Guild Wars 2

Ballistic.4531:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Ballistic.4531:

Astralporing.1957:

Yep, no new tiers… they’ll just deploy rares with exotic stats, exotics with ascendant ones, and ascendants with even bigger ones.

This is exactly what I’m worried about too. You don’t need to call it a new tier but it’s the same thing. Better stats are better stats – call it ascended 2 tier or ascended tier but with better stats than previously released ascended gear. Core of the idea is to calm the vocal anti-treadmill players by masking the treadmill under the same tier (tier-name).
That being said, the PR-answers Chris gave us actually did calm me down. A lot. He admited that they made several mistakes with this patch. And he actually admited it several times and appologized for it. Which is far more than I expected from this AMA.
I might get back into the game now, but will still hold on to gem purchases and will know what to expect in the future.

man… if i let every little thing that MIGHT happen worry me my life would suck and there would never be any enjoyment in it.

Chris actually said himself that this WILL happen.

No..he said they werent against it and he wasnt going to promise that it would not. Anything else is inference.

Astralporing.1957:

Ditton.3149:

veritech.1048:

Lothair.8942:

Hi Landeyda,

Thanks for taking the time to post your questions. Mike O will respond to the top question and I will respond to the bottom section.

Ascended Gear is designed to fill the ‘Time’ gap in regard to the distance between exotic and Legendary in terms of progression and in retrospect would have been better to have been rolled out pre launch.

I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.

Please understand that we see the community as a ‘whole’ and therefore are not intending to design again for one specific type of player over another. This is a misconception and one that is not promoted by the team. We will continue to develop the game for the community as a whole offering game play that caters to lots of different types of players in a unified approach that will evolve over time based on feedback and the direction the team as a whole wants to take.

chris

Well, there it is. Vertical progression is here to stay.

Welcome to power creep, folks.

yeah…he also said they would add other progression and make it easier to obtain said items outside of spvp..and would focus on adding items of the same tier over all of next year. I just dont see this as an issue. You guys wanted transparency, he’s giving it to you and you are still complaining.

He also said “zero grind”. Current acquisition metod cannot be called zero grind even by someone completely deluded.

focus on zero in the future, this is in context to making the ascended more available. He also says that they should have had it prelaunch and more ways to get it..that it was a mistake. Read ALL of it..cherry picking does nobody any good.

darkwombat.3695:

vince.5937:

Ditton.3149:

vince.5937:

Glad they pointedly brushed off the list of questions the playerbase has been working on for 2 weeks. Thanks for your effort, samuraikitten88. Sorry they were in vain.

that list would take weeks…its like 100 questions long..its naive to expect him to stop, ignore any questions live people are asking just to answer those.

And it has questions the majority of the forum-visiting playerbase has been asking. If they answer those, far fewer people will be posting their questions. And there’s about 50 questions.

I agree. Given the choice I would rather have then just answer these questions and post it on the forums rather then this whole Reddit thing.

You see, Reddit gives them a chance to pick and choose what they answer. Its all politics.

This is a PR thing..putting answers on a forum for people who are already fans or customers isnt as good of a PR move. He is answering the questions and not dodging even the more difficult ones though.

vince.5937:

Glad they pointedly brushed off the list of questions the playerbase has been working on for 2 weeks. Thanks for your effort, samuraikitten88. Sorry they were in vain.

that list would take weeks…its like 100 questions long..its naive to expect him to stop, ignore any questions live people are asking just to answer those.

veritech.1048:

Lothair.8942:

Hi Landeyda,

Thanks for taking the time to post your questions. Mike O will respond to the top question and I will respond to the bottom section.

Ascended Gear is designed to fill the ‘Time’ gap in regard to the distance between exotic and Legendary in terms of progression and in retrospect would have been better to have been rolled out pre launch.

I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.

Please understand that we see the community as a ‘whole’ and therefore are not intending to design again for one specific type of player over another. This is a misconception and one that is not promoted by the team. We will continue to develop the game for the community as a whole offering game play that caters to lots of different types of players in a unified approach that will evolve over time based on feedback and the direction the team as a whole wants to take.

chris

Well, there it is. Vertical progression is here to stay.

Welcome to power creep, folks.

yeah…he also said they would add other progression and make it easier to obtain said items outside of spvp..and would focus on adding items of the same tier over all of next year. I just dont see this as an issue. You guys wanted transparency, he’s giving it to you and you are still complaining.

