Guild Wars 2

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

15 people per Raid would be just fine. Rewards need to be equivalent to other content and that is, you will have just another content some people will enjoy. I don`t understand why this community is so afraid of change.

Many of us aren’t “afraid of change.” Quite the opposite. We’re tired of the same old same old. I played WoW for 5 years. When I left they had Looking for Raid, Flexible Raid, Normal Raid, Heroic Raid, and they were about to add Mythic Raid. Enough with the freaking raids already! Plenty of other games have raids. They’re a nuisance. What you just described is very much the way the Triple Trouble fight works, and from what I seen, it’s only a source of frustration for the new players who happen to stumble into it only to realize that the 8 players they roped into helping them are nowhere near enough to get the fight done. When something that’s already in the game clearly isn’t working, it’s silly to double down on it.

the krytan assassin.9235:

a good example to see how this balance system works is the MoP expansion. The skillcap lowered and because of that alot of hardcore players left the game. Because all those hardcore players left the game, the game itself got the reputation of easy as kitten, no fun at all anymore etc. Because of the negative reviews of the hardcore WoWérs the amount of players and income during this period declined.

What are you talking about??? The skillcap (i.e. the highest degree of skill required to complete the hardest level of game content) was raised in a big way in MoP. Since players were leaving in droves in Cataclysm they added easy-mode raiding for non-raiders. The fact is that non-raiders didn’t want raiding period. Not easy mode raiding, not hard mode raiding, not any raiding. The supposedly hardcore players who left the game on this pretext were just sore that others had an alternative to youtube for watching the end game cut scenes. Apparently it wasn’t enough that the heroic versions of raiding gear did literally twice the DPS of the LFR versions. They just didn’t feel as special anymore. But I digress.

the krytan assassin.9235:

Now the same goes for Gw2. We need to have a balance between hardcore and casual within the game. Currently there is barely any room for hardcore players except for WvW and PvP.

This is by design. Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 have always targeted a casual audience. There are plenty of games out there that offer compelling content for hardcore players. The casual market is where this game is aiming.

the krytan assassin.9235:

Ofcourse there is a community of PvE speedclearers but if Anet doesn’t come up with new interesting combat systems etc, it will just become boring and in the end the hardcore PvE community would leave, causing major disadvantages for PvE.

There is no hardcore PvE community here. Speedclearing is not hardcore. Hardcore is a raid boss that wipes the entire party because one of the twenty five players in the group forgot to hit the “win” button at just the right time. I, for one, am happy that there are no onerous restrictions like that in this game. I doubt that a non-existent population of players would impact the game by leaving.

the krytan assassin.9235:

I’m not saying that raids are the only way to create new high end content, (extra hard 5 man dungeons could fill in the spot aswell) but in general big raids can have alot more tactics and organisation then 5 man groups.

Do you know how popular the Triple Trouble boss is? It’s not. Know why? Because it requires much more tactics and organization than five man groups. This game’s audience just doesn’t demand that level of play.

No raids, please. If you want raids go play WoW. They have 4 raiding difficulty levels and usually release a new one every three months. I actually came back to this game because I don’t want to see another raid in my life.

yanipheonu.5798:

Honestly, why not have a raid?

1. Because it’s hard enough trying to get five people together for a twenty minute instance. The last thing I want at the end of the day is to scrape together 10 experienced players to fight a boss that hardly ever rewards loot anyway. If I want to participate in a raid like activity I’ll go run Teq. That’s only a half hour commitment (15 minutes of set up, 15 minutes of fight), he dishes out karma like it’s candy on Halloween, and I get about 5 chests at the end. That’s the kind of game this is, and it’s the kind of game most of us signed on for.
2. Time spent developing raids could be better spent working on living story or on new dungeons
3. Raiding is terrible return on investment. Raids are notoriously difficult to organize, and only the hardcore audience (which is not the targeted audience in this game) ever bothers to repeat them. In this game they would be something that players do one time before going back to their Silverwastes chest farming or WvW bag collecting. Note that even Wildstar, which had been hyping its emphasis on raiding prior to its release, backed off on that stance:

When Wildstar was launched, it was heavily toted as “hardcore” especially in the sense of raiding. It now appears Carbine is adjusting its view with both previous and this upcoming patch. I wanted to know whether this was a pivot away from hardcore or a resolve to “The Devs are listening.” The official word from Frost was “both”, after seeing the feedback and looking at gameplay analytics they found that there was a real need to focus on solo content.

Milennin.4825:

It takes me 5 days to craft one Ascended weapon!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? And that’s assuming I already have all the materials required.

That’s a pretty heavy assumption. I wish that time gating was my primary concern. The grind to max your crafting to 500 is far more onerous, in my experience. Once that’s accomplished, collecting the mats is taking me months, not days. I only have one ascended weapon, and it came from a weapons chest that I lucked into. I opted to level my leatherworking to 500 first because it lefts me craft various pieces of ascended armor. The biggest barrier to crafting those is actually silk. I have two pieces crafted so far. I’m still waiting to collect the silk to craft my third.

Milennin.4825:

What exactly happened to this no-grind philosophy? Why wasn’t Exotic gear good enough as a final tier of gear? It’s not like people were unable to clear any content with Exotics anyway. Ascended serves no logical purpose other than to **** off those people who don’t have the time to play 28 hours a day, 450 days a year.

There’s another thread devoted to the topic of “no-grind philosophy.” Many argue that ascended gear doesn’t count because it’s not “required.” I beg to differ, but the argument is frequently made nonetheless.

wQnxy.7529:

Bernie.8674:

I don’t think you can get banned for it, but I don’t think your plan is all that reliable. Just because you log out and back in doesn’t mean you automatically get put into a new instance. I think, however, that if you log in with a different character each time your nodes will reset. Maybe I misunderstood and that was what you meant.

Today i had farm some LS achievement and gether some mithril mine near mission entrance, then i had start the mission, did the achieve and after exiting the instance the nod has restart.

