Guild Wars 2

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Just prepare yourself to try and acquire huge amounts of gold and/or tier 6 mats.

To farm/grind a tier 6 map requires around an hour or two for metal/wood (if you know the spawn points. Longer if you don’t).

You’ll need to farm the same map about 30 times to get the required items.

On average one out of 8 monsters that spawn powerful blood drop that mat. You’ll need to kill enough for 5×8 or 40 of that mat. That means killing 320 of a single type of monster. Between finding and killing those mobs that’s about 1 every 10-15 minutes that’ll drop the mat you need. That’s 6 hours plus the 60 hours for the tier 6 special mats.

So only 66 hours of grinding to get he tier 6 mats for ascended. Then you’ll need the time gated mats which you get one per day. Then to mak the ascended mats, you’ll need to farm an additional 120 hours. Or pay 500 gold.

500 gold is about 100 bucks at the gem exchange rates.

This is obviously Anet’s new revenue model. People get partially through farming for mats, get sick of it and buy gems to get the gold to buy the rest at auction.

PAY TO WIN….

yippeee

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

Pay t win is a system in which additional payment is required in order to play on an equivalent scale to others that are rated as “competitive”
I posdted this on another thread, but I’ll post it again here so maye you’ll understand why i feel it is a pay to win system

Derenek.8931:

ok, just so you guys are aware.
exotic to ascended isn’t merely 10%

it’s a difference in 30 in the primary stat on amulets and 20 on rings and accessories
The a change of 5-15 on armor and weapon stats.

that’s a 150 point increase per stat. That’s equivalent to ten levels of level gain.
so
lvl 80=blue gear
lvl 85=green gear
lvl 90=yellow gear
lvl 100=exotic
lvl 110=ascended

thats what is equivalent to a 30 level stat difference between a character with standard gear and a character with ascended gear.

Try fighting a level 50 as a level 80 and you’ll know just how big a difference equipment stats make. Heck, fight a level 70, thats only a ten level difference and you’l still wipe the floor with them.

To see the difference for yourself, go to this page on the gw wiki

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weapon

Ohoni.6057:

Making a Legendary weapon in HoT is like making GWAMM title in Guild Wars 1.

You need to do a lot of things to get your goal. It was hard working to get GWAMM and it should be hard work to get Legendary weapon too.

Making a title that takes a whole lot of things is fine, but weapon and armor skins should not be locked between more work than is reasonable.

So now its okay to make exceptions? A title for a whole lot of things is fine, but for armor and weapons, its not. Why not? A title is just that, and fancy little thing over your name to show off your accomplishment.

What does the new legendary stuff do? Be a fancy little thing that shows off your accomplishment.

There’s no statistical advantage to having a legendary.

Yes, I am pretty sure that this is something that Anet is looking for, players quitting because content is not suitable for them. Look, I know you raiders had to take the backseat for long and now have the right to be excited.

I do fractals a lot and like them. Would I have found it fair if there was stuff that was only available in highlevel fractals? No. Because, everyone, and I mean really everyone who is not ill or severely disabled, can run lvl 1-9 fractals and get the fractal back. Everyone.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that there should be a method like this here too? It is not like Anet has never done this, why are they now all of a sudden do a 180° on that proven policy? Pushing of raids, shoehorning because they knew the resentments against raids in general are probably high bcause the customers are mainly casual, news coming from the mouth of hardcore gamers thermselfes?

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

It’s when you pay cash money to gain ingame advantage, like to shortcut a tedious ingame process.

HoT is coming with a whole bunch of new stuff, just because you don’t happen to like EVERY SINGLE new thing coming doesn’t mean anet should have to change it to your specific desires.

But here’s the thing. You can say “if you don’t like to raid, then don’t raid.” And that’s fair. And you can say “if you don’t want Legendary armor, then don’t get Legendary armor.” And that’s also fair. But you can’t say “If you want Legendary armor, then the only way to get it is raiding.” and “If you don’t want to raid, don’t raid” at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive statements.

For “If you don’t want to raid, don’t raid” to be valid, then there has to be no other reason to raid than because you want to raid, otherwise the perfectly reasonable comeback is “but I want Legendary armor, and can’t get it without raiding.” That’s a perfectly fair response, they have every right to want Legendary armor and not want to raid, and view that situation as a conflict that they would like to see resolved.

So basically, so long as Raiding is the only way to get that armor, people have EVERY right to ask that either some other source be made available to them, or that raiding be altered to suit their tastes. You’re also free to argue that you personally would not like to see that happen, and that’s fine too, but you taking that stance is in no way superior to them asking for what they want. It all comes down to how many people fall on each side.

So now its okay to make exceptions? A title for a whole lot of things is fine, but for armor and weapons, its not. Why not? A title is just that, and fancy little thing over your name to show off your accomplishment.

Exactly. A title is just a title, all it does is show off something you accomplished. A weapon or armor skin has its own inherent value, it has worth regardless of how you earned it.

Torolan.5816:

Yes, I am pretty sure that this is something that Anet is looking for, players quitting because content is not suitable for them. Look, I know you raiders had to take the backseat for long and now have the right to be excited.

I do fractals a lot and like them. Would I have found it fair if there was stuff that was only available in highlevel fractals? No. Because, everyone, and I mean really everyone who is not ill or severely disabled, can run lvl 1-9 fractals and get the fractal back. Everyone.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that there should be a method like this here too? It is not like Anet has never done this, why are they now all of a sudden do a 180° on that proven policy? Pushing of raids, shoehorning because they knew the resentments against raids in general are probably high bcause the customers are mainly casual, news coming from the mouth of hardcore gamers thermselfes?

except the fractal back piece is an ascended item, not a legendary, and we don’t even completely know the requirements for the new legendary one coming which may or may not require 50-100 lvl fractals. legendarys were designed to be something for dedicated players that master ALL areas of the game. this IS NOT a casual friendly set of items, its designed for HARDCORE players. just because you want one doesn’t make you entitled to one easily. I don’t have a legendary specifically because i don’t feel like grinding out the things i would need to make one, but i am not going to demand anet give me one just because i am unwilling to change my play style. no, i deal with it and play the game without the unnecessary shiny.

Derenek.8931:

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Just prepare yourself to try and acquire huge amounts of gold and/or tier 6 mats.

To farm/grind a tier 6 map requires around an hour or two for metal/wood (if you know the spawn points. Longer if you don’t).

You’ll need to farm the same map about 30 times to get the required items.

On average one out of 8 monsters that spawn powerful blood drop that mat. You’ll need to kill enough for 5×8 or 40 of that mat. That means killing 320 of a single type of monster. Between finding and killing those mobs that’s about 1 every 10-15 minutes that’ll drop the mat you need. That’s 6 hours plus the 60 hours for the tier 6 special mats.

So only 66 hours of grinding to get he tier 6 mats for ascended. Then you’ll need the time gated mats which you get one per day. Then to mak the ascended mats, you’ll need to farm an additional 120 hours. Or pay 500 gold.

500 gold is about 100 bucks at the gem exchange rates.

This is obviously Anet’s new revenue model. People get partially through farming for mats, get sick of it and buy gems to get the gold to buy the rest at auction.

PAY TO WIN….

yippeee

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

Pay t win is a system in which additional payment is required in order to play on an equivalent scale to others that are rated as “competitive”
I posdted this on another thread, but I’ll post it again here so maye you’ll understand why i feel it is a pay to win system

Derenek.8931:

ok, just so you guys are aware.
exotic to ascended isn’t merely 10%

it’s a difference in 30 in the primary stat on amulets and 20 on rings and accessories
The a change of 5-15 on armor and weapon stats.

that’s a 150 point increase per stat. That’s equivalent to ten levels of level gain.
so
lvl 80=blue gear
lvl 85=green gear
lvl 90=yellow gear
lvl 100=exotic
lvl 110=ascended
lvl 115=legendary

thats what is equivalent to a 30 level stat difference between a character with standard gear and a character with ascended gear.

