Guild Wars 2

Feanor.2358:

Ashen.2907:

One could argue that choosing to play the game as intended should not be justification for being excluded from a tier of armor with associated functionality.

Now that’s just hilarious. Not playing some part of the game is intended? Please explain to me why they created this content then? It’s neither easy nor cheap.

Like in many games a small but vocal group asked for difficult, instanced raiding as a feature and ANet decided to implement it. Raiders don’t make up the majority in most games and the certainly don’t in GW2. Still, those who do raid tend to also be very invested and are the kinds of players who make in-depth content guides and help keep Wikis and such up to date.

I’ve never seen anything that said Anet expected the majority of players to interact with raiding anymore so than they expect a majority to be involved in Fractals. Both, however, keep enough players involved that those sort of anchors are worthwhile.

I’ll never agree that having items locked behind a single kind of content with a game that touts a “play your way” mantra is the right way to go. I’m really not a fan of it. I’ve done Nightmare content in SWTOR and used to do Fractals here, but I’m realistic about the fact that end game raiding is not the fuel that keeps most players going and likely never will be outside of niche games with tiny communities.

I just don’t understand the fundamental shift. The whole point of GW2 was to be a game that wasn’t like the rest. No mindless grind—even things like map completion at least allowed players to constantly see new areas—and play your way. The longer GW2 goes on, the more it becomes about the same tired traditions that it was supposed to be getting away from. Tying rewards to very contained content seems against what was promised at release.

It seems that the community is very much divided on it, but I’m surprised at those that have been here for quite some time backing the decision to make it so exclusive. At least PvP tracks existed to allow non-PvE players to get skins. Anyway, I don’t have a dog in the fight, I can’t get players turning on each other rather than supporting systems that let everyone put in energy and effort in multiple ways to obtain something, or at least a variant of it.

I wouldn’t have cared if it took a year to do it, what was promised was a Legendary Journey, something new and exciting to get involved in the world and feel like you had done something awesome. What we got was a legendary gold and time grind. There’s nothing fun about it.

The problem is what it’s always been with Legendaries: there’s nothing legendary about acquiring them. “How’d you come by that amazing sword, fellow adventurer?” “Why, I crafted a crap ton of other swords and various other menial tasks, and by golly, eventually it was mine?”

Arenanet has done a great job of keeping the fun out of the Legendary system, when the impression from their own media release on what players should expect emphasized that questing—implied as new quests, not grinding old ones—would be the means of achievement.

It’s a bad system. A time gate is fine if there’s an adventure that comes along with it.

Zach.2618:

Prototypemind.4026:

Ape Ghosting.7396:

seems like the op is wanting pay to win of some sort. Not sure how paying is going to win in a mmo rpg tho.

Guess you read what you wanted to read in my posts and not what’s actually there. I said nothing about wanting p2w elements in the game.

Not sure why so many are getting defensive about it, but I guess a few have a secret horse in the fight that I don’t know about.

Probably because of your poorly worded thread. Nobody likes to be misrepresented by some stranger who thinks he knows what everybody else wants. What do you expect when you use ‘we as western players’ and than go ahead to bring up Chinese players finishing the content too fast because you stereotyped them to like grinding. Maybe you’re too young or just too ignorant to see the flaw in your post but if you anger a bull you gotta take its horns.

Again, what he replied with was nowhere in my posts. As to the stereotyping, the only place that I mentioned Chinese players was in regards to the specific complaints from that market as a whole about this game. Get over the SJW mess. It is pretty accepted that eastern MMOs still focus on grinding as a means to keep players tied to a game and that western MMOs often use cash sinks so you have ‘something to lose’ if you quit. There’s nothing sinister about saying this, and there’s certainly nothing derogatory about it either.

Ape Ghosting.7396:

seems like the op is wanting pay to win of some sort. Not sure how paying is going to win in a mmo rpg tho.

Guess you read what you wanted to read in my posts and not what’s actually there. I said nothing about wanting p2w elements in the game.

Not sure why so many are getting defensive about it, but I guess a few have a secret horse in the fight that I don’t know about.

