Guild Wars 2

Don’t know what’s worse: the writing or the voice acting.

Scrambles.2604:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

This game isn’t about fun though. Just look at how these people fight against fun features just because they are in another game they hate or because they might be momentarily inconvienced by a duel request or by having to tick a decline box.

hahaha. Yeah, how much gold/hr do you get from dueling? eh? filthy casual!

Oh well. Due to the in game fun police, I just work my job a little longer and buy all the gold I need. Those other games have things like cool loot, rewarding content, and friendly pvp dueling and we all know that GW2 is not like all those other MMOs. They do things differently!

This game isn’t about fun though. Just look at how these people fight against fun features just because they are in another game they hate or because they might be momentarily inconvienced by a duel request or by having to tick a decline box.

This all reduces to “someone might be mean to me on the internet so no open world PvE duels”. I wonder if they should remove champ trains because someone might be mean and kill one out of order? Sound like a good reason to not have them in game at all?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Scrambles.2604:

It’s not about seeing the good in people. I will acknowledge that games with duels have people that use it to harass. They also don’t have auto-decline. GW2 doesn’t have duels yet we still see tons of harassment.

The ways i have advocated for duels to be introduced would make it so you wouldn’t be harassed in game any more than you normally are.

Instead, i have to deal with fear mongering and hyperbole and the idea that someone will pick you out, for no reason, and follow you around until you duel. Can it happen? Sure. Will it happen? No, not outside of the fantasy scenarios described in these threads.

The issue here is that I don’t have faith in it being implemented in such a way. Keep in mind that they built features into the lfg tool to keep people from griefing there too and it only works to a point.

As for the ‘fantasy’ scenario you mentioned, I had that happen to me in WoW several times actually. Norgannon was my main server (a pve server, dueling is off by default), I forget what the other server was that I played on. It’s been a while. It’s not as uncommon as some people like to think. Some people really are just kittens…

Oh really? That’s never happened to me after years of playing because I have auto-decline option set and I promptly blocked the one person during that time who couldn’t take no for answer. All in all, problem solved in 30 seconds.

Beldin.5498:

Scrambles.2604:

Yeah, the interface is a big one i forgot. I’m sure the inflexible and obstructive UI as well as the targeting have driven people away. That’s the only thing i miss from WoW is the “blizzard polish.” Say what you want about blizzard games, but you would have a hard time arguing they are not the most polished games out there.

I just tried WoW once for a day .. and the UI from WoW was one of the worst i ever saw.
Especially have i never seen a map before that was soo inaccurate. Run to point on map and you land 500 feet away from where you really should have gone.

Blatant dishonesty right there. I doubt you even played or tinkered much with the UI at all.

Astralporing.1957:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

LOL dueling can be implemented in such a way that it will have zero impact on people who will never want to duel.

It already is. It’s called “custom arenas”. But, you have to be willing to use the tools given to you.

Oh a gem shop item for what should be in game basic functionality. That’s typical of this game and it’s not open world dueling which is what we’re talking about.

LOL dueling can be implemented in such a way that it will have zero impact on people who will never want to duel. But, you have to be willing to use the tools given to you, which strangely, a lot of the anti-fun people are unwilling to do. It will probably be contained to a few areas outside of cities anyway. And those people would have every right to be there.

Ionut.2307:

There is no arguing with the white knights is it?
They’ve been running around in circles for months doing champ trains all this time screaming " NO Grind! Just optional"
From all that dizziness I guess they started believing it too.
Kudos to Anet though. The cosmetic illusion is a brilliant one. Fooling so many people into believing that no power gain means no grind.
Yet most of the players do tedious stuff every day for gold, while Anet is nerfing, time locking and deleting every source of income. Cuz gems, right.
This isn’t even amusing anymore, it’s tragic.

They sure managed to capitalize on the tendiness of bashing WoW and related “traditional” MMOs, didn’t they?

Especially hilarious, because WoW is implementing more stuff from GW2’s “manifesto” then GW2 itself. I log onto WoW and I have plenty of fun stuff to do. I log into GW2, frown at my daily chore list, sit around for 20 minutes and then log off. Nothing really gets my attention enough to care.

serialkicker.5274:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Stefanos.1673:

production qualities

-poorly optimization engine,

-poor class balance (heyo bunker condi spammers i in pvp)

-broken pve (just stack and dps)

-lack of features (no dueling in 2014 you f. kidding me? Also where is GvG in so called “guild wars”? I can continue but its pointless.)

-1 pvp mode, and on top of that the most boring ever

-no updates at all (i won’t call a temp contest a update which i don’t even have access to after 2 weeks.)

-no build varienty

-tons of useless skills/traits

-huge grind in “no grind game” even koreans (decent) mmos arent that grindy.

-stretched armors on charr/asura with tons of clipping issues, which are ignored to THIS day.

