Guild Wars 2

Yep some people want to achieve things, they set goals and what to accomplish them and rewards for effort stimulate this. Lots of people are that way apparently, if I look at the simple fact that all games that I know, including this one, have rewards for activities.

It makes no sense to question whether or not rewards are needed. It’s how you deal with that which is more difficult. My feeling is that this game has enough content to keep you busy for a few weeks. In that time you can complete the world, do the jump puzzles get exotic gear and some ascended trinkets if you care. You will be able to do enough dungeons easy to get an armour set or two together and do some WvW in between for variation. Sure there’s stuff out there still if you do your best to find it but that’s it basically. There’s no specific level 80 activity except getting that silly rng + grind yourself silly legendary weapon if you really want it.

That’s it really.

Now for some repeating a bunch of that stuff works for them. For some it’s rather lacking and as an altoholic I find this game doesn’t have much replay value as far as leveling is concerned. And the dungeons get boring real fast imo.

It still comes down to tastes but GW2 is probably built more around casual players and people who love events and funny stuff more. Could be some people’s taste…isn’t mine. So I can’t get myself to do more than a bit of leveling from time to time. It’s a pretty looking world for sure, but not one to spend a lot of time in for me.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Fernling.1729:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

Star Wars was released 2011-2012 while the manifesto was released 2010.

The personal story in SWTOR was known about well before 2010.

And it went a lot further than GW2, so nothing to brag about really for Anet.

Anet wasn’t bragging, they were talking about their game as compared to say…you know the MMOs people were playing at the time it was made. SWToR still came out a couple of years after the manifesto was released.

As for it doing the personal story better, I’m sure it did. That’s why it went free to play and had to fire half it’s staff. It was a raging success.

You know I could pick something from each MMO that it did really well. Vanguard was better than WoW in some ways, but I don’t think anyone should hold it up to compare to anything else.

Bioware specializes in story, and came from making single player MMOs. It was always going to have a good story mode. Too bad the rest of the game fell so flat huh? Do you think Star Wars advertised or talked about anything besides stories before their game released?

Now, wait a minute. The story lines in SWTOR are a major feature and they hyped it for sure.

But I am still trying to figure out why you needed to make a new thread about ONE sentence out of the manifesto, especially one that is rather insignificant in my view. So story bosses don’t respawn because they decided to instance them, which was an existing technique. I get it, it was clarified. So what? This game is still either giving handouts or stupidly grindy, the story is crap and certainly not heroic feeling.

If it matters so much to you, then ok, they clarified that they only meant story bosses…which makes that sentence even less significant. I am ready to agree that on this miniscule point they did a correction on a blog.

Of course they didn’t correct it anywhere else but hey, they did it somewhere that some people might find out about. I would’ve prefered they make corrections, sorry clarifications on the main website rather than something you have to know how to find since I don’t get the feeling many people knew about this blog. To me that’s poor communication.

Because they brought the manifesto in full view…it was advertised in every channel they had. Then a clarification comes and then you just have to follow their blog (which is gone by now).

Do you think it’s fair communication this way from them?

Sadly any depth the combat system might have is not required for most content where auto attack and dodge will suffice.

I usually stand still, not even dodging circles anymore with auto attack on when leveling in the zones. It takes a little bit longer but it works. The fact that I don’t die when I just hit auto attack and let go of the keyboard and mouse entirely with most mobs in leveling zones is a clear indicator that there is a problem with the combat system.

lunawisp.2378:

maddoctor.2738:

Keep undercutting people and maybe the prices will become reasonable.

Alternatively, keep undercutting people and the supply will dry up as it’ll no longer be worthwhile for the seller. Prices are high because people are willing to pay that price. if people don’t buy at a high price, it’ll drop, naturally.

If the supply were to dry up then the prices will go up again and then supply will get higher again. That’s supply and demand. Artificially keeping prices high is like a cartel agreement and kills supply and demand.

And prices are not high because people are willing to pay the price if the prices are maintained high by a select group of sellers especially. Always realise that the lowest price on the TP is the price it has NOT been sold for, that’s why it’s still on the TP. It’s therefore a false indicator of what people are willing to pay for it. In essence it’s the first price people are not willing to buy it at since it’s still on the TP.

Now if someone comes by and actually needs gold for something and wants to make a quick sale that’s fine. Someone else is lucky and he has the gold he wanted for it. You can’t fault a person for that. It’s his choice. If others don’t like it they are free to buy it and sell it at a higher price again. That’s how it works.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I’m not going to worry about 25g when I’m selling for 500g, 475g, 450g, 425g, 400g,…… down to 150g.

I may even under cut by 100g.

I’ll sell mine faster, I want my gold now.

I do think the prices are stupid.

I like your reasoning.

The OP apparently wants to do something that is illegal in the real world and it’s illegal for a good reason: Cartel agreements.

Wanting to keep prices high artificially for the benefit of the sellers…not good for the economy in the end. I applaud everyone who undercuts those kittens.

Mr Quinn.9815:

you haven’t been here long then. ;-)

QFT….I am glad the OP likes the game but this does sound a bit like youthful bliss. Perhaps the OP can hold on to this feeling where grumpy old men like myself failed

What makes the game shallow to me is the atmosphere it breathes (or rather doesn’t) and the ridiculously childish storyline and voice acting.

The second thing is that instead of adding actual content, GW2 has brought out only party events and living story crap that comes and goes: nothing substantial however and it’s the lack of substance that makes the game feel superficial or shallow.

The combat system has been discussed much. The thing about that is, that even though has some complexity and even some depth, it’s all negated by the simple fact that 90% of PvE can be done with dodge and auto attack.

Add to that the amount of restrictions that are actually built into the combat system as far as your skill bar choices and trait system are concerned and the lack of transparency and it all becomes a bit whatever.

I also played GW1 but I am also done playing. I had hoped GW2 would replace it by “taking all the things I love about GW1 and have them put in a persistent world” as they said, but that wasn’t the case.

GW1 was far from perfect, but it had tons more atmosphere, much better design for gear (making collecting them fun) and the combat system had a lot of freedom in it. Sure there were cookie cutter builds but you could do most content without them and experiment with skills. Now you could argue that this can be done in GW2 as well and to a point I agree…but there is no need in GW2 because you can kill mobs no matter what. And my experience in GW1 was that skill choices mattered a lot more. I’d say the combat system in GW1 was also simplistic but it was more tactical because skill choices mattered more. If you changed one or two skills in your build it could dramatically change the outcome. In GW2, for most content, it doesn’t matter at all.

