Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

We wanted to let you know that this year’s Halloween Festival will be ending on Wednesday, November 4.

We hope you enjoyed the celebration! I know I had a blast!

That is less as the already very short (may I say to short) two weeks you communicated before?:

Hello, my fellow Halloween Fanatics,

I don’t think the team can extend the holiday in any form, as there are other things coming, and all the various teams within the development team need to get everything properly scheduled and good to go.

I decorate my house for more than a month in celebration of Halloween, and I do see how extending the festival is a tempting idea. However, with the knowledge that “other cool stuff is coming,” I hope you’ll agree that two weeks is a goodly time period this year. (We can hope for a slightly longer festival next year, perhaps? I don’t know that, but we can hope. )

Not to mention that the game still crashes all the time.

Instead of already putting in new content, it would be much better to keep Halloween in longer and use the time to solve all the problems.

Sekhmet.6153:

There should be a focus on exclusive skins if ANet wanted to keep the population high in the entire game, and not just certain maps.

Make each world boss drop exclusive skins you can only get with that boss. Make certain champions drop exclusive skins. Make some bosses in dungeons drop skins. Make super rare enemies that are either hard to find, or don’t always spawn in the same place drop some skins. Then make those specific skins account bound or soul bound.

Something small like that would already give many players a sense of achievement and purpose when trying to make their characters look the way they want. Sure the end is the same if you were to be able to buy that skin for 90 gold as opposed to getting it from a drop on your 20th fight against that boss, but for me, it feels more rewarding to have a shot at getting by defeating an enemy that isn’t necessarily easy.

I don’t think the answer is to go extreme in one direction or another, but i think the reward system is extremely flawed and theres no real reason to do any specific content when trying to get any single item in the game. Right now you just go to whatever train/farm/zone that gets you the most gold and just run around for a few hours or however long you have and see how much gold you get from selling your drops. At least if you had motivation to fight specific bosses or enemies, you might find yourself exploring or going to places you rarely go, and I always found that fun.

Agree. This would come a long way into holding a player base active. Imho even better than a LS patch every 2 weeks. Of course those items should also be the best looking ones. Because it still feels completely unrewarding if you get one of these skins while at the same time a way better one is sold on the TP.

Also for guilds they should keep adding decorations related to events. From small events that reward something small (like an apple tree when doing the event with the apples in Queensdale) to a giant wall decorated with moving worms, from killing the triple worm. And so on.

That type of things will give people goals they can keep working towards. Else there is only one goal and that is grinding gold. For some that will be fine to do for years on end, but for a majority they will get burned out by it before we get 6 months after HoT, and many of them already got burned out from it with GW2, left and now came back with HoT. They will not be back for the second expansion if you burn them out again.

HoT is a good expansion, but they really have to control this (most efficient, or only available) grindy game-play.

I think that will get less of a problem when the economy stabilizes and guilds have more upgrades. But it does not really answer my question. To me it looks like some of the Halloween decorations do not even involve scribing (hover over them, some say scribing, other don’t). But I have literally no idea how to get them.

eliteblast.6403:

Devata.6589:

eliteblast.6403:

Devata.6589:

eliteblast.6403:

People with money will find ways to get items without grinding for them. Like in wow, or any other mmo, people will utilize 3rd parties to achieve something. They may not be able to get it off the trading post, but they most definitely will pay someone in game to get it for them, either by account sharing with a chinese farmer, or paying off a guild leader to invite them to the raid, or buying an account with everything on it.

Arena net is basically taking the ability for 3rd parties to profit from this game, and making themselves the service provider, which in effect is great for the playerbase because we can play without a monthly subscription.

The things you suggest are way more effort to get items then using a 3th party, then with buying gold from 3th party. So if anything, they make it easier for 3th parties.

And the player base, others then the grind-community, does not in benefit at all from everything being a currency grind.

I didn’t suggest anything? I said 3rd parties will take profit from arenanet if they stop letting the player economy be dictated by a free market. When you start making everything in the game soulbound, you make the currency worthless.

A good example of this, the original everquest, you could just buy most of the best items in the game, yet it thrived. Ultima online, the entire economy was dicated by crafters, and people who had money bought up the best in game properties so they could have the best area to live to earn money, or house vendors. Nothing was soul bound in uo either, unless you had a very rare bless deed, and everything had a durability so you constantly needed new gear, and you lost all of your items on death, so the game kept pvp balance by deterring players from using rare weapons in pvp.

Now we have a mmo that is free to play, because the developer is in control of how people spend real life money on the game, instead of going on ebay and buying a castle from some player, you go to the gem store and sell your gems for gold, or if you can’t afford gems but have plenty of time to play the game, then you can buy gems from other players.

If you remove the ability to sell items to other players, then you remove the need for people to earn money to buy gems, because all of the good items will not be found with gems or gold, but instead by only the very few people with the amount of time to farm these items. Once these people are in control then you will be forced to use them as a 3rd party in order to get the required gear.

One of the main problems with soulbound items is that it destroys the entire economy at end game, gold becomes meaningless, and the real currency becomes dollars, because if you want something without having the time to play, you will spend money utilizing a 3rd party. Forcing people to use 3rd parties is bad for the playerbase, because people don’t want to be forced into doing it to remain competitive.

This also leads to botting, people will bot to achieve things because they can’t be online. Look at honor grinding in world of warcraft, most of the players are afk not participating, a lot of them are botting to get honor because it is easier than playing.

I wanted a disgusting oozling in wow, in order to get it I had to farm oozling for 40 hours straight, am I going to sit at my computer killing oozlings, or am I going to use mmoglider to do it?

“I didn’t suggest anything? I said 3rd parties will take profit from arenanet if they stop letting the player economy be dictated by a free market. When you start making everything in the game soulbound, you make the currency worthless.”

Nobody said everything should be soul bound. Basically, the ‘best’ items (what in this skin based game are the best skins and mini’s) should be behind their own content and be account-bound.

There are still plenty items that do not have to be account-bound. Many of the mats and tonics for example. Still, even for them there should be a clear way to farm them yourself, other than grinding gold and buying them.

It’s also funny that you come with two games that indeed where popular but also known for the grind.

Making any item soulbound creates an opportunity for 3rd parties, it forces me to find someone to play my account, or it forces me to pay someone to let me into the raid. It doesn’t make the item exclusive, it just changes the vendor from arenanet to some chinese person.

What are much more complicated ways then just selling gold. What the current system creates as an opportunity for 3rd parties.

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Devata.6589:

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Paralux.6714:

Ok, the fact that you can buy Shards of Glory and Memories of Battle on the TP is annoying already. I thought the thing about Precursor Crafting was that players instead of spending a lot of gold could just put a lot of effort in to the game and still being able to get a precursor. But not only does do you lose gold on finishing the precursor tiers (counting the costs of all materials needed atm it’s cheaper to jsut buy the precursor directly from TP.) it’s also still much easier for people who are willing to spend a lot of gold to get it much faster than people who actually wants to work for it. I can understand that some things which are needed for the precursor is on TP, like elonian leather for example, which is also something you need to craft other things. But to put shards of glory and memories on battle on TP is just totally unnecessary.

And now I’m even more annoyed since even the fractal ACHIEVEMENT chests can be sold/bought on/from the TP. I thought they wanted more people to do fractals, now you can get a skin without even having to enter the gate in LA. :S

And just a note, personally I think that it is much more encouraging to work for something I know everyone else that wants the same thing has to work for aswell, rather than knowing some people can just buy everything they need.

I can’t support your viewpoint at all, a lot of people in this thread have boosted the buyer’s view on this, but the more effective argument against your position is that of the seller. Whoever put those fractal chest on the market clearly weren’t terribly attached to them, no doubt already having any and all fractal skins they want or desire, they instead seek to trade a thing they DON’T want for a things they want, or at least for currency that can be exchanged for things they want. Take away the ability to trade things just leaves you with a bunch of people lumbers with kittens they don’t want. This game is already completely unrewarding as it is. I am of the view that no random loot should ever be account-bound or soul-bound as it just again leaves people with inventories clogged with stuff that they don’t need or want.
So in conclusion, no it not worth causing massive inconvenience to the playerbase of the game as whole to satisfy your utterly baseless sense of elitism.

“This game is already completely unrewarding as it is.”

