Some people don't like hard mode

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: PorceleinEve.2973

PorceleinEve.2973

No I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.

Good to know that :P

As far as your challenge/loot theory…. you have no basis for that because there is NO highly challenging AND highly rewarding content in this game.

To your shock and horror let me be the first to inform you that gw2 is not infact the first mmo ever and that some of us, have played others. My hypothesis was based on personal experience and observation from other games. As all hypotheses, mine too would have to be tested with a representative sample if we were to ever find out if it’s true or not. However, the hypothesis seems to work for me, so i’ll hold on to it untill I have some clear evidence that contradict it. Obviously, I do suffer from some sort of confirmation bias as all humans do when they make generalizations based on personal experience. Feel free to form your own hypothesis based on your own personal experience and observations

Currently , high lvl fractals are probably the most difficult PvE content but clearly not very rewarding at all… yet people still do them on a daily basis don’t they?? why? because SOME ppl still find it fun to do, especially with friends/guildies, some ppl still trying to find their frac skin, some enjoy this type of content and there is clearly a lack of it..

Yes, the unpredictability of the drops, makes sure you have to grind that crap for months sometimes. And yes, some folk may farm them for fun also. There’s always that small minority of players who do so. The rest are there for the skins, or out of boredom.

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Posted by: PorceleinEve.2973

PorceleinEve.2973

And why can’t it be both? To be able to complete challenging content and actually get appropriately rewarded for it? Why would you see it kitten black and white instead of how it actually is, gray.

I want challenging content, i want to be able to have to work on getting better and yes, i like there to be a reward for actually getting better and managing to complete said challenging content. Not to show off or “flaunt my superiority” , but because i want to feel i accomplished something. And have something to show for that. For all i care all everyone else sees is the low quality models that show no detail at all, as long as i can enjoy something that i worked for.

Not every player feels the need to be a special little snowflake, most people in this thread aren’t defending unique rewards because they wanna show everyone else they are better than them (i’m sure you’ll find people like that, but to say everyone is is just 100% wrong) , what they are saying is that people who manage to complete something challenging shouldn’t feel like it didn’t matter, like it’s unimportant, they want to feel rewarded for putting in the time to learn the mechanics and to learn how to complete the fights. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

What i am all for, however, is a token system, you get x amount of tokens at first boss/lowest lvl/etc and that amount rises the higher you go. Similar to fractals. But just like fractal skins, you have to do the content to get the item related to it. Instead of grinding and grinding for gold and buy it of the trading post.

It could be both, as I said there are smaller minorities who operate like that. That doesn’t mean the majority is any different. But usually the harder or challenging content is just the means to an end. And rarely the end in itself.

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Posted by: SkiTz.4590

SkiTz.4590

No I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.

Good to know that :P

As far as your challenge/loot theory…. you have no basis for that because there is NO highly challenging AND highly rewarding content in this game.

To your shock and horror let me be the first to inform you that gw2 is not infact the first mmo ever and that some of us, have played others. My hypothesis was based on personal experience and observation from other games. As all hypotheses, mine too would have to be tested with a representative sample if we were to ever find out if it’s true or not. However, the hypothesis seems to work for me, so i’ll hold on to it untill I have some clear evidence that contradict it. Obviously, I do suffer from some sort of confirmation bias as all humans do when they make generalizations based on personal experience. Feel free to form your own hypothesis based on your own personal experience and observations

Currently , high lvl fractals are probably the most difficult PvE content but clearly not very rewarding at all… yet people still do them on a daily basis don’t they?? why? because SOME ppl still find it fun to do, especially with friends/guildies, some ppl still trying to find their frac skin, some enjoy this type of content and there is clearly a lack of it..

Yes, the unpredictability of the drops, makes sure you have to grind that crap for months sometimes. And yes, some folk may farm them for fun also. There’s always that small minority of players who do so. The rest are there for the skins, or out of boredom.

That leaves us here. Just wait and find out what anet reveals in PAX next saturday when they announce the new challenges/grind…. imo the new challenging content will most likely be instanced because theres plenty of open world stuff and more coming that was already announced…(verdant brink).

Will the new challenging content have better or equal rewards or unique progression compared to zerging open world maps like SW or champ training is the question. That will answer if the content will be dead within a few months or not.

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Posted by: Conski Deshan.2057

Conski Deshan.2057

aha what?

aha, it was for the loot all along, and not for the challenge as some of you were claiming in the beginning of this thread.

Did you read the rest of my post at all?
We do want challenging content but since this is an MMO there are two other conditions that have to be satisfied. That doesn’t mean we don’t want the content it just needs to be in line reward wise with standard expectations.

1. Time spent in the content must at the very least award loot/gold equal to or above the best low end content, otherwise spending time in challenging content is actually a bad use of your time in improving your account (I.E the overall goal in an MMO aside from “fun”).

2. Recognition: when you do something in an mmo you get rewards for it/ achievements /minis new stuff thats specific to the content. So that everyone is not the same. Person A did x and Y so they got this helm and that chest, Person B did Q and Z so they get a different helm and chest, so when you walk past them you know exactly what you did.

frankly you’re being deliberately obtuse; you know full well harder content = unique rewards , that’s how it works you’re trying to make it appear like it’s some conspiracy or that the content doesn’t matter at all.

[RoF] and [BL] guild leader
11x level 80’s 80+ Titles 2600+ skins , still a long way to go.

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Posted by: CorrynnStarr.7942

CorrynnStarr.7942

Skitz gets it… its not that we want to remove difficult options for people, there just needs to be a less exclusionary way to get the reward for playing WITHIN the pvp system. A token system could work as it rewards players for STAYING in PVP, but not excluding them from the end rewards.

What you don’t seem to get is the reward is a medal or trophy, its a specific item for a specific piece of content or achievement that displays that you completed that specific piece of content.
Getting it by any other way than doing that specific thing removes that aspect from it.

Since you’re using PvP in your example think of the legendary back-piece as an Olympic medal, unless you’re an Olympic level athlete you have 0 chance of getting that item it’s the same principle here.

So then what you are saying is, is that you want a reward that only the top 2% of players can obtain just so you can go show off your trinket and laugh at everyone else not as “skilled” as you. I get it now… your argument is no longer valid and I wont be responding to your argument anymore.

I feel the token system that skitz was mentioning would be a good compromise to this situation. It may take a lot longer to obtain, but at least it can be measurably worked towards, and not based off of luck of winning and losing random matches. And as much as elitist pricks want it to be otherwise, it would be detrimental to the game as a whole to give trolls the ability to wag ANYTHING in front of other peoples faces, Or at the least keep them from trolling other players and keeping them from getting a reward they had an easier time getting. Its never a good idea to place a reward in play, and have control/access to it determined by a few elite players.

Another solution to this problem would be to introduce the items as obtainable thru either pvp and fractals at the same time. Then maybe a year later introduce the other fractal style backpack as the next reward (or continue it as a yearly reward for doing top level fractals or pvp tiers.) Essentially making it a yearly reward for a massive amount of participation? Thoughts?

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Posted by: Conski Deshan.2057

Conski Deshan.2057

Skitz gets it… its not that we want to remove difficult options for people, there just needs to be a less exclusionary way to get the reward for playing WITHIN the pvp system. A token system could work as it rewards players for STAYING in PVP, but not excluding them from the end rewards.

What you don’t seem to get is the reward is a medal or trophy, its a specific item for a specific piece of content or achievement that displays that you completed that specific piece of content.
Getting it by any other way than doing that specific thing removes that aspect from it.

Since you’re using PvP in your example think of the legendary back-piece as an Olympic medal, unless you’re an Olympic level athlete you have 0 chance of getting that item it’s the same principle here.

So then what you are saying is, is that you want a reward that only the top 2% of players can obtain just so you can go show off your trinket and laugh at everyone else not as “skilled” as you.

I didn’t say that at all.
Firstly why would you not reward the people who complete a piece of content? in-case you’ve forgotten the whole point of an RPG is improving your character and getting rare loot. You kill a certain boss , you get that bosses weapon.

