Guild Wars 2

I will agree with DavidH that what is missing in this game is a middle ground.

Things are either relatively easy to get or dishearteningly hard. The problem’s compounded by most of what’s considered ‘the best/most desirable stuff to have’ being accessible least randomly by just getting gold .. and farming gold is an activity which Devata and myself find fundamentally uninspiring, and neither of us, with our playstyle, I expect, accumulate it very fast.

They could have doubled and tripled the token costs of the dungeon sets and I would seriously have been fine with it. Dungeons are an activity that I find relatively engaging; they require some switches in routine, sometimes quick reactions.. specially the harder ones. Plus the fact that I would be making measurable progress each run towards a known token cost would help.

But gold? Sure, it’s accessible everywhere.. but it’s needed for EVERYTHING. It creates this incentive to just go hard and do what it takes to get it as quick as possible, and it still ends up feeling like it’s not enough.

The champ trains existed for a reason; people feel this compulsion from the game design: get gold, get better stuff. And yet it results in the most mind-numbingly samey gameplay.. unchallenging encounters repeated ad naseum.

Not only that, but with prices fluctuating and gradually rising continually, it replicates the same feeling I had such a problem with in WoW and other gear-grind-centric games.. the feeling that if you aren’t moving forward full speed you’re falling behind.

Of course you can get gold from just playing as you want; the problem then being that you’re limited to cherry picking an occasional ‘cool thing’ every couple of months, with many items realistically beyond your grasp.. and never having the fun experience of feeling like you directly earned an item from a difficult challenge.

The Liadri mini and title.. a straight out skill challenge. There’s this one guy earlier in this thread who said that repeating her X amount of times to learn how to kill her would have felt like a grind to him; I politely disagree – learning something new and challenging would NEVER feel like a grind to me. ‘Blazing Light’ is a wicked awesome thing to have, and it was never a grind.

At least with dungeons, fractals, pvp, Liadri, at least it’s challenging or mentally stimulating. And you get an item directly through skill, with relatively little repetition.

Can you make enough gold to get ‘X’, some desirable random item, through those things? Sure. But when you’re ticking off progress at 3g/hour – less than 1% an hour, against something that costs hundreds of gold, that’s demotivating.

I’m not saying I need ascended now now now now. I’m saying that the mere prospect of trying for it is so demotivating that it sours gameplay for me.

So either I content myself that it’s out of my reach, or I begin to feel the developers have played a bit of a stupid joke on me – ’you’ll never be the best because you don’t have X gear, regardless of how asskickingly skilled you are.’

It’s a small enough difference in stats and so rough to get that nobody requires ascended to form groups around. So it not only feels like a small niggling disrespect of skill over gear, and a skinnerian masterstroke to encourage farming, it feels pointless for all of that.

I vacillate between contented rejection of ascended and flabbergasted /facepalm mode. Sorry. I know I’m a little mental about it, but it’s something I will never feel fits within Guild Wars.

Grinds? Okay, fine.

Grinds for a lot of stuff? Sure, okay.

Grinds for most cool stuff? Not good.

Grinds for a small-yet-nigglingly-present power difference? In Guild Wars? Cardinal sin, to me.

Deadcell.9052:

I guess I was complaining and didn’t realize it LOL, the reason I felt this game is not that grindy is because I learned a long time ago that grinding in this game is a complete waste of time, I personally found I made no strides what so ever in what I wanted to achieve and no longer do it. All those vanity items like unique skins, ascended stuff, legendary’s etc I basically look at as unattainable and no longer waste my time trying for those things, I just log in, do what I enjoy, mostly WvW and PvP and log off, completely ignoring any and all things that would be considered grindy, I guess its been so long with that mindset I no longer look at Gw2 as a grindy game.

You know what, I can agree with this, you’re completely right.

The game, if you decide to achieve nothing within it, is not grindy.

But god help you if you decide to achieve anything; then it’s grindy as hell.

If Anet doesn’t have a giant red alarm going off at hearing that thought process I don’t know what would cause the giant red alarm to go off.

‘two nights ago I never even logged in.’

Tobias, for you to speak like that might be a shocking twist in your routine says a lot.

There are often several days in a row I don’t log in. And when I do, I don’t go for a two hour farm fest ever.

Can you please try to sympathize with how mountainous a task ascended gear is for somebody who plays GW2 in the cracks between other rl things and other hobbies, and who doesn’t enjoy ‘farming’ at all?

Apathy.6430:

Think about what you’re trying to use as an argument, and how it defeats itself.

Builds not mattering for 95% of the game isn’t a good selling point. The doesn’t make the fact that they are only available for 5% of the game better. It just makes it that much worse.

If anything, you’re hurting the little bit of motivation I had to come back.

I and many other people agree with you, despite the existence of a few stockholm-syndrome-suffering people on the forums who seem to justify the trait changes by using a “I didn’t really need them anyway!” kinda argument.

