there is no need to be all or nothing.
Of course there is. Not for all people upset with the change, but for those looking at it from a more objective standpoint. Players are part of the world of Guild Wars 2, and if they refuse to play for whatever reason, they are effectively decreasing the amount of fun people that are playing have. Simply playing GW2 supports the dev, and if some people don’t want to support them anymore, even a little, they stop playing. This is just a generalization to illustrate my point. Maybe the majority of GW2 players are happy with 1 crowded lobby and one dungeon, who knows at this point.
Players that planned to invest a lot of time into the game to eventually reach their goals have a reason to stop playing, because they can’t be sure anymore, how many times their goal will be moved further away.
If you had a favorite burger joint that made the best burger you have ever eaten, but you hated that 1 or more toppings they put between those buns and refuse to take special orders, would you keep going to that burger joint, pick apart the burger, throw out that disgusting topping, and enjoy the rest, or stop going there? Some people would put up with it, some don’t.
Their intention is to slowly release gear pieces over a longer period of time, to keep the sense of progression alive(treadmill) and give non-dedicated players enough time to acquire the items before the next piece(s) roll(s) out.
Yes, a bunch of people have quit the game.
No, their numbers don’t really matter in the long run.
ANet will continue with open ended VP and try to build a stable player base around the game. They will try to appease to people by lowering the time it takes to acquire said gear. While they will make people that want to grind less happier, the horizontal purists won’t be coming back, as the underlying desires for horizontal progression and plateauing cannot be made compatible with the item progression based philosophy they have introduced.
I don’t think any updates will change the minds of horizontal purists, because VP and the treadmill(future infusion tiers) are here to stay and will not be removed. ANet may get some players back who can stomach gear upgrade cycles or are able to make peace with not having max stat gear by lowering the grind. How large that group of non-purists is compared to the purists, I can’t even guess.
Personally, I will not play the game again until I can be absolutely sure that the BiS gear will not be devalued by a new tier(or infusion tier upgrade mechanic) and is attainable with minimal effort, which I am defining as how long it took to get a full exotic set after you have already one maxed out character to farm with.
I’ll be monitoring GW2s development, because I’m hopeful that it will be successful enough to give other publishers/developers the needed confidence to adopt GW2s B2P model. There may be a small chance that we haven’t seen the last of B2P MMORPGs that abstain from having stat progression as part of their end game.
(edited by ASB.4295)
It’s funny or I should say pathetic… that Anet can write something and answear to this similar problem here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Stealth-FoTM-chests-nerf/first#post922674 in a short time…while we are here waiting 2 weeks
I’ll let you in on a little secret. In the corporate world, silence or canned, non-specific PR talk mean that they don’t have anything to say that you’d like.
Ever left a job interview with the company rep saying “You’ll be hearing from us”? Yeah, it’s like that.
Open ended vertical progression is needed to keep a large majority of players interested in playing. GW2 has already created its own playerbase, which has desires that in some areas differ vastly from its predecessor. ANet doesn’t want nor need to retain GW1 players and a few stray horizontal purists when a large portion of the population is in favor or indifferent to VP. I don’t have any evidence to support this argument, but I’m certain ANet wouldn’t introduce any major changes without having some sort of statistical evidence that it’ll benefit the game and its players long term. They even said that they anticipated rage and whining, but went ahead anyway. They know that the rage was indeed just a vocal minority of conservatives, and that is was still worth loosing them in order to build a stronger base of loyal GW2 players for years to come.
People want to work for something useful, and the only way you can do that is by gear progression. If that’s not your thing, then you’re welcome to not do the content that requires said gear, play sPvP or continue on with GW1. When the first expansion comes out and you cannot experience it because you failed to work your way to the top, then it’s probably time to say goodbye.
that decided on Ascended gear and vertical progression… removing or nurfing the Ascendeds down to the Exotic level.
This is a pipe dream that will never happen. Open ended VP is the future.
Keeping in mind that you have to think pessimistic to be realistic at this point in time, I imagine the effects of this realignment benefitting the selection of available items in the gem store more than anything else. Housing features as gem store purchase, boosters for specific kinds of loot, etc.