Secondly I would never laugh at anyone, I understand people have different skill levels and that people can improve with time and practice. I fully encourage people to try and improve , if they then complete it fair play to them. What I don’t approve of is lowering the bar because player x can’t do it.

I get it now… your argument is no longer valid and I wont be responding to your argument anymore.

My arguments validity is not decided by you thankfully. Plugging your ears and pretending to have won or that the other sides point does not have merits is not the basis for a mature discussion.

[RoF] and [BL] guild leader
11x level 80’s 80+ Titles 2600+ skins , still a long way to go.

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Posted by: Draknar.5748

Draknar.5748

I have done lvl 50 fractals and I have got better loot for much less effort elsewhere, it is fairly easy if you know what to farm and where. A rare or unique skin is only worthwhile if you like it, otherwise fractal skins are not tradeable.

That hasn’t stopped me doing high level fractals or WvW or any of the other stuff I do in game. I often do stuff because it is challenging, not because it is easy or has valuable loot.

Most people do FoTM50 because of the higher % chance of Ascended gear/fractal skins. If FoTM20 had the exact same % chance for those items as FoTM50, then once people hit FoTM50 for the reward level (for the sake of “beating” fractals), then 95% of those people would strictly do FoTM20s.

There will always be the small minority of people out there that go for the extra challenge (like those that solo Legendary Shaman on FoTM50—watch the vid, its nuts! Or those that go for record completion times.)

They do not represent the norm.

Most people simply expect a fair reward for the effort put in. Like I said, I could care less if it is a skin, a title, weapons, or gold. I just feel it should be proportionate to the difficulty. That’s how pretty much every game works. A skin in itself isn’t valuable, especially if you don’t like the skin, but when you add the fact that its exclusive, the value of that skin goes up substantially, and most people would suffer an ugly skin simply because of exclusivity. For the sake of proving that I personally don’t care about feeling “superior”, I saying to simply have extra gold be the reward instead of an exclusive item.

I won’t stop because I can’t stop.

It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

But i don’t see people crying about that. And they shouldn’t. But is shows that Arenanet is more then willing to put unique rewards into maps and doing events. Now in the beta, there was a currency called airship parts, we don’t have an idea what that will provide us but let’s say it unlocks a few unique skins for the verdant brink map. Like drytop and silverwastes.

But then to hear those people come say that hardcore content needs non-exclusive rewards,

People talked about rewards for (hard) content, and then you come with an example where they use just another currency to show Anet will do that? Those airship parts are just again another currency to grind.

And while indeed the talk is here specific about hard content, really what we need is rewards exclusive to specific content. That includes but is not limited to hard content.

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

There is this pervasive belief that 99% of the player base is 100% casual and that all of these players enjoy 100% the same type of content. I would 100% love to see these metrics.

As a casual player who generally enjoys to see all the content a game has to offer, I play and enjoy difficult content with other non-elitist, non-hard core players. Hard-core and elitism is an attitude, and does not necessarily have any causal relation to the skill of the player nor the content they enjoy.

MMOs definition of hardcore isnt directly related to skill level, its about time. In other types of games hardcore its the difficulty level you like and at the same time can play, so its related to skill level.

In fact i have friends that play very well, specially considering the time they spend in game, but in this game will be casuals. In MMO standars generally we all will progress to casuals as we get more real life responsabilities, but that doesnt mean that you like or play a litle of dull content, some people prefer the short but intense aproach.

Even if a casual isnt skilled, that doesnt mean he cant be skilled, as long as theres not physical/mental and/or hardware/internet problems, he can basically do all the content internet have.

My friend “Take”, who its relativly casual (no more than 10 hours a week), played Liandri (First Queen Gauntlet) about 300 times until he won, he spent all his time on it and was super happy of winning it.

Edit: If it wasnt solo i would have carried him, his my friend!

No, this is not completely true.. in GW2 you could define hardcore to time, as getting the best rewards mainly required time of grinding, not so much skill as brainless grinding will work.

That is why, in a previous comment I talked about the hardcore casuals, when asking the question how you would define casuals, hardcore and elites.

However, in the end, the question is about hard content. Not content for hardcore people as you would then define what hardcore means.

(edited by Devata.6589)

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

By putting the CDI about it on the forum, they give everybody the possibility to give their opinion about it.. so yes they asked everybody.. Not everybody answered.

Again, because it was mentioned that it was a CDI for the people that do want Raids. There wasn’t any question asked about whether the community want it or not at all.

Nah, everybody could do his say, also if you did not like the idea of raids. Also there is not one answer to if ‘the community’ wants raids, some will some won’t.

They did likely see many people ask for raids and so put up the CDI.

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

What did you expect them to ask in that popup? “Do you want more challenging content? YES/NO”?

….

That or pointing the players to where the survey is happening, where the feedback can be given. It’s not enough to have the launcher have a tiny little banner about it because thanks to “Autoplay” this banner might not be seen by lots of players.

….

By putting the CDI about it on the forum, they give everybody the possibility to give their opinion about it.. so yes they asked everybody.. Not everybody answered.

….

They asked a reasonable sampling of active players (all of whom span the spectrum from low playtime or low skill to high play time or high skill players). It allowed for better and more detailed feedback on the issue rather than just a yes/no poll of the entire playerbase.

It’s very well known that most players do NOT visit the forums of the games they play. And the ones who do visit are more likely to NOT be casual players. So from the start the feedback was suffering from a massive selection bias. So no they did not ask a “reasonable sampling”.

That is why they should have made an ingame popup to actually give every player a chance to give feedback.

If there are no or only a few ‘casuals’ on the forums.. Then why is this discussion here going on? Looks like there are enough people of all sorts to have these discussions.. this topic proofs that.

Not saying that there could not be better ways of communicating with the community as indeed not everybody will be on the forums. But I do think nearly everybody (the group you could put them in) is represented on the forum.

Another thing you forget is that it might not be most important what the biggest number of current players say. Because many old players have left for some reasons and might come back with HoT. To know what Anet should do, to this time keep those players, it’s not interesting to see what most current people want form the game, as that are not the type of players that left.

Good example would be people who dislike grinding (but are also not into PvP or WvW). Because the game is so grindy most of them have left, so the game worked as a filter to filter out the grinders. Asking them how to improve the games will not help in holding the people that dislike grinding when they come back for HoT.

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Posted by: Lucius.2140

Lucius.2140

There is this pervasive belief that 99% of the player base is 100% casual and that all of these players enjoy 100% the same type of content. I would 100% love to see these metrics.

As a casual player who generally enjoys to see all the content a game has to offer, I play and enjoy difficult content with other non-elitist, non-hard core players. Hard-core and elitism is an attitude, and does not necessarily have any causal relation to the skill of the player nor the content they enjoy.

MMOs definition of hardcore isnt directly related to skill level, its about time. In other types of games hardcore its the difficulty level you like and at the same time can play, so its related to skill level.

In fact i have friends that play very well, specially considering the time they spend in game, but in this game will be casuals. In MMO standars generally we all will progress to casuals as we get more real life responsabilities, but that doesnt mean that you like or play a litle of dull content, some people prefer the short but intense aproach.

Even if a casual isnt skilled, that doesnt mean he cant be skilled, as long as theres not physical/mental and/or hardware/internet problems, he can basically do all the content internet have.

My friend “Take”, who its relativly casual (no more than 10 hours a week), played Liandri (First Queen Gauntlet) about 300 times until he won, he spent all his time on it and was super happy of winning it.

Edit: If it wasnt solo i would have carried him, his my friend!

No, this is not completely true.. in GW2 you could define hardcore to time, as getting the best rewards mainly required time of grinding, not so much skill as brainless grinding will work.

Except if my english its betraying me (none main language) i put exactly the same thing you put in the first sentence of my post lol.