That’s the difference for me.

I will say though that I would’ve liked GW2 a lot better if max level was 50 (the last 30 levels feel completely pointless) and if I had more freedom in my skill bar.

I’ve been leveling a new guardian for the fun of it. I am level 60 and bored with leveling. So I thought I’d make a thief….Level 4 and already bored. Why? Because the leveling is the most repetitious I’ve ever seen in any game. Events and hearts are all the same no matter where you are and since you go to areas of different races to get xp, rolling another race doesn’t help much cause you’ve done those areas before.

I mean, what’s the difference if you have to defend a village against centaurs or undead or nightmare court? Exactly, it’s the same thing, just a different looking enemy.

And that’s why the game feels shallow. Some people call this game a themepark MMO. I think that makes sense, but once you’ve been in the same ride 20 times, it really gets boring. Sadly you have to do that same ride 100 times to get to level 80 and without the back up of a convincing atmosphere and a great story behind it, not to mention a crappy reward system, it just feels like senseless repetition.

All games have repetition, but it’s that feeling of senselessness that makes it just shallow, superficial. And in GW1 we did have a better story and atmosphere and even though the combat system was simplistic as well, it was just simply more interesting because of the freedom of choices and your choices instantly mattered..you could tell the difference in combat clearly and you really did need different things for different areas.

I think that is the big difference in GW1 and GW2…In GW1 I felt that choices I made actually mattered, in GW2 I don’t feel that at all and that’s why it feels so shallow.

Oh and just an example: In GW2 you can make choice in the story line and you might argue that therefore choices do matter, but they don’t. The main story is still the same and whichever choice you make still gets you from A to B, so again you have choices but for the overall picture they don’t matter as the effect is, well, superficial.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

If you liked GW1 so much why do you care about stats on items? You can do absolutely everything with exotics only. Fractals are made for those who liked vertical progression and this is the best ANet could have done to make them happy. One dungeon completely separate from the world for them to enjoy.

You want to eat a “Snickers” but you don’t like peanuts.
You want to get ascended gear but you don’t like the path to take them.

fair comment to a point. The only problem is that it’s dead easy to get exotics. So once you have those and don’t care for that tetris dungeon, there’s nothing else to do at 80 but grind for a legendary…that’s not a lot.

Sure you can run dungeons, but the problem is that doesn’t last long either because if you happen to like one or two of the armour sets (cause most look like crap let’s be honest), there just nothing left after a short time to progress….unless you get into the treadmill of treadmills which is fotm.

GW1 had lots of exciting skins to collect. GW2 doesn’t. I don’t need GW1 back…it was great but it’s in the past now, but I sure wish they got their design team from then back.

The complete reward system is crap because it rewards people completely arbitrarily and not relative to effort or meaning of activities.

They wanted people to feel like heroes. So you save the day in a story quest and get a blue. I mean I buy greens as soon as I hit level 14 and never look back. Who feels rewarded when they get blues at level 15, let alone 55. It’s embarassing and you feel cheated instead of heroic. If the story is supposed to mean something, the rewards tell a different story.

I think it’s one of the biggest problems this game has.

Lenaro.5924:

Leo G.4501:

If people actually discussed improvements to the game, no one would be arguing that the game is shallow or not. Whether it is or not depends what aspect you’re talking about and arguing about it from a standpoint of “the game is boring because it has no depth because I spam 11111” is going to get argumentative. Why? Because it’s not constructive.

I don’t believe anyone in the thread said “the game is boring” as chances are they aren’t playing. People can infer whatever they choose from a statement, but that doesn’t make it the case. The combat is flawed in my opinion, and discussing what causes it is the first step to determining solutions. If conversation can’t happen a fix never will. By all means though, you tell me exactly what needs to happen to perfect the combat system without discussing it or gauging other opinions within the community. I’m sure the system you come up with will be exactly what the game needs and won’t have a single nay-Sayer.

I think the game is boring and therefore I only play it from time to time, mostly to do a bit of mindless leveling. That can be fun for a few evenings.

The combat system is part of why it is boring but it is far from the only reason. In the end people like different things but since most classes have no actual meaning other than fluff I only have 3 characters, 2 of which aren’t even level 10 yet. In GW1 I had 19 characters for example. It’s a sharp contrast with every other rpg or mmo I played where I usually can’t wait to make lots of alts.

So on a quiet sunday morning it can be a bit of fun to dive into GW2 and auto attack some mobs while drinking coffee. Nice and braindead can be good at the right time.

But I am totally uninterested in the combat system for various reasons:

Skills
1) Weapon choice determins half your skills. For example I don’t like axes on a necro. So either I don’t get to use those skills or I run around with weapons that I don’t like. Also usually there is at least one skill in there that I really don’t want. Waste of a skill sometimes 2…10-20% of your skill bar in other words.
2) Utility skills on the right have too high cooldowns. This kills the action even though the combat should be dynamic and action oriented.
3) Elite skills are only elite in pvp, certainly not in pve. This is in part a cooldown issue as well
4) Cannot switch skills in the skill bar so I must always keep them in places

Traits
1) A lot of traits are very unimaginative and they also force you to use certain weapons with certain trait lines.
2) Often the two attributes that are raised by a trait line are not the ones I would’ve chosen. For example a guardian has a trait line that raises toughness and precision…right.
3) I can’t really notice the effects of a lot of these. I’m sure there is an effect but when I get 5% extra damage on mace weapons, I certainly can’t tell the difference while playing.

And a separate section for dodge. Dodging is overpowered in comparison to your other skills. The fact that it makes you immune to damage is a necessity because of the number of one shot kills effects bosses have. But it makes all other defensive skills pale in comparison.

Now, these are not new items I’m sure, but all of these things and more make me lose interest in the combat system and I just can’t get excited about getting another trait point or unlocking the next elite skill or whatever. That’s why it’s boring.

A combat system doesn’t need to be complex even but it just lacks excitement because I feel the restrictions everywhere and that’s frustrating and because the effects of choices of skills and traits are minimal for most (not all but most) content, why care. And if you don’t care you get bored. Simple as that.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Every time I log on, the servers are high, very high, or full.

But for GW2 that doesn’t mean the same thing as for other games. In GW2 it’s not just a measurement of how full the server is as in how many people are online on the server, but also calculates how many accounts are linked to it as home server. So even when a server is full, doesn’t mean lots of people are online. There could be, but it also could not be the case.

