Guild Wars 2

I want to start this by saying I love this game. I played GW1 from day one. I played it all the way up until the launch of GW2 and I have enjoyed the game so, so much.

I’ve logged about 300 hours on my account by now. I JUST raised enough money to make myself a Destroyer Staff, and I LOVE it. I had one in GW1 and it makes me incredibly nostalgic.

I wasn’t really able to take a big part in the Lost Shores event, and wish I could, but there were other things that I had to do. I’ve recently looked at posts describing the Mystic Forge recipes for Ascended Items and Infusions.

Here is the recipe for a back slot:
250 Teir 6 fine crafting material
1 Vial of Condensed Mists Essence
50 Globs of Ectoplasm
24 skill points

It took me 300 hours to level up, explore the game, and then get what I needed for a Destroyer Staff. That is nothing compared to the back slot recipe. But then… there is the recipe for the infusion:

Base back slot item
Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence
250 Globs of Ectoplasm
Gift of Ascension

250 Globs of Ecto… Are you kidding me? By the time I’m able to do this, all of the other armor slots will have been introduced, and a large part of the player base will be so busy with level 100 FotM that they won’t ever be willing to play with me.

Casual players suffer here. The system is now one that creates a deep divide between the hardcore and casual population. It will create the scenarios we had in the Hall of Heroes where people would only add you to the group if you had the 7th rank of the title… no one could ever even get to rank 1 under those circumstances.

I understand the need for progression. But it doesn’t need to be so extreme. I was hoping that Ascended weapons and armor would be a slight increase for slightly more effort compared to exotics. But they are essentially minor legendary weapons. That is too much for the casual player base. The only real suggestion I can come up with is make ascended items more accessible. Make them cost less, or give actual specific milestones to achieve, rather than make it a massive gold sink.

Please Arenanet. Don’t let the vocal minority of hardcore players make you do things in expense of your casual player base. We all love this game too, but to put it simply, the new system it will many of us.

PS – If you plan on answering with “You just need to get a guild”, please don’t bother to leave a comment. I would love to be in one that mirrors my play style and is forgiving of my casual style. But it is my opinion that GW2 shouldn’t require that. Perhaps that is naive, but it is my own opinion.

With the reduced story mode rewards, no one wants to do story mode anymore. Except for people who need it in order to do explorable modes, no one is interested.

I spent an hour and a half today trying to find a group for HoTW story mode, bouncing between Frostgorge and Lion’s Arch a few times just in case anyone else was there. I gave up and did a few CoF runs, since I was lucky enough to complete the story mode before the patch.

I totally agree with Anet’s philosophies regarding dungeons. Exp modes should be difficult, and should require more skill and coordination than story modes. They deserve better rewards as well. But making the rewards completely worthless is not the answer. It makes it incredibly difficult for individuals who have not already done story mode to get anywhere with the dungeon experience.

I LOVE the dungeons! I just want to be able to run them.

Perhaps instead of the 60 tokens you receive on your normal run of an exp mode, you only get 20 for story? That would get people running story modes in order to help out people without feeling like they are wasting their time and money. What do you guys think?

Thanks.

Kind of early for that, but hey, anything is possible in the future.