Guild Wars 2

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

What happens when a smart, cunning, skilled player can basically walk all over your game? What positive effects . . . as a whole, does that have if they learn early on all they need to do is stand where something can’t hit them and hit the monsters back?

When a game is properly designed, this doesn’t happen. And if every monster had a ranged attack, this would literally never happen.

Pathing-based invulnerability is a cheap mechanic that doesn’t always work properly, resulting in it triggering in odd places and at times when it shouldn’t.

As I know I’ve said multiple times, I’d had it incorrectly trigger while I stood right next to a mob, simply because the mob was engaging me in underwater melee and our z-axis didn’t match up perfectly, so the game thought I was trying to “cheat” and slapped invulnerability on him….until it realized that we were both still hitting each other, then it would go back off. Then back on. And so on, until I gave up and readjusted myself so the game would properly read us as both in combat.

In fact the game struggles to understand “combat” in general, as it often will still think I’m in combat long after I’ve fled from a mob’s aggro range.

I have never experienced this same problem on any mob with ranged attacks.

It’s clearly not working the way it should, and ranged attacking allows them to escape this hazard, so why not get rid of it and slap ranged attacks on everyone?

More to the point, what happens when you have that going on in a game where one group of players who can pretty much farm with impunity are playing alongside ones who don’t? Or more to the point, if everyone does it and there is no challenge?

We saw back in early GW1 the proliferation of certain farming builds because they were super efficient and almost unstoppable. I say “almost” because they required a lot of skill to pull off, and an intricate use of the system. But once you knew how? As many Ectoplasms as you had time to go farm. Or other objects, with no risk to you.

Aside from self-benefits, exactly how does this make the game better?

We already have all of that in this game.

How is the removal of a bugged mechanic going to change this fact?

Heijincks.9267:

If ascended was big enough of a debacle, they would have removed it.

They didn’t. I suppose they’re referring to it as a debacle in the relative sense. As far as grinding ascended is concerned, the “grind” isn’t traditional grind. It’s merely time “gated”, but there’s a huge distinction between that and grind itself.

This is wrong.

There are a lot of companies that make mistakes in their games all the time and choose not to correct them because they figure that, in the long run, they’ll get away with it anyways.

Star Wars Galaxies made a massive change in the way the game’s character creation worked back in 2005, which stirred up a huge debacle and created a significant exodus from the game. They stayed alive, of course, but their population was much smaller (they were nearly down to100k by the year 2007, having started with about 250k prior to the expansion’s release in late 2005). Eventually they were canned in favor of the new Star Wars MMO that EA and Bioware were making. But they never once thought to reverse the change, even though some of their devs later admitted the decision was a stupid one.

The rush to integrate DRM into single-player titles (such as the Assassin’s Creed series, Diablo 3, and recently SimCity, to name a few) has caused problems in virtually every game it’s been done in, but companies keep doing it. Why? Because you already bought the game, they have your money. What are you gonna do, boycott the game you already bought? Good, that’s less people to harass their overstressed servers. Demand a refund? Many of them have a no-refund policy, except in countries where it’s mandatory by law to offer one.

ANet wasn’t going to remove Ascended, no matter how bad the backlash, simply because by this point, they could deny most of the early adopters their refunds anyways. The company policy at that time stated that anyone who bought the game had 30 days to get their refund, so the people who pre-purchased were being told they couldn’t get one because they had “owned” the game since January. Eventually they had to change that after it drew a lot of complaints in these forums, and you’ll notice that the support ticket for refunds no longer mentions the 30 day limit. It was a positive change in the long run, actually, as it was a decent show of good faith from a company that people felt had burned them. But at that point it was too late anyways.

With that said, I will agree that Ascended isn’t the only reason people left. There are a lot of reasons people left. But you can see that the exodus was significant enough to get them to change their tune, and by December, they were talking about how the upcoming 2013 patches would all focus on “strengthening the core game” instead of pushing lots of new content as they had done from September through December. Regardless of what the “main reason” actually was, their numbers dropped enough that it worried them. The real question at this stage is, will they continue to leave glaring flaws in the Ascended system, or will they fulfill their promise to make the gear accessible in more places? Right now, I don’t really feel that 2 locations per item is at all sufficient.

Red Falcon.8257:

Sure we could do with just 1m players instead of 3m, but I for one prefer to have an harmless progression if it means more players in the game.

Good thing that we don’t have three million active players, then.

Oh yes, they’ve sold three million copies, but they definitely don’t have three million active players.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

6.5 months is a vast overestimate of fully gearing a character.

It takes a maximum of 20 days to get both ascended rings.
It takes 20 days of laurels to get your ascended amulet (plus completion of the monthly which should happen in those 20 days)
It takes 4 weeks of guild missions to get both ascended earrings (assuming your guild has them all unlocked, will take longer for the first few months as guilds unlock things)

In total it takes 28 days to completely deck out your character in all current ascended gear. That’s one character a month. In 6 months you could fully deck out 6 characters.

A far cry from the 6 years that people are claiming lol.

Yeah, except that your assumptions meant that the player is running at least one Fractal per day and one guild mission per week, on top of doing their daily every single day.

I can tell you that I’m not a casual player and even I am not doing that. Those expectations may be reasonable to someone who has all the time in the world to play this game, but they’re not reasonable for a casual player

And for anyone who doesn’t want to be forced to run guild missions or Fractals, well, the previous poster’s math is exactly correct: it’d take 6 months to gear a single character.

This is precisely why people have been saying for months that there needs to be more than two ways of obtaining Ascended gear. Because right now, it’s either run this content that the devs are trying very hard to “encourage” you to do, or else rely on the laurel system and wait forever. And that’s not acceptable.

Mystic.5934:

his biggest threat is his ability to control an army of undead. who said he had to be all-powerful?

