Guild Wars 2

Galen Grey.4709:

Very well put. yes thats exactly it. Kudos!

Thing is the problem is not that the reward is meaningless. I didnt see anyone complain about dailies because ascended gear isnt a good enough reward. The problem is actually the opposite, for people who hate the system ascended gear is exactly what they want but feel the price for it is too high even though its EXTREMELY discounted by the daily system.

Going with your analogy We’re being paid for a day of work by a token for simply showing up for 30 minutes – 1hr. But people dont want that, they want to drop the token get paid for time worked. They also dont want to work every day, they want to just work weekends. They look at the previous system and say hey I got payed a token for 30 minutes before so If I work 8hrs on a saturday I should get the equivalent of 16 tokens. The problem here is the token was symbolic for a day, if you switch back to the regular pay you’re payed for time and a work day is 8hrs not 1hr. That means with money you can do overtime sure and work 16hrs instead of 8 but that will cover 2 days not 16 days like people are hoping it would. … blah thing I botched the explanation up again.. hope people are getting what I am trying to say.

Yeh I see what you are getting at and that is part of the problem I see. Anet seem to have difficulty finding a way to balance the needs of the more hardcore and casual players. I also think that Anet has this sort of idealistic view embedded in their psyche or something. They still think they can make a shoe size that fits all. They want to make one game in one way that works for everybody.

Needless to say I think that’s as useful as Don Quixote who fought the windmills. And that’s where I think this problem stems from. They were probably taken aback quite a bit with all the negative reactions they got when they introduced the subject of ascended gear. That was also their own fault if you ask me, but that’s another subject. So, they came out with this ultimate gear if you will and so far only released accessories, but they wanted them to be equally accessible for hardcore and casual players. Most people would say “in your dreams Anet” I think but they still think they can or should do it.

Why? Well, perhaps a misguided sense of idealism or perhaps simply the limitations of a game that has only a boxed price and a very option gemstore. Perhaps they can’t do better simply because of financial restrictions. They can’t build a full fledged endgame.

This game has been out a year and has gained FotM and ascended items since then when it comes to endgame progression. The rest is grinding for a legendary, but that was already in the game from the start.

Sure, there have been events and these living story things, but it’s not the same. They’re snacks and some people get sick of the constant snacks and would like a proper meal again, but it may simply be that Anet doesn’t have the resources to do more.

Obviously the income of GW2 has decreased significantly since the first few months it was out (it’s in the financial reports). Now this is normal for MMOs and I am not saying the game is dying, but it does mean that there may be tight limits for new content. Maybe going to China will do a lot of good for the game. I am expecting it might do well there. Although having said that, I wonder if the Chinese, who are more accustomed to grind might not find this game way too easy. My apologies for the stereo type but I expect most of them to have a legendary within 2 months tops, but it would be good for the game if it did well and give them a cash influx that allows for less snacks and more meals if you will.

etiolate.9185:

If confusion still hit hard the OP would have to learn to play.

Just saying.

I think the point is that you don’t have to l2p in this game (except perhaps in sPvP for the few who do that).

There is some complexity that you could use to your benefit….but you don’t need to. The game is purposefully dumbed down (as I see it) to accomodate the masses of casuals.

In PvE you can muck about, be an idiot and still win. In WvW you can zerg around with the rest. Bottom line you can be a total idiot and still be a hero, which is the exact opposite of l2p.

I think that’s why I don’t feel that this game is heroic because it’s all too simplistic. The fact that you can defeat a lot of enemies with auto attack and sit back is a testament to how shallow the game’s combat system is.

Now, you can make it spectacular by dodging and using all your skills…but you don’t need to…

Esplen.3940:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t find myself concerned about the, “I get the same rewards in 45 minutes as someone who plays for 8 hours.” I am concerned about, “The game is not fun to play.”

He likes other games that have vertical gear grinds. I’m surprised he still gets on GW2 daily.

Well, he still does the one thing he needs to do for the only vertical progress in the game: get laurels. And yes you can do your daily or whatever in 45 mins.

He could be posting here in the hope of Anet finally giving in and creating more endgame content.

See, the thing is that with this living story thing, is that you need to tell a compelling story…story telling is a weakness for Anet. So obviously that’s what they focus on…the very thing they suck at basically.

This game is not for people who want some sort of endgame. It was an interesting design decision to say the whole game is endgame but it does take the point of leveling away. By the time I get to level 50 for example I get a bit bored with leveling, not to mention that it’s all a bit meaningless anyway.

Truth is that if you want to have some sort of sense of progression after you hit level 80, it just isn’t there. I only play this game casually for that same reason. I like leveling from time to time but then it does get a drag. It just feels that around level 50 I should’ve hit max level already.

