Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed the same. I suppose I expected it. Most people play at the beginning and then far fewer pick it up later on, so the zones cleared out. Some servers are also busier than others, but the early zones are fairly empty.

I think the issue is that people expect to play MMOs as a daily or several times a week thing for years, unlike a SP game where people play until they are done, maybe play through again, and then put it down, feeling satisfied. The expectations for an MMO are different.

To me, GW2 plays much like a SP game, and it’s priced that way, too. To me that makes sense, and I enjoyed playing through earlier in the fall. I didn’t stick around for months and months, but I didn’t expect to, either — I expected to pop back now and again for this or that, but not play it like the traditional MMO.

Yes, it’s pretty much exactly what I hoped in terms of success — somewhere between 2 and 3m is what I anticipated its market to be, and that’s where it is. Spot on, I think. The folks who were thinking it would “knock out WoW” were being silly — WoW has millions of progression-Skinner-conditioned addicts playing it, and they are all drawn back like moths to a flame, only to burn out with their endless grinding for BiS gear (and yes, Pandas is a grinding festival — go check out all of the long threads on WoW’s forums complaining about this).

For the people who want to know “why do people care about this” — it has to do with the psychology of the gamers in question. These are, per the Bartle Test, generally heavily, heavily skewed towards being achievement gamers, and they are obsessed with achieving “BiS” gear, the ultimate in min-max gameplay. Well, when you take a min-max, BiS approach to how you view games on a meta basis, you end up being obsessed as well with what game is “BiS”. Gamers like this tend to divide things into (i) BiS and (ii) worthless junk. From this overall mental orientation towards gaming is birthed a meta orientation towards games, and the obsession with finding and associating with the “BiS” game, and denigrating everything else as worthless junk. It’s a symptom of the very deeply sad state of affairs in the MMO gamer community, in my opinion. I have nothing against achievement gamers (I am not one), but I very much dislike the way that they have tried to crowd out everyone else in the MMO space as being inferior junk. It’s been an absolute disaster for the entire genre, and I am happy to support Anet and this game precisely because it takes a different line on that entire issue than the loud army of achievement/Skinner players wants.

Since we seem to be discussing philosophy, the following reminder from Monty Python about not taking philosophy too seriously seems to be in order:

Immanuel Kant was a real pizz-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ‘ya ’bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pizzed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
“I drink, therefore I am.”
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he’s pizzed.

— Philosophers’ Drinking Song, by the famous philosopher Montius Pythonius.

I have been arguing that one of the reasons people find them satisfying (and I’m not writing about GW2, but another game on a similar model to WoW) is that they present a world that seems more fair. In MMOs, if you put in x amount of work and overcome y obstacles, you know you can get z reward. In real life, you can do everything right and work hard and get very little.

Right. This is my impression as well. It’s still a “Wille zur Macht” type thing, but what makes it more attractive for some is that it has a guaranteed payoff. In real life, you can work 100 hours a week and never become the CEO. In an MMO you can work 100 hours a week and, in a typical Skinner Box MMO, you will become the Raid God. MMOs don’t take skill, or luck, they just take time investment — life isn’t like that at all. In life, skill/talent is a differentiator, upbringing/environment is a differentiator, luck is a significant differentiator, as well as effort. In an MMO, none of that is true. For a “complex raid mechanic”, you simply look at videos on YouTube, learn the script for the mechanics involved, and follow them — if you do this enough, and invest enough time in it, you are guaranteed to become the King. (Note this refers to PvE, because that is the focus of the OP as well). It’s that guaranteed return on invested time that makes the game attractive particularly to those who are IRL time rich but otherwise poor relative to others IRL in some way or other.

MMOs designed along those lines create an aristocracy of the time wealthy over the time poor — which is satisfying for people who, in real life, are time wealthy but poor in other ways as compared to others who in real life are time poor but wealthy in other ways. It’s fundamentally an escape from the unfairness of real life that makes these games attractive for the Skinner Box conditioned masses.

muthax.4720:

DusK.3849:

Zale.9645:

You know he won’t accept it though.

We’ll wait and see. Consider it his test of reasonableness. He’ll either recognize that his viewpoint was based more on ignorance than anything else and change it, or he’ll continue his belief despite strong evidence that it’s wrong.

Either way, the point’s been made, and anyone with any lack of bias will accept the fact that all this doom-and-gloom “the game is dead” crap is completely false.

