Guild Wars 2

This issue was floating around since years but it became much more widespread after HoT launch and I dont think it can be ignored anymore. The only response from Arena representative that I was able to collect from forum archives is “it is because of your 32-bit system, upgrade to 64-bit”. There was also some typical “check for malware/virus” reply.

I suspect that we may have an issue (perhaps memory leaks) that was dusted under the carpet for a long time and right now due to client features bloating, HoT was a step on that carpet which exploded the hidden filth all over the place. Upgrading to 64-bit or lowering graphics settings was just pushing this moment away as it was not a proper fix but merely a method to mask issues with a client.

Right now people with 32-bit systems are crashing. People with 64-bit systems are crashing. People with OSX are crashing. People with 4 GB RAM are crashing. People with 32 GB RAM are crashing. People with GeForce 980Ti are crashing. People with AMD graphic cards are crashing. People who made a new clear Windows install just because of this issue are still crashing. All with same error type as is clear after examining error logs posted on this forum.

If some people are not crashing, it would be nice to know why. I am trying to pinpoint some common difference between those systems and the others as well as gameplay behaviors. So far without proper conclusions but I will keep looking.

I understand that this is hard time for Arena. Years ago I worked for QA in a TV station, I also have a brief experience in a game testing company. I know people can be jumpy. I know it is hard to track and fix errors if you have hundreds of them in the pipeline. But considering how critical this issue is for many people (just look at how many reports people are posting recently, In my guild many people crash as well and they say they did not before) I would expect some acknowledgement. Given how your game is designed right now, crashes without the possibility to get back into same instance when relogged within one or two minutes are gamebreaking. Tarir assault is awesome. But I can work my kitten and then crash 5 minutes before success to end up with rage instead of satisfaction. Even anti-dc parties are not a fully safe method as when the map is going good there is a decent chance that it will be 100% filled.

I would expect some communication from Arena just so I can know if they are on point with this issue and what is going on. So far all I have is years old posts with “upgrade to 64-bit system” solution which are clearly irrelevant at this point. I understand that fixing things takes time and I will be patient. As long as there is even some basic communication. Right now for all I know, Arena’s stance on this problem might be “it is all working as intended, fix your PC and make sure you don’t have a virus” in which case, you know, Fallout 4 is coming.

I am in the process of testing GW2 with multiple GFX settings and on different PC-s while trying to get some conclusions regarding this crashing (yes, I have access to 3 PC-s with different configs, I can reproduce same crash on all of them). I posted some very basic findings in the other thread. I will post more once I have more date.

Today I was experimenting heavily with various in-game settings and external GPU options. The issue at hand (at least the one which I experience and according to examining crash logs posted by people on this forum) is with the Out Of Memory error which causes GW2 client to terminate.

At this moment I am unable to verify if having 32-bit system will always reproduce this error as both my computers run on 64-bit Windows atm. Is there a chance someone here runs on a 32-bit system and could confirm that he does NOT crash?

I suspect there might be a memory leak issue here, though there is only trace evidence atm to support this. When GW2 client is started and a map loaded, the process uses anywhere between 1.2 GB to 1.8 GB of memory (this depends from settings and area we are in). From there over the process of several minutes or hours it steadily grows. When it reaches values of around 2.5 GB a crash risk starts to appear and when it gets over 2.7GB crash is pretty much imminent. Please note that for example when after one hour the client uses 2.2 GB of memory, loging out to character screen and selecting another map may free some resources, but it will NEVER go to a level at which it was 5 minutes after client startup. The longer the game goes, the higher the “bare minimum” level of used memory sits at. It looks like it never stops.

One setting that may affect the memory used is the option “textures” under the game’s graphic options. The difference between low and medium is about 200-300 MB and it goes further when pushed into high. This seems to help, however only in a way that it pushes ahead the moment when the constantly growing amount of memory used eventually flops the entire process. When I set my textures level to high, game will usually crash after 30-60 minutes. When changed to medium, I managed to keep it going for almost 4 hours at which point I noticed that memory used is already at around 2.6 GB (which can mean that crash is about to happen). I lowered the setting to low which dropped memory used to 2.4 GB, but the game crashed anyway around 15 minutes later (it was at more or less 2.5 GB used).

Conclusion. After monitoring the game crashes for the last 3 days I noticed that crash always happen when the memory used by GW2 client oscilates between 2.5 GB and 3.0 GB. As long as it stays below that, it should be stable. Lowering textures setting may push this moment ahead in time but the game memory usage bloats regardless from this setting. Lower textures just give bigger safety cusion. Other graphic setting seems to have no effect on crash ratio though I will experiment further with various combinations. This DOES look like a memory leak to me but I have no proper tools and expertise to further confirm that. I am a professional programmer but way below the pay-grade and knowledge of experts working for ArenaNet.

I would be grateful if people having issues with constant OOM crashes try to lower textures setting to “low” (yes I know, the game looks like potato in such case, but I am doing this for science and comment if this improves stability at least in some way. I will keep looking around, any further input and observations from other people would be appreciated.

Turamarth.3248:

The new maps seem to be more resource demanding.
Are you crashing in the old maps too after such a short time?

I have a 64-bit Windows and 16 GB of RAM. This issue is NOT related to any of these as Anet’s support likes to suggest (I guess that is a standard procedure).

If you can spend more than an hour or two in one of the new zones while doing zerg events and your GW2 client does NOT crash, could you please kindly post some basic details about your system? I am trying to figure this out on my own since ANet does not officially acknowledge the problem despite similar reports from many people. What I would like to know is specified below. Thank you.

Operating system:
CPU:
Video Card:
RAM size:

GeForce 680. Crashing all the time with OOM errors. Did not before HoT.

Is there anybody here with an AMD graphic card who also crashes all the time in the last few days? Please confirm.

Same here. Since HoT release GW2 is crashing every hour or so. If I join open world zergs, crash is pretty much guaranteed, the only question is how long the game will work before that happens. Sometimes it is 30 minutes, sometimes an hour. But it WILL crash with OOM error. Always.

Before HoT it was working smooth. I had an occassional crash but it was very rare. Maybe once per month or less. Now I have multiple crashes every evening.

I run a 64-bit Windows with 16 GB RAM so it is NOT an issue with 32-bit system. Other games are working good. It is clearly some fault in the GW2 client given how many people report this issue in the last few days.

The only reason why I keep playing is because I believe that Anet will fix this, right? Right?