Try fighting a level 50 as a level 80 and you’ll know just how big a difference equipment stats make. Heck, fight a level 70, thats only a ten level difference and you’l still wipe the floor with them.

That’s not pay to win….

pay to win is paying for something that is ONLY available via a cash shop that gives you a clear advantage over other players. Example being there is a really powerful weapon via cash shop that can only be bought with cash and is better than anything else in the game. Or, same item is locked in a chest and you have to dish out tons of dough for a random chance to get said item. GW2 isn’t that.

By your logic, every single mmo with different tiers of gear is pay to win; WoW, Rift, FFXIV, etc. Don’t have the latest expansion with the next tier of gear? Pay to win.

as for “competitive”, competitive how? PvE is competitive? Since when?! Sure we are getting adventures with scoreboards, but gear isn’t a factor there. So when does stats in PvE make it suddenly competitive?

Oh, a level 50 fighting a level 80…so we must be talking WvW, where anet isn’t going to focus much on profession balance and focus that part on spvp and pve. Oh, but its bigger equipment stats? Duh? I’ll have more traits unlocked and more skills available to use. Fight a level 70? Same issue.

Heck, there were people running around (and still are) naked except for weapons, killing people in WvW. If it was pay two win, the guy with the gear = auto win no matter what, unless he faced someone else who paid.

So again, you do not know what pay to win is. Play a game that is actually pay to win, and you’ll see a difference.

Ohoni.6057:

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

It’s when you pay cash money to gain ingame advantage, like to shortcut a tedious ingame process.

No….that’s pay to skip, which I will admit GW2 does. Pay to win is “I paid for an item only available in the shop for just cash and get a clear advantage over non-payers”

the amount of salt i sense from this thread could drain every user in this thread dry.

seriously, this idea of ascended and legendary gear ‘grind’ has been beaten to death already. beating the HoT area completely is nothing new – this is a simplified version of World Completion. You make it a grind when you actively seek out the item rather than getting it through passive collection. by the time i decided to get a legendary i had enough karma to buy about 500 obsidian shards because i focused on other things, to say nothing of gold or other legendary crafting materials. just because it’s there doesn’t necessarily mean you HAVE to do it right now. I get some people have the completionist mentality (which is fruitlessly served and an arduous torture if you play an MMO due to updates) but that need to complete can be directed elsewhere for the time being, such as doing the requirements for every precursor and collecting each of the ones you want first.

and don’t give me that BS about ascended or bust to be competitive. Exotic gear is stupid easy to get these days with how common exotic materials are nowadays, and that’s only a tier lower. if you can’t live with exotic gear then the fault lies in your mentality more than the system.

Legendarys were designed to be something for dedicated players that master ALL areas of the game. this IS NOT a casual friendly set of items, its designed for HARDCORE players. just because you want one doesn’t make you entitled to one easily.

That is a bad design choice, and they should change it. That’s the point most people are making. They should not make skins that are only for “hardcore” players or that require you to play significant amounts of portions of the game that you may not enjoy.

I don’t have a legendary specifically because i don’t feel like grinding out the things i would need to make one, but i am not going to demand anet give me one just because i am unwilling to change my play style. no, i deal with it and play the game without the unnecessary shiny.

And that’s fine, that’s your right, but it’s also other people’s right to ask for better ways of earning the items instead. Some people are quitters, they see something that is too hard for them and say “well, I don’t want to do that, I give up.” Other people look at something they don’t want to do and say “well, I still want that thing, let’s look for other ways to get it.” Either is valid if it makes you happy.

Carlin Sanders.3587:

the amount of salt i sense from this thread could drain every user in this thread dry.

seriously, this idea of ascended and legendary gear ‘grind’ has been beaten to death already. beating the HoT area completely is nothing new – this is a simplified version of World Completion. You make it a grind when you actively seek out the item rather than getting it through passive collection. by the time i decided to get a legendary i had enough karma to buy about 500 obsidian shards because i focused on other things, to say nothing of gold or other legendary crafting materials. just because it’s there doesn’t necessarily mean you HAVE to do it right now. I get some people have the completionist mentality (which is fruitlessly served and an arduous torture if you play an MMO due to updates) but that need to complete can be directed elsewhere for the time being, such as doing the requirements for every precursor and collecting each of the ones you want first.

and don’t give me that BS about ascended or bust to be competitive. Exotic gear is stupid easy to get these days with how common exotic materials are nowadays, and that’s only a tier lower. if you can’t live with exotic gear then the fault lies in your mentality more than the system.

Pretty much this. I don’t know how it started, but other players are starting to butcher the normal terms nowadays to suite their own needs, and the definitions are getting ruined.

It seems some people don’t know what a white knight really is anymore, except that if someone tries to defend something from the company when it does make sense, its sudden white knight.

Pay to win is suddenly be attributed to cosmestics and to PvE (of all places…)

Grind has had many definitions, but the first and foremost was mostly to get to the next level in a game or to do something repeatedly just to advance. Everything else was called a ‘farm’ but now farm isn’t used anymore and its all “grind”.

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Just prepare yourself to try and acquire huge amounts of gold and/or tier 6 mats.

To farm/grind a tier 6 map requires around an hour or two for metal/wood (if you know the spawn points. Longer if you don’t).

You’ll need to farm the same map about 30 times to get the required items.

On average one out of 8 monsters that spawn powerful blood drop that mat. You’ll need to kill enough for 5×8 or 40 of that mat. That means killing 320 of a single type of monster. Between finding and killing those mobs that’s about 1 every 10-15 minutes that’ll drop the mat you need. That’s 6 hours plus the 60 hours for the tier 6 special mats.

So only 66 hours of grinding to get he tier 6 mats for ascended. Then you’ll need the time gated mats which you get one per day. Then to mak the ascended mats, you’ll need to farm an additional 120 hours. Or pay 500 gold.

500 gold is about 100 bucks at the gem exchange rates.

This is obviously Anet’s new revenue model. People get partially through farming for mats, get sick of it and buy gems to get the gold to buy the rest at auction.

PAY TO WIN….

yippeee

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

Pay t win is a system in which additional payment is required in order to play on an equivalent scale to others that are rated as “competitive”
I posdted this on another thread, but I’ll post it again here so maye you’ll understand why i feel it is a pay to win system

Derenek.8931:

ok, just so you guys are aware.
exotic to ascended isn’t merely 10%

it’s a difference in 30 in the primary stat on amulets and 20 on rings and accessories
The a change of 5-15 on armor and weapon stats.

that’s a 150 point increase per stat. That’s equivalent to ten levels of level gain.
so
lvl 80=blue gear
lvl 85=green gear
lvl 90=yellow gear
lvl 100=exotic
lvl 110=ascended
lvl 115=legendary

thats what is equivalent to a 30 level stat difference between a character with standard gear and a character with ascended gear.

Try fighting a level 50 as a level 80 and you’ll know just how big a difference equipment stats make. Heck, fight a level 70, thats only a ten level difference and you’l still wipe the floor with them.

That’s not pay to win….

pay to win is paying for something that is ONLY available via a cash shop that gives you a clear advantage over other players. Example being there is a really powerful weapon via cash shop that can only be bought with cash and is better than anything else in the game. Or, same item is locked in a chest and you have to dish out tons of dough for a random chance to get said item. GW2 isn’t that.

By your logic, every single mmo with different tiers of gear is pay to win; WoW, Rift, FFXIV, etc. Don’t have the latest expansion with the next tier of gear? Pay to win.

as for “competitive”, competitive how? PvE is competitive? Since when?! Sure we are getting adventures with scoreboards, but gear isn’t a factor there. So when does stats in PvE make it suddenly competitive?

Oh, a level 50 fighting a level 80…so we must be talking WvW, where anet isn’t going to focus much on profession balance and focus that part on spvp and pve. Oh, but its bigger equipment stats? Duh? I’ll have more traits unlocked and more skills available to use. Fight a level 70? Same issue.