Don’t waste your breath, these kind of ‘people’ pop up in any MMO, they declare the game is dying/dead/going F2P. They never really add anything vaguely constructive to their posts. They are a mix of concern trolls, passive/aggressive trolls and wowkiddies.

Pointless arguing with them, they never listen or use logic. They just want to create distress on the forum in the hope of ‘killing’ the game (considering how badly MoP flopped I can see where they come from…). Only thing we can do is ignore them and report them as trolls/flamers hoping they get banned

Yeah they’re still here, apparently, because MoP is turning into an absolute disaster for Blizzard. Sales are low. We don’t know how low, because Blizzard hasn’t said how low they are — but if they were not low, we’d know by now because as we have seen from past WoW releases, Blizzard is never, ever shy about tooting its own horn in terms of its sales successes. It looks like the combo of D3 anger plus KungFuPanda skepticism plus simple fatigue with an 8 year old, tired game has finally come home to roost in Irvine. But the side effect of that is that the blizz kiddies are now going to be continuing to spread their venom here and elsewhere.

@knight your only fooling yourself if you don’t think Anet likes Gem sales. They want to keep you in the game as long as possible and they want you to buy lots of gems. With out Gem sales sooner or latter they would be forced to shut the game down because of lack of funds!

Sure, they like people to buy gems — this is one reason why money is so tight in the game. But that’s very different from saying they are financially reliant on it. If they were, the entire thing (game, gem store, etc.) would have been designed in a very different way. And it isn’t hard to figure out how it would have been designed differently — just look at a F2P game with a CS. That’s what it looks like when a game is dependent on CS financially — and that isn’t GW2.

GW2 wasn’t meant to be played for months and months and months. It’s been acknowledged by Anet that they fully expect people to finish and then leave and then maybe come back later for new content or expansions or what have you. So, sure, people are leaving, and people will continue to leave — working as expected, really. It isn’t a game that is dependent on subs, and as you can tell from what they put in the CS, it isn’t dependent on that either. It’s an overwhelmingly box sale centric business model. So, yes, people will leave when they are done, or are bored, or don’t like this or that. That’s an expected thing — unlike SWTOR, which expected millions of subs on a stabilized basis.

FFXIV had many more problems than its DR system! The game had almost no content to speak of, had cut and paste areas and so on — it was not really a game, at least not a fleshed out one, DR or not. It was the rest of it that emptied the game quickly.

They could put mounts in, but if they did they would (1) have “riding tolls” that would be equal to the current WP costs and (2) have a dismount mechanic that basically would dismount you every single time you get aggro. If they did that, it would be fine.

This is the same way they handled bots in GW1, to be honest (there were the same DR anti-farming mechanics there, too). It’s how they do things. It’s very unlikely to change.

kal.4350:

MMOs trade gameplay for progression. You can’t compare the gameplay of a shooter, action, sportgame, even adventure game with an MMO. In mmos you dont aim and dodge (no, gw2 dodge is not really dodging yourself, it’s like using a skill). You just target and use abilities. That gameplay can’t compete with other types of games.

In return, we get character progression. So yes, mmos need char progression. Otehrwise they would be like a totally dumbed down adventure game.

I think this is the way a lot of players perceive it, too. When they say “I don’t play MMOs for fun”, what they mean, I think, often, is that the gameplay, per se, of MMOs outside of challenging instance group content, is subpar compared to other game genres, and therefore that isn’t why they are playing — the gameplay isn’t “fun”, it’s the progression that is fun and lets them have fun “in spite of” the gameplay. Gameplay outside of challenging group instanced content is more to be endured than to be enjoyed in itself — I think that’s a very common mindset among MMO gamers.

GW2 will be in the running, but it’s hard for an MMO to win GOTY. My guess is that something like Mass Effect 3 (yes, players were upset about it, but the industry would probably like to stick that in the players’ eyes to be honest), Borderlands 2 etc.

The Secret World is a terrible game which was predictable based on it being produced by a terrible developer who has a terrible track record in gaming — AOC, enough said.

The pathetic support the game has received is indicative of this. No, it is not innovative in the least. VO/anim story missions are not new. Modern setting? Snore. I live in a kitten modern setting. No need to play a game to see real life replicated in it. And, finally, the endgame is standard WoW kitten — 10.1, 10.2., 10.3, 10.4. And more coming soon. Absolutely terrible, tired, pathetic design, with very few fans (almost all of whom are in desperation mode because of the abject failure of their game, and soon to come of its developer). Sad.

