Guild Wars 2

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

Tokens is yet another currency (so boring) so while nice to have as an extra there should also be some unique drops in there you would really want to go for.

Nerelith.7360:

As opposed to tokens, which make me feel Like I am clocking in, and clocking out… Like a job.

Well, you see, there’s a reason I go to Tokens as a means of determining loot, or even a chest item you can open and choose your reward out of (a la Weapon/Armor boxes). It’s because I’ve, in the past, been burned by RNG or even the choice of random rolls, heck even DKP systems which are supposed to be fairly adjudicated have been broken due to corrupt methods of accounting them by guild leaders.

Heck, most of my dungeon loot in Eye of the North would be diamonds, uncommon rare items (with useless stats), and maybe some onyx. Saurian Scythe? Emerald Blade? Amythest Shield? Please, I had to pay people to get those if I wanted them. Pretty big collection of stuff I’d never use though. (At least it raised my Wisdom track.)

Tokens or otherwise is a fair choice, it’s guaranteed to be useful instead of “yay, two greens and a blue”™, and it’s less like the Precursor Lottery.

It is also maybe boring, maybe not exciting to go “what’s in the box?!” but . . . show of hands . . . how many people really expect to get the awesome-and-useful end of the loot spectrum opening loot bags or end-area chests?

Well the reason I say you need to have specific drops (rng) is because I get burned out by currency driven game-play. In fact it does not stimulate me to do it to begin with (so sort of burned before I begin) because it’s such a boring indeed job-like business.

However it’s just fine to have as an extra so I don’t say it should be taken out. In addition lets say an items required 20 tokens (just an example!) and you get one token per run then they can make the item drop at a rate that on average you get it once every 20 runs. Then it would be similar. Sure with token you are sure you get it in 20 runs while with rng you might be lucky and get it the first try or unlucky and get it the 40th time. But overall (with all the drops in the game) you should have the same average. So it’s just as

Also tokens as a side thing (like dungeons tokens to get a dungeon-set) is fine. Just don’t make it the main thing to go for. It should just be a side thing.

Lastly I don’t say the item should be account-bound. While I guess for some items it would make sense most should not be account-bound. Meaning there will still be some available on the TP meaning if that’s what you like you can still grind gold to buy it. So nothing would be lost and everybody should be able to get it the way he likes.

If currency is the only option, well then that is the only option and it takes away of the rush you get every time for “will it drop” turning it into a boring job.

“It is also maybe boring, maybe not exciting to go “what’s in the box?!” ” Always have find boxes or chest a little strange. Let let the kitten mob drop it. Anyway isn’t this the whole point? The game is supposed to be fun and exciting. Not boring. Like you seem to agree on, tokens are boring and not exciting.

“how many people really expect to get the awesome-and-useful end of the loot spectrum opening loot bags or end-area chests?” I did read this sentence multiple times but not sure what you are asking. Anyway, loot bags are not what I consider special items that a mob can drop. In fact I don’t really understand the whole idea of loot bags. Get an item to drop that can drop something. It’s just an extra click. Only reason I can come up with they use it in GW2 is to prevent Magic Find to have influence on it. Sure in some cases having a mob to drop a bag with herbs or something is fine and makes sense. But all the bag-drops in GW2 I don’t get it from a game-point. Also chest.. just let the mob drop it. Where the heck did that chest suddenly came from. But that maybe has something to do with me who wants thinks to make sense in a game-world (make sense in a game-world of way of course).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Daishi.6027:

If we had proper raids or 10 man content (hell even challenging 5 man content) that had skins and fun consumables as rewards NOT based on RNG (Although RNG can help a goal) This would fit and give people proper content.

I’d bite on a test-case where two different groups compose and run a dungeon-like instance from opposite ends to meet in the middle for the final fight. Vizunah Square was a relatively fun mission when the bugs didn’ crop up.

Seriously, that’d actually be interesting – X groups of 5 players queuing up or entering an area together to run separate paths (or paths which intersect then diverge later) and culminating in a rather impressive, large battle where multiple-group tactics can/must be used so the fight can be won.

Let the rewards be tokens traded for skins. Screw just getting handed Ascended-stat things, because then everyone and their sister would complain about how they’re now “forced” to do that event due to the reward being too good.

Tokens is yet another currency (so boring) so while nice to have as an extra there should also be some unique drops in there you would really want to go for.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Problem with slowly levelling (for me) is mainly that levelling the alts will get boring. But for the main I don’t really care how long it takes. Another problems with leveling in general is what you do (as developer) when releasing an expansion. Up the level? But then it becomes to much for new players if you keep doing that. And if you don’t up the level then maybe don’t focus at leveling at all? I have seen some interesting ways to try and solve those problems but I do understand why it might be a problem from a development standpoint.

About crafting. Personally I never cared about armor that much and you could argue that if everybody can craft it anyway there is also no value for it. Giving room for Twinks in your game might then in my idea be more effective.

For me however what is interesting in crafting is if I can make fun items and there is always an next item jus around the corner to work towards. Like the example of your mechanical squirl. That was one of the first things an engineer could make but was a really fun item to work towards. Just like the parachute cape that came not long after it all up to the helicopter mount at the max level (back then). So there was always this next fun item to work towards. Compare that to crafting in GW2. What do people really craft for? Legendaries weapons and now ascended gear. So the item you want it at level 400 or 500 and the way up there is just boring crafting level grind. Not more.

The type of fun items they could put in fun crafts are in the cash-shop. Like the music instruments. Also not the bubble head thing would be great for some fun craft.

well there isnt a lot thats most certainly true but there are some fun stuff to craft…

like Tonics & endless tonics, dyes, some unique skins, a handful of minatures

Yeah there are indeed few items but not a lot and certainly not enough to have something to work towards every 5 levels. I would love to see crafts bases mainly on such items.. fun crafts as I call them. (because they tent to be just for fun, not to make money or get higher stat gear).

Craftable mini’s in GW2?

Nerelith.7360:

Devata I am starting to get the impression that this game was not meant for us. But for players that are perfectly content with buying everything at the Gem Store. Or Buying it at the TP, after grinding out the gold for it, or Bought the gems, to convert to gold for it.

In my opinion, doing the above makes me feel Like I am working a job.

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The end result was a bag that sold On the TP for 13g. but that I needed to use a sigil that had a fixed cost of 10 to 11 g. I forget exactly how much. so pure profit? Is there any? This is why i stopped making bags.

When I play other games, I feel i am playing other games. When i play Gw2… I LOVE the mechanics of GAMEPLAY…. but the economy just makes me feel like Anet’s b****.

Well one of the main reason I did go for GW2 was because it was supposed to use the B2P model not F2P. That was great because I could then avoid exactly this sort of mechanics and that’s one of the main reasons.. no I guess the main reason for my interest in GW2. Sadly the game is now more of a F2P game… as it focuses on cash-shop for income not on game-sales (as expansions are part of the game, that also counts as game sales). Including the effects of it that I came to this game for to avoid.

Also the hole idea of being focused on cosmetics.. The engineering profession we talked about before.. now that’s the stuff I expect when you focus on cosmetics and ‘casual’ game-play.
(as far as such items are even in GW2 they are mainly cash-shop related so are not game-play elements. As to be expected in a cash-shop game and that’s then also why I was so interested in a B2P game.)

So is the game something for me or not.? It should be my (and your?) game. In the current state however it’s not the game it should have been.

Personally also in other games I never crafted for gold… well I did once find an item that was easy to make and sold good so then I started selling it but overall that was never a drive for me. I always crafted for myself. If I put something on a TP it was mainly because in many mmo’s it says something like “crafted by ..” and it was sort of a nice idea that somebody else is running around with your name. However yeah I did notice that usually there are some craftable items that can make money. I haven’t seen that yet in GW2 but I am not sure they are not in GW2.

The fact that you need to buy something in order to create something (when that item is expensive) is also something I dislike. It really tells that they want to make sure you did not get everything by farming the item.. you need to involve gold with it.

Also the legendary requires like 200 of something that sells (I think for 1 gold) at a vender. So what is fun or skill-full about buying that item of the vendor? It isn’t. It’s just there because they want to make 100% sure you put gold into it. It has nothing to do with increasing the fun / game-play of making the legendary.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Personally I do not think the possibility to grind gold has been lowered for to benefit the cash-shop. While you could say they did it so the gold-grinders could not grind any-more so they themselves would be more likely to spend gold. However I do think that much of the inability to work directly for items and to farm mats directly is related to the cash-shop (why buy gold if you can get them buy playing for them). It makes gold more important and so people are more likely to buy gold and it works two ways because items in the cash-shop can only be obtained with gold (if we talk about ingame methods) what drives of the need for gold even more. While at the same time is devalues the item. What is so great about having a skin from a hard to kill boss if other people run around in even better looking gear they got with brainlessly grinding gold or with buying gold or the items? It totally devalues rewards. Same for the temporary nature of the LS. Luckily they seem to have realised finally that hat was a bad idea indeed.

So while I not think reducing the gold-grind options is done for the benefit of the cash-shop there are still many (negative) things done for the cash-shop and the cash-shop has it’s own negative side-effects.

even there though nerfing gold income actually helps. the exchange rate between gold and gems is also tied to people’s income directly. If I am a farmer making 15g per hour will I mind paying 10g for 100 gems? no! so I will end buying all the gems I need which will drive the price up even more. Using gw2spidy and sampling various points in time you can clearly see the exchange rate has varied between the period in time gold per hour flactuating between 30 mins – 1 hr worth of income. So even there reducing gold income will actually help by most likely lowering the conversion price as well in the long run. Because again lets face it for someone who used to make 15g per hour who might now make 10g per hour due to the nerf they’re not going to care much that now 100gems cost 1hr of their time instead of 45mins of their time, I doubt it will cause a single one of them to suddenly take out their credit card to make up for the difference. The same cannot be said for people who do not farm but just play the game the way they enjoy (which happens to not be farming) and make only about 50s per hour. For them buying 100 gems means 20 hours of game time and thats significant. They’re the ones who are more likely to use a credit card to bridge the gap. These nerfs will actually help there by hopefully making the gap smaller.

as for why play the game for the stuff you need when you can just buy it. That problem definitely exists but I am skeptical that most people address that by their wallet. I am sure some just hate farming and would rather use a credit card to get the gold they need but I have a feeling (cant really confirm this in anyway) that there are tons of farmers who simply farm the gold directly. Besides like I already argued the nerfs will also cause their prices to fall too which will severely limit the affect that will have on this argument.

I am not sure what was the point of your first paragraph because I started with saying that I did not think them nerving some of the gold-grind (well mainly them removing the queens-dale train) was related to the cash-shop. While you could come up with reasons as to why it would benefit as to why it would not benefit (like your example). I did however say that the cash-shop still is very much related to the gold-grind. So not sure what was the point of your first paragraph.

“why play the game for the stuff you need when you can just buy it ” No I said that just the other way around. Why get gold if you can get in by playing the game. It would likely mean less sales.

And again there are the items you can only get with gold, not in-game.

Obviously people are spending money on it. I also don’t get what is fun about buying the item. The fun part is playing for them. But that part is for a big part removed or turned into a gold-grind. (sucking the fun out of the game). Apparently some people are then enjoying buying the item. Well for me the enjoyment is earning the item in the game and the item also derives it value for a big part based on the way you earn it. However that also means that making it a gold-grind or just a cash-shop buy totally devalues the item. Sure it may look cool and flamy but real ingame value does it not have, it’s no prestige item.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Errant.1942:

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The problem right now is that most content is either not proportionally rewarding, since content that takes barely any skill will reward you very similarly to the challenging content. And the few rewards you can actually get are usually accountbound, meaning you can’t make a profit out of it. Add to that the way most rewards are time gated (although with the current design, that’s reasonable).

And we move on to “reward = profit”, where I find once more we slide into “grind it for gold”. Which most people wanting end-game content want to not be doing since that’s lame.

I know many people will scold me for wanting to be able to do endgame areas to make money by selling the stuff I earn, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. It’s how I enjoyed playing GW1, and besides the benefits it yields me, it also benefits people that don’t want to play challenging content, but do want some of the cosmetic rewards. It’s a win-win in my eyes.

I agree, but at the same time, then we get the same kind of farming we had in GW1 where you never had to set foot in any of these end game areas to walk around with the “exclusive” goods for beating them. Which, if I dare say, sapped a lot of meaning out of the rewards since anyone could plop down some hard-farmed Ecto/Plat and say “I’m buying myself a Tormented set”.

Sort of like how we have it now with people playing the Trading Post for gold or feeling like they need to drop cash for Gems-to-Gold to get things. We’re going in circles here right back to the same problem of “end game content”. Only this time, it’s so rewarding nobody would not be doing it. (Yes, I know it’s a double negative, so sue me.)

Tell me why people would run an elite area in a dead game if they didn’t actually like the area?

Should I? Let’s roll back the tape.