Heck, there were people running around (and still are) naked except for weapons, killing people in WvW. If it was pay two win, the guy with the gear = auto win no matter what, unless he faced someone else who paid.

So again, you do not know what pay to win is. Play a game that is actually pay to win, and you’ll see a difference.

Pay to win is a philosophy of game design.

There are many levels of pay to win.

What you classify as pay to win is just the most extreme end of the scale.
Pay to skip is still part of the pay to win spectrum.

Anet is taking a much more stealth approach. They claimed at launch that the gem store would only be for cosmetic items, or possibly exp boosts (which were sort of ok, because you’d till need to complete quests and missions to get items). They also claimed, "just buy the game and once you hit lvl 80 you’ll have the best gear in the game, and the power curve would be flat. "

Then they introduced ascended gear. Which wasn’t too bad, because pvp was balanced without worrying about those stats.

This time it is VERY different. I paid 50 bucks for HoT and now I am being told ascended gear will be pretty much required.

I don’t have full sets of ascended, so I either gotta grind/farm or pay out an additional 50 bucks for the gem to buy at the gem store.

Therefore…PAY TO WIN

Ohoni.6057:

Legendarys were designed to be something for dedicated players that master ALL areas of the game. this IS NOT a casual friendly set of items, its designed for HARDCORE players. just because you want one doesn’t make you entitled to one easily.

That is a bad design choice, and they should change it. That’s the point most people are making. They should not make skins that are only for “hardcore” players or that require you to play significant amounts of portions of the game that you may not enjoy.

I don’t have a legendary specifically because i don’t feel like grinding out the things i would need to make one, but i am not going to demand anet give me one just because i am unwilling to change my play style. no, i deal with it and play the game without the unnecessary shiny.

And that’s fine, that’s your right, but it’s also other people’s right to ask for better ways of earning the items instead. Some people are quitters, they see something that is too hard for them and say “well, I don’t want to do that, I give up.” Other people look at something they don’t want to do and say “well, I still want that thing, let’s look for other ways to get it.” Either is valid if it makes you happy.

your whole mentality is extremely self centered. those “hardcore” players are people with wants and desires in this game too, and the whole “hardcore” player mentality revolves around having something difficult and DESIRABLE to strive for that takes a whole lot of work, that’s exactly what legendarys are. your saying anet should NEVER design content for that type of gamer just because you arnt that type of gamer. there are plenty of other things to do in the game than chase a specific shiny, its no ones fault but your own if you cant enjoy the game if you dont have it, not having it in no way effects your gameplay.

and also your claim that that is the point “most” people are making is complete BS, it is not “most” its a very small vocal minority of a few people who keep spamming identical threads, including yourself

Derenek.8931:

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Just prepare yourself to try and acquire huge amounts of gold and/or tier 6 mats.

To farm/grind a tier 6 map requires around an hour or two for metal/wood (if you know the spawn points. Longer if you don’t).

You’ll need to farm the same map about 30 times to get the required items.

On average one out of 8 monsters that spawn powerful blood drop that mat. You’ll need to kill enough for 5×8 or 40 of that mat. That means killing 320 of a single type of monster. Between finding and killing those mobs that’s about 1 every 10-15 minutes that’ll drop the mat you need. That’s 6 hours plus the 60 hours for the tier 6 special mats.

So only 66 hours of grinding to get he tier 6 mats for ascended. Then you’ll need the time gated mats which you get one per day. Then to mak the ascended mats, you’ll need to farm an additional 120 hours. Or pay 500 gold.

500 gold is about 100 bucks at the gem exchange rates.

This is obviously Anet’s new revenue model. People get partially through farming for mats, get sick of it and buy gems to get the gold to buy the rest at auction.

PAY TO WIN….

yippeee

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

Pay t win is a system in which additional payment is required in order to play on an equivalent scale to others that are rated as “competitive”
I posdted this on another thread, but I’ll post it again here so maye you’ll understand why i feel it is a pay to win system

Derenek.8931:

ok, just so you guys are aware.
exotic to ascended isn’t merely 10%

it’s a difference in 30 in the primary stat on amulets and 20 on rings and accessories
The a change of 5-15 on armor and weapon stats.

that’s a 150 point increase per stat. That’s equivalent to ten levels of level gain.
so
lvl 80=blue gear
lvl 85=green gear
lvl 90=yellow gear
lvl 100=exotic
lvl 110=ascended
lvl 115=legendary

thats what is equivalent to a 30 level stat difference between a character with standard gear and a character with ascended gear.

Try fighting a level 50 as a level 80 and you’ll know just how big a difference equipment stats make. Heck, fight a level 70, thats only a ten level difference and you’l still wipe the floor with them.

That’s not pay to win….

pay to win is paying for something that is ONLY available via a cash shop that gives you a clear advantage over other players. Example being there is a really powerful weapon via cash shop that can only be bought with cash and is better than anything else in the game. Or, same item is locked in a chest and you have to dish out tons of dough for a random chance to get said item. GW2 isn’t that.

By your logic, every single mmo with different tiers of gear is pay to win; WoW, Rift, FFXIV, etc. Don’t have the latest expansion with the next tier of gear? Pay to win.

as for “competitive”, competitive how? PvE is competitive? Since when?! Sure we are getting adventures with scoreboards, but gear isn’t a factor there. So when does stats in PvE make it suddenly competitive?

Oh, a level 50 fighting a level 80…so we must be talking WvW, where anet isn’t going to focus much on profession balance and focus that part on spvp and pve. Oh, but its bigger equipment stats? Duh? I’ll have more traits unlocked and more skills available to use. Fight a level 70? Same issue.

Heck, there were people running around (and still are) naked except for weapons, killing people in WvW. If it was pay two win, the guy with the gear = auto win no matter what, unless he faced someone else who paid.

So again, you do not know what pay to win is. Play a game that is actually pay to win, and you’ll see a difference.

Pay to win is a philosophy of game design.

There are many levels of pay to win.

What you classify as pay to win is just the most extreme end of the scale.
Pay to skip is still part of the pay to win spectrum.

Anet is taking a much more stealth approach. They claimed at launch that the gem store would only be for cosmetic items, or possibly exp boosts (which were sort of ok, because you’d till need to complete quests and missions to get items). They also claimed, "just buy the game and once you hit lvl 80 you’ll have the best gear in the game, and the power curve would be flat. "

Then they introduced ascended gear. Which wasn’t too bad, because pvp was balanced without worrying about those stats.

This time it is VERY different. I paid 50 bucks for HoT and now I am being told ascended gear will be pretty much required.

I don’t have full sets of ascended, so I either gotta grind/farm or pay out an additional 50 bucks for the gem to buy at the gem store.

Therefore…PAY TO WIN

pretty much required still doesn’t equal required. Thus, not pay to win.

Also, how do you win in PvE?! Especially in a game where its not suppose to end? Where is the winning!?

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Serophous.9085:

Derenek.8931:

Just prepare yourself to try and acquire huge amounts of gold and/or tier 6 mats.

To farm/grind a tier 6 map requires around an hour or two for metal/wood (if you know the spawn points. Longer if you don’t).

You’ll need to farm the same map about 30 times to get the required items.

On average one out of 8 monsters that spawn powerful blood drop that mat. You’ll need to kill enough for 5×8 or 40 of that mat. That means killing 320 of a single type of monster. Between finding and killing those mobs that’s about 1 every 10-15 minutes that’ll drop the mat you need. That’s 6 hours plus the 60 hours for the tier 6 special mats.

So only 66 hours of grinding to get he tier 6 mats for ascended. Then you’ll need the time gated mats which you get one per day. Then to mak the ascended mats, you’ll need to farm an additional 120 hours. Or pay 500 gold.

500 gold is about 100 bucks at the gem exchange rates.

This is obviously Anet’s new revenue model. People get partially through farming for mats, get sick of it and buy gems to get the gold to buy the rest at auction.

PAY TO WIN….

yippeee

You don’t know what pay to win is, do you?

