Guild Wars 2

Nisshoku.3479:

I ask of you, why do you ultimately play a video game? Do you play for in-game rewards and benefits? It seems awfully backward to play a game just so you can get a sword with big numbers that are meaningful only in the game and aesthetics that also only retain meaning within the game.

Because that’s what matters to some people like myself. I care about how my character looks not because of prestige or because I want to show how awesome I am, but because it matters to myself and myself alone. Is that really so hard to comprehend? They’ve made level 80 a grind, which they promised it wouldn’t be (and it wasn’t during the Betas – dungeon gear, order armor and cultural armor costed far less), then, after so doing, they won’t even allow you to do that grind.

So I ask you, what is the point of all this? Because as it is right now, there’s no logic to anything at level 80. Don’t tell me it’s having fun, because doing the same DEs or dungeons over and over again or waiting for the limit to reset sure as hell isn’t (not to me at least).

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Soon we will be playing a new version of guild wars 2 that forces you to pay to get things done in a timely manner. Like, you can pay to reset your DE limit for the day. Similar to the games like farmville. They’d probably call it “Farmville: you can’t farm unless you pay us”.

That, unfortunately, is the future of gaming.

Nisshoku.3479:

Gauradan.8361:

Nisshoku.3479:

So you only want to play the game if it gives you decent virtual items?

How laughably trivial and idiotic.

Your post is idiotic. Grinding the same thing over and over again is definitely not fun and that’s what they meant for us to do. As such, we wanted to make do with rewards. Guess what? No rewards either.

And yet again, you get worked up that imaginary actions don’t lead to significant imaginary gain. You’re philosophy on playing video games is incredibly skewed.

I guess we’ve been playing different video games then. Because in the ones I played, rewards were a big part of the “fun” I was having.

Furthermore, if there are no rewards then there’s no fun to be had at level 80. Why? Because no matter how much you claim you’re doing it with friends/guild and you’re doing it right and so forth, after the 10th run of the same dungeon you’ll probably want to rip your hair off at the thought of going back there.

Nisshoku.3479:

So you only want to play the game if it gives you decent virtual items?

How laughably trivial and idiotic.

Your post is idiotic. Grinding the same thing over and over again is definitely not fun and that’s what they meant for us to do. As such, we wanted to make do with rewards. Guess what? No rewards either.

I agree. The grind at level 80 is enormous yet they are putting in place more and more ways of stopping you from doing it. Karma armor costs a lot, yet now they’ve come up with an event limit; dungeon armors cost a lot, yet the dungeons are the most unrewarding experience I’ve ever had in a game and the list goes on.

Now, my opinion is that all of this is to encourage you to buy gems and trade them for gold. That, however, doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the cause, but until they actually start making the game more rewarding and less punitive and remove all the stupid anti-grind mechanics when they clearly meant for us to grind (the anti-farm code, the event limit, the dungeon reward diminishing), I will not be logging into the game anymore.

I will, however, probably keep posting on these forums in the faint, faint hope that we might be heard.

DusK.3849:

There’s plenty of insight into their philosophy on their blog. Lots of it, spanning several years. How did you miss all of that stuff?

Funny though that older posts contradict the newer ones. I guess ArenaNet are either so shameless that they went back on everything they said without asking us, the customers, or they have schizophrenia. I’m most certain it is the former, but were it the latter, the question comes to mind whether they should be developing video games.

Alice.8694:

I’d tell you you’re talking kittenkittens… And suggest you actually try to demonstrate this with data before making absurd assertions that clearly aren’t true.

Clearly aren’t true because…? Fact is that ArenaNet are nerfing every decent source of income, while also having huge gold sinks, like the Trading Post 15% cut and posting fee, repairs, waypoints. What I just mentioned is factual information, whereas you just said: “You’re not right. Period.”

Tempest.9175:

Gauradan.8361:

Tempest.9175:

What is depressing for most of you MMO veterans here is that the idea of exploring the entire world from head to toe and enjoying it is both foreign and scary.

On my main, I’m one area away from 100% world completion. I did everything else, including the WvWvW maps (don’t even get me started on how they shouldn’t have been included in the exploration requirement), but I can’t pull myself to do this one area. Why? Because there’s no reward to completing the map. Do you know what you’re getting? A star next to your name and 2 Gifts of Exploration. The gifts are used for legendary weapons, but seeing how they’re a horrendous grind to get, most people will never have one. You’d think that after having vested over 100 hours in completing the map, you’d get something more than that. Nope, sorry. Screw you.

