Guild Wars 2

I farmed SE to buy some boots, ran to the vendor and bought the shoulders, which I already had. Salvaged for ectos and farmed SE more, ran to vendor and bought the light armor boots…for my guardian. Salvaged for ectos.

Saved up some karma for cleric’s boots, bought the shoulders, which I already had.

Farmed TA for some boots, bought the light armor boots for my guardian.

This is a problem I can’t seem to get over.

Making a char named Marshall Trahearne, then stepping into wvw.

What’s childish about jumping puzzles, light heartedness and non-combat activities? If anything, mindless violence deep down can be seen as childish and petty. Mature is subjective and most “mature” content/games are only around to seem hip or appeal to the less mature crowd (while most of us sit there and roll our eyes.)

AndrewSX.3794:

Honestly, if you’re considering WvW as PvE, do a favor to you and to WvWers and stick with PvE.

Though I am not too fond of WvW, your comment is elitist and unneeded. Some players may excel at both, anyway. In short, PvE is not either superior or inferior to PvP-it’s just an alternate way of playing the game (PvP is no GW2 “leet badge”.)

To whom it may apply: the “carebears” moniker is so stupid: caring isn’t “bad”, and there’s nothing wrong about those old friendly bears cartoons. Being competitive is not the only way to enjoy life, and people should be allowed to be themselves without being insulted for it.

In short, the world would be a better place if people understood it’s perfectly fine to be different from each other and prefer different things, without pretending that our choices and beliefs must be superior to those of others just because they are our own, and they “must be correct” (“the way I see life is the way everybody else must see it.”)

No repairs costs.

When you are walking downtown lost you think about hitting “M”

You’re driving down the countryside and you see a field with cows in it and immediately want to rush over there and save the ranch from bandits.

Devs implementing player ideas can lead to bad things… for example: ascended gear.

I think we’re starting to lose perspective. Not just on the OP, but also the game.

Think about where GW2 stands in relation to other MMOs, think about what it set out to achieve that was different to them.

Yes, in some areas is might not have done brilliantly, but it IS very different from other MMOs, and it IS in new territory. We can’t expect them to get it 100% perfect from the beginning. In terms of being a year down the line, we can see that the devs are making changes (whether or not in the direction you want them to go is not the issue for my post) and clearly testing out new ideas involving gameplay etc. I think someone already mentioned it, but WoodenPotatoes’ Youtube video of GW2 9 months on is very good and interesting to watch.

What has changed even more significantly perhaps, are the expectations of the players. What was new and innovative to us a year ago, is now the norm. It is now the very base of our expectations, and ANet isn’t keeping up. It is now old news that you can jump, can dodge, can move in combat. We seem to have forgotten that this just wasn’t the norm before GW2. Heck, it isn’t the norm now, if other MMOs in the market are anything to go by.

This is just one example of where GW2 has totally broken the convention. And this still IS a huge deal. The market needs time to adjust. ANet needs time to figure out where it fits in the market. And I believe the ARE trying to adjust to the range of opinions people have about the game and how it can evolve. However, they aren’t going to just respond to every post out there – actually too much communication is often bad for a company. I’m not saying they shouldn’t tell us everything, but when everyone starts talking to everyone, things get said that aren’t strictly correct, assumptions get made etc, and people start expecting things that weren’t ever coming their way. So generally, larger companies restrict information until they’re ready to make an official statement.

So perhaps what has changed wasn’t so much a case of ANet getting everything wrong, but more the fact that what they got RIGHT has just become too normal for us now. I’m not saying they shouldn’t keep improving and making changes (of course they should). I’m simply saying we’ve lost perspective a bit on what they HAVE achieved.

How about they actually give you an awesome skin as your real reward for crafting a legendary. Like a special weapon skin that gives you special footprints or a glowing aura…

Huh, kind of similar to you Reaper — I only play with my girlfriend. We enjoy jumping on a few days a week together after work. We like doing our own thing at our own pace, have our own guild, and to be honest, we have more fun just playing by ourselves. It’s a bit of a bummer that there isn’t much challenging end game content for one or two people though. I’d kill to have just one or two permanent two-man dungeons in this game.

