Guild Wars 2

Just a flesh wound.3589:

iirc, way before launch, there was a blog post by ANet saying they weren’t going to have a build saver as they wanted people to be attached to their builds, for their builds to be a meaningful part of their character.

Which seems a contradiction, since they allow free ability to switch, modify, and redo your build at any time with no consequences or restrictions. Having a system that is purposely inconvenient simply to be a deterrent, is poor game design.

There would be a draw back of doing a gem based sub, it doesn’t really address why people may want a sub, but thats already been discussed.

Adding a gem based sub would just end up being a sub for gold. Since there is only a limited amount of stuff you can buy or possibly want to buy on the gem store. So people will just flood the exchange with gems. Which then in return would devaluate gems making them not as worth it to buy.

If you played Eve then play with a somewhat Eve mentality. Find what you want to do and do it, there is no real defined path since anything can give rewards. If you like a certain zone, then you can stick around it do the events(repeated world events), world bosses etc. Set personal goals since there really isn’t any actual endgame.

Though the PVP and being paranoid of others you can drop from your Eve mentality(outside of direct trades). PVP is gated to either WvW or SPvP, and neither have a penalty for dying, or losing.

Crafting, unfortunately, has almost no meaning in this game. It isn’t profitable due to a non consumer based economy and the orgy of loot you get at every turn. Crafting is really only beneficial to gain a few levels and to craft ascended gear and legendaries. The former isn’t needed at all unless you plan on doing Fractal based dungeons, and the latter is more a personal opinion on value. Though it isn’t a bad idea to set them as passive/long term goals.

Guardian is probably the class you are after, though try a few classes starting out to get a feel for them.

Dawdler.8521:

Its simple psychology.

We are willing to pay for stuff that we want in a simple manner – pay X to get A. When you want it, you buy it. But we dont want to be forced to pay for something where we cant define the “value”. Some people play 1 hour a week, some people play 100 hours. Yet with subscription you pay the same amount.

The defined value is based on entertainment value you gain during your time played. If you only play 1 hour a week, you can compare if that 4 hours a month is worth the $15 in comparison to other forms of entertainment which may cost more of less had you not. If I was in that situation then yes, a sub wouldn’t be worth it, though people still pay 15-20$ to go to a 2 hour movie so to some it could be.

A subscription is also about commiting to the game. Again, forcing you to play it. But developers/publishers often arent so friendly to their consumers. What if the game shut down after 6 months? No one want to commit themselves to that kind of risk. Unlike the early days of MMO games, we now have more experience, sort of speak. We dont trust them so blindly anymore. Word spread fast on the internet.
.

If the game shut down after 6 months then you got 6 months worth of gameplay. Your analogy goes both ways, paying for an ingame item and the game shuts down the end result is the same. The mentality of commitment is mainly based off of game design of older games and the targeted audience not the business model. Where as the current audience is more after instant gratification, where F2Ps and B2Ps complement that much better.

Guhracie.3419:

You are wrong in your thinking. People help because there’s literally no such thing as “stealing” a kill.

No he isn’t wrong, I don’t think you get his point.

He isn’t saying kill stealing, or attacking a mob someone else is fighting, is bad because of loot or lack there of. But when fighting a mob solo you learn your class more in longer fights, where as if people jump in they die quickly and your skill as a player doesn’t improve.

There is however some form of “kill stealing” though mainly due to dailies. Which is when people zerg events to the point where you can’t even tag them for credit. This is not helpful for newer players.

Indeed, kudos to Anet.

Though to keep Anet in check, the B2P market is pretty terrible atm. Luckily Zenimax screwed up ESO launch enough, that it may take sometime for them to catch up.

Dante.1763:

GW1 has lasted 10 years without a sub, i dont see why this game would do any different unless they kill it off.

And UO stills exists even with a sub after 17. I don’t pay much attention to how GW1 is maintained, however I don’t think they put much resources into it other then keeping the servers active. Not to mention since GW2 existence and its link to GW1 it would make sense to keep it active even if it running at slight loss. Also I didn’t say it wasn’t sustainable, just not AS sustainable/successful as people think.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Because people seem to think subscription = better game. More content. Better quality. Yatta yatta. And no matter how many times we tell them a != b necessarily, they don’t believe it because they have been brainwashed into believing a = b whole-heartedly.

