The issue with market manipulators is that they make the game worse for everyone else.
Market manipulators do not create inflation – they do not add gold to the economy. They do cause an artificial increase in prices, though. Due to two reasons:
The result is a combination of bad wealth distribution (TP players have more gold than everyone else) and artificial demand for desirable items (which are being flipped by the TP players). The former is something very common in the economy of third world countries, but something less strong in developed countries. In the end, we are left with TP manipulators increasing prices of many items way beyond the reach of the other players.
Is this fun?
Does anyone else feel like they tried to make GW2 a PvP game with all skills and traits working towards short burst functions with long cd’s and a lot of counter cc? Personally I feel like the game wants to be PvP but really isn’t which makes some awkward game play
Nope. You are assuming all PvE games must be as bad as classic MMOs are, which is not true. GW1 had the same “issue” – players saw the low level cap and thought it was a feature for PvP, while in fact it was one of the most important PvE features in the game. Those players had simply been conditioned by classic MMOs to expect something else.
My main concern is with ascended items
Irrelevant. ArenaNet has to be concerned about everything, not about a single kind of item in the game. It would be significantly wiser to add more ways for people to get ascended gear than to add more ways for people to get laurels.
The price of all tier 6 crafting materials and of ectoplasm spiked on january 17th:
And etc. This wasn’t due to an update that reduced the drop rate of those items, or added new recipes requiring them. It was a reply for ArenaNet’s statement about the updates the game would receive through the semester, as market manipulators thought said updates would increase the demand for fine crafting materials, and began artificially increasing prices.
ArenaNet should ban market manipulators. Not only they are effectively exploiting the game (by making it worse to everyone else), but they are a hole in the system designed by DR. While DR prevents grinders from quickly making a fortune and thus inflating prices, the TP manipulation not only allows people to quckly make a fortune (and thus inflate prices), but it also relies on artificially inflating prices in order to make profits. In some ways, it’s even worse than grind.
Lol I don’t understand your reasoning at all. Fractal grinders already have full ascended items, they don’t need to grind laurels for that.
Thus, they can use laurels for everything else. If you think giving grinders free access to ectos, lodestones and tier 6 crafting materials wouldn’t hurt the game…
This is a bad idea. One of the good aspects of laurels is how they equalize everyone – the grinder who plays 10 hours per day and the casual who plays 1 hour per day are both getting at most one laurel per day. This helps to cull grinding, as grinders realize they are not being rewarded more than casual players. Being able to get more laurels through grinding (aka in exchange for gold, karma or whatever) goes against the entire point.
Except grinders can already obtain full ascended in fractals.
So you want to give grinders even more easy rewards? That’s not solving the problem, it’s making it worse.
This is a bad idea. One of the good aspects of laurels is how they equalize everyone – the grinder who plays 10 hours per day and the casual who plays 1 hour per day are both getting at most one laurel per day. This helps to cull grinding, as grinders realize they are not being rewarded more than casual players. Being able to get more laurels through grinding (aka in exchange for gold, karma or whatever) goes against the entire point.
WoW is nothing but a grind, and it’s doing just fine.
TOR, Aion, Tera, even Rift, not to mention everything else, aren’t. There are significantly more examples of grind-based MMOs that have basically failed than examples of the same that have been successful. WoW is the exception, not the rule.
I don’t know much about the latter three, but I can tell you with all certainty that TOR failed because it was a horribly made game from top to bottom, not because it was a grind.
The entire idea behind grind is that it will keep people addicted so they are willing to play through horrible games. It’s why grind exist – “fun” is subjective, and making fun content not only is hard, but also making fun content faster than players can consume it is borderline impossible. Grind basically solves those issues by catering to everyone willing to play through content that even those players don’t think is fun, out of sheer addiction to seeing one more “+1”. WoW gave MMO developers the illusion that this market was a nearly infinite source of money… But in truth, it isn’t. There aren’t that many people out there willing to fall for the “donkey chasing a carrot” trick. WoW already saturated that market. All other classic MMOs are basically horrible games – “kill 10 rats” quests over and over, how come people were willing to accept those?
WoW is nothing but a grind, and it’s doing just fine.
