Guild Wars 2

As much as I think there are a lot of things wrong with current trait system, the most confusing change I’ve encountered so far is with the Personal Story.

Prior to the NPE, we used to get a single piece of story every few levels (In fact, those story steps were unlocked by default even if we had not reached the recommended level). This missions could lead us around the world, bringing us to new zones to explore and, once finished, we automatically knew where we should be heading.

With the current system, we receive the story on batches every 10 levels. This might not seem bad at all, but I can easily see it becoming a serious problem for many new players.
The story steps we currently unlock at, lets say, lvl30 are the ones we used to play between lvl20 and lvl30, so they send us to zones that we outlevel and, more often than not, have already explored.
On top of that, once those missions are finished we get no clue of where the story is heading. We find ourselves in the middle of nowehere, left to explore the world on our own until we are required again.
Many players could argue that this kind of freedom is something positive and I could actually agree with that to some extent. It’s, however, definitely unconsistent with the whole NPE idea.
Spoonfeeding, carefully measuring out the introduction of every feature and character progresion step to not overwhelm new players just doesn’t make any sense if you expect this kind of free exploration spirit from them.

The removal of nodes in the early parts of starter zones, level-gating downed and underwater skills… level-gating is just bad, but downed skills in particular. It’s like, “Oh, hey, there’s this totally useless mechanic and now it just takes me slightly longer to die.”

I just don’t understand how this can be seen as an improvement. Maybe with traits fixed, the leveling experience will become less cumbersome, but… wow. I cannot overstate how much this whole thing has destroyed my desire to level alts in the open world. It’s just… why?

There are some really good additions- the compass, for example. The optional compass. And I like the bunny heart’s new location in Wayfarer. But as things currently stand, leveling has turned into the worst kind of tedium.

So I decided to re-roll a new character for the first time since all the leveling changes and tutorial stuff was added. I must say overall I like the new UI they added, while it was not needed for me I can see how it would be extremely helpful for new players. One big problem I have with how they changed the early zones though. Most of the events were either removed or severely dumbed down to the point they are no longer fun. This goes for hearts as well. A few small examples that really irks me: Assisting at the Iron legion armory/forge in Plains of Ashford- you used to be able to do a multitude of things to complete the heart such as put lost tools back in the tool bin, recycle scrap metal in the forge, and actually pick up the unexploded ordinance and toss them around. Now all you can do is….kill some flame legion and spam click the UED’s (but not pick them up)….

Another example is the hear north of that where you can assist in dealing with skritt and the cannon range. The cannons are now spam fire. No aiming, no dialing in your shots…just click it and move on. The devourer egg event seems to be not working anymore either. These are not problems specific to Plains of Ashford. Most low level zones suffer from this malady now.

tl;dr: Why, oh why, was all the fun and unique aspects removed from the hearts and why were the low level zones so “dumbed down” for a lack of better term? I used to enjoy hanging out in them but now it lost it’s appeal.

I would rather they release Profession-specific armor for each Profession (no cross-Profession wearing), than put all the work needed into making Cultural Armor wearable by each race.

Thus, no to cross-Cultural armor-wearing.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I would rather they release Profession-specific armor for each Profession (no cross-Profession wearing), than put all the work needed into making Cultural Armor wearable by each race.

Thus, no to cross-Cultural armor-wearing.

I’m in total agreement with this. Profession-specific armor would be amazing. I’d also love to see some exclusive Order-based armor, only wearable by members of that Order.

I pretty much agree with you OP. While I have no problem with other MMO’s and don’t think they’re bad… I’ve recently gotten burned out on gw2 and decided to try some other mmo’s (most notably; wow’s free trial, rift, tera, and archeage) and while doing that I realized that while GW2 isn’t perfect.. I don’t think I could leave it. a few things to add to the least of things that i really like about this game

- IMO, gw2 just explains everything better. there were a few things that i didn’t get when I started, but over-all I wasn’t nearly as “omg i’m so ovewhelmed _” as I was in other mmos.