And everyday its getting worse and worse. Im sorry, what you said? Quality?

Sad, but true. A lot of stuff is getting ignored for way too long now…

Awesome post.

But I think it’s ignored because this game revolves around buying skins in the cash shop and cosplaying with your friends in major cities. Truly for casual players as there is no PvE challenge here and the e-sport PvP is a joke.

One would think that you’d have to do some grand questline and travel all over the world for your legendary…But no, you have to grind and play an economic simulator. It’s really quite sad.

But in a game where “everyone wins” we can’t have people with items which show differentiation by skill and/or ability. Everyone is equally miserable and everyone is equally subjected to the most terrible of grinds.

naiasonod.9265:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I spend probably 4-5 hours a week raiding. 13 weeks without anything is an anomaly and I have a difficult time believing this claim.

Still, raiding is more entertaining that sitting at a crafting station in GW2 and by far, raiding is not the only end game activity.

Yeah yeah yeah. You don’t spend 4-5 hours a week getting to the raids though. I mean, I only spend a couple hours at work doing my job, but you’ll never get my job without six years of college at the minimum.

My job’s easy. I only spend maybe 3-4 hours a day doing it. Ignore everything that surrounds a cherry picked point and you can make it look pretty much however you care to present it though.

In this case, the grind in GW2 is almost purely elective. Cosmetic-oriented, not function gated.

Nobody has to drive themselves halfway insane in GW2 to get to have very nice gear, ya? I worked up crafting all by myself, and I crafted exotics all by myself. Consequently, I’ve got the second best gear in the game, and I didn’t have to join anyone’s cult to do it.

I’ll eventually have all the ascended armor, and I won’t have to drink anybody’s quirky Kool-Aid to get that here either. I’ll just need to go play the game.

Its a pretty huge difference from what it takes to have second best or BiS in WoW. If you raid, that should be kind’ve obvious.

In any event, I’m not saying GW2 has no grind. I’m saying that its a very different animal, and the grind here doesn’t at all seem to me to be nearly so forced if you want to function.

Also, 13 weeks of no gear for my buddy prior mentioned was due in part to our insane guild leaders, not strictly rng. When RNG isn’t being very nice and crazy guild leaders stick you at the bottom of the list of gear recipients because of reasons, going 13 weeks with nothing isn’t some sort of implausible. The poor guy had to get his locks t16 shoulders and trinket out of LFR because of it.

Maybe your experiences have been different. Honestly, I’d hope so.

It only took me a day to get enough gear for my fresh 90, and I was already raiding the latest content using the raid finder. Honestly, I don’t get why people who hate raiding play WoW since such a large part of the game revolves around it.

I enjoy raiding, and I do flex/normal raiding with my guild, who I’ve known for a couple years. It’s fun and it’s not much of a time commitment. Perhaps your friend should find sane people and a better guild to play with?

Heroic reading gear isn’t important to me. I have no interest in heroic raids and the gear is really just a status symbol. It’s nerfed in PvP and worse than dedicated PvP gear in PvP scenarios. Ascended gear in this game, however, is not nerfed in WvW. It provides a 10-15% damage increase and it’s tied to a long, boring, expensive grind.

I spend probably 4-5 hours a week raiding. 13 weeks without anything is an anomaly and I have a difficult time believing this claim.

Still, raiding is more entertaining that sitting at a crafting station in GW2 and by far, raiding is not the only end game activity.

So why are mounts a bad idea? Because some other games have them and ANet wants to be “unique”? Or are there better reasons?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

It’ll be yet another tier. Above ascended and higher stats, despite whatever they’re saying now.

What other inside news have you got for us?

I remember whey they said that there wouldn’t be a tier with higher stats above exotics.

It’ll be yet another tier. Above ascended and higher stats, despite whatever they’re saying now.

I’m not going to bother arguing with people who claim that a 10-15% damage increase is “irrelevant”.

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Your original point was it is required for one to remain competitive.

You have yet to back that up or even say where that is the case, all you are basically saying so far is it’s a grind because you choose to make it one for marginal stat increases, and yes 10% is marginal even without comparing the cost/gain which is less drastic cost wise with exotics and below.

Um, it’s pretty simple. If I want to remain competitive, and be the best I could be, I have to have max stats in WvW. I have to have max stats in PvE as well, because I’m one of those people who actually CARE about doing very well, and I hate dragging the team down.

Like I said, other people can special snowflake it all they want, but don’t go calling me “bad” or my gear a “crutch” just because I enjoy improving my character.

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

I’m still waiting for you to show me where this competition that ascended makes any real difference in is.

I prefer to to optimize my own characters to the best of my abilities. Sorry that’s so difficult for you to understand.

Some people prefer to run around in all greens with their special snowflake builds. All the power to them. But let’s not pretend that there is no difference between the snowflake and the optimal.

