Guild Wars 2

They most definitely read the forums. They just don’t like posting. I wouldn’t post either if I kept doing full 180’s on every design philosophy.

You think this grind is bad? Wait awhile. GW2 is being released in Asia soon. Grindfest capital of the world.

It would be nice to see a vision of what arena net would consider “end game”. I’m not fond of that term either but, I don’t think this living story is going to cut it. I foresee quite a bit of recycled stuff in the future; in addition to ascended grinds.

Wanze.8410:

Calae.1738:

Although to be honest, I’m not really sure what carrot they’re chasing, if any.

Gold.

Gold is a means not an end.

If your argument is that gold can buy you anything in order to avoid you from spending time to “farm or grind” then what you are in fact chasing is not gold. It’s time.

I would definitely agree that most people would rather avoid grinding like a plague. I find that playing a trading post as a viable alternative is much less appealing.

It’s entirely possible that the few people who are spending the majority of their gaming time trading commodities on the trading post will realize one day that they’ve created their own little hamster wheel.

Although to be honest, I’m not really sure what carrot they’re chasing, if any.

Vol.5241:

Extremely low risk, high reward

http://i.imgur.com/BA9LKsRh.jpg

I smile when I see this.

That’s how I used to play GW2. Then I realized I wasn’t playing GW2 at all.

They want you do buy gems.

Since gathering is a boring chore for most people; they’re hoping that you part with some of your money in exchange for the time you save.

fey.5438:

Google -> gw2nodes -> enjoy.

What is there to enjoy?

Running around whacking rocks and chopping trees is fun? Since when?

The other MMO that shall not be named makes it easier to keep up on the treadmill as more patches are released.

In GW2; a new player entering the game today will take them 4 months to collect the laurels for their ascended accessories. That’s assuming they don’t skip a single monthly or daily. That’s far from casual. You could argue that it’ll take them a year of casual play; and that’s just for ONE of their characters.

This game is one of the worst grinds I have ever experienced.

You need athletes to have an esport. You need professional players and teams. They also need to be popular. As in having at least more than 12 people watching the game.

Fungalfoot.7213:

It means they have no real vision for the future of the game.

Yes that too. Complete lack of vision. Which probably means they’ll copy other people’s ideas and steer the ship to where the money is.

Game developers in charge of PR are like politicians. They have to be careful to not actually say anything. You can’t say yes and you can’t say no.

It’s always amusing to hear them talk.

Justdeifyme.9387:

But… MONEY?!?!?!

Le Gems… please buy them!

What Vol is trying to say is that Magic Find works.

Grind for blue and green items; salvage them all and raise your Magic Find. Once you’ve grinded all your Magic Find then the REAL grind for exotics begins.

You have to grind before you can grind…not sure if that makes sense.

I would consider killing stronger NPCs.

Right. NPCs with more health and stats. That’s what I meant. In the end, no one is getting stronger. It’s just the numbers that are inflating.

haviz.1340:

Calae.1738:

You mean a treadmill… right?

If you raise damage by +1 you have to raise NPC health by +1 too… right? Or else you risk running in a situation where every NPC can be killed in one shot…. right?

That’s what I call deep character progression. What’s the point of getting stronger if you can’t kill faster?

Would you consider killing NPC’s in one or two shots to be interesting gameplay? When would tactics and strategy come into play in this particular situation?

haviz.1340:

I feel your pain OP. Gw2 simply doesn’t deliver character progression.

You mean a treadmill… right?

If you raise damage by +1 you have to raise NPC health by +1 too… right? Or else you risk running in a situation where every NPC can be killed in one shot…. right?

This might pose an interesting situation.

What if I was level 133,788?

Would I be able to kill Tequatl with a single arrow to the knee? What would the stat cap be in WvW? Would there be any? Would I be able to carve a hole in a fortified gate by myself with a knife?

Yes, the majority of the MMO population are very casual. They’d don’t post on forums and don’t even socialize with other people. The biggest problem designing content for this type of player is that you have absolutely no idea if they’re going to like the content.

These players could all disappear tomorrow without a trace and the developers would probably never understand the reasons why they left. That’s what happens with developers that don’t talk to their own communities.

emikochan.8504:

Calae.1738:

I understand that fun is subjective. However, if chopping trees, whacking rocks and clicking trading post spreadsheets is their idea of fun then they’re going to feel a massive sting in spring 2014.