After a while I was so stupidly rich (for reasons other than farming DoA, although DoA provided the starting capital) that running DoA for cash wasn’t a motivator anymore.

Yes, I think I should. “Why would you run it if they didn’t like it?” Because it’s profitable against the other things you could be doing.

Look, I got nothing against adding some “end-game content” but we’re cruising for another debacle here. Such as when people complained there was nothing to do and we got Ascended and Fractals, two things which got both barrels to the gut for trying to fill what people were saying they wanted. Such as the one where they added champion bags and there was the Queensdale Train which was so terrible it had to end.

You want “rewarding” you had better be darn clear about what sort of reward you want out of it. And if it smells like “a better farm for gold”, then you should probably re-evaluate why you want it.

The complains are now indeed that everything is a gold-grind. You will however always have people who prefer to grind gold and that’s fine.

However the ‘rewarding’ should be done in a way that it is not so much of requirement to get the items. Then again how will that ever change if items are in the cash-shop.

You do also have a valid point how if everything is easy to get with gold that is devalues the items. There is nothing special about an item any-more if you can easily get it with gold. However if the best way to get items is to work directly for them (what is doable by having a lot of content and all the items being rewarded with such content, every content having it own rewards, so that the possible gold-grinders also have to split out.) then going directly for an item is the best way to do it. That means that there are far less gold-grinders and so less items on the TP so now the item is still special because the person had to do that hard content or had to pay a lot of gold.

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

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Yeah indeed, that is a fun way of crafting, and it is a fun way of leveling because every few crafting levels there is another nice item to work towards and while doing that you explore the world (looking for the needed materials) and so level up. Now that is what I consider fun. I do like something like engineering where you make such funny little tools. But there can be much more like crafts where you tame pets for rangers or as mini creating your own unique looking ones. All fun stuff to do in an MMO.

I agree that something similar would be awesome for gw2.

Another fun item was mechanical squirrels… Completely useless In combat. But it was a mini-pet you needed to:

1. Level up engineering high enough to craft it.
2. Mine for the needed materials.
3. Craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the tools to craft the parts, to craft the squirrel.

End result.. a mechanical squirrel that followed you around.

A Mini pet you did not buy off the cash shop but that you could acquire, purely from playing the game.

Part of the problem with crafting in this game, and in many modern games is..( I know I will be flamed by a Lot of players for this..) That levelling to cap is TOO fast.

I know i Lost a Lot of you… for those still with me…

If I get from level 10 to 20 asap, and can get to level 20 with level 10 gear, then level 15 gear is a waste of time, and resources to craft.

if it takes me a MONTH to get from level 10 to 20…a few Interesting things happen.

1. There is suddenly a demand for level 15 gear.
2. There is subsequently a need to farm for gold… or.. to farm for materials that sell for gold… that can then be applied to either craft level 15 gear for either self use…. or for sale.
3. The Player economy for crafted gear suddenly has value pre-cap.

I keep mentioning EverQuest because yes, it was my first MMO…. but levelling up in EQ, was Glacial compared to WoW or Gw2.

Players would go into the Karanas to kill leapords, because the leapords dropped pelts… they would sell the pets on the bazaar, or they would trade them with armorers…

The armorers would either BUY the pelts at the bazaar or trade them for finished goods.

And the reason this all worked was, there was a demand…for a level 25 chest piece.

Since there was a demand for it, there was value in crafting it, and value in buying it.

in Gw2, crafted items lack value. In EverQuest..Norrath had a GDP ranked number 30 when compared to real world countries.

Nothing succeeds Like success… but..I can Understand that today’s playerbase is not the same, players want things easier. Players want things with less effort, less time, less devotion… and then end up with a more boring, and shallow experience.

If you aren’t willing to work, the rewards will not be as rewarding. When something is just handed to you, there is less appreciation.

Problem with slowly levelling (for me) is mainly that levelling the alts will get boring. But for the main I don’t really care how long it takes. Another problems with leveling in general is what you do (as developer) when releasing an expansion. Up the level? But then it becomes to much for new players if you keep doing that. And if you don’t up the level then maybe don’t focus at leveling at all? I have seen some interesting ways to try and solve those problems but I do understand why it might be a problem from a development standpoint.

About crafting. Personally I never cared about armor that much and you could argue that if everybody can craft it anyway there is also no value for it. Giving room for Twinks in your game might then in my idea be more effective.

For me however what is interesting in crafting is if I can make fun items and there is always an next item jus around the corner to work towards. Like the example of your mechanical squirl. That was one of the first things an engineer could make but was a really fun item to work towards. Just like the parachute cape that came not long after it all up to the helicopter mount at the max level (back then). So there was always this next fun item to work towards. Compare that to crafting in GW2. What do people really craft for? Legendaries weapons and now ascended gear. So the item you want it at level 400 or 500 and the way up there is just boring crafting level grind. Not more.

The type of fun items they could put in fun crafts are in the cash-shop. Like the music instruments. Also not the bubble head thing would be great for some fun craft.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’m amused you think any new content which would offer specific skins unrestricted and able to be sold/traded wouldn’t be farmed for it. Or wouldn’t have something in there to prevent repeated easy turnovers.

Sure even when all rewards are specific some people will be farming that. However if you do that all over the game (specific rewards for specific content) you first of all make it possible to work directly towards the item you want where now for many things gold is the only viable option so people are more or less forced to grind gold if they want / need any of those items.

If people can go directly for what they want the need to grind gold is gone so more people will directly go for it. That also means a lower demand and farming an item might still be possible but if everybody farms the same thing prices will drop making it not rewarding to farm that one item any-more. So at that moment working directly towards the item you want is an option and it’s the best way to get it. While still having farming as an option but less ‘interesting’ as now.

Problem of course is that many items are cash-shop items so only ingame way to get them is by grinding gold.

Wanderer.3248:

bhcbose.9615:

The question A R W E N asked was where is the high level rewarding end game content. And everything you stated is not rewarding.

Farming does not exist in this game.

No one is asking to be forced into one single instance like most MMO.

A R W E N simply wants something new that is hard and rewarding.

Having one activity that rewards with BiS items does force everyone to do it.

And as soon as most players have it, they demand more, which creates a treadmill.

If you want rewards for cranking a handle, go play a slot machine.

Where is the question for BiS items and how is playing a slot machine considered ‘hard’?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Errant.1942:

So no, ARWEN isn’t asking for gear-gated raids that require tons of grind. He’s asking for a format like GW1, where you had rewarding, optional, challenging end-game areas that required teamwork to be cleared fast, with rewards that aren’t account/soulbound so people who don’t want to do the content shouldn’t be gated from the rewards.

But most of the rewards were skins, or ways to get skins, and the person I just replied to seemed to think that wasn’t enough.

So what is?

That was indeed the one person asking for a gear threadmill.

stobie.2134:

People demanding end game content generally demand the accompanying ‘better gear than everyone else,’ which leads to another gear based mmo. No thanks.

I don’t see anybody saying that. Well there was 1 guy here who asked for a gear treadmill.

Crotch Ninja.2385:

I miss my personal story. It was gripping, and kept me interested in finishing it through to the end. I had drive, a coherent plot, and characters I grew to enjoy/hate. It was a very basic, but well executed aspect of the game I missed dearly once I had finished.

I know they’re trying to focus on Living World content as a means of end game and we all know dungeons and WvW are decent end game as well, but Season 1 was incredibly boring, and I’ve never liked the “play now or never get the chance” aspect of it all. Not to mention I feel like Scarlet was the biggest plot hole filler in GW2 history… not that I would know for sure.

I think GW should try at least to expand on your personal story a bit, not to mention all the closed zones in the Guild Wars 2 map that they could release as a standalone expansion. (Factions/Nightfall cough) At the very VERY least, I would like to see a bit more permanent content. (New weapon type? skills? NOT Gemstore items?)

Just imo, really… I was hooked until level 80. Now I’m trying desperately to find things to do that don’t involve champ farming or farming for my crafting. It quickly becomes more about grinding for any sort of endgame gear (ascended for agony resistance) than it does just playing the game for fun. You have dozens of ways to level, different avenues to explore, which was something I’ve always loved about GW2. You hit level 80 and the avenues go back to the same grind every MMO has since the dawn of time.

On top of that GWs even ‘fixes’ farming so people can’t make decent cash, EVEN WITH THE MIND NUMBING BULLCRAP THEY GO THROUGH. Right now, the only decent way I’ve found of making money is doing my daily and spending my laurel on T6 mats. It’s about 1g a day… which is nice compared to the all day champ farming I was trying to accomplish.

At some point this became about endgame content, and steered into my problems with GW2, but I hope this at least helps someone, sorry I got so off track. :P

Personally I am not a big fan of the PS however I think you might like season 2 because the way they explained it that might be exactly what you are looking for. It’s an continuation of your PS but in a more LS way. And permanent.

Beldin.5498:

Devata.6589:

Beldin.5498:

Wanderer.3248:

A R W E N.6895:

I Will repeat my question again. where is my high level end game rewarding content

I will add that i am not talking about wow raid like stuff (never played wow fyi, only played gw1 since its begining)

I will also add that i am not talking about a gear grind.

Just to make thing clear and to make people understand that what i am looking for is something instanced to do with other player that is harder than fractal or arah. Something that you have to practice over and over again for awesome rewards. Ever heard of DOA in gw1? (Thats where your tormented skin come from fyi)

It’d be hard for all of a week, but people would figure out how to do it, start farming it and then you’d be back to whining on the forums about how easy it is.

And once everyone was farming it and running around with the same rewards you’d be complaining how it’s not rewarding.

Yeah .. just look for example on the initial price of the Tequatl Mini and where it is now :
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/47846

Either drop-rates are really low, then nearly nobody plays the content like New Twighlight Arbor Path, and those Items are still expensive, or the things drop more often so everyone plays it and then prices go down, just like all the Champion Weapons.

So you think the drop-rates are different? I don’t know the drop-rates but I think (and it would make sense) that drop-rates are the same for those two cases. However many people are ‘grinding’ the same content for gold. Mainly Champions and World-bosses. That’s why in total still many people get the Tequatl mini to drop and so the TP overflows with the mini lowering the price. That dungeon path is not part of the content people farm a lot so the prices stay high even with similar drop rates. It really proof what I am saying if drop-rates are the same. In fact when you would higher the price so it becomes more obtainable for people the prices might still stay lower as the Tequatl mini simply because it does not get farmed that much.

All i wanted to say is, that the Twighlight Path in theory must be exactly what some people always want .. the challenge with high rewards. But .. since the reward drops not every now and then they don’t play that content.

But if now ANet would make the droprate higher everyone now plays that content suddenly and the market will be flooded with those items, so prices go down and suddenly its no longer “rewarding”.

In the end .. whatever they do .. its wrong.

I don’t think that would be the case here but in general yeah. If they add one new thing with better drops then people will move there. Like I said before. It’s important to do that all over the game at the same time. Then it would work and it does work on other games. So not everything they do have to be wrong. But they did make many mistakes especially (mainly) after release. No denying that.

Beldin.5498:

Wanderer.3248:

A R W E N.6895:

I Will repeat my question again. where is my high level end game rewarding content

I will add that i am not talking about wow raid like stuff (never played wow fyi, only played gw1 since its begining)

I will also add that i am not talking about a gear grind.

Just to make thing clear and to make people understand that what i am looking for is something instanced to do with other player that is harder than fractal or arah. Something that you have to practice over and over again for awesome rewards. Ever heard of DOA in gw1? (Thats where your tormented skin come from fyi)

It’d be hard for all of a week, but people would figure out how to do it, start farming it and then you’d be back to whining on the forums about how easy it is.

And once everyone was farming it and running around with the same rewards you’d be complaining how it’s not rewarding.

Yeah .. just look for example on the initial price of the Tequatl Mini and where it is now :
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/47846

Either drop-rates are really low, then nearly nobody plays the content like New Twighlight Arbor Path, and those Items are still expensive, or the things drop more often so everyone plays it and then prices go down, just like all the Champion Weapons.

So you think the drop-rates are different? I don’t know the drop-rates but I think (and it would make sense) that drop-rates are the same for those two cases. However many people are ‘grinding’ the same content for gold. Mainly Champions and World-bosses. That’s why in total still many people get the Tequatl mini to drop and so the TP overflows with the mini lowering the price. That dungeon path is not part of the content people farm a lot so the prices stay high even with similar drop rates. It really proof what I am saying if drop-rates are the same. In fact when you would higher the price so it becomes more obtainable for people the prices might still stay lower as the Tequatl mini simply because it does not get farmed that much.

Galen Grey.4709:

~

2/2
Mats is a little different because it also depends on how many you need. In a way it’s a form of a currency. You don’t want to be farming mats for days and days. That should be reasonably easy to obtain. One an hour is a lot to farm something as boring as mats but lets say it drops once every 30 min and you need 10 of it. That would be acceptable for the highest level stuff. To make sure the item you are creating still a little harder to get you can also require one specific item that is very hard to obtain (like a pre-cursor) however also that should be obtainable in a ’ doable’ way (not like a pre-cursor). In GW2 there are lodestones that you need 250 of and that at best drop once every 3 hours. That makes not double in a fun way to go for them directly. Going for that directly is not even close to being fun. And yes also getting very special items should be fun. Making them special by making the complete process of obtaining them just extremely boring (while an element of it might be a little boring.. farming 10 lodestones that drop once every 30 min is boring) is not the way to do it.

