Guild Wars 2

Kumu Honua.2751:

There are pros and cons to the megaserver.

The game is fully populated now. New players are always able to find other people even in places that never used to have ANYONE in them.

The grove for example is teeming with players now. It was an absolute ghost town before that.

Orr is populated with players as well.

Unfortunately, people feel more free to be jerks because they have no loyalty and will probably hardly meet the random people they find in the game. So the jerks are jerkier than normal.

Additionally, the RP crowd of TC is mixed in with people who ridicule and berate their gameplay choices. Alternative view is that they creep out other players more often now.

There’s good points and there’s bad points. I think the benefit of having a populated world outweighs many of the negatives. New players get a good feeling about the game now.

I think the options were this or server merging. Think about which of those you would rather have?

Nonsense to say people have no loyalty to random people. There game-play get effected. You name the RP community for example. I do sit on an RP server because I like to see RP people do there thing (nor RP gamer myself) and I am a guild-leader of a guild that now is having huge problems with guild-missions. And it’s not like if guilds and communities where being overthrown with love. So people complain about the problems they have. That does not mean they hate the solo players who benefit of a more crowded work. I even provide solutions (auto guesting per per map with a complete server) that should help against the problems and still gives the option for the more crowded maps.

timmyf.1490:

Devata.6589:

Not sure who you are referring to but I think most people are talking mainly about community / guild related stuff.

I typically don’t like to call other people out, so here’s a few quotes I gathered from around the forums without names attached.

" I have only completed a whopping ONE world boss event since April 15th. I used to be able to do several a day. Now, every single time I’ve attempted to participate, the WB never spawns. Either I miss the event because I can’t make the tiny window of the exact time it starts, OR when i actually do happen to make it, the event always ends early because someone didn’t know you aren’t supposed to do this or that or the boss won’t spawn."

“So far I have been paired with my guild/friends/world mates a whopping zero times”

“The pve side of things have be totally ruined. I log on now to stand around waiting for something to happen. And if nothing happens, I continue to stand around. Is there an achievement for loitering/standing?
Is there anything substantial that I can do when i log on? Please do not ask me to water the plants for Farmer Diah in Shaemoor Fields.”

“Getting rly sick of this… everytime i do a zerg i DC and cant get back.. mostly when its a really good group aswell… I was gonna finish tequatl today… random DC.. gets put in overflow where they didnt even dent him… this is pretty much forcing me to quit the game since i cant play lol.. will try again in a few weeks i guess”

“I’ve lost many dungeon rewards coz of this.
Fix it please!!
Now I cannot complete any dungeon.”

That’s a smattering. Keep in mind the worst offenders have their threads deleted, so I can’t even include the really bad stuff here.

There’s quite a bit of complaining about quite a wide range of things, at least based on my perusal of the forums.

Well the first one is about the timers, not so much megaservers. They did change the timer because of the megaservers but it’s a separate thing. Correct me if I am wrong.

Second one is about community (guild, friends world)

Thirth is the one example I gave that some solo players had the problem that events did events did not re-spawn because stuff keeps getting killed. Not community based but it was the solo example I gave. (same with some temples events)

Fourth guy is complaining about DCing and not being able to get back to the group. DCing is unrelated to community but getting back to the group obviously is (the group is the community).

Fifth is totally unrelated to mega-server??

So even with your list most that are indeed about mega-server problems seem to be community related. Only solo problems I have seen being mentioned is event nots spawning and the PC not being able to handle the people but I personally don’t see that as a Megaserver problem because that was the same at patch days I guess for those people. Megaserver might have made the problem being there more often but the problem itself is not so much related to mega-servers.

Maybe it’s because I filter out what is and what is not related to Megaservers?

I still think that a sort of automated guesting system where one or multiple whole servers (per map that is) get moved to another server with the ability to switch back to there home server but the people from the server where everybody gets moved to also get the ability to move to one of the other servers to escape the crowd.
And a message to go back (like we had with overflows when the original server was getting space) when the guest-server is getting full is the best solution. Make groups of servers and do is that way. That should solve pretty much all the the problems imho.

timmyf.1490:

Romo.3709:

timmyf.1490:

I totally agree! That’s why I’m hoping a few people will take me up on my offer and show me how nothing works for them.

The easiest way to experience this would be attending an organized Guild Missions with a decent size guild. This way it shows clearly how it’s an issue getting everyone on the same map during bounty or challenge. Other than that if you’re doing your own thing with 3-4 people it doesn’t matter much, unless you happen to zone to a map that has a World Boss Event happening at the moment. That can easily create a lag fest very quickly.

The people on this thread and many other threads are making complaints for many, many other things beyond just guild missions. I do agree that guild missions are made more challenging with this system and have offered several suggestions for ways they could be fixed without a single response from a single person on this thread.

So while you personally may not be making these claims, others are and I’d love for them to show me, in-game, how bad it is.

Not sure who you are referring to but I think most people are talking mainly about community / guild related stuff. Guild missions is the easiest example to experience at will. RP like to play with other role-players but get mixed with other people (what by itself is not the problem) but get less other role-players (what is a problem).

So most stuff is related to communities, not to solo events. I did hear that some events don’t respawn because the area keeps getting cleaned so thats something you might run in as solo player but overall is you like crowded (personally I do like crowded maps but also big empty maps, however GW2 does not really have the type of maps for that anyway) maps as solo gamer there is no problem. This mainly is a community (counting guilds as a community) problem.

Draknar.5748:

Everyone in this thread that has claimed GW2 is the grindiest game ever just seem to dislike GW2 in general. Playing GW2 is like work to them and unenjoyable. Which certainly begs the question: why the heck are you still here? And if you’ve stopped playing, why the heck are you on the forums?

Multiple reasons but don’t forget that this whole game is marketed around those people. It’s all about skins, the main item to go for is a skin and so on.

Thats probably also why they make exactly that part (cosmetics) a grind (monetizing that) because they want to make money that way. What is the whole problem. Making money is fine but don’t make your game (optional cosmetics) a grind for that goal. Just sell expansions.

I did buy this game.. (yes buy, now download for free like a F2P game) to not have that sort of F2P type of crap.

A game where cosmetics are the main goal and is B2P so has no negative effects from cash-shop focused F2P game. Sounds like a great deal except if they then going to base there income on a cash-shop anyway and monetize those cosmetics to do so. Turning exactly that part of the game in a ‘grind or buy’ deal.

