Guild Wars 2

There you go Fortus…you should’ve known nothing good comes from visiting these forums.

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who leaves the game over a skin, I feel bad for. Because it’s a skin. There will be more skins, different skins, perhaps even better skins. There are so many skins. Is one skin so important, really?

Guess that depends on the person.

The way I see it, is that because of the lack of gear progression, endgame content revolves around getting skins. Since most skins are easy to acquire and there’s only a few that are rare and RNG is the way to get it.

The way I see it, is that if you want a specific skin and it’s down to RNG or massive grind/farming to get it because it really is the only long term goal, then you either quit because it’s too far out of reach or once you get it. This game is not for goal oriented people in that sense.

Really, if exotic gear in general wasn’t so dead easy to get and the quality of skins was better overall, this game would be a lot better.

arjeidi.2690:

My advice:

Get over yourself. If some players have to put up with RNG, then so do you. You’re not any more special than the rest of us. You don’t deserve to put up with RNG? Then go elsewhere, nobody’s stopping you.

Bad reasoning.

RNG makes some more special than the rest of us. That’s the whole point of this RNG crap. It’s therefore logical that people complain about it in a game like this. RNG like it’s applied here is just a cheap mechanic probably used because the rest of the game is too casual.

Fizz.1072:

I haven’t played since last year, but i want to know whats the meta? whats strong? weak?

What has changed?
I want to get back in the game

get berzerker gear no matter which class you play. ascended gear is time gated so do your dailies and monthlies.

That’s about it really.

Esplen.3940:

snip

Nice story and it could be true or not. Also Anet could’ve gotten hacked. Point is, we’ll never know for sure and what this thread is actually about is the fact that Anet hasn’t invested in tools like some other games do to help people recover their stuff.

Accounts get hacked. It’s a fact of life basically. I don’t even care whose fault it is at this stage, but bottom line is that game companies know this stuff happens and they then decide what they want to do to help their customers or not.

Online games are not just a product, it’s a service. I think that if people play the same game for years and collect stuff that takes time to get etc. that it’s a good idea to have something in place that you can help your own customers with.

The fact that Anet doesn’t offer it, is purely a cost decision, nothing more. Possibly their business model is at fault there. As much as people hate subs, there are downsides to things being cheaper.

Although GW2 has improved graphics/detail I still prefer the GW1 skins. I have seen some more skins that are reminiscent of GW1 items but not to my liking.

kokiman.2364:

Gehenna.3625:

welcome to Anet.

In GW1 I got hacked once.

That’s wrong noone “hacks” your GW1 account. You gave them your login informations, either via a keylogger or by visiting phising sites. As most of the time the customer made the mistake and it is the companies good will to give the account back to the owner.

The expected bull answer.

If it was me, then tell me why I never got hacked before, not in any of the other games I played at the same time I got hacked, and never since? Exactly you can’t and you’re just assuming things but you don’t know anything. This story about it being the end user at fault is true in some cases but it’s far from the only possibility. The things where the companies are responsible, they never discuss of course, but also companies get hacked. Is that also not being hacked? Is that the company giving the data away? C’mon…

And to answer the other person, yes they had account recovery and that means you get back what’s left of it, you don’t get any items or lost gold or whatever back. As I said, I got my account back with naked toons, not a single item was restored and this happened about 2 years ago, so quite late into the game.

welcome to Anet.

In GW1 I got hacked once. The only game I ever got hacked in btw. I had 14 characters at the time and more than 50 elite armour sets, including some obsidian sets. All of it was gone. Anet’s response: block the account and give it back to me with naked toons. I was lucky the hacker didn’t delete my characters or they would’ve been gone too, but I lost everything I built up over years.

Anet never had and still doesn’t have any tools in their tool set for recovery. The fact is they can’t help you because they didn’t invest in any sort of recovery system. That’s the answer I got in GW1 and it looks like that approach is still the same.

callidus.7085:

Gehenna.3625:

Meglobob.8620:

I think your best on equipment going all zerker and if you need something different adjust your traits, its the cheaper option, than changing your equipment.

Sadly that seems to be the truth. I say sadly because this is what actually limits diversity.
Character classes in this game are mostly fluff and because of that it’s turned into a one-size-fits-all situation. Which is too bad because it actually takes a lot of diversity out of the game.

You could just test builds using greens… you take a known build using greens and use that as your baseline… test it out, see how it feels, how difficult content seems to be. Then try out your new build, if it is as difficult or less, than you know your build with that gear is good (otherwise it’s not and not worth the investment). Things don’t need to be measured for their true value so to speak, just measured comparatively.

You are talking to the wrong person. I am just saying that it’s sad that there is one set of stats that’s best for all…I am not concerned about the investment.

If anything it would be better if you needed to invest in armour for various builds, but as those builds are not as strong most people don’t care and it all seems a bit pointless to do so.

