Guild Wars 2

Horrorscope.7632:

Enoch.1058:

Kings X.5082:

ANET needs to make the game solo friendly. Maybe they should look at GW1 for inspiration.

In what ways is GW2 NOT solo-friendly?

Dungeons.

Not just that, you also get better and more loot if you team up manually instead of just running with a DE group. It’s idiotic and it needs fixing, I’m not going to stop to team in a game that bragged about the ability of players to cooperate with each other without having to team. What happened?

Razarei.2809:

@Corvindi.

Really? Quoting a random user from a fan forum? I don’t know what bothers me more, the fact that you’re taking a random user’s words as gospel or the fact that you interpret what was said as contradictory.

Also: Lol at the same 4 trolls de-railing every thread they can get their hands on.

I quoted the posters to make the point that there are lots of examples of fans assuring each other that there would be no end game gear grind. They were doing so in threads where Arenanet employees posted, no less, yet nothing was said to correct this apparent misunderstanding by the fan base.

This gives weight to the interpretation of the Manifesto to mean that Guild Wars 2 would not have the type of vertical progression grind that Ascended gear has now introduced.

Fuz.5621:

Corvindi.5734:

Fuz.5621:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Fuz.5621:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I mean it’s a free game

It’s not free.

Sorry… it’s free to continue playing.

For how long? At some point you’ll have to buy gems or die in this kittened-up economy.

No, you have a third option at that point. Find something else to play. No offense intended, just pointing out you don’t have to break out your wallet if the game gets unfun due to restrictions on in game wealth. Just walk away.

That was exactly the point.

That’s my plan as well. I’m hoping it won’t come to that, but I’m not doing this gems to gold thing, I’m just not. If I’m so poor in this game I can’t stand it, well, I’ll find something else to do!

Bluebird.1890:

Corvindi.5734:

Perhaps you don’t understand the difference between effort and time spent repeating activities. Let me illustrate:

Sometimes when soloing it is an effort to stay alive. I use every ability and all my timing and spatial skills to accomplish that.

Sometimes when attempting to obtain a specific piece of gear, it takes a very long time of doing the same dungeons over and over to get that gear.

Now do you understand?

Setting your belittling demeanor aside (Not sure if the mods will do the same), your argument would hold water if it weren’t already openly admitted that the amount of repeating for one piece of gear isn’t ideal and is being worked on.

But it has been.

So, while I do understand you, I also have to just look at your point and wonder why you are even attempting to make it.

At least I didn’t call OP crazy.

Anyway, actions speak, words are just nice. We’ll see what happens with the grind.

I dearly wish we had more crafting material slots as well. I bought an extra bank slot and I have a guild bank unlocked, but I still have too much stuff in general and too much disorganized clutter in particular.

And I also wish our loot went straight to our bags, at least in WvW.

+1 Dominae.

Although I not only will put up with some repetition in MMOs, I actually enjoy some repetition, I do have limits to my tolerance for it and I have yet to find an MMO that didn’t test those limits. Getting to 80 is plenty of repetition for me, especially since I play alts and therefore intend to get to 80 far more than once.

@Sky: I agree with your post and on top of that, WoW attracted a fanbase comprised in large part of brand new MMO players.

Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, has to deal with a large number of jaded old MMO players. And a lot of us are simply tired of treadmills.

Perhaps you don’t understand the difference between effort and time spent repeating activities. Let me illustrate:

Sometimes when soloing it is an effort to stay alive. I use every ability and all my timing and spatial skills to accomplish that.

Sometimes when attempting to obtain a specific piece of gear, it takes a very long time of doing the same dungeons over and over to get that gear.

Now do you understand?

If they really wanted some idea of when something becomes grindy they could poll their playerbase. It wouldn’t be %100 accurate, but it would give some indicators.

Honestly, though, as rabid as I’m sure devs are about their own games, surely they should at least notice during their own gameplay that something has reached the level of grind.

Bluebird.1890:

Corvindi.5734:

Same thread I linked, page 12:

“Whoa there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.

ANet has already made it clear (in past announcements, interviews, etc.) that max level gear will be available to everyone through normal game play. I’m paraphrasing, but they said that by level 80, everyone should have max gear. By that reasoning, we can extrapolate that the items available in the shop will be cosmetic in nature, and not confer any statistical advantage.

