Guild Wars 2

PorceleinEve.2973:

Lucius.2140:

Then read the complete post lol

I did, why would you think otherwise.

Because the same answer you did its answered in another part of the same post you quoted -.-

Edit: The point its to contribute as much as its posible tot he theme, that means argumetns, counter arguments, desarming arguments, etc are fine and are important. Specially because a lot of opinions are based on some types of arguments.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m leery of Legendary skins available only in hard content. Legendary items are the game’s only real carrot outside of the ~5% stat increase offered by Ascended items. This game has too few carrots, and restricting the most noticeable of them to whatever percentage of the player-base wants hard content might not be the best for the game’s health. Existing Legendaries fit the bill, I’m not sure about the new ones yet.

No – the part i bolded out I cannot agree with – existing legendary weapons are a joke – the fact that you can straight up buy one with cash is ridiculous.
Why even call it Legendary? What’s legendary about swiping your card and getting the item? Nothing.

They could have cash-only or gem-store only exclusive skins that you can buy with gems – sure – but the moment your game’s most prestigious and supposedly hard to get item can be straight-up bought with real money I see a very very big problem.

Anet has accepted this and changed it since wave 2 legendary items will be account bound – as they should have been from the beginning.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Once or twice maybe. Then what? How do you keep players interested in doing that “hard content” in the long run?

That’s a wrong question. If you need to offer special rewards just to keep players interested in a certain game mode, then perhaps they don’t find it interesting at all. And if they don’t find it interesting, then why should Anet even try to introduce that mode in the first place?

Tequatl got unique rewards when it was updated, Triple Trouble Wurm got unique rewards, Fractals got unique rewards, PVP got unique rewards, Achievement Points got unique rewards. Living Story S2 had unique rewards for completing the achievements. DT got new exclusive rewards, SW got unique exclusive rewards, HoT will probably add new rewards available only in HoT.

Every addition to the game had some extra/unique rewards with it, I didn’t see any complaints about any of those.

You haven’t? Because i saw complains about every single one of them. And if you haven’t noticed, fractal skins for example will be made easier to obtain in HoT.

This is a mixed bag here – yes there have been complaints about every single one of the but the complaints are not generated because these items exist but because these items are only obtainable through ridiculous RNG.
The problem with the unique skins we get from Teq, Wurm or FOTM is that you can’t work towards them. You can’t make any progress – it’s an all-or-nothing RNG system. One moment you don’t have it and then you do. And then you might not even get what you want ( FOTM skins).

The complaints would be nearly gone if they implemented a token system (which they are finally doing for FOTM) which allowed you to have something to work towards and give you a chance to get what you want on your terms – not the game’s.

RNG is not hard or easy – it’s just stupid.
Fractals skins could be made hard to get without having to rely on RNG – you want to make them hard? Charge 250 pristine relics for a weapon – then we’ll see who gets them. That’s hard but it’s fair.

PorceleinEve.2973:

CandyHearts.6025:

So what I’m getting from OP is this example

1 man practices, keeps in shape, does all he can to prepare for a competitive sport.
2nd man can’t be bothered, because he doesn’t enjoy being active.

Both participate. 1st man ran the whole 10 miles. The other man took a nap and watched television and takes a taxi to the finish line and expects the same prize.

How is that fair to the person who earned it?

It’s not. And that’s what should matter more over.

It’s the same reason why drops and rewards are different for story mode dungeons vs explorable.

this isn’t a competitive sport.
it isn’t even a competition.
the aim isn’t for you to prove how better you are than your fellow men.
you want something challenging and hard and competitive? start playing chess.

It’s all a matter of perception – what chess is to you GW2 may be to him. Competition is a part of our every day lives and each person decides what is and what isn’t a competition to them.
You saying this game isn’t a competition doesn’t mean it isn’t. It just means for you it isn’t. For some getting more stuff or having better stuff than others might be the sole focus of play.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

CandyHearts.6025:

So what I’m getting from OP is this example

1 man practices, keeps in shape, does all he can to prepare for a competitive sport.
2nd man can’t be bothered, because he doesn’t enjoy being active.

Both participate. 1st man ran the whole 10 miles. The other man took a nap and watched television and takes a taxi to the finish line and expects the same prize.

How is that fair to the person who earned it?

It’s not. And that’s what should matter more over.

It’s the same reason why drops and rewards are different for story mode dungeons vs explorable.

Elitists seem to forget, this isn’t a game about fairness, this is a game to be enjoyed… if a casual doesn’t enjoy it, game over, period. It doesn’t have to be fair or ethical or virtuous, or honorable, or respectable, or <insert descriptor here>.

What you are not understanding is that if you run 75% of your base off, you end up with an unfunded and dying game. Yes you will be a god, but it will only be of 6 people and your game will not be around long and then you will be off to ruin another game. Cuz if only the elite can have the end reward, no one will play but elites, and there is only so much room at the top my friend… those who cant attain it, will never play it making your reward obsolete in the end…

First of all you’re assuming how many casuals there are.
Second of all you’re assuming all of them would be upset by things being fair – which I doubt would be the case – not all people are as entitled as some in this thread.
You don’t need the end reward to play now do you? And if you do why not get better?
Ultimately both the elite and casuals have a right to enjoy themselves in game – I really don’t understand why some choose to consider not having access to things they can’t earn for themselves to be a problem and are so upset about it.

PorceleinEve.2973:

Thaddeus.4891:

So your point is unless you are profession in a competitive activity you shouldn’t try to better yourself and nobody should reward the skill or dedication of someone?

If you want to better yourself, to be honest, open a book, get an education, do something nice for your fellow man, travel to tibet and meditate with the dalay lama, start eating healthy, exercise, donate money to charity, etc etc

If you seek rewards for bettering yourself you’re missing the point of the bettering.

Yes yes I know, you didn’t mean it like that. But then again, maybe i didn’t mean it like that either…

Your views on life are very narrow. Bettering yourself can mean anything to anyone since ultimately you define your own life and goals.
If bettering themselves means improving at GW2 and getting super rewards is something some people decide is the way to go – who are you to say that’s not right?

Are you them? That you allow yourself to pass judgement over them?

Honestly boohoo. You basically want to take away any challenge for anyone else because you dont feel competant enough to do it for yourself. Frankly, either practice and learn to do it, or dont get the reward. Thats life. Not everything is going to be handed to you on a silver platter, and those of us who do want to work for our reward shouldnt be left out because others cant try. And no, fps or lag is not an excuse. I beat liadry on a 7fps pc, with ping of 100-200 sporadic, at 3am in the morning after 7 hours of effort. It felt better than obtaining anything you will have bought off the trading post, and as it should. Buying everything will drive away everyone, as this will become a game of who has the most money, which unfortunately, will see the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, because of flippers and trading post manipulating. Id much prefer more liadrys and less silverwaste chest farms thankyou very much. Even if you cant do it yourself, nothing says you have to.

I feel anyone complaining about gw2 being “hard”, is someone who only intends to play the game for a few months max, even if they got said easiness

PorceleinEve.2973:

A few things that come to mind are.. that mastery number right next to your name, that warning about how things in hot open world will be different, the removal of all sense of theme and atmosphere from the new zones and their transformation into boxes that we use to run events and grind masteries (like silverwastes), the addition of leader boards to adventures (the new heart system, instead of getting nice little stories to go with our zone we now get to compete), the moving away from play as you want into the you need to play this way or you’ll go bust (train gliding and mushrooms first and fak off if you wanted the lore ones), the rewarding of competing with others instead of working together (prepare to see things change if they add raids and leaderboards) etc etc.

It’s a feeling that we’re moving away from the “inclusive” and we’re heading full speed ahead towards the “exclusive”. It’s not one big thing, it’s just many small ones. We’re moving away from the world and we’re becoming more and more a game that needs to be gamed.

Don’t know if i managed to convey the feeling…

What mastery number by your name? D= (is this something in the beta? havent been in any betas so i don’t know)

As for the topic at hand, my issues with challenging content or high tier content is the possibility of excluding some form of content for other people. My biggest concern is lore content, which is why i dislike fractals and post-story mode dungeons. there is lore and story that people won’t be able to get to because the content is much more difficult (supposedly, this casual player hasn’t gone through any dungeon paths yet). Skins, titles, minis and other cosmetic flavourful things should absolutely be unique to any game mode that is intended to be more challenging or harder or both. However, story, lore, myths and information about the world should be readily available for even the most casual player.