Niko Stark.8932:

Lol. Took me 5 weeks to make a legendary from nothing. That includes getting map completion and about 1M karma and running dungeons/events for the gold. I have a full-time job and I go out on some of my days off. It’s not a grind and even if it was, it’s a Legendary — they’re not supposed to just fall into your lap when you make a wish for it.

It’s pretty easy to gain levels and top-tier items in GW2 in comparison with other MMOs. You have no idea what a real “grind” is XD

You would be completely right if it was only about legendaries.

Beldin.5498:

Ionut.2307:

What are those great activities here that don’t involve a grind ?

What are the great activities in ANY MMOs that are not grinds ?

Run same Dungeon / Raid 1000 times until you have best gear, then wait for next patch that gives even better gear or level cap increase, so you need to run the next new dungeon /raid 1000 times to get best gear .. and so on .. and so on ..

And else .. maybe grind some factions until you have 10 millions in each or whatever.

Well I had fun doing all sort of different content to get those items (playing directly for those items). I don’t have fun doing them to grind gold to buy the items.

Besides a quest for those items usually send you all over the world. Inn GW2 if you want an item then the best way to do it is finding the easiest way to get gold and do that all day (that is why we did see the champ trains and so on)

Collecting those things is my favorite gameplay. But grinding for them is not.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

In all honesty, I can only speak for my personal experiences. I am actually quite lazy when it comes to game aspects such as grinding. In fact, I loath farming or grinding of any kind because I hate doing repetitive actions over and over again, so I went into GW2 with the full believe that I would never get a legendary in the game, and I was fine with that because they are purely cosmetic and don’t affect the gameplay at all.

For the most part, I just hang with friends in my guild and we do whatever it is we feel like at the time, whether it’s a dungeon, wvw, world bosses, or literally just taking long walks through Tyria (we’ve literally just walked across entire maps, while admiring the scenery and chatting).

However, over the course of time I’ve been playing the game, I ultimately managed to craft two legendaries. I got lucky precursor drops and I had a lot of mats saved up purely from doing random stuff in the game as it suited me, so it didn’t take a lot of effort or grinding to complete the legendaries. In fact, most of the mats I just bought directly with the gold I had managed to save. Ultimately, I played the game how I wanted and still managed to get some of the best items in the game. I’d say you’d only have to really grind if you were in a rush to get a legendary, but if you just relax and play how you want, you can have fun and will likely end up getting one either way, it will just take longer. At least you’ll be having fun though, which is far more important than any cosmetic item.

I can also say with no lack of certainty that having a legendary is not all it’s hyped up to be. I have both Incinerator and Meteorlogicus and although it was really cool when I first got them, I got over it really fast. Besides, there are so many people running around with legendaries these days that they don’t even feel special or unique anymore. I don’t feel important for holding one so I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on it if I were you.

Ultimately, I think my point is that you should just play how you want and not how you feel compelled to.

Legendaries don’t effect the game-play because they are only cosmetic? I find that a really strange idea for a RPG. Skins are just as much part of the game-play as killing is.. of course it depends on the player but an MMORPG it not (like for example UT) just about killing. It’s about RPG.. PvE, collecting, quest (or events) and so on.

Play the way I want. I want to hunt down items I like or need. Being it recipe’s mainly for fun crafts (don’t exist in GW2) or mini’s or cool skins or mounts or just fun items. Doing a dungeon one time is fun. Beating that dungeon the first time is fun. Now if that dungeon has the chance to drop a item I want I get the urge to go back in there. Having the feeling of ‘will the item i’m hunting down drop this time’. Meanwhile switching between content because there are more items I am hunting down. But doing the dungeon just to sell the rewards / earn money to then buy the items I want (likely I don’t want them any-more if this is the route) is not the way I want to play. Meaning I don’t do the dungeons a lot meaning I don’t make as much money.

However, by normal playing I did indeed make a lot of gold in total. However since everything cost gold it also went out very fast. Bank-slots, a few mini’s I really want, dyes I really wanted and so on. If I never had spend any of that money I might have been able to buy a legendary but then I would have missed out on those other things.

Doing dungeons over and over just for the dungeons or to make money is just not fun for me and it’s not the way I like to play. I like to play for items but you can’t. It’s then all grinding gold.
In a way with your explanation you even proof it. If you ’ play’ long enough you can just buy what you want. And that’s the problem. I don’t want to buy what I want I want to play for what I want. It’s supposed to be a game, not a job.

Swoo.5079:

I would like to know exactly what the people that haves PCs that can’t play with megaserver were doing during the Living Story.

Because this is no different than Living Story on patch day in every single map.

There were also some comments about most people being in big guild and communities.

They aren’t. Most people solo and play with a couple of friends.
And with the megaserver it means those people have no need to join a big guild or community.

Without having the exact number I am pretty sure most people are in guilds or communities (at least it’s a huge part). That can be people who just are member of guilds and so guild-missions and or other things with the guild. It can be communities on specific servers like RP communities of people that go to a specific server because of country or language or because a server is WvW focused. Even people that seek out the lower populated servers are in a way a community (together they are looking for a specific type of game-play or type of players to play with)

So that are all different type of communities and for sure most people do belong to one or more of them. Not saying they are always busy with the community, they might do a lot of solo playing as well.

Of course there are people who completely random pick a server, never want to join a guild, never want to do organised content and only play together with people they randomly come across in the game at that moment (or a few friends). Yes for those Megaservers works great… if those people like crowded servers. But it’s not like that is the vast majority and there are just a few that belong to some community.

There are solutions https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer/3966755 that work good for both but the current implementation does not.

Azhure.1857:

Peeachxd.3786:

So I have slowly been creating Twilight over the past wee while and now looking at the 1k gold pile that I need to raise to afford Dusk at its current Trade Post price im starting to feel like Gw2 is a grind, I know that the developers said that they wanted to make the game feel like it wasnt a grind but I think some of the recent changes and perhaps lack of change has made it into one of the most grindy games I have ever played. does anybody else think that the whole Idea of needing a precurser or puting so much focus on gold has made Gw2 into a grind? because all I seem to be doing when I play is earning gold by grinding different dungeon paths or doing pvp which is kind of a grind aswell to level… :L perhaps ii play wrong.

Or perhaps this type of game is not meant for you. Whenever you have a game that has “top tier”, “must have”, or “legendary” items — people are going to work for them. You’re choosing to do that.

It is YOUR CHOICE.

Yeah he can also choose to go collect mini’s.. Go into the world, and earn them with specific content. Some farming but at least no boring gold-grind. Oow wait wrong example. Well then crafting, go into the world collect recipe’s farm mats.. oow wait it’s better to grind gold and buy many of the mats (not all, some are farm-able, mainly referring to some core’s). Or he can go do content to be rewarded with cool looking gear.. oow wait you can also not do a lot of content to get specific gear, it mainly grind gold to then by that skin.

