Guild Wars 2

A little bit of the September wvw tournament, a little bit of gifts for my legendary…..

…..and lots of Wasteland 2

after that, who knows? I’ll still have a lot of time to kill until Camelot Unchained comes out.

Roybe.5896:

Furyan.9578:

Vayne.8563:

Because they really did run tests with new players and this kept new players playing longer and staying with the game longer. This is what Colin said directly. A year of testing on new players.

The thing I find fraudulent about that is we were all new players once. I don’t know anyone out of all the players I know who had difficulties with how the systems worked before this patch. After the patch is a different story, so saying its to help new players is a self-defeating standpoint.

How new a player were you when you didn’t know how to WASD? Or understand what anything on screen meant, at all? Or didn’t know what any keys did? If you are trying to attract this demographic then these things need to be taught. They found that tutorial areas do nothing to help the situation or are not cost effective to implement. So they are giving that experience in the starter areas. Oh, and guess what? They have PROOF this is the best way to do this. If you do not accept their proof that’s on you. I’m pretty sure they are as surprised as we are at what they had to do to successfully onboard new players with retention in mind.

Fostering dependency and passive learning are about as far removed from educating as you can get.

Sorry, but what is offered is some marketing suits ‘idea’ of teaching.

Real teaching empowers a person with the knowledge and tools they need to independently set and attain their own goals. It will also test the concepts learned in some way to ensure that the knowledge has been understood and retained.

When I did the dodge tutorial…. walking straight through the spikes and failing to dodge at all allowed you to open the same chest and collect your prize as succeeding in dodging did. This begs the question ‘what exactly is being taught?’

Teaching somebody to wait for their tracker to tell them what to do next will only set them up to be dependent on the tracker and encourages a lazy and passive mindset.

Working as Intended

Welcome to the new epic and exciting reward system of epic and exciting rewards, which are, by the way most excitingly epic!

ReV.6097:

Toxica.6749:

New
Pudding-Brain
Enticements

Whovian

I was trying to find something to go with Exterminate on the E, but wasn’t sure what N and P words would fit with it.

hehe, guilty as charged comrade!

Nihilus.3015:

All their testers were over the age 40

I’m in that ‘wrong side of 40’ bracket.

I don’t even conceive of this as a game anymore….. it’s more like Second Life with Achievement Points to me.

Good virtual place to timeout from stress and challenge and spend some time with friends as all ‘big tent’ games ultimately are.

Gaming is to be found in niche products nowadays and less and less under the big tent.

All the ‘gamers making it especially for gamers’ hype in the world isn’t going to change that anytime soon.

New
Pudding-Brain
Enticements

I have the feeling that this level of mollycoddling will end in Ascalonian Tears!

Both the new trait system and the new levelling system, having led them by the nose through all gameplay, will start nagging them to head to AC around lvl 30

I see nothing in either the April or September FP’s that is imparting the sort of knowledge they will need in their first dungeon.

I can’t help but think they are being set up for failure later on and I predict that slowly the whole game will become as mindless as 1-15 now is in order to accomodate.

Here’s my problem with only listening to metrics….
With the latest LS we can go ahead and make ourselves the ascended Mawdrey piece.

Part of the requirement is that you get a piece from fractals. Metrics alone will show the player base attended fractals. What it wont show is any players that are angry about being forced to play one certain game mode to get a prize from another game mode. If you hate fractals and want the back piece ascended you just have to swallow the bitter pill.

My concern is that the trend of late has been to more and more directed play, especially if you want to earn any loot, which will inherently pressure people to take on tasks they hate, resulting in data that is completely meaningless.

on a lvl 6 guard so far ‘more relevant loot’ has meant getting a mace, followed by a mace and to switch it up look a mace!… Great stuff, considering i’m levelling on staff

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Toxica.6749:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Morsus.5106:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Morsus.5106:

Can you prove that this isn’t just a bunch of speculators?

There is probably legitimate concern due to the previews that have been posted on youtube over the last couple of days. WoodenPotatoes has done 2. Someone else has done 1 that I’ve seen, and there’s a 3 part preview in German. Some of which cover the various collections, their requirements, and their rewards in some detail.

