Guild Wars 2

Daddicus.6128:

Ashen.2907:

I have never seen a statement or advertisement from Anet claimig that gw2 was intended solely for casual play/players.

Not “solely”. Primarily.

And this was never officially stated either.

What they did say was that their game would be unique in some ways – no gear grind, being rewarded for all areas of play, etc.

Nowhere in their mission plan did they state that the game would be faceroll easy and people wouldn’t have to put any effort into it.

As a self proclaimed casual player (very few achievements, erratic schedule, hardly any farming done), this is what I believe is the issue:

Over three years in Tyria, people fell into a farming pattern that was easy, efficient and fast. You pretty much needed gold to get anything you wanted, and farming it happened at “on demand” content such as dungeons. So people got all their shinies essentially by having no roadblocks whatsoever. Open world content is also (with some exceptions) extremely easy, even things like Orr. As a result the zerker-meta appeared, where you stacked attack attributes, stacked on each other, pressed 1111 and won while half asleep. And they could no-life it for as much as they wanted, and 2 days later they’d have their reward.

Fast forward to HoT and finally people are starting to see some resistance. They need to play the actual game content to get rewards, tied to specific currencies. More things are now account bound, meaning you have to earn them instead of converting gems or farming 1 specific place (CoF1) for gold and buying them outright, hence all the complaints about “time-gates” and “grinds”. People are actually complaining they aren’t done with the content 1-2 months into the expansion, so they can get back to their familiar farming patterns (which ironically many of them are now defunkt, hence even more cries for “ruining my favorite content”).
The content is harder, so you actually have to think about your build, or (god forbid!) your defenses and survival. And people look at the rewards at the end, and they feel compelled to get them no matter what. Newsflash: If you feel that way, you are probably less casual than you think.

To be honest, I love it. Going into a map and having to adapt to the environment, makes me feel like I am in a living world, instead of a themepark. HoT is the right direction towards building a persistant world, instead of a series of activities in a carnival. The carnival is still there (old world), but now we have something other than sheer tedium and mindless famring. But in the new content, the world is moving in its own pace and it’s your option to join in on not (i.e. timed metas). Could they have done a better job in providing variety? Sure, but this is a decent start.

If nothing else, HoT is the most Anet-like content they’ve produced in years. Their motto was all about a “living world”, right? Well, we got it.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

A long time ago, there was an MMO that advertised itself out there to be “the” casual player mmo. This mmo promised it would create content that would be designed for relaxing and open social gameplay, the ability to play with friends without having to, the ability to do dungeon runs that werent frustrating or tedious, a massive world vs world vs world pvp mode that encouraged thousands to play. Huge map wide raids were also a big deal in these casual event systems designed to help casual gamers play with other casual gamers.

It also introduced a level based pvp system entirley seperate from its main game with an entirely class-balance based focus on that pvp system.

That game also had a decent roleplaying community on at least 2 major servers prior to the introduction of mega-servers and a number of other new additions to the game.

It also promised that absoleutley no content in the game would be a tedious chore.

It lied.

GW2, What ever you promised to be, you need to keep it, screw this “1%” minority that are into e-sports, and raiding 24/7 this isnt WoW just abbandon that entirley and focus on the people that “do” care about the game, and “do” care about it surviving longer than 3 months.

GW2 was the first MMO SINCE World of Warcraft I could activly play for more than just a month, I felt a certain satisfaction in exploring the world, doing random questsa t my own pace and leisure, having the options to see Tyria at my own adventuring pace.

Now, I feel like the game wants me to rush into content, get my ascended mats, aquire legendaries, 5000 acheivement points minimum and alot more content thats just locked behind farming for content so that an kitten group of stowaways from other MMO’s can have their moment to shine.

Can we please, PLEASE go back to what MADE GW2 special in the first place.

Going forward, GW2 needs to abbandon this “challenging group content” kitten and “e-sport pvp ladder” system and just focus on what MADE GW2 special.

Its a game, people can play at their own leisure for fun, with nothing overly complicated about that at all.

Season 2 did this ALOT better than HoT did.

Going into Season 3 and future expansions, I would seriously hope A-net goes BACK to what made the games CORE gameplay special.

I want a game that isnt just another WoW clone, dont become another wow clone, A-net.

I completly support your post. Grindwars 2 seems to go the wrong way. 10k drinks for a shoulder skin? Seriously? Hardcore Raids? Seriously? Now we are forced to do PvP too. If you ever want to have those shiny new legendaries. I bought HOT after I quitted GW2 and now Im about to quit again.

Harper.4173:

Daddicus.6128:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Years of disdain in the many “face-roll easy” posts about the game had to sting.

So, they should listen to the couple dozen loud voices and ignore millions of their other players?

Except you don’t know what “millions of other players” want because they didn’t post. You only think you know what they want based on what you want.

If millions of players had been so upset that things had changed we might have seen millions of posts.

Well many don’t post here as they are seldom replied to by anyone in power. That being said, Reddit lost 400+ subs yesterday alone, and as the devs actually post there I can see it being a trend (metric).

Is it millions, no of course not, because most people still playing don’t unsub, but it does show that many don’t like the direction the game is going in.

Legendary and Ascended QQ again?

Legendary and Ascended are status symbols nothing more. You don’t need them unless you’re raiding. Moreover they’re status symbols that reward the player that goes the extra mile, they’re for the dedicated players.
Which is fine, just because a game rewards the dedicated players doesn’t mean it’s unfriendly to casuals. People just need to accept that not everything is going to be instantly accessible.

Wolfey.3407:

Here’s a box image for the pre-order….

Can anyone show me where on the official preorder box where it says or advertises casual?

Or do you guys mean that you were duped by a streamer or your best friend because THEY said it was for casuals?

Why would it be written on the preorder?

No one said that.