- The waypoint system. Every mmo has it’s modes of transportation, but personally, I liked waypoints the most.

- The amount of customization. freely change your dyes on a moments notice? skin over your gear whenever you want (for basically free)? and, I find that almost all of the armor in this game is actually cool! (even if other mmos have more armors and stuff, personally i’ve found that the armors are never as neat, there are a lot of armor that is basically identical, and the lack of dye-ing is painful..)

-Being able to move while attacking. OMG THIS IS SO GREAT. another mmo got close to capturing that for me… but it just ended up feeling like an offbrand version of gw2. again, not that it’s bad, but “why would i play this when I have gw2?”

-jumping puzzles. put shortly, i love jumping puzzles. other mmos rarely have them.

-no sub fee (self explanatory)

-As much as people complain and rage and talk about how awful this game is (and still keep playing it, amusingly..) I really like the community in this game. we’re kinda quirky, and most of us seem to be pessimistic, but I’ve met a lot of really cool people in this game. I can’t say that for every game i’ve played. (I do think we’ve gotten to the point of a spoilt child asking for second servings of cake though)

- the lack of gear grinding. this is a major turn-off for me that almost every mmo seems to do.

I could literally rant about this for days, so I’ll cut it here

I must reiterate, that i’m not saying “omg gw2 is 10/10 all the other mmo’s are poopy heads!”. These are just my opinions on why I enjoy(note, not “why i think it’s better”) GW2 more. wow has to be doing something right to get such a large playerbase.. but whatever that is just doesn’t appeal to me i guess

I’ve only recently started playing GW2 again since its launch. I still actively play World of Warcraft. I played FF14 recently. And all around I’ve played numerous other MMORPGs.

They are all different. Plain and simple. Not better or worse. Just different. There are two sides to every coin in life, and that includes every game design decision. What one person counts as a negative, another will count as a positive.

I enjoy all of the titles I just mentioned. If I had enough time in my life I would play all three of them. And would explore other games too! Variety is the spice of life. I go raid in WoW and thoroughly enjoy a system where everyone has very distinct roles and you feel like an individual. I am the hunter, and during this phase I need to do this thing, because my class is good at it. And even among my class, I can distinguish myself amongst other hunters with my skill at accomplishing the task. I can shine individually.

After raid I jump in to GW2, go to silver wastes, and enjoy the fluid combat system in which I am completely self reliant. I don’t need a tank. I can use evasion, conditions, and boons to mitigate my own damage and heal myself if needed. Fighting the various Vine Wrath bosses is like raiding in WoW, but with a totally different flavor. Instead of having to coordinate with 15 other people in a setting where 1 mistake could kill us all, I am zerging with so so many more people, battling monsters with mechanics that will one shot you, and in the mass chaos of the brawl it will eventually take you down. But that zerg of people will rush to lift you back up on to your feet. This alone is a profoundly cool difference between the games. I feel that in GW2, you are fully expected to go down. There is no healer spamming you to keep you alive, and no, there’s no tank. You’re gonna eat dirt sometimes. But unlike many other MMOs where you can’t raise a fallen ally in battle, GW2 lets you be triage and get eachother back up. Without limit.

In WoW you work together closely because you can only do 1 thing well, and therefore you NEED your comrades. In GW2 you work together because even if you can do everything, your enemies can and will outright overwhelm you if you are alone. And if you slip up and make a mistake, you can always pick each other back up for another try.

I feel like people that are looking for the “best” MMO to sink all their time in to are missing out. Especially with GW2 as an option. It’s free to play! There’s no reason you can’t jump on here and enjoy this flavor whenever you like. And in the end, if you just play one game all the time, you will end up bored and unsatisfied with it. It doesn’t matter how good the game is. If you do the same thing enough, it will get boring. That’s all there is to it.

As petty as it sounds, I never have Retreat on my skillbar for precisely this reason. It’s a great skill and really useful, but I just can’t deal with my charrdian acting like Logan.