Sorry but no it’s not only if you want the ‘top tier’ stuff. It’s almost everywhere, even map-completion feels like a grind because of collecting PoI’s, hearts and vista’s. It’s not that you unlock most of the map by itself by leveling and then just have to walk past then one spot that you mist.

Biggest problem is just that most stuff requires gold and (or another currency but mainly gold). That is because they mainly work with general drops. A cool skin can drop from any or at least any champion mob but chance of it dropping is extremely low. That means that you can’t work towards that specific item. Another reason is that a lot of fun items (skins, mini’s) are not in the game at all but in the cash-shop. They can end up in the TP meaning you need them to buy for gold or they can not end up in the cash shop meaning you need to grind gold to convert to gems to buy. Of course you can buy them (the whole reason for it being this way) but we are talking here bout playing the game and how that feels grindy. We are not talking about how you can buy your way out of the grind and get your items anyway and forgetting that you are then not really playing the game.

Lastly there is the many temporary stuff. While factually not a grind (many of those items do require specific content) it still feels like a grind because it’s a list of achievements (what have been got the status of currency) or other content you have to do against the clock and when your done there is another list and another list and another list. Main reason why I do have some more fun the last few weeks is because we don’t have those list… we don’t have had any LS patches. It feels great.
Would you have missed any of it then you missed out part of the items / rewards for good, other ones might still be available but one again the way to get them is with a lot of gold so grind grind grind your gold.

There is pretty much no farming in this game it has all be turned into grinding gold (or another currency). Why? Then sell gems and allow you to buy gold with gems so making gold so important and giving you a way out of the grind that way might mean gem-sales. It’s that sort of influence of cash-shops why I never play F2P game.

Luckily I found a game that was not F2P but B2P making it’s money with game sales and expansion. (That last part was sarcasm)

Maybe you can conclude that in general Megaservers are good for solo players and bad for (organized) groups / communities. However most people belong to a group or communities.

However ArenaNet had never done much for (organized) groups / communities.

Parties of only 5 people are not really group friendly, guild-tools are still lacking and it took almost 2 years to get a ‘last online’ function. There are no raids and RP gamers still can’t sit on a chair.

Maybe they only want solo gamers? But then again, there is also not much to do for them so they need to then join up with random other solo players making it pug (not organized) groups.

I liked it, just to bad that in the second SAB patch you did feel the cash-shop focus with trial-and error content and an infinitive count. Didn’t notice the sound but I do expect SAB to come back, just didn’t expect is very soon. Still it would make sense. Last time they also did in in a break between patches.. just like we have now.

Phadde.7362:

Peeachxd.3786:

perhaps ii play wrong.

Yeah, I’m fairly convinced that you do. It’s entirely subjective, though.

I barely ever do anything in GW2 that I feel isn’t fun. This mean that I usually play a maximum of 3 hours a day. I don’t complete my daily if I I don’t feel like it’s enjoyable.
I do the dungeons I want to; Even if it may be more gold-efficient dungeons to run, the game isn’t about making money (it’s not a job). The game is about having fun.
I sure would like to have an Incinerator, but that will take a few months since I don’t grind in this game. Grind is optional. There’s no hurry but the one you make.

Sadly enough most items require gold and that exactly why this game starts to feel like a job. I now play in the same way as you but it means I had to throw all goals away that I usually have in other MMO’s (mainly collecting things). Simply because trying to do that in this game would end up being a boring gold-grind while in those others games I hat fun doing those things (they send me all over the world).

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Rappelz, Teso, even wow from what i hear are much bigger grindfests. Especiall rappelz. If you guys played that game without cash shop usage you would go mad. Seriously mad (if gw2 is already bothering you).

Don’t know Rappelz. The other two are not as grindy. Taking my example from the last post. If I want a mini in WoW I go into the world to get it. Farming for those items to get them yes. But no boring gold-grind for everything.

Hannelore.8153:

You need to grind to obtain the second-best item in the game that is also just a visual upgrade that will not impact your gameplay whatsoever?

Oh my god.

And if you want a mini you need to buy it with money or grind gold to buy it. If you want some other cool skin you need to grind gold for it. Crafting means mostly grinding gold to buy what you need just like everything else.

It’s not with one thing it’s with almost everything and it’s related to gold being the way to get everything what on it’s turn is related to the cash-shop focus and them wanting to sell gems.

You can’t go into the world and play the game to earn that skin, mini, legendary. You grind gold and buy it. That’s the case for most things and where it’s not the case it tent to be temporary available stuff what also feels like a grind if there is something you (have to) go for every two weeks because else it will be gone forever.

Yeah something needs to get done about this.

Not sure about increasing the time because it’s just frustrating having to get people in one map. Increasing the timer would make is easier but it would still be frustrating plus you still have the problem of another guild starting it.

I think the megaserver needs to change so it does not effect guilds and other communities so much.

Like still keep servers but make PvE alliances between servers. When server A and server B (who are PvE allied servers) have a map that is very much underpopulated then move everybody to server A (or on that map. Whenever that map gets to crowded move B back to B. In that case you would still have most of the megaserver benefits but guilds and communities are not getting split up anymore.

More guild-tools is something I have been asking for almost since release. I think I even had a post about it in the beta forums. Two years later we now got the ‘last online’. Nice but that should have been there since Alpha. Hope to see many of the other needed guild management tools soon.

For additional guild-tools follow this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-System-Improvements-Suggestions/first#post3943131

It has a collection of nearly all suggestion made for over a year.

The solution

Oow there is another jerk who knows he knows the solution? Yes!

1. Figure out how many ‘servers’ you would need / have on average to get only full maps. For EU I think it are about 7 (me and guild-members are usually split up over 3 or max 4 different servers. But I am guessing we are less likely to end up in German or French)

2. Let servers group up, form PvE alliances. Yes LET THEM do it, involve them. Some servers have a WvW history together (positive or negatives) different languages and RP or other communities all have a role in what servers would be a good match. Of course number of active players is also important so be involved but let the servers also be involved with a smart voting system.

Eventually you should end up with the number of alliances you need (servers you would get filled)

3. As soon as a map does not get enough people one of the servers will act as underflow. So people from other servers automatically get moved there and also see on what server they are. They are always able to move back to the home server and people who’s home-server it is should also always be able to get to another server if they don’t want to be in the busy map.