Tithian.4915:

As a self proclaimed casual player (very few achievements, erratic schedule, hardly any farming done), this is what I believe is the issue:

Over three years in Tyria, people fell into a farming pattern that was easy, efficient and fast. You pretty much needed gold to get anything you wanted, and farming it happened at “on demand” content such as dungeons. So people got all their shinies essentially by having no roadblocks whatsoever. Open world content is also (with some exceptions) extremely easy, even things like Orr. As a result the zerker-meta appeared, where you stacked attack attributes, stacked on each other, pressed 1111 and won while half asleep. And they could no-life it for as much as they wanted, and 2 days later they’d have their reward.

Fast forward to HoT and finally people are starting to see some resistance. They need to play the actual game content to get rewards, tied to specific currencies. More things are now account bound, meaning you have to earn them instead of converting gems or farming 1 specific place (CoF1) for gold and buying them outright, hence all the complaints about “time-gates” and “grinds”. People are actually complaining they aren’t done with the content 1-2 months into the expansion, so they can get back to their familiar farming patterns (which ironically many of them are now defunkt, hence even more cries for “ruining my favorite content”).
The content is harder, so you actually have to think about your build, or (god forbid!) your defenses and survival. And people look at the rewards at the end, and they feel compelled to get them no matter what. Newsflash: If you feel that way, you are probably less casual than you think.

To be honest, I love it. Going into a map and having to adapt to the environment, makes me feel like I am in a living world, instead of a themepark. HoT is the right direction towards building a persistant world, instead of a series of activities in a carnival. The carnival is still there (old world), but now we have something other than sheer tedium and mindless famring. But in the new content, the world is moving in its own pace and it’s your option to join in on not (i.e. timed metas). Could they have done a better job in providing variety? Sure, but this is a decent start.

If nothing else, HoT is the most Anet-like content they’ve produced in years. Their motto was all about a “living world”, right? Well, we got it.

I agree with you, to an extent.

I hated the Zerker skip>stack>melee bs in dungeons.

It felt empty, soulless and extremely boring.

You were told that it was optional and that you could avoid groups that did that.

But even groups that didn’t state they were speedrunners, often actually were (at least to an extent), or were teaching speedrunning to newbies.

So, this new content suits me better in some ways – although, the Zerker meta is still prevalent in the raids…

But, what I’m concerned about, here, is not the cheesers of GW2 losing some of their cheese; especially, as they still have, at least somewhat, cheesy raids to “enjoy”.

It is the people who, genuinely, needed the game to be less challenging, for some reason.

Maybe they can’t play much, or have disabilities that affect how they can play and/or for how long, in one stretch, or whatever.

Or maybe they can, physically, play it, but they find it stressful and that stress affects them negatively.

I’m just concerned that they may have paid a lot for an xpac that they really can’t enjoy much of, at all.

Tithian.4915:

As a self proclaimed casual player (very few achievements, erratic schedule, hardly any farming done), this is what I believe is the issue:

Over three years in Tyria, people fell into a farming pattern that was easy, efficient and fast. You pretty much needed gold to get anything you wanted, and farming it happened at “on demand” content such as dungeons. So people got all their shinies essentially by having no roadblocks whatsoever. Open world content is also (with some exceptions) extremely easy, even things like Orr. As a result the zerker-meta appeared, where you stacked attack attributes, stacked on each other, pressed 1111 and won while half asleep. And they could no-life it for as much as they wanted, and 2 days later they’d have their reward.

Fast forward to HoT and finally people are starting to see some resistance. They need to play the actual game content to get rewards, tied to specific currencies. More things are now account bound, meaning you have to earn them instead of converting gems or farming 1 specific place (CoF1) for gold and buying them outright, hence all the complaints about “time-gates” and “grinds”. People are actually complaining they aren’t done with the content 1-2 months into the expansion, so they can get back to their familiar farming patterns (which ironically many of them are now defunkt, hence even more cries for “ruining my favorite content”).
The content is harder, so you actually have to think about your build, or (god forbid!) your defenses and survival. And people look at the rewards at the end, and they feel compelled to get them no matter what. Newsflash: If you feel that way, you are probably less casual than you think.

To be honest, I love it. Going into a map and having to adapt to the environment, makes me feel like I am in a living world, instead of a themepark. HoT is the right direction towards building a persistant world, instead of a series of activities in a carnival. The carnival is still there (old world), but now we have something other than sheer tedium and mindless famring. But in the new content, the world is moving in its own pace and it’s your option to join in on not (i.e. timed metas). Could they have done a better job in providing variety? Sure, but this is a decent start.

If nothing else, HoT is the most Anet-like content they’ve produced in years. Their motto was all about a “living world”, right? Well, we got it.

+10000. This I agree with so much.

Dejavu.2349:

Amen!
They gave a big middle finger to their mission statement, to what this game was that drew so many here, and to many well-paying customers like me.

Sir, you are wrong about their mission statement. Nowhere does it say anything about this being a “casual” game. Directly taken from the Wiki:

“create a state-of-the-art, interactive game network and design premier multiplayer online games for dedicated game players”

The game is incredibly casual based. I think hardcore as someone who plays once a week. There’s SO MUCH TO DO. I don’t see a grind as everyone says. And I play every kittening day. Quit your whining and complaining. Every game has it’s bugs, some more than others, but the game is a great game. It’s fantastically well-done. And definitely one of the best MMOs to date. If you disagree, you are welcome to play MapleStory. That is a casual game for you.

Could we please quit it with the “get on my level nub” talk and instead let us have a rational discussion?

I too wanted the base areas to have more of a challenge and the zerger meta was boring and made every player a clone of each other player. A better approach to the base game, not talking HoT here yet, was to make some of the creatures immune, or resistant to certain things. I personally was hoping the increased challenge involved this world wide. If some creatures were much much tougher but were susceptible to bleeds for example it would make for far fewer clones in the world.

And this is what I though the “new challenging content” would be. I am not being foolhardy in this assumption either as the new modrem (SW) showed they had the ability to do just that to certain creatures.

Now on to HoT, I do not personally mind the tougher creatures, and I am an old dude, what I do mind is that the content is gated behind timers. I have a life, I have a family, and I have many things I need to do on an average day. What I don’t have most days is the time to log in and wait an hour or more for the meta to arrive.