This is because from a business perspective its how it should be. Sub based games are based off of retention rates and longevity in order to keep revenue flowing. Which means developers should be more inclined to not only continually create content to keep longevity but also work on quality to keep retention high. However what ends up happening is when sub rates start to fall or plateau, devs will have 2 choices in order to counter the decline, either push more more content to keep players, or increase accessibility(dumb down) to entice new players to join. MMOs recently have been doing mostly the latter.

F2P models however are top heavy when it comes to revenue streams, the bulk of players don’t pay and the game is supported by the minority who do pay. From a developers perspective it creates a mentality of favoring the minority to insure revenue. This means more development is spent on promoting sales then it does quality or overall content, or the game is developed around promoting MTs.

The failure of sub based games recently is due to the profolition of F2P games, and Devs not willing to risk making sub based games. Which is why you probably see resistance against them.

PS: The post wasn’t directly targeted at GW2 but at MMOs in general. However I don’t think Anet or GW2’s current model is as sustainable/successful as people think it is.

It depends on the game when it comes to paying a sub. Personally I prefer sub based games over F2P models due to usually sub based games being higher quality, better content, and the focus being more about the game then about how to make the game profitable. However GW2 would have to be overhauled in many aspects to warrant paying a sub, since right now it wouldn’t be worth the monthly cost.

It only appears once you log in. Also if you don’t claim it, and switch to another character, it will remain on the original character.

It is interesting to see that the larger the guild, the less sociable they seem to be. From what I’ve seen most guilds just mass recruit simple to gain passive influence from the members and have a higher chance of people showing up to events. With GW2 not really having any sort of endgame either from a player standpoint or from a guild standpoint, guilds seems to primarily be for bonuses and a extra chat channel, due to lack of purpose.

Avectius.3271:

What do you mean how full is my mats?

In your bank storage you can have stacks of 255 of a mat, which is regarded as full.

Personally I salvage every green and blue, and with rares I check to see if they are worth more than 40s, if so I sell on TP, if not I salvage and keep/sell the ecto.

The downside of SW is the sheer amount of stuff you get, so trying to min/max by salvaging cloth and selling heavy/medium is extremely time consuming. So it really depends on how long you want to spend clearing out your bags.

misterman.1530:

My concern regarding Silverwastes is that it requires way too much group coordination for any success. Given Megaserver, sometimes you get into a situation in which you cannot successfully even navigate SW let alone successfully complete a defense or offense against a keep. As for Dry Top, as you say, it is badly designed. I am so scared that Maguuma is going to be one, big jumping puzzle.

The positive aspect that I find about SW is that even without group effort you can still contribute to the map as a whole and be rewarded. While doing breach and VW does require coordination, offense on forts isn’t hard to do solo, you just need to be patient, defense can be difficult.

E: Now that I think about it, it can be difficult based off of class as well. I have no issues in SW on my Ele or Guardian, but my Engi has a horrible time in SW.

Since I’m one of the suckers that builds up Foothold, I usually make it a point on low population maps to focus on 1 fort(usually Red) and hold there until prep increases and population increases.

E: To clarify my love for SW is more because of its overall design. The map feels more dynamic and active when doing escorts, defense, offense, outside of Timeout the map just seems more alive. The aspect of your actions helping build up and effecting the overall map to a end goal is what I enjoy the most.

misterman.1530:

I am still holding out hope that HoT will address many of my concerns, but given Dry Top/Silverwastes, am not so sure.

I find Silverwastes to be one of the few areas they did right personally. Dry Top is another story, it is just poorly designed.

GW2 to me is bearable, but due to lack of good alternatives it will suffice. If a game is released as a open world/sandbox similar to UO or a non-crap Eve Online, then bye Anet it was fun.

Risk is the best incentive to creating challenging content.

Going to be lazy with this, tired.

