Guild Wars 2

Fixing forum bug.

@ OP

60-80 is exotic, 80 is ascended. “end game” gear does have better stats, but its not so much as to make fresh 80’s obsolete.

Biggest end game content is skins and a lot of them are locked behind very long collections which span across the entire game. Problem are the grinding parts where some places are far better than others to get gold which you just end up buying the grinded mats. Not a horrible thing, as some people can’t dedicate a lot of time to this game due to more important things (like life).

All end game needs is to continue expanding on things like legendary items (armor already announced, think trinkets were as well) and open up more doors on how to collect these things. Having a specific area or world event best suited for the item, making these things more enjoyable and challenging. There are quite a few out there but its still a pretty small list compared to how big the game is. Plenty of room to add and change.

Interesting topic, anyway here is my opinion on the subject. I dont think a more rewarding OP gear will be great idea .It the end will end up another grind fest and might force players to play game content that they might dislike to begin with.
As we all know gears are link to Pve and wvw in general. So any changes will affect gameplay in general from skill base gameplay to gear base gameplay. If gears is requirement is set too high wvw will be affected in a way less players might want to try out. For pve it might isolate player base into elitist game (unless you have this gear your kick from the party )a less friendly game in a way. If you have tried diablo 3 RNG gear grind ,you know that feeling of a hamster running on hamster wheel. It might or might not be fun for but it depends on your preference. I am sure alot farmer would like this since it a capitalism market and it add value to your wares. It might be one way to enjoy rewards of your hard work then again it just a game.

I’m curious, if ascended armor is only 5% better than exotic, is ascended necesary for raids? I’ve been told many times that it’s needed to do them.

If you look at the “endgame” of titles such as Minecraft and Terraria, you have games which heavily lean into expression and creativity. The player is building something, which happens pretty much at the expense of everything else.

If you look at procedurally generated games such as Elite and NoMan’s Sky, you see that they heavily lean into exploration. Which again, is one sided and can cause players to dislike the games for not having enough other gameplay systems.

GW2 is no different from those specialist games. GW2 leans heavily into completing progression bars and achievement systems. After you did everything once, the game hopes it can motivate you to do some things 100 or even 1000 times. GW2 is specialized in that way.

All three types of games can be the right game for you, if their specialization is what you want over everything else. If you like a good farm zerg or WvW zerg, you do not need procedurally generated maps or create housing brick by brick.

From the looks of it, future content will play to the strengths of current systems of GW2. Bit of exploration, bit of story, map meta event to grind out some 50h unlock. Depending on how many times you repeated this cycle by now, the level of reward you feel might have gone down when it comes to those long term goals. I do not expect any expansion to have the tools to dig my own fortress into a mountain, or feature a procedurally generated area of a 1000 square miles built to scale.

The game is the game for what it is and it is fun for as long as you can play it having fun. It is not 1000h of GW2 fun and then you unlock the hidden mode where you play Tetris all of a sudden while calling it the endgame. Video games are specialized these days. If a game is distinct enough to be “an endgame” for some game, then it will probably be released on its own.

Basically, it’s optional. Mostly for bragging rights.

This game doesn’t pressure anyone to have to participate in the hardest part of the game and for the most part they won’t be deprived of anything beyond content specific rewards. Because if there were vertical progression that meant a lot, then people would get excluded unless they participated. And even with the relatively flat gear curve, (~15%), there are many complaints already.

Ultimately the endgame is basically the freedom to shift between all the content, as well as future content.

However, I think that the game has someone faltered in the idea of “fashion wars”, which was a big part of progression— getting those nice skins. There are definitely a lot of ways of customization and it is good, but recently new looks have been largely restricted to mainly outfits that can’t be mixed or match in the gem store.

coso.9173:

I’m curious, if ascended armor is only 5% better than exotic, is ascended necesary for raids? I’ve been told many times that it’s needed to do them.

It depends …

I believe people have cleared at least some of the bosses(maybe just VG) with masterwork gear or half the numbers. Half the numbers would be 50% less. If it can be done with 50% less then it can certainly be done with 5% less. On the other hand most people does not have that degree of skill to pull it off.

What does that all mean? It means instead of getting better at the game you could get slightly better gear. If the group doesn’t have the skill then it needs all the advantage it can get even if it is “only” 5%. This will probably be true for most PUGs. If nothing else it can probably make up for the slightly lower level of coordination.

That is ultimately what vertical “progression” is all about. In a way it would have been the more casual approach as far as raiding is concerned. Can’t clear that raid now? Just wait until you are 10/20/30/etc. levels above the content and you can easily breeze through. In that way everyone would be able to clear all content eventually. Which would be exactly what someone accused GW2 of having earlier in the thread. It currently does not have that.

Edit: One of the devs was also asked if ascended would be required prior to raids being added and the answer was something like “probably want to for the last boss” but that somehow got heard as “absolutely must have”.