They’ve announced a change in the system for HoT, it’s true. We have no details on how that system will work out, and the level of trust you want to put in Anet’s design ability is your own choice.

Till then, keep in mind that if you have any ‘grandfathered’ characters – those created before the trait changes, they will have full access to their traits, without needing to unlock them, at least at the new trait tier unlock levels. It ain’t much but it’s something.

Obtena.7952:

I encourage people that can’t hack the game to not play it because it’s dead easy and aimed at casuals. The bar is low enough.

Your true colors at last.. elitist bullkitten.

There’s a game called Wildstar you really oughta check out, Obtena.

It was virtually designed with the “No True Scotsman” phallacy at it’s heart.

Obtena.7952:

That’s nice, but you don’t design the game, they do so your definition doesn’t really matter for anything except how it affects your decision to play the game. Instead, your using it to justify how the game should change to accommodate your needs. That’s not how it works buddy.

I’m expressing a viewpoint that seems relatively common, given the titles of the threads on the general discussion forum for the last couple of weeks and months.

Anet can use that or not; it’s up to them.

What I am using my definition.. my subjective experience of grind as an excuse for is this: not playing the game as frequently as I once did.

I really don’t care any more. Anet, like I said, can try to get me as a customer or not. That’s up to them. As it is, with this particular definition in the Anet lexicon, I foresee lots of grind threads in the future after HoT’s release. And I’m not buying it till proven wrong, kay?

Obtena.7952:

Lheimroo.2947:

Bernie.8674:

And you effectively clarified this argument by describing a two hour grind. That’s not so convincing.

Tobias’s routine wouldn’t count as a grind by the definition Anet has given in this thread.

It would count as one for you, and for me, and seemingly for many others. Which is why Anet’s definition is so troubling; it’s quite self-servingly limited.

It’s not self serving … it’s how they defined their goal to have no-grind for the game. It’s not even an unreasonable definition; it’s what many players experienced in the industry would also define as grinding. It’s not simply some definition they concocted to high five themselves around a board room table. Just because it doesn’t suit a subset of QQing players doesn’t make it less relevant or meaningful of a definition.

They don’t design around players ideas of what the game should achieve; that would be a fool’s errand and rather stupid to try to do.

Listen, Anet’s definition of grind completely disregards the quantity of work that has to be done to obtain something; it’s solely concerned with variety.

If they need you to collect 20,000 candy corn, it wouldn’t be a grind by their definition if they gave you as much as two separate ways to get the mat. No matter the subjective experience of repetition or tedious robotic play.

My definition of grind isn’t unreasonable either, it does include a consideration of total amount of effort required, and the tediousness or lack of excitement in the play required.

Bernie.8674:

And you effectively clarified this argument by describing a two hour grind. That’s not so convincing.

Tobias’s routine wouldn’t count as a grind by the definition Anet has given in this thread.

It would count as one for you, and for me, and seemingly for many others. Which is why Anet’s definition is so troubling; it’s quite self-servingly limited.

Yes, ascended oughta be available via more than crafting or so low an rng as to be infeasible.

I can play this game too, right? pi = 3

Vayne, if you persist in deliberately misinterpreting people I may as well misinterpret everything you ever said back at you.

You know, if you read english, that isn’t what I said or implied.

Honestly, the problem back then wasn’t that GW2 had launched with no gear progression. It had launched with no progression of any kind, let alone the horizontal stuff we were expecting. Anet did get one thing right when they claimed the ‘effort gap’ between easily accessible exotics and legendaries was too large to motivate people.

It’s not that ascended exists, necessarily, that’s my problem. It’s the fact that they had to make it a vertical progression rather than a horizontal one. It did and always will seem like a cop-out to me.

Masteries may end up fixing that.

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

Serophous.9085:

Bernie.8674:

Serophous.9085:

GW1 had plenty of grind with its faction grind and grinding for ectos. Then grinding the same mob over and over again for its rare drop.

But there were also many title tracks that were not so grindy. Legendary Vanquisher, for example. Also, I got full sets of BiS end game gear by simply playing through story lines. We didn’t hit level 20 only to discover that we were going to be collecting silk for the next year or so before being able to craft our BiS gear. Plus, there were tricks to reducing your grind in GW1. Soloing high end mobs was feasible with certain builds, and three-manning eight-man content was often effective as well.

Because some elements of not so grindy doesn’t mean there isn’t grind. Its still grind. There are tricks to reducing the grind in gw2 as well. But its still grind.

there is a difference between optional grind and progression grind, GW1 has pretty much no progression grind but plenty of optional grind, GW2 is the exact opposite.

