Guild Wars 2

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Dungeons are the part I find interesting;… I dislike how that affects PUG dynamics. …

You can do dungeons in masterwork gear, is that it ?
You’re predicting what players will do, your argument relies on pure speculation, elitists will always be there, avoiding them is not hard.
Next

I gave a concrete example where ANet took existing content and made it significantly harder while saying this was in response to requests for harder content — and you claim this is pure speculation?

Yes, it is possible to do Arah in masterwork gear. But it is harder, and I’d fill bad at making others in a PUG carry me if I did this (the same reason I never ran MF gear in dungeons). Even if the dungeons don’t don’t strictly require you to get BiS gear — the group dynamic encourage it, especially for those who care about not being selfish.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

The straw man argument is that it’s only a grind if you can’t play content without doing it. The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards. You couldn’t use the definition you’re using if you mean to include grinding for aesthetic rewards.

You’re complaining about a grind, therefore grind must somehow affect your ability to play, it’s quite basic.
Calling it straw-man many times wont cut it dude, try again.

I never said you can’t play without doing the grind — that’s the straw man argument. I said that the rewards system includes rewards for content that isn’t fun to play — enough of this that I consider it a grind.

Here’s a definition for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Specifically: “the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games”. Are you claiming that the AP system doesn’t include rewarding repetitive tasks?

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Actually, Anet does now target them. That’s sort of my point when I call this kind of game design unethical.

Companies cant keep up with addicts or completionists, they complete content way too fast and producing it takes longer.
Next

GW1 devs asserted that they disagreed with grind as a philosophy — which has the nice side effect of not encouraging this kind of play.

And yes, I can make value judgement about companies’ behavior, and I will. I stand by that judgement — it’s my opinion.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

I read Dusk’s comments, and am familiar with yourlogicalfallacyis.com; this isn’t actually the anecdote fallacy because here the OP isn’t asserting that it is generally so, only that the personal anecdote does not fit the naive model. At least in this thread, the OP didn’t say people aren’t playing (making a claim about statistics from anecdote), but rather than playing more != enjoying the game more.

Really ?

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that many players have logged into the game not because it is fun, but because of other pressures.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

People will do a lot of things beyond reason, especially the more financially and emotionally invested they are. Simply assuming people will stop when it stops being enjoyable is a very narrow way of looking at things.

That’s just the first 2, there’s plenty.
Next

Neither the OP nor I claimed evidence that people aren’t logging in. We claimed that logging in and playing does not (in the short term) prove that the players actually had fun. If you’ve never done something you expected to be fun, and realized afterwards it wasn’t fun … you’re probably not paying attention. The quotes you’ve given support that interpretation of the OP’s argument. Also — you appear to have completely missed the discussion of how psychology interacts with decision making …

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Dusk’s fallacy is in assuming the naive model: that players are rational actors. Like it or not, neither you nor I are perfectly rational.

And you assume that we play a game that we dont want to play, epic.

In context saying that we’re not rational actors means we’ll sometimes do things contrary to our own self-interest (e.g. responding in threads like this).

Raziel.4216:

[snip]
I’m sure you can do better

… there wasn’t actually anything left to respond to, but I feel compelled to point out that if you’re convinced you’re always right, you probably suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect.

linuxotaku.4731:

I gave a concrete example where ANet took existing content and made it significantly harder while saying this was in response to requests for harder content — and you claim this is pure speculation?

Significantly harder =/= requires grind.
Edit: You know what games require grind? TERA, if your char’s item level is not over 156 you cant do end-game dungeons, your personal skill, build, etc. doesnt matter.
Diablo III’s Hell dificulty requires a loooooooooooonnnnnggg grind for you to even have a slight chance.
Aion’s end-game dungeons require world boss equiped chars to even have a chance.
MU’s newest maps had gear checks too.
Ragnarok Online 2’s raids required top-geared chars to avoid insta-deaths, personal skill is irrelevant.

Please point out what part of GW2 is like that, where’s this big gear-check wall that stops you from completing anything if you dont grind?
(Besides high level fractals ofc)
Some people will ask for ascended only chars, elitists will always be around, it’d be a problem if that was the norm.

linuxotaku.4731:

The straw man argument is that it’s only a grind if you can’t play content without doing it. The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards. You couldn’t use the definition you’re using if you mean to include grinding for aesthetic rewards.

I never said you can’t play without doing the grind — that’s the straw man argument. I said that the rewards system includes rewards for content that isn’t fun to play — enough of this that I consider it a grind.