I will just stay forever impressed by the people here who can play this game hours per day, day after day. Apparently it’s fun for them, but I just get bored after a few days again…oh another event, oh another heart. Why? Because it’s all repetitious just like kill x mobs quests in other games but without any sense of direction. Of course people are different, but I find it amazing that people can put a lot of time in this.

The OP clearly misses any sense of progression outside getting his laurel and he’s right. And as other people say: this game is not for him and that’s also right.

Right, give me your point of view on this. I’ll listen to what you have to say. Epic heroic story right?

SPOILER ALERT if you don’t want to know what happens in the level 50 quest the battle for claw island.

I just did this quest:

So I go to the fort and speak to 3 people who obviously can’t possible fathom there could be a threat. This is why they are of course important people.

Then a small group attacks and I kill them. Well, not entirey, I kill a group of five undead with about 6 npcs that are with me. A preliminary attack of course.

A cut scene and poof out of nowhere the walls are taken over and a couple of undead ship come up. Ok things are about to get started.

Logically at this point I must abandon the defense of the fort to run to the beach and revive someone so she can tell the guy in the back standing around that we need to light the beacon. Now I dont fight my way there because more undead keep coming so I just run to her and revive and run back, again ignoring any undead. Not helping the poor lionguards out there. She says let’s light he beacon but the dude in the back says no and tells me to kill the undead ship. Right, so one trebuchet hit later the ship is dead and 50 more ships appear. till ignoring all the undead there.

Now all is lost. I run to the lighthouse and light the beacon. I dont fight my way there because there is no point (respawn) and so run up and back to the final stand in the middle. So I tested something. I pulled away from combat and sat down (screenshot is below. 3 minutes later the dragon comes and shatters the wall (I sure didn’t do any fighting, but as I found out I didn’t have to.

So the dragon is here (and I am pretty sure it used to be a fight with the dragon) but we run away back to the ship, again ignoring all undea mobs because there is no point in fighting them.

Of course all of this with the constant blabbering of Trahearne going on and on and on.

Quest completed.

This is rather an important moment in the story I would say and we only get a story mission every few levels. Seriously, how can anyone keep a straight face and call this epic? How?

Crayonmuffin.1473:

I’m starting to clear the beginning areas. Getting it down now. Another question I had though: When you create your character and choose your armor colors, do those colors affect any armor you get throughout the game or will you be able to change them later? Was wondering because I just realized my color scheme is the same even though I’ve gotten new stuff lol

You get a basic set of dyes you can use on any armour and you can collect new dyes and add them to your character’s pallet so you can use it on all your armour from then on as well.

What happened for you is that you choose your colour scheme and those colours are in your standard dye pool, so it automatically copied the same scheme to your new armour, but you can change colouring at any time.

Just use the colouring icon above your armour in your hero screen.

I only play from time to time, like right now, when I get bored with other games for a bit and just want something to do.

I don’t create complaint threads but I like to get into the discussions more than expecting it to change anything. Forum PvP is still the best part of this game

Again kudos for completely focussing on the wrong part of my post. So I will try to simplify it for both of you since you are so stubborn to focus on side issues.

As of level 50 Trahearne is in charge and my character is not the hero. Even if he wasn’t at the final fight itself, the fight against Zhaitan is so non-epic and the instance so boring that it kills any sense of accomplishment. And on top of that the dragon was killed, not with my skills or combat prowess…no, with a stupid cannon.

Say what you will, it’s non epic, non heroic and Trahearne is the main character in the story after level 50 or whenever he comes into play.

In the en it means that in order to get the best gear in the game, you just have to log in for an hour a day and do some easy dailies 20-30 times.

So the best gear in town is achieved by how many individual days you log in and not by any actual achievement. Again the best rewards are given for logging in, not for actually accomplishing some difficult or challenging.

Mind you it sounds good to me. Getting a top salary for showing up at work and my boss saying: Well I don’t care what you do the rest of the day….Exciting as that sounds, if the reward doesn’t match the effort it becomes meaningless.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gehenna.3625:

Knowing that you are reduced to a sidek— as Trahearne hits the stage, therefore means that half the story is not “I am a hero” but “I was there when Trahearne saved the world”.

Sorry but they knew this and they spun it the way the needed it for sales.

I hate to break it to you but Trahearne still hasn’t saved the world, claimed credit for anything he’s not due, or even been the most awesome person in the room.

(That’s still Tybalt by the way, who sends his greetings from Southsun Cove where he is drinking from tall glasses with fruit on little sticks in them.)

Orr is . . . not even saved, but the first step is done. We don’t know how long it will take to clean it up or even what’s going to happen now that Zhaitan is finished and the Source is purified.