Vayne.8563:

Whether people like or don’t like a game is subjective. But I believe it’s a fact that a whole lot of people didn’t like Aion. A whole lot of people also don’t like WoW or Guild Wars 2.

While someone’s opinion of a game is subjective, the fact that a whole lot of people don’t like any game is probably more factual than opinion.

And if you look at the original post I was replying to, which was completely subjective, I don’t really see your objection here.

It’s simple…you accuse others of being subjective and then you turn around and do the same thing. Now you claim there’s nothing wrong with being subjective. So why accuse the other guy about it first if you’re gonna turn around and do the same?

And what exactly was your point with this comment because I can also say that a whole lot of people do like Aion and that would be right to, but it’s meaningless….so yeh, were you just typing for the sake of typing or was there an actual point there?

Meglobob.8620:

I think your best on equipment going all zerker and if you need something different adjust your traits, its the cheaper option, than changing your equipment.

Sadly that seems to be the truth. I say sadly because this is what actually limits diversity.
Character classes in this game are mostly fluff and because of that it’s turned into a one-size-fits-all situation. Which is too bad because it actually takes a lot of diversity out of the game.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t need numbers to say a whole lot of people. If 1000 people hated it, it’s a whole lot of people. A number like that can be used, because it’s going to be true. I’m sure if you polled everyone who ever played it a reasonable percentage of people wouldn’t have liked it, including the people who left it because you ran out of quests and had to grind when it first game out. There was a mass exodus from the game at around that time, presumably because people didn’t like it.

A whole lot of people don’t like ANY game. So you can say it. It’s really that simple.

But it’s still subjective.

Tachenon.5270:

I am sorry to say, you are all wrong.

Obviously, he is talking about the aesthetics of combat – how the combat in GW2 looks! He says it clearly, in two whole sentences! It’s so obvious I simply don’t understand how anyone can miss it; it’s like falling off a log and somehow missing the ground. But I’ll isolate the defining statements for everyone, and then we can all rest easy because any and all doubts will have been replaced with the assuredness of pure certainty.

Here goes!

“When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’"

See? Obvious! Now for the next one, the crowning glory, as it were:

“We want to change the way that people view combat.”

So, let’s have no more arguments! It’s all been settled. It’s about aesthetics.

And you’re welcome.

That just changes the discussion….combat in GW2 makes me not go “wow, that’s visually stunning” but “holy kitten, who blew up ten dozen rainbows on my screen!??!”

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Mujen.5287:

GW2 is a grind? I played Aion for almost 3 years, I will show you grind.

And yet Aion is still more fun than this.

Subjective. Aion sucked for a whole lot of people. If Aion was more fun than this, more people would currently be playing Aion than this…and that’s not the case as far as I can tell.

Your comment is also subjective. What is a whole lot of people? Do you have numbers to quantify this?
What numbers do you have to support the player numbers of each game as it is?

That’s right. You don’t have numbers.

I can tell you that in the financial reports, Aion is not far behind in sales compared to GW2 this year, but even that doesn’t tell you anything about the number of players.

But Aion is still getting big content updates… 4.0 being around the corner for example. Again no evidence of player numbers but one could argue easily that Aion is still alive and well and not doing as poorly as you seem to suggest.

Certainly you must admit your comments here are also very subjective.

Is it not much fairer to say that just like beauty, fun is in the eye of the beholder? Fun is not a static concept that is the same for everyone.

So if one person thinks Aion is more fun, they are right. If another thinks GW2 is more fun, they are also right…because opinions are always subjective.

Vayne.8563:

It hasn’t evolved in the direction the majority of players like? What majority? Where do you get your information? Have you polled all the players?

Comments like this are much weaker, because you can’t substantiate your point. It’s true you might be right, but you can’t know, and saying you do brings the entire post into question.

Funny, I remember saying the same stuff to you not too long ago. But I will gladly agree with you. Any one who quotes majorities without actual reliable figures is not telling the truth. People should say “what I think” instead of “most people think”. Would make discussions a lot more honest in my view.

GW2 is definitely different in some ways from other MMOs that are out there. I never played WoW so I can’t comment on that but the it is a bit like a double edged sword. On the one hand you don’t have the traditional trinity and gear treadmill….on the other hand it can also cause people to find the game uninteresting because of it. Every person will have their own preferences with regards to that, but I will say that once I’ve done things in this game like world completion, doing all jumping puzzles and such, I just don’t feel like doing that again.

I played the game again for three weeks…enough to level a new toon to 80 and tried to level a second one…but got bored at level 11 again. I got full exotics on my level 80 and a neat GS that I wanted but after doing some champion runs I am just…what now?

It was fun leveling a toon but I had to stay away from the game for 8 months to enjoy it again and endgame is still very much lacking for me. So, hey, more power to you if you can keep yourself busy in this game for hours and hours but I really don’t get it.