Pay t win is a system in which additional payment is required in order to play on an equivalent scale to others that are rated as “competitive”
I posdted this on another thread, but I’ll post it again here so maye you’ll understand why i feel it is a pay to win system

Derenek.8931:

ok, just so you guys are aware.
exotic to ascended isn’t merely 10%

it’s a difference in 30 in the primary stat on amulets and 20 on rings and accessories
The a change of 5-15 on armor and weapon stats.

that’s a 150 point increase per stat. That’s equivalent to ten levels of level gain.
so
lvl 80=blue gear
lvl 85=green gear
lvl 90=yellow gear
lvl 100=exotic
lvl 110=ascended
lvl 115=legendary

thats what is equivalent to a 30 level stat difference between a character with standard gear and a character with ascended gear.

Try fighting a level 50 as a level 80 and you’ll know just how big a difference equipment stats make. Heck, fight a level 70, thats only a ten level difference and you’l still wipe the floor with them.

That’s not pay to win….

pay to win is paying for something that is ONLY available via a cash shop that gives you a clear advantage over other players. Example being there is a really powerful weapon via cash shop that can only be bought with cash and is better than anything else in the game. Or, same item is locked in a chest and you have to dish out tons of dough for a random chance to get said item. GW2 isn’t that.

By your logic, every single mmo with different tiers of gear is pay to win; WoW, Rift, FFXIV, etc. Don’t have the latest expansion with the next tier of gear? Pay to win.

as for “competitive”, competitive how? PvE is competitive? Since when?! Sure we are getting adventures with scoreboards, but gear isn’t a factor there. So when does stats in PvE make it suddenly competitive?

Oh, a level 50 fighting a level 80…so we must be talking WvW, where anet isn’t going to focus much on profession balance and focus that part on spvp and pve. Oh, but its bigger equipment stats? Duh? I’ll have more traits unlocked and more skills available to use. Fight a level 70? Same issue.

Heck, there were people running around (and still are) naked except for weapons, killing people in WvW. If it was pay two win, the guy with the gear = auto win no matter what, unless he faced someone else who paid.

So again, you do not know what pay to win is. Play a game that is actually pay to win, and you’ll see a difference.

Pay to win is a philosophy of game design.

There are many levels of pay to win.

What you classify as pay to win is just the most extreme end of the scale.
Pay to skip is still part of the pay to win spectrum.

Anet is taking a much more stealth approach. They claimed at launch that the gem store would only be for cosmetic items, or possibly exp boosts (which were sort of ok, because you’d till need to complete quests and missions to get items). They also claimed, "just buy the game and once you hit lvl 80 you’ll have the best gear in the game, and the power curve would be flat. "

Then they introduced ascended gear. Which wasn’t too bad, because pvp was balanced without worrying about those stats.

This time it is VERY different. I paid 50 bucks for HoT and now I am being told ascended gear will be pretty much required.

I don’t have full sets of ascended, so I either gotta grind/farm or pay out an additional 50 bucks for the gem to buy at the gem store.

Therefore…PAY TO WIN

pretty much required still doesn’t equal required. Thus, not pay to win.

Also, how do you win in PvE?! Especially in a game where its not suppose to end? Where is the winning!?

There’ already the zerker meta in dungeons.

You know the entire

“must have full exotic zerkers or we boot you”

You don’t think that will happen in HoT now that monster stat caps have been raised?

leftyboy.9358:

To OP. Would you continue to play a game that no longer offered things to strive for?

Yes?

This is a dumb question. I play Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer all the time; I have nothing to gain from it, but I play it because it’s FUN.

If a game’s combat and gameplay systems are FUN, you don’t need artificial enlongation via grind. You will play the game because it’s fun.

I mean, look at WvW. Hardly a rewarding activity in term of gold/mat/skin rewards. But people pour countless hours on it. Why? Because it’s FUN to them.

You don’t need a grind to give a game meaning. If you need to grind to keep interest in playing the game, the game wasn’t very interesting to begin with.

Some of you hamsters really love your wheels.

Grind has had many definitions, but the first and foremost was mostly to get to the next level in a game or to do something repeatedly just to advance. Everything else was called a ‘farm’ but now farm isn’t used anymore and its all “grind”.

No, farm is still farm and grind is still grind. Really, the definition you use for “grind” is more accurate for “farm,” it’s doing something repeatedly, that’s farm, not grind, and is a term without judgement. “Grind” adds judgement, it is when you have to do an activity that you do not enjoy, purely to earn a given reward. If you are having fun, then the activity cannot be “grind” to you, unless you’re using the term ironically.

Pay to win is a philosophy of game design.

There are many levels of pay to win.

What you classify as pay to win is just the most extreme end of the scale.
Pay to skip is still part of the pay to win spectrum.

Definitely true. If there are goals, and paying circumvents the process of earning that goal, then it is to some degree a Pay to Win" scenario. The more odious the gameplay method of achieving a goal is, and the more the payment method circumvents that goal, the more pay to win it is. For example, if the leveling process is reasonable in pacing, and it’s possible to speed it up slightly using paid for boosts, then that’s a very minimal P2W element. If, on the other hand, a leveling process is painfully slow, incredibly boring, and boosts can be used to greatly speed up that process to a more livable level, then that would be a much higher level of P2W. GW2 is generally on the good side of those calculations, but not completely innocent.

your whole mentality is extremely self centered. those “hardcore” players are people with wants and desires in this game too, and the whole “hardcore” player mentality revolves around having something difficult and DESIRABLE to strive for that takes a whole lot of work, that’s exactly what legendarys are.

And that is also a very self-centered attitude. And that’s fine. They want what they want, and I want what I want, and what I want cancels out one of them. The question becomes, are there more people who are hardcore and want exclusionary content, or more people who are not hardcore and don’t want to be excluded? If the former, then there should be some level of exclusionary content, if the latter, then there shouldn’t be. Neither side has any particular moral highground in the discussion, they are both just pushing for the game that would make them happiest.

. your saying anet should NEVER design content for that type of gamer just because you arnt that type of gamer.

You’re sort of combining two different things though. I am fine with them developing content for those players, like raids, so long as they don’t give me any reason to go into those raids. Launch PvP was PERFECT for this. I didn’t want to be there, but was given no reason to be there. They slightly broke that when they integrated PvP and PvE rewards, but it’s not terrible.

What I reject is the idea that content that is not for everyone can offer rewards exclusive to that content, because I might want those rewards, whether I enjoy the content. You can tell me that content is not for me if I don’t enjoy it, and you can tell me that a reward is not for me if I do not want that reward, but you cannot tell me that a reward is not for me just because I do not like the content it is attached to. Whether the reward is for me or not has nothing at all to do with the content it has been attached to.

pretty much required still doesn’t equal required. Thus, not pay to win.

Pay to win does not mean you are required to pay to win, it means that you’re able to pay to win.

I do not care about grinding, but if it is required I will do it. I never done any fractals and I mostly enjoy the PvP part of the game, including WvW. If I must grind players in PvP, I will gladly do it.

Ohoni.6057:

What I reject is the idea that content that is not for everyone can offer rewards exclusive to that content, because I might want those rewards, whether I enjoy the content. You can tell me that content is not for me if I don’t enjoy it, and you can tell me that a reward is not for me if I do not want that reward, but you cannot tell me that a reward is not for me just because I do not like the content it is attached to. Whether the reward is for me or not has nothing at all to do with the content it has been attached to.

again, just because you want the reward from something, doesnt make you entitled to it. i want the glorious hero armor and 50k cash prize for winning WTS, should anet give it to me for winning a match in hotjoin just because i don’t want to have to earn it through competing with premade teams in a tournament setting?

Torolan.5816:

I do fractals a lot and like them. Would I have found it fair if there was stuff that was only available in highlevel fractals? No. Because, everyone, and I mean really everyone who is not ill or severely disabled, can run lvl 1-9 fractals and get the fractal back. Everyone.