That’s my personal pet peeve about World of Warcraft (and essentially every mmo like it). I LOVE the story of WoW, ever since i’ve played warcraft 3, and despite some absolutely infuriating retcons and strange story directions, it’s still a story i will continue to enjoy. However, WoW has made dungeons and raids the priority of their high end gaming (alongside the gear treadmill which isn’t an issue in GW2) and with that priority they’ve also placed some of the most important storytelling behind this huge gated wall that most players will never experience and will only hear about afterwords (LFR is a great step in the right direction for this personally, many casual players have finally been able to experience high end content, BUT EVEN THEN they keep some small but vital lore bits exclusive to their hardest dungeons/raid modes)

Thankfully, GW2 has not taken this approach with the exception of the final battle with scarlet, fractals and post story mode dungeon paths. i don’t mind jumping puzzles having little secrets here and there, however the stories told in fractals pertain to the history of gw2 and certain specific recreations of that history, and in one of the arah dungeon paths, you find out that there is a way to cleanse the corruption from the risen that are no longer under zhaitans control. These types of gated content infuriate me, because t essentially means that there are important developements in stories that casual players won’t be able to get to see. for all story content, there needs to be a much easier version with lesser rewards than the more difficult dungeon paths, story should ALWAYS be accessible, especially if it’s impactful to the overarching story (LIKE CLEANSING CORRUPTION FROM THE UNDEAD CHICKEN, that kind of thing has HUGE in game consequences and questions that come about from it). As long as GW2 never turns into a gear treadmill and allows players to experience the story the way they want, i’ll be good. The bounty hunting missions from guild challenges is definitely something to look at as lorewise unimportant but a fun challenge to do with unique rewards. Stories like “the prisoners escaped their cells in divinity’s reach, lets clear it up” are self contained and don’t impact the larger story (or rather should not).

TL;DR: unique cosmetic rewards like skins, titles and minis are absolutely fine. Tying lore and potentially important story elements (like cleansing the undead chicken in one path of arah or basically anything in the fractals) to hard modes or challenging content is a bad idea all around, and THAT is what i’m against. the exclusivity of acquiring in game knowledge.

Since this thread has made it to four pages I thought I’d chip in with the friendly reminder that Ohoni is a known troll (search back through his post history particularly the dungeon posts where he states he refuses to enter instances that say they’re for more than one person even when they’re actually solo it’s more obvious trolling).

The topic is intentionally worded in a combative way, no room for a middle ground, insulting the other party and you’ll notice no further posts in it since making the topic.

Putting aside that anyway this argument is as old as MMO’s themselves and will never be resolved.

Personally. an MMO should always be about trying to be better, trying to be the hero, that means constantly improving and in that vein higher difficulty content should reward more and give unique rewards to acknowledge and encourage improvement.

This perfect equality view is laughable, If tomorrow the game changed that you unlocked a skin of your choice for ever 30 minutes of gameplay time (play how you want “yay”) the game would be flat out dead in a month, player retention would drop like a rock and nowhere except maybe PvP/WvW has the draw for long term play without rewards (even then if there were no prizes/advancement/levels I’d expect to see it drop off too)
MMO’s use competition as part of the incentive system too, they want you to see that other player with an item you can’t get or would take months to get and aspire to match that player “next time I’ll get the super rare Item , I’ll be ready” or “I’ll improve my game I’ll make it into a top tier raid team” etc.

I would like MMO’s to continue to be in line with how they’re presented in other media (books such as epic and saga, TV shows such as SAO, Log horizon,The guild). You’ll notice in every one getting items other players can’t, improving beyond other players building up an elite team of people or having the equivalent of them are a common feature.

Competition/competitiveness is a good thing in MMO’s (I know this seems unrelated to the whole hard content rewarding more/unique stuff but the two are closely interlinked). I see people throwing the word exclusion around like it’s a bad thing it’s really not in a competitive context. Pretend for a moment GW2 was a sport or any hobby, you don’t go and complain that a person at the high end of whatever sport/hobby is making more in 1 session that you’ll make in your entire time playing. Or that they get trophies you’ll never even see and perks you can’t hope to obtain they earned it, they did better than you, and earned things you did not. If more people took a step back and looked at the game like that I believe the shouts of unfairness/elitism/exclusion would be drastically lower.

Harper.4173:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m leery of Legendary skins available only in hard content. Legendary items are the game’s only real carrot outside of the ~5% stat increase offered by Ascended items. This game has too few carrots, and restricting the most noticeable of them to whatever percentage of the player-base wants hard content might not be the best for the game’s health. Existing Legendaries fit the bill, I’m not sure about the new ones yet.

No – the part i bolded out I cannot agree with – existing legendary weapons are a joke – the fact that you can straight up buy one with cash is ridiculous.
Why even call it Legendary? What’s legendary about swiping your card and getting the item? Nothing.

They could have cash-only or gem-store only exclusive skins that you can buy with gems – sure – but the moment your game’s most prestigious and supposedly hard to get item can be straight-up bought with real money I see a very very big problem.

Anet has accepted this and changed it since wave 2 legendary items will be account bound – as they should have been from the beginning.

Won’t argue with that — I was speaking about universality of access to make one’s own, not buying the item — which is consistent with buying skins in GW, but not ideal from a prestige point of view.

Pve does not need balance, pve is there to grind the gold to upgrade your account and make your ascended gear and or buy skins.

Why would i want to make that already grindy as hell process harder?.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t agree with this at all. If you complete harder content you should get better stuff, end of story.

Better looking stuff maybe, I don’t want even more tiers of gear added to the game.

The problem with “challenge” in MMOs is manyfold.

For starters, “challenging” to who? Content designed to challenge the average player would still be whined about by the crazy kittens who run Arah solo for fun, and content aimed at them would be literally impossible for the vast majority of the playerbase (ask Wildstar how successful that business plan is!).

Another problem is that “challenge” is fleeting. Once you’ve done something a couple of times, it’s not difficult any more, you figure out the most efficient way to complete it, and we’re back to square one. The game is littered with content originally designed to be challenging, from explorable dungeons to Tequatl to the triple wurm to Aetherpath to high-level fractals, and look what people becoming experienced did for them.

I’m gonna be honest i might have missed some super important detail because i only really skimmed your post, but i feel as though i’ve gathered enough information to comment.
1) Players can get better at the game, adding hard content gives less skilled players something to strive for in terms of "i can improve and conquer this content!
2) Hard content tends to bring people together because it both requires teamwork and feels great when you overcome it
3) High rewards absolutely should be put behind hard content, i’m not even very good at this game but it’s just basic philosophy that good things require hard work
4) Nobody will ever do harder content if it’s optional, unless it provides good rewards in which case people will complain that it’s not optional. (look at the coolaid troll in AC, the fact that nobody ever wants to fight it is a perfect example of why hard content can’t be optional in the sense that the rewards aren’t meaningful)

Which do you think is more reasonable to ask, a player getting better at a game to accommodate for a moderate dificulty increase, or another player being bored because none of the content challenges them? Now i’m not saying make content so hard your eyes bleed and your brain melts due to the sheer impossibility of it, but end game content isn’t suppose to be defined as easy, because otherwise it’s not end game content for very long. If it’s easy people beat it, farm it, and get bored, if it’s hard people will still do those things but they’ll feel a lot more accomplished in doing them and in the end the content will last a lot longer because it requires more of you to do it. ( as long as it’s hard for the right reasons which is a whole other discussion)

That’s not to say i don’t understand the downside of harder content, but most of that comes from a community that doesn’t want to teach anyone anything and whose automatic response to “help me!” is “get gud”. GW2 has one of the friendliest communities out there and i’m pretty sure most people would be happy to help one another learn tips and tricks to beat more challenging content, which imo would help tremendously to revitalize this game.

TL;DR- Hard content would only bring the over all skill level of the player base up, bring the community closer together as a whole, and revitalize/make end game last longer. Just as long as it’s not impossibly hard.

(inb4 “Well who’s to determine what’s impossibly hard” that’s a balancing question, the short answer would be something your average PUG will fail at. Another great thing about hard content is you can create situations where some mobs need to be CCed or where support is incredibly valuable, which promotes build diversity and breaks up the crappy “zerker or gtfo” meta)

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Elitists seem to forget, this isn’t a game about fairness, this is a game to be enjoyed… if a casual doesn’t enjoy it, game over, period. It doesn’t have to be fair or ethical or virtuous, or honorable, or respectable, or <insert descriptor here>.

Yet there are loads of rewards in the game already behind specific content. I don’t see casuals leaving in huge numbers due to it. And we are talking about content that is considerably harder than the rest of the game.

What you are not understanding is that if you run 75% of your base off, you end up with an unfunded and dying game. Yes you will be a god, but it will only be of 6 people and your game will not be around long and then you will be off to ruin another game. Cuz if only the elite can have the end reward, no one will play but elites, and there is only so much room at the top my friend… those who cant attain it, will never play it making your reward obsolete in the end…

Really? So adding a couple of new skins in content not doable by everyone suddenly will force 75% of the playerbase to leave? Out of a million skins they can’t get ONE and it’s the end of the world?

Your first mistake was thinking I have to prove ANYTHING to you at all… I Dont, anet ALREADY agrees with me. My argument was about separating classes of player with rewards. Its not a good idea and as you so eloquently stated… anet is not gonna ruin their game, ergo they will cater to the casuals instead of the elite 2%, thanks for driving my point home for me. Second, we have stated before that the challenging content introduced is not the issue here. Its the seperation of players thru elite rewards (i.e. class warfare for those who think politically).

If Anet already agrees with you then why are they adding the new legendary backpack, why are they even adding challenging content, why did they increase the difficulty in verdant brick? Why did they increase the difficulty in SW and DT? Why was LS S2 so much harder than LS1?