Well, some people have taken the stereotypes to heart, but it’s really not out of sorts to generalize eastern and western MMOs in that way. Eastern publishers in general continue to push games based around grind and gating, sometimes even gating based on real money spent. Western MMOs tend to focus on cosmetics and pay-for-convenience items to continue enticing players between content releases. Eastern games keep players playing by making them invest so much time that they feel like they can’t walk away, and western games do the same via cash. If that’s not PC, oh well, it’s how it shakes out currently.

As to the grind with HoT, it is an increase from what was seen before. You didn’t have to play through the game previously to be your class. There seems at least for now to be a lot more complaining about not being able to play as the new advanced classes going into HoT, but rather having to play inside HoT and jump through hoops to become these new ACs that really don’t tie into the story line anyway. What players have gotten with HoT is not what was expected.

I’m in no way saying that GW2 suddenly reaches the ranks of Asian grinders with the release of HoT, but in my opinion it feels like that aspect is more of what Anet is concerned with than what they’ve been promising. There’s nothing epic or fun about the new Mastery system, and I sure don’t see anything epic in obtaining Legendary weapons via it either. Again, I have no problem with the feedback or criticism, and most of it has been pretty tame, but to those just using my post as a stepping stone for rants about your love of HoT, there are other threads for that. As to real money, secondary game houses are responsible for running games in much of Asia, and the company that handles GW2 has monetized much of what goes on there according to players from the CN server who have come here asking for help.

Regardless, I legitimately don’t feel like what was delivered reflects what this game was said to be about originally, reflects what one would have expected had he played since launch and never heard of HoT until it was released, or of someone who followed the development of HoT and the write-ups and features on it. There’s grind there that feels like it’s there just to keep players logged in and that does nothing to enhance the experience of Guild Wars 2.

And by we, I mean the western players who were the demographic of choice when the game launched. The biggest complaint when Guild Wars 2 hit China was that players burned through the content in no time. There’s still a large segment there that equates MMOs with grind and real money spent. The content host for the Chinese version has contests that reward the players who pay the most cash during the events. Many, many more potential clients await in that market made up of that likes to show off dollars spent in game, and who enjoy knowing that the hours put in today are only the first of many to come.

It’s quite possible that we are the scraps. Players made it clear that what’s come with HoT was not what they were wanting from the outset, but we got it anyway. There has been little to no response from Anet about it. Some bought HoT blindly and in general Anet probably got the revenue they were wanting, perhaps just icing on the cake, and they now have a design that will continue to hold up better in the Chinese market in the future. Just a thought that I had. Feel free to add yours.

What’s really bad for the game is that because of how LS1 was done, lots of playable content was lost, never to be seen again, but dynamic, changing events like that have been wiped out as well, so the old is gone, and there’s nothing new like it to keep the experience going.

HoT definitely isn’t what I was expecting.

I was expecting more from the “living world” as well. As of now we get standard MMO fare: build yourself up, kill imposing boss figure, rinse, repeat. There are some aspects that are interesting, such as LA changing over the course of the game and it being a truly different experience depending on when you enter the world, but the big picture of kill one dragon then kill the next is pretty mundane.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Dancing-With-Dragons-Improving-Iconic-Foes/

That is what I would truly like to see this game become and is more along the lines of what I was expecting.

There’s nothing legendary about this new system except for the time/gold gate that already existed and new grind. It doesn’t add enjoyment. How the devs described the journey and what’s been delivered cannot be reconciled.

It’s poo. The way that they described this system years back and again a few months back when they talked about it being implemented and did an entire press release made it sound like it would be fun and not a grind.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-legendary-journey/

Is there anyone who reads that and thinks that it will requires hours spent spitting out intermediate pieces for crafting or grinding gold to buy them?

Zypher.7609:

Another log on and get for free post. GG op.

The system NEVER promised to give you a precursor it just gives you a non rng way of achieving it. Yes you actually have to do stuff in the game to get this. If you do not like taking your time and working towards the precursor then DON’T. Just go buy it on the AH.

Why do people keep making posts like this? The point is that Anet said they planned to make Legendary crafting a fun pursuit, not something that not only costs more than just buying what you want, but also takes longer in the end. It’s like you’re intentionally being obtuse about it. Do you think you’re proving something with what you said?

AWACS.6537:

My issue is not the price, but how it doesn’t really feel like a ‘Legendary Journey’.