So this measurement of server status is not a reliable source for this. What’s better is simply to see if you run into lots of people or not wherever you are and how active the chat is in places like LA.

Draehl.2681:

Who said I don’t play much? Some days the stress is low and I may play 2-3 hours a night. I play many hours over the weekend. In any case I play enough over the course of the week to more than accomplish seven dailies. I could probably knock out twenty dailies in a week. The point is locking everything down to being done in small increments every day is incredibly limiting. The point is to limit progress so players don’t exhaust content too quickly. How is forcing it into daily increments any better than into weekly or monthly increments?

Well it sounded like that was what you were saying complaining about working and commuting.

But yeah, I do agree with you there. I think dailies themselves are a good idea as such, but not that that’s the way to get BiS gear.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Gehenna.3625:

It actually does have a gear treadmill but it’s very shallow…..Anet’s good at shallow

Rolls eyes at dig

It has a treadmill when you level.

When you get to 80, the treadmill isn’t there (unless you’re in Greens, in which you can skip rares anyway).

As for Ascended, as long as that’s the last tier, it’s more of a step, since a treadmill is continuous until you get off.

It’s just slower or do you really think that when they raise the level cap (which is coming according to Anet last time I checked) your current gear will automatically be made level 90 or whatever? Also level cap raises are part of treadmills. Anet is going much slower so you can walk it at your leasure, but ascended gear is step 1 and the level cap raise is likely to be the next one and as you say ascended may not be the last tier. You think that once they’ve brought out armour with ascended stats and most people have it, it will all end there? I have a doubt…..yeh I think it’s just very slow but still a treadmill. And that’s not a bad thing necessarily, so don’t think I am against it per definition.

When the game came out I was against it because it was sold to me as a game without gear progression. Now that I know they never actually said it, well, then that’s what it is. I also play MMOs that do have gear progression and that’s fine as long as it doesn’t go too fast.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Galtrix.7369:

Guild Wars 2 lacks this feeling of being heroic and becoming more powerful over a period of time.

Go to Orr at level 10, and come back and say that.

Galtrix.7369:

You don’t become more powerful over a period of time in GW2 once you hit 80. I mean, you can tweak your build, but that will only make you slightly better. Once you hit that point, you begin to wonder what the point of even playing was, and what the point of playing further is. Anet’s idea of purely cosmetic armor was nice, but it lacks depth and it doesn’t feel like you’re gaining more power, because you’re not.

Wait…you’re shocked that a game that advertised as having no continuous gear treadmill doesn’t have a continuous gear treadmill?

Getting higher and higher stats isn’t all that ‘deep’ either. It simply makes the numbers that pop up get bigger.

Now, adding things like new skills and such. That adds depth. Why? Because the player has more choices. Providing these choices are viable, more skills on the same power level as all other skills will add a whole lot more depth than numbers simply getting bigger.

It actually does have a gear treadmill but it’s very shallow…..Anet’s good at shallow

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Everyone I talked to loved the SAB, including me.

Talk to yourself much do you? :P

I am sure some people loved it and some hated it.

But it is a fair point to say that Anet is focusing on fleeting content rather than persistent content.

Fernling.1729:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

Star Wars was released 2011-2012 while the manifesto was released 2010.

The personal story in SWTOR was known about well before 2010.

And it went a lot further than GW2, so nothing to brag about really for Anet.

mtpelion.4562:

Stat treadmills are designed to keep you paying a monthly subscription (“Ah, I finally got my full suit so I am tied with everyone else and can participate at an even level of … what?! A new tier is out now and my gear is already obsolete? Back to farming I guess”.)

Guild Wars does not have a subscription and thus does not need to keep you tethered 24/7. They put in cosmetic items in order to generate something for you to work towards at your leisure.

Incorrect, there are fewer and fewere games with subs and there are f2p games with gear treadmills as well.

GW2 has a gear treadmill but a slower one. Exotic is too easy to get so ascended is artificially slowed down with time gating mostly and legendary swords are a silly grind.

Of course that all sounds ok as that seems to be the end of it….except, they already said they will raise the level cap again. My guess is they won’t automatically make level 80 ascended gear into level 85 or 90 gear (whatever the new cap will be). No, I think you’ll get to collect new gear all over again.

So it’s really just a different and slower way. Could be a good thing, but I wouldn’t say GW2 has no gear treadmill at all.

Draehl.2681:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

If you can’t/don’t want to log in for 15 mins a day to get the daily why would you want to get the ascended gear it gives you? It’s only about the ascended gear, i’m sure nobody here cares about the others stuff

Some people have jobs and long commutes. Many a day I come home so exhausted all I can do is watch 1-2 hours of TV and go to right to bed. I understand a large portion of MMOs players are college students and I was one myself just a few years ago. With a college student schedule I can certainly agree- if you can’t find 15 minutes in your 30 hours of free time a day, then I would agree. Things can change though…

So explain this…why would someone with your life, waste any time on a MMO? It’s the worst type of game for your lifestyle it would seem. If you only play here and there very casually, why would you even care about ascended gear? It’s certainly not needed. You should set more realistic goals rather than just expecting life to adjust to you. We all have different lives and that means we all have different limitations. So what?

Shockwave.1230:

Gehenna.3625:

Galen Grey.4709:

People already find the minuscule effort required for a single daily daunting and boring… Multiplying it by 7 will make it 7 times worst.

That’s because there have been too many games that went for instant gratification in most of their content. They made it easier so people got lazier. It’s a trend of our time. Continue to cater it and it will just get worse.

People don’t value stuff anymore because they simply feel entitled instead of giving it value by having to do something for it. And no I don’t mind silly grind, that isn’t satisfying either.

It really is ok to have to work for something, but the effort/reward balance has to make sense and in this game it certainly doesn’t make any sense at all.

Why are people looking as video games though they should provide something to work towards? It’s not a job. I don’t want to spend tons of time working for something in a game. People do that in real life. In my video games I want instant gratification.

And why do people assume that working towards a goal is job related? I love working towards something and especially the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. Just getting everything handed to you on a silver platter is just not satisfying to me.

Trust me I love working towards an armour set a lot better than working in real life, but even there I get a sense of satisfaction from accomplishing goals.

And I didn’t say anything about tons of work. Again assumptions. Learn to read what it says people. I say that there needs to be some effort but not silly grind. I said that specifically.

