Guild Wars 2

I think a previous post of mine had a link removed.

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/6020/notanidlethreat2.png

The resolution of my complaint.

Wasselin.1235:

Amulrei.4973:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Oh kitten off. I play games to enjoy myself when I am not working. I do not pay for a game just for more work.

You will have to forgive him. WoW-type games have conditioned an awful lot of people to view this as acceptable.

Not even. The grind in WoW I think is actually more enjoyable because you are getting more “upgrades” along the way that you need to face challenges that are just a tiny bit harder. In WoW the grind might be longer and higher, but there are more steps along the way. In GW2 the grind is like three gigantic and long steps.

So first they make challenges harder. Then they give you new gear to make them easier again.

I’m confused. Does Blizzard want to make the higher geared content easier or harder ?

Or do they just want to keep the difficulty the same, while slowing your progress down with gear upgrades ?

Looks like a Skinner box to me.

tigirius.9014:

So someone on another thread was talking about a second bullet point, in this bullet point they claimed that one of the head devs addressed the armor being only from dungeons issue with this patch and said that it would be available from other means keeping in line with the horizontal progression (crafting karma etc.)

Can anyone confirm he said this? I have yet to see anything on it.

Why should we take ANET at their word on Ascended items when the very existence of them breaks ANETs word ?

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Wasselin.1235:

Amulrei.4973:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Oh kitten off. I play games to enjoy myself when I am not working. I do not pay for a game just for more work.

You will have to forgive him. WoW-type games have conditioned an awful lot of people to view this as acceptable.

Not even. The grind in WoW I think is actually more enjoyable because you are getting more “upgrades” along the way that you need to face challenges that are just a tiny bit harder. In WoW the grind might be longer and higher, but there are more steps along the way. In GW2 the grind is like three gigantic and long steps.

So first they make challenges harder. Then they give you new gear to make them easier again.

I’m confused. Does Blizzard want to make the higher geared content easier or harder ?

Or do they just want to keep the difficulty the same, while slowing your progress down with gear upgrades ?

Looks like a Skinner box to me.

tigirius.9014:

So someone on another thread was talking about a second bullet point, in this bullet point they claimed that one of the head devs addressed the armor being only from dungeons issue with this patch and said that it would be available from other means keeping in line with the horizontal progression (crafting karma etc.)

Can anyone confirm he said this? I have yet to see anything on it.

Why should we take ANET at their word on Ascended items when the very existence of them breaks ANETs word ?

It is a “skinner” box. That doesn’t mean it isn’t effective in firing those circuits in your brain that give satisfaction. I’m just saying that WoW has a more effective loot treadmill than GW2, because GW2 was not designed from the beginning to be one.

Appreciate all the feedback and answers. Still looking for the best answer, though.

Does the manifesto represent the game?
No, the manifesto represents the sentiments and philosophies of the development team at the time it was released, and as we are all aware things change over time.

To rebel against the additions to the game is to rebel against change, this MMORPG has changed the landscape for the genre but to have the game itself be static and unchanging is going against the change it made to the genre.

The only people these gear changes really affect are those that LET it affect them.

the manifesto doesnt even need to represent the game.

A manifesto is a written public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government

intention: “A course of action that a person intends to follow.”
intend: “To fix the mind upon (something to be accomplished); be intent upon; mean; design; plan; purpose.”

all it did was show us, the player base, how the developers viewed the game and MMOs in general. nothing in it said that they promised to do this or do that. they showed us what they intended on doing and what they believed a good MMO should be. it showed us their motives as to creating this game. nowhere did they promise to exclusively deliver a game that lives up to all of their views and motives. i may intend to go do something, but it doesnt mean ive made an obligation to do so. a manifesto is more a statement than a promise. nothing in any of this means they have to do so and they are free to change their intentions, intent and views at any time. maybe Anet realized their original intentions were simply unattainable? who can say. of course, they arent. and legally, they dont have to. (ethically is a different story)

now, if they had made a pledge, commitment, promise or oath of design then we would have every right to expect them to do whatever it is they put in it. in fact, with that they would even be legally bound to.

sure they may have violated their manifesto (or may not have, only time will tell) but they had no real commitment to truly uphold it. i can intend on making my car fly under its own power by the end of the year but it doesnt mean anyone can truly hold me to that end.

tl;dr: semantics rant bla bla bla

No x3.