Just make the rewards obtainable for those casual players as well thru some other mechanic or what have you. a person that plays 1-2 hours a day will not have a snowballs chance in hades of competing against a player who pvp’s 4-6 hours a day, cmon lets be realistic. That pvp player still has the ability to go into fractals and PVE and get anything they want their quite easily because their pvp skill already works in thier favor in the other 3 systems. Its not the same with the PVP reward of the backpiece. YOU HAVE TO BE TOP TIER in order to get the parts for it. which will segregate 90% of the server from obtaining it no matter how much they play in it! And its not the not wanting to play pvp thing here, its that it is seperated to the top 1% of all players. There is no need to seperate the player base just to appease the top 10 players in the world here.

You missed the point where to stay on the top league you actually need to win. A player that plays 1-2 hours but wins all the time will stay on top league but a player who plays 4-6 hours and loses all the time won’t. IT’s not a matter of grind or RNG, it’s skill. The point of those rewards is to reward skill and not luck and grind.

plain and simple, this is a business. A business is gonna go the direction that makes them the most money. taking 2% of the pie or 98% of the pie is a no brainer. you want to make it difficult to obtain the items, then fine, make it difficult. but make it available to all, not just the top 10 players in the world. Is that so difficult for you to understand?

They are available to all anyone can compete for the items they aren’t locked behind anything.

The game needs rewards that do not require a heavy grind and rely on dumb luck to get, is that so difficult for you to understand? If they can somehow do both, allow a braindead but insane grind required version and a no-RNG no-grind involved then so be it I won’t say no to it.

Thinking about LS2 and the system it followed, that was pure, utter garbage:
*It started really low with a madness like Explosive avoidance in part I.
*Fell even further with On Swift Wings in part II.
*Further down with Don´t knock yourself out and can´t knock me out in parts III and IV.
*To reach it´s crash and burn with Shrubsplosives.

As you will probably see the pattern here, my issue is with avoidance over a period of 10+ minutes. If you are not good with jumping or avoidance in general, you will fail these things multiple times even when you are in groups, and that is something that I can fully understand making people quit by putting in effort and time to get jack squat out of it.

Of course there are probably smart ways to avoid making these successes as intended, by why then ask for hard content?

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Dhorghar.5249:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

CandyHearts.6025:

So what I’m getting from OP is this example

1 man practices, keeps in shape, does all he can to prepare for a competitive sport.
2nd man can’t be bothered, because he doesn’t enjoy being active.

Both participate. 1st man ran the whole 10 miles. The other man took a nap and watched television and takes a taxi to the finish line and expects the same prize.

How is that fair to the person who earned it?

It’s not. And that’s what should matter more over.

It’s the same reason why drops and rewards are different for story mode dungeons vs explorable.

Elitists seem to forget, this isn’t a game about fairness, this is a game to be enjoyed… if a casual doesn’t enjoy it, game over, period. It doesn’t have to be fair or ethical or virtuous, or honorable, or respectable, or <insert descriptor here>.

What you are not understanding is that if you run 75% of your base off, you end up with an unfunded and dying game. Yes you will be a god, but it will only be of 6 people and your game will not be around long and then you will be off to ruin another game. Cuz if only the elite can have the end reward, no one will play but elites, and there is only so much room at the top my friend… those who cant attain it, will never play it making your reward obsolete in the end…

These pessimistic posts that prophesize the end of a 10 year old franchise because anet is gonna add just a bit of challenging content after 3 years in a game that is 99% casual always make me laugh.

Really? That’s your best argument? Usually it’s when people run out of good arguments that they start throwing all these nonsense about the end of world and how bad things are gonna be in the future.

That is borderline stupid. Anet is not gonna ruin their game, they know what they should and shouldn’t do to try to improve it, otherwise they wouldn’t have such a successful mmo. If they have decided to introduce a bit of challenging content is because they think it could benefit the game and it won’t ruin the fun for most players. Besides, we don’t even know what that content is yet, the details have not been disclosed yet but many of you in this thread are acting like if it’s going to be a disaster.

Don’t worry, gw2 will remain a casual friendly game as it is now. You’ll have to come up with better arguments than the old “it’s gonna be the end of the world” nonsense if you want to have some credibility.

Your first mistake was thinking I have to prove ANYTHING to you at all… I Dont, anet ALREADY agrees with me. My argument was about separating classes of player with rewards. Its not a good idea and as you so eloquently stated… anet is not gonna ruin their game, ergo they will cater to the casuals instead of the elite 2%, thanks for driving my point home for me. Second, we have stated before that the challenging content introduced is not the issue here. Its the seperation of players thru elite rewards (i.e. class warfare for those who think politically).

Just make the rewards obtainable for those casual players as well thru some other mechanic or what have you. a person that plays 1-2 hours a day will not have a snowballs chance in hades of competing against a player who pvp’s 4-6 hours a day, cmon lets be realistic. That pvp player still has the ability to go into fractals and PVE and get anything they want their quite easily because their pvp skill already works in thier favor in the other 3 systems. Its not the same with the PVP reward of the backpiece. YOU HAVE TO BE TOP TIER in order to get the parts for it. which will segregate 90% of the server from obtaining it no matter how much they play in it! And its not the not wanting to play pvp thing here, its that it is seperated to the top 1% of all players. There is no need to seperate the player base just to appease the top 10 players in the world here.

plain and simple, this is a business. A business is gonna go the direction that makes them the most money. taking 2% of the pie or 98% of the pie is a no brainer. you want to make it difficult to obtain the items, then fine, make it difficult. but make it available to all, not just the top 10 players in the world. Is that so difficult for you to understand?

“a person that plays 1-2 hours a day will not have a snowballs chance in hades of competing against a player who pvp’s 4-6 hours a day,” In the system you seem to like, and we currently have.. this in fact makes the main difference. If everything is currency / grind driven, the question does not become hoe good somebody is, but how long he grinds.

So the thing you say you try to prevent, you are in fact causing with this system.

Harper.4173:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Once or twice maybe. Then what? How do you keep players interested in doing that “hard content” in the long run?

That’s a wrong question. If you need to offer special rewards just to keep players interested in a certain game mode, then perhaps they don’t find it interesting at all. And if they don’t find it interesting, then why should Anet even try to introduce that mode in the first place?

Tequatl got unique rewards when it was updated, Triple Trouble Wurm got unique rewards, Fractals got unique rewards, PVP got unique rewards, Achievement Points got unique rewards. Living Story S2 had unique rewards for completing the achievements. DT got new exclusive rewards, SW got unique exclusive rewards, HoT will probably add new rewards available only in HoT.

Every addition to the game had some extra/unique rewards with it, I didn’t see any complaints about any of those.

You haven’t? Because i saw complains about every single one of them. And if you haven’t noticed, fractal skins for example will be made easier to obtain in HoT.

This is a mixed bag here – yes there have been complaints about every single one of the but the complaints are not generated because these items exist but because these items are only obtainable through ridiculous RNG.
The problem with the unique skins we get from Teq, Wurm or FOTM is that you can’t work towards them. You can’t make any progress – it’s an all-or-nothing RNG system. One moment you don’t have it and then you do. And then you might not even get what you want ( FOTM skins).

The complaints would be nearly gone if they implemented a token system (which they are finally doing for FOTM) which allowed you to have something to work towards and give you a chance to get what you want on your terms – not the game’s.

RNG is not hard or easy – it’s just stupid.
Fractals skins could be made hard to get without having to rely on RNG – you want to make them hard? Charge 250 pristine relics for a weapon – then we’ll see who gets them. That’s hard but it’s fair.

RNG isn’t the problem, RNG can in fact be positive. You could attach a currency on it but that would only add yet another grind to the problem.. the drop-rate is the problem.. It’s not viable to work towards it, not because it’s RNG, but because it’s a real bad RNG .. very, very low drop-rate. While it make sense with Teq and Wurm because (especially Teq) they get grinded for all the loot they have, so you can’t make it a doable RNG as then marked would then be flooded with the items.

Better you put such items behind content that does not have general good loot (so is not getting grinded to earn gold) so you can have doable drop-rates / RNG. Of course you then need to do that in many places.

Devata.6589:

RNG isn’t the problem, RNG can in fact be positive.

I think when players are talking about RNG in this game, they mean the 0.0001% (or lower) chances of getting anything of value so the RNG = evil stuck with us.

However, there is an alternative for RNG so you can remove it completely from the game, at least from instanced content, without adding tokens. There was a raiding system in Lotro (pre-expansion) that was my favorite reward system. It worked like this:

Each raid boss dropped ONE token for a specific piece of raid gear. So, the first boss dropped the boot token, second the glove token etc. Bosses only dropped one token each time, even in a raid group of 24 players but it was a 100% chance.

The players then had the ability to decide who gets that said token, either rolling randomly, or by choice. Random groups would do random rolls, but organized groups had much better ways of distributing their loot. For example, it was common to give the tokens to the main tank first (for obvious reasons) then the main healer and then everyone else. Or use an attendance/point system where the most valuable/consistent player got them first, it was really a player choice.