I didn’t say it would never work. I said it wouldn’t work reliably. There is no guarantee that you’ll get a different instance when you come back. The longer you’re away, the greater the chance that your old instance may have been destroyed, so working through the LS increases the odds of getting a different instance. I’ve been able to farm nodes in this manner as little as 15 minutes before, but never less than that. Of course, maybe I’m just unlucky. Your best bet is to park as many high level characters as you can by these nodes and work through them at every opportunity. If you can make it work on a single character, more power to you.

Regardless, your initial question was whether or not this was bannable, and I believe the answer is that you can do this without fearing the ban hammer.

Bunter.3795:

With the announcement of the mastery system for pve you are now no longer going to be able to get skill points for leveling. Where are the 140-200 skill points needed for ascended crafting going to come from now? Same with legendary weapons, you need 200+ skill points to craft a legendary, where are these points going to come from?

You must have stopped reading before seeing the next line after they stated skill points would no longer be available through leveling:

Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.

Truewarlord.8346:

Anyway, my biggest problem with GW2 has always been the lack of immersion.

Immersion has never been ArenaNet’s strong suit. For me the biggest immersion breaker is the way in which zones get caught in endless time loops where large scale attacks occur and you fend them off only to have them occur again minutes later. Judging by their HoT blog posts, they’re actually doubling down on that in the future.

I don’t think you can get banned for it, but I don’t think your plan is all that reliable. Just because you log out and back in doesn’t mean you automatically get put into a new instance. I think, however, that if you log in with a different character each time your nodes will reset. Maybe I misunderstood and that was what you meant.

Obtena.7952:

There is nothing elitist about telling people to not play a game that doesn’t suit their style of play because the honest truth is that the game is highly unlikely to change to fit what you want to see it do.

Here’s the thing: the game that they described in their manifesto and even in this thread does suit my style. The problem is that the execution is not in line with their stated philosophy. That’s where the discrepancy lies. I have no problem following the advice you gave. Blizzard turned their entire end game into raiding, raiding, raiding, and more raiding, and they made no apologies about it. That’s why I’m back in Guild Wars again. I played Guild Wars 1, and I completely agreed that no grinding was required to play through end game content. However, once I completed that content and realized that no more was forthcoming until Guild Wars 2, I had no incentive to stick around. I had my “Guild Hall Smells of Rich Mahogany” title, and all that was left for me was to remain drunk for a really long time, idle in the luck circles, repeatedly send my henchmen on the same three quests over and over to farm faction, and run the same dungeons every day to open chests. That’s why I played WoW instead for five years.

Guild Wars 2, in its current state, is very different. Everything is a grind or a chore: crafting, traits, dungeons, world bosses, etc., etc. This is the exact opposite of the game that ArenaNet stated they were making. The fact that they keep saying the right things gives me hope that they will eventually fix their game.

Obtena.7952:

It’s not really a requirement just because you want it. Requirement is defined by need, not want. Even if someone does need it for higher level fractals, it’s something that comes time… you don’t need a full set of Ascended once you decide your going to conquer fractals.

By that definition I don’t even need rare gear. Someone could carry me through fractals and/or dungeons for a few months until I naturally gathered the gold, mats, and laurels to deck myself out. How realistic is that, though?

Lheimroo.2947:

Bernie.8674:

And you effectively clarified this argument by describing a two hour grind. That’s not so convincing.

Tobias’s routine wouldn’t count as a grind by the definition Anet has given in this thread.

Actually, I think it does:

- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear.

Tobias’s gold making routine involved killing the same set of creatures, running the same set of events, and farming the same tree clusters every single night. It is exactly the definition that ANet gave. The only debatable aspect is whether or not you’re required to do it. If you want a full set of ascended gear in under a year then I’d say the answer is, “yes.” Many disagree with me, but I have yet to see a convincing argument to the contrary.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bernie.8674:

How are you getting 5g in two hours? I might get that on guild mission nights, by doing dungeons, or by engaging in concerted farming, but I’ve never gotten anywhere near that by playing casually the way you claim. I must be playing wrong. I’m stagnant somewhere between 20 and 25 gold right now.

World Boss Grand Tour. Log on, find which boss is up next, and do the circuit for an hour. Sell the Ecto from salvaging the rares, sell Silk if I really want to make the money, and sell all the blues and greens.

I guess that works if you don’t need the ectos and Silk for crafting your ascended gear. It’s kind of hard to earn money to support your crafting when you’re selling the mats you want to buy. I imagine that once I get my ascended gear I’ll have money coming out my ears as well. Also, blues and greens are my primary source of luck. Have you maxed that yet, or are you saying that it’s simply not worth maxing?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Drop into Silverwastes if it’s before 1am PST and generally will find an active map. Do events, and sell proceeds much like with the Grand Tour. This one moves faster and can be more lucrative.

Silverwastes is a complete grind to me. I can’t think of anything I would want to do less than Silverwastes.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Harvest any trees I see there, and then take a moment to go to Pagga’s Waypoint and find the motherlode of Cypress to the west – sell Foxfire Clusters.

This is actually something I did while crafting my Mawdrey. There’s a similar cluster at Waywarde Way. I looked upon this as a chore that I temporarily had to endure to get Mawdrey done (i.e. a grind). I can’t imagine doing it day in and day out.

While I agree that your chore list is trivial to complete, the fact that you’re doing the same exact tasks day in and day out elevates your actions from casual to a way of life in my eyes. You were technically correct when you said that you could get 5g per day without setting foot in dungeons, but the tediousness of your regimen is arguably less attractive than pugging dungeons.

I’d like to point out that I was responding to this statement:

Is gold a grind? I find it hard to say yes when two hours a day will net me roughly 5g without sticking my head into dungeons. If I did dungeons or spent longer, probably could up that to 20g. And I’ll lay out exactly how I do the 5g to anyone who asks – it’s not a secret, it’s not hard, it’s just working with what you have to do.

And you effectively clarified this argument by describing a two hour grind. That’s not so convincing.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

After reading that, I feel like they are charging for feature changes.

We reap what we sow. Every time I saw someone begging for an expansion pack I envisioned exactly what you’re describing here. I don’t know why so many people were so eager to pay $40+ for stuff that we had already been getting without additional charges, but players were adamantly insisting that they were not going to make any further gem shop purchases until they got their expansion.