Er, it’s strongly implied that the dragons are more powerful than the human gods. They’re far older than the human gods, that’s for sure.

Zhaitan rose an entire nation out from under the ocean under his own power….and it’s heavily implied that his power was part of the reason that it sunk in the first place, since the Cataclysm that caused the event also created a significant quantity of undead and gave birth to a lich who commanded those undead. It’s never been stated, but it’s entirely plausible that the Vizier’s power came from Zhaitan.

Methinks there’s plenty of testimony that he’s rather powerful. ALL-powerful? Maybe not, but he should’ve been a hell of a lot stronger than he wound up being.

Alent.4780:

dudikoff.3645:

I highly doubt we’ll get missing sets in the February update. It is going to be another disappointment.

The least they could do is tell us why, then.

Or they could have designed Ascended gear to function identically to Exotic gear, while also having the infusion slot.

That way they wouldn’t have rendered much of the game’s existing “top-end” content utterly useless. >_>

Jski.6180:

Sound likes there going to be Ascended items in WvW soon. So they are releasing more ways to get them its just taking time.

I certainly hope so.

They’ve been missing for too long.

I actually don’t mind slaying the undead in this game. They’re actually sort of different in this game as compared with some other games I’ve played, so that at least makes them entertaining for me.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Again:
If I can’t replicate it 100% of the time, I’m not going to say it happens. I can’t get any mobs to go “Invulnerable” unless it is for the very specific reason of “can’t attack things which can’t attack back”.

I can’t replicate it 100% of the time, either.

But it does happen. I’ve seen it happen to me and other.

And I agree that it’s hardly very constructive to the discussion to have people barging into this thread and saying “you’re all obviously lying”. So please refrain from doing so. I don’t like being accused of things that are clearly untrue.

kenshinakh.3672:

Jan’s patch improved culling for some people, and others it didn’t. That doesn’t mean it got worse for everyone. I noticed that Jan’s culling improved in some situations, but once in a while, I’ll get a really bad case of zergs disappearing or appearing out of nowwhere.

Er, I don’t recall a single person reporting in this forum that their experience improved after the Jan patch. I do recall a lot of threads saying their experience was far worse, however. My own experience was significantly worse after Jan, as well.

But I’ll take your word for it.

The end of culling refers to the server-side culling, which is a big part of it. Right now, culling works on two sides. The server side is where the server doesn’t send you the player data is that the post refers to, and it’s the main issue of culling for most people. I just wanted to point out that your concerns with low vs high spec computers shouldn’t be an issue and you won’t really have to worry :P. Theoretically, it’s better than what we have now, so it’s a positive thing, not something to be negative about lol.

And this is me being positive. But also skeptical. As I said, they’ve claimed to make progress on culling before, and I think it’s safe to say that we still experience plenty of it. So I’m looking forward to the patch, but I don’t think it will be nearly as effective as they’re spinning it because it sounds like all they’re doing is allowing players to decide how much culling they want to put up with, rather than really “fixing” it.

The big thing here is that they’re really putting themselves out there by claiming that it’s “the end of culling”. I would have thought that they’d learned by now not to make such broad PR statements, because people will expect them to deliver exactly that: a zero-culling game. And if they don’t deliver that (or, god forbid, somehow make it worse), I fully expect the forums to light up like Christmas. It won’t take very much for this to go south.

Paulytnz.7619:

I don’t agree. The guardian is one of the poorest classes with range in this game. Imo the Paragon could be a good mix of a range/melee heavy class which is needed. Sure remove all the healing associations that were with the Paragon in GW1 and just focus more on the melee/spear range. For Sparta!

We already have a class that is effectively dedicated to ranged combat, and people complain that it’s too similar to Warrior.

If that’s all Paragon can bring to the table, then it won’t feel very unique, which defeats the idea the devs were going for. GW1 was all about mixing classes to the point where they became too homogenized, whereas GW2 set out to make each of its classes as unique as possible.

Also, you do realize that Spartan Hoplites were primarily melee units who used short swords for most of their combat, right? Methinks 300 has given people a rather illusory perception of how the Greeks actually fought.

I would honestly rather see Dervish return, because at least that class could possibly be turned into something more unique than Paragon at this point.

Paulytnz.7619:

My guess is that if the Paragon class made a comback from GW1 that it would be a Heavy class. It would have spears (already in game as water weapons) for a mid range weapon as well as the usual other melee for the heavy classes I assume.

This is the next class I HOPE that we see.

Paragon’s already been absorbed into the Guardian. Guardian’s essentially a melee hybrid of Monk, Ritualist, and Paragon.

Bringing Paragon back would make it overlap way too much with Guardian.

I’d rather see something different, something the existing pair of soldiers don’t do. A Battlemage or Spellsword sort of class might be fun.

kenshinakh.3672:

Either way, this new change sounds like it’s going to be more scalable for lower end system, especially with the name tags and low-res models, while letting high-end computers render everything without being forced to cull. It’s a win-win situation for both high end and low end. It’s sounds like an improvement, so I don’t see why anyone would complain about it.

You are confusing “complaining” with “has serious doubts”.

The Jan patch was supposed to improve culling by a minor amount, and it only made the game’s culling much worse. So when the devs are announcing “the end of culling”, I have my doubts, and any reasonable person should be at least a bit wary about it too. Because it seems like a pretty darn big leap to go from “bad” to “worse” to “gone”. I’m afraid that, once again, they’re overselling their progress.

It’d be lovely if they prove me wrong. But I’m not holding my breath until I see the patch go in.

Ursan.7846:

Well, I don’t think anyone claims that it’s grind free.

What are you talking about? “GW2 has no grind”, in those exact words, has been said in this forum so many times that it makes my head hurt.