Khisanth.2948:

Edit: One of the devs was also asked if ascended would be required prior to raids being added and the answer was something like “probably want to for the last boss” but that somehow got heard as “absolutely must have”.

Groups between players who do not know each other are usually all about minimizing risks. Wanting the best build, featuring perfect gear, preferably from a player who can post an item proving he already did this run 100 times has and will always be the result.

The game tries to draw in players with an attitude of “play what you want and do not worry about gear and build too much”. Which works fine, except in those extreme situations. Just like ArenaNet took a totally different approach from GW1 to GW2 when it came to the skillbar (free choice vs. linked to weapon), anything but a radical new approach to how to handle the RPG and character progression aspects of GW2 will be unable to change how picky human players are. Accessibility is not something created by PR statements.

Endgame is unrewarding, becuz players are being funneled into meta builds, moreso if you’re participating in high lvl grp content. There’s no experimentation, no unique builds to call ur own. The lack of viable build diversity makes the endgame rather stale and dull.

I’m actually in disagreement, a large portion of the community was against the initial jump from exotic to ascended as vertical progression is not what GW2 was/is about, it’s horizontal, so endgame should earn graphical things etc, but not a statistical advantage.

As far as “lots of time and farming” yes ascended does take more time then exotic; how ever be honest how long does exotic take…

Do not forget, you can add infusions with stats on Ascended stuff too. 3x on rings (6 total slots with 30 stat increase), 2 on back piece. Total of 18 slots (assuming all ascended). 18 x5 = 90 addational stats like an addational food.

BTW, in WvW it gives %1 def + attack to NPCs then addational %18 attack and defense. And 90+ stats too.

FourthVariety.5463:

GW2 is no different from those specialist games. GW2 leans heavily into completing progression bars and achievement systems. After you did everything once, the game hopes it can motivate you to do some things 100 or even 1000 times. GW2 is specialized in that way.

I don’t think people are into the MMORPG genre so that they can spend their time filling achievement bars.

Achievements are an… interesting way to incentivize players to explore the world and get deeply into new content, but they’re still not a meaningful reward system by itself. More like an additional guiding hand.

Good reward systems should be tangible and impactful, either by allowing visual customisation (skins, decorations) or expand or improve the way you approach the game (vertical progression, horizontal progression that affects gameplay like QoL upgrades, higher skill and build selection, etc).

GW2’s been failing at consistently offering new armor skins (because they take “too long” to make). Most of the good new weapon skins are not tied to content but to gems (so they rarely contribute at making the content feel more rewarding). Skin customization is not incentivized due to a rental wardrobe system, lack of saving skin template and large focus on premade outfits. Guild Halls are behind massive money sinks that make it harder for smaller guilds to appreciate them.

Skill progression is tied to elite specs which we’ll only see in expansions, and any spec that does not works with berzerker gear is going to be ignored by most of the playerbase after toying with it for 20 minutes. Most masteries and map/ gliding upgrades are generally way too context sensitive, where you won’t get meaningful progression outside of a single map or two, few exceptions aside. Changing build stats outside of pvp is gated behind massive money and time sinks, meaning that only rich players will be able to enjoy the condition or healing weapon and skill sets that the game offers right from the beginning to everyone.

GW2’s horizontal progression is mediocre at the very things it attempts to do.

Miku.6297:

I’m actually in disagreement, a large portion of the community was against the initial jump from exotic to ascended as vertical progression is not what GW2 was/is about, it’s horizontal, so endgame should earn graphical things etc, but not a statistical advantage.

As far as “lots of time and farming” yes ascended does take more time then exotic; how ever be honest how long does exotic take…

well let see … are you making medium armor?

Got 1 Hardened Leather Section from doing an octovine. You need 3 to make one square and 10 squares to make one insignia and 6 insignias for a set. That is from around 15minutes of doing stuff. Assuming around 2 hours of play a day and the need to acquire the other parts. Maybe 2 months?

Khisanth.2948:

Miku.6297:

As far as “lots of time and farming” yes ascended does take more time then exotic; how ever be honest how long does exotic take…

well let see … are you making medium armor?

Got 1 Hardened Leather Section from doing an octovine. You need 3 to make one square and 10 squares to make one insignia and 6 insignias for a set. That is from around 15minutes of doing stuff. Assuming around 2 hours of play a day and the need to acquire the other parts. Maybe 2 months?

Umm is that an answer to when I said “how long does exotic take?”. I really doubt it takes anyone 2 months of 2 hours a day play time to get exotic armor (at least if they are trying to).

Yes Ascended might take a bit longer, but really exotic is so fast it’s really not an adequate measurement to how long it “should” take to gear up. Honestly I don’t really see a problem with the ascended armor stats and acquisition. (I’ve made multiple sets and haven’t really had any issue) If you don’t think it’s worth it, then don’t worry about it. If you want the extra little bonus to stats, go for it!