Others have said that you can join at any time, but there is the rub. Once you have contributed to the map you get rewards based upon participation after a certain period of time, and if I have to leave after ten minutes all my rewards are forfeit! Joining a map only for the meta to pop is an option, but you need the map currency in many cases to get all the rewards and that is gotten from doing events leading up to the meta.

I suppose you could do a few events and log off (hoping you got some of the map currency) and join a meta run later (providing you can hit the timer correctly), but why not just give the currency upon completion of events and kill the timer completely basing it instead like SW.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that the new challenge is basically how many hoops you want to jump through to get to the shiney. I personally liked the old way of doing things that allowed you to do things when YOU had the time and not when you could make time.

Silicato.4603:

runeblade.7514:

There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly, and it still is.

I don’t see how having a little bit of hard core content = casual unfriendly.

When that “little bit of hardcore content” gives exclusive things, stop being casual firendly. Only elite and hardocre players will have those items.

I honestly hope that HoT have bad sells, so they rethink about that dilema between casuals and hardcores, and they have to took a side and make a game in future iterationts either for casuals or for hardcores, so we all (casuals and hardcores) can move on to the kind of games we like, or stay.

We’ll know on January/February when sells from 4Q will be public.

Those exclusive things that hardcore can get are optional.

Wolfey.3407:

Here’s a box image for the pre-order….

Can anyone show me where on the official preorder box where it says or advertises casual?

You think the box art was the only advertisement for GW2??

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Draknar.5748:

Things that people claimed weren’t casual friendly pre-HoT:

Fractals (3 mini dungeons plus a boss?! I don’t have time for that I play 20min a day, I’m casual!)
Dungeons (I can’t get into a group because I don’t have zerk gear and I don’t speedrun! I’m casual!)
World completion (why do we have to do WvW for world completion, I’m casual, I don’t like PvP!)
Story-mode finale (I need a group to finish the story?! what the heck Anet! I’m too casual for that!)
Living Story S1 (these LS events are timed?! You’re saying I can’t do all of the achievements within the 2 weeks if I only play 10min a day?! I’m casual, wtf ANET!
Living Story S2 (wtf Anet, I didn’t log in when these were released because I’m super casual, and now you want me to grind gold so I can trade for gems? I’m casual! I don’t have the time nor money to do this!)
Dailies (Whoa, Anet, look at how long it’s taking to do these dailies! And I have to do it to get laurels?! I’m only on for 2min a day! I can’t possibly get all of this AP that you are forcing me to get! Make it casual friendly!)

I think a lot of people think that casual friendly means everything needs to be able to be completed quickly or easily. A casual player does not imply a bad player, it implies someone that plays at their own, typically slow, pace. Being able to do things at your own pace: that’s the definition of being casual friendly.

In GW2 you can do literally everything at your own pace (minus holiday events, as those are time limited). That is casual friendly. Raids is the only area that I would say has the biggest obstacle to casual players, and that’s getting a 10man group together.

I’d love to hear what exactly in GW2 you couldn’t do at your own, casual, pace.

If something takes a long time, it doesn’t mean it isn’t casual friendly, it just means it will take longer to complete, but it can still be 100% casual.

People claimed crafting legendaries wasn’t casual, but I can assure you I crafted two from scratch, casually, over the course of 2 years. Some days I felt like working towards a requirement, some days I didn’t. I dictated the pace I completed things. THAT IS CASUAL.

o/ ^this

Tommyknocker.6089:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Before HoT, I always had a legitimate chance of acquiring a festival or event skin. The requirements were sensible.

Since HoT, I present Nightfury and Winter’s Presence….. The requirements for these skins are just nauseating.

When people talk about the grind in HoT, this is exactly the kind of thing they are talking about. You either have to grind for those drinks during the festival OR spend a ton of gold on drinks( cynical gold sinks also a trend since HoT)

On a side note Jumping puzzle requirement is crap. Prior to HoT jp’s were just a sideshow attraction. HoT is trying to turn my rpg into a platformer and that sucks.

Case in point, the Halloween back piece from 2012:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mad_Memoires:_Complete_Edition

Was received after doing a quest involving going places, defeating evil and generally just playing with other players. Everyone that tried to get one had one. There was no elitism involved and the gold sink/grind was non-existent.

Fast forward 3 years and we have nightfury

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightfury_Skin

Does nobody at ANet see the difference here? I know I sure do!

Point taken, but a game expansion is different from a holiday themed patch.

TeslaRaptor.5197:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Before HoT, I always had a legitimate chance of acquiring a festival or event skin. The requirements were sensible.

Since HoT, I present Nightfury and Winter’s Presence….. The requirements for these skins are just nauseating.

When people talk about the grind in HoT, this is exactly the kind of thing they are talking about. You either have to grind for those drinks during the festival OR spend a ton of gold on drinks( cynical gold sinks also a trend since HoT)

On a side note Jumping puzzle requirement is crap. Prior to HoT jp’s were just a sideshow attraction. HoT is trying to turn my rpg into a platformer and that sucks.

Case in point, the Halloween back piece from 2012:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mad_Memoires:_Complete_Edition

Was received after doing a quest involving going places, defeating evil and generally just playing with other players. Everyone that tried to get one had one. There was no elitism involved and the gold sink/grind was non-existent.

Fast forward 3 years and we have nightfury

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightfury_Skin

Does nobody at ANet see the difference here? I know I sure do!

Point taken, but a game expansion is different from a holiday themed patch.

I was referring to the festivals only, but now that you mention it, why not in the Xpac too?

The way I see it you will have players reach the pinnacle of achievement in the first few days just to stand around in LA and “pose” (masteries for example). These players will always complete the content as quick as possible. Just because these players can achieve it quickly does not mean they need to make the mark higher and higher for the rest of us though IMO.