Here’s a definition for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Specifically: “the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games”. Are you claiming that the AP system doesn’t include rewarding repetitive tasks?

News flash: Some people like grinding! so there’s an optional grind for them.
“The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards” You dont like it, guess what? you dont have to do it
The grind will only be a problem if you cant do something (besides high level fractals) without doing it, so far you’ve failed to provide a single example.

linuxotaku.4731:

Neither the OP nor I claimed evidence that people aren’t logging in. We claimed that logging in and playing does not (in the short term) prove that the players actually had fun. If you’ve never done something you expected to be fun, and realized afterwards it wasn’t fun … you’re probably not paying attention. The quotes you’ve given support that interpretation of the OP’s argument. Also — you appear to have completely missed the discussion of how psychology interacts with decision making …

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt” sounds like more than an opinion.
That argument could hold some ground in the first few LS – tried it, didnt like – not 10 releases later, you know what’s coming.

linuxotaku.4731:

In context saying that we’re not rational actors means we’ll sometimes do things contrary to our own self-interest (e.g. responding in threads like this).

And playing this game for hundreds of hours….

linuxotaku.4731:

… there wasn’t actually anything left to respond to, but I feel compelled to point out that if you’re convinced you’re always right, you probably suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect.

Not at all, I already conceded to another guy’s post in this topic
Nice try tho.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

I gave a concrete example where ANet took existing content and made it significantly harder while saying this was in response to requests for harder content — and you claim this is pure speculation?

Significantly harder =/= requires grind.

There are two separate arguments here, but it doesn’t really matter because we disagree about the next item.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

The straw man argument is that it’s only a grind if you can’t play content without doing it. The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards. You couldn’t use the definition you’re using if you mean to include grinding for aesthetic rewards.

I never said you can’t play without doing the grind — that’s the straw man argument. I said that the rewards system includes rewards for content that isn’t fun to play — enough of this that I consider it a grind.

Here’s a definition for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Specifically: “the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games”. Are you claiming that the AP system doesn’t include rewarding repetitive tasks?

Some people like grinding, there’s an optional grind for them.
The grind will only be a problem if you cant do something (besides high level fractals) without doing it, so far you’ve failed to provide a single example.

It is a value judgement, not a statement of fact, to say: “The grind will only be a problem if you can’t do something”. As is implied by the definition I’m using, I do not agree. I think encouraging grinding is poor design even if the game doesn’t strictly require it. As I said earlier — I do see the reason ANet encourages certain activities with APs, and I can mostly accept them as justification for the dailies… I just think there are often better solutions.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Neither the OP nor I claimed evidence that people aren’t logging in. We claimed that logging in and playing does not (in the short term) prove that the players actually had fun. If you’ve never done something you expected to be fun, and realized afterwards it wasn’t fun … you’re probably not paying attention. The quotes you’ve given support that interpretation of the OP’s argument. Also — you appear to have completely missed the discussion of how psychology interacts with decision making …

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt” sounds like more of an opinion.
That argument could hold some ground in the first few LS – tried it, didnt like – not 10 releases later, you know what’s coming.

“beyond a shadow of a doubt that many players have logged into the game not because it is fun, but because of other pressures” … yes, that’s an opinion, but I think there’s evidence of it in the forums. “Many” could still be accurate even if it’s a relatively small percentage of the overall player base. The other pressures are the time limit for rewards / for experiencing the content.

Personally, I enjoyed LS until I realized that it felt like a treadmill. So it wasn’t the first or second release that left me unhappy, but more like the 10th. (When I realized that I was walking through content I would never have the time to do given work & family, using dulfy as a guide, purely for extrinsic rewards, without actually enjoying the content. I finished that particular SAB set of achievements out of misplaced stubbornness.)

The reason I’m posting here is that I hope the developers can look for ways to engage players by focusing on interesting content, rather than reward for content done. LS has had some fun points, but IMO it has become over-reliant on extrinsic rewards; that encourages participation for the wrong reasons. Some players may be happy just to get newer shinnies and upgraded gear, and those are OK… but you lose some players that way.

As an example — it’s another topic, but Tequatl. I didn’t think the rewards needed buffing, though it’s fine that they did so. I thought that the event needed to be changed so that a map full of players can trigger it when ready (including on failure) via pre-events (like the Karka Queen) — rather than having to wait around. I’d have fun doing it (success or failure) if it didn’t require sitting around bored in an overflow, unable to travel for fear of losing my place …

Raziel.4216:

Diablo III’s Hell dificulty requires a loooooooooooonnnnnggg grind for you to even have a slight chance.