Miku.6297:

Khisanth.2948:

Miku.6297:

As far as “lots of time and farming” yes ascended does take more time then exotic; how ever be honest how long does exotic take…

well let see … are you making medium armor?

Got 1 Hardened Leather Section from doing an octovine. You need 3 to make one square and 10 squares to make one insignia and 6 insignias for a set. That is from around 15minutes of doing stuff. Assuming around 2 hours of play a day and the need to acquire the other parts. Maybe 2 months?

Umm is that an answer to when I said “how long does exotic take?”. I really doubt it takes anyone 2 months of 2 hours a day play time to get exotic armor (at least if they are trying to).

Yes Ascended might take a bit longer, but really exotic is so fast it’s really not an adequate measurement to how long it “should” take to gear up. Honestly I don’t really see a problem with the ascended armor stats and acquisition. (I’ve made multiple sets and haven’t really had any issue) If you don’t think it’s worth it, then don’t worry about it. If you want the extra little bonus to stats, go for it!

You can easily gear up almost any character just by doing dungeons. Do the dungeon that has the armor you want, all 3 paths each day, full armor set in 7 days. Less time if more than one dungeon has the armor stats, or if you do dungeon frequentor (8paths and repeatable during the day) for another 150 tokens of your choice.

On top of the gear you get as drops there, which can be salvaged to sell materials to buy what you need/just craft what you need.

First define “endgame”. I’ve always seen GW2 as a rather self directed game in terms of goals rather than predetermined.

the reason legendaries and ascended feel unrewarding isnt the 5% stat diference but rather the Ungodly ammount of grinding and farming and money required to be spent for themand in some cases ungodly RNG luck requirements; Juggernaut Silver doubloon collection anyone?

theres also time gates

The problem with GW2’s endgame isn’t lack of vertical progression, IMO, it’s lack of enough variety of horizontal progression, and blandness of many of the progression systems.

The mastery system is a solid foundation that needs to be built out a lot more. Additionally, there should be more skills and traits to acquire after hitting the level cap.
You could argue that they shot themselves in the foot by having 80 levels in the game to begin with, because it creates an illusion that the game is built around vertical progression when it really isn’t. If I was Anet, I’d probably crunch the number of levels down to 40 or so and expand the level ranges of existing zones, and rework drop tables, gear levels (IMO, gear shouldn’t have levels, it should only have rarity, which has a minimum level) and rewards to contain a smaller number of much more interesting items .

Speaking of, the other problem is that the gearing the game does have is very trite and uninteresting. Select your stats, select your skin, farm your precursor, apply your runes. There’s nothing exciting or particularly rewarding about this. Themed equipment with unique drop locations and unique stats and affixes would be far more interesting.

IMO they should scrap levels in GW2, they’re already partially useless because of how they work when you’re in lower level zones. they could change requirements to be based on the mastery system, amount of skill/hero points and stuff like that, to prevent a freshly created character to go to endgame raids or stuff…
also we can get ascended equipment in dungeons? I thought it was only fractals.

HauntedCR.8350:

Why GW2 endgame gear is only about 5% better than the exotic?
That does disencourage people to work hard for it.
Such hard work should be rewarded with, lets say a 15% better item than the casual equipment (exotic).
Am I the only one that disagrees about lots of farming for only a 5% upgrade? Am I missing something?

You’re in luck! While the numbers on ascended equipment are only 5% higher than that on exotic, when you look at the impact of that 5%, it turns out that an ascended set of gear is 20% better than exotic equipment!

If the numbers on ascended gear were actually 15% larger than exotic pieces, then a full set of ascended would make you 70% stronger than someone in exotics – a power difference that is simply game-breaking.

HauntedCR.8350:

Hello, I’ve been discussing with some guildmates about ascended and legendary items.
I always had the idea that endgame equipments should be better than normal (exotic) items, because they are hard to get, taking lots of time and farming.
Why GW2 endgame gear is only about 5% better than the exotic?
That does disencourage people to work hard for it.
Such hard work should be rewarded with, lets say a 15% better item than the casual equipment (exotic).
Am I the only one that disagrees about lots of farming for only a 5% upgrade? Am I missing something?
I’ve been told that such a difference would break the meta gaming and lead GW2 player base to ruins, but I don’t see it this way.
What’s the problem with people working hard for some objective, expecting to be fairly rewarded, benefiting from the upgrade and being substantially more powerful than casual players?

Thanks in advance (I’m looking for constructive answers, this question is really bothering me, perhaps more than it should)

You are missing the entire point and spirit of this game. It was launched with horizontal instead of vertical progression in mind. The slow rate of vertical progression is the one thing I think A-Net did precisely and exactly right.

So far it has been done twice in this game. 1st by increasing stats on ascended / legendary gear, 2nd by introduction of the 4 stat sets which carry more total stat weight. Not sure yet what the 3rd will be as that will most likely happen in the next expansion.