Knote.2904:

knightblaster.8027:

It is also not an mmo thing it’s an form of rpg game. If the story line remains at the same difficulty throughout the entire game and the pc remains at the same power level for the entire game the game becomes boring really quickly. The story line needs to progress and the player needs to feel as if they are getting stronger for completing more difficult content.

The interesting thing is that GW1 did not have this. You capped out at level 20 and gear very early through the content, and played the rest of the PvE content capped. People still enjoyed it in the millions of players. So while I’d agree that it’s a common thing in RPGs, it isn’t ubiquitous or necessary.

I never played GW1 that long past Factions, so forgive me for asking, but what is so different then if people that successfully enjoyed GW1 pve for so long but don’t in GW2? Besides the skill/build complexity.

A very different group of people coming here because it’s a “true persistent world MMO”, and expecting it to be like other persistent world MMOs in terms of being designed around endless progression. You’ll find that a lot of people are in GW2 who never played GW1 at all, or only very little of it, and don’t really care about what it was about … and others who did play GW1 and don’t like GW2 either because of the ways they changed things from GW1! It’s trying to be a halfway point between what GW1 was and what other persistent world MMOs are.

However the content got harder and you felt better of beating it yes?

Yes. And GW2 should have more of that and hopefully will. GW2 does emphasize player skill progression already, really, but it needs to do a better job at providing avenues for that once capped.

It is also not an mmo thing it’s an form of rpg game. If the story line remains at the same difficulty throughout the entire game and the pc remains at the same power level for the entire game the game becomes boring really quickly. The story line needs to progress and the player needs to feel as if they are getting stronger for completing more difficult content.

The interesting thing is that GW1 did not have this. You capped out at level 20 and gear very early through the content, and played the rest of the PvE content capped. People still enjoyed it in the millions of players. So while I’d agree that it’s a common thing in RPGs, it isn’t ubiquitous or necessary.

DusK.3849:

So lemme get this straight: You’d rather see the price of gems shoot through the roof, to the point where the gem store is completely inaccessible to all but the most time-rich non-MT players?

Sorry, but the rest of us who don’t have deep pockets nor all the time in the world to devote to farming would rather not see that.

That’s true, too.

The question for me is what are the underlying parameters of their algorithm for the pricing of gold to gems and vice versa. I can understand the interest on both sides of the exchange in keeping the gold value of gems lowish (makes it harder to B2W and easier for regular players to buy stuff in the store), but I’d be interested to see if actual demand for gems from the holders of gold being low is a major factor here.

Basically I agree with Chip. The rates are set the way they are so as to really cut down on the number of people who will be willing to go the personal plastic route to things like a full set of T3 cultural gears, mats for legendary weapons and so on — to keep some things in the game “rare”, as it were, by making the plastic route very, VERY expensive for people who would be willing to go that way.

E.G., at current rates the full T3, for ~120g, would be around USD 450-500, since USD 50 for 4000 gems would net around 13-15g. Now, some people will spend that, sure, but the NUMBER of people who will is much less than if the rate were closer to USD1 = 1G, which is what it is with illegal gold sellers. That drops the price of a full T3 to USD 120, which is still a lot, but 75% less than it is now, and that means demand for that would be much higher that at the current price point. That means keeping that gear rare. The same holds true for legendaries and their mats and so on. It’s designed essentially to make it very, VERY, expensive to really “B2W” in the cosmetic/prestige gear game.

Daniel.2743:

I have to admit since playing GW2, I questioned myself on what I actually want from an MMO and what I previously enjoyed in MMO’s. It’s not so much the grind and the progression that I enjoy compared to GW2’s style.

It’s the enjoyment I have playing with like-minded players, I could care less if I get better armor/weapons or titles. That’s just a novelty in a way.

I’m not saying that I couldn’t just do something similar in GW2, but there is no incentive to bring people together, it’s also severely lacking in any social aspect to bring people together. Not once did I feel it necessary to group with someone or even talk with someone in this game from 1-80. It’s amazing really, for a game with such features like Dynamic events and large scale PVP, it feels really apathetic and not at all like a multiplayer experience.

