Guild Wars 2

DocHolliday.5921:

BlueZone.4236:

Maybe my memory on GW1 is fuzzy, but I recall halfway through the story I was level 20 (max level) and immediately able to purchase a full set of the best gear from a vendor. Mind you I did a “proper” play though in that game, not rushing.
Can anyone else confirm this?

In Prophecies, you could have someone run you through Lornar’s Pass down to Droknar’s Forge for a nominal fee (I used to do that with my Warrior actually, before they made it overly difficult for Warriors) where you could pick up a full set of top statistical gear for the equivalent of about 5G in GW2. This would have been when you were around level 8-12.

In Nightfall, you could create a new character, take about 15-30 minutes to get to Kamadan, then pay someone an even smaller fee to take you to the small area nearby (forget what it was called) where you could buy top statistical gear for again, the equivalent of about 5G in GW2. This wold have been around level 2-3.

Yes, thank you.
Mind you, I’m talking about a typical player who starts GW1 from scratch and no knowledge of the shortcut (they wouldn’t have the money to purchase it, anyway).
But what I was trying to say was that by the time you did hit level 20, you had already enough money to buy the best gear straight away. And that’s the typical/“casual” expected way to play.
That’s something that is definitely not true in GW2, and is indeed inconsistent with Colin’s statement.
If that statement was in the context of GW1, and level 80 -> level 20, I would not think of it twice since it would hold true (again, that’s assuming my memories of that game is correct).

Maybe my memory on GW1 is fuzzy, but I recall halfway through the story I was level 20 (max level) and immediately able to purchase a full set of the best gear from a vendor. Mind you I did a “proper” play though in that game, not rushing.
Can anyone else confirm this?

Also, can anyone confirm you can get ascended mats prior to being level 80? Because I don’t think you can.

PS: “I’ll be back by noon”

Ashen.2907:

lordkrall.7241:

Getting Exotic at release took quite some time as well

The time required to get a full set of exotic armor for my main upon reaching level 80, without crafting, was a matter of minutes. The second set of exotic armor for the same character (I enjoy having multiple armor sets for different playstyles) took not much longer.

How long, on average, do you think it will take, without crafting, to acquire multiple full sets of ascended armor (for my main it would require two sets at a minimum, ideally three or four) with the specific desired stats for specific builds ? Is it comparable to the few minutes required for exotics ? Five to ten minutes is actually, “some time,” as you put it, but I really do not think that it is reasonable to compare that to a time period that could end up being measured in years.

Explain how or I’m calling BS on this.
I recall the early days of this game (and rewards were extremely terrible) and getting exotics either involved:
Orr karma farming
Dungeon farming
WvW jumping puzzle badge farming

Please do try to remember the exact details of how it took matters of minutes because I’m skeptical.

EDIT: Actually, I can only assume WvW, in general, as the only way you got it in “minutes”. PvE definitely did not have this solution as far as I could tell.

Banzie.5248:

WvW pop cap is about ~100 or at most 120 per map(Per server, So 300-360 per map total)

This is most likely the correct answer.

WvW does not support 500 per map as per this interview translation:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/196tgh/jeuxonlineinfo_made_an_interview_with_mike/

I mentioned the number 500 as a possible population limit when we first started revealing WvW and honestly have regretted that ever since. I really shouldn’t have mentioned any numbers at all, because I only had some early tests to base that figure on. Soon after, we started full scale testing and it rapidly became clear that just because we could put that many people onto a map didn’t mean we should do it.

PvE maps are most likely 100 soft capped and 120-150 hard capped (hard to guess the hard cap). This became somewhat evident during a teamspeak organized Tequatl event (with 100 players on TS), taxiing players off onto an empty overflow.

Also, you will be quite surprised how little players are required to make a map look deceptively more players than there really are. Even with just 40 players on your screen in LA can make a place look “really full”.

Take a guess at how many players there were in the Crown Pavilion map at full capacity. 150? 200? Nope.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

And the map capacity of Crown Pavilion is limited to 75 before it starts to create overflows.

I’ve given up on trying to see a post as described below:

Amadan.9451:

no defender said something like:
it was awesome to get it, all that chain quests to do in order to get the materials, all those nice instance stories to go through and so much nice new mechanic to try in order to finish the quests…

Farmers/grinders operate on a completely different time scale and have poor understanding of math (“ascended weapon increases overall damage by 5-10% is negligible”, WTF?). You can’t argue with them without trying to diminish efforts on their part time job.

If AP is in any way close to reflecting the activity of the majority of the active player base (I think for most part, it does) then I’m going say this game is dying since ascended gear is so easy to get.
Anyway, it looks like it’s time for me to accept that they’ve finally won and Anet would rather make carrots instead of meaty content and abandon this ship.

Good luck everyone.

eisberg.2379:

eisberg.2379:

Saying 10,000 items needs more context. There is a difference between 10,000 really easy items to obtain that one can get 5000 in 8 hours of gaming, compared to 10,000 hard items to get that you can only get 100 in 8 hours of gaming. So need more context in this regard.

Can someone please answer the one above. Really need the context in all of this.

There’s probably a more efficient method instead of what I did, but I went straight to the labyrinth, spent 25 minutes (I checked my clock) there doing all events and collecting all 6 (or 7, I think?) nodes “playing the game”. And I also mined my home instance node (got 9, lucky me).
Also note that Viscount boss is a huge time waster which I encountered in the run.
All in all, I got a total of 121 pieces of candy in the labyrinth and including the home node, and opening those bags.