So please only respond to what I actually wrote and not what you fantasized I wrote, ok?

So let me make it clear to you: Instant gratification is why this game is grindy.

Why? Because, as everything else is easy, there is nothing to do for people who want to do this. So they came up with some senseless grind for something you don’t really need, to throw those people a bone.

It really is people like you who make MMOs boring and mind numbingly dumb. Instant gratification means you get bored quickly and jump to the next game. It’s a short term approach to a long term type of game. That’s what has gone wrong with MMOs more than anything else. Catering to the wrong crowd is what that is and now they’re stuck with people like yourself who will never be happy unless it’s thrown at you before you’ve moved a finger.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

TheDaiBish.9735:

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-mmo-manifesto-reactions/

Partial interview

TL:DR – When they were talking about bosses not returning 10 mins later, they were referring to Personal Story bosses.

Which makes their point pointless because there are plenty of other games out there where storyline bosses don’t respawn either. Somthing called instancing, which is how it’s done in GW2 and also in many other games. No wonder people read more into it since they were being all excited about an exciting new thing, which was in fact already commonplace in newer games.

It’s not pointless, you’re simply missing the point.

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story. What does that mean?

In WoW, a human warrior is a human warrior. All human warriors start in the same place and run through the same quests. You’re not a poor human warrior or a rich one. You don’t have a personal story. All MMOs have stories. Not all of them have YOUR story. It’s pretty simple.

The only other MMO I know that has a personal story is SWToR, and of course, that’s Bioware’s strong suit. MMOs, however, weren’t, as shown by the rapid decline of that game and half the staff being laid off.

The point is, when the manifesto was created, no MMO that was out had a personal story built into it. Anet had every reason to talk about it (whether you like the personal story or not).

You write that no other game at the time, except SWTOR had personal stories. I have no exact numbers to contradict this but as you didn’t give any evidence so I will ignore those statements in my reply.

Right, so you created this thread about 1 short sentence out of a 6 minute video in order to point out that this part was explained later (we will just have to believe the replies in that thread I guess) and therefore this one point is valid and is very significant I guess…

Significant because Anet were excited about instancing story missions like they did in GW1 years before themselves and spoke about it in their manifest and made it look like it was something new and innovative all because basically WoW didn’t do that before?

Sounds more like a stab at WoW than actually exciting innovation, especially considering they did it for years in GW1. Guess it’s amazing innovation because GW1 didn’t have a persistent world and therefore it doesn’t count?

Right.

But ok, personalised stories were not common in MMOs. I can see that point. Guess I just wish you hadn’t called this thread manifesto clarification.

Maybe “a clarification about a single sentence in the manifesto” would have been better. Perhaps you should work for Anet’s PR department….

Galen Grey.4709:

People already find the minuscule effort required for a single daily daunting and boring… Multiplying it by 7 will make it 7 times worst.

That’s because there have been too many games that went for instant gratification in most of their content. They made it easier so people got lazier. It’s a trend of our time. Continue to cater it and it will just get worse.

People don’t value stuff anymore because they simply feel entitled instead of giving it value by having to do something for it. And no I don’t mind silly grind, that isn’t satisfying either.

It really is ok to have to work for something, but the effort/reward balance has to make sense and in this game it certainly doesn’t make any sense at all.

IndigoSundown.5419:

If you think Blizzard is going to carry the subscription spear, this is a warning that you might need to prepare yourself otherwise.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/01/blizzards-titan-unlikely-to-be-a-subscription-based-mmorpg/ .

I said only a company like Blizzard would be able to do it successfully. I never said I expect them to do it again. In the end sub games are cheaper for players. The biggest irony is that cash shops bring in more cash than subs. So it’s more expensive on average for players but that’s ok for people…a sub however, that’s robbing people? Seriously, you people don’t actually see how expensive f2p is when you want to get the full experience of the game. People have this amazing ability to pay 150 bucks in one year for a sub and complain about how expensive it is, but when it’s f2p and they don’t watch their expenses and end up paying 200 or 300 bucks in that same year, then it’s not robbing people. We’ve done it to ourselves and I am sure companies are happy to oblige us. I guess most people feel more comfortable spending 300 bucks unknowingly than spending 150 bucks knowingly. Ignorance is bliss they say.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I dislike sub-based MMO’s intensely. I view every anti-fun attempt to slow me down, from ten minute flight paths, through mobs applying 20 second cripples 2 seconds before the fight ends, needing to stop and “eat/drink” and time gated progression “content” as ways for the company to keep its hand in my wallet. .

And what have all these examples to do with sub games? I play SWTOR for example and pay a sub gladly and I don’t recognise this stuff you talk about….oh wait or are you saying all subs must be like this because you had a sub in one game where they did this?

Me, I hate f2p games that make you pay ridiculous amounts for inventory space and movement buffs/mounts that purposefully make huge worlds so walking around is horrible and lots of crap loot so you need more inventory space. Please note that I say f2p games that do this, not all f2p games. I can’t say that because I haven’t played all of them. I have played about 5 of them and found out that every single one was lesser quality and cost me more than a sub to get the game experience I wanted from it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I can tolerate a little bit of this crap, so dailies in GW2 didn’t bother me that much, but the upcoming crafting daily is probably going to send me over the edge with ANet.

Interesting turnaround. Truth is that this game does lack a certain amount of quality to it, probably because there is no sub involved. And I don’t even blame them. As I said above, it is my view that the players have been extremely dumb and allowed developers to take a new direction…less quality and more income and it’s the players that are going to pay for that income.

Because guess what…if the cash shop doesn’t do the trick, the game developer doesn’t have the necessary income. Another thing I hate is pervasive marketing in game. All the f2p games I played advertise in game (in chat and in the middle of your screen), telling you of all the discounts in the cash shop. Is that a direction you want for games? I certainly don’t.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Gehenna.3625:

Viking Jorun.5413:

With 3 million sales as of November, and seeing that each server has reached either Very High or Full in the past 3 server cap raises, Each server has AT LEAST 58,824 registered players, and that number rises each day. They have no reason to close low population servers. (considering that none are below Medium, they wouldn’t have to even if they were forced to close Low pop servers.)

Registered players perhaps but that doesn’t mean they’re actually playing the game. You call it server cap raises but all that means is that they have a sort of calculation that takes people who have been offline for x amount of time out of the equation. So a server cap raise could actually mean that more people have not played for a while therefore freeing up space to allow more people on a given server.