This is my issue. I honestly wouldn’t have minded it taking months to complete, I just thought it would be something fun and well thought out to do. Instead not only is it faster to grind gold and buy someone’s lucky drop/reforging from the TP, it’s less expensive.

As to the fun, I don’t think that continuing to grind gold or grinding out mats, crafting, and on and on are a very fun ideal either. This is not what Anet said their intent was with the new system.

Ykfox.3825:

I’ve been getting a burst of static from my speakers/headphones when I first launch GW2, as far as I can tell all my driver’s are up to date/etc, anyone have an idea what’s causing it/how to fix it?

It does it on other games as well apparently. Don’t know the cause, though.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

The Witcher 3 was pushed 2 times back: And with good reason, the number of bugs at launch were much lower then expected (for a Skyrim size game). All the fans of the game were happy during and after the anouncement with this decision from CD red projekt.

Why can’t people in mmorpg think similar.

I would imagine the people chomping at the bit most anxiously are the ones who pre-ordered. I don’t care when the expansion comes out. Whenever it does I’ll take a look see and decide if it’s worth the money or not.

Well, the same things get brought up again and again. Anet hurt themselves heavily content-wise by making the S1 events one and done. That’s a ton of playable hours that they still have on the back burner to somehow, some way re-implement someday, and to players looking at this game with fresh eyes, this doesn’t look like something that’s been on the market for years. S2 isn’t open world, immersive content like what players do when they first join the game. It’s a lot of instanced, single-player or small party action aside from the grind of SW/Drytop.

The China launch was an abysmal failure because that’s a market that is used to the long grind, and everything this game has to offer PvE-wise can be eaten through in a very short period of time. Since there is no gear treadmill, no reason to remain relative in terms of armor and weapons, a big part of the reason to stick around outside of the initial story is gone. That may be a cliché, but it gives players reason to continue playing once the initial story is over.

What’s unfortunate in this game is that the treadmill is very limited, and focused on whatever can be done for the most gold in the shortest period of time. That comes down to grinding SW/Drytop, grinding dungeons, or grinding mobs if you have high MF. Again, even the devs say this was never the original intent with parts of this game, and it is one of the issues being addressed with the new Legendary system and map rewards. The game’s designers themselves see that things as they are just aren’t enjoyable, and it certainly will be nice for level 80 players to go back to low level areas while scaled down and challenge the Spider Queen, Troll, etc, with players of all other levels in order to get what they’re needing to craft or purchase what they’re wanting.

The bottom line is that manifesto, brainstorm, hodgepodge of ideas, or otherwise, the original ideas presented for this game would make for a lot more longevity than it sits at current. The coming changes will also make for a lot more longevity and are much more in line with the seeming intent of the devs as well.

It’s just strange to me that they start up so much hype and allow a pre-order, yet have no release date. This seems more like a crowd funded venture than a release by a major studio. WoW doesn’t handle expansions this way, SWTOR doesn’t handle them this way, FF doesn’t handle expansions this way. This is the only major title that I know of that asks for money, puts out teasers, and gives not even an estimated date for release.

Seems to be working, though, cause some players have been dropping money on those pre-orders like crazy.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Prototypemind.4026:

My biggest gripe is that come end game, everything comes down to gold. If you want that amazing ascended set or some other pieces you’ve been hoping for, you don’t go out and slay this creature and barter with that merchant; you go grind SW, or get your magic find up and grind mobs, etc and sell whatever you get. Or you stop playing for a while and just wait until your daily rewards build up, buy mats, and sell those to get your gold. That is the worst part of their failure, that the grind for gold is the standard for “achieving” what you want for your character. They literally have the worst system of any MMO that I’ve played in that you cannot even grind specific mobs for what you want in some cases, it’s simply most lucrative to hope you get high dollar drops that can be sold or dismantled for money in order to buy what you really want.

Anet themselves acknowledged this back in 2013 with their planned changes for Legendary Weapons, which will be coming to fruition with HoT. I hope that they incorporate a similar system for Ascended armor, and for the ability to unlock at least one cosmetic set this way as well. The grind that’s in place now is to me one of the worst failures of this game and its Devs’ original intent.

I guess it’s all a matter of time. I’m working on Ascended Armor, and I haven’t purchased a single mat (for anything). I collect all my mats by playing here and there. Mostly wherever the Dailies send me, lol. It’s not the fastest way, I’m sure, but I neither farm nor grind…ever.