That isn’t true, and you have to admit even the two posters you quote don’t claim that.

And I never said they did.

However, it is true that it’s far less grindy than other MMOs, and I’d argue that a lot of the grind isn’t as “mandatory” due to a combat system that pays a premium on smart positioning and dodging as opposed to raw numbers/stat from gear.

True, though it’s still more grind than its predecessor, for example.

Heijincks.9267:

I think you should read what we actually posted. Nowhere did any of us say GW2 had no grind. kitten shame too, because our comments were pretty short.

That’s because my post has two clearly distinct sections to it:

1) My reply to you (which states that we have testimony from other MMO players that you’re wrong)
2) My reply to the OP (who was asking about how much grind the game has)

Honestly, do I really have to lay out separate sections in my post just to emphasize this? >_>

Heijincks.9267:

You haven’t played any other MMOs if you can make that statement. Yes, GW2 significantly upped the amount of grind. Despite that, it’s still substantially less grindier than most other MMOs.

If it’s grindy, then you’re only choosing to do so.

X The Manimal.5293:

So easy to tell GW2 is your first MMO.

It’s funny you should both say this, because we’ve had people who came from WoW in this forum who say that nowadays, WoW is actually less of a grind at the high end than GW2.

I just think it’s interesting that folks in this forum will outright deny that GW2 has any grind in it when we have players who came from other, grindy games saying that they’re surprised how much grind GW2 has. I’d think we should listen to them, since they have this “experience” you’re both talking about.

Yeah, it’s less grindy than many games out there. But it’s not grind-free. I do wish people would stop trying to pretend otherwise.

kenshinakh.3672:

In games, bare minimum specs means exactly what it means. It means your game will run on lowest setting, and your performance isn’t going to be optimal.

Which….is exactly what I said?

It’s like how you can use integrated graphics to play Call of Duty. You’re going to be at a disadvantage running around with 10 FPS, but at least you can play.

“Disadvantage” is putting it mildly. At 10 FPS, you’re lucky if the game is actually playable.

Suddenflame.2601:

Minium or refers to the minium specs needed to run the game without it crashing on opening. It does not refer to anything about actually playing the game.

No, it refers to the minimum specifications required to play the game. Not to “open” the file.

People don’t pay $60 for a file. They pay $60 for a game, one that they should be able to play. Even if the experience isn’t optimal, it needs to be playable. Culling has made that difficult, if not impossible, even for people whose specs aren’t just above the minimum.

And no, the current system isn’t “playable”. Massive culling even in groups of just 20-30 players is not acceptable.

Jski.6180:

-snip-

I have no problem blaming someone’s computer for the game not running optimally.

I have a serious problem with blaming someone’s computer if the game isn’t actually playable, especially if they meet or exceed the game’s minimum specs.

That’s the difference between me and the complainers you’re talking about.

I have concerns about this post.

Mainly because it doesn’t actually sound like culling has been “eliminated”. It just sounds like you’ve found a way to shift most of the burden of how culling is implemented onto the player’s own PC. The “options” presented in that post really heavily imply that the player is going to be expected to figure out how high (or low) their own graphical settings will allow them to go. For example, someone with very high end specs may be able to put their culling limit high (50 people or more), whereas people who are only slightly above the game’s min specs will have to drop their culling limit much lower or else play the game with nameplates only. And, at least to me, that doesn’t suggest culling is gone, only that you’ve found a way to make the player decide how much culling they want to put up with.

I hope I’m wrong but I can’t shake the feeling that something is very wrong with the way this has been presented. Culling really isn’t something that just switches on and off. And this post seems to imply that, rather than culling actually being removed, players will be expected to pick how much or how little culling they want to experience. And I’m pretty sure most people would rather not have any. So I think this may end up not being the wonderful “death of culling” that it’s being presented as….but hopefully I’m wrong.

ThiBash.5634:

If anything, I hope they don’t add extra levels to the cap. It wouldn’t do anything other than add a chore for a week, but it would be a balance nightmare.

Too late.

The devs already said that they designed the game with level cap increases fully in mind for when they started looking at expansions.

Edge.4180:

-snip-

The first event in the three day release (the invasion of Lion’s Arch) most certainly was synced in terms of its starting time, although individual servers finished faster or slower based on the number of people, and many of the overflows started late (which is a problem they’ve had since GW1).

You’re thinking of the final event, which (according to the devs at that time) was staggered significantly so that they could avoid the problems that the first event created. Unfortunately, it also created a system whereby people could loot the chest multiple times, which they started experiencing just recently when they implemented guesting and, for a few days, players were server hopping to take advantage of multiple chest lootings and the staggered nature of the events.

I’m well aware that they can’t sync the pre-events to end at the same time due to player participation, but they absolutely can sync the start of those events. They already do that every single day with the dailies, and the invasion of LA shows that it can be done to some degree.

And even if it wasn’t (which it is), the simple act of syncing every single World Boss across that server to the same timer will cull the “problem” significantly as well.

thisolderhead.5127:

Assuming every asset/object is literally content…

Dropping more item assets doesn’t equate to content as many people are crying out for it, nor does slapping a reward system on top of exising content and suggesting it is a new thing.

So you’re saying that if ANet released one whole set of Ascended armor tomorrow, that’s not a “content update”?

I sure hope I’m not considered crazy for saying that yes, that would absolutely be a “content update”, because those items are content.

Content serves a variety of needs. Some content is designed to serve a need for more story (campaigns or maps), other content is simply to provide more ways to play (new modes or skills), and a third form of content seeks to help players feel as through they’ve achieved something and to reward their efforts (either with tangibles like equipment, or intangibles such as achievement systems).

That is why you’ll see some developers use the term to refer specifically to events, while others will use it to refer to new rewards and rewards systems. And this is also why the blanket term “downloadable content” is used to refer to any form of downloadable patching to the game, including aesthetics, gear, and rewards.

