Guild Wars 2

Being a MMO fanatic since the mid-late 90’s, and playing just about every AAA title that came out, in my opinion there is nothing revolutionary about GW2.

They simply took bits and pieces of game design that had come along in the MMO industry and blendered it up into their own version.

Seriously, the only thing I have enjoyed, and the only thing I would give this game props on was the way they handled their “questing” solution with the hearts.

I still believe the “casual” concept would work, but in order for it to do so a company would have to be prepared to provide massive content updates at least semi annually, and make the money by selling those xpacs.

To date I have 5 lvl 80’s, 3 of them in exotics, and have spent zero monies beyond buying the game to do so. With Anet stating there will be no expansions this year, I am pretty much ready to move on. The little things Anet provides just isn’t enough to keep me.

With games like ESOL and Camelot Unchained on the horizon, we will have to wait untill after those games come out to see if GW2 manages to hold its own, or be relegated back to GW1 status.

Absconditus.6804:

The problem with AoE is that it chokes the server. It may not be as easy to see this on all servers, but if you’re in one of the higher tier ones these days, where clashes between 40+ players from every server in the matchup (120+ players in one location fighting) are quite frequent, you probably know how that translates into some serious skill lag. This skill lag, comes in a large part from AoE.

The more targets that are hit, the more information the server needs to relay to everyone involved. Every time you take damage, all 100 players nearby needs to know that your health went down. When 5 players take damage, that’s 5 players that needs to get told how much damage they took, and 100 players needing to know that those 5 players lost that much HP. This escalates, as AoE rarely hits just 5 specific players, especially ground field/channeled types of AoE. Not to forget the fact that most AoE also produce some form of condition, which also needs to be relayed to everyone nearby.

AoE limits are likely to be a necessary evil. The game is already fairly unplayable lately, because WXP without adjustments based on how many are involved, just made the massive-scale fighting more common than ever. A missed opportunity to at least try and give the players a good incentive to spread out more.

Is anybody not even slightly bothered that games a decade old on far less powerful machines were able to do this, but we fast forward a decade and now people are making excuses in current titles?

Game design is going backwards, not forwards.

Non demanding players=lazy programmers.

Why does a “casual game” always become a “dumbed down” game.

That’s why I don’t even waste my time with WvW. Its a severely “dumbed down” version of RvR, and all it does is propagate this zerg mentality.

The problem here is the zerg doesn’t enhance the game, or make it more epic feeling, it does the opposite.

Now I am sure if say WoW or GW2 was your first MMO, then you probably have no clue. This type of gameplay is truly new to you. But if you have been around and seen things like Daoc, especially pre foundations, you cant really help but to be disappointed, and to feel like we are progressing backwards instead of forwards, that game developers have taken a design and essentially “dumbed it down” for the masses, and thats just as much a indictment of the current MMO playerbase as it is the developers of them.

Let me put it this way. I am a die hard PvP/MMO fan and have been playing them for nearly 2 decades. I haven’t touched WvW because of how boring, bad, and brainless it is in months, and am currently looking at even straight PvE games like LOTRO, instead of playing GW2, because if I am going to have to monster bash for my jollies, anything have to be better then what GW2 offers even in that category.

GW2=dumbed down MMO, and casual play shouldn’t equal dumbed down play.

Simple things to help WvW out of stupidity:

Remove AOE cap.
Make siege movable and more durable.
And for god sakes make it so a wall or door has to get to 50% health before it magically goes back up( It was watching a keep wall get taken down by siege, just for it to go right back up upon the first repair, just to watch the wall go back down, just to watch it go right back up after first repair like 4 times in a row that made me alt f4 and not come back to WvW).

This games WvW mechanics will never be taken seriously,

I don’t think its possible to dumb down pvp/rvr any worse then this game has done.

I bought this game for the WvW, and haven’t touched it really since the first 2 months.

As a die hard PvP type, I find making alts more interesting then that poop pile they call WvW, and its stupid mechanics like AoE restrictions and the further pushing of people into a cow in the herd zerg mentality that caused it.

Seriously, they couldn’t put any more training wheels in a game to facilitate stupid peoples gameplay if they tried.

I mean cmon, people here are actually arguing FOR a AoE limit, in order to prevent the stupid zerg from getting smashed by their own stupidity?

Gw2. PvP for the inept.

Course I havent actually called it WvW in ages, we just call it whack a mole.

Its a MMO
Try Duo’ing
Started guardian Monday with friend
Lvl 80 and in full exotics
Its not hard

If you cant find a buddy in a game this big, problems more with you then the game.

Game has many problems
Leveling isn’t one of them

Could of made a Haiku
But wasn’t worth the effort.

Why when I come here I don’t feel like I am playing the same game as you all are?

You do realize the 50 kills in WvW doesn’t mean 50 solo kills right? RIGHT?

