Guild Wars 2

You’d be better off pushing for a higher overclock.

Yes, in that they highlight the fact that running a loop and killing the same 4-5 champs for hours on end is the most rewarding activity this game has to offer.

People run these champ trains because it’s the most rewarding thing there is currently. Running in a loop, over and over and over again, killing the same 4-5 champs for hours on end.

Think about it…THIS is the most rewarding in game at the moment. Kind of depressing, no?

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Way too many problems with the Personal Story line. I think it’s the first 20 quests are race related. Somehow changing all that with a race change ticket would be a ton of work.

I’m not apologizing for Anet here, just being realistic.

Who cares about the personal story?

moiraine.2753:

Yea there are quite a ’’few’’ changes

• Fractals of the Mists
• Tequatl Revamped and new World boss add(They need coordination unlike the rest of the World bosses.You can’t just zerg them).I finally started raiding again.I found a raiding guild and now every day i raid with it.Before this update i was really missing the raiding aspect.
• New WvW map is added you should throw it a look.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Cash shop is end game. Everything else is so frustrating or unrewarding that it’s simpler to buy what you want.

Don’t listen to him.The gem shop has only fluffy stuff in it.

And gold.

WinteryRob.6789:

My girlfriend and I decided to play Guild Wars 2 again, we never got very far beyond maybe level 15 at the time. But as I’m updating, I thought I’d ask if any kind of significant changes have happened since then. Anything worthy of note?

Cash shop is end game. Everything else is so frustrating or unrewarding that it’s simpler to buy what you want.

Just be warned that you’ll have to pay at least $20 to transfer to the most populated servers.

The fact that end game is the cash shop.

It is literally not worth doing anything in game, because the activities are SO unrewarding, that your frustration will eventually force you into the cash shop (if not out of the game entirely). It is literally worth your time and sanity to drop some cash and BUY what you want.

We’ve all read about the people who’ve played for thousands of hours without a precursor drop or an ascended drop. I’ve played around 700 hours without a single EXOTIC drop. And if you’re one of the few fortunate people that actually get an ascended drop, good luck getting the stat combinations you want because the boxes are a gigantic gamble as well.

Maybe if it’d be a little different if the game world was this amazing experience. Too bad it’s not. Dungeons are a joke, renowned hearts are just traditional quests disguised by the fact that they have NO story behind them. I guess people think it’s revolutionary and enjoy it, but I don’t. I’ve leveled several alts in WoW and I STILL enjoy leveling because I love the quests and lore. A zone gets an actual overarching story as well as several sub stories. And you know what? I can take several different paths while leveling so I don’t have to do the same ones all the time.

And dynamic events? Dead. World bosses? I have better things to do than sit around in a zone for an hour+ to avoid the dreaded overflow, only to have a very high chance of failure anyway.

Personal story? Terrible, with some of the worst voice acting I’ve ever experienced. I can’t believe I bought into the hype over this game.

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

how bad WoW cash-shop is. That one for example is not even close to as bad as GW2’s cash-shop. But that makes sense because they don’t need to generate there money with it.

And this is why its a matter of agree/disagree not right/wrong. I find WoW’s cash shop to be much worse than GW2’s.

If it’s bad or not yes. Not if it effects the game in different ways.

btw please explain why you think WoW’s cash-shop is worse? Only thing I see worse in a way is that you can only buy from it with real cash. But the way it effects the game is nearly non-existing while in GW2 that is huge.

1) WoW requires that I pay a sub fee. If I am paying an ongoing sub fee to support servers and fund future development I consider charging extra for cash shop items to be worse than a game that does not charge a sub fee but has a cash shop. Note that this does not mean that I find the sub plus cash shop to be some great evil that must be destroyed or anything, just that I find it to be “worse” than no sub plus cash shop.

2) GW2 allows one to trade time for currency to purchase cash shop items. I rather like the fact that my purchase of gems is somehow making the game better for someone else. I like the win/win/win (gold buyer, gem buyer, ANet) aspect of gem/gold conversion. In WoW if some kid doesn’t have the cash to buy the mount that would totally make the character for him….tough luck.

Now tell us what the gold->gem conversation rate is, and how much time it would take to, say, earn enough gold for an 800 gem item. And tell us what you would be doing if you weren’t grinding for that gold. Be honest.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

The difference is that WoWs cash shop is all fluff, while GW2’s cash shop sells real improvements, like bag slots and bank tabs.

Ultimately, these arguments devolve down to, “Which game do you like better,” where that game is perceived to be superior.

• On bag slots — WoW gives you four bag slots for “free.” So does GW2. GW2 allows you to exceed the 4 bag slots, WoW does not.
• On the bank — WoW allows you to buy bag slots in your bank, which cost gold. You can spend gold in GW2 to buy gems, to then buy bank tabs.

I’m not seeing a ton of difference, other than that I can have more bag slots in GW2.

I can have four extra bag slots for free and use 28 slot bags + the 16 slot starter bag. It’s more than enough because I don’t have junk overflowing from my bags like I did in GW2. I can also buy 7 bank slots for gold in addition to the starter 24 slot bank for less that fifty cents worth of gold.

Who converts gold to gems anymore? The conversion rate is terrible.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

The mounts in the WoW cash shop are purely cosmetic and do not offer a speed, or any other, advantage. Yes, they also sell minis but you forget that players are able to collect hundreds of pets in the open world.

Yes, and you forget there are hundreds of minis you can collect in Guild Wars 2 without spending a dime of real money on them. Most minis are less than a gold each on the trading post. Some minis are from achievements and special events. Some minis drop from mobs (Southsun Cove minis).

The difference is that WoWs cash shop is all fluff, while GW2’s cash shop sells real improvements, like bag slots and bank tabs.

WatchTheShow.7203:

MRA.4758:

I’d also encourage everybody to to have a careful look at what business model other subscription-bases games currently try to implement: First they sell you a full-prize game, then they demand a subscription for the privilege to keep playing a game you already bought (as is often claimed “to fund the ongoing development content”), and then let you pay a third time for this new content in the form of (traditional) add-ons or (modern) in-game shops.