And this is because of that grind gold to buy what you want mentality. So you praise what creates what you despise.

No items feel rewarding this way. When you kill a hard to kill boss and get a reward for that, that you can only get that way, that feels rewarding. When the same item is owned (because they got it from the TP) by people who grinded Silverwaste while watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead on their second screen, that does not feel rewarding.

And the nonsense elitism excuse again, as if people feel entitled to things they should not be. Maybe people should not feel entitled to things for brainlessly grinding away. How about that? Maybe the real elitism players in GW2 are the ‘casual’ hardcore grinders that think everything should be available for them.

No it’s unrewarding because of the absolute abortion of an equipment system Anet used. It has in no way achieved it’s goal of horizontal progression, just stepped vertical progression, with bland items that don’t do anything interesting except look garish. Combined with miserly drop rates and the fact that when you get to 80 anything other than exotics just becomes something to be ground up for materials – to the point where I just wish they’d drop the pretense and just have 3-6 ectos in the world boss chests.

And you’ve ignored my main point which is that the person selling the item clearly doesn’t have a problem doing this and will lose any sense of achievement from doing this mythical ‘hard’ content, because under your idea they aren’t being rewarded.
Destiny got blasted, and rightly so, at launch for having no trade mechanic so in the unlikely event that you got a rare item and it was one you couldn’t use it was literally useless to you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pro-grind -I have no patience for it – I really dislike how grindy making money in this game is but don’t for a second think that you’re better than someone who ground their way up to a legendary, because that took work and dedication on their part, hell the whole point of grind is that it’s a chore, thae challenge lies in not dying of boredom at the keyboard.

“And you’ve ignored my main point which is that the person selling the item clearly doesn’t have a problem doing this and will lose any sense of achievement from doing this mythical ‘hard’ content”

There will always be people who are not interested in some reward, so when they can sell it they will sell it. That does not mean it’s an universal truth that that means nobody will feel rewarded for it. And especially because items can be sold, they hold less reward value so make you more easy to sell. It’s not a token for your achievement.

“Destiny got blasted, and rightly so, at launch for having no trade mechanic so in the unlikely event that you got a rare item and it was one you couldn’t use it was literally useless to you.”

Mainly talking about skins here, but also for that are solutions, like allowing people to trade within the group who did the content (I think that was how destiny solved it, or it was another game). Another solution is to make you select from different stat-sets (something that is implemented in GW2 in some cases) or only drop gear usable for your current class. What should always, and only be implemented if it’s a soul bound on pickup item.

The fact that a game manage to give you soul bound loot that you could not use is hardly a reason to not have soul-bound or account-bound loot. And honestly, Anet did see this was a mistake, they even said so if it comes to Legendary weapons. That is why the new legendary weapons are soul-bound. But exact same reason for why it’s bad with legendary weapons (and it took some time, but Anet eventually realized that) also applies to many other items.

I am also not saying nothing should be tradable. There should be plenty stuff tradable, but there should also be plenty stuff that is not tradable as long as you also make it possible to work towards getting the item.

I also don’t mind that some people grind, but it means you take value away from items if you make them available that way. That is why there should be items that are account-bound, and most items should have a direct approach of getting them, that is always the most efficient way to get it. Then you can also grind for them, but that should be the less efficient way. Problem here is that there are too few account-bound items, and even worse, many of the items can only or most effectively be earned by ginding gold instead of going for them in a direct approach.
See for example the complains about the new precursor crafting where people complain about grinding for them is still the best way to get them. They don’t complain that getting it the long way is hard, they complain that it’s also the least efficient and honestly they are right. Getting the new precursors should not be easy, but should be more efficient then getting them by grinding Silverwaste.

eliteblast.6403:

Devata.6589:

eliteblast.6403:

People with money will find ways to get items without grinding for them. Like in wow, or any other mmo, people will utilize 3rd parties to achieve something. They may not be able to get it off the trading post, but they most definitely will pay someone in game to get it for them, either by account sharing with a chinese farmer, or paying off a guild leader to invite them to the raid, or buying an account with everything on it.

Arena net is basically taking the ability for 3rd parties to profit from this game, and making themselves the service provider, which in effect is great for the playerbase because we can play without a monthly subscription.

The things you suggest are way more effort to get items then using a 3th party, then with buying gold from 3th party. So if anything, they make it easier for 3th parties.

And the player base, others then the grind-community, does not in benefit at all from everything being a currency grind.

I didn’t suggest anything? I said 3rd parties will take profit from arenanet if they stop letting the player economy be dictated by a free market. When you start making everything in the game soulbound, you make the currency worthless.

A good example of this, the original everquest, you could just buy most of the best items in the game, yet it thrived. Ultima online, the entire economy was dicated by crafters, and people who had money bought up the best in game properties so they could have the best area to live to earn money, or house vendors. Nothing was soul bound in uo either, unless you had a very rare bless deed, and everything had a durability so you constantly needed new gear, and you lost all of your items on death, so the game kept pvp balance by deterring players from using rare weapons in pvp.

Now we have a mmo that is free to play, because the developer is in control of how people spend real life money on the game, instead of going on ebay and buying a castle from some player, you go to the gem store and sell your gems for gold, or if you can’t afford gems but have plenty of time to play the game, then you can buy gems from other players.

If you remove the ability to sell items to other players, then you remove the need for people to earn money to buy gems, because all of the good items will not be found with gems or gold, but instead by only the very few people with the amount of time to farm these items. Once these people are in control then you will be forced to use them as a 3rd party in order to get the required gear.

One of the main problems with soulbound items is that it destroys the entire economy at end game, gold becomes meaningless, and the real currency becomes dollars, because if you want something without having the time to play, you will spend money utilizing a 3rd party. Forcing people to use 3rd parties is bad for the playerbase, because people don’t want to be forced into doing it to remain competitive.

This also leads to botting, people will bot to achieve things because they can’t be online. Look at honor grinding in world of warcraft, most of the players are afk not participating, a lot of them are botting to get honor because it is easier than playing.

I wanted a disgusting oozling in wow, in order to get it I had to farm oozling for 40 hours straight, am I going to sit at my computer killing oozlings, or am I going to use mmoglider to do it?

“I didn’t suggest anything? I said 3rd parties will take profit from arenanet if they stop letting the player economy be dictated by a free market. When you start making everything in the game soulbound, you make the currency worthless.”

Nobody said everything should be soul bound. Basically, the ‘best’ items (what in this skin based game are the best skins and mini’s) should be behind their own content and be account-bound.

There are still plenty items that do not have to be account-bound. Many of the mats and tonics for example. Still, even for them there should be a clear way to farm them yourself, other than grinding gold and buying them.

It’s also funny that you come with two games that indeed where popular but also known for the grind.

eliteblast.6403:

People with money will find ways to get items without grinding for them. Like in wow, or any other mmo, people will utilize 3rd parties to achieve something. They may not be able to get it off the trading post, but they most definitely will pay someone in game to get it for them, either by account sharing with a chinese farmer, or paying off a guild leader to invite them to the raid, or buying an account with everything on it.

Arena net is basically taking the ability for 3rd parties to profit from this game, and making themselves the service provider, which in effect is great for the playerbase because we can play without a monthly subscription.

The things you suggest are way more effort to get items then using a 3th party, then with buying gold from 3th party. So if anything, they make it easier for 3th parties.

And the player base, others then the grind-community, does not benefit at all from everything being a currency grind.

eliteblast.6403:

Devata.6589:

eliteblast.6403:

fireflyry.7023:

eliteblast.6403:

People shouldn’t be forced to participate in content they have no interest in doing. I enjoy doing SPVP, and world bosses. Why should I have to spend endless hours doing other things in order to achieve a legendary or a skin?

I have gold I earned doing the things I enjoy, other peoples enjoy selling the things they earn, thats good for everyone.

I agree in part but I really do think there should be rewards like that. Your not being “forced” to do the content, you just don’t get access to that skin. No biggy and it makes that skin a distinctive representation of what the player enjoys and gets up to.

It actually represents something.

As much as “everything for everyone” is a valid concept personally I prefer mechanics that create distinction and variation among the player base with aesthetic reward. That’s just me though.To each their own.

What is the point in having gold, if I can’t purchase things with it?

Maybe there should be less point in having gold (or any currency) and be more point in doing different types of content to get the rewards that belong to that content. How about that?