Well that’s not true. Guild Wars 2’s progressive grind is gear progressive grind. Guild Wars 1’s progressive grind was rep grind for skills as well as grind for better chances to salvage and retain lockpicks on chests. All of that is progressive, even if it’s a different kind of progression.

I feel like I have to have ascended armor less than I felt I had to level save yourselves to max level on my imbagon paragon. What you’re stating is an opinion, not a fact.

i don’t think you know what optional grind is, to make it simple for you, it’s when you don’t need it to play the game.
anything lockpick is optional, anything rep is optional.
you don’t need PvE skills to win in the game, better yet, in PvP you can’t even use them in the first place.

in GW2 you NEED a certain armor tier or you’re useless in high/max level areas, you NEED a higher weapon tier or you’re practically useless, you NEED to get your traits or your character is useless.
that’s progression grind, something you can’t avoid.

oh and FYI, that’s a fact, not an opinion.
what you see as needed is beside the point, what is needed by game design, that’s what matters.

In Guild Wars 2, you can finish 90% of the content in greens. You’re not useless in high level max areas, things just take a little longer. People beat liadri naked.

That’s a fact.

That’s a completely facetious argument. The developers do not intend people to stop when they hit green gear. They did not design the game to either encourage or require that kind of behaviour.

But go on, you can say anything is optional. Hell, playing this game is optional. Leveling is optional. You can stay at level one and just pvp, can’t you? It’s a challenge.

And he’s also claimed to have kitted out several characters in full ascended. Which was not introduced entirely 2 years ago, you remember, so he hasn’t had 2 years to do that.

I’m not drawing this conclusion from one datum. Vayne plays a lot.

I reserve the right to filter anything he says about the lack of grind in this game and the accessibility of ascended through that conclusion.

Vayne.8563:

I have five legendaries now.

Okay, this is the whole source of the problem right here.

Vayne is one of those people who play an ungodly amount of time and who call themselves casual. He’s probably one of those infuriating people who come onto comment sections and say things like “I’m pretty casual, I play bout three hours a night.”

I hate to say it, honestly, but I have to regard his whole perspective as a little bit warped right now. And not worth responding.

I seriously hope this grind accusation and the ascended griping follow this company for years. It would serve ‘em right changing their whole game philosophy to the boring grindy normal kitten two months after having sold the game on ’non-grind’.

But, hey, hey, let’s not be bitter here. Apparently you can choose not to engage in the vast majority of objectives there are to obtain in this game, and then your game is grind-free!

But wait, it gets better. Anet gets to pull a definition out of their kitten that is nothing to do with the common parlance and have half of the people just accept it.

But let’s be thankful for the pittance of horizontal progression we’ve gotten in what was sold to us as a horizontal-progression-based MMO. Maybe once we pay for HoT it’ll finally be there, huh?

phys.7689:

what people in this thread are trying to point out, is that regardless of what colin means when he says grindy, the game overall in fact feels very grindy to them. So much so that whenever they mention a lack of grind the players feel a strong disconect with how they expereince the game, and what the developers think is happening.

this bothers them a lot, not just because grind exists, but it makes it seem like the developers arent really on the same page as the players.

a grindy game where the developers are like we want people who put a lot of time in to feel rewarded, or we want you to be working on X item for 3 months. At least you are sure the developers intent. But when people hear them say gw2 isnt grindy, they are often like wait what? you mean you didnt do that on purpose? Im not supposed to be gathering gold or grinding cloth for my ascended armor for 30 days?

Yes, exactly.

Colin’s definition of grind isn’t really relevant to what many people, myself included, experience. And it does create a strong sense of disconnect. This disconnect between Anet’s communication and PR speak, and what they do, versus the player experience they create.. well, it’s a long-going-on issue.

Ascended created to give a middle-level thing to go for, bridging the gap between exotics and legendaries – and everybody left wondering WHY, because the middle ground between ‘mandatory-easy’ and ‘verykittenygrindy-optional’ may in fact be ‘kittenygrindy-somewhatmandatory’ – but we’re left wondering why ‘kittenygrindy-somewhatmandatory’ is a good thing to even go for in the first place.

New Trait System – set up to encourage, they say, build experimentation and bla bla bla. Result: complete opposite, kitteny grindy.

New Player Experience: throw your veteran players under the bus with the newbies, cuz this experience could not not have been designed in a board room disconnected from reality.

Commander Tag Fiasco: Have a CDI. Almost implement something that completely misses the POINT of what people were talking about.

The sheer number of times Anet has misread things and created anti-player experiences, apparently by what they say, unknowingly, is weird. Sheer weird.

Face facts; they’re not dumb. Anet is not dumb, and therefore at least most of this stuff was very deliberate, and their PR speech is just a smokescreen or an attempt to make some very cynical design decisions palatable to the playerbase.

Frankly, we should be taking anything Anet says these days with a grain of salt.