Mackodlak.7961:

Man this sale is not cool. Yes, we did get a 3 months “early access” in regard to people who are just buying the game, and the stuff they get is “only cosmetic”, and probably the post where a dude says if you bought pants today and saw them on 20% sale tomorrow you wouldn’t walk in a store and ask for a 20% refund, but Anet could’ve at lest put digital delux on 70% discount (gem store) in the same time they offered it for free to new players, if nothing then as a way of NOT saying “kitten you GW2 supporters who payed this game at the beginning of this year and are playing it since 3 day head start”.
They could’ve also supported the players who played guild wars 1 for some time and not segregate them when new christmass gifts are being given, cause if you have 30/50 HoM points or more you can’t even apply.
It seems they only care about profits lately, they turned the game up side down only to accommodate “new players” and people who never played guild wars 1 (or even GW2 cause they don’t like the “we all have same gear” policy) but other MMOs. Ascended gear? You seen the amount of farm it takes? I mean I could even forgive them the legendary grind, but ascended gear is something that makes a power difference and makes it easier to play fractals. And you need 250 T6 rare material farm, 50 ectos etc. For dungeon that doesn’t give money (compared to other dungeons), karma, influence or anything else.

I seriously don’t like the direction this game is heading.

So..if they have a sale on the game..then since you bought it early you should get something every time? What service do you get that acts like that? I just want to know. There are certain companies with price matching qualities..however these mostly pertain to pre purchase research and will match a price before you buy it, not after it though.

See I absolutely dont care at all about boss phase progression..I think it adds nothing and even if every single boss had it..you would complain because you have done this dungeon a minimum of 108 times already. Colossus last boss doesnt change at all, only the mobs around him and the added agony affect does. I think they took a tremendous step forward with these dungeons.

BroScientist.9875:

What are you doing logging into Guild Wars 2 every day!!?? This is no longer the game you were led to believe it was. Things are changing. Planetside 2 has released. It is a free to play massively mutiplayer PVP online game. You have nothing to lose by trying it out. Join the Terran Republic and look up Validus Gamers for a serious outfit that has 200+ man operations every week. We are highly organized and highly strategic. So I ask again, why are you still playing Guild Wars 2 when the developers have abandoned you?

because I hate sci fi games..enough said

Mungrul.9358:

Because different people like different things?
You really can’t see this?
If ArenaNet give people the tools to express themselves creatively, certain talented crafters would be able to carve themselves a niche. Artistic talent is not easily copied.

this is a very vague idea. there is no game I know of that allows you to add actual skill into any kind of crafting. you are talking about a programming intensive system where people make their own designs..yeah..that is never going to happen.

IonicBlaze.7948:

Drukker.8754:

IonicBlaze.7948:

Robbyx.1284:

Karizee.8076:

psyt.9415:

Esrever.8613:

Karizee.8076:

Here it is Sunday 11:55pm, Lion’s Arch is in overflow, there’s a queue for WvW and my guild has 40+ people online

Game is busting at the seams popular.

go anywhere else but LA. 200 people on a server isn’t much. Thats all it takes to make LA go overflow.

But we have already established GW2 has more people playing than Black Ops 2 (PC) and Diablo 3 looking at data from two separate data sets (Steam and Xfire). What more do people want?

The people that are truly upset with the addition of the rings and backpack gear are looking for validation of their feelings. “I’m upset, therefore everyone must be upset, therefore everyone has stopped playing, therefore the game is dying!”

The others are paid game-bashers just riding on the hurt feelings of those players.

The game is soaring in popularity, this upsets some people.

Why isnt this idiot being moderated and infracted for trolling ?

Because he is a fanboy of the new grindpolicy.

What grind? Seriously, this game has NO grinds compared to other MMO’s. It has NO gear threadmill worth mentioning. And still people keep referring to this as a WoW clone. I seriously doubt those players played WoW on a raiding level, where a tedious grind every day was required to be even prepared).

This game is very easy going, you can get by perfectly without 1 serious grind.
You can do grinds (for legendaries for example) but that’s your own choice: it’s optional.

Running ONE dungeon over and over again is nothing but grind to me. Hamsters may love it, I dont.

i think that is his point..other than one ring and a backpack..whats to do that dungeon over and over for? Why cant you simply do it 1-2 times a day and get what you want?

Kandrick.8054:

I don’t know the total figures of players or anything like that. All I can give is my firsthand experience.

I joined GW2 from Beta with a large guild of over a hundred players. After playing the betas around 50 of us bought the game. Around a week ago I had to search out a new guild because there were only 5 or so of us left playing. Everyone else left – permanently, for a combination of Planetside 2 or Darkfall Unholy Wars. We were a pvp/rvr oriented guild. The main complaint when the bulk left was that they were sick of fighting invisible enemies.

Not drawing conclusions or anything with this post, just relaying my experience with players leaving.

I havent even bothered with wvw for this reason and because of the zerg vs zerg..I prefer small skirmishes and I dont want to be in arena based combat like spvp

Mungrul.9358:

Did you not see the bit about being able to add personal flourishes?
I didn’t mean just another formula, I meant something that would add a creative personal touch. That way, truly creative people would be able to make something that would have a value beyond its stats.

How on earth are you possibly going to add anything..that someone else couldnt? just because you have found something doesnt make it so that only you can do it..if you can do it..anyone else with that crafting profession can….so again you are stuck with why should I pay you any more than convenience?