Each to their own.

The point was more that you can’t go out and directly farm what you need for many of the items in the game. This is the only MMO I’ve played like that, and again, it means the most efficient way is to farm the highest gold value items, and then later buy what you actually want/need off the MP.

To sum it up, in other games if I want something, I can go out in the world and gain what I need directly; in GW2, I get to play real life sim, and work my 9 to 5 earning gold so that I can buy my Ascended mats on the weekend when I’m off.

thiago.5608:

Xillllix.3485:

They are probably making hardcore dungeons and more stronghold maps as we speak.

I’m really hoping for that!!

Dash your hopes now, before it’s too late.

My biggest gripe is that come end game, everything comes down to gold. If you want that amazing ascended set or some other pieces you’ve been hoping for, you don’t go out and slay this creature and barter with that merchant; you go grind SW, or get your magic find up and grind mobs, etc and sell whatever you get. Or you stop playing for a while and just wait until your daily rewards build up, buy mats, and sell those to get your gold. That is the worst part of their failure, that the grind for gold is the standard for “achieving” what you want for your character. They literally have the worst system of any MMO that I’ve played in that you cannot even grind specific mobs for what you want in some cases, it’s simply most lucrative to hope you get high dollar drops that can be sold or dismantled for money in order to buy what you really want.

Anet themselves acknowledged this back in 2013 with their planned changes for Legendary Weapons, which will be coming to fruition with HoT. I hope that they incorporate a similar system for Ascended armor, and for the ability to unlock at least one cosmetic set this way as well. The grind that’s in place now is to me one of the worst failures of this game and its Devs’ original intent.

Ansau.7326:

Don’t fool yourself.
This thread has gone out of length because now we have an official statement saying a newer API wouldn’t solve the performance. So dx11/12 would only bring new graphic options, which people doesn’t care that much.
That also explains why anet has so little interest in upgrading to a newer API.

And seriously, if you only care about pve and small scale fights, and you say the performance is really bad, then the problem is with your pc, not the game when an intel hd4400 can run the game easily at minimum 1080p.

Where did I say the performance is really bad? I just said it doesn’t match what I get in other titles. The apologists go out of their way like no other to read what they want to read it seems.

Did I not say I that I know that they aren’t without issues? But they are more visually fulfilling, higher res, better character customization in many cases, and in the case of Black Desert, have to potential to offer a lot of unique features if some of the original in-game options are reintroduced.

I’m sorry, but it’s out and out lying to say that those next gen games don’t look better than some of the squared off polys seen in this game. More so, I really don’t care about 100 man zergs. That kind of play never interested me. Small group content, instanced play, and 16-40 man is the largest scale battling I’d look for. There’s really not much enjoyment when things are faceroll because no one can even see what’s going on in a mass of 100 other players.

There’s a reason that WoW upgraded to DX11, that some newer titles did the work to become DX12 compatible before release; GW2 is behind the curve, and worse still is that some titles that came out around the same time look so much better because of more up-to-date engines. Regardless, the competition will be heavy in the coming year, but if people want to pretend that GW2 offering the same old content and one expansion will remain fully competitive, that’s your choice. I’ve logged in twice in the past three months because there’s nothing to do, so lets not act like this game is cutting edge when it comes to things to do. I got bored faster with this game than anything else I’ve played.

It’s not all about performance, but the performance of this game is going to hurt it. It’s not like this thread has gone on at length because no one gives a care how this game plays.

Haleydawn.3764:

If it’s Anets problem, everyone would have lagged out/DC’d.
Get a hoover in your PC, make sure it’s running as cool as possible, did this the other day myself and my temps dropped under heavy load.

Not really. There was an update a few months ago that was so problematic that Anet asked players to post their hardware because it was necessary to correct on an individual basis for certain configurations.

Lhos.1643:

I don’t particularly care if any kind of a trinity ever appears in GW2, but if dungeon fights could require more organization than “stand in a heap and press 1”, that’d be greeeeeeat.

Fully agreed. Stack and spin really isn’t any more enjoyable, and for some classes that lack group utility, they’re even more boring to play than in a typical MMO.