It’s a decently working server population control, but it would not be correct to assume it means populations are constantly on the rise. It can mean just the same that more players stopped playing allowing more people to come to that server.

You obviously aren’t an expert on server architecture and made that little lie up in your head to help you sleep at night. Nobody’s removed from the servers, which is why with each server cap increase we experience more and more lag.

You obviously don’t read very well. I said they were taken out of the equation or calculation if you prefer, not taken off the server. That is something you made up entirely yourself.

We all know that part of the calculation for how full a server is, is based on how many accounts there are and not just how many concurrent players are logged in. And before you jump again, please reread the previous sentence and notice how I said PART and not the whole calculation.

So before acting like you’re god and become all condescending, learn to read instead of acting like I said something terrible just because you didn’t read carefully and twist my words into something I clearly didn’t say.

Oh and obviously when fewer people play and they let new players in on the server it will have a possible lag effect. But if what you say is true and that the game gets more and more lag, wouldn’t the game be unplayable by now? C’mon a little logic please, the game obviously is still playable.

Viking Jorun.5413:

With 3 million sales as of November, and seeing that each server has reached either Very High or Full in the past 3 server cap raises, Each server has AT LEAST 58,824 registered players, and that number rises each day. They have no reason to close low population servers. (considering that none are below Medium, they wouldn’t have to even if they were forced to close Low pop servers.)

Registered players perhaps but that doesn’t mean they’re actually playing the game. You call it server cap raises but all that means is that they have a sort of calculation that takes people who have been offline for x amount of time out of the equation. So a server cap raise could actually mean that more people have not played for a while therefore freeing up space to allow more people on a given server.

It’s a decently working server population control, but it would not be correct to assume it means populations are constantly on the rise. It can mean just the same that more players stopped playing allowing more people to come to that server.

TwoBit.5903:

I wanted to keep it brief. I was also keen to avoid the mental gymnasitics that generally cause people type of pages of nonsense as reasoning-the kind I see in your post.

@Gehenna
I get that feeling as well. I’m not entirely sure why they gave those greens for completing LS quests when my current gear made the rewards so obsolete.

I think the tier system functions as a double-edged sword. The increases are significant but not enough to make make combat different in a meaningful way. You kill stuff with yellows or you can kill slightly faster with oranges. Whoopeee.

The newly announced skills piqued my interest because they could potentially add meaningful decisions and gameplay variations, but then I remembered how difficult it would be to add variation to this mushy mess of a combat system.

Mind you, lame story rewards is not unique to guild wars. For some reason MMOs tend to make leveling something that takes quite a while and is supposed to be epic and all that but the rewards are anything but. It seems to be some game developer logic that story lines should not be rewarded, thereby teaching people that the story line actually isn’t that important. It’s a matter of putting money where your mouth is really or do as I say, not as I do. Anet have followed suit in that.

The stat increase from exotic to ascended is small enough that you don’t need it, except maybe in the tetris dungeon aka fotm.

However, there are a significant amount of people who want it, but not even for the stats. Just as a sense of completion or achievement. Too bad all it takes to get said gear is log in once a day for a while, again devaluating the meaning of top tier gear. Aside from being too easy and just time gated it’s also a very one sided approach…just do dailies, that’s it. That devaluates the rest of the game.

What worries me about new skills is that to make them interesting, they will likely be more powerful. That means everybody will go for earning the new skills and the existing content will be even easier to do. Why do I think the new skills will be more powerful? Because if not, people will be disappointed and go: whatever.

Wanna get people excited? Give them more freedom within the existing skill bar set up.

cassius.5809:

I had a friend who didn’t even install the game but his character has a precursor. INORITE?!

Crap, we’ve been playing this game all wrong. If I hadn’t bought the game I would’ve had a legendary and ascended gear….Man I should’ve never bought it!!

cassius.5809:

Ok now I’m even more intrigued. I was thinking about the terrain system and wondered how long it would take for players to completely destroy the world!!! Of course they’ve thought if that. They should definitely have a server at beta where they turn off regeneration.

Animation in the videos looks amazing, very smooth.

Oh and mods, please don’t go into my row in the player database and set the super secret loot chance modifier field to 0.1% because I bought attention to this game:)

Well if you can destroy stuff I would imagine you can build stuff and plants will grow again etc. So it does sound interesting.

I think what they are doing with skills is an improvement on a mix of GW1 and GW2 elements btw. Also I seem to remember that you don’t actually gain levels. That’s something that would’ve worked better in GW2.

I know a lot of people were asking for more levels in GW1 but that’s the funny thing: GW2 is not GW1 at all. so where more levels would’ve been interesting for a game like GW1, it doesn’t actually work well in GW2.

cassius.5809:

I’ve found recently I keep getting exotics after not playing the game for days at a time.

Wait, are you telling me you are being rewarded for playing very casually?

TheDaiBish.9735:

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-mmo-manifesto-reactions/

Partial interview

TL:DR – When they were talking about bosses not returning 10 mins later, they were referring to Personal Story bosses.

Which makes their point pointless because there are plenty of other games out there where storyline bosses don’t respawn either. Somthing called instancing, which is how it’s done in GW2 and also in many other games. No wonder people read more into it since they were being all excited about an exciting new thing, which was in fact already commonplace in newer games.

TheDaiBish.9735:

1) It lacks depth: Players aren’t given a choice how to tackle the content. You HAVE to take a Tank, Healer and 3 DPS. No choice = no depth. Not only that, when it comes to encounter mechanics, you’re restricted in what mechanics you can implement that require the Trinity. Tanks tend to be limited to “Face the boss away” or, if there are two tanks “Have a mechanic that requires tanks to swap at X stacks” or “Tank keeps the boss, other Tank gets the Adds”. DPS tends to be Target Priority and Healer heals. Mechanics such as Sindragosa’s trapping people in crystals isn’t limited to the Trinity (and could easily be implemented into GW2).

This is in fact what makes it team work. Everybody has to play their part or the team fails. It depends on the game and difficulty level however how far that goes. SWTOR is a current game with a trinity system. In story mode you’ll find operations (raids) rather more forgiving and in hard mode, then yes, you have to learn to dance the dance. But PvE is about beating an AI, all PvE is like that to some extent, whether you realise it or not. The big boss fights are just less forgiving in making mistakes.