Edit: I’m curious about the guides though. I haven’t seen those.

I’m not familiar with the workings of a market, but when it’s posted freely online, that doesn’t really require you to be an “insider”.

I guess “friend of an insider” would be more accurate. You need to follow the people who have “special preacess” to the patches if you want to make any money.

Dulfy has a guide up now if you are looking for one. It is too late though.

The worst offender is probably the home instance chest… 3 days ago it would have cost you about 50g to get it…

It is about 2000g to get it now…

And oh the buyers remorse when they open it daily to get …..

2 blues and a green

The 1 or 2 people who bought up 100 of them at 3g and are selling them for 50g a pop are unlikely to have much remorse…

?
was talking about those coughing up 2000g to get their home instance chest… not the people cashing in on them

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Morsus.5106:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Morsus.5106:

Can you prove that this isn’t just a bunch of speculators?

There is probably legitimate concern due to the previews that have been posted on youtube over the last couple of days. WoodenPotatoes has done 2. Someone else has done 1 that I’ve seen, and there’s a 3 part preview in German. Some of which cover the various collections, their requirements, and their rewards in some detail.

Edit: I’m curious about the guides though. I haven’t seen those.

I’m not familiar with the workings of a market, but when it’s posted freely online, that doesn’t really require you to be an “insider”.

I guess “friend of an insider” would be more accurate. You need to follow the people who have “special preacess” to the patches if you want to make any money.

Dulfy has a guide up now if you are looking for one. It is too late though.

The worst offender is probably the home instance chest… 3 days ago it would have cost you about 50g to get it…

It is about 2000g to get it now…

And oh the buyers remorse when they open it daily to get …..

2 blues and a green

I have 8 lvl 80’s also… with the cd’s on crafting ascended mats they should all be geared in ascended weapons and armor by next century sometime.

So basically a choice between the two races Asura and Bookah

Class is a non-factor for Asurans, they rock all the classes.

lol indeed!

All the crafting mats I donated at the cliffs would have at least built a decent pub.

Awww. I was hoping that some day they would introduce Largos as a player race, not because I have any interest in playing them, but for a full map underwater complete with underwater towns and cities

I have a lvl 80 of each class and do notice that some classes feel really strong underwater and some feel like fish food, so I guess there were problems with balance for pvp/wvwvw.

In pve I hardly see people in underwater events like the ones in straits of devastation, so I wonder if their data is showing that players are avoiding water combat.

I’ll be very sad if they take away my ability to get those temporary quaggan potions. They already took away (or broke) the fun of using the little charzooka while in little blue quaggan form. One of the funniest things I ever saw in this game was when about 15 mini quaggans armed with charzookas fought the old Tequatl (tnx JQ FOO and friends xD)

Don’t forget you don’t have to solo LS … take a friend or two if its proving to be too much of a headache.

Best: The Asuran Race!!

Worst: NO LABCOATS!!

Seriously did Norn make this game?
-signed Angry Asuran Army

I would rather see the crafting requirements for dragonite ore reduced than the drop rate increased, say 50 per brick instead of 100. This would not impact vault space for those already overloaded.

I do like the idea suggested by Lilith for mat exchange between ascended mats.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Toxica.6749:

I have 7 alts but am expected to buy one for each if I want the permanent tool for each… (around 80 bucks for the picks and 240 for all 3 tools for each).

They made those tools account bound so people wouldn’t have to buy one for each alt . . . And they gave refunds to people who DID buy multiples for alts before the change.

And that is a completely useless solution for someone with a lot of alts switching between them often with full bank space to sustain them.
Regardless 30 bucks for 3 tools v’s 10 bucks for a whole expansion…..

Hi Adry
I semi-returned in April (I play another game as well as this one).
I also bought the infinite mining pick for around 10 dollars here. I have 7 alts but am expected to buy one for each if I want the permanent tool for each… (around 80 bucks for the picks and 240 for all 3 tools for each).

As a comparison, the other game I play 10 dollars just bought me the biggest expansion they have done to date.

Ultimately for me it’s about where I feel I get good value for my money and I’m sorry to say, it’s definitely not here.