What made the system work so well was the fact that there was no punishing RNG involved. Getting your raid gear wasn’t a matter of luck or a random roll. At maximum with a constant raid team, you would get your boots in exactly 24 runs because by then everyone else in your raid group would already have them. The difference with the GW2 system is that when one of your party members got one of the tokens you felt HAPPY for them, because you were one step closer to getting it yourself. In GW2 when your friend gets an ultra rare drop it’s not the same. Your friend getting that fractal dagger won’t bring you a step closer in getting it yourself.

It’s the feeling that changes. In GW2 I might kill Tequatl a bazillion times and never get a Tequatl weapon, my friend might get 2 in 2 runs. Tokens are a way to remove the unfair part of RNG from a game, but they make it feel like a grind instead.

I hope the expansion adds a good number of exclusive skins from raids/pvp/fractals/wvw that not everyone can get.
I was never a raider in other games so I never had all the good loot but seeing it on others made me try and get those items for myself, making the game far more enjoyable as a result.
If they add more exclusive skins here, I probably won’t get those either but ultimately it’s a good thing.

PorceleinEve.2973:

Lucius.2140:

Then read the complete post lol

I did, why would you think otherwise.

You are missing the point of this conversation. It’s not to win it

If it’s not to win, why do you even care about these skins? “Other people are getting something i don’t, but i want to get everything.” You seem to be the one caring about these rewards, not the actual people doing them.

What long term goal do you want people to go for other then skins and legendary weapons, that you can put into this hardcore content?
Cause it does need a long term goal to be relevant, i hope you can see that.
If you want people to take on harder then ever challenges, but then don’t give a reward at the end most people will stop playing after completing it once. Why should we care? Because if you want to do this content let’s say 6 months from now and noone is doing it anymore, you are basicly locked out of the content. So what is better, to make some content have unique rewards, wich lowers the acces point for everyone, or to make it irrelevant and almost uncompleteable later on because people have moved on.
I’m in a casual guild with friends from GW1, and most are having a kitten hard time with some hard dungeon paths since noone wants to do them, in wich case i often help them trough it. But not everyone has a group of guildies standing by. Some of these people have tried certain paths more then 5 times and always failed because their group didn’t know what to do, and the more experienced people don’t run these paths cause other paths are faster.
Having people who have experience doing the content to keep doing it, makes it automaticly more accesable to other people over a period of time. Since these people will produce guides on doing it and will help their friends do it, who teach more people and so on.

The only complaint about this i get somewhat is the ping one, but then again you cannot expect a game to be balanced around your incredibly dull connection or machine. I tested GW2 on a laptop i bought at a supermarket sale to write my thesis, 500 euro’s, and it still works fine on medium, even in WvW. So basicly anything but a toaster should run this game fine on low.
Other then that, the content will eventually be overcome and so “on farm” by people that even the players who don’t want challenge can just hitch a ride with a group and experience it themselves, without actually grinding for it.

And that is why rewards are important, because they actually allow more people to do the content itself after a certain time, wich should be of far far more concern to you then some skins.

Harper.4173:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

CandyHearts.6025:

So what I’m getting from OP is this example

1 man practices, keeps in shape, does all he can to prepare for a competitive sport.
2nd man can’t be bothered, because he doesn’t enjoy being active.

Both participate. 1st man ran the whole 10 miles. The other man took a nap and watched television and takes a taxi to the finish line and expects the same prize.

How is that fair to the person who earned it?

It’s not. And that’s what should matter more over.

It’s the same reason why drops and rewards are different for story mode dungeons vs explorable.

Elitists seem to forget, this isn’t a game about fairness, this is a game to be enjoyed… if a casual doesn’t enjoy it, game over, period. It doesn’t have to be fair or ethical or virtuous, or honorable, or respectable, or <insert descriptor here>.

What you are not understanding is that if you run 75% of your base off, you end up with an unfunded and dying game. Yes you will be a god, but it will only be of 6 people and your game will not be around long and then you will be off to ruin another game. Cuz if only the elite can have the end reward, no one will play but elites, and there is only so much room at the top my friend… those who cant attain it, will never play it making your reward obsolete in the end…

First of all you’re assuming how many casuals there are.
Second of all you’re assuming all of them would be upset by things being fair – which I doubt would be the case – not all people are as entitled as some in this thread.
You don’t need the end reward to play now do you? And if you do why not get better?
Ultimately both the elite and casuals have a right to enjoy themselves in game – I really don’t understand why some choose to consider not having access to things they can’t earn for themselves to be a problem and are so upset about it.

The problem probably is that the current grindy game-play has worked as a filter, meaning you now have many people left who prefer the grind. They have gotten used to being able to get everything simply by brainlessly grinding and feel threatened this way of doing this might go away.

However with HoT many player who left (so those who can’t stand the grind) will come back, and that is important to hold them instead of applying the grind-filter again.

On that nature of “rewards”. Okay let’s say you’re a mini collector. All along you’ve been getting every mini you can. Up until the Liadri mini, most minis in the game were relatively easily attainable. Now you add in the Liadri mini.

If minis are what you cared about, and you’re incapable of beating Liadri, all the time you’ve spent collecting until that moment will seem wasted to you. It doesn’t matter if you agree. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s right. There are completionists and collectors for whom the entire game will be ruined if you put on item out of the game for them. If they know there’s no chance of them ever getting that one item, the collection as a whole becomes worthless and they simply stop. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s how a lot of people roll.

I’m not one of those people, but I know too many of them. However, even me, if I start feeling enough rewards are out of my reach, I’ll starting thinking it’s the wrong game for me, and I’ll walk away. Not because I don’t like the game, but because I don’t want to feel completely limited.

I’m not the best gamer in the world, but I’m probably a bit above average. What I make up for in experience, however, I lose by living in Tasmania. No one likes to feel left out of reward pools. And yes, my geographical location makes it harder, I have to be better than others to get the same rewards.

Guild Wars 1 allowed people to purchase rewards. This not only gave people the ability to have something they want, but it also gives people running the content to get something out of it, after they’ve collected their unique rewards. It really is a win/win situation.

There is a group of people who feel that it’s not a win/win, but I’d wager it’s a lot smaller than the group of people who doesn’t really want to work hard to play a game, but they still want cool stuff.

Is it unfair? Maybe. But this is a game people play for entertainment and relaxation. Some people find challenging content fun, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the majority of the playerbase, even if it is a very loud portion of the playerbase. Why risk kittening off a big portion for a small portion?

Vayne.8563:

On that nature of “rewards”. Okay let’s say you’re a mini collector. All along you’ve been getting every mini you can. Up until the Liadri mini, most minis in the game were relatively easily attainable. Now you add in the Liadri mini.

Mini karka says hi. Mini Tequatl says hi. The mini halloween wolf says hi. It’s not like minis were all easily attainable. Some of them required too much effort, maybe more than beating Liadri. I’d guess the number of people who will stop collecting things if one or two of them is out of their reach is far smaller than the amount of players asking for challenging content. Why risk kittening off a big portion for a small portion?

I’m not one of those people, but I know too many of them. However, even me, if I start feeling enough rewards are out of my reach, I’ll starting thinking it’s the wrong game for me, and I’ll walk away. Not because I don’t like the game, but because I don’t want to feel completely limited.

So adding a couple of rewards out of a million out of your reach is enough to drive you away?

Guild Wars 1 allowed people to purchase rewards. This not only gave people the ability to have something they want, but it also gives people running the content to get something out of it, after they’ve collected their unique rewards. It really is a win/win situation.

GW1 created a horrible RNG to get your rewards. In order to make things available for everyone they made it so those who liked the content had to fight with random rolls and pray to RNGesus. It’s not a win situation for anyone that hates grinding and RNG rolls. Far from it. Another reason why it worked in GW1 is the addition of many many skins to go for. How many new instances/zones will this Challenge Group Content bring? I’d guess one or maybe two, which means to make the rewards from it available on the market it would need RNG similar to the halloween wolf.

Is it unfair? Maybe. But this is a game people play for entertainment and relaxation. Some people find challenging content fun, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the majority of the playerbase, even if it is a very loud portion of the playerbase. Why risk kittening off a big portion for a small portion?

I certainly do not find fighting the RNG or grinding relaxing nor entertaining. I like Fractals, and liked the journey to 50, after 200 runs without the fractal weapon I wanted, it simply stopped being entertaining or fun, no matter how much I liked the actual content. RNG in the game is plague, putting things on the market won’t help with this.

Vayne.8563:

Is it unfair? Maybe. But this is a game people play for entertainment and relaxation. Some people find challenging content fun, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the majority of the playerbase, even if it is a very loud portion of the playerbase. Why risk kittening off a big portion for a small portion?

Right now, some of the dungeon paths are actually pretty hard, and they aren’t done all that often. I know from personal experience (some of my guildies) that some people have a really hard time completing the dungeon master achievement, while they really want to.
If each dungeon path had unique rewards however, there would be far more incentive to do them, as to right now the easiest path is being run for every dungeon. So in fact you are making the game harder for casual players that want to actually try and do certain things.