TheDaiBish.9735:

2) It isn’t truly teamwork: Subjective, but I don’t view having hard roles as true teamwork. If the Tank goes down, that’s it. There’s no ability for a DPS to stall for a bit while some players while some other players get the Tank back up (short of an in-battle res).

It is subjective indeed. To me teamwork means that everybody’s role matters and that if someone fails the team fails. It’s about making sure everybody learns and plays their part. I very much find that teamwork.

TheDaiBish.9735:

3) It’s still all essentially a DPS race: Tank needs to get as much Aggro as possible, Healers need to out-heal the damage being received (with the occasional condition removal), DPS…speaks for itself. They’re all just DPS races with different names.

That is an oversimplification. I get the feeling you speak about a specific game. In SWTOR for example (I use that game since I play it), DPS is an issue because of enrage timers. However tanking is not just building aggro and healing isn’t just about outhealing damage. So really, I just want to tell you that not all trinity games are the same.

All systems have pro’s and cons…In GW2 the lack of distinct roles makes classes jut fluff and not fucntional. In my view GW2 only has 2 roles…dps and support but all classes can do both. The choice is just to which extent you want to fill each role with your class. Why do I see that as a bad thing? Well, as much as it allows for anybody to do anything, there’s nothing special about your character because whatever it is you can do with your class someone else can do it too. Some people don’t have a problem with that but I like there to be a point to a class more than just a bit of background and certain look.

Again, GW2 does have some cool things in it. I certainly won’t say it’s all bad, but to see it as a template for next gen MMOs is overestimating this game…at least in my view

milo.6942:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

So you want sPvP to be some sort of Dungeon against other players where one tanks all the damage while others heal him and others do damage? That’d be boring to play and to watch, and Gw2 tries to get eSport attention. With the current system it would be possible, because it’s fun to watch and to play, it just needs more balance between the classes. PvP is about smashing others together, splitting and attacking from different angles, that is teamplay in a PvP Game.

oh man that was painful to read
gw1 combat was nothing at all like that
their trinity was like: spike-dps/pressure-dps, disable/interrupt, protect/heal
nowhere in there was there ever anything like a “tank”, and there was plenty of splitting in gvg
my god i miss that game q_q

Well, I don’t entirely agree. There was such a thing as a terratank for example. I remember going into DOA for example with a tank going in first with all kinds of protective enchantments etc….definitely a tank.

I do agree it wasn’t part of a normal trinity as in other MMOs but to say there was never anything like a tank anywhere in GW1 is also not true.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

morrolan.9608:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

1: Wrong forum
2: gw2s player population is steadily growing, including wvw

Wrong, this from someone who has been playing WvW from the start

There can only be as much players than WvW allow, how do you know that there are more or less players just becouse you play WvW?
I know I play in a less populated server and it is usually queue for WvW at peak times

I don’t thinks Spehss has any facts but if he/she does I am sorry, but from playing GW2 I have noticed an increase of player activity and alot of rookie-new players in our Guild.

I find it funny that you question this guy but not the other one. How would he know that it’s steadily growing?

I will give you two points to consider:

1) Income for GW2 is down a quite a bit In the last quarter of 2012 the game was good for 45% of NcSoft’s total sales. In quarter one of 2013 this percentage was down to 21%. We will see when the next quarterly report comes out, but so far sales numbers are down, which I think is normal, but it doesn’t support a steady growth.

2) When I see how WvW was when the game was new, the WvW servers were full during ALL of prime time. I cannot speak for all servers but on my server now it’s only full for a couple of hours each night. That is a decrease.

So these points don’t prove that population is down over the whole game, but it’s enough to doubt the sincerity of the guy claiming that populations are steadily growing.

Quarktastic.1027:

Gehenna.3625:

Quarktastic.1027:

Mickey.4207:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Mickey.4207:

Karizee.8076:

There are 2.5 million players logging in every week. The game is getting new content every 2 weeks and much has been done to improve the core game and rewards systems.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Pulling numbers out of thin air i see.

It was actually published on the Chinese website.

So no official announcement from Anet. My point exactly. And that website made this announcement purely for marketing purposes in China. Anyone can make those numbers up.

If I’m not mistaken, “that website” belongs to Anet.

And how that’s that help us? Are we sure that 2.5 actual individual player accounts log in every week or is it like McDonald’s has their x million customers served, meaning they count each log in. So if you log in 10 times, you count as 10 customers….Marketing is a funny thing you see.

Anet posted the statistics, maybe you should ask them.

They didn’t post them here in this forum. I am just pointing out that we can’t trust such a reference here and that we need context. The person who posted them here certainly seems to accept these numbers blindly. I am still not convinced Anet really posted them, let alone assume that these numbers mean what the poster is suggesting.

Your reply is completely useless. My point clearly was to question the poster, not Anet.

I think that because MMOs have made everything too easy and just resorted to a combination of either throwing stuff at players or silly grind or time gated progression. GW2 has only made this worse.

The instant gratification has gone too far and made people lazy. I find it interesting how people think they know what’s going on by having played one or two MMOs. Aion has a system where you can combine items taking the stats from one and the look from the other…sound familiar? Aion also had an armour set that was the ultimate thing but one of the armour pieces was completely dependent on RNG…legendary weapon anyone?

Sure GW2 brought in dynamic events and hearts. Basically a new way of doing the same old stuff. Why do people think something is new when all they did is repackage it. Area quests are not new and that’s what these are. In the end you are still collecting x items, killing x mobs and defending locations or travelling npc’s.

Contemporary items in a fantasy game? Been done. Nothing new.

Really all GW2 has done is take things from other games and repackage them in a way that people are not used to. It’s fair enough and every other game does this at least to some extent, but let’s not overvalue this so called “innovation”.

Dynamic events are kinda cool, but they are repetitive and people are often trying to find out when and where events are. This is not a good thing in my view.

Also pve content is generally way to easy and the toughest challenge is fighting boredom.

But at least there’s lots of events and silly shiny crap to keep people “excited”. Once you dispel the shiny though, it leaves me with a game that is just as repetitive as any other game and often more. Why do you think they are doing all they can to keep you distracted?

So no, aside from a couple of good ideas on how to deal with quests and quest logs, this game has actually only added old stuff and made them worse in various ways.
I definitely don’t see GW2 as a template for the future.

Look at some other items:
Guilds
sPvP
Dungeons
Leveling to a sensekitten
Reward system

These are some of the core elements of this game and they are not well done at all. Oh it’s so great that everybody gets loot….what loot? A couple of blues and some gold from a boss?