It takes at most 20 minutes in one run to get the achieve if that’s all your there for. Hell just run in the zerg and AOE spam is all you have to do.

Can you say the same thing as far as fractals?

Looks I honestly could care less, remove WvW and fractals from the monthly, just dont compare the 2 achievements as equal please, your argument falls apart at that point.

How does one end up with 154 black lion keys????

Edit: I would expect to see another special chest.

FFA in modern WoW type MMO’s has been, and always will continue to be a terrible idea.

Instead of pushing for such a thing, instead push for a increase in landmass for WvW.

Um your tirade kinda lost me, are you talking about the programmers, or players when you say work?

If its programmers, then its not my job to inherently support them. They make a product, they put it on the market, and if it suits me I buy it, if it don’t, then I don’t buy it.

Thousands of companies go belly up because they bring a product to market, and for whatever reason the market is against that product. Welcome to the free market comrade!!

That would be like blaming me for GM layoffs because I chose to buy a better product then the one they offered.

If your talking players, then first, time to realize its only a game, and if your “working” at a game, then I might suggest you find a better hobby.

Or hell, maybe you believe that Anet actually hires people to farm pixelated gems from a fictional mine off in Tron land?

Honestly, MMO’s should never be built on the F2P platform.

There always too much “stuff” ingame, and adding anything in the game, whether or not you could get it by farming or not will immediately be met by people screaming they made the game “pay to win”.

Seriously, I would be just fine with them putting say exotic gear in the cash shop, but again, right now their value model is way way off.

I mean in essence, its already there. If I wanted to fork over what 50 bucks to Anet, I could deck a toon out completely with exotics by buying gems converting em to gold and buying off the market.

If it gets down around oh 30 bucks a toon, I will be all over this, and I would actually then buy more character slots.

Hell, while your at it, sell me insta 80 tokens too for the same price I will eat em up.

Yah just make your own exotics, unless you got a crew to run dungeons with, pugs here, just like in any other MMO always whine about bringing a thief.

Bluebird.1890:

Or, if you want the idiot proof way to level against anything besides dredge:

Equip S/P. Run up, hit black powder, and auto attack mob down. When the last blind from your previous black powder wears off, drop another one. Keep all mobs within the black powder.

You can use this method to solo most veterans and even some low level champions once you have some initiative regen traits/utility skills.

^This.
And as soon as you can get Dagger Storm, DB Spam+DS pretty much makes AoE farming mobs pretty easy and quick.

Its completely situational, and still can do a lot of damage if your up against a group, especially when combined with quickness.

Using it in a 1v1 or 1v2 tho is pretty much a waste of initiative.

Funset.7893:

Because then people will cry about 1v1 balance. Just my guess.

People already do this, you must not play a thief

Luchifer.8026:

People here complain alot about difrante staff and it makes them quit the game. What do u guyz think Anet can change in the game so people would come back or that will draw others into the game?

Nothing. I’m very bored of guildwars right now. I’m not playing much anymore not because Anet did this one thing or that one thing wrong.

I have seen what there is to be seen that interests me in this game. I don’t like farming all the time in my games, and there WvW is “meh” at best.

It was worth my money, it isn’t costing me anything not to play, I will tinker with gw here and there because of that, and when a expansion is released, I will probably buy it, tinker with it untill I get bored, and go back to tinkering.

People need to stop thinking of this game as a traditional subscription based MMO, and start looking at it for what it is, just another videogame. It has no other requirement to it then me going out and buying say Black Ops 2. I play it, I get bored with it, I move on untill they add more content, then I come back play it again, rinse, repeat.

Problem with MMO players, and I have been one forever, is we cant get away from the MMO model we have had to deal with in the past, where we paid a sub, therefore, we were entitled to be perpetually entertained.

Treat GW2 like you would any other video game purchase, and its all the sudden not that big of a deal.

Look, there are no grounds in my opinion at all for any type of litigation or refunds or anything when it comes to this situation.

They are offering refunds purely out of convenience and goodwill.

Offer you a refund, and you might come back later or for another Anet title. Also it costs most companies around 25bucks above and beyond the revenue they lose from the chargeback, hence why if you push hard enough, most companies will give you the refund.

Also, they have to pay someone to take your complaint, refund request, whatever as well, cheaper to give people the refunds instead of fighting it.

Slither Shade.4782:

Why the resistance to buying gems? Throw them $5 or $10 a month its not like we havent paid other games $15 per month. Truth I havent thrown them any money but really whats the difference between a wow sub and buying a few gems a month to make life easier?

There’s no resistance to buying gems, its purely a matter of value, for most of us, including you it seems, there is not enough VALUE in giving these guys any of our money.

And the recent trends and changes are not helping Anets situation at all.