That having been said, I’m pretty sure that the trait system will be changing for everyone, not just expansion holders. It’s actually more difficult to implement and maintain two sets of trait systems. I think that everyone who’s complaining that traits are going to remain broken can settle down. I’m also optimistic that traits will be fixed long before the expansion is released. I hope my optimism doesn’t prove to be unfounded.

Vayne.8563:

There are plenty of people who play for hours a day and don’t get bored because they mix stuff up. Sure I could play (and have played) other games. But the bottom line is, your post is needlessly judgemental, because some people experience things differently than you do.

The whole point that I apparently failed to make is that everyone experiences things differently. Perhaps my post was colored by a previous post that I had recently visited where someone was calling for waypoints to be abolished. Maybe I should have posted these thoughts in that thread instead. I could see how, if I was bored and retired, I would want more grind in my game. However, most of us are not retired, and many of us are past college. I’m actually about 20 years past college, and I recently reached that phase of my life where my kids no longer demand so much attention. Heck, I practically have to force it on them these days. But I digress. I’m not opposed to grinds for new skins, minis, and hats. What I don’t like having to grind for is end game gear. Some argue that you don’t have to grind for end game gear because you can redefine your end game to be champion trains or silverwastes farming. Based on statements they made in the past, I don’t think ArenaNet ever intended for players to have to redefine their end game to avoid a grind. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re having to do right now.

naiasonod.9265:

II’m pretty sure my first 80 got there with roughly 6 gold to his name, and I promptly spent all of it crafting my exotic heavy armor.

That must have been nice. The way mat costs are these days that much would buy you about 2.5 inscriptions.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Is gold a grind? I find it hard to say yes when two hours a day will net me roughly 5g without sticking my head into dungeons. If I did dungeons or spent longer, probably could up that to 20g. And I’ll lay out exactly how I do the 5g to anyone who asks – it’s not a secret, it’s not hard, it’s just working with what you have to do.

How are you getting 5g in two hours? I might get that on guild mission nights, by doing dungeons, or by engaging in concerted farming, but I’ve never gotten anywhere near that by playing casually the way you claim. I must be playing wrong. I’m stagnant somewhere between 20 and 25 gold right now.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Grind?

Go play Pac Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, or pretty much any of the video games that introduced the world to computer gaming. That is what grind is.

If you feel you are being forced to grind in this game.. You are either looking for grind, or just outright doing it wrong. With so much to do, I see this argument as insane.

I grind when I want. I “non-grind” when I want.

Like life, the right mantra may be:

“Play smarter, not harder.”

6300 hours
7 world completions
13 legendaries
3 ascended armor sers
one 30g random drop precursor (rage)

And I keep having fun every day by mixing it up.

6300 hours. That’s 262.5 days. And the game has only been out for about 890 days. You have literally spent over a quarter of your life playing this game since it came out. I don’t think your perspective is typical. I’m glad you enjoy the game, but you can’t seriously expect everyone else to be as devoted to it as you are.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Bernie.8674:

A MMO is not a source of accomplishment; it’s a source of entertainment. Accomplishments happen in the real world, not in an online one. After I’ve spent my day accomplishing things I like to come home and escape to an online world for a couple of hours. I don’t want to spend those hours engaging in simulated commutes or artificial drudgery. I’ve gotten plenty of that already in real life. Demanding that entertainment be entertaining isn’t “lazy” or “entitled.”

In an ideal world, that would be true. However, in the real world, what’s so is that some players demand that MMO’s provide that entertainment over the course of many thousands of hours of game time.

Maybe that’s your world, but I speak from experience when I say that most of those players are disabused of that notion when mommy and daddy quit paying for their schooling and/or housing. That’s the real world that I’ve experienced. The most hardcore players I knew in college barely even play anymore, if they play at all. Besides, those players have plenty of other games to play. The Guild Wars franchise has always been targeted at a more casual audience. A couple of hours a day is pretty much all that my guild mates and I generally tolerate. Players who genuinely find joy in performing the same repetitive tasks day in and day out should spend a little time away from the keyboard to regain perspective. I want to spend my time in game doing stuff, not re-enacting my real life experiences.

DavidH.7380:

Some of this also comes from your perspective, and a lot of that comes from your prior experiences (or lack thereof) you use as mental references. My introduction to MMOs was the original Everquest. Much of the basic low level gameplay would be considered shockingly harsh today. You didn’t regenerate health or mana out of combat, so you’d have to sit and eat/drink to regen health/magic between mobs. Can you imagine anyone making this forum post today?:

There’s a reason no MMO does all that stuff that you mentioned anymore: it’s simply not fun for most people. Just like grinding isn’t fun for most people. I know that some players love it and dismiss anyone who says otherwise as “lazy” or “entitled” (not saying that you’re one of those players, but the assertion is frequently made). In my opinion those players have lost perspective of a MMO’s intent. A MMO is not a source of accomplishment; it’s a source of entertainment. Accomplishments happen in the real world, not in an online one. After I’ve spent my day accomplishing things I like to come home and escape to an online world for a couple of hours. I don’t want to spend those hours engaging in simulated commutes or artificial drudgery. I’ve gotten plenty of that already in real life. Demanding that entertainment be entertaining isn’t “lazy” or “entitled.”

My server kills Teq every night, and they always prefer that players equip Soldier gear for that fight because you can’t even crit Teq.

Imp.5621:

Hello all, I am new to GW2 and I am going to ask a few questions below.

3. I am from EU, England.. is there a popular/active server I should join to see a lot of players around the world etc?

7. Is there a such thing as a rare item, such as armor, weapons etc? Do they have a different color from other items?

The other questions have been answered in detail, so I’ll just touch on these.

3. Server doesn’t matter so much these days because ArenaNet has put out patches that automatically consolidate low-population instances. When you’re out in the world you will often encounter players from other servers and can interact with them in the same way you would interact with someone from your server. The only real difference your server makes is in World vs World battles.