I don’t think you understand how free to play works, gold is essential to arenanets revenue. If you don’t feel rewarded that sounds like a problem with how your dopamine receptors reward you for accomplishments. Maybe you should focus on something else to feel rewarded?

I play the game for fun, not for a dopamine release for grinding mobs and getting a skin.

I perfectly understand how F2P works, that is why I never play F2P games. I think you don’t understand how B2P works.

Game sales are essential to ArenaNets revenue, gold should not be. For a F2P game indeed that would be true.

But you are touching the problem here. The game behaves to much as a cash-shop game, while at the same time charging a lot for the expansions.. what is fine for a B2P game, but not for a cash-shop game. I had hoped, and still do, that things change for the better with HoT.

I play the game for fun as well, and going for skins is what I consider fun… well if that is by doing content that rewards those items. Not if you get it by grinding for gold to buy the stuff you want.

Also how I feel rewarded..? You might not have noticed, but this game not being very rewarding has been like the main complain since release. Anet added more and more loot. You get Carpal tunnel syndrome from opening all the bags full with loot, you even get loot for logging on. but the complains stay. Because that sort of things do not feel rewarding for many people.

Sure there is reward in completing a challenge (while there is not much challenging content), but that is once and unrelated to rewards (what this thread was about).

Did anybody found out how to get many of those other Halloween Guild-Hall decorations?

There are multiple decorations, the pumpkins you can buy for candy corn. There are also a few decorations that require high level of scribing, while I am not sure if you need recipes for that and if those recipes are already available somehow.

Then there are also multiple decorations that don’t say they come from scribing when hovering over them.

Did anybody find out how to get any of these decorations?

eliteblast.6403:

fireflyry.7023:

eliteblast.6403:

People shouldn’t be forced to participate in content they have no interest in doing. I enjoy doing SPVP, and world bosses. Why should I have to spend endless hours doing other things in order to achieve a legendary or a skin?

I have gold I earned doing the things I enjoy, other peoples enjoy selling the things they earn, thats good for everyone.

I agree in part but I really do think there should be rewards like that. Your not being “forced” to do the content, you just don’t get access to that skin. No biggy and it makes that skin a distinctive representation of what the player enjoys and gets up to.

It actually represents something.

As much as “everything for everyone” is a valid concept personally I prefer mechanics that create distinction and variation among the player base with aesthetic reward. That’s just me though.To each their own.

What is the point in having gold, if I can’t purchase things with it?

Maybe there should be less point in having gold (or any currency) and be more point in doing different types of content to get the rewards that belong to that content. How about that?

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Paralux.6714:

Ok, the fact that you can buy Shards of Glory and Memories of Battle on the TP is annoying already. I thought the thing about Precursor Crafting was that players instead of spending a lot of gold could just put a lot of effort in to the game and still being able to get a precursor. But not only does do you lose gold on finishing the precursor tiers (counting the costs of all materials needed atm it’s cheaper to jsut buy the precursor directly from TP.) it’s also still much easier for people who are willing to spend a lot of gold to get it much faster than people who actually wants to work for it. I can understand that some things which are needed for the precursor is on TP, like elonian leather for example, which is also something you need to craft other things. But to put shards of glory and memories on battle on TP is just totally unnecessary.

And now I’m even more annoyed since even the fractal ACHIEVEMENT chests can be sold/bought on/from the TP. I thought they wanted more people to do fractals, now you can get a skin without even having to enter the gate in LA. :S

And just a note, personally I think that it is much more encouraging to work for something I know everyone else that wants the same thing has to work for aswell, rather than knowing some people can just buy everything they need.

I can’t support your viewpoint at all, a lot of people in this thread have boosted the buyer’s view on this, but the more effective argument against your position is that of the seller. Whoever put those fractal chest on the market clearly weren’t terribly attached to them, no doubt already having any and all fractal skins they want or desire, they instead seek to trade a thing they DON’T want for a things they want, or at least for currency that can be exchanged for things they want. Take away the ability to trade things just leaves you with a bunch of people lumbers with kittens they don’t want. This game is already completely unrewarding as it is. I am of the view that no random loot should ever be account-bound or soul-bound as it just again leaves people with inventories clogged with stuff that they don’t need or want.
So in conclusion, no it not worth causing massive inconvenience to the playerbase of the game as whole to satisfy your utterly baseless sense of elitism.

“This game is already completely unrewarding as it is.”

And this is because of that grind gold to buy what you want mentality. So you praise what creates what you despise.

No items feel rewarding this way. When you kill a hard to kill boss and get a reward for that, that you can only get that way, that feels rewarding. When the same item is owned (because they got it from the TP) by people who grinded Silverwaste while watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead on their second screen, that does not feel rewarding.

And the nonsense elitism excuse again, as if people feel entitled to things they should not be. Maybe people should not feel entitled to things for brainlessly grinding away. How about that? Maybe the real elitism players in GW2 are the ‘casual’ hardcore grinders that think everything should be available for them.

Agree, this is part of the gold grind mentality that is so bad for the game. The excuse is always “now people can play the game the way they want” but in reality doing that might punish you as it’s not the most efficient way to get the item. So people will do what is the most rewarding, what usually are completely brainless grinds. (How long will it take before grinding silverwaste is the best way to get that ascended gear?)

HoT did try to address this problem in some parts of the game but not in others. Also the gem-store items getting back to a state you expect in a cash-shop game not in a F2P game. Just a week ago I praised Anet for only having the bad wings in the gem-store and having all the mini’s and other skins in the actual game. A decent way to work for a B2P game (the thing Mike was praising so much at the last major event). Since then they added the backpack + mini and the ghostly quaggan. That adds the total cost of Halloween related gem-sales up to about 1500 gems. Previously it was 500 gems for 3 mini’s and you could combine them for another one resulting in 1000 gems.

And of course, this is only available for gold (not counting money, as that’s irrelevant from a game-play viewpoint), so more grind. If they want to hold the current people playing instead of having a huge leave of players in the coming 3 to 6 months they better change this attitude. Because those will not return for the second expansion. These upcoming months will be very important for Anet.

You would think they had learned by now. Expansions work, the grindy LS not so much. And again it looked like they did. More stuff in-game and more exclusive items behind specific content. And of course less focus on gold.. want to make a 20-slot bag, buy a 10 gold item because omg we don’t want people to craft thins without putting in actual gold. MMORPG’s should allow for a life of the land type of game-play. Luckily you can buy gold for cash :S.

But while you see them implementing this, you also see them still doing things that result in exactly the opposite. As if there are two forces within ArenaNet fighting each other.

So far I have mixed feelings about the grind in HoT. It can still go both ways. Let’s hope they make the right decisions.

The people who think it is for 2 weeks can have read Gaile Gray’s post.

And 13 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes is also nearly two weeks. So that is a little vague. The only concrete date we have is 2 weeks from Gaile Gray.

I am not sure what it’s supposed to be honestly. The gem-store items indeed end in 2 days, on the other hand the backpack also got put in later and then there is the ghostly Quaggan. I do not know if that one is supposed to be Halloween related. I think it is, and that does not end in two days.

SkyShroud.2865:

They mentioned nearly two weeks because the halloween was added during the launch of HOT instead of the usual tuesday patch. So, I guess halloween will be removed on the usual tuesday patch.

That would be kind of bad.

2 weeks is already way to short, they did not give a real date, so many people expect it to be there at least until Thursday / Friday (2 weeks after HoT patch).

And with all the crashes and other bugs so many have had since release, they should really extent it even was it until Thursday. So they can fix all the problems before adding new stuff like raids, and people can get the experience from Halloween they should. For example, doing Mad Kind Says without crashing half way in.

Tuesday is too soon, heck Thursday is too soon.

I also noticed the gem-store items being gone in two days ( Tuesday), so not sure when Halloween is supposed to go away, and it looks like giving a actual date is to hard?

One thing is for sure, for as long kitten many people still have problems, bugs and crashes the game is not yet ready for a new major patch / added content. It will need to patches to solve the crashes first.

See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Halloween-Event-Yay/page/3#post5610639

Gaile Gray says it’s two weeks (not 1,5 week).

She also explains why it cannot be longer as two weeks “I don’t think the team can extend the holiday in any form, as there are other things coming, and all the various teams within the development team need to get everything properly scheduled and good to go.”