10,800 silk isn’t grindy. Players only have to do it if they ‘choose’. There was only one choice made with that figure, and that was Anet’s. And 10,800 is inversely proportional to the respect they chose to have for a player’s time.

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Obtena.7952:

People aren’t recognizing that this is one reason why GW2 does as well as it does. Relative to other games, it’s grind is very low. Therefore it attracts a good portion of the market.

Its already been said in this thread that WoW has less grind, SWTOR is similar to WOW and has less grind as does ESO. So comparative to others Western MMOs its grind is not low.

But grind for what exactly. If ascended gear is the last tier of armor and weapons, and that’s all that is, then I’m done grinding now. People in those other games will be grinding for gear long after I’m done.

So how can this be more grinding?

You know, this is the core of the issue.

I admit there’s something of an issue of perception here.. but ask why people perceive things one way and not the other, you can’t really say. It’s like asking why some people like seafood and others don’t – it’s honestly a matter of genes, of a person’s own innate nature.

And it’s not very useful to argue with such a personal perception; it’s like telling your kid that he should eat his fish and stop grumbling like a spoiled brat. You never know, as a parent, if he’s just being contrary or if he’s one of those people who just happen to not actually like the dang taste and who never ever will.

Sorta the same reason the whole ‘Just try pvp, you’ll like it!’ crowd bugs me. I have tried it, I don’t. Thank you. I’m an adult, stop treating me like a kid who won’t eat his brussel sprouts.

I personally found those other MMOs less grindy, and I’ll tell you why.

I’d prefer an endless succession of periodic small hills to a single giant mountain. The mountain kinda makes my soul go numb in anticipation. The small hill? I can do that. I might know there’s another one coming up in another couple months, but.. it bugged me only after YEARS of playing under that gear grind system.

This one? This ‘one giant mountain, right up front’ system? It just.. right off the bat. And it ain’t just one; it’s one mountain for every alt I care to try on. So.. why shouldn’t I just say no, right at the start? It’s a genuinely unpleasant experience, to me.

Eh. I’m going sour on the whole MMO market. Show me a single player game that subjects it’s players to either periodic bi-or-tri-yearly grinds or single mountain-like grinds. They don’t exist, and they’d get savaged by critics and players alike if they tried.

Multiplayer games? Well. I mean, somehow we’ve built up this cultural tolerance for them doing things that would get singleplayer games utterly mauled. I’m losing my tolerance.

I don’t think it’s a singular attitude, either. Mike O’Brien joked a couple days ago during a HoT interview that if he’d announced a raised level cap or a new gear tier the crowd would have rushed the stage.. and honestly? Obviously he was exaggerating.. a bit.

So farmville is a game we should hope GW2 ends up emulating?

Seems to me that WoW got more popular when it dropped grind and eased barriers to entry to raids, and that it got less popular when it added grind and raised barriers to play. Seems to me that that’s the formula for the whole market, in fact.

Seems to me GW2 only does well because the vast majority of people can willfully ignore the existence of ascended. I’d actually love to know the metrics; how many player accounts out of the whole have ever equiped all 6 armor slots with ascended gear?

My guess it’s an extremely low percentage; most people ignoring it and only occasionally going for a piece when it seems painless enough. The number of people in this thread.. defenders, basically, who say ’don’t bother with it, it isn’t necessary’, is the source of my suspicion.

But I can’t bring myself to ignore it and carry on as if it doesn’t exist. I don’t want to play a game where I have to engage in that kind of mental gymnastics.

Stark.1350:

Alright, I’m going to ask everyone in this thread a very simple question.

Say ascended armor was made much easier to obtain. Say it only took a month to complete “challenging content” to fully deck out your character.

With nothing else to work towards, yes or no – would you get bored with the game? And for people that answer yes, isn’t that a major problem for a non-subscription MMO?

Also keep in mind, that there are not adding any gear progression or level changes in the expansion. The game has been out for 2.5 years. And it’s going to be another couple before we see another. So let’s say, you’ve had 4.5 years to obtain your ascended gear and you can get it done in a month now. See if that changes your answer.

I fully admit I may not be representative of the crowd..

But seriously? I haven’t played this game for any substantial amount of time at a go in several months, and I attribute that directly to being demotivated by being presented with a massive chore list every time I log in.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again here: getting max gear doesn’t feel good for me. It feels like a relief, like I’ve finally done my laundry and can get to play freely now. That’s not a motivation to come into a video game with, so I haven’t been.

Take the chore lists away or make them less of a chore, and I’d be in love with this game again.

Sorry, Obtena. Chris Whiteside said in this very thread that Anet considers ascended top tier gear and expects people to get it. And besides that, I do not include ‘need’ in my definition of grind. If something is too much work, it’s a grind and I don’t do it. Period. Needed or not.