And im the type of guy who when playing F2P model games, its not uncommon for me to spend $40.00+ a month supporting that game. If they offer something I want, and the price for what I want is reasonable, then I am all over it, and dont think twice before charging my account.

Its all about bang for the buck, and right now Anet isn’t giving me any, and they can go bankrupt for all I care, I still wont give them any money unless I see VALUE in doing so.

marnick.4305:

You can get your money refunded through your credit card company. Do note, however, that this WILL get your card flagged as fraudulent along with all other bounced credit cards used by bots. You may be in for more trouble than it’s worth and without the capability to pay for anything.

Umm….Waaaaaat?

If I contact my CC, and they end up reversing my charge, this has no impact on me, or my card, with anyone else but Anet.

Doesn’t put me on some international blacklist or anything lol. If anything its quite the opposite, if enough people did get money charged back, it impacts Anet, because then CC companies start to blacklist charge attempts by Anet.

As someone who handles fraud and chargebacks as part of my job, I kind of find the dont make yourself look like a fool part of post very amusing…..

@Unspecified.

We have no proof, zero, zilch, none, on how transactions work, and Anet is not obligated to tell us, nor are they obligated to tell us the truth even if they did say something.

On top of that reading your last bit of the message, if im reading it correctly, your stating that if someone buys 800 gems, and then spends 800 gems, it pretty much evens out and doesn’t impact the overall price.

So the only reason why the price would change is if people were buying gems, and then not spending them?

For example, stock prices rise and fall based on the demand of said stock. The basis of the demand is based on a finite amount of that stock.

This system Anet has is based partially off that, but with a monkeywrench or 2 thrown into the mix to complicate it even worse. There is simply no such thing as demand in this system because gem amounts are infinite.

Its a one sided system in effect, designed purely to benefit Anet, not the consumer. If enough people decide they want to buy gems because Anet put some silly skin in some silly chest they created, it devalues the currency.

It would of been a much better system had Anet made currency static, just like it is for buying gems with RL cash, its what 10.00 for 800 gems, it does not change, it does not fluctuate, its static. If Cash for gems was run like Gold for gems was, it would end up completely devalue gems, you would see something more like 2400 gems for 10 bucks, but that doesn’t do Anet any good.

Whats Anet gonna do when they have devalued their ingame currency via inflation?

Honestly, when it comes to the value of something, right or wrong, I will always defer to the gold sellers, since they are the ones that truly know how to profit.

Anet has their money currently valued at what approx 800 gems would net ya 8 gold? So what something like $1.25=1 gold?

Gold farmers have the market valued at what 5 bucks per 10 gold? So what $.50 for one gold?

This is why as a company, if your going to sell your ingame currency yourself, it makes far better sense to set your prices as static, and handle inflation ingame, not out of game like they are doing, because with their current system, They are drying up their customer base faster then they can put crap into the system, and that may well indeed work for a small segment of the playerbase who will spend all their gold or all their cash on stupid little trinkets and skins, they will end up pushing regular people who make up the majority of the customers who are just trying to get leveled and geared farther away.

Once the price point hits a certain level, my guess is somewhere like 15 gold for 10 bucks, which is where its rapidly heading, Anet will see a sudden rush to buy gems and convert them to gold, which will in the short term net them some cash, but the impending inflation this will cause will be something they simply wont be able to handle, and in the end will crash the economy of the game, piss everyone off, and we will all be off chasing the next new game.

The only way a system like Anet has in place would be to offer every item ingame on their Market, and that way the are the sole controllers of the economy.

Funny, last night I was running about a empty zone, was standing next to this ore node, when all the sudden poof out of nowhere, this asura appears next to the node, farms it, and then poof disappears. Now since it was a iron node, I doubt highly he was logging in, farming it, and logging out, more likely it was a teleport bot.

So my guess is bots are still around, and the ones that got banned will be right back on new accounts, since Anet only does something about them like every 2 months anyway.

Yah out of the 30 people I started out GW2 with, i’m the only active player.

And I have been farting around, finishing up zones I skipped over because I have nothng else to do, im on JQ, and I can tell you that they are complete ghost towns.

And um, it doesn’t take some giant leap of faith to figure out that hey, they put the new dungeon in LA, so nobody leaves LA anymore, so yah, theres gonna be overflows, now that youve pushed the population to all be in the same place at the same time, doesnt mean the game still has anywhere near the populations it did even a month ago.

But again, your not paying a monthly fee, so what do you care what the population is. That’s kinda the tradeoff of going F2P, dont have to give us as much content as sub games, and we dont have to feel obligated to log in and play all the time either, because our money has already been spent.

Its simple.

The games not as much fun on repeat, and a lot of people have already done everything that they deemed fun, a lot of people twice by now, anything more just really ends up being tedious.

WvW didnt live up to my expectations, its certainly not anything like Daoc, its just a chaotic flipfest, and while still fun, definately not something I can do all day every day.