Well the progress of seeing the gold going up is exactly what is so boring. And if you do put all stuff in specific places how would that mean most people will still go for the gold way. The way to then grind gold would be to farm those lode-stones and sell them so the progress would be exactly the same. And then, they sell the lodestones to buy some skin they like, however the skin also drops in one place so they could just as well ave gone directly for the skin. It would likely have been even faster. It’s still an option but it’s not the most viable and / or only doable option any-more.

Wait first you say it would not help, it would even increase the gold-grind and then you say “Additionally you’ll also loose players who were willing to farm say corrupted lodestones”. And for mats I would expect a few more places I mainly talk about items that you need 1 of. Also it’s not killing one mob for 30 hours because you have many items to go for so if you get frustrated that does not drop you go for another item to come back tot his later.

You might fear that (while you also conflict your own statements) but you don’t have to fear it It’s a system that has proven itself in many games and works just fine.

Again you make it drop in a reasonable amount in one place. What I said in the previous post was that I was not suggesting to just make it drop more like you where suggesting in the post before that. The total drops in the game might be the same maybe even lower (or maybe higher if that is needed) but they are more concentrated to one specific place or with mats a few places. Then you can go do that specific content to get it and makes is more accessible that way.

They created the gold-grind in 2 ways. Not letting people go directly for the items (extreme low drop rates) they want but having many item more like a general drop. (that’s why I say it should be the other way around). So you can’t directly work towards it in a viable way but because it drops in so many places many people get it and so put in on the TP meaning the best way to get them is with gold to buy it by doing content that again drops good loot in general (but nothing specific). The other way is of course by putting items in the cash-shop. Anything in the cash-shop is only obtainable with gold. (cash does not count when talking about game-play).

The rewards and the content go hand in hand. I see many people having fun using one of those grabber machines at a fair. Trust me, they won’t like it any-more if the toy they grab and put in the hole does not drop out of the frond of the machine. Anet very much know thats well sort of. That’s why they monetize that part. If people would not want that they would not monetize it because they would not earn any money with it. Problem is that by monetizing that part they remove it (or devalue it) from the content and so the game becomes boring.

Galen Grey.4709:

~

1/2
“But you’re mistaken in that gear is not only important at end game”
I said I do not care about it until i’m max level not that you don’t ‘need’ it. Also in GW2 you ‘need’ it (get killed way faster with low level gear, not literally need!) so indeed I put on what I get as drop (or in another MMO from a quest). But I am not really going to see what is the best armor for me until I’m max level.

Also nearly all mmo’s are mainly number games, including GW2. That is exactly why I am not so interested in armor, builds, traits and leveling that out. If I want some good PvP action I play an FPS. Not saying that PvP is not fun. I like the WvW idea (while to much zerg at this moment) or open world PvP. But sPvP or getting a player kill is not a big drive for me in a MMO because it’s 90% a number-game. Yesterday I found out I did not yet set my traits on my main after Anet reset that. Still need to do that but it’s simply something I do once and then never look back to.

In an MMO other things attract me more. Like hunting down cosmetics and so on. The fact that with the wrong armor I can’t kill a boss is only a distraction for me. But I must say I never really had a big problem with that, even not in a game as WoW because also there the highest tier and best maxed out armor (tier grind) is only needed for the highest level raids. All other content in the game does not require the best gear. So in that way it’s similar to GW2 with FotM.

“Can you elaborate on what you mean by special drops in relation to making some events drop special drops? what specifically are we talking about? ”
That can be everything but should fit the event. Maybe you need to fight a mob with a special weapon. Then that weapon can only drop there from that mob. Or maybe it can drop a mini version of itself. Or maybe the event resolved around cooking so a cooking recipe or very special ingredient drops. Now if I want to level that craft or want that mini or want that weapon I will go seek out that event to get that item.
In fact there are only a few events in this game I went to (at a later stage) specifically to and that was because of drop as there are a few events that reward or sell some special (fun) item when completing it. If I compare that to other content in other MMO’s I was always on my way for the next item I needed and so seeking out the specific content that dropped that special or specific item I needed / wanted.

“So wait let me get this right, you think the problem with say corrupted lodestones isn’t that they drop 1 per hour but that you can farm them in different places?” Yes and no. With normal items I do not think it’s a problem if it has a low drop-rate as long as it is a doable drop-rate (something that makes it worth going for). But it is indeed a problem if it has a very low drop-rate but does drop in a lot of places. This means many people bumb into it so while it’s nearly impossible to work directly towards it (because the extremely low drop-rate) it does get dropped a lot in total because so many people can run into it (that are not really going for that item) meaning it does end up a lot on the trading post and there is your gold-grind. Because now gold becomes the most viable way it get items.
So what I say is to remove it as a ‘general’ drop so it does not drop in many places any-more and so less people bumb into it while increasing the drop-rate in one specific place. Because of that the total number of drops might stay the same (so I don’t just say they should increase drop-rates) or maybe even drop while you make it more viable to go directly for the item because it has a acceptable drop-rate in that one place.

Galen Grey.4709:

Nerelith.7360:

new content, and change is not what makes a game NOT stagnant. If the changes are not good…. if the content doesn’t engage….then it ca seem stagnant even if things change.

I have been playing since release. This game appears to be going through a Lot of whirly-gig motion, but that does Not mean it is healthy.

In my opinion, the game is monetizing more and more, nerfing open world Gold and component farming more and more, putting stuff On the gem store more and more.

Those changes in my opinion, are not good ones. Clean water, can change to poluted water, and yes, maybe it’s Not stagnant by defenition, but I still wouldn’t drink it.

are you sure that nerfing open world gold is a monotization tactic? cause I think it was actually a good move to control inflation. Right now you have 2 classes of players so to speak, farmers and non-farmers. Farmers can make up to 15g per hour as claimed by some of them. None farmers are lucky if they make 50s per hour. The more one group makes the higher prices will go because that group can afford a lot more then the other. Not just that but the more time passes with a high rate of income the more tp prices are likely to go up. Lets take 1000g precursors for example. at 15g per hour it would take 66hrs for a farmer to make enough. if say they play 20hrs a week they can make that much in a month. 6 months down the line they’ll be sitting on 6000g+ so wouldnt you agree they’ll be willing to pay even higher prices then 1000g at that point? could precursors also sell at 2k, 3k, maybe even 6k? at the same time the non farmers would be sitting on what? 200g if the spend absolutely nothing and play the same amount of time!

who is likely to have to use their credit card to buy gems? the farmer who can afford a precursor a month? or player who needs years to afford precursor at prices only farmers can match? simply speaking nerfing farming actually makes the situation better not worst. if the nerf is bad enough that farmers will no longer afford to buy precursors, precursors will stop selling and their price will start to fall gradually.

Its important to keep in mind this is a player driven economy, prices are not fixed. making more money doesnt mean it will be easier to buy stuff, it means prices will go up and up and up. That has the added negativity that players who devote their whole game to making money will monopolize everything and those players who play to enjoy the game rather then making money will be cut out from a lot of rewards. (though it may sound like it I am not implying you cannot enjoy the game by focusing on making money, I am just merely making a distinction between those groups of players)

In short It is very important for the economy and the game in general that there is a balance between the most profitable content to the average content and nerfs that keep that balance are a good thing. If all arenanet wanted was to drive gem sales it would help them more boosting farming profits then nerfing them. the bigger the gap between farmers and non farmers the more non farmers have no choice but to use real money to make up for the difference.

as for the content itself, if you didnt enjoy than yes thats a problem. I personally like a lot of what they offered in S1, not everything but overall I Am pretty satisfied.

Personally I do not think the possibility to grind gold has been lowered for to benefit the cash-shop. While you could say they did it so the gold-grinders could not grind any-more so they themselves would be more likely to spend gold. However I do think that much of the inability to work directly for items and to farm mats directly is related to the cash-shop (why buy gold if you can get them buy playing for them). It makes gold more important and so people are more likely to buy gold and it works two ways because items in the cash-shop can only be obtained with gold (if we talk about ingame methods) what drives up the need for gold even more. While at the same time is devalues the item. What is so great about having a skin from a hard to kill boss if other people run around in even better looking gear they got with brainlessly grinding gold or with buying gold or the items? It totally devalues rewards. Same for the temporary nature of the LS. Luckily they seem to have realised finally that hat was a bad idea indeed.

So while I not think reducing the gold-grind options is done for the benefit of the cash-shop there are still many (negative) things done for the cash-shop and the cash-shop has it’s own negative side-effects.

Sages.3496:

Nerelith.7360:

Sages.3496:

if i am to be honest here, None of this even matter’s anymore. Anet doing these updates is a good thing. Nerfing the train allowed for newer player’s to enjoy themselves out in queens dale without being kittened at constantly by people in the train if they killed a champ. so im happy to see Anet finally stepping up to do something like this HUGE PROPS TO THEM FOR IT! also there are alot of way’s to make gold still, using the trading post to your advantage is a good way, and doing dungeons is also another one. The changes to the dungeon’s like the spider in AC spreading out all her aoe’s even if stacked makes it so you have to fight her the way anet originally intended, once again. Anet did a great job in finally fixing the exploit’s of others. so all this kittening and complaining, im personally laughing at considering this update changed alot for the better, all you people do is find something to complain about every patch instead of playing the game.

Maybe you should read the entire thread next time?

MY issue is Not that earning Gold is hard. MY issue is, I cannot camp for the materials I wish to acquire to level up My trade skills, Unless I want to farm for gold, and spend the gold at the TP, to BUY the components I need… for My tradeskills.

I understand that for many of the players here, that are content with the state of the game…the situation is exactly the same.

As I explained In a post above. In terms of immersion, I feel More connected to a world in which I can find a camp of mobs that drop what i want..I stake them out, I avoid wandering patrols…I solo the camp..to farm for the parts I need. THIS feels Like " Playing the game my way." as Anet’s manifesto assured I would be able to do.

Me..going into a dungeon, to then grind out gold… to then use On the tp, to buy the components I need… may be an efficient way for people that like dungeons, or even for people willing to accept Anet’s complete abandonment of their manifesto just to " get along" .." hey, Anet said it was hard, let’s feel bad for the devs"

As far as I am concerned…I can “play the game my way” here. or … I can play another game my way… while monitoring the forums.

So I Monitor the forums.

If you dislike reading my posts, you can ignore them, won’t hurt my feelings any.

PS: My complaint was never that the QD train as gone. I am happy it’s gone a Lot of toxicity was associated with that train that new players did not need to be exposed to.

My complaint is Mostly about Diminishing Returns.

Another complaint to add to the ever growing pile of them that i realy dont care about, if you want material’s so bad dont rely on the train’s anymore or events. actualy go farm them like the rest of us as you are nothing special. the reality is, GW2 is what the players make it by buying it and not paying for gem’s all that much. but i will continue to enjoy every aspect of the game until there is nothing left to do.

The point was that (some) people want to farm the mats them-self but that that is not possible for many mats (same for many other items).

And the game is what it is more likely because people DO spend money on gems. That is the whole problem. That helps the focus on the cash-shop what is the reason for most of these problems (like ’ rewards’ in the cash-shop and the gold-grind). Buying gems is what helped to destroy this game, it does not help to improve it. I have no problem paying money. It’s a B2P game so let me buy the game, so release expansions. No stupid cash-shop. If I liked a cash-shop to be involved so much I would play one of the many F2P games out there.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SkiTz.4590:

everything they continue to add in terms of rewards is GEMSTORE ITEMS thats it.

Really? I mean, everything?

The few special exotics which are restricted to coming out of certain types of champion bags are gemstore items? I had no idea. Show me where they are in the gemstore, it’d save me some time.

The tokens for taking part in the WvW Season 2 are gemstore related? Please, sir, direct me to where I can pay for some of these on the gemstore, I’d love to complete my wardrobe.

The Tequatl-chest related goods? Super Adventure Box skins? Those are available from the gemstore? Wow . . .

There is no special loot hunt. Just farm gold as much as you can just buy it from TP. Run your daily dungeons NOT FOR THE LOOT, but for the daily 1g. thats terrible design and its been here for 2 years now.

Well, you could farm gold. Or you could go out there and actually do stuff for it. And I don’t really think the dungeon daily run is near as fun as dropping into WvW when it’s packed and active.

Anyway, whatever. Some people are still “waiting for end game content” and I’m still waiting for many of them to bother explaining why we should add it . . . aside for keeping the 1% of players who would go into doing it happy for a few months until they get bored.

You know, same as every other game and its end-game content.