There will almost certainly be armor and weapon skins that are difficult to get in game, but since they won’t provide any advantage, then it really doesn’t matter if you get them. They will be a matter of personal preference only.

There is nearly literally no way for them to make the game P2W based on the game model."

---

Again, how many examples do you want is the question, I could probably find you hundreds. I’d rather not and I’m pretty sure I’ll get infracted if I actually did post hundreds of quotes, but I could do it.

1) Again, max level gear is intended to be attainable by everyone through normal gameplay, thus ascended gear drops being implemented in other places than FOTM in the future.

2) You aren’t quoting an Arenanet employee.

3) You are taking an argument on P2W in the item shop out of context to prove another point, which is completely unrelated.

1. Combined with my sig about dungeons that is a dev quote, indeed we are talking about gear that is now outside normal gameplay by their own definition.

2. I never said I was. The reason I quoted this is because ArenaNet employees knew their fans assumed vertical progression of this type would not be in the game (at least one Anet employee was posting in that thread) and did not correct our assumptions.

3. The cash shop and what it contained was often excused by players who said it didn’t matter what was in the shop because at level 80 it was a simple, quick matter to get the best stats on our gear.

As to what you said in another post about gear not mattering in PvP, of course it does. If it didn’t, ArenaNet would not have equalized gear in sPvP.

Not to say that WvW didn’t already have problems before, because it did.

First, not being a team greatly reduces badge drops as well as loot drops.

Second, even someone gathering badges in a team would take much longer to get a full set of badge gear than dungeon gear.

Third, badge gear was not available for all stat combos, meaning a player who wanted to optimize their gear would probably need to craft do dungeons farm karma or some combination of these.

Same thread I linked, page 12:

“Whoa there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.

ANet has already made it clear (in past announcements, interviews, etc.) that max level gear will be available to everyone through normal game play. I’m paraphrasing, but they said that by level 80, everyone should have max gear. By that reasoning, we can extrapolate that the items available in the shop will be cosmetic in nature, and not confer any statistical advantage.

There will almost certainly be armor and weapon skins that are difficult to get in game, but since they won’t provide any advantage, then it really doesn’t matter if you get them. They will be a matter of personal preference only.

There is nearly literally no way for them to make the game P2W based on the game model."

Again, how many examples do you want is the question, I could probably find you hundreds. I’d rather not and I’m pretty sure I’ll get infracted if I actually did post hundreds of quotes, but I could do it.

Bluebird.1890:

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Chris Whiteside already admitted in the last AMA that the current grind for Ascended items will be being reduced.

I’m not sure where the problem is here?

What is said and what is done are sometimes two different things, though I’m willing to take a wait and see approach. However, the point was that at no time did devs correct the apparent misunderstanding that there would be no gear released later that would make the current, easy to get best level 80 gear obsolete.

That quote isn’t even a good one, I’ll find you some that better illustrate the point. Players almost universally assumed no gear progression. The only exception to that might be the acknowledgement that levels might increase (I doubt many assumed levels would increase but gear would not).

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”

Also taken from the Manifesto, and just one of many quotes that led players to believe we would not have to grind endlessly for the best gear.

“Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.”

The above, for example, is taken from the Manifesto.

Scuse me, but why is it that I have to stop to team up in WvW and open world PVE to get decent loot drops?

Fuz.5621:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Fuz.5621:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I mean it’s a free game

It’s not free.

Sorry… it’s free to continue playing.

For how long? At some point you’ll have to buy gems or die in this kittened-up economy.

No, you have a third option at that point. Find something else to play. No offense intended, just pointing out you don’t have to break out your wallet if the game gets unfun due to restrictions on in game wealth. Just walk away.

Here is one I’m not even sure anyone asked but that is near and dear to my heart:

Why did you give us the fantastic option to play with others in PVE and WvW without having to team up, then make it impossible to get decent loot unless we team up?

wildcode.5403:

This bug is making lvling charactors a little harder when using drops to upgrade weapons and armor. I played for 10 hours today with one of my lower levels and in that time was only able to upgrade 3 items from drops. Also lower drops means less to sell to merchant so less cash meaning my charactor is at lvl32 and is still unable to afford the lvl30 trait book despite only using cash for repairs. 3 other charactors I leveled to 80 before the bug had more than enough cash to buy the lvl30 and lvl60 trait books at lvl30.

They’re definitely going to have to correct this. Locking the gold away in dungeons is no smarter than locking the best gear away.