TOR, Aion, Tera, even Rift, not to mention everything else, aren’t. There are significantly more examples of grind-based MMOs that have basically failed than examples of the same that have been successful. WoW is the exception, not the rule.
Adjust means nerfed to the way it was. Why the hell they change something in one day and revert another.
It probably had a bigger impact in the economy than expected. Must have increased the supply of items meant to be rare by too much.
And therein lies the rub. Reward players for skill and bad players complain. Reward players for grinding and casual players complain. Make rewards easily obtained by everyone and hardcore and elitist players complain. There’s literally no system that will please everyone
Yes. And since many other MMOs out there already follow the “reward grind” model (many of which aren’t doing exactly well for the records), maybe there is something to be said about trying the different, “reward skill” method.
So in other words, you refuse to address my perfectly valid points in the interests of fixating on something that has nothing to do with this discussion. Good to know now, so that I can focus on discussing this topic with people who actually care about the topic at hand.
In other words, you refuse to admit being wrong even when shown factually to be so. Good to know now, so that I can focus on discussing this topic with people who are actually willing to listen to others and change their opinions based on what they learn.
I do admit that the daily dodger one is a tough one for me. Not because I don’t know how to, but because since I play alone for the most part (dang my play times) I am not fighting tough enemies where dodging should be done. Dodging normal mobs is actually hard because most of their attacks are just quick normal attacks and it is really really annoying and no fun to try and time a dodge for a normal attack.
You can easily dodge area of effect attacks. When an enemy casts any skill with a red circle on the ground, dodging out of it counts for the achievement. If it’s some kind of damage over type effect, such as the crippling attack from common Earth Elementals, the game can register even more than one evade per dodge.
Sorry to inform you, but I don’t actually feel obligated to “prove” much of anything
In other words, you cannot provide any support to your arguments. C’mon, for someone so willing to accuse others of using assumptions, man up! Show yours and I’ll show you mine:
“But Ascended gear is optional, too!”, I expect you’re now claiming, to which I shall place the palm of my hand onto my face
Always find it interesting when there’s twice as many negative threads as positive ones, and easily that same ratio or more in posters, but people continue to say that it’s the “vocal minority”.
Have you ever seen a post in which I claim “Ascended gear is optional, too!”?
Have you ever actually bothered to count how many “negative” and “positive” posters there are on average in all topics in all sections of this forum?
I want to play with lot of people, guild members, random people through my journe to lvl 80
Then ask people to join you. If they also want those things you want, they will join regardless of a reward. If they don’t want those things, why would you force them to party with you?
GW2 doesn’t force people to party with others; those who want to party are free to do so, those who do not want can simply play by themselves. Making it something forced would basically get people who do not want to party to join to a group. You are not going to get companionship from that.
For example, in order to complete Arah path4, I need to have a higher dps. That amulet may help me get that completed.
…Aren’t there a lot of people who have completed Arah path 4 without an Ascended amulet?
The previous patch had increased the drop rate of some items in Orr:
I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of those changes had just been reverted.
Expect to get the most disparaging remarks to your question, though. This is, after all, the community that each week makes a topic claiming that the drop rate of ectos has been nerfed, since in the previous week it was working fine but in the next week it had been significantly reduced.
How can I complete that the fastest way to get ONE laurel every day?
I am not interesting into playing the game for fun.
Am I the only one saddened by that? I guess this is exactly the target audience of Ascended gear, but still…
I am almost entirely a WvW, having Fractals or any other dungeon requirement for the Monthly means I cannot get the monthly!
Meanwhile, some PvE-only players are asking ArenaNet to remove WvW from monthly, since it means they “cannot” get the monthly.
Yeah, because everyone wants to WvW, right? You have your PvP one and the PvEers have theirs. Deal with it.
Lol?
What do you think is so great about FotM drops ? It’s a bunch of blues/greens/yellows with the occasional exotic. Run MF food in Orr and I get the same stuff at the same speed. Just much more “grindy” and less fun.
False.