It’s named after Logan man, safe escape !

A.N.E.T Commando outfit and mini

Hello there, I’m an asura elementalist. The game tells me that I’m superior to both you and the norns, because I am a genius! So who are you to tell me that those cavemen are better than me, just because they’re big and strong?

Now talking about size, in the lore you would see that multiple giant races fell. Once Jotun and the Giants were the ones driving the progress, however when the gods turned their favour away from them and instead granted magic to humans, both of their societies fell back to the stone age.

Oh look, another thready polluted by political correctness
Noone is forcing you to play Norn if you dont like their lore.

Hi there!
I am Ormgeirr Dal, a necromancer lately from Hoelbrak. I believe in the Spirits of the Wild and why should I not, for I have met some of them personally. I can assume the form of a Raven, Bear or Snowleopard. I drink too little to earn respect of my people that way, so I must work harder to make a name for myself with deeds that get told.

My name loosely translates to Serpentspear and it has always been taught to me that I am a weapon against Jormag. I am not insane enough to think I could vanguish such a creature alone, but thankfully I have met many valiant heroes of all five races during my travels. This includes humans of several ethnic backgrounds: Krytan, Ascalonian, Elonian and Canthan.

I have never, however, met these races you speak about. Where on Tyria do they live?

Obtena.7952:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

So this thread is still all about arguing what is grind and what is not, arguing if GW2 is a grindy game or not and nothing about discussing changes to any of the game systems.

If you continue to debate what grind is, even though you know what the developers themselves feel about it, this one should get a lock soon. 3 pages and still no proposals for changes

I did see many proposals. Mine was putting items behind content.

So instead of allowing players to get whatever they want by doing whatever they want (play how you want?) you want to lock content behind specific content and have an impossible grind behind that content?

Yes, that’s pretty much it … the traditional MMO approach to getting loot. WE’ve already went over this in that LAST thread. The proposals I’ve seen so far simply reduce player’s ability to choose content; they don’t reduce grind at all.

Check my proposals then:

1) Make Account Bound gear party bound
2) Offer progressively better rewards, the more types of a particular content you do
3) Silverwastes-like MF buff from Events everywhere

Also, fixing the rewards vs difficulty that is rather bad in this game, can help reduce the grind a lot. Harder content should give more/better rewards, so players who repeat the easiest “farms” shouldn’t get much.

In this game it’s more profitable to run around SW in a chest farm for a couple of hours, than doing dungeon paths in the same time. It’s horrific and the main source of “Grind” yet I see players asking to reduce DR! Reduce (or remove) DR so they can farm the same skelk over over for Blood? How is that solving the grind issue? It enhances grind, because that particular content becomes the superior one in getting blood!

MORE DR is needed for brainless farms, and MORE rewards for harder content. Only then the idea of “grind” can be removed.

eithinan.9841:

phys.7689:

based on many talks/discussions around this topic, i think the problem may be designing long term rewards. rather than designing one big goal that you have to a lot of effort to achieve, Its better to build shorter term goals, and try to make rewards that feel satisfying whenever you get them.
I disagree, the effort I put in to mjolnir over the course of 6 months felt way more rewarding than any of the ascended gear I have made. I am sure that people who craft legendaries feel the same, I believe that the problem is people who feel Entitled to easy access to everything available. Without challenge then no matter how cool the reward you get is, in the end, it will mean little

long term goals would then tend to be collection of shorter term goals. agree to a point, having a tangible progress in any endeavor is good for motivation

Lets take guild halls, theoretically.
If they make it so you have to gather 100000 wood logs, then you get a guild hall, it will probably feel grindy.
But if they design it so you build each room, while it will take a long time to complete, it will not feel as grindy.
I see what you are saying and think that is exactly the direction they are moving in with the infrastructure they have built for the future precursor crafting and recently with mawdry and star of gratitude I mentioned earlier

just like if the game only had 1 level, and it took 100 hours get enough experience to reach level 2, it would probably feel grindy to a lot of people.
Umm….yeah. So how can a game that has only 1 level have a 100 hour timegate to reach level 2? There isn’t a level 2 in your hypothetical game. This is why I hate analogies on internet forums.

