Guild Wars 2

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I would think that comparing the release of 3 expansions for each game would be the more fair data analysis.

Of course, we all spent a lot of money in the first few years of Guild Wars. They kept releasing new games/campaigns (which many consider expansions) and the one expansion. Once Guild Wars 2 has released 2 more expansions, we can discuss.

I have to disagree. The complete approach was the difference between many expansions and a low focus on the cash-shop versus none or a few expansion versus a heavy focus on the cash-shop.

I am trying to compare the two approaches.

2/2

d) Can you explain to be the phrase ‘’If the x-pack dont sell good , the problem will be that most ppl have been turned off by the directions of the game and they where forced to use real money to buy from the gemstores ’’gear’’ **** , and i will come back and say to the Devs ‘’I TOLD YOU SO’’

Again, something along those lines. I think I did never say HoT would sell really bad. I said the second expansion would sell bad (so the next one, if HoT would not fix the problems) and if HoT did not solve the grind-problem the game would likely decline after the release. Something we would see after the first half year.
I also said something like ‘I could make a ’I told you so post’‘, was that not even in a response to you where you asked me to proof what I was saying? Or maybe it was about Crysis? Can’t remember exactly. Anyway, you can then see this as the ‘I told you so’ post if you like.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

you made 3 megathreads back at January 2015-March 2015 , that they shouldnt releases more armors in the gemstore …..WHILE THEY HAVE ALREADY HAVE DESIDED ABOUT THAT , 1 YEAR AGO AT MARCH-OR MAY 2014

Not sure what threads you are talking about. I talked about how I think they should place items behind content, not in a gems-store. That is what you have been referring to in almost all your comments here. You mean that? Maybe you should link the threads.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

As the next x-packs releases and some ’’targets’’ come back to whine about the price …. i would advice you once more , to avoid speaking-represent ‘’a large amount of the community’’ ….
You too where fighting with those bozos too 4 months after the x-pack , that wanted the price dropped like GW1 …. you see what those foolish minds wants

I did my best but are not able to translate what you are saying here.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Try to find ideas … that will make next x-pack more attractive for ppl to buy the x-pakc …otherwise ONCE MORE (/cast pseudo oracle 2015 skills) they will be forced to ‘’find from somewhere else’’ the money they estimate-aim for

I did made such suggestions the 3 years I was very active on this forum. Also talking part in some of the CDI’s including the one about Guild Halls. Now I do not know if they did listen to me, but if you go in there https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first you can see I mainly talked about 2 things. 1 having guild-halls in the open world. That was never implemented. The second one, was have blue-prints for blocks we could place and so basically build our own guild-hall. We did in fact get that.

So I also did my best to come with suggestions to make a better expansion.

It’s good to see you. I do think you are pretty rude, also because you change what people said, but as you where one of the persons that most actively asked me to come back with these numbers, I like it that you where able to see my post where I in fact did do what you asked.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Lets talk about other things you have talked mister Krysis 2 player …

There you are. You know, you asked me to come back with these numbers remember. Well here they are.

I see you still want to go to ‘other things’ instead talk about what we are talking about. Not to mention that many of the things you mention here you also asked / talked about many times getting them answered multiple times. Of course you are also still changing what I said a little (or a lot, or completely).

You know what. I will answer this post here, but future post will have to go about the subject or I will not go into them.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

A ppl would love to have gear-cosmetic locked behind raids or any hard other content , rather than doing mind boglings easy things to simply farm gold for gems …
Can you show us he data about how many ppl are doing Raids?

I said they should be behind content, including but not only hard content instead of being behind a boring grind because a boring grind burns out people being bad for the game in the long run.

I don’t have numbers about how many people do raids, it’s also only a small part of where content would be locked if things would be implemented like I said. Most would likely be locked behind quests. That means only looking at how many people do raids is irrelevant. The only numbers available and (possibly) relevant is to see how the game performs over a longer period as my idea was, that the approach GW2 took, would be bad in the long run. Well, this thread is about those number, so have a look.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Collecting mats that have a low chance to drop (rather than sold to the trading post), are not counted like ’’farm’’ but rather ‘’friedly activity-farm’’ …..
Can you tell us the data about how many ppl like to collect 250 ’’corals’’ (that dont have 100% chance to be droped) for crafting the legendary 2-handed mace or 2-handed sword ?

I did never say this, in fact I said exactly the opposite. I said, if you have an item you need only one of (a skin, or a recipe or an item you need only 1 of in a recipe) than it is not a problem to have it behind RNG with a low drop-rate. However, if it’s something you need a lot of, it should be easy to farm. Like, you go to some mine, and mine the 250 iron ore you need in 30 min.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Could you explain the phrase : ’’PPl would LOVE to spent more money for faster x-packs , if that means that the gear wont be sold in the Gemstores but rather ingame" ?
Can you shows us a graph (you already did) ….using real money to buy an x-pack is more loved by the community , compared to having FREE content with FREE currency exchange to buy anything from the Gemstores ?

I said something along those lines yes. I think I did use some other words. Of course we did not do a survey and so those opinions are not measured. However in a way, the graphs I do show here says something along those line.
What you see is that with the game (GW1) that used that x-pact model, the playerbase was more loyal during the full life-spawn of the game, then they are with the game (GW2) that used the model where many things are sold with gems or gold. Remember, I also talked about how gold was the way to get most things in GW2 instead of doing specific content for it. And gold being linked to gems. It’s basically what you mention in A.
1/2

Rose Solane.1027:

Talking about a biased view

Looking at the raw figures I see that GW 2 had higher earning in the first 15 quarters than GW 1 ever had in any quarter. Only the last two quarters GW 2 made less than the highest two GW 1 quarters. So I see a much more successful game than GW 1 has ever been looking at quarterly earnings.

So far I do not yet see where I was biased. I am not saying it was not a more successful game in raw numbers. In fact, I gave you the numbers to see that in the first graph.

However, I was never talking about raw income, but talked about how they performed over time, based on their initial sale / scope.

Rose Solane.1027:

The graphs GW1 & GW2 earning percentages based on initial sale and GW1 & GW2 earning percentages based on average initial sale are there to create confusion. It suggests that GW 2 did worse than GW 1 but that is not true. Because GW 2 had such a successful initial sale almost all the other quarters had better earnings then GW 1 ever had.

Talking about bias lol. If anything is done with bias it’s how you judge the comment, likely because it’s not as positive as you would like have see.

The very first graph shows the raw numbers. Now if I did not show those you might have a point, but I do show them.

Also I explain exactly how the other graphs are created, so it should not be very confusing. It for sure it not put there ‘to create confusion’. But if anything shows something you don’t want to see it’s put there for confusion? Come on, it’s just the outcome of the numbers, nothing more and nothing less.

Also your comment about the initial sale being so big being a problem as if I ignore that makes no sense. It’s one of the first things I mention in my OP. Not only that, I did multiple things to reduce that difference.

However I can also not completely ignore that. Doing so would be ignoring the numbers. Turn it as your want, but it does say something about the scope of the game.

Now what would be bias, is if people would say things like

Guild Wars 2 is one of the more successful MMOs of the last five years.

for a big part based on that initial peak, but then if you show the decline, wanting to ignore the peak because it would result in a big drop. Now then you are picking what you need to make your story correct.

I did my best to, in a fair way, normalize the initial peak without completely removing it.

I also provide all the information in the form of the Excel where it is done. You can check it all. No bias in there what so ever.
[/quote]

Rose Solane.1027:

In the end the total earnings are what matters not percentages of initial sales.

Again biased views: I see a much more successful game then GW 1 has ever been.

That depends. If you want the game to be and keep being successful over a longer period, then no all that matters. So for players that stay with the game for a longer period (like you) it should in fact matter least. Sure for somebody invests money in it, it might be all that matter.

However even then, the results might have been higher if they used a difference approach.

And it was never about if GW1 was more successful then GW2, or the other way around. Not the point of the numbers. Maybe you just don’t understand them. That is fine, but then don’t come with claims as if people are bias.

Dawdler.8521:

Without labels all I see is mountains, oceans and possibly lava

That is why I explained them in the text?

Derdhal.6908:

Just a point: GW1 have never been Pay2Play, neither GW2.

Sorry, you are completely right, I talked about Pay2PLay but typed Pay2Play. My bad, I edited it.

Derdhal.6908:

GW2 was a Buy2Play game with a lot of store revenues that became Free2Play with restrictions (as usual).

GW2 was mainly focusing on the cash-shop. That is why I talk a cash-shop game. I did not use the term ‘Free2Play’ to prevent any confusion.

It’s clear that GW2 main income was supposed to come from the cash-shop. At one time they even said they would never have an expansion if they did it right. If a game focuses on expansions, you can not, not have any expansions. In fact you would need to release one every year to 1,5 year.

Both games sell the game and have a cash-shop. The big difference is where they put the focus on.

Psientist.6437:

The initial sales number is too big a data point to ignore, especially if we are debating long-term profitability. To normalize the role of that initial sale, you would need to spread that revenue across time, not remove it.

Ignoring it is one of the approaches I take, I also took an approach where I spread it out over the first 3 quarters. What the initial sales tells me, is the scope the game can be placed in. In a way it shows me a possible player-base (well result-based) of the game. It also acts as a base-line to start from. What I want to know is how the game performs over a longer time. I can see what it can achieve (the base line), and then want to know how it performs with that base-line in mind.

Not ignoring it makes the numbers only be worse, spreading out them over the complete time removes my base-line. In raw numbers it is indeed not something you should ignore. I am also not debating that GW2 made much more money then GW1, and that initial peak is a big part of that. You can see that in the first graph.

However, I want to see how the game performs over-time, based on this initial sale. Like said, the initial sale gives me a look into what the game can achieve or in other words the scope of the game.

Many people talk about how GW2 was the best selling MMO of the time. So that is then also the scope in what I should look. It shows in a way that GW2 had the potential to be the biggest MMO out there. The question then is, how well was it able to keep that scope.

Hope you understand why then I can not spread that revenue across the full time. Just for raw income I can. But for the comparison with GW1 (a game on a different scope) and to see how GW2 preforms over time based on what it achieved I obviously can’t.

I think you missed what I tried to do here.

Psientist.6437:

The revenue from the ‘initial sale period’ of GW2 also includes cash shop sales. I would not be surprised if that period was also the most profitable period for the cash shop as well.

Sure, I am not trying to split the two. I compare the total of the models.

If you mean to say “But you would not have those sales in the other model, decreasing the scope and so giving a better outcome over time” you are right. That is one of the reasons why I am trying to normalize the initial peak to be a little more in line with the rest of the game. But I can’t of-course completely ignore it. By removing that peak I cut the peak effectively in more then half. Taking the average of the 3 means effectively that I use about 1/3th of the initial peak.

In addition, the cash-shop stays in there so keeps generating money… or is supposed to. So completely trying to take that out of the equation with the initial peak would also not be right.

If a cash-shop model is great for a game in the short term but bad in the long run (in fact exactly what I believe) that is also something we want to see.

If the another model would sell less in the beginning but did not drop as much, it would pay itself back overtime. That is exactly what the calculated difference in possible income shows.

Vayne.8563:

The biggest issue Guild Wars 2 suffered, in my opinion, it the really bad publicity around HoT. Part of that came from the mistake of HoT bring priced to high and part of it came from the mistake of not giving a character slot as part of the base package. Those are mistakes and Anet paid for those mistakes with bad publicity. Instead of there being hype and excitment, there were angry veteran players screaming on the forums and such. And so HoT didn’t sell as well.