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Sounds like someone that feels they need to rely on marginal stat increases to me.

Also, I assume you’re talking WvW, since there is nothing competitive in PVE at all and sPVP (the only real competition) has no ascended tier.

WvW just amounts to blob vs blob, in which your individual gear is meaningless. Unless we’re talking roaming which I guess if you have very low standards for competition you can call it that, which even then gear beyond exotic means very little and roaming itself contributes fairly little.

The only place ascended matters is fractals, and that’s only because it can be infused. However, there’s again nothing competitive about PVE content so I’d assume you’re not talking about fractals either.

Why wouldn’t I want the highest stats? Higher is better.

But I forgot that I’m on the GW2 forums where stats don’t matter even though all the gear has stats on it and everyone is in at least exotics (why not settle with greens if it doesn’t matter?). A place where a 10% increase in damage between tiers is “irrelevant”. It’s really quite laughable.

Celestina.2894:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

If you suck, yeah.

Course even then you’ll still suck and get walked right over. You’ll just be slightly fancier loot bag.

Or I’m good and now I’ll be even better with top gear. I wouldn’t want non optimized players anywhere near my team because they are unwilling to put in the effort for their own and the team’s benefit.

Male character models are typically an afterthought is most MMOs.

The Pointless.3869:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

No, you don’t. Nobody genuinely knows or cares what your armour is unless you’re constantly faceplanting Arah story in nothing but your undies or something silly. Nobody is currently demanding that teammates ping their armour before pressing on with a dungeon, or WvW or any other part of the game.

Well, I prefer to maximize my effectiveness in WvW and refuse to be at a stat disadvantage against other players, so ascended is a must. If you don’t think gear matters, feel free to throw on some greens and do the content because gear doesn’t matter right?

You need full ascended in order to be competitive in this game. It is a horrible, expensive grind. Just wait until you see legendary armor!

There are points between “Scarlet LS” and “masterwork literature” on the quality spectrum. I don’t think anyone is expecting master level storytelling in an MMO, but if I’m going to spend money I expect something better than Scarlet, which basically devolved into this:

Agreed. A lot of the writing is so cringe worthy that it makes me not want to play. And don’t get me started on the voice acting…

Don’t hold your breath, OP. They didn’t give me a refund after they got me with deceptive advertising.

Phy.2913:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

People like the half hour’s worth of poorly written content that gets released every two weeks? Go figure.

It’s interesting that half the forum complains about how short the LS usually is, and the other half complains that 2 weeks isn’t long enough.

Not long enough to grind out the achievements you mean. The fresh content added every LS cycle is minimal at best. Wasn’t one cycle like a 60 second conversation between two NPCs?

People like the half hour’s worth of poorly written content that gets released every two weeks? Go figure.

Welcome to MegaService Inc. LOL

Because this is a very casual game centered around easy PvE and cosplaying with your friends in major cities.

You won’t find PvE challenge in GW2 unless you solo dungeons or something.

This is a casual game where you stand around in major cities and cosplay with your friends or run around with zerglings in WvW. Meaning, this is not the place for challenging PvE.

Let people relax and have fun, okay?

More gem shop content.

How long to get through the LS once? People are saying a week to do all the content, but are you counting achievements as content?

lordkrall.7241:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Some people enjoy raiding. And it beats the 20 minutes of fluff content released by ANet on a biweekly basis, which is quickly taken away.

Do you really want more LS, OP? Even though it’s so disappointing and banal?

Isn’kitten bit ironic that you claim that those people are allowed to enjoy raiding but in the same post seems to imply that no one can enjoy the LS?

I just don’t see what there is to enjoy about LS? Wasn’t one of the LS story arcs like a 5 minute conversation between two characters?

Chase.8415:

Azure Prower.8701:

Chase.8415:

Meanwhile in other Major MMOs people are visiting community websites everyday to read up on possible information on a patch that will come several months from now.

Guild Wars 2 people are simply spoiled.

Or maybe when other MMOs release some thing. It is actually some thing substantial.

You mean like another raid tier where it erases all of your progress from the previous patch and you have to start the grind all over again?

Some people enjoy raiding. And it beats the 20 minutes of fluff content released by ANet on a biweekly basis, which is quickly taken away.

Do you really want more LS, OP? Even though it’s so disappointing and banal?

Yup, there are plenty of better things on the horizon. ANet had 18 months to fix things after adding the ascended nonsense. Instead, they made it worse and worse and worse.

It’s really not worth it unless you like grindy, zergy, shallow and ultimately unrewarding content that strongly nudges you towards spending real money on gems to convert to gold.

They even put a “buy now” button on the new wardrobe, because you need to buy charges in order to change the look of your gear.

Seems to be the ANet trend: getting worse. Can’t we have an update where they don’t ruin something?