Right, but this is intentional design, I think, in light of the reality that MMOs have been becoming progressively less social (with strangers, I mean) over the last several years in general. I think to some degree this dovetails with the growth of the social networking internet, and the transition from the internet being a place where people primarily socialized with people they didn’t know in real life to being a place where people socialized primarily with people they already otherwise know. This has been the case in most MMOs since at least 2008. I remember when WAR was released and no-one was really talking or socializing — it was all taking place in guilds and on VOIPs and most of these were pre-existing the game launch, so not terribly open to outsiders (at least nothing at all like game guilds were in 2002, 2003, 2004 etc).

MMO designers have gone with the flow here and introduced game features that have allowed people to experience multiplayer content without having to socialize with strangers. Whether than comes in the form of LFD/LFR tools, or dynamic events, instanced insta-matched PvP and so on, it’s all about people getting their multiplayer on without having to socialize outside their pre-existing group, because increasingly this is how people have used the internet and how most people find more convenient to play (which is radically different from how these games were in, say, 2003).

It’s true that human beings like progression, but it isn’t true at all that this is ubiquitously sought in all human recreational activity. People play sports for fun, not really for progression. Sure, they may notice themselves improving over time and that’s a kind of progression, or they may be plateaued — but they still play, because they enjoy the activity in itself.

It seems that PvP is played more like this in most games (especially outside MMOs). People get a kick out of the activity itself, so they play it to have the fun that the activity gives them more than they do for progression.

PvE games are more oriented toward progression, because most PvE games (SP) have an end to them — you are progressing towards the end. In MMOs this is also the case, but it can be stretched out either a lot (oldskool MMOs with year or more of grinding to get to the end) or a moderate amount (say, WoW), or not much (say, GW2). But there is an “end” that people are progressing towards. That’s really the issue, I think.

I think it’s more complex.

As MMOs became more like games and less like virtual worlds (happened gradually, but the main event in the transition was WoW), they became more about a gaming experience and less like a world to be “lived in” virtually. This also paralleled a broader development in the internet away from making friends with strangers and towards using the internet to socialize with real life friends. Both of these made the PvE side of MMOs into more of a game, and the significant aspect of that is that (PvE) games exist “to be beat”(en) (sic). MMOs are said to be “open ended”, but the gamey ones (which is most since 2004) are much less so, and can be said to have “been beat” once the player’s progression has stopped — normally this is when the gear treadmill runs dry. Sure, some people roll alts and so on (just like some people replay single player games or play New Game Plus or something), but many people quit or take long breaks until there is “more content to beat”. And, in light of this, it’s true what Tradewind says that some MMOs are designed to be purposefully “slow to beat” so that subscription fees can remain flowing — that’s only natural.

PvP games are not like that. FPSs, MOBAs, etc. These games people play all the time for the experience and not “to beat the game”. But most MMOs are not games that revolve around PvP. EVE is an exception to that, pre-Tram UO was another one, DAoC to a lesser degree (huge grind to level in that game before endgame RvR), WAR as well (although badly designed in many ways). But most of the MMOs that have substantial PvP elements (even WoW itself) are still colored by the PvE-oriented gear progression system because, again, they want people to keep playing the game, and PvP people generally don’t like to pay for online PvP games (neither the main FPSs nor the main MOBAs require it).

So, yes, there are plenty of MMO players now who want progression and if there isn’t any progression the game is over (that is, when they reach the end of progression, the game has been “beat”, if only until new content comes to provide more progression). WoW has had the biggest impact here within the MMO genre, but really was just the main event in a broader transition of MMOs away from being endless virtual worlds towards being more online games.

GW2 is in many ways like a SP game. Economically it’s virtually identical to a SP game with a DLC shop. In terms of game design, it’s one where the PvE side can be “beat” in a reasonable period of time … much longer than the typical SP game, but still nothing like a traditional MMO. The PvP side has more longevity, of course, and that’s why it was really intended to be the one aspect that would keep people playing (other than periodic PvE content updates) between expansions. But in many ways it is like a SP game designed in a massively multiplayer space and style. The disconnect comes from people seeing “MMO” and thinking that it is designed like an MMO where you are expected to take months to beat the content due to design — this one isn’t designed that way (different business model), and so people are beating the game on a schedule that is much shorter and more like a SP game, and that is rankling people.

Actually the adjustments are not just to punish bots, but to cut down on materials farmed overall. The design has always been one that rewards a variety of gameplay, not focused gameplay.

Yes you need gold and materials. If you are focused on grinding up your professions, yes, it’s going to be a hellacious grind.

GW2 is designed to be played — various content, mix it up. If you are focused like a laser beam on maxing one area of the game, it will be a hella grind, by design.