The numbers suggest your opinion is wrong. Because if it would be true you would expect the sales for HoT being bad, and you would see it immediately at and after the release. However, those sales where not bad at all. It’s the half year after the release of HoT that people started to leave. Just looking at the numbers we have to make this conclusion. Not saying that things did not go wrong there.

Vayne.8563:

Charts like this can’t possibly apply this kind of data. What they can be used for is to prove anyone’s point about anything, when taken in different contexts.

I always made the context clear. Long-term and compared to GW1, where I used GW1 mainly because of its payment-model.
I did not apply ant tricks to come to this conclusion.. and again, have a look. The only ‘tricks’ I applied was to make GW2 look better by normalizing the initial peak.

Vayne.8563:

Nice data, but I’m guessing there’s confirmation bias there.

It’s simply the data directly coming from the NCsoft quarterly reports. I made the data available in the Excel, so you can easily check it. So far there cannot be any bias.

The calculations I did you can also see back in the Excel, and if anything, I did use multiple methods to make GW2 look better! by reducing the initial spike.

So not bias here, it’s just raw data and math.

Vayne.8563:

Again, as I’ve said many times in the past, Guild Wars 1 is a 10 year old game that existed in a very very different marketplace than today. Comparing what Guild Wars 1 did ten years ago with what games do today is going to be meaningless because the entire industry has changed.

You did indeed say that. Nonetheless we can conclude now that what I suggested that would happen, did in fact happen. The question if another approach would work better we can never know for sure. On the other hand.. 10 years ago GW1 also used a model that was completely out of place back then as most of these games used a payment-model now. Now most of these games used a cash-shop model. So why would a different model then what most use now, not work? In both cases it’s a different form the status quo.

Do with it what you want. I always made claims, and it seemed just fair to come back now and look how far those claims came true. And yes, I would also have come back if I turned out to be wrong.

Maybe it’s time that people defending GW2 in any way, and trying to dismiss any negative feedback try to look objective at the numbers. Because with all respect, defending some of those decisions might have helped getting to where we are.

Anyway, like I said. Do with these numbers what you want. I delivered on my part. (Some people explicitly ask me to come back in the future to stand by my claims. I have done that now.)

I don’t even expect people to be willing to look at the numbers, as most people who would back me up, will have most likely left by now.

Vayne.8563:

Even after 2 disappointed quarters, Guild Wars 2 is one of the more successful MMOs of the last five years.

I did not put GW2 next to a lot of other games, but I think that if you take out those first 2 quarters, this is false. A game like AION seems to be able to keep a more stable income.
It’s great that GW2 sold so good at the beginning, but with an MMO it’s important to look at it in the long run. That is also what I have always been focusing on as you know.

It’s also not at all about those last two quarters. I put up all the numbers and you act as if I only talk about those last two results. I don’t. If you look at all the numbers you basically see a never-ending drop, until the announcement of HoT, but then half a year after HoT it did come into a free-fall again. Basically picking up the downward line it was following before the announcement of HoT. This is exactly what you would not want to see.

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t matter if you agree, or if you think it could have come closer to beating WoW, because there’s no evidence to support that doing it differently would make more profit.

No, but these numbers are the closes we can get. You have been using this argument since the beginning. Only difference, we were then also talking about the future. Well at least we know have the numbers of ‘the future’ and know that part came true.

You can never know an alternative reality, or future. Nonetheless, a lot of decisions are based on calculating possible outcomes for that future or alternative realities. Simply ignoring them (because you can never know for sure) is to say the least being stubborn.

Images and links seem to not work, I will fix it.

Update: Links works, images not yet.
Test: [img]http://link.to/image.png[/img]

Update:
Hmm, the official way to link images here does not seem to be working. You can still see them by clicking on the link.

3/3
Now for the comparison with GW1 / the GW1 model. To be able to compare how they performed over-time I looked at the initial sale (to get an idea of the scope of the game) and set that as 100%. Then looked at how they performed based on that. So any quarter after that is shown as a percentage of the initial peak.

Like said before, because of the huge initial peak of GW2, I wanted to try and normalize that to make it a more fair comparison. I used 2 ways to do that. Simply taking out the highest number, and taking an average of the first 3 quarters. Alternatively you can also (in addition) change in the raw data 119013 by 66698 (this is based on the GW1 peak, difference between first 2 quarters).

When putting the numbers together like this we see the next 2 graphs.
[img]https://s4.postimg.org/e5xsx9t9p/GW1_and_GW2_earning_percentages_based_on_initial.png[/img] This first graphs shows 3 lines. The blue one is GW1. The purple one is GW2 but without the initial peak and red one is GW2 without any changes to normalize the initial peak.

[img]https://s13.postimg.org/lglxssf2v/GW1_and_GW2_earning_percentages_based_on_average.png[/img] Here we use the initial 3 quarters to get an average for the initial peak and then compare GW1 to GW2.
Feel free to change in the raw data 119013 to 66698 to normalize the initial peak even more. However also be aware that by removing or normalizing the initial peak we basically also erasing the positive release of the game, ignoring the fact that it was the bestselling MMO of the time. You can debate if it’s fair to do that.

Nonetheless, in all the scenario’s we see that GW1 performed better over-time then GW2 did. As in that it managed to keep better at the level where it was at the beginning.

I also found it interesting to see what would be the possible financial outcome if GW2 performed like GW1 did, but with the scope of GW2. In a way we are putting the monetizing to the test here. As in, how another approach would have possible worked out.

The biggest problem here is that you are comparing a game that is supported for 3 years, to a game that is support for 4 years and 1 quarter (until now). There is no real good way to solve this, so what I did is compare only the first 3 years, and compare it for the full 4 years and 1 quarter and then take the average of the two.

The calculations you can see in the Excel but there are two possible outcomes. In short, we calculate what the raw numbers would be, based on the percentages of the initial peak of GW1.
When simply taking all the data the numbers suggest that the GW1 approach would have resulted in 622737 KRW Mn more income at this point for GW2.
When taking out the initial peak it would have resulted in 317816 KRW Mn more income at this point.

That is what companies and shareholders are usually most interested in.

Ofcource we can never see the alternative reality, but for me these numbers back up the idea I have that the cash-shop model they applied (the quest for more money) resulted in the long run in less money. Sadly it also resulted in a lesser game (that is why in my opinion in the end the results also got worse).

Please feel free to look at the Excel, play with the numbers, scrutinize them and ask me if you have any question.

For a comparison with GW2 we will not get any better numbers because the more we go into the future, the worse you can compare them to GW1 because of the support dropping after 3 years. Of course you can keep updating the Excel with new quarterly numbers simply to see how GW2 is doing.

Over the years my opinions where not always welcomed here, but really all I wanted to do, was preventing the downfall we are seeing right now. Is GW2 dead? No, not at all, but it is also not the game it could have been imho.

Is there hope it will retake its place, honestly I don’t think so. They only way I see them getting back more people is if they manage to basically put the next expansion on the market as GW3. But some huge changes (literally game-changers) will be needed for people to even go for that. Else I expect the next expansions to sell less then HoT. And if they make the same mistakes again even a GW3 will lose popularity fast again.

2/3
The first graph shows the raw numbers of GW1 and GW2. As you can see we have no results from GW1 from the moment GW2 was released.
[img]https://s22.postimg.org/xtrvqyqnl/Guild_Wars_1_and_2_earings_real_time.png[/img]

This next graph are the same raw numbers, but put over each other based on time-periods. So the first quarterly numbers from GW1 are on the same place as the first quarterly numbers from GW2.
Notice how at this moment GW2 dropped under income we did see with GW1. In a way you could say GW2 has now a similar financial scope as GW1, but a way bigger team (that has to be paid) behind it. That is really concerning. If we also look at the last 2 quarters and compare that to all other NCsoft games, only Wildstar did worse.
[img]https://s17.postimg.org/xr7op6edb/Guild_Wars_1_and_2_earings_in_periods.png[/img]

One of the ways to ‘solve’ the problem of the big initial spike that seemed to be so out of line with everything since then, was simply to take out the high peak of 119013 (KRW Mn). This also helps to get a more readable trend-line. You can see that in the graph below.
[img]https://s16.postimg.org/o5j4pc8s5/Guild_Wars_1_and_2_earings_in_periods_minus_init.png[/img]
I named this the secondary initial peak. Another way I used to level out that huge peak was to take the average of the first 3 results in GW1 and GW2.

This raw data already learns some interesting things. When you look at the first tab in Excel (Raw numbers and comparision) you can see I put information about the game next to the quarterly numbers. They show what happened in Guild Wars during that period.
One of the interesting things to notice is that the big patches (like releases of seasons) do not seem to be a big driver for higher results.
This is something that seems to be a much used mistake / myth that I see a lot in the forum. Any drop in result was usually blamed on a lack of content. However looking to the period Q3 2014 until Q1 2015, it was a period there as a lot of content (Season 2, Halloween, Wintersday). Then they announced HoT and we had no ingame content for another half year, however in that half year the results were higher than 3 quarters before. So simply the expectance on an expansion seems to be more valuable then ingame patches.

The importance of expansions is something I have been screaming for in this forum since the beginning and NCsoft seems to have noticed that importance also finally, as they said they wanted to increase the release of expansion. Sadly they mainly see it as a way to increase cash-shop sales. While in my vision focusing on expansion instead of a cash-shop results in a better game, and so better result. Anyway, I’m afraid it’s too late for that now.
Also the last two quarters show that more content releases do not help a lot. When people talked about the low results from Q2 2016, I did see many comments like (it’s bad to look at these numbers, we had almost no content-releases, look at the next quarter. Many improvements have been made and new content is coming in). And they are partly right, one quarter does not say a lot. For me it was interesting as it was the first quarter I expected / predicted to be lower, and indeed was lower, but I also waited for Q3 to come to any conclusions. Sadly the last quarterly numbers where even worse.
Luckily it seems to be stabilizing now, but we end up with results in the line of GW1, but with a much bigger team. If it stays like that I cannot imagine they will be able to keep up the current scope of the GW2 team.

1/3 Excel with numbers.

Hello,

I would like to have a look at the GW2 financial results. We now have the numbers we need to get a good view of the long-term results.

[Skip this if you are not interesting in the history behind this comment]

First a small introduction. For a long time I have been very active on this forum. I have always seen GW2 as a game with a good core that had the potential to be one of the big MMO’s out there. Not a WoW-killer but for sure a WoW-alternative.

However, from the beginning I did notice (in my personal view) a few problems with GW2 that I did see as a possible pitfall in the way of being that big MMO, and I have been very vocal about those elements.

Some of those ‘problems’ have been fixed, like temporary content, that was a big problem during season 1.

Other big problems I did see were the missing traditional quest, no seamless zone (what basically results in loading-screen (immersion braking)) but most of all, Guild Wars moving from a Buy2Play (GW1) model to a more cash-shop model (GW2), I always suggested a focus on expansions with a new expansion every year to 1,5 year and no heavy focus on the cash-shop. The current approach resulting in decisions made based on selling items in the gem-store that effect the game negatively, mainly creating a big grind for cosmetics.

In my comments about that, I always said it would be bad for GW2 in the long-term. So it seems fair for me to also look back at it now we have the numbers over the long-term.