Draknar.5748:

Toxica.6749:

OOOooooh do we get to show off our legendary gem purchasing abilities or legendary BLTP trading skills like we do for the weapons?

If the armor wasn’t sellable and the reqs to get required something like 5k of each dungeon token, completed FoTM50, obviously 100% map completion, max crafts in all crafts, complete personal story, 15k AP, 5k PvP kills, 10k badges of honor, etc. etc. It should require things you can’t just dish out money to get or purchase on TP. Then you would know that person actually was legendary.

I would support it if these things were requirements.

Absolutely. It should have had more to do with achievements in game from the get go. It makes sense lore wise too, if you had done that many achievements you would indeed be the toast of Tyria and quite the legend.

Unfortunately for us NCSoft seems to think legendary pertains to something else entirely (like the size of your wallet).

OOOooooh do we get to show off our legendary gem purchasing abilities or legendary BLTP trading skills like we do for the weapons?

Seems to me some of the scaling is off too.
Today taking Balthazaar was way too easy and by contrast I was knee deep in dead allies at the krait event near where Tequatl spawns.

i need-
/kick zorromos

Anet seriously needs to cap the full servers now and encourage people to move to less populated ones with the last of the free transfer time.

JQ queue times have been getting more and more lengthy in peak since the announcement was made.

Anyone contemplating moving to JQ should be asking themselves seriously how long they are prepared to wait to get to play wvw, knowing that they are only adding to the queue times by trying to cram onto a full server.

For what its worth Sled, I think you guys made the smart decision.

VOLKON.1290:

Toxica.6749:

VOLKON.1290:

Toxica.6749:

I have to agree Jammy, this is the ONLY mmo i’ve ever played where my maxed lvl crafter cannot gather the mats in time to make a guildmate armor b4 they outlevel it 10 levels.

Another competing b2p forever game is benefitting from Anet’s DR here atm as that’s where this households per month on gems is going.

Keep in mind this may also be the only MMO you’ve ever played where it takes about the same time to go from one level to the next instead of an increasing amount of time per level. You level faster in this game, so no, you won’t have nearly as much time to gather mats before you out-level an intended mid-level armor for example.

So a lvl 80 400 crafter can’t make a lvl 30 guildmate some armor. Tell me do you think this is a crafting system that’s working ?

Why can’t you? If you’re a 400 crafter you can make anyone practically anything, just need the mats. There’s the AH, you can buy them, or better yet… have your friend gather the bits and pieces he needs for you.

You supplied the reason why my guildie can’t gather them remember ….. he’ll level fast

VOLKON.1290:

Toxica.6749:

I have to agree Jammy, this is the ONLY mmo i’ve ever played where my maxed lvl crafter cannot gather the mats in time to make a guildmate armor b4 they outlevel it 10 levels.

Another competing b2p forever game is benefitting from Anet’s DR here atm as that’s where this households per month on gems is going.

Keep in mind this may also be the only MMO you’ve ever played where it takes about the same time to go from one level to the next instead of an increasing amount of time per level. You level faster in this game, so no, you won’t have nearly as much time to gather mats before you out-level an intended mid-level armor for example.

So a lvl 80 400 crafter can’t make a lvl 30 guildmate some armor. Tell me do you think this is a crafting system that’s working ?

I have to agree Jammy, this is the ONLY mmo i’ve ever played where my maxed lvl crafter cannot gather the mats in time to make a guildmate armor b4 they outlevel it 10 levels.

Another competing b2p forever game is benefitting from Anet’s DR here atm as that’s where this households per month on gems is going.

I don’t think any one person should be getting trolled over Anet’s very very poor implementation of commander icons.

How poor is it? Well let’s all just go ahead and buy one to demonstrate how well thought out this wasn’t.

Sorry Anet battlefield ‘leadership’ should be demonstrated not purchased. Hopefully the new plans for wvw progression (prestige and advancement) will sort out the disrespect the OP is currently enduring.

@TheDaiBish.9735

A great deal of single player PC games ship with the ability to play easy/normal/hard and you just go ahead and play what you want. You dont sit around worrying about what difficulty other people run. you just enjoy yourself at whatever level you are comfortable with.