TotalBiscuit had once rightfully claimed something along the lines: “If you are paying a subscription to essentially fund the extension and support of a game, then EVERYTHING developed has to be delivered free of charge as part of the service you are already paying for.” I think this observation is spot on, but the parts of the industry that want to enforce subscription fees are moving more and more in the opposite direction.

We as consumers should rather wish that subscription-based games will go the way of the dodo. The sooner, the better.

~MRA

Finally, someone else in this thread gets it! I was starting to abandon all hope. I want to give this guy a high five.

Pay for a game ($60), then pay monthly for it ($15), then pay for the expansion ($60), then pay monthly again ($15), then pay for the next expansion ($60), then pay monthly ($15). Wake up, this is WoW’s pay to play model folks. Yes, you do pay for the game initially, and the supposed monthly sub is to cover expansion costs? So then why are you paying for the expansion? Why isn’t it free? I can tell you why, because you all have “SUCKER” written on your foreheads. You’ve been had, and lied to. Blizzard knows it can get away with it, so they continue to do this. I guess all these monthly subscribers either don’t care, or have nothing better to do than throw their money at the screen all day.

Free to play games such as Mabinogi, Maple Story, and Vindictus (all run by Nexon) have aggressive cash shops with a lot of “pay to win” elements, yet their major expansions are all free. Interesting.

I just find it funny that the first thing many GW2 players cite as the reason for playing is the lack of a sub fee. You’d think they would mention the fun aspects or the “awesome” living story, but nope.

I really don’t get some of these arguments. I pay $8 a month for Netflix. So, am I “throwing my money away” if I don’t use the service 24/7? No, because I’m paying for a service and I understand what that entails. And that applies to sub MMOs as well.

Kind of confused as to why their “economist” couldn’t foresee this. Having the capability to buy gold ruins the game economy with ridiculous inflation. It’s why Blizzard cracks down on gold buyers/sellers.

The mounts in the WoW cash shop are purely cosmetic and do not offer a speed, or any other, advantage. Yes, they also sell minis but you forget that players are able to collect hundreds of pets in the open world.

Devata.6589:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Neural.1824:

The RNG and grind in GW2 is mind-numbing. NCSoft and Anet are obsessed with squeezing as much money out of the playerbase as possible in the shortest amount of time. The end result is a game that comes across as kitten in the “finished product” department, and a loot system and economy built soley on the push to get players to open their wallets. For the majority who fall on the “lose” side of the kitten RNG, everything is a grind. Want T6 mats? Grind gold to buy them. Want a special skin? Grind gold to buy it. Want a mini? Grind gold to buy it.
The entire game is focused on forcing people to grind for gold, and it is deliberately designed that way. They are creating a high pressure environment where the only thing that matters is gold, because psychologically it has been proven to bring in more real cash.
You know why we don’t have a large number of emotes/animations? Because they were seen as superfelous to the end goal of making money. They were additional development work that was seen as “no cash flow”. Same applies for fixing a number of QoL issues. The Monetization Lords see it as a waste of time because players aren’t leaving the game over it and it doesn’t bring in more money.
By design everything is forced into being an issue of gold. Diminishing Returns is not about bots, it never has been. It’s about limiting loot drops so that players need more gold to buy the items they want, because needing more gold is another pressure to open the wallet and just buy gold.
Then there’s the “urgency” pressure. They introduce gem and gold valued items that are only a round for a short period of time. “buy now, or miss out!”. People feel pressure to open their wallet to get that item they want. RNG plays a massive part in this. “Buy black lion keys with gems and you could get a Black Lion Claim Ticket!”. Anet is actively, and knowingly, feeding off of people who have money and don’t know they have a gambling addiction. It’s worse than gambling, in fact, because all the items are virtual and have no real value. So people are not even gambling real money to get a possible cash prize.
Every aspect of it works together to apply as much pressure as possible on the players to pay real money.

Yes, Anet needs to make money to stay in business. What they are doing however is abuse. It needs to stop.

I was going to post something but this blows anything I could write up out of the water.

Yeah that post from Neural and Dark Catalyst reaction on it pretty much sums it up all.

It’s why I dislike the focus on micro-transactions so much. I also made a thread about the focus on micro-transactions to basically say exactly this.

But some people seem to not want to see it.

What is really mind-numbing is when you go to the threads where they ask “how much money did you spend on gems”. People are there very proudly telling the spend hundred of dollars on gems.

Like it gives them any status (this is also what the prices are all about Anet gives to gem-buyers. Make them feel special) and how they are helping to support there game.

While they fail to see they they simply can’t handle money, monetize people are just using those sort of people (as milk cows) to get money out of there wallets and in fact they are not helping to support the game but helping to destroy it. Because without such people the game would not have been such a gem-store focus (as it would not work) what only could benefit the games quality.

Yeah. GW2 was my first, and last, “free to play” game because the cash shop left such a bad taste in my mouth. It’s why I prefer to just pay a sub and have access to everything instead if getting nickel and dimed on things like bag slots and bank tabs.

Honestly, I should’ve followed my intuition when I first started. I remember feeling disappointed when I found out you had to buy bag slots and with the way items pile up I quickly found myself hurting for space. I gave it a shot anyway, because hey! No sub.

Warrior. The class has it all, so why play anything else? It’s THAT good.

What if OP or someone else invested tons of time and money to get a berserker’s set of ascended gear? And now it’s nerfed. Fair?