So the new patch is clearly supposed to add more stuff. I think raids. But imho they should really fix all the problems first before adding more things. Then they better delay the schedule with 1 week.

“Seems to be a bit greedy and a punch in the kitten to existing players who have been around for 3 years”

Nonsense, I have been playing since the beginning as well and the punch in the kitten was the heavy focus on the cash-shop while having a B2P game. We should have had the first 50,- expansion over 1,5 year ago instead of all those gem-store item.

This expansion is great, much better than any of the LV updates and it’s a good way to finance a B2P game. Now they only need to keep this focus on expansion and not shift back to the cash-shop.

But for now, So far so good. The new Halloween skins and mini’s are all in-game reward with the exception of the wings. That is how I like to see it and how a B2P game should work!

boxerfanboy.7843:

I think this game is great in many ways but the level progression through specializations is a bad idea. Having champ hero points dramatically slows the pacing in this game. Don’t get me wrong I loved going to arah exp during launch and getting killed over and over again. However I never felt forced into the challenge. In the new expansion I feel more frustrated trying to solo content. I also worry about how new players are suppose to go through the content after the vast majority done.

I disagree, in fact I would have preferred it if the masteries for example would be purely based on such specific encounters. Kill that boss, do this challenge and so on.

Not it’s still just an xp grind.

Yeah they might be more challenging than just doing some events, but it’s also more fun and a more direct approach.

Hero points are a light version of what I say, so I like them.
Having to complete some specific challenge also makes it feel more worthwhile then when it’s just a grind.

I think, that they think that it’s not a real selling point, so not worth the time.

I think they are wrong. It looks like they did not think the action camera was a real selling point as it was never mentioned in any of the HoT announcements and it’s not on their list of things that come with HoT http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com .

However, now the Action Camera a lot of people are really interested in, and it might very well be a selling point. Same would be true for DirectX 11 / 12 imho. Not to mention that if you want to keep the game up to date you will have to also upgrade these sorts of things.

But to answer your question, I think they did not see that upgrade as an investment that would pay them back.

I had not seen this thread before so made a post in the HoT section: forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/hot/Action-camera-suggestion/

Anyway, I suggested to have a toggle option that would move the crosshair to another place (like one of the corners) with next to it a indicator similar to the one you now see in top of the screen to indicate what target you have selected, only then it shows the target the action camera will focus on.

In that mode the crosshair does not function as a crosshair anymore but is there just to show the different modes, you are still shooting at the middle of your screen.

I ask thins because I like the action camera options that I did see, but would not like to always have that crosshair in the middle of my screen, that’s something I would prefer to have with during intensive fight, or when playing around with my bow, but not when just walking around or is not so intensive fights.

An alternative would be to have the crosshair go away when you are not in combat, the only problem with that is that you get in combat for taking fall damage, when an mob attacks you while you ignore him, as ranger when your pet gets into combat or when using the horn near an enemy, to get swiftness. So there are many occasion when you are in combat, when you really aren’t. Still it would be an alternative, or maybe even the ability to toggle between multiple modes. 1 standard, 2 put it in the corner with an indicator next to it that shows what you are focused on, 3 automatic (when in combat), ?4 no crosshair / indictor ever.

It would be something you could toggle ingame as you might want to switch between or during fights.

I know you can toggle action camera off, but that changes the whole camera settings as well, so that’s completely different.

It’s an important element but It’s not the main functionality.. imho the defining options are what the name implies, the camera options. The information the indicator gives is also very important, and don’t get me wrong, when I would have the option to toggle the crosshair off (or better, to have it in another place) it’s not like I would not use the cross-hair in its current form anymore.

It would be something I would toggle on for the more intense fights or when I want to use the bow in a more direct action mode, and toggle of for just walking around and the not so intensive fights.

The thing is, I really like what it does, I just don’t want to have a crosshair in the middle of my screen all the time, and while it’s usually ‘just a point’, whenever it moves over a possible target it’s form will change, so it really distracts from the environment.

I did see the guild-chat episode where they did show of action camera and I must say it looks really interested and I am going to give it a try for sure.

There is however one thing I know that will bugger me when using it, and thats the fact that there is this point (and the other shapes for the crosshair) in the middle of my screen all the time. Of course you can switch between action camera and standard mode all the time, but also that seems a little annoying because your whole movement basically changes.

My suggestion is to have the option of turning the crosshair in the middle of the screen off (possible also with the ability to toggle as there are occasion where you want in on and where you want it of, what can change from fight to fight), however then showing the target you have in sight (so when the crosshair becomes a circle) in the bottom or the top of your screen, much like the target you have selected, and showing the crosshair next to it so you can still see the different phases but it’s just not there is the middle of your screen.

HOO WAIT!! I just get the message that my post was merged with this thread..

I reacted on the question “anyone else have a skin you would like to see make a comeback for this wonderful spooky holiday ?” the original tile was also something like “What skins would you want to see back with Halloween”.

Lord Deus. said he noticed people wanted those two items back in the gem-store but the question did not (specifically) mention the gem-store! So this merge gives a completely false idea of what has been said..

Those items I talked about “The weapon skins from previous years.” (Meaning the Halloween ones, another thing that is lost with this merge!)

I do NOT!! Want to see them being placed in the gem-store, making them another gold grind. I want to see them being put in the game during Halloween! (like as a reward for the dungeon) In fact as of HoT I expect less gem-store after Mike O’Brien’s speech about how great B2P is.. so not cash-shop but B2P.

This might also be true for any post between Lord Deus’s and this one.

I buy a game to play it and earn things in-game, not to be able to buy more fluff to have in that game.. Earning those items in-game is the game. No idea why anybody would ask for anything specifically to being placed into the gem-store other than that they think it’s in the gem-store or not coming ever.

Just wanted to have that cleared up!

Wanze.8410:

Devata.6589:

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Well, GW2 and the TP give the the opportunity to intead of grinding, play whatever content you like and use its rewards to get closer to the goal of acquiring whatever you want (as long as its tradeable).

On paper yeah. In reality it means doing anything other than whatever rewards you the best (optimal) basically means you are punishing yourself for doing that (you are getting punished for playing the way you want). And in practice that means (as GW2 proofs) a lot of grind… Not because people like it, but because it’s the most viable way to get to their goals.

To make it a bid worse, that grind also means the prices of items are going up, making the less profitable ways even worse, and with new items coming in all the time, you would only get further and further behind.

So it sounds great on paper, but it’s not how it works in reality.

Not to mention that directly working towards an item is also part of the fun, something many people enjoy.. and that’s something you don’t have with the general grind or “do whatever you want and then buy it”.

Site note: HoT does make some progress here (Precursor crafting, and the ability to more directly farm mats).

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hello, my fellow Halloween Fanatics,

I don’t think the team can extend the holiday in any form, as there are other things coming, and all the various teams within the development team need to get everything properly scheduled and good to go.

I decorate my house for more than a month in celebration of Halloween, and I do see how extending the festival is a tempting idea. However, with the knowledge that “other cool stuff is coming,” I hope you’ll agree that two weeks is a goodly time period this year. (We can hope for a slightly longer festival next year, perhaps? I don’t know that, but we can hope. )

And we are all very excited for that other stuff, thing is, that will stay forever, while Halloween will be gone for another year.

Anyway, I completely understand it would likely mess with the schedule and already figured that would likely be the reason.

As GW2 players we are obviously all used to completely bug-free releases. But maybe, in the extremely unlikely scenario that you might have some bug-issues with the new released content, I would suggest to then in that unlikely scenario, extend Halloween a bid longer. Giving the developers the time to fix problems.

Belorn.2659:

The Jetpack skin.

Yeah and I would also like to see that mini come back.. but those are not Halloween skins.

They should put that dungeon back in the game (not talking about fractals) and include those rewards.. However, this is unrelated to Halloween.

Edit:
Bad merge.. I want to see the Halloween skins from last year being put back into the game with Halloween.. Not in the gem-store!

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

The weapon skins from previous years.

Edit:
Bad merge.. I want to see the Halloween skins from last year being put back into the game with Halloween.. Not in the gem-store!