The second back piece I linked is a prime example of the direction I did not want to see ANet take in anything they introduce. Sure we all want our achievements to mean something, but when they become almost impossible to reach for the average full time worker, it makes the game less fun and more work. And although Xpacs are released slowly and are designed to give you long term goals, it still needs to find that fine line between enjoyable (Karka hunt in LA for example) and a total pain in the bottom (adventuring for collection pieces).

Sykper.6583:

Couple dozen- Where have you been? Since a little after launch the playerbase that wanted harder challenges grew quite a bit, which prompted the launches of such things like Marionette, Revamped Tequatl and Triple Trouble. Yet we still heard thread after thread of criticisms about how easy the content was for years. Don’t pretend that it was just a minority, there was a massive amount of players that wanted GW2 to push the difficulty higher in its content.

And all by the same people, over and over again.

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Um, this overly emotional attempt at an analogy doesn’t even make sense in context…

lol

CaptainVanguard.4925:

A long time ago, there was an MMO that advertised itself out there to be “the” casual player mmo. This mmo promised it would create content that would be designed for relaxing and open social gameplay, the ability to play with friends without having to, the ability to do dungeon runs that werent frustrating or tedious, a massive world vs world vs world pvp mode that encouraged thousands to play. Huge map wide raids were also a big deal in these casual event systems designed to help casual gamers play with other casual gamers.

It also introduced a level based pvp system entirley seperate from its main game with an entirely class-balance based focus on that pvp system.

That game also had a decent roleplaying community on at least 2 major servers prior to the introduction of mega-servers and a number of other new additions to the game.

It also promised that absoleutley no content in the game would be a tedious chore.

It lied.

GW2, What ever you promised to be, you need to keep it, screw this “1%” minority that are into e-sports, and raiding 24/7 this isnt WoW just abbandon that entirley and focus on the people that “do” care about the game, and “do” care about it surviving longer than 3 months.

GW2 was the first MMO SINCE World of Warcraft I could activly play for more than just a month, I felt a certain satisfaction in exploring the world, doing random questsa t my own pace and leisure, having the options to see Tyria at my own adventuring pace.

Now, I feel like the game wants me to rush into content, get my ascended mats, aquire legendaries, 5000 acheivement points minimum and alot more content thats just locked behind farming for content so that an kitten group of stowaways from other MMO’s can have their moment to shine.

Can we please, PLEASE go back to what MADE GW2 special in the first place.

Going forward, GW2 needs to abbandon this “challenging group content” kitten and “e-sport pvp ladder” system and just focus on what MADE GW2 special.

Its a game, people can play at their own leisure for fun, with nothing overly complicated about that at all.

Season 2 did this ALOT better than HoT did.

Going into Season 3 and future expansions, I would seriously hope A-net goes BACK to what made the games CORE gameplay special.

I want a game that isnt just another WoW clone, dont become another wow clone, A-net.

+1 OP. I could not have said it better myself.

Celtic Lady.3729:

It was, actually.

Not by arena net it wasn’t.

GW2 being anti-grind was a recurring theme in their advertising, and e.g. the manifesto video.

Misrepresenting what was actually said. The idea was that they would try, where possible, to avoid requiring grind to be able to access content.
e.g. a gear treadmil

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Um, this overly emotional attempt at an analogy doesn’t even make sense in context…

lol

It doesn’t make sense or you don’t want to believe that’s how rational, responsible and mature people see these complaints?

The burn analogy is pretty obvious and make lots of sense … people that didn’t take heed of Anet’s warning got ‘burned’ by purchasing HoT too early and are acting exactly in the manner I described here. I’m not emotional, but I am stunned about the behaviour that people are exhibiting about their decision to purchase HoT. Buyer’s remorse should not be an incentive to act out in a childish manner on the forums. I can’t imagine how some of these people function IRL.

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Um, this overly emotional attempt at an analogy doesn’t even make sense in context…

lol

It doesn’t make sense or you don’t want to believe that’s how rational, responsible and mature people see these complaints?

Nope, it makes zero sense. It’s a very bad anology for a whole host of reasons, such as the fact that buying a video game expansion and running into a burning building simply don’t carry the same risk. This alone makes it a very bad attempt at analogy. Also, there’s nothing even remotely vague about the statement “It’s on fire.” Yet another reason why this analogy falls way short of its mark.

What it is, however, is a passive-aggressive attempt to say that people that purchased HoT despite their concerns are idiots. You’re being purposely insulting because let’s face it. Only a complete idiot would run into a smoking building with a firefighter standing right outside saying it’s on fire.

The obvious implication is that people that would do this idiotic thing are the same people that would buy a video game expansion if they had doubts about what exactly was involved in the vague phrase “challenging content.”

No,“rational” people don’t see these two things as comparable at all. People gambled (and not with their lives, mind you) on the expansion based on their experience with the game during 3 years’ time and faith in the company. Some of them lost that gamble, some of them didn’t. It depended on their playstyle and what they consider enjoyable in a game.

In the future, I’m guessing a lot more people are going to be a lot less likely to pre-purchase any more GW2 expansions. They’ll wait to have more information next time.

My firm belief is that anyone who buys something months! before release without having even a vague idea of what is in is either
a) a blind fanboy who would buy it if a gang of thugs was included to come and give him the beating of his lifetime.
b) someone who loves the game and buys it despite knowing better, hoping that the drough will end soon.
c) someone with too much money.

My concern is not even primarily with the tedious grind. I bought bolt I, looked at the requirements, shook my head and have not once since tried to collect it. And that´s ok. I don´t have it, and don´t really need it, so what. I am sad that I will miss out on the skin, but the party is over.
It´s not even the monsters of HoT. Yes, they are harder and you can´t go afk as often as you can in Old Tyria. Ok. If I want to play GW2 hile doing something else, I stay in old Tyria. No problem.