That’s our problem. The game doesn’t feel rewarding. Even grinding doesn’t feel rewarding because of the anti-farm code. Nothing feels rewarding. It’s like you’re just doing it with no purpose and no tangible reward. The only thing that feels remotely rewarding is buying stuff with gems, but that’s about that. I guess they meant for it to be this way.

The only people that make money in the game are the flippers, who buy low and sell high. Oh, you farmed those crafting mats for 10 hours in Orr? How about I make a profit off your sorry backside by logging in for half an hour.

You’ll see that once the novelty wears off, there will be no incentive to do the so-called fun activities you’ve enumerated, since you too will feel like you’re not being rewarded.

Reward scheme, old hat. :P What I mean that the reward was not there to make the consumer feel better and enjoy the game. The reward was there to justify your time and not cancel your subscription. I personally have 8 gold. I did a bit of cooking, (Plan to finish up more on that later.) sold gear that I couldn’t use for 50c to 1s and sold mats that I would not use now.

Which proves my point. The very old mentality that to enjoy an MMORPG is to raid endgame content and get gear to show how much time you consumed on a boss. Designed to drain your time on purpose to justify the subscription cost. In GW2, end game loot is more of a personal goal to look a certain way, than to increase your kitten.

For an MMO to start to evolve, that very mentality has to go. Also there are portions on the map that are named, but cannot be explored yet. Maybe content for the future?

Maybe pvp some? Start a new story?
Replay a video game again from the beginning to have fun? God such a stupid idea for an MMO. :P Most importantly, the game is yours in full. No extra charge for it. You can always come back again after you believe you may have burned yourself out without fear of being left behind. Everyone plays other games to not burn themselves out. :P

I play Killing floor and DoW2 every while as well and to not feel left behind in an MMO is quite magical :P

If you had read my previous posts you would know that I don’t want gear to show off my virtual awesomeness. I have never been a hardcore raider, not in WoW, not in Rift, not in SWTOR. I want gear because the way my character looks matters to me. If I have to work 200 hours to get the look I like, then I can already kiss the game goodbye.

Auroma.9126:

Naminator.9316:

OK so its been like what 3 week?

You are telling us that you are upset because you can not have the best of the best items in 3 weeks?

In an MMO?

Seriously?

I’m lvl 61 right now…..

I stopped reading after that, if you are having fun I hope you continue to have it after you hit 80 as well. I just posted my opinion, what you like may be different from what I like, no point in arguing with fellow players. This post is more towards Arena Net and we would like to hear what they have to say on this after the way Guild Wars 2 was marketed to us.

What could they possibly tell you? That they did it for the money. We all know they did. Nothing they could possibly say or do will change my view on all of this.

Alice.8694:

Over sensationalism because you’re butthurt about having the repetitive CoF abuse to get easy prestige armor fixed. Yes, fixed… Not nerfed because it wasn’t intended for you to do it in the first place.

Of course it wasn’t intended! How could one even think that you should earn money by playing? The only decent way is to buy gems and sell them for gold. Silly us!

Naminator.9316:

OK so its been like what 3 week?

You are telling us that you are upset because you can not have the best of the best items in 3 weeks?

In an MMO?

Seriously?

I’m lvl 61 right now, and I am enjoying the game to it’s full extent! And I will be playing this game for a long time to come.

The problem that you have is that you just simply burned out on the game! You most likely played for 8+ hours a day, every day and now that you are bored of it, so you cry and cry.

Sorry dude, but it’s not our problem that you think you are entitled to everything right away, and that you think you should be able to beat the game within the first month!

Besides, I have a feeling that you are the type of person that goes to the forums of every new game that you buys to kitten about something!

And I can tell that if you did get your wish, and you actually would acquire the best items in the game, you would be here right now complaining and crying about how short the game is and how you have nothing to do because you beat it all.

Call back when you’re level 80 and you’re farming the same events in Orr over and over again to get your armor. Tell me how much fun you’ll be having then.

Auroma.9126:

Well Mr. Mod he speaks for me, and I would like to hear what Arena Net says about this topic. I don’t want to play another grindfest mmorpg. I have already played too many of them, biggest waste of time and money in my opinion. You have my support OP, don’t feel disheartened by this “title change”.

ArenaNet says nothing, but they are heavily moderating the thread. I just got one post (not sure which) deleted for being off-topic.