Mungrul.9358:

To be honest, the more experienced I get with the crafting system, the more flawed I realise it is.

For one, as you get more experienced in playing the game and you level up all of the crafts, there is less need for materials below the top tier.
This reveals a critical flaw in the entire system; materials shouldn’t have been tiered, but what you can make should have been.
If you have all level 80 characters, anything below top tier has literally no value to you beyond selling.

It’s also a massive shame that things you were able to craft at a lower level become entirely irrelevant once you advance in crafting and levels. For crafting to feel useful, you should be able to craft things with low skill that retain their usefulness.

It would have been a lot better if ArenaNet had approached the system the same way they originally approached gear; that you could craft the useful stuff pretty much immediately, but later tiers would have allowed for crafting of many and varied styles (something crafting is severely lacking in).

It would have also allowed for characters that while they had never dealt a blow in their life, could make a living from crafting.
There’s also the problem that once you max a crafting skill, you no longer earn experience from crafting, even if you craft something you’ve never made before.

They did a lot of good work with the crafting system in GW2, but it’s a transient thing with no real long term reward. There’s also hardly any reason to craft things for other players. Material costs often outstrip what you can sell finished items for. But I suppose this is the problem when you’re dealing with a system where materials are essentially infinite and everyone can eventually do it themselves.
If they had somehow managed to make a system whereby people were able to add personal stylistic flourishes to crafted gear, there would be a viable and lively market for crafted gear.

No there wouldnt..not any more than there is now. The issue is availability of information. As soon as anyone found a recipe it would be on every website within moments. The discovery formula is too simple..people would logically conclude the recipes within weeks unless the mats were dramatically difficult to get. The problem with crafting is everyone can do it..so why pay someone else for anything save convenience?

its a bragging item…no more no less. Selling them would make fractals pointless and would create an elite group of people controlling all ascended sales. So yeah..Im glad they are doing this.

Valkaern.4763:

Ditton.3149:

no offense..but what would you do once you had all the stuff? and you reached a level where the agony was high yet they had no more items to be infused for you? would you then complain that they werent there yet?

Let’s not confuse the problem – they mentioned from the start which items would be available at this stage – the issue isn’t with what’s available but how progression items are being awarded. Which is ‘completely randomly’ regardless of any other criteria.

The problem is the reliance on an RNG system that’s directly tied to progression. Not that there’s not more loot in game yet. We knew what was available going in, I don’t think many of us (any?) were aware that progression would be randomly determined.

The fact that so many people are reporting (our group as well) situations where four people have multiple rings while the fifth has 0 shows there’s some serious disparity among people who have completed, literally, the exact same content. Why did they decide this scenario was a compliment to the rest of the games systems?

What purpose does this mechanic serve? Why is it better than a token system or a steady reward system for progression content?

Is the current system meeting that goal without causing unnecessary frustration?

I think it’s pretty clear from in game chat and the atmosphere in guild at the moment that this is not an enjoyable situation to be in and for some of us it’s starting to raise alarms concerning where this game will go in the future. It’s making an already fractured community more fractured for no apparent benefit.

If you take ‘progression’ out of the equation, most people would shrug and carry on – here, however, we have our progression being decided by a roll of the dice rather than by our successes. And that’s just ridiculous.

Then they should simply limit the level you can get to then. Im not confusing the issue, Im saying there are limited ways you can effectively mechanically limit a player from reaching full status in a single day.

They can either artificially say you flat out have no ability to go further..or they can do it through RNG. If you had all available rings and infused everything and then you cant go further because the agony is just flat out too strong and there is no more infused gear available..what then? Will you then complain that its not there? Either way they lose..whether its tokens or RNG.

Opsfor.2814:

seriously, nothing much can do to attract people from coming back. Imo, the best way Anet can do right now is try to fix all the long overdue bugs, events and introduce small to large scale mini events.

yeah I agree..fix the game, make it better..you will get more customers. Dont try to get the ones who have left back.

Raine.1394:

Ditton.3149:

He’s not going to answer anything that could be misconstrued..for the simple fact he will be crucified if its not perfect. Each one of you wants a specific answer or he’s wrong..this an AMA, not a firing squad or an interrogation. and honestly Im glad they got thanksgiving weekend off..I wouldnt want guys who had not had the chance to be with their families and wind down a bit to be answering questions from hostile fans.

We would hope that he would answer each of these questions truthfully. An AMA presupposes that any question is on the table, and any question asked should be answered truthfully. This is because this is an AMA, not a PR event.

Edit: If he is not forthcoming with his answers he will be crucified by the community. This is the forum to come clean and state what the current thinking is regarding the vision clearly defined in the manifesto and the game elements introduced which represent a clear repudiation of the Manifesto.

I think it would be naive to believe that this is purely an event to satisfy the people who have already chosen to play the game. This IS a PR event. That being so, he isn’t going to answer a loaded question. You know as well as I do that as soon as this hits if anything is pertinent its going to be plastered in every Gw forum that everyone can read within 5 minutes. I do hope he is more thought provoking and complete that most other posts here though.