They stretch and are tired because they had literally thousands of years to acquire ascended gear with max infusions and are desperate to get something better. That’s why they attack the players. They think we drop loot just like they do.
Buy ingredients to craft more infusions(you need 12 for a complete ascended set). If you still have gold left, save it for the next infusion tier.
I see they are still selectively responding to game issues while ignoring others.
Guess their motto is to rather not say anything negative or disappointing if they can’t say something positive. Who needs honesty, right?
but I do not see how it could work in GW2 without changing the fundamentals of game
You know, most people would be content to just be able to fight each other without any overarching rules or goals. The game engine can already support that, as we’ve seen with the brawling tonics. It’s as simple as setting a flag “can be hurt by friendly fire”.
There’s currently no way of effectively settling an argument about religion or politics. How are players supposed to prove they are right without dueling each other?
If you can convince ANet that a majority of players aren’t carebears, there might be a good chance of them enabling world pvp functionality, and start building upon it.
Hours worth of exploration, challenge and fun, all for the price of just 2 new ascended items! What a deal.
No seriously, good for you guys, hope y’all enjoy the new content.
OPs idea would be a pretty big improvement for the grind/treadmill/VP crowd, so that’s a plus I guess. You cannot eliminate the HP crowds desire to stop feeling pressured into VP by making it open ended. It may fool a few blissfully ignorant players, but the majority would still feel bad whenever they decide to spend time and resources to go for skins above stats, even if it’s a ridiculous, unreasonable grind.
Trying to find compromises is a waste of time if the motivations of two groups of players are polar opposites. Embrace the game for what it is and will become – or leave.
1. When did you begin playing? (post bw’s)
3- day Headstart
2. how many hours total do you have? (/age)
Between 600 and 700 hours
3. What’s your most gold banked so far?
60
4. Do you have a max level character (s)? (number if more than one)
2×80
5. List 1-3 areas / zones / events / tp; where you spend most of your time for income.
CS,CM(stopped playing Nov 12th)
6. Do you mainly use MF or not?
Never intentionally, except for some dropped upgrades on leveling gear
7. Have you ever got an exotic weapon from a mob? If so, how many and total?
No.
8. Have you ever got an exotic weapon from a chest? If so, how many and total?
No.
9. What’s the most number of rare weapons you have looted in one day or 8hrs time?
3
10. How many rare or exotic weapons do you “expect” to loot in one hour of time?
Never thought of it. I just farmed to get max gear, beyond that, loot wasn’t important to me.
11. How many lodestones have you looted total so far? (all types)
3
12. Do you craft? If so, do you have a 400 crafter? if so, how many?
3×400(Tailor,Weaponsmith,Artificer)
13. Do you sell your looted crafting mats? (specify optional)
No, except rarely when I can make substantial profits(stack of ecto)
14. Do you feel your return, (in terms of items, completion, income, etc) for your time, has been worth it?
Prior to Nov 12th, yes.
15. In ONE word, what needs improved most; from your perspective?
Since this questionnaire only includes loot, I’d say rewards from low level mobs(after tightening up downscaling to make it harder) and vets/champs. If this question is about the game itself, I’ll of course say the removal of above exotic tier gear and non-agony resistance stats on infusions.
(edited by ASB.4295)
Okay, the correct way to lobby for the thing you want is to:
A. Bug ANet for open world PvP
B. Bug them to add a perquisite criteria option to the guild system, that prevents non-human members from representing your guild
Also, this belongs in the suggestion subforum.
I might be wrong, but didn’t ANet already say in the AMA that loot drops were bugged and that they were being worked on?
You have to be careful about reading ANets official statements, we learned that not too long ago with the manifesto. What was said is that reports of perceived drops in loot drops are being investigated. “Perceived” is the keyword here, because that enables them to just go “huh, no, the drop rate is fine” when somebody asks.
“Due to the comparatively high level of rewards in FotM, the amount of loot players get from the open world is perceived to be much lower than it actually is. We will update the loot tables in FotM accordingly to eliminate the discrepancy between dungeon and open world loot.” – hypothetical ANet statement.