Wanze.8410:

Devata.6589:

John Smith.4610:

blakkrskyrr.7413:

JS, do you ever think you are one of the Tyrian gods when it comes to the economy? The amount of insane changes to the game over the last 2 years in terms of economy is, to me, bewildering. Prices of goods have fluctuated astronomically since the game released. How many of these changes were you guys aware would occur when implementing updates to the game such as: changing weapon skins (and some other skin types) to BoE, rich orichalcum vein add/removal, introduction of ascended gear and ascended crafting (especially the crafting. balance of goods is ridiculous. 100 silk bolt >> 50 mithril bars is frakking ridiculous, not to mention linen and cotton. leather also is pretty much worth as much as the dirt beneath our feet), the mystic toilet (several guild members seem to be extremely lucky getting 2 dusks or zaps within 20 rares in the toilet whereas most, included myself, have dumped hundreds upon thousands over time in the toilet and have received not one). the economy is almost, if not more so, frustrating as the economy was in WoW between vanilla and the release of BC.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Prices of some goods have fluctuates in accordance with new content, new players or changes we’ve made, but overall the Tyrian economy is incredibly stable.

It’s really rare that the price of any major good fluctuates in a way we didn’t design or expect (it has happened, I think I spoke about it before in another thread). That doesn’t mean I think all good prices are where they should be or always will be, it means that we pay attention and make what changes we feel confident in.

The mystic forge itself plays a role in the economy, but the nature of the distribution of goods from it is another topic entirely (literally, it should be on the first two pages of this forum or so).

If this doesn’t answer what you were asking, follow up and I’ll try to answer more specifically.

I hope you guys do not get to fixated on the economy alone. It’s good to have a good economy but it’s more important to have a fun game!

We have seen some some releases / updates in the past where it looks like the content was purely balanced around the economy, taking away much of the fun. A good example was the Mordremoth’s invasion event we had recently.

It was grindy content (while there where some nice mechanics hidden in it) with a reward system that looked like is was the result of a economy calculator. That resulted in dull (and grindy) content, but it was not a lot of fun.

Same we do now see with the dungeon changes. Dungeons get grinded for gold but of all the grind in this game (mainly champion chest grind, Silverwaste, EotM, Word-bosses and dungeons) at the very least the dungeon one is the most interesting content, at least it has a some coordination and tactics.

Honestly, the other content is so brainlessly that it should give you a notification “Warning: Doing this content for any considerable time, might cause irreversible brain damage.”. Yeah a bid of a exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean.

Now what get the nerf.. dungeons? According to some because of how dungeons work vs those other grinds whats makes dungeons a possible ‘problem’ for the economy while those other grinds don’t have that problem so much.

Well that’s a bad reason because economy is now more important then engaging game-play.

Same with the 100.000 currencies this game has. I understand it from an economy viewpoint as you are basically creating multiple small economies that are easier to control, and even if one of them would fail, it only touches that small part. But any currency is another currency grind what is by far the least engaging form of game-play (grinding currency).

If you want gold (or any currency) to have less inflation, instead of trying to nerf any way to earn gold that might mess with the economy (like dungeons) you should try to make gold less important. There are to many items you can now only buy with gold (that includes the gem-store.. that might even be one of the main aspects). Make more of those items direct account-bound rewards from specific content. Then you create an overall more engaging and better rewarding type of game-play without hurting the economy.

So please, don’t be to fixated on the economy, we have already seen to many bad changes come from it and this game being so grindy and having all those currency’s seems to be is a part of that.

HoT seems to make some steps in the right direction, while on the other had it also includes even more currency’s to grind.. many currencies might be a good way to control the economy, but it also creates dull grindy content.

So again, please don’t be to fixated on the economy!

They are fixated as much on the economy instead of fun gameplay as players are fixated on the rewards rather than the fun of the content provided.

Maybe, and players being fixated on rewards is not really a problem, them being to fixated to much on the economy is.

This is an MMORPG, that is a type a game that for a big part indeed is reward-driven, especially the PVE part. It’s the nature of the game because it revolves a lot of repeatable PvE / AI content.
Then rewards are what keeps it engaging for many people.

Your average single player game you also only play a few times.
MMORRPG PVE does provides similar (but co-op) content so then rewards are there to keep you playing for more then those few times.

If people where not reward-focused the PvE part of MMORPG’s might not even be a thing for them. Most of the the people who are not reward-driven are those who come, play a few months till they complete everything and leave.

Not sure how your point is relevant to my post but you got an answer anyway.. as a reward for your contribution.

No problem with people being reward focused, it’s the nature of the game.

John Smith.4610:

blakkrskyrr.7413:

JS, do you ever think you are one of the Tyrian gods when it comes to the economy? The amount of insane changes to the game over the last 2 years in terms of economy is, to me, bewildering. Prices of goods have fluctuated astronomically since the game released. How many of these changes were you guys aware would occur when implementing updates to the game such as: changing weapon skins (and some other skin types) to BoE, rich orichalcum vein add/removal, introduction of ascended gear and ascended crafting (especially the crafting. balance of goods is ridiculous. 100 silk bolt >> 50 mithril bars is frakking ridiculous, not to mention linen and cotton. leather also is pretty much worth as much as the dirt beneath our feet), the mystic toilet (several guild members seem to be extremely lucky getting 2 dusks or zaps within 20 rares in the toilet whereas most, included myself, have dumped hundreds upon thousands over time in the toilet and have received not one). the economy is almost, if not more so, frustrating as the economy was in WoW between vanilla and the release of BC.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Prices of some goods have fluctuates in accordance with new content, new players or changes we’ve made, but overall the Tyrian economy is incredibly stable.

It’s really rare that the price of any major good fluctuates in a way we didn’t design or expect (it has happened, I think I spoke about it before in another thread). That doesn’t mean I think all good prices are where they should be or always will be, it means that we pay attention and make what changes we feel confident in.

The mystic forge itself plays a role in the economy, but the nature of the distribution of goods from it is another topic entirely (literally, it should be on the first two pages of this forum or so).

If this doesn’t answer what you were asking, follow up and I’ll try to answer more specifically.

I hope you guys do not get to fixated on the economy alone. It’s good to have a good economy but it’s more important to have a fun game!

We have seen some some releases / updates in the past where it looks like the content was purely balanced around the economy, taking away much of the fun. A good example was the Mordremoth’s invasion event we had recently.

It was grindy content (while there where some nice mechanics hidden in it) with a reward system that looked like is was the result of a economy calculator. That resulted in dull (and grindy) content, but it was not a lot of fun.

Same we do now see with the dungeon changes. Dungeons get grinded for gold but of all the grind in this game (mainly champion chest grind, Silverwaste, EotM, Word-bosses and dungeons) at the very least the dungeon one is the most interesting content, at least it has a some coordination and tactics.

Honestly, the other content is so brainlessly that it should give you a notification “Warning: Doing this content for any considerable time, might cause irreversible brain damage.”. Yeah a bid of a exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean.

Now what get the nerf.. dungeons? According to some because of how dungeons work vs those other grinds whats makes dungeons a possible ‘problem’ for the economy while those other grinds don’t have that problem so much.

Well that’s a bad reason because economy is now more important then engaging game-play.

Same with the 100.000 currencies this game has. I understand it from an economy viewpoint as you are basically creating multiple small economies that are easier to control, and even if one of them would fail, it only touches that small part. But any currency is another currency grind what is by far the least engaging form of game-play (grinding currency).

If you want gold (or any currency) to have less inflation, instead of trying to nerf any way to earn gold that might mess with the economy (like dungeons) you should try to make gold less important. There are to many items you can now only buy with gold (that includes the gem-store.. that might even be one of the main aspects). Make more of those items direct account-bound rewards from specific content. Then you create an overall more engaging and better rewarding type of game-play without hurting the economy.

So please, don’t be to fixated on the economy, we have already seen to many bad changes come from it and this game being so grindy and having all those currency’s seems to be is a part of that.

HoT seems to make some steps in the right direction, while on the other had it also includes even more currency’s to grind.. many currencies might be a good way to control the economy, but it also creates dull grindy content.

So again, please don’t be to fixated on the economy!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Halloween is coming to Tyria! We’re really looking forward to the return of everyone’s favorite pumpkin-headed monarch, Mad King Thorn, and his motley mass of mischievous minions.

While many of us at ArenaNet will be joining the game often during the Halloween festival, team members are going to make a special effort to join players in the game on Friday, October 30. We’ll be hanging out in Lion’s Arch, joining with players in a few rounds of “Mad King Says” or other seasonal activities, and hopping into a few of the many player-organized events that take place on that date.