Is it really such a radical suggestion to open up the instances in this way to ensure the broadest access?

What other people do in their groups has no bearing on my group or yours… we all choose our groups. I personally like to fight all the mobs in a dungeon, others like to skip them. I can happily run with like minded people without begrudging someone else the way their group likes to play.

The point I made about age/disability/computer power was made to illustrate that we have people of all levels of skill playing v’s explore difficulty as the only option for tokens. I know parents that have young children in their laps playing, I have a friend who struggles with green poisons and red circles due to colourblindness and have people in guild who lag right out in instances who are extremely capable players in other games that don’t stress out their computers. If they offered an easier mode with dimished token rewards to cater to these people, in what way would it affect what you are doing?

I agree the community can help. The L2P argument however is anti community… we have people of all ages, people with disabilities, people on old computers.

Does it affect anyone running the dungeons currently if easier and harder versions (with difficulty appropriate token rewards) are introduced? Definitely not. Keep running the level u like.

Many people have expressed having trouble with instances on these forums, in particular people who wish to attempt instances at level, a more inclusive approach ensures that server populations stay healthy

And again Anet themselves have expressed in their ‘2013’ preview video that they wish the game to be more inclusive.

Well thanks for the free advice but I actually wasn’t making the proposal for myself.

It pretty much comes down to, the more players feel gated from content, the more likely they are to leave, this has a knockon effect for future development, which hurts anyone who cares about a healthy future for the game.

Anet have expressed that they wish to be more inclusive in 2013, I simply suggested a method to achieve that with instances.

Also it is ‘weak’ players that need good gear the most, in order to compensate for their shortcomings…. players who fancy themselves as awesome should by all rights be able to run in the white armor at the instance level and should definitely not have to hedge bets with ‘must be lvl 80, experienced and in full exotic’.

People paid for the whole game and therefore should be able to access the whole game no matter what their skill level.

The problem with the current structure of dungeons is that the players that need the most help are the least likely to get through. So great players get geared up very easily and not so great players are left struggling.

An easy solution for ‘one size fits all’ would be to have each explorable path be able to be played in 3 different modes: normal, elite, nightmare.

For a normal run a group should be able to tackle the instance ‘at level’ wearing their blues and greens and net a small amount of tokens. A nightmare run would be aimed at lvl 80’s in full exotic and would net a much larger amount of tokens and the elite run falling somewhere between the two.

People would be able to choose to tackle the instance at whatever level they are comfortable with. Elitists can still enjoy the fact that they completed their gear set with much less runs and people struggling eventually get the gear they need via many more runs.

Let’s cater to everyone Anet, it’s a good way to keep people happy and playing here well into the future.

I find that the game drops a single target way too easily… this needs to be improved for single target builds b4 anything like this is implemented.

I play 7/8 professions and I must admit this has me very concerned for my engineer. Already the most underplayed class in game it’s hard to find any weapon/kit setup which is aoe free.

Thieves are already too numerous in wvw thanks to the introduced culling… hope more thought is given to the consequences of this.

“by artificially creating inconveniences to be fixed through bought-only conveniences”

You do realize that people can read all the creative embellishments that you’ve added on my behalf to what I ‘actually’ stated.

Infact most of what you put forward is to argue against a point that seems to exist only in your mind.

@Erasculio
I encourage you to research NCSoft’s stock performance over this past year.

Pay attention to just how much money they lost and blade and soul, and point out where they will make up the shortfall other than in their one showcase product. Look carefully at just how much the other titles they own earn. It’s not a conspiracy to understand that shareholders expect quarterly returns on their investment.

The excessive goldsinks are a niave attempt by NCSoft to strongarm players toward converting real money to game gold.

I say niave as it seems to be more effective at pushing people off the game altogether.

I couldn’t think of anything worse than a whole heap of new grind with the DR and worst droprates in industry.

By 2013 I think its more likely that my hard earned will go to TESO.
One thing is certain, after the experience of this game I’ll never touch another NCSoft product as long as I live.

Same as Pearl… toon in use is stuck between heart of the mists and LA load screens, can log onto others

Great post, I really hope these idea’s get some deserved attention.