Sure the age old formula that WoW represents needs help and there is not doubt it also has drawbacks. I guess I see GW2 as an interesting attempt to do something different but for me it wasn’t quite that successful.

I am sure you won’t mind if stop playing (and posting again) in the very near future. I don’t think this game was a waste of money for me ( I played hundreds of hours in the first couple of months) but to me it plays kinda like a RPG that I’ve finished and just wanted to pick up again, just to give it another run through and now that my new toon is 80 and geared up, it feels like I’m done again. But hey that’s ok, plenty more games to play. Just bit sad still because I enjoyed GW1 so much and really wanted to like GW2 just as much.

I dunno I hadn’t played for at least 8 months and a number of things are more casual friendly.

Some story line quests are easier than they were.
Some of the dungeons have been made easier on a number of encounters.
Orr is not quite as crowded as it used to be.

It could be perception, but I really felt that this time around a fair number of things were totally easier.

I think that if you are more casual, just ignore fractals and don’t worry about farming for legendaries and you can be a casual player easy. In fact it’s the only way I can enjoy this game for a little bit at a time.

Neve.7134:

This farming is terribile and ruin the game. Expecially those farming in Orr. They dont even care about dead people and Keep rushing To another Champion. Really, What game permits that?

I have to agree with this point. The zergs going around killing champions are so fast that you have to focus on getting a few hits in and rushing on or you miss out. It does mean that people who die are on their own a lot. You just don’t have time to ress people or you lose out on loot. It’s that simple.

Why? Because the champions that are being killed die and respawn too quickly. Get a decent size zerg and these champions die in like 10-15 secconds and then the zerg moves along like locusts. It takes a few seconds to ress someone, a bit more if they are defeated.

To quote a now-famous woman: Ain’t nobody got time for that!

The OP makes a fuss about something he created himself. Nobody levels up without gearing up unless they are some masochist or something.

It’s not realistic to exclude gear from the calculation. Gear is particularly powerful in downscaling because the effects of gear are so significant. As you level up, especially compared to the start level, you get more pieces of gear first of all. That means that a level 3 characte doesn’t have shoulders, a helmet or any trinkets (except the bonus one you might get). That means a lot more sources of stats you don’t have at low level.

Secondly as gear goes up in levels it also gets more stat slots per item. Where a low item might have a +4 power on it as a single stat slot, higher pieces have multiple slots.

Then there is the addition of the traits and more versatility of skills and you are a virtual killer machine in low level areas. I can kill level 4 mobs with my level 80 guardian even when leveled down with 1 whirlwind attack. That’s how powerful a level 80 is when downleveled.

Why would Anet make their life more difficult with trying to make downleveling more relative to your actual level rather than gear? It’s not needed because you are OP just the same in lowby areas and no one at level 80 still wears starter gear.

Or in short: your comparison is not realistic.

Fantastic Timez.3641:

Hello, my name is Ferdinando and I am a supervised researcher at Flinders University, Australia. I’m doing research investigating to what extent male gamers use conventional beliefs about gender in order to portray masculinity in Guild Wars 2. I’m interested in finding out your opinions, views and experiences when playing as a male character in Guild Wars 2. I’m looking for men who are 18 years old or older and play a male main character. However anyone can contribute and comment.

I find the premise for your research a bit odd to be honest. You say you want to investigate to what extent male gamers use conventional beliefs about gender etc. But you want to exclude males who play female characters. This doesn’t make sense to me for the following reason:

Male players who play female characters may indicate that they are not hung up on traditional views about masculinity or have a different way of looking at them or expressing them. How can you come to any useful conclusions about the extent if you exclude a group of male players?

Either your research goal is formulated incorrectly or you are setting yourself up for failure by excluding part of the needed demographic.

So are you trying to find out about the extent of traditional masculinity of male players or of male players who use a male main character because that’s not the same.

To give you an example: Traditional male masculinity includes things such as heterosexuality and mach behaviour. Would you not think that this is very much present for a male gamer who plays female characters because he thinks they’re hot? Would it not be a traditional masculine behaviour to objectify women and with that, wouldn’t playing female characters fit that bill?

In the end, I think you need to either make your research topic more specific or you need to include all male players to fit the current description.

Not a bad idea, but I will be expecting the threads here shouting: I got disconnected just before the event was done and now I get nothing!!!RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think this game is ok as long as I keep it casual and don’t play too often. Endgame is rather a mind numbing “running around like a headless chicken” thing. It can be fun at times but not too much of it.

The champion runs or pain trains were fun for a couple of days, but running around in circles killing the same 4 champions over and over again does get old. Not to mention that you really have to keep up because if you want to sell your stuff to a trader and take 10 seconds to do so, you might have missed the next champion. That’s how fast they die.

So that makes me wonder. Why do the champions respawn so quickly and why do they not scale up with bigger groups because a group of 20+ players just rips through them and we end up going faster than the respawns sometimes.

It’s a bit odd how they did this in my view.