Higher level Fractals have higher drop rates of rare and exotic items. If what you claimed were true to Fractals level 10, it would mean Fractals level 20 has better drops than MF food in Orr. If what you claimed were true to Fractals level 20, it would mean Fractals level 30 has better drops than MF food in Orr. And if what you claimed were true to Fractals level 80, it would mean Fractals level 10 would have really crappy drops. All that without even stopping to discuss the Ascended gear.
Almost by definition, high level Fractals is the area of the game with the best loot drops.
“But Ascended gear is optional, too!”, I expect you’re now claiming, to which I shall place the palm of my hand onto my face
Always find it interesting when there’s twice as many negative threads as positive ones, and easily that same ratio or more in posters, but people continue to say that it’s the “vocal minority”.
I think the best reply to both those comments is:
See, these are what we call “assumptions”, and it’s well known what people say about assumptions
Have you ever seen a post in which I claim “Ascended gear is optional, too!”?
Have you ever actually bothered to count how many “negative” and “positive” posters there are on average in all topics in all sections of this forum?
Well?
I understand what you are saying… but this isn’t about changing playstyle (that I don’t want to change anyway) but it is now a task that now forces me to co-operate when I don’t wish to. I don’t have time to or inclination to do so.
There are two issues with your statement:
1) The current dailies do not require you to cooperate with another player. You can revive dead NPCs, and the combo daily has been removed due to being buggy, but people reported getting it without being in a party with other players.
2) You are not forced to do dailies. Dailies are trying to reward all playstyles in the game once in a while, so it’s obvious that one day the daily will be about doing something you don’t enjoy, just as one day it will be about something I don’t enjoy, and so on. It’s the same thing as this month’s monthly achievements: if you don’t like to play in a party, did you feel “forced” to PUG Fractals to get the monthly achievement?
DR in effect adds to grind because it makes farming activities into more of a grind than they would otherwise be.
Nope. It punishes farming, and thus it makes the game better for people who don’t farm (aka, people who are not grinders). Farmers don’t just add some rare items to the game – they add gold (since they cannot get rare items without getting gold in the process) and they concentrate gold, thus creating a gap in wealth between farmers with a lot of gold and normal, non grinder players with significantly less gold and less able to buy anything in the TP.
And that was because Guild Wars just couldn’t handle all the new stuff they wanted to put into it. Had nothing to do with the skill system being flawed.
Queensdale – the current Queensdale, dynamic events and persistent world and all – was originally built in GW1. So try again.
The current dailies require that players go to specific locations (underwater kills), perform specific tasks they may not have originally enjoyed doing (crafting), or demand that you set up very specific and controlled scenarios (dodger) in order to complete their dailies
People are as likely to enjoy crafting as to enjoy gathering. People are as likely to enjoy hunting through maps looking for the variety kills as they are to seek underwater kills. Everyone kills enemies when playing the game, but everyone (who actually tries to play well) dodges enemies too.
More importantly, the diversity is a great thing. The player who liked to craft was never rewarded, while now he is, once in a while. The player who enjoyed gathering was rewarded all the time, while now he still is, once in a while.
How is that not “forcing” people to change their playstyles in order to continue finishing their daily achievements?
You are not “forced” to finish your daily achievements. If there’s a daily achievement that goes against the playstyle you enjoy, you should not do it, not play through content you don’t think is fun. By doing the former, you are losing what – a few laurels – while telling ArenaNet that you don’t like a specific kind of achievement, and hopefully ArenaNet can use this information to improve the game. By doing the latter, you are just grinding.
You have given me 2 PvE options to grind
The thing, you are not expected to grind.
I think the forum is actually a failed effort (in my personal opinion, etc and all).
For GW1, ArenaNet did not have an official forum. Rather, it used fansite forums, of varying quality, but there was no single great forum. There were some complaints about how “real games” had official forums, but anyway, the community managed.
Now, in GW2, we have an official forum. ArenaNet keeps an intense watch on this forum, in order to build a friendly environment in which people can talk about GW2.
That, however, has failed.
This is not a friendly community to discuss the game. Even despite all the effort and all the resources ArenaNet has invested here, the community cannot make anything other than hostile discussions in which one side is eager to antagonize the other. As someone has said somewhere else, “the real PvP is in the forum”, and that feels very much true here.