So, that’s 121/25 = 4.84 pieces per minute (yes, I’m aware I’m including the nodes).
10 000/4.84 = 2066.11 minutes = 34.4 hours

I dunno, I’d get bored to work(!) my butt off for that kind of reward, or find an alternative means (eg. gold farming →TP).

Xar.6185:

Here are a few more numbers from NA just because.

90% 5627
90% 5259
80% 3242
80% 2048 (side note: This player has 3 level 80’s)
70% 1784
70% 1604
60% 1310
20% 244

Thanks for your list! This is consistent with Saulius.8430’s list so there’s no funny business going on.

I’ve updated my first post to include the list provided by Astralporing.1957 and Saulius.8430 for convenience.

Darn it, you’re just encouraging Anet to nerf it now!

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s the problem with using APs as a measurement of population, it’s not it’s a measurement of a player’s activity in the game. So not as many players are actively pursuing APs. They aren’t going for all the Slayer badges or buying all the Cultural armors or doing every living story event APs. But if you yourself are an AP junkie, then you can con yourself to believe every other player is as well. That everyone plays like you and you can’t imagine that a lot of players may not play like you. Same can be said with doing dungeons or crafting or fractals. Fractal players can’t imagine players spending their laurels on mini pets of box or armor or a bag of mats. Those who speed to level 80 can’t imagine players who level simply by playing at a natural pace.

So what if only the top 1000 players end around 11,260 APs? So some players make getting APs their goal. There are probably significantly more players like me where APs are incidental, letting them happen when they happen. And I play a lot to get 500 APs a month. A true “casual” player likely earn APs at an even slower pace.

All I’m saying is that it’s surprising that the 90% percentile ranges from 3500 AP and beyond, and if you looked at the leaderboard, there’s actually 51,000 players displayable on the board (1000 per server), and it is spread out fairly evenly around 4000AP – 9000AP (maybe higher, haven’t studied the board too intensely).

And yes, I’m aware how interpreting AP isn’t perfect, though these are most likely ANet’s dedicated PvE players, so depending on how you want to look at it, either that’s a small number or a large number (out of 3.5+ million players), or in between.

Behellagh.1468:

I just broke through 5,000 AP last week and it took me 10 months to get there. On JQ that puts me in the 90% bracket.

EDIT: you changed your post. Abort reply, abort reply.

Saulius.8430:

NA (lookin at 500member guild)

lowest 90%: about 3475
lowest 80: about 2057
lowest 70: about 1426
lowest 60: about 1029
lowest 50: about 772
lowest 40: about 609
lowest 30: about 414
lowest 20: about 217
lowest 10: about 79
highest 0: about 62

Thank you for this. It seems quite similar to the EU list.

Buffalo Sabres.1072:

I quit for like 4-5 months without logging in , barely did dailies , half or less of the monthlies , skipped 60% in-game releases for AP and still have like 22 JPs , tons of slayer , ect left

Over 5k AP , i dont see how it is that hard to get AP

Most players who say such and such are easy tend to forget a lot of things they’ve done.
For example, there have been a few players on this forum who have forgotten how much grinding (or farming, or playing the game, whatever they claim) they’ve done in this game, claiming how easy things are, but their old posts puts things into perspective.

Astralporing.1957:

BlueZone.4236:

Anyone remember this?
https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/achievements

I’ve been trying to find stats on what range of AP the percentage of players have, but have had no luck.

But to my surprise, here’s my findings (note, I’m only looking at NA):
The highest AP on the board is 16369 AP
The 1000th rank person has 11254 AP
The lowest AP on the board was 3736

Note that the percentile and rank are separate for NA and EU, but I only looked at NA.
Also, from what I gather, the percentiles are in tens (ie. 90, 80, etc) so not finely precise.

Even more shocking is that 3736 is still in the 90% percentile, ie. the player with 3736 AP has more AP than 90% of all NA account!
Unfortunately, the board doesn’t go any further, so I’d need people with much smaller AP to find out the other percentiles of the smaller AP.

The EU results, with the help of guild lists i have access to.
Highest AP is 16285
1000th person is 12184

the border ranges between pecents seem to be around:
lowest 90%: about 3900
lowest 80: about 2250
lowest 70: about 1500
lowest 60: about 1100
lowest 50: about 800
lowest 40: about 580
lowest 30: about 350-380 (not much data there)
lowest 20: about 200

(those are rounded estimates, but should be pretty close to the actual values)

And the disproportion between AP’s is staggering depending on how someone plays. Most of the people that were with me from the start (or joined at the first free trial) have over 5k now, but i know at least one person that was here from the beginning, is still playing, and is still below 2.5k AP. I also know someone that has similar amount, but started last month. Mind you, it puts both of them in the top 20% of the EU population, which would make 80% of the population either very new (which we know is not true, about 80% of the sales so far were made in the initial 3 months, according to official info), or most of the players abandon the game very fast, and only a small number keep playing longer. Or there’s a really massive number of casuals (and the estimations of most people here of what “casual” means are way up compared to reality).

By the way, truly inactive people do not show on leaderboards at all. I have at least one player at above 2k ap in guild roster that is NOT on guild list leaderboard. Wonder if he is ignored or not when calculating % values.

Thanks for the EU list!
Very interesting observation on your inactive guild mate. That makes the percentiles quite surprising if the percentile excludes inactive players, which really might mean player’s perception on how casual players are are very skewed (heck, even I think I was underestimating on my guess).
I’m very curious about the NA numbers now.