I can sort of see the point of the op but I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to a korean mmo for one single reason. Like the way the game works or not but GW2 is a LOT more rewarding than korean MMOs are. If it’s like a korean MMO it’s an easy mode version of it.

I think it’s a great idea, especially about the traits. What I do wonder is if Anet will be able to make such a big overhaul, because it could take quite a bit of doing. They’ve kinda put themselves in a corner with this as it is, since all content is designed around how the combat system works now.

On the other hand if they took the invulnerability out of the dodge and got rid of insta kill shots from bosses and allow more dodging at the same time, it could already solve a lot of issues that might occur in redesigning the combat system. Dodge would just be a way to get out of aoe quicker but without giving any additional protection if you will. That will keep dodge as a useful element but makes it less powerful and less needed as a crucial survival skill. That could open the way for additional changes as the OP proposes.

Vayne.8563:

Forget server mergers. SWToR laid off half their staff when it was a younger game than Guild Wars 2. TSW laid off a third of their staff in less time than Guild Wars 2 has been out. And Anet is hiring. I know this because I know someone who lives in Seattle, who’s daughter interviewed at Anet.

I also remember Rift….it didn’t actually have server mergers…what it did was give people a free server transfer once a week and made the lowest pop servers test servers, without closing any servers. How long did that take? Less time than Guild Wars 2 has been out for now.

It’s okay not to like the game, but facts are facts. By the time Warhammer was this old, everyone knew it was over.

Fact is that Anet have been “hiring” for ages now. That you know somebody who says that someone went for an interview is not factual data for us. It’s hearsay at best.

I can put on a “now hiring” sign but not actually hire anyone so I am not sure what that means other than that they say they are hiring people.

On the other hand it is known that these other MMOs did lay off staff and that populations did dwindle quickly in all the games you mentioned. They all went to adding f2p options to bring people back which seems to’ve been successful as well.

But please, do not mix some facts with non facts and then make a general reference to facts. That is a tad misleading.

GW2 is not in danger of server merges as much as the other games were in my view because of the overflow trick they used. A very handy trick btw, I don’t mean that as a negative. Population in W2 probably has stabilised a bit by now and the bigger problem is that players are too spread out, but that’s another topic.

But the fact that matters here if you ask me is that Anet asked another company to make some figures for them. That’s something that makes this harder to take at face value. SWTOR also sold more than 3 million copies but what’s the significance of 9 months. A year would be a fairer indication. GW2 has sold pretty well I’d say, but this just feels like hyping again…wonder if it has to do with China opening and the 1 year anniversary of the game.

I think this is just all hype to get more people to try the game as sales are slowing down. Try GW2 for free…but hey, marketing is part of business.

salvage kits get more expensive relative to their chance of getting rare materials. The basic salvage kit, as per its description has a much lower chance to get any rare materials at all. Therefore the chance of getting ecto’s is per definition lower.

Perhaps the chance to get ecto’s compared to other rare materials is the same ratio but the chance to get rare materials at all is definitely lower with a basic salvage kit.

No, because I haven’t done it.

Justdeifyme.9387:

You know it’s temporary, right? It’s like holidays. Everyone jumps into the car and travels away for a few weeks. And then they come back again and everything is normal

Yep and when this holiday ends the next one is already in the pipeline. You just go from one event to the next. We hardly have time for the “normal”.

btw, I didn’t know you could turn the cogs in for gear…where is this done?

Karizee.8076:

It made news in Time again.

http://techland.time.com/2013/08/16/guild-wars-2-nabs-fastest-selling-western-mmo-crown-looks-east-for-more-records/

That link shows a bit more.

Well, so Anet asked another company to do some math for them. This by itself is a bit dubious in my book, but I don’t think anyone can deny that GW2 has sold very well indeed and they may have been the quickest at reaching 3 million, though obviously not the first and only one.

What will be interesting, with falling sales is how the game continues to do. I know, China is coming but that’s outside the calculation.

Please note it is the fastest selling MMO in the WEST. Asia is not included.

Another side note is that it’s the only MMO in the west with a big name that started without a sub model but has a box price. And this side note does make this claim of reaching 3 million copies a bit faster than other MMOs a bit tricky.

The lack of a sub model is more interesting to a broader audience. The gemstore is not pay2win so that helps a lot of people also. In essence you could argue that by itself should make the game an interesting choice for a lot of people.

I do not know how it is in other parts of the world but here in Europe, as far as I can tell, GW2 still has a pretty high box price for a game that’s a year old roughly. It is of course their main source of income and an important one because every game loses players continually and you need to bring in as many (or more) new players compared to how many you lose.

For the financial side, the gem store sales can help against losing players, but it doesn’t help against how filled the servers are, which is arguably one of the main features of an MMO: having other players to play with.