id probably design mjolinir total acquistion to be more incremental, with various stages and more options to progress it.

as to the last part, i dont know why that would make you hate analogies, i made an error in the description, it would be 2 levels(but only 1 level able to be gained), but the point really is just that when all of your progress points and growth is back loaded, you are almost guanteeing that the path will begin to feel grindy.

80 levels may feel fine, but spread the same 80 levels into fewer points of change/growth/reward and the process feels grindy.

I think anet wants people to enjoy the journey, and the best way to do that is to reward the journey, rewarding only the end diminishes the journey.

Now, this doesnt mean simply breaking up the journey into miles, but placing interesting things along the journey that highlight the journey.

I do think some of their new content is closer to this design, but its still not really the prevalent design structure.

just as an excerise, how i would design mjolinir?

id make you need
1 gift of ascalon
100 orichalcum ingots
50 charged lodestones to create
sleeping mjolinir basically mjolinir with a stone based, no lightning skin

then you need to use
soul of lightning on it, which would use
200 gossamer
50 charged lodestones

this would transform it to mjolinir rising which can now be charged
charging it with charged lodestones makes it lightning up for a limited amount of time depending on how many lodestones you have charged it with already
each time you charge it, the length of its special effect lasts 15 seconds longer.
when you have charged it 250 times, its effect will always be on.
everytime you feed it a lodestone it gives 25% karma and 25% exp boost for the length of its lighting effect (up to an hour)
charging it with skill points changes the intensity of the lightning effect, at zero its barely visible, at 100 its like it is now. the next 100 charges change its hue (color) one charge at a time. so 30 more skill points might be greenish 50 might be yellow 90 might be reddish.

everytime you feed it a skill point it gains the effect of a kill streak booster

I think that type of progression would allow people to enjoy building mjolinir more, still use most of the same materials (i shaved some off, because ehh i dont think there is much gained in collecting 250 orichalcum and gossamer. Also different people would choose different hues for mjolinir which would make it a bit more unique. People would feel rewarded for each skill point, and be able to have the thrill and benefits of kill streak boosters, while they are trying to get exp for skill points.

However, one could still just save up the mats and have a basically similar experience if they wish it.

any how just an example for illustrative purposes

Celtic Lady.3729:

maddoctor.2738:

No matter what definition individual players give, it doesn’t matter. It’s how the developers define it that matters.

Yes, ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. Anet defines grind for their game, so that is the end all and be all. We all know that Anet separates grind into required grind and optional grind, but one of the discussions here is whether anything can or should be done about the optional grind because that is minimizing some players’ enjoyment of the game.

Celtic Lady.3729:

For instance, crafting recipes that are particularly difficult to complete due to items dropping rarely in the world or even being impossible to get aside from the TP or simply having really high item requirements – the numbers of items needed could be reduced, thus reducing grind to complete or discover them.

This is a horrible suggestion and I will tell you why. Similar to the new reveal that 100% map comp will not include WvW maps, lowering requirements for items ultimately disenfranchises the loyal players who have already completed it with the harder requirements. It may be “for the best”, which is still a matter of opinion, but it doesnt return the time and effort already put in by people.

This also leads to those loyal players saying to themselves whenever new content comes out, “Ill just wait 6 months or a year and they will make it easier to do” This loss of immediacy ends up making players less interested in logging in regularly because they are not concerned with what they may be missing. You can see the negative side of this at work with the gem store items, and all the issues about limited time offers. The whole black wing sale for 1 day recently is an example of how players react when they lose their sense of immediacy and don’t log in as regularly as they once did.

Celtic Lady.3729:

maddoctor.2738:

No matter what definition individual players give, it doesn’t matter. It’s how the developers define it that matters.