When the game launched there were many things that needed improving to match up with the Manifesto. It was clear they were trying/tried and hope they might with a little time pull it off. Most of these things had to do with making the world seem as alive as possible and that you were an important member in it.

Its clear they have spent the last few months secretly working on shifting the game away from the Manifesto rather than towards it. Now it has a rather pathetic and grindy gear treadmill to make the hamsters happy. Probably because it was cheaper and easier than the original vision.

If they decide to give people the chance to earn this gear, through whichever way a player chooses (money, pve, wvwvw, crafting) then it’s just a minor bump in the road for me, but if this is gonna be pve exclusive, I’m out for good. Or, choose to downgrade the gear when you enter wvwvw, then I’m fine staying in my excotics.

I spend my last year in wow, raiding 4 days a week, to stay competitive (yes, our choice for wanting to be server first with as much as possible), it was a drag towards the end, felt like a second job…

When I heard of GW2, a zero treadmill game with huuuge pvp battles, I thought it was the second coming, just what I’ve been looking for. But like religion, you end up dissapointed in the end.

No, you don’t need to direct me to whichever post made by whomever Anet represent saying that other ways to obtain the gear will be available. With the current turn of events, and backpeddling on their previous statements and my general experiences with big companies like this, I’ll believe it when I see it.

What makes GW2 fun for me is the lack of subscription fees. I think that’s a big one, because that way I can jump in and out whenever I want. I still fear the day the level cap increases, I sincerely hope that never comes.

No.
No.
No.

/15 char

No.

/15char……..

No. No. No.

I too would like to know why people who over the past few years have been very passionate about creating a very specific type of game could allow such a patch to make it into the game.

As someone pointed out: less than 3 months and they have flushed their “manifesto” down the toilet.

Anet are like politicians: promising anything and everything to get people to “vote” for them (with their wallet) and then not living up to their promises once in office.

No. No. No.

i guess this thread will be closed as well. then another thread will pop up and so on…until anet’s core-supporters won’t care anymore and r gone. happy wow-player-hunting, no more money from me for anet.

Yes. Getting exos is easy, legendarys are still the same as exotics (Eventho this will probably change)

No but yes. Ascended gear is NOT the rarest gear. You get your backpiece pretty easily, got it after 2 days, and i am a casual. The rings will drop at level 10 fractals which is also rather fast to achieve (Still at lvl 6, cause i cant play much). They do have better stats, but those are not mandatory in any aspect of the game besides the harder levels at the fractals, which is just a very small part of the game.

YES! You can just play for an hour a day, stop for 3 days or maybe a week and can continue anytime without having any disadvantage. (If there is no OneTimeEvent which gives you epic loot that is). If you start crying cause some random people dont want you in there fractals group, ask your friends, your guild members or just play any other part of the game.

Can we please stop making the game more worst than it is please?! If you guys feel really that betrayed and cheated, man up and just leave it. I for one, wasnt happy about the additional stats at first too, but now that i have seen it ingame i dont care and just enjoy the new content, which is freaking awesome as anybody admits pretty much.

Give ANet some time to recover from the shock they probably got by our reaction and probably by the management choices which were forced upon them. Not to make an official response was pretty wise in my opinion. There is so much rage atm, that every comment to that matter would be more fuel for the fire, so just be patient, calm done and wait for them to come up with something. If the rumors are true, which seems pretty plausible, we should encourage the devs even more cause they cant do anything, besides quitting their job, which is unlikely cause its probably very well payed.

yes this game isn’t grindy, and mmo where you don’t have to ‘grind’ or even play is inherently flawed, lol.

the ascended gear is marginally better, you are not forced into any long grind, but prior this all i read was ppl whining about no endgame etc…

they managed to not only add lasting content to work towards, but kept true to thier original promises.

No, especially when you read it knowing what they wrote in their blog, said in Q&A sessions, interviews, etc.

“Yes” to all of the questions. You can see all the fractals without ascended gear, as long as you choose to stick with lower fractal levels, so that tier of gear IS indeed as optional as claimed beforehand.