It’s great that they sold over 3 million copies of the game in a relatively short time, for an MMO at least, but I do wonder why it’s measured over 9 months instead of a year. Perhaps, it was chosen because sales are dropping and if they did it later they wouldn’t be able to maintain the claim. Personally, if they had waited a month and calculated it over the full year, I would’ve found that a more logical measuring stick.

And I would’ve given this measurement more credit if Anet hadn’t ordered it themselves but if it had been an external initiative. Still, no one can argue that selling 3 million copies in the first year is a not good number for an MMO.

An additional bit of info is that when I go to the forum first and log in there, I am also logged into the website, but if I log into the website on the main page it doesn’t log me into the forum also. Surely this is a mistake…

I usually have lots of alts in any game I play…except GW2. The leveling is just too boring for me. So I have 1 level 80 and two characters that are level 3 or 4. Which is very few indeed for an altoholic.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

The most recent quarterly sales figures show that GW2 sales are down about 20% from the previous quarter. I think that Anet chose a direction that they can’t turn around from anymore. I don’t think they really have the choice to start working on an actual expansion.

However, China is coming first. That will give them profit I would think and I would guess a lot of it. It won’t be till the sales go down there that an expansion would come into the horizon.

In the end NcSoft is Korean and I would guess that once China is on board, the west will be second place again for them logically because that’s where the main sales will be. Once China drops in sales, that’s probably when an expansion might come, but I’m sure they’ll see if they can keep the game going strong there with the current set up, because if they don’t need to make an expansion there, they wouldn’t want to invest into the west. That’s just business.

This post has a bit of misinformation in it or at least a bit of misdirection. Sales of Guild Wars 2 in fact ARE down, but sales from the tradiing post aren’t reported at all, which means over all profit isn’t known.

Can you support that with facts? Because as far as I know sales are sales and not just box sales so as far as I’m concerned this does include gemstore sales. There is no way they can make an official financial report and just leave part of the sales out and keep it secret…I do believe that would be against the law.

So please, do enlighten us where they stated that they don’t include all sales revenue in their financial statements.

Perhaps it is you who is misdirecting things, but I am always open to actual evidence.

The most recent quarterly sales figures show that GW2 sales are down about 20% from the previous quarter. I think that Anet chose a direction that they can’t turn around from anymore. I don’t think they really have the choice to start working on an actual expansion.

However, China is coming first. That will give them profit I would think and I would guess a lot of it. It won’t be till the sales go down there that an expansion would come into the horizon.

In the end NcSoft is Korean and I would guess that once China is on board, the west will be second place again for them logically because that’s where the main sales will be. Once China drops in sales, that’s probably when an expansion might come, but I’m sure they’ll see if they can keep the game going strong there with the current set up, because if they don’t need to make an expansion there, they wouldn’t want to invest into the west. That’s just business.

This happens constantly.

I log into the site and crap, I shouldn’t have. Why not? Because then I click forum and have to log in AGAIN.

Then I close the website/IE and come back to the site 10 mins later. I am still logged in…but then I click on forum and I am not logged into the forum.

Why am I still logged into the site and not the forum and why do I not log into the forum when I log into the site on the front page?

Deified.7520:

No classes from GW1 will be included in future expansions. They pretty much combined all those classes. So that means they will either make up a new class from scratch, or take from other MMOs, probably the latter since it is customary. So I believe some kind of Death Knight class (Arah high sorcerer. Heavy armor, offensive magic user type of guy). Bard is possible. Some kind of Warlock class. I suspect that any future expansions will deal heavily with the lore. So maybe it will have something to do with using dragon energies. Like a dervish type of class, but instead of using the power of the gods, it would be of controlling the powers of the elder dragons. A sentry type of class. One that focuses on not moving or little movement for survivability.

They sort of did but classes like the ritualist and paragon could still stand on their own. I don’t see many guardians using spirit weapons and such as it is.

A sentry as you propose that focuses on not moving wouldn’t work. GW2 revolves around movement, specifically dodging red circles of instant death. As the class needs to do enough damage to solo it will be OP as it basically would nullify all boss tactics out there and still do enough damage. It would make everything too easy.

As much as I miss actual healers and tank classes, I do get why it wouldn’t work in GW2

When people get upset they are in that emotion. When people are emotional, yep, they only care about themselves really. That’s how emotions work.

In the end people feel hurt about something and that makes them angry, makes them want someone else to pay for it. It’s very human.

Although I agree that we could use less of that, I do not share your suggestions to say shucks or son of a skritt. That doesn’t cover the anger people feel.

At the same time there are two sides to this. It’s not just what a person says, but also who everybody else responds to it. There’s a lot of nastiness that goes around on both sides of conflicts without actually using specific words.

It’s not easy to do and I’ve made my mistakes in it, but the truth is that whenever we feel emotions because we are upset or we read a post that upsets us, it really is better to ask questions instead of making statements.

Also by focusing on words we only talk about symptoms instead of causes. That will never work. People will just find other words. The real problem is not that someone said something offensive but what got them to that point.