4. If it gets to busy and so guilds or people from the original server are not able to get in the map then people and guilds from other servers (so guilds need a ‘home-server’ defined) will get another server assigned and they get a message that another map is ready. Much like you got when being in an overflow and your home-server had space. Who gets the message is based also in the same things as the mega-server does now, so home-server and guilds and so on. So you should almost always be on the same map with people from your server but likely also with people from one or two other servers)

In this way friends, guilds and communities (usually linked to each other by server) are almost always together while still having the benefit of more crowded maps and having the ability to escape the crowd. Possible even make guessing between alliance servers free and simply with an ingame-option.

sirflamesword.3896:

Phoenixlin.8624:

Why should I have to learn to have some empathy towards the people that have been treated as trash by the zergblob mentality while all maps are invaded by the zergblob now?

You still keep saying “i couldnt do this event without doing x before megaserver, now I can do without doing x. So megaservers are good”. On the other hand I keep saying “I could do this event without any problem before megaservers, now I can’t do this event even with doing x”.

And the sad part, just because you did not want to use guesting or transfer to another populated server, you could not do those events. Basically, you had the chance to do anything you want, but you did not want to use that. Now, I can’t do anything because both guesting/transferring to another server won’t work even if I use them. I have no choice except not doing the events I could do.

That’s the true failing point of megaservers which ANet can’t fix because of the nature of megaserver idea.

I wasn’t going to respond to this, because I feel it didn’t even deserve one, but it’s getting under my skin so here it goes. NOTHING is more impossible to do now then it used to be. You can do EVERYTHING you were able to do before, and now other people are able to do more also.

Lol, try organised guild-missions.

sirflamesword.3896:

Devata.6589:

“I’m just happy that after a year and a half of catering towards the people who like huge guilds, and the players that ONLY like running with their guilds”
Lol they only just gave guilds the “Last Online” function. Something that guilds really need and you would expect to be in at Alpha. Still many guild managing tools miss.. Rights, agenda and more to do for guilds like raids. Guilds got Guild-missions and an arena (just a location.. not more) for GvG that’s all the ‘catering’ there as. Strange definition of catering.

Oow and the zergblob are usually pugs, not organized groups. So no, they should not feel any pain of this.

EVERYONE would like new things with guilds, this includes small, medium, and large guild. And guess what you named the 2 real additions to guilds since the start of the game…and they are catered to large guild, just like I said. In small guilds VERY rarely would the last logged in function matter, and guild missions can only be done weekly with about 10x the effort.

What do you call 50-60 members of the same guild doing events? A zergblob just as much as a pug group.

It’s organized so I would not name it a zergblob. We do have a big guild and we also do guild-missions once a week. That’s how the reward-system for guild-missions is build. Not different for small guilds. Anyway, I was not talking about small or big guilds. I was taking about communities in general that according to you got all the catering. Well guilds getting 2 things of what 1 should have been there since Alpha is hard to consider ’ getting all the catering’.

That’s all I am saying. This update it good for solo gamers (what everybody is one in a while at least) but bad for communities (like guilds but also RP communities). You saying that’s ok because they got all the catering anyway is just untrue seeing how guilds have been neglected (or how you can’t sit on a chair.. something important for RP communities). So the opposite is true. Now another thing comes that hurts those communities and you say it’s fine because they got all the catering before is close to rude.

sirflamesword.3896:

Phoenixlin.8624:

I will rewrite my statement again:

- More is not good if that more is created by random players not by your server or cross-server community.
- More is good only if you are not part of a community and do not think to be a part of a community (since less social abilities you need to use such as talking/listening and so on).

And I think you are wrong about this. It’s all a matter of opinion, I’m just happy that after a year and a half of catering towards the people who like huge guilds, and the players that ONLY like running with their guilds they finally put in something that helps out my playstyle.

I have a small guild of friends and we do alot of different things, usually separate while we chat in Mumble or in game, finally I can get different events done on maps that used to have 4-5 people without calling my guildies over when they are doing their own thing. Everyone was just a random to everyone else at one time, if not for the district system that just threw everyone in willy nilly in GW1 I would never have met the friends I have Ingame now and probably wouldn’t be playing GW2 either.

I think you should just let them work out the bugs that split up guild/party members, and maybe learn to have some empathy towards the people that have been treated as trash by the zergblob mentality for the life of the game.

Edit: Paragraphs

“I’m just happy that after a year and a half of catering towards the people who like huge guilds, and the players that ONLY like running with their guilds”
Lol they only just gave guilds the “Last Online” function. Something that guilds really need and you would expect to be in at Alpha. Still many guild managing tools miss.. Rights, agenda and more to do for guilds like raids. Guilds got Guild-missions and an arena (just a location.. not more) for GvG that’s all the ‘catering’ there as. Strange definition of catering.

Oow and the zergblob are usually pugs, not organized groups. So no, they should not feel any pain of this.

Tagus Eleuthera.7305:

I’m pretty liberal with my criticism, so I figured I should say this too. The last few days I’m actually really loving the megaserver. There’s always people in the zones for the big bosses now, and they don’t take forever to kill anymore. Secondly, I zoned into Orr last night and there were actually 4 different groups of people running around doing events, so I followed a couple of different commanders and it was like the old days. I actually did Plinx twice! Haven’t done that in ages.

Anybody else secretly digging the megaserver? It’s actually pretty awesome in some ways.

I think it depends on your situation. Are you playing solo then it’s very good. Are you playing in a group (Think RP communities or guilds) then it works really bad.

Back when ESO introduced this system I was already weary about it. The problem is that you try to link people in a smart way together but everybody is connected to everybody. I am connected to all my guild-members. My guild-members are connected to there connections (friends) who might be in other guilds. Those people are connected to all there guild-members and so everybody is connected to everybody. That’s why the whole matching up does not really work very well. If you smartly try to put connected people together you need to pretty much putt all people together in one server. That then does not fit and so people get mixed up seemingly totally random..

However, when playing solo you don’t care about that and it’s just nice to see more people.

I always find the whole P2W discussion interesting to see. Especially how people define P2W. It seems to be that they define it as ‘Pay2 Kill’ what might make sense in a FPS but not so much in a MMORPG game. Everybody plays a game RPG game different and for one person his goal might be kills but for another it’s the best looking outfit or a full collection of mini’s. So reaching that is there equivalent of winning.

Also the whole “you can buy gems so it’s never p2w or a cash-shop” is a little strage is in many real obvious P2W games there are also ingame methods to get the item. It just takes a lot longer and is more boring.. you know, like having to grind gold? Besides GW2 has all those temporary available stuff that a normal person can never grind all gold for.