*Perma death or perma death penalty(level/stat reduction),
*Gear having perma durability(IE when it is destroyed it is gone),
-Can be repaired so many times before destroyed.
-Repairing costs money(or requires a Crafting discipline but still costs mats).
*Player scaled lower than normal within a map,
-3-7 Levels below current scaling
*WPs are unusable, however Asura gates still active.
-Can allow limited “teleportation ability”. To avoid stuck situations.
-Give HM players 2-3 stones that they can set and teleport to. Obvious long CD or limitations.
*Negative Conditions last longer for HM players.
-Self condi removals have longer CD.
-Group condi condi removals have less effect.
*Group Buffs have less effect on a HM player.
-Self buffs have a short duration.
*HM characters being “disconnected” from account links,
*Limitations on TP use, mail, and trading(to avoid abuse)
*Traits are open from start but locked after being set.
-Resetting costs money
-Switching individual traits cost less or nothing.

The only way you can really scale price, is if there is a upkeep cost that is based on how much it is used. Ex. If a trader is being used by 100 players then the upkeep cost is 100g per month, if a trader is only used by 10 players then the upkeep cost can be 10g. This can only apply if the cost of upgrades is a rolling expense, it can’t really work with initial or it being a 1 time buy.

Azala Yar.7693:

That’s not true it does have an impact as you gradually get weaker until you fix it.

I have loads of varying boosters in my bank, as I don’t really need them in PvE, does that mean because I don’t see the point of them they should be removed ?

WoW has becomes so easy now (not talking raiding) and some of the reasons are reasons of convenience, games should stop catering to lazy players.

While I’m not 100% but armor only loses its effect if its completely destroyed(when you become naked), but its a moot point since you can repair any time and at no cost. Since repair stations are everywhere and usually by high traffic areas, it becomes more of a habitual act, then a penalty. Which makes it redundant.

Boosters still have an effect, regardless of if you personally use them, though I don’t deny that some boosters are quite pointless. However have enough effect to warrant their existence.

To be fair GW2 is pretty much designed around being a convenience game. The problem being is they have annoying or inconvenient design where they don’t need them, and convenience where it shouldn’t be. This is my main issue with repairs.

I can’t speak for WoW, since I haven’t actually played it since shortly after the first expansion. Though I don’t disagree that catering to lazy players is bad, HOWEVER meaningless features are still useless, the removal of cost of repairs was catering to lazy players(or newbies), removing the current system is about removing an unneeded annoyance, not really about laziness.

As stated prior, having meaningless features simply to be an annoyance is terrible game design. It isn’t about laziness since repair stations are common place, it isn’t about risk since it has no cost, and the “penalty” is annoyance. It serves no purpose.

Defeat already comes with a penalty via “Downed State” which get worse every time you die. You also can only self resurrect at a WP which costs money and time.

Repairs is a legacy feature which is generally used as a gold sink or as away to promote crafting. GW2 has neither as cost has been removed, and either the devs are to lazy to remove durability loss from items, or they have a contradictory outlook on how their game should be.

“Wasting Time” penalty is probably the worst excuse and is what is wrong with games today. Having meanless features that are there simply to waste time, is terrible game design.

If repairs had a cost, it would be fine, since it actually has a tangible penalty, one which could actually have an effect on the game(how many people will meta glass cannon if it costs them every time they die?).

A question for those in defense. Without repairs what would GW2 lose? What residual effects does repairs have on the game?

E: Missed this oddly enough.

pandorasbox.6340:

Well yeah. They just did the quick fix and modded the cost to zero instead spending days upon days, months upon months, removing the system entirely. As a guy who knows code, that is the easy way out honestly.

It is a easy way out but also a double edged sword, its a short term fix which can lead to issues down the road. Having a program full of useless code can cause performance issues or cause larger work load and more bugs if they needed to do any major revamps.

funrider.6293:

Well, thank you for that but I am looking to play on TC

Doubt you can, unless you are lucky enough to try around the same time someone else transfers off, however chances will be next to non. The server population is based off of total population not current online population.