Same goes for hardcore content, and i hope they don’t make the same mistake as with dungeons. Giving players unique rewards makes them farm the content, wich in time provides acces to players who considder themselves more casual to actually go in and experience the content, the story in it, the lore in it, the aspects of the game in it, and if they want, to actually go for the rewards themselves. So yeah, what would kitten off the player base more, having skins locked behind certain content, or having certain content locked because they can’t seem to manage it. I know for a fact from my original GW1 friendsgroup that not being able to complete all dungeon paths right now is kittening them off a whole lot more then for example not having the molten backpack or some event backpiece that they weren’t around for.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

RNG isn’t the problem, RNG can in fact be positive.

I think when players are talking about RNG in this game, they mean the 0.0001% (or lower) chances of getting anything of value so the RNG = evil stuck with us.

However, there is an alternative for RNG so you can remove it completely from the game, at least from instanced content, without adding tokens. There was a raiding system in Lotro (pre-expansion) that was my favorite reward system. It worked like this:

Each raid boss dropped ONE token for a specific piece of raid gear. So, the first boss dropped the boot token, second the glove token etc. Bosses only dropped one token each time, even in a raid group of 24 players but it was a 100% chance.

The players then had the ability to decide who gets that said token, either rolling randomly, or by choice. Random groups would do random rolls, but organized groups had much better ways of distributing their loot. For example, it was common to give the tokens to the main tank first (for obvious reasons) then the main healer and then everyone else. Or use an attendance/point system where the most valuable/consistent player got them first, it was really a player choice.

What made the system work so well was the fact that there was no punishing RNG involved. Getting your raid gear wasn’t a matter of luck or a random roll. At maximum with a constant raid team, you would get your boots in exactly 24 runs because by then everyone else in your raid group would already have them. The difference with the GW2 system is that when one of your party members got one of the tokens you felt HAPPY for them, because you were one step closer to getting it yourself. In GW2 when your friend gets an ultra rare drop it’s not the same. Your friend getting that fractal dagger won’t bring you a step closer in getting it yourself.

It’s the feeling that changes. In GW2 I might kill Tequatl a bazillion times and never get a Tequatl weapon, my friend might get 2 in 2 runs. Tokens are a way to remove the unfair part of RNG from a game, but they make it feel like a grind instead.

“I think when players are talking about RNG in this game, they mean the 0.0001% (or lower) chances of getting anything of value so the RNG = evil stuck with us.”
Well, the problem of this is that people seem to forget that RNG does not have to be bad.. They have come to see RNG as this angry mean thing, while it can also be good. That is why I wanted to point this out.

Of course, one of the problems is that with the current structure in GW2 it’s hard to get it right. I mean, if you want to make something a general drop as they seem to prefer, you can’t get RNG good, and when you put an item as RNG from content that gets grinded for gold like-world bosses, you also can’t do it right because then the TP will be flooded. You really need to do that with new content, and release it all together, not one by one. Only then you can implement good RNG.

Your solution might work ver well, but only for raid instances I think.

Devata.6589:

You really need to do that with new content, and release it all together, not one by one.

I really hope I’m wrong but I have the feeling that challenging group content will be like stronghold pvp mode, one (maybe two) maps/zones/instances, so the amount of new “hard” skins to get will be very limited so getting a good RNG system won’t be possible

Maybe I’m wrong, we will know on the 29th!

Vayne.8563:

On that nature of “rewards”. Okay let’s say you’re a mini collector. All along you’ve been getting every mini you can. Up until the Liadri mini, most minis in the game were relatively easily attainable. Now you add in the Liadri mini.

If minis are what you cared about, and you’re incapable of beating Liadri, all the time you’ve spent collecting until that moment will seem wasted to you. It doesn’t matter if you agree. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s right. There are completionists and collectors for whom the entire game will be ruined if you put on item out of the game for them. If they know there’s no chance of them ever getting that one item, the collection as a whole becomes worthless and they simply stop. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s how a lot of people roll.

I’m not one of those people, but I know too many of them. However, even me, if I start feeling enough rewards are out of my reach, I’ll starting thinking it’s the wrong game for me, and I’ll walk away. Not because I don’t like the game, but because I don’t want to feel completely limited.

I’m not the best gamer in the world, but I’m probably a bit above average. What I make up for in experience, however, I lose by living in Tasmania. No one likes to feel left out of reward pools. And yes, my geographical location makes it harder, I have to be better than others to get the same rewards.

Guild Wars 1 allowed people to purchase rewards. This not only gave people the ability to have something they want, but it also gives people running the content to get something out of it, after they’ve collected their unique rewards. It really is a win/win situation.

There is a group of people who feel that it’s not a win/win, but I’d wager it’s a lot smaller than the group of people who doesn’t really want to work hard to play a game, but they still want cool stuff.

Is it unfair? Maybe. But this is a game people play for entertainment and relaxation. Some people find challenging content fun, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the majority of the playerbase, even if it is a very loud portion of the playerbase. Why risk kittening off a big portion for a small portion?

I was a collector in other MMO’s, especially mini’s, but also special ranger pets, toys, mounts and special skins or just special cool items. Many mmo’s have such items that are gray or white but just fun, like a pet-rock (only the item, not the mini in GW2) or an unhatched egg and so on. Collecting such items is indeed for many people the preferred game-play in an MMO.

Anyway, it’s exactly the nature of GW2 that resulted in me not doing this in GW2, that important part of the game-play (usually for me in an MMO) is none-existing in GW2 because of the grind. Sure you might technically be able to get most, if not all of those mini’s in GW2 but it’s all grind, grind grind.

For the mini’s there are 3 sets in the cash-shop and many other separate mini’s in the cash-shop.. Those can only be collected with cash or gold. For many of the ones ingame the same holds true. And then there are a few you can get in fun ways ingame. Compare that with many other mmo’s where the most special ones required farming a hard dungeon or raid, but most are rewarded for quest, or from specific mobs in the world and so on, and so on but maybe a few one are indeed out of reach. Collecting mini’s in those game was an adventure that send you all over the world, letting you do all kinds of game-play. But in GW2, it’s grind, grind, grind.

So while it might factually (well still not completely) be possible to get them all ingame, the process of getting them was boring, and you also can’t say you could simply earn them by playing normally.. Getting that amount of money required grinding. A good question would be, how many people did set out to collect all mini (or something else), grinded a lot to get it, spend money on it (the hole reason it’s build this way) and then eventually got burned out of it exactly because of this approach?

“There are completionists and collectors for whom the entire game will be ruined if you put on item out of the game for them.” Well not ‘the game’ but indeed that game-play.. however, so does the grind. For every collector / completionism, who is not also enjoys brainless grinding, that game-play is already lost because of the current approach. It would be nice to give them something again.. letting them collect mini’s you can in fact work directly towards, other than grind, grind grind.

“if I start feeling enough rewards are out of my reach, I’ll starting thinking it’s the wrong game for me, and I’ll walk away.” But then you conveniently forget about all the people who do see a lot of rewards out of reach for them because the grind in between them and the item is just too much for them. People who might indeed have left but might come back with HoT.

PorceleinEve.2973:

It’s not the instanced challenging content that’s for sure. It’s that feeling of things changing in the open world. It’s not just one big change that’s causing this. It more like a hundred small changes that leave you this aftertaste and you start to get suspicious.

A few things that come to mind are.. that mastery number right next to your name, that warning about how things in hot open world will be different, the removal of all sense of theme and atmosphere from the new zones and their transformation into boxes that we use to run events and grind masteries (like silverwastes), the addition of leader boards to adventures (the new heart system, instead of getting nice little stories to go with our zone we now get to compete), the moving away from play as you want into the you need to play this way or you’ll go bust (train gliding and mushrooms first and fak off if you wanted the lore ones), the rewarding of competing with others instead of working together (prepare to see things change if they add raids and leaderboards) etc etc.

It’s a feeling that we’re moving away from the “inclusive” and we’re heading full speed ahead towards the “exclusive”. It’s not one big thing, it’s just many small ones. We’re moving away from the world and we’re becoming more and more a game that needs to be gamed.

Don’t know if i managed to convey the feeling…

First of all – moving from more inclusive to more exclusive might be the right move for the game.
After all – it’s been inclusive for 3 years now – maybe Anet decided it’s time to move on from that vision.
Look at the Living Story and how that vision was eventually dropped and changed.

Apart form that – regarding the new maps – I’d rather have that over the empty barren wastes most of the original maps are where you have nothing to do and no reason to ever visit them – ever.

And masteries – that’s opportunity cost – you want to do something you give something else up. Should we really have them all available to us on day one? What would we strive for then?
The whole reason masteries exist is to provide us with end-game progression.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Harper.4173:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m leery of Legendary skins available only in hard content. Legendary items are the game’s only real carrot outside of the ~5% stat increase offered by Ascended items. This game has too few carrots, and restricting the most noticeable of them to whatever percentage of the player-base wants hard content might not be the best for the game’s health. Existing Legendaries fit the bill, I’m not sure about the new ones yet.

No – the part i bolded out I cannot agree with – existing legendary weapons are a joke – the fact that you can straight up buy one with cash is ridiculous.
Why even call it Legendary? What’s legendary about swiping your card and getting the item? Nothing.

They could have cash-only or gem-store only exclusive skins that you can buy with gems – sure – but the moment your game’s most prestigious and supposedly hard to get item can be straight-up bought with real money I see a very very big problem.

