Guild Wars 2

Lytalm.5673:

Please, don’t give me this “1%” argument. I’m pretty sure we can make harder content which is OPTIONNAL whitout being accessible to only the top tier extra skilled player. If I remember correctly, GW1 had pretty difficult content that demanded for coordination, knowing what is going on and preparation. Aka Hard Mode. There was achievements for doing so. No, not everybody was able to do it, but most succeeded and loved it, even if it was a pain in the kitten sometimes.

GW1 hard mode was actually pretty easy. I did all of the hard mode content with heroes. GW2 dungeons seem harder to me than GW1 hard mode, but maybe that’s just a playstyle thing.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Lytalm.5673:

Please, don’t give me this “1%” argument. I’m pretty sure we can make harder content which is OPTIONNAL whitout being accessible to only the top tier extra skilled player. If I remember correctly, GW1 had pretty difficult content that demanded for coordination, knowing what is going on and preparation. Aka Hard Mode. There was achievements for doing so. No, not everybody was able to do it, but most succeeded and loved it, even if it was a pain in the kitten sometimes.

GW1 hard mode was actually pretty easy. I did all of the hard mode content with heroes. GW2 dungeons seem harder to me than GW1 hard mode, but maybe that’s just a playstyle thing.

that’s because in GW1 dungeons don’t have massive amounts of overpowered enemies, it’s made to balance the open areas with dungeons.
in GW2 you have easier then normal mode in the open world while harder then hard mode in dungeons, you’re also not able to adjust your build like in GW1 to the dungeon.
then again, in GW1 with the right team builds you can take down practically everything, a freedom you just don’t have in GW2.

sorudo.9054:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Lytalm.5673:

Please, don’t give me this “1%” argument. I’m pretty sure we can make harder content which is OPTIONNAL whitout being accessible to only the top tier extra skilled player. If I remember correctly, GW1 had pretty difficult content that demanded for coordination, knowing what is going on and preparation. Aka Hard Mode. There was achievements for doing so. No, not everybody was able to do it, but most succeeded and loved it, even if it was a pain in the kitten sometimes.

GW1 hard mode was actually pretty easy. I did all of the hard mode content with heroes. GW2 dungeons seem harder to me than GW1 hard mode, but maybe that’s just a playstyle thing.

that’s because in GW1 dungeons don’t have massive amounts of overpowered enemies, it’s made to balance the open areas with dungeons.
in GW2 you have easier then normal mode in the open world while harder then hard mode in dungeons, you’re also not able to adjust your build like in GW1 to the dungeon.
then again, in GW1 with the right team builds you can take down practically everything, a freedom you just don’t have in GW2.

Actually, the trait system revamp was done specifically to allow them to design encounters and new traits to allow us to adapt builds to content like GW1. Excited to see how far they push it.

I personally don’t think the new content is too easy. Yes, uber player is coasting through, perhaps. But a lot of us are getting tired of content we can never do. Not all of us are 16 years old with the reflexes of the young. Some of us are plodders and a lot of the new content takes fast reflexes. A lot of the content I can do but have a difficult time doing it fast. But a lot of the achieves could probably be accomplished easier with a group. Of course, there are a lot of players who would rather do it solo.

I can attest to the above. I tried a couple of times to get the achievements solo. It took me about maybe 6 tries before I got the “ensure no one dies in Concordia” one, but the Butterflies and Viscera one just kept on eluding me. I then posted a LFG, got 4 more peeps, and we just STEAMROLLED the boss. Seriously, it was over almost before I knew it.

I’d say all of the achievements can be done solo, some if you’re really good, but if you’re having trouble with it, team up.

Which only makes my case that I think the achievements are fine even stronger, I feel. They are trickier to get solo, and you can attempt them solo for more of a challenge, but regular players can team up and still get it fairly easily.

Now if only that dang On Swift Wings achievement would work…

PopeUrban.2578:

Rainin.9812:

Achievements only attainable by a small percentage of players are annoying.. Just my honest opinion. You are discouraging players who may have a hard time with some stuff skill wise, but still try hard to complete all event achievements. Go try to solo Arah or take a Fort in WvW by yourself. You may like beating your head against a wall, but not everyone does.

Let’s rename the whole system “handouts” then. In fact, why bother requiring anyone to do anything to get them at all? Just fill in the blanks of the character sheet when you log in. Actually, that would exclude people on vacations. Just automatically attribute them to accounts! But then what about people who don’t have accounts yet? Actually, we’d better just give them credit when they establish the account too.

In fact, why is there a losing team in sPvP? Why are there TWO losing teams in WvW? We should probably change those systems too, so that the rewards are fair for everyone that tried.

You see what I’m getting at?

Extraordinary effort or skill should absolutely rewarded with extraordinary rewards. That content should exist, and certain rewards should absolutely be reserved for those who go above and beyond to get them. That’s a large part of the problem with GW2. It does a great job of adding inclusive content, but it doesn’t implement any sort of enhanced risk/reward mechanics to give people any reason to attempt to improve.