MMOs definition of hardcore isnt directly related to skill level, its about time.
GW2->>> MMO-> time defines hardcore and casual -.-

Edit: Checked your “previus” post, your “could” have more impact now. -.-

(edited by Lucius.2140)

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Posted by: MCHarris.5648

MCHarris.5648

The way I see it if someone works kitten at something that is difficult then they deserve a exclusive item for it.

(edited by MCHarris.5648)

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Posted by: Chameleon Dude.1564

Chameleon Dude.1564

Seeing as people cheese, glitch and get carried through difficult content on any game anyway; I agree about rewards. A title, maybe a bit more general item loot – sure. But locking new types of items and skins behind hardcore content? I’m really not a fan. Use a skin because it looks cool, not because it’s hard to get.

Personally, I love challenging content and want to play it for fun, not to exclude people from stuff. It’s like like solo/small group players being kittened over when a game adds a raid that needs so many players – large groups hold a monopoly over whatever rewards are available while others are left to try and herd cats if they even attempt it.

I say bring on the hard mode, but don’t lock anything of practical use behind it. A title and a bit more gold/more materials should be enough to keep those who want the challenge content.

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Posted by: FrizzFreston.5290

FrizzFreston.5290

it’s also this simple… NO ONE is going to bother doing this new content that anet spent valuable time and resources if there are not UNIQUE rewards. They might do it just because its new for the first week or so, and than it will be dead content if there is no unique reward or unique progression towards a reward

Good thing you guys love challenge for challenge’s sake and are not what so ever interested in better and exclusive loot to show off in LA. For a moment there you had me confused :P

Where are all them noble warriors who kept telling me how it’s not about loot at all and I have it all confused in my mind I wonder.

Where are all those people who kept telling everyone how SSC failed cause it was boring and not because the rewards weren’t worth it, cause they just don’t care about the rewards…

You’re right. It seems that not just the people interested in a challenge are only interested in loot but also everyone else. No one is actually interested in playing the game. People are only interested in loot. Loot is what makes or breaks the game apparently.

“It isn’t working!” CL4P-TP
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik

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Posted by: CorrynnStarr.7942

CorrynnStarr.7942

I think the real issue here is class warfare, as I stated many posts ago. You have the crowd that wants the reward all to themselves, simply to make it feel more special for themselves… then you have the crowd that wants it all handed to them on a silver platter, with no effort at all. I kinda fall in between those two categories, I dont want things to be simple to get, I understand it should take effort, my only quibble is in how much effort should it take for a player to recieve a reward. I personally feel that you should make rewards attainable by at least 60-65% of the games population. It doesnt have to be an immediate reward, it should take time and effort, but if at least that much of your base can eventually get to it, i think its a fair case. Locking it down so that people can walk around all shiny, just tends to make the have nots jealous, mad and frustrated at those who have been able to get it. And sure, for those who have attained it, I hope you are not the type that wants to incite this type of behavior in your fellow players… if you are, then you are a troll. This is the biggest reason I say make it more available.

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Posted by: xarallei.4279

xarallei.4279

If there are nice things for the more casual crowd to work toward, what does it matter that you can’t have one skin? I’m pretty sure Anet isn’t going to forget the casual crowd and will probably have a legendary for them to work on.

And then there is the other person who refuses to see beyond black and white. It can’t possibly be that people like challenging content! It’s all about the loot. Hello, it’s probably both. People like the new challenging content and jump to do it for fun. But it’s basic human nature…..people like being rewarded for their effort. If you can get the same thing in some faceroll way, then that’s a slap in the face to people who put in the time and effort. I do wonder, like some others suggested if they made the reward a title and a good amount of gold, whether people would still be stamping their feet about it.

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Posted by: Apolo.5942

Apolo.5942

To those people comparing Hard Content, to WoW raiding.

There is a very big particular difference betwin content here an in WoW.

When you kill a Raid Boss in WoW, it ALWAYS dropps significant loot and gear.

Here you have Teq which gets killed every day and dropps something significant may be what 1 out of 100 times?.

What incentives is there to actually want those fights to be harder?.

The term Exploit means nothing in GW2 –
Vials Maize Balm Exploit(Halloween) 2014
Locked out of JP (Wintersday) 2015

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Posted by: PorceleinEve.2973

PorceleinEve.2973

And then there is the other person who refuses to see beyond black and white. It can’t possibly be that people like challenging content! It’s all about the loot. Hello, it’s probably both. People like the new challenging content and jump to do it for fun. But it’s basic human nature…..people like being rewarded for their effort. If you can get the same thing in some faceroll way, then that’s a slap in the face to people who put in the time and effort. I do wonder, like some others suggested if they made the reward a title and a good amount of gold, whether people would still be stamping their feet about it.

Who? who is this great offender of the gray that only sees things in black and white. She must be a racist. Does she thinks white is better than black?

And what’s this nonsense about loot. Clearly people love the challenge. They long for it like a dried up plant longs for the rain.

I mean we’ve said it so many times already, why doesn’t she just understands it? We don’t care about the loot, we love the challenge, but without the loot we won’t touch it. But the loot is not the important bit. Basic Human nature.

How about challenging content gives out the same rewards with normal content. Would you run it then? Let me guess. NO. Cause it’s not about the loot, or the bragging right at all.

How about challenging content gives out the same rewards with normal content, but in different timeframes? Would you run it then? Probably, but you won’t like it much. You and them plebs having the same loot after a few months. Cause it’s not about the loot, or the bragging at all.

Basic human nature :P Very basic…

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Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

There isn’t anything to see here … we already have many situations in the game where people won’t subject themselves to what’s necessary to achieve an end. Therefore, that shouldn’t stop Anet from putting certain rewards behind specific content.

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Posted by: Nikkinella.8254

Nikkinella.8254

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Posted by: xarallei.4279

xarallei.4279

lol.

I’ve pointed out numerous times how I don’t pvp at all and probably will NEVER get my hands on that legendary and yet that is…FINE There is nothing wrong with rewarding those who do well in pvp for their effort. That’s a good thing. That will hopefully inspire more people to try their hand at pvp. It’s a game mode that needs all the support it can get. You can go without one kitten skin.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure they are going to give these rewards out no matter how these people stamp their feet. They been doing it this entire time, they aren’t changing things now.

And I’m baffled as to why the concept of rewards being proportional to the effort seems beyond some people’s grasp. This is something you find in real life folks.

(edited by xarallei.4279)

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Posted by: Coulter.2315

Coulter.2315

And then there is the other person who refuses to see beyond black and white. It can’t possibly be that people like challenging content! It’s all about the loot. Hello, it’s probably both. People like the new challenging content and jump to do it for fun. But it’s basic human nature…..people like being rewarded for their effort. If you can get the same thing in some faceroll way, then that’s a slap in the face to people who put in the time and effort. I do wonder, like some others suggested if they made the reward a title and a good amount of gold, whether people would still be stamping their feet about it.

Who? who is this great offender of the gray that only sees things in black and white. She must be a racist. Does she thinks white is better than black?

And what’s this nonsense about loot. Clearly people love the challenge. They long for it like a dried up plant longs for the rain.

I mean we’ve said it so many times already, why doesn’t she just understands it? We don’t care about the loot, we love the challenge, but without the loot we won’t touch it. But the loot is not the important bit. Basic Human nature.

How about challenging content gives out the same rewards with normal content. Would you run it then? Let me guess. NO. Cause it’s not about the loot, or the bragging right at all.

How about challenging content gives out the same rewards with normal content, but in different timeframes? Would you run it then? Probably, but you won’t like it much. You and them plebs having the same loot after a few months. Cause it’s not about the loot, or the bragging at all.

Basic human nature :P Very basic…

Yes people want challenging content and tokens for completing it, you’re so wise.

(edited by Coulter.2315)

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Posted by: Apolo.5942

Apolo.5942

And then there is the other person who refuses to see beyond black and white. It can’t possibly be that people like challenging content! It’s all about the loot. Hello, it’s probably both. People like the new challenging content and jump to do it for fun. But it’s basic human nature…..people like being rewarded for their effort. If you can get the same thing in some faceroll way, then that’s a slap in the face to people who put in the time and effort. I do wonder, like some others suggested if they made the reward a title and a good amount of gold, whether people would still be stamping their feet about it.