Anyone remember this?
https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/achievements

I’ve been trying to find stats on what range of AP the percentage of players have, but have had no luck.

But to my surprise, here’s my findings (note, I’m only looking at NA):
The highest AP on the board is 16369 AP
The 1000th rank person has 11254 AP
The lowest AP on the board was 3736

Note that the percentile and rank are separate for NA and EU, but I only looked at NA.
Also, from what I gather, the percentiles are in tens (ie. 90, 80, etc) so not finely precise.

Even more shocking is that 3736 is still in the 90% percentile, ie. the player with 3736 AP has more AP than 90% of all NA account!
Unfortunately, the board doesn’t go any further, so I’d need people with much smaller AP to find out the other percentiles of the smaller AP.

So what does this all mean?
Some posters claim AP is easy to gain “just by playing the game”, so if this is true, then there must be a lot of inactive accounts (game's dying, bro) or lots of new players shifting this percentile up.
If it isn’t as easy players claim to be, then there’s a lot of very, very casual players (hello “easy” exotic gear!)
Of course, the reality may be in between the two.
The other things to consider are PvP/WvW exclusive players, though I think they’re a small percentage of players (I’m unsure how much they’d affect the percentile). It is also likely there’s some inactive accounts on the leaderboard since there probably were quite a few traditional MMO players who probably grinded then left.

So what are people thoughts on where the majority of active players’ AP lie?
Honestly, I’m thinking around 2000-3000 AP.
As a side note, I also don’t think the majority of players are decked out in full exotics (then again, that seemed obvious during the Tequatl event, anyway).

EDIT: Thanks to Astralporing.1957 and Saulius.8430 for the following information.

Astralporing.1957:

The EU results, with the help of guild lists i have access to.
Highest AP is 16285
1000th person is 12184

the border ranges between pecents seem to be around:
lowest 90%: about 3900
lowest 80: about 2250
lowest 70: about 1500
lowest 60: about 1100
lowest 50: about 800
lowest 40: about 580
lowest 30: about 350-380 (not much data there)
lowest 20: about 200

(those are rounded estimates, but should be pretty close to the actual values)

Saulius.8430:

NA (lookin at 500member guild)

lowest 90%: about 3475
lowest 80: about 2057
lowest 70: about 1426
lowest 60: about 1029
lowest 50: about 772
lowest 40: about 609
lowest 30: about 414
lowest 20: about 217
lowest 10: about 79
highest 0: about 62

1. Expansion/“living” world
2. Ascended grind/General grind
3. Dunno…player created content?

They should make each piece twice as grindy as ascended weapon, and use new materials instead of dragonite and emp shards.

The worst they can do is release an expansion worth of new content to obtain ascended materials instead of making you repeat existing content.

Imagine a cup of your favorite drink.
Now make a small pin prick hole at the bottom so it slowly drips out at regular intervals.
You can only drink from what drips out.

I think that should be enough hint to say why it’s better.

Crazylegsmurphy, stop responding to the “cleverly disguised” troll posts. They’re trying to get you banned for lulz.
You’ve gotten your answer (ie. the guild bank).
Just be aware the guild bank is only accessible on the server the guild was created from, so make sure you don’t transfer to another server otherwise you’ll lose access to it. I believe it applies to guesting, as well.

Oh boy, if they consider calling on Anet as a person or a “cleverly” disguised person, the forums are going to be dead silent for a while once the ascended armor grind comes in.
At least then they’ll be able to add in a lot more traditional MMO grind after the initial banning/suspensions due to “passionate” responses without fearing for further negative responses.

What people should realize is that last year the game was still fairly new and the game play mechanics were still fresh.
Now it’s been a year and players have experienced a lot of what the game had to offer and are (finally) starting to realize this event is barely any different than every other zone/farming spot other than a change of scenery (and worse rewards).

Jski.6180:

I have a feeling most ppl would buy an expansion of any type if they put it out. As things stand they are giving us free expansion like content so i am not sure why ppl think paying money would make it more enjoyable. I guess ppl are fooled into the idea that money buys happiness? You realty got to question ppl ethics who think this way.

I agree! Why would anyone want to throw cash at a company when we can have rushed, drip fed content, padded with farming and press F one hundred times?
It boggles the mind!
Also, I can’t believe ANet had the audacity to make this a buy to play game. It should have been a pure free to play game because money doesn’t buy happiness. What a slap in the face!

Yes, this game lacks that epic feeling for boss fights.
I would love to jump on top of a large boss to slay it.

This game has a pathable z-axis but does not take advantage of the z-axis in large boss fights. Hmm…
Sadly, I think there’s 2 reasons for this:
1. Technical limitations of the engine.
2. Players who hate (and/or are terrible) at jumping.

I also think zerging and/or explosions of graphics makes all this too difficult.

phys.7689:

really shouldnt bring up food buffs, they are actually designed into the game, and it is expected that people would always be using some food or the other. I almost never do, but it should certainly be part of game design, even if ascended never existed that they include food buffs.

I do entirely believe anet may not have expected people to beat tequatl, but it probably has more to do with the way in which they do it. The biggest difference is i dont think they expected the zerg stacks with massive constant revivals. They probably thought people would be spread out into smaller parties in different positions jumping waves and what not. The point is, its not really the stats they underestimated, its the techniques. And thats really the thing about GW2, the game is designed more around mechanics and knowledge than gear. There is a lot of people who cant beat lupicus right now with ascended gear, and yet people beat him with greens, and not only that, but they do it faster than a lot of people can right now.