This is the only one that I’ve played of the games you mentioned — but I think you mean Inferno difficulty. IIRC Hell wasn’t that hard … I lost interest while doing Inferno (in Act II IIRC). I understand that grind can also be a hard requirement, rather than merely encouraged … but I would prefer to play games that don’t encourage grind (you can’t stop players who like it, but you don’t have to entice them).

Too many quotes.

The grind becomes a problem if you cant complete content without grinding, it’s 1 of the biggest problems MMOs had in the past, that’s not a matter of opinion. Grind is such a big let-down that MMOs today advertise themselves as grind-free or they try to distance themselves from korean grindfests.

“I want to do that dungeon, oh kitten, gotta farm for 2 months first” – your average MMO.
“I want to do that dungeon, oh look, I could farm if I wanted to” – GW2.
Huge difference

" I think encouraging grinding is poor design even if the game doesn’t strictly require it"
So those who like to grind cant have what they want? While those who dont want to grind can complete the same content (besides FOTM). You’d be leaving a huge chunk of players out.
It’s like when KOTOR came out, romances were optional yet some people didnt want the option to be available, really?
Why must the game focus on your style instead of giving everyone a chance?

" I think there’s evidence of it in the forums" There’s lots of “I QUIT BECAUSE OF LS” topics, but there’re also some “I LOVE LS!” topics, it’d be hard to reach a decent conclusion.

The Tequatl trigger would be nice.
Edit: yeah it was inferno mode.

Collecting data and interpreting data are 2 quite different activities.
Metrics are neutral and only give you a single answer to a single question. Other metrics may provide supporting data or context – we have very little in this case.
All the data shows is how many players logged into the game. It does not say whether they are satisfied, whether they are willing to spend more money or whether they are willing to recommend the product to their friends.
Most companies will run customer satisfaction surveys on top of using sales data and (if applicable) usage data – the crucial difference is that csat data gives you detail that you cannot get from metrics (why? what exactly?), it gives insight on expectations and it tells you something about future sales and usage. An unhappy customer may still be using your service now, but there is a risk (proportionate to how unhappy they are) to lose them in the future.
Relying on a single datapoint without context is very risky. Even sales data (in most cases extremely reliable) and usage data are not immune to this.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

Anti statistics are a far better philosophy than making them up as you go.

“%1” pfft. There are now dozens of threads like this one in the last month alone.

Of course, Anet themselves make the claim that the forums are such a small percentage that any opinions expressed are irrelevant.

I log in because I want to have fun. Sure.
But then I run into the daily limits on anything I want to do and am enticed to walk in a circle farming champs as the only legitimate method of ever achieving any of the worthwhile rewards. Since doing the content that is fun is losing out on any real progress and reward.

I log in on LS release days, hoping the content is worthwhile.
Doesn’t mean it is.

This thread is a sad scope of education.
Extrinsic vs intrinsic rewards are a basic premise of psychology. No matter how hard you claim that people only do things for intrinsic rewards the stark reality of life in general is the opposite. But by all means continue arguing that as it seems to be something you enjoy doing, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it, right?

I thought I’d just take a moment to acknowledge this sweet burn since the noisy, misguided, objectivist fanbase doesn’t seem interested in doing so. Good form.

Lemaign.3529:

I thought I’d just take a moment to acknowledge this sweet burn since the noisy, misguided, objectivist fanbase doesn’t seem interested in doing so. Good form.

Does his tinfoil hat give him the ability to make “sweet burns”? A Carrion Tinfoil Hat of the Elementalist?

XD

TL;DR

I did drop a few +1s on my way down here, though, to support posts I agreed with.

I gotta say I’ve been REALLY disappointed with the past 3 content updates, to the point where I am rapidly losing interest in the game altogether.

Tried SAB. Didn’t like, didn’t go back.
Tried Tequatl multiple times. Didn’t like. Won’t be back.
Read about Twilight Assault but lost interest when I saw the spark plug reward. Haven’t even bothered to try it out. Probably never will.

I don’t enjoy the new content that has been coming out, so I don’t do it. I AM, however, bothered by the fact that I don’t like the new content coming out. I’m not okay with that. I don’t expect to like everything that comes out, and I’m fine with skipping new content sometimes. But as of the October 15th update it will have been 2 months since I enjoyed any of the new content updates. I really hope the Halloween update is a good one.

Lemaign.3529:

I thought I’d just take a moment to acknowledge this sweet burn since the noisy, misguided, objectivist fanbase doesn’t seem interested in doing so. Good form.