It enables players in exotic gear to be able to do most of the content, excluding that which requires agony resistance and on the PVP front in WVW, while a player in full ascended has advantages, a player in exotics that is somewhat more skilled or has a somewhat better grasp on builds and traits can still take out the ascended player.

If you want a strong vertical progression game such as WOW or Rift, or whatever else, this is not it. This specifically was advertised to be different from those and stays somewhat true to that.

Tongku.5326:

If you want a strong vertical progression game such as WOW or Rift, or whatever else, this is not it. This specifically was advertised to be different from those and stays somewhat true to that.

Not that they really deliver a meaningfully different experience despite that vertical gear treadmill: each time the next increment comes out you just get reset, and then work hard to get back to where you were.

If you really want that experience in GW2, craft a set of green gear when LS4 launches, then grind back up to ascended items. It’s all the fun of gear “progression” brought to life!

…but, seriously, even in vertical progression games you end up either stalled at the top of the current tree, or playing ever-increasingly minor increments of luck to upgrade, ala diablo.

End game has become unrewarding for me because there is less social interaction and more impersonal grind.

The newest areas, HoT+, do not encourage grouping, social dialogue and dependency, cooperative adventure, whatever keeps players chatting.

Anchoku.8142:

End game has become unrewarding for me because there is less social interaction and more impersonal grind.

The newest areas, HoT+, do not encourage grouping, social dialogue and dependency, cooperative adventure, whatever keeps players chatting.

The old areas didn’t either.

Anchoku.8142:

End game has become unrewarding for me because there is less social interaction and more impersonal grind.

The newest areas, HoT+, do not encourage grouping, social dialogue and dependency, cooperative adventure, whatever keeps players chatting.

Call me crazy, but HoT events being generally more difficult would seem to do more to encourage grouping than core Tyria content which is mostly designed so that leveling characters can solo it.

Perhaps there is less social interaction (I can’t say as I wasn’t around prior to HoT), but I don’t think it’s because HoT content doesn’t encourage or require grouping compared to core content.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Tongku.5326:

If you want a strong vertical progression game such as WOW or Rift, or whatever else, this is not it. This specifically was advertised to be different from those and stays somewhat true to that.

Not that they really deliver a meaningfully different experience despite that vertical gear treadmill: each time the next increment comes out you just get reset, and then work hard to get back to where you were.

If you really want that experience in GW2, craft a set of green gear when LS4 launches, then grind back up to ascended items. It’s all the fun of gear “progression” brought to life!

…but, seriously, even in vertical progression games you end up either stalled at the top of the current tree, or playing ever-increasingly minor increments of luck to upgrade, ala diablo.

That’s true. However, those rewards do feel meaningful because they provide something relevant to character advancement that requires some degree of effort to achieve. Compare to such game-changers as Itzel poison lore, which is nothing more than a time gate and you begin to see where GW2’s reward system fails.

Vertical progression may be the gaming equivalent of running on a treadmill, but if it keeps players motivated to continue playing then the rewards do what they are intended to do. I’m not suggesting that we rely on vertical progression here. However, the reward system must keep players motivated if it is to succeed in the long term. I don’t feel GW2 does a great job of that.

I’m not sure how to make it better, but I can tell you that I’ve been dragging my feet on completing my masteries for a year now because I don’t feel the rewards are compelling enough to do what it takes to achieve them. I’ve been making an effort lately, but it feels as if I’m doing it for the sake of finally completing the mastery track than for the skills themselves. And certainly not for the useless spirit shards I earn in exchange for experience after doing so! Can’t we do better than this?

Further, I don’t feel HoT offered enough armor skins to work toward. I understand why weapon skins are easier to create and they introduced quite a few of those, but I’m not likely to want to unlock every weapon skin because I don’t use every weapon type and I don’t like every skin available on the weapons I do use. I realize that there are collection achievements associated with unlocking them, but again this feels similar to the mastery situation where I would only do so for the sake of completion rather than because the rewards themselves are compelling.

AliamRationem.5172:

I would only do so for the sake of completion rather than because the rewards themselves are compelling.

Unfortunately, that’s the state of most reward systems in this game. Achievements, most masteries besides the few important ones, most rare collections, wardrobe unlocking, etc.

AliamRationem.5172:

I’m not sure how to make it better, but I can tell you that I’ve been dragging my feet on completing my masteries for a year now because I don’t feel the rewards are compelling enough to do what it takes to achieve them. I’ve been making an effort lately, but it feels as if I’m doing it for the sake of finally completing the mastery track than for the skills themselves. And certainly not for the useless spirit shards I earn in exchange for experience after doing so! Can’t we do better than this?

Masteries … ugh.

Forgot about the problem with those. So many pointless fillers.

Einlanzer.1627:

The problem with GW2’s endgame isn’t lack of vertical progression, IMO, it’s lack of enough variety of horizontal progression, and blandness of many of the progression systems.