If your guild or group is holding an event in Lion’s Arch on October 30, let us know by posting in this thread. Provide the group name, time (with time zone), your game world, and a few details about your planned activities. If we’re able to do so, we’ll stop by and visit with you for a bit!

We also wanted to mention that we’ve scheduled a new episode of the Community Showcase Live livestream for Wednesday, October 28 at Noon Pacific Time (17:00 UTC). The show is presented in English, but art is “the universal language” and we feel that everyone will enjoy the visuals no matter what language they speak. If you’re an artist, crafter, or other creative sort, please consider posting your creations in our Community Creations Forum. Lizzie and I may be able to feature them in a future show!

Get ready to celebrate Halloween, Tyria Style!

I did hear Halloween would only be 2 weeks. Can you consider leaving it in a 4 weeks? It’s the best GW2 festival there is, great atmosphere. Just leave it in 4 weeks, after that it’s gone again for another year.

Oreithyia.3064:

though I found it funny, it blocks the view and will be annoying in the long run, so I think it shouldn’t be a part of GW2.
some bugs really have humour.

It does not block the view more, then the big wings do.

Because time-lines of different types of content are not all “now” anymore, that opens the ability to have the raid instance also being available as open world map at some point after we completed the raids.

The question was if this was already the plan, and if not, this is a suggestion.

So what I mean is that a few months after a raid has come available and has been completed by many players, that map could next to being a raid, also be an open-world map that in the time-line is just after you completed the raid.

Most of the design for the map is done anyway, so you could add some events, or just leave it empty, but explorable with the story hints. It would be a nice way to expand the open world area.

It’s a nice story and I agree for the most part, but I do think there is a small mistake in your introduction.. In fact, raids might even make the game more casual friendly, depending on how you define casual. Is casual based on time spend, or how hard content is?

Let’s look at your introduction:

“As it stands, GW2 is a very Casual friendly MMO. Anet designed this game without any required grind, staying true to their core principles since Day 1 of this game. You play how you want to play, level how you want to level, and ultimately decide what “fun” is. If that “fun” includes grinding content over and over (i.e. FotM, SW chests, Dungeons, etc), that’s your choice.”

I guess I disagree. Yeah there is no “required grind”, on the other hand, a game like WoW is considered a game with required grind, however in GW2 I feel much more grind then I ever did in WoW.

The thing is. Isn’t it true that for many casuals, cosmetics is more interesting that stats, At least that is one definition of ‘casual’, somebody who does not want to have the best stats, but just want some nice skins. GW2 has a lot of grind for skins, most skins you could only in a decent way get by grinding.. there also go’s you “play the way you want”, because if you want to collect cosmetics you can play the way you want, as long as it’s grinding.

Now with the raids, if you are a casual who likes a challenge (and why would that not be possible.. again, it depends on how you define ‘casual’), with raids there is a way to collect some of the skins and gear, more based on a challenge, then just a grind. Let’s hope we see more of that.

Yes.

And rare pets should also be a thing, and pets that are hard to catch should also be a thing, and special rage pets that are hard to catch should also be a thing.

We got the ‘big pets’ now only those other elements need to still be implemented

Btw, I would like to add I really like what you guys did here. It’s pretty close to what I requested in the CDI.. Sure I asked to build your own guild-hall with a system like the decorations.. now you have a guild-hall and can build stuff inside it.. but as it is now you can basically build a second guild-hall in the guild-hall.. So great job on that!

Also sending guilds into the world to unlock / get decorations is awesome and also requested in the CDI.

In general I think you guys looked very good to the guild CDI’s, or at least happened to have similar idea’s to what was requested there.

Great job here.

I have a few:

-Any information about a guild agenda?

-Is there a way to do the “guild-hall claim event” without switching from guild-hall?

- Are there decorations that ca be used to activate another decotation.. Like decoration A is a lamp, decoration B is a switch, you link the two (or they always belong to each other) and now you can use decoration B (the switch) to activate decoration A (the lamp).
This could also be used to make traps in the guild-arena and so on.

- Are there decorations that have movement associated with then (I will not go as far as requesting us to program the movement.. but heey, when you are working on it) that also have collision detection… Think the Skipping Stones JP.

- Are there decorations without collision detection?

- Are there usable doors as decoration?

- Can we put ‘use’ rights on decorations.. Like with the door, so we can allow some people to open the door, or enter a portal, while other can’t.

- On the stream it was said that decorations are not scalable, that this was an upgrade.. but is this also not on the planning, or might we see this happen at some point anyway?

- Any plans on allow guilds for making there guild-hall public.. so like if you make the hall public, every day one of the guilds halls will be at the sport of the guild-hall, free for everybody to go there. Basically to make guild-halls more a physical place on the map?

- Are we also getting new types of PvE guild-missions, so I not not mean anew puzzle or a new rush, I am kind of expecting that, but I mean a completely new guild-mission.

PopeUrban.2578:

No, you’re deliberately skewing things. The correct allegory you’re looking for is not “80% exclusive” but, literally “80% of items” my perfect world would see 100% of items be content exclusive. I’m perfectly willing to settle for 20% of that perfect world. Or 10% or 5%

“Exclusive” is a binary concept. You can’t have an “80% exclusive” item. You can however have 80% of items be exclusive or non-exclusive.

The system in place is heavily weighted in the favor of your position already, but it is still not enough for you. Why?

There’s where your position falls apart. It’s either 100% or unacceptable to you. You can only see things in terms of “All” and “none” while your opposition is fine with “Some”

At the same time, nobody is actually asking asking for 100% of all items to be content exclusive because they realize that it would cut off players from the majority, not the minorty of rewards in many cases

Your “best” (and indeed, from your rhetoric, only) possible outcome is the outcome where you get 100% of what you want, and the opposing viewpoint gets 0%

And, again, you phrase this as a question of “keeping things from people”

You are either unwilling or unable to understand that content exclusivity is not about keeping rewards away from people as much as it is about having rewards that are fun and matter

Again your position about titles, etc., you openly admit “these are not as exciting as a skin”

That is the point we are trying to get you to see. Your “Solution” says that skins are somehow on a different judging point than other cosmetic rewards like titles or outfits. Again you posit no logical support for this other than that you want skins because they are the most interesting rewards

This conversation is not about titles. it is not about outfits. It is about skins.

You proposed solution is, literally “how about get 0% of what you want, while I get 100% of what I want and you also get… 100% of something you didn’t want in the first place.”

You’re attempting to frame compromise as selfishness and your personal opinion as that of a vast majority.

With that I’m leaving this conversation again. It is obvious you will never be satisfied unless someone simply says “Ohoni is right and the whole game should heel-turn to cede to his vision with no compromise for other points of view”

I’m sorry but I just don’t see it happenning, so I don’t think there’s any reason for me to get roped in to this a third time.

If you are happy with just having ‘some’ exclusive rewards then why defend the exclusive rewards in raids.. I mean you already have ‘some’ exclusive rewards, so if ‘some’ would be enough that means that the reward system is fine and there is no need to make more exclusive rewards.
However, all the complains about the rewards, and the people here defending exclusive rewards for raid, show that indeed there is a need for more exclusive rewards.
My point is: You might think you are fine with ‘some’ exclusive rewards, but trust me you are not, else people would be fine with the exclusive rewards we do have. That is why I keep the 50/50 as a minimum for content exclusive (account-bound) rewards.