IonicBlaze.7948:

Galen Grey.4709:

The only thing xfire shows is that it isnt reliable source of information.

What are you going to base yourself opinion on? number of players? The highest I remember xfire was 7k players and how its 4k players. But what does that mean? that population dropped by 50%? that those 7k players dont play every day anymore? Does it mean players uninstall xfire? Does it mean they’re playing for a different location?

When we take a game like wow though that we know the actual number of in this period of a month we see a 20% drop in hours played. If that declining number would be any indication what so ever of a decline in player base subscription would have fallen yet we know they have not! (and btw if you looked at xfire the week MOP launched it was 120k hours so WoW subscriptions would be close to 2m – 3m now if there was a direct relation like people are implying.

Seriously Xfire provides no usable data whatsever!

To me it shows a tendency. If ascended gear was usefull for the game, numbers would go up, but they dont, they keep on falling and falling. Simple as that.

The problem with this hypothesis is that people who use x-fire in the first place are a specific kind of gamer..I dont, none of my friends do..so yeah..its not an accurate sample size at all. You are using a biased sample to try and correlate it to the generalized population..doesnt work.

no offense..but what would you do once you had all the stuff? and you reached a level where the agony was high yet they had no more items to be infused for you? would you then complain that they werent there yet?

yeah throwing in skins that take 100 lodestones and the like to make..would completely agitate those people who worked for it in other ways..and MF needs to die..just saying

He’s not going to answer anything that could be misconstrued..for the simple fact he will be crucified if its not perfect. Each one of you wants a specific answer or he’s wrong..this an AMA, not a firing squad or an interrogation. and honestly Im glad they got thanksgiving weekend off..I wouldnt want guys who had not had the chance to be with their families and wind down a bit to be answering questions from hostile fans.

Honestly..this game is still in its infancy and the developers and designers are still searching for the sweet spot of their customer base. They attracted more people in this game with varying tastes than they did GW1, they made an adjustment..they have feedback and now we have to see how they choose to use that information. to the point of this post..I believe they are experimenting with the fractals set up. I dont find it boring at all and its a great testing zone for new dungeon or combat ideas imo because it is so “plug and play”

Im playing less, because my friend isnt in the game right now, she’s busy IRL..so its sort of boring without her.

Xandax.1753:

I don’t really care about the precursor dump. It’s the principle of the matter. Not the actual loot.

I find it a ‘middle finger for you’ from ANet that if I couldn’t play at a very specific point in time, I’m not a valued player and must be exempt from the opportunity for such rewards.
That’s why huge rewards with one time events are a very poor thing.

A key point of a MMO with it’s persistent world is that you can play when you are able and still have same chances as somebody else (if you can find other players to play with).
Imagine locking down a dungeon so only those who are only at time X can play and loot? Doubtful many would accept that outside the timezone.
But locking down an event is okay? When it provides better rewards?

Keep one time event and limited events if you will, but keep handing out silly hats as you did with the Halloween event.
Not rewards worth several hundreds of in-game gold which just adds insult to injury to all the people who couldn’t play at a dictated point in time.

To me this is a cynical way of looking at things. Its like saying all Black Friday participating stores are jerks because you had to work that day…

Id rather the rewards be worth something and people just get over their own entitlement, as that will never happen..we’ll soon get crappy cosmetics that nobody cares about for rewards.

When I played Shadowbane..they had random world events..at the events one time items were dropped..they were slightly stronger than something you could buy, they were bragging rights only really but nobody complained that everyone didnt get one…its just disheartening to hear these entitled cries every day.

Fortuna.7259:

Levels wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many of them that made so little difference and you could actually choose your level rather than having to grind through them. As it is, it is terrible.

Its not terrible, it has a few issues..saying the entire thing is terrible is just thoughtless and lazy.

PearlGore.7419:

We could also tell you that WoW is that way. go play it.

lol go pull up the posts from months ago..this is pretty much what the GW1 fans told anyone who said anything about lack of end game.

Huck.1405:

Sumii.2845:

By jeopardizing your brand’s image you are liable to lose any future chance of new consumers or old consumers giving you a second chance.

I can agree with that. There’s 3 companies who’ve made MMOs that I will never have anything to do with again due to their outright lies to their customer base, endless unkept promises, misrepresenting game content, and totally ignoreing input from play testers when updates were being tested. UBISOFT, (Shadowbane) Funcom, (Age of Conan) And Bioware. (Star Wars, the Old Republic)

So Anet had best not do like those companies did because a lot of people will remember.

man I knew Asher and Wolfpack aka Stray Bullet games when they were in Austin Tx with Shadowbane. They wanted to do all kinds of things to the game, but their publisher Ubisoft didnt want to give them the money to do any of it…including more servers, better balancing etc..though honestly at its end..that game was one of the best balanced and most awesome pvp centric ever, people are STILL trying to recreate the code in a newer engine.

slazzy.7309:

You want depressing? Try a little Norma Jean:

“And it seems to me that you caused a grind,
like a fiercely-blowing wind…

Never knowing who you promised,
when the manifesto set in…

And I would have liked to gain cap
before Ascended hit…

Your promise burned out long before…
but my dreaming never did"

This is getting ridiculously old. We get it..many people dont like it, its becoming less feedback and more incessant whining.