SelenaDread.2814:

Awe.1096:

Aeon.6397:

Guys i siad im 40+ in HoT NOT TYRIA
in total im nearly 90+
CoF was old content thats I’ve played on for 2 years, obviously i rushed that
im talking about the new content

40+ what? hero points or mastery levels? I assume you talk about mastery level. If you are 40+ mastery in HoT zones alone, than since release all you do is sleep and train events in HoT. Or there is some exploitive mechanic out there which I did not heard about yet (bugged adventure reward or something like that). It is like hearing a complain from a speed-runner who completes Skyrim in 1 hour that there is not enough content in the game.

Could you even get 40 HoT mastery points in a reasonable time frame in 6 days?

Possible? Yes. Reasonable time frame? No. Unless there is some hidden exploit which I do not know about.

Aeon.6397:

reguardless,
my point is things dont need to be easier, just let the content stay difficult

I get your point. But as I described in my first post here, I don’t see how skill challenges in HoT require skill. They don’t. All they require is reliance on your friends or mercy of bystanders (which will become more easy to see after most people will be done with them as skill challanges are a one-time deal).

Aeon.6397:

Guys i siad im 40+ in HoT NOT TYRIA
in total im nearly 90+
CoF was old content thats I’ve played on for 2 years, obviously i rushed that
im talking about the new content

40+ what? hero points or mastery levels? I assume you talk about mastery level. If you are 40+ mastery in HoT zones alone, than since release all you do is sleep and train events in HoT. Or there is some exploitive mechanic out there which I did not heard about yet (bugged adventure reward or something like that). It is like hearing a complain from a speed-runner who completes Skyrim in 1 hour that there is not enough content in the game.

SelenaDread.2814:

Awe.1096:

Aeon.6397:

Im already 40+ just playing running around with guildies.

If you are 40+ by now, you either played 16 hours per day since release or you did extensive CoF/Cursed Shore farm. Perhaps even both. And please tell me how you completed all the content of HoT? I have 4000+ hours spent in GW2 and I am far, far from completing all the content. How do you define content?

I am at 35+ after the patch yesterday, my account is probably a month old, I played around a total of 15 hours from Friday to Sunday on the hot expansion. On the weekdays I barely have time to hopefully get on good days about 6 world boss kills, I have yet to step into Verdant Brink since Sunday.

You are clearly over exaggerating.

You are 35+ on old-world mastery track. People do that fast by farming CoF or trains in zones like Cursed Shore. This is an exploitive mechanic (though I did not used the word “exploit”, its 100% legit) which does not translate into normal gameplay. Hell, in many MMO-s this would be nerfed 2 hours after launch or not present in the first place. For example if you did lots of gold and farmed your legendaries by heavy participation in SW chest farms, you did that by exploiting a weakness in game design. But Arena did not nerfed that because I think they thought that if someone wants to farm like that than let them do so. And as for mastaries track. Just go to the new jungle zones and start doing normal event chains without looking on reddit for some elusive secret spot which grants bajillion XP per hour (which again as I stated, is an exploitive mechanic). Then see how many levels you will gain over the next few days.

superveemon.6738:

MMO are MULTIPLAYER games, and they are such for a reason. Guild Wars 1 and 2 are also special in that there is much more care put on the Competitive and Cooperative side of things. So yeah, about people complaining being unable soloing everything, why are you even playing an mmo?
There is no mmorpg where the end game content is a cakewalk: what would be the point of it then?
I agree with also everything else you said too.

Well designed MMO is where group content is properly incentivized and organised. An example of such content is a dungeon. 5 people join a team using some LFG tool with a common goal of killing the final boss. I could say that event trains are also an example. This works and is usually fun for everyone involved.

Arbitrary placed skill challanges in the open world with gate access to core gameplay mechanic are an annoyance, not properly designed group content. Standing in front of a HP challange and spamming map chat begging for help is not an example of good side of multiplayer games.

Aeon.6397:

Im already 40+ just playing running around with guildies.

If you are 40+ by now, you either played 16 hours per day since release or you did extensive CoF/Cursed Shore farm. Perhaps even both. And please tell me how you completed all the content of HoT? I have 4000+ hours spent in GW2 and I am far, far from completing all the content. How do you define content?

And as for skill. So far they nerfed HP required for elite spec from 400 to 250. So you have to do 15 less skill challenges in HoT zones to be done with maxing your elite spec. Please tell me, how does begging on map chat for help and then zerging the event an indication of skill? With 5 people you can 1,1,1,1,1 those skill challenges to death. Defeating Liadri on hard mode could be a skill. Doing high level fractals might be skill. Perhaps raid will be about skill. But discuss about those specific things when Arena will try to balance their difficulty level. When in 7 months you will decide to level your mesmer alt and find no people wanting to leave their event trains to help you defeat a hard-to-reach skill challange, will your overcome this problem with your skill? Well, maybe social skill? Try to pretend on the map chat that you are a girl in real life, maybe this will help. Skill.

Voluptus.3509:

I’d say 99 of 100 people who want more content that requires people to work together do NOT say anything. They just get bored with running around solo and turn the game off.

About half of the people who think things are too hard come to the forums and complain.

I am sorry, but you just pulled those numbers straight out from your dark place. I could as well say that I have a tangible evidence that 76% of players are happy because of HP nerf. Why? Because reasons.

Yeah, my client was running golden before HoT update and now I keep crashing all the time in random situations with different crash reports. This happens. GW2 is known for very buggy patch days. Give them time :p

He appears and disappears. Not sure if it’s intended or there is a timer but just check his spot again after some time and you will find him eventually.

Zergs.9715:

The example of how to get precursor does sound interesting, as well as map changes and rotations, but one thing I don’t understand ankitten ot personally a fan of.

This crafting system is an account-based activity, which means you’ll only be able to craft each precursor this way once. However, all of the currently existing precursor acquisition methods will remain intact in addition to this new acquisition method. That means that if you want a particular precursor more than once, you’ll have to fall back to the original methods of acquisition.

Why? If this is interesting journey as they say, why would you want us to go back to the old system if someone prefers “the epic journey” method. I mean even one legendary weapon is a big bite to swallow and would probably be more than enough for most ppl, but I still don’t get the reasoning.

It should be doable once per character for each precursor because it’s not an epic journey for my (example) mesmer, if my guardian from parallel universe already did it.

It would be like: “I’m not doing personal story on any of my alts because I did it on my first character so that counts for all of them”. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Well, each precurosor leads to exactly one legendary. If you craft it, you unlock the skin for all your characters anyway. And if you are after the stats, it is much cheaper to just craft the ascended weapon and slap a legendary skin on it.

I just hope that the effort will be properly balanced. The main problem with the current system is how unpredictable and RNG based it is. You could get unlucky and feed hundreds of exotics into a mystic toilet and still end with nothing. And trying to fish for a random drop is something you can’t rely on at all. That is why most people just grind gold and then visit the trading post. The amount of time it takes to grind gold needed to buy a precursor is perhaps not that bad but there is one problem with it. It is terribly repetitive and thus BORING.