Its just like any other game, just here it happened a lot quicker then in most games.

Cant recall another game where I had 4 maxed level toons within 3 months of it releasing.

So now I just log in, fart around, and log out. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel bad about it one bit. Its not like Anet is charging me a monthly fee to be bored, so I will just keep logging on now and then, farting about, and when the first expansion hits I will take a look at it, and if its worth it, i’ll buy it.

Your all being duped by the currency exchange in the first place, its fake.

I mean, what exactly dictates the rise and fall of the currency in this game?

I sincerely doubt Anet set a finite gem amount, and are using that to calculate value.

I have seen some very questionable increases that instead of spiking, just seemed to “appear” one day and stay at that rate.

Its a fake tool, designed with the appearance of a “market”, nothing more.

There’s simply not much worth buying off the store.

Boosters? Dont make me laugh.
Black lion keys? Just to open chests that have boosters? I guess thats why the chests are a big whopping 5copper, we really put a lot of value on them now dont we?

Really the only thing I see of value is bank space, and since thats global to the account, its more of a 1 and done type deal for Anet, and was, and quite frankly still is, easy enough to get trading gold for gems.

But that doesn;t make Anet any more money now does it?

Truth is Anet put too much value on things players feel are necessary like bank space, and didn’t flesh out their market with enough fluff to get most of us to spend our cash on.

So expect to see the rate keep increasing, for really no valid reason, for those of us who still play, so that if we want those comforts, we will be handing over our charge cards, and not our gold.

I’m a consumer, and before I start handing over my well earned cash, I have to see value in it, and since I cant see any value out there, I haven’t given Anet one cent above what I paid for the game.

Other P2P games I have played/play (PS2, Warhammer, APB), I always was handing them over my charge card, because there was value in what I bought, and it was also at a price that made sense to me. Ironically none of those games had anything I “needed”, the games were fun enough, and the stuff they were selling hit my value spot, and the next thing I knew I had blown 50 bucks on useless, yet fun stuff.

Wonder why with 4 lvl 80’s I have in this game, I haven’t found anything here to make me buy it?

@AveryFarman:

The real reason why there is so much argument on whether or not MF works or not has to do with Anets convuluted formula to determine loot drops.

I have 2 toons in full crafed exotic gear, weapons, and jewelry, and have every tradeskill at 400. and I have never spent any time in the dungeons to get it, I simply farmed Orr, in MF sets.

I can say this, running around without completely maximum MF is a waste of time, and thats what leads to the problem. In other words for MF to really be effective, you have to have every piece of gear, every rune slot, and every piece of jewelry to be dedicated to MF stat, as well as luck sigil and luck consumables to get any noticeable effectiveness out of it.

When I first started, I was running about with kitten MF, while my buddy was running about in full rare set, everything MF, and we would farm Orr for hours on end. It became very apparent I wasnt doing it right, because I could run around and get one, maybe 2 yellows to salvage, while my buddy would be getting them left and right, and I just couldnt figure it out.

Did the same thing he did, dedicated every slot I could to MF, and the results followed.

And thats why its such a BS mechanic to me, its a all or nothing stat, and once you figure that out, then you start to understand why its a bad thing for the game overall.

Ok let me simplify, since everyone is just focusing on damage.

One of my toons running about in his regular gear, 15k health, 94 Crit Damage.

Same toon running about with full MF set, 11k health, 0 crit damage.

Dunno about you but 4k health is a lot more then “3% less effective”. Since I cant take as much damage, im dropping a lot more, and while im taking my little dirtnap, im not putting out any damage, and to make things worse im also taking away even more from the group dps because people are having to stop to pick me up off the ground, possibly putting everyone else at risk.

Look, I understand this game only has 10 buttons for you to push, but it is a little more deeper then that……..

Heres what I noticed with MF, which contradicts what the wiki states.

Running about with no mf killing mobs, 1 in 5 would drop something, anything.

Running about in full MF with food and luck sigil maxxed, I would get a lot more drops, more like 1 in 3, so getting more drops gave me more chances in the same timeframe to get better drops.

I havent used MF since they “fixed” it here supposedly a few days ago, but that was my experiences with it.

Truth is I hate the mechanic, so I salvaged all my MF sets for orbs. Decided if I have to run around with craptastic pigeon holed gear just for the sake of getting loot, I would rather just not play.

Peetee.9406:

The difference between a full set of greens with magic find and a full set of oranges with crit chance is only roughly 5-6% damage output.

That difference is easily made up by good player vs bad player skill level.

Gear really means nothing in this game when the difference between a masterwork and a legendary is only 50 stats and your base stats are 2000.

The person who wears full MF gear is bypassing vitality,toughness, and crit damage for starters.

Its not really a question of how much damage they can do nearly as much as how much damage they can take.