7. As someone else pointed out, there are color coded items, but I’ll elaborate a little more. In order from worst to best the colors are:

• White – Common
• Blue – Fine
• Green – Masterwork
• Yellow – Rare
• Orange – Exotic
• Pink – Ascended
• Purple – Legendary (these have the same level stats as ascended, but you can change the stat allocations between fights)

In order to get a legendary you must first obtain a precursor item that can then be crafted into a legendary. You probably won’t have to worry about this for quite some time. When you hit max level your first order of business should be to equip yourself in exotics. Those are the best that you can get without maxing your crafting, grinding extensively, and or spending lots of laurels at the vendor. The gear won’t matter so much while leveling.

Sylent.3165:

I’m kinda curious why gw1 worked so much better. We had a healer, warriors could tank very well. Paragon had amazing support. Other classes had great dps/support.

Some people would call that the holy trinity.

Everyone would call it that. ArenaNet was fully invested in the trinity back then. The difference was that you could bring along heroes and/or henchmen to fill the gaps in your trinity. I levelled my monk completely as a healer using henchmen. I never felt obligated to DPS.

Sylent.3165:

Truth though is in gw1 never once did I run into a party while doing a mission or pvp were monk or tank was required. That’s what made it different from other games. The was no “you must have one tank, 1 healer, 2 dps to run this” requirements.

I find that very hard to believe. You must have been running a special mesmer build with some serious condition and/or hex removal. I could believe that you were missing one or the other, but I don’t know how you could get by with pure DPS.

Sylent.3165:

Many people say the holy trinity shouldn’t be in this game and I do 10000% agree with that. BUT gw1 didn’t have one either while making the standard tank/healer/dps system. It just wasn’t noticed as strongly because it was never required to have them all in a party.

In some places you could come up with gimmicky builds that effectively made your character a one-man trinity (smite monking the start of underworld comes to mind). However, the trinity was always there. I think the real difference was that you could always fill in gaps with heroes/henchmen. They weren’t always the best healers/tanks, but they were usually adequate.

Sylent.3165:

Why was gw2 not designed with this same method? A game were basically if your not going full out dps your not very helpful. They stated they wanted it to be kinda like gw1 in the aspects were everyone could do everything but they actually went the opposite direction and made it worse then a regular trinity system because everyone needs full zerker and dps.

Thoughts?

No one needs full zerker and DPS, just like you didn’t always need the trinity in GW1. Players just prefer it because it’s faster. The key is that in GW2 you are forced to do group content with a group of real players. For example, in GW1 my wife and I could 2-man just about every mission in the game (even the hard-mode ones) with just us and henchmen. That is not the case here. If I want to do a dungeon I need to /lfg, and 90% of the groups on there advertise for full zerker/DPS because they want to get their chore done as quickly as possible. That limits those of us who want to enjoy a leisurely dungeon run where we puzzle out and overcome mechanics. In GW1 I was able to hero/henchmen my way through gradually on my first run-through, and then when I grouped with others I was able to meaningfully contribute because I had learned and improved at my own pace. Now on my first few run throughs I basically get carried through the dungeon and often spend half the fights dead. Sometimes I even die enroute to the bosses, and I’m pretty much left behind until the fight is over. As a result, my rate of learning is severely hampered. Part of this is a consequence of being late to the game, but the fact remains that with the old hero/henchmen system this wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much. I am getting better at instances, but the learning curve is now months rather than days.

Rage.4693:

If it’s free now then why is it even a thing in the first place?

I could understand that in the past it could be used as a cash sink so people couldn’t endlessly try doing something that was above their ability’s. especially in dungeons this would create some pressure so you would keep yourself from dying to limit the repair costs. but if you’re going to throw that concept out of the window then why uphold the concept of armor repair at all?

It’s a death penalty. I think the intent is to prevent players from completing dungeon instances and/or fights if they’ve died too many times. I agree that it’s just severe enough to be annoying, but not severe enough to make a real difference. Like you, I’d rather see them scrap it.

Serophous.9085:

There isn’t every reason. Ascended is barely better. Again, I have yet to come across something, other than high level fractals, where I’ve needed ascended gear. As for agony resist, only one place in the whole game has it, and its level 10+ fractals, a small portion of the game. If someone doesn’t do fractals above 10, agony resist is pointless.

And I speak from experience when I say that it really sucks to force your group of five guildmates to downscale from a level 50 to a level 15 fractal because, even after playing for six months, I was still at 10 agony resistance. That was never the case in Guild Wars 1. By the time I finished my storyline I had ascended and had fully infused all my gear. The grinding came when I got my sunglasses, my torment bow, my torment shield, and my frog scepter. None of that stuff actually had any actual bearing on how I played, however. In EotN I had to grind for some skills, but those weren’t even all that amazing.

Serophous.9085:

Now, I agree that ascended is a grind for, but mostly in the sense that
1. Its a pain to get low level cloth unless you have an alt around level 50 or want to kill your mouse clicking and putting karma gear in the forge so you can salvage the result.
2. The time gate.

I agree the time gate should be removed, and there needs to be better ways to get the cloth (mainly) and then other mats. If anything, and what I suggested before, one way to speed up the acquisition is to start using karma again for more end game stuff, you get that currency from basically doing anything in the game anyway. We have laurals and guild tokens able to be used to by the accessories, why not use karma for the armor and weapons materials? Make a bag costing 200k karma (made up number, dont freak out) that will give you raw crafting mats and a chance at a bolt of damask, Elonian Leather square, Spiritwood plank, the Deldrimor steel ingot, and globs of dark matter. If you don’t get the ascended mat, well then at least you get the crafting materials towards making your own.

Add a recipe that includes the ascended reagent and 5 ectos to make a dark matter.

At least it will shorten the grind then.

Well, I’m glad we agree on something at least.

naiasonod.9265:

He arrived at the conclusion that ‘this was kind’ve stupid’ all on his own about traits, after finding out that he’d need to do a lot of pvp things to unlock a good many of them, as well as dungeons.

When I parted ways with him, he did not seem especially eager or excited by the prospects before him. I even told him that HoT might see improvements coming down the pipe on that front. He was, somehow, unmoved.

Call it another epic fail for the current trait system? Why yes. I think I shall.