I believe that the amount of time it should take to craft a precursor in this new system should be comparable to what it currently takes to grind gold for buying one. If it will take more time, it will defeat the purpose of this improvement (other than showing a path for people who don’t know how to efficiently obtain gold in GW2). If it will take less time (“hey, let’s dance with world leaders and be done with it”), legendaries will be downgraded to something that is owned by at least 3 people in each 5-man party. There are already plenty of people with legendaries right now. Bumping that amount by large ratio would be dangerous. I really think that the required gameplay to get a legendary is currently balanced quite well. What is wrong is how this time is spent (mind-numbing gold grind).

Oh, and kudos for removing the possibility of getting new legendaries of the trading post. I think that this way of obtaining them was always a mistake in the first place.

Balekai.6083:

Yes a newer player or a non daily grinder may one day “catch up.” By that time after year(s) and if you’re still playing, an AP farmer will have 350-700ish+ more hours per year to sink into other GW2 content rather than dailies.

Yes, true. But there is a difference between playing a lot at your own schedule and playing a lot on Arena’s schedule. Daily system just means that you need to log every single day to not miss out. And you better don’t dare to leave on any vacation! Think of all those AP lost becouse of that. And how about if I would like to not play GW2 for five days and then for the next five days play it for 8 hours per day? If I want to focus on achievements (that is what I like to focus on in games, be it an MMO, Steam game or PSN/Xbox game), current GW2 system does not allow me to do it.

Osiris Shadow.5890:

I feel like capping Dailies is just another thing that will eventually cause people to become more inactive or leave the game, which is never good for a MMO. Who likes dead games?

Well, for me the lack of cap was something that made me quit the game. And adding the cap now might be just the thing that will bring me back. Though I can’t deny that I might be an odd example. Still, my point is… what should be the main tool to keep players playing is developing of new content, not creating compulsion to log and farm dailies endlessly. GW1 “died” not becouse it lacked more dailies but becouse Arena stopped creating any new content for it.

Kalendraf.9521:

Awe.1096:

If this incetive tells you “play each day for at least 8 hours” then I think we are crossing some border.

8 hours? I’m not sure where that number is coming from, but it appears to be incorrect, and it might represent an attempt at a straw man argument.

For the record, I can easily complete my 5 tasks for a daily within an hour, and usually in under 30 minutes. I also know that this is on par with other players in my guild.

You speak about 5 tasks. I am talking about maxing all of them (both PvE and PvP) each day for the sole purpose of additional AP. And yes, if you have bad day with rolls in PvP matches, it can easily take 8 hours to complete everything.

Kalendraf.9521:

This looks like a very bad and unnecessary change. I don’t understand the rationale behind this cap on dailies and monthlies. How is it good for the game to remove some of the incentives for playing regularly?

If this incetive tells you “play each day for at least 8 hours” then I think we are crossing some border. Capping gains is something that most MMO do and rely on and GW2 was the odd kid on the block, not the other way around. I follow what devs of various MMO say and I remember frequent notion that “making people feel forced to do things” is a valid concern around which reward handling is planned. Now to be honest I can’t rebut the argument that the problem is in how I handle the game, not the game itself but I know how the effect looks from my end. At this point for me GW2 without daily caps = impossible to play (thus I stopped playing it few months ago). This change will allow me to play the game again. Now I know this doesnt solve your doubts but I am just presenting an example of something good this change can achieve.

Omne.4603:

This change is pretty disgusting. The attitude of equalizing players is one that should not prevail. Are we going to receive influence, commendation, laurel and gold caps as well?

Why should it not prevail? It’s an opinion. The fact that you find it “disgusting” does not bring in any absolute meaning apart from the fact that you don’t like it. I, for one, find equalizing players to be a good thing as long as it is done in a sensible way.

I stopped playing GW2 in last December becouse of my OCD to do all the dailies each day and never miss anything. I could not bare that anymore, it would take a toll on my RL so I had to cut my contact with the game. This cap is something that achievement junkies been asking for on this forum since quite a long time. I am glad Arena is doing this. It will allow me to play GW2 (which I love) again and finally at my own pace and not dictated by the daily clock.

Carighan.6758:

Absconditus.6804:

You’re not alone with the frustration of this achievement. Again someone on the ArenaNet team thinks it’s a good display of individual skill and ability to achieve, to force each individual player to rely on about 149 other players to get an achievement done. I only pray I can get it before it’s too late.

They might also have – correctly – thought that with the achievement having absolutely 0 impact, it’s really not a requirement for everyone to be able to get it.

This “debate” is ongoing since the dawn of time. “Not a requirement”, “0 impact” etc. etc. Yes I know. But I can assure you, there are people around here and there for who achievements are the biggest if not the only motivator to play a game long-term. When I played GW2, the fact if I got some achievement or not was much more important from if my character has ascended gear or if my PvP rank is high enough. People have different priorities. Don’t judge them becouse they don’t fit yours. I am not even touching the subject of this particular achievement since I dont have any own experience regarding it. Just replying to the old “lol who cares about achievements?” notion.

mtpelion.4562:

Black Lion Keys are 125 gems, or $1.56.

If you can farm 3 keys in an hour, that means you are paying yourself $4.68 per hour. Had you instead worked an hour of overtime at a minimum wage job you would have earned $10.88 for your hour and could have purchased those 3 keys with the same amount of time spent (1 hour) and had $6.20 left over to do anything you wanted with.

If people want to farm the keys, it’s really their loss.

Just wanted to point out that not everyone lives in US or any other country with fairly high income standards. And GW2 prices are uniform for everyone. I know people who work on full time shifts for less than $4.68 per hour and minimum wage job around here is around $3.1 per hour and that is pre-tax. So for some farming such keys might be actually a good time investment (if you can call playing games a good time investment that is). And that does not even count kids with technically $0 income.

Darkoray.4570:

Darkbattlemage.9612:

korelg.7862:

god! this is really frustraring man, dont you get tired of being so negative? allow yourself to have some fun! you know, in this world NOTHING is perfect, there is always something bad in EVERYTHING, so you just overlook the little details and enjoy the good part.

Do you get tired of being so frustrated? Your point can be applied to you as well. Just overlook their complaints and continue to enjoy the game. Their complaints aren’t towards you but towards ArenaNet, so why stress yourself over them voicing their dislike of the content? If the majority of the customers do indeed like this content then Anet will not modify the content much, perhaps sprinkling a few additional things for the minority but nothing that will jeopardize your amusement.