There aren’t any exotics (even the very rare, expensive or hard-to-get ones like Volcanus) that are way stronger than other exotics. There aren’t (and as far as we know there won’t be) any ascended items that are way stronger than other ascended items. So yeah, Anet did what they promised.

You just can’t expect there will never be gear better than what we have now. Noone sticks around if a year from now, we are still wearing all our current gear. Because people want SOME progression. So stop all the complaining and go play.

At the end of the day, the developers have took our money and turned their backs on the players that supported them, they have given no statement to calm the situation down or given a reason as to why they created a grind which they said would not be in the game.

Mods have been ordered to delete threads on the subject hoping it goes away. Nexon has moved into the building and now the cash shop will be run by one of their former employees. Expect worse to come.

azmodeus.3409:

the ascended gear is marginally better, you are not forced into any long grind, but prior this all i read was ppl whining about no endgame etc…

Exactly. The rage just switched sides, what ANet underestimated is that the opposing side is even louder

Its a videogame, do you think people in gaza or israel would care about +5 vitality on an item in a game. Get your anger in proportion.

I would say no. I don’t think they intended to mislead from the start, but I feel mislead by the PR talk somehow. It is not that it is a bad game, it has high value for the money for sure! but their PR-talk was over the top. I feel like i bought a car i didn’t really wanted/needed, but the saleman did an awesome job making the product desirable and i felt for it

Maybe their ideas didn’t work out as they hoped they would be? I mean the idea/concept of dynamic events is great, I am still a fan of dyhnamic events, but in this game it feels like it is a failed experiment. Maybe they fix this in the future or it will be done better in another game. Same for downed state, great idea!, but in reality it is just a frustrating concept. It was just all to good to be true and not realistic what they said in the PR-talk.

FragGyver.8369:

Its a videogame, do you think people in gaza or israel would care about +5 vitality on an item in a game. Get your anger in proportion.

Its true, but nobody cares for anything other then oneself really. Most people will tell you otherwise, but at their heart they know that it’s true.

So don’t be a judge. If a videogame is a important part of their life, it’s only natural for them to get angry and rebel against changes that occur they don’t like.

The manifesto has little to do with the game in my opinion.

1. There’s an impressive gear grind

2. Your character has no impact on the world.

3. The combat is noting like the promos depicted. Combat is meh, at best.

GW2 is Warhammer Online with a different skin.

There is no way that you can contort that manifesto to justify this expansion.

1) NO
2) NO
3) NO

the manifesto is only a big pile of lies

Before Shores YES, right now with Ascend Items NO.

New Gear threadmille, and excesive grind to get 1 upgrade of your gear, before a Armor Set cost 30 T6Mats with the upgrade, right now get 1 ring 250 +100 of the upgrade, and dont make me talk about the ectos.

It cost 14 times now more get 1 upgrade, that get 5 rings before, seriusly arena.net ?

You had a great game with a great community, now you throw to garbage your game, betray and lie to your community, right now you have angry community, thx to morph this in Diablo 3 forum, but you deserve it.

The fact they can’t even bring themselves to defend or explain the change speaks volumes.

A few posts demanding gear grind from locusts that swarm in every new MMO and swarm out to the next big thing – lets change the whole thing and give them a gear grind.
A lot of posts from GW1 players, and players that bought the game based on ANets vision (the manifesto) players looking for something different, a MMO that broke this tired old format of gear doth a great player make and…………… the silence is deafening.

Yes – there is no item in the game you have to grind for 1000’s of hours that is better then any other.

Yes – The items might have a slight stat increase but that does not mean it is better. It lacks customization and would be a stat decrease when running certain builds.

Yes – The game is fun from moment 0…. It remains fun and is still fun to this day. There is no treadmill…. it is play how you want… bottom line.

LadenSwallow.1468:

No need to go all the way for False Advertising (unless you really want to), you can hurt them on their bottom line by requesting a refund:

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9053/kw/refund

I would, but unfortunately I purchased through a third party because I wanted a physical box and therefore cannot get a refund.

Ruby Red.4019:

The fact they can’t even bring themselves to defend or explain the change speaks volumes.