Now I am a pretty patient guy and intend to stay with GW2 until it really tells me that I have to move on or a new kid comes into town that caters better to my lazy ways. And I can assure you that HoT was the first shove in the direction of the door for me. Why?
a) Plattform Wars 2. I am no plumber, and not Italian.
b) Raid Wars 2. Hiding viable equipment between content that is not intended for a majority was, is and will always be wrong in my mind.
c) Maze Wars 2. I am also not a gopher or flying squirrel. While i can live with Map 1, Map 3 is the worst offender in this.
d) Adventure Wars 2. Boring, grindy, no want to replay them at all.

So I already know that I won´t touch HoT ever again after I have collected the recips from it. And is that something you really want, content that is not desireable but a lesson in patience and grudge management?

I always has admired GW2 style of gameplay and feel of the world but that was about 60% why I fell in love with this game. Other 40% came from living world season 1 which was constantly evolving with free updates and something interesting extra was always going on – sometimes bunch of things at once. Plenty of achievements to do – Skins which I can earn by playing the game – I had always reason to play.

But then casual players who missed some content were mad and they changed things to release bunch of things at once and leave that content for eternity. But that leads into another problem – when we’re done with content we had nothing to do anymore until long time other bunch of big things happens. So now they release impossible task for us – collect 10,000 of this, spend 1000g on this cosmetic item, or go on and run hardmore dungeon-raids just so we have something to do while waiting.

I agree that HoT itself is way to right direction, but they need to do heavy thinking on where to lead the game and focus with serious balance update and bug fixing. Also they have to try save whatever we have left of our WvW.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Um, this overly emotional attempt at an analogy doesn’t even make sense in context…

lol

It doesn’t make sense or you don’t want to believe that’s how rational, responsible and mature people see these complaints?

Nope, it makes zero sense. It’s a very bad anology for a whole host of reasons, such as the fact that buying a video game expansion and running into a burning building simply don’t carry the same risk. This alone makes it a very bad attempt at analogy. Also, there’s nothing even remotely vague about the statement “It’s on fire.” Yet another reason why this analogy falls way short of its mark.

What it is, however, is a passive-aggressive attempt to say that people that purchased HoT despite their concerns are idiots. You’re being purposely insulting because let’s face it. Only a complete idiot would run into a smoking building with a firefighter standing right outside saying it’s on fire.

The obvious implication is that people that would do this idiotic thing are the same people that would buy a video game expansion if they had doubts about what exactly was involved in the vague phrase “challenging content.”

No,“rational” people don’t see these two things as comparable at all. People gambled (and not with their lives, mind you) on the expansion based on their experience with the game during 3 years’ time and faith in the company. Some of them lost that gamble, some of them didn’t. It depended on their playstyle and what they consider enjoyable in a game.

In the future, I’m guessing a lot more people are going to be a lot less likely to pre-purchase any more GW2 expansions. They’ll wait to have more information next time.

It’s not an invalid analogy because of risk. And yes, you called it, I regard anyone who is complaining about prepurchasing HoT, then complaining about the difficulty that they were TOLD they should expect at the same mental and maturity level as someone who willingly runs into a burning building who complains about getting burned.

Regardless, it appears that if the attitudes that prevail about buyer’s responsibility are indicative by what I see in this thread, I guess I shouldn’t expect too many people to understand it anyways.

ODB.6891:

DoctorDing.5890:

Core game is still casual-friendly but HoT is definitely not.
The mistake they made is to launch an expansion that is so dramatically different to the core game.

They told us exactly what the expansion was going to be about before it was even launched.

Bullkitten.

ODB.6891:

There were many us making a huge stink on the forums, before launch, specifically because they were being excessively vague about what the expansion would contain. They eventually gave up the goods and made posts detailing what it would be like. They told us it would be more challenging.

They still were really vague on that point. That might have meant a multitude of things. It definitely didn’t have to mean maps where everything is part of a meta on a timer, and most things are made for groups. It didn’t have to mean guildhalls, legendary crafting and many other things hidden beyond massive material and gold sinks. It didn’t have to mean nerfing dungeons into the ground (which, btw, happened for the players that didn’t buy expac too). They also didn’t say that all of the expac would be for hardcores.

ODB.6891:

Why would you buy something that you know in advance, that you don’t want to play? That isn’t ANET’s mistake…

Of course it isn’t Anet’s mistake. They intentionally marketed the expac to players it was not meant for. They had to, because the number of players it was meant for was too small to support that expac on their own. Which is why they haven’t given me enough info to realize the expac wasn’t for me. On the contrary, the whole time what they were saying was that i’d better buy HoT because core will be left forgotten. Guildhalls? Need HoT. New specializations? Need HoT. Masteries? need HoT. Precursor crafting? Need HoT. Participation in all future Living Story chapters? Definitely need HoT. Any changes and improvements for the game? Need HoT.
They kept repeating that day after day – this was their message. Not “buy HoT only if you want challenging group content” as you claim.

Tommyknocker.6089:

it was advertised as being an MMO unlike any other one out there, which it is not anymore.

This is 1 huge part of why I left GW2. There’s little to differentiate it from every other generic MMO out there. I started playing a few months after launch and have watched it slowly transition, adopting the common generic MMO troupes.
That’s, of course, my opinion and nothing else. But its been enough for me that I don’t recommend this one to people anymore when asked about MMO’s.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Now, I feel like

Exactly, your feelings are the issue here – no one forces you to go for Legendaries or APs.

Also I never saw an ad with “Introducing Casual MMO GW2!”

Raids are being done by LFG pugs but are still fun and PvP leagues were a REQUIRED addition to the game (since there has been zero PvP progression for a very long time).

I don’t agree with your post.

Being lazy with quotes here:
“Its a game, people can play at their own leisure for fun, with nothing overly complicated about that at all.”
This is still the case unless you raid, and if you do there is no reason to make this post. Nothing has changed, except for people’s shouts.

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Well, I know this is just an analogy, but it isn’t life and death, is it?

They were risking losing money; not their lives.

People (who were looking) may have seen some signs, but wanted to continue to enjoy more of the game they loved, so decided to take a risk.

After all, it was either that, or consigning themselves to (at least) two more years of playing the same content; or leaving the game entirely.