Vakirauta.6397:

Loumy.7841:

If they only plan to communicate via narrow minded surveys – they’re not gonna accomplish anything meaningful.
Narrowminded in the sense, that this is about a lot more than an event.

And they are afraid to do it ingame.

Anet does not own the rights to themselves, after giving the manifesto and having it thrown in their faces…how much leeway would you as a publisher give your developer without scrutiny?

Oorjuwa.1682:

Opsfor.2814:

Which games isn’t about Grinding? name one pls. other than FPS-type.

GW1

Yeah..I have alot of friends who played Gw1 and there was plenty of grinding in Gw1..they just hid it underneath different forms of currency, you were still on rails..the rails were just hidden a bit better.

Velkyn.5168:

Opsfor.2814:

Which games isn’t about Grinding? name one pls. other than FPS-type.

Shadowbane, PvP-based MMORPG. (RIP )

This x 1000, though..in truth its because it was PvP based..not Pve based with PvP added in to fill a niche.

I like those suggestions, nothing wrong with them imo.

jque.6940:

Ditton, I agree this content should try to please everyone and that by changing this it is a hit to people that have already ground out this content (mainly the elitist farmers you are talking about) but I am confused, are you saying that as a PuG or causal guild group it won’t bother you to be the person who needs to run difficulty 10 twenty times to get a ring making you the one holding up your group of causal friends with limited playtime from progressing. I am ok with making the price of the ring extremely high or making it a huge gold sink as long as there is a assured method to getting it.

It seems like people don’t understand what this thread is about. I think everyone knows that RNG is part of the game and that ANET is implementing it left and right but this thread is simply a way for people to express there opinions against this specific instance of that.

No, I understand just fine. No, it doesnt bother me to run it at lower level difficulties for guildees or friends, I find it fun, so helping someone out by trying to get them a ring would not bother me in the least. The issue is that abstractly there is no difference between RNG and absurd amount of currency, its all time. What you are upset at in truth is that someone has something you dont in the same amount of time, that is the difference. Its an attempt to try and keep people at lower levels, its a sad attempt..not a very good design and has been implemented with poor success before, however..like I said before..this is a baby, and its going to have growing pains. If you yell at the baby..they will just cry and lash out, instead we need to tell them what they are doing right and what we would like to see more of via operant conditioning. Hey..that fractal shop is pretty awesome, would be even better with a ring in it too so that we could all get them at the same time.

Godorn.2931:

“What I am saying is dont actively tell the community to go and write a bad review. If someone feels that a change is negative, leave it to them to write a review. Campaigning to bomb review sites with negative reviews is childish”

Again, who are you to tell others not to post the truth about events which have transpired? The only “childish” behavior here is ignoring reality.

There is no moral or ethical conundrum in asking others to take part in telling the truth.

Truth is relative, people too often pick one that works for them, you can tell them facts, let them make a decision for themselves. Using biased words and phrases is counter productive and leaves an argument fallacious and without significant contribution.

Logun.2349:

dalendria.3762:

Well the Ascended Gear post was finally locked. over 11,000 posts and 222 pages.

I guess they thought it was enough. The funny thing is that the size of the thread now has the attention of the media. More and more sites are finally talking about this change.

The debate about it will continue even if this forum no longer supports it.

And for those that hate the change, the negativity will spread especially to sites people use to make gaming purchase decisions. Already happening but not on a large scale yet.

Arenanet should consider doing something to diminish the growing frustration over this. Silence is a PR tactic but in the Internet age, not a good one. People can express their opinions and find others opinions with just a few clicks. Internet content including forum posts is searchable and can be found even when the original server removes the content.

Ya, I find it very unfortunate they Couldn’t manage just one reassuring post that would appease the masses with some real answers or at least a glimpse into the future of the game so those sitting on the edge like me could make a choice if I’m going to continue with the game or not.

I think players need to be treated like investors not just customers and a certain level of transparency is needed to be maintained as we all invest allot of time on the hobby.

Like any investor that loses faith in a stock we’ll start to look at cashing out if our confidence is diminished especially when unexpected events cause a shift in the condition of your stock.

I hope something good comes out of this, the genre really needs a success story.

I think those who prepurchased should qualify for this role, customers are not really investors though. They should definitely be catered towards and made sure to be happy imo, however,

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Ditton.3149:

Aveneo.2068:

So effectively (and please say if I’m wrong here), a lot of concerns could be mediated when the entry portal no longer checks for the lowest character in terms of setting the level of the Fractal, but the highest (or even select the difficulty manually)?