Let’s see what you need to make the Fractal Back (only Fractals-related components)

The total requirements are:
2850 Fractal Relics
One of: Vial of Condensed Mists Essence, Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence and Shard of Crystallized Mists Essence

You can make a Shard using 5 globs and you can make a Glob using 5 Vials, so if you only run 1-9 you will need 31 Vials total.

Running levels 1-5 will give you 20 Fractal Relics + 5*4 From bosses = 40 Fractal Relics per run. To get the required Fractal Relics only running levels 1-5 you’d need 71 days of running Fractals

Level 6-10 will give 4 more Relics, so given 5 runs at 1-5 (to get to that level 6), you will need a grand total of 65 Days of Fractal running.

If you also convert the Pristine Fractal Relic into 5 Fractal Relics you will lower the days required to about 44. We are talking about players who are not regular fractal runners so they won’t run each day. That’s some serious grind there.

Kayberz.5346:

Ohoni.6057:

What I reject is the idea that content that is not for everyone can offer rewards exclusive to that content, because I might want those rewards, whether I enjoy the content. You can tell me that content is not for me if I don’t enjoy it, and you can tell me that a reward is not for me if I do not want that reward, but you cannot tell me that a reward is not for me just because I do not like the content it is attached to. Whether the reward is for me or not has nothing at all to do with the content it has been attached to.

again, just because you want the reward from something, doesnt make you entitled to it. i want the glorious hero armor and 50k cash prize for winning WTS, should anet give it to me for winning a match in hotjoin just because i don’t want to have to earn it through competing with premade teams in a tournament setting?

Nope, we don’t deserve those specific items. However if we paid arenanet hundreds of dollars over the years, we should deserve that the promises made to us, and the claims made by the developers actually be respected.

_Buy the game once, and play forever.

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters.

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players._

Remember those promises? I’m pretty sure most of us do.

Derenek.8931:

Nope, we don’t deserve those specific items. However if we paid arenanet hundreds of dollars over the years, we should deserve that the promises made to us, and the claims made by the developers actually be respected.

_Buy the game once, and play forever.

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters.

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players._

Remember those promises? I’m pretty sure most of us do.

umm……and since when has anet broke ANY of those promises, every single one of those things you just listed is still applicable today

Kayberz.5346:

Derenek.8931:

Nope, we don’t deserve those specific items. However if we paid arenanet hundreds of dollars over the years, we should deserve that the promises made to us, and the claims made by the developers actually be respected.

_Buy the game once, and play forever.

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters.

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players._

Remember those promises? I’m pretty sure most of us do.

umm……and since when has anet broke ANY of those promises, every single one of those things you just listed is still applicable today

Buy the game and play a quality release forever…..or until we release an expansion, then we’ll stop supporting older content and nerf reward rates, but don;t worry, give us 50 more dollars and you can still get decent rewards for time invested. Heck, pay us a hundred dollars and we’ll give you fifty dollars worth of gameplay.

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters. Oh, except you can now buy gold in the game, and all the best items can be made with items you can buy with gold!

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players…..Unless you are a casual player, then you’ll never be able to compete with hardcore players. Unless….you buy gems to purchase the gold, to purchase the items to make you competitive…..

Derenek.8931:

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters. Oh, except you can now buy gold in the game, and all the best items can be made with items you can buy with gold!

Best items = best skins? How is having a better skin giving you an advantage over other players?

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players…..Unless you are a casual player, then you’ll never be able to compete with hardcore players. Unless….you buy gems to purchase the gold, to purchase the items to make you competitive…..

I’d agree if you talked about the masteries, but which items are you talking about? And I can excuse the mastery system because they added good horizontal progression that only applies to the expansion, so I don’t see it as a problem.

Derenek.8931:

Kayberz.5346:

Derenek.8931:

Nope, we don’t deserve those specific items. However if we paid arenanet hundreds of dollars over the years, we should deserve that the promises made to us, and the claims made by the developers actually be respected.

_Buy the game once, and play forever.

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters.

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players._

Remember those promises? I’m pretty sure most of us do.

umm……and since when has anet broke ANY of those promises, every single one of those things you just listed is still applicable today

Buy the game and play a quality release forever…..or until we release an expansion, then we’ll stop supporting older content and nerf reward rates, but don;t worry, give us 50 more dollars and you can still get decent rewards for time invested. Heck, pay us a hundred dollars and we’ll give you fifty dollars worth of gameplay.

The in game store will never offer a means to obtain items for cash that will make your character more powerful than other characters. Oh, except you can now buy gold in the game, and all the best items can be made with items you can buy with gold!

By the time you are level 80 you will have everything you need to be competitive with other players…..Unless you are a casual player, then you’ll never be able to compete with hardcore players. Unless….you buy gems to purchase the gold, to purchase the items to make you competitive…..

you can still play the game, so therefore, buy the game once and play forever is still the case, nowhere did anet guarantee gold payout would never change in specific parts of the game. nor did they promise there would never be new optional content added later with a pricetag

the cash shop not letting you be more powerfull than other players still applys, everything in the gem store can be earned in game, the cash shop doesnt offer anything exclusive to paying people only, someone who pays $50 for gold to craft ascended is no stronger than someone who farmed the mats and made it

“competeing” with players is completely even accross the board, spvp is COMPLETELY normalized, and pve is cooperative not competitive, and even so, exotics are still “competitive” with ascended so it still is the case that you are able to “compete” with everyone by the time you are lvl 80.

again, just because you want the reward from something, doesnt make you entitled to it.

And just because you want the reward to be exclusive, does not mean you’re entitled to it. From an objective perspective, the right to have something one wants would trump the right to deny that object from people who want it.

Ultimately, ANet decides who gets what, I am just pushing for them to make a better choice.

i want the glorious hero armor and 50k cash prize for winning WTS, should anet give it to me for winning a match in hotjoin just because i don’t want to have to earn it through competing with premade teams in a tournament setting?

The Glorious Hero armor? Sure, why not? I mean, maybe a higher condition than you suggest, but I think a more reasonable condition than the current one is certainly a good idea. Now $50K, no, because that actually costs them money, and they can’t reasonably afford to pay out to everyone. That’s the difference, an ingame item costs them nothing. It costs them the same whether they give it to one person who wants it or a million people who want it. So why shouldn’t they make a million people happy rather than one?

It sure is good that Legendary equipment isn’t necessary.

Having trouble with grind? Go play the old Silkroad Online game and have fun leveling up.

Ohoni.6057:

And just because you want the reward to be exclusive, does not mean you’re entitled to it. From an objective perspective, the right to have something one wants would trump the right to deny that object from people who want it.

Ultimately, ANet decides who gets what, I am just pushing for them to make a better choice.

you claim that’s an objective perspective when its the exact OPPOSITE that’s a subjective perceptive, your only considering it from one point of view, nothing would trump anything in an objective point of view, you go on to say that your choice is “better”, again completely subjective, its better for you maybe, but not necessarily better for the game as a whole.

Nobody is forcing you to craft more legendaries. Just saying. It could be called a grind if you couldn’t progress content-wise without one.

I think moving from having to buy the precursor for your legendary to crafting the precursor via collections that require you to do stuff is a step forward. That way the legendary is earned instead of bought with a credit card as I’m sure some people have done. That gives way more satisfaction in the end than something earned in a matter of minutes.

Masteries didn’t really seem that hard to get to me? Though I’m sure some of them are harder but that’s only a good thing in my books. The experience bar requirement is there to stop people from getting all the masteries in a week or so. Why is that bad? It would be a flop if everything in the xpac could be completed in a week with nothing left to do.

And aren’t they going to replace some transmutation shards with shards of glory in the reward tracks? I don’t think it can be called a grind. If you play pvp you will always have an active reward track anyway. And now you have the bottles too from daily.