That type of game won’t last against the coming MMOs.

Why is that? A lot of casuals and a lot of non-mmorpg players are playing the game, I don’t see those going to any of the coming MMOs. They are too MMO-ish, maybe the old MMORPG players will find the upcoming MMOs more appealing but I doubt those who don’t like MMOs will.

GW2 players don’t want vertical progression

I still don’t see any vertical progression… In a way that exists in other games at least.

and that’s not what Colin Johanson wanted GW2 to become.

And of course you know better than Colin himself what he wanted GW2 to become…

be it a meaningful story ending, a powerful item, a new armor set and so on

Powerful item and “stat upgrade” are similar, no? I made a long post about how they could change the reward system of the game:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changing-the-way-the-Reward-system-work/first#post2308317

RNG needs to go. Rewards need to be revamped and changed. Rewarding players who do variety of content is the way to go, in my opinion. The more unique things you do, the more rewards you should get.

The best rewards should be the hardest to earn

Indeed. But we need to define “hard” first, what is hard for some, is easy for others. What is hard at release, is easy-mode after a few months, be it a raid or a dungeon in any game. GW2 has some potential here, with the way they do temporary content, while the dungeons themselves shouldn’t be excessively hard to finish, adding some extra achievements like they did with Aetherblade Retreat is a great way to increase difficulty. Then, because it’s temporary, it won’t be changed to “farm-status” as easily.

Invest in the future, not in the Living Story

Living Story = the future though. It’s not always working well, but it’s something new for the developers as well. An ever changing world is far better than a static world with lots of farmable places, what they need is to make Living World actually change Tyria, in a more amazing way.

Hardcore content = longevity

And offering new updates every 2 weeks is having the same effect on longevity. Players log to see what’s new, if they like the new skins/rewards/dungeons/story they will continue and complete it, if not, they will wait for the next release. That’s great for the longevity of the game. Hardcore content will simply alienate even more people that non-hardcore content does.

HiddenNick.7206:

Edit: I think what Insignya is trying to say is that AN is not doing what is the best for the game. They just react mindlessly to that what the current rant is about.

I believe most forum posters don’t care about what is best for the game, they just react mindlessly to whatever happened with the last patch.

bartrentenaar.8674:

How are they going to implement huge changes like new professions and races? Cause if those will never come, I’m sure the life of gw 2 won’t be as long as it’s predecessor and I’ll be bored way earlier.

> Living Story leads into the Dominion of Four Winds

> Tengu decide to join up in the fight to go back to their homeland.

> Land on Cantha which is currently under attack / locked down by the Ministry of Purity.

> Living Story for the next few months / half a year / [insert timeframe here] focuses on freeing Cantha, with other smaller stories back on Kryta.

> After Cantha is freed, the Tengu are eternally grateful, everyone hugs each other and cries tears of joy, and the Tengu and a profession specific to their race is unlocked for everyone (not just those who took part).

I think people have a problem with it for two reasons:

• They have in their mind what is traditionally in an expansion, and are thinking that no expansion = no new races, professions, lands ect.
• Most of the LS content so far has been temporary, and so on hearing that Anet are going to be keeping up with the LS, that most content will be temporary as well.

However, this may not be the case. It would be entirely possible for Anet to introduce new races, professions, lands, dungeons ect through the LS. Most of these have already been evidenced in the LS so far (Race = Karka, land = Southsun, Dungeons = Most LS content) and regardless of the execution of it, it was shown it can be done.

Improve on the execution of it, add meatier updates with permanent additions, and I’d actually say that adding content using these events as opposed to just ‘load the disc and it’s all available’ would actually be much, much more immersive.

Can we have a title for completing all the monster slayer achievements e.g.
‘legendary slayer’ or something? Would be cool IMO, you get titles for pvp so why not pve. Maybe even link it to a special reward, like with map completion. Would be something that people could earn over time through playing the game, and would encourage people to explore the world again as well in order to kill different monster types.

