There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: thewaterguy.4796
(edited by thewaterguy.4796)
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
….the game is in a great space as it is….
Lol.
How may full servers in NA are there? How many new servers did Anet have to add to handle the swarm of new players attracted the the wonderful HoT expansion?
HoT is by no means casual friendly
You may join a map at whatever time you want to, but don’t be surprised if you go into a finished or not started Dragon’s Stand, a Verdant Brink in the nighttime boss phases and see nobody on the map, an Auric Basin with saving Tarir meta only to find that none of the doors are even broken down, or a Tangled Depths that has all of it’s events finished in 20-30 minutes.
Want to unlock your elite specialization? There are some channel HP’s for an easy 10 in a few cases on each map (except for Dragon’s Stand, which is all channeling. Advice is to use teleport to friend to the map or just run there). The rest? Better be prepared to fight a champion and possibly some adds.
I heard you wanted to make one of the new legendaries. Congratulations! These are awesome new weapons. Too bad you’ll have to open (assuming a 1/3 chance, and excluding Dragon’s Stand random crystalline ore amounts [1,3,10]) about 750 of the corresponding “chests” in each zone! Exciting I know! Oh but don’t worry, you can get 15 of each currency by doing the personal story missions in those zones…
You excited for raids! I was too! Took our guild a less than a week to figure out all the mechanics, comps, and finally execution to beat it. That was hard. Now on a good casual run (no wipes, minimal afk time) we finish in 35-40 minutes.
I’m pretty sure I could come up with more instances, but those are some right off the top of my head
Legendary weapons were never meant to be casual content, so I don’t really think bringing them up in the context of casual is fair play. I mean when they first came out, at launch you had to do WvW as part of your world complete. Not casual at all.
As for the elite specializations, you’re really pushing the truth there. So you can get about 220 points from core tyria, and you need 4 hero points then to completely it in HoT. If you con’t insist on using all HoT hero points, and you do world completion in core Tyria, I can point you to four easy to get hero points in Verdant Brink and boom, you’re done with your elite specialization without ever having to fight a champ.
The hero point on the floor, right out side where you enter is only vets. There is an easy to reach commune off Mallagen’s Waypoint and two more that you can just fall down to theyr’e in little niches in the wall. If you have Nuhoch Wallow’s trained you can just port down to them.
No champions. 1 vet and two communes. There’s another commune up with the Wyverns, so you’d have to kill a couple of adolescent wyverns to get that one. Easily doable if you’re careful.
There are 16 HP in VB/AB/TD that are easily done solo for a total of 160 points. The 7 HP in DS require only communing but you must also finish the meta to get most of them. But if you get those it’s a total of 230 points.
Just by getting to level 80 you will unlock all core skills and traits. You need 250 points to unlock an elite specialization, which means, without including DS, 250-160=90 hero points in Core Tyria to fully unlock the elite specialization. If you include DS you’d need 20 hero points in Core Tyria. All while never fighting a single champion HP in HoT. How is that “not casual”?
Unlocking an elite specialization is easy don’t make it look harder than it actually is.
But, in HoT I don’t have that choice. I must finish one grind before I can start the next.
No you don’t.
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Astralporing.1957
And as a hardcore – I don’t really need casuals to “lord over” – unless by that you mean that I want people to work for their things and not get them as hand-outs.
But you do. To have your “extra mile” rewards mean something to you, you need people that do not get them. If everyone was at your “hardcoreness” level (or better) and had access to everything you could get, it wouldn’t be so fun to you. It’s not the case with casuals. And that’s even without considering that hardcore crowd is so small that it would be unable to sustain a game like that on its own.
Yeah, exactly what i said – “Join the club or be a second class citizen”. Thank you for illustrating my point so well.
You might call it a second class citizen but that’s not really it – is it?
Is not getting things you have not worked for considered second class now?
No, it’s insisting that not only i should work for them, but also work them in the same way you do (because other ways are for some reason not kosher enough).
Also – joy is relative – so your lack of joy might be where I find joy and vice versa.
Yes, that’s my point. Your joy means my lack of joy. Quite possibly My joy means your lack of joy. That’s exactly why i said that the game cannot really cater to both our playstyles, and that devs must choose who is their target group.
I think it’s pretty clear what’s wanted here:
A declarative statement of what the philosophies of what the game will be. It’s clear the manifesto is old news, that was clear a long time ago. We as players need to know where the game is going in order to invest our time into it. A philosophy for Guild Wars 2 would go a looooooooooooooong way to helping us out in determining if this is the game for us or not.
Yes, exactly. Currently they are either afraid to decide on their current direction, or afraid to make that direction known, but ultimately it will only make lot of people angry. I want to know if this game is still worth staying in – and in case the answer is negative, i’d really like to learn it now.
They did kill dungeons in order to make raids popular, did they not?
They killed dungeons?
Yes, or at least that was their intention (they did it not because they considered the rewards to be too high, but specifically to make people stop doing dungeons).
You mean they nerfed the rewards – but the general consensus is that casuals play “to have fun” and “to enjoy the experience” and don’t generally farm for rewards
Only partially true. Yeah, casuals don’t usually farm (some do, if they can do it at their own pace) but where did you get the idea that casuals are not interested in rewards when rewards for hardcore content are the main point of contention? Casuals want to have the cool stuff (and have fun doing it) as much as you do. It’s just they generally don’t consider repeatedly smashing their face agaist the wall to be fun.
That aside – dungeons were nerfed because all over the game GOLD income has been nerfed and more and more gold sinks have been added.
Anet already admitted that was not the case, and that the reason behind the nerf was to make people stop doing dungeons (and move to fractals and raids).
They naively thought that dungeons would remain hard, and so when they did remain hard for a large part of community, they nerfed them significantly so the wider populace could enjoy them? Somehow this doesn’t add up.
Dungeons got nerfed? I don’t exactly recall – unless you mean the scaling issues -which weren’t exactly nerfs – but a reworking of the scaling system.
Nope, scaling reworks added to it, but there were several earlier nerfs. The most significant one was likely when they disabled res rushing (many bosses were made way easier then), but there were others as well. I think the only encounter that remains relatively close to the original difficulty (apart from the abovementioned scaling reworks) is the AC troll.
Either way – to say dungeons remained hard for the “general populace” is absurd – they remained hard for new players who kept coming in – but even the worst of the original players had the capacity to complete most dungeons or could find people to carry him through it.
I’m talking about pre-nerfs difficulty. At that time average pug group had trouble dealing even with AC story. I’m pretty sure that if you dig deep enough in these forums you will find tons of threads about it from the first year of the game.
First of all GW2 has not “abandoned its casual players” play Verdant Brink or Dragons Stand or Auric Basin, those maps are not very difficult to get into,
The simple fact that they are on a long timer that doesn’t really allow for on and off playing makes them not casual. All other reasons just add to it.
Lol – who exactly isn’t happy with Raiding? Raids have gotten almost universal praise since release.
Among the raiding community, maybe. And even there it’s not so universal as you claim (because, obviously, different people had different expectations from raids. Quite a number of people for example seem to think the current ones are both too boring and too easy).
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
And as a hardcore – I don’t really need casuals to “lord over” – unless by that you mean that I want people to work for their things and not get them as hand-outs.
But you do. To have your “extra mile” rewards mean something to you, you need people that do not get them. If everyone was at your “hardcoreness” level (or better) and had access to everything you could get, it wouldn’t be so fun to you. It’s not the case with casuals. And that’s even without considering that hardcore crowd is so small that it would be unable to sustain a game like that on its own.
That’s not true and it’s weird that you think of “hardcore players” that way. Contrary to what you believe those who want rewards from speicifc content aren’t villains and horrible people that want to see other players suffer.
Other people not getting the reward is completely irrelevant, the idea is to put specific rewards behind content, challenging or not, and allow players to earn it by beating said content. If every single player of the game can do the raid and get the rewards from it, it’s totally fine, although it might mean either that the playerbase it too good, or the content is severely lacking in challenge.
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Astralporing.1957
And as a hardcore – I don’t really need casuals to “lord over” – unless by that you mean that I want people to work for their things and not get them as hand-outs.
But you do. To have your “extra mile” rewards mean something to you, you need people that do not get them. If everyone was at your “hardcoreness” level (or better) and had access to everything you could get, it wouldn’t be so fun to you. It’s not the case with casuals. And that’s even without considering that hardcore crowd is so small that it would be unable to sustain a game like that on its own.