[snip due to hitting max post length]

I almost never see food buffs in the open world, so no, I don’t expect everyone to be using food buffs every time, nor do I think ANet thought so, either. I expect their next dragon rework to account for all of these, though.
And I disagree with your argument on the mechanics, though I admit I’m not 100% up to date on the latest strategy on Teq (though I doubt it’s changed much since I last beat him).
If the intended mechanics are indeed what you’re thinking (smaller groups), then that makes it even more inefficient in terms of time spent damaging Tequatl.
Regardless of whether it’s balanced around rares, exotics, ascended, Tequatl has a timer, hence there is a dps check. The real question is what they balanced this around (my tin foil hat conspiracy says ascended gear).
Tequatl is very mechanical in its fight for the front liners:
1. Dps.
2. Dodge/stability/heal/jump when he’s does his shockwave.
3. Dps.
4. Move slightly out of the way due to poison pool (or don’t move if turret guys aren’t afk).
5. Go to step 1.
This shows the fight can be mathematically determined and how much down time (no damage periods) you can expect.
There’s even 3 free shot periods which is essentially do X amount of damage or lose due to the timer.

Considering the optimal strategy tends to be stacking, food buffing, potion buffing, mass revival (or dodging if your computer can handle the lag/explosion of graphics) as it produces the most efficient damage output, and even then Teq is beaten very close to the timer (the summons are why you can beat Teq in half the time), that should show gear does play a role.

Could Teq be beaten in a group full of exotics (and/or less) without any of these crutches (food, potions, summons)?
I will say most likely not for the average organized group that can currently beat Teq.
It may be possible in a near perfect game with hardcore players (ie. perfect dodges, stars aligned and everything), but I haven’t seen it yet.

I do believe if front liner had every available ascended gear equipped (and equipped with the correct stats), Teq is perfectly beatable without these crutches.

phys.7689:

gw2 difficulty isnt too often about stats. When it does get difficult its about abilities, coordination, timing etc. A skilled player avoids a lot more dmg, and deals dmg more often at better opportunities.

people bring up tequatl, but it really isnt much of a dps check, its more of an organisation check, if having full ascended (which doesnt currently exist) makes you 12% better, and even now, with no one checking people’s gear, people have beat it in 6 minutes and 50 seconds, that means it is farrr from being gear dependant.

Is that with or without food buffs, potions and fire elemental summons? Answer is obviously with those things.
I’m not saying organization doesn’t play a factor, but I still maintain these are crutches for gear deficiencies.

Here’s my tin foil hat conspiracy. Note that I can’t find the quotes for these anymore (I’m terrible at googling things), but here’s what Anet have said regarding Tequatl (to the best of my recollection):
Before the release of ascended weapons, they said they expected it’ll take about 2 weeks to get an ascended weapon. Ascended weapons was released 2 weeks before Tequatl.
My opinion is that a few players managed to obtain it much quicker than expected, but the majority still did not have it 2 weeks after.

In a post-Tequatl release interview, Colin (I think) said they were surprised Tequatl was beaten on day 1, and they were expecting it to take days or weeks to beat.
I think that estimation included organized groups (anyone remember him saying he expected 80+ well geared organized players to beat him?), and expecting organized groups to take days or weeks to learn mechanics of a 15 minute fight is plain silly.
So why would it take days or weeks? Ascended weapons.
Considering how poorly balanced the Gauntlet was tested, I think ANet underestimated player ingenuity hence the heavy usage of food buffs, potions and fire elemental summons as crutches to beat Tequatl which gave players more than enough damage to compensate the lack of ascended weapons.

Does Tequatl and upcoming dragons count?
I could be wrong, but beating Tequatl seems to require a most of the players (the frontliners) using potions and food buffs as a crutch since they don’t have ascended weapons (ie. not enough dps).

I must be honest, after mulling over the “Collaborative Development” topic, I’m starting to lean on ‘no’ as my answer, though I would love to be proved wrong.
The thing that’s starting to creep into my mind with that topic is it feels like they’ve lost control over the game.
They tried to please everyone but now every time they make a change they’ve stepped on someone’s toes.
It feels like there’s no concrete leadership or direction to the game, and the whole collaborating with the players reeks of ‘too many chefs spoil the broth’, especially since these ‘chefs’ are now everyone with conflicting ideas for the game (eg. traditional MMO players want grind vs casuals don’t want grind).
I also think their over reliance on “metrics” drove them into this corner and now they’ve forgotten how to make games being “fun” for the sake of fun.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

I am also going to ask that we build out more time for team members to post and i will follow up with you all on that.

What do you think, does this sound like a good way to move forward?

Chris

I’m sorry to say that such a thread is unnecessary because if your CMs have been doing their job, you would already have a huge list of subjects to talk about already.
By now you should be have these specific topics asking for help/ideas etc.
Things like how to make obtaining ascended gear fun instead of grindy, how to make end player contribution more meaningful in game, PvP, WvW etc.

I think GTA5 took a few people, and the upcoming Pokemon game will take away players, as well.
More on topic, you’re more likely to find people if you stick to a tier 1 server, or possibly tier 2 if you’re on at the right time.

Copypasta is accepted practice within the game, so you guys shouldn’t be surprised about it being extended outside the game as well.

Jackie.1829:

Lamir.6702:

So many misplaced commas…Thanks for sharing your point about criticism being listened to better if it’s done in a constructive way, but that was pretty hard to read.