Galen Grey.4709:

Not really, or at least I dont really see it myself.
If they’re really on the edge of quiting if the biweekly updates make them choose to stay its because they’ll enjoy doing them or find them engaging. If they’re already frustrated and close to the edge if they dont find the updates engaging at all and rather find them a chore they’re forced to do this is not going to anything other then give them the final push over the edge. Even if somehow this is true, how many of those people who feel frustrated and unable to leave because of psychological chains are going to give money to arenanet? if a player isnt happy enjoying the game s/he is highly unlikely to spend money.

Besides there is a bigger downside. people who do enjoy the game, love all about it but find this a chore and consider quiting because of it. These are happy people who are highly likely to spend money on the game. I am pretty sure in that regard this is more likely to loose them money then make it for them.

Well, there are people who’ve basically completed the game and are bored. Perhaps Anet thought this was an idea to keep people who’ve done just about everything busy. Of course the down side is that it can have the opposite effect on other players. My guess is that Anet, just like many other game companies, don’t actually understand their players as much as they’d like and therefore a lot of trial and error happens.

I think they are adjusting their plan now because they realised this idea helped on one hand and backfired on the other.

They did something similar in GW1 with war in kryta and all that stuff…but it stayed in game. It just reminds me of that phrase where they said “we take everything you love from GW1….”. I think they have some translation issues because there are more good ideas that they had in GW2 that completely got botched up here.

They don’t want to do expansions as it looks….so this is supposed to keep people busy instead….well, uhm, in that case don’t let it come and go but let it stay.

Ok, I can sort of see the point of the OP but I do have one concern.

Your title says entitled vs skilled.

Then you speak of people who want to be rewarded for effort or desire when they are not skilled enough.

This is not a clean comparison. Entitled people are people who feel they should get something NO MATTER WHAT. I do not think it’s right to give the impression that people who want to put in effort as entitled. I say impression because I think that’s not what you meant. I think you meant “just cause they tried it once”.

On the other hand skilled people can be entitled too. So to say entitled vs skilled is an incorrect comparison.

Some people just played many games and hours and only take one or two attempts to figure something out and do it. This means they are skilled but this is easy for them. It’s not really a challenge.

And see I believe in challenge but if someone has so much existing skill or whatever that everything is easy, then it’s not a challenge for them. And these people can be tempted to think highly of themselves and look down on other people. If they then think that they should get the big rewards and the rest can’t, then we have a different brand of entitlement.

People have different skills and different interests. MMOs attract various groups of players on purpose….they should therefore take care that they have differerent roads that lead to Rome.

When I see someone who comes into a game like this and within a month has done everything, my guess is that it was easy for this guy. Too easy. Should that be rewarded when it’s actually easy for someone?

I do agree that people who want everything now and without much or any effort are entitled and I despise that. But skilled people are not free of such behaviour, that’s what I’m saying.

MMOs have a hard time balancing things per definition and there are reasons for that. I do get that differences in player skill levels can be perceived as the game being imbalanced. That’s something that cannot be and should not be changed.

But people can always pull the imba card as long as the controllable aspects of a game are not where they should be.

The following items are notorious issues in balance:

1) Character classes
2) Gear
3) PvP stats
4) Stealth
5) CC
6) PvE vs PvP

A lot of issues come from how it is implemented as well as just being plain difficult.

So how are these points balance issues?

1) Classes are supposed to be different. That gives them flavour and a reason for being. So differences start to occur that are based on these differences. Examples? Armour is light, medium or heavy. Different weapon choices, different skill sets etc.

2) Gear exists in different grades. So a person in green gear has a problem vs someone in gold gear. But it goes deeper. We have stats that are more useful than others. It gets kind of weird when something like berserker in this game is the king of all and someone chooses another type because it fits his/her character.

3) Some games have pvp stats and even tiers. This is an obvious imbalance but it is also on purpose. Not so much an issue here in this game.

4) Stealth. Ok, there is an issue in my view when people can use stealth in a way that people cannot defend against it. Being able to use stealth constantly and also during combat makes combat unequal. Also if someone can come out of stealth and kill you outright with you barely being able to cast your fist spell is not balanced combat.

5) CC. Who has played MMOs and never heard of stunlock? Especially in Aion where there were classes that could use stealth and stunlock there was just no defence, no actual combat. Not balanced at all.

6) PvE vs PvP. MMOs tend to have both and MMO makers tend to want people to have the same skill sets for both types of gameplay. However since PvP and PvE are completely different this is bound to fail.

These are 6 reasons that cause imbalances in MMOs specifically. Not all apply to GW2 but a lot of them do.

My view though is that a degree of imbalance is actually intentional in MMOs.

CETheLucid.3964:

I’m not trolling. But if I were, given that response, I could be considered successful.

Oxstar.7643:

If you think we’re QQ’ing, you try tackling the things we mentioned on your own.