That’s not true and it’s weird that you think of “hardcore players” that way. Contrary to what you believe those who want rewards from speicifc content aren’t villains and horrible people that want to see other players suffer.
I’m basing this on the many, many forum threads in which many people (including some people participating in this discussion) claim that to make the rewards available through other means would devalue them, because too many people would have them.
No, i don’t think they specifically want others to suffer. I do think that what they want is to feel better than others, and want others to have no choice but to acknowledge that. What they want is competition. Specifically, competition on a field of their choosing, where they have advantage.
Other people not getting the reward is completely irrelevant, the idea is to put specific rewards behind content
Why? Why it’s so important that those rewards should not be available through other means? If you do not care that other people might get these rewards, why would you care how might they get them?
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
I’m basing this on the many, many forum threads in which many people (including some people participating in this discussion) claim that to make the rewards available through other means would devalue them, because too many people would have them.
And I disagree with the “because” part. Content needs a reason to exist, and having unique/exclusive rewards is one such reason, and frankly that’s how the game always worked, raids don’t need to be any different. It goes on multiple levels, making rewards thematic/appropriate for the content in terms of lore, story or how they look is one of them. Feeling like a rewarding game is another.
There are many reasons for having unique rewards in a game is better than having everything behind gold barriers, but that’s beside the scope of this thread. This was all about HoT being “not casual friendly”. Let’s say that they add an alternative way of buying the raid gear with gold. We can all understand that to balance out the cost and reward/time investment of raiding itself it would require an amount of gold in the number of thousands, which would still be “casual unfriendly”.
I don’t think the “raid rewards” is the problem with HoT being casual or hardcore. There are much simpler (and easier) ways of making HoT more casual friendly that have nothing to do with raiding itself.
(edited by maddoctor.2738)
I believe Guild Wars 2 can support all three sides of the fan base (Casual, Middle, Hardcore).
ArenaNet could be open in regards to what type of content is coming; say hardcore (raid, large coordinated events), or casual (open world pve, events that don’t require much coordination, etc.).
Uncertainty in the type of content being released is an issue. HoT was not concise in what type of content would be available.
I’d like to see releases that focus on one or the other, in rotation. With explicit communication on what the next release’s core audience will be. I see nothing wrong with having to wait for the type of content I enjoy playing. My issue, is the lack of direction on what the content will be delivering until it’s live.
Personally, if a particular content isn’t appeasing to me, I simply skip over it. I just purchased HoT, and there has not been any coordinated groups achieving the map events. This has been disappointing, but I hope the next expansion will have less event chain driven maps, with more open world that can be done with smaller groups or solo (like the core maps).
TL;DR – Raids, and large scale coordinated events are good, but not as the sole content delivery. Don’t see the issue in having both, casual and hardcore types of gameplay.
P.S., I want to add that the 2016 Blog on the year to come is a huge step in the right direction. There should be no secret on where the lead developers want to take the game, and what content is expected to come; while also concise in the fact that directions can change, but this is their goal. In reference, I believe Zenimax Online Studios (ZOS) does an overall great job at achieving this. No team is perfect, but baselines and goals help tremendously.
(edited by Antara.3189)
Why? Why it’s so important that those rewards should not be available through other means? If you do not care that other people might get these rewards, why would you care how might they get them?
Because it lost it’s meaning. I saw someone with the 3 pieces of Wurmslayer the other days. It’s was nice looking, we almost never see that and I know that he does the Triple Wurm a lot to get that. I went through the all the trouble of tribulation modes with my friends and it was awesome and we kind of think of that when we see someone with a not blue super weapon. I know what he had to do to get that, and it bring back memories for me and my friends. If I see someone with a mini Gorseval and the tentacle Staff, I know he did raid. I’ll probably talk to him if we are waiting or doing the same content because I know he succeed at Gorseval. It’s like Legendaries during the first year of the game. People were stopping me and talking to me about my weapon. How it’s cool and how they can do it. I made friends talking about that kind of things and more important, it give a feel of wonder and of life in the game.
Who will care if you have a mini sabetha? Nobody, it like it was not even there because you bought it on the TP. You had gem to spend good for you.
Those items are badge about what you did in the game. Of course it have to do with your ego. It’s always nice to have someone asking you about it, someone that wish they could have this item. But it’s also nice for those who look at those item. That give them goal for the game. People are looking toward things that are hard to get and like to have unique things. It’s a game about skins after all.
But I divide this issue into a second category.
Every type of reward should be available the largest amount of mean possible. Ascended gear for exemple, should have as much possible mean to get them.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: CaptainVanguard.4925
The problem with HoT is that it has shifted from world content to exclusive content, putting most if not all of its content behind endless farms to lengthen its value instead of allowing content to be enjoyable without making it a chore.
See, its the burn out philosophy, take A-nets compeditor in the field Blizzard as a good example of why burnout is bad.
Warlords of Draenor focused exclusivly on raiding content while having other content around it that could be used to contribute towards that. The problem was that the raiding content was limited and the experience was easily repedative after a while.
This kind of content isnt healthy for an MMO of the new age because people like faster gratification over longer gratification.
Theres a difference between something thats hardcore and something thats elitist to the point of exclusivity.
Hardcores, do content that can be accessed by anyone, but requires a long term challenge such as fighting bosses and earning loot to achieve, but you do earn loot as a reward and feel incentivised to keep playing the content to earn more loot.
Elite content is much more biased, it only allows very specific players to benefit from it of either exceptional skill or connective influences operating in a way that runs through the “I am superiour than everyone else” logic.
That is the worst kind of gameplay any mmo can offer because it creates a barrier between one generation of player and the next. If you want to attract new players to an MMO you dont focus on making them feel downright isolated from the old.
E.g. I barley if ever got to experience Aetherblade Retreat, the content in that dungeon was a little too much for me even though I did get to the final boss. It was frustrating, not fun, and I genuinley felt like I was being pushed aside as a target demographic in favor of those that wanted specific players for a specific content.
I havent even done the Aether Path in Twilight Arbor yet, and I never got to experience the Aether Fractal because I barley touched fractals at all.
This content wasnt for me, and to some extent dungeon content was never designed for my demographic.
But then you have content like the tower of nightmares which was challenging, but accessable, an open dungeon that people could go to when the content was relevent and ascend the tower to the top eventually getting access to the story content.
And I enphasis this here, story content was accessable via this, content that as vital to anyone trying to understand the lore and universe of the game, content that in my opinion should NEVER be barred behind any kind of wall.
If the lore has to be blocked by a challenging gameplay mechanic then you’ve failed to understand the point of an RPG, you cannot possibly have an RPG thats foundation of making “you” the main protagonist, wall its content off so that you and 10 other randoms can experience the same content that apparently makes “you” the main character so special.
This is where content can feel poorly designed for casuals, designing content that should be accessable to everyone, that requires a group to access.
E.g. The aweful decision at the end of GW2’s launch to gate the final story mission behind a dungeon was just bad, no matter how you excuse it. Thank god they changed it because frankly it was an aweful choice in the first place making the entire story side of the game redundant.
Then theres the world content, making zones entirley focused on having groups of people micro-manage the map in order to complete it together is a really bad design choice. Especially considering that the content in those maps will be redundant by the point a new map is released to replace it or a new challenge.
This content is what I like to call gated content, it claims to be free but its not, you cant really do Orr alone and thus you cant experience the world story without having a dedicated guild help you, or groups of friends.
Group content, always group content.
Theres no focus on the solo player who allegedly is important considering the entire storyline likes to enphasis how you, the commander of the pact, are leading the charge against these dragons.
It makes, no sense, to create content that actually defeats the point of that. From a storytelling POV its just poor, from a gameplay POV its literally putting multiplayer in a singleplayer RPG.
How does that even work?
Either way, its not the only point id like to make about GW2’s shift in focus lately but it is “one” point the game world and the story dont balance out when you make the commander important, and yet they have to play with others in order to feel any sense of relevence.
It’s clear the manifesto is old news, that was clear a long time ago.
I agree with your post, but I would say we’ve only really known for 3 months. Before that there was lots of posturing, but no substance. They spoke out of both sides of their mouths.
But, when HoT was released we realized we had been misled. This wasn’t GW2 plus some more challenging content, as advertised. This was a substantial rework of GW2, making further progression much more difficult. It wasn’t harder so much as it was blocked (gated by time, XP, extreme encounters, etc.)
As I played through further and further, it became obvious that I wasn’t having fun. I was just grinding through various gates.