Games are a difficult thing to judge, without playing them.

Someone can tell you something, but it’s hard to work out whether it is OK for you, or not, without playing it yourself.

Not to mention that casual players, or even players that are not full-on hardcore, are just less likely to be spending the necessary time to search-out indepth information, about games, all the time.

…and no one is standing at the door of the game itself, telling people the game is far harder, or more intensely time-consuming.

It’s more a case of you being expected to find the correct room(s), in the local fire station and only then you might see some signs on the walls, that may vaguely indicate if the building, you are thinking of entering, is possibly on fire, or not.

Casual players are less likely to do this, as they are often too busy doing other things – quite often, other things that enable them to get the money to help (continually) fund the game, for the more hardcore types.

Who either can’t afford to fund it, or simply don’t need to – as they make far more gold, in-game, by playing the TP (and/or formerly, by cheesing dungeons), than the average casual does.

That is why any game worth its salt should try to cater for casuals, too.

Especially a game that, clearly, set itself up as casual-friendly, or a form of casual-friendly anyway, in the first place.

Whether they may, or may not, have ever said that in actual words.

TBH, I don’t think all casuals would have been happy with its over-emphasise on crafting, or its extremely loose understanding of balance, or its odd ideas when attempting to correct any balance issues, or its dungeon-cheesing…

In fact, I’m not even what I would call a “casual” and I never have been.

But, there is no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t, originally, intended for the traditional idea of hardcore players and was intended to cater for the kind of players, the games that were, tended to ignore.

So, of course this U-turn will come as a shock for some.

Vague warning signs, at the fire station, notwithstanding.

I play maybe a couple hours a week, and yet I already have all the ‘required’ masteries for any content I want to play. My guild, despite being fully casual with some people running yellow/green gear (!!) of no particular stat combination gets together to try raiding once in a while, and we’ve gotten reasonably far with the first boss. I expect we’ll be able to beat him eventually, and I hear the later ones are easier.

The various maps are much more interesting/exciting to explore, and it actually feels engaging fighting random mobs as they’re no longer just damage sponges – they actually have mechanics now. Masteries add a sort of depth to the levels where I can go back and discover new things once I’ve earned new abilities. It’s something I’ve always felt was missing from ANY mmo, compared to solo games like Zelda.

As far as ‘challenging’ or ‘extremely difficult’ goes – entire maps used to fail regularly at teq and other bosses. I remember ragequitting on the spider boss at AC, at the first group of mobs in CM, at alpha in CoE. Fast forward a year or two later, and I can’t remember the last time any of these has failed. Even some of the ‘casual’ people in this thread are holding them up as examples of ‘casual’ activities they used to know and love for the easy rewards.

Frankly I don’t think raids are particularly more difficult than any of these – it’s just going to take some time for people to get used to the mechanics and soon enough it’ll be another farm-for-rewards.

For those complaining that their ‘casual’ rewards have been nerfed – news flash, dungeons were the money maker for ‘hardcore’ players too. I guarantee that this was a move by Anet to ensure that raids don’t just turn into another Aetherblade path, because that truly would be the death of the game. That said, map rewards have gotten WAY better – the other day, Frostgorge was giving out something like 3g worth of reward mats per 2 events or so. Fractals were also recently buffed, so you can hop in and get a decent reward for a 5-10 minute time investment. So as far as I can tell, raiding isn’t necessary for any reason other than personal satisfaction of accomplishment.

Tigaseye.2047:

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I think your objections don’t make sense because Anet warned people HoT would be more challenging. I won’t debate with you if it’s overly hard or if getting level 2 masteries are a ‘grind’, but you absolutely can’t complain that you got HoT, and then were surprised that ‘hard’ content prevented you from doing what you assumed you would be able to. Anet put up the red flags; you ignored them.

The flags weren’t red. They were more like grey. There was so much vagueness as to what the term was actually referring to (and some things weren’t announced beforehand, anyway) that even cautious people were having a hard time knowing if it would drastically alter their playstyle.

Even if it was vague, that should have gave a cautious buyer reason to pause. You walk into a building if there is smoke and not fire, even if a fireman tells you it’s on fire? Then you walk in and complain you got burned because you weren’t 100% it was on fire because you didn’t see fire? Then blame the fireman because he was ‘vague’ and didn’t give you enough information which made it a hard decision for you to go into that burning building or not?

Sure …

Well, I know this is just an analogy, but it isn’t life and death, is it?

They were risking losing money; not their lives.

People (who were looking) may have seen some signs, but wanted to continue to enjoy more of the game they loved, so decided to take a risk.

Precisely why the people crying about it should take it down a notch or two.

Harper.4173:

And this was never officially stated either.

What they did say was that their game would be unique in some ways – no gear grind, being rewarded for all areas of play, etc.

You forgot “the friendliest community in gaming”. Oh, but that would have destroyed your point.

Tithian.4915:

As a self proclaimed casual player (very few achievements, erratic schedule, hardly any farming done), this is what I believe is the issue:

I’m closing in on 20,000 achievement points, but I’m very casual.

Tigaseye.2047:

So, this new content suits me better in some ways – although, the Zerker meta is still prevalent in the raids…

A “zerker type” meta is something that will always exist. People always look for the fastest and most efficient gear. If you are taking little to no damage or have ways of avoiding damage then there is no need for any defensive stats. Defensive stats are wasted as long as you have health in your health bar.

Guild Wars 2 is/was advertised as being an MMO without having an exact Holy Trinity . This means that several professions can fill several roles. The dungeons/factals can be jumped into with any comp of professions. Some comps make them easier of course.

Guild Wars 2 was also advertised at lacking a gear treadmill(not grind). Treadmill is a planned obsolescence of gear. For a long time exotics were the highest end with legendaries being overpriced skins. Ascended came out and that became the highest tier with legendaries being given those stats as well. Eventually legendaries became account bound and stat swappable. Ascended has been in the game for a long time and has remained the highest tier of gear for that time. This is what Guild Wars 2 advertised. You can come back play the game and experience all the content. In other MMOs you have a list of gear sets to be able to acquire other gear sets.