Not everything can be given to us free and fast. Have some patience

I hate levling up and grinding. Which means i need to do the same content 100 times to get the best equipement). I have no Problem to do a storyline, hard dungeon, or raid that even need 2-3 hours to do it with a team. But if i am forced to do the same raid multiple times it´s grind and not what i want to do. I also have no problem not having legendary. But also casual players should have full ascended for the best stats in a reasonable timeframe (maybe 3 month). Casual is below 10h a week more about 5h.

BaconofPigs.1683:

Yup, here you admitted it. Your entire threads and subsequent posts are nothing but for your own personal gain. You don’t want to play the game as it is intended to be played. Just the reward. Yep!

So? All the raiders didn’t want to play the game as it was intended to be played, and kept pressuring Anet into changing it. And now, when they have succeeded at it, it’s suddenly became something people shouldn’t do for some reason?

Kayberz.5346:

Except all those things were ADDED to the game. They didnt replace anything.

Oh, but they did. You keep ignoring the fact, that for a lot of people that bought GW2 3 years ago, lack of those things had a value on their own. Adding those things did have an impact on the rest of the game. Impact that a lot of people didn’t like.

So, basically, we have a group of people that want to change the game into something else that it was originally meant to be – and they keep telling others that trying to change it back is for some reason more selfish than what they themselves are doing.

Kayberz.5346:

ROFL wow you are so self centered.

And you aren’t?

Sinope.5630:

Making a Legendary weapon in HoT is like making GWAMM title in Guild Wars 1.

You need to do a lot of things to get your goal. It was hard working to get GWAMM and it should be hard work to get Legendary weapon too.

Except GWAMM title took way more time to complete. I did it in a course of two-three years of focusing solely (or mostly) on that, I believe. I played almost every day for at least two or so hours, more over the weekends. I don’t think legendary weapons come even close to the amount of work put into that one title in GW1. Or getting a full HoM. But I agree with your point nonetheless; legendaries should require some work put into them instead of just gold.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think you understand the meaning of grind. Being required to do something you don’t like does not equate to it being a grind.

No, that is exactly what grind is. Exactly.

Grind is doing any activity in game that you do not enjoy, in order to progress towards a desired goal. The more options the game gives you at any point to advance, the less likely you are to be forced into grind. The fewer choices the game gives your at any point, grind becomes almost inevitable for at least some of the players.

You’re confusing “Grinding is not fun” with “Anything not fun is grind”. Although there’s always a few people employing their own meanings to a word. Which leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding.

Also games have rules. They always tell you what to do to some extent. That one may or may not like the game is up to the person. Using your skewed description is putting many singleplayer games into the grindy games category. Merely because they are linear. Like super mario for example. Or super adventure box. Or any puzzle adventure game like Myst. All overpopular games in their time.

Of course using the word grind as a subjective term is entirely possible. But then it’s still better to use words like boring, strenuous, frustrating, convoluted. Or many other words which actually describe what you don’t like about it.

Grind is used for extremely repetitive tasks. Even ArenaNet does so.

What many here seem to not understand is that legendary weapons should have been like this from the very get-go.

The simple fact that you could get them with enough gold just off the TP is absurd. The whole notion of legendary – gone.

Like raids legendary weapons should be things only a few people wield – things that make you go “oh wow that guy is really something – he’x got X weapon” -they should be a statement of skill, knowledge and dedication – not just something everyone has.

Will the new legendary weapons be grindy? Sure – but that’s a good thing because making them grindy is Anet’s way of making them available to more players.

If there was no grind – legendary weapon acquisition (in order for them to remain rare and relevant) should be based on skill.
And that means only very few would have them – much fewer than with the “grind for it and you’ll get it eventually” system.

Imagine how you’d like it if you had to beat Liadri-level content just to get a bit of your new legendary – and many more similar challenges to complete – most players would never dream of having one because they’d be so out of reach.

Instead – Anet makes it grindy – it means hardcore, invested and dedicated players get to make it earlier and thus still have some of that prestige and “status” that comes with it but that casuals will still eventually get it as long as they stick with it.

And when too many people have the set and its prestige diminishes? Anet will release a new set and it’ll all start all over again – after all – this is what is happening now.
They are indirectly admitting that generation 1 legendary weapons were badly implemented and so many have them now that they have to change their method of acquisition.

you claim that’s an objective perspective when its the exact OPPOSITE that’s a subjective perceptive, your only considering it from one point of view, nothing would trump anything in an objective point of view,

No, that’s simply not the case. Let’s say I have an apple. I want to eat my apple. Let’s say you don’t have an apple. You’d like to eat my apple. In that case, I would be perfectly justified in choosing to not give you my apple, because it would mean that I would not be able to eat my apple.

But let’s imagine a different scenario, same situation, yet I’m able to perfectly duplicate that apple infinite times, so that I could give you the apple that you want, while still having the apple in perfectly good condition to eat myself. In that scenario, it would be inexcusable for me to not give you that apple, I would have absolutely no justification for that. It would cost me nothing and make you happy, I would be denying you happiness for no other reason than that I could, that’s pretty much the definition of malicious behavior.

And that’s the situation we have here. A player earning something does not take anything away from any other player. There is no finite resources, no scarcity. Everyone could get everything, so everyone should have that option. To promote gameplay they should provide reasonable benchmarks that require reasonable amounts of time and effort, but there’s absolutely no reason to have conditions that are unreasonably difficult or grindy.

Nobody is forcing you to craft more legendaries. Just saying. It could be called a grind if you couldn’t progress content-wise without one.

And it can also be called a grind if you couldn’t progress towards getting the legendary you want. You don’t get to decide what another player’s goals might be.

I think moving from having to buy the precursor for your legendary to crafting the precursor via collections that require you to do stuff is a step forward.

It is, everyone seems to agree on that. The point of disagreement seems to be on whether the existing plan is enough of a step forward, given that we’ve been waiting three years for it to be taken. It seems like the existing plan involves a lot more work than should be necessary just to get the Precursor, and then to have to do all the work involved in crafting the Legendary on top of that. For the effort it takes to craft Precursors under the currently proposed system, you should get a fully crafted Legendary weapon, not just the first step of one.

Masteries didn’t really seem that hard to get to me? Though I’m sure some of them are harder but that’s only a good thing in my books. The experience bar requirement is there to stop people from getting all the masteries in a week or so.

Getting the points isn’t a huge problem, grinding the XP might be. The XP gain in BWE3 was pathetic, and sure, all the systems for rewarding XP in Maguuma weren’t in yet, but it made me very concerned. The Verdant Brink event chains do a horrible job of progressing that XP bar.

I do think it’s reasonable to take a long time to get ALL the Masteries, but I think the system should be tiered better, so that the early traversal options are fairly easy to get, while the more optional ones like the mini-bosses and stuff are the ones you have to work for.

And aren’t they going to replace some transmutation shards with shards of glory in the reward tracks? I don’t think it can be called a grind. If you play pvp you will always have an active reward track anyway. And now you have the bottles too from daily.

Again, that one will depend entirely on how many they reward and how many are needed for things. I mean, if you can get all the shards you’ll need to make a Legendary just from clearing one or two reward tracks, then that’d probably be fine, but if it requires you to complete 3-5 reward tracks that would be a bit much.

But I agree with your point nonetheless; legendaries should require some work put into them instead of just gold.

I don’t mind work OR gold, but from the sounds of it, it’ll be work AND gold. It’ll still have some amount of gold cost built into building the precursor, we have no idea how much, but the fact that it takes an entire tier doesn’t look good, and then the Precursor → Legendary process will take just as much gold as usual, possibly more depending on how the material markets shift.

As I said, I would feel better if the process were purely a series of tasks to earn the item, no gold involved, no massive stockpiles of mats, etc.

You’re confusing “Grinding is not fun” with “Anything not fun is grind”.

Both statements are true.

Also games have rules. They always tell you what to do to some extent. That one may or may not like the game is up to the person.

True, but MMOs are a constant work in progress, the rules are always being changed. Right now, the game does not have ANY raids. In a few weeks, it will have raids. That’s a change. Right now, the only way to get a Legendary Precursor is to buy one or hope that it drops for you, in a week you’ll be able to make one during a quest path. Rules change.