And the fact that we actually have to sit here and explain the varied usages of the term “content” so that people will stop whining about another person’s correct usage of the term in a different context….that’s just unfortunate, to say the least.

Mackdose.6504:

-snip-

The word already has an established meaning in the context of video games, to refer to any asset released in the game. This includes events (such as maps and campaigns) as well as rewards (such as weapons, armor, and other unlockables).

This is where the term “downloadable content” gets its name from. It is “content” (which includes items and rewards) that is downloaded at a later date.

Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content for a video game distributed through the internet by the game’s official publisher. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from aesthetic outfit changes to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similar to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes, objects, levels, challenges or other features to a complete and already released game.

Simply put, you are wrong. The term has a meaning in the context of video games, and your attempts to twist it into meaning something else are not going to work.

Ascended items are content. Content that is locked behind a time gating system. That is content effectively denied to players unable to dedicate time on a daily basis, which is not an appropriate way to gate content. If you want to gate content behind X number of hours invested, fine, but don’t gate content behind something as poorly thought out as days, because that inherently slaps people with irregular schedules with a significant disadvantage.

I’ve developed for an indie game company before, I know what the term is used for, and we always referred to both events and rewards as content because that’s what it is. They are different forms of content and fulfill different purposes, but they are both content.

Edge.4180:

-snip-

Your proposal goes far further towards kitten players off than mine. Mine is actually a compromise by comparison. Imagine that….attempted compromise between two styles of play, who would ever dare to think such a ridiculous thought?

And the servers are already synced to some degree, as the karka events and the rollover of dailies have proven. The problem isn’t with the sync, it’s with the resulting clog in traffic flow, and that’s a technical issue that still plagues the game even now, so it’s something they need to fix anyways. Perhaps something they can do alongside their fixes to the population system and their reduction of the number of existing servers, so that “full” servers are accurately judged on the number of active players, and there are more full servers on the whole.

Mackdose.6504:

Semantics. Specifically, “equivocation.”

In MMO parlance, content relates directly to existing or future gameplay. “Content Patches,” “Progression content,” etc.

You’re essentially saying that the journey (content) and destination (reward) are the same thing.

Your argument is fallacious.

No, it’s not, and no, I’m not.

I’m saying that anything introduced into the game for any reason is “content”.

Trying to pretend that tangible rewards in the form of armor, weapons, or accessories aren’t “content” is the fallacious argument.

Katai.6240:

I feel like this whole argument is based on this premise:

“Those who play a little bit every day are rewarded the same as people who play a lot every day”.

That’s true when it comes to dailies, sure.

No, you have it backwards.

Those who play a little bit every day (under the laurel system) are disproportionally rewarded far more for their time than those who only have large dedicated blocks of time once per week/month.

A player who plays an hour per day under the daily system receives seven times the rewards of someone who plays a single 7-hour block per week. That’s grossly unfair to those without time to dedicate to the game every day.

ophidic.1279:

Not obvious to me!

I’ve never encountered that, except that time I tried to kill a champion shark by shooting into the water from on top of a rock, lol.

Ever tried it in reverse? Shoot a mob on the land from the ocean. If said mob is unable to swim, it’ll literally just stand there and take the punishment until it dies.

Just yet another bug in the way the game’s combat system works.

Er, what?

Rewards are content. They’re a different type of content, that much I’ll agree with. Rewards are a type of content meant to fulfill a different role in the game: the event motivator rather than the event itself. But to argue that when you add rewards to a game that you’re not also adding “content”….that’s absurd.

“Content” is not strictly defined as the events that are present in the game and nothing else. “Content” is a very loosely defined term that represents either tangible or intangible assets presented in the game with one of two intentions: to give you something to do, or to give you a reason to do something.

So it is 100% accurate to claim that the time gating system is gating content.

On the subject of the story elements being repeated, I’m amazed more people don’t notice this, but….GW2’s story has a very similar structure to Nightfall’s.

• You’re faced with a deity-caliber enemy that forces numerous allies, rivals, and even enemies to join forces.
• The actual gods of Tyria are completely useless, even when repeatedly called upon for help.
• Most of the story consists of you building your own legend, assuming a commanding role in an order, and becoming a major leader and heroic figure in the world.
• Suddenly, there’s this secondary character who jumps in and hogs the spotlight near the end of the story, while you become their second-in-command.
• The story ends by glorifying them and their accomplishments instead of you.

The one big key difference is that instead of actually fighting the god-like baddie face-to-face, you blast it with your little cannons for five minutes….which is actually a step down, to be honest.

The basic structure of Nightfall, and all of Nightfall’s subsequent story flaws, are present in GW2.

VOLKON.1290:

This is simply the prelude, introducing us to the concepts of the new content on the way. This isn’t “the content” we’re getting. So far we know little… the dredge and Flame Legion are in cohorts with each other (seems a rather odd coupling, to be honest), and they seem irked with the northern “good guys”. Of course, considering how we’ve been kicking their butts who can blame them. The real question is, what happens when the shoe drops?

The story was originally supposed to be done by now.

They were advertising this back in Dec as a two-month “expansion’s worth of content”. And then it became “Jan is just a teaser, Feb/March is the real meat”. Now we’ve been told that the last two months were all just teaser stuff, and the REAL meat is in March and April. So while I am looking forward to the patch, I’m almost honestly expecting to see the deadline dragged out yet again, with no explanation given.

It’s one thing to push your content back for legit reasons, and I don’t begrudge them for that. But they’re not being very forthcoming on why the time schedule keeps moving backwards, and they keep making really bold statements about how much depth is in the new patch (and yet when it releases, it’s all of an hour’s worth of content). I really hope they do deliver a big patch in March, because I suspect, given reactions to the last two patches, that it may be their last chance with some people to make significant gains and earn back some good faith.