Elrey.5472:

I love how you guys don’t enjoy the game you are playing. Do you know why people usually play games? to enjoy them

You would be correct a few years back, but I have noticed a startling shift in the mentality of gamers. A growing number treat video games as chores or jobs, forcing themselves to go through content they despise for trivial things such as achievement points. It is this mentality that has caused me to actively avoid joining Guilds, another reason is the person usually just spams me a guild invite expecting I will eventually succumb to their persistence (fortunately didn’t encounter anyone that persistent when I was playing Guild Wars 2), and participating in group content.

Why come into a positive thread and start saying negative things? Yes we can ignore the negative people but its just bad manners and disrespectful to the OP. He was trying to give his positive feed back. I understand people are not going to like aspects of the game and that’s fine, however make a different thread to give your reasons.

+1 to you OP.

I am not going to offer my evalution of this patch becouse I lack any first hand experience. But to answer your question about “why come into a positive thread”. I believe that one specific statement made by the OP (let me quote: “I’m pretty sure 99% of people agree with me.”) tingles my senses in a bit disturbing way. When making statements like that it is very easy to draw the opposition out of the woods.

A, B or C. Whatever. For me the important reason for QQ is somewhere else. I still dislike the whole LS concept becouse I have a feeling it halts the introduction of brand new areas to the game. It is now almost one and a half year since GW2 release. Lets review the list of new zones we got so far.

• Southsun Cove
• Adventure Box 1
• Adventure Box 2
• Adventure Box 3
• Adventure Box 4
• Adventure Box 5
• Adventure Box 6
• Zephyr Sanctum (removed for now)
• Crown Pavilion (removed for now)
• Tower of Nightmares (removed permanently)
• Edge of the Mists
• 15 fractals
• Number of Assorted story/pvp instances

Now go few years back and see what we got during roughly same period of GW1 lifespan (all zones are permanent).

I loved the GW1 content model so much. I loved it with passion. I was expecting something similar from GW2. Instead I got Living Story. So they change LA into something different? A single brand new zone would be so much better, let alone more of such zones. Do I hate the LS? Probably not. But it does not change the fact that I am mighty kittenhurt about where this is going. Arena is promising great things coming from different internal developer teams. I will believe it once I see it. Not much to see so far. Well, there is Scarlet…

I am very sceptical about this. I mean, Living World, cool thing, sure. Yet call me old fashioned but I believe MMO should provide more content with expanding rather than reworking. Rework is justified when it comes to updating mechanics, adding QoL changes or upgrading outdated visuals. And even then such reworks are often questionable. Even more so scraping entire zones in order to replace them with something different. To what end? That other big MMO did just that with their one Cataclysmic expansion and it is now widely considered as a giant waste of time and the biggest flop in that game’s history. I understand what AreneNet is trying to do but IMO they should leave things like LA or Kessex Hills alone and focus on opening new uncharted areas on the world map. Oh well…

Paulytnz.7619:

I guess if there was a cap they may as well just remove them right? What would be the point once you reached max to do most of the stuff over and over? Also you would then just have a ton of people sitting at the number one spot on the highscores list thingy. Again, pointless having AP and that list etc.

That is not exactly true. Well developed and expanded AP system with a finite cap can still have large spread of scores, even at the top edge. The higher you get, the harder it gets to grab those still remaining to unlock. An example which uses considerably larger players pool from GW2 can be found here http://www.wowprogress.com/apoints/ This of course assumes that achievements would be expanded periodically in batches (like with expansions or large content patches). But even if they would not, we are still talking about a monumental effort to unlock them all. I mean, think about how long would it take to max out Legendary Champion. 14,973,500 rank points? Or those 1,000,000 dolyaks in WvW? Good luck!

VOLKON.1290:

There isn’t supposed to be a ‘finish’. There never will be a ‘finish’. Every new living story, every new added content brings more achievements. It’s an MMO. The worst thing they could ever add is a ‘finish’.

And I wholeheartedly agree with the bolded part. However. Why not make those newly added achievements permanent? And what does it have to do with dailies which are the main subject of this debate? Temporary living story achievements are a problem for me and daily achievements are an ultra problem becouse they are basically same thing as LS achievements but exponentiated. In the case of former perhaps you can squeeze in some seaside vacations and still complete them (but dont you dare book a longer holidays, no Sir, unless you make sure there is a good Wi-Fi on the spot). In case of the latter you cant even visit your granny outside of town on her birthday becouse you will miss your dailies. Wonderful system.

VOLKON.1290:

Awe.1096:

VOLKON.1290:

The thing with the leader board is this… I’m not competing with anyone at all for position on the leader board. I neither know nor care what my position is. If someone passes me or I pass someone it’s as noticed as a mouse fart in a hurricane. I just have little personal goals regarding APs that affect me and no one else… getting that next chest. (Almost at 10K! Woo!) Most of my APs come from dailies, which I’m completing (the chest part) every day simply through normal play. The audacity of some people thinking it’s a good idea to restrict my potential access to APs because of some competition they’re not having with me is ludicrous at best. If you’re worried about holding some position in a leader board for some competition that exists in your mind alone then go do what you have to do in game to stay there if that’s how you choose to play. However your style of play, your choices, are not worthy of being imposed on those of us that neither realize you exist nor care.

This is why the very large global cap on dailies was the preferred proposition becouse it would not restrict you in any way until very far ahead in the future at which point there are not even chest rewards present. After introducing a large cap, nothing would be imposed on you. Nothing would change in what you do and gain every day. Hell, they could even add more dailies at that point to help you reach your chests faster. In my perfect world dailies would not even exist. But I dont dare to make such proposition becouse I can see how it could restrict playstyle of several players. The only thing for which I have the “audacity” is to seek ways to make AP meta-game enjoyable for achievement hunters while not taking away things from people focused on other goals. If you have better ideas for a compromise, I am ready to hear them out. But if all you can do is ridiculing other people preferences, I can’t even respond to it with anything that would not make my forum account suspended.

Compromise? There is no compromise needed. It doesn’t matter what the degree with which you’re willing to restrict other people’s access now or in the future for your own personal gain for whatever reasons, it’s bad policy. There’s no need to compromise from “bad” to “a little less bad” at all when the system is working quite fine as is for the vast majority of players.

How do you know this? You just appropriated “vast majority of players” as supporters of your case. A very common fallacy in forum discussions. So is it becouse only a handful of people raise this issue on forums? By same standard I could say that only 3 people are against such change becouse only they post about it here. True? No? This works both ways. How can you be certain that such change would upset more people than make people like the game more? There is also a group of people (and probably that would be the majority) who would not care either way. But should they be the part of this equation? If I dont care if USA is governed by Republicans or Democrats, does this mean I support the Democrats? Let ArenaNet judge on what is working fine and what could be improved. There are several things in GW2 which could be improved, lots of them way more controversial than AP case. But ArenaNet made something that makes the otherwise well crafted game unplayable for certain people. Advocating for a change that would allow those people to enjoy GW2 again is something that I really feel the forums are for and I kind of feel entitled to it. At least as long as there is no official answer (something very brief would be OK, I dont expect an elaborate dissertation) which would close the case in this way or the other.