That’s pretty much how my wife feels too. I didn’t worry too much about it because I was planning to go for map completion and figured the traits would just come. It wasn’t until I was 98% complete with about 30 traits left to unlock that I started to really seethe about them. This system really shattered every expectation I had about how a game in the Guild Wars franchise would work.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bernie.8674:

Serophous.9085:

GW1 had plenty of grind with its faction grind and grinding for ectos. Then grinding the same mob over and over again for its rare drop.

But there were also many title tracks that were not so grindy. Legendary Vanquisher, for example.

I stopped reading here, because that particular title was so repetitive and boring . . . I gave up.

The only time I vanquished was with the alliance to keep me entertained.

You had to kill every monster in each area one time how is that repetitive? This is something you could even do your first time through. How was that grindy? How is that any more boring than repeatedly defending the same four forts for twenty minutes and then picking one of the four champions to kill and then repeating the entire sequence again ad-nauseum? That’s pretty much all everyone in my guild does now.

Serophous.9085:

Bernie.8674:

Serophous.9085:

GW1 had plenty of grind with its faction grind and grinding for ectos. Then grinding the same mob over and over again for its rare drop.

But there were also many title tracks that were not so grindy. Legendary Vanquisher, for example. Also, I got full sets of BiS end game gear by simply playing through story lines. We didn’t hit level 20 only to discover that we were going to be collecting silk for the next year or so before being able to craft our BiS gear. Plus, there were tricks to reducing your grind in GW1. Soloing high end mobs was feasible with certain builds, and three-manning eight-man content was often effective as well.

Because some elements of not so grindy doesn’t mean there isn’t grind. Its still grind. There are tricks to reducing the grind in gw2 as well. But its still grind.

There was grind for ectos, but there was no compelling reason to get ectos unless you wanted to play fashion plates with your in-game characters. It turns out that lots of people actually enjoy that sort of thing, so ecto farming was immensely popular. There was grind for faction, but there was very little need for that until EotN came out. I agree that EotN introduced a bunch of grind with their faction-dependent skills, but most of it was actually pretty easy to get over the course of normal playing. For the most part, a concerted grind was optional. When I finally got to the point where all that was left was a grind, I gave up and played WoW for five years.

In GW2 there is every reason to get ascended gear. The stats are far better and no other gear in the game has agony resist. That’s the difference. The elements of not so grindy were the core of the game. The grindy portion was for icing on the cake. Not so here. My guild mates call this game Grind Wars.

Gulesave.5073:

The current system was touted as an improvement, yes, but they made the mistake of only looking at the perspective of a new player running their first character. Also, it came from CDI ideas about horizontal progression that the community never intended to be applied to pre-existing abilities.

I still don’t understand how the current system would be considered a good idea, even from that perspective. I played GW1 extensively from beta until 2009, but I was pretty late to the game for GW2 and didn’t come in until after the new traits were added. I still thought it was a mess. Here was my experience as a brand new player to GW2:

• I bought a trait book from a vendor for a couple of gold, only to discover that those trait books weren’t even useful for anything anymore. The game still let me buy and consume it, but imagine my surprise when I opened my trait panel only to find the next tier still locked.
• After looking on the wiki (because I could find nothing in-game explaining how traits work) I discovered that trait tiers automatically unlock.
• I couldn’t figure out how to unlock individual traits. I finally happened to glance at the tooltip dialog that popped up as my cursor was hovering past the telescope.
• Most of the level 30 traits involved areas that were nowhere near the places my story had taken me.
• I didn’t even know how to fulfill most of those unlock conditions. I had no clue as to where the ogre camp was until I joined a guild mate in WvW.
• I didn’t even need traits to level to 80. I have several level 80 characters now. Some of them got there with only 2-3 traits unlocked. My wife, who started playing a couple of months ago, levelled her character without any traits whatsoever.

For these reasons I seriously doubt they even considered the trait system from that perspective. Honestly, I have no idea how they came up with this. Historically ArenaNet’s systems have been well-designed and thoughtful. Every time they made a change in the pre-EotN days I could understand and agree with their reasoning. I don’t know what happened to change that. After hearing their ideas for the new mastery system and their intent to make traits consistent with it, I’m hopeful we’ll see this system fixed soon.

Bryzy.2719:

So “trinity”, in my understanding, is the game mechanic in an MMO which means that you choose a certain profession or class depending on which role you want to play – DPS/Tank/Healer. You are then stuck to that role. You may be able to try other roles as that profession, but you would be inefficient in performing it: for example, a cleric/sage character trying to perform a DPS role.

By that definition, GW2 is trinity-capable. Some classes can choose a tanking or healing route. However, I don’t think your definition is correct because it relates to only one player picking from one of three roles. The trinity refers to the idea that a given group must have the complete trinity’s worth of roles in order to be successful at group activities. That is not the case here. Content can be completed by a group of players who are all specced for DPS. Furthermore, having everyone go all out for DPS is often the quickest way to complete the content. In that environment, anyone choosing to tank or heal is effectively a liability to the group.

Bryzy.2719:

However, what the game doesn’t currently have (I repeat – this is not a request for change – just observation) as far as I can tell is content that may require some players in a team to alter their builds to fulfill certain roles in a team – e.g. some players may need to change to support-focusing builds so that every member of the team can stay alive.

In other words, the game doesn’t have the trinity.

Bryzy.2719:

Now this sounds like trinity, I know, because it would be a requirement of tank/heal-support/DPS elements within the game. But is it? Referring to my definition of trinity (as I understand it) – trinity means you are STUCK in that role for your whole game experience. But in GW2, you wouldn’t be. Given the profession/build system, you would have the choice as to whether or not you were the member of the team who became the tank or the DPSer, for example.

By your definition WoW doesn’t have a trinity either because you can change specs when you’re out of combat. Furthermore, some classes (monk, druid, and shaman) have all three roles available. So no one is locked into a specific role. That’s why I don’t think your definition is correct. The trinity does not apply in the context of a single player and the choices available to them. It applies to the group as a whole. If all three roles are required for the group to succeed then the trinity is in place. Individual choices are irrelevant.

Bryzy.2719:

What if all that had to change for these roles to be created was future PvE content?