I dunno, I sure wouldn’t defend or explain myself in this atmosphere either. Mostly because I know that any word out of my mouth would be carefully examined, and if it contradicted anything I said before then I’d have people calling me a liar. Heck, if I was in their shoes I wouldn’t even go that far. ANYthing they say now is simply going to be labeled as “yet more lies and platitudes meant to soothe us”.

No, I would do what John Romero should have done – keep my mouth shut and make my game.

fingis.2867:

The manifesto has little to do with the game in my opinion.

1. There’s an impressive gear grind

2. Your character has no impact on the world.

3. The combat is noting like the promos depicted. Combat is meh, at best.

GW2 is Warhammer Online with a different skin.

1. Yup. I agree. Most people are silly and don’t realize there is one, no matter how small or big.

2. A big agree on this. Its an illusion that you have an impact, the impact resets after a certain amount of time. I don’t think ive ever seen a enemy for really try and take something back weve taken in some dynamic quest, and prisoners automatically get recaptured again, etc etc. The impact is fake. I know, i watched what happened long after people skipped off ala wow style to another “quest” heart.

And… to be honest. don’t get me started on the “no kill x of y quests” that’s basically what the heart quests are :p Instead of numbers there’s a BAR you fill. Sure you have more options to fill that bar, but its still “x of y”

And boss fights? Ive.. NEVER seen anyone fail a boss fight in open world (not dungeon). I’ve heard of one or two, but the boss just reset a certain time after? Not like they ruled the place or anything.

3. Yeah… combat. Yeah.. im my very humble opinion.. button mashing on timers. Pretty shure ive never heard of people discussing tactics outside of “lay down a field and spam the hard hitters”

And the warhammer online reference made me laugh. I’ve been there. I hear that some of them came over here. Specifically the public quest people. Not sure if that’s true. But ya. It would make sense. Though oddly enough that’s the thing i liked most about both games. Funny.

Just my two cents.

ye it was something they used to believe , an ideal….

now its just a joke cos they sold out on their ideal

ginzo.8792:

ye it was something they used to believe , an ideal….

now its just a joke cos they sold out on their ideal

Funny thing . . . I wrote a novel-length story at one point from a sentence scribbled on a memo pad. I didn’t intend to, it just kind of grew as I wrote. I was cleaning out my stuff while moving earlier this year and found the paper and sighed. The novel which I had written had wound up a science fiction novel rather than the fantasy I had envisioned. The supporting characters I’d thought would be important had disappeared about midway through the second act, and the third act was a mess trying to reconcile something I forgot I’d written in the first act but fit so well I needed to keep it or scrap the whole second and third acts.

No.
Yesterday, I found myself logging into the game, and while on the Login screen, realizing that these characters will never feel complete to me, will always be running after a carrot.
I couldn’t choose a character and logged out again.

Kirani.2690:

As of today all 3 of these quotes are nothing but lies fed to us by a company I thought I could trust.

I quote.

All three are true, the problem is that players confuse being able to participate, with having the option to be the best player. What ArenaNet are saying is that you can play the content without having the best gear, but if you want to be the best Worlds PvP player, or play the hardest difficulty dungeon, you need the best gear. But of curse, people only want the easy solution; being able to play casually, and be the best player at the same time. However, the problem is mostly that a lot of players believe that they need the best gear in order to compete, but that is not true at all. You can compete and make a difference with a few random exotics and some masterwork gear, as long as you don’t expect to perform equally to someone with full exotic gear. Gear is really not important, unless you make it so.

Also, advertising is advertising. There are no fake promises, only what you imagine there to be. Advertising is meant to make you buy the product, that is all. The quality of a product can never be determined by the advertising alone.

Things seem fine if you are a ‘main character’ player and you are used to other grindy games.

But many of us have multiple characters.
Equipping only 8 of them, one per profession, with max gear after they added the ascended tier would take a ridiculously long time.

In GW1 I could level up 10 characters and get max gear for them in under 60 hours.
I got over 18 characters, and all of them had max gear, and may of them elite armors, and everyone had the armors I liked.

Of course GW2 should take more time, but NOT the time it is going to take now.

