Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been doing some dungeons lately to try to get empyreal fragments…and I’ve noticed that many, many players use this “stacking” tactic where everyone stands on one pixel and hits the mobs against a lot of different encounters.

This has to be the most horribly boring and irritating way to play a dungeon. I realize that it is the most efficient way to do it, but the gameplay of stacking is absolutely horrible.

You literally stand in one spot, can hardly see your character, then press your buttons and hope you win. No dodging, no movement, nothing. And even worse, the camera angles usually either have you trying to do an isometric style view or staring at a wall.

Now I don’t blame the players for this…players will always just find the most efficient way to get through content, even if it sucks. Instead, I blame the game design for allowing stacking to be the most efficient way to get through content.

Please, please implement something that makes stacking less effective…maybe more AoEs that have to be dodged, maybe a “hot foot” effect that hurts you if you stand still for too long…something. Because right now, stacking is making dungeons a terribile droll experience.

Good idea, would be wonderful to have skins that weren’t locked by RL money costs and it would breathe life back into all the dead zones in the game!

How I feel at the moment?
It’s doing nothing to draw me back into playing.
It’s like watching a child get it wrong over and over again, failing to understand why it’s gradually losing all of its friends.

And having taken a step back from it to observe it at a distance, it’s disgusting exactly how much of the game is currently focussed on monetisation.
Out of curiosity, I went to GW2spidy the other day to confirm something I have long suspected.
Over time, the exchange rate between gems and gold has only climbed. It has never plateaued or declined.
What does this tell us?
That ArenaNet have designed the economy so that eventually it’ll be more attractive to spend real world money on gems in order to get gold than to get the things you want through gameplay.
On September the 10th, 2012, shortly after release, 100 gems would buy you 19S65C.
To buy a hundred gems would have cost you 27S47C.
Today, 100 gems buys you 5G34S34C, while 100 gems will cost you 7G39S85.
These figures will only increase over time.
I predict that in a couple of years, 100 gems will buy you a substantial amount of a cultural tier 3 armour set, if not all of it.

While in mechanical terms, you can’t call GW2 “Buy to Win” (cash won’t increase your power level), if you consider that much of the game focuses around cosmetic items being the main rewards for playing the game, then GW2 very much IS “Buy to Win”. Especially when most of the work on new cosmetic items seems to go into gem shop items.

Edit: Oh, and an interesting thing for everyone to consider if the economy continues its current trend: Eventually, one fine transmutation stone will cost more gold than an entire set of tier 3 cultural armour.

While items that can be gained through gameplay will continue to lose their value over time thanks to this broken, one-sided economic model, items in the cash shop will remain a constant, real-world price.

Never have I tried or wanted to like a game as much but been so disappointed by every aspect of a game.

Greetings everyone – I’ll make it as short as possible:

I feel like dungeons in this game are just a skipping puzzle and feel boring after you’ve done them a few times. You try to evade as much trouble as you can so you can finish the dungeon as fast as possible to get the rewards.

So … how about … that each mob in the dungeon grants your team points wich will end up in additional cash and tokens in the end of the run. So if you skip everything you’ll be fast but get less rewards. If you clear the whole dungeon even CoF1 takes 20 minutes to deal with but grants you more rewards.

It probably shouldn’t affect infinite spawned mobs like CoF2 helping megg to blow up the entrance to the endboss etc.

Also what about even more rewards like “you have never been downed this run -> +5% token” or “you rescured a downed ally with less than 25% HP, brave heart! +5% token” or what ever!

I wish there would be just MORE to do in a dungeon than just get trough there. Maybe even a randomized bonus mission like “if noone dies in this run +5% cash” “if you kill every boss before it’s adds +5% cash” etc etc etc.

I honestly think it would improve gameplay and generate more fun also buffing defensive equipment like healing guards, mesmer, or tanky condition builds. so…

what do you think??

Will I get generic “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” comments if I say I’m ready to leave this game? Perhaps I’ve been thinking of it the wrong way all the time. I wanted a game I could devote my time to but I see now there is absolutely nothing for me to do outside of these updates.