Also, this really sounds like a dev crosspost from a thread a month ago. On further investigation that thread is now deleted? Wonder why.

Rofl, so true. A bunch of the paragraphs in this post are repeated in another post in:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums

Why is a developer giving us rehashed developer posts. This is honestly getting a bit excessive now, and if you think your playerbase is too stupid to catch on to how part of this post was copy paste, then you severely underestimate us, and yet another dev post to calm people down, only infuriates me further.

We wouldnt be here if you had listened to us a long time ago, when we were right and you were wrong.

Considering the number of posters who only read the first post then reply with high praises, it looks like you overestimate the player base :P

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Oh, wow. Copypasta content in game and out.

Smith.1826:

If increasing the gear cap is providing more players and, more importantly, more RMT, I ‘d find it unlikely that they’d stop increasing that cap. That’s my worry.

BlueZone.4236:

I can notice a difference in dps when dps increases by 5-15%.

Do you think you’d be able to provide that thread you were in? The numbers in there were scary.

Sure, I think you’re referring to this post.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-vs-Exotic-Math/first#post2851196

I also wrote this to get a feeling for it without being math heavy based on 5% increase:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-Grind-Wars-2/page/24#post2887333

The damage output is still only 5% increase (minimum), but should give you a better feel how much it is.

Assuming each attack takes 0.5 sec (a guardian autoattacking on a greatsword is 0.5s).
This is 2 attacks per second.

For the PvE, any vet/champ/boss fight (ie. fights that actually matter):
10 seconds autoattacking (20 hits) = 1 extra attack (20 hits * 0.05)
60 seconds autoattacking (120 hits) = 6 extra attacks
300 seconds (5 minutes) autoattacking (600 hits) = 30 extra attacks
600 seconds (10 minutes) autoattacking (1200 hits) = 60 extra attacks

Multiply by 2 or 3 to get 10% or 15% increase version.

I can notice a difference in dps when dps increases by 5-15%.

Other than trying to diffuse the angry posts in the forums, I’m guessing the main point of this topic is about getting people to discuss about implementing the direction of the “living world” (I notice it’s no longer living “story”).
One take away is there is probably no traditional expansion, full stop. The “living world” is them putting their foot on the ground.

Having said that, it sounds like they’re wanting to push towards a more player driven content style of content (that’s really the only way to make a world “living”), and have no an idea on how to do this (hence “collaborative development”).
I have no real input other than I don’t think they have the tools or resource to do this in a timely fashion, nor do I think their engine is capable to do so (at this point of time). (Negative nancy, I know)

I guess they could put something similar to WvW points system/capture system, except in the open world that helps debuffs world bosses to make it easier for casuals to take down eg. Tequalt (probably considered grindy, though, and expect complaints from hardcore players saying the game is too easy again).

Red Falcon.8257:

Leveling is the gauging method of learning part of the game, where you go from easier situations to harder ones in order to slowly make you better.

If only this was true in this game, but it isn’t in this game (it probably applies to every MMO, though).
You can even see people trying to gauge a player’s skill via AP and/or pinging gear since level isn’t sufficient (not that these are any better).
The problem is that this game is that it doesn’t seem to offer any gradual increase in difficulty.
Either it’s easy or it’s hard (or “hard”). Perhaps it’s better to say, the game tends to have difficulty spikes rather than a gradual increase in difficulty.
Most enemies (at least in the open world) are just standing there waiting for you, saying ‘please press 1 and wait for your loot’, then you learn a different game when you play dungeons.

Sadly, the average player probably needs lots and lots of hand holding on learning what skill is appropriate and when, how to kite (yes, I’m serious on this, sadly), taking advantage of line of sight, stacking, blast finishers, focus firing, etc.

Knighthonor.4061:

Skan.5301:

Knighthonor.4061:

Skan.5301:

Knighthonor.4061:

I dont understand, how the you all Love Champion Zergs but hate the concept of Raid Dungeons.

Can somebody explain the reasoning behind this?

I see many players joining and asking about the Champion Zerg train, to get their gear grind on.

Yet pre-release you all were saying how much you hated Raid Dungeons for the same reason.

they both consist of large groups of players, tackling a powerful NPC to get some PvE loot rewards or faction grind.

IMO, Raid Dungeons offer a different level of challenges that these open world fights simply cant do.

Why like the Zerg but hate the Raid Dungeons?!

Because raids are part of traditional MMOs such as WoW, EQ, LotR, ect. Champ farming isn’t.

GW2 is supposed to be different than all those MMOs. It’s a whole different mindset and all that bullkitten.

And GW2 doesn’t have a grind. Just saying. Nor does it have any kind of treadmill.

It’s not as if people are doing champ farms/WvW zergs to get any kind of gear, right? Nor are you doing it to get a legendary or any kind of dungeon armour. It’s mats and/or tokens. That’s totally different from any other kind of MMO. At least in the view of the people who are disillusioned.

Zergs are also part of traditional MMOs as well. Just like lots of other things. Why get rid of Raids, because its similar to something in another game, but using that same reason, not get rid of everything else that is similar to what other MMOs do, such kitten man party dungeons. Lots of MMOs have that. Why not get rid of that as well since its all about being different?

And GW2 has plenty of grind. This whole discussion started off talking about that very grind.

Champion Farming, for loot is a grind. Legendaries, are a grind.
WvW ranks are a grind. Achievements, are a grind. there are so many grinds in this game that it is unbelievable that people actually believed, and still believe Anet’s original marketing that GW2 would have no grind. Even after Anet themselves said they had to change away from that ideal.