Some does not work, and this threads even proofs it, so while you might think it does, trust me is does not. Why is this? Because going for such items / collecting mini’s (as an example) is not fun anymore when you know 80% of them is just a boring grind. Even if the 20% is rewarding.. simply the act of collecting is then destroyed as fun game-play. Now if it’s the other way around you can basically say.. well I grind for those 20% or, those 20% are unreachable (where time-limited) so they do not count for me.. ArenaNet even seems to understand this, seeing as how they divide the mini’s in those two groups. This is the group you can go collect, these are some special ones you might not be able to get in a ‘normal’ way.
When the act of collecting is not fun anymore, there is also less reason to go for the reward, taking the whole function of the reward away. It then only becomes interesting if you really want the mini because of the look.
This is also exactly what happened to me with GW2.. While in MMO’s collecting mini’s was one of the things I enjoyed doing, in GW2 because of the way the reward-system works, making most mini’s grinding gold or spending money, this act of collect stopped being fun game-play. Last week I got the clockwork mini.. a mini I could have easily gotten over a year ago.. an mini that fits the “exclusive to specific content” category.. But why did I then only get it last week?
Simply, it was not a mini I really wanted for the look, the game-play of collecting mini’s is destroyed for me in GW2, so there was no reason for me to purchase that mini. This is exactly why “some” will not do it.. The very least is 50/50 where then also the best looking ones should be behind the hardest content. Only then you can get the reward system back on track.
With raids there is of course the legendary armor what creates a new category.. so that is a good reason to do it, but the mini would only be interesting if it in fact is a good look mini’s people want for the looks or if it becomes fun to go after most mini’s in general (so the act of collecting becomes fun again). Else there will be not that much reason for people to actively purchase getting that mini.

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

PopeUrban.2578:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They are designing the raids around GW2’s combat system, and the changes to the combat system and PvE roles in general have more to do with build variety than raid design.

In fact, the process of designing raids has allowed skill and profession designers to ferret out unbalanced PvE builds and generally work toward a healthier game.

The point is that up until now you only really had to play the entire combat system in PvP. In PvE all you played was damage, reflect, dodge. That was boring compared to the extremely intricate PvE systems we had in GW1 where knowing enemy abilities, key interrupts, target order, range, and party composition was actually important, and the content was actually challenging.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.
Even in gw1, i had a smiting assassin sub monk. I had no problem with the monk class, but i didnt want to play healer.
The reason there is never enough healers and tanks in mmos, is because few people want to play that role.
Why is it, if they have 5 dps classes 2 healers and two tanks, that a 6 man party always has to wait for a healer? because few people wanted to play heals.

if i only had a ranger, i still wouldnt want to heal. the fact that my class can do it is completely irrelevant.

Also they are ignoring gear, which is a huge tax on inventory and will probably cost like 100 gold or more for alll the exotic pieces,

Having specific roles is a good thing and is fun.. without it you get exactly the complain you hear some much about in GW2.. everybody does the same, dps, dps, dps..

But yes, it can become a problem when there is one role you require but nobody wants to play. So you need to try and make all roles interesting to play. Personally I enjoy the healer and Tank roles, so never really had this problem in other games. But I agree it is a problem you do see.

On the other hand, that ‘problem’ is also not that big. I don’t mind having to wait a bid before having a group.

Still they should try to make all roles fun to play.

you say waiting a bit is no problem because you were the golden child. Trust that for dps waiting is not cool. we arent talking about waiting 10 minutes, wait time in ffxiv for leveling dungeons was huge. some times an hour wasnt enough.

And when it comes to guild politics, the waiting is even greater, because usually there is no wait, its basically, sorry, we dont have enough for a second team, and we are already done for the week guys.

anyhow, i wouldnt mind if they had some other challenging endgame content for smaller groups, but all signs are nope.
no new dungeons at all
no new fractals for the announceable future
no low/solo goals besides easy grind

I said I like the tank and healing but I was not always a tank or a healer. My main has always been the ranger / hunter class.. and that is, as you know, DPS. So I know the waiting part, and I can understand some people might not like it but I personally didn’t mind. I just continue doing other stuff.

When I try to get a dungeon-group I usually wait to get a full guild group, I will not immediately take a pug. Kinda the same.

If you have to wait 1h there is something wrong with the role making people not wanting to play it.. then that is the real issue imho. Not the fact that you need that role.

phys.7689:

PopeUrban.2578:

phys.7689:

The loot really isnt the main issue to discuss about raids anymore, imo.

The big issues are that;
Its the main endgame activity (challenge and goal)
It requires 10 men
It looks like it will need highly specific playstyles and builds (waiting for healer)

Feels like raids are going to highlight all the flaws of raids in other games and have little to no connection to the old gw2 ideals.

Gw2 raids should have been designed to be, easy to attempt
Able to be organically organized
Involve combat that requires reaction and short term prediction over stat crush
Designed to have many ways to solve a problem with various play types (guaranteed dmg bad)
Not require waiting for x role

Really seems like raids are at odds with gw2 design, and seems like gw2 is changing to accomodate raids rather than vice versa. Not looking forward to the effects on the game

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They are designing the raids around GW2’s combat system, and the changes to the combat system and PvE roles in general have more to do with build variety than raid design.

In fact, the process of designing raids has allowed skill and profession designers to ferret out unbalanced PvE builds and generally work toward a healthier game.

The point is that up until now you only really had to play the entire combat system in PvP. In PvE all you played was damage, reflect, dodge. That was boring compared to the extremely intricate PvE systems we had in GW1 where knowing enemy abilities, key interrupts, target order, range, and party composition was actually important, and the content was actually challenging.

apparently they made a huge miscalculation, because they thought the problem was needing a specific class. It was, and has always been, needing a role that people dont enjoy playing. Coming from FFXI, where it was common to level multiple classes to max level, the problem wasnt really, no one has a healer, it was no one wants to play their healer.
Even in gw1, i had a smiting assassin sub monk. I had no problem with the monk class, but i didnt want to play healer.
The reason there is never enough healers and tanks in mmos, is because few people want to play that role.
Why is it, if they have 5 dps classes 2 healers and two tanks, that a 6 man party always has to wait for a healer? because few people wanted to play heals.

if i only had a ranger, i still wouldnt want to heal. the fact that my class can do it is completely irrelevant.

Also they are ignoring gear, which is a huge tax on inventory and will probably cost like 100 gold or more for alll the exotic pieces,

Having specific roles is a good thing and is fun.. without it you get exactly the complain you hear some much about in GW2.. everybody does the same, dps, dps, dps..

But yes, it can become a problem when there is one role you require but nobody wants to play. So you need to try and make all roles interesting to play. Personally I enjoy the healer and Tank roles, so never really had this problem in other games. But I agree it is a problem you do see.

On the other hand, that ‘problem’ is also not that big. I don’t mind having to wait a bid before having a group.

Still they should try to make all roles fun to play.

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

Did you watch the stream about raid design? They specifically made a point to address that they go out of their way to design the raid so that there isn’t a situation where “need class X” is a thing.

They also said that the raids will need specific group configurations. It may not be “Need Class X”, but it will be “Need role X”. And not only specific roles will be limited to only few classes each, but some of those roles will be roles that people in general do not like to play.

And so it seems that “LF Healer for Raid” will be a thing in the future.

We can only hope so.. because one of the problems with combat in GW2 was that it missed roles. No roles means you all kinda do the same and your participation does not feel that meaningful.. Not like where you as healer are indeed needed to heal up the group and so play an important role.

And before anybody says “but that does not fit with GW2”. That is nonsense. What GW2 did try was to give any multiple professions the ability to fulfill multiple roles, and instead of DPS, Tank, Healer they had Damage, Support, Control. Only the implementation of this horribly failed making everything DPS, and making nobody in a group really fulfilling a special role.

One may only hope they succeed in setting up a new role system for HoT. While indeed it does look like it’s not Damage Support Control anymore as they clearly talked about healers and tanks, but also about support.

As far as I know they did not revealed / told yet how they envisione it now, but to me it looks like they now try to set up.. Control, Healer, Tank. Next to that, everybody has some extent of Support and Damage.

Not sure how that will work out, but we will see.

Personally I would have loved to have seen roles more based around profession. Like pets or minion and DPS role (rangers / necro), speed and invisibility-role (mesmer and thief) and so on.

xarallei.4279:

And the tongue guy mini. Don’t forget him.

They do seem enthusiastic about it. Rubi said it was great to see these rewards given for doing specific content.

Yeah, great to see that Anet seems to finally understand what was so wrong with their reward system and that they are fixing it now.

I still have some reservation about how it will work in practice. If they keep the gem-store focus they are almost forced to put the best items in there to get people to buy them, what would totally ruin the ‘special’ rewards from specific content, and to really get this to work, it should be implemented in much more content, not only raids and PvP, but also the dungeons we already have, JP’s, events and so on.

We will see, but it for sure is a step in the right direction. Something I was very much h oping for with HoT, in fact something I see as a must for making HoT a success.

Ithilwen.1529:

There is no need for a range indicator or direction arrow. Both essentially already exist.