VOLKON.1290:

The thing with the leader board is this… I’m not competing with anyone at all for position on the leader board. I neither know nor care what my position is. If someone passes me or I pass someone it’s as noticed as a mouse fart in a hurricane. I just have little personal goals regarding APs that affect me and no one else… getting that next chest. (Almost at 10K! Woo!) Most of my APs come from dailies, which I’m completing (the chest part) every day simply through normal play. The audacity of some people thinking it’s a good idea to restrict my potential access to APs because of some competition they’re not having with me is ludicrous at best. If you’re worried about holding some position in a leader board for some competition that exists in your mind alone then go do what you have to do in game to stay there if that’s how you choose to play. However your style of play, your choices, are not worthy of being imposed on those of us that neither realize you exist nor care.

This is why the very large global cap on dailies was the preferred proposition becouse it would not restrict you in any way until very far ahead in the future at which point there are not even chest rewards present. After introducing a large cap, nothing would be imposed on you. Nothing would change in what you do and gain every day. Hell, they could even add more dailies at that point to help you reach your chests faster. In my perfect world dailies would not even exist. But I dont dare to make such proposition becouse I can see how it could restrict playstyle of several players. The only thing for which I have the “audacity” is to seek ways to make AP meta-game enjoyable for achievement hunters while not taking away things from people focused on other goals. If you have better ideas for a compromise, I am ready to hear them out. But if all you can do is ridiculing other people preferences, I can’t even respond to it with anything that would not make my forum account suspended.

Subdue.5479:

@Awe:

We can argue back and forth about the value of competition forever. At the end of the day, several things are apparent:

1. A.Net implemented a leaderboard for achievements. A leaderboard. The definition of a leaderboard is:

lead·er board
noun
noun: leaderboard
1.
a scoreboard showing the names and current scores of the leading competitors

Whether or not you think it should be a competition, A.Net clearly does, and I am inclined to agree.

Hence why I am asking ArenNet to give a clear verdict on this (and no, your definition of “clearly” does not cut it). Introduction of leaderboards does not clearly state their entire philosophy behind AP. What is more important even, it does not clearly form their standpoint towards concerns presented in this thread. The moment someone from ArenaNet will post about and make it clear about their policy, I will rest my case even if their standpoint is completly opposite to what I would desire.

Subdue.5479:

2. If my suggestions were implemented, and you decided you did not want to compete, you could simply focus on doing all the permanent that you feel are so valuable, and never look at the leaderboard, since it’s not important to you. You would be completing the permanent achievements.

How about a compromise then? Separate dailies and monthlies from permanent achievements. Leave current AP value for permanents only and intruduce a new track (call it merits or whatever you like) which would count only dailies and monthlies and be tracked on a leaderboard. This leaderboard could reset every month or year, whatever is that you wish. You could then proceed to add dozens and dozens of new dailies which make it impossible to complete all within 24h, if that is what you desire. As it stands now, permanent achievements and dailies are baked into the same pool. This could change. Permanent AP track would track progress of playstyle I represent, and merits system with leaderboards and fierce competition would track progress of yours. Would this work for you or not?

Awe.1096:

Finally, I’d like to leave you with this:

neu·ro·sis
n(y)o?o?r?sis/Submit
nounMEDICINE
1.
a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality.

Hellmasker.1649:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Hellmasker.1649:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Why would a completionist spend more in the gem store? There is no reason for them to do so because they are just there for points that you can get without spending a single penny beyond box price.

You clearly don’t understand. We don’t play this game solely for achievement points. We play this game because it has so much potential to be fun, when we’re not grinding dailies.

Way to bold one part of one of my posts so I’ll do the same by sectioning off this part of your post.

Why don’t you just play to have fun then if it isn’t such a big deal? Answer that directly please.

I do, after dailies. Sometimes during dailies, but it depends on the day.

Awe.1096:

Although to be fair I also accept that this may be a flaw on my own character. Perhaps my mild OCD which prevents me from being happy with the game if my daily/monthly tab is not maxed out is the reason. All I know is that I cant enjoy GW2 (for a great game it still is) if I know that I didnt done some random daily which due to lack of cap can never be made up for.

These are just a couple of the quotes that demonstrate my point in this thread alone. There is much much more evidence to back my assertion.

There is a difference between looking at own’s faults in order to facilitate proper discussion (in good discussion both sides makes concessions) and basically saying “you are r******d, your argument is invalid” which is what you are doing albeit not is such direct form. I find it mildly offensive, thats all.

Subdue.5479:

I find it funny that you go through all that trouble to paint this picture that I’m biased. However, I notice that you neglect to identify who I am biased towards, or against. Do you know why that is? It’s because the suggestion I put forth is neutral, fair, and more importantly, makes the game more competitive, and therefore better for all players. If you are going to bring up my views, that’s fine, but argue against them, not against me having them.

Oh, and I called the compulsion you guys all describe with regards to completing everything as a neurosis because it is. Look it up.

I just identified another root of the problem. I dont know if this will be shocking or “ridiculous” for you but here goes. “Competitive, and therefore better for all players” is a fallacy. It really is. You may see more competetive as better and probably it is for you but this is not an universal value. Some players dont want things to be competetive. They do not want to compete becouse they find it stressful and they look at video games as a source of relaxation rather than competition. Now I dont say that things being competetive is bad either. No, there is a large amount of players who likes games to be as much competetive as possible and I perfectly understand that. I have my own suspicions regarding which group is larger (based on experience from various online games over the years) but I am not going to pursue this argument becouse it dangerously treads into the “my needs are more important from yours” territory.

Now you may say that our agenda is to deprive competetive players from their fun but I look at it in different way. There are multiple aspects of an MMO game and certain of those aspects should IMO cater to different goals and playstyles to accommodate as many players as possible. There are several things which are customarily competetive, with PvP (and associated leaderboards) being prime example. As for achievement points, I never looked at them as something competetive. I dont look at them as a list of who can complete the most AP every day or month. I look at them as a form of checklist where I am not competing with anyone but I am merely collecting “trophies”. Hence “completionism” or “collecting”. This is how achievements worked in every game I played so far. And I am speaking about MMO games becouse achievements works in an exact same way in single player games as well but since single player games are an entirely different category, it would be unfair to use them as backup for this argument. If you know any MMO games in which achievements works in a way which you envision in your thread, please, name them for the sake of further argument.