I’d be all for a mechanic where a group can decide which difficulty they want to run the Fractals on, but I fear they were not designed with this in mind.

From what I’ve seen so far (and I’ve only done these Fractals up to level 4 on a casual basis with 3 guildies) allowing people to set the difficulty level themselves could cause an imbalance and have a lot of people running around with 2 Ascended rings within a day. And then you’re right that nobody would want to do level 1-9 as it would be a ‘waste of time’ considering the difficulty-vs-reward.

Doesnt it uplevel you? so you could make an alt..have a good group walk you through 10 and farm rings on low level alts every day…

Your group is entered based on the lowest leveled player, not the highest. If you’re dungeon difficulty 1 and your party level 15, you have to play at level 1.

Ditton.3149:

That kind of programming takes alot of money and time..Id rather they focus it on bugs, balances and SPvP than you getting better AI routines..

Unfortunately it does and would never happen. Wider access to more random skill sets from mobs would be an easy option- a touch of the unpredictable.

Yeah, but the above OP wants to be able to take any toon on his account and access whatever his highest grouping is for that account. So if all accounts have high access then you could simply farm rings and whatever else you wanted all day with a dedicated group quite easily.

Aveneo.2068:

So effectively (and please say if I’m wrong here), a lot of concerns could be mediated when the entry portal no longer checks for the lowest character in terms of setting the level of the Fractal, but the highest (or even select the difficulty manually)?

I’d be all for a mechanic where a group can decide which difficulty they want to run the Fractals on, but I fear they were not designed with this in mind.

From what I’ve seen so far (and I’ve only done these Fractals up to level 4 on a casual basis with 3 guildies) allowing people to set the difficulty level themselves could cause an imbalance and have a lot of people running around with 2 Ascended rings within a day. And then you’re right that nobody would want to do level 1-9 as it would be a ‘waste of time’ considering the difficulty-vs-reward.

Doesnt it uplevel you? so you could make an alt..have a good group walk you through 10 and farm rings on low level alts every day…

jque.6940:

Ditton.3149:

Oh noes..I have to do lower levels to help other people…what a travesty that my leetness is hampered. Blizzard was RNG all the F’n time, you get a chance to get something nice on bosses but there was never a sure thing for your class and even if it dropped there were others there who rolled for it unless you had a point system for loot. Your guild or group should have no issue running you through a couple lower dungeons to get you the ring imo..

No one in this thread is saying that, my guild group is totally fine running people through content to get that item however what people are saying is that isn’t fun. The point of adding challenging new content is that it puts your skills to the test and if you need agony resistance to even test your skills (which all indications are you do after 20 we will personally test that this weekend when we progress to that) then you need to grind out those lower levels for an unstated % chance at an item to continue.

Fun is what this game is about for my guild (a primarily WvW guild) but on Friday when the dungeon first rolled out we had people who haven’t enjoyed PvE in years say wow this is really fun I could totally see myself doing it. However once you reach the point where you cannot progress past that point without agony resistance or agony resistance given by the back piece. Then it just turns back to farming scale 10 every day hoping people get rings. Personally I will stop doing the content and go back to what is fun for me, PvP, and just hope they roll out ascended stats on other gear before it becomes to much of a stat separation in WvW.

I think its a process, right now with the team they have this dungeon is a great start. Ive heard mostly positive things for it, there are a few who came from more elite guilds or “skillful” groups that handle things faster..but this beast doesnt please just you, it has many masters it has to appease. So unfortunately you have to live with the fact that this dungeon isnt a 10 yr old design with many different implementations..its a baby and its going to have growing pains.

nachtnebel.9168:

neacaisa.9278:

The only reason people play high-end PvE is grind, …

Stopped reading there. This might be the case for you and the other gear locusts out there that ruin every MMO but the good old GW1 community doesn’t need a grind to play the game. GW1 was/is played because it’s fun, not because there’s a grind.

I think its pretty obvious that they wanted to appeal to MORE than just the GW1 fans, a game only for GW1 fans isnt enough. If you want a solution, you need to appeal to more..this game is more expensive than GW1, they are hiring people left and right to try and keep up with their demand at the moment. So they have to appeal to many player types, not just one.

I think its a rough spot for them. Its about more than pleasing the customers already here, they need revenue and thus more new customers and one time events are huge for that kind of thing. You need the new customers to feel welcome and like the world is huge and expansive, like they are part of something grand..a singular instance or dungeon isnt going to do that, its going to feel generic and “meh”. I think they should just limit the overflow servers to only so many people..a number it can handle easily and allow everyone to see all enemies and not have major disconnect issues or lag. I also believe the chest should be account only.

Leablo.2651:

Roven Leafsong.8917:

@Hydrophidian: What parts of GW1 are you describing as a persistent world?