Is it worth the effort? Is it worth having community managers, the community special operations team, community coordinators, moderators, and etc, for this? I don’t think so.
The game still has more grind than it should have.
However, the OP is, as others have mentioned, wrong. ArenaNet had to add a system that punishes grind, so grinders wouldn’t have more gold than casual players and thus add inflation to the game; and they did add such a system, seen as DR. ArenaNet had to add ways to allow people to get items by playing the content they enjoy playing, as opposed to grinding, and they did:
This is exactly how the game should be. There are still a lot of flaws in the system, Ascended gear was really a bad idea and very poorly implemented, the TP has been exploited to death by market manipulators, and there are still too many rewards for grinding, but the proper foundation is there. ArenaNet just has to keep moving in the right direction.
Really? I wonder why they haven’t shut it down yet then. Maybe because there’s still people playing it, despite GW2 being out?
And why do you think they have stopped supporting it? Why no chapter 4, why was Utopia cancelled, and so on? The skill system in GW1 prevented ArenaNet from making the game grow anymore. Without the ability to grow, there was little more for GW1 other than withering and dying, as it has been doing.
No it’s not. Aside from dodging, positioning mattered just as much in GW, despite not having pulls.
False. The fact the game allows people to cast skills on the move, the presence of pulls and pushs, the way projectiles work now, projectile reflection, having all abilities cast on allies being available only as area effects (instead of having people click on an ally’s health bar), and many other factors show how positioning is much more important than in GW1.
You appear to have the false belief that GW2 is GW1 sans hexes. That’s not how the game works. The entire combat system is considerably more position-based and (player) skill-based than in GW1.
ArenaNet has just made many changes to Orr, such as reducing mob density there, reducing the number of crowd control skills enemies have, and so on. The idea was to make the zone better. In my opinion, that goal was achieved, Orr is better now.
It’s simply still not good.
The changes to Orr have not made the zone more interesting, in my opinion; they have only made it easier to ignore the enemies there as it’s now simpler to just run past them. The zone still has the same problems it used to have:
The changes ArenaNet did to Orr have made it less irritating, but those zones are still far from being interesting. I have my own suggestions to improve the area, but more important than listening to a player’s suggestion, IMO, is letting ArenaNet know that the current changes have been nice, but they’re just a band-aid, not a full fix.
ArenaNet mentioned they wanted more people to play in the open world, instead of being in dungeons, as well as make players explore other areas in the world other than the high level zones.
Well, that plan, at least, is working. Having just played in Wayfarer Foothills, I could easily see the zone was filled with people, with a lot of players doing events, running around looking for refugees, and so on.
While this kind of thing won’t last forever (people are there because of the Living Story, which likely won’t stay there for long, and won’t keep people busy forever anyway), this was actually a good strategy to pull people from Fractals and from Orr.
The GW1 skill system was incredibly flawed. It was so flawed that it effectivelly killed the game.
The combat system in GW2 is an improvement. Combat has been made more complex due to how positioning became more important, and how skills now have more effects connected to positioning – while GW1 had knock downs, GW2 has pulls, pushs, knock downs, and etc.
This makes combat not only more active, but also more reliable on player skill as opposed to character skills. It’s less likely we will reach a “Build Wars” state in GW2 than in GW1.
Besides, if the game lost Smiting damage, it has now Retaliation; rangers and mesmers can still interrupt (and there are some traits about interrupting enemies); boon removal and condition removal have replaced enchantment and hex removal, the latter something eternally imbalanced in GW1; and so on.
I would call reward for gameplay, your gameplay, the ideal for a daily achievement. Why they would move from the ideal is beyond me.
That’s how the daily achievements still work. The difference being that people complaining right now are those whose gameplay followed the old dailies, while people who are not complaining are those who enjoy the new dailies more.
The entire flaw in the reasoning here is that a player is forced to get dailies each day. That’s the wrong point of view. People should think that they can play normally, and some days the changing dailies will reward their playstyle, despite how in other days it won’t.
So instead of complaining with something like “OMG, I have crafting, please remove crafting from the daily!”, players should think “a crafting daily… I’ll skip this one, but people who craft every day will surely like it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my daily”.