Yes, ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. Anet defines grind for their game, so that is the end all and be all. We all know that Anet separates grind into required grind and optional grind, but one of the discussions here is whether anything can or should be done about the optional grind because that is minimizing some players’ enjoyment of the game.

I think the main problem with this game isn’t in “repeating content” (grinding) but at how badly (in my opinion) the Risk vs Reward works here. Although I like how I can get most things I ever wanted by playing a variety of content, this creates the main problem. Harder / more challenging content should also give better rewards, harder content should offer higher chances at getting the optional items.

For example, do I want the Bandit Champion bags (those you also get from SW) to have better chances at giving their exotic skins? No, I don’t, in fact I’d rather they lower those chances even more, then make some of the harder Bandit bosses (or make new ones) to drop those skins with a lot higher chances.

You can’t compare a champion in the Frostgorge train with the final boss in HotW P1, yet they drop the same bag. This huge difference in rewards between different parts of content is exactly where the problem with the “grind” is.

And second, equally important, the fact that loot is personal in this game. Everyone has the same chances at dropping loot and roll on the same table no matter what they did in the encounters they participated in.

This creates a problem when people around you are dropping rare loot and you don’t. This is especially a problem in dungeons / fractals with account bound gear, like Fractal rings and skins.

I proposed multiple system a long time ago to solve the RNG / grind issues of the game.

1) Make Account Bound gear party bound. So any type of gear that is account bound on acquire becomes “party bound” instead, allowing players to freely give those gear types to other people in their party. For example, Fractal Skins, Fractal Rings, Ascended Armor / Weapon chests, Carapace armor skins, Tequatl skins, Triple Trouble skins, and any new skins they might add in HoT that use a similar system to Luminescent.
There is way more in this, but this is the basic thing. Although the RNG chances are the same, grind stays the same in “math”, however the lucky ones can spread their luck to less lucky people, essentially lowering the amount of repeating you have to do to get your rewards significantly.

2) Offer progressively better rewards, the more types of a particular content you do, the more rewards you get. So if you run 1 dungeon path you will get the same reward you do now (or even LESS). If you run a second path of the second dungeon you get EXTRA tokens, if you run all 3 dungeon paths you get even more extra tokens. The extra tokens are based on the amount of unique paths you do everyday.

Alternatively, offer more rewards for any dungeon path. For example, if I want Arah tokens, I can run CoF P1, CoE P1, CoE P3 and finish with Arah P3 and get a massive token boost. So, the more UNIQUE paths you do, the more rewards you get, reducing the amount of grinding needed to get a specific armor skin by a very large margin, while making more of the game’s content playable and “valid”.

3) I once proposed an idea to create a stacking buff (like Bloodlust) that players can get while doing events in zones, later that buff will affect their rewards / drops from the End boss of that zone. So you might get “Hero of Queensdale” and your event stacks will affect your loot from the Shadow Behemoth. The same system can be used on most zones with a World Bosses.

I was pleasantly surprised when Anet released Silverwastes and had a very similar concept (do events to increase MF), although my idea was to put this kind of system on all zones.

In general, higher difficulty should give more rewards, but ALSO grinding should give reduced rewards, doing the same thing over and over should have extensive DR so it’s not profitable to do it all day. Instead, a system that rewards players for doing a HUGE VARIETY of content can be used to offset this.

CureForLiving.5360:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

And here is the real problem. Farming is the worst kind of grind. It is absolutely boring and mind-numbing. And pretty much all PvE content got reduced to farm-status. The only reason to do any of the above mentioned content now is for the rewards.

So I take it you’re taking the same definition of grind and farm as me then?

Yes I do. However I’d add that farming in GW2 is not really optional anymore. Pretty much everything in PvE has been reduced to farm-status, at least in my opinion. The only way to acquire gold in a somewhat effective way is through farming, whether you’re farming world-bosses, farming the Silverwastes, farming dungeons or farming ToT bags in Bloodtide Coast, it’s all farming and it’s the only way to acquire most things in GW2.