But for me the question you should ask yourself is not ’ is it pay to win’ but ‘does it effect the game’. Then people tent to say mini’s don’t effect the game (going back to there P2W definition as P2Kill) what is funny to me in a MMO Role Playing Game. As having or collecting a mini is very much part of a role playing game. Even changing your haircut is.

Now if you take those elements effectively out of the game-play our make them obsolete by also giving a short-cut because you offer such items or services in a cash-shop you are effecting the game because you take PvE content out or make it trivial.

That is the whole problem with cash-shops and PvE games. Why it might work so well (at least in the short run) from a commercial viewpoint but is so bad for the game itself. There is almost nothing you can put I there that does not effect the game (that’s also why people are more likely to buy it). A name-changer, a race changer a sex changer and a total make-over kit. Maybe extra char slots (if enough are provided from the beginning) but that’s about it.

That is also why I was interested in GW2. A B2P game, and looking at how they where truly B2P at least until they shifted focus to GW2. Generating money with expansion-sales. Sadly the shifted to cash-shop focus in stead of expansion-based income.

Cash shops could work. Lets say we have a F2P (likely a not serious one) and you sell outfits that don’t give any benefit, not in stats, not in concealment. Then you don’t effect the actual game-play of the game (killing each other (likely why people define P2W as P2Kill)) and so it’s fine. However this is a MMORPG and much more elements effect the game-play including skins. For many skins (and related) are even more important then stats.

Hamfast.8719:

If your town was wrecked, and the danger was past, would you go back and fix it up? Or would you spend the rest of your days in a tent outside?

No wonder it took so long for the Lion statue to get fixed after King Thorn had his way with it. Everyone in LA is an adventurer. Nobody is a carpenter.

• Step one: Put out the fires. I’m tired of all the soot and ash and ugly skies.
• Step two: Clear the rubble and fill in the holes.
• Step three: Rebuild! There is a TON of ready-to-use building material scattered all over Lion’s Arch and Kessex Hills.

If it isn’t finished by Wintersday, might I suggest Tixx and his toys perform a little Wintersday magic?

But for goodness sake, at least START!

Yeah throw in some sandbox and let people really help rebuild.. Not just some boring events and a fake timer that shows the progress on the town.

However, mega-servers might make this a problem because when done correctly you could end up with different new LA’s and then the question is in what server you are working.

There are some NPC’s working but there have been NPC’s working in LA forever. That is also a little funny. They have been building new portals in LA for 2 years (already there at beta) and they are still not finished but the portals in the refugee place where build in a week or so.

Kibazuka.1390:

Guild armors were pvp exclusive armor sets that are currently not availabe anymore.
Only the chest piece can be bought from the guild vendor for 1 gold.
All 3 guild armors have an armor that is almost identical, for the light version its the devout armor available for karma or badges of honor.

Of course it’s not available anymore (stuff being not available after some time is something I have been complaining about for a long time), how could I think it was. I know it looks like the devout but it does not work for the outfit I want. The Guild pants are just black while the devout have something drawn on them and I need it just black. (I do have the pants btw, not the Shoulders but I could not remember how I got the pants. Figured if I knew where to get the pants I could also find the shoulders)

The shoulders are also really different.

Time for Anet to put them back in the game.

I do want to mix it with other devout clothing.

It’s also sort of strange that it was PvP exclusive as PvP was not really guild focused and the chest is for sale in the PvE world. So I do hope you are wrong but I guess your not.

I am also looking for them. Where did you find the pants?

Fafnir.5124:

Buttercup.5871:

All that is missing is merit-based rewards for difficult solo-content. That is all. The only good example of this was Liadri. Hardcore difficulty (on a ranger, at least), and a non-sellable cool reward only awarded by overcoming the challenge.

Solo arah path you can sell spots for a total of 25-80g so there is that for hard solo content

So more gold-grind.
Besides, Arah no really hard, the biggest problem is that it takes very long. Thats something else.

Beldin.5498:

chemiclord.3978:

Devata.6589:

That’s not completely true. People want hard fun content and get rewarded for it. But if there is an easy way out to get the reward people will likely pick he easy way out. In general I don’t get a special mini from a special boss, I just buy it for gold (that’s the case for most mini’s) so I am not rewarded for the skills of killing that boss.

No… they really don’t. They want easy and rewarding. You can go through any MMO, and find the same phenomenon; the more challenging the content is, the fewer people will play it. Endgame raids will on average host about 5% of your player base.

Challenge is a terrible motivator for the MMO market as a whole. They will always seek the path of least resistance, and nothing you do outside of forcing them to take on tougher challenge to get what they want will change that.

But nowadays, trying to force them down a challenging path, with the number of MMOs out there nowadays… they’ll just quit and go somewhere else that gives them an easy road. Arena.net has to cater to this crowd; they have no other choice.

Yeah .. also those folks that always cry for more challenge mean mostly that the want better exclusive loot. If they get that some can be forced to play what they maybe don’t even like. If they don’t get it mostly they suddenly say : why the hell should i then play this instead of taking the easy way.

A challenge is mostly fine once, but if you’ve beaten it, and it comes down to farming its mostly just annoying.

The reward can also make the content funner because every time there is that change that it will drop, it’s like a rush you get every kill. While items not dropping in specific places (Not so much talking about exclusive in a way that is has to be account0bound but exclusive in a way that it drops in once place) does devalue the item.

I will use an example to explain. We take a type of content that is obvious very boring. Killing one type of mob over and over and over again. But now lets say that mob in one area has the rare change to drop a specific mini. In a way the killing stays boring but on the other hand, every kill there is the rush of ‘will it drop’ making it boring content fun or exiting.
Because it only drops in that specific place it also means that it’s not likely people who are not looking for it get it to drop.. it can happen but it’s much less likely. So it’s a really special reward

Now imagine it’s a general drop (like many stuff in GW2). That mean many people will do dull content to get generally good drops but mainly stuff they don’t want. They sell that to make gold and buy the item they want (likely something that dropped for somebody else he did not want). It completely devalues the item and getting new items is pretty much seeing your gold slowly go up. No rush at all.

So I do think rewards and the reward-system are important. And like I said, obvious if people then want an item they will go for the ‘easy’ way. Why go for a hard way to make gold if it buys you the same item you want. At that moment the game has become nothing else then work.. working for currency to buy the item so yes then you go for the easy way. Problem is that the game has become work like this, not that people want the easy way out. Thats a result of it.