It’s not like he can come up with another set of gear in a day or two.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Suddenflame.2601:

Neural.1824:

The RNG and grind in GW2 is mind-numbing. NCSoft and Anet are obsessed with squeezing as much money out of the playerbase as possible in the shortest amount of time. The end result is a game that comes across as kitten in the “finished product” department, and a loot system and economy built soley on the push to get players to open their wallets. For the majority who fall on the “lose” side of the kitten RNG, everything is a grind. Want T6 mats? Grind gold to buy them. Want a special skin? Grind gold to buy it. Want a mini? Grind gold to buy it.
The entire game is focused on forcing people to grind for gold, and it is deliberately designed that way. They are creating a high pressure environment where the only thing that matters is gold, because psychologically it has been proven to bring in more real cash.
You know why we don’t have a large number of emotes/animations? Because they were seen as superfelous to the end goal of making money. They were additional development work that was seen as “no cash flow”. Same applies for fixing a number of QoL issues. The Monetization Lords see it as a waste of time because players aren’t leaving the game over it and it doesn’t bring in more money.
By design everything is forced into being an issue of gold. Diminishing Returns is not about bots, it never has been. It’s about limiting loot drops so that players need more gold to buy the items they want, because needing more gold is another pressure to open the wallet and just buy gold.
Then there’s the “urgency” pressure. They introduce gem and gold valued items that are only a round for a short period of time. “buy now, or miss out!”. People feel pressure to open their wallet to get that item they want. RNG plays a massive part in this. “Buy black lion keys with gems and you could get a Black Lion Claim Ticket!”. Anet is actively, and knowingly, feeding off of people who have money and don’t know they have a gambling addiction. It’s worse than gambling, in fact, because all the items are virtual and have no real value. So people are not even gambling real money to get a possible cash prize.
Every aspect of it works together to apply as much pressure as possible on the players to pay real money.

Yes, Anet needs to make money to stay in business. What they are doing however is abuse. It needs to stop.

DR was introduced due to bots. I was playing back then. Not sure if you were, but there was a lot of bots back then. DR if your being hit with it you really need to rethink what your doing cause it doesn’t kick in for hours of you playing in place without logging out and switching zones. Also, you aware there is more and more games having RNG boxes. WoW from what i am aware is going to add them if they have not already. So do not think this is just Anet. It is only pressure if you allow it to be. If you allow it pressure you should go get checked out by a councilor or a therapist for an addiction issue.

As a few people pointed out they do not feel pressured but if you do then you have a problem that should seek professional help with it. I have missed dailies, LS, and other things without much of a care as I do not feel pressured to keep playing. If I was paying a subscription fee i would feel pressured to play to get my moneys worth. Since GW2 does not have you should not feel pressured.

I’m playing WoW right now and the closest thing I can think of is the Timeless Isle gear boxes, which are Ridiculously easy to get, very easy to control in terms of RNG drops through your loot specialisation, are account bound so you can send things you can’t use to characters who can, and are free.

Could you produce.. Some.. Kind of citation for that?

Just goes to show you that most of the people here who bring up WoW have no idea what they’re talking about.

I geared up a character in about a day or two and had enough additional pieces of timeless stuff to gear one or two more alts, should I choose to level some.

Neural.1824:

The RNG and grind in GW2 is mind-numbing. NCSoft and Anet are obsessed with squeezing as much money out of the playerbase as possible in the shortest amount of time. The end result is a game that comes across as kitten in the “finished product” department, and a loot system and economy built soley on the push to get players to open their wallets. For the majority who fall on the “lose” side of the kitten RNG, everything is a grind. Want T6 mats? Grind gold to buy them. Want a special skin? Grind gold to buy it. Want a mini? Grind gold to buy it.
The entire game is focused on forcing people to grind for gold, and it is deliberately designed that way. They are creating a high pressure environment where the only thing that matters is gold, because psychologically it has been proven to bring in more real cash.
You know why we don’t have a large number of emotes/animations? Because they were seen as superfelous to the end goal of making money. They were additional development work that was seen as “no cash flow”. Same applies for fixing a number of QoL issues. The Monetization Lords see it as a waste of time because players aren’t leaving the game over it and it doesn’t bring in more money.
By design everything is forced into being an issue of gold. Diminishing Returns is not about bots, it never has been. It’s about limiting loot drops so that players need more gold to buy the items they want, because needing more gold is another pressure to open the wallet and just buy gold.
Then there’s the “urgency” pressure. They introduce gem and gold valued items that are only a round for a short period of time. “buy now, or miss out!”. People feel pressure to open their wallet to get that item they want. RNG plays a massive part in this. “Buy black lion keys with gems and you could get a Black Lion Claim Ticket!”. Anet is actively, and knowingly, feeding off of people who have money and don’t know they have a gambling addiction. It’s worse than gambling, in fact, because all the items are virtual and have no real value. So people are not even gambling real money to get a possible cash prize.
Every aspect of it works together to apply as much pressure as possible on the players to pay real money.

Yes, Anet needs to make money to stay in business. What they are doing however is abuse. It needs to stop.

Well said. I didn’t see at first because I bought into the hype and blinded by the novelty of getting to play a new game. Everything was good the first month or two and then I slowly began to feel pressured. Pressured into dailies for laurels, pressured into logging on for the Living Story, and later pressured into grinding ascended because I wanted to stay on a level playing field with everyone else.

I couldn’t stand the grinding or the champ trains so I bought gold. And it was so easy because I could just buy whatever I wanted instead of doing atrociously mind numbing content. I caught myself and just stopped playing shortly after that because I realized what was going on. Say what you want about a game like WoW but I never felt pressured or nickel and dimed over basics like I do here.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Suddenflame.2601:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Well congratulations on starting an opinion based topic that anyone who’s played the game can easily see as ridiculous. MMOs are largely about the loot. You’ve asked a few times when trying to make you opinion sound like fact for someone to name a game that has less grind and better RNG than GW2, so I’ll answer…. World of Warcraft. I left WoW 3 years ago but I played it non stop from beta until I left. If you want something in WoW you can get it by killing mob X or by running dungeon Y until you get it, this goes for anything you want. In GW2 let’s say I try to farm lodestones, I may get 1 or 10 or none since its RNG, and until DR kicks in even though I may not have had even ONE drop. And there is no way to guarantee a precursor drop, I’ve never had one in all of my time in game, and I’ve played hard since beta.

So killing Mob X over and over is still RNG and no different from GW2 as the killing does not gurantee that desired result. Same with Dungeon Y. Both have RNG. So whats your point in stating it has the exact same type of RNG as GW2? There is no way to guarantee a drop from what you just said about WoW either since its still under RNG. Precursors as stated above are not set into a location due to their availability to everyone (expect PVP). Only difference between GW2 RNG and WoW RNG that you stated so far is WoW has rare items set to locations where as GW2 does not.