Now there’s still the issue of the Icebrood, the Branded, the Destroyers and their masters.

World’s not saved yet. Time to get up and get started again, work’s still calling.

Sigh, Zhaitan was killed blah blah blah. Call it what you want. The main story is over and as it stands Trahearne is the main man from the moment he comes in the story pretty much.

Please don’t focus on whether or not it meant saving the world. The hero of the story was Trahearne, not my character. My point was clearly not whether we saved the world or not but the fact that Trahearne is the main character in the second half of the story line. So please respond to that part. If it’s so important to you that the world is actually technically not saved, well fine. You win we didn’t save the world. But feel free to respond to the main point which is that Trahearne is the main character in this story and not the player’s character.

Esplen.3940:

Gehenna.3625:

Esplen.3940:

Galtrix.7369:

Kurakura.7281:

In GW2 you are a nobody. You DO NOT matter!

I agree. I think Colin said “The monsters don’t care if you’re standing there. I fight a monster, it spawns back 10 minutes later. We kill it, and it respawns again. This isn’t the direction we want to take.” Yet, that’s exactly what they did here.

All major dragons spawn, are killed, and respawn later. They really don’t give a single flying crap that I’m there. As far as I can tell, the world hasn’t changed at all because of my actions. The personality types (dignity, charm, ferocity) don’t matter at all when I talk to people, so it doesn’t change anything.

Yes, let’s have Dragon Champions (Lieutenants, to be more precise) that only spawn once… ever. Reminds me of a fight… oh, what was that name… I can’t remember it… OH THAT’S RIGHT, THE Ancient Karka battle. I wonder how well that went.

So Mr smartiepants…in your infinite wisdom, could you please explain why Anet said they didn’t want to go this way if in fact, as you say, it is unavoidable?

Because no matter how you find the extreme opposite ridiculous, you have said nothing about the point that Anet said something and surprise surprise, they didn’t stick to it. Do you call that lying or something else?

The manifesto was their ideals before the release of the game. Things change (who woulda thought Ascended items would come out? Fractals? I’m quite sure the devs at Arenanet didn’t, but they made it because a lot of the Vertical Gear Grinders wanted some Vertical Gear to Grind.

Take a step back and think about what Arenanet has done/is doing because of the masses. Sure, you might not be part of the masses, but when you think of a PUG, what do you think of? Now multiply that by millions and that’s what drives a company to make the bad choices they do (either that or just pure greed).

Inversely, what do you suggest they do? You can complain all you want about what someone didn’t do [right], but if you don’t say what they can do better, you’re not contributing to anything.

I prefer people don’t make promises they actually know or should know they can’t keep. This is not unique to Anet but I often wonder if these guys believe their own hype.

I specifically doubt that they changed the storyline completely after the manifesto for example. Knowing that you are reduced to a sidekittenoon as Trahearne hits the stage, therefore means that half the story is not “I am a hero” but “I was there when Trahearne saved the world”.

Sorry but they knew this and they spun it the way the needed it for sales.

What Anet needs to do to change this around, is when the level cap gets raised (as it was already said this would happen at some point) is to put our characters into the center spotlight again. My direct suggestion is that it starts with Trahearne being corrupted and he becomes the end boss of a new dungeon.

I am sure I am not the only one who’d love the chance to kill him. If the world needs me to save it I feel heroic. If the world need another sidekick to aid the npc heroes, then I don’t feel heroic.

So there you go.

Algreg.3629:

there are more complex games out there and gw1 certainly was one when it came to skill synergy, but from your description it appears you are not even making use of the options GW2, which you call shallow, offers you.

If you really play like that, you are certainly underplaying any class. Sure, you get by fine in open world PvE, but even there you´d be way more effective if you put some more thought into it. Not to speak of dungeons and fractals.

Why would you call for a more complex system when you are not even exploring the complexity of a proclaimed shallow one?

Well, even in dungeons you don’t really need to. I think sPvP is the only place where you really need to watch which skills you bring etc.

I do think part of the problem is that even though there is some depth in the system, you don’t actually need it for most of the game. And the layers that are there are not very transparent in what they do.

But my biggest concern is still that with all the things that are there, you are not very free in a lot of choices as I explained above. Combine that with the fact that you can beat most content as long you can dodge and ress and use auto attack and you are right, people don’t use whatever complexity is there because you don’t need to.

So why bother if the only difference is that you kill a boss in 2.5 mins instead of 3 mins? The combat system doesn’t invite to creativity and the long cooldowns on most skills mean you rarely get to use them in combat, so often you don’t or just do cause it’s something to click.

The only way you can stand out in this game is to have an actual fashion sense. In my view most characters look ridiculous in this game and I can’t blame the players for that entirely.