As Zenith said, everything in the end is ‘optional’ if you look at it broadly enough. So show me something to go for in this game that isn’t nearly as grindy? Show me the one challenging boss that.. if I defeat it, group or not, has even a 1/4 chance of dropping the actual finished item I want, without requiring months of work crafting?

I remember several raiding nights in vanilla wow I’d get two items for four hours of fairly enjoyable challenging work. That experience DOES NOT EXIST HERE.

And I raided vanilla Naxxramas. I would say gearing my vanilla high end raider was less work than getting ascended in GW2.. it was definitely more challenging, and it did take it’s share of hours, but it was far less soul destroyingly repetitive.

I still got tired of that, though, so why would I – older, wiser – tolerate even worse in a supposedly grind-free game? This.. this lawyering over the definition of grind is grotesque.. it might win points if Anet is trying to claim ‘no grind’ on a HoT box, cuz they could get away with it. But it won’t win any loyalty from me.

Zenith’s right. WoW may have require you to get a new tier of gear semi-frequently, but the actual task is not that bad at all, especially nowadays.

You want to compare GW2’s current grinds to anything? I’d say.. the frostsaber rep, vanilla wow, would be appropriate.

They get an ‘E’ for effort on this one, but if we’re going to split hairs about it like we’re conniving boys trying to wheedle our way under our date’s prom dress, I’m disinterested in having the conversation at all.

SNORT.

Oh my god, thank you for making my day. Yes, you said what I wanted to say with all the comedic vitriol it deserved. I’d buy you a beer, dude.

I find this whole back and forth argument about the definition of grind to be both funny and a little sad; it’s nearly irrelevant and it will NEVER make anybody feel better.

What I said back on page seven stands. I have my own subjective experience of this game, and regardless of whether I use the word ‘grind’ to express that concept or some other word that might conceptually meet with Vayne’s approval, what I am saying is that I am having a problem that makes me not enjoy GW2.

I am having a problem that makes me not enjoy GW2. It is related to the amount of ‘work’ I have to do in game that infringes on my enjoyment of the game. That’s what matters here, and I hope Anet is wise enough to listen to that and not to bandy definitions around.

Arguing definitions is the weakest, most self-servingly soppy defense tactic. It solves nothing. Problems exist even if you try to make them not by redefining words.

Awbee.8405:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

In the next 6 months, waiting for HOT to show up with new (and based on past experience, even LESS fun) trait system, I will have moved on. I hope you all have fun with new GW2.

I absolutely can’t fathom why so many are cheering already. This company is all about hype and hyperbole, then they spring the real deal and it’s never what you really wanted. I’m currently so disillusioned with this game I can’t even express my sadness. I have no interest at all in the expansion, especially if it’s something that has to be purchased. I’ve given more cash to this company than I care to admit. The buck stops here.

I haven’t played the game since April. If you don’t like the trait system or the way the game is in general at the moment, why are you still playing? Of course that’s going to make you sad :/

I occasionally (every 2 months or so) check back on GW2, and on this thread in specific, to see if any progress have been made. For a long time, there wasn’t. Now there are signs that maybe in the future the game will become playable again for me. That’s good news. I’m not overly optimistic yet, I’ll wait what the actual changes will be. But it’s good to know that at least something is being done.

Check out Colin’s replies regarding Arenanet’s definition of grind in the ‘No-grind philosophy’ thread. If you haven’t played since april, I think they’ll convincingly discourage you from purchasing HoT.

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

…

Yeah to be clear on that one, as we’ve said before: we made that statement before the game launched, ultimately realized we didn’t think it was the right decision for Gw2 – and changed our mind. I fully own making this statement, the day I said it was our plan – our lead designer decided it was the wrong direction for the game after we stated it, and we changed direction.

Okay, honestly, it’s a bit of a relief to see these two statements together in one place. I don’t think anybody at Arenanet has articulated these things as clearly as this before, and for me it clears up the reasoning behind several very confusing decisions that the company has made over the past couple years.

So I won’t be buying ‘Heart of Thorns’. I can see how my personal definition of grind and Arenanet’s own conflict nearly irreconcilably.

Colin, your definition of grind solely concerns the variety of tasks. My personal definition of grind encompasses that, yes, but more importantly it includes some consideration of the total amount of work required to be done in any particular task.

To put it shortly, doing one thing four hundred times would be grind by both our definitions. Doing four things each a hundred times would fail to be grind by your definition, but would still be considered a grind by me.

I strongly urge your company to consider grind as ‘total amount of work required’ when designing content. You have not to date, and I have no reason to expect you will in future, but I have to make that recommendation.

So with this particular philosophy in place, I can not but expect ‘Heart of Thorns’ to include what would seem to me to be ‘grind’ in the acquisition of mastery points. I can only guess that it would provide relatively little enjoyment before beginning to aggravate me in the same way that ascended gear and the new trait system aggravate me.