But, I’m casual. I like to play almost all of my characters every day. I progress their mapping title, run events, gather, do storylines, and generally just have fun. The dailies help, as I use those as roadmaps off of which I’ll choose WHERE I’m going that day. But otherwise, I’m more or less just following whatever winds are blowing that day.
With HoT, I don’t have that option. I have to force myself to play just to attain the next milestone. And, the milestones were getting further and further apart. When I got to DS, I basically stopped. I couldn’t even tell where I was supposed to go, and yet I was still gated.
THAT is what I mean by anti-casual. I survive the encounters just fine, but I don’t have fun doing it. In core Tyria, I could wander about to my heart’s content, but not in HoT. Everything is gated by something (including an impossible-to-follow map), and when you finally get through the gate, you discover there’s an even worse grind to get through the next one. For all I know, I could be near the end, but I have no way to know that.
I’m as loyal as they come to this game series, but I feel betrayed by ANet. I just feel deflated whenever I try to accomplish anything in HoT. When I was still trying, I would go and commit to a couple hours, but in the end I had accomplished almost nothing perceptible. It just kept dragging me down. So, the time periods between attempts got further and further apart. Until I stopped trying altogether.
Grinding with a purpose can sometimes be OK. For example, I’m a Champion of the Gods (I earned all 50 points in GW1’s Hall of Monuments). There was some grinding there. But, I could step out of the grind and do something else, even a different grind. Kept it from becoming boring at least.
But, in HoT I don’t have that choice. I must finish one grind before I can start the next.
And then the problem with HoT is not casual vs hardcore related – it’s gate related.
Casuals hate random arbitrary gates? So do hardcore players.
HoT was gated as it was not to make it more “appealing” to hardcore players – nobody likes having their progress gated – but to make it appear longer when in fact there’s very little content with HoT.
Gating it means you spend more time doing it than it would have taken you if the gates weren’t there.
Yes HoT being gated is not enjoyable – I dislike it – and I’m a hardcore player.
Another issue is the timed grind- you have to do things once per day and you can only do them once per day – that’s a more “casual friendly” aspect of GW2.
The reason a lot of things are time gated is to keep casual and hardcore players closer together in terms of playing results.
I dislike time gates – and casuals do too.
I feel like I’m forced to slow down – they feel like they’re forced on a schedule. It’s just overall annoying.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Wow this thread took off. Just want to echo something I said earlier. The analogy about amusement parks is exactly how I feel 100%. I almost applauded it out loud.
I am casual. I earlier in this thread described casual not only as lack of time but wanting less stress. So with this in mind, I want rewards, but I don’t want the toxicity of dungeons/fractals, I quite like PvP but it stresses me out. WvW interests me more, but I mostly like to follow a train, do events (silverwastes for example) but feel free to hop off when I feel like or when I feel I have done enough.
I have a legendary, sure maybe it took me longer to grind out but I don’t mind because I am casual, I expect that in an MMO.
When HoT came out and I first experienced the first map, I was in love, random events, a meta. But soon I realised the rewards weren’t that great compared to time spent, and time spent was a lot. If I managed to not crash in DS then it was fun, but again, all that time spent, you are locked in until the end or you get nothing, this is rather stressful.
Then came raids, legendary armour. When ascended came out, it was the same thing. It was hidden behind gates so we could be bottlenecked into playing to see new content, as opposed to how we want.
Honestly, ascended armour should be outright on the TP. Legendary also should be purchasable with gold but at a massive rate. 2k per piece even. But far cheaper to get in raids. This evens out the playing field so players can shortcut in new and more challenging content. But those of us who would rather take our time with less stress can get there too in time.
China GW2 is for you my friend, they right out selling new legendary for real money on their website
But you do. To have your “extra mile” rewards mean something to you, you need people that do not get them. If everyone was at your “hardcoreness” level (or better) and had access to everything you could get, it wouldn’t be so fun to you. It’s not the case with casuals. And that’s even without considering that hardcore crowd is so small that it would be unable to sustain a game like that on its own.
Actually it would never get that way – because we can’t all be at the same hardcoreness level – if people steeped up their game to get to my level – whatever that is – I’d step up my game and try to go further – that’d be fun actually – to improve yourself while others try to improve as well.
Also – do you have any player statistics that define which group is large and small? How do you decide who’s who and goes in what group? Maybe if the game was dying the hardcore people would pay hundreds of dollars each to sustain it – I certainly would.
Please stop trying to impress with statements that have no basis in reality.
No, it’s insisting that not only i should work for them, but also work them in the same way you do (because other ways are for some reason not kosher enough).
You fail to understand – there’s ONE way to obtain something – you either work for it and get it or don’t. Having alternate ways of obtaining something is also acceptable but if those ways are easier they should also take a longer time.
So yes – if you want to get Legendary armor without doing raids – you should perhaps be able to – but if it takes 1 year of raiding to get legendary armor finished it should as far as I’m concerned take 2-3 years of doing a more “casual” process to get it – and maybe 5-6 of an extremely simple process.
Players should have to put something in if they want cool, unique and awesome rewards – whether it’s through skill or dedication – everyone should have to earn it.
Yes, that’s my point. Your joy means my lack of joy. Quite possibly My joy means your lack of joy. That’s exactly why i said that the game cannot really cater to both our playstyles, and that devs must choose who is their target group.
Except it can – for 3 years now we’ve both played the same game – and sometimes it was worse for me and better for you and sometimes the opposite was true but during all that time we’ve been playing, paying and spending time in-game – so Anet has been managing to do exactly what you seem to propose they can’t do.
Yes, exactly. Currently they are either afraid to decide on their current direction, or afraid to make that direction known, but ultimately it will only make lot of people angry. I want to know if this game is still worth staying in – and in case the answer is negative, i’d really like to learn it now.
Anet has been burned by “the manifesto” and previous statements ( some of which I too like to bring up now and again) enough to know their best move is to not say anything – and when they do – to be extremely vague and PR-oriented.
Yes – you’d like to know – I’d like to know too – but by not knowing there’s a higher chance you’ll stay – and if you stay there’s a chance you’ll do some gem store shopping while you’re here – and even if in the long run you end up leaving – those 2-3-4 purchases you made while staying to figure out what’s what would have been worth it for Anet.
So they keep you uninformed. As is economically sound of them.
Yes, or at least that was their intention (they did it not because they considered the rewards to be too high, but specifically to make people stop doing dungeons).
If they wanted to STOP people from doing them and just that – they could have taken them out of the game. They wanted people to not be rewarded while leaving the option to play dungeons there.
Only partially true. Yeah, casuals don’t usually farm (some do, if they can do it at their own pace) but where did you get the idea that casuals are not interested in rewards when rewards for hardcore content are the main point of contention? Casuals want to have the cool stuff (and have fun doing it) as much as you do. It’s just they generally don’t consider repeatedly smashing their face agaist the wall to be fun.
During the “dungeon meta” these forums were filled with casuals saying " i don’t want to farm – I want my chill dungeon exploration experience, which you hardcore SC people are ruining".
Casuals want to have the cool stuff and have fun doing it – which mean they want to do the content fewer times – with less difficulty and preferably on their own schedule.
But that’s not how it works – not in reality and not here.
If you want something that’s highly desirable you’re going to pay for it – in money, or time – and the more niche, awesome and desirable that thing is the more you’ll have to pay.
That’s why a legendary weapon costs more than a normal skin – there’s a lot more developer time that goes into a Legendary Weapon and proportionally there’s a lot more you need to do as a player to earn one compared to a common normal skin.
The only difference between casual and hardcore I see right now is hardcore players are willing to meet the price Anet demands for certain unique items – and they pay it in skill and time – while casual players are upset because they aren’t willing to pay.
Anet already admitted that was not the case, and that the reason behind the nerf was to make people stop doing dungeons (and move to fractals and raids).
They said that – yes – but there’s something they haven’t said either – the fact that the gold they took from dungeons is nowhere to be found in FOTM or Raids. So my point is true – even though they won’t openly say it – they’re always trying to combat you making money in the game effectively.
Nope, scaling reworks added to it, but there were several earlier nerfs. The most significant one was likely when they disabled res rushing (many bosses were made way easier then), but there were others as well. I think the only encounter that remains relatively close to the original difficulty (apart from the abovementioned scaling reworks) is the AC troll.
I’m pretty sure resrushing wasn’t a nerf but actually a change that made dungeons harder.
I’m talking about pre-nerfs difficulty. At that time average pug group had trouble dealing even with AC story. I’m pretty sure that if you dig deep enough in these forums you will find tons of threads about it from the first year of the game.