Why can’t a DPS class summon a phatasm or set off a distracting charge that pull the boss or mobs off to the side momentarily? Why can’t one class have a time slow mechanic and another massive damage that needs to charge for use? Why can’t there be more variety in what we get? Every fight is relentless damage from mobs and bosses, waiting on mitigation procs, and spamming attacks. So many of the fights don’t even require enjoyable mechanics.

The lack of trinity here really isn’t all that it can be.

Beldin.5498:

Prototypemind.4026:

They can do as they like. There are a number of better optimized titles coming out in the next year. Player attention will be spread across a lot of other games in the near future, and GW2 is already behind as is.

What titles are you talking about ? Some more generic asian grinders with Unreal
or Crytec Engine ? Is maybe Cabal 2 the next Killer Game ?

The only game i am maybe interestet in at the moment is one with an Engine
das is even a lot more unoptimized that GW2, because it also uses a selfmade
Voxel Engine.

And even the game with Crytec or Unreal Engine had often massive performance
problems when there were massive blobs of players. Ever been in Giran in Lineage 2
or in big Abyss fights in AION ?

Nah, Cabal 2 doesn’t interest me in the least, but Black Desert, Blade & Soul, Kingdom Under Fire 2, Skyforge, Bless, Lost Ark, and whatever else may show up. There are just a lot of more visually pleasing, better optimized titles coming out. I’m not trying to claim that they’re perfect, but to pretend like GW2 is going to continue holding its own performance-wise when it’s not even holding its own currently is lying to yourself.

Well there is still talk as of even this week by the devs that LS1 is still being looked at for a return, but that it will see no resources until HoT is done. Still, that said, HoT really doesn’t seem like it will be offering much more than more real estate to play in. If I’m wrong then all the better, but what was brainstormed in the thread I linked above is the kind of game that I want to play and that this still has the potential to be. I don’t foresee that happening though.

They can do as they like. There are a number of better optimized titles coming out in the next year. Player attention will be spread across a lot of other games in the near future, and GW2 is already behind as is. The PC market is full of players who like to spend their money on rigs that let them play maxed out with little stuttering, rate drop, etc, and moving between titles where this is and isn’t an issue will catch up over time.

Dinosaurs will die. HoT seems like more of the same, there were already a lot of complaints about how the pre-order was handled, and lagging behind the competition performance-wise will just be one more hurdle to overcome. SWTOR manages because of great story-telling; that game would be all but dead otherwise. I have logged into GW2 exactly twice in the past three months, and knowing that it’s never going to be optimized, or at least not in the near future, really doesn’t up my desire to check back in.

Guhracie.3419:

Prototypemind.4026:

Guhracie.3419:

Einlanzer.1627:

Generally, I prefer the new LA both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. However, the marine animal buildings are goofy and kind of out of place.

It’s a port city, originally built by pirates. How are those buildings out of place?

Also, there are exits to both Gendarran Fields and Lornar’s Pass, still.

Cheesiest pirates ever to make their buildings look like marine life.

I said it was originally built by pirates. If you don’t know anything about the city’s lore, you can’t say it’s not lore appropriate. It was constructed with the nautical theme in mind, to honor the city’s origins. And that squid building is the best building in the entire game.

Can’t say it’s that inspiring. When I first started playing I ran all over Divinity’s Reach to see everything there was to see. For the new LA, I logged in, looked around, and logged out.

Guhracie.3419:

Einlanzer.1627:

Generally, I prefer the new LA both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. However, the marine animal buildings are goofy and kind of out of place.

It’s a port city, originally built by pirates. How are those buildings out of place?

Also, there are exits to both Gendarran Fields and Lornar’s Pass, still.

Cheesiest pirates ever to make their buildings look like marine life.

They promised a something ever changing, interesting, and dynamic. HoT doesn’t look to be that. I just want to be excited to play again. If I’m the only one not pleased then ah well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Dancing-With-Dragons-Improving-Iconic-Foes

This is what I want. Inspiring story. A dynamic, shifting set of encounters. Logging in and wondering exactly what I will be seeing. I won’t be buying HoT because as of now, I just don’t foresee it increasing the immersion, actually making me feel like I’m part of the struggle against these evil elder dragons. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t even log in for the log in rewards. Give us the promise that this game was, experiences that no other game can touch.

sorudo.9054:

IMO this LA is like an oversized playground for kids, it doesn’t even look like a hub let alone a city.

