LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Any perceived “pressure” is psychological, and depends on one’s desires.
What “perceived pressure” is not psychological?
The question here is “Is it reasonable that someone would feel pressured from this?” The answer to that is certainly “Yes.” In fact, it is intended by design.
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Instead of creating interesting content that stays around and has depth without being an achievement or reward, ArenaNet are constantly appealing to the reptilian side of our natures that pushes buttons for treats.
This is a really important point. When a company discovers it can serve you dirt cheap dog food by lacing it with an addictive substance, guess what they’ll do? People are lapping it up.
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I don’t know, I haven’t felt like I was being forced into things. I mean, if I want it done quickly? Join a WvW zerg and knock it out quickly. And if it’s a zerg which actually has enemy players in the way, you can get a good jump on half the Monthly. I mean, two nights in WvW and I had 3/4 on my Monthly. Less than two hours a night, and the Daily only requred a Karma purchase and a Laurel Vendor visit to round them out.
Also, it’s less “coercion” and more “enticement”. Coercion implies a penalty to be applied if you don’t, enticement implies a reward for doing it.
That you have strategies for finishing some of the requirements quickly only tells me your behavior is being manipulated, just as I argued. Maybe you are someone who gets off of work and thinks to himself, “I’m really excited to be able to visit the Karma Vendor again!” I’ll wager for most people this isn’t something they would spend time doing without being manipulated.
Your distinction between coercion and enticement isn’t so clear cut. By selectively rewarding people you can effectively punish those that you do not reward. Coercion just refers to the application of pressure, and players definitely feel the pressure of “falling behind” their peers. For an extreme example, imagine giving 100 gold for completing a daily. You are “rewarding” those who do them, but you are at the same time “punishing” those who do not, because of the resulting inflation. In this case, the primary reward is gear, which players use to obtain things such as prestige from their peers. This is much harder to measure than gold, but the effect (“gear inflation” etc.) is similar.
Interestingly, I find that the people that are most committed to doing dailies/monthlies usually express notions of “falling behind” if they don’t do them, rather than excitement about what they can earn by doing them. These players get a sense that if they can’t finish a daily, the will be forever “down a laurel.” In other words, if these dailies succeed in altering behavior long-term, it is my experience that they usually do so by coercion and not by enticement. In either case, however, it is “manipulation.” And I don’t think most people are really comfortable knowing they are being manipulated.
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It’s because of this that I decided pair down the characters that I play drastically. Right now I basically have three builds I need to support. I don’t think I can support more than that. If the ascended stuff is too terrible, then I may just give up all together.
.
It was decided long ago that the gear treadmill would be tuned for the most “dedicated” players that play only a single build. Give up and tap 1 like everyone else.
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Soulbinding is the answer to twinking, probably the most notable game with that was Diablo 2.
Strict level requirements stop twinking. Soul binding fights gear deflation.
That said, the current soul binding system is very hostile to playing more than one character.
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Nowadays, you are presented with a checklist of things you must do every day when you log in (dailies), and things you should do after that (achievements). I understand the devs want these things to just happen by regular play time, but it is simply in many people’s nature to see them as a TODO list they have to finish every day.
IF the developers “just wanted these things to happen” then why have a list at all? They could just pass out points for being active in the game and trigger the reward after a bit of play, no matter what you are doing (aside from just being inert or on trade post).
No, the truth is they want to coerce people into doing things the normally wouldn’t… like fighting underwater or zerging a particular zone. You aren’t to be permitted to decide what content you would rather avoid. This is particularly true for monthlies, where people that hate pvp or dungeons do them anyway. Getting people to do things they hate as a game is just one of the amazing features of the MMO universe.
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Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest. I think the problem is people approaching the manifesto with the same attitude as approaching a dictionary or encyclopedia. This was just a video of some human beings trying to hype up their product that they were very excited about, not scientific documentation to be analyzed. People take the manifesto way too seriously, and take this perceived “betrayal” way too personally.