If, for example, this “culling fix” (the one that is supposed to nearly get rid of culling ) ends up making culling even worse in the March patch, expect the forums to burn brighter and hotter than the Searing. It’s one thing to promise a ton of PvE content and not really deliver it, but it’ll be another matter entirely if they promise to end all culling and then don’t deliver (or, god forbid, make it even worse).

I’m really, really hoping that this patch is the one to start righting the ship.

ophidic.1279:

Everyone realizes some skills cause invulnerability right?

That’s not it. We’re not completely stupid. :p

This happens on monsters that do not have invulnerability. It’s an obvious bug in the way the game determines whether a monster can “hit” a player or not.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

So…. they want to be spoonfed everything straight away? Which MMO does that exactly and how’s it working out for them because I can’t imagine the answer would be well.

Did you read this thread at all before you posted?

I’m genuinely curious if people are even doing that now, because I don’t recall seeing anyone suggest or even imply that they wanted to be “spoonfed” content.

This sort of attitude is immature and doesn’t contribute to a good dialogue. Please try to read a thread before commenting on it.

I think that just making them trade-able is the only correct way to go about this.

“But that makes the game pay-to-win!”, I hear people crying. No moreso than so-called “legendaries”, which have been sell-able on the TP since day 1.

Just remove their account-bound status. Let people salvage them and let people sell them. There’s no reason to make them so utterly useless in terms of sale value.

Or, at the very least, let people trade in a set of X rings for one ring that they want.

TooBz.3065:

Ok. I didn’t know we we’re playing that game. Sorry, I don’t play that game.

I have provided sufficient evidence that there was a fair amount of complaining, although a lot of my evidence was indirect. I find it insulting that you dismiss it so easily.

Let’s play a different game. I agree with Red Falcon, there was a lot of “no end game” complaining. So that’s two votes to one. Majority rules.

Who says we’re playing games?

I dismissed your “evidence” because a lot of it isn’t what Red Falcon said. He expressly mentions pages of forum threads raging, and hundred-page threads.

None of which you presented.

I fully acknowledged that you found five threads of “complaints”, but only one of them was even remotely rude about it. Compare that to any of the Ascended threads and you’ll see a clear difference in attitude.

I’m sorry you feel insulted, but I’m not looking for any old thread that happens to mention endgame. I’m looking for actual evidence that there was this huge amount of rage and bile, like Red Falcon claims was there. If I see it, fine. But nothing you showed me suggests that it was there. You’ve only shown a couple of people who were a bit annoyed….hardly anything resembling the reaction to Ascended.

Bloodstealer.5978:

The Living Story is a building to be a scavenger hunt, the thing that disappoints me is that the items just seem to be confined to a few specific drops for everyone… scaveneger hunts are supposed to be a little more random surely. Still I guess it keep in lione with their E Z Mode development, next thing they will be giving out guaranteed loot drops as well… oooh wait a a minute did they do that already

Thing is, it’s not a very good scavenger hunt.

It’s almost devoid of actual story content and all of the items have dropped in two maps total.

I feel as though I should qualify my statement, because it occurs to me that people are going to twist it beyond my intentions. So let’s do that now:

Red Falcon specifically states that there was lots of post-release rage about a lack of end-game. Ergo, I’m looking for evidence of actual complaints and rage in threads posted after the game’s full release. Anything prior to the game’s release doesn’t really qualify as “post-game rage”.

As for the links provided….I’ll evaluate them individually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q38En7AEz6A

Seems to be complaining about the complainers, not about a lack of endgame….

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/bored-at-level-80/

This is a guy offering suggestions to people who are “running out of things to do”. Again, not actual complaining.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/63988157

Was written prior to the game’s release, not during the time period specified.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/End-Game-at-80/page/3#post29915

Not raging or complaining, and I specifically asked for that. An educated discussion about a lack of end-game isn’t the same as raging/complaining about it, as we’ve already established. Still, let’s count it. 1.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/End-Game-1

Not really rage-y either, but it’s borderline so I’ll count it. So that’s two, kind of.

http://www.inquisitr.com/426450/guild-wars-2-a-solid-mmo-in-search-of-an-end-game/

Again, not really rage. Red Falcon asserted that there was lots of rage and complaints, this doesn’t actually qualify in that regard.

http://www.giantbomb.com/guild-wars-2/3030-21223/forums/i-think-im-done-with-guild-wars-2-a-month-after-re-561035/

Fair enough, close enough to count. That’s 3 people total.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Endgame-Re-re-visited
merged thread about no end game

Not seeing anything except the OP’s claim that there were people complaining. To which I say: yeah, there were people complaining. The question at hand is this notion that these forums were “two pages full” of complaints, with hundred-page topics among them. Which we’ve yet to locate.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/About-the-endgame-Merged

Let’s count this (although, yet again, it’s a perfectly friendly post, not at all the rage-filled rants we’ve been led to believe exist). Four.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Frustrations-over-lack-of-endgame

Here’s a genuinely mad post, finally.

So in total, we’ve got five threads, four of which are perfectly polite.

We were led to believe, according to Red Falcon, that there were hundred-page threads full of rage and complaints, and entire pages of the main forums full of rants about it. Yet even when we count the friendly threads you provided, we’ve seen a total of five threads, only one of which actually breaks a page in length.

So where’d all these huge rants go? Again, if they exist, it shouldn’t take long to find these massive threads. I don’t doubt they exist, but until I’ve seen them presented, I’m going to remain a tad skeptical that it was nearly the sort of doomsday that Red Falcon claims it was.