Buttercup.5871:

All that is missing is merit-based rewards for difficult solo-content. That is all. The only good example of this was Liadri. Hardcore difficulty (on a ranger, at least), and a non-sellable cool reward only awarded by overcoming the challenge.

Now only if it’s not temporary.
I never did Liadri because people said it was bugged. Later I found out it was not bugged but it used to be easy and then they made it very hard for some classes. Now I can’t do it anymore. This is something that will come back but it’s the same with the molten mini and backpack. That content did came back but the reward did not and thats part of what made that content so much fun.

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

they descreased supply, and increased utility of each dye, as has been said they are account bound now. Its not as bad as it seems though because the supply is pretty large.
You can in fact get them though if you need them, by crafting and mystic forge.
The main gameplay way to get dyes now is through crafting/cooking.
It may in the long term give cooking more value, maybe ascended cooking will be about crafting a new dye teir… hmm

Ok if you can craft unidentified dyes in a reasonable way then thats ok.

Paulytnz.7619:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

They have been removed and the reason is because our dyes are account bound now, thus we need less. It also assures that the vast majority of them well be gained by people from buying them from the gemstore now. There are other ways in game such as buying with laurels but they have made that even more costly, 5 laurels.

If thats true it would be even more currency driven.

Not sure if we need less. How many people where going to outfit all there chars with dyes? I am pretty sure that now it’s account-bound more people are likely to go and collect them then before.
I personally used more dyes (all except for 2) in the week after the patch then I did in the 1,5 year before.

Besides they are needed for some legendary weapons..

Then again it fits with discussions I had before. Many ‘problems’ in the game are because of a cash-shop focus. (char-bound dyes was one of them that I did refer to before) But as long as they don’t change that reason behind those ‘problems’ (cash-shop focus) you will keep having them. Like now, they did improve the dye system by making it account-bound but if it’s true what you said they also made it worse by not letting them drop in the world anymore. What make sense as they still want to generate income with the dyes (in stead of for example expansions) or they find another way to try and sell more gems. Thats also possible.

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

BobbyT.7192:

Question I want to ask is there any way a large group players 50+ doing any thing, open world PvE, WvW and not be considered a Zerg? Or will they always be considered a Zerg?
Remember those movies with large scale battles, looks kinda cool sometimes, isn’t that just a big Zerg fight?

Yeah when people talk about zerging they meanly talk about huge group of people doing something together. And that can be fun. Problem many people have is that is the answer for everything and often there are no good alternatives.

Big battles can be fun but so is tactic. People don’t like it that zerging wins from tactics. Lets take WvW as an example. I can upgrade a keep and have all walls at 100% and places siege weapons inside. but if there are only a few people inside and a big zerg is coming by it will only slow them a little down.

Zerg VS zerg could also be fun but that is now just a blob of people. Collision detection for players would be a solution for that (but then you need flying mounts).

moiraine.2753:

Also i’m really curious.Why i can’t invite 80 people in my group and too see them.After all Teuatl and Worm are for 80 people aren’t they?So why i can’t make groups like in the other MMOs?There you can see everyone that is in your raid it doesn’t matter is it 10/20/25/40/72 people.Everyone is shown.

GW2 wanted to do it different to be different. So the main reason why you can’t is because in those other games you.

Sorry to be so negative but most problems with GW2 I relate to 3 core problems.
1 Focus on the cash-shop,
2 being different for the sake of being different (and being stubborn with agreeing something does not work (worked better in other games) ),
3 Quick and dirty programming style. (easy way out).

Sirendor.1394:

A:

Casuals.

It has nothing to do with casuals. What would casual players like to do? They also like to go for items, my standard examples of mini’s would fit here as well. Where a hardcore gamer might want to kill a hard boss at first or want to get the best armour or want to kill as many players as possible a casual gamer is more interested in the PvE part. He wants to get that mini or the Legendary skin. Content might still be hard as long as he does not first have to grind a long time to get the needed armour. A casual player might also not play daily so not temporary available stuff. Yes some might not want to do the hard stuff and some might but then he just does the stuff that’s not to hard. However many casual gamers don’t mind it to be hard. It are still PC-gamers who go and sit behind a PC to play the game. Not a console gaming who lays on the sofa and just want to relax.

So no, it’s not because of casual players and really, this game is very casual gamer unfriendly.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

I
Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based.

Still though, I take gold over crafting/tokens/tickets anyday.

Crafting can be fun. I like fun crafts that let you go all over the world to collect materials and recipes and so on. We don’t have such crafts in GW2 but they can be fun.

Maybe then crafting would be fun. But in gw2 you sometimes have to grind thousands of hard and boring to get stuff. Crafting is nice to have as an extra option, but for many pieces of gear there is no other way but crafting (looking at you, Ascended). I really don’t get why Ascended gear isn’t tradable.

Yeah I was also referring to ‘fun’ crafts not only to the way it’s implemented. An famous example of a fun craft is for example engineering (like in WoW) where you just create some fun items. But also something like breeding animals for rangers or mini, or musician and so on.

Well chef sort of is a fun-craft. But the items you make are also mainly there to give effect not just to transform you into something else. If that would be the focus chef would be a fun-craft.

And then you need to implement a fun-craft in a fun way. Like I said in my previous comment.

SirMoogie.9263:

“As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

GW 2 Manifesto

Hm, everyone doing the same thing… check. Bosses that spawn or go away on a schedule regardless of player or NPC action… check. So much for a living world.

R.I.P. Guild Wars 2 Manifesto.

Funny enough in many mmo’s that not so much the case. One person is busy to get that special skin, (and for that he needs to be in some god-forgotten place, so when you would walk by you see this one guy doing his thing) another one is trying to get a mount, another one it trying to get a mini .

Another one is levelling, another one is doing his crafts so he is gathering materials.

That brings us then back to GW2 and the gold / currency focus.

The guy that wants that special skin does not need to go to that god-forgotten place, he just needs gold. Same for the guy that wants a mini or a dye or a weapon or a skin or armour and even for crafting gold is the best way to go. That leaves a few things like levelling, PvP and WvW. When levelling you indeed tend to do the same event multiple times making them feel completely useless and not having any effect. At least the traditional quest where one time only per char so it feels like you indeed completed it and so achievement something. Every time you walk buy an NPC you helped he thanks you for your help.

Astralporing.1957:

Turgut.4397:

People don’t care about achieving something through hard work anymore. They’ll be incredibly happy just to walk up to a boss with 100 others and tap a skill till that red bar is depleted, as long as they get their reward.