I can’t think of any that satisfy both criteria:

• continues to exist after users have departed; and
• users can affect some kind of lasting change on the state of the world.

I’m glad someone brought this up specifically.

Name one game that actually does either of the above in any meaningful way. Every game currently out there that’s being called an MMO including GW2 reverts to its default state when the players aren’t around, and everything players do is wholly temporary, not lasting. Did you rescue the Ascalon Settlement and wipe out the entire camp of centaurs? They’ll all be back 2 minutes later, reappearing from thin air, to repeat the same attack. Did you farm every resource node in the zone? Tomorrow they will be there again in the same spot. Did you leave a bunch of random bundle items laying around on the ground in a happy face pattern? They’ll all magically vanish after a few minutes.

When people say “persistent world” what they actually mean is an open world where you can randomly encounter other players. That’s it. There is nothing persistent about any of these MMO game worlds, everything is on a timer that resets to default. And besides, these games divide their community into separate servers. What is a server if not a giant instance? There are people, including RL friends, who you cannot play with despite playing the same game because your whole world is an instance. GW2 guesting system is supposed to fix that but guess which launch feature is still missing?

The persistent world is one of the big lies of MMOs, there’s just no way to do it because its natural conclusion is anarchy. The only way to create persistent content is to customize it to individual players, and for that you need… here it is… personal instances. Like in GW1 Factions when you set up your guild hall. Like in Nightfall when you set up your Command Post. Like in EotN when you cleared the Charr out of Grothmar Wardowns, or decked out your Hall of Monuments. Like any number of quests in GW1 that permanently altered what might show up where because you did something. That world is persistent at least to your character. Games like WoW and GW2 have zero persistence. Clear a zone at level 1 then go back at level 80 and it is exactly the same as when you went there earlier. Nothing you do matters, not even after you kill the ultimate bad guy. In fact, you’ll just kill him again, over and over, like the time before it never happened. The game is designed to make you do that. It’s designed to be an unchanging treadmill to nowhere. Maybe that’s what’s meant by persistent world? A world that persists in its state no matter what you do? At least while you’re in a GW1 zone, when you kill something it stays dead. Being dead is a fairly persistent condition, after all. Mobs don’t just rematerialize a minute later like they do (and have to) in an open world. Want to explore a cave? In GW1 you kill everything in the way and then explore to your heart’s content. In other MMOs you kill the mobs once going in and then you have to kill the same mobs again to get out. The definition of grind. Oh yeah and what happened to persistence?

Yeah, saying that these MMOs have persistent worlds and GW1 does not, is a travesty that can only be said with a straight face by people who will eat a kittenandwich and smile as long as they’re told it’s peanut butter. Just a little bit of critical thinking is all it takes to separate truth from fiction.

insulting people does no good and adds no merit to your post. In fact I think most will dismiss it without a thought. Telling someone what a persistent world is not will never prove to them what it is, if you want to prove that GW1 is a MMO to people who believe its not, then find out what they think a MMO is. Take yourself and your own bias out of the equation if you want to change people’s perception, otherwise its just more useless vitriol.

honestly things like this are last on my list to do. Id prefer animation changes, special weapons that have the same stats but a different allocation of skills and or skills with lower cooldowns.

critickitten.1498:

This is starting to bug me so I think I’ll just ask:

Does everyone honestly believe that buying a 15% stake in a company allows you to dictate EVERY facet of that company’s decisions? Hate to break it to you but 15% is not actually a majority, so it’s not like Nexon has complete and total control over ANet’s decision-making process. They will have influence, absolutely, but the other 85% will probably have just a little more say, doncha think? Unless there’s another couple of companies all helping Nexon reach that majority mark and they ALL want to destroy this product for seemingly no good reason, you guys really need to drop the conspiracy theories and just wait and see what happens.

I absolutely hate Ascended gear, for example. But I’m willing to wait and see if they continue to add tiers after it (in which case I’ll agree that they’re creating vertical progression and will probably stop playing), or if this is truly the final tier (in which case I’ll be unhappy, but I’ll live).

The problem when talking about these kind of takeovers and “suggestions” is that its no longer about the game, its about the money the game will make. NCsoft owns Anet..they can do whatever they like with them. If Nexon owns a majority share of NCsoft then what they get is the ability to have their voice heard whenever they want and here’s the thing, they arent convincing gamers that its a good game..they could care less. They are convincing shareholders that they will make more money and they have factual data of their own games to prove it. Do the investors care about the other games being defunct now if their return on investment is huge? Usually no they dont..to a developer it’s a living breathing thing a game..to a publisher..its a number and they want that number to grow so they can get as much ROI as possible.

what they mean is guild wars is not a persistent world which most mmos are. At least that is how I take it and yes its a big difference.

dalendria.3762:

Eveningstar.6940:

For my own curiosity, could you explain what you mean by Bioware’s PR nightmare? I regretfully admit ToR is probably the one major MMO title released in the last six years that I haven’t played at all, so I have no real experience here.