Run dungeons – for what purpose?
Farm gold – for what purpose?
Champ trains – lol
WvW – for what purpose?
PvP – for what purpose?

There’s only one fun profession (Ele of course) my personal story died over a year ago and the RNG is worse than any game I have played, ever.

>log in
>run around in circles
>log out

You know what will be great? If they released an update that had nothing to do with story whatsoever: adding guild features, fixing abysmal loot system, adding precursor hunt, fixing bugs and skills – all the features they promised in 2013.

Another thing that has me a wondering a little…. Why add a second world boss to Bloodtide Coast? There are other maps that could use a permanent addition of a world boss.

Lots promised before and after release; very little delivered. Lots of interesting ideas (e.g., Living Story); terrible implementation. Also, extremely grindy.

Sad because so far its been 16 months and…

No instanced raids
Hollow (skin)progression
Story content that adds nothing meaningful.
Dull PvP
Zergfest WvW(now with boring grind!)
Same bugs/exploits since day one
Same bad mob AI(mossman can still be exploited)
Lack of defined roles for classes(and diversity)
Constant imbalance
Anet cares only about PvP(hence imbalanced pve)
They went from an amazing 2012 Halloween to a forgettable 2013 one
They didn’t bring back the skins from 2012 Halloween(1800g ghastly grinning shield? wtf)

grindy. and too similar to other mmos.

GW2 has shown the most promise of any MMO I’ve ever seen … and as much as I’ve looked forward to ESO I think that GW2 still has significantly more potential … but after 18 months of totally WASTING that potential I no longer have any faith that ANet will actually fulfill it and I’m literally just counting the days until April 4. In that respect, GW2 is also the most disappointing MMO I’ve ever played.

good general ideas destroyed by zero forethought and the worst execution imaginable. poor communication (the quality, not necessarily the quantity). a whole lot of bark, very little bite. what was an extremely promising game at launch has devolved into just the typical bland MMO experience. grind grind farm grind. if you like MMO, there’s a chance you’ll like gw2. if you hate MMOs, avoid gw2 like it’s the plague. neglect of the stable playerbases in favor of throwing all resources at glorified tourism, while having no problem flat out insulting and alienating their most loyal players. a giant list of major bugs and exploits that have been around since the betas. hacks and other forms of cheating going completely unchecked, unless it means a dime less profit for them. it could have been the wave of the future, but if i was on the development team i would be humiliated by the entire past year.

amazingly good art and graphics though.

1 Word. Disappointed.

In my opinion, intelligent boon use and condition removal by AI would be far more engaging. Having high rank NPCs take shorter condition duration would be fine, but just making them invulnerable creates a discrepancy where players actions don’t have the stated, intended result. Defiant is just lazy and should be removed. Anyone else agree?

I would enjoy most things more than SAB. It’s true some people enjoyed the first release of SAB. Maybe not so much, the second release. Can’t imagine what the third release will be like.

Still, I’d rather have something new, and open world, than a return of SAB.

Please anet GIVE me something that will interest me for A MONTH. NOT A DAY. I am sorry for blowing off like this, i love this game, but if anet is gonna drop a crap tonne of cash on a full team that is suppose to keep the game “fresh”, why not release something that is fun, LONG TERM. ONE new PERMANENT dungeon would keep me going for a very long time. I know some people are very interested in the living story but it means nothing to me and a lot of other people who play this game. Of course the living story is a means of keeping the game from dying and keeps us on our toes every patch expecting something that will really freshen up the gameplay but it never comes. This is my favorite game that i have ever played period. but please ANET I want something new other than more living story……….

if the living story was an actual story instead of a bunch of achievements then we would not have this problem, i don’t play it because i don’t see a story in it, just a grind fest.