The mastery system is a solid foundation that needs to be built out a lot more. Additionally, there should be more skills and traits to acquire after hitting the level cap.
You could argue that they shot themselves in the foot by having 80 levels in the game to begin with, because it creates an illusion that the game is built around vertical progression when it really isn’t. If I was Anet, I’d probably crunch the number of levels down to 40 or so and expand the level ranges of existing zones, and rework drop tables, gear levels (IMO, gear shouldn’t have levels, it should only have rarity, which has a minimum level) and rewards to contain a smaller number of much more interesting items .

Speaking of, the other problem is that the gearing the game does have is very trite and uninteresting. Select your stats, select your skin, farm your precursor, apply your runes. There’s nothing exciting or particularly rewarding about this. Themed equipment with unique drop locations and unique stats and affixes would be far more interesting.

Completely agree. The problem GW2 has is a lack of meaningful, interesting, horizontal progression.

The LS is a case in point, the masteries there are meaningless outside of the maps you earn them in which reduces them from actual horizontal progression to a toy. The meta achievement rewards are another issue, you do a couple of dozen achievements, some of which are a complete chore, some are interesting (which is which is a debate in itself) and you get… a helm or gloves or shoulder skin (YMMV but IMHO they must be some of the ugliest skins in the game).

I got my first precursor drop over the weekend, it was Howl, I may make a legendary one day but it won’t be Howler so I just threw it in the bank. It’ll probably stay there (it’s worth a couple hundred gold). I started a few of the Core Tyria “legendary journeys” but there’s no “story” there they’re just fairly boring checklists going through content you’ve probably done a dozen or hundred times before, they’re not compelling content and are certainly not anything you’d consider legendary, just expensive. The “journey” should have been the thing, instead the “legendary journeys” are just a thin veil for “more farming”.

I hope the next expansion brings something better than this.

which is the endgame of this game?

All this talk, and mostly it’s just defending personal statements and feel towards Ascended gear, what means to be rewarding, horizontal/vertical progression, what it means endgame etc.
And all of them don’t answer your question:

Why is the endgame so “unrewarding”?

I will answer you why is that so. And I will tell you what is the biggest offender. And then I will tell you that, sadly, it can’t be changed at all. But you will finally understand the problem GW2 has.

It is because of the Auction House. It is the number one reason for game to feel unrewarding. All the tricks Anet has, are pulled in a way towards AH.
In the beginning, AH had everything, there were no time sinkers or account bound drops like nowadays. AH was filled with all the materials!
And, everything started to get nerfed. All the drops and loot, penalties for staying too long and farming one map got increased a lot. Multiply times!
The Gold quickly became the problem of the game, AH did have, and does have, ways to sink gold, with 15% fees, but it wasn’t enough. Gems conversion went out of the control and it isn’t how it should be at all!

Even Anet was surprised how fast Exotic gear was made, and on top of that, players understood the gameplay too fast, you just needed 1 set for all the PvE. Berserker. Dungeons quickly became just ways to farm gold, not for the main reason they were: teamplay and getting different exotic gear stats. So playerbase only grinded the fastest and the easiest dungeons to amass the personal gold. And the gold in game, quickly became too much, too fast.

Those were just small % of game’s population players, but they broke the system, and they have influenced the player base. Almost everyone became aware they only needed berserker gear and that ways to farm gold were just to farm dungeons quickly. And in time, BAM, everything fell, system was down, population mentality has changed into meta battle builds. All the PvE content became too easy, just dps all the kitten down and you are good to go!

The second reason, which is all connected to the AH, is the fact that you can’t really farm materials. Let’s do it on legendary weapon as example. When you just look at them, the way to get them, is really okay! You need 100% map completion, wvw, 250 of these materials, 250 of those…

But the materials aren’t really farmed. Farming materials got nerfed. Penalties for staying too long in one map and farming them got high. AH was and is FULL of materials. Yeah, you can’t really farm them quickly on your own, you need a lot of time, but the playerbase, yeah, when 1000s of players get loot drops and put them into AH to sell them, AH gets full. Then next wave of loot drop nerfs come! Now you can’t really farm materials at all, why bother with all those nerfs? (and even at the start, farming mats wasn’t so easy, but now it became horrible).
Just buy everything in AH! What do you need for it? Gold. Gold, gold and gold.

And quickly, game became the “What is the fastest way to farm gold?” Because all you needed was gold. And the game became unrewarding. Loot drops were horrible, penalties for staying too much in one map were too high. Champion train farm got nerfed times and times again. Soon even dungeons got nerfed!

When Ascended gear came, it was the 1st offender, and the first real factor which said Anet made a mistake with the AH. Ascnded gear came with account bounded items. Ascended gear came with time sink, ot better, time gated system.
You want to craft ascended gear? Oh well, you can’t get all the materials from AH anymore, you gotta farm them yourself, or craft them, but then you have time gated system! Have fun!
And most of the content after it became time gated, or account bound. Instead of it feeling rewarding, it became a tedious task. All because of the AH system GW2 has.