Anet has accepted this and changed it since wave 2 legendary items will be account bound – as they should have been from the beginning.

Won’t argue with that — I was speaking about universality of access to make one’s own, not buying the item — which is consistent with buying skins in GW, but not ideal from a prestige point of view.

Yes – sure they’re easily accessible and I can see how that’s a good thing but a lot of bad comes from it too.

The reason they’re so accessible is that they’re basically a huge buy list with very little things that you actually have to do in order to get them. They were hard or harder at launch . Badges of honor for example were relevant and difficult to get back in the day when EOTM didn’t exist – you really did have to WvW a bit to get your 500.

Today most of what makes up a Gen 1 legendary is stuff you can straight up buy – that’s why they’re easy to get.

maddoctor.2738:

Silicato.4603:

+1 to the creator of the thread.
He said exactly what i think and what i want. i dont want this game that i love transform into a frustrating game that only can be played with 150 trained people at the same time or staying on X ip for 2 hours, etc etc. I want a casual game, where i can enjoy and play at its full with just 1-2 hours per day, like GW2 has always been.

A) Challenging Group Content doesn’t mean “insanely long content”. There can be challenge without taking many hours (unless we count wipes), in fact that’s the best kind of challenge

B) I miss the point where any kind of content like this is mandatory. More types of content for more types of players = win isn’kitten

You may consider challenging content a win. But you just have to look the big picture.
It is actually a failure even before start, not a win.
Challenging content is only fun as long it remains a challenge that you cant deal with or if the reward is apealing to you after completing it.

By definition, challenging content has a lapsed time where challenge lovers or any kind of player can have fun with.
After that time, it will be wasted content and wasted resources by anet.

Anet, focus on the kind of content all your players will enjoy, for as long as GW2 lives, and dont fall in the trap of challenging content.
We dont want it, not even the ones who now claim for it. They won’t want it in a few weeks and you will have to create new content for them, and waste even more resources in lapsed content.

And maddoctor, you said that if we have a lot of different content, the better for the game, right?
Well, no, cause in this case, we are talking about lapsed content. Content that nobody will do or will want in a few months. Resources wasted. Instead of making a better game, they choosed to give some resources into lapsed content instead of real content.
I understand why, dont get me wrong. If with this, they manage to make more players (the ones looking for challenging content) to buy, mission accomplished.

But it is not real and durable content. It is just a carrot.
Something that will bring people who doesnt look to the big picture into the expansion.

In a few months after HoT release, when challenge lovers demand new challenging content, or new rewards, or bla bla bla, ill be glad to tell you all: “I told you so”

Devata.6589:

Harper.4173:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Once or twice maybe. Then what? How do you keep players interested in doing that “hard content” in the long run?

That’s a wrong question. If you need to offer special rewards just to keep players interested in a certain game mode, then perhaps they don’t find it interesting at all. And if they don’t find it interesting, then why should Anet even try to introduce that mode in the first place?

Tequatl got unique rewards when it was updated, Triple Trouble Wurm got unique rewards, Fractals got unique rewards, PVP got unique rewards, Achievement Points got unique rewards. Living Story S2 had unique rewards for completing the achievements. DT got new exclusive rewards, SW got unique exclusive rewards, HoT will probably add new rewards available only in HoT.

Every addition to the game had some extra/unique rewards with it, I didn’t see any complaints about any of those.

You haven’t? Because i saw complains about every single one of them. And if you haven’t noticed, fractal skins for example will be made easier to obtain in HoT.

This is a mixed bag here – yes there have been complaints about every single one of the but the complaints are not generated because these items exist but because these items are only obtainable through ridiculous RNG.
The problem with the unique skins we get from Teq, Wurm or FOTM is that you can’t work towards them. You can’t make any progress – it’s an all-or-nothing RNG system. One moment you don’t have it and then you do. And then you might not even get what you want ( FOTM skins).

The complaints would be nearly gone if they implemented a token system (which they are finally doing for FOTM) which allowed you to have something to work towards and give you a chance to get what you want on your terms – not the game’s.

RNG is not hard or easy – it’s just stupid.
Fractals skins could be made hard to get without having to rely on RNG – you want to make them hard? Charge 250 pristine relics for a weapon – then we’ll see who gets them. That’s hard but it’s fair.

RNG isn’t the problem, RNG can in fact be positive. You could attach a currency on it but that would only add yet another grind to the problem.. the drop-rate is the problem.. It’s not viable to work towards it, not because it’s RNG, but because it’s a real bad RNG .. very, very low drop-rate. While it make sense with Teq and Wurm because (especially Teq) they get grinded for all the loot they have, so you can’t make it a doable RNG as then marked would then be flooded with the items.

Better you put such items behind content that does not have general good loot (so is not getting grinded to earn gold) so you can have doable drop-rates / RNG. Of course you then need to do that in many places.

FOTM does not have general good loot – nobody plays FOTM for the loot or farms it. People do it for the skins and the skin drop rates are abysmal.

Tokens would work – one man’s grind is another man’s decent progression. And trust me – RNG can be a huge grind too – just that with a token system you can have a point where the grind will eventually end even if you’re unlucky but with a RNG system the grind keeps going on forever if you’re unlucky.

What this game really needed, from the beginning, was stuff for casual people to collect LABELLED as such, and then you could put in those ultra hard rewards. But the game didn’t label that stuff. In Rift there were sparkles that anyone could get and anyone could collect. This game needs something like that to keep more casual people playing, as well as harder rewards for people who want more challenge.

But it doesn’t have that. It’s just rewards. Not easier and harder. There’s very few sets “everyone” can get, and that’s missing. Because that’s missing no one is going to be satisfied.

So the trick becomes kittening off the smallest group of people you can.

I still don’t see how all of the options are mutually exclusive.

phys.7689:

Silicato.4603:

+1 to the creator of the thread.
He said exactly what i think and what i want. i dont want this game that i love transform into a frustrating game that only can be played with 150 trained people at the same time or staying on X ip for 2 hours, etc etc. I want a casual game, where i can enjoy and play at its full with just 1-2 hours per day, like GW2 has always been.

the author isnt talking about the overall way the game is played. The author only cares about the reward balance between different types of content.

also what you are refering to is not about challenge, its about barrier to entry.

A sport wouldnt be considered challenging just because you have to wait on line for 2 days with 40 of your friends.

I remind you Tripple wurm is considered challenging content in GW2. And the dificulty it has nowadays is just the barrier to entry: choosing an ip, and put in there all the “challenge lovers”…

Challenging content, in reality, in GW2, not in our heads, is just new mechanics (that will not be new for more than a few days), long content, or both.

Vayne.8563:

On that nature of “rewards”. Okay let’s say you’re a mini collector. All along you’ve been getting every mini you can. Up until the Liadri mini, most minis in the game were relatively easily attainable. Now you add in the Liadri mini.

If minis are what you cared about, and you’re incapable of beating Liadri, all the time you’ve spent collecting until that moment will seem wasted to you. It doesn’t matter if you agree. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s right. There are completionists and collectors for whom the entire game will be ruined if you put on item out of the game for them. If they know there’s no chance of them ever getting that one item, the collection as a whole becomes worthless and they simply stop. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s how a lot of people roll.

I’m not one of those people, but I know too many of them. However, even me, if I start feeling enough rewards are out of my reach, I’ll starting thinking it’s the wrong game for me, and I’ll walk away. Not because I don’t like the game, but because I don’t want to feel completely limited.

I’m not the best gamer in the world, but I’m probably a bit above average. What I make up for in experience, however, I lose by living in Tasmania. No one likes to feel left out of reward pools. And yes, my geographical location makes it harder, I have to be better than others to get the same rewards.

Guild Wars 1 allowed people to purchase rewards. This not only gave people the ability to have something they want, but it also gives people running the content to get something out of it, after they’ve collected their unique rewards. It really is a win/win situation.

There is a group of people who feel that it’s not a win/win, but I’d wager it’s a lot smaller than the group of people who doesn’t really want to work hard to play a game, but they still want cool stuff.

Is it unfair? Maybe. But this is a game people play for entertainment and relaxation. Some people find challenging content fun, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the majority of the playerbase, even if it is a very loud portion of the playerbase. Why risk kittening off a big portion for a small portion?

Because you don’t actually know what the portions are – the real problem with assessing and discussing any problems regarding GW2 on the forums is that we have no data of any kind except our own subjective experiences with the game.

Apart from that issue I would like to add that I feel it’s wrong to move the game in a “everybody should be able to get everything” zone because a lot of people take enjoyment out of being special or unique. When everyone can have everything and be special then nobody is.

Sure – video games are made to be enjoyed but I feel it’s irrational for people who are running away from real life limitations and their own limits to throw a fit every time they’re reminded of their own limits even if it is in a game.

Yes not everyone can have everything.

Yes sometimes it is out of your hands.

Silicato.4603:

maddoctor.2738:

Silicato.4603:

+1 to the creator of the thread.
He said exactly what i think and what i want. i dont want this game that i love transform into a frustrating game that only can be played with 150 trained people at the same time or staying on X ip for 2 hours, etc etc. I want a casual game, where i can enjoy and play at its full with just 1-2 hours per day, like GW2 has always been.