There is no “lore” in gw2. Its fragmented pieces of what could be lore in the form of “living stories” and your characters own “personal story”. However, in reality, there is nothing immersing about GW2. Entire maps are absolutely dead unless there is a Champ train or, at one point, when ppl were interested, the fps dropping “Scarlett invasion”.
One goes around to hearts and kills mobs to fill the quota of deaths needed and moves on to the next heart; thats if you actually feel like taking the long, lonesome journey of leveling through mapping. There is no engaging aspect to completing these hearts or the npc’s that provide these hearts.
GW2 is a great game, aesthetically, somewhat combat-wise as well but it just falls miserably short when it comes to engaging a player in their story. Sorry but that’s where I’m at on this subject.

I mean come onnnn. Do I really need to type paragraphs & paragraphs of why? The living world is only good as long as people are waiting for an expansion. Otherwise it just gets boring and old. Alone, it’s not sufficient and it doesn’t stand a chance against these new MMOs coming out.

Arena Net needs sometime to advertise. Something to make some real profit on. The gem store is not going to suffice in the near future. I guarantee it. If you’re active in the community you can tell that people are getting more and more bored and talking more and more about these other MMOs coming out.

This game needs some real new to it. Real content, real story, real endgame…I could go on and on. It needs a real reason to keep the player’s interest in the game, other than just to hold them off until these new MMOs come out. I played Guild Wars for 6 years until this game came out, then I switched over. I was always a huge fan of the lore, style, and philosophy, but now I’m contemplating switching to something new from the direction this game is heading in.

Get it together, Arena Net. This game needs an expansion.

Post-thoughts on Tower of Nightmares/Nightmare Within:
Concerned

I think you misunderstand two things about the complaints.

1) The issues with Scarlet often revolve around her obscene levels of power and control over other races. So far, three of the most xenophobic and hostile factions in all of Tyria have bent over backwards to fulfill her will, without any explanation as to why. The Flame Legion are misogynistic, xenophobic, and highly pyromaniacal, and yet the Living Story expects us to believe they dropped everything and bowed down to a foreign and highly flammable girl. The Dredge would die before they allowed themselves to be enslaved again, but they were somehow bullied or coerced into serving a single sylvari. The Krait never, ever, ever negotiate with outsiders…unless it’s Scarlet, in which case they’re sitting down at the conference table.

To use the Joker analogy, imagine that one writer decided that the Joker was suddenly in command of the League of Shadows, formed an alliance between the Sinestro Core and all of Lexcorp while calling the shots for both, and then got Apokalypse to combine tech with Thanagar in order to give him more minions. That would not be “good characterization”. That would be absurd.

Until the writers justify why anyone listens to a single psychopathic sylvari, the last eleven months of kooky alliances make Scarlet appear absurdly overpowered and completely unsuited for her “ultimate mastermind of all evil factions” role.

Speaking of pacing…

2) It’s not that Scarlet has no plan. It is that the story has failed to demonstrated one.

We have fought her for eleven months. Tell me, where do you think we are in the story? Is she about to unveil her ultimate plan, or is she starting to begin her actual goal? Are we winning the fight due to our efforts to destroy her facilities, or are we losing the war as her influence expands? Are we one month away from the grand climax, or will it take six?

We don’t know. That’s because the story has not revealed anything concrete about her methods or her ultimate goal. We are fighting her because she is the only thing on television right now, and we can’t change the channel. We could be two episodes in to a full twenty-four long season, or one episode away from the finale. But we can’t tell, because absolutely nothing has been done to convey what is going on or why we should care. That is why people say she has no purpose. No purpose has been conveyed, and after eleven months of fighting Scarlet Briar, “she might totally have a master plan that we will learn one day” isn’t giving people a reason to give a cute-baby-feline about the story.

The Joker works well because he thrives on chaos using methods that oppose the Batman. His tools of the trade are cheap (gasoline and spare parts), his minions are disposable psychopaths (Harley aside), and his primary weapon is his insane unpredictability. The “crazy lunatic” villain is not a Leader of Men or supreme savant of all technology. He is chaos incarnate, and that means very few people willingly serve him except out of pure greed or their own lunacy.

If you like Scarlet, you are entitled to that opinion. In turn, those who have legitimate complaints are well entitled to their opinions on the matter.

Stop ignoring what you don’t like and answer the questions.