Kasama.8941:

All three are true, the problem is that players confuse being able to participate, with having the option to be the best player. What ArenaNet are saying is that you can play the content without having the best gear, but if you want to be the best Worlds PvP player, or play the hardest difficulty dungeon, you need the best gear. But of curse, people only want the easy solution; being able to play casually, and be the best player at the same time. However, the problem is mostly that a lot of players believe that they need the best gear in order to compete, but that is not true at all. You can compete and make a difference with a few random exotics and some masterwork gear, as long as you don’t expect to perform equally to someone with full exotic gear. Gear is really not important, unless you make it so.

Also, advertising is advertising. There are no fake promises, only what you imagine there to be. Advertising is meant to make you buy the product, that is all. The quality of a product can never be determined by the advertising alone.

Some people confuse being able to participate, with having the option to be the best player.
Most MMOs confuse having the most time with being the best player. Guild Wars used not to.
Now it does, because while having the best character does not make you the best player (and this is the part you confused there), it does darn well help.

Metafrank.9017:

Most MMOs confuse having the most time with being the best player. Guild Wars used not to.
Now it does, because while having the best character does not make you the best player (and this is the part you confused there), it does darn well help.

Gear does not make you a good player, it just makes you a better survivor, because it takes longer to kill you. There’s a big difference there. I’ve come up against high end gear players in Worlds PvP plenty of times, and I can easily recognize the bad players from the good, because the bad players never manage to kill me, so the fight ends up lasting until one of us runs away from boredom. While the good players will have a strong skill rotation, and kill me almost faster then I can heal.

Of curse better gear helps, but it’s not like exotic gear is completely impossible to get. It’s just that people think they need six pieces of the same critical damage gear, and the top jewels, and six of the same damage runes that increase your damage further, and sigils that match each other, and so on…or ells their character will suck. Which is just stupid really, because it’s not the game that limits you, it’s yourself. Your expectations of what you need are much higher then what the game requires.

Right on the money Toxica…dungeon gating as well as gear grinding killed LOTRO …Anet will realize their mistake one day but it will be too late im afraid

No - All RPGs that I can think of involve some form of grind. It’s inherent to the genre – the duality between managing your enjoyment of the game itself (it’s setting, story, mechanics, etc) and the enjoyment you gain from reaching personal goals of a statistical/objective nature. There are many points at which these two things coincide as well. Making an RPG without grind sounds pretty difficult given how we currently imagine RPGs;
Yes - As far as I’m aware, Legendary weapons remain the toughest to earn, but are relatively comparable to weapons of the highest tier. You won’t automatically become ‘the best’ by having a Legendary, because any statistical difference can be mitigated by player skill. And any quality difference can be mitigated by not caring enough about getting a Legendary;
Yes - I don’t feel compelled to play GW2. It doesn’t feel like a job to me, much less a job I pay to do.

I’m also aware that the manifesto was published over two years ago and that while the words said at the time may well have been genuine and well-intentioned, a lot can change in two years and not all of it is malicious or intended to deceive. A five-year development time can be a massive drain on resources and warrant significant changes in order to keep the project going. Some of those may be sacrifices that the Developers never would have chosen, but were forced to in order to deliver the product they were so passionate about. It’s incredibly rare for any endeavour to meet all of the goals that originally made it so worthwhile to pursue and, often, made it so difficult to achieve. And in a situation like that, proportioning blame on any single party involved seems a little desperate.

No, it doesn’t reflect the Manifesto since the implementation of “Stats-addition gear-progression” model AKA Vertical Progression. The consequences are:

- Official end for the Horizontal Progression statement in the Manifesto.
- Official end for the “all the game is the end-game” statement in the Manifesto.

ANet has opted for the lamest possible form of progression. This is because there’s no such thing as “progression” in the “Stats Addition based” model as your gear stats are always aligned with the mobs’ stats. It’s an illusion, smoke and mirrors. The counterback is that it creates serious unbalance both in the open world and in pvp, makes content obsolete and linearizes the game experience, making it more of an Arcade (ala WoW and its clones) than a true MMORPG (persistent world concept).
In any case, it’s been made abundantly clear (despite the fanatics that don’t want or cannot understand) that Anet has officially killed the “all the game is endgame” concept and has blatantly lied to its customers.