I’m not even going to try anymore. Is it really that hard to understand what I was aiming at?

Yeah pretty much, because countered your own argument by saying the game has no grind, but in the same breath talk about farming…

I think you missed the part where he says

Skan.5301:

That’s totally different from any other kind of MMO. At least in the view of the people who are disillusioned.

In other words, this game isn’t that much different from a traditional MMO…

Falcon.6521:

BlueZone.4236:

I suspect their metrics told them not a lot of players have level 500 crafting, and I’m expecting precursor crafting to require level 600 crafting.

That would just be ridiculous – Precursors are just exotics – so even 400 should be sufficient. They are “worse” than Ascended weapons – and only a substantial investment can turn them into legendaries. Their high price just stems from the depressing artifical scarcity.

They could bump up the stats to be ascended stats if they felt like it, rework legendary crafting requirements, all in the name of evolution.
I’m not saying that’s what they’re going to do, I’m just saying the possibility is there, since they have reworked a few things already.
eg. Magic find, world boss, dungeon replacement.

I suspect their metrics told them not a lot of players have level 500 crafting, and I’m expecting precursor crafting to require level 600 crafting.

Azure.8670:

NoTrigger.8396:

Azure.8670:

or resistant to crits. This will fix the Zerker issue. Or make a boon that does it that more enemies have. Cant see how this will change the game for the worse in any way

it will punish good players in good gear who are able to survive in that good gear.

and there isnt an issue. the majority of the playerbase doesnt even use berserker.

the majority doesnt? you really think that?

The majority are casual players who only have gear they picked up off normal mobs (greens, rares, maybe some exotics).
I doubt they are even traited in a decent manner.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Big Tower.5423:

Power is THE base damage…

Damage done = (Weapon Strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Power is only one part of a tripartite equation.

Assuming the same coefficient:

1100 * 67 * X vs. 1048 * 90 * X
73700 * X vs. 94320 * X

Not quite correct.
You’re forgetting the power contribution from your class and other gear.
My poorly equipped ranger has about 1800 power (traited + defense gear, exclude weapon)
Therefore (also, I use average damage since it’s more common).
Ascended (900 – 1,100)
1,000 * (1,800 + 67) * X = 1,867,000 * X
Exotic (857 – 1,048) OP has the incorrect damage range?
952.5 * (1,800 + 90) * X = 1,800,225 * X

The ascended weapon base provides a straight forward ~5% damage increase.
This applies to the normal damage therefore follows through to the critical damage.
The loss in damage due to loss in power depends on all your existing power contribution plus the weapon’s power.
In my example you lose only ~1.2% damage due to loss in power so you still get an increase in damage output overall (~3.7% or 3.8%).

Anyone is free to point out any mistakes I’ve made.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

BlueZone.4236:

To me, personal story is one example of meaningful content (I’m going ignore the execution flaws the story has).

Do you mean content with a background-story? If so, then I’m totally with you. I also think that the game misses little quest-like stories that introduce more lore into the game. Imho Anet implements meaningful content each month. It’s only that it’s meaningful content for different kinds of players. The dungeon lovers got their meaningful content this month whereas the raid lovers got theirs with Tequatl. I also love jumping puzzles and got something not long ago also, but those stories which give the world more depth I miss the most.

I don’t know what’s going on with the writers, but I haven’t seen them releasing their stuff in a good enough quantity (and quality as well) a while ago. Queens Gauntlet had a few nice scenes in the intro, but I expect more from an mmo, personally.

I’m feeling a bit lazy to make a bigger post so I’ll just say, yes, I agree with what you’re saying here, especially with the stories that give the world more depth.
I find lore/story related motivations to be more “fun” than non-story related motivations since the gameplay is largely the same. I consider ascended gear to be kind of insulting in terms of what it used to mean in Guild Wars 1.
What would motivate you more, ascension a la Guild Wars 1 (backstory, motivation, purpose), or ascended gear (Trading Post or farming existing content which has zero meaning other than increased stats)?
I think ANet needs to stop with the Short Story posts and put them in the game, where it belongs!

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

BlueZone.4236:

You obviously have not played Tequatl.
1. You need huge numbers (obviously). Is is doable below the recommended number of players (80 players, ie. 80% of the map soft cap)? Probably with max/min gear, food, organization etc.
2. You need to organize to taxi people off to an empty overflow map (ok, probably not anymore since the event is largely dead).
3. Merely participating with randoms does not equate to having a good chance to beat Teq.
The only difference here compared to traditional MMO is the need for common sense rather than the game forcing common sense upon you.

In the end, all you do is figure out where the best location to repeat your daily based on your farming routine.
Dailies are “filler” content, and filler content means “you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time.”

“Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience?
How many meaningful and impactful content did you play when you repeated your daily for the hundredth time?

I have played Tequatl.

what I meant with “you don’t have to organize” was: you don’t have to play on schedule with a specific group of players (like your guild) because the open world encounter makes it possible to go there and find enough people (most of the time) to have a good chance for good requirements of beating him.

It was important in the first days of that encounter to group up with TS or other tools in order to get the mechanics, because most people didn’t know how to act. The more time goes by the more players will know the mechanics though and it’s likely that in a month or so much more random groups will defeat Tequatl without any use of teamspeak etc. This is only my opinion, but it explains what I meant with my statement above.