Agreed. It was where I was last stationed when I logged out before the update, so it was my first venue when logging back in. It feels like the kind of thing an inept investment group does when building over lower-income or disaster areas. They don’t bother with keeping a connection to what was before, they just build bright and shiny and call it a day.

I logged in, shot the breeze for a few minutes, then logged right back out. It’s uninspiring to say ze least.

We’re all just brains in a vat, man. Don’t fear the reaper.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter how difficult it is, it needs to be done. It’s the job of those who do the modeling to produce something pleasing for players, and losing you locks every time you don a hat isn’t pleasing anyone. It happens in other games, it needs to happen here.

Jerus.4350:

Arobain.8274:

So apparently everytime someone puts on a hat, our hair completely disappears, this really just makes players not want to wear said hats, for example, the ringmasters hat is cool, but my asura loses his great hair when i put it on, i’m sure this isn’t that difficult to do so the hair stays where the hat doesn’t touch or something?

The “it’s not that difficult” comment… have you ever tried to do it? Have you ever seen it done well in some game, namely one with this game’s level of graphics?

To do it they’d have to somehow block out just the hair that would clip, well then we move, so that changes.

It’s not so easy.

Vindictus, Aeon, Tera, even SWTOR. And Black Desert, Blade & Soul, Bless, Kingdom Under Fire 2, and many upcoming/possible releases also do this without issue.

shiney.4629:

Prototypemind.4026:

Bottom line is that they have to face the music. Blizzard has basically said that flying will be removed from WoW going forward. Perhaps there’s been an about face because of the backlash, I don’t know, but I do know that they were up front about the change and didn’t hide it from the players. Transparency is part of running a good MMO.

This isn’t true..Blizzard has done a U turn and is added flying back into WoD due to “popular” demand. And their hasnt been a blizzard post on the shaman forums for years. Since this kind of thing happened to the old shaman rep. People went mental over silly stuff. So they removed their feedback to shamans.

Perhaps Anet MIGHT be more willing to communicate with the community if the community didn’t loose their kitten over the smallest, most meaningless thing. As this last week has shown.

Polite communication and respect is a two way street. The community after the way its responded this week, doesn’t deserve any better IMHO than total silence..

As I said, I wasn’t sure if they changed their minds, I just know that they didn’t hide it. I also know that they don’t hide what’s coming with each expansion. Player’s know what they’re getting well before hand.

As to Anet, can you honestly say that threads like bring back SAB and Bunny Ears have been less than civil? Players have asked and asked and asked, the majority of them politely, for these things to be re-included and Anet basically remains silent on them. If they can’t even communicate in the small things, I think it’s silly to expect more as a whole.

Like I said, EAWare has made recent changes, so perhaps Anet will as well. It’s definitely needed if they want this game to retain its players.

Bottom line is that they have to face the music. Blizzard has basically said that flying will be removed from WoW going forward. Perhaps there’s been an about face because of the backlash, I don’t know, but I do know that they were up front about the change and didn’t hide it from the players. Transparency is part of running a good MMO.

SWTOR has been horrid because of EA’s stance on communication, but recently there have been changes to how changes are presented, and there’s much more detail overall about why things are put into place and what’s to come. A second large scale MMO being up front about the future. Anet needs to step their game up.

Ykfox.3825:

Okay, I’m confused. How do people seem to know how much content we’re getting when the expansion isn’t even out?

I’ve not been in any of the Beta’s for HoT, but I can’t see them giving access to every single zone anyways.

That’s the point: $50 and up pre-order price tag with horrid transparency about what it’s delivering. The value just isn’t there at this point, and it’s further upset players because that base price doesn’t include an additional character slot, meaning there’s no choice but to pay more or to start a new account in order to experience it.

There’s nothing good about the way this has been handled so far.

The argument that this is a non-subscription game doesn’t hold water in the least. There are plenty of F2P games that sustain themselves and offer full releases of new content at no additional cost. Anet already makes money off of box/digital sales and cleans up with gem sales to boot. Trying to justify what appears to be a rather thin expansion costing $50 by claiming the woes of being B2P is an empty argument.