This means there is higher access to this object than in WoW. Since there is higher access to it they countered it by placing it under a lower value to keep its economic value higher. If it was guaranteed the weapon essentially would be worthless and common which in turn makes legendaries lower in value in comparison to other exotics that are harder to acquire.

Your response indicates that either you did not or cannot comprehend what I wrote, or that you have no experience with WoW, at all. You dare claim that resources are more accessible in this game than in that one? Very funny.

Par for the course. Most of the defenders have warped or flat out wrong ideas about WoW or just draw on their experiences from 5 years ago.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Suddenflame.2601:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Suddenflame.2601:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Suddenflame.2601:

maddoctor.2738:

ronpierce.2760:

You know whats better than skill OR gear? Skill AND gear. Also yes, it’s a team effort but you do know when 1 TEAM outgears another TEAM, the difference REALLY starts to add up… In a team environment the gear differences can make a BIGGER difference than 1v1, not smaller. A team of full ascended gear consisting of 2 support guardian, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer could kill probably 20 people in full exotics… (This isn’t an exaggeration)

Skill AND Gear > Skill of course
Your example works both ways, a team of 2 support guardians, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer all geared in greens, could kill 20 people in exotics. It’s the team strategy, combination of skills etc that will give them the extra edge. I know what you are saying, if both sides are equal in terms of skill, obviously the side with the most Ascended will win, but skill can’t be measured so easily.

A bad player is a bad player, even if he wears ascended. A good player is a good player even he wears greens (or maybe rares). The good player will always win.

very true argument. There is nothing more I can add to this one.

If the good player always wins and gear matters little, why are you grinding out the mats for ascended? Why not sell them and make a lot of money? Since you know, ascended doesn’t matter?

I already have enough money. Also like I said I am not grinding the materials. I am gathering them through normal gameplay.

Why?

For a person who doesn’t play you wouldn’t understand the reasoning. I don’t want the armour for cosmetic looks or for the stats. Lets see if you can piece together what kind of player I am using the information I have presented across all my posts. I do not play for loot.

Which still makes me wonder why you thought you were the right person to discuss the fairness/design of loot distribution in the first place… >_>:

Actually I am better at it cause I can look at it objectively rather then the subjective view point which is shared among carrot followers. I can sit back and look at how the loot system works, why its designed as it is, and the changes over time to cater to loot minded people. I take a less biased approach to the situation of the fairness and design of the loot as it has little to effect me.

If you want a biased opinion go look at the numerous forums which all complain without even looking at why the system is designed that way. I will admit to flaws in the system and not saying its perfect. What I am saying though is that it is not as bad as people are making it out to be.

The game is designed and advertised a certain way, but the loot minded players are forcing the developers to change the original design. The game was developed so that legendaries would take awhile to make but when people started focusing only on legendaries and none of the other content in the game that’s where the problems started developing.

If you want I can break down what occurred and possible reasons why things where developed as such including ascended.

As has been explained, it’s designed they way it is in order to “encourage” you to use the cash shop. Hmmm, do I want to covert gems to gold and buy silk or do I want to farm 250,000 of it? Such a tough choice!

Suddenflame.2601:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Suddenflame.2601:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Suddenflame.2601:

maddoctor.2738:

ronpierce.2760:

You know whats better than skill OR gear? Skill AND gear. Also yes, it’s a team effort but you do know when 1 TEAM outgears another TEAM, the difference REALLY starts to add up… In a team environment the gear differences can make a BIGGER difference than 1v1, not smaller. A team of full ascended gear consisting of 2 support guardian, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer could kill probably 20 people in full exotics… (This isn’t an exaggeration)

Skill AND Gear > Skill of course
Your example works both ways, a team of 2 support guardians, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer all geared in greens, could kill 20 people in exotics. It’s the team strategy, combination of skills etc that will give them the extra edge. I know what you are saying, if both sides are equal in terms of skill, obviously the side with the most Ascended will win, but skill can’t be measured so easily.

A bad player is a bad player, even if he wears ascended. A good player is a good player even he wears greens (or maybe rares). The good player will always win.

very true argument. There is nothing more I can add to this one.

If the good player always wins and gear matters little, why are you grinding out the mats for ascended? Why not sell them and make a lot of money? Since you know, ascended doesn’t matter?

I already have enough money. Also like I said I am not grinding the materials. I am gathering them through normal gameplay.

Why?

For a person who doesn’t play you wouldn’t understand the reasoning. I don’t want the armour for cosmetic looks or for the stats. Lets see if you can piece together what kind of player I am using the information I have presented across all my posts. I do not play for loot.

Well, at least it’s something “to do”, right?

ronpierce.2760:

I feel like the few of you defending the grind know you’re wrong. You’ve stopped arguing over how bad the grind is and now you’re just saying it’s not needed to do “okay”… That’s not the point and having to deal with year i differences does negatively effect the competitive goal Anet set. So… There’s that.

I think that in a way they like the long slog of a grind that GW2 set before them. I was pretty happy when exotics were the highest gear tier because I could gear myself in a day and in multiple sets and I had enough to do to keep me occupied. ANet wouldn’t have lost me as a player if they stuck to that model.

Suddenflame.2601:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Suddenflame.2601:

maddoctor.2738:

ronpierce.2760:

You know whats better than skill OR gear? Skill AND gear. Also yes, it’s a team effort but you do know when 1 TEAM outgears another TEAM, the difference REALLY starts to add up… In a team environment the gear differences can make a BIGGER difference than 1v1, not smaller. A team of full ascended gear consisting of 2 support guardian, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer could kill probably 20 people in full exotics… (This isn’t an exaggeration)

Skill AND Gear > Skill of course
Your example works both ways, a team of 2 support guardians, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer all geared in greens, could kill 20 people in exotics. It’s the team strategy, combination of skills etc that will give them the extra edge. I know what you are saying, if both sides are equal in terms of skill, obviously the side with the most Ascended will win, but skill can’t be measured so easily.

A bad player is a bad player, even if he wears ascended. A good player is a good player even he wears greens (or maybe rares). The good player will always win.

very true argument. There is nothing more I can add to this one.