Yeah they did add in new skins but it does not have the effect it should have because of the way they do it. Adding in the Tequatl items is nice (it’s the type of rewards we should see) but because there is so little of content people do (farming champs, farming world-bosses mainly) it did mean everybody jumped into that making the rewards less special (they get flooded on the TP) meaning again that grinding gold is the best option. In addition the Cash Shop does seem to have the focus so you can get this one cool item in the game as a reward yet 10 other nice or maybe even better items are in the cash-shop.

Another problem is that many rewards have become also less interesting. For example I did collect mini’s in most games but I simply stopped caring about that in GW2 because if 90% requires a gold-grind it does not become interesting any more to collect them. Also not the 10% that you might get in-game. And how special is a weapon if you can get is simply by grinding gold? It devalues the item / reward.

Another way to get new skins was by doing the achievements list coming with the PS. Something everybody did (because you got it piece by piece and it was temporary) so again not very special and for many it was a achievement grind against time that they did not consider fun.

However SAB was indeed a good example of how it can work. Fun content and good rewards. Especially SAB 1 was a great example because you could do it also on your alts and you could also turn bubble into so useful materials while ingame there where also some exiting drops you could get. However the way SAB 2 worked did also have some good points (sadly also taking away multiple alts and turning bubbles into useful materials) where you get special armor for the harder content. Now if the whole game was like that!!

You can add in one new content a piece and then add one reward but then everybody jumps onto that meaning you keep having the same problem so that does not work. What they need to do is have one big patch (expansion would be best for that change) where they add a lot of new content and rewards in the game. All dungeons having there own rewards, some mobs, hearts, events, possible quest and so on. For new and current content. Stop putting in the best looking stuff in the cash-shop (the cash-shop really is a big cause of this so better get rid it it completely). The best looking stuff should be in the game. Create a musician craft. Instruments should be attainable with that craft not with the cash-shop. And a tailoring craft where you can make what we now know town cloth. And so on and so on. Then you would get a great game with great rewards when also adding in challenging content. You need to overwhelm people so not everybody rushes to exactly the same new thing.

SAB was a game within the game and it did a lot very good, elements where the real game failed.
It’s really sad really, the thing they added in as a joke turned out to be the best content added so far. However that might not be a coincident. It was a joke so they let a developer do his thing create some fun game. No focus on monetizing (no cash-shop) that and the developer likely had a lot of freedom just making a fun game. No of the ‘rules’ set for GW2 where they had to apply to.

“Well, you could farm gold.”
Well yeah there is that option of course.. lol.

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

I don’t really care about armor until I am level 80 and until 80 I get enough drops to keep upgrading my amour along the way. Now how you describe it it’s more like a tool. Thats fine but it’s not fun and thats what I am looking at in a game, fun. Let me craft fun items. Let me be a musician (woops they put that option in the cash-shop) or let me be a toy-maker. A nice new toy every 5 levels to work towards. Meanwhile let me hunt down recipe’s in the world or let me hunt down a special Item I need to create one of those recipe’s. Now then I have fun crafting.

One of the funnest moments I had On another game was levelling up engineering,…. and having made Target Dummies ( they are a Box you drop that when mobs come at you, and near it, Out pops something that draws agro… Kind of Like a Portable mechanical agro magnet.)…

I drop it, and the Mob rushes at me, and I see this … thing made of wood on a spring… flat, but it is the cut out of a female..the painting on it, shows she has a huge cleavage.. and hans her hand In the air, and a smile on her face… the Motion seems to attract the mob over, …although How a Big breasted female sporting cleavage, and waving is attractive to a boar I have no clue…

But it was funny as hell. Every other character I play on that game takes engineering, and makes stacks of target dummies. STILL fun.

Yeah indeed, that is a fun way of crafting, and it is a fun way of leveling because every few crafting levels there is another nice item to work towards and while doing that you explore the world (looking for the needed materials) and so level up. Now that is what I consider fun. I do like something like engineering where you make such funny little tools. But there can be much more like crafts where you tame pets for rangers or as mini creating your own unique looking ones. All fun stuff to do in an MMO.

Sages.3496:

Devata.6589:

Sages.3496:

if i am to be honest here, None of this even matter’s anymore. Anet doing these updates is a good thing. Nerfing the train allowed for newer player’s to enjoy themselves out in queens dale without being kittened at constantly by people in the train if they killed a champ. so im happy to see Anet finally stepping up to do something like this HUGE PROPS TO THEM FOR IT! also there are alot of way’s to make gold still, using the trading post to your advantage is a good way, and doing dungeons is also another one. The changes to the dungeon’s like the spider in AC spreading out all her aoe’s even if stacked makes it so you have to fight her the way anet originally intended, once again. Anet did a great job in finally fixing the exploit’s of others. so all this kittening and complaining, im personally laughing at considering this update changed alot for the better, all you people do is find something to complain about every patch instead of playing the game.

Lol you are only confirming the complains by talking about “ways to get gold”. The complains are about that everything is abased around gold.

And I complain about a few issue (cash-shop focus being the biggest one and it seems very much related to gold-driven nature of the game what I also complain about) for over a year now. So not really like every patch I complain about something new.
Besides making the temporary content permanent is a good step. One of those other conserns I did complain about. Good thing people did.

But I did suggest they do the episode sales a little different and I did complain about the guild being all split up because of the mega-server. Because you know that is factually what happened. So sometimes a new patch does trigger a new complain. You got em there.

1. i dont care everything is based around gold, honestly that’s partially a way to keep players in game if they want to get anything done. #2 i was explaining that it isnt impossible to get gold as a post at the first page had said. and #3 Every patch has it’s own amount of player’s whining over the changes it brought ((which im guilty of at one point or another.)).

You don’t, other people do, so those other people do complain about that. And yet some other people might not even know why they find the game boring but do find it boring while the reason might very well be the gold-grind. I also don’t see how it is keeping people playing while other options would not.

Sages.3496:

if i am to be honest here, None of this even matter’s anymore. Anet doing these updates is a good thing. Nerfing the train allowed for newer player’s to enjoy themselves out in queens dale without being kittened at constantly by people in the train if they killed a champ. so im happy to see Anet finally stepping up to do something like this HUGE PROPS TO THEM FOR IT! also there are alot of way’s to make gold still, using the trading post to your advantage is a good way, and doing dungeons is also another one. The changes to the dungeon’s like the spider in AC spreading out all her aoe’s even if stacked makes it so you have to fight her the way anet originally intended, once again. Anet did a great job in finally fixing the exploit’s of others. so all this kittening and complaining, im personally laughing at considering this update changed alot for the better, all you people do is find something to complain about every patch instead of playing the game.

Lol you are only confirming the complains by talking about “ways to get gold”. The complains are about that everything is abased around gold.

And I complain about a few issue (cash-shop focus being the biggest one and it seems very much related to gold-driven nature of the game what I also complain about) for over a year now. So not really like every patch I complain about something new.
Besides making the temporary content permanent is a good step. One of those other conserns I did complain about. Good thing people did.

But I did suggest they do the episode sales a little different and I did complain about the guild being all split up because of the mega-server. Because you know that is factually what happened. So sometimes a new patch does trigger a new complain. You got me there.

Draknar.5748:

Nerelith.7360:

Not quite. See if I were on another game…I would be doing certain dungeons, or fighting certain Boss mobs on the chance that said Item might drop. THAT leads to Immersion.

By having to " grind gold" this turns a game, into a Job. "I put in 8 hours farming gold…then I do it again, and save up..and I can then buy "Dusk""

That is NOT in any way the same as " I Know that so and so, carried that weapon in bla bla bla…. I Just need to be lucky enough to get it."

Maybe those that wish to keep saying " The game is fine" want to equate the two, but speaking for myself…. They aren’t.

What I find Intriguing is, even if we assume they are completely identical… why did Anet go with the " go farm for gold" model…Instead of the " do dungeon A until the weapon drops" model?

Maybe because the first … casual players can BUY “Dusk” for Gold they buy with gems? The second Dusk becomes an item that can only be obtained from simply playing the game?

Then again, if it can be Only obtained from playing the game… less people buy gems for cash, that they then trade for Gold I guess. So… there is that going for it.

Good points, but I would say that having to do anything more than once will make it feel like a job. For example, you play a game that has loot drop from bosses based on a loot table (pretty standard). Obviously good items have lower %’s but at the very least you know it should drop at some point.

You run the dungeon the first day, drat didn’t get the item you wanted, alright, let me run it again, maybe the second time will be better. Drat, didn’t get the rare item I wanted the second time around, got some blue garbage like last time. Ok, now you’re a little frustrated, but whatever, let’s run it a third time. Drat, again no rare item that you wanted!

At this point I can assure you that any player would consider running that dungeon again as work. You aren’t playing it anymore because its fun or good content, you are strictly running it over and over and over to try and get an item drop. That’s no different than running dungeons over and over for gold to buy the item you wanted. At least in GW2 you can run different dungeons over and over instead of the same one over and over.

The point is, it’s work any way you look at it if you have to go out of your way to do some repetitive task to get an item, and different people have different tolerances for the type of work they want to do.

You know how many times I had to run Molten Core in Vanilla WoW to get the full T1 set for my priest? I have no idea because after 30+ runs I still didn’t have a full set, and by then T2 armor came out and everything up until then was a complete waste of my time.

Well you can make up any possible way it could work our for players. I can simply say how it actually works for me. How I factually prefer item drops over gold / currency grind. (and with me many more)
The same content stays fun for a long time because every time there is the rush of “it might drop!”

And yes an item might not drop a lot of times and then you might not feel like doing it again anymore, luckily there are always multiple things I like to have so then I move to another item that requires other content (like another dungeon maybe or completely other content). With the gold-grind the alternative to grinding gold is uhhm well grinding gold.. maybe grinding gold in another but less productive manner? Never the rush of “it might drop”. Not going into the world to collect the goods you need to make the cool item that you also had to go into the world for to get the recipe. That is exploring and playing an MMO to me. No, grind gold, buy your stuff.

Draknar.5748:

Devata.6589:

Draknar.5748:

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

Destai.9603:

nolij.4327:

making the game harder and nerfing gold farming methods accomplishes two things

1. people who are dedicated players who like to farm for stuff will quite, making server load lighter
2. people who aren’t so dedicated but still want gold will end up spending even more money on buying gold because it’s now impossible to make gold by playing the game

it’s very easy to understand these kind of situations once you face the fact that it’s all about the money

inb4 “omg how dare anet try to make money blah blah blah”

yes, anet deserves money for content. however, taking present content and making it harder is not content, and therefore not deserving of money.

it’s sad to say that i’m thinking about leaving too, for wildstar

Do it, you won’t regret it. I approached it with reservations after the severe disappointment suffered with this game over the last year. Wildstar’s what an MMO should be and is worth the $15 a month.

You do understand that you are basically supporting the same company.

And so the game will likely have or get similar money grabbing tactics. In fact the 15 dollar a month might be exactly that. And if your willing to pay the 15 dollar you might just as well start playing WoW as that game proven itself by being successful for 10 years now.

• raises her hand sheepishly, as she rides around on her two person rocket.*

All kidding aside. I am not going to leave gw2 just yet. I am not on playing it, since it’s rewards are all in parts of the game I am not too thrilled about. The manifesto said play how I want, if i go chasing the gold Like a skinner box lab rat…I am not Playing the way I want.

As long as playing the game the way i want is nowhere near as profiteable as farming dungeon runs… I prefer to monitor the Forums for changes… and play… something else.

But the last thing I will do, is give more money to NCSoft.

So whether Wildstar looks good or not, I am giving that a pass.

I think people need to cool it on the “omg if it isn’t satisfying me 100% then I’m not able to play how I want, Anet you lied!” thing. If you want to just do PvP, go for it. You want to mindlessly grind mobs in PvE, go for it, you want to just do crafting and JPs, sure no one’s stopping you, you want to RP, run some dungeons, do some WvW, stand in a circle dancing, whatever, by all means go and do it you can play any way you want! Oh, you want to do any of those things but also make good money doing it? Well, that’s a completely different issue. Not a “play how I want” issue.

I would like to work directly towards items I might like. Not by grinding gold. Thats all.

Well, some could argue that by grinding gold you are indeed working directly towards items you like…

Hypothetically if, let’s say you wanted Dusk, they said, “ok to get Dusk you can run X dungeon and then at the end you will get 1-2 ‘Dusk tokens’. Collect 1000 Dusk tokens and you can trade them in for Dusk!”

Believe it or not if Anet did this then I bet a lot of people would be happy. “Oh man we can finally work toward something we want!” I can hear them exclaiming.

But quite honestly, in this scenario, you could swap the term Dusk tokens for gold coin and you would have the system we currently have.

And still it’s very different. In fact I also talk a lot about currency driven in stead of gold driven (to also take stuff like tokens into account).

