of this game. Excluding players for whatever reason isn’t on the agenda and doesn’t mesh with the direction of this game at all.

For reference: I’ve participated in several raid boss kills (and I mean participated, not being carried) on different classes. I’ve had my Ad Infinitum since shortly after it was released. I’m certainly able to play raids and t4 fractals, even though I seldom do it (due to rl restrictions).

I still don’t see the point in excluding people from content by enforcing hard gates that require them to prepare in totally different kinds of content to even be able to try raids, and allow access only to people with a specific mindset.