Again with this ‘but everyone does it!’ logic? I suppose everyone has to be 100% innocent before we can hold anyone accountable for their actions? “Little boys kill ants, so while my client may have killed those people, he isn’t guilty!” Mmm-hmm.
And then you present the ‘some people are overreacting, therefore everyone is overreacting’ logic as well. I don’t care if some people act like their life has ended. That doesn’t stop others from holding developers accountable in an appropriate manner.
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No, it doesn’t depend on that. It depends on people not substituting definitions for something ALREADY DEFINED IN A DOCUMENT. Colin DEFINED what grind was fort he purposes of what he was saying. He said it straight out. It’s not some hidden code. Then two lines later, he referred to grind AGAIN, in which case in any common usage of English as a language, it would use the same definition.
When you take a line from a paragraph and use it to mean something that it was never intended to mean, it’s called taking it out of context. Because without the first defining usage of the word, it MIGHT mean something else…but in context, it can only mean one thing. Or at very least can’t mean gear grind.
The fact that some people won’t acknowledge this doesn’t make it less true.
There is no definition. He uses the word grind once. Then he uses it again. Your “definition” is only your inference from a single sentence. Hence, you are the one fabricating a view from one very tiny portion of a text and taking it out of context.
If you look at the manifesto holistically, the inclusion of a description of the “gear grind” that you are excusing would completely clash. Your analysis of who didn’t lie and how they didn’t lie is beside the point. Of course a short video isn’t going to tell you everything that is and isn’t in a product as complex as an MMO. But this video was intended to represent the product. As it turns out, it misrepresented the product. Period.
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3 million copies sold…not bad, could be better, could be worse, but not bad.
weekly active users…2.5 million per week. Wait a second. How is that calculated? Is that 2.5 million unique users or does it count repeat log ins like McD’s X million customers served…? I’ll come back two this with the average hours played.
It’s fairly obvious that over 80% of the people that ever purchased the game do not log in every week. That would be a phenomenal retention rate for any game to have after even just a few weeks.
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However, when I look at the direction the game is going (charging crystals, time gated T7 materials, crafting of ascended gear 1 / day, combining lower tier materials in the mystic forge.) I realize that any change is going to be worse.
You understand why ascended is to be time-gated right? It’s to reduce the impact of the inevitable power creep. Whether it’ll be effective or not is another matter ofc
Time gating doesn’t control power creep. The release of higher stats controls power creep. Time gating is there to keep you “busy” for a predetermined amount of time. It is “busy work” that you aren’t allowed to put behind you.
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My point was simply that some defenders of the current system believe both to be true, when that’s not possible.
Yup. The same defense applied to Ascended gear in general.
“Ascended gear will give me no advantage over you but it gives me vertical progression.” Huh?
Mostly people are just looking to rationalize a system that gives them some kind of advantage.
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Once a day content is rubbish imo, Anet say they don’t want to tell people how to play then they make dragons and dungeons useless after the first run of the day.If I want to go do another dungeon or path I will but making us do other paths is exactly what Anet say they want to avoid…..I have gone from hard core player to casual if that. I’m waiting for Anet to start doing what the keep preaching. If I want to do dragons a lot I should be rewarded for them. As usual Anet are burning the players to get at the gold sellers and botters.
Anet doesn’t want to tell people how to play… that’s why they made the software tell people when they log in.
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The only grind is for cosmetics, hence it isn’t required to experience any content in the game, hence you don’t have to do it to “get to the fun stuff.” Oh look, that’s a line from the manifesto. You don’t need laurels to get to the fun. You don’t need to farm CoF to get to the fun.
The grind is NOT just for cosmetics, thanks to Ascended gear, which they just threw into the game because of someone who panicked.
Also, with the grind-tastic mentality of the developers and the resulting base of players that are drowning in a long list of soul-sapping chores they are compelled to do, there is precious little left of “the fun stuff.” That’s what happens when all energy goes to the grindstones.
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When the option is to spend 30 minutes a day for 30 days to get ascended gear or acquire 250 T6 mats, 50 ectos, a material only avialable in one dungeon, and 24 skill points to get the ascended gear, I’ll take the dailies every time.