I think you’re stating the obvious here. The big debate is not regarding whether they can or can’t support the trinity. It’s over whether or not they should. Where you lie on that side of the debate is primarily a function of whether or not you enjoy the other roles.

Bryzy.2719:

Now that I’ve confused myself thoroughly, does this make sense to anyone or am I just tired and need a nap?

A nap now and then never hurt anyone!

Serophous.9085:

GW1 had plenty of grind with its faction grind and grinding for ectos. Then grinding the same mob over and over again for its rare drop.

But there were also many title tracks that were not so grindy. Legendary Vanquisher, for example. Also, I got full sets of BiS end game gear by simply playing through story lines. We didn’t hit level 20 only to discover that we were going to be collecting silk for the next year or so before being able to craft our BiS gear. Plus, there were tricks to reducing your grind in GW1. Soloing high end mobs was feasible with certain builds, and three-manning eight-man content was often effective as well.

Brahmincorle.1264:

Why would you do raids if you don’t like them? The raiding gear (at least in WoW and SWTOR) *is pretty much useless outside raids.

When was the last time you actually played WoW? Raid gear in MoP was extremely useful outside of raids. Given two players with equal skill, the guy in heroic raiding gear would literally do four times the DPS of the other guy. That means that everything PvE related was faster for them: farming mats, completing dailies, area completion, soloing old dungeons, etc., etc. At times it was even the best PvP gear available, until the PvPers (rightfully) got up in arms and they fixed it. Just take a look at the varoius item level tabs on this DPS comparison page and tell me that gear doesn’t matter in WoW: DPS Rankings in WoW

Brahmincorle.1264:

Fun fact – at the beginning of WOTLK – my mix of 5 man heroic and crafted tanking gear had slightly better stats while having all caps, than full T7. I used to carry T7 in my bags just to prove that I have it to noobs to whom I was tanking heroics for gold ;-)

They got completely away from that after WotLK, and even further away in MoP. Crafted and heroic gear was only good enough to get you into the entry level raids. From then you had to four tiers of raiding to grind through to your hearts’ content (LFR, Flex, Normal, Heroic). I don’t want this game to go that route because it absolutely sucks.

Stark.1350:

Bernie.8674:

Stark.1350:

So because you have more important things in real life to attend to, you should feel you should be handed everything in game. If your guild mates are so high up there, why don’t they help you get mats? Nevermind the fact that the chest of loyalty at the end of the monthly login period gives you free ascended mats.

That’s not what I said. I have no problem with having to grind for this like prestige armor and high end achievements. I just want the game to be more like GW1 where your got the best armor in the game over the course of playing through your story. Also, the free ascended mats don’t mean jack if your crafting isn’t maxed. Furthermore, the biggest barrier to getting ascended armor isn’t even ascended mats. It’s usually silk, oddly enough, and there’s no way to get that through the loyalty chests. I’m sure my guild would pitch in for those mats if I asked them to, but I prefer to work up my own character without having to leech off my guild mates.

Having to leech off your guild mates? That’s what a guild is for. Helping each other out. I’ve helped seven different people get their legendary weapons, often by handing them precursors for nothing.

Silk drops like candy in this game. Go run any level 80 zone. Done.

It may drop like candy, but each ascended piece requires 1500 scraps. Just compare the TP price of silk (1.76 silver right now) to the TP price of thick leather (9 copper right now). That’s no accident. If silk drops like candy the way you say, why does it cost almost 2000% as much as leather?

Stark.1350:

So because you have more important things in real life to attend to, you should feel you should be handed everything in game. If your guild mates are so high up there, why don’t they help you get mats? Nevermind the fact that the chest of loyalty at the end of the monthly login period gives you free ascended mats.

That’s not what I said. I have no problem with having to grind for things like prestige armor and high end achievements. I just want the game to be more like GW1 where your got the best armor in the game over the course of playing through your story. Also, the free ascended mats don’t mean jack if your crafting isn’t maxed. Furthermore, the biggest barrier to getting ascended armor isn’t even ascended mats. It’s usually silk, oddly enough, and there’s no way to get that through the loyalty chests. I’m sure my guild would pitch in for those mats if I asked them to, but I prefer to work up my own character without having to leech off my guild mates.

naiasonod.9265:

Gene Archer.8560:

naiasonod.9265:

And before some smug little part time burger flipper tried to tell me how lazy that must mean I am,

I’m a part time burger flipper and I wholly agree with you.

I don’t play games to work. That’s what a job is for.

Though if ANet wants to pay me to play their game, then sure. I’ll get on their gear grind locomotive and do work.

I used to flip burger myself. And sling tacos. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for anybody that has a job these days no matter what it is.

I’m not so glad for those that are typically very young and think ‘I work almost twenty hours a week sometimes and I can make all the raids and I never have any difficulty farming for my loot and leveling and everyone else is just a lazy scrub that isn’t on my level and wants everything on a silver platter’.

Just s lot of snide dismissal for the wee ones that have nothing but free time to do anything they live whenever whim strikes when they treat the rest of us with far fuller lives like we’re lazy because we’re not eager to need to spend 60 hours a week for the next year trying to get the unobtanium with any sort of believable chance at actually succeeding.

Or panning us for not being add invested at doing everything amazingly and buckling down like this is our personal Olympics and the very soul of or pride is on the line.

That’s very well stated. Anyone who has worked a full-time job while helping to raise children will tell you that all time spent playing games is leisure time, not “work.” Time spent grinding for mats in a game could be productively utilized cleaning the house, playing with the kids, cooking a meal, or any of the myriad of chores that are perpetually looming in any healthy household. Time spent in the game is actually time spent being lazy. So when I hear players calling others lazy for complaining about having to spend unreasonable amounts of time being lazy in order to get anywhere in the game I’m left scratching my head.

I still remember my first year of grad school. My typical day:

• Three hours of class
• An hour of research and/or homework
• An hour of teaching
• 15 minutes commute
• Nine hours of spare time
• Ten hours of sleep

Here’s my typical day now:

• Ten hours of work
• One and a half hours commute
• Three hours of family time and/or household chores
• Three and a half hours spare time
• Seven hours of sleep

Bear in mind that my youngest kid is now in middle school and somewhat independent. When my kids were infants my spare time was pretty much non-existent. Also note that the spare time I have on weekdays comes at the cost of sleep. Like you, I have very little tolerance for the young ‘uns who want to call me lazy because I don’t think it’s reasonable to have to spend several months farming for mats before I can participate in the high level fractals that my guild mates run.