Oh come on, the Manifesto was pretty darn clear. And it’s not like they ever made an effort to correct any of the pre-purchase fans who expressed their delight in countless threads about not suffering through an end-game gear grind.

Nor did they drop by to reassure potential players who were interested in the game but worried about a lack of horizontal progression, even though those players were constantly told by fans that they should play something else instead.

If the Manifesto itself didn’t convict them, their silence did.

Harbard.5738:

Well that sounded like trolling with a smile

Made me laugh.

OP, I didn’t go anywhere, but my wallet did get taped shut and will stay that way until actions do the talking.

Ianervan.3415:

You don’t need other people.

Just add to your party Master of Whispers, Olias, Livia, and Norgu.

Oh wait..

I really wish we could do that, if only for dungeons! I miss my heroes and henchmen, and I didn’t even play GW1 very long.

Maz.8604:

Not a dime from me from here on. I’ll play until I hit the pay wall. But their sale this weekend was horrible, the content on the store nil. Looks like they want cash for gold to bypass grind to be their market now.

This is my stance. Until and unless their actions prove me wrong.

I would love to be wrong about this, I really would. I really enjoy playing Guild Wars 2, even just wandering around solo in PVE is fun, and I’m not typically a PVE player. But unless they seriously cut the Ascended mat grind, as well as giving non-dungeon hamsters access to Ascended gear, my wallet will stay firmly shut.

If they really want to make money off people who have less time to play they should sell rested XP bars with higher drop-rates, higher monetary and karma rewards for completing hearts and DEs, and a crafting boost attached.

I’ve had this complaint about stat gear available only through certain paths since before launch because I have no intention of ever running dungeons without a decent dungeon finder, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t like any of them enough to get full sets of gear out of it.

Hopefully in the future there will be other ways to get gear with the exact stats we desire, meanwhile, I choose to level alts and not even bother with exotic gear, WvW (where I spent many painful hours finding out that, no matter how fun it is, gear does matter in the end), or any other group content.

Eventually if I play long enough, unless they’ve completely destroyed open world PVE drop rates, I’ll probably end up with enough gold/mats/whatever to pretty much do what I want, but compared to dungeon hamsters, I do feel like a peasant. Not as bad as in other games, though, I have to say that.

Mackdose.6504:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Which winds up leaving absolutely everyone open to crucify them for a compromise. Any grind is not no grind and you ‘promised’ no grind. Don’t say you never promised, we have you right here on tape saying that’s your belief. Can’t change your words now, and if you try to clarify what you said or explain it we’ll just take that and tear you apart with it too.

They promised that you wouldn’t have to grind to have fun, you wouldn’t spend the whole game “preparing to have fun.”

They achieved that goal of the manifesto, the part all of the kitten-stormers are up in arms about, in SPADES.

They never said anything about there being no grind to max stats, end game skins. NOT EVEN ONCE.

Players twisted the manifesto, not Anet.

See my sig. That was the biggest deal to me out of the entire thing. And still is until they put in other ways to get Ascended.

Well, that and the ability to shorten the grind by buying gems and converting them to gold to buy mats. But my hatred for the gems to gold revenue stream goes back to March, when the detestable monstrosity was announced.

Here is a comment someone posted on Guru that bothers me:

ArenaNet Team said:
This is a reply from John Smith, ArenaNet’s economist:

We did expect the change in price of Ectos and it was intended. Bots had artificially suppressed the prices of many high end items making late game farming for legitimate players less effective than we wanted. With the fractal dungeon we introduce available ways to earn Ectos and other high end items for use or profit to keep the price from going up too fast.

The thing about this is, bots can be programmed to run dungeons. I can’t be. Well, okay, I could do them, but I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon than farm mats that way. Nor do I want to be kept a broke little peasant beside my dungeon hamster overlords.

I get that bots are a problem, but locking gold acquisition away in dungeons is no smarter than locking gear up in them.

Debsylvania.7396:

Corvindi.5734:

Shadow Blade.1324:

In regard to gated content via gear then i think that this is something we are going to give more thought to. Specifically if the reward at the end of the activity applies to players that are not just looking to do a specific type of content. Note that this statement is somewhat contradictory to the philosophy laid out above if the required items do not drop elsewhere or the ultimate rewards don’t either. This is something we are going to fix.

Sigh. Does this guy have a law degree? He sure talks like it.