So, because the give you an even worse option, the bad option is suddenly a good one?
The third option is two declare the other two options a waste of time and refuse to play along.
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I don’t think Anet were really taking the title of their video that seriously. I mean a manifesto is more along the lines of a long document someone writes down on paper to describe whatever crazy things they are thinking. Typically we hear of crazed serial killers or suicidal people writing manifestos. When I think “manifesto” I think Mein Kampf not youtube… Realistically, I think Anet’s choice of video title was just an attention-grabber, nothing more. Yes they wanted to talk about their vision, but if they were making a true manifesto, it would be posted on the official wiki as an itemized list of objectives with philosophical commentary on design.
Yes, of course it was a trivial thing. Didn’t really mean anything. I mean, if it were for real, it wouldn’t have just been promoted front and center on their website. It would have been written in blood in triplicate, and sent to the major religious institutions of the world to be enshrined so that no developer could shirk their duty without eternal kitten ation. I mean they might say “manifesto” or “promise” or the like… but really lots of complete wackos made manifestos in the history of the world. Why should ANET’s be any different?
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Now you get to the nitty gritty of the problem.
There are a whole lot of people who really believe that they can take a single line out of the manifesto and turn that line to mean what they want it to mean, without taking the rest of the words around it into account, and all the stuff said about it afterwards.
The line “we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2” is followed by “no one likes it, no one finds it fun, we want to change the way people view COMBAT”.
The paragraph starts with the line, “In other games there’s this boring grind to get to the fun stuff…”
What is Colin talking about…boring grind to get to the fun stuff. Not gear grind. Gear isn’t mentioned anywhere in the manifesto. Even the article referring to the manifesto written after doesn’t use the word gear, though it does use the words “fun reward”. Can you maybe perhaps interpret that as meaning gear. Maybe. But it’s not a sure thing. At the very least it would be something you’d have to think about. What did Colin mean when he said grind.
If you take the words out of context, the manifesto was betrayed. If you look at the context, backed up by months of commentary after the fact, then the manifesto wasn’t betrayed.
Whether you like the game or not, whether you like what was done or not, the manifesto itself didn’t change. The intentions of the devs didn’t change.
The one thing that DID change, was the slight vertical progression added to the game, which wasn’t mentioned at all in the manifesto.
In other words… it depends on what the definition of the word “is” is.
I am not interested in your legalese. The manifesto says nobody finds grinding fun. I don’t expect to find the resulting game centered on grinding. I don’t care why or how it devolves to grinding. It isn’t fun.
If anyone is taking a few words out of the manifesto and overly emphasizing them, it is you. Imagine describing the system for getting laurels in the manifesto. Does it seem just a little out of place? Does it make you feel like a hero in a dynamic world where what you do matters? Is it “the fun stuff”? Maybe its running CoF1 1000 times. The spirit of the manifesto is not alive and well in the game, and it shows.
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Furthermore, I think people have a hard time figuring out which lenses they have because they are like… Superglued to the face or something… They might think they have a million dollar IMAX camera, but what they really have is the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper… And the cardboard is soggy and misshapen.
Of course some people are confused. They are stuck with tunnel vision. However, when you can see something and another says he can’t see it and only wants to talk about how what he does see is so worth seeing, then it is fairly obvious.
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If you wanted to get more than one dye a day,, you’d have to buy plant food in the cash shop. If you buy the Guild Wars 2 Official Strategy Guide, that information is still in it. That’s how recently it was changed…but it was changed, and for the better.
The only thing that underscores is how “Official Strategy Guides” are a complete waste of money. Oh and if that is still being sold in that state, for shame.
Since the manifesto was released, there have been thousands of changes. This should be expected in any MMO, much less from a company that’s trying to innovate.
The point of a manifesto is to declare intentions that will remain consistent over a long period of time, even though the details of how to accomplish those intentions are not known with certainty. Of course the details will evolve. But when the details display a serious disregard for the intentions declared in the manifesto, then the manifesto is betrayed. The change from “all animals are equal” to “some animals are more equal than others” is not the same as changing the meal times.