When you use a currency (like gold) you slowly get up there. You slowly see that number rising and well that is boring as hell to me. Now if it drops (rng) on average it might require the same amount of kills (or whatever) however every time you do it you have the rush of ‘will it drop’. That is what makes it so much fun to work towards something directly. Another advantage is that you are not being driven towards whatever gets you the most gold because when done correctly, going directlly for an item is always the fastest while still having gold as an option. Tokens (and gold) is a nice side thing to get so while doing it you know you also get something to the side for sure. But the main goal you go for should not be based on a currency because that takes away much of the joy. It becomes to much like a job.

Darksage.1854:

Please! Correct me if I am wrong,

If you played since beta you would know that when the game launched there was no such thing is “DR”, therefore you could go to Cursed Shore and farm for your T6 materials all day, every day. This made the T6 materials much much less valuable. At that point in time, Gold was a very hard thing to acquire. People complained on the Forums about BOTS sitting in Cursed shore farming all day, and not being able to pay for the bills ex. Armor repair, Map Travel,( or actually wanting to buy materials as a quicker process ).

After all the complaints, ANet decides to take the only approach they could to eliminate the bots by adding “DR” so there would be no reason for them to sit in cursed shore all day and farm for T6 Materials. Of course, taking that approach leads to some people as yourselves to come on the forums and complain about the fact you cant sit in X spot all day to collect Y and Z materials to get ( whatever item you need or want ). This change also affects the price of materials to sky rocket leading to inflation. Which leads to ANet having to change the way you acquire gold.

As a fellow player, I do understand it would be nice to know you can farm for the materials you want without spending a dime on the TP, but it’s yall who are changing the game. ANet can’t please everybody. You can either enjoy the ride, or hop off and move on to the next best thing.

If somebody farms the items here need he is not going to go to Cursed Shore and farm for T6 materials all day, every day. You go take what you need and leave. Beside, problem with most items is that you can’t do specific content to get it. It are in many classes very rare world drops or at least drops spread out over a lot of content but with extreme low drop rates. Then you can;t work towards it. And of course there are the items that don’t drop in the game at all. That problem has been there from the start.

Nerelith.7360:

Draknar.5748:

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

Destai.9603:

nolij.4327:

making the game harder and nerfing gold farming methods accomplishes two things

1. people who are dedicated players who like to farm for stuff will quite, making server load lighter
2. people who aren’t so dedicated but still want gold will end up spending even more money on buying gold because it’s now impossible to make gold by playing the game

it’s very easy to understand these kind of situations once you face the fact that it’s all about the money

inb4 “omg how dare anet try to make money blah blah blah”

yes, anet deserves money for content. however, taking present content and making it harder is not content, and therefore not deserving of money.

it’s sad to say that i’m thinking about leaving too, for wildstar

Do it, you won’t regret it. I approached it with reservations after the severe disappointment suffered with this game over the last year. Wildstar’s what an MMO should be and is worth the $15 a month.

You do understand that you are basically supporting the same company.

And so the game will likely have or get similar money grabbing tactics. In fact the 15 dollar a month might be exactly that. And if your willing to pay the 15 dollar you might just as well start playing WoW as that game proven itself by being successful for 10 years now.

• raises her hand sheepishly, as she rides around on her two person rocket.*

All kidding aside. I am not going to leave gw2 just yet. I am not on playing it, since it’s rewards are all in parts of the game I am not too thrilled about. The manifesto said play how I want, if i go chasing the gold Like a skinner box lab rat…I am not Playing the way I want.

As long as playing the game the way i want is nowhere near as profiteable as farming dungeon runs… I prefer to monitor the Forums for changes… and play… something else.

But the last thing I will do, is give more money to NCSoft.

So whether Wildstar looks good or not, I am giving that a pass.

I think people need to cool it on the “omg if it isn’t satisfying me 100% then I’m not able to play how I want, Anet you lied!” thing. If you want to just do PvP, go for it. You want to mindlessly grind mobs in PvE, go for it, you want to just do crafting and JPs, sure no one’s stopping you, you want to RP, run some dungeons, do some WvW, stand in a circle dancing, whatever, by all means go and do it you can play any way you want! Oh, you want to do any of those things but also make good money doing it? Well, that’s a completely different issue. Not a “play how I want” issue.

I think you are completely misunderstanding me. I Like to farm for the drops I need to level up my profession skills…Just as ONE example.

I Like knowing " Mobs A, B and C…In area X… drop ancient bone, I need ancient bone to make Item Y." And go there, and spend a few Hours Just… avoiding patrols, as I solo farm for ancient bones to level up My skills yes… but also, for the sheer enjoyment of managing the camp alone.

It is tied together. It is Not Just " the pure enjoyment of soloing the camp"…. it’s also the REWARD, of getting the ancient Bones to drop….

It’s NOT JUST Not being able to gold farm… yes that is also an issue for me, at least not being able to do so consistently, and repeatedly.

Diminishing Returns is chasing me off this game.

Last night, me and the wife needed bigger bags. So I hop on my level 85 Warlock… and take the zeppelin to a certain spot..and then the bat to another spot, I Know I can get Cloths for 20 slot bags. While I am there, I can also disenchant whatever else drops… to combine with the cloth, and the threads I bought at the merchant and keep in large supply.

For ME…. it is enjoyable to farm the components I need. For ME…. it’s Not about grinding out gold..to then shop on the TP.

THIS is what I… mean by " Play How I want." THIS is what I am NOT able to do.

So I am playing another game, I was at that spot for about an Hour, I got 120 cloth, I got some green enchanted items to disenchant, and I got 20 to 25 gold. Good for me…

I only ended up needing 10 of some other item, which I bought off the AH for a negligible amount.

In Gw2. If I want ancient bone…DR makes me have to stop after I get 10 or so…. I need 100 or so. So where do I need to go? The TP.

But then I run Into problem two, I need the Gold to Buy it. So where can I go to get that? A dungeon…farm it…run 8 a day. What if I don’t Like dungeons?

Maybe take out the credit card? Like that is so much fun and rewarding?

My point exactly.

Sligh.2789:

Devata.6589:

Mosharn.8357:

~

It’s scary how recognizable many of those examples are. Thing is, I still have many things I can do. I have no PS completed but that’s because I play an MMO for the MMO part, and the PS is to much SP. I haven’t maxed out any craft but that’s because crafting is all a gold-grind and it’s just boring. Anything you might want to make comes at level 400 and 500. No fun items along the way you would even want to work towards.

I don’t have all classes at lvl 80 but I don’t farm gold so playing on an alt even punishes me more with bad drops and since everything is based on gold you better don’t do that.

Doing dungeons for what multiple times? For gold? That is boring. For a cool drop I might be interested in doing it multiple times however they have no cool drops. All those items are in the cash-shop. There are no nice (little) goals to work towards or well there are but they almost all require grinding gold to buy your goal.

The personal story is the story of the game for your character, so not doing it is your loss of perspective for your character.

Wrong. The story of my character (my personal story) is what I do in the game, what I explore and What I achieve. Not some per-scripted single player story that has been put there by the developers.

In fact it makes the whole experience even less of your personal story and you proof it yourself by talking about “your character”. Now it becomes some other dude in stead of me.

Sligh.2789:

Crafting is a cheap way to get better armor and weapons for all your chars as they progress through the game.

I don’t really care about armor until I am level 80 and until 80 I get enough drops to keep upgrading my amor along the way. Now how you describe it it’s more like a tool. Thats fine but it’s not fun and thats what I am looking at in a game, fun. Let me craft fun items. Let me be a musician (woops they put that option in the cash-shop) or let me be a toy-maker. A nice new toy every 5 levels to work towards. Meanwhile let me hunt down recipe’s in the world or let me hunt down a special Item I need to create one of those recipe’s. Now then I have fun crafting.

Sligh.2789:

I never bought materials with gold just to get my crafting higher, I actually used the stuff I crafted with materials I harvested. Thinking it is a gold grind to buy materials is a failure to understand the game.

That is very possible to some point with crafting. But still you are leveling up just to reach lvl 400 so it’s not really like you working your way up from item to item.

Sligh.2789:

skip mentality that is for those that seek nothing but gold to buy their stuff as soon as possible.

Trust me I do not have that mentality so I never grind gold. Problem is for many items it’s the only or the only viable way to get items. What is well… boring. Also what is nice in a dungeon is trying to beat it in the best possible way. Not is the worse possible way. The problem here is that the best possible way tent to be stack and kill.\

Sligh.2789:

challenge yourself,

Problem is that GW2 punishes you for doing so. SAB was a good example BTW. The more challenging the more rewarding and it was fun content. To bat that SAB 2 make it account-bound not character bound and that the hardest mode was based mainly on trial and error (to find the route) not on skill and they then put in an infinitive coin in the cash-shop to overcome the trial and error. But except for those elements SAB was a very good example of how it could be. There where also some rewards that dropper in SAB, so you did have the excitement of getting that while also getting the tokens.

Draknar.5748:

Nerelith.7360:

Devata.6589:

Destai.9603:

nolij.4327:

making the game harder and nerfing gold farming methods accomplishes two things

1. people who are dedicated players who like to farm for stuff will quite, making server load lighter
2. people who aren’t so dedicated but still want gold will end up spending even more money on buying gold because it’s now impossible to make gold by playing the game

it’s very easy to understand these kind of situations once you face the fact that it’s all about the money

inb4 “omg how dare anet try to make money blah blah blah”

yes, anet deserves money for content. however, taking present content and making it harder is not content, and therefore not deserving of money.

it’s sad to say that i’m thinking about leaving too, for wildstar

Do it, you won’t regret it. I approached it with reservations after the severe disappointment suffered with this game over the last year. Wildstar’s what an MMO should be and is worth the $15 a month.

You do understand that you are basically supporting the same company.

And so the game will likely have or get similar money grabbing tactics. In fact the 15 dollar a month might be exactly that. And if your willing to pay the 15 dollar you might just as well start playing WoW as that game proven itself by being successful for 10 years now.

• raises her hand sheepishly, as she rides around on her two person rocket.*

All kidding aside. I am not going to leave gw2 just yet. I am not on playing it, since it’s rewards are all in parts of the game I am not too thrilled about. The manifesto said play how I want, if i go chasing the gold Like a skinner box lab rat…I am not Playing the way I want.

As long as playing the game the way i want is nowhere near as profiteable as farming dungeon runs… I prefer to monitor the Forums for changes… and play… something else.

But the last thing I will do, is give more money to NCSoft.

So whether Wildstar looks good or not, I am giving that a pass.

I think people need to cool it on the “omg if it isn’t satisfying me 100% then I’m not able to play how I want, Anet you lied!” thing. If you want to just do PvP, go for it. You want to mindlessly grind mobs in PvE, go for it, you want to just do crafting and JPs, sure no one’s stopping you, you want to RP, run some dungeons, do some WvW, stand in a circle dancing, whatever, by all means go and do it you can play any way you want! Oh, you want to do any of those things but also make good money doing it? Well, that’s a completely different issue. Not a “play how I want” issue.

I would like to work directly towards items I might like. Not by grinding gold. Thats all.

Psichologas.1063:

b2p=almost like f2p

The game was supposed to be B2P not F2P while at this moment it’s more like a F2P game. So you may very well ask for expansion (B2P) over cash-shop items (F2P stuff).

Mosharn.8357:

There is plenty of end game content. I don’t know what you’re smoking.

After you hit 80 and got some gear these are the challenging end game things you got ahead of yah:
1. Afk auto range world bosses then come back and get your 2 greens 1 blue and omg rare.
2. Run repetitive dungeons for literally nothing.
3. Do world vs world and by that i mean every single day you run around in a circle playing ‘’whos got the most ppl wins’’
4. Stand in LA asking your self,‘’ what am i doing?’’
5. Stare at the tp for something.
6. run around maps killing things with no challenge to explore stuff you could have done at lvl 50.
7. Craft unneeded things for looks because you have nothing else to do.
8. Stand in the heart of the mists asking your self,‘’ what am i doing?’’
9. zerg down tequatl or the wurm for the 97th time.
10. Haven’t done a dungeon in an hour so that seems fresh.
11. afk some where and look for another game then not find anything because every game is doing pretty bad atm. After that tab back to gw2 and stare at the tp.
12. Do the channeling bug like infinite whirl!( this isnt in game anymore… apparently it was too game breaking and unbalanced and was fixed( that was sarcasm.. this thing was fixed before the major bugs we still have since release)
13. run around in circles thinking of something to do.
14. Make another character and lvl it to 80 for no reason at all.

See there are a lot of things to do. You just find them out within due time!

Edit: forgot to add but idk if this qualifies: Do living story stuff that you waited 2 weeks for in 10 minutes.

It’s scary how recognizable many of those examples are. Thing is, I still have many things I can do. I have no PS completed but that’s because I play an MMO for the MMO part, and the PS is to much SP. I haven’t maxed out any craft but that’s because crafting is all a gold-grind and it’s just boring. Anything you might want to make comes at level 400 and 500. No fun items along the way you would even want to work towards.