The final defense of any irrational argument is complete dismissal of opposition. Guess anyone who hasn’t actually been following the game for a year still thinks none of this crazy LS restructuring and backtracking actually happened.

Pretty strong evidence for that in the “They only do the 2 week releases because they had data that told them the 2 weeks release schedule would work.”

No one ever has data that something they haven’t even done yet will work. But it has to actually fail before they will change tactics. It’s certainly not a failure, but it’s not a success either. As long as it doesn’t outright fail, they will keep it up. The argument in this thread is that that failure happens long before people stop logging in.

The major players aren’t even on the field yet, one can argue whether team Anet is going to win or lose the upcoming season till they’re blue in the face. But we do know their playbook, and it’s just not strong enough in it’s current state. LS can still work, they just need a new coach.

Player concurrency and Anet’s expectations may be high. But the LS releases are far from concurrent in their quality and the player expectations are getting lower. (Some of them are so low they actually like this drivel.)

Monkey Fritz.9052:

The final defense of any irrational argument is complete dismissal of opposition.

Exactly. So why are you doing it?

This thread is full of people, yourself included, attempting to rationalize data not meaning anything, and you can’t even do that rationally; you have to resort to heaps of purple prose, bad analogies, etc.

The data, according to ArenaNet, says more players are logging in concurrently and consistently, and putting in more playtime. The only way that could mean “zomg the game’s not enjoyable” is if most of those players are the masochists some of you seem to be. I shouldn’t have to even begin explaining how hilariously unlikely that would be.

Look, I get that some of you guys don’t like the game, where it’s headed, whatever. But you’re an extremely small minority. Most of us do like the Living World stuff. Most are having fun, because that’s why your typical gamer plays a game. If it’s not your cup of tea then maybe try, I dunno, not playing? Is it really that crazy of an idea to not play a game you apparently don’t like?

From some of the posts in this thread, you’d think peoples’ livelihoods were on the line or something, like Guild Wars 2 is literally all they have left in their lives. It’s kind of funny, actually.

DusK.3849:

Monkey Fritz.9052:

The final defense of any irrational argument is complete dismissal of opposition.

Exactly. So why are you doing it?

Oh come on, the tin foil hat was a better comeback than that. (surprisingly.)

Surely you can do better?

Monkey Fritz.9052:

DusK.3849:

Monkey Fritz.9052:

The final defense of any irrational argument is complete dismissal of opposition.

Exactly. So why are you doing it?

Oh come on, the tin foil hat was a better comeback than that. (surprisingly.)

Surely you can do better?

I did. You didn’t bother to quote it. Maybe bring something to the discussion next time you respond?

We seem to have strayed WAY far from OP topic. CrazyfaceMurphy (w/e) has a legitimate argument.

ANet stacks LS content updates with CRAZY amounts of AP and other rewards for those that complete the content.

So there certainly is a percentage of the gw2 community that is doing LS content JUST FOR THE AP. It doesn’t mean they like or approve of the LS content, it just means they are willing to grind through it to rack up the AP points for the non-LS reward they DO want.

CrazylegsMcGillicutty (w/e) is just saying he hopes that ANet is aware of this, and takes it into account when they parse the data.

That’s all. It’s a well-reasoned and valid point.

You go, SillyFaceMcMurphyLegs. Good on ya.

jsduke.6537:

CrazyfaceMurphy

0_o

jsduke.6537:

CrazylegsMcGillicutty

o_0

jsduke.6537:

SillyFaceMcMurphyLegs.

>.<

Shrugs

\o/

Eh. It just seemed like kind of an arbitrary mishmash of random words, and I could never quite keep it straight in my head so I just decided to have some fun with it

@ OP I agree w/you based on my personal experience. I usually log on daily and have time for my dailies but I am not doing much of the LS b/c it’s not that interesting, not “fun” for me. Sometimes I do the LS because it is easy AP’s and the Teq LS was one of them. I did not find it “fun” to be in overflow, to die a lot, etc. So all I did was visit the area daily and live most of the time and got the goody, I think some wings. I have one achievement there, by accident I sat in a cannon and fired it bdfore the massive krait spawn killed me. I did not have fun at all.

This is one of the semantics issues. There was a big one over “casual”. I am logged on and active in the game a lot, looks “hardcore” not “casual”. But I do not much care that I do not get all that I want (hardcore); rewards come as the come (casual). So am I “casual” or “hardcore”? Haha

So by the measure of “log-on” I must LOVE the game, but am I having fun at LS? How could ANet measure that? Well the log-on must be right. right?

The OP has a valid point.