I do find it odd – I was there at that time – I was playing the game ever since pre-release ( 3 days early) and while dungeons were harder they weren’t generally as hard as you describe them – and their general difficulty was mostly due to people being clueless as heck. I was clueless too – that’s why things were hard.
Among the raiding community, maybe. And even there it’s not so universal as you claim (because, obviously, different people had different expectations from raids. Quite a number of people for example seem to think the current ones are both too boring and too easy).
Your post implied hardcore players are unhappy with raids – which is simply not true – most hardcore players have LOVED the raids.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
And as a hardcore – I don’t really need casuals to “lord over” – unless by that you mean that I want people to work for their things and not get them as hand-outs.
But you do. To have your “extra mile” rewards mean something to you, you need people that do not get them. If everyone was at your “hardcoreness” level (or better) and had access to everything you could get, it wouldn’t be so fun to you. It’s not the case with casuals. And that’s even without considering that hardcore crowd is so small that it would be unable to sustain a game like that on its own.
That’s not true and it’s weird that you think of “hardcore players” that way. Contrary to what you believe those who want rewards from speicifc content aren’t villains and horrible people that want to see other players suffer.
I’m basing this on the many, many forum threads in which many people (including some people participating in this discussion) claim that to make the rewards available through other means would devalue them, because too many people would have them.
No, i don’t think they specifically want others to suffer. I do think that what they want is to feel better than others, and want others to have no choice but to acknowledge that. What they want is competition. Specifically, competition on a field of their choosing, where they have advantage.
Other people not getting the reward is completely irrelevant, the idea is to put specific rewards behind content
Why? Why it’s so important that those rewards should not be available through other means? If you do not care that other people might get these rewards, why would you care how might they get them?
Because it’s about the value of the reward itself – it’s a statement. The moment alternative ways to obtain it appear then the statement – the message is diluted.
Let’s look at some unique raid drops – having them on means you got those drops – means you beat that boss, possibly a number of times to get said thing.
It’s a statement.
If said reward can also be bought off the TP for example that initial message becomes half-true – sure it could have been obtained from the raid but it could have been bought.
See my point?
I don’t mind a lot of people having skin X if they had to do the same things I did to get it – and the statement that to get skin X you have to really be good and do things right remains true.
If all players in the game had skin X and had obtained it the same way I did – because they were as I was and beat said difficult content – I wouldn’t be upset – because the skin’s original message is still there.
But if other players can obtain skin X through other, easier means – that blurs the message I put out while displaying skin X – because people can’t tell if it’s obtained through the hard or easy means.
I can no longer effectively make a statement about myself using my in-game avatar.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Raids say nothing about your skill as a player,maybe more about your skill at making in game friends.And to be giving out exclusive rewards based on your ability to have made friends in game is ludicrous.When it comes to raids lfg is not worth the hassle
.
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Windu The Forbidden One.6045
I would prefer it if the difficulty levels of content are more spread out. I liked it when Guild Wars 2 was simple and easy, but I get that not everyone likes that.
Some content should be easy and yield decent, but not great, rewards. While other content should be very challenging and come with greater rewards.
Content that should be easy (imo):
-Open world (Events, Hearts, Hero Points etc) (except for world bosses)
-Story missions
-Dungeons (Story paths)
Content that should be challenging:
-Fractals of the Mists
-Raids
-Dungeons (Explorable paths)
-Obtaining legendary gear
-World bosses
Just my 2 cents
Dear A-net: Please nerf rock. Paper is fine
~Sincerely, Scissors
~Sincerely, Scissors
(edited by Windu The Forbidden One.6045)
Raids say nothing about your skill as a player,maybe more about your skill at making in game friends.And to be giving out exclusive rewards based on your ability to have made friends in game is ludicrous.When it comes to raids lfg is not worth the hassle
.
I think this hits the issue pretty closely. The difficulty behind raids doesn’t come from the actual mechanics. While they are fun and take a little practice to master, the real difficulty, unfortunately, comes from administrative and, I would argue, arbitrary elements. You have to get exactly 10 people (god forbid you have 11, 12, 13, etc friends wanting to raid with the guild), they have to have (for the most part) very specific armor stats and builds, and ideally, they have very specific professions. Pulling together a raid, when you actually care about the people you play with, is extremely stressful and not really fun.
The worst part is, they don’t have to be that way. It is very possible for them to design 10 player content that rewards and recognizes player skill without locking them away from everyone else (simplest way, imo – implement gold/silver/bronze reward system similar to what is found in the rest of the game).
My guild is raiding and many have beaten raid fights, but I’m not sure it is worth the aggravation and general weariness I hear in teamspeak every time we talk about that particular part of the game. I worry that it is alienating people and hurting the game.
(edited by Blaeys.3102)
….the game is in a great space as it is….
Lol.
How may full servers in NA are there? How many new servers did Anet have to add to handle the swarm of new players attracted the the wonderful HoT expansion?
Do you have any inside info related to server capacity? Can you confirm without a shadow of a doubt that Anet did not increase overall server capacity?
Megaflow system neglects the need for more servers anyway.
Try again.
If Legend of Zelda came out tomorrow, the usual
forum dwellers would go nuts about the need to
“grind” to get exp, new swords, new potions etc
forum dwellers would go nuts about the need to
“grind” to get exp, new swords, new potions etc
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419
Yes, that’s my point. Your joy means my lack of joy. Quite possibly My joy means your lack of joy. That’s exactly why i said that the game cannot really cater to both our playstyles, and that devs must choose who is their target group.
Except it can – for 3 years now we’ve both played the same game – and sometimes it was worse for me and better for you and sometimes the opposite was true but during all that time we’ve been playing, paying and spending time in-game – so Anet has been managing to do exactly what you seem to propose they can’t do.
Y’know, Harper, I agree that there has been something for everyone (except I think WvW players have been getting the kitteny end of the stick, and not much of that). While ANet can produce content for both groups, it cannot do so with the same content. The problem is that getting something that’s for your group has taken time.
In some cases, that’s been a lot of time. How long did it take for dungeon players to get new harder content? With lengthy development cycles, the time between something one likes being added to the game and the next thing one likes being added can be quite long. People in general seem to lack patience, especially today in what has become more and more an instant gratification experience in the first world.
Casuals and hardcore alike waited a long time for HoT. I also agree that HoT redressed somewhat of an imbalance between harder and easier content. However, players who preferred either have been waiting for new stuff to do. I’m not sure there is a solution. ANet is going to produce stuff at the speed they can, and there’s nothing players can do about that. Players could learn patience, I suppose, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Astralporing.1957
Who will care if you have a mini sabetha? Nobody, it like it was not even there because you bought it on the TP. You had gem to spend good for you.
Those items are badge about what you did in the game.
Yes, that’s what i was saying, was i not? Those things are only important to you because not everyone has them. If everyone in this game was a hardcore raider, raid rewards would become meaningless for you and others like you. In other words, you need people that are not raiders, because they give meaning to what you do.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I thought when Anet introduced boss scaling, that it affected the casual friendly nature of GW2 gameplay. There was a time when the more the merrier, come one come all, it was an inclusive design where gathering up and killing things were the norm. People were happy you joined in the fight.
Now, people worry about scaling, so people actually want less players on each bosses, they’ll tell you to go away because you would scale the npc up too much. HoT has become more exclusive as a result, you are sometimes not welcome to join a fight. If you’re a casual player, this can get confusing, and harsh words exchange which creates drama. And remember, GW2 players are used to just join events without having to worry about grouping up, what guilds they were in, or how many people are already there.
On top of that, GW2 introduced raiding. I’m not against raiding at all, I used to be a raider awhile back in other games. But it’s a well known fact that raiding is a resource hog for the development team. They have to spend so much resources at creating, testing, and perfecting raid content and it is often utilized by a very small percentage of the playerbase. Due to time requirement and the min/max nature of raids, majority of the players will not raid. So you have the dev team spend so much time creating content for such a small % of the playerbase, they end up sacrificing content for the greater percentage.
When it comes to raiding, it also brings elitism, min/maxing, cliques, and drama. Players all of a sudden nitpicking about how you play and what you should do. People start to get left out, even in guilds where people used to be happy, I’ve seen people get upset because the guild is taking the same people to raids and leaving some behind. Raiding is the very definition of casual unfriendly.