Insignya.8625:

I don’t give two dimes about stats – I did Fractals because they were challenging content with an obvious goal – gather enough AR to reach the last one.

I’m only going to quote this, because it seems rather contradictory (unless you were thinking in terms of the regular Power, Precision ect stats, then I apologise).

On the one hand you said you don’t care about stats, and yet in the same sentence you said you enjoyed Fractals because it was challenging and had a goal, which was to gather enough Agony Resistance – which is by all definition a stat.

On praising and whining

I wholeheartedly agree with the ‘whining doesn’t help’, but I don’t fully agree on the ‘praising doesn’t help’.

You can praise a piece of content, and do it constructively by highlighting what it is about it that you enjoy. Praising in this way allows the devs to know what they’ve done really well, and so they can emulate what it was about that particular content that was good.

Where I agree that praising can harm is when people unequivocally praise everything, or praise something without saying why it is good. It’s kind of like when games adopt mechanics from other games – they just adopt it as is, and reskin it to fit their game as opposed to looking into why people enjoy it.

Rewards

I agree and disagree.

I agree that, in a sense, clear rewards can provide most people with a goal, but disagree that they are crucial.

The focus should be engaging, intrinsically satisfying game-play (you’d do it for the sake of doing it), with extrinsic motivators (the rewards) being the icing on the cake. More so, you’d probably be able to get away with reasonable RNG on loot drops if the actual content was satisfying.

As for rewards, in a cosmetic based game, how do you define ‘best’? My favourite armour skins for my Necro is a level 25 armour set from Karma recipes.

Now, if you were to say ‘exclusive’ and ‘prestigious’, I’d agree. If the content had an armour or weapon skin(s), a title, crafting materials, recipes, maybe even a unique skill name and animation you can toggle on and off (I.E instead of Final Thrust, you’d have Adelburn’s Rage, which wreaths the strike in Foefire, and does the burning animation if it kills the foe).

The Living Story and Unrelated Features

First, I’d point out it’s kind of a fallacy to state that the LS means that Anet isn’t getting revenue, since the content has to be developed and such.

Secondly, just because the current LS has had temp content, it doesn’t mean that all of it will, and Colin has said there will be more permanent content on the horizon. Also, better to get all the failing out now, rather than have it in a key story point (can you imagine if Jormag was introduced now with the LS being rough around the edges?).

However, I do agree with the features thing. These should be developed alongside the LS. A good example would be the new Achievement rewards (which I know wasn’t around when this was posted). Personally, there are a lot of mechanics and systems they could take from GW1 and adapt to GW2, such as:

• Nic’s Daily Scavanger Hunt (add unique, soulbound items to each loot table, for example, a fire gland from certain types of Drakes, and maybe a randomised list of x items, as opposed to everyone getting the same thing as to not cause people to farm the same mobs. Amaranth could play this role.)
• Guild Halls (and ships, airships, secret volcano bases ect) and GvG
• Books (may get people to redo Story Modes)
• Bounties (from GW Beyond. Make them randomly occurring Meta events that don’t have a specific spawn point in the area)
• The Scrying Pool (to re-allow people to do temp content, although the Fractals will probably act as a more randomised version of this)

@Insignya

I do find it interesting that when you talk about how much replayability you believe Skyrim has, you do also mention that you modded it about 50 times. If you couldn’t mod it, that is, if you played it the way it was originally intended, would you still find it so fun? If the only way it was still fun was with mods, then I would venture that the argument falls a little flat.

I’m not saying you’re wrong about wanting more from GW2. And I don’t think even the staunchest defender of the game would argue there’s literally nothing to be improved upon. But I do argue against people who have got frustrated and bored to the point where they stop seeing rationally and jump on this sort of “hate bandwagon”.