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

And this was never officially stated either.

What they did say was that their game would be unique in some ways – no gear grind, being rewarded for all areas of play, etc.

You forgot “the friendliest community in gaming”. Oh, but that would have destroyed your point.

The community is pretty good but not at all the friendliest Ive encountered. Self proclaimed accolades are kind of cheezy IMO. Worlds greatest dad t-shirts come to mind.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Well many don’t post here as they are seldom replied to by anyone in power. That being said, Reddit lost 400+ subs yesterday alone, and as the devs actually post there I can see it being a trend (metric).

Is it millions, no of course not, because most people still playing don’t unsub, but it does show that many don’t like the direction the game is going in.

I think I’m still going to stand by my “millions” quote. The vast VAST majority of players have been casual.

But, remember that my “millions” includes players who have quit. The game DID appeal to them.

Now, certainly a larger percentage of hardcore players quit than casuals. Hardcore players get bored when the content isn’t hard enough (or new enough) for them, and the seek out more difficult games.

It is kind of telling that Anet´s defenders have to resort to such drastic measures as intended wording lately. Maybe it was not explicitly stated, but nobody did anything to correct that impression either.

Which would again neatly prove that you can not please or hold hardcore players in a game if you don´t have random dungeons with so many variables that even if someone figures out the possible combinations it would still be too much to predict accurately. They are sufficient for a quick band aid rush for the shareholder meeting, but that´s it then.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Nope, it makes zero sense. It’s a very bad anology for a whole host of reasons, such as the fact that buying a video game expansion and running into a burning building simply don’t carry the same risk. This alone makes it a very bad attempt at analogy.

Actually, in logic there is a valid negation argument known as reductio ad absurdum (reduce the argument to an absurd level). So that, by itself, doesn’t invalidate the argument.

On the other hand, the rest of your post does.

Torolan.5816:

It is kind of telling that Anet´s defenders have to resort to such drastic measures as intended wording lately. Maybe it was not explicitly stated, but nobody did anything to correct that impression either.

Which would again neatly prove that you can not please or hold hardcore players in a game if you don´t have random dungeons with so many variables that even if someone figures out the possible combinations it would still be too much to predict accurately. They are sufficient for a quick band aid rush for the shareholder meeting, but that´s it then.

I think that it is even more telling that some of those seeking to complain about this particular point have to resort to outright fabrication and lies to support their claims.

Torolan.5816:

Which would again neatly prove that you can not please or hold hardcore players in a game if you don´t have random dungeons with so many variables that even if someone figures out the possible combinations it would still be too much to predict accurately.

This is silly nonsense, many games retain hardcore players without this mystical shifting labyrinth dungeon. You’re using ridiculous, theoretical and personal definitions of “hardcore” in order to claim a “proof.”

So you disagree that hardcore raiders who seek challenges leave a given game if they have the hardest content on farm mode only to return if a new piece of content appears while playing the newest version of another game tp repeat the cycle? Stuff like that never happens? Not even in WoW where numbers of subscribers is heavily fluctuating? Call it a trend instead of a proof if you like then.

And I complain about this argument because neither you or I know how it was intended. The person saying it probably does not know anymore how it was intended. You probably all remember how people were falling over each other when a dev said something akin to that ascended is mandatory for raids. It´s exactly the same with this argument here.

I don’t recall GW2 being explicitly marketed as “casual friendly”.
The term was mostly community driven based on plenty of announcements like “no grind”, “no gear treadmill” or “no need for explicit grouping in open world”, and never about the difficulty.
In fact, GW2 combat has always been marketed as a fast paced action based one (“Combat in Guild Wars 2 is flexible, fast-paced, and dynamic. You’ll achieve victory through timing, dodging, and quick thinking, not immobile number-crunching”, directly copied from the web) which doesn’t exactly sound like a warm welcome for mechanically unskilled players.

I had a blast with HoT during the first days after launch just by exploring the maps and experiencing every single DE chain for the first time. While it didn’t last for long in my own case, just this one time experience could have provided several weeks of fun to a truly casual player.
In the meanwhile, however, these forums were on burn with lots of complaints about both the skill challenge and the mastery XP grind. The first one is somewhat understandable; the second one, however, is something I NEVER faced.
Just exploring the map and experiencing different content once, maybe twice, was providing me enough XP to keep a good mastery progression, which leads to an obvious conclusion: those players were rushing towards something.
It could be the story, it could be the specialization, it could be just about reaching the last map because they had heard it was an epic and awesome zergfest with good lootz … but many of them were definitely not taking their time to enjoy the exploration and discovery.
This somewhat reminded me my first days with the core GW2, with plenty of players complaining about the lack of XP and being underleved (rarely related to real issues caused by bugs, like being stuck at some personal story mission) and/or asking advice about how to level up faster, when I was most of the time several levels ahead of the zones I was playing in (naturally brought by my personal sotryline).

There are, of course, plenty of truly casual players with completely legit complaints (like every single new map being an scheduled and quite long meta-event), but the truth is, the average GW2 player, the so called “casual” player, doesn’t have a “casual” mindset at all, not at least by the same definition which brought the community to call this game “casual friendly”.
For someone suposed to dislike the grind, they show and incredible tolerance to repeat the same effortless content over and over (you can find them playing the Tarir/DS meta for the Nth time, just like you could find them before spamming vinewraths or following some world boss train commander) on top of some kind of skritt syndrome which forces them to go after the shiniest of shinies (when they could capitalize on more hardcore players going after it and easily and almost grind freely accomplish plenty of much more reasonable goals).

The ongoing complaints are usually about difficulty (specially for new content. Once the community get used to beat it and it becomes completely uninteresting gameplay wise, then all the complaints seem to disappear), platforming (which seems to be unacceptable since it requires a completely different skillset than the advertised fast paced action combat … oh wait) and, of course, how much grind is required for the new jewel of the vanity crown (ignoring the positive implications for those who know their own limits and set reasonable goals).