To argue that people will ONLY play to have fun is to discount a variety of factors. I sit at more than 10K+ AP and I’ve felt some of the things the OP has stated.

I see what your saying OP , but there’s alot of assuming going on there and we don’t know that they only rely on numbers to judge things. It could be just one part of a whole in which they base future content.

Pennry.9215:

If you don’t enjoy the content given, what’s the point of getting more AP rewards? “I must have the most stuff in this game I hate.” Really?

Sadly, a lot of people think like that. They don’t enjoy the game, but they enjoy rewards. So they go after the rewards even if they don’t enjoy the game.

And that’s how ArenaNet’s hooking players. Not enjoyable content or story, but more shinies.

lordkrall.7241:

But then again that have been said more or less after every single Living Story chapter since they started with the living story, and still the concurrency numbers seem to increase rather than decrease.

I didn’t see that during Halloween last year. Or Lost Shores. Or Wintersday. Or Flame and Frost (I did see some annoyance over temporary content but not “people will leave in a few months” – maybe “eventually” though).

Besides, that was before they started the bi-weekly schedule. I think that’s where the obvious “players will get burned out” came, and started taking real effect during Queen’s Jubilee.

Shiren.9532:

The next three months hold the most popular festivals in Guild Wars history. They could have released nothing all year and players would return for Halloween and Wintersday. Let’s not forget that Wintersday also coincides with holidays.

And what happens after them?

What happens if Wintersday ends up with nothing new? Looks like most of Halloween is old except for a new plot – or rather, an expansion of the previously built up plot. Wintersday didn’t really have a plot last year… I don’t expect one this year.

Raziel.4216:

That’s what the skinner box was designed for, except that the analogy worked for the P2P MMOs (you paid for each month, so you had to make the best of it) and not the B2P MMOs, because the reinforcement will be there without a monthly fee.
One could argue “but the 25 AP from the LS wont be there!” sure, you can get that in 1 TA run, I doubt Anet looks at the first day of release to get reliable data.

What data are you using to reach this conclusion “LS is proving to be a larger and larger disappointment” ? The only one with access to real, non-anecdotal (worthless) evidence is Anet, and they decided to increase the # of LS per month, so I doubt it’s dissapointing.

You’re right that I cannot prove concrete numbers. But really, ArenaNet provides concrete numbers with no context. Both are anecdotal. All I really have are my own opinions and the posts on the forums and comments in-game. Which I’ll admit is not the best source of evidence, not by a long shot – but neither is unshared numbers that lack context.

For the skinner box concept – first they introduced AP rewards, you get prizes for getting AP. Then they created LS categories that provide 50+ AP every two weeks. Then they time-gaited by making the meta achievements require daily achievements, forcing folks to log in multiple days for those achievement points they want. They systematically improved rewards to farming, bit by bit, throughout the game. They intended to condition players to go after AP for rewards, to log in daily for AP.

Most achievements may take less than a day – especially the latest update – but look at previous ones and you’ll find… that you couldn’t take less than a day (in the case of Teq, unless you’re really lucky).

I log in occassionally to see if ANet have improved the game and storytelling of the LS… which thus far, I can to my sadness share with you, they have not. If anything, it seems to go in the opposite direction.
- I would log in more often previously, not because I enjoyed the game, but because I was hoping to see it turn for the better like so many GW1 fans have hoped for.

Right now it has lead me to check up once in a while, but otherwise have abandoned the game for other single player interactive experiences that offer way more “fun” gameplay mechanics (because ANet isn’t really expanding the mechanics right now, making them better or more fun), only to check with GW2 once in a while to see if something worth mentioning has appeared.
- I’ve been very patient with it, but I’m waiting for the AP grind to disappear from their game (grind for cosmetics is what I remember GW1 for, if I wanted a specific armor set or “look” if you will. The horizontal progression and experimentation with skill combinations along with a dark fantasy world and good storytelling kept me for many years).

The game at launch had much potential, and I expected something much different for the future of GW2 than what we have today with AP grind, Ascended (instead of more exotics and cosmetics), rushed storytelling (short stories and how it looks on the paper of the writers doesn’t matter. It’s within the game it counts!), etc.
- I hope they get into the mindset that they originally had for the first game and how they expanded it originally for this GW2.

Good luck, ANet.
- I’ll be keeping a watchful eye out for the future development of your game.

To be fair, if I may state something about the storytelling, I think the artwork stylish cutscenes that we saw when Clockwork Chaos hit is how ANet should continue on doing these. Storytelling-wise these are quite nice. Even though I was no fan of Scarlet’s introduction, but the cutscene I found to be nice (though I hope for better stories).