Who? who is this great offender of the gray that only sees things in black and white. She must be a racist. Does she thinks white is better than black?

And what’s this nonsense about loot. Clearly people love the challenge. They long for it like a dried up plant longs for the rain.

I mean we’ve said it so many times already, why doesn’t she just understands it? We don’t care about the loot, we love the challenge, but without the loot we won’t touch it. But the loot is not the important bit. Basic Human nature.

How about challenging content gives out the same rewards with normal content. Would you run it then? Let me guess. NO. Cause it’s not about the loot, or the bragging right at all.

How about challenging content gives out the same rewards with normal content, but in different timeframes? Would you run it then? Probably, but you won’t like it much. You and them plebs having the same loot after a few months. Cause it’s not about the loot, or the bragging at all.

Basic human nature :P Very basic…

Yes people want challenging content and tokens for completing it, you’re so wise.

Given the current reward structure for content in this game, yeah, i do think it warrants bringing it up.

The term Exploit means nothing in GW2 –
Vials Maize Balm Exploit(Halloween) 2014
Locked out of JP (Wintersday) 2015

Some people don't like hard mode

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Fernling.1729

Fernling.1729

I really hope for unique rewards that are bind on pickup/account. I would greatly prefer that the rewards are only available to those that complete the “challenging content”. If you want the rewards associated with the content, you complete said content.

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: SkiTz.4590

SkiTz.4590

I think we can all agree that as long as they add ACTUAL PROGRESSION, any thing is fine.

I’ve played for over 2 years, 0 precursors to my name, 0 fractal skins or teq hoards, etc etc

I’m not closer to any one of those since the day I started GW2. That’s my biggest issue with this game. Progression has been non existent. All you do is farm scraps and gather enough scraps to purchase what you want from TP (thats why I believe legendaries aren’t even “legendary”…you either get lucky with precursor from toilet/drop or farm scraps till you can just purchase whatever you are missing to assemble it)…

There are some systems in place like dung tokens (which i’ve had my fill of and everyone else), PvP reward tracks, etc. but thats too few for a game thats about to be 3 years old…

Sure anet’s bringing masteries and precursor crafting finally after 3 years but it needs to be involved in all aspects of the game..

We’ll see next saturday if it holds true for the new challenging content…
anet actually used the term “endgame” for once in their blog which gives me hope

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Posted by: Fox.3469

Fox.3469

Good thing you guys love challenge for challenge’s sake and are not what so ever interested in better and exclusive loot to show off in LA. For a moment there you had me confused :P

Where are all them noble warriors who kept telling me how it’s not about loot at all and I have it all confused in my mind I wonder.

Where are all those people who kept telling everyone how SSC failed cause it was boring and not because the rewards weren’t worth it, cause they just don’t care about the rewards…

I’d personally right now sign all my rewards away if that would guarantee a challenging fun end game experience. I honestly don’t care.

The reason i’m making a stand for unique rewards in these instances is because i know the masses in this game aren’t exactly around if you don’t add them. And if people aren’t around, the content becomes frustrating, not because of the difficulty but because noone is doing it. Hence new people wanting to try it have no chance.

I still run Arah path 4 at least 2 times a months, sometimes even with complete randoms. Most people are flipped out with joy when they complete it, because it’s one of the most frustrating things in the game right now, not because of the difficulty, but because noone is doing it.

I honestly don’t care that much about rewards, i’m not farming silverwastes/drytop because i don’t find it fun, but i’m not kittening that the amberite weapons should be available for gold, even tough i like some of those skins. It’s content i have no interest in hence they are skins i can’t get, that’s the nature of the game. Do you think the events in drytop/silverwastes would be this easy and fast if the rewards were bad? Noone would even run that train and you’d have a dead zone.

Same goes for challenging content, if you don’t reward people they won’t play it, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people trully enjoying the challenge, however this content will be group content, meaning you need other people.
One of the most rewarding things in mmo’s to me is teaching people how to do stuff. So if you have trouble with challenging content, you can always add me and if i have it completed i will always try and help others who actually want to do it, no matter their skill level. But keep your kitten hands of the rewards. If you take them, i won’t have a group to help you trough.

If you are looking for a cozy mature Dutch guild (EU) let me know.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

The way I see it if someone works kitten at something that is difficult then they deserve a exclusive item for it.

The way i see it, entertainment should not be about work.

And I’m baffled as to why the concept of rewards being proportional to the effort seems beyond some people’s grasp. This is something you find in real life folks.

It’s not about proportional rewards (which are generally fine), but about exclusive ones.

This is something you find in real life folks.

Perhaps some of us playing virtual worlds do not want them to mirror real life?

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

Some people don't like hard mode

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

for christs sake… its this simple… HAVE YOUR HARD CONTENT no one is saying you shouldnt have challenging content, hell we enjoy hard content too, just dont lock the rewards so far out of reach that it becomes impossible for more then a handful of players to obtain it!

For christ sake.. 90% of the rewards is only in reach for the hardcore casuals who can / do / like to (brainlessly) grind, grind, grind all the time. Being out reach for all those other players who don’t like or don’t have the time for all that grind.

Is that really too much to ask from a game that was put on the marked with a ‘no grind philosophy’? Sure 2,5 years after release Colin clarified that with the ‘no grind philosophy’ they did try to have no tier grind and where not so much looking at the other types of grind, but still, that no grind philosophy is what many people were looking for when going to GW2, also those other types of grind.

But no, now some of the hardcore casuals get upset because some people ask for rewards to be locked behind a challenge or simply specific content instead of behind a generic grind.

If you want to this time hold people who left GW2 and will come back with HoT, Giving an direct / alternative way to earn rewards instead for all the grind is a must, as many likely will have left because they got bored by the grind.

It also adds to the value of the content itself. See for example the Molten Core dungeon. Everybody asked for it to be put back into the game, and after they did nobody seem to care about it anymore.. It’s not one of the favorite fractals or something like that.. Why? Well partly because it was put in as a fractal and not as a dungeon, but another major reason is imho the fact that the unique rewards (backpack and mini) where taken out. Much of the fun of the dungeon went with it. Many people did the dungeon for those rewards and every run there was the rush if it would drop.

So there are many good reasons to have rewards, in fact most rewards, put in the game behind specific content instead of behind a currency (whatever that currency is).

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

It also adds to the value of the content itself. See for example the Molten Core dungeon. Everybody asked for it to be put back into the game, and after they did nobody seem to care about it anymore.. It’s not one of the favorite fractals or something like that.. Why? Well partly because it was put in as a fractal and not as a dungeon, but another major reason is imho the fact that the unique rewards (backpack and mini) where taken out. Much of the fun of the dungeon went with it. Many people did the dungeon for those rewards and every run there was the rush if it would drop.

I can only speak for myself and my groups of Fractal runners of course, but from what I know, most people prefer the Molten Core fractal over Maw or Mai Trin. Why? For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it. Sadly for the real hardcore guys, you have to watch the entrance of the two bozzos all the time.^^

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

for christs sake… its this simple… HAVE YOUR HARD CONTENT no one is saying you shouldnt have challenging content, hell we enjoy hard content too, just dont lock the rewards so far out of reach that it becomes impossible for more then a handful of players to obtain it!

it’s also this simple… NO ONE is going to bother doing this new content that anet spent valuable time and resources if there are not UNIQUE rewards. They might do it just because its new for the first week or so, and than it will be dead content if there is no unique reward or unique progression towards a reward.

I think this is the main issue with all this conversation. I tried earlier to provide some options.

Putting them on the TP is a no no for reason I’ve already explained in other posts (mostly due to the heavy RNG/Grind required to keep them expensive) but making it so everyone can “farm” specific parts of the new challenging zone for tokens, while finishing the entire content gives a load more is one valid way to do this.