But if you manage to get gear together that looks good and matches and doesn’t look over the top or otherwise ridiculous I would be very impressed with you.

Esplen.3940:

Galtrix.7369:

Kurakura.7281:

In GW2 you are a nobody. You DO NOT matter!

I agree. I think Colin said “The monsters don’t care if you’re standing there. I fight a monster, it spawns back 10 minutes later. We kill it, and it respawns again. This isn’t the direction we want to take.” Yet, that’s exactly what they did here.

All major dragons spawn, are killed, and respawn later. They really don’t give a single flying crap that I’m there. As far as I can tell, the world hasn’t changed at all because of my actions. The personality types (dignity, charm, ferocity) don’t matter at all when I talk to people, so it doesn’t change anything.

Yes, let’s have Dragon Champions (Lieutenants, to be more precise) that only spawn once… ever. Reminds me of a fight… oh, what was that name… I can’t remember it… OH THAT’S RIGHT, THE Ancient Karka battle. I wonder how well that went.

So Mr smartiepants…in your infinite wisdom, could you please explain why Anet said they didn’t want to go this way if in fact, as you say, it is unavoidable?

Because no matter how you find the extreme opposite ridiculous, you have said nothing about the point that Anet said something and surprise surprise, they didn’t stick to it. Do you call that lying or something else?

Galen Grey.4709:

Dont get me wrong, I am not disagree with you that rewards are important. Its just take dailies for example. Using laurels you can get BiS gear, you can get Boosts to MF, Karma and XP, you can get endless tonics, mini pets, boosters, guild reputation, best gathering tools in game, mystic forge stuff, lotteries, WvW blueprint, named / cosmetic weapons and armors… basically whatever the best reward for you might be its in there yet most people still consider dailies boring and annoying. Even when all they have to do is the same stuff they’ll be doing should there have been no dailies.

Dont think rewards help as much as you’re saying at the end of the day.

Ahh but the rewards have to be meaningful, they have to give you a sense of accomplishment and there is the issue I am talking about. Now some of the rewards can be nifty, but I dare say that about 90% of the rewards have little or no meaning to me. Why? Don’t care about the mystic toilet and not enough about WvW to care much about the blueprints. Sure, they’re handy but I don’t really care. Most of the armour rewards in this game look like crap. Just bad design in my view.

It’s only when they go back to their roots, I see a glimmer of what I like. For example the new version of chaos gloves that you get from an achievement box. They’re pretty cool, though rather a heavy armour look but that works for my guardian.

Listen, I am level 50 and I have something like 150k karma at the moment. I haven’t played for a while but I think the exotic gear in Orr was about 42k a piece or something. I have about 15 gold I think. By the time I get to level 80 I can pretty much gear up to exotic gear instantly I’m pretty sure and I will save my laurels for the ascended trinkets. I am sure I’ll be able to get at least a couple by the time I get to 80. So then when I get to 80 I just do dailies till I can get the other trinkets and presto I’m done. I don’t give a flying you-know-what about legendary weapons and I am not interested in dungeons because I don’t like a single armour set from any of the dungeons for my guardian.

So you tell me, what that leaves me with, because honestly if you take the legendary out and the 20-30 minute dungeon runs just for cash, then what does this game have to offer really for level 80? No, I’ll be casual and my gear will be fine. Not gonna care much about infusions and all because I won’t set foot in that tetris dungeon called FotM either.

No, just leveling and messing around a bit suits me just fine. I am truly impressed with anybody who finds this game appealing for hours and hours month after month. Really, I don’t get how people can play this game seriously or hardcore if you prefer. It’s a bit of fun, mucking about a bit. No more.

Hell Avenger.7021:

In the real world, trading doesn’t cause inflation. What are you talking about? Printing money cause inflation, so does money multiplier effect.

I was specifically speaking about power trading, not normal trading. In real life this could happen as well…that’s why there are laws against cartels and such. When the sellers dictate the price they cost more than they are really worth, that’s inflation, because your money is worth less for such items.

When a legendary costs 1500 gold, because the seller has patience and can wait till you earn that gold to buy it, you buy something that is not subject to basic supply/demand dynamics. That’s what power trading does as well. It raises prices, because people with money already have enough for their needs and use the surplus to play the market. Buy out all the cheap ones and sell at higher prices.

If, for example an items has a low end cost of 2 silver on the tp, someone with 100 gold to spare can buy them out and sell them for more. They know which items sell, so they know which ones to buy out. This way they can ask a lot more simply by reselling what they bought. That causes inflation.

To keep up with this Anet have upped and are upping gold rewards so it doesn’t take you as long to make that gold. New upcoming dungeon rewards are an example.