Portal is map range. Therefore if your mini map is zoomed to maximum detail, you will always be in range of your portal if it is on the mini map and not at the edge.

You can set a personal waypoint when you lay down the first part. This will give a range and direction indication.

So how does this help people using the portal, to know where it sends them to?

Fox.3469:

http://www.twitch.tv/woodenpotatoes/v/17208511 @1:46:30, gonna take wp’s advice and just imagine a 13 year old and ignore him.

Lol, well I guess he might then also imagine me as a 13 yo when he sees my raging (well I never rage, always say exactly how and why) about the gems-store focus vs expansion-focus.

On the other hand, in a recent video he even said that he did think that the lack of a hunt for items (freely translated) because they moved to the gem-store was one of the biggest problems for GW2’s endgame according to him.

And thats the main reason I don’t like it.. so I guess we are kinda on one line with that. It really touches the same subject, that is also why I refuse to ignore the gem-store / black lion weapons if it comes to the discussion at hand here.

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

You don’t design a system (a game, or really any system) around the exceptions, you design it around the average.

Agreed. And raiders are an exception, not an average.

Good. My point always was that (nearly) everybody can do raids, if they really want to.. (put in the effort of learning and training the skill) that’s how it’s designed.

Not around the few that might not be able to do it. And as we agree raids are designed this way, we can drop the “but some people can not do it” debate.

I actually don’t agree with you here. I am certain, that if the raids will be only as difficult as you claim they will, it won’t be enough for those that want challenge. And if they’ll be difficult enough to satisfy those people, then i really doubt that most people would be able to do it.

It seems, that what you really expect is for raids to be actually easy, but with a scary reputation that will keep people away and prevent thus others from having the same exclusives you will get. And i again say, that in such a case they have no reason to exist. No content should exist for the sole purpose of segregating players.

What I except is for raid to be about the same difficulty as what you see in most MMOs. While GW2’s version might not require you to grind gear first (what by itself is a problem, because will you then scale the dungeon according to ascended gear stat, or exotic.. I would hope to ascended (Just for the record, I have almost no ascend gear) because it might become too easy in ascended).

So the same difficulty as for example the dungeon in the video somebody posted before in this thread. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9r34qSyYg0 (See 7:30). And I think that nearly every gamer is able to complete those dungeon when he is willing to put in the effort. Maybe it might take one person 5 tries, and another 8. But I think it is not physically impossible for the largest group of the game community. When you would define that as “easy”, that is up to you. Overall those raids are considered “hard” so I apply that term.

Content (including raids) do not have the purpose of segregating, raids have the purpose of providing a challenge to those who like that, but all content has the property of segregation. Some players will like and so do JP’s, other don’t. Some do dungeons, others don’t. Some do grind, other don’t. So all content segregates.

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

You don’t design a system (a game, or really any system) around the exceptions, you design it around the average.

Agreed. And raiders are an exception, not an average.

Good. My point always was that (nearly) everybody can do raids, if they really want to.. (put in the effort of learning and training the skill) that’s how it’s designed.

Not around the few that might not be able to do it. And as we agree raids are designed this way, we can drop the “but some people can not do it” debate.

Most people will be able to do it, most people will even give it a try, whether most people keep on trying is debatable, and not likely, luckily the game is designed in such a way that there is other content that they are maybe more willing to do, they just will then not get the rewards belonging to the content they do not do. What is fine.

And for the point you are trying to make.. No GW2 should indeed not be designed around raiders. And guess what, it isn’t, even not when we they put unique rewards behind content, including challenging raids.

Fay.2357:

Devata, I have no idea what wonderland you’re living in, but hop into the game and actually use the skill. What you’re saying simply doesn’t occur. Yeah, you can use another skill to keep track of the cooldown, but saying that’s a reasonable way to do it is 12 types of ludicrous.

All I say is that it works for me. Don’t say it’s reasonable.

Embolism.8106:

Spartacus.9743:

Isn’t possible to change colours between the 2 portals? or add atleast a diffrent glow, like for example:
Light purple -> entrance
Dark purple -> exit
nothing so big but is still a thing you could pay attention

For what purpose? The difference between Entre and Exeunt is just the order at which they’ve been placed. It’s a two-way portal.

Yeah indeed, two different colors might in come cases even result in more confusion. An arrow pointing towards each other makes imho more sense.

Bugabuga.9721:

So instead of arrow, portal entrance can have a “non-counting clone” model summoned that has hand pointing “directly ahead” and “face-to” linked to the mesmer While mesmer is running around it is turning as it’s facing the mesmer. When mesmer drops exit, the “pointer clone” stops turning in mesmer’s direction so you get clone pointing at the exit But I don’t know if models also follow same limitations that tracking of actual portal entrance/exit is. Probably does

The way I envisioned it, the arrow would not show up until the exit portal was placed.

The animation already changes when the exit portal is placed, so now it would simply place an arrow.. the arrow being there directly and pointing towards the Mesmer until it places the portal would also be nice but much harder.

EnRohbi.2187:

Devata.6589:

Justine.6351:

Devata.6589:

A timer is not but not really necessary. Your cool-down starts when you place the first portal, 60 sec later you must have placed the second portal. So you can use the cool-down as timer, when it hits 30 you lose the portal.

Have you ever used portal? You don’t see its cool down while the exit has yet to be placed. Guess, use another skills cd or use an external timer.

That’s the whole point isn’t it. You place the enter portal, then the cooldown starts, so you use that to know how long you have to place the exit portal.

Are you suggesting that the CD should show when you place the first part of the portal?
Because it reads like you’re saying that’s the way it already works,
Which is why people are arguing

Honestly, I was getting confused myself about what time you guys where talking about and started to mix things myself..

Anyway.. The time before the portal ends is 10 sec after you place it, so use it before the cool-down hits 61.
(putting this count-down from 10 to zero in the animation (please not in a tag above it!) would be nice and useful for other people using it, but not needed for the Mesmer himself)

For the cool-down between enter and finish, I also use a cool-down. I use Prayer of Dwayna what has a 30 sec cool-down and 1 sec cast-time. So use that directly after I place the portal, then use it directly again when it runs out.. Now make sure you place the exit portal before the cool-down hits 5.

In combat you can’t so easily do this, but when I really need to use the max time I am usually not in combat situation.. in combat situations I will always stay within the 1 min easily.

So no, I don’t really need a timer because I use the cool-downs for that. Range on the other hand is a problem, just as people not knowing where a portal, sends them.

PopeUrban.2578:

People complained about the jetpack/monocle drop rates for instance. This was valid because the acquisition method for them wasn’t about being better at something, or getting extremely rare rewards for exceptional ability, alacrity, or going above and beyond. It had the same flaw as precursors do right now, its rarity was gated completely by RNG.

Those rewards where some of the best we have seen, including the way it was implemented. The RNG is fine as is creates re-playability..

There was however one huge problem with it, and that is that they where only available temporary. That is what made it really bad because if you did not get it to drop within the 2 weeks or so, the dungeon was up, you missed out on it.

If that dungeon would have been permanent, including it’s rewards it was perfect. We in fact need more of that, and those dungeons should get those rewards (with RNG) back, even if it’s in fractal.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

The point of contention was that “difficulty” is based on the individual player, just like one player is unwilling to do the raid, because it’s too hard for them, similarly another player is unwilling to grind/farm, because it’s too hard for them. Hence the whole “incapable vs unwilling” discussion. Just so everyone can get the perspective here.

That’s not really equivalent. In the group that finds grinding too hard there are no players that are incapable of it. Only those that do not like it. On the side that doesn’t raid, there are players that might have liked to raid, but they will be prevented from it by too high skill requirements.

TL/DR; there will be people incapable of doing raids, but there are no people incapable of farming (well, at least at the silverwastes level – i am sure there will be people farming and grinding raids after all).

And i still think, that if the raids will truly be challenging and difficult, then many more people will be incapable of participating than you assume.
(of course, the probability that Anet will fail in supplying actual challenge is also high).

Not really falling for the “ahh poor people” vibe. I think by far most are capable of it. And sure a few might not be able to, just as some people are not able to run a marathon, and you know what, those people then also not get the medal. To bad, if everybody could easily get it, the medal would not be interesting.

You don’t design a system (a game, or really any system) around the exceptions, you design it around the average.