First boss (easier) might give 1 token, second boss 2 tokens, third boss 3 tokens, or 1/4/10 or whatever, so players of all skill levels can get the rewards while spending time in this content, not by farming SW or DT or whatever other farm exist.

In a similar way players that can’t finish the whole content because of time constraints could do a few bosses/sectors each time much how DoA worked in GW1. The greatest groups could do all 4 sectors in one run, getting 1/2/3/4 = 10 tokens. Players that wanted to farm one specific sector because it was easier for them, or they didn’t have enough time to do the whole thing, were getting 1 token. And anyone else, anywhere in between.

This of course requires the zones to be open enough and not be a straight line like current dungeons.

As I did show before, putting them on the TP does not have to be a problem. We can see this (as I did show in that post) in other games where some items can be but on the trading post, have been for the last 10 years but still are rare items.. however in reach if you do the content that goes with it.

The token structure is no solution.. it’s just yet another grind. People will start grinding boss 1 because it’s easy, slowly seeing the tokens increase and eventually buy the items (likely there are multiple) they want. But then also get bored because of killing the same boss over and over just seeing this small number increase is not really interesting.. at last not for the people that are not the grinding types.

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: FrizzFreston.5290

FrizzFreston.5290

The way I see it if someone works kitten at something that is difficult then they deserve a exclusive item for it.

The way i see it, entertainment should not be about work.

And I’m baffled as to why the concept of rewards being proportional to the effort seems beyond some people’s grasp. This is something you find in real life folks.

It’s not about proportional rewards (which are generally fine), but about exclusive ones.

This is something you find in real life folks.

Perhaps some of us playing virtual worlds do not want them to mirror real life?

Entertainment (a game in this case) shouldn’t be about work how? Any game is work as in effort done and challenges overcome. I don’t know any RPGs that aren’t about playing the game to work on your skills. In any game you put in work to get to the next bit.

Harder content rewards are as exclusive as the content is itself. Sure the amount of effort might be too much for some people. Does this mean there should not be any exclusive rewards? What about those minis given out at conventions? Or for PvP tournaments. Or those finishers and emotes in PvP. There’s lots of exclusive rewards in the game for specific players to play for. Do those rewards diminish the value of the game because one decides not to persue those and brand them impossible? That’s the question.

If GW2 didn’t mirror some basic real life then the game would become unrecognizable and likely unplayable. The whole virtual world concept is only a virtual world because it mirrors parts of real life, just in a different way. But let’s assume it’s about the reward structure. IfA reward structure would not mirror real life then you wouldn’t have a reward structure at all. It’s a basic thing to be rewarded for effort. If anything you want the rewards be more like real life and be able to buy the rewards off the TP. But then you would still need to work for it. And you just said entertainment isn’t about work. …. ehm….yeah.

“It isn’t working!” CL4P-TP
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

It also adds to the value of the content itself. See for example the Molten Core dungeon. Everybody asked for it to be put back into the game, and after they did nobody seem to care about it anymore.. It’s not one of the favorite fractals or something like that.. Why? Well partly because it was put in as a fractal and not as a dungeon, but another major reason is imho the fact that the unique rewards (backpack and mini) where taken out. Much of the fun of the dungeon went with it. Many people did the dungeon for those rewards and every run there was the rush if it would drop.

I can only speak for myself and my groups of Fractal runners of course, but from what I know, most people prefer the Molten Core fractal over Maw or Mai Trin. Why? For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it. Sadly for the real hardcore guys, you have to watch the entrance of the two bozzos all the time.^^

For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it." So not because it’s fun, but because it’s easy to farm when grinding away in fractals.

People ask for it to come back because it was supposed to be fun, and indeed I myself had a lot of fun with it back when it was in the LS, but after the first 2 / 3 runs all other runs where completely reward driven.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Wow, nobody replied to this at all for a few days so I gave up hope and moved on to other things, I’m glad to see there was some discussion of it. I addressed a few of the common points:

I don’t think I agree with this. There is nothing wrong with rewarding unique skin or titles to different types of content (including hard content). As long as they aren’t gaining better stats then it is fine.

I can respect that some people don’t care, but I really do think it creates more negatives than positives when you lock desirable skins behind excessively difficult content gates. Some people insist that nothing cosmetic can be a problem, that people do not have the right to be upset when a cosmic reward is denied them as they would a “stat reward,” but remember that this is all subjective, and while you might value having the best stats in the game the most, others might value having the coolest look in the game more than that. If you don’t think it’s fair that they would lock a “5% better Power stat than anything else” armor behind a given content wall, then just understand that there are other people who would feel the same away about a “5% flamier armor skin.”

Effort should be properly rewarded and I don’t think throwing garbage loot at people is sufficient.

I don’t have a problem with effort being rewarded, but I think that ideally the TYPE of effort should be highly varied. I mean if you want to own a fancy car, you don’t have to become a doctor and work several years as a doctor, there are plenty of other jobs that pay a comparable amount, and if you aren’t skilled enough for any of those, there are lesser paying jobs that still bring in money. It might take you a lot longer to earn that car as a janitor than as a doctor, but you would eventually get there if you saved wisely.

So I’m not saying that everything should just be handed to everyone, I’m all for requiring players to expend effort, I’d just like a variety of content options, so that players can expend that effort in a way that they enjoy, which is not always the way that a developer would pick out of a hat.

Why do you even care what kind of rewards are given out in content you’re not interested in?

Why do you even care about me getting rewards for doing different content than you? Whatever your reasons, flip it and reverse it. I want the rewards for their intrinsic value. I want a fancy mini-llama because I think it looks cute, I do not care that it also shows PvP participation. I want the rewards I want, regardless of how difficult or easy they are to achieve. I have some characters in Luminescent and Glorious armor pieces, I have others that still have bits of starter gear on. If there is an armor piece or weapon skin that I think looks cool, then I want that. If it involves doing content that I have no interest in, then I see that as a negative. You don’t have to care yourself, just understand that I do, and don’t try to get in the way of them opening up alternate avenues for earning these things.

Our gear is basically little trophies of our in game accomplishments, and everyone has the same opportunity to achieve those in game trophies, but only if they decide it’s worth their time and effort

I do not accept the “skins as trophies” premise. Skins are not trophies. Trophies are trophies, little hunks of metal that do nothing other than proclaim achievement. I do not care if they give out trophies that only great achievers can get. But skins are not trophies, they are skins. They have inherant worth beyond a mark of achievement. They have a physical appearance that makes them desirable, even if you have no idea what they take to earn. That means they cannot be considered merely as tokens of achievement.

Inherently anything anyone wants is for their own selfish desires. Something to show off, whether that is a title or a skin, that comes after a piece of hard content is more or less a prestigious item. Denying people to have a cool looking prestigious item after hard challenging content is equally being a selfish jerk.

I’m not denying them that item. They can get the item, I have no problem with that. I’m just saying that other people should be able to earn that item too, without doing that difficult thing. I’m saying MORE people should have it, that is benevolent, not selfish.

Make the items attainable only through hard content but allow sale of them. Problem solved.

People who enjoy hard content can do the hard content and gain exclusives that they can keep or sell.

But then you make gold massively easier to get for players who like hardcore content. That isn’t fair either.

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

Players that ask that question are never satisfied anyways, you cannot design anything around them. In any case, things like time trials and leaderboards, signs of achievement they can brag about, are more useful than skins.

“Fun” is subjective, reward is objective. You cannot quantify “fun” but you can reward. Although the first question should always be “is it fun?”, the “does it have appropriate rewards for the effort” is a very very close second.

“Reward” is no more or less subjective than “fun.” All Legendaries are roughly equal in difficulty to acquire (give or take), and yet most people much more prize some over others. Whether a reward is worth five hours of work can vary greatly from person to person, just as whether a given scenario is difficult or easy, fun or boring can vary wildly. It’s all subjective, but Palador is right that the most important question is whether something is fun (although getting the reward you want can also be fun).