As it stands this expansion looks utterly anemic. Anet has done a horrible, horrible job with the reveal. Heck EAWare just revealed it’s first teases of what’s coming with the next SWTOR content releases, all of which will be at no additional charge for subscribers, and on top of that they’ve given a completely firm date as to when early and standard access will begin. To see EA handling its future content better than Anet is just sad. There has been backlash like this to some extent elsewhere, but Anet’s further hands-off nature in correcting the issues and addressing the community makes it even worse.

They could announce that the expansion will be fifteen times larger than the original game at this point and I wouldn’t buy it. Anet has gotten worse and worse and worse at dealing with its community. Snarky comments from staff and flippant remarks on Facebook followed by an incident like this don’t inspire confidence. My money is going elsewhere.

Destai.9603:

At some point one could conceivably run out of content. I don’t think it’s the moment you ding to 80.

There’s so much more to do.
1. Achievements
2. World Exploration
3. Living Story
4. Obtaining armor sets
5. Obtaining ascended gear
6. Jumping Puzzles
7. PvP

This game is what you make it, really.

Just from my point of view:
1. Achievements/titles I only do if there’s a benefit. In my main current MMO, you get stat boosts for many of the titles, and they add up to make a bit of difference. Farming AP for an armor set doesn’t appeal much to me.

2. World exploration I only began to eventually get a legendary. It got old clearing every mission, finding every POI, and doing every skill challenge just for completion’s sake.

3. Living Story at this point requires either grinding out gold or paying real money for what isn’t really a massive content release. It’s not as bad as a recent expansion in another title I frequented, but it’s not good either.

4. Obtaining new looks isn’t bad at all, it’s just a horrid transmutation system that makes it not enjoyable. I could not keep up with my look for toons while leveling multiple characters at once via the exploration and log in rewards, and having to PvP or pay real money to do so is unappealing. This is Fashion Wars and end game, and it’s not very well executed.

5. Getting Ascended really only serves a purpose if you do fractals. It wouldn’t be so kittenomething to occupy players if you could directly farm the mats, but you can’t, so like other things at end game, it become a gold grind to get what you really want.

6. Jumping Puzzles I can take or leave, but unless you like that kind of platforming on top of a bit of annoying hopping around that’s already been done to get POIs/Skill points as you leveled, it can be tiresome pretty quickly. Again, all that jumping for very little reward.

7. How many PvP maps are there? It loses its luster pretty quickly.

No game will ever be perfect. People play multiple board games, single-player/co-op games, card games, and whatever else because nothing can entertain endlessly. That said, there’s a reason that most games have end game raiding and gear progression. Players want to feel their characters growing, becoming more powerful, expanding their skills, etc. Currently this game scarcely offers more than one gear load out for optimum clearing of most dungeon, fractal, and open-world encounters, so there’s no incentive to spend the time acquiring gear with other stats. No new dungeons or fractals have been added in quite sometime, and the upcoming group content will be open-world as well.

This game really caters to casual play here and there, with no worries of falling behind if you’ve been gone for one month or one year. There’s no expansive new story at 80—being rectified soon, but it’s been a very, very long time in the making compared to any other AAA or worse MMO. There’s no character progression beyond 80 at current. There’s no path to progress in any meaningful way at 80. There is a path being laid out, but at this pace, players won’t get to face all of the dragons of Tyria—assuming that all are to be fought—until somewhere around fifteen years from now, maybe even later.

If you watch developer interviews, the majority of those involved with other titles tout end game as the goal for their players, the place where the true game experience really sets in. This game has gone on another path, and has suffered for it. Living Story would have been an amazing alternative if it didn’t disappear every two weeks. It hurts a game when everything else out there allows players at least the option of experiencing almost every bit of core/world-shaping content no matter when they pick up the title.

Now this game is going to the expansion route. The main problem is that hundreds of hours of playable content disappeared with LS: Season 1, and S2 is nothing but unessential side story in terms of advancement, meaning that new players coming to the game today see a massive lack of content when comparing this title to any other MMO that launched concurrently or in the majority of cases even long after it. Heck, even larger themed events like Super Adventure Box have yet to be repeated, where as most MMOs bring such content back on a semi-regular basis to mix things up for veteran players and generate excitement for players that haven’t seen it yet.