In light of all the other recent events, did you entertain the thought that the nerf was intended(with reasons other than anti-bot measures)? Their big goal was to slow down people from getting Legendaries, so the journey lasts longer. With that in mind, this nerf sounds like it’s very effective at doing just that.
I’m not saying they did it on purpose, I’m just saying they have a reasonable motive to have done it.
There’s no vertical progression
Lying about things doesn’t make then untrue. By the time the ascended set is out, and most of the dedicated players have gotten it, it’s time for Masterwork Infusions to be released. A few weeks/months later when most of the dedicated players have gotten Masterwork Infusion, it’s time to release Rare infusions.
The foreseeable end of this particular treadmill is after ascended infusions have been released. Then your statement about there not being vertical progression becomes true.
doesn’t mean they are not working to fix existing issues.
Yes and no. They may be able to tone down the grind or somehow find a solution to the issue of FotM sucking the life out of other areas of the game. One of the fundamental issues they said they won’t fix, and even worsen, or improve upon if you’re a dedicated player. Whatever compromise they try and pull, they will continue to release treadmill gear for a long while. Easy to get, hard to get, +1 or +5, it doesn’t matter.
Because people would be getting to the power plateau too quickly and have no need to invest any time into getting more powerful anymore.
Item Progression == Fun, Plateauing == Stagnancy ©ANet 2012
A big part of the treadmill comes with new infusion tiers, which exotics could be made compatible with. However, the cost that has to be associated with the new items to keep people progressing would’ve been easily perceived as being unfair. They needed to introduce something more rewarding, something that justified the amount of grin…time players have to invest without feeling ripped off. The solution had to be visual and distinctive: A new tier color and gear skin, whether it was just a different icon in your equipment tab or an actual in game skin(quiver).
Imagine if the cost of an infusion alone was what is now + the time you have to invest to get an ascended gear piece. People would have compl…. misunderstood ANet’s intentions even more than they already do.
tl;dr – they needed something to slow people from power plateauing, and since an invisible upgrade with the cost of an infusion plus an ascended gear piece would’ve caused even more drama, they introduced shinies in the form of a new tier color and gear skins.
To be honest, the three GW campaigns were developed and marketed as stand alone games, so increasing the level cap on later games would have caused pretty significant problems with cross campaign play and PvP. Downscaling had probably not been conceived of, and would’ve been problematic to integrate. They upscaled level 10 and above players to 20 i EotN, but that was the only real expansion, and the last big content update the game received.
Would they have increased the level cap in GW1, if Factions and Nightfall had been developed as expansions? I don’t know. All I can say is that it wasn’t needed for progression.
The increased level cap isn’t really a problem, as you will level up by simply experiencing the new content. Expanded armor levels however are. It’s just another form of treadmill they are introducing, that will even render ascended gear sub par.
Well, look at it from this angle: The longer it takes you to farm the materials, the longer you are having fun playing the game and working towards it.
More grind = Longer periods of joy
Well, to be fair, the patch note mentioned nothing about an increased drop rate, but an “improved” one. For whom this is an improvement they didn’t say.
You have to be careful about how to interpret the semantics in ANet’s statements these days.
(edited by ASB.4295)
Let’s hope this will come with an inspect feature and auto-grouping.
Maybe even filter players by gear(infusion)score? Did you find anything hinting towards this?
You never know.
I’m sure there’ll be more more ascended gear.
The motivation for a majority of hardcore players is to set themselves apart and be recognized as “better” than the rest. You cannot close the gap, and in games that encourage this kind of behaviour, which GW2 is going to become, the best way to deal with the two sides of the coin is to encourage casuals to become hardcore. True casuals won’t care how much more awesome a hardcore player is, how much more gold he has, but there is a large group of casuals who might want to become hardcore and work hard to rise above the sea of mediocrity.
WoW does this better than any other game at the moment. the road to epics is clearly laid out in front of everybody, and you are encouraged to start walking it almost everywhere you go. You don’t have to, and that’s what some people choose. Nobody has a problem with that.
Adding just one dungeon was a poor move from ANet. They can taper off the amount of content later on, after the gear grind weeds out the portion of players who aren’t dedicated enough to get to the top. The longer the progression curve is, the less people keep up with it. The less people keep up with it, the less effort you have to put into creating content (talking about quantity, not quality).