“Trying” should never be grounds for completely optional and supposedly “elite skill based” content. Just because it’s PvE doesn’t automatically entitle every single player to every single reward. Just as PvP, there should be variant levels of challenge with corresponding levels of reward. Doing well should confer greater rewards.

The achievements are permanent now, so there’s no applicable excuse outside player ability, which can be practiced and improved upon, for those who want an achievement to not, uh, achieve that goal.

The problem is with players that feel they deserve every achievement, and drop, and rare thing in the game simply because they tried to get it. Achievements are not and never should have been things people deserve but rather things people have to make a concerted effort to earn

I agree somewhat with what you are saying. I think there are already a lot of built in challenges that not everyone can complete (legendaries, ascended gear, fractal rewards, etc).

I guess I was more arguing this point about the achievements that used to be available for only a limited time (which is still going to be a problem with holiday event releases). For example, I am a player that likes completing all content made available (which includes all the achievements). When the first Halloween event was released a big piece of the achievements was the Tower of Madness JP. After trying it multiple times and completing all the other achievements I went full force at it. I spent about 22 hours (spread out over a few days) trying to complete it and only got as far as 75% up. That JP is no longer available, the reward at the top isn’t either and probably never will be again.

This is where our points differ. I would be okay with super hard achievements if the opportunity to achieve them was not placed within a limited time. Some people may not be able to complete something in a given amount of time, but still want to try and put the effort toward doing it.. Why punish those people?

I would be okay with the extra hard challenges being placed within this new system where you can try to achieve them as long as you want. I guess my point was coming more from how previous releases were and for holiday content that isn’t always available. But still I don’t think that mass majority of players should have to beat their heads against walls for hours and hours just because they like completing things in their entirety.

what is the point of trying to even get an achievement in what is supposed to be a single mode instance if you need more than two people to achieve the achievement so at this point I am not even going to bother with them

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

I remember the Devs talking about the high difficulty of the achievements for this new living story and that not everyone can do them.
So now I’m here to tell you that this didn’t happen, the Achievements are
WAY TOO EASY, none challenged me, even without a guide at release, I completed every single one on my first try, except the NO TRICKS one – the fail caused by a
bug.

So PLEASE make it more challenging, I play the story, enjoy it for ~1hour, (it really got good now in Season 2) then replay it for the achievements ~1hour – then I end up having nothing to do than grind for Geodes, go back to PvP or WvW.
Stand to your words and make some Achievements REALLY hard, so only 1% or less of the players will manage to complete them, even Crown Pavillion Liadri was too easy.

But a huge + for don’t giving us grind achievements, I liked them, because they gave me something to do, but at the same time I hated them because they where so boring xD.

I want something I need hours and hours to complete, even if it’s just one achievement

Anyone else feeling so?

Edit: Added a strawpoll
Edit2:
Votes: 100 Achievements are ….
hard: ~15% || easy: ~15% || good: ~50% || not worth doing: ~20%

Surprised: not for 1%, but ~15% of the players the achievements are too easy

Then do them naked on a lvl 1 character. That ought to be a challenge, aye ?

If you want challenges, then make them for yourself. It’s fine to want challenged, but don’t force them on me. Challenges suck and I don’t like them. I like easy content that I can breeze through.

Liadri will always be my least favorite.

I did all but 3 of the achievements on episode 1, but I’ve passed on doing the rest as they just reward you with junk. I might do the. If I’m flow to getting an AP chest, but they do not intrest me at all. Some sound fun, others just sound like they where made to kitten you off when you so often.

Rainin.9812:

I agree somewhat with what you are saying. I think there are already a lot of built in challenges that not everyone can complete (legendaries, ascended gear, fractal rewards, etc).

I guess I was more arguing this point about the achievements that used to be available for only a limited time (which is still going to be a problem with holiday event releases). For example, I am a player that likes completing all content made available (which includes all the achievements). When the first Halloween event was released a big piece of the achievements was the Tower of Madness JP. After trying it multiple times and completing all the other achievements I went full force at it. I spent about 22 hours (spread out over a few days) trying to complete it and only got as far as 75% up. That JP is no longer available, the reward at the top isn’t either and probably never will be again.

This is where our points differ. I would be okay with super hard achievements if the opportunity to achieve them was not placed within a limited time. Some people may not be able to complete something in a given amount of time, but still want to try and put the effort toward doing it.. Why punish those people?

I would be okay with the extra hard challenges being placed within this new system where you can try to achieve them as long as you want. I guess my point was coming more from how previous releases were and for holiday content that isn’t always available. But still I don’t think that mass majority of players should have to beat their heads against walls for hours and hours just because they like completing things in their entirety.

This is a big part of why the LS achievements are permanent now, because this was pretty widespread feedback, and I happen to agree with it. If the base content is accessible and “built to win” then by all means give everyone as much time as they want to try and complete the hard and optional stuff.