So rather than sit here moping on the forums providing sarcastic feedback for the next several months, I’m sorry, I’m just bowing out. Putting the puppy to bed.

I’ll stick around and offer more feedback if you have any personal comments to make in reply to my post, because I have enjoyed the game. But when you changed your conviction about requiring ‘work’ for in-game best stats and what not, post launch, you essentially moved away from me.

I’ll tell you how bad the difference between our definitions of grind is, though. You call your game, honestly, by your definition, ‘no grind’. By my own particular definition, GW2 is one of the grindiest games I’ve ever played. No other MMO that I’ve played for any length of time requires quite as much work for best gear. Not nearly.

Complete and total awesomeness.

That will turn out to have unannounced grind attached, lots of ‘new player friendly’ adjustments, and remove several dungeon paths as a way of concentrating where people are playing.

Seriously, though. Isn’t that what we’ve experienced with Anet? I’m not hyped for this expansion/whatever because I’m going to be looking paranoid-fashion for the hidden ‘two steps back’ to whatever ‘one step forward’ is announced.

Justine.6351:

People think they know what they want until they get it. Then they realize they really didn’t want that and its too late to go back and listen to everyone who said they wouldn’t like it. So they just quit and leave the rest who didn’t want said thing.

I would say that’s more a problem if Anet drastically misses the mark in understanding what people are asking for. People frequently misphrase, but let’s face it – anything we ask for is going to come with caveats attached.

“You’ll get your commander tag color options, but it’ll cost you thousands of go.. oh, wait, what? That’s bad? Oops! Um.. don’t burn down our forums, please!”

That’s anet’s style right there.

I would certainly love a bit of a revamp of the game ui – specially the hero panel is a bit of a jumbled mess, just now. I love the functionality of your ideas, but I’ll join in with the critique that it seems in general a little too dense, both with features and with visuals.

If they discount the work people have put into making their ascended gear by raising the level cap and making that stuff obsolete..

Well, I’m just going to say it here: this forum will erupt. Worse than it ever has.

None, if the trait system isn’t revamped. Again.

Pvp is both boring and stressful to me.

Boring in the sense that it’s utterly predictable – small maps, endlessly repetitive runs back down the same memorized paths to get back into the action, and then.. big whoop, you win or you die.

Stressful in the sense that I don’t get much intrinsic reward from competing with other players. I don’t feel a thrill; I just feel stress. I get enormously more joy from completing some difficult fight in multiplayer coop – say, Borderlands 2? I’m all over that. It’s awesome.

I mean, I genuinely resent Anet’s attempts to snag people into playing other game modes; I know I don’t enjoy pvp. The world explorer achievement was pleasant for me – up until the point where I realized I had to spend weeks waiting for the wvw maps to change to the right colors so I could get my map markers with minimum stress, and it was punctuated by snarled swears whenever actual pvpers wouldn’t just leave me the heck alone.

And spvp? Meh. I also resent the new dailies, which actually needlessly trimmed options from a spread of pve achievements in some mis-guided attempt to force me, through sheer lack of viable alternative, into some pvp mode. You pvpers, you can have yer dang options, that’s FINE. I don’t mind. But trim mine in the process? Utterly utterly pointless.. in fact, insulting on Anet’s part.

Okay, two questions.

One: skill challenges. Can they be accessed before level 13 again, even if they don’t show up on the map?

And two: I understand the intent behind simplifying some of the early level quests. But things like golem chess were utterly charming! As well as tossing cannon balls via bundles at enemies, things like that. Is there any way we could golem chess somewhere in rata sum?

3rd question, speaking of bundles. I feel it’d be helpful to have a dodge-style always-popup tooltip on an early bundle in a safe area rather than to risk a newbie coming on to something taking his weapon skills away unexpectedly. Some fun bundle should be re-added to the newbie starting zone, early on.

Ya, I’ll second ipan. Even if it’s great for newbies – and i’ll admit pacing probably does help, and pop-ups with little explanations of mechanics ought to have to have been in years ago – even if it is great for newbies, there’s no reason to force a two-year player through the same loop.

It’s spread out too long to entertain an experienced player – 40 levels to unlock your full action bar, level 80 till you can even begin unlocking most of your traits? c’mon.

As politely as possible, I would like to make my desire for a way for more experienced players to bypass some of these ability locks in a more timely fashion known.

I would also like to complain about being unable to interact with low level skill challenges when I’m of a perfectly acceptable level to defeat them.

I would like to comment that I should not have had to go to reddit to read loose translations of screenshots of the chinese client in order to get full details on when, exactly, my ‘9’ key was going to be unlocked on a new alt post patch – level 35, btw.

I understand a positive, boisterous spin on the changes in the initial announcement. But why does the reality always seem to turn out worse than implied with these things?

Communication isn’t skipping telling us the parts that you know are going to cause the most consternation.