The concept of reward for time invested is a workplace concept that doesn’t belong in games. Rewards should exist for achieving something significant, but not for killing the same mobs over and over again. Anet’s philosophy on this is spot on. The problem lies with the players and their fixation on getting the skins they want ASAP — which turns everything into fine-crafting-mats/hr equations and a big spreadsheet in your head, when the idea is to play the game naturally and the rewards will follow. If you don’t find the gameplay rewarding, you really shouldn’t be chasing rewards, because as Anet said, there is no “endgame” to “use the rewards” in — the rewards are there as something that happens naturally through longer gameplay (and they’ve shortened it a lot now with the increased dungeon token drops anyway).

I do not know any other reward system that properly appeals to those not interested in cosmetics and considers themselves hardcore (as I consider myself) besides gear progression. Which is why I created this thread. The whole point was to implore ArenaNet to creating a reward system that caters to my demographic so I can enjoy the game as I have done other MMOs that delivered in the past.

And therein lies the problem.

This is fundamentally a political dispute between two different parts of the gaming community about (1) game design and (2) how ongoing developer resources should be spent. It has therefore the hallmarks of a political discussion, in that it is both ideological and practical/spoils oriented.

Your demographic wants it to be more about differentiation between your self-styled elite, hardcore selves and everyone else.

My demographic wants it to be more about an equal playing field where the time-rich don’t have an advantage over the time-poor.

This dispute is fundamental and not incidental. It defines who we are as gamers. And in the context of this game, it is a line of demarcation for many of us who are frankly quite sick and tired of seeing every single frigging MMO cater to the endgame gear progression crowd, repeating a tired concept that simply creates caste systems in games based on time richness and time poverty.

This game is a beachhead for our side. So, yes, many of us defend these design decisions doggedly and with considerable passion. We are passionate gamers like you are, but we do not accept a system that rewards you time-rich at our expense. Arena’s philosophy has always reflected our priorities, and still does. It provides for differentiation in appearance (which appeals to the kitten of vanity), while disallowing differentiation in power based simply on time richness.

Therefore, we support this design, and we fight, fight, fight, fight those of you from the time-rich camp who want to see this game remade to suit the interests of yourselves, when every other frigging MMO is designed with your interests in mind.

There are pickable skills to clear conditions.

ravinhood.3981:

Ang.2157:

Asylia.2651:

If you force yourself to sit on GW2, you’ll inevitably burn yourself out and you’ll find even more things to nitpick about it. So take a break ^.^ <3

No, that’s the whole point of an MMORPG.
It should be like a virtual life for you.

Yeah after what 13 years now Everquest is still the best VIRTUAL LIFE MMO out there. BTW it’s F2P now if you didn’t know.

EVE is a good virtual life MMO. I played it from early 2004 to early 2007, and I eventually quit because it was just way, way too intrusive into life and consuming, and since then I have been more interested in games I can play here and there and still have fun than in the virtual life type game.

Ang.2157:

Asylia.2651:

If you force yourself to sit on GW2, you’ll inevitably burn yourself out and you’ll find even more things to nitpick about it. So take a break ^.^ <3

No, that’s the whole point of an MMORPG.
It should be like a virtual life for you.

There’s your issue right there.

GW2 wasn’t designed to be that, neither was GW1. I have about 150 hours in GW2, a level 80 with full exotics and so on. I still enjoy and play the game, but less than I was a week or two ago, because I am now playing some other new release games which I was anticipating like Torchlight II and Borderlands 2. But I still have fun with GW2 as well. Suits me fine, because I like to mix it up and don’t like MMORPGs that are like second life substitutes.

They’re increasing the number of tokens, so that will make the grind easier. They also said that the anti-speedrun fix is bugged and they are working to fix it. So when it comes to the situation around dungeons, it’s probably best to see what they do to address it — because they have already said they are working on a fix.

RebelYell.7132:

knightblaster.8027:

If you’re not having fun, stop playing.

That might be worthwhile advice, if this was F2P.

It’s B2P, which means it is economically identical to a single player game. Yes, you spent $60 on the game, but if you’[re not enjoying a single player game, do you keep playing it anyway? My total playtime is around 150 hours, which is more than I would normally have for a single player game, so I don’t think there’s an economic value issue, at least not for me.

Birdy.4816:

TLDR

Most games offer good rewards because they are a good part of FUN.

If you find repeating mindless dungeons, or having nothing to do fun then more power to you.