I will now reveal a terrible truth to you. It has always been so. Even in the most hardcore games you can think of, in the end majority of players will try to look for the easiest way to accomplish their goals. The only reason you don’t see endgame raids in other games being zerged by swarms of autoattacking drones is because those games don’t give that option.

That’s not completely true. People want hard fun content and get rewarded for it. But if there is an easy way out to get the reward people will likely pick he easy way out. In general I don’t get a special mini from a special boss, I just buy it for gold (that’s the case for most mini’s) so I am not rewarded for the skills of killing that boss.

But that’s pretty much what I said before. If gold is so important zerging is one of the by-products. Put specific items behind specific content and people will do that specific content if they like that item. Another person who likes another item does other content. They collect all the stuff they like and so they keep playing different types of content for a long time. In that way zerging becomes less.

hedix.1986:

Heck, I would buy an expansion that offers proper instanced raid system for megabosses. If all Anet is worried about is the money.

Cause it seems like the non-expansion features/LS isn’t really cutting it, neither for them not for us.

Yeah I agree. Expansion based model for the win. Get rid off all the cash-shop grabbing. It are mainly things that should be in the game and are now being taken away from the game-play anyway just so they can make money on it.

Instead ad real new content (expansions) and then I am willing to pay for it.

Oke it’s a little less easy cash-grab. But they get the money.. also in the long-run (what is not the case with cash-grab) and we get the quality product many of us want.

moiraine.2753:

Stormcrow.7513:

I haven’t played in a couple of weeks because, well the only thing left for me was doing Teq and Wurms.
I laugh so, so hard at how simplistic a resolution to the whole mega server issue.
Districts. Remember those Anet? You had those in another game that didn’t have issues.
Whats that? EU players playing with NA players!!! Wow!!! That technology must be new and groundbreaking!!!
GW1 did instanced districts of zones and it worked, it worked very well.
Why is Anet so reluctant to look at the successes of the past and implement them into the here and now?

Because they want to reinvent the wheel and it just isn’t working…

Well district is just a whole map as instance. It’s one of the reason I never liked GW1. It was not a open world where you would run into other people. So I don’t think that would be a great idea for GW2. But if it comes to specific content that you need to do with a big organized group (like we are talking about here) then create a instance for that specific content. That’s also a wheel already invented and it’s known by the name raid instances.

To make a long story short. You want raid dungeons. And no, that should not cost gems.

I am a leader of a big general guild. We also had problems when doing guild-mission. Have not yet done a world boss, might do that this weekend. But yeah I think raid dungeons would solve that problem.

The mega-server does not yet work great. The way to fix that imho is if people can give priority to selection. Selected server should normally be first, guild second, friends 3th and so on. But you should be able to mix that up. It would not solve it completely but it could reduce many of the problems. I already was doubtful about this mechanism when ESO came up with the idea.

The idea is great and as a solo casual player it is great but as soon as it get more complex (guilds, friends, RP community, and so on)it will become very hard to get it to work correctly.

It’s simply a by-product.

In this game you don’t go for specific items but you grind gold to buy your items. This is related to them wanting to sell gems.
See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-rethink-the-whole-reward-system/first#post3953185
and:  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-focus-on-micro-transactions/first

So if you don’t need to go do specific content or to a specific place to get the item you need but you need gold (or another currency) then the way to get it is by getting as much (pretty good) loot as possible so you can sell that for gold. Then zerging is one of the more likely ways to get that.

My Greatsword with the Chiroptophobia Greatsword Skin does not show the bats at night anymore. I know there was a problem with some skins when they where transmuted to Ascalonian weapons. (Well not really a problem, it gave the game a little extra but some considered it a problem). Maybe Anet tried to fix that problem but created this bug in stead?

Whatever the reason may be, my Greatsword does not show the bats that fly away at night any-more. I checked the patch-notes but there is nothing that suggest a change that could effect this.

Please fix this as my whole reason for that sword is the nice bats effect.

Aeolus.3615:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Immersion is one of the most important elements in games for me. Especially in MMOs or open world Games like GTA or Skyrim.

On the other hand a lot of immersion in GW2 gets killed by the fragmented world (zones and portals to an adjacent zone).

Archage…
I continue with this opinion, GW2 with sandbox elements and no overflows would kill any future mmo, even being with intanced zones.

More sandbox would indeed be great and it would create the ‘living world’ Anet is talking about all the time but not really able to create with there patches. However it’s not really related to immersion, maybe except for that fact that events don’t have to replay but content changes because of players input.

I have been following ArcheAge but i’m afraid also that game will become to much focused on the cash-shop. Plus while I would like to give it a try I don’t feel like paying 140 euro for a F2P game.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

I
Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based.

Still though, I take gold over crafting/tokens/tickets anyday.

Crafting can be fun. I like fun crafts that let you go all over the world to collect materials and recipes and so on. We don’t have such crafts in GW2 but they can be fun.

About the gold.. Well is really currency driven where gold is the main currency, and currency driven is boring. Tokens and tickets are boring.

Just play the game for your loot and have gold as an extra option.

velmeister.4187:

Devata.6589:

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

I don’t think any big publisher will ever launch a game in 21st century without having a viable revenue stream thru micro-transactions. Some publishers will even do Pay to play with micro-transactions if they actually get hold of a game that is “that” good. It’s how the industry works now.

The only way this will change if someone can come up with a business model that is more profitable thru B2P-XPaC model and if the industry accepts it for venture capitalists or publishers to fund the development of such a game.

It’s a long shot.

That said, on topic, reward system in GW2 is not much different than any other MMO with the exception that you get some guaranteed rare loot from events and gold from dungeons. Over time, any RPG will become all about currency farming. In Diablo series, it was Stones of Jordan, in GW, it was ecto/plats, in AION, kinah, in GW2, gold.

“I don’t think any big publisher will ever launch a game in 21st century without having a viable revenue stream thru micro-transactions.”
GW1 was from the 21st Century. Many if not most non MMO games do (well they tend to have some DLC crap). Many people do say “you can’t compare it to an MMO because they need to keep working on an MMO and they need to keep the servers running”. That is not a valid point because many non-MMO games need to get fixes and have MP options that requires servers to keep running.

It should not be a big problem. However in an MMO cash-shop seem to be the easy cash grabbing and there are enough people throwing there money at it. So why go for the hard way if there is an easy way.
I would say “Because the hard way is better for the product in the long run” and for Anet and the gamer that would be true but for the investor Ncsoft it’s less valid. By the time GW2 would shut down or generate less income they have the next game. People who don’t like elements in GW2 because of this simply move on to Wildstar.. another Ncsoft game.