If the good player always wins and gear matters little, why are you grinding out the mats for ascended? Why not sell them and make a lot of money? Since you know, ascended doesn’t matter?

I already have enough money. Also like I said I am not grinding the materials. I am gathering them through normal gameplay.

Why?

Suddenflame.2601:

maddoctor.2738:

ronpierce.2760:

You know whats better than skill OR gear? Skill AND gear. Also yes, it’s a team effort but you do know when 1 TEAM outgears another TEAM, the difference REALLY starts to add up… In a team environment the gear differences can make a BIGGER difference than 1v1, not smaller. A team of full ascended gear consisting of 2 support guardian, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer could kill probably 20 people in full exotics… (This isn’t an exaggeration)

Skill AND Gear > Skill of course
Your example works both ways, a team of 2 support guardians, a condi necro, hammer/longbow warrior, staff ele, and say an engineer all geared in greens, could kill 20 people in exotics. It’s the team strategy, combination of skills etc that will give them the extra edge. I know what you are saying, if both sides are equal in terms of skill, obviously the side with the most Ascended will win, but skill can’t be measured so easily.

A bad player is a bad player, even if he wears ascended. A good player is a good player even he wears greens (or maybe rares). The good player will always win.

very true argument. There is nothing more I can add to this one.

If the good player always wins and gear matters little, why are you grinding out the mats for ascended? Why not sell them and make a lot of money? Since you know, ascended doesn’t matter?

Suddenflame.2601:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

chemiclord.3978:

RNG and grind are two of those necessary evils in MMO games… they’re an easy way to make content repeatable, and content in an MMO pretty much has to be repeatable because there is no way a company can make content as fast as players can consume it.

I think players know that and understand that; the issue tends to be the degree and scale of RNG and grind.

I love farming and grinding. But you have to be able to OBTAIN these items, not farm gold to buy them because RNG is soooooo bad that there’s no other way… If I could go out and say have a 50% chance to get 1 (ONE) of the 250 (TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY) of a single PART of… ugh, you get the idea… If I could realistically farm these fragments, sure… But kitten buying them all… zzzz.

If you love farming and grinding I am going to wonder about you for a bit. Repeating the same process over and over is repetitive and boring no matter the rewards involved. If that is your fun is repeating the process just to obtain a reward I just got to wonder.

I am wondering so much I don’t know what to say but that is some carrot chasing. The only time I repeat the process is when I am trying to increase my skill at that task, such as jumping puzzles.

If I remember correctly there was a psychological test done on animals for this.

Farming can be relaxing but ONLY if it feels rewarding. How in the world are you going to “wonder about me” feeling okay with SOME level of grinding/farming, when you’re the one defending the grind in GW2, the same grind that I (someone who even CAN get behind grinding) feels is too much. Sounds like you need to be worrying about yourself… This ascended armor very much is a carrot chase. Once Legendary armor comes out, you’ll have another long run for the carrot. And guess what, it’ll be just as if not more grindy than this one. The problem isn’t that there Is a grind, its that it’s so much based on gold grinding and not farming the actual materials you need. They can’t up the drop rates because it would hurt the economy, thus yes. This game IS economy driven, and it is a very-very bad thing.

As I said before I don’t grind in this game cause there isn’t a need to grind. Your creating your own grind. Your trying to change the game to match your grinding gameplay which in the long run would hurt the core of the game. If you stop trying to force a grind into a game that does not want or need it than the game becomes fun. Why are you even trying to grind? Legendaries are a long term PvE goal as stated by Anet. The issue is that people are trying to force Long term goals into short-term time frames.

You need to grind out ascended (legendary armor soon!) if you want to be on a level playing field. That’s just a fact and no amount of pretending that statistical advantages don’t exist, will change that.

Statistical advantage exists but level playing field where exactly? PVE? no point being there as it is not competitive. WvW? Not meant to be balanced, and skill still matters more. I seen people with ascended armour and weapons, but they still get pawned. I will focus on gaining skill rather than getting a statistical advantage which in the terms of skill is not as useful. A skilled player will defeat an unskilled one even if at a statistical disadvantage.

Also, who the hell are you competing with? In WvW your not likely working alone and nor is the enemy.

And when you come across people at your skill level but with better gear? Of course no one is claiming that ascended will allow you to kill other players if your skill level is horrible. But you know what? If you’re average it sure as hell helps.

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

chemiclord.3978:

RNG and grind are two of those necessary evils in MMO games… they’re an easy way to make content repeatable, and content in an MMO pretty much has to be repeatable because there is no way a company can make content as fast as players can consume it.

I think players know that and understand that; the issue tends to be the degree and scale of RNG and grind.

I love farming and grinding. But you have to be able to OBTAIN these items, not farm gold to buy them because RNG is soooooo bad that there’s no other way… If I could go out and say have a 50% chance to get 1 (ONE) of the 250 (TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY) of a single PART of… ugh, you get the idea… If I could realistically farm these fragments, sure… But kitten buying them all… zzzz.

If you love farming and grinding I am going to wonder about you for a bit. Repeating the same process over and over is repetitive and boring no matter the rewards involved. If that is your fun is repeating the process just to obtain a reward I just got to wonder.

I am wondering so much I don’t know what to say but that is some carrot chasing. The only time I repeat the process is when I am trying to increase my skill at that task, such as jumping puzzles.

If I remember correctly there was a psychological test done on animals for this.

Farming can be relaxing but ONLY if it feels rewarding. How in the world are you going to “wonder about me” feeling okay with SOME level of grinding/farming, when you’re the one defending the grind in GW2, the same grind that I (someone who even CAN get behind grinding) feels is too much. Sounds like you need to be worrying about yourself… This ascended armor very much is a carrot chase. Once Legendary armor comes out, you’ll have another long run for the carrot. And guess what, it’ll be just as if not more grindy than this one. The problem isn’t that there Is a grind, its that it’s so much based on gold grinding and not farming the actual materials you need. They can’t up the drop rates because it would hurt the economy, thus yes. This game IS economy driven, and it is a very-very bad thing.