Again, I’m not opposed GW2 having raids in the game. But I’m just speaking from experience what raiding brings to MMO’s, and what it costs. It does make one wonder, is it worth it? Is it worth having 1 less zone in HoT because devs spent a lot of time and resources (both design and coding, as well as art assets) to cater to the 1-5%? Is it worth neglecting WvW as a whole so the dev team could focus more on raiding? Is it worth having players feel left out and losing casual players as a result, or break guilds apart due to raid drama?
Only MMO I know of that provides casual raids is WoW. WoW’s raid finder and the way their raiding works, everybody can do, even casuals and new players. But that game is unique in its design and they know how to cater to casuals, and they have the resources to cater to everybody. Heck they’re literally printing money in Irvine due to the amount of revenue they make. It’s just a lot different when you have limited resources like Anet, where you have to sacrifice dev time & resources.
Speaking of WvW, the new desert borderland is definitely not casual friendly. It’s too large, too tedious to run through, too siege heavy, too many gimmicky things that disrupt player vs player gameplay such as cripple fields, lava, rocks that popup in front of your face randomly, barricades, etc.. WvW banners and tactivators are also very casual unfriendly.
Yes, that’s what i was saying, was i not? Those things are only important to you because not everyone has them. If everyone in this game was a hardcore raider, raid rewards would become meaningless for you and others like you. In other words, you need people that are not raiders, because they give meaning to what you do.
they give meaning to what you do.
Rephrase that to ‘’they give additional meaning to the rewards.’’ Because for exemple, ghostly infusion can be bought on the TP and that doesn’t remove meaning for my raid experience. But it remove meaning for the ghostly infusion. It’s just a cool thing that you can buy and that’s it.
But let’s not put everything in the same basket here. Prestige and rarity are not the same thing.
I’ll take extreme example here just to make my point. A diamond gets it’s value from rarity. It’s rare, so it’s value is higher than a jewel just as beautiful.
On the other hand you have military ribbons, which have a high value because of what they represent. The item itself isn’t worth much, it’s simple textile and metal.
Same here in the game. My legendary was costly. It’s beautiful, but there is several other weapons that are also beautiful. But legendary cost a lot and are rare. People like to show off their legendaries.
But a King Toad’s or Storm Wizard’s weapon have no price. They have value because of what you went through to get them.
I think that the game should a bit of everything. Skin that are rare, skin that are unique to difficult challenge, skin that everybody can have, skin that are long, but easy to get, etc. And all category should have several good options.
Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD
because they give meaning to what you do.
Tell me please should they allow Moa in Queensdale drop Twilight? Harvesting Potato nodes giving Juggernaut? Killing Embers dropping a full Incinerator? I hope your answer is no so you do understand why certain items need to be more rare, harder to acquire than others.
Each item is given a “value” by the devs, how hard it will be to obtain, meaning how rare it will be. If they didn’t do that we would have any of the above things I mentioned, after all since nobody should care how the other player got their reward, why not by killing rabbits in Metrica?
Yes, that’s my point. Your joy means my lack of joy. Quite possibly My joy means your lack of joy. That’s exactly why i said that the game cannot really cater to both our playstyles, and that devs must choose who is their target group.
Except it can – for 3 years now we’ve both played the same game – and sometimes it was worse for me and better for you and sometimes the opposite was true but during all that time we’ve been playing, paying and spending time in-game – so Anet has been managing to do exactly what you seem to propose they can’t do.
Y’know, Harper, I agree that there has been something for everyone (except I think WvW players have been getting the kitteny end of the stick, and not much of that). While ANet can produce content for both groups, it cannot do so with the same content. The problem is that getting something that’s for your group has taken time.
In some cases, that’s been a lot of time. How long did it take for dungeon players to get new harder content? With lengthy development cycles, the time between something one likes being added to the game and the next thing one likes being added can be quite long. People in general seem to lack patience, especially today in what has become more and more an instant gratification experience in the first world.
Casuals and hardcore alike waited a long time for HoT. I also agree that HoT redressed somewhat of an imbalance between harder and easier content. However, players who preferred either have been waiting for new stuff to do. I’m not sure there is a solution. ANet is going to produce stuff at the speed they can, and there’s nothing players can do about that. Players could learn patience, I suppose, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Yeah – that’s true as well. There’s not really a lot they can do – they don’t want to lose any of the players because for a game’s ecosystem to be healthy( despite what self-proclaimed game experts will tell you) you need all types of players.
You also need your game to have certain “features” that will incite and attract new players – a thing Anet recognized and fixed.
See – Anet wanted GW2 to have something for everybody – story for everyone, open world with events and exploration for casuals and harder instanced content for the hardcore.
But the failed to hit the mark with dungeons, and fractals have been struggling because while they sort of hit the difficulty angle of it (on release) they managed to botch it up so bad in another 10 ways that fractals never really took off – and probably never will.
So they can’t really advertise their game properly – since online GW2 is laughed at for being “that easy MMO that has no real end-game” – I know at least 10 guys who have never tried GW2 despite my in-depth description of the game, despite the fact they loved the visuals – because it “has no end-game”.
And they were sort of right.
Anet has finally addressed that – there is now really hard content in GW2.
There’s also a lot of development time spent on this eSports thing – which will most likely never take off either because honestly GW2 isn’t exciting to watch.
All in all – we’ll just have to wait and see – I still stand by my opinion that it’s not the focus of content that’s our main problem now but the lack of content.
Too much time was wasted with “living world, no expansion” and with the china release – time that they can’t just have now.
There would have been far less tension between casuals and hardcore if they had spent more time producing content for the game and actually putting it in the game and leaving it there – because there would be more things to do.
Right now both casuals and hardcore are squabbling over the future of GW2 because both sides are starved of content – there’s too little stuff.
Even HoT – when compared to the core game is incredibly small in scope – and only bloated artificially by time gates and XP gates.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Who will care if you have a mini sabetha? Nobody, it like it was not even there because you bought it on the TP. You had gem to spend good for you.
Those items are badge about what you did in the game.
Yes, that’s what i was saying, was i not? Those things are only important to you because not everyone has them. If everyone in this game was a hardcore raider, raid rewards would become meaningless for you and others like you. In other words, you need people that are not raiders, because they give meaning to what you do.
No – you’re wrong – see my post above.
If everyone has sabetha – but they got sabetha by beating the raid then the message you put out there by displaying her loses no value – because it’s still your accomplishment.
It doesn’t detract anything from your achievement because everybody else did it the same way – the hard way – it still means you did something hard to get it. So did others – but that doesn’t make it easier – it means people are good.
If however that reward is bought – or obtained in through an easier process – then yes – it is devalued because your statement is put under doubt – did he earn it the hard way or just bought it?
Is he good or not?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
no your wrong and want to make an accomplishment out of nothing, you killed sabetha as one player in ten and so did i.but i have Asperger syndrome and have no friends so pay 250 gold to join a team as one in ten and get the kill.the only difference is in your ego.
(edited by eldrin.6471)
I just got hot and i’m enjoying it. I’m a merc…meaning pug, no real guild affiliation, I just join groups as I go. I’ve been doing ok, in fact even took out a champ alone…which i wasn’t able to do in vanilla gw 2 and i got to the AB forgotten City / Tarir like 2nd day of play 5th level mastery. I’m a pure zerker mesmer with a staff and greatsword, and i’m causing the npcs great pain, granted, I have died, but nothing unreasonable considering i was jumping in the middle of mobs and going for power wipes lol.
Now, I can imagine i’d have trouble with my close quarters melee type characters. so I think i’ll be surfing hot with my cast range characters while i max out the masteries.
my own tip, focus your build on a ton of damage with 1200 range ….defense doesn’t seem to help much if you get swarmed….and the npcs are buffed enough to just be an endless fight, so you need to get your dodge game up…my mesmer build generates a ton of illusions, which helps keep the focus off of me while i zap them from a safe distance. You definitely need a strategy of power attack to survive though, all defense wont cut it.
aside from this the art and new mechanics are stunning.
To be honest, i got the upgrade expecting it to be a complete disaster, but i’m actually having lots of fun.
I’m a casual player, but nonetheless I hit my keyboard hard lol, so i’m not your average casual player :p
now I’m one of the wvw guys that is upset that the wvw area of the game is not as fun anymore ….so I do have things that i can complain about. But i have to say that Hot is definitely fun and a good job / dynamic to the game.
also I should say, I didn’t buy hot for the new area content, but more because I wanted the new mastery stuff since they were adding gliding to tyria.
so I have to say, nice work Anet. it was a bit pricey, but after seeing the art and under the hood work you did, I can appreciate that you guys did put a lot of work into this, aside from whats visible. And respectfully I say to fellow artists, great work!
oh, one more thing, please fix wvw!! – I had to say that not to sound like a fanboi! :p lol
IBM PC XT 4.77mhz w/turbo oc@ 8mhz 640kb windows 3.1 hayes 56k seagate 20 meg HD mda@720x350 pixels
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Astralporing.1957
If however that reward is bought – or obtained in through an easier process – then yes – it is devalued because your statement is put under doubt – did he earn it the hard way or just bought it?