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The way I see it, people who dislike GW2 just see if from a bad angle, and the problem with those people is when they refuse to adjust their angle. So then it comes to either adjust your angle, or go find something that looks good from your angle. But don’t blame the scenery for your bad camerawork. And to push this analogy even further, I think some people just have broken/smudged lenses…
Some people have a wide, roaming lenses. They can focus on the those things that display quality and integrity. Others have narrow lenses that cannot be moved. They have no choice but to watch what is in their field of view.
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I hope this gives you a bit of insight, from my perspective at least, of some of the challenges Anet has had to appeal to two completely different sets of players.
Anet didn’t “have to” appeal to two completely different sets of players. That was a corporate decision, obviously by people that don’t understand it made as much sense as trying to grab the audiences of both Dark Souls and Yoshi’s Playland. You can broaden the appeal of a pro football game by making you accessorize cheerleader outfits during play. When you broaden the appeal too much, the appeal just suffers. But next to short-term profits, who cares?
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End game is visiting the laurel vendor. Every day.
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I run a laundry. Daily, a nameless electronic agent passes me its laundry list.
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Hoops are great. When my trainer asks me to jump through them, I don’t ask how many times. I don’t ask for it to be fun or challenging. I ask what loot I get.
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Ergo… A long time ago, ArenaNet told us that they were concerned that their games would follow a “skill > time spent” mentality. Truth be said, they began moving away from this at the end of the original Guild Wars, but it’s sad that they completely threw the concept out of the window with GW2.
Threw it out the window. The question was, how far will it fall? Then they started making daily grinds. I’d say that the window is at least 100 stories high, and the idea of rewarding challenge is still in free fall. This stuff isn’t challenging for a typical 8 year-old. Why would I want to spend 30 minutes a day on it?
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What does that example show us? How time spent, by itself, is not worth a reward. The idea that grinders deserve a reward, for doing easy and mindless content over and over (aka “dedication”), comes from classic MMORPGs, in which developers wanted people to keep playing, and thus paying, every day.
If ArenaNet were to reward something, it should be skilled play, not time spent
So we should all just sit in a corner and dance because time spent doesn’t give us anything. The best player in the game can play for 1 minute a day and get rewarded just as much as the worst player who plays for 16 hours a day. The worst player who plays for 1 minute a day will get rewarded just as much as the best player who plays for 16 hours a kitten
… I know its hard for MMO diehards to understand the idea of playing a game because it is fun to play. What you are actually implying here is that sitting in a corner and dancing is preferable to anything else GW2 offers, and you need a carrot to make the other stuff worth bothering with. Not to mention, if a game rewards skill, I don’t think you are getting any more skilled by dancing in the corner. Just a thought…
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Grind: Game play done not for its intrinsic value but rather as a means to some end.
In other words, if I play just to get something then I’m grinding.
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This game doesn’t have nearly as much grind as some other MMO’s do. Heck the ascended pieces aren’t even that bad. Just do what you do, do some dailies that take what? 10 minutes to 30 minutes a day? just doing what your normally doing in game for the most part and you’ll eventually get them.
Stuff on the auction house isn’t all that pricy and ectos are NO WHERE near as hard to acquire in this game as they were in GW1.
The Fissure of Woe Armour or Vabbi Armour was more of a grind than 95% of anything in this game.
That’s my opinion at least.
What did you need piles of ectos in GW1 for? A straight comparison saying “oh an ecto is easier to get” means nothing.
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You’re only faceless if you refuse to put yourself out there and meet people. I’m in a guild of 200 people. I was just made a Lt. because of my ongoing efforts to bring people together which has been a very enjoyable experience for me and my guild. So quit with that stupid assumption. And the content IS free. I mean pay with gold.
Faceless presence is the only effort required. You are just telling me about stuff you can do, but it has nothing to do with this so-called notion of “earning” the right to play guild missions. As an aside… is very odd that you consider things you must “WORK/PAY” for “free,” I must say.