Its the same reason why people who run dungeons really dont like pugging with glass cannon builds, spend more time picking them up off the ground then they spend putting out dps in the first place.

The “vocal minority” bit is, and always has been a farse, a last ditch attempt by someone who doesn’t get the majority of the people to agree with them in the first place.

Fact is the people here represent a cross section of the community, hence why there is never 100% consensus of people even on the messageboard.

Azure Prower.8701:

At the moment Sea of Sorrows is the number 1 server in NA WvW.

You’ll be hard pressed to get in.

^This.

Whatever happened to server transfers costing gems to stop bandwagoning?

My issue with MF is simply that its a BS mechanic, that pushes you more towards being a glass cannon in instances where you shouldn’t be.

Game already has very limited variety, this doesnt help.

And personally its just annoying, I don’t run dungeons, I have 2 toons in full exotic, and I hate having to ditch my gear and play the glass cannon style I don’t enjoy, just in order to get drops.

This game is all about the gear carrot, Ive got the gear, not allow me to use it effectively.

I think the most telling point is the other night in Orr, one of the events got bugged, so everybody stopped doing events, switched to thier MF sets, and just sat there and farmed the bugged event for hours on end.

If people would rather sit at a bugged event then actually playing the game, that just about says it all to me.

Calae.1738:

There are 2 reasons why ecto’s are priced high right now.

1) Demand: People want Exotics, Legendaries, Ascended Back Piece all of which cost ecto’s.

2) Supply: People who have ecto’s are keeping them to craft what they need or holding them to sell when the market starts to dip.

This item has gone up from 12s to 29s since November 15th. Many people are buying them, very few are selling them.

Ummmmm….care to tell me where you got your data from, because I cant remember ectos being 12 since the first 2 weeks of the game going live…….

So,

Your saying you wont ever be back then?

I absolutely HATE MF gear, to me this has to be the dumbest game mechanic ever.

I simply hate the fact that in order for me to have a descent chance at farming crap for this game, I have to turn myself into a glass cannon to do it.

I hate being a glass cannon.

Fortunately I hate dungeons, my friends that do them seem to get frustrated because they will pick up a player or 2 and they die left and right, come to find out there farming it in MF gear.

My personal opinion is get rid of MF gear, equalize drop rates, and this game, and the playing experience would be better for it.

This post really for some reason baffles me.

Out of the top end mats, ectos prices have been the steadiest. They always havered around what 22, 23 silver?

I made a killing since the patch on bones and teeth, and dust, as before the patch, they werent really worth selling, and we have seen there prices skyrocket.

My guess is a lot of people who have been behind the powerlevling curve are now starting to want exotic gear, right about the same time the powerlevling folks have now been given a new set of gear to chase.

And if your running fotm with greens and rares, well then you your simply doing it wrong in my opinion, wouldn’t that denote you haven’t run any other dungeons, so your just trying to bypass the rest of the content instead, and thats more your fault then the games really.

And this is coming from someone who has run 1 dungeon, the level 40 one once, and has 2 80’s in full exotic.

My experience on a thief, spending waaay too much gold testing different builds, and I have one major observation that I end up basing my build on:

If I get jumped or I get focused, im gonna die, doesnt matter how much toughness I have.

So I have finalized my build, and thus far have been very pleased with it.

5 Pieces of valk armor, with zerk shoulders, divinity runes in each piece, and full zerk jewelry.

My primary weps are daggers, and both of them are zerker, one with crit rune, and the other with quickness rune.

I am not fully geared, still need the shoulders(running rare zerk today) and need more superior runes of divinity(only running 1, with 4 majors)

Skills are 10 Deadly Arts(mug), 30cs(furious retaliation,critical haste, hidden killer) , 20 acrobatics(Power of Inertia,Pain response), and 10 trickery(Thrill of the crime).

Power: 1997(1081)
Precision:1723(807)
Attack: 3026
Armor:2024
Crit Chance:42
Crit Damage:94
Health:15,055.

@Senjun.

I have 4 lvl 80’s, one of them is a Ele.

I’m not gonna waste a lot of time here breaking things down, so lemme just say this.

Get rid of the sub par dps gear and the sub par dps build, and then play your ele, if you really want to compare damages.

You will giggle with glee the amounts of damage you can crank out, and then you will rage at how easily your brought down.

Welcome to the world of the glass cannon thief.

And another thing, PvP pro, why did you just stand there and eat 3 heartseekers in a row? No evade, no mists?

Well looking at the gear spreadsheet I made, I would have 443 precision from gear, 60 from runes, and 300 from Traits.

803/21= 38% crit.

Now dont we start with a base crit% of 4%? So that makes 42%.

Superior Sigil of Accuracy would bring that to 47%.

Then theres the randoms of keen observer (5%) and side strike(7%)

Do you think I need more crit?

First off, I prefer Dagger Dagger, and dont like condition damage.