A) Challenging Group Content doesn’t mean “insanely long content”. There can be challenge without taking many hours (unless we count wipes), in fact that’s the best kind of challenge

B) I miss the point where any kind of content like this is mandatory. More types of content for more types of players = win isn’kitten

You may consider challenging content a win. But you just have to look the big picture.
It is actually a failure even before start, not a win.
Challenging content is only fun as long it remains a challenge that you cant deal with or if the reward is apealing to you after completing it.

By definition, challenging content has a lapsed time where challenge lovers or any kind of player can have fun with.
After that time, it will be wasted content and wasted resources by anet.

Anet, focus on the kind of content all your players will enjoy, for as long as GW2 lives, and dont fall in the trap of challenging content.
We dont want it, not even the ones who now claim for it. They won’t want it in a few weeks and you will have to create new content for them, and waste even more resources in lapsed content.

And maddoctor, you said that if we have a lot of different content, the better for the game, right?
Well, no, cause in this case, we are talking about lapsed content. Content that nobody will do or will want in a few months. Resources wasted. Instead of making a better game, they choosed to give some resources into lapsed content instead of real content.
I understand why, dont get me wrong. If with this, they manage to make more players (the ones looking for challenging content) to buy, mission accomplished.

But it is not real and durable content. It is just a carrot.
Something that will bring people who doesnt look to the big picture into the expansion.

In a few months after HoT release, when challenge lovers demand new challenging content, or new rewards, or bla bla bla, ill be glad to tell you all: “I told you so”

When the challenging content becomes “easy” for some people then it’s time for the next bunch to start doing it. Once all the guides and information is out, or good players going in a party with others to teach them and make them learn the content. If the rewards are NOT available on the TP then the challenging content can remain relevant (and challenging) for a very long time.

Vayne.8563:

What this game really needed, from the beginning, was stuff for casual people to collect LABELLED as such, and then you could put in those ultra hard rewards. But the game didn’t label that stuff. In Rift there were sparkles that anyone could get and anyone could collect. This game needs something like that to keep more casual people playing, as well as harder rewards for people who want more challenge.

But it doesn’t have that. It’s just rewards. Not easier and harder. There’s very few sets “everyone” can get, and that’s missing. Because that’s missing no one is going to be satisfied.

So the trick becomes kittening off the smallest group of people you can.

But everything else they’ve added so far is obtainable by casual players with very rare few exceptions. How is adding a little few more going to affect the game?

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

What this game really needed, from the beginning, was stuff for casual people to collect LABELLED as such, and then you could put in those ultra hard rewards. But the game didn’t label that stuff. In Rift there were sparkles that anyone could get and anyone could collect. This game needs something like that to keep more casual people playing, as well as harder rewards for people who want more challenge.

But it doesn’t have that. It’s just rewards. Not easier and harder. There’s very few sets “everyone” can get, and that’s missing. Because that’s missing no one is going to be satisfied.

So the trick becomes kittening off the smallest group of people you can.

But everything else they’ve added so far is obtainable by casual players with very rare few exceptions. How is adding a little few more going to affect the game?

It’s a matter of thresholds. It’s only a few more. But it’s a few more on top of the ones some players can’t attain already. There are people out there who are really mad that they “can’t” get luminscent armor, because the LS achievements are too hard for them. There’s been more than one post about this.

There’s been more than one post about people who feel the game is moving in a direction that’s harder and harder and while it might be laughable to you, it’s certainly not laughable to them.

But the portion of the people who post on forums are going to be the most dedicated people, because it takes effort outside the game. Most casual players aren’t going to post here and those are going to be the ones most affected.

Everyone is going to have a threshold of what they’ll accept before the game is just too hard and they stop playing. Realistically it’s always been like this, and it can’t be stopped. Even right now, there are people who have quit this game because it’s too hard.

The question becomes where you set that threshold. How many people leave? How many stay or come back? How much is enough? There’s no easy answers to any of the questions. I’m not suggesting I have the answers. In fact, I don’t have the answers.

I have a belief that the biggest percentage of players of this game haven’t got a clue about the game and that those people are already feeling a bit…vulnerable for lack of a better word.. We’ve seen some comments about it on the forum already, but not too many.

But you put in just a few more rewards that you can’t get, and a few more rewards, and a few more rewards and each time you cross that threshold, the next most sensitive group of players starts to walk. If you do enough of it, you might well satisfy the hard core crowd, but what is satisfying that crowd costing the company? Again, I don’t have an answer but it’s a question worth noting.

Right now we already have people complaining dailies are too hard now. Dailies take too long. Dailies. And they don’t really reward anything but 10 achievement points that caps out at 15,000 anyway.

Do you really think that casual players will just sit around and watch better players get all kinds of cool stuff, while they sit in the wings? Some will, sure, but what percentage. That’s the hundred thousand dollar question.

If you can afford a 3k legendary then you spent 500$ or you deserve it. It’s way harder then simply making the legendary from scratch. Made mine in 1 day, spending less then 800g, only bought precursor (shield, so pretty cheap compared to some others). Already had plenty of resources from almost 3 years playing.

Well, it’s harder if you start as a new player.

That being said, I welcome the new system for legendaries. ANet however said they have to be easier to make people who struggled to make the old one still feel rewarded.

Also old precursor price will skyrocket.

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think that casual players will just sit around and watch better players get all kinds of cool stuff, while they sit in the wings? Some will, sure, but what percentage. That’s the hundred thousand dollar question.

And how many players are leaving the game because of the grind, grind, grind and luck involved? How many players who used to be collectors in other games do not collect anything in this one because there is such a grind or rng involved to collect things? How many of those already left? How many players that write guides and try to make the game better for everyone still play waiting for something more to come? How long do you think all those kinds of players (including casual mini collectors) will stay in the game if everything they want is behind an endless grind?

Silicato.4603:

phys.7689:

Silicato.4603:

+1 to the creator of the thread.
He said exactly what i think and what i want. i dont want this game that i love transform into a frustrating game that only can be played with 150 trained people at the same time or staying on X ip for 2 hours, etc etc. I want a casual game, where i can enjoy and play at its full with just 1-2 hours per day, like GW2 has always been.

the author isnt talking about the overall way the game is played. The author only cares about the reward balance between different types of content.

also what you are refering to is not about challenge, its about barrier to entry.

A sport wouldnt be considered challenging just because you have to wait on line for 2 days with 40 of your friends.

I remind you Tripple wurm is considered challenging content in GW2. And the dificulty it has nowadays is just the barrier to entry: choosing an ip, and put in there all the “challenge lovers”…

Challenging content, in reality, in GW2, not in our heads, is just new mechanics (that will not be new for more than a few days), long content, or both.

triple trouble takes skill, just you are not the skilled one. The ability to be carried will always exist. Is arah easy because you can pay someone to beat the boss?

anyhow those fights are generally about organization skill and following orders. Not my cup of tea, but makes sense for content designed for the whole map to engage in.
I personally would want more personal skill type challenge added.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think that casual players will just sit around and watch better players get all kinds of cool stuff, while they sit in the wings? Some will, sure, but what percentage. That’s the hundred thousand dollar question.

And how many players are leaving the game because of the grind, grind, grind and luck involved? How many players who used to be collectors in other games do not collect anything in this one because there is such a grind or rng involved to collect things? How many of those already left? How many players that write guides and try to make the game better for everyone still play waiting for something more to come? How long do you think all those kinds of players (including casual mini collectors) will stay in the game if everything they want is behind an endless grind?

I don’t know. But I do know that without that grind, even with challenging content, there is no MMO. No company can make content fast enough for people who play all the time to be satisfied. No company has done it yet. You seem to equate the grind with hard content getting good rewards.

I don’t. I equate the grind with the idea that to keep people playing there really aren’t any options. You can do it like some games do, and make the drops very rare in a specific raid (or a fractal weapon skin), or you can make the grind so that anyone can get it, but it takes a while.

If you see another option I’d sure like to hear it.

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think that casual players will just sit around and watch better players get all kinds of cool stuff, while they sit in the wings? Some will, sure, but what percentage. That’s the hundred thousand dollar question.

And how many players are leaving the game because of the grind, grind, grind and luck involved? How many players who used to be collectors in other games do not collect anything in this one because there is such a grind or rng involved to collect things? How many of those already left? How many players that write guides and try to make the game better for everyone still play waiting for something more to come? How long do you think all those kinds of players (including casual mini collectors) will stay in the game if everything they want is behind an endless grind?

I don’t know. But I do know that without that grind, even with challenging content, there is no MMO. No company can make content fast enough for people who play all the time to be satisfied. No company has done it yet. You seem to equate the grind with hard content getting good rewards.

I don’t. I equate the grind with the idea that to keep people playing there really aren’t any options. You can do it like some games do, and make the drops very rare in a specific raid (or a fractal weapon skin), or you can make the grind so that anyone can get it, but it takes a while.

If you see another option I’d sure like to hear it.

Or put the rewards behind challenging content that will make the majority of players much longer to get. Much like how hard it was/is to get the Dungeon Master achievement unless you master a fight like Simin. It took players months to get that fight right, but now it’s “farm” mode for those who mastered it and at least much more doable for everyone else.