Well the idea about new guilds is that if they enjoy playing the game, then there’s no reason not to assume they won’t continue playing the game they enjoy to work towards a common goal that will FURTHER increase said enjoyment.
Noone is discouraging them. People take one look at the time it takes to gain access to these rewards and instead of reveling in the challenge and continuing to have fun in the game i ASSUME they’ve enjoyed up to this point, they outright QQ all over the place.
Have you ever recruited for a new guild before? Maybe you are talking about a circle of 20 friends all deciding that GW2 is the game for them or something.
1 month.
That’s literally how much time it would take at MAX if a guild of five members actually made an effort to buy the influence.
Worth complaining about?
Nope.
With all the waiting and farming people are forced into for this game, another month is the last thing they need. Of course it is going to take a whole lot longer for them to get ascended earrings… or they could join an established large guild and have earrings in 2 weeks (before they are even level 80?).
Time must be spent before a reward can be enjoyed. It’s the same for large guilds as well.
The idea that more stuff to grind is a reward for grinding is so warped, I don’t know where to begin.
The only difference here will be how much time and that’s not worth complaining about.
Because if so, I may as well whine and moan about how somebody used his large guild to help get him the world first legendary.
Oh wait, nobody cares that he did that?
Then why are we complaining that some guilds are gonna have to work harder than others, people?
HMMMMMM?
Uh… If a bunch of people want to give someone a legendary, what do I care? Your leap of logic is amazing…
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Do you want to enjoy legendaries? Then you have to work/pay for it.
Do you want the rewards at the end of a dungeon? Then you have to work/pay for it
Do you want to enjoy guild missions? Then you have to have to work/pay for it.
The first two are rewards and are primarily focused on cosmetics.
The last is saying you have to WORK/PAY to play supposedly “free” content. Hmm… And as far as that goes anyway, how much WORK is it exactly to join a 400 man guild and be another faceless name?
This is an MMO. The name of the game is longevity. Larger guilds with stocks of inf now have a reason to BE a large guild. Small guilds now have a goal that they can towards and if they’re such a tight knit group as everyone claims they are, then the journey should serve to bring them closer together.
This is just silly. If large guilds add nothing inherently to our game experience, why should they be encouraged at all? Why should new guilds be discouraged from ever forming?
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But lets face it, Blizzard has best programmers and game designers just like Bioware in terms of single player RPG.
There are a lot more factors governing the quality of a released software product than the raw ability of the programmers and game designers. I wouldn’t be so quick to point fingers at them.
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It’s my belief that the developers of this game have great vision and ideas, better than any game I have ever played before. Where they fail is with execution, the game simply has too many bugs and every patch seems to just add more of them to the game.
Yes. So. Very. Many. Silly. Bugs.
How can your new content be gear… and the gear doesn’t work… at all?!? Ever. How can you release a patch that says “Champions should always drop loot” and then they CLEARLY DON’T, yet it takes you months to even acknowledge that they don’t? (BTW the word “should” in patch notes is an immediate red flag)
But, unfortunately it isn’t just the low-level bugs. There is a complete lack of balancing (you might first notice this when you see 12 minute events give the same award as 1 minute events… or when you are an engineer struggling to kill stuff and some noob warrior 3 levels lower than you waltzes in and decapitates it all with two swings.) And then just plain stupid stuff like Lost Shores Event and the recent Boss Guesting Fiasco where the easily anticipated is… not anticipated.
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(edited by Fortuna.7259)
I’m really shocked that people take games so serious. Game companies are not your friends! The reasons why you like one company above another is pure PR. Blizzard isn’t the good guy and Activision isn’t the bad guy. Both of them just want to make money! Do you think that any of their co’s play games and want their only goal is so that people have fun with their products?
All publicly traded corporations have the same end goal. This does not mean they have the same strategy for reaching that goal. Why would anyone use a different strategy? Because the market of people willing to tolerate kitten has already been saturated.
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And honestly, while i would love to see every other class lifted up to guardian level of sustainability, i suspect that what we will get is guardians nerfed into the ground.
Pretty much… But hey it will probably take ANET another 6 months so live gloriously while you still can!