“if your not having fun, stop playing” WHOA such amazing advice from apologists. This is a persistant MMO. I’m glad you people don’t run companies, businesses or anything.

Really really bad.

IF people want to complain on the forusm let them, if your having fun why are you even here getting butthurt about people complaining and wasting your time coming up with terrible advice like this.

I explained my playtime in my post – I still play, but less, because I am done with my main. This is what I expected from the game, so I am satisfied with it. If I were interested in the dungeon gear look, I would run dungeons, but that isn’t what I find fun, so I don’t do it. I’d advise others to do the same, rather than getting bent into a virtual pretzel because they are not enjoying a video game.

Athem.7321:

knightblaster.8027:

If you’re not having fun, stop playing. That’s a pretty simple decision. Making the prestige armor looks from dungeons obtainable with 3-4 dungeon runs won’t make you play any longer, that’s for certain.

You are wrong. Actually it makes us play longer because we will see the point to go and clear the dungeon.

You are defending this game pretty much brainlessly.

If it takes you four dungeon runs, you have the set in an evening. How does that make you play more? You’re done in one day. Nothing at all to chase. The same posters would be in these forums complaining that they have nothing to do.

If you’re not having fun, stop playing. That’s a pretty simple decision. Making the prestige armor looks from dungeons obtainable with 3-4 dungeon runs won’t make you play any longer, that’s for certain.

My main is level 80. I had my exotic set shortly thereafter from the TP, because I had in the low 20s in gold at the time (I don’t understand how people have 2g when they reach 80, I really don’t ) from simply playing the game, not playing the market. I haven’t been running dungeons to grind tokens for a certain look. I’ve run a few here and there, but dungeon running has never really been my thing so … I don’t do it. Wow, that’s a hard choice. I also don’t play as much as I did when I was leveling my main, which I also expected and am fine with — I do still play, however, and enjoy my time in the game. If I didn’t, I’d just stop playing for a while altogether.

Athem.7321:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

HAHAHAAHAH
So in WoW u dont have to beat the raid once and then farm it 30 times for gear upgrade , cause u need any tiny dps increase to move to the next tier – raid ?
While in GW2 , cosmetic grind u think is a <<must>> to enjoy the game ?
Hahahahahaahahah !
I wish the 25 september could come faster :P

I dont understand your arguement. I’m talking about running 46 times the SAME dungeon is INSANE. Yeah even WoW is more "rewarding " comparing to that.

The number is being reduced, you’re aware of that, right? More tokens are going to be rewarded so the grind will be faster. But it won’t be “run it twice and get the most prestige armor in the game” either. That would be silly.

the uprising.6317:

“i dont care about rewards
but combat isnt fun
it is mindless grinding one event/dungeon after another which are all the same all the time, because there is no teamplay/tactics whatsoever
so what do u mean with fun-centric?”

THISS

Also, to the people saying you don’t enjoy grinding if you don’t like the low rewards currently present, no one enjoys ridiculous grinds, they want the grind to be paced correctly, there is an art to making grind enjoyable, and atm its far too unrewarding.

You know there’s a problem when there’s more grind to get a dungeon armor in GW2 than in WoW.

WoW is totally different in that it is organized around endless gear progression in tiers. That isn’t the case here. These sets aren’t the equivalent of “dungeon armor” — they are the prestige armor sets in the game in terms of appearance. Acquiring a set with the same stats is very easy, doesn’t require a grind, and can easily be crafted or simply purchased on the TP. It’s a different setup from WoW entirely.

The equation they were addressing with the auto group system that the game has was the fact, the absolute fact, that in MMOs in the last 8-10 years the trend has been very strongly towards solo gaming, and people not wanting to befriend strangers on the internet to play a video game, MMO or otherwise. In most other MMOs, this has resulted in a stark disparity between “leveling content” and “endgame content”, with the former being almost all content designed around solo missions (in an open world or otherwise) and the latter being almost all content designed around organized groups of friends, groups which increasingly spanned more than one game and were not open to outsiders or “pubbies”.

Different game designs have tried to address this in different ways over the years, in terms of bringing more “group” content into an inherently multiplayer open world, but trying to do it in the context of people not wanting to really socialize much with strangers on the internet in a video game. WAR had public quests, RIFT had its rifts and invasions and so on. DEs are GW2’s take on this — group content that doesn’t require socializing with internet strangers in order to complete. The difference is that GW2 also redesigned its combat approach at the same time, so that these two redesigns are additive: that is, the main open world group content does not require socialization, but it also doesn’t require much coordination because each class is designed to be self-sufficient. Some players will like this, but afficionados of the older school approach of set pieces with 5-man roles and coordination will not like it. Because it is additive in terms of the design intersection with DEs, for people who do not like this, the dislike will also tend to be additive.