And what’s been presented thus far doesn’t even remotely compare to even a portion of the Ascended complaints. shrug

Red Falcon.8257:

Selective memory?
I remember 2 forum pages filled with just “no endgame” complaints, I remember all IGN review sites filled with “no endgame” comments, “no endgame” videos on youtube, Guru filled with 100-page threads begging for more progression…
It was at least one month of this mayhem before we got Ascended and everything settled after one megathread of complaints, with the rare anti-Ascended thread here and there from then on.
GW2 would be pretty much dead if they didn’t pop Ascended tier to give the majority something to do.

As much as I agree with you that stat progression is bad, the majority rules Anet’s decision not me and you.
They put Ascended after a great demand and threatening of mass quits, not because they woke up one day and Colin said “Make a tier again!”.

Okay. Then please, find them.

I don’t doubt that you’re telling the truth, as I assume you have no reason to lie about this. But I don’t recall nearly this much activity regarding endgame. Not even close. But I’ll happily withdraw my argument if indeed you can prove it true.

And if the number of complaints (by actual players, mind) were so numerous, this shouldn’t take you very long to find lots of evidence of these complaints.

Sinoran.9140:

@ critickitten. Perhaps you don’t remember the “Endgame?” threads complaining “I got exotics right when i hit 80, now what?”

I remember one thread like that, yes.

How many threads have we seen about Ascended gear? Want to take wagers on which one has led to more overall complaints? I’m betting it’s no contest.

If your idea is foolproof, then it would have been already implemented or would be soon. I can’t say whether or not or why because of the vagueness of that post.

What exactly is vague about “make all Ascended gear available for the following list of currencies”?

I notice you didn’t actually offer a rebuttal to the idea, either, which sort of re-emphasizes my point: thus far, I’ve yet to see a single person who defends Ascended gear able to come up with a good solid argument against my proposal. Only their “assurances” that my idea is bad, with no actual reasoning behind it.

Friendly reminder, Ascended gear is optional.

So is Exotic, for exactly the same reasons.

Avatar.1923:

^
you should expect loot.

again you dont understand, like many of the people; loot is not the issue, the fact that they are easily farmable (on timers, facerollable, etc) is the issue.

some people…. :/

And yet the proposed “solution” is to remove all loot from all World Bosses.

He was reading the OP correctly, and responding correctly as well. You, on the other hand, are operating under the assumption that the OP isn’t actively trying to get rid of all of the loot associated with these bosses. That is exactly what he’s proposed to do: remove loot from World Bosses so that “farmers” aren’t “ruining” the “fun”.

The most hilarious thing is that there are several far superior ways to fix this “problem” without even touching the loot tables for it. He’s only chosen the most drastic because he wants the game to tailor itself to his method of game play instead of catering to the game’s majority, which is vastly against him.

Red Falcon.8257:

It happens only when you manage to hit the mob and he can’t hit back.
Just make sure that you hit stuff that can fight back, this system is in place to prevent people from abusing the environment for free kills.
Sure you can keep telling yourself that sittint on a cliff and farming stuff that can’t reach you is “strategy” but it really isn’t for intellectually honest people.

Patently false, as several people have already stated above that they experienced this problem while the enemy mob was still well within range and was still dealing damage to them.

I’ve had it happen when I was standing right next to an enemy, even.

Whatever code they use to determine when a monster is “unable to hit the player”, it’s clearly bugged, because I’ve seen firsthand mobs that hit me just fine and yet I can’t hurt them.

darkace.8925:

We’ve covered this; it’s a carrot on a stick. The fact that you don’t like carrots on a stick doesn’t mean they should be removed from the game. Remember, there are others who do enjoy chasing carrots. They’re not wrong for wanting them, just as you aren’t wrong for not wanting them.

There’s something, though, to note about “challenging” and “enjoyable”; these things are subjective. What you find challenging, another might find frustrating. What you find enjoyable, another might hate.

We, the community, don’t all share the same values. Accordingly, ArenaNet has to try to give each of us a little of what we want. This means compromise. You want quick access to BiS gear. ArenaNet didn’t give you what you wanted, but they compromised by not implementing stringent gear checks.

Ah, but that’s the thing: the existing compromise, as shown in previous reactions, doesn’t make nearly as many people happy as it upsets.

If they insist on making one method of obtaining the gear significantly harder than the other, as they have so far, then how is that not appealing to the people who “like chasing carrots”? Why, then, can’t you provide other options that are significantly cheaper, and let the carrot-chasers pursue the obviously costly method?

The answer, of course, is that there isn’t any reason you can’t do that. That was the whole point behind “legendaries” after all: an item that, for all of its grinding, isn’t any stronger than an item you can find almost anywhere or just buy for 2-3g.

Sinoran.9140:

People begged and pleaded for a gear grind in this game. Ascended is for those people.

Exotics are there for the people who don’t want to grind for their gear.

If you want Ascended then you’ll just have to grind for it like everyone else who wants it.

You haven’t actually answered the question of why the grind has to be boring, so your post doesn’t really attack my argument so much as ignore it and continue to beat the same stale arguments that we’ve already covered and crushed months ago.

Would you prefer paying $15 a month to have one attempt a week at a boss that may not even drop your desired gear piece, which you still have to win the /roll against other players in the group? Or, play freely with a guarantee based on time, on when you get your BiS gear without the influence of RNG?

This is an obviously useless comparison as no one in their right mind would ever pick the clearly absurd option. But there are other much better options that you chose to ignore, trying to make it sound like there are only two. There aren’t.

If those kinds of gates weren’t there, we would be back at square one, people complaining that BiS gear is too easy to get (exotics). That’s just the way it is.

Where exactly were all of these complaints that people keep talking about?