I also always made the comparison to GW1 what was an MMO-like game that used a Buy2Play model were the cash-shop had a much smaller role.

[Skip until here]

About a year ago I made the last post here, mainly because my comments always were supposed to be constructive criticism. In my vision HoT (and the first half year after it) was the last opportunity for ArenaNet to solve the problems that made people leave the game. People who left GW2 before, might come back for HoT, but if they leave again (somewhere in the first half year) they will not be likely to come back a third time in my opinion (for a second expansion). Because many of the suggestions made in the comments will take up to half a year to be fully implemented, it would not be very helpful to give more feedback after the first months after the release of HoT.

Getting a good idea about the results would take another year, first the first half year after the release, and then another half years to see the results after that period. That brings us to where we are now.

To get a good idea of the numbers, and being able to compare them to GW1 I collected all the quarterly reports from GW1 and GW2 and put them in Excel. (I would suggest looking at the Excel when reading this post.) In addition I tried to compare GW1 to GW2, and then mainly how they performed over a longer period. Of course keeping in mind that GW1 was a game on a way smaller scope then GW2.

To be able to compare them I used the initial sale-peak to get an idea of the scope of the game and based the results over time on that. There are however two problems I faced there. First is that GW2 initial sale was huge, but dropped fast after that. While these are the true numbers, it might be better to take that out of the equation as it does not seem to give a good indication of the true scope of GW2, depending on how you look at it.
Another problem is that GW1 pretty much lost all support after the first 3 years, while HoT did not get released till after 3 years. Only comparing the first 3 years of both games is not fair because you then do not take HoT into account, and ignore the fact that games will usually lose some popularity over-time. On the other hand, comparing both over the full period is also not fair as you are then comparing a game that is fully supported vs one that is not.

Keep this in mind when looking at the numbers. In the forum I will mainly show the graphs and talk about them. For all the numbers, have a look at the Excel.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

Okay, the game goes free to play. It gets a boatload of new players, some of which convert to HoT some of which don’t.

It’s better value for them because they lose restrictions on their free to play account.

You lose some people due to attrition for whatever reason, you gain a base from people that are free to play.

Those that don’t like the changes leave and those that do, take up the expansion To me that’s business as usual.

When I ran a business we lost and gained customers all the time. So yes, all MMOs have natural attrition. WoW, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy, all of them. They’re all losing market share. An expansion comes out and they gain a bit and then start losing again. It’s the cycle.

The specific numbers are far more important than any annecdote. My guild has about the same traffic now that it did before, but it’s not all the same people.

Some guys had left because the game was too easy. they’re back. Some people who liked the game don’t play as much because it’s too much “work”.

Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone. Did you see comments on the last WOW expansion? The same thing happened. It happens in every game.

The numbers are far more important than just knowing that some people are leaving. We’ll know the numbers, not in three months, but more like six.

“Saying some people aren’t happy with the expansion isn’t a revelation to anyone.” What I said basically comes to the expansion has to be a solution to the problems (like the grind) that already existed. Many people who come back do in fact hope for that (again, see that show I linked). If it then turns out it’s grindy again many will leave again and you don’t get the more stable player-base Anet needed. And with more stable I mean losing the ever decrease GW2 had before the announcement.

You might not have a problem with it, but frankly you have mainly been defending the game the last 3 year. It’s very nice that you like it, but fact is that during those 3 years the income did keep decreasing and that would have become a problem. You can defend the game as much as you want, but that will stay a problem if they don’t fix the reasons for that (those that you try to talk away). Spikes and drops is indeed not a problem, but behind that you do need a stable player-base to keep the game running.

It’s that simple.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

Sure those who originally played this game, in part, don’t like the changes made to the game. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it, even if some of the original people don’t.

You’re talking about the most vested fans making a podcast. You’re talking about a generation of people trained to play other MMOs. They wanted X and got Y. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t playing Y.

There are absolutely people disenfranchised and they’re loud, sure. But there are absolutely people having fun too, who aren’t as loud because they have no reason to be.

What you’re saying is looking I can point out an example that proves I’m right. No one said some people aren’t happy and aren’t playing. But the game is doing well, by all reports. We’ll see how well in six months.

I think you’ll be surprised.

I am talking about a player-base that did shrink, now comes back with the expansion and you don’t want to shrink (that much) again. Thats all.

Up until the announcement of HoT income was consistently shrinking. It was not at a bad point but when it would continue that line it would become back. Now you have a spike because of the expansion and clearly there will be a drop of players as well. However you don’t want that drop to go to the point where it was just before the announcement of HoT and then continue to go down as it did.

With HoT you want to also get members back that this time around do stay.

So for like 3 years I have been saying Anet has to do something about the grind. Also saying that with HoT players will come back, feel the grind and might leave again, something you for sure do not want with your first expansion. As they will not come back for the second one if they now leave again.

And for that what some people consider required vs optional grind does not matter at all. People feeling grind is the problem.

Anyway, I just found a perfect example of that.

Back around launch I used to watch Tales of Tyria, a youtube show about GW2. The show and the guild that helped with the show pretty much left in April of 2013.

I just happen to see they have started a new show because just before the launch of HoT they (the show and the guild) came back. And lo and behold. Pretty much the first thing they talk about in the first episode (since their back) is the grind.

It’s just the perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpJ7G_Ey6g (19:00 > 33:00) of what I am talking about.

So people can have all these discussions about required grind and none required grind (all grind is optional anyway) but it does not matter even a little. People feeling grind is the problem.

And let me go a step further.. You could remove the grind by removing the rewards, like they did with dungeons. But that does also not help if you still need the rewards / currency.

You just have to make specific rewards for specific content so you do content for its rewards instead of doing things that reward you the best currency that you need to buy all the items you want.

Just wanted to throw that example in here. I think it’s a good show to follow also to see how people who left and now come back, look at the game. What is very important to know.

At release you had to press F to enable the updrafts. At the first patch this was removed so they would automatically trigger when you would jump on them.

However, with this patch a new bug had been introduced. The updrafts do now not work long enough. You do see the updraft animation for the full length and are also unable to activate it again when it’s in the bugged phase. But they do not work.

Maybe this is a little vague so I will try to explain it a little better.

You activate the updraft. It will now show the updraft animation for 50 seconds.

However flying into it will only make you updraft the first 30 sec.

The last 20 sec you still see the animation but it will not make you updraft. Jumping on the pad again does not activate it again. You will have to wait the last 20 second until the animation ends before you can activate the updraft again.

BTW, it would be nice if we also had an option to turn updrafts on and off permanently.

I noticed that as well.

eldrin.6471:

Maybe when some one from anet comes down from up high and tells me that i have been a bit silly spending my money on there cash shop il take that on board.I payed good honest money to help get me my best in slot gear and im not happy they took that away after a pack of lies at pax south.Sure a lot of players who cant aford to spend what i can on the game dont want me not having to do the same amount of grind as them.I used the systems that were in the game to get what i got.you dont like it tough.

Funny thing is we seem t be on opposite sides of each other. But in a way we aren’t.. In fact you proof everything I have been saying the last 2,5 years and disproof everything those opposite of me have been saying to me.

Besides there is a difference between can effort and want to effort. What do you do for a living?

What I want is simply that that grind is not this grind, but game-play. Game-play I then want to play, because that is why I buy a game, to play it. I don’t buy a game to then buy items in it. Kinda removes the game-play from a game, don’t you think?

Btw, I personally don’t consider a cash-shop an ingame-system. It’s more like a separate system that you can access from in the game.

eldrin.6471:

Why you playing a game that had a cash shop from day one? and why does anet allow the abuse of players who use that legitimate game mechanic on there own forums.

Having a cash-shop is something else as focusing on it. GW1 was known for it’s B2P model and did in fact make little use of it’s cash-shop. (IT did focus on expansions to make money)

GW2 was released as B2P game and was doing reasonable the first half year (really, only the fact that all mini’s where in the cash-shop was a problem). After that they did go to much to the cash-shop focus.
Then with the announcement of raids and F2P and so on, Colin even came on stage and told how great B2P was.

So I am trying to play a B2P game, as that has been sold to me.

The question should be.. if you want a cash-shop game, why do you play GW2?

Not sure who is getting abused, but thinking you are special because you spend cash on the cash-shop is a little silly.

Sykper.6583:

There’s a definitive disconnect between what players are determining as a grind. I am of the category that looks back at old MMOs and remembers the gruesome monotony of having to farm a single type of mob or worse, a particular named mob for a RNG drop to get something required for content. *That is what a Grind is.

If the RNG is not to bad, or their are enough of those, and it’s mixed in with other ways to get other items you want or like I don’t find it as bad as grinding gold.

At least, today you are farming that named mob, tomorrow you are doing a dungeon, the day after you are doing a quest, the day after going for a specific boss.

You are always on your way.

Now when 90% of the items require you to grind gold, that is worse. While theoretically you can earn gold anywhere, there are mostly a few places to best get your gold. So today you are doing that for the item you want today, tomorrow you are doing the same, but for the next item, the day after you are doing the same but yet for another items and the day after that again.

I rather have a few specific items locked behind a specific named mob, then having nearly all items locked behind gold.

And then this is the worse case scenario, because indeed having it behind a named mob is the less interesting of the type of reward you would find in those games. However the items locked behind quests, dungeons, raids, crafting and bosses are much more interesting.

It’s however this mix that makes it fun.

eldrin.6471:

People paying money was the biggest problem guild wars 2 had?
Problem for who? anet or you.
you do get this game dont you?

The game being build around the cash-shop was the biggest problem for the game.

Maybe we should make a direct copy of any topic here in reddit and then everybody up-vote it there.

Here is a start: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3vnepp/heey_anet_get_your_asses_off_reddit_and_on_your/

eldrin.6471:

Pre hot you had options to get anything you wanted,grind some farm some pay some to lesson mat grind.

And that was the biggest problem GW2 had.. and it still has for a big part.

With all due respect, but people like you are part of the reason companies can make crappy games and earn money on them.

softblackcarbon.1537:

I actually there there is a pretty large fundamental difference between wanting to do a raid and wanting to acquire the Bifrost. In WoW, if you do not have the appropriate iLvL gear, you are 100% not allowed to do the raid you want to. If you want to access that content, you must grind your iLvL in order to be allowed inside. If you want the Bifrost (which is purely cosmetic – no combat upgrades what-so-ever), you can start making progress on that literally whenever you want.

From the perspective of the player there is no difference. The person who wants to the raid will in one case need to go to a grind. The person who wants to get Bifrost will also need to grind.. the process of getting it is mainly grind.

The person who does not want to raid, and the person who does not want Bifrost will not care for that grind.

The question if the game makes it a ‘hard’ grind (the raid where you can’t enter without x) or a soft grind (you can enter but not succeed) is then not relevant. And in this case the Bifrost is even worse, because with the raid after the grind at least you have game-play. With Bifrost, the ‘game-play’ of getting the Bifrost is grind.

The last they did try to fix with precursor crafting, while looking at the forums it’s still grind. Anyway, it’s still true for most other cosmetics.

So depending on the players perspective there is no difference. You want to do raids and to do it (or to succeed in it) you need to grind, you dislike that just as much, as the player who is after cosmetics and the process of getting them is just all grind.

eldrin.6471:

And my problem is that up until now my 3k hrs and £3000 spent on the gem store got me all the best in slot gear.but now they do a 180 and im not worthy.i dont mind grind i maxed there mastery’s to 163 paying 250 gold to some guild raid to join there group for the last two mastery points.This game was an escape from all my real life problems now i just face the same exclusions.