True casuals stay at the bottom and are happy, and everybody who isn’t one will either attempt to be hardcore and succeed, or give up along the way. Players with hybrid gaming profiles like the “low power plateau/no grind” kind are an oddity, and maybe high enough in number to keep a game like GW1 afloat, but GW2 is a few tiers above its predecessor. It needs a certain amount of players that finance their expansions and in between content updates. Server costs might be a negligible expense, but paying 150 employees every month to create new expansions, while the other half is fleshing out the current content isn’t.
And for everybody who doesn’t get the appeal of UO, but wants to emphasize with the old timers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4O3R5i39SQ#t=3033s
I followed UO over years, but I never played it, because even back then as a kid the open world PKing was something I would never have wanted to subject myself to, even if everything else sounded soooo much fun.
You just want views for your YT account, but I won’t give them to you.
Damage done. Gold sales made. Material cost lowered when the threshold of players willing to RMT to cut out grind is reached. ArenaNet rewarded for pr nightmare. Paves way for future ‘mea culpas’ with initially prohibitive grinds to suck money from trusting playerbase.
Doctor Solus… is that you?
I’m pretty much an exclusive PvE player, and playing PS2 with a focus on repairing turrets and healing teammates is a sufficient replacement. I don’t feel like spending any money on games at the moment.
They could have just made Ascended gear identical (in every way) to Exotics, but with an added Infusion slot, and I don’t think there’d be much of an outcry.
Infusions have stats other than infusion resistance. It would’ve taken the community a bit longer to realize the treadmill, but there would’ve still been an outcry.
but it better be something spectacular to breathe life back into these areas that are in cardiac arrest.
If their event system was more flexible, they could have them accumulate bonus xp, karma and gold, the longer they haven’t been successfully completed. Not that such a system would only work in Orr, mind you…
But do they event want Orr to become interesting again? If you look at how they treated most of their non-endgame areas in GW1, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Him too. I think this is the first time I’ve seen Christ Whiteside step up as the role of PR. So why him? You think if they wanted to smooth over things with the community, the logical conclusion, whether it would actually work or not, would be to get the people who used to talk with the community in the past.
Too many possible answers. Occam’s razor suggests that it the lead designers simply don’t have any time to waste with showing presence because they are working on hard an expansion.
Colin Johanson
What about Eric Flannum?
Ever heard the term nudge? Its what AN did when they opened FotM well actually they herded people into it but I digress.
It’s not a digression, actually. Understanding and manipulating player behavior, herd mentality, and other psychological aspects of the human mind is important in any MMO. The tiniest advantage can cause a huge shift in what the player base values, devaluing anything else that is lacking this advantage.
What you allow or disallow, what you encourage or discourage in your game is so kitten important in an MMO.
Power creeps creeps; that’s why they call it power creep.
To be fair, power creep is different phenomenon that is just part of the treadmill symptom. We had power creep in GW1 without ever getting more powerful gear. Skills combinations became more powerful with each expansion, making content easier and easier to complete, requiring harder and more unforgiving content to stay challenging. Power creep is a problem, but it’s a different pair of shoes compared to gear treadmilling. They are connected, though.
I would counter-argue that it’s not the game’s problem, but yours, the player’s. Why aren’t you running FotM? You can’t force people to do content they don’t want to do. If the majority of players want to do dungeons, but you want to experience areas of the open world that are designed for group play, it’s tough luck for you. After people have geared up, chances are a certain percentage of players will return to where they were before. You not participating in FotM actively slows down the rate at which players acquire the new gear. This is an MMO. Stop thinking about yourself and do something for the greater good!
Although I don’t condone this line of thinking at all, it’s a valid argument and the best justification I can come up to counter your argument. This is a discussion board after all.
Hey cool, my ban lifted right in time to comment on the AMA.
Well, they want to keep the treadmill and make you work long past 80 to get max gear. That’s not the game I can enjoy playing or want to support. Thanks for the clarification.
Maybe I’ll return after ascended gear and ascended infusions is so common that it’s as easy to get as exotics now. That is, if they don’t introduce another way of keeping the treadmill alive.