The number two factor which proves my point are the AH players. Players which get rich playing the AH, not playing the game.

You see, in a world without the AH system, things would work like this:
You farm materials you need to craft something, let’s say, again, legendary weapon.
You farm for 250 Elaborate Totems. You focus just on that!

Other person farm 250 Powerful Venom Sacs! He focuses just on farming that material because he exactly knows how to get them, how to fight those monsters and he/she enjoys farming in that place!

Now, person one need 250 Powerful Venom Sacs and has 300 Elaborate Totems. Person starts looking for someone who he could trade his Elaborate Totems for the Powerful Venom Sacs. And thus, two players are trading face-to-face, they quickly realize that they can trade again and become each other’s customer! And maybe later, even friends!

You see, AH system is the poor system. Even tho it does help someone buy and sell things faster, without the need to have conversation with others and spend too much time in towns waiting…it also can became the number one reason for the game to feel unrewarding and tedious.

In a world without AH, there maybe wouldn’t even be badly design time sinks, gold sinks, time gated content, and the game would feel more rewarding.
Now, with this AH system, game feels unrewarding – because it is! Loot drops are horrible, farming is horrible, time-gated items, and account bound items, are quickly becoming too many. Currency system unique to every map! Just for people to start farming maps and not buy everything from AH.

Why all the new content has so much currencies? Because of the AH and the importance of just farming gold!

So, here is the reason why game is unrewarding, because it is, and with each day, it’s becoming more horrible!

But all is not lost! Now that you know the reason, now you can really just have fun in the game! Accept it is how it is, and play around it, do some silly stuff, silly builds. You can get most of the things very fast, even ascended gear with pvp (the fastest way to get it). Then go play fractals, get agony infusions, get to 100 level of fractals, start doing raids, all the pve story content. Get legendary weapon, start toward legendary armor. Plenty of things to do!

Yep, it will not feel rewarding because loot drops are horrible, time and gold sinks are there, time gated system also!
But if you ignore it, you can find your fun

Also, I must tell you, stats are just stats, it itself shouldn’t feel all-or-nothing for you. Game does feel unrewarding because it would feel much better without the system we have now, but I don’t agree with your need to have even stronger gear. It’s not needed, at all. But game does feel unrewarding, but for the things I’ve told you

I bought this game for the horizontal progression. There are infinity games with a massive gear grind, we don’t need another one.

I’ll be honest, when i was told that ascended gear is the highest in the game, i asked myself “What is the point of raiding then?”
Seriously, why put yourself through raiding, wiping over and over, to what? Just say that you downed a boss? Where is the reward for the effort put it?

I was actually excited when i went in with my guild for a practice raiding session and was impressed with the coordination needed and the amount of self awareness required as well to avoid dying. Only to found out that ascended gear is the best, so what exactly would i be working towards? The answer, nothing but the ability to say you downed a boss with nothing really to show for it.

Whole left side of the equipment table can be crafted
Accessories can be acquired by spending like a week collecting wood, stones, and berries. The best equipment in the game, and you never actually have to do anything dangerous to earn it.
So again, what is the point of raids? To get armor/weapon skins? While i don’t mind having some nice glamour/transmute/transmog gear, it would actually be nice to be rewarded with something even 1% more powerful then ascended.

Nova.2890:

I’ll be honest, when i was told that ascended gear is the highest in the game, i asked myself “What is the point of raiding then?”
Seriously, why put yourself through raiding, wiping over and over, to what? Just say that you downed a boss? Where is the reward for the effort put it?

I was actually excited when i went in with my guild for a practice raiding session and was impressed with the coordination needed and the amount of self awareness required as well to avoid dying. Only to found out that ascended gear is the best, so what exactly would i be working towards? The answer, nothing but the ability to say you downed a boss with nothing really to show for it.

Whole left side of the equipment table can be crafted
Accessories can be acquired by spending like a week collecting wood, stones, and berries. The best equipment in the game, and you never actually have to do anything dangerous to earn it.
So again, what is the point of raids? To get armor/weapon skins? While i don’t mind having some nice glamour/transmute/transmog gear, it would actually be nice to be rewarded with something even 1% more powerful then ascended.

strange how it was never a problem in gw1, with even less gear stats and farming for gear. Makes you wonder.

All in all, I blame it on 2 things. 1st being AH, 2nd one skill system in this game. With it, I can understand myself why gw1 didn’t have this problem, but gw2 does have

Challenge is needed. Different ways to do it, visible teamwork. That should be enough reward.

mauried.5608:

Anet have chosen not to go down this road and for good reason, as the above model essentially creates an ever ongoing gear grind.

See, this would be valid if they had provided a sensible alternative. Which they didn’t, in fact they caved to the complaints and gave us the horrible mess that is Ascended Gear. :’(

Nova.2890:

So again, what is the point of raids? To get armor/weapon skins?

Yes. Be glad that at least there are unique/exclusive rewards in Raids. That’s more than enough for a game without vertical progression and honestly that’s what made most of those who bought GW2 buy it instead of other games.