Mythios.2735:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Mandrax.7342:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

xtorma.1283:

No

but what can you do.

Contact a lawyer and see if you can file a false advertising complaint.

And if you can, what does that solve?

Depends on how strong the consumer protection laws are wherever he files it. If it causes any money to be taken from ANET, they might rethink this whole thing, especially when other people hear of it and repeat the claim.

Class Action anyone? Unemployment lines would start to fill up with “ex”-Anet employees

LOL. This reminds me of the class action lawsuit against the makers of Nutella. They advertised their spread as it if were health food but was taken to task. I wonder if the same can be done for ANet’s departure from their Manifesto.

Hmmmm…I wonder if this thread will disappear like the one about a player calling them to conform to EU laws.

( For more info about the Nutella case, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/nutella-lawsuit_n_1457183.html )

It’s irrelevant, as MMOs should have organic and evolving design, and not be held hostage to the principles they used while fleshing out the design pre-release.

Hawken.7932:

It’s irrelevant, as MMOs should have organic and evolving design, and not be held hostage to the principles they used while fleshing out the design pre-release.

But how many just come out and say this is what we’re about fundamentally and then just go to the other side?

You know, this game also said it was a MMO without a monthly fee, what if they cross that line too? Quite easy to do, they keep a free “basic” version while new gear that will make a difference in all areas of the game because “expansions” that require a monthly fee to acquire… then possibly toss in the ability for armor/weapons to decay unless you go to a certain person in the monthly fee areas?

This is the problem, once a major line is crossed the player base no longer can just take what the company says as the truth.

NastyPiggy.2046:

Hawken.7932:

It’s irrelevant, as MMOs should have organic and evolving design, and not be held hostage to the principles they used while fleshing out the design pre-release.

But how many just come out and say this is what we’re about fundamentally and then just go to the other side?

You know, this game also said it was a MMO without a monthly fee, what if they cross that line too? Quite easy to do, they keep a free “basic” version while new gear that will make a difference in all areas of the game because “expansions” that require a monthly fee to acquire… then possibly toss in the ability for armor/weapons to decay unless you go to a certain person in the monthly fee areas?

This is the problem, once a major line is crossed the player base no longer can just take what the company says as the truth.

In my own opinion, they haven’t really gone back on their principles. The legendaries form a natural cap on item progression. Ascended gear isn’t the start of a gear grind, as they won’t be able to continue to add new tiers to gate off new content (as WoW does), as they are naturally capped by the legendary tier.

Imho, it’s an omission in the original design. In fact there SHOULD have been the ascended tier right from the start, to bridge the wide gap between exotics and legendaries. They realized this (as they have said) and they added it in.

Hawken.7932:

The legendaries form a natural cap on item progression.

You could have said the same about exotics.

Hey, they won’t add anything more powerful than exotics, because legendaries are a natural cap.

A cap that gets moved up every time they want to add a new tier.

Urxx.6840:

Hawken.7932:

The legendaries form a natural cap on item progression.

You could have said the same about exotics.

Hey, they won’t add anything more powerful than exotics, because legendaries are a natural cap.

A cap that gets moved up every time they want to add a new tier.

No, if they had moved the legendary cap, which they haven’t, then that would be true. As it is, they’ve only made a tier which bridged the gap between exotics and the top.

I love how they locked the ascended gear thread and linked in a 7 day old response from Anet the predated it. Stay classy Anet!

Hawken.7932:

Urxx.6840:

Hawken.7932:

The legendaries form a natural cap on item progression.

You could have said the same about exotics.

Hey, they won’t add anything more powerful than exotics, because legendaries are a natural cap.

A cap that gets moved up every time they want to add a new tier.

No, if they had moved the legendary cap, which they haven’t, then that would be true. As it is, they’ve only made a tier which bridged the gap between exotics and the top.

Unfortunately that’s not the case. You bought their “filling the gap” BS, but it’s just that, BS. There wasn’t any stat gap. They actually introduced a stat gap with ascended gear, which forced them to raise the cap on legendaries.

Lindsay Murdock:

You’ll also see more Legendary items in the future and an update to our existing Legendary weapons. Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/