Jumping puzzles, world bosses, champs and dungeons are my idea of fun, and you need to do those to get ascended weapons too :p

I know you need to do them but; I’ve already done them several months ago and don’t like being forced to eat recycled food.

Vayne.8563:

Daywolf.2630:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t see anything unreasonable about that.

Just about ‘convenience’ to make your argument set it’s own bar. lol now it doesn’t count because it is a sandbox mmo as opposed to a themepark mmo. uh-huh…
wiggle-wiggle-wiggle-wiggle-wiggle

I don’t think you actually know much about the game you are talking about, sorry, not convinced there, and what your friends have said to you was probably rather vague if they even hardly played the game. Even the understanding of how a sandbox operates in general. It’s certainly far from all being player created content. Maybe you are thinking Second Life? I don’t see how it negates anything, and it certainly does not.

Speaking for myself, I have just one account (I play more than one mmo), and I know that “many” do not have multi accounts. That is mostly among nullsec sovereignty alliances, and then it’s not even a requirement. More so among those that fly either capital ships or mining platforms – but when you are in such an alliance, you can always get escorts and not required to do it all yourself. Even those ships are not really meant to be privately owned, but owned on the corporate level, so operations are not usually solo players using mufti-accounts. Shoot, I had more accounts in UO than I ever did in EVE. Even in some cases the escorts are often more corporate owned, such as scorpions used for transport purposes. So no, it’s far from “most” having 2 accounts or three accounts or whatnot. It’s just a normal mmo like any other. Doesn’t nullify my points made.

I’m trying to let you off the hook easy by saying it’s a good game,. but niche.

The entire number of people playin Eve right now at it’s maximum, after all these years, is under a sixth of the people who bought Guild Wars 2 accounts.

Guild Wars 2 peak concurrency was far more than double Eve’s peak concurrency. So if Eve is a success story, what does that make Guild Wars 2?

The truth is, we won’t know until Guild Wars 2 is four or five years old. If it’s still around and doing business, I suspect it will be a much bigger success story than Eve.

But all you’re really saying is Eve is doing great after ten years. Well…good for Eve.

And yes, I brought up the sandbox/themepark thing waaaaaaaaaaay earlier in this thread. If you don’t believe it, go look for yourself.

Someone else discounted it, because apparently they think sand boxes and theme park MMOs are the same genre, when in fact MMO isn’t even a genre.

How expensive is EVE to maintain? How expensive is GW2 to maintain?

You honestly think GW2 cost of operations are cheaper than EVE? It appears to me that EVE runs a more efficient business model and their profit margins must be higher than GW2 despite their niche market.

Ferrari doesn’t make cars for everyone but; they’re an insanely profitable business.

The problem is if they try to focus on every kind of player they aren’t actually focusing on any kind of player.

Truer words have never been better spoken.

One of the biggest failures of modern MMO’s is their inability to understand their target demographic. The average MMO player is getting older; reaching their mid 30’s. If younger generations are part of that target; how is leveling, grinding, and farming going to attract the instant gratification generation?

Nightarch.2943:

Spoiler!
~~~ArenaNet lied!~~~

I don’t think so.

I think they were pressured to do something drastic and fast to get back the players that were leaving 1 month after the game’s release. Unfortunately, their ascended gear treadmill strategy is similar to someone shooting themselves in the foot.

If you’re going to create a grinding treadmill at least make it fun. At a minimum.

I understand that fun is subjective. However, if chopping trees, whacking rocks and clicking trading post spreadsheets is their idea of fun then they’re going to feel a massive sting in spring 2014.

Zeldain.5710:

Calae.1738:

I HATE crafting and I HATE gathering. These are chores; not intense game play.

That IS gameplay. If you’re looking for one-dimensional twitch, then MMORPGs aren’t for you.

Sorry bud; there’s nothing engaging nor interesting about chopping trees, whacking rocks and clicking on a wooden bench to make a glowing stick.

Seriously, whats next? Crafting a fishing rod and fishing for hours to catch ascended fish?

GuzziHero.2467:

Now, with 8 characters, I have no interest in the slow process of crafting/manfacturing these ascended or whatever items for any of my characters… since I know that to make them for all will take many months.

The way this has been done is somewhat underhanded, and has helped to dilute my interest in GW2. Anyone else agree?

I agree 100%.

If there is going to be a gear treadmill; I would rather play a game that does it right. GW2 is just a boring laundry list of materials.

I HATE crafting and I HATE gathering. These are chores; not intense game play.

courin.2314:

We didn’t win on SBI’s first try, and sadly, there are some that are already complaining it’s unbeatable (which is pretty funny when they’ve tried it all of one time) but I am sure we will get there, we just need to learn to work TOGETHER!

This is so alien to your average casual gamer that if you told them that to their face they’d probably think you’ve descended from another planet.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

I liked it, but I can’t see myself or anyone else continuing to do it if you always fail with no reward.

Of coarse.

What’s the point of playing if there are no drugs…. uh rewards. Isn’t that why we’re all here? We’re here to get some drugs… uh rewards.

Arenanet has changed the value and rarity of many items many times before without testing or calculating the effects of their change. They do this a lot.

This is a known issue with modern MMO’s.

Developers want players to explore strange new worlds. Unfortunately; after everyone’s done it, all the real-estate becomes a ghost town.

Fractal difficulty scaling is flawed design. Nothing can grow exponentially over time for infinity. Basic arithmetic proves it. Would regular NPC’s one shot players with auto attacks? What would the rewards scale to? A chest full of precursors?

Developers would end up being forced to downscale their upscale system. This is redundant; waste of resources and time.

Reduce the scaling to something more realistic. You proved you can make something challenging with Liadri.

Easy: Play for the story, play for the adventure and some rewards. Risk is very low and likelihood of success is very high.

Normal: Midway point between difficulty and reward. In the middle of 2 extremes.

Hard: Play for the challenge, play for the rewards. Time limits, one shot mechanics, and environmental hazards. Assumes high end gear, level 80 and consumables. High risk, high reward. Failure is punishing and drains gold from the player.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

KazNaka.4718:

Just remember: higher hp doesn’t necessarily = more challenging content

I agree. Unfortunately damage and defense scaling reaches a point where it no longer conveys a sense of progression and challenge. For example, once creatures start one-shotting every player, it doesn’t matter how much extra damage they do. We’re also looking into how to meaningfully extend the scalability of FOTM.

One shot mechanics can work if the player has enough time to react.

The truth of the matter is that FOTM is a flawed design. Nothing can grow exponentially over time for infinity. Basic arithmetic proves it. What I think you need to do is reduce the scalability of the content. Easy normal and hard. Reward players based on risk. Hard is higher risk thus greater reward.

Chasing bigger numbers on gear just means the actual game isn’t any fun.

You need something to force you to press the log in button.

Nebilim.5127:

I want the best loot and i want it now!

I’d like to think that an MMO is more about gaming experiences than grinding for new gear. I stopped playing a different MMO because I was sold on that idea.

Ascended rings and accessories brought content along with the grind. What did ascended weapons bring other than a grind?

Vayne.8563:

I think there are more people running dungeons too, because they want the ascended mats that come from them. My guild is doing far more dungeons now than they were a couple of weeks ago. Mind you that could have been because of the zone wide invasions too.

Thats an interesting statement, do you think they’re running dungeons because they want to or because they have to?

I’m personally okay with it, because I don’t chase stats. I don’t think about stats much. I don’t care much about stats. I’m not a min-maxer and never will be. Let’s pretend that I don’t have ascended gear and you do. Yay. I don’t care. So this doesn’t bother me personally. I certainly can see why other people are bothered.

You might be right.

The casual market might not chase the carrot but the hardcore market does. If another studio siphons away the hardcore market from GW2; I believe the casual market will follow them.

Who are hardcore players?