People will have more money, allowing the power traders to up their prices again. It’s a vicious circle.

Now I don’t say there are easy answers or solutions but GW2 is certainly a good place for issues like this.

The problem with the TP power trading or whatever you want to call it, is that you have people making money with money. As in real life this causes inflation.

Game economies suffer from the same thing, but as a criticism I would like to add that GW2 is particularly vulnerable to this kitten much of the game is linked to gold. This is of course to also accomodate the gem exchange, but it is a weakness in the game. Not to say that other games do not suffer from it, but honestly GW1 had a lot less problems with it, some exploits aside.

It’s not easy though because any money system will have this problem. As soon as you bring in a tradeable currency, the money game begins.

In the end this game doesn’t really reward people for completing their stories. You can buy an exotic piece on the TP for a gold or so, but you get yellows as reward for completing the story. Bottom line is that this game rewards farming gold more than anything else. In essence when you are level 80, yellow gear is useful only for extracting materials from it. That’s an odd purpose for a gear tier.

Also GW2 doesn’t have that much BoP gear, almost everything of any use is tradeable.

So, my conclusion is that the reward system is flawed. It rewards the wrong things. Farming gold or grinding for gold is what is rewarded most. Beating content, be it story line, higher difficulty mobs (vets, champs, bosses), achievements etc do have rewards but they don’t compare and it usually involves gold and crappy items (that yo can sell for gold). Endgame is about collecting gold and laurels pretty much. For laurels you need to log in once a day and do your daily and for the rest it is simply farming gold. Why? Because it’s easier to get gold than it is to get what’s needed otherwise to get the item you want.

I submit that that’s the main reason why Guild Wars 2 is actually Gold Wars: a flawed reward system that encourages people to focus on making gold.

What I’d like to know is why I have to log into the forum separately from the website. If I log into the website on the front page and then go to forum, I need to log in again just for the forum.

And even though I’ve seen the word login or log in in this subforum, doing a search results in 0.

Galen Grey.4709:

Dante.1508:

Kurakura.7281:

Grinding in games can be fun… Grinding in this game is not so fun. The act of repetition isn’t fun and the rewards for it is just garbage.

I agree here, if the grind was worth it Rewards vs Risk/Time i’d have no issues with GW2, but as the OP and this quoted person said its not fun at all and i just moved on, i play mmo’s to enjoy myself and get worthy rewards for my time, in GW2 you get nothing and they expect you to waste your life on tedious things..

I moved to games where i don’t have these issues..hopefully one day GW2 will wake up and see the error of its ways..

Problem with this is whats a worthy reward?

Some people thing more powerful items are a worthy reward… other people thing more powerful items are pointless. Some people thing cosmetic items are a worthy reward…. others think those are pointless.

What makes one right and the other wrong?

Exactly, so that’s why game developers should give people options for rewards. Especially MMOs need different types of rewards, you simply can’t cater to just one category of people if you want to have a lot of players.

Galen Grey.4709:

Gehenna.3625:

Galen Grey.4709:

Kurakura.7281:

Grinding in games can be fun… Grinding in this game is not so fun. The act of repetition isn’t fun and the rewards for it is just garbage.

if its fun its not grinding. No one considers movement as grinding but its the most repetative task you’ll ever do in an MMO… just consider how many times you pressed AWSD

One thing though…. so a boring repetitive task becomes somehow fun if the reward is good ?

It can be. Having a goal gives you a different perspective. For example:

If you are waiting for someone and they are late it can get boring right? But then you get a phone call and they tell you they’ll be there in 10 mins. This could definitely change your view on things.

Never understimate the importance of having goals. It gives meaning to activities, so that they are no longer pointless to you.

So yes, having a goal, a target can make an activity more fun or worthwhile.

Dont think I agree. In your scenario the call didnt make the waiting interesting or pleasurable, it just made you happy the waiting is nearly over. In any case you already knew you were meeting this person when you started the wait so the goal (meeting this person) was always there but that didnt make the waiting any kitten ring.

It’s the expectation of what’s to come that changes perception. Perception is reality. Maybe it makes no difference to you but I think that a lot of boredom is not because an activity isn’t fun but because there is no clear goal and therefore is considered pointless.

My view is that when something feels pointless, that’s what makes it boring specifically, more even than the repetition. Of course, not everybody works the same way or has the same triggers, but I think you’ll find a lot of people actually enjoy things more when they know they will be rewarded. It adds some excitement to otherwise mundane activities. And let’s be honest, the history of mankind is nothing but repetition and full of things that aren’t fun. People deal with that differently however when they know they’re doing it for something they consider worthwhile.

Games always have repetition and there is no game where every activity is fun. This is simply a fact of life. People just get fed up with it when there is no meaning to it. There needs to be a point to it.