Now it all boils down to what I am looking for since quite a while. To ArenaNet stating their design goal and intetion behind achievements. Do they want achievements to work in a more traditional way but perhaps they lost balance at some point? Or do they really want to turn achievements into a daily marathon and a source of constant competition between players (notice how already introduction of AP leaderboards rose a red flag and alarm signal for me and several other people)? The latter is also a design choice but in such case it will be not something I am willing to play along with and in such case I could seal my departure from GW2 with a clear mind.

Bottom line is. Things being competetive is not “better for all players”. Some people like it, some do not. I look at AP in pretty much every game as an oasis for a non-competetive and collector playstyle. And with such intention I am looking for a possible balance to it. It is same as with gear threadmill progression for example. Some people want it and need it as a necessary carrot to fuel their need for playing. Some people dont want it. Arguments for and against “give us more tiers of gear” are present in GW2 community ever since release day. You cant say that gear threadmill (or lack of it) is better for all players. AP are fuel and carrot for me and many players who share my playstyle. This is how IMO AP works in all MMO games. If ArenaNet wants to redefine this paradigm into a competetive race of daily endurance, so be it. But this will mean there is nothing more for me to do in this game (after seeing all the world content that is). Is there really a need for turning achievements into a rat race when there are so many aspect of an MMO game much more suited and traditionally used for a source of rivalry and competition?

PS. I am not going to further comment on your assertion that people wanting to complete all achievements suffer from mental disorder. Lets just say that such assertion is very… convenient on your end. Perhaps even too much convenient.

Subdue.5479:

Why again would we want it to be easy to stay at the top?

Digression. I just stumbled upon your Let’s Fix It thread and it became clear to me that you have your own personal agenda which you also indirectly promote in this thread here. I agree that I also might have my own agenda to pursue but I try to be clear about it and I stated multiple times that I am seeking a form of compromise that would take “best of both worlds” into account. Ultimately, it is up to ArenaNet to monitor feedback and metrics and decide what possible changes are best for the game (and that is the only thing for which I wait atm, ArenaNet’s take on this subject, no matter to which end). Just make no mistake, you are accusing people in this thread of acting selfish and promoting something that only benefits them, but in this case, how is your other thread different from this one? Oh right, your thread represents concept which is yours and this makes it clearly (and I mean clearly) the rightful one while this thread here is just bunch of silly little people with mental illness (thanks for that btw., though I promise I wont infest your thread and call it’s OP mental)

PS. You seem to be caring a lot about the leaderboard as evidenced by your thread. That already makes the whole “discussion” here pointless since as I stated several times already, I see AP leaderboard as a malicious construct and for all I care I would love it to be removed and thrown into a trash bin. Though I am not going to campaign for that since I understand this would mean removing an actual feature, no matter how much I dislike that feaure. Grinding daily achievements every single day for 8h+ is not a feature however. The case remains open.

Subdue.5479:

Can we all just agree to put a cap of 1,000,000 AP from dailies and be done with it?

With very sketchy estimate this would take around 181 years to complete assuming doing all dailies for the entire period. Since I am right now 31 years old but I already have 1 year of dailies done, that would mean that I would hit the cap some time around my 210th birthday. While I appreciate your faith in my longevity, I am affraid I can’t consider that as a reachable goal. Current state of life extension science is not giving much hope for major breakthroughs in the near future. Which effectively changes the proposed 1,000,000 AP cap into the same infinite paradigm. Which means we still have a problem. Sadly, I am affraid sarcasm alone will not alleviate it.

fellyn.5083:

And I’m done with thread because your arguments keep getting more ridiculous with each new post.

Ridiculousness is in the eye of the beholder. I find some other things in this thread quite ridiculous, let those things remain undisclosed for the time being. GG.

bwillb.2165:

And that raises another concern… What would be the incentive to keep doing dailies and events once you’ve been capped? And for the love of god don’t say higher tiers of gear to grind for.

First of all you would need to keep doing those dailies until your cap is reached. Which could take you few years of doing them every day or like 6-8 years if done in moderation. That is already awfuly long for a lifespan of a game one might expect. But lets assume you will keep playing beyond that. Well, you can still do them for laurels. Even if you bought ascended gear for all your alts in multitudes and all things like pets etc. there are still things like obsidian shards, dyes, crafting materials, infusions, WvW blueprints etc. which you can buy using laurels. But lets even assume you dont need those. Well, how about… just stop doing the dailies? You can focus on getting 1,000,000 dolyak kills in WvW, getting max rank in sPvP (good luck with that haha) and other very long permanent achievements. And considering that we speak about time several years ahead, by then ArenaNet for sure will create some expansions and add lots of new permanent achievements, some of them potentially quite grindy to complete. I dont see a problem in having a potential of reaching the finish line as long as this journey is long enough and requires commitment. In fact, having that finish line as opposed to pit of endless temporary void is something that I am asking for. As an example, in EvE Online to reach the point where you trained all skills on your character it would take being subscribed to the game for around 20 years. And I love the fact there there is this finish line to which I am closer to each day. Even though 20 years of commitment is insane in reality of gaming. But seing that light at the end of the tunnel pushes me to go forward.

fellyn.5083:

Here’s one that fits. Say you eat at McDonalds every day of your life and it leads to you having a heart attack. You then ask McDonalds to cut their menu down to salads only because you can’t control yourself and are afraid of another heart attack because you’ve decided that you can’t stop eating at McDonalds.

McDonalds is a poor analogy. And here is why. Sure, eating there every day will lead to problems (well, not quite, you can eat something at McD each day and remain slim and healthy but that would require a very specific choice of meals – definitely it would not be an experience for which people are eating at McD). There is however one quite popular solution to the McD “problem” and in fact it is being advocated for by health experts and some “progressive” people. Namely – avoid McDonald’s like a plague. Dont eat there. Ever. It will be the best solution. And in fact it is. For best health benefit you should just stop eating at McD. And stop giving them your money. Simple. So using your analogy, the best solution for the GW2 AP problem is… stop playing GW2 and never touch it again. Ironically that is exactly what I decided to do although I am not sure about the “never touch it again” part, it depends from potential changes they may do in the future. However, continuing with your analogy, basically what I am trying to do now is to suggest McDonalds what they can do so that their burgers will suddenly become as healthy as fresh veggie salad while still retaining all former taste benefits. Sounds like magic and in fact it would have to be. But in case of GW2 solution is much simplier and therefore I shall keep supporting it at least as long as someone from ArenaNet will more or less openly tell me to shut it and get the kitten out.

bwillb.2165:

But with a cap, that places me permanently under people who have not missed any events.

How? They will reach their cap first and stop getting more AP from dailies while you will still get those AP and you will start to catch up.