Now, a question to you – if that was indeed their intention, why won’t they admit it? Why they continue to claim that is not what they intended to do?
Good question. Personally, I think they somehow came to the conclusion that they attracted a lot more people in favor of infinite gear progression(a.k.a treadmill) than old school GW1 players, way, way more. Backed by whatever statistics they had available, they tried to come up with a way to satisfy the majority, which would’ve complained about there not being anything to work for, while disguising it as something that won’t offend the portion of customers that preferred the GW1 style. They knew exactly what was going to hit them and hunkered down, occasionally throwing out pre-formulated statements for the angry mob to devour and concentrate their hate on.
I don’t think they will fail, because there’s a lot of players that will continue playing, believing that GW2 is the game it was when it launched. And technically, they did never say there wouldn’t be a gear treadmill, only that they wouldn’t force you to grind. That statement however can be interpreted in multiple ways, which ANet knows and deliberately worded that way.
You don’t have to get rares, exos or ascended gear if you want to enjoy all the content. The only gate in the game right now is the infusion mechanic, which will kick in sometime after you have experienced the new dungeon multiple times. There is no new content that you cannot experience without having those infusions equipped. When there is, and random open world play won’t give you the gear that is necessary to even experience the content once, then it’ll be a full fledged gating mechanic.
Thinking of it, there’s another gating mechanic in game. One which I hate, but tolerated until the new update. You cannot experience dungeon content without at least two other people. The player requirement is a gating mechanic, a very weak one, because of the nature of MMOs, but it’s still one.
1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
I still want the game to succeed, because I invested money into it and hope that it will herald a lot more B2P MMORPGs oh which one may decide to be the spiritual successor of GW1, at least when it comes to PvE.
2. When did you start playing less?
Around November 12-13th.
3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?
The moment I realized that the main goal the new gear and infusions served was to increase the time it takes to get maxed out armor, which is something I hate and want to get over with as soon as possible. Without maximum efficiency, I always feel like I should be working towards getting stronger whenever I try to grind for a skin or title. I quit because I will not adapt to what I ought to enjoy.
I don’t like PvP at all(unless it’s very impersonal and indirect), but I’d rather play PS2 and repair turrets and tanks all day than force myself to settle for the second best gear in GW2.
Build a portal leading directly into FotM in each city next to the gate that goes to LA. When a higher tier dungeon releases, redirect those portals to the new one.
Wait. You can’t wear the same ring in both slots?
Sounds like another barrier to make sure people don’t gear up too fast. Gotta economize your treadmilling resources.
A weapon that is constantly getting stronger the more tiers of gear ANet adds.
You say that FOTM isn’t to blame. If it isn’t, why has the rude behavior increased at the same time ?
Why are all the complaints I’m seeing about rude behavior relating to FOTM ?
Easy. Game design that encourages discrimination coupled with herd mentality. People see a select few rude players make up rules who is good enough to join them and copy those things, thus creating sort of a community etiquette of what is acceptable and what not.
That’s why cliques in highschools have leaders, who don’t necessarily have any qualities that would benefit the group, but are so self confident and dominant that everybody else feels compelled to follow them.
That why I was so glad that there was no open world dueling in GW2. The ridiculous version they added with the costume brawl elegantly negated the problem with people wanting duel to assert their dominance/confidence. It’s pretty hard to run around screaming “IM BEST! Y U L00K 4T M3!?” when you’re a small plastic toy.
I had the same experience in GW1, when I naively asked to do an elite area once to get some experience to actually run the required builds all the SC groups were using.
Basically, you’re strongly encouraged to join a guild that will actually care about you as a player and who make compromises to take you along with them. There were guilds who specifically advertized to be teaching new members how to run speed clear elite areas.
The era of elites and casuals playing together has past. Get a guild, or spend hours lfg. The choice is yours.
Same as lvl 50 can’t compete with lvl 80 now. As i said, it is lvling experience not endgame experience. With new expansion we should talk about lvls 90 equality. Endgame experience is sth different from lvling experience.
But this goes against what Horizontal progression is, adding levels is the exact same thing as adding stats as it inflates base stats, and the need to grind for level 90 gear. It isn’t any different than any of the arguments people have thrown towards ascended gear.