Paying cash is not in any way relevant to the question if you are worthy or not, the fact that you seem to think it is in any way relevant, only shows a problem with the game.. how important gold is. Heck, you did even seem to proof that the game was P2W.

Anyway, why don’t you just ignore raids and keep yourself busy with other elements. There are elements of the game that I never or barely touch. There is no requirement to do raids, only if you really want legendary armor. But it’s only good that you cannot buy that with cash.

Completing a raid makes you ‘worthy’ of getting legendary armor. And honestly, they would do that with much more content. Completing dungeon X makes you ‘worthy’ of getting mini Y.

It’s just game design.

Draygo.9473:

You have to remember a party of 5 in WvW with the +5 supply camp buff can build one of the following

Build 2 Superior Rams (100 supply)
Build 2 Catapults (100 supply)
Build 1 Trebuchet (100 supply)
Build 2 Superior AC (100 supply)
Build 3 Ballista (90 supply)
Build 2 Superior Ballista (80 supply)
Build 1 Siege Golem (100 supply)

Without resupplying.

This amount of supply lets our groups operate behind the enemy attacking targets and making the enemy defend them or lose them.

Without the buff you have a maximum of 75 supply which is not even enough for 2 regular rams. Being able to quickly build a treb in one go before your enemy can locate and start trebbing you gives you a good head start to any counter trebbing you may do.

Scribing small supply drop is absolutely useless for me. Useless.

Sure, but that is a different discussion. Then the question should be to arrange the upgrades different. No silly talk about making tiers, while there are tiers, or scaling, or as a small guild wanting the same in the same time as a big guild.

So if that are the types of problem small guilds are running into I can understand it. But that’s not what people have been asking for in this thread.

softblackcarbon.1537:

Let me try to clarify why people say this game isn’t very grindy:

About 2.5 years ago, after getting my first character to 80, I spent maybe 3 days running CoF to acquire my first exotic set for this character. This is the same set I’m running today. Essentially, I spent three days unlocking all of the content in the game for the next 2.5 years.

Compare this to WoW. The expansion releases and you re-level (~1-10 days depending on how much you play on average?). Then you run heroics for a while to get a full set of like rare/epic gear. Then you run the first raid for weeks for a full set of bis epic gear. Then a new raid comes out and you run that for weeks for a new set of bis gear. And then you do that again and again. This is the fairly standard model for MMOs that GW2 has avoided.

For the vast, vast majority of actual content in GW2 (so we’re talking combat here), ascended gear is not required. It’s not even required for raids (though I will admit that it does help). There is also a guarantee that once you’ve completed your ascended set, you will never need to craft a new set of better gear (especially with stat switching now available).

I think the people that are saying this game isn’t grindy (or that the grind is optional) are referring to the fact that the absolute minimum requirements for success in whatever content you want to tackle are incredibly low, and will last forever.

Now, we get into the grey area of things we want but do not need. Is that content grindy? Of course. I worked on crafting The Bifrost for over a year before I finally got it, but my god did it feel great when I finally got it. I didn’t so much mind the “grind”. I put that in quotes because to me, the process didn’t really feel that grindy. Sure it took a long time, but I almost never found myself doing things I didn’t want to do in order to specifically acquire materials for its completion. (No repeated gathering, no event chain running, no dungeon farming, etc.) I sort of just did what I wanted, and the materials/gold came naturally. The most grindy part by far was acquiring The Legend which I bought from the trading post. But there are even solutions to that now with the new precursor collections. Yes, these collections take time to complete, but I’d argue that they are the opposite of a grind in that you’re playing lots of different parts of the game in order to get the objects you need – not just saying run the silverwastes chest farm for 11 hours a day to get a bunch of gold to buy the item.

You’re always going to have to work for the things you want in an MMO – that’s a given. Things like legendaries, nightfury, bioluminescence, etc. are in the game for people who want to have long-term goals and to work towards a big achievement. There are plenty of other shinies in the game you can work towards without nearly that much work. If you want the bigger shinies, but don’t want to put in the work, I don’t really know how I can help you. I know lots of people who decided very early on they would never build a legendary weapon, but instead set their sights on things like cheaper (<100g) weapon skins, nice dyes, mini pets, etc. which can be acquired much more quickly/with much less work.

I think I’d more understand the “this game is too grindy” argument if people felt like they were actually being gated from real content in the game, and not just specific appearances by the grind. (And yes, I understand that skins are a huge part of this game, but it’s not like you literally can’t have fun/play parts of the game if you don’t have a nice looking chest-plate or something. We don’t get everything exactly when we want it.)

“I think the people that are saying this game isn’t grindy (or that the grind is optional) are referring to the fact that the absolute minimum requirements for success in whatever content you want to tackle are incredibly low, and will last forever.”

It’s not ‘whatever content you want’, for the future raids it is required (Anet said so, and that is also good, because if it’s doable with exotic it becomes too easy with full ascended), and it is required for higher level fractals.

But that is not very different from your WoW example. I did play that game mainly without doing any raids (I did not have interest in doing hard raids). I mainly was busy with crafting (engineering) and collecting fun items and skins (mini’s and hunter pets, mounts). For that I did not even have to really look at my armor. Whenever I got an item that had better stats I equipped that.

Maybe some items I was after would eventually get me into raids but because of the system they have in place I would be able to do that raid when it had become easier (because of the next expansion).

So I the minimum requirements for success (armor wise) in the content I wanted to tackle was very accessible. No grind in that whatsoever. Getting the items themselves sometimes did mean farming a mob, but the next item would send me on another quest so I was doing all different things all the time.

“Now, we get into the grey area of things we want but do not need.” Not very grey. You do not need to play this game, you might want to. Just as you did not need to do raids in WoW while you might want to. So there is not a big difference between wanting to do a raid or wanting to get Bifrost. You could say.. Bifrost is an item and a Raid is content so that is different. True but the road towards getting Bifrost is content, and that can be fun content or grindy content. Also you should not look at it in perspective of 1 item, more as in.. You want cosmetics, because that is a more realistic scenario.

Currently I am mainly interested in the guild-hall stuff and raids. While I was always more about cosmetics (and there still are cosmetics I want), chasing them I simply do not consider fun in GW2 because it’s grindy. I found other things that I do like so I am still here, but the fact is that if people don’t find other things then they leave. No matter if somebody else consider it optional because they used to do raids in WoW, had to grind for that and considered that as required.

“The Bifrost for over a year before I finally got it, but my god did it feel great when I finally got it. I didn’t so much mind the “grind”. Sadly, because of the way it works in GW2 I do not even really have had that feeling a lot. Most items simply mean you spend a lot of gold, so you slowly see the gold increasing and then buy what you want. Then you buy it. That feels less rewarding, to me at least. The Legendary armor from raids might in fact give me that feeling as it requires you to beat content.

Draygo.9473:

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

kuritsutian.2987:

No matter how big my house is… if I want to buy a pool, it costs the same!

A pool for a small family will cost less than a pool for 500 people. Size does matter.

That system is in place in the GW2 Guild-Halls. You can go for the mini vendor 1, 2 and 3. Small, bigger, biggest.

You can go for a fully upgraded Warroom or only go for T1.

You can take decorator vendor 1, 2 and 3 (small, bigger biggest).

You can go for only a harvest boost, or also a XP boost, or also… Well you get the point.

How can I get my +5 supply without buying a 500 person pool for 5 people?
This is an upgrade we ran every day under the old system.

You don’t seem to have an answer for this outside of attacking others for wanting an option to buy a smaller pool to give them the option to buy needed upgrades.

At my current rate it will take me over 1 year to get this upgrade if I don’t quit before then.

Can you be more specific about what you consider buying 500 person pool in this example?

The 500 person pool would be a fully upgrades hall. You don’t need that for the 5+ upgrade.

And why 5 supply?, according to Anet that belongs to a middle size guild (Not saying that’s good, but that’s how Anet defines the 5 buff).

The small hall/pool comes with Scribing: Minor Supply Drop. You can get that with a few mine upgrades and a few warroom-upgrades. You do not need to upgrade the complete Warroom for it.

You first buy the Guild-hall itself (what cost 100 gold, even for 5 man this is doable with 20 gold per person). Then you start upgrading, not to get the big pool, but the small pool that comes with the Scribing: Minor Supply Drop.

Now maybe you say.. Well I think +5 should be something for small guilds while the Scribing: Minor Supply Drop should be something for bigger guilds (and I might even agree on that). But that is a different discussion.

There simply are tiers that allow you to get a small, bigger or biggest pool / hall. And the small pool comes with something, the bigger one comes with more (like +5) and the biggest comes with everything.

When done correctly it should take the small guild just as long to get the small pool, as it would take a big guild to take the biggest pool.

It’s also not that I think the current system has no flaws. I already said the guild-level requirement should be lowered for most upgrades (Honestly, I only see it valid of the guild hall expansion upgrade) and the fact that scribers have to make things for WvW is also bad imho.

I would also understand it perfectly if you would say some things that are now locked should be rearranged. But that are all tweaks and does not take away from the fact that there are tiers and so guilds of different sizes have different things to go for.

eldrin.6471:

There’s a lot of people siting on a lot of gold.I saved up 11k just for legendary armor just to find out im locked out of getting it as it behind raids.And im not one of the chosen few in a guild running raids.Seems crazy to lock the vast majority of players out of legendary armor.

It would be even more crazy if it was locked behind gold, as 99% of the other rewards.

Finally some real rewards because they are locked behind content.

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm,

The definition listed in wikipedia matches what I find in GW2. Repetetive killing of AI controlled mobs in order to access content.

I’ve been grinding to get BiS for three years now (and am still not there). I’ve never played another game where, based on an average of one piece of BiS per year of play, I can expect it to take seven years to finally be outfitted (and be able to begin what I enjoy most in an MMO).

Actually no. What it meant was grinding mobs rather than events. Not just killing mobs in an event. Essentally if you ran out of quests in games you had to grind mobs. No event. No story. Just klling without anything to break it up. That was the difference.

If you have multiple events that are repeatable that all give experience, that you can switch off too, it would never have been considered grinding.

Having to repeat events is grinding by any definition.

Nope. It’s not. Having to repeat the same event is. But since there are dozens and dozens of events, and adventures, and now a raid, and killing and gathering, you’d be incorrect.

The difference between grinding spiders, and doing events spread across four zones is myriad.

Lol, you do understand that by this definition you also destroy the definition of grind you talked about before.. killing mobs… because you know.. there are many different mobs you could kill, all with their own mechanics and looks.

Same as with the events. Multiple events is not grind? Sure then multiple mobs is also not grind.

You successfully destroyed the definition of grind you were holding so strong on to yourself.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Original post is original. And shows a lack of understanding. There’s very very little required grind in this game. There’s some of you want to do high level fractals, or raids, but that’s about it.

The grind is optional. I don’t grind, I have lots of stuff.

You do grind. Remember we had this discussion a year or so ago and talked about what you did. You told you did do a lot of things with guild-members. When asked what those things where, it turned out it where grindy things.

So you do grind, but define it as “doing things with guild-members.”

Btw, remember all our talk about grind and how I said it would be bad for the game, and that with an expansion people who they scared of before would come back and you would not want to have that grind with HoT because the release of HoT was very important.