The difference between those MMOs and this one is that in those games they wanted to keep you paying 13 Euro/15 USD per month, whereas here they would like you to pay much more.

Qelris.6901:

LostMK.4089:

and now people can’t even complete CM, HoW, or CoF Explore mode runs at all

good job Trion Riot ArenaNet

What’s a trion riot? and I thought my friend did CoF 2 days ago. O_0

and a mmo without grind? Nice joke. :O

It was unrealistic to expect there would be no grind, but when they marketed it as the salvation of MMOs, you would have at least expected that it would be less than in other MMOs.

Trion is the developer of Rift, Riot is the developer of League of Legends.

Tempest.9175:

What is depressing for most of you MMO veterans here is that the idea of exploring the entire world from head to toe and enjoying it is both foreign and scary.

On my main, I’m one area away from 100% world completion. I did everything else, including the WvWvW maps (don’t even get me started on how they shouldn’t have been included in the exploration requirement), but I can’t pull myself to do this one area. Why? Because there’s no reward to completing the map. Do you know what you’re getting? A star next to your name and 2 Gifts of Exploration. The gifts are used for legendary weapons, but seeing how they’re a horrendous grind to get, most people will never have one. You’d think that after having vested over 100 hours in completing the map, you’d get something more than that. Nope, sorry. Screw you.

That’s our problem. The game doesn’t feel rewarding. Even grinding doesn’t feel rewarding because of the anti-farm code. Nothing feels rewarding. It’s like you’re just doing it with no purpose and no tangible reward. The only thing that feels remotely rewarding is buying stuff with gems, but that’s about that. I guess they meant for it to be this way.

The only people that make money in the game are the flippers, who buy low and sell high. Oh, you farmed those crafting mats for 10 hours in Orr? How about I make a profit off your sorry backside by logging in for half an hour.

You’ll see that once the novelty wears off, there will be no incentive to do the so-called fun activities you’ve enumerated, since you too will feel like you’re not being rewarded.

Stratto.3869:

Arsenal.2601:

Operative word: “game”. Do the parts you like, skip the parts you don’t, move on when you’ve had enough. Anything else is madness.

Negative, Operative word: “Product” Pay for what you were promised, raise objections to changes in the quality after payment, don’t shut up until you get what you payed for. (they did this back in the old days) Anything else is consumerism.

Agreed. I bought the game on the 10th of April. I was promised an MMO in which the traditional grind had been removed. What I was given was an MMO with even worse grind. And don’t tell me it’s optional; they themselves stated progression in GW2 is about looks. If I have to work 100 hours to progress, then the game is nothing more than a Korean grindfest.

Hostar.1390:

What, welcome to MMOs. They are inevitably doing the same thing over and over. It’s whether YOU enjoy it or not is the difference.

When you play an FPS game and see the same map again, is it somehow a ‘grind’? Should you rock on forums and complain that there isn’t thousands of maps to prevent this?

Not sure what you were expecting with GW2, but it seems like you’re hoping for a game that will never come.

I’m thinking you’re suffering from genre burnout.

Oh, I think I’m suffering from “don’t-screw-with-my-enjoyment-just-so-you-can-make-more-money” syndrome. Heard of it?

metaverse.6821:

Gauradan.8361:

As Stratto (at least I believe it was him) pointed out, there was enough grinding for legendary weapons. Dungeon armors shouldn’t be a grind. Oh, and I can compare the games. ArenaNet should give me reasons to play their game over Skyrim. It should feel at least as enjoyable and rewarding as the other option. Right now, besides the fact that it’s very much unrewarding, it’s also highly punitive (given repair and waypoint travel costs and how much you die).

I don’t think the problem is the grind for dungeon armor. I think the problem is the lack of reward. Losing more coin then you come in with is not good and discourages people from doing a dungeon.

I can imagine the casual group that wants to tackle these things and come out naked because their armor is destroyed and have lost more than they gained even trying the dungeon.

The armors SHOULD be a grind, I think they should. Don’t compare this to a single player game, if they just gave out the dungeon armor no one would care for it. The reason people want it is because it’s hard to get. A single player game doesn’t work like that, especially with mods and cheats where players can get anything they want basically…

With that said, I tihnk the armors should be a grind. But the problem is that when you finish a dungeon it’s not rewarding. When you down a big boss you get stuff you’ll vendor.