No, the OP is entitled to his opinion but I see GW2 as a diversion, quirky deviation not an evolution.

Shockwave.1230:

Esplen.3940:

Erasculio.2914:

-snip-

So then what should players work for? What should differentiate the player who plays for 8 hours a day versus the player who plays for 10 minutes a day (and yes, the average time played for players who get on GW2 is ~12 minutes a day everyday).

I think the metrics that are more important are…

How many days a week do people want to play, which can be tracked by looking for days where people play for more than 45min (since they probably don’t want to play that day and are just getting on to do the daily)

How many hours do people play on days that they want to play?

A metric saying that people just play for an average of 12 minutes per day tells you that you need better metrics to understand your players.

Metrics, like other numbers, are pretty much meaningless without context.

For example, people are bored in game so log less or not as long. So then an event comes like that box thing and people start massively doing it. What does this mean?

Is it the rewards that bring people there?
Is it the fact that there’s finally something different to do, no matter how ridiculous?
Is it the fear of missing out on something?

The thing is, the fac that people do something doesn’t automatically mean you understand why. Players might not even really like it but just do it cause it’s there and something else to do. So whenever game devs talk about metrics, I always wonder if they really get that increased activity is not the same as actually liking doing this activity.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Thing is, the big names that are now freemium started with a sub design, and so copied the “formula” to a greater or lesser degree.

We haven’t seen a big, new MMO come out since GW2 launched. Wildstar and TESO look to be the next “big” names coming out, and their business model was listed as “Unknown” on Massively as of two days ago. It’ll be interesting to see what they — and other titles — do.

Doesn’t matter from my point of view. Some may still try to start with a sub, but in the end they will all fall and add f2p in there. Unless you have a company like Blizzard who is willing to invest and take a hit when needed, other companies will fall on their faces each time. Why?

Because they all make the same mistakes. They all believe their own hype and overhype the game. They will get lots of players interested, and 1-3 months later at least half will have left. Game developers just need to do a lot better to hold people to their games. Perhaps they should stop being disappointed or shocked when half the players leave within the first 3 months. They should expect that this is the reality of MMOs a make that part of their calculations.

Perhaps then they will get smarter about content or even realise that overhyping just to create extra box sales also comes with big downsides a couple of months later. And maybe they might hire better people to build things like sensible rewards systems and a leveling process that doesn’t become pointless half way….just saying.

MMOs are never really balanced, but I wish they had kept pvp and pve skills as separate sets. It’s part of the reason why it’s more imbalanced than it should be.

Also some things like the mesmer portal and they way stealth is handled in this game (reminds me of Aion and it’s not a good memory), really cause more trouble. My guess is that they do that on purpose, but it’s just a guess (tin foil hats!).

It’s sad really because the sub system really is better for the quality of a MMO in general. People just saw these crappy f2p games that they thought were awesome for 3 days and then decided they didn’t want to pay subs anymore.

I am pretty sure people spend more on cash shops than subs and the quality of the games has become less of games without any subs for sure.

Let’s be honest, GW2 looks pretty, but the story telling and voice acting is not very good. New content for endgame so far has been FotM, the tetris dungeon and the rest is just silly events and living story crap, but nothing substantial, one year into the game. I see the limitations this game has everywhere compared to games that were set up with a sub model. That just makes GW2 a game I visit from time to time to casually run around the world for a few hours till it bores the crap out of me again.

Kinda like a booty call

Conncept.7638:

Gehenna.3625:

Charr fuzzball or hot human chick? tough choice…the male community has spoken!

More like greedy dishonest businessman or hard-working law enforcement officer. Has little to do with male to female ratio or the gap would be much larger, as last I checked the gaming community is male dominant by much… much more than 50%.

Wait a minute…did you take that comment seriously? lol, just lol

The thing is that they’ve heard from players that there are problems with the reward systems and people don’t feel rewarded for their efforts in game.

The problem however is that they think players just want bigger rewards for doing as little as possible. This is certainly true for some players, who can’t think further than what they want to have for breakfast tomorrow morning, because in the long term it makes the game completely boring.

What makes rewards good is a few things:

1) The reward should be something useful and/or desireable, something a player would want to get.
2) There should be multiple options for more important rewards, so there is choice….not everyone likes the same things.
3) Monetary rewards (gold) should be a secondary consideration, not primary.
4) Good rewards should require actual effort or challenge or the game will enable people who want everything for nothing.

So how is GW2 doing on these points?

1) Most rewards are not things that people get excited over. Especially story line rewards often give blue gear that is below what I already wear. It’s an afterthought at best.
2) This is done for example with quest rewards (3 different skins to choose from), but it is not consistent.
3) My feeling is that gold is too much the focus. Anet may say, but yes that’s what the players are asking for. So let me ask: Why are players asking for more gold? Exactly, because the game revolves around because of how it’s designed.
4) This to me is a huge problem in game. Currently it’s too easy to get exotic gear together, in dungeons or with karma. Specifically at level 80. It doesn’t feel rewarding as a consequence because even though it has the best stats atm, it’s treated like the gear you level up with. Also with current karma rewards it’s dead easy to get enough karma to buy level 80 gear in Orr.

There is so much more related to this subject that causes the foundation of the reward system to be shaky and pointless, but I wanted to focus on these 4 points.

Surely at the moments the rewards you get are generally not satisfying and that’s for specifically 2 reasons: either the rewards are crappy and/or it’s so easy to get, you don’t really care.

That to me is the real foundation of why the reward system is not working.

Tolmos.8395:

I would love if that would be true, but I think Anet is still traumatized from trying to balance GW1. They probably have involuntary twitches that trigger when you say the words “55 build”. Their kneejerk reaction was limit GW2 players to 10-14 total skills max, so it will take a while and a lot of therapy to get them to the point that they are willing to expand beyond that .

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Nothing killed a “55” build more than life stealing spirits….

In GW1 they made 2 mistakes. First of all dual classes were made too easy too abuse. They made it too easy to access the secondary class skills to the point that for example necro’s were better restoration healers than the ritualist class itself. They should’ve never allowed so much access to secondary classes.

Secondly, they made the mistake of thinking you could use the same skills in pvp and pve equally. This doesn’t work because pvp and pve are inherently different. Unless you completely redo mobs in pve, they cannot go on equal footing.