Now HoT is here, and while Anet did try to make steps in the right direction (specific rewards for raids, precursor crafting, mats by mats) it also made steps in the wrong direction.

Now Lo And Behold.. many many threads of people complaining about the grind. I might have been right after all.

Of course you can say it’s optional (While I am pretty sure, the (type of) people calling it optional here now, back then considered what we now have with ascended gear and raids as required) but that does not matter to the people that feel the grind. Like I also said that.

But all those who say it’s optional are right. It is.. You can buy your way out most of it. And besides, the whole game is optional.

Anyway, as I said (over the last 2,5 years) people feel the grind (no matter if you feel it or not) and that is what matters. They are now (back) here and you don’t want to scare them away again.

Anet had a few more months to fix this if it does not want to scare those people away. Problem simply is that gold is still to important, for a big reason because of the gem-store.

I guess this is in a way my “Told you so” comment. Have said enough about it the last 2,5 year. Hope they finally manage to fix it.

Grind to me, is defined as doing the same thing over and over to get a specific reward. Not a bunch of different stuff at different times with no reward in mind.

Grind has an implication.

So I play the game.

Leveling in this game isn’t a grind, because I can do virtually anything and level.

Masteries would be slightly more of a grind, but I’m still just playing the entire game in those areas.

I can get lost playing some of the adventures for fun. I’m playing for fun. That’s not grinding. It’s playing for fun. Do I get experience for it, sure, I do.

I can get lost doing events in the new zones, or exploring looking for stuff. Is that grinding? No.

But I’m getting stuff done as I do it.

And of course, helping people is repeating content, but I’m not repeating specific content.

Grinding has always had a definition in the past, which was killing mobs to level because there weren’t enough quests. That’s what it originally meant. It says so in Wikipedia even.

People keep shifting the bar with the definition of what grind is, but you know, its’ never once felt to me like I’m grinding because I’m PLAYING.

I’m not doing what I did in AIon where I ran out of quests and the only way to level was to kill the same three bosses over and over again, because there was nothing else I could do. That was grinding.

If I wanted grind out masteries, I could, by killiing spiders over and over again, but that would be a choice and it’s not what I’m doing.

In fact, I did choose to grind out some of the Tyrian masteries, by doing events in Orr this time. I didn’t have to. I CHOSE to grind.

But if I didn’t, I’d have gotten there without actually doing anything different than I normally do. So if you want it NOW you have to grind.

On the other hand, I don’t want things now. In fact, now that I have gotten all my Tyrian masteries, I sorta of regret grinding, because now, I have no use for the experience at all, I preferred it when I was progressing.

I think the problem here is that there’s a noun grind and a verb grind.

Saying something is grindy doesn’t mean I grind it anyway. I take my time and get stuff eventually. Or you can choose to grind.

But it is a choice.

That is the point isn’t it. You might not find it grindy or people might consider cosmetic grind optional and so not bad grind. All that is worthless if there are many people that do feel a grind (because of these things).

Btw, if you read the Wiki page you might have also noticed this sentence. “Some games, especially free-to-play games, allow players to bypass grinding by paying additional fees.”. As you know, I have always considered the cash-shop model (A focus on the cash-shop vs a focus on expansion like you see with a B2P model). As the main reason for much of the grind and why the game is so build around currency, mainly gold.

As you seem to be interested in what Wiki had to say, maybe you should also take that sentence into consideration and try to find out how that fits in GW2. Maybe you then understand what I have been trying to say all this time.

Personally I don’t mind some farming, but when everything (For me especially cosmetics!) becomes a grind for some currency I do find it a grind.

That is true for other people as well, but not for all. And then there is the nerf to dungeons meaning that those who happened to like doing dungeons might not have been bothered with the grind. But now that is nerved they also start to complain about grind.

It’s very simply really, when many items are locked behind some sort of currency (requiring a lot of that currency). You need to grind for that. That does not hurt you if: 1. You are not interested in those items / things / stats, 2. You happen to like doing the content that rewards the currency a lot or 3. You like to grind.

For you 2 seems to be the case. For those who did dungeons 2 was also the case until the nerve. For people purely interested in WvW or PvP 1 might be in place and for some other 3 is in place. But if none of these applies to you, you will find GW2 very grindy because everything is than behind a huge currency grind.

During the +- 3 years this system basically worked as a filter, filtering out most of the people where 1, 2 or 3 did not apply to. That was a problem as income did keep dropping. With the expansion They have now many new players, but also many where 1, 2 or 3 does not apply to meaning an increase in complains about the grind. The only problem is that at this problem Anet would not want to filter out those people again as they will not come back for the second expansion.

That is the problem, and that there are people that have no problem with the grind (Because 1, 2 or 3 does apply to them) is irrelevant.

It’s simple really, Put many rewards and unlocks behind (specific) content. You might say that is a grind.. but there is one place where this very clearly happened.. legendary armor. I did see people complain about a grind for ascended gear to be able to do raids. But I did not see complains about the grind for legendary armor.
I did not even see people complain about these TA Atherblade skins being a grind, only complaining that it was a way to low drop rate (This farm is by your definition a grind).
It shows, it’s not about you or I or anybody defines grind. It’s about what people feel.

It’s up to Anet to fix this problem before the filter starts working again. Imho that is within the first half year of the release of HoT.

All the discussion about if it is grindy or not, if it’s a choice or not, if it’s optional or not is useless. Many people do find it grindy and that is the problem.

Anyway, I have said enough about this for over 2,5 years. It’s now up to Anet. I will not keep wasting time trying to bring this problem to their attention.

Vayne.8563:

Original post is original. And shows a lack of understanding. There’s very very little required grind in this game. There’s some of you want to do high level fractals, or raids, but that’s about it.

The grind is optional. I don’t grind, I have lots of stuff.

You do grind. Remember we had this discussion a year or so ago and talked about what you did. You told you did do a lot of things with guild-members. When asked what those things where, it turned out it where grindy things.

So you do grind, but define it as “doing things with guild-members.”

Btw, remember all our talk about grind and how I said it would be bad for the game, and that with an expansion people who they scared of before would come back and you would not want to have that grind with HoT because the release of HoT was very important.

Now HoT is here, and while Anet did try to make steps in the right direction (specific rewards for raids, precursor crafting, mats by mats) it also made steps in the wrong direction.

Now Lo And Behold.. many many threads of people complaining about the grind. I might have been right after all.

Of course you can say it’s optional (While I am pretty sure, the (type of) people calling it optional here now, back then considered what we now have with ascended gear and raids as required) but that does not matter to the people that feel the grind. Like I also said that.

But all those who say it’s optional are right. It is.. You can buy your way out most of it. And besides, the whole game is optional.

Anyway, as I said (over the last 2,5 years) people feel the grind (no matter if you feel it or not) and that is what matters. They are now (back) here and you don’t want to scare them away again.

Anet had a few more months to fix this if it does not want to scare those people away. Problem simply is that gold is still to important, for a big reason because of the gem-store.

I guess this is in a way my “Told you so” comment. Have said enough about it the last 2,5 year. Hope they finally manage to fix it.

Better focus on supporting VR imho. There will be two brands coming to the marked with VR soon (Both with very similar hardware) and two video-card manufacturers. The API’s provided Nvidia and AMD should work for any VR set, but seeing that there are only 2 VR coming to the market, it’s easy to test (and if needed code) specifically taking those two sets into consideration to get the best result.

I think it would be a bigger leap for 3D. Problem is that as far as I know, the API’s work on top of DX 12 (or maybe 10) but do not work on top of DX9.

Still I think, the focus should be on VR at this point, not on 3D-vision type of 3D solutions.

Astralporing.1957:

kuritsutian.2987:

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, the numbers offer an advantage on its own. No more advantages are needed. Enforcing artificial ones just because devs can’t wrap their minds about the fact that small guilds exist too is a bad design.

My original point was “That’s how a real life Guild system would look like” don’t think it’s artificial, of course small guilds exists and they are not bad… you just can’t have a big pool for the price of a small one just because you are small. Not saying life is fair or not, just stating the point.

Except we don’t want a big pool. We want a small, but fully functional one – not one that is only 1% wet, as you seem to suggest we should get.
Moreover, we want that pool back, because we have already worked ourselves to the bone to get it, and it was taken away from us for no reason at all.

Come on. You (and people like you) want the big pool for a reduced price. You know you want the big pool and you even understand the unfairness in that. That is why you are using this false logic.. Yes you want a small pool that you pay less for… as long as it’s exactly the same pool as the big pool.

Debating this any further seems useless because it’s not that anybody has to convince you of anything. You understand perfectly that a big vs small is not only about size but also about functionality. You just want it all. Then just say so. Don’t try to hide it because you are miserably failing at it and so whatever you try to achieve by hiding that, fails with it.

Astralporing.1957:

kuritsutian.2987:

Astralporing.1957:

kuritsutian.2987:

No matter how big my house is… if I want to buy a pool, it costs the same!

A pool for a small family will cost less than a pool for 500 people. Size does matter.

So you would settle with 5% boost instead of 10% boost in say x …. so you would settle with x skin instead of y ….. I think that’s how it works now

Errr… if you think that a pool for 5 will only get you 1% wet compared to a pool for 500, i don’t know what else i can say…

kuritsutian.2987:

Bloodstealer.5978:

… size does matter, remember that!

Enuff said!

Exactly! you are starting to get it!

Big guild > Small guild

Yes, the numbers offer an advantage on its own. No more advantages are needed. Enforcing artificial ones just because devs can’t wrap their minds about the fact that small guilds exist too is a bad design.

Smaller pools tent to have less deep difference, less glides, less options like waves. That is the 5% vs the 10%.

And a bigger guilds indeed has it’s advantages (just as it’s negatives btw). Like being able to get those mats faster or do more upgrades. But you seem to want Devs to take those advantages away.

Bloodstealer.5978:

GreyWolf.8670:

Astralporing.1957:

kuritsutian.2987:

No matter how big my house is… if I want to buy a pool, it costs the same!

A pool for a small family will cost less than a pool for 500 people. Size does matter.

What do you mean? Are you advocating for making large guilds pay more? I can’t get behind that concept any more than I can making it impossible for small guilds to progress at all. Both are unfair.

No.. I think he has it spot on… if you want a large pool to suit 500 players then that has the same weighted cost as it would cost for a pool to accommodate 50 people.

As there are 10 times the number of people supplying the materials and ten times the number of players putting towards the cost then absolutely the overall should be that a large guild should have to put in the same time, cost and effort as a small guild does per player.

ANET couldn’t be bothered in providing tiers to the guild hall size it was a one size fits all no matter what.
So why should a faceless 500 be able to claim, upgrade and decorate the largest hall so absurdly quicker than a small guild of 10.. small guilds di not ask for such a large hall and neither did they ask for all their previous efforts to now be negated and re-gated behind paywalls, something that is nothing more than a mere twitch to replace for much larger guilds, but could easily take a small guild months or worse to get back to where they were.
The guild Hall function absolutely should be tied to the sizing of your guild and the costs/effort weighted accordingly… what we have been handed is nothing short of a money sink that punishes a large portion of the player base whilst those in a faceless 500 can sit back after 15minutes farming their 2-5 carrots each and few potatoes.. while the rest take weeks to get them.

No one here is saying that anyone should have it easy .. but at the same time, many of us are saying it needs to be a lot fairer and more inclusive as a whole community otherwise many are going to just not bother and leave.. look at WvW a wasteland now not a borderland and the new maps are already absent of players the majority of the time.