I find reward in just playing.

Nova.2890:

So again, what is the point of raids?

Eh… do fun group content with a bunch of cool people? What did you raid for in other MMOs? O.o

Carighan.6758:

Nova.2890:

So again, what is the point of raids?

Eh… do fun group content with a bunch of cool people? What did you raid for in other MMOs? O.o

Well in WoW, i raided not only for the fun of raiding with friends, but because the armor/weapons dropped allowed you to take on more difficult tasks that otherwise you couldn’t do. So the game rewarded you in that you down a difficult set of bosses, get geared up and take on the next challenge, but with GW, the same armor is used for all encounters. You can do Raid X, Y, and Z all with the same gear, i get that it is nice for casual players, and they do make up the majority of a game, but where is the type of progression that rewards you not only with better loot, but then allows you to take on even tougher challenges?

FFXIV was the same, you did normal raiding to get gear, along with open world token system to get gear to allow you to take on Extreme mode. Once again extreme mode not possible to do without the better gear.

Even in GW2 it would be possible without having a power curve. Raid gear obtained would receive a bonus only while in a raid but when out in PvP or open world the power level would be reduced to normal ascended gear. That way you still get the extra power offered from raid gear, and would allow the ability to introduce different level difficulties to the fights without effecting any other game play type.

maddoctor.2738:

Nova.2890:

So again, what is the point of raids? To get armor/weapon skins?

Yes. Be glad that at least there are unique/exclusive rewards in Raids. That’s more than enough for a game without vertical progression and honestly that’s what made most of those who bought GW2 buy it instead of other games.

In theory, horizontal progression should be as rewarding as vertical, just in a different way, so saying “just be glad that rewards exist” is wrong, because you’re implying that they don’t have to exist in a game that focus on horizontal progression, which is not correct. A game without rewards has neither horizontal nor vertical progression: it has no sense of progression at all.

And I highly doubt that most people bought GW2 because they only wanted to collect skins. Horizontal progression is not only about cosmetics (and even GW2 is kinda bad at that, because it’s unable to offer you full armor sets most of the time). It’s also about impactful gameplay mechanics that widen your options (more skills and abilities, be it either in combat, like elite specs, or outside of it, like gliding in GW2 or mounts in other MMOs, etc), quality-of-life upgrades that improve your gameplay experience (infinite gathering tools, account upgrades, speed boosts, etc.) and non-vertical means to gain access to locked content (like some of the masteries).

Sometimes, horizontal progression overlaps with vertical when it makes you indirectly stronger. Like the new downed skill. But that is perfectly fine (and interesting).

In fact, people love vertical progression. Entire genres are build on it because of how much players love it: RPGs, MMORPGs, MOBAs, etc. Deep vertical progression is almost synonymous to RPG-like gameplay. What people who bought GW2 do not like, however, is endless gear loops that invalidades your sense of progression every few months.

When you obtain a new downed skill, or unlock glider skills (unfortunately for one map only), you’re getting stronger than before, but not through a new gear loop.

The problem with some Anet’s design decisions and part of the community is that they were, for a period of time, convinced that vertical progression = gear loops and that horizontal progression = quaggan backpacks. When you could that with the negative effect that the gem store and the trading post had on rewarding content, then you’ll have the excplanation for why GW2 was a very unrewarding game for years.

EDIT:

GW1, in comparison, had a clearer sense of horizontal progression. There were very few levels and max-stats armor was super easy to obtain, but the game was filled with elite armor that offered cosmetic upgrades only (not only quaggan backpacks and your monthly new mask like GW2), and the entire game was built around skill upgrading, collecting and hunting, and the existance of different builds for different modes and different maps. Sure, being an older game, GW1’s sense of progression is also more restricted than what it would have been today (it offered very few account or map upgrades, unlike GW2), but, at the very least, it’s not a game that was confused about its identity. GW2 still is.

There is nothing wrong with horizontal progression. In MMORPG’s I always go for horizontal progression. The problem here is that GW2 is built upon horizontal progression and so draws people who like horizontal progression and then monetizes horizontal progression. That is why I say, selling skins in a game like GW2 is just as kittenelling power in a PvP game (known as P2W). So basically GW2 is P2W where winning is getting the best skin.

This is not a popular thing to say, but it’s what it boils down to.

When you have a gear treadmill people usually have to do all sorts of content to get the best armor (usually different dungeons and raids). GW2 is about horizontal progression so things like skins (not only, also mounts and toys and so on can be part of horizontal progression). But then most of the best skins are in the gem-store or at least there is not one specific road (quest / challenge) to get them.

So it means buying (what is not playing) or it means grinding some currency (mainly gold but this game has been flooded with currencies, and if any mechanism of getting something is boring, it are grinding currencies). Then people get bored by this ‘horizontal progression’. You can then say “but when you can get it with gold you can play the content you like, to get the gold”. In reality that is now how it works. People will look for whatever results in the most gold. The link between reward and content is lost. There is no clear road towards the rewards it other than grind currency. So they go for the only road there is (grind), and then get bored. That is at least my philosophy.