Also. The problem of temporary living story achievements is another separate issue but we dont talk about it here (at least so far).

bwillb.2165:

And what do you do about people who have already gotten more than the proposed cap? Take their points away? People won’t like that. What about the reward chests?

When adding the cap, make it larger from the current maximum possible AP from dailies. At this point that is around 10,000. As long as the number would be 10,000 or larger (now), nobody would loose a single point.

bwillb.2165:

And all, what, to satisfy some feeling of accomplishment even though you’re doing less?

What is bad in satisfying feeling of accomplishment? Achievements in almost every game around are based on set and finite pool. Ideally, a well balanced achievement system in a multiplayer game (single player games are different) is when it is very difficult to reach “everything” but it is possible. Thus working as a motivator for players. To make sure the system does not become static, new permanent achievements should be added with major content releases. I really can’t agree that you are “doing less” if you just spent 10,000 game hours to max your achievements. That was a huge effort but an effort with a clear set goal. As opposed to being treated like a hamster trapped running in a wheel.

ArenaNet tries to be innovative. Perhaps they also tried to innovate the achievement system and instead of standard system which I described above they decided to go with the temporary achievement design, one for which dailies are the most hardcore example. Only 24 hours to complete and temporary status. In order to be “good” in that you pretty much need to run your real life around dailies in GW2. And frankly I did just that for quite some time. I dont know what intention ANet designers have. I can have my opinions but I promise to rest the case as soon as someone from developers will briefly outline their intentions. If this will simply mean “system is working as we intend it to, we are aware of the concerns but we have our reasons to keep the status quo” so be it. I dont intend to riot becouse a game designer is doing something in a way I dont like. I just want to hear that from them and not from anonymous forum poster.

bwillb.2165:

Malediktus.9250:

if there is a cap its possible to catch up, you logic is wrong

How? If you cap the reward at 5 dailies, and almost everyone is doing 5 dailies a day, how do you catch up? How does this not just solidify the positions of everyone permanently, barring an absence from the game?

We are not talking about small cap each day. We are talking about large cap on total AP you can get from dailies. For example 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 or whatever. The amount is a thing to discuss.

Subdue.5479:

It is true that if dailies were removed, the total number of points available, and therefore, the average number of points between competitors would constrict. This would give the illusion of gaining ground. However, in reality, little to no ground would be gained, the rate of AP acquisition for everyone would remain equal, the only difference being that it would be impossible to “lose” points, thus making those at the top further entrenched.

You keep talking about the leaderboard like a core of the issue. I already stated multitude times that leaderboard is irrelevant. In fact I was strongly against adding the leaderboard to the game when it was first announced (it is possible to dig in posting history, I am sure those posts from over a year back are there). I predicted that it will create problems and their subject boomeranging here over and over is one of such problems. My leaderboard position (and other people who were/are high on it) was merely a side effect of the things I focused on. I was after those AP since the 1st day of game’s pre-launch back when nobody (including me) had a clue how the game even works. I also didnt liked the idea of rewards from AP (AP chests) even though I was in a fraction of people who benefited from those rewards the most. What ultimately happened and this whole discussion just confirms my fear that leaderboards will lead me to a disaster.

Subdue.5479:

Set a different goal. Problem solved.

I solved my problem by stopping playing GW2 and redirecting my focus on to something else (and yes, I am still focusing on achievements as I did pretty much ever since achievements in games were “invented”). But is it a sin to keep advocating for a change that would allow me to enjoy GW2 again? I still believe that mechanics-wise GW2 is currently the best MMO on the market (some will agree, some will not). However the sole issue of infinite daily AP makes it pretty much unplayable for me at this point. As much as it may be shocking to someone, there are people like me who base their long-term commitment to an MMO on the achievement system it offers. It’s my way of playing same as someone may like to focus on farming legendaries or doing sPvP all day long. I dont judge their priorities. And before you respond with the usual “nobody cares, nobody wants you here, get out and give me your stuff on your way out”, think again. Becouse one day someone may handle you in the same way when you will have your own grievances with a game.

VOLKON.1290:

Awe.1096:

3554091

Simple. Almost everyone in this game does dailies. Only a minority (and an extremely small minority) was salvaging 10 mil items or running 9001 CoF. One is not like the other.

I want to see how many players in GW2 will actually reach the treshold of 25,000 AP from dailies alone. Almost everyone?

It seems to be that the only thing more ridiculous than capping peoples dailies is adding a cap they can never reach anyhow.

Again. You just dont understand a different mentality. For me there is a huge difference between having 6,000 points out of 500,000 and 6,000 points out of infinity. With the infinity model there is no finish line and goal to aim at. Well technically there is a finish line but it gets moved ahead every singly day so technically if you never reached it you never will becouse it escapes at same speed as you can chase it. With the current daily model, every single day when I do not complete all dailies, I have a feeling of a loss. With the fixed finish line model (even if the finish line is very far and not likely to be reached) all I can do is feel progress. If I dont play GW2 for one day I do not feel the loss becouse the finish line didnt moved an inch and is not escaping me like in the infinity model. With the infinity model every day I do not launch GW2 and complete all dailies I have a feeling of being punished becouse my goal just moved ahead and I can’t “speed up” the other day to make up for it. It’s is not about me vs. other people on the silly leaderboard. It is about me vs. the game’s progression line. Player vs. player competition is zero-sum. For someone to win someone must loose. But fixed progression path is not zero-sum, I can only “win” by moving ahead on the path and getting closer to my goal. If however my goal is escaping me at same speed as I am chasing it (as we have it now) it becomes stressful and compulsive. As I said before, I was not the first who quit solely becouse of this and will not be the last. If there is a possibility to make changes that would keep some players like me in the game and allow them to enjoy it without making other people get upset and quit (would you quit if the daily cap got introduced? would it affect your game fun?), why not debate about it?

3554091

Simple. Almost everyone in this game does dailies. Only a minority (and an extremely small minority) was salvaging 10 mil items or running 9001 CoF. One is not like the other.

I want to see how many players in GW2 will actually reach the treshold of 25,000 AP from dailies alone. Almost everyone?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If it is some personality quirk that causes one to do things one finds distressful, then seeking help outside of changing the implementation of certain parts of the game to alleviate distress to a certain small sub-group might be more desirable.

Sure. The solution in such case is easy and simple. There is no reason to debate about it. Just quit playing the game. Which I did. But is it unreasonable to discuss about possible changes to the game that would make some people not quit or come back to play again? I am not the first and not the last who stopped playing GW2 only becouse of the daily grind compulsion. I am open to drop the case for good if someone will convince me that introducing daily AP cap (and a fairly large one) is bad for the majority of game’s population. Becouse at the moment some people are claiming that the AP cap would be a blow to everyone aside from a small minority of AP farmers. I am ready to agree on the “small minority” part. I am not ready however to agree that the change would be bad for everyone else. If that would be the case, why there was no outcry when AreneNet decided to cap the ininite salvage and dungeon runner achievements? Wasnt this “taking away freedom” from people who wanted to salvage 10,000,000 items or run 9001 CoF1 to gain their AP? Why that change was apparently needed and why same reason cant be applied to daily AP?