Players are not game designers (almost always). Players cannot think outside of what is good for each of them. Players cannot see the forest instead of looking at each individual tree. The current daily system is an improvement over the old one, and it would be foolish of ArenaNet to go back to how it was.
So your argument is that it’s “optional”
Nope.
The question is simply why are we not being given MORE options that players are asking for as opposed to just a lot of the same old garbage?
You are given more options, and will be given even more in the future. But, if you claim playing the game is just “the same old garbage”, the answer is that maybe the game is not for you.
We can move on but the downside of that is leaving the other elements of the game we like and that’s why people complain. We want the game to be better when there is so stuff we enjoy but other things hamper that enjoyment. Sometimes its very heavily opinionated but when a mass of people feel the same way there is more to it.
Doing something that people don’t enjoy is never the proper answer. Instead of telling a developer that they don’t need to make fun content (since people will grind through whatever), players should not play content that they don’t think is fun, so developers would actually have a reason to change said content.
BTW I think I remember you Erusculio from DDO or some other MMO. We often didn’t agree if I mind right.
Unless it was GW1, you are thinking of the wrong person.
I thought the goal of the game was to let everyone play how they want, when they want?
Nope. Again, when they say, “We don’t want players to grind” they are telling people that grinding won’t be a playstyle as supported in the game as casual play. That is for the betterment of the game, for the records.
Simple solution that will please the maximum number of people: Implement sPvP gearing and leveling in WvW with free transmutes for PvE armor. Traditional MMO fans can grind ad infinitum in PvE in pursuit of progression. Players in favor of horizontal progression are probably more PvP inclined and can play all varieties of builds on par with everyone else without needing to grind first.
Traditional MMO fans, aka grinders, have half a dozen PvE MMOs to play already. GW2 is the only MMO close to something enjoyable for a PvE player who doesn’t like grind, aka isn’t deceived to become a donkey chasing a carrot.
The new bow and other updates are nice, but why not the Minstrel? Seriously, that weapon needs some serious love.
Hopefully they have left the focus and the scepter for last since those two are the ones requiring the most work.
Forcing EVERYONE to be a casual player is not great design.
Not rewarding grinders more than casual players is a wonderful design. It’s the only way to make people not grind, which was ArenaNet’s goal – “we don’t want players to grind”, remember?
I’m cool with grinding gear. I’m cool with gear treadmills. Because i can keep up with them.
What’s not okay is this laurel amulet stuff.
1 laurel a day? 35 a month roughly? Thats ONE AMULET anet.
That’s exactly why this laurel system is so great.
Grind is bad for a game. The gap between the majority of casual players and the minority of grinders is also bad for the game. When ArenaNet said, “we don’t want players to grind”, it was obvious that they were not catering to grinders. Laurels are perfect for this – a grinder is not going to get more laurels per day than a casual player, even if the grinder plays 10 hours per day and the casual plays a single hour per day.
This is working as intended, and for the records it’s a great design.
Coming Soon
Daily Reset Potion – 1 for 80 gems / 5 for 320 gems
Monthly Reset Potion – 250 gems
Called it here first.
Riiiiight. I remember when people “called” the potions that would reset the dungeon DR system. Guess those potions didn’t get the call, did them?
(edited by Erasculio.2914)
True MMO allows you to enjoy just that little niche that interests you-be it crafting, slaying or even some other gimmicks(polymock, diplomacy, grinding, ….).
Nope.
Classic MMOs are grind-based games that push players into level grind, and from there gear grind. They may have one or two nearly irrelevant gimmicks (polymock in GW1, diplomacy in the original Vanguard, flying in Aion, and so on) but they don’t deviate from that.
ArenaNet is trying to reward people who enjoy the game, as opposed to people who grind the game. The issue is that you can take the grind out of the game, but not the grinder out of the player. In front of content that someone does not enjoy, the idea is that said someone would skip that content, not play through it.
The patch has some interesting ideas.
Having a (somewhat) reliable way to get tier 6 crafting materials, as well as rares and exotics (which double as a source of ectos) is a good step for the game – this removes (a bit of) the RNG elements in the game. It’s somewhat unfortunate that ArenaNet has decided to implement this system through, ironically, RNG (random tier 6 materials and random rare or exotic equipment), but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
Adding new karma sinks is also a good idea. Having a system that allows people to convert karma into gold is nice, considering how the conversion rate is not very high. Again, too bad ArenaNet decided to do it through RNG, AGAIN.