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Something is wrong with that post… and nothing I can do fixes it….
TL;DR: Guardian can have sustain without sacrificing damage or tankiness.
Yes, we mentioned Guardian superiority earlier in the thread. Seems like you are getting worked up arguing with the choir? That doesn’t mean there isn’t a warrior build that can sustain melee now, even if the DPS isn’t great.
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Unlike Guardians, there “Is” not way a warrior can sustain in melee combat without the food, it doesn’t matter if we are in soldiers, knights or berserker’s gear, we don’t have the boons or the heals or the tools to survive in melee, we rely on other classes to help us, and the food.
I will make a quick guardian build that can sustain itself without food easilly, because guardian was made from the ground up “correctly” to be able to sustain itself.
Warrior doesn’t have the heals, the boons, or the protection to sustain in melee without help.
This isn’t true. A cleric’s shout heal build can sustain melee combat under fairly brutal conditions (obviously there are limits such as high-level fractals). Still, other builds are going to depend on aid to sustain melee in many circumstances.
Uhh.. and do way less damage and heal way less then a guardian can…. and still only have half the sustain, Warriors just don’t have any sustain, thats burst healing.
Yeah, you are going to do less damage – didn’t say anything about that… As for your distinction between sustain and burst healing… I don’t see your point. You can continually heal so that you stay in melee with no chance of dying. What exactly is the issue there?
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Unlike Guardians, there “Is” not way a warrior can sustain in melee combat without the food, it doesn’t matter if we are in soldiers, knights or berserker’s gear, we don’t have the boons or the heals or the tools to survive in melee, we rely on other classes to help us, and the food.
I will make a quick guardian build that can sustain itself without food easilly, because guardian was made from the ground up “correctly” to be able to sustain itself.
Warrior doesn’t have the heals, the boons, or the protection to sustain in melee without help.
This isn’t true. A cleric’s shout heal build can sustain melee combat under fairly brutal conditions (obviously there are limits such as high-level fractals). Still, other builds are going to depend on aid to sustain melee in many circumstances.
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I asked questions. You make the assumption that those questions are the argument. I was asking the questions to get people to focus on what they are actually doing (i.e., the choices they are making). Perhaps my approach was misguided.
Really? OK, the answer is still “NO.”
The OP calls dailies shallow. Yet the current dailies offer choices. If, as you say, "The intricacies of this processing and its level of complexity would indicate the “depth” of the activity." then wouldn’t having more choices as we do now indicate greater depth than before? However, the current dailies (in some cases, anyway) limit choices about where to do while adding choices about what to do. In the terms used in the non-link provided by Tobias, ANet has added complexity but not depth. While they added options, they also removed options.
Choices do not have to indicate any depth of significance. I can have you choose to differentiate triangle/squares, circles/triangles, or circles/squares. Big deal. Most of us probably mastered all of these tasks by the age of 4 — no matter what task we choose the game is overly simplistic and trivial to our capabilities. The choice itself can be done irrationally or randomly and is of little consequence.
However, the fundamental choice is neither where nor what. It is the choice to do or not to do. So why are people choosing to do the dailies if they would really prefer to be doing something else? I think we all know the answer to that question.
Yes, we know. They are being manipulated into doing them. What is your point?
And thanks for engaging in the discussion.
Patronizing… nice.
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Sorry you’re wrong. There is no user generated content in this title. Simply joining a group is not content creation. The only games that have that have a foundry system. Unless AN makes a foundry program for user created DE’s players are not creating content at all, they are using the content.
You must be in one of those lifeless guilds where nobody ever chats and everyone wears solid black CoF armor. LOL.
Some of the things I have seen in MMO’s are custom made and moderated tournaments (even with prizes), ad hoc “missions”/scavenger hunts/challenges, and personalized tutorial/training sessions. Sure, these were ephemeral in nature because there was no modding tools/submission method provided to make permanent artifacts… but if an official “Go kill X of Y” quest passes for “content,” then these were much, much better “content” — no matter how hokey their implementation.