Stark.1350:

So at the minimum, you have/had 3.5 years to get silk enough to craft it. Silk drops like candy. After a week of playing I’ll have 500 in my bank. Just by playing the game however I want.

Please tell me how you want to play, because I play 2+ hours every night and it takes about a month to get a stack. I need to start playing the way you want.

Stark.1350:

Not to mention the item isn’t anything you need. It’s just a special cosmetic that you want.

Ascended gear has significantly better stats than exotic. It’s not just cosmetic.

Conncept.7638:

seabhac.5346:

Just don’t use them. Simple. There are people, like me, who use them to save time on days when game time is minimal. On days when I want to feel the immersion, I have the choice to not use them.

The OP specifically asked for discussion on alternatives to the system, not your opinion on how he ought to play.

Voluntarily walking is a viable alternative to the system.

Conncept.7638:

I’ve always thought WPs being so prevalent was seriously story and immersion breaking. It’s like the age old question of “Why didn’t Gandalf just fly the ring in to Mount Doom with the great eagles?” Well for one, because he couldn’t, the movies follow the books, in the books those eagles weren’t exactly at his beck and call, they were allies no more prone to fighting Sauron head on than anyone else. But more importantly, because it would have made for an AWFUL STORY had that option been available or taken.

Yes, but did anyone ever intend for us to read Lord of the Rings every single day? Because if they did, I think we would prefer the version where they just jump on the eagles and drop the ring into the lava.

Conncept.7638:

In GW2, that ‘eagle’ option is both available and taken frequently, and it harms the epicness of both the story and world as much as the flying mounts ANet said they would never allow in the game.

If it was so harmful to the “epicness of both the story and world” then players wouldn’t take them. The reason they’re so widely used is that re-walking the same path day in and day out to get to the content you want to play is simply not interesting to most players. I understand that it’s interesting to some, and those players are welcome (encouraged, even) to ignore the waypoints and walk.

eye floater.7140:

Bernie.8674:

eye floater.7140:

So maybe it’s just me, but I realized a few moments ago that the abundance of waypoints in every map makes the experience feel less authentic.

Please don’t ask ArenaNet to make the game less fun for everyone else just so that it can be authentic to you.

You know when you begin a game? It’s new, it’s beautiful, you’ve never done any of it before.
Well that feeling of excitement and wonder wears off pretty quickly for most people, I think- after that, it’s all about getting money (for many people). The game loses it’s grandeur, and you never (yes) stop and smell the roses. Not that everyone wants to of course, but I think that something like swapping wp’s for res shrines would strengthen that part of the world… it would re-immerse the veteran players in the content they now take for granted.

Or it would take the tedium to another level and provide yet another incentive to quit. Like you said, it’s new and beautiful because you haven’t done it before. Once you’ve been there and done that you don’t need to repeat it. Nothing is stopping you from walking and appreciating the scenery. I’m glad you enjoy that aspect of the game, but please don’t try to impose it on me.

eye floater.7140:

I think that people miss a lot of the content by being able to instantly travel to their destination- if everyone was forced to run, think of all the content that would be brought back to life! Think of the possibilities that would open up! Silverwastes is kind of an example of that, and it seems to be working out just fine.

No, because those people had to experience the content to begin with in order to get to the waypoint to unlock it. What people are “missing” is having to spend 2 minutes repeatedly running to the same freaking spot in order to take part in the guild mission. Honestly, I don’t think they’re missing it all that much. Making waypoints contested is already bad enough. If they were to remove a significant number completely I am pretty sure that I would simply quit the game. How’s that for bringing content “back to life?” Blizzard took flying out of their expansion. Know how many time’s I’ve played WoW since? Zero. I didn’t even feel tempted by the free week.

Bri.8354:

So please people, stop supporting this excuse for bad play and encourage players to get better instead.

Please quit defining “good play” as minimizing the time it takes to kill stuff. If ArenaNet had intended for that style of play to prevail they would have put enrage timers on all their bosses like WoW does.

That having been said, I see your point with Silverwastes because those bosses are effectively on enrage timers. It sucks to get such mixed signals from ArenaNet. However, even then, the DPS is only inadequate because players aren’t familiar with the mechanics of the fights, and the game does a horrible job of making those mechanics clear. Most players don’t know/don’t want to go to dulfy.net to read up on the fight mechanics. This isn’t a player build issue. This is a poorly presented mechanics issue.

eye floater.7140:

So maybe it’s just me, but I realized a few moments ago that the abundance of waypoints in every map makes the experience feel less authentic.

I don’t think it’s just you, but I also believe that people like you should play a different game. Most of us aren’t in this game for an “authentic” experience. I mean, if the experience was truly authentic, your character would be forced to eat three meals a day, sleep six hours per night, take bathroom breaks from time to time, and a myriad of other mundane chores to stay functional. I drive an hour and a half each day getting to/from work, and I don’t need a virtual commute in-game on top of that. If you don’t want to waypoint then don’t. Please don’t ask ArenaNet to make the game less fun for everyone else just so that it can be authentic to you.

runeblade.7514:

Gregori.5807:

runeblade.7514:

Bernie.8674:

It was brilliant until they screwed it up with this alt-unfriendly trait system. I’m optimistic that it will be brilliant again.

I have many alts, I never once thought it was alt-unfriendly.

3) On the post April 15th alts, how many traits do you have unlocked per toon
4) On alts rolled after April 15th, how many traits did you buy vs unlock

3. 20 of them unlocked everything. 4-5 did not unlock everything.
4. I bought somewhere around 0-4 traits for each character because I didn’t like the traits I got. Then I hunted down the rest.