Is he good or not?
Maybe you don’t see it, but you are again reinforcing what i said before. That statement is only important where there are people that did not do that content (because in a game where there are no casuals and everyone is a succesful raider, everyone has that mini, so having it is no statement at all). It is also important only when other people care. It’s not for you – it is for others. So, in the end, you need people that can’t do that content, and you need them to care that you can. Without it, your reward is meaningless.
I on the other hand do not need such statements to show to others. The stuff i wear is for myself, and the only judgment i might make about others based on how they are dressed is about their style and aestethics. And the meaning of the reward lies purely in how useful it is to me (statwise, or aestethically).
(also, as someone mentioned your argument is weakened by the fact that you can get carried at those encounters)
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Maximillian Greil.1965
I think the primary complaint i see here is time gates. It’s like spreading too little butter over too much bread. There isn’t a lot of content, it just takes a very long time to get to the little content you have.
Then when you get there, the rewards are not fantastic.
i can see how the time gates would get annoying, i’m personally the kind of player that likes blasting through the game to learn the mechanics, then i spend my time getting good at my skills – I’d rather get good as a player, than get good because i worked 15 years before the game gave me a skill. so yeah, the timers aren’t fun.
it’s a mix of different gaming headsets, a rpg’r can appreciate the timer because they like stories and rewards, a pvp’r wants all the tools now, so he can master using them, because his ‘reward’ is bragging rights – I want to brag about how i killed a dragon with a chicken bone…..so it’s a conflict. Hot 2 is great for strategist ( not annoying to me since skills don’t hinder pvp ) , but not cool for rpg’r because it’s harder. Fortunately, the power build I made for gw2 vanilla, carried over to hot, so I’m not missing anything new.
IBM PC XT 4.77mhz w/turbo oc@ 8mhz 640kb windows 3.1 hayes 56k seagate 20 meg HD mda@720x350 pixels
(edited by Ricky.4706)
Sorry, duplicated effort on my part.
(edited by Daddicus.6128)
HoT doesn’t require you to be hardcore to play it – it does require you to sink time into it.
It’s likely I’ve played at least as much as you have. It’s not time that’s the problem. It’s the onerous nature of what I have to spend that time doing that’s the problem.
There was a time GW2 was Casual Friendly
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419
If however that reward is bought – or obtained in through an easier process – then yes – it is devalued because your statement is put under doubt – did he earn it the hard way or just bought it?
Is he good or not?Maybe you don’t see it, but you are again reinforcing what i said before. That statement is only important where there are people that did not do that content (because in a game where there are no casuals and everyone is a succesful raider, everyone has that mini, so having it is no statement at all). It is also important only when other people care. It’s not for you – it is for others. So, in the end, you need people that can’t do that content, and you need them to care that you can. Without it, your reward is meaningless.
I on the other hand do not need such statements to show to others. The stuff i wear is for myself, and the only judgment i might make about others based on how they are dressed is about their style and aestethics. And the meaning of the reward lies purely in how useful it is to me (statwise, or aestethically).
(also, as someone mentioned your argument is weakened by the fact that you can get carried at those encounters)
Actually, I can see Harper’s point.
In GW, there were a lot of titles. Legendary Guardian and Legendary Vanquisher meant you’d completed all the hard more story missions and cleared all the hard mode zones, respectively. I enjoyed displaying those titles, because it meant something to me. I did not care how many people had them, I only cared that I did.
Is it possible there are players who want to lord it over other players? Sure, there are all kinds in game just as in life. However, I don’t think one can accurately generalize that desire to the entire hardcore demographic. You can say that all players who want exclusive rewards in hard content are looking to feel superior to those who don’t have those rewards. However, there are many cases where you’d be wrong.
….the game is in a great space as it is….
Lol.
How may full servers in NA are there? How many new servers did Anet have to add to handle the swarm of new players attracted the the wonderful HoT expansion?
Do you have any inside info related to server capacity? Can you confirm without a shadow of a doubt that Anet did not increase overall server capacity?
Megaflow system neglects the need for more servers anyway.
Try again.
You’re rich.
Lets suppose that the game is wildly popular and has attracted so many new players that Anet had to revise the server capacity! The servers a overflowing with new players! There are queue times just to get into the PvE maps! All is wonderful!
Don’t you think they would advertise it???
I mean seriously, if your servers are being flooded by a huge influx of new players, because the expansion is so fun, this is exactly the type of news that you shout from the roof tops!
Two rules of logic in the absence of available information.
1) Occam’s Razor
2) Law of the Excluded Middle
Look’em up.
Of course there is also the factor that my perception of relevancy probably vastly differs from yours, so I should have worded this probably more carefully.^^
So just to check when you used the word “exclusive” you meant “what I Torolan specifically want and exclusive, and they haven’t actually changed policy on exclusivity at all I just have decided I want something now and I will complain until I get it.”
Glad we cleared that up.
….the game is in a great space as it is….
Lol.
How may full servers in NA are there? How many new servers did Anet have to add to handle the swarm of new players attracted the the wonderful HoT expansion?
Do you have any inside info related to server capacity? Can you confirm without a shadow of a doubt that Anet did not increase overall server capacity?
Megaflow system neglects the need for more servers anyway.
Try again.You’re rich.
Lets suppose that the game is wildly popular and has attracted so many new players that Anet had to revise the server capacity! The servers a overflowing with new players! There are queue times just to get into the PvE maps! All is wonderful!
Don’t you think they would advertise it???
I mean seriously, if your servers are being flooded by a huge influx of new players, because the expansion is so fun, this is exactly the type of news that you shout from the roof tops!
Two rules of logic in the absence of available information.
1) Occam’s Razor
2) Law of the Excluded MiddleLook’em up.
What you see on the server screen is based on active WvW players. It has nothing to do with the number of players who are on that particular server. Just because a server showed full prior to that change, doesn’t mean that the server was actually full. All it meant was that it had reached the threshold that Anet designated to show full.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
because they give meaning to what you do.
Tell me please should they allow Moa in Queensdale drop Twilight? Harvesting Potato nodes giving Juggernaut? Killing Embers dropping a full Incinerator? I hope your answer is no so you do understand why certain items need to be more rare, harder to acquire than others.
Each item is given a “value” by the devs, how hard it will be to obtain, meaning how rare it will be. If they didn’t do that we would have any of the above things I mentioned, after all since nobody should care how the other player got their reward, why not by killing rabbits in Metrica?
No, but a moa is Queensdale can drop a precursor, and has always been able to.
….the game is in a great space as it is….
Lol.
How may full servers in NA are there? How many new servers did Anet have to add to handle the swarm of new players attracted the the wonderful HoT expansion?
Do you have any inside info related to server capacity? Can you confirm without a shadow of a doubt that Anet did not increase overall server capacity?
Megaflow system neglects the need for more servers anyway.
Try again.You’re rich.
Lets suppose that the game is wildly popular and has attracted so many new players that Anet had to revise the server capacity! The servers a overflowing with new players! There are queue times just to get into the PvE maps! All is wonderful!
Don’t you think they would advertise it???
I mean seriously, if your servers are being flooded by a huge influx of new players, because the expansion is so fun, this is exactly the type of news that you shout from the roof tops!
Two rules of logic in the absence of available information.
1) Occam’s Razor
2) Law of the Excluded MiddleLook’em up.
Nah, they won’t advertise it. They said not long ago that there were more people currently in SPvP in Guild Wars 2 than there ever was in Guild Wars 1. People simply tore the statement apart, misconstrued it, and said a bunch of things that ended up being negative.
A lot of games don’t post when they’re doing well for a very good reason. Because if they expect a dropoff, they’ll look bad for only reporting it when it’s good. Not saying anything for population is the safest way for a company to go.
because they give meaning to what you do.
Tell me please should they allow Moa in Queensdale drop Twilight? Harvesting Potato nodes giving Juggernaut? Killing Embers dropping a full Incinerator? I hope your answer is no so you do understand why certain items need to be more rare, harder to acquire than others.