Cause those people don’t really understand why they are upset. They can tolerate leveling and the journey from common to exotic because there is almost no work involved. They could also tolerate/ignore the leveling and gear system in game because they saw where it would end. There was a definite endpoint to how effective you could be: Exotics(+sigils). Now we have ascended gear. And no, not the complete set, so you could clearly see how much work you have to do until you’re finally done again. They spaced it out to make the journey longer. And when the complete set is released, they can just add new infusion tiers, because there are only fine’s now.
Those people just want to be done. They wouldn’t cry if there was only one tier of gear with one set of base stats. They wouldn’t cry if leveling didn’t give you more base stats, and just expanded your capabilities, like traits and utility slots do. They either want nothing to do with the journey of getting more powerful, or they want to ignore it, redefine it as a mandatory tutorial, after which they are fully equipped and 100% ready. They’re two different player philosophies, and you can only fully satisfy one of them at a time.
I’m not saying everyone opposing ascended gear is like that, but there’s a portion of players that looked forward that the game would almost completely lack this kind of progression, and what there was of it could be completed without too much of a time investment.
there is still a few.
In my experience, it’s a conditioned majority. Otherwise these changes would’ve made no sense. I don’t care about the game itself anymore, but I’m quite interested to see the where this is going. I still want GW2 to be successful, because it would increase the chances of an B2P MMO to come out in the future that I personally can enjoy.
I’m really curious if the treadmill will bring in more players to the game. Games as a form of media is still evolving heavily, and we still have a long way to go in order to discover and understand all the major gaming concepts, and the basic human instincts that are stimulated through them.
The game I spend was not wasted. I had a good amount of fun while it lasted, and if GW2 is successful, it could make it easier for other games I can enjoy far longer to make it through the publisher approval phase.
My only concern is that there won’t be any PvE centric multiplayer games with pure horizontal progression at all anymore. We’ll see.
There is no solution that makes both ends of the spectrum happy. However, there’s a solution that would make everyone who doesn’t feel too strongly(and I mean strongly) about one way or the other. Diagonal progression is easy to achieve: Just release more powerful gear every set amount of time, and at the same instance give anyone who doesn’t have the second powerful tier of gear equipped a super easy way to get it.
That would eliminate the issue most people are having problems with, namely people dropping too far behind if they didn’t start grinding from day one, while still allowing the real grinders to feel better than everyone else, or like ANet describes it “give dedicated players an edge”.
It would still be a gear treadmill, and personally I would never consider playing a game like that, but it should give the bulk of players taking issue with vertical progression a valid option. Grind hard to be(and stay) the best, or take it easy and be the eternal second.
I was talking strictly about PvE here, btw.
Turning the game into a WoW clone is not making it unique. Gear treadmills are not unique. Gear checks are not unique. Being forced to run dungeons for the best gear so you can remain competitive in WvW is not unique.
Rather than trying to turn GW2 into WoW, instead of allowing it to follow in the footsteps of its successful predecessor and ACTUALLY be unique, why not play a WoW clone on the side and stop trying to destroy this game? It would be fun if the content locusts were to just play the game for itself instead of demanding more and more stats and content constantly, forcing Anet to push rushed attempts to appease them like this.
We bought the game knowing exactly what kind of game it was- the manifesto told us what it was. It’s the WoW fans who want to turn it into something else.
There is no treadmill. You and most of the people on this forum seem to think adding one tier of gear means it will become a treadmill, it’s not. Stop being a doomsayer. It gets old real quick.
If I know content is released that is containing gear, which will surpass anything available to me right now in power, it is a treadmill. Stop making excuses and grind away.
If we don’t get a response
Keep in mind that silence is a response as well.
Infusions are an integral part of their gear treadmill. They have already explicitly said there will be more (read: increasingly better) versions of them.
This is the harsh truth. Most of the grind and treadmilling in this new gear/infusion double whammy update is in the infusion upgrades. The more ascended pieces you have, the more infusions you need to keep your gear up to date. 12 gear pieces and 12 infusions. When the new tier of infusions release, you can grind for another 12, then another, and another. And another.