I have been theorycrafting gear, and I just cant seem to find balance between power, precision, and vitality. It seems to even get a nominal increase in vitality, I take a severe hit to my precision.

Sofar best balance I can find is Valk armor, beserk rings, earrings, and amulet, with Superior runes of divinity, and going deep in crit strikes and acrobatics to get the crit rate/health I am looking for.

Any ideas or opinions that might help me avoid the “glass cannon” full beserk route?

Thanks for the reply!

I have been looking for a character builder that either uses armor pieces or allows for inputting armor stats into it to see what a final build would look like, anyone know of one?

Sorry if its a dumb question, honestly I havent paid any attention to it, or sPvP.

Do you know if you can get the same stats you have from the PvP jewel in regular gear?

Like running around with the Knights PvP Amulet Runes of Divinity in my gear. Since theres no gear outside of sPvP that gives power precision and vitality, I know I am gonna end up with probably toughness in my build.

Any ideas on gearing that would get me “close”?

Actually I don’t play WOW, but played the other three you mentioned, and they all had stat progression, where higher level players with high level gear would pwn your face. AND for DAoC TOA brought stat changes? LOL, I played DAoC from beta, and there was ALWAYS stat progression, don’t know what you’re talking about, hell frontiers expansion wasn’t even the first to have stat progression. Realm Rank? Stat progression before that too. What are you on about? I think someone thinks they know something they really don’t.

So, um, forgive me, but Realm Ranks were gained how again? Oh do you mean FROM JUST PLAYING THE GAME? I didn’t have to change my playstyle one single bit to gain realm rank, I just had to go out and kill players….wow big change there. If anything this would be on par with leveling, not gear grinding.

So how about you give me some details about the “stat progression” of Daoc prior to ToA. Give me some details on how I was apparently forced to go do something other then RvR, which is what that game was about back then, that forced me to stop RvRing and go monster bashing endlessly in order for me to compete?

Because Prior to ToA, I do recall running about in pretty much the same exact gear I wore from the day I hit 50. The only time I ever remember changing my gear out was if my the points I gained from RR made a skill go over the useful cap, so I would remake a piece or 2 with new gems, and I hardly call that a gear grind.

Nothing in SI was ever added to the game that became a “must have” because caps were caps back then.

I do agree that Ascended gear was meant to be in the game at launch. Why not it was in GW1 wasnt it?

But you dont set the tone for gear by releasing the game, saying nothing about the missing tier, and then toss it in later.

If they really wanted to but ascended gear into the game after launch, then it should of matched the stats of exotic gear, and the infusions should not of increased your stats, just gave you the tools to survive the new “style” of dungeon.

DegoLocc.5976:

Basically they like the idea of MMO’s but don’t like the grind. So they want a more arcade type game.

I think they should play games more suited for them, ie: league of legends, and fighter beat em ups, where there is no gear.

They forget, if we all had the same gear out the gate, what’s the point of even having gear? Cosmetics? Yea we’ll see how long that holds your average MMO player.

I dont want a arcade style game. I just dont want to end up in a game where the whole point of playing that game is to continually play chase the gear.

Lets see played UO for years with no gear grind.

Lets see played EQ for years with no gear grind. Game was to vast and open to have what is considered a “gear grind”.

Lets see played Dark Age of Camelot for years with no gear grind. They added a gear grind called Trials of Atlantis, and right after that the game went downhill and started losing subs.

Sadly, it would seem to me your more of a “WoW was my first MMO” type of person, where you don’t know anything but a gear grind so you have decided MMO=gear grind.

And lets also try and remember that wow introduced all them rts/beat em up players to the MMO world.

Doolio thats because most people automatically F2P=“bad game” in this business, because most people only have experience with the model because they bought a AAA MMO, it turned out to be bad, and because it was a poor title, it went F2P to stay alive, and by alive, I mean on life support. Very few titles go from AAA, to F2P, and see a resounding financial success based off their initial goals.

Remember every title that has gone from AAA to F2P has survived because they have cut everything down to skeleton crew as far design, support, and infrastructure.

GW2 is really unique in this market. A game that boasted AAA game quality, but run on a F2P platform, so if this game was to sink, where would they cut the fat from? From the looks of things, they are already running on a skeleton crew model, and skeleton crew is not meant as a negative here, it just means they dont have have to spend a ton of money of CS salaries, and the infrastructure to support that employee base. While the devs may have titles stating they are a lead of this or that, its highly unlikely they have a real large “team” of underlings, that answer directly and work directly and solely under them.