As I said before I don’t grind in this game cause there isn’t a need to grind. Your creating your own grind. Your trying to change the game to match your grinding gameplay which in the long run would hurt the core of the game. If you stop trying to force a grind into a game that does not want or need it than the game becomes fun. Why are you even trying to grind? Legendaries are a long term PvE goal as stated by Anet. The issue is that people are trying to force Long term goals into short-term time frames.

You need to grind out ascended (legendary armor soon!) if you want to be on a level playing field. That’s just a fact and no amount of pretending that statistical advantages don’t exist, will change that.

ronpierce.2760:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

ronpierce.2760:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

robertul.3679:

To have the absolute best in slot you need full ascended with omni infusions. Now full ascended you guys probably have an idea about what it costs. The omni infusions are around 120-150g/piece and you need around 16 of them. Do the math. Say it’s not grindy.

B-B-B-B-But you don’t NEED ascended. You can still do all the content!

LOL, statistical advantages DON’T matter in PvE or WvW! Haven’t you been reading the forums?!?!?!?

Right? 5 second kill, 3 minute kill, who gives a kitten, same difference really. 4 shotting a guy in wvw as a thief or 1 shotting him, I mean 1… 4, these a both very small numbers, stats don’t matter. #trollface

Yeah…the dishonesty and misrepresentation used to defend this game and developer decisions is just staggering. Fact of the matter is that in order to be on a level playing field in PvE or WvW you need to endure a hellacious grind. Which, of course, could be made a bit easier by spending a little cash at the gem shop. ::wink wink::

But wait.. that subtle hint is Pay to win!
But wait… It doesn’t matter because the numbers don’t matter right?!
Ugh… I give up… Point is, the actual GAME design is poorly executed, it’s very grindy and they ruined the “little grind, even footing for competitive play” grounds that they advertised and were so praised for. And even when they did have this, the game is boring and comes down to buying everything you need. It’s not really debatable, it’s deniable by people who refuse to open their eyes, but it’s not debatable…

Right on. The promise of much reduced grinding was why I even bothered with this game in the first place. Poorly executed game design from a fun perspective and brilliantly executed from a business perspective. Boring as hell sums it up and it’s why I went back to WoW. It’s just a lot more fun and engaging.

tigirius.9014:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

That’s funny. I raid on WoW for about 3-4 hrs a week and get geared in a couple months. Typically there are 5-6 months between tiers. I have fun and it’s not a grind. What would I get out of 3-4 hrs a week here? Probably spend half of it simply waiting on a single Teq event lol

Same here. Currency systems are far superior. The problem i had with the ascended weapon grind in particular was the whole aspect of even getting the mats that were random, and then having to rely on laurels (that i wanted to save for other things mind you) and then having to build up the same exact materials for a two hander for 1 pistol. I mean really? Even WoW had half currency on the Timeless Isle for 1 handed weapons.

I Like building up resources to get things, that’s not the issue with me at all with this system, but making it so that many of the items that you need may or may not drop off of mobs is ridiculous. It’s like WoW’s older system from the 40 man days I’m sure you remember where you ran dungeons/raids literally forever before getting that final drop. It’s one of the reasons I left Cata, they had no shoulders for hunters preraid, it was literally easier to get a PVP shoulder than run the dungeon 400 times.

This system is much worse because you’re not just running a dungeon your getting mats from all over the place and many of them have a chance to NOT drop. I play other titles with a currency based gear system far far superior. There’s even a guild gear system in one of the scifi games I play. Love it got my guy geared half way through getting the guild up to tier 3. This game could totally use a revamp of gearing the toons starting with replacing the currency for racial gear with karma, making laurel gear cost karma. They could also do with an update guild system, where resources could be pooled into a guild development system with gear as the reward.

Yes. When I saw what was needed for one ascended item and the amount of running around I’d have to do, it was so overwhelming that I just never bothered. And there is no alternative way to get them reliably. Like you said, even WoW offered the option of PvP shoulders if you can’t get a PvE drop. And Timeless. It only took a day or two to get the coins necessary for a weapon. What option does one have other than a torturous mat grind or getting extremely lucky?

ronpierce.2760:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

robertul.3679:

To have the absolute best in slot you need full ascended with omni infusions. Now full ascended you guys probably have an idea about what it costs. The omni infusions are around 120-150g/piece and you need around 16 of them. Do the math. Say it’s not grindy.

B-B-B-B-But you don’t NEED ascended. You can still do all the content!

LOL, statistical advantages DON’T matter in PvE or WvW! Haven’t you been reading the forums?!?!?!?

Right? 5 second kill, 3 minute kill, who gives a kitten, same difference really. 4 shotting a guy in wvw as a thief or 1 shotting him, I mean 1… 4, these a both very small numbers, stats don’t matter. #trollface

Yeah…the dishonesty and misrepresentation used to defend this game and developer decisions is just staggering. Fact of the matter is that in order to be on a level playing field in PvE or WvW you need to endure a hellacious grind. Which, of course, could be made a bit easier by spending a little cash at the gem shop. ::wink wink::

robertul.3679:

To have the absolute best in slot you need full ascended with omni infusions. Now full ascended you guys probably have an idea about what it costs. The omni infusions are around 120-150g/piece and you need around 16 of them. Do the math. Say it’s not grindy.

B-B-B-B-But you don’t NEED ascended. You can still do all the content in masterwork gear!

LOL, statistical advantages DON’T matter in PvE or WvW! Haven’t you been reading the forums?!?!?!?

Suddenflame.2601:

ronpierce.2760:

Incorrect. The reward is completely necessary when going from Exotic to Ascended if you play wvw.

It is not necessary. A person in masterwork armour could pawn a person in exotic armour as it has been done many times before. You apparently do not play WvW enough. There is hardly any instance that your on par with someone else skill level. In WvW your more likely to be part of the zerg therefore your rank of armour will have very little effect on the whole. Also, WvW is competitive Server vs. server not person vs. person level.

Yet another person claiming that a clear gear advantage isn’t an advantage. Your game has a gear treadmill now, brah. And it will continue with legendary armor, lol

Of course not. Lack of a sub fee is the primary reason many people play this game.