So waiting without knowing how long, or even if the person is going to show up or not adds to the boredom and annoyance. Games have the same. If you have no idea how long it will take you to get a specific reward or if you even are going to get that reward, a number of people will get annoyed and leave.

Vayne.8563:

tom.7468:

The combat in this game is so deep that you could almost solo the entire game by using nothing else than auto attack.
This is nothing like gw1 there you actually had to use you’re brain it seems like games have to be so casual and easy these days.

Right it’s nothing like Guild Wars 1…once you unlock the skills for your heroes (which you can buy unlock skill packs in the cash shop for), you can look up team builds on PVX Wiki (or wherever), and then pretty much sleep at your keyboard while your heroes do all the work.

You can solo farm the Underworld as a Rit? You can solo farm outside Bergen Hot Springs with your 55 Monk.

Guild Wars 1 did have depth, but it wasn’t any harder to success particularly in the open world. You had to play the hard mode elite content to have to even open your eyes.

I could solo any dungeon in the game in hard mode with my heroes and AFK through most of it….my heroes are good enough to play the game without me.

A few comments on this:

1) GW1 didn’t start with the easy mode it became later due to more powerful skills entering the game with the expansions and the addition of heroes. GW2 was easy mode from day 1.

2) It actually took some work to equip your heroes and I thought it personally fun to make builds that weren’t from that pvx site. In fact I never went to the site.

3) In GW1 heroes could do a lot of the work for you, but it still was more than just hitting auto attack once.

4) GW1 was better because you had freedom in making builds. You could pick each individual skill and choose your own weapons. In GW2, a necro for example, most of your skills come from your weapon choice. Personally I don’t like axes on a necromancer. It’s a personal preference, a taste. GW2 then says well either use weapons you don’t like the look of, or you don’t get to use these skills. Then there is always at least one skill in those 5 skills that is a total pvp skill and is useless in pve to begin with. But you must choose it. The remaining 5 skills are a forced self heal, a forced (and often useless) elite skill and 3 skills that generally have such a long cooldown that you’d be lucky to use it more than once per fight. I could call it an amazing feat that Anet created a skill set with more slots (10 basic + 5 from the second weapon set + class specifics like boons and multiple skills that are sequential and locked to the same slot) and yet managed to give people a lot less freedom of choice in the matter.

So yeh, even though GW1 over time became easier, it was still more fun and had more freedom. GW2 just started with easy mode and is even more simplistic as a consequence.

Yaki.9563:

Ignorance this bad has to be willful.

WoW single handedly grew the MMO market to what it is now. Something that no other game could do. Not even with franchises like Star Wars and LotR to back them (released around the same time). There are 100’s of MMO’s out because of WoW, not in spite of it. WoW drew in millions of players who would, and still don’t, play any other MMO. I know adults who have never played another computer game except WoW. I know (a lot of) kids who wouldn’t touch an MMO with a 10 ft. pole who play WoW. In fact I haven’t met a single person in real life who plays an MMO other than WoW.

And somehow, nearly 10 years later, with these 100’s of other MMO’s you think that WoW still has 5 to 100 times the sub/players only because it was in the right place at the right time? Laughable.

I don’t entirely agree with you. WoW was in the right place and the right time, there really is no denying that. However, I do agree that that’s not the whole story.

Blizzard is a company that actually is willing to invest into the future. All the MMOs that followed looked at their sucess and wanted to copy that success and failed. Why? Because they are much more influenced by shareholders whims and being bought out by other companies that have a much more business than developer approach. Not to say that WoW isn’t business like, but they are willing to invest and keep investing. It’s that commitment that I think made the game stay big even to this date.

Flipping or playing the TP is endgame for a fair number of people.

So would you like it if they closed the WvW areas or all the dungeons?

Galen Grey.4709:

Kurakura.7281:

Grinding in games can be fun… Grinding in this game is not so fun. The act of repetition isn’t fun and the rewards for it is just garbage.

if its fun its not grinding. No one considers movement as grinding but its the most repetative task you’ll ever do in an MMO… just consider how many times you pressed AWSD

One thing though…. so a boring repetitive task becomes somehow fun if the reward is good ?

It can be. Having a goal gives you a different perspective. For example:

If you are waiting for someone and they are late it can get boring right? But then you get a phone call and they tell you they’ll be there in 10 mins. This could definitely change your view on things.

Never understimate the importance of having goals. It gives meaning to activities, so that they are no longer pointless to you.

So yes, having a goal, a target can make an activity more fun or worthwhile.

Esplen.3940:

I’m sorry that you don’t have access to 24/7 internet. Have you tried switching providers or moving to an area that doesn’t have as much interference (less storms, no tornadoes etc)?