As I see it, farming is the only type of grind in GW2 but it’s very very apparent, in your face and all over the game.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

All MMOs have grind in some way or form, there is no way around it. The challenge for the developers is to try to hide the grind as much as possible and make it less apparent and less boring. In my opinion, WoW did a good job at this. In my opinion, GW2 did not.

Unless you dislike doing challenging raids or engaging questlines to unlock said raids, WoW’s grind was not that bad. When I played it I actually looked forward to gettng home, turning on my PC, getting on WoW and doing the planned raid(s) with my guild. It was challenging, fun and the rewards were good.

In GW2 I had that same feeling only a few times: The first time doing dungeons (when everyone thought they were hard), when Tequatl first got updated, when the Twisted Marionette was introduced, when Triple Trouble was introduced and the first few times of doing The Silverwastes.

I absolutely loved grinding those bosses each day, sometimes multiple attempts per day! Why? Because these fights where challenging, engaging and of the same quality as WoW raids. The fun was not in getting the rewards either, the fun was in knowing you could fail but if you didn’t you’d get rewarded decently for it.

Flash-forward to now and I don’t enjoy any of the above-mentioned content anymore. Why? Because it became too easy and got reduced to farm-status (a term used by MMO players to indicate it’s a sure and easy win and you’ll get your little reward with little effort).

And here is the real problem. Farming is the worst kind of grind. It is absolutely boring and mind-numbing. And pretty much all PvE content got reduced to farm-status. The only reason to do any of the above mentioned content now is for the rewards.

And here is another problem. The rewards for doing anything remotely fun in GW2 are lackluster and not worthwhile. I get no fun out of doing a farm-status boss for a hand full of silver and one or two rares, especially not when I know I can make thirty times as much by doing a real actual farm (ToT bag farm in Bloodtide Coast).

GW2’s biggest problem is that almost everything can be bought with gold and the most efficient way to get that gold is by doing incredibly boring farm (be it a dungeon speedrun train, a world-boss train, ToT bag farm or farming Silverwastes, they’re all farm-status now) and we just established that farming is the worst kind of grind.

It basically comes down to: You want something? You’ll have to farm for it.

This problem isn’t exclusive to GW2 but it’s most apparent in GW2 because of 2 reasons:

1) Everything can (and sometimes must) be bought with gold and the only effective way of getting that gold is doing some kind of farm.

2) Almost all rewarding PvE content in GW2 has been reduced to farm-status and Anet does not give us enough new content to challenge and engage us again.

The expansion pack we’re finally getting is long overdue and I truly hope that HoT will introduce some new challenging group content with decent rewards. That should surely make GW2 feel less grindy again.

But it will only be a matter of time before the HoT content will also be reduced to farm-status. Will Anet be ready with yet another expansion or some updates by the time that happens? Or will GW2 return to feeling super boring and grindy 6 months after the expansion?

This exactly!

Basically, anet exchanged the possibility to get a nice reward after killing one boss for the possibility to get the same nice reward but after 1000 hours of regular play (or less of mindless farm). They took a problem and, by trying to fix it, made it a lot worst.

All MMOs have grind in some way or form, there is no way around it. The challenge for the developers is to try to hide the grind as much as possible and make it less apparent and less boring. In my opinion, WoW did a good job at this. In my opinion, GW2 did not.

Unless you dislike doing challenging raids or engaging questlines to unlock said raids, WoW’s grind was not that bad. When I played it I actually looked forward to gettng home, turning on my PC, getting on WoW and doing the planned raid(s) with my guild. It was challenging, fun and the rewards were good.

In GW2 I had that same feeling only a few times: The first time doing dungeons (when everyone thought they were hard), when Tequatl first got updated, when the Twisted Marionette was introduced, when Triple Trouble was introduced and the first few times of doing The Silverwastes.