No sorry all this just smells of desperation to coin in as fast as they can for as long as they can because imo they are unable to create decent content that keeps players wanting to log back in to play except to grind and zerg – guild halls was just the perfect recipe in which to fastrack that hope to coin in, but I am hoping it fails hard because ANET don’t deserve a loyal community after all this crap.

“if you want a large pool to suit 500 players then that has the same weighted cost as it would cost for a pool to accommodate 50 people.”
You do understand that those 500 people end up with a bigger pool right?

“ANET couldn’t be bothered in providing tiers to the guild hall size it was a one size fits all no matter what.”
Factual untrue. There in fact are tiers and choices, and upgrades with tiers.
At least two tiers for all buildings, multiple tiers for upgrades like decoration-vendor and mini vendor and upgrades you can pick from and so on.

“So why should a faceless 500 be able to claim, upgrade and decorate the largest hall so absurdly quicker than a small guild of 10”
That is that bigger pool those 500 people end up with in your example.

“small guilds di not ask for such a large hall”
Pretty sure that is exactly what you are asking for. You ask for that big pool.

“neither did they ask for all their previous efforts to now be negated and re-gated behind paywalls”
Different subject.

“The guild Hall function absolutely should be tied to the sizing of your guild and the costs/effort weighted accordingly”
It is. As a smaller guild you might not be able to unlock all functions, as a big guild you might be able to unlock all functions. Those functions the small guild unlocks cost less as all the functions together (What the big guild unlocks).

There is one change they should do, and that is lowering the guild level requirement. That should help small guild a lot.

Basically in this thread you are asking for A (tier system, where smaller guilds can go for a smaller hall with less functions), but you in fact have A. When reading between the lines it turns out you want B, all tiers for a reduces price.

Astralporing.1957:

kuritsutian.2987:

No matter how big my house is… if I want to buy a pool, it costs the same!

A pool for a small family will cost less than a pool for 500 people. Size does matter.

That system is in place in the GW2 Guild-Halls. You can go for the mini vendor 1, 2 and 3. Small, bigger, biggest.

You can go for a fully upgraded Warroom or only go for T1.

You can take decorator vendor 1, 2 and 3 (small, bigger biggest).

You can go for only a harvest boost, or also a XP boost, or also… Well you get the point.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Dejavu.2349:

Not sure why clarification was needed, but there ya go.

Then what’s the solution? It’s good to identify a problem before moving to fix it, however I haven’t seen yet a valid solution to the current problem. I even asked how other games did it, because according to some posters “other games have been doing it for 10 years”, yet I haven’t seen a solid answer yet.

The obvious solution, which Anet did not use unfortunately, would have been to lean more on timegated resources like aetherium and favour, as well as event/activity based unlocks, and less on material sinks.

The next solution in line would be to base the cost on the guild size (not the number of current members, but on unlocked guild cap), where upping the guild cap after building guild upgrades would make them operate at reduced effectivity until the difference in cost was paid.

That way, a 10-man guild would be building upgrades at the size 50 cost, a 130 man guild at size 200 cost, and 450-man guild at size 500 cost. If a size 50 guild decided to up its cap to size 100, it would need to pay also to update all their already posessed upgrades to new size. If not paid, those upgrades would not work/work at reduced usability (and you could update them selectively).

In the specific example you mentioned, cost would be, for size 50/100/200/300/400/500, accordingly:

25/50/100/150/200/250 Elder Wood Plank
25/50/100/150/200/250 Mithril Ingot
5/10/20/30/40/50 Bottle of Elonian Wine
1/2/4/6/8/10 Empty Keg
5/10/20/30/4050 Glass Mug
2/4/8/12/16/20 Obsidian Shard
2/5/10/15/20/25 Bolt of Silk
10/20/40/60/80/100 Cured Thick Leather Square
1/2/4/6/8/10 Bolt of Gossamer
1/2/4/6/8/10 Cured Hardened Leather Square
and 100 Favor (i don’t believe there’s a need to scale favor and aetherium costs)

If you insist on big guilds having some advantage here (though they have advantage from their numbers already, so not sure why would they need some other) aetherium mine output could be lowered slightly for lower size tiers, as long as the difference won’t be massive (small guild taking 3-5 times longer to upgrade than size 500 ones seems reasonable).

So wait, you want a smaller guild to get exactly the same for less.

Like if you buy a TV by yourself, but I split the cost with 4 friends and then some guy comes up (probably some communist dictator. Not sure what other guy would come up with something like that) and tells us to pay 4 times the cost for the same TV so the cost per person stays the same (Because that is ‘fair’). Of course we then still have to split the TV with the 4 of us while you have it for you alone.

[Sarcasm] Yeah that seems fair! [/sarcasm]

Bloodstealer.5978:

Devata.6589:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

So a big guild has to pay more for exactly the same just because they are bigger. That’s seems extremely unfair.

Why? It would supply the same options as a smaller guild, that’s true, but it would supply them to a larger number of players. To me it seems normal that it would cost more.
If you cook a dinner for 50 people, it requires greater quantities of ingredients than one made for 5 people – even if the dinner in question is exactly the same. The current HoT guild hall system seems to think however, that a dinner for anything less than 500 people just won’t do for any of those groups. Which, when you think about it, is ridiculous.

You are right there, cooking dinner to 50 people cost more than to 5 and you might even need a lager table. However you can prepare it in the same kitchen. But the dinner part is already in place.

For example, you can now unlock a mini vendor (that would be the kitchen in the example). That however does not give out free mini’s (mini’s would be the food) to everybody, it only gives the ability to get them (and this is true for most guild-hall unlocks). Members still have to buy those mini’s and so 50 members all buying the mini’s do in fact spend more than 5.

Of course you could focus on the size of the table, and it might have been ideal if there was also a smaller hall available where everything would be smaller (but that would also mean the vendor would have less mini’s available.. not sure if you would want that) and also cost less. But that would mean much more development-time and people would likely be complaining that their mini vendor had less mini’s available as that of big guilds.

No, what you need to focus on is that 5 person dinner still has to prepare enough food and a table big enough to suit 500 people, but still only have 5 people prepare it and eat it.

But you don’t. Lets make the Warroom the kitchen of the company that makes the food for it’s employee’s.

You don’t have to upgrade the Warroom completely, you can also go for only completing the first tier. Then you have less food, ens less variation in food that you can buy at the restaurant. (Just as you see that with smaller vs bigger companies).

You then also have to pay less to get this smaller version of the Warroom / prepare less food.

how to completely miss the point.. good job.

The simple fact is.. there is no choice in what you can make… no matter what tier you are upgrading, you are upgrading it based on the same oversize…. If ANET had put a n ounce of thought into this process instead of thinking “money sink” then they would of created choices but they didn’t they preferred the one size fits all and screw those that don’t want to become a number in a faceless guild.
The fact you might only be able to go to Warroom 1 and not all the way is irrelevant because to make WR1 you still have the same amount of players trying to build something that requires a ridiculous amount of extra time and effort per player and a heck of a lot more individual cost when compared to a much larger guild.

And please don’t go down the route that poster a few lines back came up with about how it’s so hard for a large guild because it has fewer contributors.. cos that rubbish only tends to highlight.. “recruit anyone and everyone”, poor guild organisation and above all very bad guild leadership.
As for SkyShroud now resorting to “its not fair to scale”… seriously its the fairest way any MMO provides content and features to all… the same way a 100 man zerg should have an event scaled up in order to succeed but scaled down when 10players take on the same thing.. doesn’t mean its easier for any of the groups.. its about striking a balance between time, effort and costs and as it stands, there is no such balance its completely off the scale.

The point was clear, maybe you missed my point?

A smaller guild does have choice (once they solve the guild-level requirement).

“The fact you might only be able to go to Warroom 1 and not all the way is irrelevant because to make WR1 you still have the same amount of players trying to build something that requires a ridiculous amount of extra time and effort per player and a heck of a lot more individual cost when compared to a much larger guild.”

no, because as smaller guild you only go for Warroom 1 (the choice you have), while as bigger guild you go for maxing the Warroom out. So then there is a difference in ‘size’ and the bigger size requires more materials then the smaller size.

You would be right if you go for the same thing yes.. If the bigger guild go’s for only warroom 1 then it would be easier for them.. What is perfectly fine. But that is the difference between a bigger and a smaller guild. A bigger can go for all upgrades while a smaller one go’s for less.

“its not fair to scale” no it’s not.. but now I do get your point. You say you want choice, but you don’t.. You just want everything and so it needs to scale so you can take everything. You want to spend less than a big guild to get exactly the same. What would be extremely unfair. BTW, having members that are not extremely active has nothing to do with bad recruiting, but about not being purely hardcore.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

So a big guild has to pay more for exactly the same just because they are bigger. That’s seems extremely unfair.

Why? It would supply the same options as a smaller guild, that’s true, but it would supply them to a larger number of players. To me it seems normal that it would cost more.
If you cook a dinner for 50 people, it requires greater quantities of ingredients than one made for 5 people – even if the dinner in question is exactly the same. The current HoT guild hall system seems to think however, that a dinner for anything less than 500 people just won’t do for any of those groups. Which, when you think about it, is ridiculous.

You are right there, cooking dinner to 50 people cost more than to 5 and you might even need a lager table. However you can prepare it in the same kitchen. But the dinner part is already in place.

For example, you can now unlock a mini vendor (that would be the kitchen in the example). That however does not give out free mini’s (mini’s would be the food) to everybody, it only gives the ability to get them (and this is true for most guild-hall unlocks). Members still have to buy those mini’s and so 50 members all buying the mini’s do in fact spend more than 5.

Of course you could focus on the size of the table, and it might have been ideal if there was also a smaller hall available where everything would be smaller (but that would also mean the vendor would have less mini’s available.. not sure if you would want that) and also cost less. But that would mean much more development-time and people would likely be complaining that their mini vendor had less mini’s available as that of big guilds.

No, what you need to focus on is that 5 person dinner still has to prepare enough food and a table big enough to suit 500 people, but still only have 5 people prepare it and eat it.

But you don’t. Lets make the Warroom the kitchen of the company that makes the food for it’s employee’s.

You don’t have to upgrade the Warroom completely, you can also go for only completing the first tier. Then you have less food, ens less variation in food that you can buy at the restaurant. (Just as you see that with smaller vs bigger companies).

You then also have to pay less to get this smaller version of the Warroom / prepare less food.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Devata.6589:

Draygo.9473:

Devata.6589:

Draygo.9473:

Swift.1930:

Draygo.9473:

Nury.3062:

I always see the “make the Guild Hall Upgrades scale with the number of members the guild has” FIX. What can stop me from kicking all my guild members,get the mats i need from them,get the upgrade and then invite them again…?!

It might be hard for small guilds to do stuff…but as many people said if you create a guild and you are 2-3 members…let’s be honest,how can you expect to do any content with that guild?
I am a guild leader since 14 november 2013 we had many members now we don’t …let’s say 10-15 daily online members,that is a small guild,yet we don’t complain about the upgrades and we work hard to get our amazing guild hall in a nice shape.
We got all the buildings (tents for now) available and many of the upgrades.
And we are working constantly on it.

They could base it on the max guild roster size. You know the guy you gotta pay to increase your guild member cap? That. If your are a first level guild with the lowest member cap your upgrades are cheaper. The higher your member cap the more you pay. Anet can reset all guilds member caps to the lowest possible for their guild and refund the cost to the guild leader as a one time courtesy.