As others have said, GW2 is trying to do something different. It doesn’t always get it right, and it will always be a long, uphill struggle to break with conventions (such as the trinity) that have been ground into our expectations of the MMO genre for several years. And maybe they haven’t got it right just yet – certainly they haven’t. But similarly, we can’t all expect to like it. Just because people don’t like something doesn’t mean it hasn’t done what it set out to do. It DID break with several traditional MMO conventions. Some like it, some don’t. It’s taken a huge step towards RPGs (and yes, I agree with Vayne that not everybody plays RPGs for the reward aspect) and again, some like it, some don’t. Those that don’t only make the mistake, imo, of equating not liking the game to the game failing in its objective.

ANet didn’t say they were making what would be the most popular MMO ever. They said ground-breaking – and it has broken several grounds.

Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: I also still think that people keep treating this like a sub based MMO, not a B2P MMO, which is a mistake and will only ever end badly. I’m not saying this to invalidate any arguments about endgame etc (that is, in fact, a slightly separate issue). More to the point that you have paid all that you ever NEED to pay for this game, and definitely got that money back in terms of gameplay. There’s nothing saying you are required to play this and only this game for the next year again. You are completely free to feel bored/need a break and to take a break and pick it up again when you DO feel like you want to roam Tyria again. That’s how I keep it fun – running the same zones over and over for a year IS boring. I agree there. But I disagree with the argument that ANet NEEDS more. Depends where their aim is. They WILL make a good amount of money from the cash shop (they are always going to because people will always spend in these), and they have your box purchase fee. They SHOULD create more because this WILL increase the longevity of their game and it will keep their current playerbase numbers up, but they don’t NEED it, and the game won’t die if they didn’t change that particular aspect much if they boost other kinds of content. It seems like a poor excuse for lazy developing, but actually, it’s not if you take this kind of perspective on it. It’s B2P. Not sub based. There are fundamental differences with the way a developer NEEDS (note again, not always equating to should) to act between the two.

I think they’ll be used to craft new armor and weapons, and they’ll probably be tradeable or can be acquired from different methods, otherwise only people who completed the meta achievement will determine the price of the items you make with quartz

I’d just like to give ArenaNet some well deserved positive feedback.

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 since the beginning and in that time seen how some players have embraced its take on MMOs while others have found the lack of some conventional features (trinity etc) somewhat disconcerting.

For me personally I adore this game, the gorgeous and detailed environments, the love and design that’s gone into every corner, the expertly crafted jumping puzzles that in themselves are worth playing the game for. The fact I have five maxed out level eighty characters might tell you how I just love to run through Tyria doing whatever takes me fancy.

When I look back and count all the additional content we’ve been given (for free!) it’s staggering. I was especially impressed with the quality and size of Christmas, Halloween and Southsun. On top of this we’ve had new dungeons, fractals, Superbox, the living story and much more. Then ArenaNet decided (rightly so) to get their house in order and it went quiet. Many of my friends sounded off with ‘bored and nothing to do’ and left the game. I’m now seeing many coming back after hearing good things.

The living story did start really slow in my opinion and so some people may have been jaded by this but Im really happy to see its now taking off and getting huge support from the community. It’s natural to want people to love the game you love but I couldn’t disagree with many when we started this and it had the ‘is that it’ feeling.

This latest chapter with the Aether Pirates is just fantastic, it’s challenging, well designed and most of all, lots of fun. I spent hours in the jumping puzzle last night pulling my hair out! The guys who made a zeppelin, hidden in a holographic mountain I take my hat off to you.

It’s almost a sigh of relief, your now pushing your player base with content that is really making them sit up and pay attention. In addition we have a lot more to come, your reworking of rewards in the wings (finally!) and a commitment to adding new content every two weeks is very encouraging.

So yes, I’d like to say a big thankyou and congratulations to ArenaNet for sticking to your guns, providing an almost impossible amount of additional content and listening/acting to the feedback from the community.

I hope your all getting the holidays and down time you deserve!