I like the system fine, but I can understand why others would not.

You can get exotic gear quickly without huge grinds — I had enough gold to buy a set when I hit 80 (not through gem selling), and many other people crafted their sets (there are many people crafting and selling them, too, getting a tidy profit in the process). That’s your baseline effectiveness there.

If you want a certain look, then yes you’re going to grind for it. It will time-consuming. That’s the point. Arena never said that there wouldn’t be grinding for prestige looks. They said that there wouldn’t be grinding for the baseline level 80 power set, and that’s accurate. It’s the same approach as with GW1. If, however, you are grinding for dungeon sets as your baseline level 80 power set, you are simply doing it wrong.

The “need” for grinding is something created inside people’s heads. It’s created by the desire to have a reward now, or sooner, rather than in due course. GW2, by contrast, is designed for these rewards to come in due course — from map completion and casually playing the game over a longer term, not by laser-beaming a reward in a few days or a week by farming/grinding it. The problem lies in the MMO player community, which is now very Skinnerish and is mostly focused on finding the most efficient way to “karma/hr”, “gold/hr”, “xp/hr”. This is the kind of radical achiever mentality that has been fostered by the design of games like WoW, unfortunately. GW2 is trying to break that mold, but the Skinner conditioning is very resistant and very strident in its resistance to the idea of playing more casually and for fun like a SP game.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

indelible.6981:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

So because they resemble one type of quest in another MMO, means they are instantly just like every quest in another MMO? Like I said before. Questing in another MMO IS your source of experience when it comes to leveling. Renown Hearts in GW2, are NOT your source of experience when it comes to leveling. They serve different purposes.

In GW2, Renown Hearts are there to lead you to events happening in the world. They don’t provide you with sufficient experience to be considered viable for leveling off. Unlike questing in other MMOs that your main source of experience is from questing.

I’m sorry but… your argument is that Renown Hearts aren’t quests because they reward negligible experience.

They’re functionally almost identical to quests in any other MMO, ASIDE from the lack of experience. They have you pursuing the same game play. AT BEST… they’ve managed to roll up courier and grind quests into a single, neat, little package.

You’re making a really weak case for the difference between Renown Hearts and quests right now. I hope you know that ;P

lol not really a weak argument, it is just you aren’t seeing the big picture and only looking down through a scope of what you want it to be and not what it is.

Sure they have similar objectives. You collect a bunch of quests in a quest hub, and go kill 10 of this and go collect 10 of this. Then turn them in for your xp. You go to the area of a Heart and kill 10 of this and collect 10 of this. Then you get rewarded some xp.

But what you seem to be missing is, Hearts are not your main source of progression. In other MMOs, quests are your main source of progression. In order to get the best xp while leveling, you have to do quests to progress. In GW2, Hearts are not your main source of progression. In order to get the best xp while leveling, you can’t rely on Hearts to progress. They are not your source of experience like in other MMOs.

If anything is comparable to quests in other MMOs, it is Dynamic Events, not Renown Hearts. I’ll agree that Dynamic Events are similar to traditional questing, just they are more interactive and a lot more funner than reading quest text. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are still like traditional questing because they are your main source of progression.

Hearts were inserted during the testing process (alpha) in response to comments that testers thought they needed more direction. The original design was for all zones to be without hearts, like the Orr zones are. Hearts were put in to direct people towards DEs, which were always conceived as the core content. It’s terribly ironic that the game is now being attacked for having them, when it wasn’t initially conceived to have them. Sometimes testers aren’t giving the best advice, I think.

You can tell when you are doing events in Orr based on your event reward.

ashsmith.8976:

so adding a few features that would make the game better is making it like wow . Ok i see your logic there . I hope they dont add authenticators , would make the game to like WOW. What next pandas ?

Authenticators are fine. Pandas I don’t feel strongly about. Raids, stat gear progression — yes, I feel strongly about those. But in any case the point is that the game isn’t WoW and doesn’t need to be conformed to WoW. Many of us who are playing it are playing it precisely because it is NOT like WoW in some key respects (not authenticators or Pandas — as far as I am aware, those have not come up on the forums, and are classic strawmen).