I am all for equality in performance. There should be as little difference in stats between two equally-leveled players of the same profession as possible.

How about this then. You’re willing to grant “equality in performance,” because you apparently value performance more than cosmetics. As a counter-proposal, how about I allow you inequality in performance, in exchange for equality in appearance? This should work out doubly good for you, since you would lose nothing that you appear to care about, while gaining an advantage in the field you do seem to care about. What do you say, deal?

Either the “more challenging content” crowd actually mean that they want more/better loot; or they find challenging game play a reward in itself. It’d be nice if people were a bit more honest about which of those options is true.

Too true.

They don’t need to do it challenging group content is for the hardcore players people who want it.

Also agreed, which I’m totally fine with, so long as they don’t lock cool rewards behind that content.

When I talk about content that challenges you, I mean content that requires you to pay attention to what you are doing, content that has depth of play, content that makes good use of GW2’s gameplay mechanics, content that engages the player, content that strongly encourages you to do more then just spam 1.

I can support you in that. I would never argue for content that you can just sleepwalk through, so long as the skills it requires are not out of anyone’s range.

Now that doesn’t mean ALL cool stuff should come from hard content. Most should be readily available elsewhere. But hard content should definitely have it’s own unique rewards.

So say that some, but not all cool stuff should come from hard content is meaningless to anyone for whom the stuff they want is inside that “some.”

1) if you get everything you want, you have less motivating you to play

You say that, but then you want to lock it behind content you intend to do anyways, so presumably you’ll eventually hit that point where you have everything you want, and have less motivation to play. Why is that ok for you, but not for players who have no interest in that sort of content?

Please don’t talk like those who like challenging/hard content are bad people. They aren’t and in fact they are the ones in all game modes that promote the community.

They are not bad people for wanting hard content, but they are bad people if they want better rewards than other players, and want to show off their better gear to others. That is bad behavior, and should not be encouraged. People are not bad for wanting a thing. People are bad for wanting others to not have it.

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.

The 1st man is rewarded with the joy of sport, and of knowing that he did his best and came in first. The second man got his participation prize. They both enjoyed themselves and got what they came for, and went home happy, then end.

I’d be okay with a system that provides the same rewards, but more to hard mode players. In example, a new dungeon path rewards easy mode players with 1 charged core on completion, but the hard mode players are rewarded 3 charged cores. Players still get the same rewards, but the ones who put in the extra work get the better reward.

I agree with rewards being varied based on time, but not difficulty. That is to say, if hard mode definitely takes longer to complete, even when you have it on farm, then it can offer comparably higher rewards, but if it reaches the point where players who have the content on farm can complete it in the same time (or less) than a pug would take to complete it on easy, then they would not deserve additional reward for playing the version that they prefer.

Historically, those who put in the most work net the bigger and better rewards. What would be the incentive to play hard mode content if easy mode provided the same rewards and took much less time to accomplish with relative ease? It simply makes no sense.

Some people claim to enjoy difficult content. For such people, that would be the reward, enjoying the harder content. For people that don’t actually enjoy harder content, they probably shouldn’t do it.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

(edited by Ohoni.6057)

Some people don't like hard mode

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

It also adds to the value of the content itself. See for example the Molten Core dungeon. Everybody asked for it to be put back into the game, and after they did nobody seem to care about it anymore.. It’s not one of the favorite fractals or something like that.. Why? Well partly because it was put in as a fractal and not as a dungeon, but another major reason is imho the fact that the unique rewards (backpack and mini) where taken out. Much of the fun of the dungeon went with it. Many people did the dungeon for those rewards and every run there was the rush if it would drop.

I can only speak for myself and my groups of Fractal runners of course, but from what I know, most people prefer the Molten Core fractal over Maw or Mai Trin. Why? For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it. Sadly for the real hardcore guys, you have to watch the entrance of the two bozzos all the time.^^

For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it." So not because it’s fun, but because it’s easy to farm when grinding away in fractals.

People ask for it to come back because it was supposed to be fun, and indeed I myself had a lot of fun with it back when it was in the LS, but after the first 2 / 3 runs all other runs where completely reward driven.

Basically, yes. People don´t particulary enjoy it because there is not much to enjoy. It´s exactly the same with Mai Trin. It´s funny and exciting for the first, second or even a fifth time, but once you know how it is done, the fun stops and work begins. Most people probably did fractals because they wanted the skins, or just to see them for a few times, not for the relatively meager gold reward you get at the end.

That is also the reason many people did Dungeons. Once you know how it is done, you will want to skip this and that. I don´t see how this would be different in a hardcore dungeon, it would just take longer for it to happen. The only way to avoid that would be randomly created dungeons with random goals and random types of opponents I suppose.

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

Some people insist that nothing cosmetic can be a problem, that people do not have the right to be upset when a cosmic reward is denied them as they would a “stat reward,” but remember that this is all subjective, and while you might value having the best stats in the game the most, others might value having the coolest look in the game more than that. If you don’t think it’s fair that they would lock a “5% better Power stat than anything else” armor behind a given content wall, then just understand that there are other people who would feel the same away about a “5% flamier armor skin.”

I would love to see people also looking at cosmetics this way when the discussion is about putting it behind an endless grind (because according to some, grinding for cosmetics is fine because it are just cosmetics) or putting it in the cash-shop (because according to some only putting stats in a cash-shop counts as P2W or is bad).

Anyway, the problem is that many items are already behind a wall that makes it unreachable for many people. You see, most items are behind an endless grind of some currency (mostly gold).

So they are out of reach for people who can’t stand the never ending brainless grind.

What some people now ask is to simply have rewards that not behind an endless grind, or where the endless grind is the most optimal way of getting them, but items that are locked behind a challenge, or in my case I would be happy having rewards simply behind specific content.

Like I gave as example before, give JP’s all their own reward (that you can’t get when using a portal, or logging in at the chest).. You can even put a timer on it (adding the challenge) and link 3 rewards to a JP where the first you get for completing the JP and other 2 only if you complete it within x time.

Some of those items could be tradable, other not. At least then everybody has his little reward for his preferred content, instead of the grinders being able to get everything while there is not much (or it’s way harder) for those that dislike the grind.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

What some people now ask is to simply have rewards that not behind an endless grind, or where the endless grind is the most optimal way of getting them, but items that are locked behind a challenge, or in my case I would be happy having rewards simply behind specific content.

I’m fine with a balance of activities, so long as it’s a balance for ALL rewards, and not the “You can get version B doing it your way, but you can only get the cooler version A for doing it the way I like to do.” There also needs to be a balance between the “long and grindy” path and the “short but difficult” path, so that there aren’t ways to just coast through the difficult path, and so that the long and grindy path is not TOO long and grindy. The time difference between people who take the grindy path and the fastest people who blitz through the hard path should not be all that vast.

Like I gave as example before, give JP’s all their own reward (that you can’t get when using a portal, or logging in at the chest).. You can even put a timer on it (adding the challenge) and link 3 rewards to a JP where the first you get for completing the JP and other 2 only if you complete it within x time.

Not a fan of that, and that’s even though I’ve reasonably good at JPs and have completed most of them (a few I never got around to, and I’ve not yet cleared the Mad King one). But still, plenty of people don’t like them, so what if they really want that reward? I think the rewards for things like JPs should be more in the vein of pure achievement rewards, have multiple achievements for them, like ones you can only get if you never use a portal/cheat, ones you can get for clearing it in certain time thresholds, have a dedicated leaderboard that tracks all the best times, etc. That should be the award for the achievement, not a fancy skin that someone might want without caring about the difficult in earning it.

I wouldn’t mind if they did attach themed skins to JPs, so long as you could “cheat” your way to them if that’s your thing, OR there were other ways of earning it, such as reward tracks or some events in the area that might drop it or something. The idea of an item themed to a memorable jumping puzzle is fun, the idea that it might be forever denied to people who aren’t good at JPs, even if it works soooo well with their outfit, is just mean.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Some people don't like hard mode

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

It also adds to the value of the content itself. See for example the Molten Core dungeon. Everybody asked for it to be put back into the game, and after they did nobody seem to care about it anymore.. It’s not one of the favorite fractals or something like that.. Why? Well partly because it was put in as a fractal and not as a dungeon, but another major reason is imho the fact that the unique rewards (backpack and mini) where taken out. Much of the fun of the dungeon went with it. Many people did the dungeon for those rewards and every run there was the rush if it would drop.