Okay, so I quoted the above bit since it’s the most important part as far as I’m concerned.

It seems to be saying that they realized they goofed up bigtime when they locked the best gear in the game behind a dungeon grind and they’re not going to leave it that way.

No ETA on when we can expect a fix, sadly.

You’ve got to admit, the way their statements are analyzed and picked apart, it’s not surprising their responses become cautiously guarded.

No, I’m not surprised. But it makes it a pain in the neck to read.

At least they seem to know something the vast majority of other MMO devs never have learned: Locking your best gear away in dungeons/raids is a dumb idea. Good for them! Wish more devs would realize that.

Shadow Blade.1324:

In regard to gated content via gear then i think that this is something we are going to give more thought to. Specifically if the reward at the end of the activity applies to players that are not just looking to do a specific type of content. Note that this statement is somewhat contradictory to the philosophy laid out above if the required items do not drop elsewhere or the ultimate rewards don’t either. This is something we are going to fix.

Sigh. Does this guy have a law degree? He sure talks like it.

Okay, so I quoted the above bit since it’s the most important part as far as I’m concerned.

It seems to be saying that they realized they goofed up bigtime when they locked the best gear in the game behind a dungeon grind and they’re not going to leave it that way.

No ETA on when we can expect a fix, sadly.

ThiBash.5634:

While it’s still easier to point the finger and blame than to accept the upcoming plans with gear, I must admit that overall, I’m reasonably satisfied.

Yes, there will be new gear coming out all the time. Yes, it will have better stats and yes, we will have to keep playing to keep up.

But also, it will be relatively easy to get. No more endless fractal grinding. We will again be able to play the game the way we like and come across ascended gear while we play.

Even if grinds are relative, I hope it won’t be that much harder to get compared to current exotics. Because enough is enough.

Like I said, it’s easy to start arguing again but for now, I’m a bit more at ease than I used to be.

This is what they seem to be saying. I hope they actually mean it. I will wait and see. No sub fee means it won’t cost me a dime to find out.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I’m fairly sure he won’t answer my question:

“Will the new gear be able to be made with crafting and/or karma vender and if so when?”

But this is the only question that will decide if I am playing this game for long or if I will just log in once a year to see what is new.

Agreed. They should really answer this, even if they can only give an estimate on the time. And from now on they should never release new stat gear to just one type of player

Even though I still think the reaction on the forums would be hysterical if the next gear was released as WvW only for a short period.

My brain will have to fend off the mind controlling dev aliens without help, I didn’t have enough tinfoil to make a hat. I got the important bit covered, though. My wallet is all nice and shiny and will stay that way until I’m convinced this game won’t become a Korean cash shop grinder after all.

(In the interest of fairness and global harmony, I could equally well have said Russian cash shop grinder, given Allods reputation, but the Koreans, bless their little hearts, seem to have gotten the idea first.)

Lothair.8942:

Hi Joiry,

Really interesting question. Our intention is to deploy ascended components and gear across the whole of the game rather than focus it in one particular location. This was a a mistake and one that we will not be making moving forward. We do hope to find a balance and ensure that the world of Guild Wars 2 is as accessible and populated as possible and moving forward you will be able to see how we intend to execute on this goal.

I think with the support of the community we can continue building a world that does satisfy lots of different types of players in a fashion where everyone feels part of the same community and whose activities impact and interplay with those of differing player types.

This is somewhat encouraging, but only if I’m optimistic enough to believe they mean it when they say they realize doing it this way was a mistake.

If they do really understand it was a mistake then from now on the gear will always be released in such a way that WvW players, crafters, and open world PVE players can all earn it in approximately the same amount of time played and also at the same time. No more, here it is for the dungeon runners, everyone else will have to wait.

But if they don’t understand, they might use the order in which the gear becomes available to different play styles to funnel players into specific areas, activities, or worst of all, gem store purchases. For example, by always giving the dungeon runners first access. So hopefully they really realize why this was a mistake and that it wasn’t just an access mistake but a preferential treatment of a certain playerbase mistake as well.

They should make WvW like sPvP, equal gear, all skills available at level 1. Or just equal gear if people are happy leveling in WvW (I was a happy WvW leveler even though I often lost 1v1 fights, but only because I knew that once I hit 80 I’d quickly have on par gear.)

tkalamba.2541:

Corvindi.5734:

moirweyn.9872:

Two things:
2) PvP is not affected by this (WvW does not use PvP rules, it follows PvE rules)

Doesn’t mean it’s not player versus player. It is. Which means player stats affect the outcome.