I don’t have all classes at lvl 80 but I don’t farm gold so playing on an alt even punishes me more with bad drops and since everything is based on gold you better don’t do that.

Doing dungeons for what multiple times? For gold? That is boring. For a cool drop I might be interested in doing it multiple times however they have no cool drops. All those items are in the cash-shop. There are no nice (little) goals to work towards or well there are but they almost all require grinding gold to buy your goal.

Galen Grey.4709:

Well I would not define “One huge problem” as “it’s not optimal”. Anyway the reality is it’s not possible in any reasonable way. And a reasonable way does not mean ‘easy’ but it also doe not mean ‘not optional’ it means what I say in a reasonable way. You can’t directly work to most items in a reasonable way and many others you can’t work directly to at all. (cash-shop related items). And with directly I do not mean grinding gold to buy it.

“The biggest need people have in any mmo is gear ” It was never a big need for me and it’s not a big need in GW2. Like you say it’s something many people might want in vertical progression MMO’s but even then it’s a choice, it usually only becomes a requirement for the highest tier raids or something. What people play for in a horizontal progression game like GW2 is horizontal stuff like skins, fun items, dyes, mini’s and so on.

So to answer your question “how would I do that?” I would put those items in the game-world. I would likely also introduce traditional quests because they are good for soul-bound items and help exploring much better then the PoI and Vista’s striping of a list type of map ‘exploring’ we have now.
I would give some events special drops, I would give specific bosses such drops, a few mobs in a deserted location, a dungeon and so on. You want x? Go do content Y (or grind gold.. still an option but likely not the most viable any-more) Meaning those items become available with specific content, not by grinding gold and buying it form the cash-shop.

About your lodestones example. That is one of those items that drops in many places very randomly so it’s another example or a world drop. While there is no real good viable way to farm them (one dungeon can sort of help). Make one viable way (so increase drops for that specific way) to get them and let that be the only (or 2) way(s) so remove it as general drop (from chest and so on). Now less people run into them on accident and there is a viable way to work towards them directly. The total drop-rate will stay low (maybe even lower as now) because all the ‘random people / grinders’ don’t get them to drop any-more only if they directly start working towards that item. By doing that grinding gold stays an option but going directly for them will be an even more viable option. Do that with almost all the items (that are supposed to have some value or are mats and so on) in the game. Yes I think that is much better for the game. I talk all the time about making it possible to work directly towards an item and you act as if I just want to make it drop better so it becomes easy to get them. That’s not what I am saying. I don’t increase the total drop-rate I just move it to one place.

“people farm gold because its faster then farming the actual thing. do you think if you hide stuff behind specific content people will not look to farm those but instead take the longer route of trying to accidentally bumb into it?” No that’s the whole point, then there is a direct way to get them. That then becomes the more viable option. Now ‘bumping into an item’ is the most likely way. Meaning you can’t work towards it but because many people bumb into it it will end up on the TP and so grinding gold is the best way to get them. Grinding gold now means you increase your chance of bumping into random ‘good’ stuff you likely don’t want to sell to people who want it so you can buy the stuff they don’t want but they bumped into.

Believe it or not but that’s how it successfully works in many other mmo’s and yes also for horizontal items. It’s a proven approach. “Every one who wanted a corrupted staff would quickly get one and then when thats done in a couple of days” I never said it had to be easy like you keep suggesting. You now say “everybody who wanted it could then get it” well yes if you really want to go for it you can. That’s the same now. If you really want any of those items now you grind gold and buy it. I just change the most viable way to get items from grinding gold to doing specific content for that item. (while still leaving grinding open as a possibility) and yes then they might move on to the nest thing. (Again not saying they get it after 10 tries, that’s an assumption you made up and keep basing your comment on. I never said it had to be easy!!) and they might try to farm it and sell it but as soon as multiple people start doing that it does not become a viable option to earn gold any-more because the price would drop. So it’s not something many people will start doing if you can go directly for all those items you need / want.

“But they didn’t realize or didn’t care that the 30 mins they saved now is going to cost them ” That is then maybe a by-product of the gold-grind type of game-play Anet created.

Destai.9603:

nolij.4327:

making the game harder and nerfing gold farming methods accomplishes two things

1. people who are dedicated players who like to farm for stuff will quite, making server load lighter
2. people who aren’t so dedicated but still want gold will end up spending even more money on buying gold because it’s now impossible to make gold by playing the game

it’s very easy to understand these kind of situations once you face the fact that it’s all about the money

inb4 “omg how dare anet try to make money blah blah blah”

yes, anet deserves money for content. however, taking present content and making it harder is not content, and therefore not deserving of money.

it’s sad to say that i’m thinking about leaving too, for wildstar

Do it, you won’t regret it. I approached it with reservations after the severe disappointment suffered with this game over the last year. Wildstar’s what an MMO should be and is worth the $15 a month.

You do understand that you are basically supporting the same company.

And so the game will likely have or get similar money grabbing tactics. In fact the 15 dollar a month might be exactly that. And if your willing to pay the 15 dollar you might just as well start playing WoW as that game proven itself by being successful for 10 years now.

Hobbitz.5831:

Dear NC Soft,

You have your super bad kitten ultra hardcore MMO now in Wildstar. All the amazing super pro elites are playing it and loving it. Can Guild Wars 2 please go back to being a safe haven for us casual and gulp bad players again?

I’ll buy gems!!

Signed,
Me

Buying gems is what destroyed this game. The biggest problem that this ’ casual’ game is putting all it’s ’ casual’ rewards (because isn’t that what makes this game ’ casual’ ? focusing on cosmetics) in the cash-shop.

If that’s not your definition of ‘casual’ the game can still be made hardcore by just putting in some hard content that rewards so great cosmetics. But as long as the best rewards / cosmetics are in the cash-shop and everything is very much a gold-grind most people will keep finding the game boring.

I hope that with season two they manage to turn the tight but in many perspectives they are already to late. People did warn Anet about that back when it was not yet to late but by now they have already lost players they won’t get back.

Stuff can still go into a good direction but imho some irreversible damage has already been done and they need to get make sure they get the game in the good direction between now and a year. And that might already be to late because things are going faster as I excepted.

Need to start releasing expansions once a year, getting rid of the cash-shop and then focusing much more on getting a high quality game. Lose there pride if it comes to some of the failed idea’s (Events are great and should stay, but can’t replace expansions, no trinity is fine but we need roles, we also need some more guild-related dungeon stuff (raids?)). Get some fixes in the core of the game, if possible even making seamless zones to give a true open world feeling, take away the required gold-grind for everything (no need for that any-more when the cash-shop is eol) and as far as the PS I think it might be a little less single player experience.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

2 weeks until episode one, let’s wait for it and discuss then, what do you think?

Sort of agree, problem is that as soon as they start with 200 gems per episode (so with the start of the second episode) they can’t just undo it so I think thats something you need to get right from the beginning.

Belenwyn.8674:

Devata.6589:

I do think it’s something that might stop people from coming back because much of the end-game will also be locked behind it.. at least how Anet talked about it.

Still same question for me. Can you tell me what is so bad about asking 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes? (and maybe a few upcoming)

So you think Anet would then make less money (I would disagree but you might feel that way), is it unfair?. what is the problem with what I am suggestion? In what way is that worse for the game?

Because you are defending the current system but don’t say why it’s better or why my solution is worse.

It could stop some people from coming back. It could encourage some people to come back. We are speculating a lot. We simply don’t have enough informations about the system and the volume of a story instance. We also have no idea about the proportion between story instance and open world content. Is it equal in volume or does one part heavily outweigh the other.

We know you can enjoy the story for free. I don’t know if you can enjoy the challenges without receiving rewards too. This I have to see. Arenanet thinks the episodes are alluring enough to justify the 200 gems. They assured already the rewards are no “must haves”. If you are not obsessed by rewards you don’t need to invest gems – especially if the challenges are playable without buying the episode.

200 gems for the whole season 2 would be too cheap in my eyes. The price for the complete season will be comparable to the costs for a traditional expansion. Expansion fans will have their expansion after the end of season 2: A lot of new content all at once for a decent price. Loyal players can use the special offer to unlock the episodes for free. It is a win win situation for all parties.

The “rewards are not must haves” is invalid. It’s a game so nothing is a must have but see what happed to GW2 because they put the rewards in the cash-shop in stead of behind content. Good rewards for content very much is a must have.

I am also not sure Anet says one episode in worth 200 gems because they also say you can get it for free. I see it more as a penalty for not logging in in an attempt to get people to log in. It’s also not that to me one season would cost 200 gems but the service to unlock all missed episodes (that can be 1 episode that can be a completer season) cost 200 gems to you keep having the pressure on people to log in without keeping them away if they did not log in multiple episodes.

And lastly I am one of those expansion fans but no this is nothing like what ‘we’ would like. When you hear as to what Anet said about it the episodes (the part you unlock) is pure story-wise. It are instances so it’s not at all comparable to an expansion. Also the expansions fans (well many of them) want to see Anet making money with them in stead of making money with the cash-shop meaning you sell all expansions, not have a option to get them for free so you Anet still needs another way to earn the money.

It’s true that we still need to see how things will work out so all I said was based on what we did hear so far. It was only strange that some people where so much defending the current plan trying to attack my idea without saying why mine was bad or the other was better. It seemed (and still does) just as defending for the sake of defending. I at least do explain why I think it would be better for the game to do it this way.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

@Devata:

No, it’s not hindering people to return to the game compared to other mmos because the main content (open world stuff, new maps, skills, features, dungeons, etc.) will be free for everyone. No exclusion of players who return because they can participate in everything (yes, even story missions simply by asking someone who got it to group up and run it).

And if you don’t like the story missions after trying, then you don’t have to buy it. Simple as that. The rest of the permanent content is open to everyone – which would be the meat of the game.

I do think it’s something that might stop people from coming back because much of the end-game will also be locked behind it.. at least how Anet talked about it.

Still same question for me. Can you tell me what is so bad about asking 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes? (and maybe a few upcoming)

So you think Anet would then make less money (I would disagree but you might feel that way), is it unfair?. what is the problem with what I am suggestion? In what way is that worse for the game?

Because you are defending the current system but don’t say why it’s better or why my solution is worse.

Blade Syphon.4325:

Again, Devata, let me spell this out for you:

You, even if you are not actively playing, must log in once every two weeks, for less than three minutes, to permanently unlock the LS content, for good. That’s it. Even if you don’t regularly play, it’s not difficult at all, nor is it time consuming, to click on the little launcher icon, hop on, and go “Oh hey, new content, I’ll play it later.”.

The only valid complaint you have is, as you said, new players that are hopping in late. They’re going to find themselves behind previous story content, but they can also just buy it at their leisure. That is no different than someone hopping into an MMO five expansion cycles down the road, and having to buy the previous expansions to get caught up.

Anet will also likely offer some kind of bundle package when the season’s over for people to buy all the episodes in bulk if they missed it. And even if they don’t, you’d likely be paying around $40 for the entire set, which strikingly enough, is the exact same price as a GW1 expansion was.

You see what I’m getting at? You’re pulling at very, very long straws in your complaints on this system. Anet is quite literally offering you free content for just logging in for a few minutes every two weeks. And I’m sorry, no one totally forgets about a game they have installed on their PC unless it gets lost in the hundreds of steam games they may have.

Asking for 200 gems, which is the equivalent to what, $3, is no different than asking someone to pay for DLC on a single player game after they’ve purchased the game. A new player doesn’t have to buy the previous episodes, and can just jump into the story content where they begin. And if they like it, they have the option to either buy the story content, or ask a friend or guild mate to run them through the previous episodes sans-rewards.

~.

“That is no different than someone hopping into an MMO five expansion cycles down the road, and having to buy the previous expansions to get caught up.”
It very much is, because the story might be important it’s likely not expansion-wordy. Meaning they feel they want it but might not want to pay that amount of money for it (because it’s only a story, not a true expansion) meaning they still feel they do miss a big part of the game and that might hold them back from coming in. Thats my whole point including for people who take a break. It’s all very nice that it’s their choice to not log in but if that means they might not come back at a later stage it’s still not good for the game.

You are like “it’s their fault if they don’t take the time to log back in” but how does that help the game if it means people will not come back? It does not. Is that so hard to understand?

In fact I am all in favor of moving to making money by selling expansion. But then people see much more return for there investment so they are much more likely to put down the money and then they do have everything (or they should, so no cash-shop focus then) and so don’t feel they are missing out on anything. And even then you would see that older expansion are much cheaper, only the last or last two expansions tent to be at full price. (similar to your bundle example)

I do like what they did with making it permanent, in fact I was one of the first who where on this forum stating that the temporary content was bad. It took Anet a year to figure that out but finally they did. So I am happy for that change. I also understand they want to trigger people to keep logging in by asking gems for previous episodes. All I say is that if you ask 200 gems per episode it piles up meaning that you may keep new or old players from returning so thats why I suggest to ask 200 gems for the service to unlock all previous episodes. (And I do feel that they would likely make about the same amount of money with it because people will be more likely to then spend the 200 gems to unlock all previous wile if people missed a few and have to pay 200 gems per episode they are more likely to ignore it.. if it was about the money)

Anyway it’s not about money or anything because as I see it sadly Anet is still focusing on the cash-shop to earn money and I see the gems to unlock missed episodes purely being there to trigger people to keep logging in. And thats all fine but you need to be careful you don’t make a system where you prevent new players or old players from returning. What I feel is happening here.