I downed Tequatal or whatever his name is, the big dragon in sparkfly…everything there I vendored, think I came out with 2 more silver. Actually I guess that’s not bad considering this (like most DEs) was pretty easy with all the people around.

I love the game I just think the rewards are a bit off. Dungeons should be far more rewarding at least

And I never said I should get dungeon armor as soon as I logged in. However, the time and effort required to get them now are absurd.

Roxey.3695:

I think arenanet is doing their best to give us a game that is enjoyable. The more you kitten and whine, the less that gets done. So the game isnt completely perfect at release, what MMO ever was? What MMO in existence never had any bug or patch updates fixing things.

Bugs? Really? How about the fact that dungeon and cultural armor cost were increased tenfold since the beta? Nobody complained in the beta yet they were changed anyway.

Nobody complained about dyes being account-wide either. That was changed as well.

Nobody complained about transmutation stones costing karma. Now they cost gems.

If you think ArenaNet is doing this for your enjoyment, you’re either a fanboy or a fool. I know this might come as a surprise to you (in fact, it would be wise if you grabbed on to something, this may be exceedingly shocking), but it’s about money. MONEY. M-O-N-E-Y.

If we accept what they did with the cash shop so far, we’ll be seeing a lot worse. A lot worse.

metaverse.6821:

Gauradan.8361:

Flashheart.8749:

They should just allow direct purchase of all 80 Exotics with Gems, then you could just flex the plastic and you wouldn’t need to actually play the game at all… cause thats what you want right ? more stuff in less playing time ?

Only the individual can determine if an arbitrary amount of time spent doing something they deem as a chore is worth a few pixels. That time will vary wildly.

Whereas as the people that seem to enjoy actually playing the game and see them as a bonus generally agree the time to aquire is acceptable, whatever it is.

Then, if people deem it acceptable and noone will speak up so that ArenaNet will change the costs to the previous costs (because, oh, did I mention dungeon armor was easier to acquire in betas and cultural armor costed less?), I will probably be playing Skyrim because guess what? There the armor that I like is a command line away and the choice whether to work for it so that I feel accomplishment when wearing it is mine and mine alone. That doesn’t mean I use cheats, because I don’t, but the choice is there. I don’t care about prestige and showing off my armor. I care about how my character looks. If I have to grind for 200 hours so that my character can look the way I want, ArenaNet and their game can go to hell.

Also you can’t compare a single player game to a multiplayer one.

Single player games can literally give out this stuff, a MMO has to have stuff that must seem rare.

All I am asking for is man when I beat a boss in a explorable mode can I get something of worth? Something to make me feel I was rewarded for downing the boss?

As Stratto (at least I believe it was him) pointed out, there was enough grinding for legendary weapons. Dungeon armors shouldn’t be a grind. Oh, and I can compare the games. ArenaNet should give me reasons to play their game over Skyrim. It should feel at least as enjoyable and rewarding as the other option. Right now, besides the fact that it’s very much unrewarding, it’s also highly punitive (given repair and waypoint travel costs and how much you die).

Flashheart.8749:

They should just allow direct purchase of all 80 Exotics with Gems, then you could just flex the plastic and you wouldn’t need to actually play the game at all… cause thats what you want right ? more stuff in less playing time ?

Only the individual can determine if an arbitrary amount of time spent doing something they deem as a chore is worth a few pixels. That time will vary wildly.

Whereas as the people that seem to enjoy actually playing the game and see them as a bonus generally agree the time to aquire is acceptable, whatever it is.

Then, if people deem it acceptable and noone will speak up so that ArenaNet will change the costs to the previous costs (because, oh, did I mention dungeon armor was easier to acquire in betas and cultural armor costed less?), I will probably be playing Skyrim because guess what? There the armor that I like is a command line away and the choice whether to work for it so that I feel accomplishment when wearing it is mine and mine alone. That doesn’t mean I use cheats, because I don’t, but the choice is there. I don’t care about prestige and showing off my armor. I care about how my character looks. If I have to grind for 200 hours so that my character can look the way I want, ArenaNet and their game can go to hell.

Stratto.3869:

Gauradan.8361:

It might not be fear of punishment, but rather denial. Some people might not want to admit that the cash shop destroyed every principle ArenaNet and the game stood for. I also hoped the game would be what it was promising 2-3 years ago. It’s clearly not and that’s not because ArenaNet couldn’t have pulled it off, but because they (or NcSoft) figured that with all the hype surrounding the game, they could add more inconveniences in the game in order to encourage cash shop usage. What we’re seeing here is NcSoft heavily milking the only succesful game it has.