I’ve made my feelings known elsewhere about the difference between teaching newbies and actively punishing your experienced players with unskippable restrictions, but.. seriously.

Anet. Tell me one goddang kitten thing. Why, when I actually manage to FIND a skill challenge on the unmarked map, can I NOT INTERACT WITH IT IF I CHOOSE TO!?!??!

I don’t mind systems to teach newbies.

But trying to spread out the game’s already meager amount of ‘character progression’ all the way to level 80 with the changed rate of ability unlocks and trait unlocks is going to make playing alts increasingly boring for ME.

There has to be a better way of doing this. There has to be. There has to be a way of teaching new players without hamstringing your veterans to the point of being bored to tears by the leveling process.

laokoko.7403:

Lheimroo.2947:

I dunno bout the rest of you, but I came to this game to escape the typical MMO-style grinder endgame. I was disgusted enough by the introduction of ascended gear; I don’t need an actual treadmill to start going.

And don’t get me started on the way other MMOs have to bribe people to raid with the best gear being only available there – it’s almost as if raiding isn’t something most people would choose to do for fun.

why do you care so much about what other people do.

Even if you remove raid from say Wow, that dont’ mean GW2 all of a sudden is a better game.

I can enjoy my game time not raiding at all in Wow. Maybe you are the one that care too much other people is in shiny gear and you are not.

It isn’t a ‘live and let live’ situation between people who want raiding and gear progression and those who don’t. One being put into the game destroys the viability and merit of the other desired play style.

You ignore gear progression in WoW, really? I can see ignoring raiding. But not gear progression. I bet you grind your heroic dungeons like everybody else. Because you have to. Or your pvp treadmill, whichever.

Gibson.4036:

That means you won’t have weapon skill 2 until level 2, weapon skill 3 until level 4, weapon skill 4 unlocks at level 7, and no 5th weapon skill until level 10!

The first utility skill is delayed until level 13, and the elite is delayed until 40. I can find a some disagreement on when the second and third utility are unlocked, but it looks like they are significantly later. I couldn’t find much concrete information on profession skills, but found at least one hint that attunements for Eles are also significantly delayed.

No weapon swap until level 15! :P

I sincerely hope you’re wrong, but I have a fear that you’re absolutely correct.

Slowing things down for newbies is an okay thought, I suppose.. but this is going to make things even more dreadfully uninteresting for vets powering through yet another alt.

And slowing things down can’t help much if it isn’t accompanied by some simple introductory tool tip for new mechanics, or SOMETHING.

There’s just not enough ‘things’ to unlock to last 80 levels, and trying to stretch them all out over so much space leaves it all way too thin to be entertaining. Won’t even comment on the sparse achieveability of the trait unlocks. This game should’ve had 40 levels tops :/.

I dunno bout the rest of you, but I came to this game to escape the typical MMO-style grinder endgame. I was disgusted enough by the introduction of ascended gear; I don’t need an actual treadmill to start going.

And don’t get me started on the way other MMOs have to bribe people to raid with the best gear being only available there – it’s almost as if raiding isn’t something most people would choose to do for fun.

General impression: wowed.

Part of the reason for the overall negativity on this forum is that there’s no super-gigantic awesome wardrobe-like feature in this upcoming patch – no big ‘seller’. But take it all objectively. It’s a gigantic list of QoL features, quite impressive.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I can guarantee you i would feel just as frustrated and appalled at this system had it been in here at launch. Bad is bad.

Yeah, seriously.

I have just three eighties – I’m not really an alting man. Had this been in place at launch I wouldn’t even have that many, and I might’ve uninstalled a long time ago.

This new system is objectively worse. “Dull and boring old system”? Are you mad?

I’ve actively avoided my lower level alts since this change went in. Even though one of them is grandfathered in; it’s a mesmer and highly trait dependent. So.. he’s not 60 yet, so good luck.

I’m just curious if the slight revamp of the achievement ui includes specific dungeon paths or not..

The whole idea of how to introduce the trait system to newbies is a quandary.. I realize systems change too much in an MMO to make maintaining a tutorial practical, but it’s hardly an excuse when the entire MMO genre is universally terrible at telling newbies how to cope with these complicated games.

There was a massively article asking commenters about which mmo had the best newbie support system in place, and more than half the replies were about /advice channels and youtube guides and newbie-focused guilds. Those are not ‘newbie support systems’, but very few people could actually name any game with in-game resources to help people out.

In the end I have to wonder how much this reluctance to work on quality tutorials is costing MMOs in retention. I don’t mean we need reams of text, but surely a little one-time scenario at the start of the game with on-screen prompts would close some of the gap.