There are also some examples in GW2 where this horizontal progression is implemented as it should have been for almost all rewards, like how the horizontal part of raids functions. There is specific content, and for that content there is a reward. So it creates a goal for people and a road towards that goal. And for every reward there is different content (another wing / raid).

DiogoSilva.7089:

In theory, horizontal progression should be as rewarding as vertical, just in a different way, so saying “just be glad that rewards exist” is wrong, because you’re implying that they don’t have to exist in a game that focus on horizontal progression, which is not correct.

Maybe I didn’t word it properly. The unique rewards of raids DO have to exist and I like that they exist and would never want to make those rewards available elsewhere. In a game where progression is all about skins, adding different skins to different types of content is the way to go.

Adding new skills, mastery points, traits and even new specializations through content is something else they should do in the future. Maybe if we can unlock future elite specializations through some story line they won’t feel as bad as the current ones which came out of nowhere.

Nova.2890:

Well in WoW, i raided not only for the fun of raiding with friends, but because the armor/weapons dropped allowed you to take on more difficult tasks that otherwise you couldn’t do. So the game rewarded you in that you down a difficult set of bosses, get geared up and take on the next challenge, but with GW, the same armor is used for all encounters. You can do Raid X, Y, and Z all with the same gear, i get that it is nice for casual players, and they do make up the majority of a game, but where is the type of progression that rewards you not only with better loot, but then allows you to take on even tougher challenges?

I discussed this a lot in WoW, so apologies if this gets wordy, but that kind of difficult is a fake difficulty at best.

The problem is that you are using better gear to attack something which is built against the better gear. If this is balanced well, then nominally speaking the gear didn’t make you stronger, neither is the new boss more difficult. Rather, like with Agony Resistance in Fractals, you just created an artificial barrier to even attempt the second boss.

Ofc, WoW mixed in actual difficult increases, too. That is to say, later bosses in dungeons were often more knife’s-edge, single mistakes easily wiping the entire raid (Lich King comes to mind) or just so overloaded in abilities in pushed the player’s ability to handle everything (Yogg-Saron is a good early example here).

But the increasing gear didn’t actually make it easier to attack them. Rather I would be nominally underpowered and ill-prepared if I didn’t have the previous gear.

In short, use gear tier 1 to attack tier 1 boss. Defeat boss, obtain tier 2 gear. Attack tier 2 boss. Obtain gear tier 3. Attack tier 3 boss.

Now to put this into perspective, if tier 2 gear gives me 20% damage but the boss has 20% more health, then I +don’t actually cause more damage at all. I take just as long to kill the boss. And this extends in all directions, it’s how Blizzard can even do these gear grinds without breaking their combat system, by effectively invalidating the gear just as you get it, by then throwing you into a place where the boss is built to feel balanced for the new gear. So you’re not really stronger.

Ofc, there are still plenty upsides. For one it gives you “something to aim for”. Secondly, you’ll breeze through the now-outdated bosses, which makes you feel powerful.

But overall, if balanced well, actual difficulty of bosses doesn’t go up in such a system. That’s its key flaw, because it becomes a negative barrier instead of a positive empowerment.

Carighan.6758:

Ofc, there are still plenty upsides. For one it gives you “something to aim for”. Secondly, you’ll breeze through the now-outdated bosses, which makes you feel powerful.

But overall, if balanced well, actual difficulty of bosses doesn’t go up in such a system. That’s its key flaw, because it becomes a negative barrier instead of a positive empowerment.

Those kind of bosses and difficulty spikes are important in games with vertical progression, or else there would never exist any kind of difficulty.

But the upsides you mentioned are what make stronger gear more interesting than agony infusion. There’s also another upside: whenever a mmorpg adds a new tier of gear and more difficulty bosses, the last tier generally becomes easier to obtain, which opens up older hardcore content to casual players who weren’t good enough at it before. In contrast, it’s possible the casual players will never tough any raid in GW2, because no raid is going to become “outdated”.

The downside, however, is that the gear loop gets tiring and repetitive after a long time, and that’s why GW2 attempts to avoid it.

But it’s important to understand that:
- There’s interesting vertical progression to be had outside of gear loops, as well as game-impactful horizontal progression. Many of the times there’s even an overlap between the two, but nonetheless, it makes you feel stronger or more flexible without gear loops (profession upgrades, skill collection, account upgrades, map upgrades, etc.).
- There’s cosmetic horizontal progression that can also make you feel stronger or more important in the world (good looking gear, housing/ guild halls, etc).

And GW2 is by no means perfect in any of it. Just the fact that Anet can’t give us full armor sets without taking months, and have most of them turn out ugly or ridiculous, is already a big red flag that GW2’s horizontal progression could be… better.