This led to them bringing out pve only skills and having pvp and pve versions of each skill.

So what happened in GW2? They got rid of dual classes, but still decided they could balance all skills around pvp and pve equally. Whoever decided they should go that way again should be fired. What a completely stupid decision that was.

Another thing that happened in GW1 was that new skills were introduced with new campaigns. The bad mistake that was made there is that they made those skills more powerful than the existing ones, making the older campaigns totally easy to beat, taking all challenge out of the game.

So what will happen with GW2? My guess is more powerful skills needed in new content again completely making current content even easier. That’s my prediction.

dargosian.2704:

cesmode.4257:

People are so naieve to think that this game provides you the only unique avenue in the MMO industry to give you the true freedom of choice. “you dont need to run dungeons if you dont like to..dont grind if you dont want to…” Yet, I am free not to do either of those things in any run-of-the-mill MMO either.

Not entirely, because other MMOs hold you to a subscription fee. Are you going to spend $15 a month to get the best of the best and do the latest greatest content, or stuff you should have done a long time ago? The “no-choice” found in other MMOs is a symptom of vertical progression (you actually need the best gear to do new content) combined with the subscription fee that holds you to the game – thus forcing you to commit to the vertical progression. ANet combats both by removing them entirely. Hence, we can do whatever we want in the game – and even out of it.

Your argument is about 5 years old. How many MMOs still have a sub only? Most MMOs I know that have subs also have f2p accounts, so your argument is completely ridiculous.

Charr fuzzball or hot human chick? tough choice…the male community has spoken!

Khisanth.2948:

Monsoon.2589:

Any reasons in particular?
Also why does the login to the site idles for 10 seconds?

Both are security related.

The reason why sites have autologout is covered by numerous articles around the web but my brain has been too lazy to remember. However I can think of at least one reason for it. This might never apply to you but think of the people accessing the forum through public systems/friend’s/relative’s computer/other similar situations. The auto logout puts a time limit on how long the account is exposed even if someone forgets to logout from those situations.

The 10 seconds is a defense against someone trying to brute force the password. This is obviously not the only thing in place security wise but you want defense in layers not single points of failure.

Explain to me then, why it logs me out of the forum, but not out of the website. Just now I came to this website and I was logged in, but for the forum I am logged out. Would it not make sense that I am logged out of the website as well?

In other words, if I log into the website, what am I logging into exactly because it’s not for the forum. And does that not need to be equally protected then?

Quarktastic.1027:

Mickey.4207:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Mickey.4207:

Karizee.8076:

There are 2.5 million players logging in every week. The game is getting new content every 2 weeks and much has been done to improve the core game and rewards systems.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Pulling numbers out of thin air i see.

It was actually published on the Chinese website.

So no official announcement from Anet. My point exactly. And that website made this announcement purely for marketing purposes in China. Anyone can make those numbers up.

If I’m not mistaken, “that website” belongs to Anet.

And how that’s that help us? Are we sure that 2.5 actual individual player accounts log in every week or is it like McDonald’s has their x million customers served, meaning they count each log in. So if you log in 10 times, you count as 10 customers….Marketing is a funny thing you see.

PVStar.3658:

Magnetron.5823:

There are like 5 people playing right now, its very hard to do a dungeon.

http://gw2lfg.com/

About 80 groups in the past 5 minutes. I really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

So what you’re saying is you still need to go to an external website to get a group?

I think he meant that horizontal progression doesn’t mean it has to be dead easy to get.

Galen Grey.4709:

Shifty.5187:

I’m reminded by my last GW1 days where I decided to go for 50 HoM points. The last thing I needed was Obsidian armor and I set out to get it by selling everything I could sell and farming Fissure of Woe.

It was great hooking up with people to do that difficult content, performing your essential task in the speed run, being glad someone hands you a few ectos and obsidian shards because he doesn’t need them, finding a rare drop you can sell, all to acquire that piece of gear you want. I had fun every step of the way, although it closely resembles farming.

Almost all of that is gone with time-gated, non-tradeable items. I find that sad.

The Obsidian armor wasnt BiS… go for I dont know named exotics for example… hmm like say vision of the mists and you can get that same experiance more or less.

here’s a list of hard to craft thingies
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Equipment

In GW1 all endgame armour was BiS, including Obsidian armour….but GW1 was built around collecting armour sets for prestige. So in GW1 terms you could consider Obsidian “BiS” because stats were irrelevant in that game and it was GW1’s equivalent of the best stuff out there.

GW2, even with ascended armour coming, is still not so much about stats as other MMOs. My biggest gripe with GW2 in that respect is simply that the armour sets are of much poorer design than in GW1 so I am not interested in running dungeons since I only like on of the armours. I literally only like 1. And that includes all dungeons and all types (light, medium, heavy). That’s a big change for me.

Still, FotM is the only new thing since the game came out that is sort of permanent and the rest is all stuff that comes and goes. In another thread I compared it to snacks and meals. At some point you get sick of lots of snacks and just want a proper meal. I think that’s the best analogy I can make for new content in GW2. Too many snacks, no proper meals since release.

Kurakura.7281:

The learn to play aspect is something that is really nice in a lot of action type games from first person shooters to action rpg’s… Every time you play you know you are getting better as you can do things you weren’t able to do before with the same gear. Even if there is no new content, getting better at the game is a goal too. The learning curve for PvE in GW2 is ridiculously low. It doesn’t even take 1 hour to learn how to play for most of PvE w/o any real difficulties.

The difference is that in other games you do need to learn some basics or you will die a lot or constantly. In this game, not a problem…you can be an idiot and feel like a hero or have half a brain and get the feeling it’s….well, lacking.

The fact that it’s ridiculously simply to learn is exactly what the OP is talking about. And the fact that even though it’s so easy but you don’t even need to learn it makes it only worse in my view.

SlowSteady.9483:

Dawdler.8521:

I believe server pops are based on the amount of accounts having it as home server, not the currently logged in population. So no need to refresh.

I don’t think that’s entirely true…

Nope but it is definitely part of the calculation. It’s been known for some time that the home server count is part of calculating how full a server is. One of the drawbacks of having no subs is that it’s harder to predict how often or when people will be online as there is much more perceived freedom (after the box, you’re not paying for it), but it’s not the only thing in the calculation.

It does create situations where a friend of yours may not be able to join your server even though the server is not necessarily full of people playing but does have a lot of accounts assigned to it.