Bioware had a PR disaster earlier this year related to Mass Effect 3. I will not go into the details because I do not want to derail this discussion.

But here is how Arenanet and Bioware handled their situations.

1. Bioware did not deliver on its pre-release statements about its product.
2. People finished the game and then shared various feedback about this. Questioned what had happened to Bioware’s stated vision for the game. A vision they had been promoting for at least a year.
3. Bioware at first said nothing. But the press attacked these people and basically said “shut up you entitled whiners.” Bioware never defended their customer base nor upheld what they had been saying for years (“we listen to our customers. it is your game as well as ours”).
4. Between Bioware’s continued silence and the attacks on the customers dissatisfied with the product, the whole thing became a firestorm.
5. People protested in various ways. Some creative (one guy sent them cupcakes which made fun of the crappy ending they made to the game). 80,000 people even donated to a charity to signify that they wanted Bioware to fix the ending (one of several major complaints with ME3).

After months of continued vocal customer dissatisfaction, Bioware finally agreed to fix the game by modifying the ending. They only focused on a partial fix though and never addressed some of the core issues – some of which began long before the end of the game. So only time will tell if the loyal customer base will buy their next game.

Does any of the above sound similar to the Arenanet GW2 situation?

There is a fantastic video of a fan talking about bioware and what they have become Tasteful Understated Nerdrage on youtube.

These forums have been haunted with negativity for weeks. “No end game”, “no progression”, “I hate orr”, “enemies too weak”, “dungeons too easy”, “boring combat”, “omgz not enough skills for me to have fun”, ..to which most of the people were told something like “haha this is our game, you can leave if you want”. I saw a post where a guy said “This is GW2, it should cater to Gw1 fans first” and that’s just silly…Anet is going to cater to whatever gives them money. If Gw1 fans could support a game this big, they would not have had to take on partners.

Oh noes..I have to do lower levels to help other people…what a travesty that my leetness is hampered. Blizzard was RNG all the F’n time, you get a chance to get something nice on bosses but there was never a sure thing for your class and even if it dropped there were others there who rolled for it unless you had a point system for loot. Your guild or group should have no issue running you through a couple lower dungeons to get you the ring imo..

Conncept.7638:

Fletch.4603:

One that is ripped straight from D&D where its roots are in Warrior, Thief and Mage. Where you can focus on one line more than the others.

That isn’t a real bard, if there is a single game that has done bards completely wrong, it’s D&D.

Minstrel = Musician and Thespian
Bard= Celtic Poet Warrior

If you want to know what an actual bard is, read the legends of Finn MacCoul, Oisin, or Cuchulainn, not a manual made by a couple kids in the 80s too lazy to do proper research.

maybe you should actually look at the mechanic before you pass the judgement. They had instruments, their abilities were actually just chants or praises..the etymology of Bard means to praise aloud and Bards were known as being charming and motivational. I think they did pretty well in giving a set of abilities within an ambiguous name that people could role play how they wanted.

John Lucier.5486:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

… As far as I can tell, the window for refunds is one month. Pretty sure it’s in the TOS. So… patpatpat

Yup, I was right.

(d) Refund Request – If You do not accept the provisions of this agreement, You may request a refund for the Software, if you were required to pay for it and if it was purchased from NCsoft, within thirty (30) days of either the date on Your receipt or the date You created a Game Account, whichever is earlier. If the Software was purchased from a third party, You should request a refund from that third party. Such refund may be subject to that third party’s refund policies. If You purchased the Software from NCsoft and would like to issue a refund request from NCsoft, such a request must be made to the Notice Contact and include Your name, address, contact information, a copy of Your receipt, any applicable serial code number / access key, and a reason for the refund request. After clicking “I ACCEPT” below, You may not request a refund for the Software except where You are entitled to a refund in accordance with Your statutory rights under applicable law or where the provisions of this agreement allows You to request a refund.

Wrong. Refunds are valid for 6 months. If you purchased your game before 6 months ago, make sure to contact your card company and charge back EVERYTHING you spent on the game. I know my bank and card issuer cover me longer then 6mo

Yeah all that is going to happen with that is your bank will issue a chargeback, their bank will rebutt with evidence that you bought the game, played and game and signed the Tos..and your bank will be out the cost of the chargeback plus the fee to rebutt and you will pay it.

Anishor.6921:

You do realize that a vertical progression game encourages having less of a social life than one with horizontal progression right?

I think this is an unproven fallacy that people want to spread without any factual evidence or support. Hunting skills and items via farming was no less a time sink than “grinding”, the only different was you KNEW some rare item could drop from those mobs. In Shadowbane, which I think is one of the best examples of horizontal progression ever having your own shops, houses, towns, cities, keeps and even nations made of several guilds at once..people spent months doing nothing but making items or talking to others about guild politics.

Progression in and of itself is a time sink..thats all it is, any type of it serves the same purpose and has the same goal.