Yah Anet made a lot of money with its initial launch of GW2, but without people continuing to support the game financially, that becomes a static #, and since most companies don’t withhold large chunks their “profits” to keep the project afloat beyond a fiscal year, Where is GW2’s profit going to come from next year if we aren’t spending money in the cash shop and buying expansions??

critickitten.1498:

dalendria.3762:

+1

This is what they said they would do. Make games fun to keep people playing. I would assume they also had cash shop figures from GW1. So they had to have known that people enjoying themselves will spend money. And to your point about gear grind. GW1 had max stat gear. If you did grind, it was only for the better looking stuff with same stats. Until the 11/15 patch, they had the similar approach.

So now, I still would like someone to provide me with proof that people who prefer gear stat progression spend more money in cash shops than people who like horizontal progression and playing just for the fun of it.

People pay for WoW, don’t they?

Just sayin’. :P

Though I agree I’d rather not see them go down THAT particular model. XD

Anet competing with wow by trying to adopt wow’s mechanics is by far the worst thing Anet could do financially. WoW is a Juggernaut of a game that requires significant framework, design and support to keep it afloat and viable.

I am not by any means a wow fanboi, but this game can not stand up on its own and compare itself to what WoW is, and nor should it even try.

Ya know to me its like they got their priories/business model all jumbled up.

F2P games are all for the most part casual games. They aren’t games designed like monthly MMO’s, where people tend to spend a exorbitant amount of time daily/weekly/monthly playing them, where they are basically a full time hobby.

Traditional MMO’s rely and size scale and depth to keep the person playing constantly, and thus paying the company monthly. They tend to have a longer leveling time, and they rely on progression to keep the person subbed.

Those games rely on keeping keeping people logged in, as much as possible, as long as possible, to maximize the financial rewards.

F2P models should solely be based around fun factor. They shouldn’t be bothering trying to trend my playtime, whats going to be most important for Anet and GW2’s survival is when I am playing, am I spending money, and when they release paid content, am I buying it?

As things sit with this game, I feel like to keep up with the joneses, I have to play it like a traditional MMO, but this one lacks the depth of those other games, and gives me no reason at all to support them financially, and because of that, it would be highly unlikely I would be rushing out when new paid content becomes available.

I just don’t see how this is a win/win relationship between the consumer and the company. My guess is, and this is only a guess, but I am betting 3 months into the game 90%+ of us are what would be regarded in the F2P realm as “leechers”, and the only thing that would make Anet financially successful right now was the fact that we paid a initial investment of 60+ bucks, where as most F2P games either have a low($20.00 or less) initial investment, or no initial financial investment at all.

At this point Anet, I would not pay you a monthly sub for this game, because it lacks the finesse of other AAA MMO’s, and your too grindy, too expensive, and dont offer either enough stuff or useable stuff in your cash shop to support via the traditional F2P system. And I am willing to bet I am in the Majority by a vast amount when it comes to this.

So I would suggest you pick which model you are, and soon.

I haven’t run too many dungeons, because I have had some pretty bad experiences eith them.

You remember playing a game, and feeling disappointed in it, because instead of making things clever, they just ended up brute forcing the difficulty as you progressed? Ya know they either just tossed more mobs at you, and just made them hit harder or and have more hitpoints, just for the sake of making things harder?

Thats how I feel about Anets dungeon design. That and the feeling that their idea of difficulty or rewarding is based on how many times they think you should wipe per visit.

So you went F2P, cool, but in order for me to pay the equivalent of a monthly sub or more, you need to be able to provide me with a incentive to do so. You have to create a engaging game that keeps me interested in playing, you have to offer me things to buy from you that have some kind of value to me, and at a price that’s legitimate.

So first off you did create a game a engaging game. something I could casually play, and enjoy, where I could just simply explore and “play”. Then you started tweaking. You made dungeons which the first month might not of been the most engaging of designs, but were still fun to casually spend time, and made them tedious. You have yet to properly balance them, some dungeons basically come down to wipe a dozen times in order to complete, just for the sake of dying a dozen times.

Second, in your overdone attempt at creating and controlling a market, you created a financial grind, that either left me running your tedious dungeons ad nasuem, or farming events not for the sake of completing a event, but just to spam kill mobs in hopes of descent drops to convert to gold, to buy what I really wanted to get in the first place. I will applaud you on some of the changes to Cursed Shore, tho I think they need a few tweaks, but now that the events have chests at the end of them, I don’t feel obligated to throw on my MF gear just to farm the mobs of the events as much, but its still there. The proof of that would of been last night, when one of your events bugged, and just spawned endless waves of mobs. People found it more rewarding to stop running the other events, and instead everyone just thru on thier MF sets and farmed the bugged event.

Thirdly, since you have such a poorly but controlled with a iron fist economy, I find the grindwork I have to put into farming gold in order to get my gears not very pleasant. Matter of fact I am now sitting on 4 lvl 80 characters, because I found it more fun just to roll a alt and spend the money I made leveling him on my main, then working on my main instead.