I just don’t think merely hiding many of the abilities away for ‘x’ amount of time until the player is deemed ready to see them is any form of teaching whatsoever. Pacing certainly helps, but is it helpful if it’s not accompanied by some opportunity to explore a newly introduced mechanic? And the new trait system seems purpose-built to obscure and obfuscate the process of learning, not assist it.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Lheimroo.2947:

Ya, the most concise single short-term suggestion is to make the unlocks account bound.

Keeps the pacing for newbies and lets vets play with build variety a bit more.

That’s all well and good, but they also need to look at level of difficulty and fix what is obviously broken, like, now. And the cost. There is no way it should have gone from a few gold to 42g and 300SPs for these traits. Just… no. That kind of cost can only help ANet with gem sales, in which case spouting any semblence of trying to help new or vet players with progression is just a load of hooey.

To be fair, I just said it was the one most effective change they could make. Removing the skill point cost would be the second best thing they could do.

They are looking for quick and easy patch-me-ups to do in the interim before a larger change. So that’s what I offered.

Ya, the most concise single short-term suggestion is to make the unlocks account bound.

Keeps the pacing for newbies and lets vets play with build variety a bit more.

I’ve got no problem with the idea of layering the gaining of abilities, and even pacing out the acquisition of traits is not a bad idea.. but regarding the whole idea of tutorial or teaching: merely pacing out acquisition doesn’t count as teaching.

I see from the feature pack previews you’re going to be putting little dialogue boxes when you level. That’s a good start – and obviously I haven’t seen these little popups in action, but hopefully they have little text tips in them regarding the actual use of the downed state and trait system, etc.

Like : ‘Now, when you get defeated you’ll have a chance to revive if you can kill a monster before your time runs out!’

or,

- Pop up trait panel: "Every few levels you’ll get a point to use here. You can change how your attacks work and add other special benefits to your abilities.’

That sorta deal? Wouldn’t be hard; would be super helpful I feel.

Palador.2170:

1) No. The entire system you’ve created is broken and flawed. Adjusting a few tasks isn’t going to fix it, nor will I allow myself to become an excuse to pretend it’s fine. This is like taking an old, beat up car to a mechanic to have the engine fixed, and all the mechanic will do is repaint the car. If you say “I want it blue”, then they can paint it blue and say they gave you what you asked for.

That’s really over-dramatic.. but it’s basically true.

The trait unlock tasks require major revamp, not just a tweak or two. I participated in that CDI, and I loved the idea of unlocking skills out in the world – but I never ever imagined a shopping list as long and offensive as the trait system turned out to be. Nor did I imagine that traits would be pushed back to the point where it would be painfully boring for the first 20+ hours of playing your character.

The ghost of the system the CDI contributors were imagining is there, but.. monkey’s paw.

Line one

1 – level 55 story. Too high level.
2 – EOTM capture. Arguable, definitely not pleasant for some
3 – 100% Gendarran – right level range, too much work
4 – Rhendak the Crazed – group mini dungeon. Hard to find, unless you scour wiki. Hard to get group for.
5 – 100% Blazeridge steppes – too much work, high level
6 – lvl 42 group event. If you can get a group, s’fine..
7 – Event in EB – not pleasant for some
8 – level 70 dungeon completion, high end of appropriate level range
9 – find a chest in a level 70 area; high end of level range
10 – level 68 group event. An appropriate one, wow!
11 – find a ship in cursed shore. Appropriate!
12 – Priest of Balthazar. S’fine, if you get your timing right!
13 – Arah event – s’fine, with timing

.. so that’s typical of how I’d evaluate each line. Ironically the grandmaster traits are much much better than the adept and master levels.

Right now, the entire list of trait unlocks is too onerous; that’s the simplest summation of the complaint that I can make.

If they’re suppose to take so much time to do that you could be eighty for a month and still be working on them, then make them account bound. At least that doesn’t impact your veterans with a tedious shopping list for every new alt.

If they’re suppose to be to portion out trait acquisition to help newbies learn, why do we have to go to the wiki to understand the tasks required?

- too onerous (especially the map completions)
- completely out of whack level-wise. Adepts should be achievable sub level 45, master sub 70, and grandmaster anywhere.
- actually, scrap that – traits come too late anyway. Level 20, at least, please!
- frequently, they’re group content that most people don’t want sub-80s in anyway.
- unlocking them via vendor is far too pricey, and the skill point cost should be completely removed.

I’m not going to create an itemized list of which traits to adjust when 90% of them suffer from these complaints. Seriously, you must have some metrics on this already. How many characters have reached 80 since april 15th with even six traits unlocked via the actual activity?

The thing that people never talk about when they dismiss out of hand the concerns of the vocal minority is that there are occasions when they can actually be a pretty representative sampling of the feelings of the playerbase.. perhaps more passionate, but not hugely different in substance.

In order to predict an election you don’t have to go out and ask every single person in america how they’re going to vote, in other words.

I look at the forums as the canary in the coal mine.