As for GW2, sadly, I haven’t seen much of this (some). Perhaps it is the audience, that the title is uninspiring, too rewards-driven, too limited in what you can moderate, and/or a lack of community generation… Some in community have attempted to fill in the notable lack of GvG in the release, but I am unsure of the quality. Still, there are additions to the atmosphere and “help system” provided by many players. And then we have “value-added” artifacts created external to the game… notably the Wiki and countless Youtube videos… seriously, a fanbase creates so much material that adds to the value of an MMO and which would be cost-prohibitive to provide in a traditional manner…
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The only mistake the devs really made was launching the game before they implemented ascended gear. 99% of these complaints wouldn’t exist if ascended gear was in at launch. The whole vertical progression wasn’t a thing until after launch is just plain dumb. I know I didn’t start with level 80 exotics. I had to vertically progress through 80 levels and 5 gear tiers before I hit the max.
… because 99% of the people that complain about ascended gear would never have bothered to get involved…
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Remember the slippery slope argument everyone made when ascended came out, seems like it was fairly accurate.
Well, it wasn’t even a slippery slope argument, because we were presented a plan that mapped this out. I guess they didn’t want to stand down from the plan, and in fact this is a bit worse than I had expected.
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Only if you are fixated on the rewards. I’m not (I buy dyes with my laurels), but I know a lot of forumdwellers are. Kind of saddens me to be honest, that a lot of people apparently need the imaginary reward to enjoy or do something.
What you do not understand is that many of these forum dwellers (myself included) actually do not need a reward. The very presence (and exclusiveness) of the reward is the problem.
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Ah, but I never said disordered or random. Even players who choose to go see what’s over yon virtual hill are making choices. This does not change the fact that they are indeed at a computational device, using a man-machine interface to exercise those choices. The actions the player is taking are similar no matter his choices. However, through suspension of disbelief, the actions the player is envisioning are very different depending on where he moves his game piece, and what he chooses to interact with.
No, you didn’t say they were random, what you did say:
- Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?
So what I say is that by closing my eyes and clicking (psuedo)randomly, would I not be sitting at my keyboard, clicking the mouse, and having my piece interact with the virtual stuff in the game? If your argument is valid, then you have reduced all gameplay (and use of the keyboard) to something no more meaningful than random clicks. You didn’t say it, but it follows from your argument.
The moment you concede that there is order in the movements, clicks, decisions, then you need to concede that there is a level of complexity in this order. Information is being transmitted and processed. The intricacies of this processing and its level of complexity would indicate the “depth” of the activity. For example, a game where you are repetitively presented with a square and a triangle and must click on the square is also just a series of mouse clicks and decisions. I hope you can understand why this game would not be judged by humans as “deep.”
So if you wish to honestly compare the depth of activities in the game, have at it. But your argument that boils down to:
Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?
doesn’t hold water.
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Yesterday I did something different. I turned off the daily tracker and just started playing, to see how far I would come with the daily by ignoring it. Within 30 minutes, I had 4/5. Before I logged off, I spent some karma to get 5/5, but that took me 2 minutes max.
Relax, let go of the compulsion brought on by having that tracker in your top right corner, and the dailies will feel much less of a chore.
What about on days I don’t really want to play? It’s an annoying chore then. Besides which, what you describe isn’t going to be everyone’s experience every day…
On days I don’t want to play, I don’t play. Why would you play something that isn’t fun? It’s a game, not a job.
And then I am irritated at how long it takes to get a laurel reward the next time I play. That is the design.
But you are right about one thing… why would I play something that isn’t fun?
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Just looking at the thread’s title and the gist of the discussion, I’ll ask:
- What would a deep gameplay mechanic be?
- Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?
* Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?- Why is doing the above in one fashion shallow, and another not shallow?
- Aren’t these rewards just more virtual confetti?
- And above all, are these rewards really that important that you have to have them?
Ah… a reductionist argument. No, you are incorrect. Wholes are more than the sum of their parts. Playing games are not disordered clicks of mice and random firing of neurons. I can simplify you as a configuration of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen (etc) atoms but that simplification does not represent you, even if it accurately accounts the material of which you are made.