Been there, done that. You’re the one having problems on a simple personal story mission.

It was graciously pointed out to you what you needed to do, and where you could have gracefully in turn have said “Oh wow, thanks, that flew over my head”…

You, go on a rant about how this game is sooooo cheap and frustrating.

It isn’t. If you learn how to play. Some people have oiled it down to a drone like farm per the ‘zerker or GTFO’ crowd, which has graced your lovely thread. So. Yeah.

Do I smell an apologetic here?

Yes the OP had an issue. Anet came by and commented on it…you’re supposed to avoid that mob.

You can call that l2p…I don’t even argue that point….but my god what a cheap mechanic to put into it. It’s just a small thing really but it’s not a rare occasion in this game and it’s just one symptom of a larger problem in this game.

As I said I’ve seen it more often, also in story missions, that there’s just so many times where it’s better to just run around and ignore the mobs in order to do some menial tasks that save the day. If anything avoiding mobs because they insta kill you or the respawn rate is too high really don’t help the heroic feeling. If the object is to create insurmountable odds so that you prefer to sneak your way through rather than be the hero, well, they’re successful…

but it isn’t what I was hoping for. Personally it’s easy to do all the missions except the last one. I remember some lord of spiders that was impossible to kill because of the millions of adds…and then I learned the gimmick. Nope it wasn’t kiting. It was waiting because I noticed that the boss still lost health when I had to come running back from the start of the instance again.

So yeh I waited to lett the respawning npcs do the job because they could. Sure it took a few mins where I could get a cup of coffee and a couple of other things. Bottom line is though that once you see through the cheap gimmicks it just becomes laughable really.

dulfy is pretty good actually. I hadn’t thought of that. The old wiki for GW1 was very extensive but I guess that’s a thing of the past. I do wish Anet would be a bit clearer on the content they bring out. It’s kinda odd you have to go to a player to find out what’s going on.

I do wonder what the point is of this approach. New or returning players hear about living story stuff and it’s all gone.

I remember that it had something in my daily about completing living story content a few days ago. I went looking for it on the wiki and even though there was a general description of the jubilee, I had no idea where to start or what needed completing for it.

It can be just me looking in the wrong places or overlooking something obvious but it seems that Anet could make things a little clearer. I mean I went to the pavillion, did the little quest there and did some of the boss events in there.

Still not sure what it all means. It kinda feels like you start in the middle of the season of a tv series except you’re not able to see the old episodes.

I guess I just wanted to give it a shot but like I said maybe I missed something obvious or something but in essence I do understand the OP. I’m not a completionist pur sang but once I have a goal I complete it, I just don’t need to do everything. I do find it annoying to have content that’s come and gone. I do like to do things at my pace and that means being able to do something later. That option is not here for this stuff so far.

don’t you see it somewhere when you go to preferences or something? …I’m sure I remember it’s in there on the bottom right corner on one of the tabs…can’t log in atm but I was pretty sure it was in there somewhere.

I play it as a filler between other games. So whenever I get a bit bored with other games I play and just want a bit of variation, GW2 is one of the games I might play for a while. I had intended for it to be one of my main games but as the game has disappointed on various levels it’s a filler game for me. Of course GW2 isn’t all bad or I wouldn’t play it at all but it’s not good enough to be more for me than just a bit of diversion from time to time…also cause it’s free. That is a big reason I consider playing it from time to time at all.

It’s been my view from the start that there are too many leveling zones (also too many levels) and this is one of the consequences of it.

I think ilr’s commen has merit as far as solutions go.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

So people quit the game because they can’t get a precursor or legendary? Then there are people who quit once they get their legendary. I don’t see the logic. Legendary weapons aren’t the end of the game. MMOs are all about the community and making a name for yourself.

This is where you are wrong. Endgame as people know it is only represented in GW2 by legendary weapons. So in fact it makes perfect sense to quit either when you see it as not happening or once you got it.

MMOs aren’t all about the community and making a name for yourself. Maybe for you it is, but don’t make it sound like that’s what everybody’s goals are. They certainly aren’t for me.

I might recognise a few names on my server but nothing more than that. Who cares what they’ve done on the server? You might, I don’t. The logic simply comes from what you’re interested in.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Anyone that thinks the manifesto was anything more than a hype engine for the game is sorely mistaken. After years of playing games we should all know what those are for. Sure Anet said things that weren’t true, if you don’t expect that from a company at this point you are going to have a rough time in life.

Well, I do agree with this. I think what happened is that the way Anet handled GW1 and such they had a bit more credibility than a lot of other game developers, including NcSoft who were only their publisher back then. They can now be classed with the rest of them. Guess I was stupid to think they were a bit more honest than other companies…oh well, live and learn.

Trahearne’s main power:

Casting time 10 seconds
Casting involves a speech
By the end of the 10 seconds everyone in a range of 1200 falls asleep for 1 hour.