Nage.1520:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

They have my hundreds of dollars and performed a bait and switch with the game. Advertisement was misleading so you bet I’m going to complain and I don’t have to be particularly nice about it either.

Just to correct you on this, here’s the actual definition of bait and switch (in this case taken from Wikipedia, but I know it to be right).

“Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, customers are “baited” by merchants’ advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher priced items (“switching”)."

In order for this to be bait and switch you would have to have one product advertised and, and then not be able to buy that item and instead be sold a different item.

I believe the word you’re looking for is false advertisement, where someone advertises something, and then delivers something different than they advertised.

The problem in this case is that Anet gave refunds to people up to six months after they made the ascended gear change and if you were unhappy, you were entitled to get a refund at least for the money spent on the game. You chose not to do that.

In which case, no court in the world would say that the company deliberately misled you.

Instead of getting the refund and moving on, you continue to come to these forums and bash a game that you don’t like that other people like just fine.

You should have just gotten your refund and drawn a line under it.

I left two months after release and by the time I came back to see what’s changed, it was too late.

They have my hundreds of dollars and performed a bait and switch with the game. Advertisement was misleading so you bet I’m going to complain and I don’t have to be particularly nice about it either.

So I can spend days grinding the gold necessary for the gems, OR I can work a fraction of an hour and just buy the gems. I know what ANet and I would do. LOL

Not that I’m particularly a fan of Rift, but their cash shop is more fair than the ANet one. This is getting ridiculous, but it’s a risk with the F2P model.

Spend them on the basics. Ya know, the stuff that should be included without having to spend anything. Bag slots and bank space.

Awbee.8405:

nGumball.1283:

People reach 80 without udnerstanding anything in the game, perhaps introducing stuff step by step is a solution and while you may see it as grind, others may see it as challenging where you need to have a harder time, putting more effort into choosing ur weapons and skills for a better outcome.

We all started playing the game not very long ago. It’s only been 1,5 years. I remember the beta weekends as if they were just last week. I do not remember ever struggling to understand the concept of traits, or how they work. I do not remember ever being irritated or confused by the “abundance of choice”.

I remember being very pleasantly surprised by the choice and variety in the trait system, and very very pleasantly surprised about the fact that I got to spend a trait point every level. I used to be able to do that in WoW, until they botched their talent system too.

As for new players, most of them don’t seem to like it, if this thread and complaints in map chat are any indication. But then again, these are Western players, of course they’re not going to like an increase in boring grind. They’re likely not the target audience here.

nGumball.1283:

PS. My bad, didn’t notice the ’’trait’’ not ‘’trait-points’’ reference. Sorry.

S’alright. It’s confusing. They turned an easy to understand (1 trait point every level, new trait every 5 levels, gradual progression from level 11 on) system into a very complicated one, that at the same time manages to be more boring and unrewarding. Quite the feat.

How did WoW ruin its talent system? How was getting +2% to damage per point interesting? What they did was bake in all of those stat and damage increases into a specialization you pick at level 10. Talent points are every 15 levels but you still unlock class skills as you level. You don’t get situations where you have to grind for 30 levels without getting anything.

Compared to this, GW2’s system seems poorly thought out and incomplete.

Nerelith.7360:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

’Nother nail in the coffin it seems. Can you buy skill points in the gem shop yet?

Knowing Anet, they will use this to their advantage to sell Skill Unlock Packs in the Gem Store…..

I was wary when I bought Guild Wars 2 because it generates revenue purely with the cash shop and it turns out my suspicions were correct. This is what you get with B2P and I will never make this mistake again.

Everyone knows you Love WoW, and WoW clones. You never liked Gw2, this is not news. Why you would buy this game to begin with is the only thing I am intrigued by…. maybe Not enough homework to realize " Not the game for me"?

Liked it just fine the first two months after release.

blakdoxa.7520:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

30 levels with no traits after unlocking all of your weapon skills by level 2? LOL, please…What were these people thinking? (Protip: Buy level 20 scrolls).

Lol when will those be in the gem shop…

Soon, I’m sure. They’ll let people be super annoyed for a week or two first.

Never forget the first rule of acquisition: Once you have their money, you never give it back.

30 levels with no traits after unlocking all of your weapon skills by level 2? LOL, please…What were these people thinking? (Protip: Buy level 20 scrolls).

Asmodeus.5782:

How can I believe that they will fix all the fukkups, if they could not even test Fire Elemental for large amounts of people? The zerg kills the poor thing in 30-60 seconds. And there will ALWAYS be zerg there, so one of the few remaning fun world bosses just ceased to exist.

They did not care to test this at all. They won’t care to fix it. Maybe NC needs more people at Wildstar, dunno. GW2 is being slaughtered, that’s for sure.

I wanted to try Wildstar but after seeing what happened with GW2, I hesitate to try any game that has an NCSoft label.