Individual player stats will not affect the outcome of WvW. Overall server cohesion, tactics and leadership will. The reason any of the top servers in T1/T2 are there is because they fight as a team, now how to take advantage of situations, and communicate really well. We use a server wide TS for SoR where all the guilds can jump in and communicate with each other. We barely have infighting, and we work well together, be it in a zerg, or small roaming parties. I can guarantee you a majority of our server still doesn’t have 100% exotics, and some of our more prominent leaders, including many in my guild aren’t even worrying about the ascended gear. I have one piece, Koss on Koss, and you know what? Not even worth the cost. The stat increase is so minimal, it barely changes a thing.

Bullcrap. I’ve fought 1v1 or 5v5 many times in WvW. Stats matter. No, they probably won’t decide the weekly score, but that isn’t the important part of WvW anyway. The important part is the experience of each player. And my experience in past MMOs that allowed gear to matter in PvP tells me not to bother with WvW anymore unless I choose to grind out that gear.

They should have made WvW like sPvP from the get go, actually, it was dumb of them not to, especially if they knew at the time that more gear might get added on top of Exotics.

moirweyn.9872:

Two things:
2) PvP is not affected by this (WvW does not use PvP rules, it follows PvE rules)

Doesn’t mean it’s not player versus player. It is. Which means player stats affect the outcome.

You can say that PvP is not affected all day long, it doesn’t make it so. PvP is always affected by stats and WvW is a form of PvP.

Actually I don’t so much mind new gear with new stats as I mind that there is currently only one way to get that gear (yet the gear still affects WvW). I also very much object to the fact that the gear grind can be shortened by spending real money to purchase some of the mats. Gamers should not encourage pay to skip necessary grind as a revenue source!

They knew perfectly well this would screw over non-dungeon hamsters but they did it anyway because they also knew the hamsters would want their shiny new stat increases to affect other parts of the game.

They also knew a lot of people would have shrugged and not bothered with the grind if the gear didn’t affect gameplay outside dungeons, and they wanted a max number of people to grind because hey, guess what, there is a gems for gold tie in, you can shorten your grind by purchasing gold with gems and then buying the mats.

They’re not stupid, just greedy and shortsighted.

So gamers, you know how to stop this sort of behavior in the future from developers, don’t you? Please say you do!

That’s a shame, Dervish was my favorite GW1 profession, too. As for the human gods, they could always go on a proselytizing streak and find converts among the heathen races of Tyria. Wouldn’t be difficult, who wouldn’t convert to a new religion that offered awesome smiting powers and a nifty scythe to swing?

I just don’t get why they didn’t create another playable race or two and another profession or two while they were working on the game, then turn one loose every three or four months to make money. I would have thrown my life savings at them for content like that. Of course I do keep my life savings in a large change jar by my desk, but it adds up to a decent amount.

Am I the only one who would have been happy with something like that? Would the forums be filled with howls of rage if, for example, the Skritt were playable for $40 a few months after release? Or if we could buy the Dervish profession? (Whirly-gig Warriors and Thieves are nice and all, but I really want to play a GW2 Dervish, kitten it!).

Is there any more annoying way on this earth to extort cash from gamers than to force them to choose between forking over more money or grinding until they keel over dead like some poor gold farmer in an internet cafe?

Yep. I want nothing to do with that grind. Unfortunately, since it affects WvW which I did enjoy very much, I’m also forced to ignore any future desire to pull out my wallet and make further purchases of character and bank slots, since not only am I annoyed about that, I also know I won’t be playing much longer because of it.

Ty. Feel free to steal.

I was already doing that anyway. The lower levels are far more enjoyable and less grindy than the rest, not to mention cheaper waypoint costs and usually more people to do the DEs with.

It definitely feels grindier without a bot DE train to follow around while leveling my many alts. Of course, the smarter solution would be to raise droprates and scale the difficulty properly, not invite the botters back.

I was sold on the whole go out in the open world and play with other people without having to stop and form a team. I always hated stopping to form a team for many reasons, not least because I find it awkward. I was and am very annoyed that better loot is tied to teaming, at least in WvW and some areas in PVE. It’s like they advertised this great feature, then went back to the old, stupid way of doing it. I’ll never understand that.