I think that if there is a company that loves the game and has it’s own money in the game (the game is the company) then you might very well see an MMO that uses that model. Also in the 21st century. In the meanwhile I will not support this model simply buy not buying cash-shop items and trying to support those companies that do things ‘the correct’ way.

Anyway, my point was mainly to just show where a big part of this “loot problem” is coming from. It would be more fun if all that sort of content is really available and mainly available buy playing the game / going for that item. But for as long as they keep monetizing that part of the game you will not see it change any time soon. So maybe first ask for the system to change..

“Over time, any RPG will become all about currency farming“ == “Over time, any RPG will become extremely boring and will fell like a job”. I farm for currency at my job, not when playing some game.

I keep repeating myself in multiple threads, now that’s also because it’s what I am annoyed by and so related topics get my attention. So here it go’s again.

Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based. There are not a lot of specific drops from specific places / content. That results in ‘lucky’ drops where many people get items they do not want. But they sell those items and buy what they want. The result is a boring gold-grind. If it’s not gold-grind then it’s often a rush against time what is also not fun.

But why make it this way. Now lets take my default example, mini’s. You can put mini’s in the game. One specific mini can drop from a specific quest or a dynamic event or a dungeon or you create it with crafting or it drops from a specific group of mobs in a specific place.

This means there are reasons to do specific content and people are less likely to get a ‘lucky’ drop they do not want that they then sell. Getting items and farming is more coordinated.

Farming is almost impossible in GW2 and as soon as a way to farm items is found it’s getting patched out in some cases the people who farm it even get a ban.

This of course has everything to do with there income model. It’s not so much B2P where they make money on the game and expansions but the generate most money with gem-sales. So the question is “how do we get people to buy gems”. Well by putting mini’s in the cash-shop in stead of in the world and by making gold very important and then selling gold for gems. It makes the game feel like a job in stead of a game and gems are they cheap way out of that.

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

DarkWasp.7291:

It’s a bit of a double edged sword.

On one end, the more you sacrifice immersion, the more it feels like you’re playing a calculator. On the other, you could make a game like URU Online where so much as the smallest interaction with the community could spoil a puzzle and shorten your game-time.

Couple that with the fact that differences exist between story immersion and environment immersion.

The way I feel for example:

If somebody tells me what happens in the story/living story before I play it, I’m OK with that. Sometimes it even lets me know what I have to look forward to (or not.) Did it break my story immersion? Guess so. Do I care? No.

Meanwhile stuff like the lack of first person zoom or the fact that pretty much every random dialogue in the game ends with a punch line, zinger, irony or proclamation irks me every day. That’s environment immersion, it affects how the game generally feels.

Some people may put more weight on story. Others may go so far as to suggest PvE gets removed entirely.

Good that you separate the two in your post. I did not think about doing that. I am also taking about the environment immersion.

However I can understand how story immersion breaking might also be very frustrating for some people. It’s not so much for me personally

I think immersion is very important for the game because it lets you get drawn into the world or not. Plus immersion braking stuff can be very frustrating

I do think your examples are not really good. Bad jokes by Scarlet or Racism does not have to be immersion braking. Being bothered about it does not mean it breaks immersion.

However there are multiple very immersion braking elements in GW2. It’s one of the lesser elements of this game.

Dynamic events should make the world feel alive but repeating events make it feel useless and show you that it’s just a game taking you out of the immersion.

Not one real open world but instanced maps. Every time you swap maps you get a loading screen reminding you it’s a game.

The waypoints that let you get everywhere without any trouble and really without it making a lot of sense plus once again the loading screen.

Invisible walls and objects with no collision detection all over the place. Me being somebody who like to jump on everything I run into both all the time. Extremely immersion braking.

Also the whole spanning system is extremely bad. It does not really take into account that there are players (only looking how many players are in the area to increase the number and speed) that should not see just mobs spawn everywhere and need to kill the same mob over and over again, and suddenly being attacked in the back by a spawned mob or that players should be able to clear an area without mobs keeping re-spawning all the time.

Dynamic events that start with spawning some mobs that are invulnerable at the beginning.

Finally what comes to mind is how mobs start running back when they get to far from there spawn-site or of the player is not in line of sight. Now that sort of makes sense, but he should not run all the way back and even start healing while a player is still attacking.

As you can see most of those immersion-breaking elements are also frustrating.
Falling (to your death) because you jumped on an edge you could not reach because there was an invisible wall in the way or because it did not have collision detection is very frustrating and feels like the game is cheating.

Dying from a mob while you killed all the mobs there already multiple times but they keep re-spawning is extremely frustrating.

Almost having a ‘boss’ killed when it suddenly runs back and starts healing is very frustrating.

Attack mobs then are invulnerable and then having them attack you while you have everything in cool-down is extremely frustrating.

Many of those immersion-braking things feel so frustrating because if feels like you are being cheated.

I said immersion is something where GW2 is lacking a lot. GW2 is also the most frustrating game I have ever playing.. Frustrating in a way that it can make you mad at the game. Something I never had in another game but examples I just gave makes it very frustrating at times.

So yes immersion is very important. It draws you into the world what is important for a game while immersion braking events dos exactly the opposite plus creates a lot of frustration.

I think the problems many people are dumb enough to spend huge amount of money on junk.
For example, Anets puts with most events a new sets of mini’s in. Combining a full set gives you yet another mini so you need to buy two sets. Every sets cost 500 gems. So for 4 mini’s that is about 10 Euro at least. Seeing as how you can buy the full game for 30 / 40 euro’s that is sic.

Nevertheless there are people wasting huge amounts of money on this sort of things and company’s huge the fact that those people can’t handle money with this sort of cash-shops. So in the sort run this is an easy and good way to make on.

Now of course those mini’s (I always use mini’s in this example but feel free to fill that is with dye colors, skins, weapons, armor, funny fluff, mounts or whatever) are not really part of the game-content anymore. They could have been in the game, getting it would require you doing a specific task (playing the game). Now it’s buying or grinding gold. So these forms of generating income does mainly take content from the game.

I would prefer no cash-shop, or only have some real ‘out of the game’ items in the cash-shop like name-changer, full make-over kit (not hair kit, that should be a barber in game), sex-changer and that sort of stuff.

Then release an expansions every year / year and a half that adds new content. Then you would pay for real additional content and there would be more fun content in the game in the first place.

For the long runs that is also better because there is more content coming all the time. Pretty much there winning formula with GW1. The again, it might already be to late.