It tells you that WoW has 10m subscribers and has cast a huge shadow over the entire MMO genre. The person casting the shadow isn’t worried, but the people in the shadow are. GW2 has an opportunity to be something different, but tons of its players are lobbying like mad to make it more like WoW. So, yes, that’s an issue. Does every MMO have to be like WoW, because WoW has millions of players who play every other MMO as well and demand it??

MrThebigcheese.2014:

knightblaster.8027:

Name calling? What name did I call you? I simply said that you seem to be rather oblivious to the point of this thread, which was the obnoxious nature of the community.

Quick quote for irony. Take care.

Your habit of selective quoting, when the text that you have omitted from your quote undermines the reason for which you are quoting it, is singularly unimpressive and frankly quite tiresome, as this this the second time you have pulled that stunt in the same thread.

Name calling? What name did I call you? I simply said that you seem to be rather oblivious to the point of this thread, which was the obnoxious nature of the community. It wasn’t a thread about the game. Yet you attacked me for discussing the topic of the thread — meaning you seemed to me to be oblivious to what the thread was about. Not name-calling but describing how your posts were at odds with the thread topic, and how you seemed not to notice this.

You can’t go running to hide behind “talking about the game”. When you describe the game in such inflammatory terms, you are directly attacking the opinions of those who enjoy the game. Not by expressing that you do not like the game, mind you, but by being inflammatory about it. As I said above, opinions are fine, and I have no issue with them, but how they are expressed matters, and is directly relevant and on point to the topic of this thread.

Some people post unconstructive, unhelpful and inflammatory comments about the game.

Other people call these people on their unconstructive, unhelpful and inflammatory comments.

Guess who the problem is.

Your post was entirely unconstructive and unhelpful and worded to incite. If that is what you honestly harbor in your head, you are the one who needs to step back and realize that you are being over the top.

You claim I am talking about you personally (when my post about yours simply noted it was an example of why people were treating these kinds of posts with hostility), and yet it was you who described “people like me” as being “the reason for hostility” — quite expressly making your post a clear personal attack on me. The fact that you seem to have missed this is either ironic, sad, or both.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

knightblaster.8027:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

A lot is Anet’s fault with their ridiculous sales hype. Revolution this and amazing dynamic events that.

Then they released a game that is a step backwards for the genre in terms of creativity and content. All they did was change things up on the interface and make it so you don’t pick up/turn in quests.

The content itself is as stale as it gets. The classes are the shallowest in the genre. Everything about GW2 was tired upon release.

And this post is another example.

Guys, if you want to understand why there is so much hostility from the fans of the game, it’s because of posts like this. Totally unconstructive, unhelpful, inflammatory and baiting.

You have inadvertently highlighted the problem perfectly. You think anyone with a negative opinion of the game is “unhelpful, inflammatory and baiting”. This is obviously not true at all.

The reason for the hostility is people like you honestly. I didn’t insult anyone, it’s not inflammatory at all. You just don’t agree so you give it ignorant labels.

The content is stale. It’s the same thing every mmo has been doing for years. Warhammer’s public quests were better than DEs.

The classes are the shallowest in the genre. So few skills, such little progression.

Try to understand that opinions that differ from yours are not wrong. You are literally part of the problem. Please try to regain the ability to be objective instead of irrationally trying to discredit anything you disagree with.

Opinions are fine, friend, but when you use words like “backwards”, “stale”, “shallowest” and “tired”, you are being inflammatory. Hint: being inflammatory does not require attacking someone personally. It simply means that your opinion is being expressed in a way that will inflame others. If you do not understand this, or refuse to accept it, I cannot help you — but it’s quite obvious that posts like yours are the kind of flamebait that is devouring this forum.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

A lot is Anet’s fault with their ridiculous sales hype. Revolution this and amazing dynamic events that.

Then they released a game that is a step backwards for the genre in terms of creativity and content. All they did was change things up on the interface and make it so you don’t pick up/turn in quests.

The content itself is as stale as it gets. The classes are the shallowest in the genre. Everything about GW2 was tired upon release.

And this post is another example.

Guys, if you want to understand why there is so much hostility from the fans of the game, it’s because of posts like this. Totally unconstructive, unhelpful, inflammatory and baiting.

It’s easier in full 80 gear. I did it first as an 80 and ran to the base in the west and then from there down to the portal in the west. Stack health, speed (if you have it) and have condition remover in your utilities.