I couldn’t Agree more. I would love for them to swoop down and prove us wrong. I would welcome a discussion with the Devs, because I have harder questions than the ones they prematurely agree with in the interviews they have.

They will never discuss it with people like you or me, because we’d be asking tough questions. Instead, we’ll probably see interviews with gaming “press” telling us how awesome and completely fair the cash shop design is.

DrixTrix.7168:

now while we do alot of dungeons the explorable modes are genius, different bosses etc? yes please a different experence whenever we enter and theres so MANY DE’s (1500 i belive which also trigger some minor others) they all have story and dilouge and im sorry but if you dont like story and dilouge and learning about this fantasy world them the MMORPG is probably not the right choice of gaming.

The only reason I’m probably playing is because of the setting of the game. I’m a RPG guy, and as such storytelling is important to me. However, the game doesn’t even come close to excelling in that regard. Personal story, starting from levels 40-50 becomes cheesy and dull, with a certain character taking the spotlight with you being his errand boy/girl. Add to that the fact that you get destroyed by mobs so often and a hero is the last thing that this game makes you feel like.

So, yes, I want this game to be Skyrim, because it had good storytelling and I could play it at the difficulty I wanted without feeling punished. I want this game to be the Witcher 2, because it had excellent storytelling. However, it’s neither. And while it may have a large enough fanboy crowd to be successful, to me, it’s just another MMO flop.

Stratto.3869:

^THAT is exactly what I am calling them out on. It s HUGE Problem that everyone knows about in the back of their heads but they are too concerned with punishment to actually bring it up. We, as the consumers shouldn’t have to be scared of repercussions for voicing our opinion. After all we did pay for a product based on the message of “NO MORE GRIND”

It might not be fear of punishment, but rather denial. Some people might not want to admit that the cash shop destroyed every principle ArenaNet and the game stood for. I also hoped the game would be what it was promising 2-3 years ago. It’s clearly not and that’s not because ArenaNet couldn’t have pulled it off, but because they (or NcSoft) figured that with all the hype surrounding the game, they could add more inconveniences in the game in order to encourage cash shop usage. What we’re seeing here is NcSoft heavily milking the only succesful game it has.

Soothsayer.9476:

Stratto.3869:

LostMK.4089:

good job Trion Riot ArenaNet

Well played. I’m OK with things taking time, but when you can actively see them expanding on that ammount of time it’s aggravating. I got a full time job and a partimer, I don’t have the time to farm for a few hours a day.

Then don’t farm for a few hours a day, why do you even need to? Because you want everything right now?

Have you ever tried not to be a mindless fanboy? They promised a game without gruelling grinds. Now, when it’s released, we find out the endgame is even grindier than in other MMOs. Then, when people find ways to elude the grind or make it easier, they nerf them. Why? As the OP pointed out, they’re trying to coerce you into spending money on gems (perhaps more money per month than you would have paid for a subscription). I would rather have paid 13 euros per month than have the game become this pile of dung designed to make you use the shop.

Fine transmutation stones used to be available for karma. Now, you hardly ever get them in the world, so store’s the way to go.

Repairs were something they weren’t even considering a year or two ago, yet here they are.

Traits were promised not to have a respec cost, yet here it is.

They claimed mounts weren’t needed because we had waypoints. Yet who would’ve known they would cost so much?

Because of the store, certain areas of the game are worse than even Guild Wars 1 (travel was free there, there was no armor damage).

No matter how much perfume you put on a pile of dung it will still stink. Despite the viral marketing, despite the crappy trailer that tells us about how they are innovating the genre, some people can still see that the endgame was designed to be a korean grind (a la NcSoft), designed to encourage you to use the store.

Of course you have to use the gem store, silly! What did you think, this was some game designed for the player to have fun in? Nonsense!

On a more serious note, I’ve been leveling an alt and I haven’t been playing my level 80 character, so I wouldn’t know. However, knowing ArenaNet and the lengths they went to in order to encourage people to use the cash shop, nothing surprises me anymore.

LooLoo.1437:

I just always figured ArenaNet wanted it to be hard to make money so you would give them money to give you money so you can spend your money and then give them more money so they can give you money. :|

This. I’m pretty certain it was all designed with the gem store in mind.