A couple I would add would be:-
1) Make tokens a currency like karma (I swear I have left hundreds lying out on the battlefield), by all means keep the ‘loot’ in the lootbags but plz make tokens a currency.

2) Commander Icon should not be a reward for shopping… it should be earned in some way out on the battlefield.

I don’t believe so, all games with vertical progression eventually offer an ezmode for gearing up toons in order to catch up the casual players.

They aren’t going to let the working people with the money to spend get left behind.

As an altaholic myself i’m fine going without Ascended for now and waiting until they make gearing alts a possiblility.

Though I agree with the sentiment of what you are posting, that one should not begrudge those who were smart enough to shop for a good deal on the game… your tone is a disgrace. You come off as lecturing your peers and have the cheek to tell other people to get over themselves.

Currently i’m not playing, the grind for me is just too epic as I personally like to be able to sustain several lvl 80’s (they allow me to mix it up and it helps keep the game fresh for me).

I’m willing to wait and see whether and how the ‘moving forwards’ are implemented and whether they support me being able to play alts or not.

As to ‘trust’ i’ve learned to expect the unexpected unless something is stated categorically. Will I make gem purchases? Depends on whether I feel included or excluded in terms of access to gear/content.

I would always welcome more looks to armor, I know that some of my friends who have leather wearing classes are concerned about every set being a ‘trenchcoat’.

I’m concerned that because ‘ascended’ set will be so hard to earn that people will want to show off their work and we all may end up in a uniform look.

The most lacking area for me however is ‘town clothes’, there is not a single thing that looks ok on a female charr in there, and the default town clothes look like someone took to my charr with some corregated cardboard and a staple gun.

About 2 months ago Anet were advertising for costume artists (modelling and texturing) so hopefully new stuff will emerge before long.

Anet said it was primarily aimed at their ‘dedicated players’ who had skipped the entire game in their rush to get geared.

Are you really that surprised that the same crowd would want to rush through and skip this content to get geared ?

Can someone ask how they justify DR in this ‘zero grind’ philosophy of theirs ?

Avatar.1923:

Toxica.6749:

Now that progression and grind have become the name of the game there’s really no point to me playing this game where they were added as an afterthought.

There are many titles on the market where character progression and related grind were a part of the design philosphy and intent and they do these things far better than Anet can ever hope to.

how many hours did you play ?
there IS a point to the game until the grind kicks in.
still, some players actually do continue to play diablo 3 after finishing inferno, just to do it faster…

something i need a psycology class about human nature to understand i suppose.

Thank you for explaining that there is a point to levelling before the grind kicks in.
I only have 4 lvl 80 toons and 3 in the 20’s and i’m failing to see that point in those empty early zones to be honest.
Having lvl’d 6/8 professions I’d have to argue that the grind actually kicks in at lvl 2 if you craft.

I have given this game more than its fair share of chances, have watched it erode from the first beta to what it currently is. Infact this current gear controversy has its roots in beta w’end one where whiners successfully lobbied anet into making the game ezmode. This allowed players to burn through the content a lot faster than expected and lead to the ascended gear introduction sooner rather than later.

If you think this game has merit in gear progress, good for you, I’m not stopping you from enjoying it.
TSW offers the exact same sort of gear progress PLUS you can pick and choose which skills you develop, can totally customise your skill bar, no skills are linked to weapons, you can evolve your build to be more healy, tanky or have more dps, you can be a hybrid of all. All of these options simply because a gear treadmill was never an afterthought but a design intent.

Now that progression and grind have become the name of the game there’s really no point to me playing this game where they were added as an afterthought.

There are many titles on the market where character progression and related grind were a part of the design philosphy and intent and they do these things far better than Anet can ever hope to.

The new gear was aimed at people who were already ahead of the average player, enlarging the gap.

I’d like to know what casual players/ explorers/ altaholics/ WvW’ers can expect from the company to stop them being left behind.

I find it hard to believe that anyone inside the Anet building had anything to do with recent decisions.

What corporation would spend 5 years establishing brand loyalty and then throw that hard work out in the first 3 months? Add to that, what company in its right mind would introduce such controversy at the time they needed Christmas sales?

This stinks of NCSoft all the way.