Each item is given a “value” by the devs, how hard it will be to obtain, meaning how rare it will be. If they didn’t do that we would have any of the above things I mentioned, after all since nobody should care how the other player got their reward, why not by killing rabbits in Metrica?
No, but a moa is Queensdale can drop a precursor, and has always been able to.
So? Let’s add everything on the moa loot table? After all, why should we care how someone got their reward right? And content alone, by being “fun” enough can keep players busy for 1-2 years regardless of the rewards, since they are meaningless. Why do game developers add rewards in their content I wonder.
because they give meaning to what you do.
Tell me please should they allow Moa in Queensdale drop Twilight? Harvesting Potato nodes giving Juggernaut? Killing Embers dropping a full Incinerator? I hope your answer is no so you do understand why certain items need to be more rare, harder to acquire than others.
Each item is given a “value” by the devs, how hard it will be to obtain, meaning how rare it will be. If they didn’t do that we would have any of the above things I mentioned, after all since nobody should care how the other player got their reward, why not by killing rabbits in Metrica?
No, but a moa is Queensdale can drop a precursor, and has always been able to.
So? Let’s add everything on the moa loot table? After all, why should we care how someone got their reward right? And content alone, by being “fun” enough can keep players busy for 1-2 years regardless of the rewards, since they are meaningless. Why do game developers add rewards in their content I wonder.
Because people like getting them.
Some people have a built in advantage in certain content. I don’t have the Liadri mini. I might have been able to get it, but it would have taken me a lot longer than most, because I’m in Australia. The ping is a lot higher. By the time I got around to it, you couldn’t cheese it with lifesteal anymore.
But the fact is, for the longest time you could cheese it with lifesteal. Take the Dungeon Master title. I beat every dungeon by playing them. I didn’t cheese them. But there are people who have the same titles paying for runs.
There’s very little content in this game where everyone who has the rewards for it does it themselves in the first place. Does a guy who pays for dungeon runs deserve the same dungeon title that I got?
What about parents who have their kids do some of the hard stuff for them? Do they deserve the same rewards.
Rewards in an MMO are different than rewards in say sport, because we’re not all on an even playing field to begin with. I’m colorblind AND in Australia. Last I checked, there’s no colorblind mode in this game. Is that fair? Should I be denied any reward because I’m colorblind? It’s not like other games don’t have a color blind mode.
If I lived in the US, and had a good connection and I wasn’t colorblind, I could do a lot more than I do now, and I can do a lot now.
But I don’t live in the US. So every single Australian, in fact everyone in the Oceanic terroritory is at a disadvantage. I’m never going to get gold rewards on many of the adventures. In fact, I’m pretty sure from where I live it would be impossible to get gold reward on some of the adventures, no matter how well you play.
Yes, it’s an MMO. We’re already playing at different levels with different computers, in different parts of the world. Why should anyone not close to the servers be penalized for being in a different location?
The Olympics need to be fair. MMOs really don’t and seldom are. The only area where I can see rewards being unique are SPvP because it’s a competitive environment, assuming you’re talking about esports. But even there, a percentage of the world is starting out at a disadvantage and has to work harder to receive the same result.
Because people like getting them.
The questio of why developers add rewards to their content was a follow up to the previous phrase. If, as it is claimed, content alone can keep people interested for years, and it doesn’t matter where the reward will come from (so content doesn’t have exclusive reward) why even add the reward in the first place? After all, content alone should drive the game and those who want a challenge should be happy with playing their challenging content and not need some rewards to go with it.
Where do you draw the line on how hard something is to obtain? Or the alternative is to give everything to everyone, then why not adding Twilight as a loot drop from moas? Or give it as a level 10 reward. I mean according to posters, where someone gets a reward shouldn’t matter, that’s what is being said to me.
Because people like getting them.
The questio of why developers add rewards to their content was a follow up to the previous phrase. If, as it is claimed, content alone can keep people interested for years, and it doesn’t matter where the reward will come from (so content doesn’t have exclusive reward) why even add the reward in the first place? After all, content alone should drive the game and those who want a challenge should be happy with playing their challenging content and not need some rewards to go with it.
Where do you draw the line on how hard something is to obtain? Or the alternative is to give everything to everyone, then why not adding Twilight as a loot drop from moas? Or give it as a level 10 reward. I mean according to posters, where someone gets a reward shouldn’t matter, that’s what is being said to me.
First of all, I never said content alone is enough to keep people playing. It’s enough to keep SOME people playing.
But probably not enough by percentage to run an MMO. This is particularly true due to the number of people who run content they don’t enjoy just to get rewards. I didn’t try for Liadri too hard because I found unenjoyable. I don’t play MMOs to solo.
But there are people who hated the content but tried it over and over again until they got that mini. I’m thinking that you get enough of that and some people will stop playing.
See, I enjoy the new zones and I can play them for ages. I don’t even think about the rewards. But I’m not a typical player.
The more rewards in the game beyond the realm of most people to get, the higher the threshold, the more people will start to question if this game is the game for them. That’s just simple human nature.
Because people like getting them.
The questio of why developers add rewards to their content was a follow up to the previous phrase. If, as it is claimed, content alone can keep people interested for years, and it doesn’t matter where the reward will come from (so content doesn’t have exclusive reward) why even add the reward in the first place? After all, content alone should drive the game and those who want a challenge should be happy with playing their challenging content and not need some rewards to go with it.
Where do you draw the line on how hard something is to obtain? Or the alternative is to give everything to everyone, then why not adding Twilight as a loot drop from moas? Or give it as a level 10 reward. I mean according to posters, where someone gets a reward shouldn’t matter, that’s what is being said to me.
First of all, I never said content alone is enough to keep people playing. It’s enough to keep SOME people playing.
But probably not enough by percentage to run an MMO. This is particularly true due to the number of people who run content they don’t enjoy just to get rewards. I didn’t try for Liadri too hard because I found unenjoyable. I don’t play MMOs to solo.
But there are people who hated the content but tried it over and over again until they got that mini. I’m thinking that you get enough of that and some people will stop playing.
See, I enjoy the new zones and I can play them for ages. I don’t even think about the rewards. But I’m not a typical player.
The more rewards in the game beyond the realm of most people to get, the higher the threshold, the more people will start to question if this game is the game for them. That’s just simple human nature.
You didn’t say it, others did.
People are asking for alternative ways to get the rewards, I get that. But one “alternative” might still be hard for some people, just see precursors, the alternative (crafting) is still hard to do for most people, maybe harder than mystic forging it or getting it as drop. So the next question is, how many alternatives do you wish to be added in order to be happy? And where do you draw the line on how easy obtaining the reward is?
I mean, why not add all the rewards as level up things or add them as drops from moas. Something everyone can do, then nobody will complain because they have bad ping, bad computer or cannot perform 100% for reasons beyond their power to fix. Would that make players happy?
If however that reward is bought – or obtained in through an easier process – then yes – it is devalued because your statement is put under doubt – did he earn it the hard way or just bought it?
Is he good or not?Maybe you don’t see it, but you are again reinforcing what i said before. That statement is only important where there are people that did not do that content (because in a game where there are no casuals and everyone is a succesful raider, everyone has that mini, so having it is no statement at all). It is also important only when other people care. It’s not for you – it is for others. So, in the end, you need people that can’t do that content, and you need them to care that you can. Without it, your reward is meaningless.
I on the other hand do not need such statements to show to others. The stuff i wear is for myself, and the only judgment i might make about others based on how they are dressed is about their style and aestethics. And the meaning of the reward lies purely in how useful it is to me (statwise, or aestethically).(also, as someone mentioned your argument is weakened by the fact that you can get carried at those encounters)
Nope – you’re not understanding what I’m saying.
I don’t care about people not having it – I care about the people that do have it – I care about how they got it – and what it means.
I wouldn’t care ONE bit if everyone had it if everyone did the same hard content to obtain it – it is not devalued.
Even if everyone has it the statement is still there – you can still wear it as a badge of honor because it means you’re good at something.
Sure – it might be MORE valuable if not everyone had it but the above situation in which everyone does have it because they earned it through skill and doing hard content does not bother me. It still retains enough value for me to be satisfied.
Like i’ve told you before – I don’t need people that don’t do the content and I don’t care about them existing or not – I care about the statement the unique rewards make.
My reward still holds meaning for me as long as its method of acquisition is hard and “hardcore” even if everyone else has it – it just means everyone else is hardcore too – but doesn’t devalue my unique reward.
How much clearer can I word this for you to understand it?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If however that reward is bought – or obtained in through an easier process – then yes – it is devalued because your statement is put under doubt – did he earn it the hard way or just bought it?