Hm… three things that I foresee this would affect:

1) if the guild’s cap was cut, the guild members would also have to be cut (temporarily). Building up a lost build roster could cause havoc. All those previously happy people would come to the forum and flame us.
2) big guilds who have already farmed everything and worked very hard would suddenly find that their resources were spent on nothing. More flamers.
3) guilds that want to be big wouldn’t want to have to pay tons simply to upgrade things that small guilds can upgrade for cheap. They would keep the roster empty or at the lowest cap until all the upgrades have been bought, and then bring people back. All the stranded members would understand the advantage and would donate to their guild to progress it. The same issue would still stand, because those guilds would have access to so many resources/income streams that smaller guilds don’t.

But something that would make sense: adding small guild halls for small guilds. Services could be smaller (except WvW buffs) and more affordable for small guilds. Every guild wants a place to call home! And I personally feel that the guild halls are too insanely massive – unless, of course, they are brimming with members who hang out there regularly. Again, small guilds need smaller places. I want a hobbit hole. Or maybe a little old-Ascalon keep.

(Guild Wars 1 guild hall vendor quote: “Truly, what guild can call itself a guild without an island of its own? Come with me. I can take you on a tour of each island, and you can choose which you like the best.”)

Let me clarify, because I think you missed it.

Your guilds cap would be lowered to the lowest tier that it can support.

Meaning that if your guild is at capacity there is no change, if you are in a guild with 5 people but for some reason raised your cap to 500 people it would be lowered to the lowest tier, 50 people.

More examples:

Guild of 10 people, with a cap of 200, cap lowered to 50.
Guild of 55 people cap of 100, cap is unchanged
guild of 120 people cap of 500, cap is lowered to 200.

How costs are adjusted, there are 6 tiers of guilds. Cost is adjusted based on your cap after your cap is lowered to the appropriate amount.
So a Tier 1 guild (50 member cap) has to pay 1/6th of the cost of an upgrade to get it. Favor and the time gate Aetherium costs stay the same no matter what tier your guild is.

Due to this time gate, large guilds are still better off just paying for each upgrade. Especially when you consider for a 500 member guild, even for the most expensive upgrades you are looking at each member contributing 1-3 items per upgrade.

Compared to a small guild that has to pay 500, 1500 items per upgrade.

If you want when a guild increases its cap you can increase the fee to do that.

So a big guild has to pay more for exactly the same just because they are bigger. That’s seems extremely unfair.

And its totally ok that smaller guilds currently have to pay way more per player?

I am not against smaller guilds having to spend a bit more effort per person, but the current effort required to earn what we previously earned is way too kitten high.

No, they do not have to pay way more per player. Imho you are looking at it wrongly.

A big company needs a bigger building with more facilities. A smaller company needs a smaller building with less facilities.

As a smaller guild you might not want to try to get to level 40 and get the guild-expansion. You also might not want to get the Warroom, the Workshop, the Tavern and the Arena all fully upgraded but you might only want to go for the Warroom, or only for the Workshop of only those two (Depending on the size and the preferences). Or maybe you want to go for them all but not get them all completely upgraded.

That should be your goal as a smaller guild, just as a smaller company go’s for a smaller building with less facilities. The cost per member would then be the same.

The problem is, you basically are the small company but want the biggest building, with all possible facilities and then complain that it’s too expensive.

About losing what you had, I agree that that is sort of bad. I can understand it, but I agree it’s not ideal.

Except you have no choice other than be a small guild wanting a big hall and all that goes with it.. because there are no other options to have it smaller.
The costs per member are significantly different based on what ANET have pushed out.
Your argument would stand up if there were options on what size hall could be acquired.. which in turn designates what can be upgraded with effort/cost balanced against what a larger guild would require to take on that larger facility.

As it stands there is no choice, no scaling and therefore no comparable effort/cost between the sizes of guilds, its merely a way to forced a money sink and materials sink through the game.

Like I said, many times before. What I do agree on is to lower the required level.
They you do have a choice. You can then decide to go for only the Warroom, or for all elements, but only to tier 1. In that way you effectively have a smaller (less options) guild-hall.

The only problem there now is, is that those level requirements, force you to also take upgrades you might not want.

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

So a big guild has to pay more for exactly the same just because they are bigger. That’s seems extremely unfair.

Why? It would supply the same options as a smaller guild, that’s true, but it would supply them to a larger number of players. To me it seems normal that it would cost more.
If you cook a dinner for 50 people, it requires greater quantities of ingredients than one made for 5 people – even if the dinner in question is exactly the same. The current HoT guild hall system seems to think however, that a dinner for anything less than 500 people just won’t do for any of those groups. Which, when you think about it, is ridiculous.

You are right there, cooking dinner to 50 people cost more than to 5 and you might even need a lager table. However you can prepare it in the same kitchen. But the dinner part is already in place.

For example, you can now unlock a mini vendor (that would be the kitchen in the example). That however does not give out free mini’s (mini’s would be the food) to everybody, it only gives the ability to get them (and this is true for most guild-hall unlocks). Members still have to buy those mini’s and so 50 members all buying the mini’s do in fact spend more than 5.

Of course you could focus on the size of the table, and it might have been ideal if there was also a smaller hall available where everything would be smaller (but that would also mean the vendor would have less mini’s available.. not sure if you would want that) and also cost less. But that would mean much more development-time and people would likely be complaining that their mini vendor had less mini’s available as that of big guilds.

Draygo.9473:

Reduced quote tree:

No, they do not have to pay way more per player. Imho you are looking at it wrongly.

A big company needs a bigger building with more facilities. A smaller company needs a smaller building with less facilities.

As a smaller guild you might not want to try to get to level 40 and get the guild-expansion. You also might not want to get the Warroom, the Workshop, the Tavern and the Arena all fully upgraded but you might only want to go for the Warroom, or only for the Workshop of only those two (Depending on the size and the preferences). Or maybe you want to go for them all but not get them all completely upgraded.

That should be your goal as a smaller guild, just as a smaller company go’s for a smaller building with less facilities. The cost per member would then be the same.

The problem is, you basically are the small company but want the biggest building, with all possible facilities and then complain that it’s too expensive.

About losing what you had, I agree that that is sort of bad. I can understand it, but I agree it’s not ideal.

There is no smaller building with less faculties. Us small guilds have to get the big boy workshop, we have to get the big boy arena, we have to get the big boy tavern.

I primarily care about the +5 supply buff at camps. Which is something my guild previously earned and would run every single night in wvw. Why? Because we are a small guild that plays the map strategically. Having an extra 25 supply in my party allows us to do far more than your average individual. Before HOT it was a buff we would run during our wvw time every day. Now its locked behind a frustrating pay-wall, something that was essential to the way we played the game.

There has to be a better solution than the current system. This system as it stands now is a travesty. You may be able to ignore the pain because it doesn’t affect you, but please find some empathy.

Again, that is why I suggested to lower the required level per upgrade. That makes it more accessible for you as smaller guild to get that upgrade. While a bigger guild can get that upgrade and the air defense for SM upgrade. So then you in fact do have a smaller vs a bigger war-room. Less features vs more features. You just have to make choices, in your example you would want to go for the +5 upgrade.

WvW btw also has an additional problem, many ‘upgrades’ have to be created by scriber after being unlocked. I think that is a flaw. Guild consumable items should not be created by scribers but earned with Atherium. Scribers should focus on permanent guild things like decorations or maybe additional guild-hall music, guild pets and so on. Not for any consumables, being it banners, World events of WvW consumables.

Dejavu.2349:

Devata.6589:

No, they do not have to pay way more per player. Imho you are looking at it wrongly.

A big company needs a bigger building with more facilities. A smaller company needs a smaller building with less facilities.

As a smaller guild you might not want to try to get to level 40 and get the guild-expansion. You also might not want to get the Warroom, the Workshop, the Tavern and the Arena all fully upgraded but you might only want to go for the Warroom, or only for the Workshop of only those two (Depending on the size and the preferences). Or maybe you want to go for them all but not get them all completely upgraded.

That should be your goal as a smaller guild, just as a smaller company go’s for a smaller building with less facilities. The cost per member would then be the same.

The problem is, you basically are the small company but want the biggest building, with all possible facilities and then complain that it’s too expensive.

About losing what you had, I agree that that is sort of bad. I can understand it, but I agree it’s not ideal.

Oh, we absolutely DO have to pay more per player – this isn’t even arguable.

Guilds are NOT companies (or people). The output is not different. We’re not making cars here. This analogy is among the worst I’ve heard.

There are X available benefits, including a weaponsmith, for instance, that’s only available after guild level 40 and the largest mat wall of all. To say only Big guilds should have this and other skin vendors is just asinine. Especially considering many big guild members put in like… NOTHING. Seriously. I stand to deposit a minimum of 300 shovels, all the ascended mats, most of the mystic coins, most of everything else… and according to you, I should have less access than some knob who simply joined a big guild and contributed nothing or next-to nothing. LOL. Hilarious. Run along now…

“Oh, we absolutely DO have to pay more per player – this isn’t even arguable.” If you also want all the upgrades bigger guilds have, yes. Else not.

That was my point, as a smaller guild you should set different goals.

“Guilds are NOT companies (or people). The output is not different. We’re not making cars here. This analogy is among the worst I’ve heard.” Guilds are a group of people. More people can do more than few people. That is a fact of life and there is nothing wrong with this. It’s a perfect analogy.

If I would apply the idea that small guilds have to get the same to all elements of the game you would get an extremely boring game. Unskilled players would get the same as skilled players, players who can only spend 1 hour a week should be able to get the same as those who spend 2 hours a day, players who do raids should get the same as players who do Queensdale events.

That does not mean the guild-halls could use some tweaks to help smaller guilds. If you read back here you see me suggesting to lower the required guild-level for upgrades. So smaller guilds are better able to focus on the guild-hall elements that are important for them without having to level up the complete guild-hall. Honestly, the only upgrade that imho should be locked behind level 40 is the expansion one. So I don’t say that vendor should only be available for big guilds, I say the opposite. If you only had read back what I said. That suggestion of lowering the required level for upgrades solves the problems you state here. If gives choices.

Draygo.9473:

Devata.6589:

Draygo.9473:

Swift.1930:

Draygo.9473:

Nury.3062:

I always see the “make the Guild Hall Upgrades scale with the number of members the guild has” FIX. What can stop me from kicking all my guild members,get the mats i need from them,get the upgrade and then invite them again…?!

It might be hard for small guilds to do stuff…but as many people said if you create a guild and you are 2-3 members…let’s be honest,how can you expect to do any content with that guild?
I am a guild leader since 14 november 2013 we had many members now we don’t …let’s say 10-15 daily online members,that is a small guild,yet we don’t complain about the upgrades and we work hard to get our amazing guild hall in a nice shape.
We got all the buildings (tents for now) available and many of the upgrades.
And we are working constantly on it.

They could base it on the max guild roster size. You know the guy you gotta pay to increase your guild member cap? That. If your are a first level guild with the lowest member cap your upgrades are cheaper. The higher your member cap the more you pay. Anet can reset all guilds member caps to the lowest possible for their guild and refund the cost to the guild leader as a one time courtesy.