In regards to the article, it shouldn’t be a surprise that since MMOs have shifted towards being more and more structured gameplay, that numbers outweigh anything else. The reason devs don’t focus on small guilds is because the doing so creates greater risks(exploiting), isn’t cost effective, and overall gameplay usually isn’t designed for it.

Scaling costs can be exploited, and looking at it from a realistic standpoint, when buying something it costs the same whether its 1 person buying it or 100 people chipping in to buy it.

I doubt you will see a change in that culture unless MMOs revert back to a sandbox or more open style risk vs reward gameplay.

TeddieJ.2495:

Next time OP will complain why not make we spawn at the death spot.
Seriously ? Why OP make this complain at the first place? That is why there is still an armor fix requirement.

So having redundant and pointless “features” is a good thing? It’s sole purpose now is to be an annoyance, it doesn’t actually have any positive or negative impact on game play.

Azala Yar.7693:

Players actually use items they get from drops ?

They use the salvaged material.

I would just like a passive speed boost on my Gaurdian.

I believe they are changing it to solo in HoT. The idea is at 80 you will probably need to start diverging into more group based content: WvW, Dungeons, Fractals. Since there is only so much solo content available.

Though to be honest the ending is very anticlimactic, so outside of rewards you aren’t missing much.

The effort was more from a devs standpoint then a players. You would have to rework rewards to apply to either or both alliances and the individual guilds, not to mention creating a hierarchy system within alliances so they can control the member guilds. Also there would be the issue to reworking the mega servers so alliances will be favored to gain the same instance in the same way guilds do.

It also means they will have to upkeep it with every patch and expand on it due to players requests. It doesn’t seem as simple as a new chat window.

One thing I do wish Anet would do in regards to guilds, is switch megaservers to include guild WvW. So you aren’t limited to server based WvW in a game where guilds are cross server.

E: To be clear, I’m not against the idea by any means. Just giving another perspective.

Was wondering about this earlier, however my results are the opposite.

When crafting ascended, I noticed silk was my biggest bottleneck, and when doing SW on my gaurdian it was a rarity that I would get much cloth based loot, yet would need to compress mithril to save space. However since getting my elementalist to 80 and doing SW with her, I’ve noticed gaining much more silk. I haven’t actually done hard testing, so figured it was just a coincidence.

Also I salvage everything outside of rares that are worth more then 40s and exotics.

Couldn’t you just create a “Alliance Guild” and have members join that? When you want to do alliance events just have people rep the alliance guild.

Granted I can vaguely see why an alliance can be useful, but at the same time there is already a system that can allow for this. Unless they plan on expanding guild based content it seems more effort then worth.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

I believe the official response was along the lines of this (obviously paraphrased):

“We’re removing the cost of having to repair your armour as we believe that having to find and interact with an armour repair station is payment enough”.

They want to still “punish” you as a player for dying so many times in a row, just not with gold.

Which is in all honesty one of the worst possible excuses you can have. They talk about not “restricting fun” but leave in redundant and meaningless steps that neither gain the player anything or really penalizes them, it exists just to be an annoyance. For a game that isn’t based around risk vs reward, or penalties, having a pointless mechanic just to annoy the player is a horrible idea.

sorudo.9054:

to say this simple, you rather travel to a place where your lvl 40 character can fight lvl 40 enemies with space to spare then having to port to a lvl 35 zone and only having a really small area to fight lvl 40 enemies, the whole reason why this scaling is here is because there are simply way to many zones where scaling is needed, honestly if they made GW2 as i described it above they would’ve had at least 3 lvl 80 zones from launch.

Or just remove levels in general, balance all zones to 80(already done with scaling), convert all sub 80 loot to their equivalent 80 version, and make/revamp the storyline quest chain the NPE.

With all the upscaling and downscaling it makes levels redundant and more of a hinderance. While this mainly has to do with the changes to NPE recently with traits and SP, it does open all content as a “Living World” instead of level based zones.

Add in a permadeath option, scale all maps above your current level, but give leveled exotic/ascended gear every 5-10 levels?

I do think the LFG system needs improved, but adding in class filters doesn’t seem needed.