Is he good or not?Maybe you don’t see it, but you are again reinforcing what i said before. That statement is only important where there are people that did not do that content (because in a game where there are no casuals and everyone is a succesful raider, everyone has that mini, so having it is no statement at all). It is also important only when other people care. It’s not for you – it is for others. So, in the end, you need people that can’t do that content, and you need them to care that you can. Without it, your reward is meaningless.
I on the other hand do not need such statements to show to others. The stuff i wear is for myself, and the only judgment i might make about others based on how they are dressed is about their style and aestethics. And the meaning of the reward lies purely in how useful it is to me (statwise, or aestethically).
(also, as someone mentioned your argument is weakened by the fact that you can get carried at those encounters)
Actually, I can see Harper’s point.
In GW, there were a lot of titles. Legendary Guardian and Legendary Vanquisher meant you’d completed all the hard more story missions and cleared all the hard mode zones, respectively. I enjoyed displaying those titles, because it meant something to me. I did not care how many people had them, I only cared that I did.
Is it possible there are players who want to lord it over other players? Sure, there are all kinds in game just as in life. However, I don’t think one can accurately generalize that desire to the entire hardcore demographic. You can say that all players who want exclusive rewards in hard content are looking to feel superior to those who don’t have those rewards. However, there are many cases where you’d be wrong.
Thank you – finally – someone gets it.
I don’t hate casual players – I don’t want them to be “second rate citizens” or not to have cool items.
At the same time I want the rewards associated with hard content that I beat to remain hard to obtain – because otherwise the statement they make on my behalf becomes null and void.
I don’t mind if others have said rewards provided they work as hard as I did to obtain them.
I do mind them being handed out through other easier or more comfortable ways – because it means my display of said unique rewards no longer holds its intended message.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Because people like getting them.
The questio of why developers add rewards to their content was a follow up to the previous phrase. If, as it is claimed, content alone can keep people interested for years, and it doesn’t matter where the reward will come from (so content doesn’t have exclusive reward) why even add the reward in the first place? After all, content alone should drive the game and those who want a challenge should be happy with playing their challenging content and not need some rewards to go with it.
Where do you draw the line on how hard something is to obtain? Or the alternative is to give everything to everyone, then why not adding Twilight as a loot drop from moas? Or give it as a level 10 reward. I mean according to posters, where someone gets a reward shouldn’t matter, that’s what is being said to me.
First of all, I never said content alone is enough to keep people playing. It’s enough to keep SOME people playing.
But probably not enough by percentage to run an MMO. This is particularly true due to the number of people who run content they don’t enjoy just to get rewards. I didn’t try for Liadri too hard because I found unenjoyable. I don’t play MMOs to solo.
But there are people who hated the content but tried it over and over again until they got that mini. I’m thinking that you get enough of that and some people will stop playing.
See, I enjoy the new zones and I can play them for ages. I don’t even think about the rewards. But I’m not a typical player.
The more rewards in the game beyond the realm of most people to get, the higher the threshold, the more people will start to question if this game is the game for them. That’s just simple human nature.
You didn’t say it, others did.
People are asking for alternative ways to get the rewards, I get that. But one “alternative” might still be hard for some people, just see precursors, the alternative (crafting) is still hard to do for most people, maybe harder than mystic forging it or getting it as drop. So the next question is, how many alternatives do you wish to be added in order to be happy? And where do you draw the line on how easy obtaining the reward is?
I mean, why not add all the rewards as level up things or add them as drops from moas. Something everyone can do, then nobody will complain because they have bad ping, bad computer or cannot perform 100% for reasons beyond their power to fix. Would that make players happy?
I don’t mind hard rewards. I do mind rewards gated behind content that is problematical for people that live in my area of the world. It’s not like six of us alone in a room. There are tens of thousands of people, perhaps even more, who play from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Phillipines, all over the place, really. There are tons of people who live in rural areas around the world who have lousy connections. I’m sure we have enough numbers to gain a bit of consideration. More than 10% of guys are colorbind. It makes red circles a problem.
I’d like to see a way for me to be on even footing. It’s not Anet’s fault I live in Australia. But Anet is selling the game Internationally. They are certainly willing to take money from Australians. So if there’s a reward that’s significantly harder for me to get, I’d like an alternate way to access it.
Dungeon rewards were given to people in PvP, even though dungeons are quite easy to do. Raids aren’t as easy as dungeons but the only way to get raid rewards is raid.
I broke down and I’m going to start raiding with my guild a week from this Tuesday. I’m not happy that I’m doing this. It’s a form of capitulation. It’s also an issue for a casual guild like mine, because it’s going to create haves and have nots. Not everyone in my guild is good enough, well enough, or has a good enough connection to raid. It makes me sad that some people will be denied this.
My hope is that a group of us get good enough to cycle some people in who have less than ideal conditions. But the bottom line is, I don’t think this is good for my guild. I don’t particularly think it’s great for the game.
I don’t know what percentage of people raid, but if 10% of the population are raiders because they enjoy raiding and 20% of the population feel disenfranchised and left out, then I don’t think it’s a good decision on Anet’s part.
That said, I don’t have those numbers. I don’t know what percentage raid and what percentage have stopped logging in or play less do to a perception that the game is moving in a direction and not taking people with it.
This thread should be evidence that a least some people feel disenfrachised.
And I’m not even one of them, because I really like the new zones. I really like the metas, particularly VB and DS. And I really like the elite specializations I’ve played with so far.
What I don’t like is feeling pressured to do content to get something specific because I want it, even though I feel I won’t enjoy the content.
….the game is in a great space as it is….
Lol.
How may full servers in NA are there? How many new servers did Anet have to add to handle the swarm of new players attracted the the wonderful HoT expansion?
They don’t have to add servers, because of the mega server. If you’re going to attack the game whenver you can, you should at least be aware of how the game works.
The servers being full or not full now are predicated only and completely on WvW numbers. Since less people play that format and server numbers are baseed SOLELY on that, that isn’t going to indicate anything. I don’t know anyone, including Anet, who thinks WvW is doing great.
Other servers are spawned as needed. There’s no way to tell how many servers are going at one time and if people claim they can, I’d sure like to know how.
But I know for a fact there are many servers in each zone, because often my guild is taxi-ing each other to other zones and we’re all on different servers.
If however that reward is bought – or obtained in through an easier process – then yes – it is devalued because your statement is put under doubt – did he earn it the hard way or just bought it?
Is he good or not?Maybe you don’t see it, but you are again reinforcing what i said before. That statement is only important where there are people that did not do that content (because in a game where there are no casuals and everyone is a succesful raider, everyone has that mini, so having it is no statement at all). It is also important only when other people care. It’s not for you – it is for others. So, in the end, you need people that can’t do that content, and you need them to care that you can. Without it, your reward is meaningless.
I on the other hand do not need such statements to show to others. The stuff i wear is for myself, and the only judgment i might make about others based on how they are dressed is about their style and aestethics. And the meaning of the reward lies purely in how useful it is to me (statwise, or aestethically).
(also, as someone mentioned your argument is weakened by the fact that you can get carried at those encounters)
Actually, I can see Harper’s point.
In GW, there were a lot of titles. Legendary Guardian and Legendary Vanquisher meant you’d completed all the hard more story missions and cleared all the hard mode zones, respectively. I enjoyed displaying those titles, because it meant something to me. I did not care how many people had them, I only cared that I did.
Is it possible there are players who want to lord it over other players? Sure, there are all kinds in game just as in life. However, I don’t think one can accurately generalize that desire to the entire hardcore demographic. You can say that all players who want exclusive rewards in hard content are looking to feel superior to those who don’t have those rewards. However, there are many cases where you’d be wrong.
Thank you – finally – someone gets it.
I don’t hate casual players – I don’t want them to be “second rate citizens” or not to have cool items.
At the same time I want the rewards associated with hard content that I beat to remain hard to obtain – because otherwise the statement they make on my behalf becomes null and void.I don’t mind if others have said rewards provided they work as hard as I did to obtain them.
I do mind them being handed out through other easier or more comfortable ways – because it means my display of said unique rewards no longer holds its intended message.
I wouldn’t mind titles given to people who achieve hard content. But unique skins or the only way to get a specific class of armor…that I do mind. Raids are too hard to lock stuff like that behind.
I mean a WvW guy with a lot of characters would find legendary armor very appealing maybe. But he might hate raiding. Seems to me like a bad deal for that player.