Genophix

@Xenon.4537 and @Anyone who wants more ascended gear. Adding more gear with higher stats is a bad idea (what i really think is that any body who even suggest adding ascended gear should be drawn and quartered. Yes drawn by a horse across a field and then cut into little pieces) As other people have said a million times before you dont need more stats.

I know you think you do because you believe you need a reason to capture those 4 camps in southsun and then kill the karka queen because right now the reward is so crappy nobody wants to do it. I agree, Im one of those people who has on interest in doing that event because theres no point. The two rares and small as kitten chance to get a precursor are just not worth it. So whats the answer you ask?

The answer is to make it worth it, but not by adding cool armor to it. Make it more epic, make it world changing. Make it go beyond those 4 crappy southsun settlements. Make the impact felt in other zones. You know like that tried to do in the beta. Anybody remember those surveys they had in the beta about the events. They would ask you questions about the events and one of the questions was “did it feel like it impacted the world around you?” The answer I always gave was NO. NO NO NO. They have failed to make their dynamic events impactful. Make it feel like God kitten Sauron is building an army at freakin mount doom and if people dont stop him then divinities reach will fall to the blackness. Then when your rockin self comes along and stops him (or the Karka Queen, or whatever, please for the love of god use your imagination) Anets needs to make the town people remember you and awesome you are.

Also Im not a game designer, I dont get paid to think of all the awesome ways you can be rewarded for completing an event so again for the love of god, use your imaginations (those of you who care, I dont care that much because I have 7 alts and they all need to be geared so even though I play tons every week I have a long kittening way to go before I finish with the current content) and if the towns people remember your actions and making stuff cheaper for you to buy from them or cheaper way point cost or whatever because of how awesome you were for saving them from impending disaster. Whatever you come up with for the reward system, dont make it more stats on the armor or weapons or trinkets.

Thanks for reading.

TLDR; Anet please, make events more fun so people will stop asking for more gear treadmill

1. Ongoing game design being influenced by those who want stat progression
2. PvP Class differentiation kittening some classes in PvE
3. Busywork

I actually really like this idea of fighting over zones and pushing forces out etc. In fact from the first preview trailers I thought that was what the DE system would be used for. For example centuars begin to invade take over an area and the map has to get together and push them back. It would be nice. But they would have to be pretty beefy events that played out over a fairly lengthy time. Imagine defending your home instance (Divinty’s Reach, Hoelbrack, etc) and then slowly pushing out taking back territory. That would be cool.

Insignya.8625:

I think at this point they want to make the game as mindless as can be for casuals to enjoy

Quit insulting casuals. I’m casual and I like complexity. I hate mindless grinding tho. Ironically it’s hardcore players, not casuals, who make the game mindless by supporting mindless grinding.

wolfie.7296:

Insignya.8625:

I think at this point they want to make the game as mindless as can be for casuals to enjoy

Quit insulting casuals. I’m casual and I like complexity. I hate mindless grinding tho. Ironically it’s hardcore players, not casuals, who make the game mindless by supporting mindless grinding.

While I do agree with you, don’t fight it over here. This thread is important. Were you at the BWE events? Do you have something to say? Do you support the idea of DEs being the center of GW2 development going forward? Would you like PvP, or just PvE events? Do you agree/disagree with the OP? Don’t know? Don’t post. Don’t let it derail into “casual/hardcore bickering”, there are plenty of threads for that.

i’ve been meaning to post something in these lines this week.

I stayed up all night just for that shaterer event back in the BWEs and, despite the technical difficulties, it was a wonderful idea. I DO HOPE that’s the plan for the future and that the current “living story” is just a test tos ee how much awful we can take :P

But I do wonder if that BWE event model was sacked because it’s too prone to technical difficulties? Maybe that’s why we’re getting this bi-weekly checklist crap now?

But I do make a plea for the live team, DO THAT BWE STUFF! Do Live events! Run “dev controlled stuff!”. Play god with your world! Send entities, send mob hordes, send zone changing stuff! We will play along!