The change to dailies and monthlies is a good idea. The fact dailies reward equally grinders and casual players is great. A pity the system still needs more fine tunning (see the combo dailies).
I did wish the dailies would actually give people to spread around the world. Having a daily saying “do 10 events in Ascalon”, or “kill 10 types of enemies in Kryta”, would really help to make people explore more of the GW2 world.
Why is it that everything in this game gives Obsidian Shards as a reward? It’s one of the most useless things in the game.
The only way to get laurels is through dailies, and who knows if the next day will have daily acheivements you want to do?
It’s a matter of how much you enjoy the game. If you like all aspects of the game, most, if not all dailies, will be something you would enjoy doing. If you only enjoy a single, limited aspect of the game, finding a daily you enjoy is going to take some time, but then again if you only enjoy a single, limited aspect of the game, maybe it’s not a game for you…
As much as I don’t have a single character, I disagree with this.
The fact that dailies are limited to one laurel per day per account, no matter what, is actually a kind of DR system. It’s tailored so grinders and casual players are equalized – a grinder can play 10 hours per day, but he still won’t make more laurels than a casual player who plays 1 hour per day. This is how the entire economy should be balanced. Allowing people to get more than one laurel per day would benefit people with alts, sure, but losing this DR system isn’t worth it.
Temple merchants (the ones unlocked after capturing a temple) offer new exotic accessories and backpiece. The Melandru merchant has wayfarer gear, for example.
Everything is becoming more difficult and grindy to do
Not really.
Before today: only way to get tier 6 crafting materials was to kill enemies and hope one of them would give you the materials you want. Completely random.
After today: use laurels to get tier 6 crafting materials. Which materials exactly are random, but at least you know you will get tier 6 stuff.
Same thing for obtaining rare and exotic weapons – while enemy drops are not reliable, laurels give you rare and exotic equipment.
In both cases, it may not be exactly the item you want, but adding so much more supply will lower prices and thus reduce the grind in the game. The fact this system is self limited (a grinder is not going to get daily achievements more than once per day, even if he plays 10 hours per day) means it won’t add too much wealth differences betwen players, further reducing the grind.
The issue, as seen in the topic asking ArenaNet to remove crafting from the dailies, is that people somehow believe they are forced to get dailies each and every day. That is making the game a grind. If the current daily has something you do not enjoy, just skip it. A single laurel isn’t going to make much of a difference.
This is something ArenaNet should not change.
Of course someone is going to come here every day and complain that “OMG, the daily/monthly requires me to do X and I don’t want to do it!”. The idea behind dailies and monthlies is that they reward multiple different aspects of the game, so it’s obvious that once in a while they will involve an aspect of the game someone does not enjoy. The best fix for this is something ArenaNet already promised – giving 6 options and requiring people to do only 4 of them. Even then, some people are going to complain – I’m sure a guy who only enjoys playing through Fractals over and over will complain about not being able to do all dailies within Fractals alone. That kind of complaint is rather meaningless, though.
ArenaNet, please don’t change this. It’s not worth changing, and there are a lot more important things in the game to be fixed (like all the remaining bugs).
It’s great to see that ArenaNet is updating the Legendaries. There is still hope for the Minstrel and Metereologicus, it seems.
you would have seen that I didn’t ask if they had been nerfed.
No?
Something’s gotta be at fault here… Did you nerf rare drop rates or something?
Again, reading comprehension is a great thing.
Is there any advantage to having more than 2 disciplines
The advantage is kinda obvious – you can craft more things. If you have a warrior, for example, you could benefit from armorsmith, weaponsmith, huntsman, jeweler and chef.
Why bother with a Gathering system if players are just gonna grind money instead and then buy their ingredients?
Because the gathering system is used for the materials people don’t buy. Ores and wood are usually not bought, since they can be gathered. What blocks progression, especially in the 100 crafting range, are the fine crafting materials such as vials of blood, which are not gathered, rather found as drops.
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