Can you stop trolling please?

First of all it was his group leader that got the dc and not him and secondly a dc can happen for all sorts of reasons, many of them not the player’s fault.

And since these things do happen it is poor game design to do it this way.

It’s indeed rather pointless to compare games like this, because it’s a matter of personal taste and preference. It depends on what you want, that determines what you like.

For me, I like SWTOR more than GW2. Why SWTOR? I know, there was a lot of negativity around the game last year and it was not unfair criticism, but they have turned things around quite a bit. So what then makes me like SWTOR?

Well it has much better story and voice acting. Much higher quality indeed and I like the feel of the world. So I like being there, there is a pull, an attraction.

Also I can make characters that look good and have lot more armour choices I like than here in GW2.

And yes, vertical progression. To each their own but I like having something to work towards that includes beating content, the challenge. It actually feels like you are rewarded for your efforts, instead of just grinding yourself silly.

Great story telling does mean it’s more linear, but I am ok with that. Character armours do have clipping issues there as well and vertical progression can be frustrating as well. So by no means a perfect game (no MMO is really), but it does some things that appeal to me and work for me.

So why do I play GW2. Well, I also want to play a fantasy setting but I play it now as a casual filler when I wanna do something else. GW2’s world is beautifully crafted, but it doesn’t have that pull into the world that I do have in SWTOR but also had in GW1. The character models in GW2 all look too young for me, so that’s a shame and yes poor design in armour/gear. Story telling/voice acting in GW2 is painful and breaks immersion, so I skip all convo’s here. And well once you’re level 80 there’s very little to do beyond what you were already doing.

I also don’t like the excessive party stuff in GW2 so I steer clear of that. This is not to say that GW2 doesn’t have anything going for it, but when it comes to preferences, GW2 can only be a casual game for me that I visit from time to time. No real attachment like I did have with GW1.

It is odd to me that when I look at NcSoft that already had titles like GW1 and Aion in it, that GW2 just has such poor armour design. I keep coming back to that but it was such a great thing for me to collect elite armour sets in GW1, that it just baffles me how poor the design is in this game. My guardian doesn’t need to do dungeons because I don’t like a single armour set from the dungeons. I don’t see the point in legendaries and WvW I like occasionally….guess that’s the end of my endgame activities lol.

From the moment it became clear that you either need to go through a dumb rng system or just buy it off the gtn, instead of doing legendary deeds, it completely invalidated the whole “legendary” feel of it.

Let’s be honest, other than a few 20-30 minute dungeons, there is no endgame here, so instead you can buy legendaries. Not sure if I find that a great game design decision.

They say they’re a threat but I never felt it…certainly not in that fight against Zhaitan.

My view is that they started out with some good ideas and then adjusted it and adjusted it and adjusted it till all the flavour was taken out.

It’s not all bad though. There is something to be said to soloing through the world and hitting auto attack once and sit back with your cup of coffee till the mob is dead.

There is some depth in the system but as it’s generally uncessary to worry about it, it does feel like it’s completely shallow because who cares if it doesn’t really matter.

I am sure it makes a difference in sPvP but in Pve an WvW, it doesn’t really matter what you bring and the fact that too many choices are made for you with skills being linked to weapons and/or only being allowed in specific slots, the skill bar and everything with it just feels totally prefab. It doesn’t invite to creativity really.

jweez.7214:

I am a pinata destroyer
I am an avid voter
I am a mini game connoisseur
I am a jumping puzzle master
I am a pyrotechnician
I am a supporter of false victories and looming threats.

But a hero I am not.

What’s your story?

I forgot, but I can tell you the story of the real hero in this game: Trahearne.

Here it is:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

yawn.

Morrigan.2809:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Morrigan.2809:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Morrigan.2809:

We had all that for a year.
We fought undead from one zone to another, we killed Zaitan.
Surely when you win the battle you celebrate?
Or at least have time to elect a new official in of your main cities (as result of a murder I might add)

Oh and don’t forget about the invasion by those nefarious dredge and flame legion- that was hardly a party.
Then as disaster relief the Consortium stepped up and tried to enslave the refugees of a warzone.

A disturbed already somewhat shady Sylvari tried to remedy this- but it was only through the clever plot of a Lion Guard – that by the way is now running for election- that the refugees were freed to pursue their own goals and rebuild their lives.

Alll parties…

“killed Zaitan” rofl more like spammed one attack from cannons for 10 minutes and watched a cutscene where he dies… so much for “killing”. Agree with tc, enough with this casual theme, its all we’re getting for the passed many many months

oh hi

now, i bet you disagree with me and tell me with a straight face Zaitan’s fight wasn’t as pathetic as it gets… His fight should be forgotten and never mentioned as an event that occurred in gw2.