Outfits shouldn’t be affected by combat or underwater. Your outfit should stay active in both states. Also looking at the wiki, I don’t see anything referencing that.

mcwurth.2081:

this game is not WoW.

Didn’t realize customizable UIs was a WoW specific feature. I guess we should all get use to a terrible UI just because “WoW did it”. The whole don’t want to be like WoW hipster mentality is one thing I despise about Anet.

eithinan.9841:

Vertical stat progression is a stupid treadmill that “other mmo’s” with a monthly sub need to keep people paying. By far gw2 is superior in this respect.

Wouldn’t really call it stupid nor is GW2 any better. The difference is GW2 promotes fluff items to keep players paying, and grinds for cosmetic items to keep others playing. While I do enjoy GW2, I would rather have a “sub based treadmill” then a “barbie mode endgame”.

eithinan.9841:

Vertical stat progression is against what anet has outlined.

Which they already somewhat have. Mainly with Masterwork/Rare/Exotic, then adding in ascended gear with a mix of infusions to add limitations to high end fracs.

I never understood Anets mindset on somethings. They seem against things simply because “that other game” does it, or its mainstream in MMOs.

They are game dev hipsters.

I would say just switch green/blue drops to stackable scraps, which gain the same thing when salvaged(mats and luck). It is annoying doing the bag clean up after every run, and floods the market with mostly useless items.

To each his own I guess, I don’t see the appeal. Though I do see a cloak….Anet…

Or a passive swiftness signet.

E:

2 – there’s a trait for that, download it to your guardian.

Unless I’m mistaken theres only traits for more damage and reduced CD, not HP.

Having Charr hunched is one of the reasons I can’t get myself to play that race. Really having them upright when relaxed and hunched when running/fighting I wouldn’t mind.

I don’t see how removing XP would have any real effect on crafting. The underlining issue with crafting is the abundance of equivalent drops, and lack of consumption of crafted items.

Halbarz.3854:

I really like this april’s fool, people that are complaining ( see the other threads ) have no sense of humor and do not know how to have fun Thx Anet having a blast flying around and into german zergs !

Understand, the complaints are mixed, some because of the offensiveness and others because of the effects which make it painful or annoying to play. Hopefully Anet learns from this, and next time adds in a disable option which would resolve both issues.

sparc.3649:

Yes and I moderate other forums and happen to know forum “manners”. There’s NO legit reason for 1,000 different people to create 1,001 threads on the SAME exact thing when they could be all stated in ONE thread. Thank god I’m not a moderator here, because the exact action I stated, is exactly the action I would take for people being so rude by not just using ONE thread (it’s more work for the poor moderators to merge threads than they should have to do if people just stuck to simple forum etiquette)! It’s not about not allowing people to express themselves, it’s about asking people to mind their manners, people who don’t mind their manners should have posting privileges removed!

This is probably one of the worst ideas a online company can do in regards to managing the community, especially in regards to an MMO. Actually games have tried it in the past, it usually makes the situation much much worse.

AlpineFlame.7058:

Dear ANet;

Please disregard the omnipresent whining as it seems all people do these days. This is a fantastic april fools, and in no way offensive. Excellent job all around. You guys rock.

Interestingly enough this thread has almost nothing to do with the offensiveness of the event.

Poor Crab.

So you want the forums shut down for a day because you can’t stand the complaints of people who want the April Fools Day “event” shut down/disabled?

Cazamar.7148:

Read a book? Watch something on Netflix? Play a different game?

Guess Anet should use that as a marketing slogan then. Buy our game, so you can go do something else.

lordkrall.7241:

People are really overreacting to something that happens ONE out of 365 days of a year.

To be fair, this would imply that everyone is actually able to play everyday. Many players have very limited time, which is one of the appeals of GW2. So losing a day simply because AreaNet didn’t add in a disable option, should cause some reaction.

mako.2431:

What I want to know is why aren’t all the tools defending this in game playing?

Its 2015, there are dual screens, internet on phones, tablets, tv, etc. Multitasking is possible.

I wish they would. After playing for 5-10 min, I had to log due to a headache, might be a coincidence, but doubt it.