When you ask them why they play, they cite the lack of a fee as the primary reason. Not the awesome gameplay or amazing story or fantastic class balance…lol. Kind of weird huh?

ronpierce.2760:

Suddenflame.2601:

Harbard.5738:

ronpierce.2760:

If you can play an MMO with absolutely 0 rewards, what is most peoples’ “fun factor”, that’s fine, but in that case you’d enjoy just about any game well designed or not… You’re a rarity, and frankly a lazy game designers delight.. x.X

Oh yeah, because it’s not totally lazy to make a game that’s just like a food dispenser that trickles down rewards instead of making a game that is engaging on it’s own and doesn’t need you to bribe you with illusory gains of money/shinies.

See, it’s way harder to design a really good game with really engaging gameplay than set up loot tables for you to roll on.

I agree. Challenging content over easy loot dispenser

Ugh you’re so dense lol. What is CHALLENGING about hours of farming gold? All the other nonbuyable stuff isn’t hard to get it’s just grindy. The only CHALLENGE is being able to bare how boring the grind is to ever make it through it. That IS a challenge. Hats off the the challenge team. >_>

I failed the challenge lol. When I thought about grinding out all of that ascended for WvW I uninstalled in disgust.

So awesome to see that I still can’t clothe my female characters in light armor NORMAL looking pants.

Distaste.4801:

Suddenflame.2601:

To everyone complaining about Random Number Generator (RNG) and grind in Guild Wars 2 (GW2): You guys need to play more Massively Multiplayer Online Roly Playing Games (MMORPG). Lets take a Free-to-Play (FTP) game such as Forsaken World (FW) for instance. To get any where in the game you need certain items to progress. The RNG in that game is so bad that many people use the in-game botting system to farm the items that they need. Basically meaning your character needs to be logged in for days on end (24/7) just to get items that you need.

World of Warcraft (WoW) a subscription based MMORPG that makes you spend weeks to months performing raids to get best-in-slot gear. This is repeated often for new best-in-slot gear is added often. During these raids it is not guaranteed that you will get the piece you need. Some raids you can only perform once a week making you wait for another chance (hence chance) at getting the piece you need. To get other items in the game you need to compete with other players (as drops are not shared between the players) to grind to get items since drop rates are low to force you to grind.

Perfect World (PW) is similar to FW (made by the same company) but has even worse grind and drop rates to the point you have to kill monsters for hours or even days just to get items for a single quest. You basically sit there for hours killing a specific mob in a specific area for hours to months (depends on how lucky you are) just hoping you will get that one item.

In GW2, precursors are pretty common as evidence by the number of people with legendaries in LA. Also, money is easy to obtain in GW2 where as in WoW, FW, and PW money takes forever to obtain. WoW, FW, and PW require you to grind for long periods of time inorder to obtain enough money to buy anything useful.

So if you want to complain go ahead, but I suggest you play Forsaken World and Perfect World first and make the comparison. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG makes most MMOs look like bloody nightmare. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG you are making a comparison of a form. If you want to say GW2 is grindy which MMORPG has less grind? Which MMORPG has better RNG?

WoW, FW, and PW are worse on these two points so if your making a comparison with these games you are insane! Just for your information I have never gotten a precursor in 1500+ hours of playing Guild Wars 2.

There is a reason most of us aren’t playing PW or FW, their developer is known to make extremely grindy games geared towards the asian market.

Now WoW was actually less grindy than GW2 currently is. Putting aside the week lockouts, you would still spend a whole lot less actual game time to achieve your items. Even if you figure 3 hours per raid, 24 epics per raid and 40 raiders(got even easier to gear with only 25 people) you’re looking at needing ~600 epics(15 per person iirc). That is 25 raids or 75 hours. Now you’re going to toss in RNG but once tokens were added this wasn’t nearly as bad. You can also look at other areas as well because the best gear didn’t just come from raiding, PvP offered quite a few items that were up near the top as well and could be easily obtained in much less time. Just assuming you got it all raiding it’s 5 hours per item. When I went back to WoW for BC I leveled 1-70 and was fully geared in BIS items in 4 months. BC made things every easier since it was now a 25 man raid and still 3 epics per boss. That would take the time down to ~50 hours.

Lets just look at ascended for a minute. Just to level all 3 weapon crafts to 500 and 1 armor type you’re looking at 550g. At even 5g an hour of farming that’s 110 hours just to be able to craft the stuff you want. Then you have the armor/weapon costs at 60g per piece of armor and 40g per weapon. 3 weapons would put you around 120g and 6 pieces of armor would be 360g for a subtotal of 480g. Combined with the cost of grinding to 500 crafting that’s 1030g. Going back to that 5g an hour you’re looking at 206 hours for an entire set of gear.

So 206 vs 75 vs 50….hmmm. Even if RNG in WoW literally doubles or the time you still get your gear faster.

And add in the fact that raids and battlegrounds offer an actual, FUN gearing process and compare it to the tedious crafting grind here. Guess who wins?

That’s funny. I raid on WoW for about 3-4 hrs a week and get geared in a couple months. Typically there are 5-6 months between tiers. I have fun and it’s not a grind. What would I get out of 3-4 hrs a week here? Probably spend half of it simply waiting on a single Teq event lol

TChalla.7146:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Junk is held onto in anticipation of needing it at a later date? Check.

Bags fill up with junk? Check.

Players buy gems to increase bank and inventory storage to keep up with the junk? Check.

Appears to be working exactly as intended. Don’t forget they hired someone from Nexon who was involved in the Maple Story economy to advise them on game monetization. The fact that there is so much junk cluttering up our collective inventories is no accident. Use it, sell it, or delete it.

Because Tyria needs conspiracy theorists too.

You don’t pay a sub, brah. And ANet needs to make money…

Kantos.1730:

Then GW2 would just be another generic fantasy MMO with interesting art and story line. It may as well charge a subscription and not do any updates for 6 months. That’s what WoW clone lovers seem to like.

As opposed to rushed and ultimately forgettable biweekly updates that always seem to involve gem shop items designed to extract even more money from the playerbase?