I absolutely loved grinding those bosses each day, sometimes multiple attempts per day! Why? Because these fights where challenging, engaging and of the same quality as WoW raids. The fun was not in getting the rewards either, the fun was in knowing you could fail but if you didn’t you’d get rewarded decently for it.

Flash-forward to now and I don’t enjoy any of the above-mentioned content anymore. Why? Because it became too easy and got reduced to farm-status (a term used by MMO players to indicate it’s a sure and easy win and you’ll get your little reward with little effort).

And here is the real problem. Farming is the worst kind of grind. It is absolutely boring and mind-numbing. And pretty much all PvE content got reduced to farm-status. The only reason to do any of the above mentioned content now is for the rewards.

And here is another problem. The rewards for doing anything remotely fun in GW2 are lackluster and not worthwhile. I get no fun out of doing a farm-status boss for a hand full of silver and one or two rares, especially not when I know I can make thirty times as much by doing a real actual farm (ToT bag farm in Bloodtide Coast).

GW2’s biggest problem is that almost everything can be bought with gold and the most efficient way to get that gold is by doing incredibly boring farm (be it a dungeon speedrun train, a world-boss train, ToT bag farm or farming Silverwastes, they’re all farm-status now) and we just established that farming is the worst kind of grind.

It basically comes down to: You want something? You’ll have to farm for it.

This problem isn’t exclusive to GW2 but it’s most apparent in GW2 because of 2 reasons:

1) Everything can (and sometimes must) be bought with gold and the only effective way of getting that gold is doing some kind of farm.

2) Almost all rewarding PvE content in GW2 has been reduced to farm-status and Anet does not give us enough new content to challenge and engage us again.

The expansion pack we’re finally getting is long overdue and I truly hope that HoT will introduce some new challenging group content with decent rewards. That should surely make GW2 feel less grindy again.

But it will only be a matter of time before the HoT content will also be reduced to farm-status. Will Anet be ready with yet another expansion or some updates by the time that happens? Or will GW2 return to feeling super boring and grindy 6 months after the expansion?

I’m both kinda sad and relieved at the same time.

One one hand, i initially found that annoying to enter WvW for my map completetion, but now, i’ll miss those epic moments, if you ran with a bunch of players to a tower, took it over, contributed to your homeserver AND got that POI and vista you needed.

The badges of honor are an extra bonus – speaking of which, don’t do most players go for world-completion to get the “Gift of Exploration” anyways? Because you’d still need to go into WvW for badges, to make a legendary, so i guess we still can call it “PvPvE”…? (aside from the fact, that you often need to kill vet or champ-mobs)

Makes the removal of world completion in WvW less of a big deal then.
At least, badges of honor encourage active particitipation in defends/raids.

I personaly think, making each borderlands share the same map-completion progression would have been the better change, but w/e. Most WvW and PvE players are probably happy about the upcoming change.

So here’s another suggestion:

those characters who map-complete PvE get a gold star and 1 Gift of Exploration. Those who map-complete WvW get a blood-heart and 1 Gift of exploration. Those who have done both have already gotten 2 Gifts of exploration, but they also get a purple diamond showing that they cared for both.

Seriously I am torn on this whole topic. Had it not been for the map completion, I probably never would have set foot into WvW because of my extremely bad experiences with PvP in other MMOs. And then I would have missed out on the best mode this game has, although it seems to have been forgotten by ANet.

In sheer contrast to what a majority of you think, WvW communities are welcoming, friendly, engaged and very educated in my experience. I have learned waaaaay more things about game mechanics and my classes in WvW than I would have ever learned as an AI killer. I rarely ever die on Vinewrath, even on my mesmer, since I have learned to dodge, position myself, take care of myself, develop counter measures. It has made my game experience so much richer.
And, no matter what you think, there are no Gankers in WvW. That’s exactly what’s not happening. Those who feel ganked greatly overestimate their importance. Ganking means spawn-camping lowbies and annoy them to the bones. There is no such thing in WvW. Understand the game mode, look for a group and nothing bad will happen.