MrRuin.9740:

I don’t find this game grindy. Grind implies that Anet is forcing me to do the same activity over and over again that I don’t enjoy to achieve success or compete with other players. They are doing no such thing and I am quite enjoying myself.
I won’t deny that there’s a minor bit of grind in gw2 (yes, very minor compared to some MMO’s), but you’re not being forced to do it. You don’t fall behind in gear, you don’t lose the ability to compete with other players in anything. Its all optional for pretty skins and AP’s and little toys (balloon? :P)
You are free to play as you wish or free to take on the grindy aspects if you want to.

You are free to decide to play or not as well. You are free to go to work or not. Freedom of choice is not the issue for me. But obviously when you feel you want to accomplish something then your choices to achieve them are more narrow.

In my view GW2 rewards are either too easy or too much work. Too easy doesn’t feel that satisfying either and too much work is what I consider grind. With too much work means an excess of what is needed to get a reward compared to the actual reward.

There are different play styles but this game doesn’t really offer much for goal oriented people. At least not in a way that feels satisfying and like you actually accomplished something.

It’s still a personal opinion but this game did step away from the usual gear treadmill but not entirely and not in a way that works for me.

The Manifesto is old and to be fair I prefer talking about the game as it is….what the Manifesto did or didn’t do really is old news.

Well, I grew up with stories where the hero of the story was the one who had to do all the important bits. I could give various examples of quests but look at each quest and what you actually have to do yourself and what your character is actually able to manage and you will see that most of the time it revolves around Trahearne’s story or you do menial tasks for him during an epic battle of sorts, and/or whatever you do is with a group of npc’s….cause obviously it’s not about you and you can’t do it yourself…you’re not that good/heroic.

It seems also that dragon fights tend to revolve around shooting cannon and attacking their legs. What that means to me is that my character is nowhere near powerful enough to fight a dragon. If that’s heroic, well it doesn’t work for me. In GW1 you beat up the bosses with your skills and a group of people or henchmen/heroes that worked for you. With your abilities you were able to defeat them. In GW2 you need gimmicks like cannon to do that for you because a dragon is so immensely more powerful that you are just an ant in comparison…very heroic indeed.

PS: And before some people jump: cannon is the correct plural of cannon, you don’t need an extra s for it.

BlueZone.4236:

People posting on this particular forum represents the percentage of people’s views? Wow.
Also, number people disagreeing the manifesto is also wrong because you’re right, obviously. Okay.

Funny you’ve never heard of karma grind. I guess you were never in Orr in the early days.
Nor were you there when people exploited karma for gold.
Also, karma doesn’t give you access to a new dungeon, map etc.

Considering it’s usually the same group of people who end up posting the most here, I’d personally not put too much stock in what forum visitors post. As part of a total picture it can be an indication but by itself the forum is possibly the worst source of information if you want to have a general idea of how people feel about the game.

Having said that, it probably is he first place where problems come to light. So it can be a good starting point for investigating issues.

As for karma, there is a reason why karma grinding exists. The game doesn’t reward karma equally for different activities. People will find out what the easiest way is to get the most karma in the shortest possible time and then start farming or grinding karma there over and over and over….Why? Because of the immense karma requirement for certain items. Karma gear itself (exotic from the temples) is not bad at all. In fact I just turned 80 yesterday and had 252500 karma, which was just enough to buy the whole set the day I turned 80. Well I see there are backs to get there too now so that’s another 42k but that won’t take too long.

I am not sure what people need all that karma for these days but I guess some things still take a lot of karma.

For me, the problem is this. Once you are level 80 and you set a goal and require x amount of something for it, you want to get it sooner rather than later. At least a lot of people do. So you look at what you need to do to get to that amount at a good pace. If you wanted a million karma for a legendary, you will want to get that together asap, because it’s just a small part of the total. And so you start doing specific things only because otherwise the process is too long. So then you grind karma, then another item or combine things to be more efficient etc. Goal oriented people don’t just play for months and months to suddenly realise they are close to reaching their goal of getting a legendary weapon.

So, since rewards are better in a couple of places, people will gravitate towards them because they have that goal they want to reach. Then to make legendaries tradeable/sellable cheapens the effort in my view. Should’ve been account bound at the least. It’s when you decide that you don’t want a legendary (also because the skins so far are dreadful), that suddenly level 80 leaves a void. What to do then? You got exotic armour and weapons, ascended trinkets are done with dailies and you only need infusions if you want to go grind the tetris dungeon.

I’ve seen more people who (I think wisely but to each their own) avoided fotm and grinding for a legendary. It’s two small parts of the game and yet they seem to constitute GW2’s endgame….meaning stuff to do at 80 that you couldn’t do before.

So if you ignore those two small elements of the game, it’s really just repetition of the same old stuff you’ve already done. That’s what makes GW2 a casual game for me even though I had hoped at one time to make it my main game.