VOLKON.1290:

Awe.1096:

william dj.6953:

Those at the top are complaining about the amount of work it takes a day to get all the ap. (amount of work it takes to stay at top of leaderboard) So by saying no, you are saying they want it to be harder for them to stay there. What a joke.

Its not a joke. You will most likely not believe me. But if I would have been offered with a trade-off, the daily cap is introduced but in exchange all my AP progress is reset to 0, I would take that deal in a heartbeat. It would allow me to enjoy GW2 again.

Exactly the point I’ve been making. You want to punish people that get more of their APs via dailies than you do. You want to jostle for position on the leader board by removing someone else’s chosen path of advancement.

This has nothing to do with “fixing a system”. This is purely about gaming the system to give one group an advantage over another by denying people that choose to get more AP from dailies their chosen path.

You still greatly misunderstand the agenda. You know what I would really want (as opposed to seek a compromise – daily AP cap is a compromise)? 1. Remove daily AP completly. 2. Remove the AP leaderboard from the game. 3. Hide the AP of other players so that everyone can only see their own AP value. That is what I would really want. Not “jostle for position on the leader board”.

william dj.6953:

Those at the top are complaining about the amount of work it takes a day to get all the ap. (amount of work it takes to stay at top of leaderboard) So by saying no, you are saying they want it to be harder for them to stay there. What a joke.

Its not a joke. You will most likely not believe me. But if I would have been offered with a trade-off, the daily cap is introduced but in exchange all my AP progress is reset to 0, I would take that deal in a heartbeat. It would allow me to enjoy GW2 again.

Edit: And I speak about only my AP progress being reset. Everyone else would stay at where they are. Still would be a good deal for me.

william dj.6953:

Awe, you asked me a question and I answered. Now allow me to ask you one. Or anyone that wants these changes can answer the question.

Would the proposed changes allow those at the top of the leaderboard maintain their position much easier?

If the answer is Yes, this, in my opinion is why so many people are against it. This said group of people come on forums make suggestions claiming its for the benefit of all in the game. When this is 100% a big fat lie. It is to benefit them the most and they know it. When others call them out on their lying they start pitching a fit.

No matter how many numbers are thrown out there, no matter how many times the suggestions are reworded its still the same thing. A lie that centers on the selfishness of this group.

And btw, the question really only requires a yes or no answer. Not the typical avoidance of answering a question that so many do when trying to convince those on the board of their position. By throwing up walls of txt.

The answer is No. I think you still dont see one thing. You keep forgetting that once someone with 20,000 AP reaches the cap, he (and only he as opposed to those who are behind him and still didnt reached the cap) stops gaining more AP from dailies. So lets say I reached the cap and I have now 6,000 AP lead over someone who is trying to catch me. But he still didnt reached the cap. So from now on I can’t get any more AP from dailies and the person chasing me can get 15 AP per day. What can I do at this point to maintain my lead? It is only inevitable that my lead will start to shrink. At some point the person chasing me will also reach the cap. Perhaps I will still be in the lead but not with 6,000 AP anymore. Now it will be 500 AP. At this point its a fair game. Who will ultimately lead will be determined by who spends more hours playing GW2 and playing more efficiently. Not by who abandoned his/her life to make sure that there never will be a day without all achievements done. Introducing the cap will have an opposing effect to what you say. It will be harder to maintain the lead becouse leading just means that you will loose a stream of daily AP faster from people who are behind you.

fellyn.5083:

Malediktus.9250:

I think you should reread the thread, because you obviously did not understand the suggestions. As it is now we have the immense advantage as long as we keep playing. Adding a hardcap on temporary AP points would allow people who started later to catch up as time goes on.
Next time read more closely before posting.

I am annoyed by having to reexplain everything every few posts because people either dont bother reading the whole thread or want to get this thread closed with strawman arguments.

No I’m pretty sure that would just cement the top spots for people who have been playing longer.

Maybe the reason you need to keep explaining your suggestion is because it doesn’t make any sense.

Please kindly explain how adding a hard cap on daily AP would “cement the top spots for people who have been playing longer”. Before you start accusing him of not making any sense, at least please try to be coherent and dont claim that black is white and white is black.

An example. Hardcore achievement grinder John plays since launch day of GW2. He does every single daily since then. Hardcore achievement grinder Tom joins 4 months after the game’s release and also starts to do all dailies every day. Casual Peter joins the game half year after the release. He does dailies to get laurels and even that only the every other day becouse he likes to play less. Time goes on. All three guys gather some points from dailies and all three of them complete most of permanent achievements in game apart from some very grindy ones like PvP rank track or WvW dolyak killer. Even Peter as he likes to do achievements at his own pace.

Scenario A: Time goes on. Its been now 4 years since the GW2 release. John, Tom and Peter all still play GW2. They like the game. There is no global limit on daily cap and ArenaNet never thought about implementing it. John and Tom still do all available dailies and all LS/new parmenent achievements. John has now 50,000 AP and Tom has now 46,000 AP. Despite Tom’s efforts, he is unable to reach John becouse John still has an advantage of starting the game 4 months ahead. Peter managed to do most of permanent achievements till now but he seldom does the dailies. He now sits at 30,000 AP.

Scenario B: Time goes on. Its been now 4 years since the GW2 release. John, Tom and Peter all still play GW2. They like the game. At some point ArenaNet decided to put a hard cap on daily AP and it sits at 25,000 AP. John and Tom are both capped. John sits at 40,630 and Tom sits at 40,800 AP. Tom managed to get close to John few months after John reached his daily AP cap. At some point he managed to get a bit ahead of him becouse over the years he did a bit more WvW and gathered some additional achievements there. Regardless from this, they both are hardcore GW2 players and their AP amounts are both in Top50 on leaderboards. Meanwhile Peter still didnt reached his AP daily cap. He still does some dailies at a slow pace but every time he gains some AP from dailies, he gets a bit closer to John and Tom as they cant get any more points from dailies anymore. Peter now sits at 30,000 AP. Exactly same as in scenario A.

TLDR summary:

In scenario A without daily cap, here is how the situation looks after 4 years:
John 50,000 AP; Tom 46,000 AP; Peter 30,000 AP

In scenario B with daily cap, here is how the situation looks after 4 years:
John 40,630 AP; Tom 40,800 AP; Peter 30,000 AP