And when not doing that, add stuff that revolve around the regular scripted Dynamic Events. DEs are THE THING about this game. USE IT for Hodor sakes!

Galtrix.7369:

Legendary weapons should not be obtained by luck. When people throw in thousands of rares and exotics and get crap, then a noob comes walking up to the mystic forge, tosses in 4 rares and gets a precursor instantly, they have every reason to be upset. Legendary weapons should be obtained by the amount of effort you put into getting them and should not have a .00001% chance to get one.

1. I have a beta tester in the guild that I’m in. He said that by the end of the summer there’s going to be a scavenger hunt for precursors. Every single precursor will have different things that you’ll have to do so the problem will be semi-solved there. I do agree that legendary should be gotten by skilled players, however it’s really hard to balance content in a way that only a certain percentage of people could get it without making it unfair.
2. Don’t be sour about someone elses luck. Not all of us are lucky sure, but there’s no need to hate on that lucky noob that threw some yellows in and got a precursor. I hope that he will sell it and get whatever he wants to get in the game. For example I’ll probably never get lucky enough to get a precursor, but I did manage to get a Jade Ticket by opening 182 coffers that I collected while playing. Some people in my guild opened over 4000 of them before they got a ticket. Some spent a fortune and never got it at all. I’m pretty sure that all of us get lucky at some point or another.

Secondly, it is our business where Anet is spending the money we give them. Like a shareholder, we expect to be let in on at least some of the future plans they are going to implement. If they took my money and then said, “Oh, looks like we’re out of money and closing down GW2.”, everyone would wonder where their money went. It is our business.

Well think of it this way – all companies take all money earned from all of their games and throw it into one big pot that they use to fund new projects. GW2 was funded that way, Wildstar is being funded this way. When the project is out, if it’s profitable enough it pays back the money spent on it and fund further projects. If it’s not profitable enough it gets shut down. Anet won’t close GW2 while it’s profitable and they’re not going to go bankrupt until at least one of their projects is still profitable.

Galtrix.7369:

The living story is the worst type of content.

Well personal opinion. I personally like it. It means that there is something new every time when I log on.

Insignya.8625:

Right now GW2 is off the radar for newcomers and that’s a fact- no famous youtube channels dedicated to GW2, no streaming, no machinima content… In fact, all the game has in its defense is the 2012 GOTY award, which I fully agree with and in fact voted for Guild Wars 2… except that was last year! Now people are off the hype train and the game is carrying an enormous amount of flak that’s alienating a huge number of potential customers. The devs could set the record straight and give us the weather forecast for the remainder of 2013… or they can forever dwell in silence.

1. They told us that they will update us on the future plans for the rest of 2013 in July. It’s July. Expect it to be soon.
2. I can verify that the game is still getting customers because it’s getting advertised by the word of mouth. For example my mother’s boyfriend’s guild is moving away from WoW and to GW2, mostly because a) They’re bored with the old MMO b) They heard that it’s good. Therefore the game is still getting new players.

Primernova.5791:

This thread is pointless.

MMOs are dead and there’s no going back.

Yes, that must be why so many new MMOs are coming out recently. Because the field is dead and not profitable.

Primernova.5791:

You need world, dungeons, guilds(community), PvP, raids, gear and trinity(classes) to make an MMORPG.

To follow the list is exactly how to avoid progress in the genre. The genre was made stale by games like WoW, because every single game afterwards has followed this formula. We need a wide variety of MMOs to pick and choose from. For example, Crytek seems to be working on A F2P FPS MMO.
http://www.crytek.com/games/warface/overview
Unlike Planetside it will have both PVP and PVE. Do you think that this game will need gear progression, raids and trinity?
A game has to be different to attract attention. Saying that all MMOs should follow that model is the same as saying that all MOBAs has to have a top down view.

I see people everywhere I go to be honest but I play on busier servers. Actually what I’ve been witnessing is that a lot of people that stopped playing have come back and started playing again and there are a lot of new players playing as well. So quite the opposite of what some people are saying.