As a player, you have to play within the current rules of the game world, sure enough, but as a customer you can push for changes to those existing rules that you believe would improve the game. There’s no guarantee that the company will make a change just because you ask for it, but if they deem that it is in the best interests of the majority of the players, then they might.

It doesn’t hurt anyone to ask.

Using your skewed description is putting many singleplayer games into the grindy games category. Merely because they are linear. Like super mario for example. Or super adventure box. Or any puzzle adventure game like Myst. All overpopular games in their time.

And if you don’t enjoy those games as you go, then you probably shouldn’t play them anymore. The reason it’s more important in a broad game like an MMO is because there is such a wide variety of things you can be doing at any given time, and chances are that you’ll enjoy some of them significantly more than others, so you might love some parts enough that you want to keep playing the game as a whole, but dislike others enough that you never want to do those bits. The developers should avoid creating reasons why a player might feel compelled to do content that is a grind to him, in order to progress goals relevant to the rest of the game, like having a weapon skin he wants.

Single players games have faced that sort of thing before, Battletoads being a common example, a game in which many players enjoyed some of the gameplay, like the brawling, perhaps, but hated other portions, like the bike racing, enough that they ragequit a game that they would have played much longer had it allowed them to skip to the fun bits.

Like raids legendary weapons should be things only a few people wield – things that make you go “oh wow that guy is really something – he’x got X weapon” -they should be a statement of skill, knowledge and dedication – not just something everyone has.

I find this entire concept, and those who subscribe to it, preposterous.

Imagine how you’d like it if you had to beat Liadri-level content just to get a bit of your new legendary – and many more similar challenges to complete – most players would never dream of having one because they’d be so out of reach.

That would be worse, but that does not mean that the current proposal is good enough.

Ohoni.6057:

again, just because you want the reward from something, doesnt make you entitled to it.

And just because you want the reward to be exclusive, does not mean you’re entitled to it. From an objective perspective, the right to have something one wants would trump the right to deny that object from people who want it.

Ultimately, ANet decides who gets what, I am just pushing for them to make a better choice.

i want the glorious hero armor and 50k cash prize for winning WTS, should anet give it to me for winning a match in hotjoin just because i don’t want to have to earn it through competing with premade teams in a tournament setting?

The Glorious Hero armor? Sure, why not? I mean, maybe a higher condition than you suggest, but I think a more reasonable condition than the current one is certainly a good idea. Now $50K, no, because that actually costs them money, and they can’t reasonably afford to pay out to everyone. That’s the difference, an ingame item costs them nothing. It costs them the same whether they give it to one person who wants it or a million people who want it. So why shouldn’t they make a million people happy rather than one?

The answer is simple, it’s by design more exclusive. Like my mini Mr. Sparkles. Just because virtual data CAN be copied endlessly doesn’t mean it should. Like technically money can be printed multiple times as well. But for obvious reasons they don’t do so.

It decreases the value the more copies something has. It’s that simple.

Plus I disagree with the materialistic viewpoint that having more stuff equals happiness. Maybe true for some people, but definitely not a fact for everyone.

Ohoni.6057:

The question becomes, are there more people who are hardcore and want exclusionary content, or more people who are not hardcore and don’t want to be excluded? If the former, then there should be some level of exclusionary content, if the latter, then there shouldn’t be. Neither side has any particular moral highground in the discussion, they are both just pushing for the game that would make them happiest.

Unfortunately for you, this isn’t the question at all. The question is wich system will keep the most people playing the game. Certain rewards not being available may be frustrating to some people, but it isn’t something gamebreaking that’s gonna make them say, meh kitten this game, i’m done, if they like the other aspects of it.

When you take away unique rewards tough, actively changing the entire system, that will have an effect of certain people leaving the game, more then i think you realise.

And that’s what it comes down to, if you really don’t like a certain aspect of the game, but you can look over it and just play anyway, you aren’t of any concern to Arenanet.
If they would change the reward system to what you suggest, i would 100% quit the game, no matter how awesome the actual content is, no matter that i’m an officer in my guild and i love playing with them. Your suggestion would basicly ruin this platform of social and coöperative fun for me in such a way that i wouldn’t be able to bring myself to play it. I don’t think this will ever happen, because the devs are smarter then that imo, but if it does i’ll remember you, the idiot who ruined a great mmo for me. Cheers.

The answer is simple, it’s by design more exclusive. Like my mini Mr. Sparkles. Just because virtual data CAN be copied endlessly doesn’t mean it should. Like technically money can be printed multiple times as well. But for obvious reasons they don’t do so.

Yes, but money is inherently worthless. It only has value because it represents a share of a government’s backing. The more you print, the less of a share it represents. If you print enough $100 bills, they will eventually become worth less than the paper they’re printed on.

An armor or weapon skin has inherent worth, however. It is worth however much the person who has it likes it, so you can replicate it infinitely and it retains the same inherent value. Even a skin players start with can have worth if people like how it looks, even though every player in the game can get it for free. Almost all of my characters currently wear at least one piece of armor that they started with (the skin, at least).

Plus I disagree with the materialistic viewpoint that having more stuff equals happiness. Maybe true for some people, but definitely not a fact for everyone.

True, but shouldn’t those for whom it IS true have the stuff that they want?

If they would change the reward system to what you suggest, i would 100% quit the game, no matter how awesome the actual content is, no matter that i’m an officer in my guild and i love playing with them.

I don’t think it would be worth the time trying to keep so fragile a player invested in the game.

One important thing to keep in mind is that unlike WoW, this is not a subscription based game. In those games, you’d be right that the most important thing is to keep people from quitting, it doesn’t matter what they do, so long as they don’t cancel their sub. In a game like this though, they want players more than just playing, they want them happy. Why? Because then they’ll be more generous in the cash shop. I pick up things fairly regularly in there, and it’s not because I have to, it’s because I want to, to help support the game. The happier I am, the looser my wallet gets. If I’m begrudgingly still logging in, but upset about something, I’m far less likely to impulse shop.

They need good will from existing customers just as much, if not more than they need to retain the playership of people that would quit over something like other people having nice things.

I don’t think this will ever happen, because the devs are smarter then that imo, but if it does i’ll remember you, the idiot who ruined a great mmo for me. Cheers.

One can only hope.

Where is the Problem ? ;-).

Challenging content is good. Working for a legendary is too. I prefer the quest type and dislike the grind type. But as long as it does not give a power advantage, and even 5% is one, i and also most other that can´t or dislike grinding/high challenging content, won´t care and will enjoy other parts.
If power gets hidden behind such a barrier than it realy starts to cost players.
So get your skin, get your swapable stats an enjoy while other are happy in PvP or jumping puzzles or … All in ascended.

Ohoni.6057:

If they would change the reward system to what you suggest, i would 100% quit the game, no matter how awesome the actual content is, no matter that i’m an officer in my guild and i love playing with them.

I don’t think it would be worth the time trying to keep so fragile a player invested in the game.

I’m not a fragile player, anything else changing, even tough i don’t like it, would not affect me at all. I play this game because i enjoy spending time in it, and working towards different goals. I love everything about it right now, except the fact atm there isn’t any good really hard content, wich should be fixed in HoT. When discussing this mmo with other people i’ll keep defending it and explaining why it is great, what you are suggesting tough, would crush the game in it’s sense of being a good mmo, since all good mmo’s have a decent reward structure. It’s what mmo’s are build uppon. One cannot keep players invested in a game for a super long time without goals to work for. So yeah i would quit if they would be stupid enough to destroy one of the core aspects of what makes mmo’s fun for me. Does that make me a fragile player? Hell no.

Btw i use the cash shop just the same as you do, why are your moneys more worth then my moneys, that’s a stupid argument.

Ohoni.6057:

The answer is simple, it’s by design more exclusive. Like my mini Mr. Sparkles. Just because virtual data CAN be copied endlessly doesn’t mean it should. Like technically money can be printed multiple times as well. But for obvious reasons they don’t do so.