For all intents and purposes, HoT is the first permanent content expansion this game will see, and its first real end game, with Silver Wastes, Dry Top, and LS: Season 2 serving only as stop gaps that can mostly be ignored by anyone picking up the title once it hits. End game, whether in the form of meaningful exploration, rewarded achievement, or continued high-level questing is far, far behind where it should be.

They can’t come back too soon. They need to make you salivate so that you’ll buy extra when they finally return, just in case you roll some new alts.

Battledoll.1803:

On average, you will get 3 – 4 scraps from opening 10 BL chests. If you are super lucky, you may even get a claim ticket (but don’t count on that). A key run (level to 10 and do the story) takes roughly 40 min.

If you craft up to level 10 and have your gear ready to go 20-30 mins should be all it takes. 10 extra minutes a run adds up pretty quickly when you’re doing it multiple times.

dszteina.4058:

ChoChoBo.6503:

Can I claim hacks?

Can I say, lies?

Lols, it looks like this guy got hacked, and the hacker is insta-selling everything in his inventory/bank.

I was actually leveling huntsman with some gold from t6 mats.

PS: I’m not saying people should spend all their gold and try to gamble the forge. Just if you have some extra forge stones and dungeon tokens…it couldn’t hurt to try.

But it could hurt to try, because RNG is garbage and you could get better return on those items by salvaging or selling than by being slapped in the face by the toilet god.

maddoctor.2738:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

I think one of the biggest issues in this game right now, is that some of the easiest content in the game gives the greatest rewards, while some of the most difficult content gives, comparatively speaking, greatly inferior rewards.

^^ This is my number one issue with the game. Their horrible distribution of rewards among content types.

You can just compare the different paths of a specific dungeon to see how failed their reward system is, for example look at the rewards of Sorrows Embrace explorable paths. SE P2 is never-ever being run because it’s the longest path in the entire game, you can run SE P1 5-7 times (more with a good group) at the same time required to do a single SE P2 yet their difference in rewards very little.

And let’s not mention story modes that take far far longer than explorable modes, and yet they offer no rewards at all.

It’s annoying and irritating that the most brain dead activities in the game like Bloodtide Coast farming and Silverwastes chest farming (or when it is active the Halloween labyrinth) are the most profitable activities in the entire game.

Sure there will be other profitable farms if these are nerfed, but we are not talking about a small profit here, the profit of those farms outperforms playing any other type of content, is this really what players want? I don’t think “they will find another farm” is a valid argument.

Such borderline exploitative farms shouldn’t exist, or at least make other types of content give out more rewards for the time and investment they require.

There’s also the fact that like too many other games gold becomes the most worthwhile standard. There’s no way to earn the mats, etc, you need directly because Anet have tied RNG to everything. Legendary quests will help alleviate this some, but it still doesn’t fix the way exotics and Ascended crafting materials work, as well as skins.

Malediktus.3740:

Just look what Final Fantasy is doing. Regular updates + a much larger expansion than GW2 will be getting.

FF also didn’t do it right from the start. It took a shutdown for a rework to get them into a good place. That said, it’s also subscription-based with that funding going into a much larger studio. Revenue doesn’t fix everything, but it certainly helps, and this game can’t fund that level of development.

Even with that in mind. The content roll out has been poor. Living Story S2 is all the worse for not offering dynamic content that groups can hop into. There should be instanced fights, but there should also be a continuation of open world play, and Dry Top/Silver Wastes are not enough to sustain that.

I see plenty explaining how people need to manage the fight, how the successfully clear it, etc, but rarely if ever do I hear anyone say that they enjoy doing it. I think that says more than whether or not the fight can be managed.

Not really much end game in GW2 besides the glamor of your outfit. Silver Wastes is just to farm mats, Dry Top for a few trinkets or if you’re overly bored. The expansion is very much needed to give level 80 players more to do.

Living Story with updates every two weeks would have been amazing… if they didn’t delete the old content for all intents and purposes after that bi-weekly period was up. The way it was implemented means that it’s one and done and if it’s missed you’re simply not connected to the game as you could have been. We’ll see how it goes in the future.

There are issues with the fights in this game in that the endurance system for dodges really doesn’t fit the attack style of many bosses., and the hit boxes are glitched on certain fights. Sorry to hear that you don’t find the fights enjoyable though.