But maybe you could tell me what you think is so bad about what I suggest, asking 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes. You are afraid Anet well make less money or you think it’s not fair for the people who do log in or…? What is the problem? Because you have not said that.

pdavis.8031:

Devata.6589:

pdavis.8031:

lordkrall.7241:

To the people complaining:

Would you rather be completely unable to ever see the story parts you missed, like it was in season 1?

No they want the entirety of season 1 and 2 given directly to them in the form of an expansion for free without having to do anything.No paying gems, no logging in every 2 weeks to a month. They feel that because they bought the game initially, that everything that is added to the game later should be free of charge, accesible anytime, and added to their account. And the same should be added for new players as well.

Bascially it’s a socialist viewpoint. That everything should be given to them, and that they shouldn’t have to buy/work for it, and the the company (read: anet) is an evil entity that should be stopped/punished for trying to do business and make money, because making money is greedy and wrong.

(please take note that this post is largely satirical and should be taken with a LARGE grain of salt. It is not intended to insult any one person or player group.)

Hmmm interesting. Where exactly do you see anybody say that?

Apparently you missed the footnote at the end…I was exaggerating.

I did read that but I figured you meant the way you said it, not what you said.

Blade Syphon.4325:

Devata.6589:

Blade Syphon.4325:

cesmode.4257:

My topic was closed. Not even moved. Thanks mods.

This is greed. Log in, or pay. Vs a sub based game where you pay 50 cents a day for a month(15 dollars a month) and get all content ever released. I can log into WoW right now and go do Baradin Hold dallies from 2 years ago.

Not turning this into sub vs free game argument. But I do think its crap that arenanet made the conscious decision to place this content behind gems(even if its 200), instead of making it free like they said it always would be.

I haven’t logged in to play for weeks, I dont plan on it for another few months. When I return, if I ever return(cuz Wildstar is awsome), I’ll be so far behind that I’ll need to dish out the $$. Or, I have to remember every other week to log in. Like a freakin’ chore.

..You realize that you’re complaining about Anet offering you content, literally, for free, and you’re upset because you can’t be bothered to take not even two minutes of your day to log into the game, unlock the content, and then log out.

You have to do that once every two weeks. Literally one time, every two weeks, for 2 minutes, and that content is forever unlocked to your account. You don’t have do the content that day, nor do you have to do anything other than watch the toast pop up saying “You have unlocked a new episode!”.

I could understand people being irate if you had to finish the episode to permanently unlock it, but you don’t. You have to, again, log in, and it’s yours. Forever.

There is nothing to complain about this system. Nothing, Nothing. The buying past episodes is strictly for people who have no access to their PC for that two weeks for whatever reason, and is there so that they don’t feel totally left out on missing content like they did in season 1 because they were unable to get on the game.

For those of us that aren’t interested in playing GW2, but still have it installed, we can simply click the launcher, log in, and in two minutes, new content is waiting for us whenever we care to play it.

I’m all for criticizing Anet for stupid design decisions, I do it plenty of time (see: Wardrobe, LS1, the Marionette, etc.). But this? This is not one of those stupid design decisions. In fact, this is probably the smartest decision Anet has made for this game since it launched.

I do understand the complains about playing 200 gems per episode. It’s not a problem for the active players but it is for those who did leave for a longer time or new players. For them it’s also much more as 200 gems so they need to pay much more for something that is important for the game (the story) but is not really expansion-like content. I do understand that Anet wants to have people keep logging in so that they sort of set a penalty for not doing so but then 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes would be better imho.

However I also don’t really understand cesmode’s point in this one. If you are willing to pay a monthly fee for a game then this should also not be a big problem one would think. Not to mention the login requirement to skip it because I can understand that if you are leaving for another game for multiple months you don’t feel like logging in, also not once every 2 weeks. You simple forget about the other game.

Again though, you’re entirely missing the point.

It is not difficult to log into the game once for three minutes every two weeks to permanently unlock the new LS content to your account. It’s really not. The 200 gems thing is literally just there for people who are completly unable to log in during that two weeks.

And new players or players who took a break for multiple months and then if it was 200 gems it’s no problem but then it’s more then 200 gems and it might stop people from coming back. Why do all the pro people act as if the complainers are talking for themselves? They are here talking about it right? That also means most of them log in at least twice a week. That also means they are not talking for themselves but for the game in general. Is that so hard to understand?

I do think that if they do this they should simply ask 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes. Or even better just start celling payed expansion once a year where you in fact get the full content of an expansion for what you pay. (and then trash the cash-shop because you earn the money with expansions)

pdavis.8031:

lordkrall.7241:

To the people complaining:

Would you rather be completely unable to ever see the story parts you missed, like it was in season 1?

No they want the entirety of season 1 and 2 given directly to them in the form of an expansion for free without having to do anything.No paying gems, no logging in every 2 weeks to a month. They feel that because they bought the game initially, that everything that is added to the game later should be free of charge, accesible anytime, and added to their account. And the same should be added for new players as well.

Bascially it’s a socialist viewpoint. That everything should be given to them, and that they shouldn’t have to buy/work for it, and the the company (read: anet) is an evil entity that should be stopped/punished for trying to do business and make money, because making money is greedy and wrong.

(please take note that this post is largely satirical and should be taken with a LARGE grain of salt. It is not intended to insult any one person or player group.)

Hmmm interesting. Where exactly do you see anybody say that?

silvermember.8941:

Haxwell.7398:

I feel you ARWEN. End game in GW2 is a joke compared to the plethora of activities available to you for end game in GW1. Not to mention we actually got a real tangible reward for completing each campaign story.

Guild wars 1 prophecies did not have more endgame that guild wars 2. Or are you comparing a game was essentially 3 games + 1 expansion with just one game? Guild wars 1 had more dungeons because each game was considered standalone and needed to have it own max level dungeon and even still then it did not have more endgame.

You might want to get off that nostalgia juice, it corrodes the brain.

I think he is talking about GW1 at the same moment in time as GW2 is now (almost 2 years in) or what I think would be better if you would take Guild Wars 1 prophecies and would add 1 year for every expansion (or campain). Also then we would soon get the second expansion in GW2.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Everything I did say about the TP vs direct drops boils down to this line of you “TP will always be the path of least resistance especially for items with high enough supply”.

When you place almost all items behind specific content with it’s own rng and you have enough of content with it’s own rewards, it will mean the price will go up because the TP is not getting so many of those items as there is demand for it.

With general world drops (what we have now and also you lvl 60 gear example) or other content a lot of people all jump on to, or simply rewards nobody wants you will indeed get many items on the TP and so that will be the way of least resistance.

Also don’t forget grinding gold is NOT the preferred game-play for most people. But if it’s the path of least resistance they will indeed start doing it anyway (resulting in boredomness). Also for many items it’s the only / required ingame-way to get them because so many items are on the TP.

If it comes to gold (that GW2 forces people to grind for many items), people where doing 3 things. Grinding bosses, grinding champions and grinding dungeons because they tent to have the best general loot or gold. The specific rewards (as far as they had them) where by-products so they still overflow the TP. You want to base content mainly one a specific reward not on generally good content and you want to do that all over the place.

One huge problem… We already have that situation right now. Plenty of rare materials people require has a low drop rate like say lodestones. Now we all due respect you yourself argue that getting these items via drops is impossible that you have to buy them off TP. Even if we go with items that have a much lower drop rate like say precursors do you think people who need a precursor farm for it by doing the designed to drop it such as crafting and throwing stuff in the mystical forge or killing mobs ? or do they farm the gold and buy it off TP ?

The only way to have people go do the content itself is literally to force them to do the content itself. This isnt a novel concept, soul bound items where created for this very reason. If you want the best in other mmos you have to work for it and there will always be a new best you need to work for around the corner.

But probably worst then all this is for your idea to work (ie a very bad TP supply) the item drop would need to be really really really low. We’re probably talking ascended gear drop low. I am pretty sure people will never go for that. Just look at when Anet introduced ascended gear crafting. Ancient wood logs jumped in price to 9s each if not more. 9s!!!! I could farm 144+ logs in 30 mins yet people were paying 9s just to get the thing done as quickly as possible.

Farming right now is disproportionately highly rewarding so given the choice people will always choose gold as their primary means of acquisition. Taking away the choice is an option but one that has other issues.

They grind the gold because like you say they cant really work directly for it. That’s exactly the same point I am talking about if it comes to specific items from specific content. It’s almost impossible but because of the way the game is designed you still get many of those items on the TP. (like very rare but general world drops).

“The only way to have people go do the content itself is literally to force them to do the content itself.” Or by making it a more viable option. As much as I would likt to it’s nearly impossible to farm those mats yourself like you say. And it’s impossible to get 99% of the mini’s in the game because they are in the cash-shop.

No for ‘my idea’ (it works (just fine) like that in many mmo’s so not really my idea) it should not be extremely low. Like I say it should be attainable in a decent way. The difference is that all rewards are behind specific content so people are less likely to bumb into it and even if people would farm it that would only be a part of the player-base not the majority and they would not all do the same because if they would that item would drop in price and so it would not be interesting anymore.

I don’t know about that wood but usually if you can easily enough obtain it ingame many people go for it that. Maybe the problem is that in GW2 gold is already the way for everything so even for the items where you can go for it directly people do what they got used to.

Galen Grey.4709:

prices on TP arent set by arenanet they’re set by players and price setting is not arbitrary. No one is going to sell copper for 10g each because they know people can get copper very easily so its priced accordingly. Just look at greens for example. If you suddenly find yourself level 50 and you realise most of your gear is still level 20ish hence you decide maybe it makes sense to upgrade my stuff temporarily. Which would be faster? go farm the stuff you need (that drops faily often) or open TP and get it done? TP will take a fraction of the time and actually be cheaper (it will cost you something like 15s to update your equipment which you can make in 4 or 5 dynamic events which you an get done in like 30min to an hour and you’ll definitely take a lot longer for 12 items to drop of the type you need with the stats you need.

people will most often take the path of least resistance and TP will always be the path of least resistance especially for items with high enough supply that people are always trying to undercut each other. There are some crafting stuff on TP that sell for less then 1/2 the price for the material cost involved.

your definition of specific is too rigid. Just cause you can go to kill this branded champion and still get the same reward if you go kill one of the other 3 branded champions doesnt make it a general world drop. Thing is if you want the crystal guardian skin you either have to go kill a branded champion or buy it off tp. You cannot go do dynamic events and have it drop for you. That makes it specific.

No actually more world bosses have unique drops not just tequalt and wurm.
The shadow behemout has the final rest staff. The claw of jormag has the Tooth of Frostfang and the shaman edge’d weapons. The great jungle worm can drop Wisteria. thats just some examples there are probably more that do.

Everything I did say about the TP vs direct drops boils down to this line of you “TP will always be the path of least resistance especially for items with high enough supply”.

When you place almost all items behind specific content with it’s own rng and you have enough of content with it’s own rewards, it will mean the price will go up because the TP is not getting so many of those items as there is demand for it.

With general world drops (what we have now and also you lvl 60 gear example) or other content a lot of people all jump on to, or simply rewards nobody wants you will indeed get many items on the TP and so that will be the way of least resistance.

Also don’t forget grinding gold is NOT the preferred game-play for most people. But if it’s the path of least resistance they will indeed start doing it anyway (resulting in boredomness). Also for many items it’s the only / required ingame-way to get them because so many items are on the TP.

If it comes to gold (that GW2 forces people to grind for many items), people where doing 3 things. Grinding bosses, grinding champions and grinding dungeons because they tent to have the best general loot or gold. The specific rewards (as far as they had them) where by-products so they still overflow the TP. You want to base content mainly one a specific reward not on generally good content and you want to do that all over the place.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Farming or better said grinding gold rewards in random drops people do not want (so sell for gold) and gold. So the farming you talk about is grinding gold and only rewards in that way.

Challenging content should reward specific rewards for that content. (well all content should do that, not only challenging one) that is a big difference and that why the two are not in conflict with each other. Thing is you should not put in that content one by one but all at once. That’s because if there is one new type of challenging content a lot of people will start doing that so many people will get those rewards (and if they are not account-bound put them on the trading-post) once again devaluating those rewards. If there is a lot of that content all with it’s special rewards those rewards will keep there value and so doing the content will stay rewarding. (or you should make it all account-bound but then that’s the only way to get them)

We’ve already been through this and I still disagree. All you’re going to get is people’s reaction today when they get a green drop at the end of the day. In other games that works because you have a gear treadmill and you always get that piece of gear thats more powerful then what I have. In this game you dont have that. You could put in skins but again most people only need 8 skins per character they own and they’re going to buy them off the trading post cause its easier. You could put in minis and/or dyes but then again only a subset of the players will care and they’d probably use the trade post anyway.