I must admit I don’t recall seeing nearly as many “exotic are too easy to get” complaints as other people seem to remember. Heck, I think I saw more people complaining about “legendaries” being too hard to get than I ever saw complaining about exotics. So I’m curious where this illusory sample size that people keep mentioning came from, because if we look at what people complain about nowadays, it doesn’t seem like any of those people are still playing the game.

Behellagh.1468:

What’s your alternate? If ascended gear with it’s agony resistance is really meant for Fractals only then why not just put it there? Grind Fractals for ascended loot? No that’s boring grind. Or should you be able to walk in with one of the existing currencies, Karma/Gold and buy them all day one if you can afford it? But that requires you to play PvE or WvW a lot or “Buy to Win” converting bought Gems to gold.

I’ve already pitched a perfectly good suggestion that no one to date has been able to refute (although they insist that it can’t work, even though they’ve yet to explain why it’s a bad system).

1) Lower the pricing on all existing Ascended items to match existing price schema used in other areas. The result is a pricing system in which a player still needs about 7 months to fully kit their character, instead of the existing model which is likely to take well over 2 years at its continuing price increases.

2) Make all Ascended items available for no less than five currencies (Badges of Honor, Guild Commendations, Laurels, Karma, Pristine Fractal Relics) and give appropriate pricing to each.

Then the grind is severely reduced and people have a much wider selection in terms of how they go about getting the gear. Both of Ascended’s main problems are effectively removed without completely doing away with the grind, so it still has its appeal to the “hardcore” crowd while making the gear far more accessible to “casuals”.

darkace.8925:

Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because I enjoy doing so. The moment…the exact millisecond gearing my characters ceases to be fun is the exact millisecond I’ll stop bothering.

Okay, fair enough.

Now consider that, like you, there are others out there who want to obtain the best gear they can.

Would you like to explain why they should have to submit themselves to a boring grind for it? Why the pursuit of the best gear can’t be both challenging and enjoyable?

darkace.8925:

Sinoran.9140:

Ascended gear is optional.

It’s as simple as that, and yet there’s no shortage of people foolishly arguing the opposite.

So is exotic gear.

So why do you bother decking your character out in exotic gear?

Jrunyon.3012:

They have already said they are going to be adding new ways to obtain them.

How about you just be patient, and maybe even realize that ascended stuff isn’t the end game, its an optional path to take in gearing up your character.

Yes, they said that back in November. It’s now March.

And so far, all we’ve seen is them introduce two ways to obtain each new Ascended item, one of which (by the devs’ own admission) is purposely overpriced so that it “encourages” players to run specific content.

How much longer are we going to need to wait for all of these unique ways to obtain Ascended gear, hm?

I’ve experienced this way too often. I’ll be hitting a mob and sitting right next to it, and it’ll become temporarily invulnerable to my attacks. Oh, but he can still hurt me, of course.

It’s a bug in the way the game’s combat functions. Mobs are supposed to try to run up to you or shoot at you, and if it’s determined that they cannot hit you, they become immune to your attacks. The idea is to prevent you from exploiting their AI by attacking from a place they cannot reach. The problem is, it doesn’t always correctly detect the monster’s location relative to the player, so sometimes I’m attacking a mob that is literally right in front of me, and yet he’ll be immune to my damage and hitting me back just fine.

Edge.4180:

Critickitten, for the sake of the discussion in this thread, this is the last time I’m going to humor you with a response. Going back and forth with you on these strawman attacks of yours are bloating the thread unnecessarily. And at this point I think you’re just trying to derail it intentionally, which I will not have a hand in.

Ha, what discussion?

You’ve spent the bulk of this thread ignoring other people’s perfectly valid complaints about your idea, mine included, because you’re dead set on punishing this illusory pack of “spawn campers” who are apparently ruining all of the fun in the game everywhere because they’re nasty and mean. All so that you don’t get stuck in overflow.

I expect the developers to completely ignore this idea. It’s completely counterproductive. The devs implemented the guaranteed rare because people weren’t playing these events as much, and they wanted to get people out into the world. They knew there would be a traffic problem, so they placed a one-per-day limit on each chest already. There is no way for a person to “camp” a boss all day and keep getting drops as you are claiming, so even if there are campers, they can’t get any rewards from running it again. Your alleged problem does not exist. It’s a fiction.

And frankly, the guaranteed rare is a step towards a better game world. Traffic for those events have shot up tremendously, yes possibly too much so, but they want people to visit these events and play them on a regular basis. They’re not trying to drive people into the dungeons. And now that they’ve made those events properly rewarding, they can start working on making the events more challenging, and introducing even more World Bosses with similar loot.

Your idea is a step towards an empty game world, the opposite of what the devs want. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to go so far as to strip all loot from the most active portions of the game, no matter how much you complain, because they don’t want to drive away even more of their players. While I don’t trust everything the devs say or do, this is one area where I’m willing to trust that the devs will not implement a radical idea like this. Nor should they.

Calae.1738:

What are you saying?

Are you saying most people enjoy standing still auto attacking a dragon to death in order to get a chest? I may not be a neuroscientist but, I think humans enjoy puzzle solving mechanisms. You know, activities that require basic cognitive functions.

And yet Call of Duty still sells millions of copies every year.

rimshot

Fact of the matter is, some people get enjoyment out of menial tasks like this. And while I don’t see the appeal myself, I don’t think there’s any reason to degrade or punish them for it either.

Edge.4180:

Perhaps you should explain to everyone the exact amount of time a player has to be inactive in the game before you consider applying the label “idle” to them.

To be considered “idle”, you have to do nothing. Yet having to regularly tab back to the window and perform some movement is not fulfilling the act of “idling”.

If, by “nearly empty”, you mean fewer people doing nothing but standing around at the boss spawn point waiting for the event to start, and in no way making any contribution to the zone.. then yes.