I can only speak for myself and my groups of Fractal runners of course, but from what I know, most people prefer the Molten Core fractal over Maw or Mai Trin. Why? For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it. Sadly for the real hardcore guys, you have to watch the entrance of the two bozzos all the time.^^

For hardcore reasons. It is short and comparatively quick if you know how to do it." So not because it’s fun, but because it’s easy to farm when grinding away in fractals.

People ask for it to come back because it was supposed to be fun, and indeed I myself had a lot of fun with it back when it was in the LS, but after the first 2 / 3 runs all other runs where completely reward driven.

Basically, yes. People don´t particulary enjoy it because there is not much to enjoy. It´s exactly the same with Mai Trin. It´s funny and exciting for the first, second or even a fifth time, but once you know how it is done, the fun stops and work begins. Most people probably did fractals because they wanted the skins, or just to see them for a few times, not for the relatively meager gold reward you get at the end.

That is also the reason many people did Dungeons. Once you know how it is done, you will want to skip this and that. I don´t see how this would be different in a hardcore dungeon, it would just take longer for it to happen. The only way to avoid that would be randomly created dungeons with random goals and random types of opponents I suppose.

Yeah, but when the reward you are interested in is in the dungeon, there is always the drive to get the item and the rush of ‘will it drop’ making it an overall more fun experience. When done right the reward is also linked to the content, again something MC got completely right, dropping the backpack and the mini form the boss.

When a currency becomes the means of getting something, people will do whatever gets them the currency the fastest (and then for all the rewards they want). So it becomes a completely different experience. But indeed, after a few runs it will almost always be reward driven.

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

I’m fine with a balance of activities, so long as it’s a balance for ALL rewards, and not the “You can get version B doing it your way, but you can only get the cooler version A for doing it the way I like to do.” There also needs to be a balance between the “long and grindy” path and the “short but difficult” path, so that there aren’t ways to just coast through the difficult path, and so that the long and grindy path is not TOO long and grindy. The time difference between people who take the grindy path and the fastest people who blitz through the hard path should not be all that vast.

And this is why having rewards available through multiple types of content is very tricky to pull off correctly.

Those who take the grindy path should take way way more time to get the item than those who take the challenging path. Provided going for the challenging path means trying it multiple times until you finally get, and even then the chances of failure are high. If it’s CoF P1 farm status but called “challenging” then there is no point in having that encounter in the first place.

The time difference between people who take the grindy path and the fastest people who blitz through the hard path should be vast enough to make up for the difference in challenge. How much time will a low skilled player take to finish that content? 10 tries til they do it first time? 20? That (and more) is the time needed for the grindy part, not the time needed for the “pros” to do it.

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

Yeah, but when the reward you are interested in is in the dungeon, there is always the drive to get the item and the rush of ‘will it drop’ making it an overall more fun experience. When done right the reward is also linked to the content, again something MC got completely right, dropping the backpack and the mini form the boss.

When a currency becomes the means of getting something, people will do whatever gets them the currency the fastest (and then for all the rewards they want). So it becomes a completely different experience. But indeed, after a few runs it will almost always be reward driven.

That is true. But what if it does not drop and you do not get anything halfway good?
I am usually not a Nr.1 is best and 2nd place is the first looser type of person.
But even I am angry when the first price is a trip to lets say Barbados all inclusive(Dungeon only exclusive item), the second place is a cyrstal penguin I can sell to a collector(random collectors item) for a good sum of money, and the third place and down gets the looser stuff like a set of spoons(Spoons, really Anet? How is Tequatl going to eat his soup now?).

Something that particularly agitated me, although it was a long time ago, was when I took part in raids in DAOC, Realm Dragon or whatever and got absolutely nothing for your effort. If I remember well, the game had a kind of feature that collected items with the raidleader or something like that, and I found myself playing in the player driven lottery more than once to distribute loot. If your number did not win, you had wasted hours of game time for the same kind of loot you would have got by slaying random monsters.

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Posted by: Conski Deshan.2057

Conski Deshan.2057

The way i see it, entertainment should not be about work.

Don’t even start with this argument, you put work into anything you’re involved with, you’re just associating work with not being fun. You work to improve your skills, you work to develop new strategies, you work to build up your guild and allies, you work towards your goals.

Since gaming is interactive skill based entertainment you do have to put work in, effort, just like any other hobby.

Perhaps some of us playing virtual worlds do not want them to mirror real life?

They have to mirror aspects of them , otherwise they don’t play to peoples tastes or are seen as aberrant as they don’t follow real world structures.
The real world functions on a hierarchy of skill, money and luck. As such so do virtual worlds, what op suggests is completely removing the skill aspect, which would obviously sit wrong with people familiar with that hierarchy, “Wait a minute I played better than that player I get more and better things”.

I wouldn’t mind if they did attach themed skins to JPs, so long as you could “cheat” your way to them if that’s your thing, OR there were other ways of earning it, such as reward tracks or some events in the area that might drop it or something. The idea of an item themed to a memorable jumping puzzle is fun, the idea that it might be forever denied to people who aren’t good at JPs, even if it works soooo well with their outfit, is just mean.

So thats how far MMO’s have fallen eh….. It’s only ok for player A to have something if player B is allowed cheat to get it.

It’s funny you’d claim that people who what exclusive/unique rewards to exist are selfish, while your whole argument is “All the rewards must be for me , I have to be able to get everything or it’s unfair”.
While our argument is “Everyone’s individual abilities should be uniquely reward proportional to the skill displayed and type of content played.”

[RoF] and [BL] guild leader
11x level 80’s 80+ Titles 2600+ skins , still a long way to go.

(edited by Conski Deshan.2057)

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Yeah, but when the reward you are interested in is in the dungeon, there is always the drive to get the item and the rush of ‘will it drop’ making it an overall more fun experience.

If it is in the dungeon, and you enjoy that dungeon, then yeah, that works out. It should be in that dungeon. But if you really hate that dungeon, then it’s just a frustrating grind, you may get the rush of getting it, but each time you don’t it’s “I hate this game a little more today.” That’s why variety is good, if you like that dungeon, you run that dungeon, you’ll get the item and be happy. If you don’t like the dungeon, you can do something else you enjoy more, and earn it that way instead.

The time difference between people who take the grindy path and the fastest people who blitz through the hard path should be vast enough to make up for the difference in challenge.

But “challenge” is very subjective. What takes one player thousands of tries and they get nowhere could be zipped right through by another. if a content is “challenging” and yet a skilled player barely needs to pay attention to get through it, then how much reward does he deserve, for accomplishing a task that was no harder for him than a much simpler challenge would be to a less skilled player?

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

So thats how far MMO’s have fallen eh….. It’s only ok for player A to have something if player B is allowed cheat to get it.

I’m not promoting the “cheat” as the ideal solution, but people cheat JPs constantly and it seems to be an accepted form of play. My point was just that players who want the skin should not be forced to complete the jump puzzle if they aren’t good at jump puzzles and have no interest in actually completing them.

It’s funny you’d claim that people what exclusive/unique rewards to exist are selfish, while your whole argument is “All the rewards must be for me , I have to be able to get everything or it’s unfair”.

Selfishness isn’t about wanting things for yourself, it’s about keeping them from others. I don’t want to keep anything from anyone.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Klocknov.8219

Klocknov.8219

So you want the game to be about completing content once and never looking back since even joe shmoe sitting afk in LA gets the same reward as you just for “participation” good to know. Do you not understand how quickly that would kill the game? Oh wait no you don’t since you think having rewards handed to you on a silver platter is all that matters and not the actual effort to get them.