Honestly, some “casual” players should learn to enjoy being a “casual” player. The way I see it, many of them are just hardcore/grinder mindset players who lack either the time to fulfill their goals and/or the will to adapt to what those goals demand.

Platforming was peripheral in vanilla gw2. The change to make it integral to the game is why you are getting complaints. People bought an rpg not a platformer.

https://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/things-have-changed

Tommyknocker.6089:

Harper.4173:

Daddicus.6128:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Years of disdain in the many “face-roll easy” posts about the game had to sting.

So, they should listen to the couple dozen loud voices and ignore millions of their other players?

Except you don’t know what “millions of other players” want because they didn’t post. You only think you know what they want based on what you want.

If millions of players had been so upset that things had changed we might have seen millions of posts.

Well many don’t post here as they are seldom replied to by anyone in power. That being said, Reddit lost 400+ subs yesterday alone, and as the devs actually post there I can see it being a trend (metric).

Is it millions, no of course not, because most people still playing don’t unsub, but it does show that many don’t like the direction the game is going in.

400+ subs lost doesn’t mean those people left the game. It means they left reddit. Let’s not make things into what they’re not.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Platforming was peripheral in vanilla gw2. The change to make it integral to the game is why you are getting complaints. People bought an rpg not a platformer.

There’s also the fact that such game mechanics are made much more difficult for those with higher ping. Something anet continues to ignore but which has been an ongoing complaint of those in the oceanic region and asia.

Tigaseye.2047:

I agree with you, to an extent.

I hated the Zerker skip>stack>melee bs in dungeons.

It felt empty, soulless and extremely boring.

You were told that it was optional and that you could avoid groups that did that.

But even groups that didn’t state they were speedrunners, often actually were (at least to an extent), or were teaching speedrunning to newbies.

So, this new content suits me better in some ways – although, the Zerker meta is still prevalent in the raids…

But, what I’m concerned about, here, is not the cheesers of GW2 losing some of their cheese; especially, as they still have, at least somewhat, cheesy raids to “enjoy”.

It is the people who, genuinely, needed the game to be less challenging, for some reason.

Maybe they can’t play much, or have disabilities that affect how they can play and/or for how long, in one stretch, or whatever.

Or maybe they can, physically, play it, but they find it stressful and that stress affects them negatively.

I’m just concerned that they may have paid a lot for an xpac that they really can’t enjoy much of, at all.

Are you telling me that people were forcing others to speedrun? When everyone was free to make their own group with their own rules that they wanted?

Also the zerker meta is dead – no longer is it optimal for all party members to be zerker – certain roles are now required. Stop misleading people.

A glass meta will always be the norm – if people consider that zerker meta = glass meta then yes – the “zerker” ( glass) meta is here and will be here forever.

Nobody likes to take more time than they have to.

Draknar.5748:

Things that people claimed weren’t casual friendly pre-HoT:

Fractals (3 mini dungeons plus a boss?! I don’t have time for that I play 20min a day, I’m casual!)
Dungeons (I can’t get into a group because I don’t have zerk gear and I don’t speedrun! I’m casual!)
World completion (why do we have to do WvW for world completion, I’m casual, I don’t like PvP!)
Story-mode finale (I need a group to finish the story?! what the heck Anet! I’m too casual for that!)
Living Story S1 (these LS events are timed?! You’re saying I can’t do all of the achievements within the 2 weeks if I only play 10min a day?! I’m casual, wtf ANET!
Living Story S2 (wtf Anet, I didn’t log in when these were released because I’m super casual, and now you want me to grind gold so I can trade for gems? I’m casual! I don’t have the time nor money to do this!)
Dailies (Whoa, Anet, look at how long it’s taking to do these dailies! And I have to do it to get laurels?! I’m only on for 2min a day! I can’t possibly get all of this AP that you are forcing me to get! Make it casual friendly!)

I think a lot of people think that casual friendly means everything needs to be able to be completed quickly or easily. A casual player does not imply a bad player, it implies someone that plays at their own, typically slow, pace. Being able to do things at your own pace: that’s the definition of being casual friendly.

In GW2 you can do literally everything at your own pace (minus holiday events, as those are time limited). That is casual friendly. Raids is the only area that I would say has the biggest obstacle to casual players, and that’s getting a 10man group together.

I’d love to hear what exactly in GW2 you couldn’t do at your own, casual, pace.

If something takes a long time, it doesn’t mean it isn’t casual friendly, it just means it will take longer to complete, but it can still be 100% casual.

People claimed crafting legendaries wasn’t casual, but I can assure you I crafted two from scratch, casually, over the course of 2 years. Some days I felt like working towards a requirement, some days I didn’t. I dictated the pace I completed things. THAT IS CASUAL.

Saving

I still don’t understand where this idea of you’re being forced to rush come from. Yes, anet added a lot of end game items in this expansion, but none of them is locked under specific amt of time. All i can say is to take your time. Despite the frustration in forum, ppl are still doing events in non popular maps like vb, td, and dry top. I even managed to finish mawdrey a few days ago.

Also the grind in HoT is actually not worse than previous LS episode. The difference is just that in prev LS, you got one map to do in each episode. In HoT, you got 4 maps to farm at the same time. Population become more spread out, therefore finding populated map is more difficult than before.

The only complaint I have about HoT is how anet treated dungeons. While the gold nerf in short dungeons is justified, since it still gives you the most gold/gameplay hour. Long dungeons give very small reward right now, so small it’s better to waste your time in Wvw.

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

And this was never officially stated either.

What they did say was that their game would be unique in some ways – no gear grind, being rewarded for all areas of play, etc.

You forgot “the friendliest community in gaming”. Oh, but that would have destroyed your point.

They advertised the friendliest community before the game launch? I didn’t see that posted anywhere.
In fact – it was a horn they started tooting about 1 year after GW2’s release.

Guess you should have followed the game pre-launch better buddy.