Asking them to somehow retcon in every achievement, or to make festival achievements permanent is a little unreasonable. Some of those were literally “You showed up during this time on this day” and it wouldn’t make sense to go back and give that out.

Festivals are the same way, I don’t see the value or logic in having wintersday achievements available in august. Festivals go on for long stretches of time, and if you don’t get those achievements you can always try again later. Certain things should definitely be amended, like the pumpkin carving achievement being removed from halloween for no apparent reason (but leaving the pumpkins all over the world) but others reference content that had problems that caused them to change it. Re-adding content that was broken, that they changed because it was broken, so you can get the achievements for doing the old and broken content isn’t a good move, nor would it be a good move to remove those achievement for players that chose to suffer through bad content for them.

I think anet heard the community and made the right move with the new LS achievement setup. They made achievements something that took effort, but they let you have as much time as you want to try and obtain them, and I don’t think they’d change back to the older systems after so much time and effort to build a better achievement system.

If you want content that is harder
Try doing a dungeon without armor

Beat the boss in the nude
And people will worship you dude

You’ll keep up with the best speed runners
While leaving behind all the others

Try PVP without using your elite
And soon enemies will start kissing your feet

I don’t want content that is harder
I could care less about being a martyr

I would rather go play with the skritts
’Cause your challenge gives me the schlitz!

Charrbeque.8729:

If you want content that is harder
Try doing a dungeon without armor

Beat the boss in the nude
And people will worship you dude

You’ll keep up with the best speed runners
While leaving behind all the others

Try PVP without using your elite
And soon enemies will start kissing your feet

I don’t want content that is harder
I could care less about being a martyr

I would rather go play with the skritts
’Cause your challenge gives me the schlitz!

I appreciate your well stated post
and I don’t mean to brag or to boast

but risk is a thing that deserves some reward
so why not an achievement or new shiny sword?

It’s not like you need them to play and have fun
but it would be nice to have rewards, and get some

for doing the things that are hard or elite
then everyone would be happy, and that would be neat.

<3

Last two posts are epic..

But back to PopeUrban’s point. I agree that festival achievements shouldn’t be available year round or anything like that. But in my opinion festival achievements shouldn’t be where the “Elite Achievement Gamers” get their kicks. Make the ULTRA HARD achievements a part of permanent content so that everyone can try to become a better player to achieve such feats. Make the festivals more fun and care-free with the achievements and such.

I would agree with you also that they have come leaps-and-bounds since releasing South Sun and making a boss (and giving rewards) that only people who got on at a specific time on the weekend could have access to. The one good move they made was giving the rewards at least to people who were there and crashed/disconnected. But all those people that just happened to work, go on vacation, get sick, have soccer games, built a house or picked their butt that weekend missed out. And I could understand why those people would be pretty upset. Glad they haven’t made a mistake like THAT again.

Rainin.9812:

Last two posts are epic..

But back to PopeUrban’s point. I agree that festival achievements shouldn’t be available year round or anything like that. But in my opinion festival achievements shouldn’t be where the “Elite Achievement Gamers” get their kicks. Make the ULTRA HARD achievements a part of permanent content so that everyone can try to become a better player to achieve such feats. Make the festivals more fun and care-free with the achievements and such.

I would agree with you also that they have come leaps-and-bounds since releasing South Sun and making a boss (and giving rewards) that only people who got on at a specific time on the weekend could have access to. The one good move they made was giving the rewards at least to people who were there and crashed/disconnected. But all those people that just happened to work, go on vacation, get sick, have soccer games, built a house or picked their butt that weekend missed out. And I could understand why those people would be pretty upset. Glad they haven’t made a mistake like THAT again.

I’m totally with you here, with one caveat. I think festivals (and all content really) should include at least one “hardcore” bit of content. The clocktower, liadri, tribulation mode, etc. are very small parts of that content, but the idea behind festivals is being inclusive, and as such they should include a wide range of content to include those players as well.

I agree that a wintersday that was all hard jumping puzzles, or all PvP modes, or all rythm games, or all zerg events would alienate more people than it draws in, but I think they’ve tried really hard to make a range of festival content so that all types of players have things they find fun do do during festivals. Wintersday is a great example, where we saw them bring back the old modes, but significantly increase content where it was lacking in world events by adding new events.

As interesting as hardcore achievements would be, putting them in the living world (read: the dynamic content that’s supposed to drive the core of the game) is the last place to do this.

And I’m perfectly fine calling BS on 1 hour for story and 1 hour for full achievements. They’re not difficult but by no means can anyone just stumble blindly and get them all in one pass. If you’re an ele and skate through Fort Salma on a blind run, no minions lost and not hit at all by AoE, awesome. Now re-roll necro and see how it feels.

In 99% of cases of difficulty, at least with this game, YMMV. Your easy mode is another person’s “normal” difficulty. Still, we’re in a lot better shape than GW, which even with Hard Mode was total cheese from all the ridiculous team builds + buffs.