About the daylies: maybe that’s how you do it (looking for the best locations) but then it’s your fault entirely to feel like playing a grind- or filler content. I do it entirely different, go to random locations in that specific zone and just do stuff and having fun roaming around. Believe me, it doesn’t feel like grind to me, when I’m doing a few events I haven’t done in months.

What would you define as “meaningful content”?

Are you aware of the current state of Tequatl? Maybe it’s because I’m not on a tier 1 server so I’m not aware of the state there, but organization is seems to be the only way to beat Teq everywhere else since it’s empty.

Dailies are filler “content”. No ifs or buts. It’s obvious game design.
Yes, grind is subjective.
I’m glad there are people still enjoying random DEs (no sarcasm here), but to me those DEs can been seen in every other map and the flavored text is unimportant since they’re already in progress anyway (and mean almost nothing at all most of the time, anyway).

How would I define as “meaningful content”?
To me, personal story is one example of meaningful content (I’m going ignore the execution flaws the story has).
Sadly I think chemiclord.3978 has some truth to the situation, though that’s mainly because of end-game rushers and ANet’s design of drip feeding new “content” that we get those complaints.
In the end, ANet found they couldn’t get the answer they wanted. To create meaningful content instead of filling it with grind and copypasta to give the illusion of content.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

• “raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play”… well you don’t have to organize still since the whole server participates in the Tequatl/world boss encounters. If Tequatl would be instanced, then yes – Anet would have gone against their statement. As these encounters are open world and everyone can participate and leave at it’s own schedule, it’s exactly as stated.

You obviously have not played Tequatl.
1. You need huge numbers (obviously). Is is doable below the recommended number of players (80 players, ie. 80% of the map soft cap)? Probably with max/min gear, food, organization etc.
2. You need to organize to taxi people off to an empty overflow map (ok, probably not anymore since the event is largely dead).
3. Merely participating with randoms does not equate to having a good chance to beat Teq.
The only difference here compared to traditional MMO is the need for common sense rather than the game forcing common sense upon you.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

• “thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support”… There’s no such thing in the game. No reputation system which need you to grind the same enemies. Quite the opposite: daily achievements give you a lot of different options how to complete these. Daily quests aren’t in either, you aren’t funneled to specific events for the event-daily, for example. You have a number of zones to choose from.

Joke post or trying to argue on technicalities of a tradition MMO?
Yes, you aren’t funnelled to a specific location to do your daily, but that’s still a daily. Even the UI says “Daily”.
In the end, all you do is figure out where the best location to repeat your daily based on your farming routine.
Dailies are “filler” content, and filler content means “you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time.”

“Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience?
How many meaningful and impactful content did you play when you repeated your daily for the hundredth time?

Galen Grey.4709:

BlueZone.4236:

Galen Grey.4709:

Its hard to say, I personally been playing over 1100 hours and didnt do everything yet but of course i repeated a lot of stuff to (ran dungeons multiple times, did some DE more then once, did some fractals etc…) At the very start when events happened way too often before of too many people in the same zone it took me a bout 20 hours to finish of a zone with practically no repeat of content.

Thanks to Smith for understanding my point.
After about the first 3 zones, you’ve effectively seen all of the mechanics in the open world (especially the mob fighting mechanics).
It was okay on the first run (the honey moon period, so to speak), but running an alt made it all too painfully obvious how much is essentially a copy and paste from zone to zone. Heck, even within the same zone, content is repeated.
Unfortunately, it’s a case of “once you see it, you can’t unsee it”.
And no, please don’t argue with “other games do that too, so it’s ok”, as that’s just excusing poor design.

Galen Grey.4709:

The original SAB that was super popular didn’t give any monetary rewards you could only get to buy skins that were account bound. Sure some might have done that for the skins but then you can read the forums to see how much people loved at least the first SAB release.

It didn’t have monetary rewards, but there was another desired item: obsidian shards.
(But FYI, I did enjoy SAB1, SAB2 not so much.)

Use your google skills to find out where I got this quote from.

Later in the day I casually asked the founder/president if we had any analytics about how many people were playing. Well collecting that kind of data seems to be really fun for him as far as I can tell, so we ended up working together to gather that information for a while. That was nice, except for finding out what I suspected based on my forum experience: the numbers are pretty dismal (Compared to the exceptional numbers of the first SAB) right now. I really hope that this patch will bring people back, but without the old reward schedule I don’t think it will happen.

There were a few other issues that came with SAB 2, but being farmable played a major role in it’s popularity, metric-wise.

But seriously I am not exactly sure what you people are expecting. Can you give an example of what game has this exciting questing thats all new and fresh no matter how much you play it? cause I dont know every game you’re going to learn the combat system in the first few hours you play it and every quest will get you to the same things over and over again. The only difference between one quest and another is the story. If you dont care about every game is gonna feel repetitive.

I know for sure people found sab valuable for obsidian shard acquisition cause there were threads asking why it wasnt included for world 2 but I do not believe that people didnt enjoy sab but rathered farmed it just to get obsidian shards

I dont even need to use google since i followed the thread where Josh posted that. I personally enjoyed World 2 but I understand what people were complaining about, I personally think world 2 would have been perfect if each zone was split into 2 giving a total of 6 zones for the world because as it was each zone felt way too long true.