Sorry, but I don’t think that someone who has time to level 20 alts in less than nine months, let alone unlock every trait on 20 alts is typical of the GW2 player base. Maybe when I win the lottery I’ll have the time to dedicate my entire day to playing the game. Until then I’ll have to settle for sneaking in posts on these forums from time to time and getting in 0.5-3 hours per night of play time. After seeing those claims it’s pretty hard to relate to anything you say.

runeblade.7514:

Daggos Skelito.2910:

runeblade.7514:

If it was there when launched, no one would complain.

In fact, this was a hyped up feature when it was announced. Everybody wanted it before it was implemented.

You are right about no one would be complaining if it was at launch. No one would be playing! Read what the new players are saying.

I’m thinking everyone wanted elite SKILL hunting like GW1 had it. Now that was fun!

You think Elite skill hunting is fun but you don’t think Trait hunting is fun. Okay.

… like GW1 had it.

That’s the key. Unlocking skills by capturing them from bosses that you could spawn on your own time with a group of heroes and/or henchmen was fun. Unlocking traits through events that spawn on a set schedule, often hours between spawns, is not so much fun. The fact that you often need a full group of players to stand a chance against these bosses is also not so fun. On top of that, bear in mind that in GW1 you could unlock each skill through PvP or PvE. The traits in GW2 are unlocked through only one means (i.e. WvW or PvE), or they are purchased at prohibitive prices.

runeblade.7514:

Bernie.8674:

It was brilliant until they screwed it up with this alt-unfriendly trait system. I’m optimistic that it will be brilliant again.

I have many alts, I never once thought it was alt-unfriendly.

Created before or after the feature pack in which all the traits had to be individually unlocked rather than purchased en masse through a handful of books?

ColinJohanson.2394:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

Awesome. Please explain how I can get my hands on 1500 silk scraps without grinding so that I can craft my next ascended piece. Or about five times that for the full set. Keep in mind that my bank account is currently weighing in at 21 gold. That’s not even enough to purchase the required silk for a single piece from the TP right now.

I thought that maxing my crafting would be the limiting factor, but boy was I in for a shock! If providing a grind-free experience is the intent, then the game is currently failing at it.

felessan.9587:

Are we seriously going to have to wait until HoT launches? That’s ridiculous. The trait system has been broken since April 2014 and players have been begging until they cried for a change.

They never said that. They said the new system would be consistent with the new systems that they’re adding in HoT. They never gave a timeline for the trait revamp (or for HoT, for that matter).

Palleon.1657:

ColinJohanson.2394:

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

Why do MMOs feel the need to do this after a few years? Do you think that the longer we play your game, the more dumb we get, and therefore need you to keep simplifying things?

We aren’t children, we can cope with more than one button or system, in fact most of us crave the complexity!

Please read what he wrote again. They are re-simplifying traits. They are actually going to add an additional mastery system as well as a profession specialization system. So now we’ll have traits, skills, and masteries, and specializations. That’s four systems! Last time I checked, 4 > 1.

They’re only simplifying this terrible system in which traits are arbitrarily acquired by means which are often level-inappropriate. I’d also like to point out that the trait system that was initially released with the game was far simpler than what we have now and probably also simpler than the newly simplified version will be.

Palleon.1657:

Your game “was” brilliant. Now, it is becoming like every other dumbed down one button point and click game out there.

It was brilliant until they screwed it up with this alt-unfriendly trait system. I’m optimistic that it will be brilliant again.

Zanthrax.6538:

I never understood the QQ about this, they went from a system where you buy your traits….to a system where you can buy OR unlock your traits and people are complaining? I don’t understand….just unlock them with ingame gold if you don’t like PvE. JUST as it was before.

They went from a system were you could buy all the traits for < 10 gold to one that cost about 8 times that per character in in-game gold. Does that make sense now?

Hamuko.3547:

Since it’s part of HOT I’m guessing it won’t apply to people who don’t buy it. Does this mean they will continue to use the current system or will they lose access to traits?

I don’t know where you got these ideas:

1. This is part of HoT
2. It wouldn’t apply to people who don’t buy HoT.

This is what was actually said:

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future.

They’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system. How would a system that was removed apply to a subset of users? You do realize that this scenario that you’re fearing would actually be troublesome for ArenaNet to implement and maintain, right? Never mind the player outcry that they could expect. No other MMO that I’ve ever played has ever maintained two skill systems simultaneously. Even WoW, the king of expansions, releases a pre-expansion patch that applies to everyone before the patch even goes live.

This is a similar circumstance. Colin stated that they’re going to replace the current system with one that “supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future.” Exactly what that support entails is still anyone’s guess, but from what’s been stated, I think we can infer that they will probably be:

1. Account-wide
2. Unlockable through a points system similar to the one that’s already in place for skills

Kuldebar.1897:

Some people don’t actually “play” games anymore, they min/max accounting and play like little robots attempting to maximize every narrowly defined “efficiency” that their skewed views identify. Think of a bunch of tax accountants playing Monopoly…yeah, how exciting!

And, yes. ANet fails (via dev direction contribution) when they cater to this silliness by caving into the teaming meta-lemming masses. It’s all quite understandably human and sad.

Well-stated.

Kuldebar.1897:

The Necromancer being useless in dungeon is has become a “truism” solely by virtue of being a GW2 cliche.

I’ve leveled 2 Necro’s to 80, and I have seen this “fact” being regurgitated and spread like cholera from one unclean body to another.

Like I told my daughter, who created a necro, the condition damage cap is low so in group play most of the necro’s condition-heavy damage is effectively wasted because everyone else in the group will already be applying conditions. For solo play, however, they do well. That having been said, I have yet to experience content in this game that was gated by DPS.

Necros are definitely not useless in dungeons, but they are not as useful as other classes. Sadly, as you pointed out, many players view their gaming as serious business that demands a baseline level of performance.

Soren.9316:

I can 2nd that (SDCC regular right here =p). Saturday tends to be the busiest day out of the entire weekend so you are definitely going to want to be there early. Popular panels and events will generally have people lining up well in advance of the panel start time and I’d hedge my bets on lines starting to form for the GW2 panel as soon as the doors open what with the hype train and all.

When I received my plastic badges in the mail they said those were all I needed to get in. Am I going to need to exchange those for another type of pass? My impression was that the only thing I would need to pick up was a lanyard at the gate.