And I notice that you didn’t respond to my point that it’s impossible to camp a World Boss due to the one-per-day limit. They’d have to leave the zone to hit it on their alts, which frees up slots. Your “problem” does not exist.

Can you point out the post in this thread where I said I was sick of being put into overflow? Sure, I imagine most people picked their server for a reason and prefer to play on it. But I think I’ve been pretty clear with my agenda in this thread and have not been rattling off complaints in it about “being sick of being put into overflow”. You seem to want it to be about that, though. Maybe you just feel that’s an easier position to attack. (shrug)

Or maybe because that’s actually your motivation, as revealed by the contents of your posts and the way you present your points.

You’ve outright said in multiple posts now that you feel there is a problem with a bunch of people standing around in zone maps “wasting” slots. But this would only be considered a “waste” of slots from the perspective of someone who feels that they are more entitled to that slot than the “idling” player. The only way you can possibly brandish this as a “problem” is if you consider the overflow situation to be a “problem”. So, yes, you clearly do care about the fact that you’re being bumped into overflow, or this thread would not exist.

Please, if you refuse to be honest with the rest of us, at least be honest with yourself.

As you can see, there are no revelations here (although you seem to be under the impression that you’re pointing one out). I am very much not surprised that people would object to an opinion that essentially results in “rarer” loot being less easy/convenient to obtain. I’m more likely to find plenty of players who think we actually deserve more loot even more easily than we can get it now. That doesn’t mean it’s a smart idea. That’s just the nature of the entitlement crowd.

Ah, so it’s everyone else who is entitled because they disagree with you.

The person who is pitching a heavily disliked idea that would significantly worsen the game simply so that he can avoid overflows is clearly less entitled than the majority of players who are just seeking to get some good loot for their play time.

Sound argument you’ve got there.

It would have made more sense to stagger the tiers across the levels of each category of guild reward.

For example: Art of War III contains Tier 1 Bounty, Art of War IV contains Tier 2 Bounty, Art of War V contains Tier 3.

Then you wouldn’t have needed to add a clunky sixth level into the game like you did just recently, and even small guilds would be able to access at least one tier of rewards (since third level is pretty easy for even a smaller guild to access, as my own ten-man full-of-inactive-friends guild has proven).

Edge.4180:

I guess you haven’t considered that since roughly a half hour (is it even that much?) of idle time is allowed, all a player has to do is alt-tab into the game long enough to tap “W” or “S” (assuming those are mapped to your movement keys) every half hour to remain online. So, yes, people can idle just fine.

Psst. It’s not actually idling if they have to regularly “check in” and move their character a little to be considered active. That means they have to be at the computer and checking the window regularly to stay logged in. Sorta the opposite of what an idle player does.

Whether they are actually doing that, or just standing around actively monitoring the boss spawn and chatting with their friends/guild, they’re not contributing to the activities happening in the zone while they’re parked there, and thus their presence definitely won’t be missed if they’re no longer coming to the zone. You seem to be arguing that the zone will collapse without them, that it will become a wasteland where there aren’t enough hands around to help with events, and that is ridiculous. Because these people camping the events aren’t helping anyone beyond themselves.

I’m arguing that the maps will be nearly empty without that regular influx of people, yes.

And judging from the responses in this thread being overwhelmingly against your idea, I’m probably right.

No, sorry. If you actually want to know what my entire thread is about, read the first post in it. No speculating required; I laid it out pretty plainly. I even predicted the response I would get and what kind of players would be opposed to it.

It’s like magic.

Ah, but that’s clearly not what you made the thread about. Your arguments make that rather clear. You’re sick of being put into an overflow because of all these people that you perceive as “useless” eating up your slots. You don’t like how you can’t play the event because other people got there before you and are (in your opinion) “camping” the location for loot. Even though the newest patch makes it impossible to camp the bosses because they’re limited to one chest per day.

Unfortunately for you, you’re a minority, as this thread has clearly shown. This is a bad idea that makes the game significantly worse, and when even the people who regularly go out of their way to disagree with me on anything I say in this forum are actually agreeing with me on this, you should know that you’re wrong.

pricer.5091:

Erm, eh? Having watched the latest developer announcement video for TESO not half an hour an ago, what parts of the combat system do you think are like GW2? They are like previous ES games in the sense that you attack with your left mouse key and block with your right, depending on what you have equipped. Not once in any of the video footage did I see anyone running around, rolling about or attempting to cast spells over their shoulder whilst running away.

According to the devs, their combat relies on blocking and movement in the style of action adventure games. No, they don’t have dodges, and yes, they can block more on command (which I’m betting will become a huge balance issue), but they’re doing the “movement combat” thing in the style of GW2. Players will be expected to avoid AoE drops, they will be using and get hit by knockbacks and knockdowns, and they have to aim their blocking strategically to avoid damage.

Their combat is different only in the sense that it’s not a perfect clone of any game, but rather a hybrid of three: ES single player (blocking on command), GW2 (movement and strategic blocking), and WoW (stylistically speaking).

And as for pvp being a carbon copy…there aren’t even going to be any battlegrounds. Rather a whole area of the map is permanently given over to PvP.

Not sure where you’re getting your info. Still if in six months time I find myself in a massive zerg trying to break down a gate for ten minutes I will acknowledge you were right.

Their PvP system is a three-faction map in which you battle over keeps and camps, using a variety of siege weaponry and large swarms of players to take and hold various strategic locations.

Sound familiar? Maybe because it’s exactly the same as WvW.

There’s no question who they got the idea from (and, indeed, where they got a LOT of their ideas from), when you hear the devs explain it for themselves.

Most of the criticism of TESO atm on the net is directed at the fact that people think its a WoW clone in ES clothing….

People think everything is a WoW clone, though. GW2 was facing that same criticism (and still does) despite how it clearly isn’t.