What you’ll get is probably what you get right now. people will farm content for the rewards because selling it will be profitable and other people will farm content for gold to buy that same stuff.

Like I pointed out most of this is already in game. JP, champions, world bosses all have unique skins… yes drop rates are poor but thats needed to make them valueable, without the poor drop rate getting one of these unique skins will be no different then getting a green drop or perhaps a rare drop. It will make people happy the first month perhaps then it will be back to nothing good in this game ever drops.

You could put in skins ~ minis and/or dyes but then again only a subset of the players will care and they’d probably use the trade post anyway.

You could indeed not do it with stats. Like you said yourself, the game is not mend to be a treadmill. But you could very well do it with the things like skins and mini’s and dyes. If it’s not account-bound then they might get it from the TP however when done right (so if most of those items are behind specific content and you do not put it in one by one because then people will all jump on that content making the TP still overflow with that item) the time to just grind the gold for the item would be (much) longer then the time do directly work for the item.

That means doing the content itself is still more rewarding.

8 skins per character does not seem to be a problem. Many people seem to replace there skins with ’ better looking’ ones. That is now how the whole cash-shop also works. It should be have content-rewarding works.

“people will farm content for the rewards because selling it will be profitable and other people will farm content for gold to buy that same stuff.” For sure but if it’s truly hard hard there is a lot of those items (all from other content) the demand will likely still be higher that the people farming that content, driving up the price meaning working directly for that item is more profitable then grinding gold. So then you have your challenging content and the reward. Next to that you can of course also make some items account-bound.

I haven’t seen any JP’s really with unique reward.. well only the pirate one that has one unique drop that is account-bound. Also haven’t seen any champions with unique drops only that a huge group of champions have specific drops but you can’t really consider that specific drops from specific content. It;s more general world drops (while not 100% general). And so far there are two world-bosses who have specific drops but because there are only two many people do that meaning there rewards are still overflowing the TP. That is why I said it’s important to do that with all the content and rewards and all at the same time. Adding it in one by one will not help then indeed the special rewards will still be easily available on the TP because so many people are doing that specific content. If it’s the case for almost all content people are all doing other content meaning the rewards will stay special.

Galen Grey.4709:

SkiTz.4590:

Nick.6972:

Rewards should scale appropriately to difficulty so people have actual incentive to get better and more skilled.
Zerg farming should never be more rewarding than FOTM 49.

Totally agree with the bold but….
Unfortunely, the philosophy for GW2 is all about the casuals….

If bigger and better rewards are gated behind actually difficult, time consuming content, majority of this games playerbase will be in outrage , ergo we will never see this type of challenging, demanding content that has unique rewards catered towards hardcore players.
If casuals can’t get a certain thing, they will cry till the worlds end until its fair for them.
You are asking for increased in difficulty =increase in rewards . This won’t happen unfortunately, as much as I would love it it. Now of course there are some casual players out there that would still love to see more challenging content that has better rewards than mindless zerg farming, but I just don’t think the majority of the playerbase will get behind this change of reward philosophy.

yes and no

I mean as long as the rewards arent unique it will not be a problem. Lets say they do hardcore dungeons that still reward the same stuff like the regular dungeons only you get x2 the tokens and x2 the gold. That would be fine. It would be a problem if hardcore dungeons dropped skins that arent available anywhere else for example.

That being said there another problem with inflation. Farming is already way too profitable and introducing content thats more profitable than that will make an already bad problem worst. So what really needs to happen is for farming to be nerfed and hardcore content to be as rewarding as farming is now for this to work imho. Of course some people will not be happy about that but well you cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Farming or better said grinding gold rewards in random drops people do not want (so sell for gold) and gold. So the farming you talk about is grinding gold and only rewards in that way.

Challenging content should reward specific rewards for that content. (well all content should do that, not only challenging one) that is a big difference and that why the two are not in conflict with each other. Thing is you should not put in that content one by one but all at once. That’s because if there is one new type of challenging content a lot of people will start doing that so many people will get those rewards (and if they are not account-bound put them on the trading-post) once again devaluating those rewards. If there is a lot of that content all with it’s special rewards those rewards will keep there value and so doing the content will stay rewarding. (or you should make it all account-bound but then that’s the only way to get them)

laokoko.7403:

Obtena.7952:

A R W E N.6895:

But its crazy how every other mmo, and even Gw1 had challenging and rewarding end game content. And yet, Gw2 fails miserably at pouring out such content.

The only thing ‘crazy’ about that is people can’t break away from rehashed routines that make that challenging and rewarding end game content of all those other MMO’s boring tired after doing it again and again. GW2 approach to end game is a breathe of fresh air.

The irony is most GW2 players are actually the one doing the same dungeon and world boss everyday over and over again.

And those people playing those “other” game probably didn’t do the same dungeon over 10 times. Thank god for 1 week cooldown.

Anyway you are playing the game wrong OP. The game is what it is. If it’s not there, it’s not there.

Time gating is cheap and should not be needed. If there is enough challenging content with all it’s own rewards (not like GW2, grind gold, grind gold or buy it with money) people will move on to the next thing after failing a few times eventually moving back there. But except for that I agree with you.

It’s funny to lately see so many complains about gold-grind and boring game-play and how rewards are mainly in the cash-shop. I have been warning Anet about this for over a years. It’s the cash-shop focus that pushes them to doing this. Back then I was one of the few saying that but now I see much more people that do see the link because the cash-shop-focus and the way game works.

Ouimette.5902:

Galen Grey.4709:

A R W E N.6895:

~

~

Before you read, forgive me for the long post.

I have to agree AND disagree with you on that. While the game is set out to be a very casual game there’s always room for improvement amongst us players. Casuals and elitist likewise. There should be an incentive to go for the harder content or “un-familiar” content in the game. And here I agree with you. Gear should not be a requirement but more or less the reliability on a players movement and understandment of the mechanics that happens around him/her. It may sound way more harder than it actually is but when you think about it, the game in its current state is heavily focused on corner stacking and FGS #4(in the instanced content).

So then we have the two MEGA-bosses. Tequatl and the 3-headed wurm. Sure there’s an incentive to go for that content. But it’s all about luck pretty much where a person might be doing one of these 2 contents for first time and get a skin drop. This is something I’m personally against. But the main point of the content is not about the drop, it’s about fun. Right? But once you’ve done it 75+ times. It’s more of a habit than enjoyment to do it. I will eventually get bored of the content since the fun is slowly getting away and the lack of slow progression towards a skin replaced by a ridiculous rng is really not enough to keep a player going. Because the drop is more of a bonus while doing the enjoyable content.

So I get burned out. What do I do? I take a break of course! And this is where I’d say ArenaNet fails with a large portion of their lvl80+ content. The game fails to deliver an incentive to keep a player going. The fun doesn’t last forever. The living story is a really innovative idea though and I’m curious about how different LS season 2 will be from season 1.

But then again as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread, I will bring it up regarding what you said about profit. If I would do the harder content(if it will ever come into the game), it should only be focused on the prestige of doing it. Not financially. The game has been so heavily focused on just making gold or getting mats that pretty much everything can more or less be accessible in the game purely through purchases with gold. Even dungeon skins since you can buy tokens through dungeon selling.

Just a quick example of what I’m trying to say.

Easy dungeon reward: 1,5G, Blood dripping sword(after 300 tokens)
Medium dungeon reward: 1,5G, Blood dripping sword/w teeth(after 300 tokens)
Harder dungeon reward: 1,5G, Dragon jaw sword with dripping blood(after 300 tokens)

Take away the 300 tokens and make it rng but based on those ‘300’ tokens. So if 300 tokens means 30 runs then the rng should be so that on average you also have it around 30 runs. Sure it can then happen that you get it the first run or it might take you 60 runs but if there is enough of this sort of content in the game the luck and ill luck would level each other out. However every run will be exciting because that might be the run you get that drop. Using tokens means it yet another currency-grind just as gold is. What means it’s way more boring.

Imho the token system should have been there as a side-thing. The main drop (thing to go for) is rng but the tokens are there just to make sure that while you do it you will also for sure get something else. So I don’t dislike the token system in dungeons in GW2. It’s a good idea to have. But next to that every dungeon should also have a few unique rare (rng) drops that people really want to go for and is more interesting then the dungeon armor set / tokens.

Galen Grey.4709:

A R W E N.6895:

That is true, and they should give an incentive for player to go toward the harder content.

It is not that easy. Contrary to what a lot of people believe Anet really made a game where you dont have to grind for anything. You can enjoy the whole game by just playing what content you want. You dont need ascended gear, you dont need exotic gear. Even rares are optional really. That requires a few things that are at odds with what you suggest. Mainly that content has to be doable using greens and blues which in turn means that people in ascended gear more or less have kitten statistical advantage over people who play casually and dont see Best in Slot.

That makes it essentially very problematic to do what you suggest. If they make hard content that has unique rewards then they have to make it hard for people with BiS gear which essentially becomes impossible for people who are at 1/2 stength because they dont have good gear. In turn that would mean that without BiS you’re cut out of certain rewards which in turn breaks their promise.

Likewise if they do hard content that still rewards the same stuff as everything else no one will do that hard content since it will turn out to be more profitable to do the quick easy content every time.

There is a big difference between really harder content and just some number crunching. Requiring better gear is number crunching and that is what you seem to be talking about, what basically is related to the HP / Damage and speed of the enemy (or limiting the time). And of course that’s always some part of it but next to that you can also use game-mechanics to make content harder and then it’s more then just better stats.

So they could easily make content designed for exotic and ascended gear (it’s not hard to get exotic gear) if it comes to those number crunching but is extremely challenging because of the game mechanics. I think the Queen’s Gauntlet fight is a good example of that with exception of the time-limited as that indeed makes it more of a armor thing (better armor means more damage and so a faster kill).

SkiTz.4590:

Nick.6972:

Rewards should scale appropriately to difficulty so people have actual incentive to get better and more skilled.
Zerg farming should never be more rewarding than FOTM 49.

Totally agree with the bold but….
Unfortunely, the philosophy for GW2 is all about the casuals….

If bigger and better rewards are gated behind actually difficult, time consuming content, majority of this games playerbase will be in outrage , ergo we will never see this type of challenging, demanding content that has unique rewards catered towards hardcore players.
If casuals can’t get a certain thing, they will cry till the worlds end until its fair for them.
You are asking for increased in difficulty =increase in rewards . This won’t happen unfortunately, as much as I would love it it. Now of course there are some casual players out there that would still love to see more challenging content that has better rewards than mindless zerg farming, but I just don’t think the majority of the playerbase will get behind this change of reward philosophy.

Come on, as if ‘casuals’ prefer boringly grinding for gold, there is a small group of people who like that but it can not be defined as ‘casuals’. In fact Anet also does not want people to like grinding for gold because else people would have less incentive to buy gold with money.

Time-gating or requiring a tier-grind and locking content behind that (what FotM is btw) might be something ‘casuals’ dislike. But I don’t think you will hear a lot of complains by locking items behind specific hard content. It’s something also casuals can always work towards. Now I don’t know how you define ‘casuals’. Is it somebody mainly looking for horizontal progression or somebody who does not put a lot of time into the game or someone who does not want the hard content? But anyway I don’t think you would get a lot of complains, and many items would still be available with gold-grind if people would really prefer that.

Some drops might be account-bound so you could only get it by playing that content but all the specific drops behind hard content that are not account-bound will just as well find there way to the TP meaning you can still boringly grind gold for them. If anything, people complain about how boring GW2 is. Now the gold-grind is a big part of that so acting as if casuals would only like it that way is wrong imho.

pdavis.8031:

@Devata
I haven’t seen the stream (and can’t as I’m at work) but as Inculpatus said, I got my information from the blog. (Personally I take the written version more seriously, as slips of the tongue can and do happen, and with it written down the author has a chance to review and ensure that what is being said is accurate and clear. But thats just me.)

I would agree that it if they said it will come in the live-stream it could be a slip of the tongue. However they did go into that statement stating it was really more a matter of when. So then it’s not just a slip of the tongue any-more. They talk more detailed about it and it’s released later then the blog-post so I think it’s very valid to use take that statement.

Anyway, my comment was more because you said you ‘liked it’ that people acted as if Anet said they would add in season 1 while they did not (according to you). So I did show you that Anet indeed said they would. That’s then also why people say so.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234
I guess I did miss that part. They did say you would not need to complete it to unlock the next episode but did they also say you did not have to complete it to be able to complete the next episode. It came to my mind because they also talked about how it would be similar to the PS in the way it worked but only that you could also replay previous episodes. But I guess you can just play new episodes without having to complete previous ones. It would be strange if it would not be the case. It would make sense from a story standpoint but not from a game-play standpoint.