Why would people want this game to be more like WoW when they can just play WoW since it’s the better game and has a lot more stuff that one can do. That’s my opinion.

I just find all of the diehard gw2 defenders so amusing sometimes. When you ask them why one should play this game over other games the two things they typically come up are: no sub fees and better graphics. So compelling.

Fear not. Maybe they’ll put them in the gem store and you can buy them for 200 each.

Tagus Eleuthera.7305:

gw2 is a great looking game. For an MMO it has a load a really great features and conveniences. problem is, the story is god awful and there just isn’t enough content. PvP needs more maps and game modes. wvw needs specific rewards such as weapons, armor, trophies. the pve world needs new zones to explore, and accomplishment-gated content and achievables. if they can do these things, gw2 could live up to its great potential. if not, it will just continue along its current trajectory.

Unfortunately a slick appearance is all that GW2 currently has going for it at the moment. Graphics aren’t everything and while the game is pretty, it actually shuts out players with lower end machines. Probably mostly casuals that ANet is supposedly trying to attract because casuals don’t typically have souped up gaming rigs.

WoW has the right idea with less intensive graphics and a style all it’s own. Pretty isn’t a big deal when you have decent content and gameplay.

Beldin.5498:

Valanga.5942:

Rash.6514:

tolunart.2095:

The term is meaningless for an MMO. The game itself is never “finished.”

That’s the correct answer.

What are you guys comparing GW2 with? The 7-year old WoW? The 6(?)-ish-year-old Lineage II? GW2 is improving. It just takes time.

I’m testing an MMO in beta wich is way more bugless and smooth than 1 year and a half old GW2… So i wouldn’t say that the term is “meaningless”

It can’t be ESO at least, since i have heared only bad things from people who played the beta. Maybe 1 of 30 said that he will play it nonetheless.

And Wildstar .. who needs WoW in Space ? And also it wouldn’t really make me sad if all the folks that want so much their hardcore raids better go there thand constantly trying GW2 to be more like WoW.

Why would people want GW2 to be more like WoW when they can just go play WoW since it’s a better game.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Vayne.8563:

I got into the main server today and hung out doing events in that server, while waiting for the event to start. I certainly didn’t stand there for an hour doing nothing. I farmed mats, I did some events, I explored a bit. I tried to climb up places I hadn’t been able to climb in the past.

Even just going around killing stuff is better than standing and waiting for an hour.

But how is that different from other MMO’s like Anet promised? I could do the exact same thing in WoW while waiting for a healer. In fact I could do more. I could go anywhere and participate in any aspect of the game I wanted while waiting for a healer.

The point is I want to do this new content, not the other stuff. So just like other MMO’s I have to wait around and do things I would rather NOT be doing just to wait for the thing I want to do. That was what Anet tried to solve, but now they seem to be anti-solving it. I would like them to go back to the original design of the game, I should be able to grab 5 people and jump right into the event/content. At launch there wasn’t a single thing in the game that couldn’t be beaten by a simple group of 5… now look at us, you need 200+ and 30 minutes of organization on top of waiting in a zone you might not want to be in for an additional hour just to participate in a single 15 minute event that has a >50% chance of failing at any given time.

In WoW I currently wait anywhere from 8-12 minutes if I want to do a dungeon as a DPS and 25-35 minutes for the current raid as a DPS. Half an hour is kind of long but you get a lot of fun content. With my organized raid group, my wait time is of course zero for any role.

I never bothered with Teq because I had to get there an hour early just to avoid the overflow and still end up failing. Won’t be bothering with the new bosses either.

Dr Ritter.1327:

galandor.1059:

What should I play ladies and gents?

War, Guard, Mes or Ele

dont even bother with the rest

Why Ele? It’s too much effort for too little reward.

Warrior or guardian. Probably warrior.

Excellent at all aspects of the game.

Zaxares.5419:

Dark Catalyst.1028

Do you also feel that you’re burning money if, for example, you’re not using your internet, tv, or netflix subscription 24/7?

I can’t speak for the other guy, but I do not have a cable TV or Netflix subscription for that exact reason.

I hope you’re online 24/7 otherwise you’re wasting money!

zenleto.6179:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Gabby.3205:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Yet another reason I am kitten glad to be a Canadian.

However if they do ever decide to pull this kitten on us, there are plenty of single player games available. Never played WoW because they charged a sub.

Same here (I mean, I’m not Canadian, but I’m not American either).

I played Warcraft, Warcraft II and Warcraft III, was excited for WoW, didn’t play because I don’t play sub-based MMOs. The same will happen with TESO (huge fan of TES, not going to play TESO because of the sub). If GW2 suddenly becomes sub-based, I will quit. I really doubt it will happen, though.

I have a complete hatred for sub-based games. It is not because of the money I would have to put on them (I would gladly spend much more on regular expansions, for example), but that feeling that I have to play the game all the time, otherwise I’m burning money.

Do you also feel that you’re burning money if, for example, you’re not using your internet, tv, or netflix subscription 24/7?

Don’t pull that one. The feeling that Gabby has mentioned isn’t uncommon amongst MMO players.

A typical $15 per month subscription pencils out to approximately 50 cents per day. If you have a nice enough computer to handle GW2 and other MMOs then 50 cents a day shouldn’t be a problem.

Gabby.3205:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Yet another reason I am kitten glad to be a Canadian.

However if they do ever decide to pull this kitten on us, there are plenty of single player games available. Never played WoW because they charged a sub.

Same here (I mean, I’m not Canadian, but I’m not American either).

I played Warcraft, Warcraft II and Warcraft III, was excited for WoW, didn’t play because I don’t play sub-based MMOs. The same will happen with TESO (huge fan of TES, not going to play TESO because of the sub). If GW2 suddenly becomes sub-based, I will quit. I really doubt it will happen, though.

I have a complete hatred for sub-based games. It is not because of the money I would have to put on them (I would gladly spend much more on regular expansions, for example), but that feeling that I have to play the game all the time, otherwise I’m burning money.

Do you also feel that you’re burning money if, for example, you’re not using your internet, tv, or netflix subscription 24/7?

Look at all of those warriors, lol.