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Yesterday I did something different. I turned off the daily tracker and just started playing, to see how far I would come with the daily by ignoring it. Within 30 minutes, I had 4/5. Before I logged off, I spent some karma to get 5/5, but that took me 2 minutes max.
Relax, let go of the compulsion brought on by having that tracker in your top right corner, and the dailies will feel much less of a chore.
What about on days I don’t really want to play? It’s an annoying chore then. Besides which, what you describe isn’t going to be everyone’s experience every day…
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
This thread is just going around in circles. In the main picky argumentative pedantic know it alls with a few reasonable people trying to say ‘hey, it really doesn’t matter’.
These dailies are fulfilled by normal play anyway so what difference does their inclusion make? I’m sure there are more more pressing or interesting topics to discuss.
I like discussing this topic. Why are you trying to discourage people from talking about it? There is a lot of opportunity for you to discuss other topics on other threads…
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
I’ve had that experience in other places, too. A big one is the Statue of Dwayna. Before I discovered that a perma-vigor build would let me dodge every attack, the first time I tanked it with a small group, I would just eat the AoE blind attack while I dodged the damage wave and the rain of fire. At first this didn’t go so well, but after dying and coming back in knight gear I could just heal away the damage and stare down that statute forever. It isn’t particularly useful, since I can do the same in rampager gear now with some quick mods to my traits, but nonetheless it beautifully demonstrates the principle of a survivability threshold against bosses.
Great example. It shows exactly what you are going for against a boss – the minimum defense to (reliably) last indefinitely, with the rest in offense. It is also an example of how better play means go can forgo most of your defense and still succeed. The amount of toughness you need depends on the situation and your skill. In many cases, it might be lower than your default toughness.
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Saying Anet doesn’t care at all about anything but making money through the cash shop is a conspiracy theory. The poster is saying that everything they do is about making money through the cash shop. Except I can think of tons of things they could have done but haven’t. So maybe it’s not that clear cut.
It still isn’t a conspiracy theory just because it was expressed using hyperbole. A company is effectively a single entity in this case… just whom would it be conspiring with? Furthermore, making profits through the cash shop is not a hidden agenda. There is just no “conspiracy” in the theory, sorry…
The words “conspiracy theory” evoke the idea that the idea is implausible on the basis that it requires an unreasonable amount of complicity to be true. What we have here is simply a business with an indisputable motivation (making money) and a several likely possible strategies to achieve its goal. One reasonable strategy (having been demonstrated by other similar companies) is pretty much what is being described. That doesn’t mean that it is true, but it holds a lot more weight than a conspiracy theory, and thus less burden of proof before it is worthy of consideration.
Every company wants to increase its profits, but some companies do have self-imposed moral limits. I had a computer store at one point in my life and I had things I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t buy stolen merchandise, even if I knew I could get away with it, because I didn’t want to make money that way. That’s a limit.
Anet has limits too. Look at other F2P MMOs and compare their cash shop with Anets. Then we’ll talk about greed.
I wouldn’t assume a corporation has any self-imposed moral limits. The behavior of corporations is governed by profits, and “moral” behavior by a corporation is about preventing the erosion its customer base. To project morals onto a corporation is a serious error in judgement… A lesson I believe Alan Greenspan claimed he was astonished to discover.
Differences in cash shop offerings are attributable to differences in business strategies, of which you are examining only the surface.
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Don’t worry, when you have experienced the full onslaught of the Dredge Fractal you will know the true meaning of your words.
I do Fractals fine without food or any consumables.
Looking at your history, looks like your a ranger who uses range, and your not in melee.
This change hurt people who melee, it had little to no effect on players who ranged.
I play on my Guardian. The only high level character I have, every other character is lvl 20 (or so). Your guessing game is wrong.
A Guardian boasting he doesn’t need healing food… Yeah, we know… read the thread. Also, we were discussing how limiting movement in this game hampers defense. The dredge fractal is pretty much the penultimate example.
LF2M Max Ascended Only!