I’m not expecting it to be fresh and new every single time.
No, I don’t have an clear answer, but clearly ANet doesn’t either since they haven’t got an answer to “Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to?”
Remember who’s the game designer. It’s not my job.
You’re right that the story behind each DE helps make them feel unique. But the story behind each DE is largely forgettable, mainly because of the fact many start without you (or possibly because whoever started the event gave up on finishing the event). I rarely encounter an event from start to finish because they’re all in progress, so why should I care at that point?
The “personal” story is probably the most interesting “quest” since it’s supposed to be personal (let’s ignore the whole “it’s Trahearne’s story” aspect), but I don’t intend to level another alt (1 alt is enough for me) to get through it all due to grinding to access the entire story.

Regarding SAB, yes some people did enjoy it, yet I agree with Josh’s conclusion that without the old reward schedule he wouldn’t get back players.

Galen Grey.4709:

Its hard to say, I personally been playing over 1100 hours and didnt do everything yet but of course i repeated a lot of stuff to (ran dungeons multiple times, did some DE more then once, did some fractals etc…) At the very start when events happened way too often before of too many people in the same zone it took me a bout 20 hours to finish of a zone with practically no repeat of content.

Thanks to Smith for understanding my point.
After about the first 3 zones, you’ve effectively seen all of the mechanics in the open world (especially the mob fighting mechanics).
It was okay on the first run (the honey moon period, so to speak), but running an alt made it all too painfully obvious how much is essentially a copy and paste from zone to zone. Heck, even within the same zone, content is repeated.
Unfortunately, it’s a case of “once you see it, you can’t unsee it”.
And no, please don’t argue with “other games do that too, so it’s ok”, as that’s just excusing poor design.

Galen Grey.4709:

The original SAB that was super popular didn’t give any monetary rewards you could only get to buy skins that were account bound. Sure some might have done that for the skins but then you can read the forums to see how much people loved at least the first SAB release.

It didn’t have monetary rewards, but there was another desired item: obsidian shards.
(But FYI, I did enjoy SAB1, SAB2 not so much.)

Use your google skills to find out where I got this quote from.

Later in the day I casually asked the founder/president if we had any analytics about how many people were playing. Well collecting that kind of data seems to be really fun for him as far as I can tell, so we ended up working together to gather that information for a while. That was nice, except for finding out what I suspected based on my forum experience: the numbers are pretty dismal (Compared to the exceptional numbers of the first SAB) right now. I really hope that this patch will bring people back, but without the old reward schedule I don’t think it will happen.

There were a few other issues that came with SAB 2, but being farmable played a major role in it’s popularity, metric-wise.

chemiclord.3978:

And what is so magical about expansions, really? They’re a relic of days gone by. I don’t need no stinkin’ expansion, thank you very much.

Expansions are like rallying when in a down state.
Living story is like pressing 4 while still being hit.

Galen Grey.4709:

People just have a way too ridged view of how things have to be done.

Take ascended trinkets, all it takes is 20 laurels to get that so at most that’s 20 dailies though it can be as low as 15.

I like to do DE? play 20 days of them and I can get an ascended trinket.
I like to sPvP, same thing
I like to do dungeons? like wise

So in summary, your suggestion is to farm the existing content.
I already figured that out, but thanks anyway.

Yaki.9563:

champ.7021:

now ascended weapons were created (based off of anet’s logic) to bridge the gap between exotics and legendary.

Bridge what gap? Legendary weapons were exotics and no better than other exotic weapons. They only got made ascended when ascended weapons were introduced.

The point of ascended gear, of any type, is to add a new gear/power goal for people. Just like in every other MMO every made.

The gap between how long it takes a player to get an exotic set versus how long it takes a player to get a legendary is huge. The fact that the stats were the same is exactly why many players did not have any incentive to grind for a legendary.
Ascended gear is meant to ease the majority of players into the grinding mindset, with extra stats as a good incentive to grind.

Also, it is easier to develop filler “content” that takes up some long arbitrary amount of hours versus new fun content that takes the same amount of hours.

Namu.5712:

Solid Gold.9310:

Namu.5712

“You can get 100 gold in a day or so….”

Really, please tell, it’s taken me since beta to get to 500 gold.

First of all you have to actually play.

That out of the way.

Mega bosses, hit them all or at least the popular ones…. wont take you long maybe a half an hour.

Hit up temple fights in orr.

You generally net several rares that way and sometimes exotics. As well as money.

Run a few Paths, your pick. Generally get around 2 gold for a path.

Craft your daily 500 crafts, they sell for over 4-5 gold.

Run around and grab your ori, and ancient nodes.

Craft some ori inscriptions, sell for around 8-9 gold.

Farm champs for awhile. They net alot of T6 mats that sell for a good amount and you often get 10 in a bag.

Theres alot more there to do but those are the most straight forward really.

But like I said you have to actually play.

Now I know what farmers and grinders, who claim they aren’t farming or grinding, consider “playing the game” and how long their “day” is.

Charak.9761:

Dikeido.8436:

Then ask yourself would you still be here if you were bored of this game.

Player investment

There also doesn’t seem to be many new games out now that are getting my interest (MMO or not).

To the OP: The game has reached the point where the majority of highly active players are at “end game” state (eg. champ farming, dungeon farming, WvW, carrot chasing events etc). You’ll most likely only encounter players at the low levels or high level maps, since the rest are mainly empty.
If you want other players, either guest to a high population server (TC or Blackgate, I dunno which ones are actually high level population…) and/or join an active guild.

Guys on teamspeak organizing a Teq kill was saying the limit is soft capped at 100, which sounds about right since there was just around 100 people on the Teq killing channel on TS. They organized everyone to move to an overflow map, a commander disconnected after moving to overflow and couldn’t get back in.