-WvW commanders
-Guild leaders
-Fan site creators
-Character build theorycrafters
-Mix-Max experimenters
-PVE/PVP teamplay strategy designers

Can you make a game just for a casual crowd and have them hang around after all the hardcore, passionate crowd leaves? I don’t think so.

To you, it stuck in your mind, because that’s massively important to you. It’s one tiny aspect of the game to someone responsible for all aspects of the game.

I don’t buy that.

To me it’s clear there’s been a big change in company direction. I was sold on their ideas; it’s not my fault they can’t make it profitable. To turn around and do a full 180 on those ideas and come out and say exotics were too easy to get; in my opinion is PR damage control. They’re trying to justify their decision behind ascended weapons. You should be able to recognize that.

I feel I should voice my opinion and weigh in on this as well. I strongly believe this game is no longer what it set out to be. I bought this game because I liked what the developers had promoted. No grinding, no gear treadmills.

Daily and monthly laurel grind, gold grind, ascended weapon materials gathering grind, legendary materials gathering grind, fractal ascended ring grind, guild mission ascended accessory grind….

It’s like they’re piling grinds on top of grinds. This game is choking me.

Ronah.2869:

Besides, they are releasing the game in China, the land of grinding games.

Exactly.

I don’t think we’re the target market anymore. The real money is in China and I’m sure all of these game design changes are preparing the game for the Asian market.

Which happens to be a grind fest.

A reduction in karma can only mean one thing; a reduction in player currency earnings.

As the players earning from in game currency reduces; they should feel 2 forces. One of them is that they will feel the need to play longer to get the currency they need to buy what ever they want. The other is a desire to purchase gems to convert to gold.

Arenanet can suppress the exchange rate of gems to gold at will and keep it at the level they want it to be. The result would be to keep the gems conversion to gold ratio attractive for players to exchange from real currency. Ascended weapons and armor fits with this change in game direction almost perfectly.

You guys planning on making a bunch of clothes or something?

What are you talking about? I bought 2000 hardened leather Sections at 45 copper a few days ago now they’re hovering at around 140 copper. Gossamer Scraps use to trade at 130 copper and now it’s almost 375 copper.

There’s quite a bit of speculative activity going on in cloth and leather.

Gossamer and Hard Leather have tripled in price recently.

Amen brother.

I play GW2 because there’s nothing else. I’m going to jump on the next triple A MMO that comes out; even if it has a subscription fee. Anything other than a boring grind fest for casual noobs would suffice.

World dragons and temple events in Cursed Shore/Malchor’s Leap give more than enough Dragonite. Follow the timers at gw2stuff.com

For Empyreal Fragments; Ascalonian Catacombs and Citadel of Flame explorer mode are the fastest.

It costs 190g to go from 400 to 500 weaponsmith.
It costs 203g to go from 400 to 500 huntsman.
It costs 215g to go from 400 to 500 artificer.

http://gw2crafts.net/

That’s the cheapeast way to do it.

TooBz.3065:

Yes. I’m specifically referring to Ancient Wood Logs. I could be wrong, but they aren’t that hard to get on my own either, so worse case scenario I’ve just slowed my own progress somewhat.

The logs are necessary to create the item, but, more importantly, are necessary to craft from 400-450. I’m completely speculating, but I think once the initial rush to Crafting 500 is over the price will settle down.

Edit: I should note that I have been wrong about the length of the RL dot com bubble and the RL housing bubble. So I may be off in duration by a number of years.

If you knew exactly when markets boom and bust you’d be a billionaire.

TooBz.3065:

Personally, I saw prices spike and dumped my mats now. I don’t think this will last very long and ascended gear isn’t that important.

We’ll probably see prices come back down in a couple of weeks.

That theory depends on how many people really want ascended weapons. Tier 6 mats are not only needed to level to 500 they are also needed to craft exotics which are then salvaged to get Dark Matter. Dark Matter isn’t easy to get with a low grade salvage kit. Black Lion Kits return much more Dark Matter than Mystic Kits. Gems costs are not exactly cheap either.

Updated.

Mystic Kits are returning less than half the rate of Black Lion Kits. Getting Dark Matter is going to be expensive whether you craft the exotics yourself or buy the Black Lion Kits.

The advantage of getting to 500 before everyone else is that you can start dumping excess tier 6 mats on the market at inflated prices while demand is very high; essentially returning your original investment.

If I gave you a rough estimate; I’d say it costed me around 400g to level weaponsmithing and huntsman from 400 to 500. That’s when orichalcum ore costed 5 silver and ancient wood costed 4 silver. I used laurels to get fangs, claws, bloods, scale, bones, totems and venoms. The prices of these tier 6 materials have doubled since then. Tier 2, 3, 4, 5 mats have also risen but there is less demand for those and prices have resisted shock for the most part.

After 450 you can refine some ascended tier 7 materials to give you about 10 extra levels. The best way is using Bloodstone Dust as there is no cooldown and are easy to farm. Getting to 500 requires crafting exotics (fast way) or discovering exotic recipes (slow way). The slow way is cheaper than the fast way. Discoveries net much more XP.