Hm… three things that I foresee this would affect:

1) if the guild’s cap was cut, the guild members would also have to be cut (temporarily). Building up a lost build roster could cause havoc. All those previously happy people would come to the forum and flame us.
2) big guilds who have already farmed everything and worked very hard would suddenly find that their resources were spent on nothing. More flamers.
3) guilds that want to be big wouldn’t want to have to pay tons simply to upgrade things that small guilds can upgrade for cheap. They would keep the roster empty or at the lowest cap until all the upgrades have been bought, and then bring people back. All the stranded members would understand the advantage and would donate to their guild to progress it. The same issue would still stand, because those guilds would have access to so many resources/income streams that smaller guilds don’t.

But something that would make sense: adding small guild halls for small guilds. Services could be smaller (except WvW buffs) and more affordable for small guilds. Every guild wants a place to call home! And I personally feel that the guild halls are too insanely massive – unless, of course, they are brimming with members who hang out there regularly. Again, small guilds need smaller places. I want a hobbit hole. Or maybe a little old-Ascalon keep.

(Guild Wars 1 guild hall vendor quote: “Truly, what guild can call itself a guild without an island of its own? Come with me. I can take you on a tour of each island, and you can choose which you like the best.”)

Let me clarify, because I think you missed it.

Your guilds cap would be lowered to the lowest tier that it can support.

Meaning that if your guild is at capacity there is no change, if you are in a guild with 5 people but for some reason raised your cap to 500 people it would be lowered to the lowest tier, 50 people.

More examples:

Guild of 10 people, with a cap of 200, cap lowered to 50.
Guild of 55 people cap of 100, cap is unchanged
guild of 120 people cap of 500, cap is lowered to 200.

How costs are adjusted, there are 6 tiers of guilds. Cost is adjusted based on your cap after your cap is lowered to the appropriate amount.
So a Tier 1 guild (50 member cap) has to pay 1/6th of the cost of an upgrade to get it. Favor and the time gate Aetherium costs stay the same no matter what tier your guild is.

Due to this time gate, large guilds are still better off just paying for each upgrade. Especially when you consider for a 500 member guild, even for the most expensive upgrades you are looking at each member contributing 1-3 items per upgrade.

Compared to a small guild that has to pay 500, 1500 items per upgrade.

If you want when a guild increases its cap you can increase the fee to do that.

So a big guild has to pay more for exactly the same just because they are bigger. That’s seems extremely unfair.

And its totally ok that smaller guilds currently have to pay way more per player?

I am not against smaller guilds having to spend a bit more effort per person, but the current effort required to earn what we previously earned is way too kitten high.

No, they do not have to pay way more per player. Imho you are looking at it wrongly.

A big company needs a bigger building with more facilities. A smaller company needs a smaller building with less facilities.

As a smaller guild you might not want to try to get to level 40 and get the guild-expansion. You also might not want to get the Warroom, the Workshop, the Tavern and the Arena all fully upgraded but you might only want to go for the Warroom, or only for the Workshop of only those two (Depending on the size and the preferences). Or maybe you want to go for them all but not get them all completely upgraded.

That should be your goal as a smaller guild, just as a smaller company go’s for a smaller building with less facilities. The cost per member would then be the same.

The problem is, you basically are the small company but want the biggest building, with all possible facilities and then complain that it’s too expensive.

About losing what you had, I agree that that is sort of bad. I can understand it, but I agree it’s not ideal.

Red Mistress Denna.9804:

Eeeeh i’m not really going to go either way. I wanna see how it goes when everything settles before making assumptions. Singling people out as a cause of the business model change is a little silly though. Microtransactions are THE thing nowadays. If you wanna blame someone, blame candy crush.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to with ‘multiple content got nerfed and gem-items did stay coming’.

I think there is a lot of potential in GW2, especially with the new releases. Whether the potential is for good or bad is yet to be seen, in my opinion.

It’s not singling people out. If it would be a single one it would not be a problem.

That it’s THE thing these day does not mean it’s good. During GW1 subs where THE thing.

The “multiple content got nerved and gem-items did stay coming” was just about the question if the game moved more towards the cash-shop (as some say) or that it did not.. or maybe even moved away from it with HoT. I don’t know that yet and think even Anet isn’t sure about what they want yet.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that perfect example of what I was talking about before. Thats it.

ReaverKane.7598:

Doam.8305:

Yup

Game went F2P and adopted the full F2P model even in it’s paid expansion

This. Its seems this is entirely the case. Which is a really sad thing, especially from the standpoint of people, like me that have poured already hundreds of euros in the game.

This is what you poured hundreds of Euro’s in. You made this happen.

(iI it’s true.. don’t get me wrong.. with the current prices it’s hard to say but two things are a fact, multiple content got nerved and gem-items did stay coming. I still hope they make a change towards a more B2P model.)

—

@Red Mistress Denna.9804
You see, this is exactly what I mean.

This is especially bad for people like him who.. well supported this system :S… No it’s especially bad to all people who did not. He just got what he paid for.

Red Mistress Denna.9804:

@Devata Honestly, ¹the biggest reason I see for the cash shop being so big. . .is because it’s so popular. They wouldn’t spend so much time developing the cash shop items if they weren’t selling. Is it annoying, sure, but it’s not nearly as bad as most other games I’ve ever played. ²Most items are QoL or Cosmetic only, which alone sets it above most of my experiences.

As for the Cash -> Gold, people are going to do that regardless. ³At least this way Anet is making money. Even so, those who spend cash on this game really don’t get that much more powerful than others. Ascended: 5% stat boost over Exotic. Legendary: pretty skin and you can switch stats for free! Other than this, you’re just looking at more QoL and Cosmetics.

The Guild Halls are, of course, one of the few useful (and even necessary) expensive items in the game, but they are still time gated to prevent people just buying a full guild hall.

The only real beef I have is the current state of Ascended. The intent to make them necessary for Raids, but so expensive (or difficult) to get, is the first real restriction on content based on economics, that I have seen.

1 That was my point.

2 Again, how bad it is depends on your preferred game-play. You may say ‘but in those other games content is locked out if you don’t spend money’. Sure but how bad is that for you if you don’t want to play that content anyway? Not, how bad is it if cosmetics are locked behind it when hunting down cosmetics in an MMORPG is your preferred game-play.

3 There are more ways to make money. This way has the bad side-effect of making the game a grind. What btw might be bad for income in the long run.

And I am not saying I did see games with far worse cash-shops. Thats not the point. I think it’s still pretty bad, and extremely bad for a B2P game.

However, what annoys me here, is that you have people stating that they spend money (as if that entitles them more to something). What BTW, in a way makes sense. When you pay for something you are entitled to that.

Thing is, they complain about what they paid for. It’s like throwing money at a bakery and then complaining you got bread while you wanted meat. Well, then you should have gone to the butcher. And as long and people don’t behave like that, game companies will not stop with this behavior.

I have seen many of those comments over the last few years. I do wonder how many of them are still playing. Many likely payed for items, naturally that means Anet puts more items in the cash-shop, getting those items means grinding gold or buying. Then they come to complain about the grind and leave. Leaving us with the grind.

—

Anyway, back more to the original topic.

I think Guild-Halls could use some minor tweaks (like reducing required guild level for upgrades) to help smaller guilds. But other then that I think they are good for bigger and smaller guilds. It’s just that as a smaller guild you should also expect a little less.

I do agree that people should not have lost what they already unlocked, while I also understand this is harder to make then it seems. What if you where almost at a new unlock, get that as well? Get all features that where available?

Overall I think the new system is better for guilds in general, it creates more of a community. Those benefits out-way the negatives imho.

The WvW complains are also valid, but imho more from a scribing perspective. When you would be able to get upgrades at a lower level (as I suggested) it should be easy enough to unlock all War Room features also with a smaller guild. The bigger problem is that those upgrades require scribing what might make them to expensive for what they are.

Then on the topic of scribing in general. It’s expensive now, but I think much of it will become more acceptable when guilds get done upgrading their hall. At least for the non consumable items. For the consumables they might still be a little pricey. What bugs me more is the required gold you have to put in items by having to buy an item with gold to make the item you want. Making just 15 fancy.. read basic chairs requires 7,5 gold just for that.

Legendary crafting.. If that journey is indeed as many say a gold-grind because you have to buy items you can’t really farm then yes that is bad.

Guild Arena requiring the Expansion is no problem. That are the type of things why you buy an expansion.

Guild Portal works exactly as I expected and so also fine… well the WvW mission could send you to WvW instead of to LA. But other then that it’s fine.

Dragon stand / meta event maps. Well I would have preferred a few flat maps with traditional quest instead of the maps where the biggest challenge is to find your way, and the content is mainly meta. But overall I don’t think it’s bad, it’s just not something I will do a lot. And with that I have said all I have to say in this thread I think.

Tigaseye.2047:

Serophous.9085:

Tigaseye.2047:

Devata.6589:

Coyote.7031:

Tigaseye.2047:

The thing is, we’re all being treated like we have paid the bare minimum for all this, over the last 3 years.

But, some of us haven’t.

Oh I haven’t been playing for 3 years. I’ve been playing off and on for since late January. Seriously try explaining to vets how expensive things are now, and you will get no sympathy. Like dyes? Some of them are 10 to 20 times more expensive than they were when people started 3 years ago. And people just tell me, well don’t buy it. So I don’t get to look cool? Like you? Because I started later? Or how about gold to gem conversions? Also very pricey. Runes? Good ones are expensive and I can’t really go out and farm the materials for them. Some of them I can’t even make because the recipes only existed in certain events.

I have grinded my butt off to get what I have, I have converted over 1500g, 400g worth of dyes and the entire collection of dyes costs 6900, and thrown about 70 dollars at the game(no expansion yet.) And I still feel like I’m behind. I haven’t bothered crafting ascended gear because it costs as much or nearly a precursor at this point. Not very fun.

“and thrown about 70 dollars at the game” Don’t blame Anet for a system YOU created.

Your complains are valid, however you are one of the persons creating this system.

No, they didn’t.

The “system” was already in place and they just utilised it.

How long do you think this game, really, would have existed, if absolutely no one had ever bought anything from the gemstore (or wherever) for real money?

I know they called it “B2P”, but it blatantly was never actually just that.

Otherwise, why on earth can we buy gems and either use them in the gemstore, or convert them to gold?

Because why buy gold from gold sellers which can get you banned or hacked, when you can just buy gold from the company itself?

Yes, I’m not actually questioning why they let us buy gold.

That is pretty obvious.

It may be partly for that reason, but it is mainly to allow Anet to make some extra income.

When a game like WoW charges a sub, I have no problem with a company like Anet, who only charge for the original game/xpac otherwise, charging for some cosmetic stuff.

Which people can choose to buy, or not.

I do have a problem with people being able to effectively (or literally) buy ascended/legendary stuff, but that is probably for another thread.

I also have a problem with stuff that people have worked for (or even purchased) just being arbitrarily removed.

If it was for some “greater good” of the game, then fair enough.

But it, clearly, isn’t.

“charging for some cosmetic stuff. Which people can choose to buy, or not.”

“I do have a problem with people being able to effectively (or literally) buy ascended/legendary stuff, but that is probably for another thread.”

You do understand this basically makes no difference? It just depends on that type of game-play you as a player prefer.

You prefer going for cosmetics.. then charging for that (or making that a grind) is just as bad for you, as when you prefer to do raids and they charge for the stats you need.

It just depends on your preferred game-play. Raids are just as optional as cosmetics are. You do them / go for them for fun.. you play this game for fun.