This all leads full circle to the F2P model. You deliberately created a way in your game to buy gems with real cash, and convert those gems into gold. Now, seeing as you don’t have a way to gather gems ingame, I can only assume your telling me hey if you want to support us and get the gear without the tedious grind, buy your gold from us directly via the gems to gold exchange. The problem is I cant really justify your prices, using any other games market for currency, you are the most expensive model, especially when the real market setters, the gold sellers, have you beat by 6 to 1!

And just like buying gold from your cash shop, there is nothing else you offer on it that gives me any sense of worth or value. Spending over a gold per key to open the 100+ black lion chests I got sitting around? Buying 7 random dyes for 200 gems when they sell on the marketplace for 6s each?

So here I sit, in a game thats becoming stale to me because all I seem to do in it is farm, and I cant bring myself because of your borked up economy to give you my money, because I don’t feel I get any value from it, nor do I feel so strongly positive about your game to buy gems just to show my appreciation for the game you created.

So heres my suggestion. I see 2 ways you are going to get money from me to keep you guys afloat, and who knows I bet if you fix 1, you will fix the other, and get double my monies!

Stop worrying about gear grind. Who cares if everyone 3 months into the game is running around in full exotics, your only concern should be are we having fun! If you dont want to fix the grindy feeling of your game, then at the very least change your marketing of gems/gold to make them more buyer friendly. Give me a good bargain, and I will reward you with money, or fix the grindy aspect of your game, and I will reward you with money by buying your marketplace trinkets. If im not concerned with getting my gear, I will gladly pay for your skins and stuff.

If I find the game fun to play, just for the sake of playing it, you could do something like oh I dunno, come out with some kind of neat new expansions a couple times a year for say 20 bucks a pop, and you know what, I will gladly buy them!

I thought WvW was one of the cornerstones of your game?

I dont mind the occasional monster bashing, events, things like that, but why should I have to monster bash constantly in order to WvW? Why cant I get my gear either thru WvW, or at least make it financially as viable as PvE, so I can buy my gear from the marketplace?

I mean we get 1 set of WvW gear to choose from, all with the same stats, each dungeon has how many stat options?

Its really starting to feel like WoW all over again for the competitive PvPer. Monster bashers get the variety, and the better gear, and this games selling feature to me is becoming this games red headed stepchild.

Theres dozens of monster bashing games out there, and in my opinion many of them do it better then GW2 does, but theres hardly any good MMO style PvP/WvW games out there, and its because they always make monster bashing a requisite in order to compete in WvW.

Im not asking for WvW to get special treatment, but I would like to see some equal treatment, How about adding some more stat variations to the WvW gear, how about adding some more financial reward, how about some chests for WvW accomplishments?

Monster bashers arent required to PvP in order to get the gear they want, please stop making PvPers monster bash in order to get the gear they want is all im asking.

I dont know how the new ascended gear is going to affect WvW, I will take a wait and see approach to it and wont start screaming the house is on fire yet, but if it does become a must have type gear in order to stand on equal footing, then your doing yourself a major disservice, and will be just pushing more people out of your game, because not all of us care about a new dungeon.

But it fails to deliver miserably in reality.

I call it brainless ping pong. You know im not lying we all know its true. All I have seen in WvWvW is 2 zergs just bashing into each other ad infinitum between point a and b, untill one side decides to go take something else, so zerg a leaves and takes another objective, and the zerg thats left finally takes the objective, and then once thats all done, they repeat the process someplace else.

I seriously cannot play WvWvW for more then 20 minutes before I am completely bored.

For a game that used Daoc as your blueprint, you seem to of seriously missed the major designs that made it work.

Maps are too small, too easy to get anywhere on the map within minutes, and no place really for the population to spread out. The idea of resource control was a good one,but in function just doesn’t work. Too easy to have the zerg grab supply on the way and repair everything quickly. Add a monetary factor into upkeep and repair, and that would be a start I would think. Also heres a idea, if a wall or door comes down, make it to where it doesn’t go right back up with one repair, make it to where the item doesnt magically go up untill its at least 50% repaired. Seriously the biggest eye roll chuckle I got about your WvWvW design was watching siege knock a wall down, just for that wall to immediately go right back, just for the next hit to bring it down again, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Things just seem to be too fast in this game. Too fast for 1 zerg to wipe the other, so no battle lines. Takes side a 2 minutes to repair what might of taken side b 30 minutes to damage.

Wish our real world functioned like it does here. Earthquake levels a city, and it takes 3 days to make it all better again.

Anyway rant off. Slow this pony down will ya, World PvP, something this game touts, should be more then some mini game that gets boring after 20 minutes of play.

Oh I know, for some of you it is enjoyable for more then 20 minutes, but that’s not really saying a whole lot, just need to look at most modern games to understand a lot of people like fast moving no consequences no point gaming. Grand design combat shouldn’t fall into that genre, sadly here it does.