On the other hand it obviously was a bad idea from the start to think that a majority of players will try out something they are afraid of if they are somewhat forced to do so. It was a bad decision, even if it helped me personally to overcome my shyness and be rewarded with hours of fun. People tend to not venture off their beaten tracks these days, sadly.

So be it. But please, ANet, rediscover your forgotten 4th game mode, WvW.

Why Anet? What’s the point of it being called WORLD completion, if they don’t even have to explore the entire world of the game anymore?

There two issues GW2 has in my eyes. The game removed the strict and rigid trinity where roles are bound to certain classes. But in many encounters any roles were extinguished at the same time except of one: kill the target as quickly as possible. There are some fights were players (not classes) have to fulfill certain roles or tasks like luring the Boss to a certain location or transport charged crystals to certain locations. The devs need to design more roles and tasks for the encounters especially if they want to introduce GW2-raids with a high variety of mechanics.

Each class in GW2 can fulfill each role. A new subset of roles was defined: Damage; Control and Support. If we analyse the encounters in the game we see that all of them are dominated by damage. We need encounters that are predominated by control or support with only a minor role for damage. The absence of a trinity opens up so many new possibilities to design encounters – much more than a trinity system could ever provide. But the developers do not use the possibilities so far. I hope that they have found their courage with HoT.

Astral Projections.7320:

Wow. Your math is way off.

Oh yeah? Well, 92% of mirthematicians agree with at least 86% of the methods I use for calculating gender appropriateness.

It’s funny watching everyone trip over themselves to flaunt their political correctness. I’m a man and I have nothing against the rainbows, or the unicorns, or what have you. I do however agree with the OP. Not placing blame or making excuses be it a societal thing or a time period from which one is raised.

I have refrained from getting a Longbow Legendary because it just doesn’t seem to strike fear in my enemy or anyone else unless “killing them with kindness” becomes a grandmaster trait.

But by all means carry on with the over abundance of being “politically correct” not wishing to offend anyone and be sure to make people feel like kitten if they come close to not feeling the same way.

Isn’t someone saying a person shouldnt be allowed to want a “manly” weapon, just as ignorant as someone saying an individual shouldn’t be allowed to want a “girly” weapon? Flowers and unicorns, are traditionally feminin, they are delicate, and soft ( except maybe the horn) MMORPGs are about stereotypes Ugly is bad, Pretty is good, Monsters vs Knights. Don’t tell me I need to be asexual. Women can be tough, hardcore and brutish fine. and men can be softspoken and gentle. But if I want a bow that shoots screaming flaming bloody skulls, instead of flowers. don’t tell me I’m a homophobe.

I am against it. Not that it would affect me personally either way — I probably would just ignore it — but I don’t think this is a good idea for GW2.

• It brings real-life relationship drama where it doesn’t belong.

• It’s a non-sequitur. Asking for in-game marriage in GW2 is completely arbitrary. This game is not a social romance sim about personal relationships and finding your true love. You are only asking for marriage out of habit, because other MMOs may have had it.

• It’s not a game feature, it’s just surface-level “meta” baloney. What you are asking for is not gameplay, it’s just a request that the game devs formally glorify your real-life romantic endeavours.

• What percentage of players do you think actually play with their real-life significant other, and would even want to get married? I suspect this is a feature that a small minority of players would even use. It’s far better to develop new content and features that everyone can enjoy.

• A significant amount of resources will have to be spent, just to develop an irrelevant ceremony that won’t impact the game whatsoever. Devs will have to sit down and discuss what this feature will include, and how it will be implemented. They will have to design costumes, items, and environments. They will have to build the interface and rules for the system, script NPCs, write dialogue, etc. I would much rather see the effort go toward another map or living story chapter.

Last time this topic came up I said “kitten no, I’m on my third marriage in RL and the last thing I need is a In-Game wife!” I stand by that previous comment nothing has changed.