Silicato.4603:

maddoctor.2738:

Silicato.4603:

+1 to the creator of the thread.
He said exactly what i think and what i want. i dont want this game that i love transform into a frustrating game that only can be played with 150 trained people at the same time or staying on X ip for 2 hours, etc etc. I want a casual game, where i can enjoy and play at its full with just 1-2 hours per day, like GW2 has always been.

A) Challenging Group Content doesn’t mean “insanely long content”. There can be challenge without taking many hours (unless we count wipes), in fact that’s the best kind of challenge

B) I miss the point where any kind of content like this is mandatory. More types of content for more types of players = win isn’kitten

You may consider challenging content a win. But you just have to look the big picture.
It is actually a failure even before start, not a win.
Challenging content is only fun as long it remains a challenge that you cant deal with or if the reward is apealing to you after completing it.

By definition, challenging content has a lapsed time where challenge lovers or any kind of player can have fun with.
After that time, it will be wasted content and wasted resources by anet.

Anet, focus on the kind of content all your players will enjoy, for as long as GW2 lives, and dont fall in the trap of challenging content.
We dont want it, not even the ones who now claim for it. They won’t want it in a few weeks and you will have to create new content for them, and waste even more resources in lapsed content.

And maddoctor, you said that if we have a lot of different content, the better for the game, right?
Well, no, cause in this case, we are talking about lapsed content. Content that nobody will do or will want in a few months. Resources wasted. Instead of making a better game, they choosed to give some resources into lapsed content instead of real content.
I understand why, dont get me wrong. If with this, they manage to make more players (the ones looking for challenging content) to buy, mission accomplished.

But it is not real and durable content. It is just a carrot.
Something that will bring people who doesnt look to the big picture into the expansion.

In a few months after HoT release, when challenge lovers demand new challenging content, or new rewards, or bla bla bla, ill be glad to tell you all: “I told you so”

the mistake you make here, is you assume people play non challenging again and again for fun.
they dont, they do it for rewards. Do you think people did champion trains with 80 people for the joy?

all content will get ignored once people conquer it a few times unless they have a good reward. Or the rare case where it is so thrilling people do it again and again.
This is why the best answer is having appropriate reward per investment.

as far as the thrilling do it again and again thing, its most likely to occur with something more challenging rather than less challenging. The real key to that type of thing is engaging, but something super easy is really unlikely to be engaging.

Silicato.4603:

And maddoctor, you said that if we have a lot of different content, the better for the game, right?
Well, no, cause in this case, we are talking about lapsed content. Content that nobody will do or will want in a few months. Resources wasted. Instead of making a better game, they choosed to give some resources into lapsed content instead of real content.
I understand why, dont get me wrong. If with this, they manage to make more players (the ones looking for challenging content) to buy, mission accomplished.

But it is not real and durable content. It is just a carrot.
Something that will bring people who doesnt look to the big picture into the expansion.

In a few months after HoT release, when challenge lovers demand new challenging content, or new rewards, or bla bla bla, ill be glad to tell you all: “I told you so”

Lapsed content, as in Living Story Season 1 and 2, how about Dry Top? How about half the dungeon paths in the game? How about half the world? How about Super Adventure Box?

Just remember the casual players gets as much if not more content that will lapse over time then the hardcore player. So we want something other the fractals and we want it to feel rewarding, how is that wrong? It will last longer then any of the Living Story instances, as they pretty much died a week after they were released. Who wants to do the old dried up content right?! Seriously, when it is rewarding and actually has a good reason to do and makes you feel accomplished you are more bound to help your friends and they theirs and so on and so fourth as the content gets easier by experience rather then nerfs and then after so long it becomes available to be done by casuals who can follow a guide.

You want to tell me that fun rewarding challenging content doesn’t work then why do people still do Tequatl? How about Triple Trouble? Both of those at the start were extremely challenging and all they have done is got easier over time to the point that even casuals can hop in and achieve success. How about Fractals when they first came out and even still for some high level fractals. When that is all you have for years it becomes dry and not so much fun, having a variation of harder content would do a lot to keep some of the players chasing a challenge playing the game. Not to mention they will end up doing content as well with the more casual plays also, so remember wanting to chase a group away that sees a bigger picture that you don’t is just wrong.

Remember, adding players in the MMO genre is always better then not doing so. The more players you have the more likely the game is to be succcessful. So saying a game does not need challenging content becuase you don’t want to try and beat it and you just want the game handed to you like it is in the Silverwastes then the game will slowly die accept for bots and people that love the grind. Do you not notice the drop in players lately with no new content? Did you not notice the spike during the beta weekends? New updates attracts players and challenging content other wise all the players have left is grinding till they reach their goal and leaving.

Remember GW1 had challenging and easy content it was fit for hardcore thrill seekers and “filthy” casuals alike and it worked great. Had great PvP that some wonder where they lost sight on for GW2 and all of this while still having a bad RNG process and token systems as well. Mind you unlike GW2 there was not a plethora of account and soul bound items on acquire. So a better option I would say is to remove that horrible idea of soulbound and account bound items to control the TP and let the players do their magic and let us haver our challenging content, so what if it only lasts us a couple months, the casual players will have more time to work up the confidence and will to try it with groups of friends or off the LFG then any of the Living Story crap. Though LS2 they did much betting then 1, at least you could still go back and complete everything if you didn’t have the time, but again, your lapsing content issue is there.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think that casual players will just sit around and watch better players get all kinds of cool stuff, while they sit in the wings? Some will, sure, but what percentage. That’s the hundred thousand dollar question.

And how many players are leaving the game because of the grind, grind, grind and luck involved? How many players who used to be collectors in other games do not collect anything in this one because there is such a grind or rng involved to collect things? How many of those already left? How many players that write guides and try to make the game better for everyone still play waiting for something more to come? How long do you think all those kinds of players (including casual mini collectors) will stay in the game if everything they want is behind an endless grind?

I don’t know. But I do know that without that grind, even with challenging content, there is no MMO. No company can make content fast enough for people who play all the time to be satisfied. No company has done it yet. You seem to equate the grind with hard content getting good rewards.

I don’t. I equate the grind with the idea that to keep people playing there really aren’t any options. You can do it like some games do, and make the drops very rare in a specific raid (or a fractal weapon skin), or you can make the grind so that anyone can get it, but it takes a while.

If you see another option I’d sure like to hear it.

Or put the rewards behind challenging content that will make the majority of players much longer to get. Much like how hard it was/is to get the Dungeon Master achievement unless you master a fight like Simin. It took players months to get that fight right, but now it’s “farm” mode for those who mastered it and at least much more doable for everyone else.

Do you believe the majority of players have dungeon master? I’d love for someone from Anet to come and tell us what percentage of players have it. I do, but I know that 90% of my guild doesn’t. Those are the very rewards that need to be used sparingly, or you risk losing the casuals.

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think that casual players will just sit around and watch better players get all kinds of cool stuff, while they sit in the wings? Some will, sure, but what percentage. That’s the hundred thousand dollar question.

And how many players are leaving the game because of the grind, grind, grind and luck involved? How many players who used to be collectors in other games do not collect anything in this one because there is such a grind or rng involved to collect things? How many of those already left? How many players that write guides and try to make the game better for everyone still play waiting for something more to come? How long do you think all those kinds of players (including casual mini collectors) will stay in the game if everything they want is behind an endless grind?

I don’t know. But I do know that without that grind, even with challenging content, there is no MMO. No company can make content fast enough for people who play all the time to be satisfied. No company has done it yet. You seem to equate the grind with hard content getting good rewards.

I don’t. I equate the grind with the idea that to keep people playing there really aren’t any options. You can do it like some games do, and make the drops very rare in a specific raid (or a fractal weapon skin), or you can make the grind so that anyone can get it, but it takes a while.

If you see another option I’d sure like to hear it.

Or put the rewards behind challenging content that will make the majority of players much longer to get. Much like how hard it was/is to get the Dungeon Master achievement unless you master a fight like Simin. It took players months to get that fight right, but now it’s “farm” mode for those who mastered it and at least much more doable for everyone else.

Do you believe the majority of players have dungeon master? I’d love for someone from Anet to come and tell us what percentage of players have it. I do, but I know that 90% of my guild doesn’t. Those are the very rewards that need to be used sparingly, or you risk losing the casuals.

And why don’t they have it? It’s not like it’s hard to get now with all the spot selling going around. Or all the guides written about it, or maybe asking for help from a dungeon master, there are more than enough willing to teach all the dungeons even to total newcomers. The actual dungeon community is very casual-friendly (not the kind of reward seekers on the LFG tool)

Those who don’t have Dungeon Master, simply don’t want to have it.

I have close over 17K AP right now, and I don´t have dungeon master either. I have every path beside one of the Arah paths, don´t know which one(Good work Anet by the way, please make it visible which one you did already run!), will not ask my more casual guild for help in such a nerve wracking dungeon and probably won´t sink deep enough to buy it except from people who would have done it anyway and I know for years now.

Most people I know did not actually run them, they bought them too.