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

Corvindi.5734:

plasmacutter.2709:

Corvindi.5734:

Since Ascended gear will create the standard WoW-style haves and have-nots and worse, will put those who don’t have it at a disadvantage in WvW, I’m against it for the same reason I’m against corporate and military power being used to oppress the poor and powerless.

Although I’m less concerned about Ascended gear than I am about real world bully tactics, since I’m %99 positive no one is going to actually die from Ascended. Unless, of course, someone really does try to farm up all those mats. Hopefully no stories of people found dead in their chairs with the GW2 loading screen on their monitors will surface.

We need a hitler video where he raves about ascended…

I still think the bigger issue is the following combination:
Ascended + high FOTM challenge levels + FOTM gating = lots of people feeling compelled to do something they don’t want (emptying the rest of the world and making for VERY testy players), and the FotM gating mechanism preventing people trying to group for it from gaining optimal outcomes for each person.

I dare say the fact Ascended is not available through every means like exotic is a much greater problem than the simple presence of Ascended, as gear seems to be a much smaller factor in this game than others.

How do I put this delicately? Gamers are stupid sometimes. Why should we feel compelled to chase this gear at all? It clearly isn’t fun to get, so I’m not going to try to get it. Nor will I try to compete against it in WvW or for teams in PVE. I’m just going to wander solo until I find something better to do.

I am not a hamster, after all, and I will not act like one. I wish other people would stop acting like hamsters, too, maybe then finally we can get a decent MMO that doesn’t treat us like hamsters.

That’s the thing: this MMO treats you like a hamster for as long as you think of yourself as one.

Keeping up with the Hamsters requires acting like a Hamster. As soon as Ascended was announced, I knew I was done with WvW and would avoid grouping in PVE even more than I already did. But I wouldn’t have had to lose my favorite part of the game (WvW) and become even more antisocial if everyone else refused to be a hamster, too, because then they never would have dared put this gear in.

plasmacutter.2709:

Corvindi.5734:

Since Ascended gear will create the standard WoW-style haves and have-nots and worse, will put those who don’t have it at a disadvantage in WvW, I’m against it for the same reason I’m against corporate and military power being used to oppress the poor and powerless.

Although I’m less concerned about Ascended gear than I am about real world bully tactics, since I’m %99 positive no one is going to actually die from Ascended. Unless, of course, someone really does try to farm up all those mats. Hopefully no stories of people found dead in their chairs with the GW2 loading screen on their monitors will surface.

We need a hitler video where he raves about ascended…

I still think the bigger issue is the following combination:
Ascended + high FOTM challenge levels + FOTM gating = lots of people feeling compelled to do something they don’t want (emptying the rest of the world and making for VERY testy players), and the FotM gating mechanism preventing people trying to group for it from gaining optimal outcomes for each person.

I dare say the fact Ascended is not available through every means like exotic is a much greater problem than the simple presence of Ascended, as gear seems to be a much smaller factor in this game than others.

How do I put this delicately? Gamers are stupid sometimes. Why should we feel compelled to chase this gear at all? It clearly isn’t fun to get, so I’m not going to try to get it. Nor will I try to compete against it in WvW or for teams in PVE. I’m just going to wander solo until I find something better to do.

I am not a hamster, after all, and I will not act like one. I wish other people would stop acting like hamsters, too, maybe then finally we can get a decent MMO that doesn’t treat us like hamsters.

Since Ascended gear will create the standard WoW-style haves and have-nots and worse, will put those who don’t have it at a disadvantage in WvW, I’m against it for the same reason I’m against corporate and military power being used to oppress the poor and powerless.

Although I’m less concerned about Ascended gear than I am about real world bully tactics, since I’m %99 positive no one is going to actually die from Ascended. Unless, of course, someone really does try to farm up all those mats. Hopefully no stories of people found dead in their chairs with the GW2 loading screen on their monitors will surface.

This thread will be closed like the last one on these vanishing players, I suppose. Makes sense, though, if you fear being reported by players as a bot, what can you do? Figure out how to be invisible the vast majority of the time.

What I don’t understand is, if they can pull off this trick, why can’t they be invisible %100 of the time?

I filled out the write-in ‘other’ options on the survey monkey questionnaire, was that the one you guys are referencing? I made it very clear how I felt. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll tell everyone how many of us did that and what we wrote, either, does it?