What is going to drive players to stay once they complete all the new content? REWARDS! Now if everything only requires you to grind to get it and is easy as kitten to get how long is it going to be till the game starts to die down again? Well I can say 90% of my friends list does not actively log on right now as there has been no new content and what is there is just not that rewarding. When all you have to do is grind for a legendary and hope for a pre-cursor drop the game dies out pretty quickly for a lot of people, thus the challenging content does indeed need to be rewarding to keep those players around long enough for the next batch of content be it through Living Story or not.

So while you want this to be the special olympics where all you have to do is be online to get your reward, some of us would rather feel like we earned something rather then to just complete content once through a few times depending on the amount of times it takes to get the achievements and move on. I am sorry that you are such a care bare and believe that the world revolves around you and that you shouldn’t have to put effort in to getting anything, but part of a game being fun is it having something that challenges you and distracts you for a lot of people and this is why GW1 was successful and if GW2 follows your idea it will fail.

Hell WoW had challenging content locking people away from rewards that didn’t take the time or effort to get it but did that cause players to quit in droves? NO! It added diversity to the game and a way for the players that wanted to get better to do so with people with experience and skill to do the content in the first place. Every MMO and most games have challenging content with rewards to suit the challenge that you have to go out of your way to get generally and get better at the game or spend time to better your character depending on the system, so your saying that skins that do nothing to stats should not be special rewards becuase you want your vanity closet complete full without doing anything? Well I will point you to the Barbie games I believe that they do that for you!

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Yeah, but when the reward you are interested in is in the dungeon, there is always the drive to get the item and the rush of ‘will it drop’ making it an overall more fun experience.

If it is in the dungeon, and you enjoy that dungeon, then yeah, that works out. It should be in that dungeon. But if you really hate that dungeon, then it’s just a frustrating grind, you may get the rush of getting it, but each time you don’t it’s “I hate this game a little more today.” That’s why variety is good, if you like that dungeon, you run that dungeon, you’ll get the item and be happy. If you don’t like the dungeon, you can do something else you enjoy more, and earn it that way instead.

The time difference between people who take the grindy path and the fastest people who blitz through the hard path should be vast enough to make up for the difference in challenge.

But “challenge” is very subjective. What takes one player thousands of tries and they get nowhere could be zipped right through by another. if a content is “challenging” and yet a skilled player barely needs to pay attention to get through it, then how much reward does he deserve, for accomplishing a task that was no harder for him than a much simpler challenge would be to a less skilled player?

Challenge is subjective but the reward isn’t. You don’t set the time limit by how fast the best/fastest player can finish challenging content. You take an average (or below average) person to do the comparisson.

Imagine this, if the content is at the first few weeks/months doable (until guides start poping and players get really good at this) by only a 2% of the population, if they set the time for the “grindy” part to how long that 2% took to get the reward, then it means the other 98% will take far less time to get it “the grindy” way than the “challenge” way, so they simply will never even TRY the challenging part.

That’s why I’d imagine no matter how many posts appear and how many complains on the forums, when Challenging Group Content is released it will have purely exclusive rewards available only from it and nowhere else. Then after some time they will put more ways to earn those rewards, with token systems, other reward tracks (like PVP) or anything else. But when it’s released it will have purely exclusive rewards and it’s unreasonable to think otherwise.

Why? Simple, Anet devs are terrible at predicting how hard their content will be. They thought getting exotics will take months, they thought legendary weapons won’t be common in the game, they thought defeating the updated Tequatl would take months etc. They failed to predict the actual difficulty of their content at every single content release. So until we all (devs included) have a good understanding of how hard the content is for their playerbase, it will be impossible to decide “the grindy way”.

Once the first players start beating it they will have more data to work on and add more ways of earning those rewards. But until then they will be exclusive. If they aren’t the entire system will simply fail, as the vast majority of players will see it much faster to earn the rewards through grind than gameplay if as you say the grind needed is equal to the time needed by the pros to finish it.

I doubt they want it to fail, so there WILL be exclusive rewards. Now, after it’s released and we see how it actually works (tokens, RNG, whatever), we can all discuss ways of making the rewards better available to everyone.

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Posted by: Gaaroth.2567

Gaaroth.2567

I understand the easy/hard mode and i agree with it but in no way i agree with having same reward/reward progression. Reward might be the same but i work hard doing difficult things i AT LEAST expext of advancing to my rewards faster. It’s common sense, otherwise what’s the point? The fun of difficult content is only half of the cake!

Tempest & Druid
Wat r u, casul?

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Posted by: Fay.2735

Fay.2735

Didn’t read the 9 pages of replies but, 99% of the PvE mode IS easy mode, let some of the people who like challenging content have some as well. You already have the vast majority of the game to enjoy why do you think that it’s fair that people who like challenging content should have NO content? It’s an MMO… not a ‘Shape this game to fit JUST ME and no-one else!’.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the easy stuff, I like the map completion, the dungeons, the living story but… come on… aside from SAB, Liadri… and the Triple Wurm first world kill. There’s been nothing challenging beyond that.

•— Fay Everdunes | Fay Erduna | Lilyfay (Fay.2735) — Mesmer/Revenant — [NA]FA — 8k±Hrs Played —•
Have you heard of the city? The ancient uru? Where there was power to write worlds

(edited by Fay.2735)

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Some people seem to be laboring under the assumption that people want rewards “handed to them”, which isn’t want anyone said. What I want is content that’s not so hard that my connection from Australia makes it impossible for me to do, and if it is that hard, as some people want, I want another way to get that reward.

There’s a big range of things between handed on a platter and killing yourself to get something. I consider the rewards from the Aetherblade dungeon relatively hard to get, but I got them all. I consider the Liviing Story fights, some of them, difficult, but I got them too.

But if you start making stuff MORE difficult, so difficult that people, most people can’t do them… you’re going to lose most people…unless the rewards are something they can attain.

Let me ask all you hard core types this? What is the good of having hard content, if Anet has to stop making content because too many people aren’t playing. You think this can’t happen, but I think it can.

There’s a delicate balance that has to be achieved. I’m not saying hand me something on a silver platter. I’m not saying make something so hard that only the top of the top can do it after hours of practice.

Because I’m pretty sure most players don’t have the dedication to do it, even if they do have the time. And if you think that’s what this game is about for most people, I’m guessing you’d be surprised.

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Posted by: Silicato.4603

Silicato.4603

I know. I count the difficulty of challenging conten by how fast I can finish it. And you should do it that way too.
From that point when I have succedded, the content and its dicciultywill be DONE, unless it has good rewards that make me repeat it, even when it is not longer a challenge.

And yeah, that time is going to be days in many cases and weeks for the mayotity of us.

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Some people seem to be laboring under the assumption that people want rewards “handed to them”, which isn’t want anyone said. What I want is content that’s not so hard that my connection from Australia makes it impossible for me to do, and if it is that hard, as some people want, I want another way to get that reward.

Let me quote another poster:

The time difference between people who take the grindy path and the fastest people who blitz through the hard path should not be all that vast.

If that’s not “handed to them” then I don’t know what it is. They want the “grindy” or secondary way of getting the rewards to be as fast as the time needed for the best of the best to clear the “challenging” part. And that’s not the only one. It’s a common addition to the request to add a secondary way of getting the rewards.

Having multiple ways to get the same reward requires clever balancing. If the “grindy” path to the reward is easy enough, nobody will even try the challenging path. There is a certain balance that needs to be kept here and that balance is impossible when the devs themselves have no clue how hard their content actually is. I still believe their “challenging” content might not be challenging or hard at all, only in name.

On another note, unfortunately in a forum thread with so many different opinions it can get chaotic especially when people want to take sides and generalize thinking just because one person in favor says something for some reason he represents everyone else on that side.

Well, newsflash to everyone posting in the thread (including myself): there aren’t just two sides here, maybe when everyone realize this we will stop going in circles. Can we all stop putting people in the “hard-core” and “casual” sides?