Yes, but money is inherently worthless. It only has value because it represents a share of a government’s backing. The more you print, the less of a share it represents. If you print enough $100 bills, they will eventually become worth less than the paper they’re printed on.

An armor or weapon skin has inherent worth, however. It is worth however much the person who has it likes it, so you can replicate it infinitely and it retains the same inherent value. Even a skin players start with can have worth if people like how it looks, even though every player in the game can get it for free. Almost all of my characters currently wear at least one piece of armor that they started with (the skin, at least).

Plus I disagree with the materialistic viewpoint that having more stuff equals happiness. Maybe true for some people, but definitely not a fact for everyone.

True, but shouldn’t those for whom it IS true have the stuff that they want?

Money was just an illustration. Obviously it doesn’t share the exact properties as skins in a gameworld. A skin has multiple different kind of values because it’s a virtual item as opposed to a currency. Yes thank you for explaining that an illustrated example of a specific concept doesn’t fit with other totally different concepts. Good job.

Recognizing ALL those values is key to making a balanced reward scheme.

And sure. You can focus skins to one type of player who merely likes to have certain skins but then you miss the other portion of players who want a more sentimental specific reward for completing their loved task.

I think you said it yourself. An MMO is a broad game. Thus focussing on just one part of the playerbase could just be not good enough in ArenaNets eyes.

Like I said. The answer is simple. It’s designed that way. Just the way the value of money is “designed”.
And yes, you can push for different designs. It totally wasn’t my point that you can’t. Merely explaining why there’s certain things in an MMO you will never like. And automatically won’t get. Obviously (to me) it’s a balancing act rather going one way only.

It’s a legendary, a vanity item and long term goal, why keep kittening whining about every single crap out there…

Ohoni.6057:

Harper.4173:

Like raids legendary weapons should be things only a few people wield – things that make you go “oh wow that guy is really something – he’x got X weapon” -they should be a statement of skill, knowledge and dedication – not just something everyone has.

I find this entire concept, and those who subscribe to it, preposterous.

Imagine how you’d like it if you had to beat Liadri-level content just to get a bit of your new legendary – and many more similar challenges to complete – most players would never dream of having one because they’d be so out of reach.

That would be worse, but that does not mean that the current proposal is good enough.

First of all – have you ever heard of this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good

I’ll quote it for you – “Positional goods are a subset of economic goods whose consumption (and subsequent utility), also conditioned by Giffen-like pricing, depends negatively on consumption of those same goods by others.¹ In particular, for these goods the value is at least in part (if not exclusively) a function of its ranking in desirability by others, in comparison to substitutes. The extent to which a good’s value depends on such a ranking is referred to as its positionality.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

“Veblen goods also are commodities that function as positional goods. Veblen goods are types of luxury goods, such as expensive wines, jewelry, fashion-designer handbags, and luxury cars, which are in demand because of the high prices asked for them. The high price makes the goods desirable as symbols of the buyer’s high social-status, by way of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure; conversely, a decrease of the prices of Veblen goods would decrease demand for the products.¹”

This is what legendary weapons are in this game – they’re status goods -a blend perhaps between positional goods and Veblen goods.
That is also their intended role as designed by the developers – that’s what they’re aiming for with this type of item – a “legendary” exclusive item that only the “wealthy hardcore” have, that is desirable by others and thus this desire gives it its value.

If legendary weapons were easily accessible to every player then the whole point of these weapons would be gone – the reason for making them invalid.
The developers intended these weapons to be long-term goals – read it as “long-term time sinks” to keep players coming back.

They are designed to be the “ultimate goal” for those hardcore players – the grind system makes it accessible to average players too.

I find this entire concept, and those who subscribe to it, preposterous.

Your opinion is your opinion but it does not change human psychology – as I’ve posted above – this sort of phenomenon occurs in the real world and of course has its analogous form here in GW2 under the form of very high-end rare items.

As much as I hate the amount of grind they are putting in place for legendaries their philosophy is generally sound. I will start with explaining legendary armor first because its quite simple. Legendary armor HAS to be in raids to create a incentive to do them raids are fun for their challenge but what’s even more fun is when you are rewarded for that work. Raids requires much more solid team work compared to dungeons and you get rewarded more for doing it, all other MMOs make raids more rewarding to incentives players into doing them. Hard work should equal great reward. Now as for legendary weapons this I won’t lie about I had a huge knee jerk reaction of just being pure salt and could probably find my comment on another legendary discussion thread. Yet thinking of it now it’s pretty equal in grind. First things the maps in hot are few in number without hearts and I have only seen pois and mastery challenges. So that’s pretty quick so they make up for that by including mastery tracks needed to be completed and the nice thing is you don’t have to stick around in the jungle to complete you simply play the game. You can even speed it up with exp boosters (not p2w just pay to speed up). Now stop me here if I don’t understand how the exp will work for mastery tracks but when you reach the second tier instead of needing 8mill meaning starting you from the beginning its 4 mill and you carry off from the prev 4 mill mark. 4 mill is the amount needed for 1-80 and considering they want mastery tracks to not be consumed immediately that’s pretty fair time investment. Legendaries shouldn’t be gotten super fast and shouldn’t be reliant on your wallet. The new gift of fortune echoes this because its trophies and from my guess they will be pretty much exclusive to legendary rather then the t6 materials that is inflated because of crafting as well. So then there is PvP and wvw Im OK at PvP but I easily get stressed out so play small doses each day and guess what? I don’t have go do either because we can buy those specific mats two game types we can avoid because anet is aware not everyone likes em. Legendaries are pve items at its heart and they are making legendaries a journey rather then a pure grind or a passive grind from simply doing something else entirely. Like the old legendaries can be technically a passive grind from just money and although I want one in terrible at staying on task. Yet I’m slowly getting to one and relatively close to it and when I get I can be honest with myself and say I earned it at my own pace why not take these new legendaries at your own than focusing on right away?

Ohoni.6057:

The answer is simple, it’s by design more exclusive. Like my mini Mr. Sparkles. Just because virtual data CAN be copied endlessly doesn’t mean it should. Like technically money can be printed multiple times as well. But for obvious reasons they don’t do so.

Yes, but money is inherently worthless. It only has value because it represents a share of a government’s backing. The more you print, the less of a share it represents. If you print enough $100 bills, they will eventually become worth less than the paper they’re printed on.

An armor or weapon skin has inherent worth, however. It is worth however much the person who has it likes it, so you can replicate it infinitely and it retains the same inherent value. Even a skin players start with can have worth if people like how it looks, even though every player in the game can get it for free. Almost all of my characters currently wear at least one piece of armor that they started with (the skin, at least).

Plus I disagree with the materialistic viewpoint that having more stuff equals happiness. Maybe true for some people, but definitely not a fact for everyone.

True, but shouldn’t those for whom it IS true have the stuff that they want?

Please read my other post – some items have intrinsic value – value derived from the item itself while other items have value simply because it has value to other people.

Some items lose their value if others don’t find them valuable or desirable simply because their value and desirability derive from the owner’s awareness of the fact that his item is valued and desired by many others.
If these many others stop wanting said item then the item in itself is worthless to the owner.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

It’s gold sink not sync.

ha, ha. Maybe it is. Gold Synchronization. You need to synchronize your mind with the thought of running from node to node and pressing the 1 button for 100s of hours a day (yes I know there is only 24 in a day). Or running some lame, easy to beat dungeon, over and over again. “Quick, quick, run to this corner and press 1 repeatedly.” No thanks.

On the other hand, I found the fractal back piece much more rewarding to make. Ecto was cheaper, back in the day, so the main cost was the relics.

Stark.1350:

You have zero idea what grinding is.

indeed

ProtoGunner.4953:

It’s a legendary, a vanity item and long term goal, why keep kittening whining about every single crap out there…

Same reason why you whine about “whiners”?

All I see is a bunch of cry babies feeling entitled to get everything in the game