I do not disagree with you about that at all.

The end of the personal story has been mentioned many times- it is disappointing and anti climactic for many reasons

It does not change that in the world, this event happened for a lot of the player base

You did ignore the rest of my post though

My new character is almost done with her personal story…level 48. Getting close to handing over my hero status to Mr. Boring, I mean Trahearne.

And let’s be honest Orr was never frightening, dark or threatening…it is annoying. This game would be so much better if the world had a better atmosphere that actually breathed the story and all. There are some great places in GW2, beautiful and all, but the fact that there’s a huge dragon threatening the world with armies of undead…well I never felt it. Still don’t. So I understand why people don’t care much about the story and background here.

GW2 is the Twilight of the Fantasy genre…no doubt successful to a degree, but not what I would’ve like to see.

Maybe it’s nice to get more gold since that seems to be all that matters in this game but imo they should design some better gear, as in better looking gear. My female human guardian doesn’t want ANY of the gear from the dungeons and my mesmer only one…that’s it. So really, less funny hats and more actually cool looking armour is what I’d like to see in this game.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Horizontal progression doesn’t involve handouts.

This has nothing to do with horizontal progression.

Considering these items are best in slot it would be about vertical progression. Thing is though, grind is not the same as either.

Grind is a separate issue from progression itself.

I do agree with the OP about gold especially. It’s poor game design (pun intended).

What we have is things that can be bought with gold or things that you need to collect one laurel per day, no matter what you do. And you can get this laurel per day quite quickly if you want, so once you got your daily, you’re done for the day.

Running dungeons gets old and pointless soon enough (grind for the sake of gold) as the dungeon rewards are lacking. One armour set per dungeon to collect and accompanying weapon sets: 90% ugly by the way.

I play this game purely casually now, just walking around the world here and there, simply because endgame is just silly grind for gold, rng for legendaries and running dungeons in 20 minutes just for …gold.

The world looks great but once you get to 80 it’s very one-dimensional in my view, so I have to agree with the OP. My opinion.

Guess Anet has a different design team now. It’s the only reason I can think of why they had a lot of great design in GW1 and hardly any in GW2.

I have a female human guardian. It’s just so difficult to find something that actually looks good. Most of it looks weird or clunky. I dunno, even for light armour there’s only a couple.

In GW1 I collected over 50 elite armour sets over my account…it was great to collect different cool armour sets. GW2…not so much, in fact not at all.

This has been an issue for me from the start. The game has a lot of childish crap in it. Sure, lots of people love it but lots of people don’t. I dunno, different people like different things but I’m not a fan of all the party favours and contemporary items that are around. A bow that shoots rainbows and unicorns was bad enough…but the overkill on party favours makes me wonder why Orr never felt as ominous or dark as the frozen forest (GW1).

I do wonder why all my characters have to look about 17 years old. My guess is they really want to make it big in Asia or something.

It’s how Jar Jar Binks ruined Episode I basically.

Nurvus.2891:

How about we discuss the topic, instead of talking about how 50% of the posts in forums are prime examples of Ad Hominem?

Fair comment. At least this post of yours was on topic again…oh wait it wasn’t.

Practice what you preach I’d say.

What I don’t get is why this topic is still coming up though….this philosophy was abandoned around the same time this manifesto came out. The game is what it is now, why bring this back out I wonder? And mind you I am one of those people who feels Anet lied to us, but there’s no point in bringing it up again.

As far as I’m concerned this thread never was a serious discussion because of the topic.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t edit posts, sorry, and anyone who points out unedited posts is being silly. This isn’t a college thesis, I’m making a simple point. Pointing out my quote not being exact is completely irrelevant to the point I was making and the inaccuracy in no way affects that point. It’s just a red herring.

You feel the need to tell people you’re an educator. I am not asking you to edit. I am just pointing out that you damaged your own credibility by bringing it up in the first place and then making such a mistake.

Vayne.8563:

It’s a fact that most people don’t know that wherefore means why and most people misinterpret that bit of literature.

Only present things as facts if you have empirical data. Without that it’s an assumption, no matter how likely it seems.

Vayne.8563:

It’s also a fact that when something is defined in a document, the further uses of that word, particularly immediately after, retain that definition. There’s no reason in the world to suppose that in the beginning of the paragraph Colin meant one thing by grind and by the end of the paragraph he’d suddenly changed his definition of grind. That so many people mistook it is not an issue. Lots of people mistake lots of things…it doesn’t make them right.

As I said before, there was a context that not everybody is aware of. For years, during GW1, they talked to us. And interestingly enough Anet did a complete turn-around just after that manifesto has come out. Not many people of the original GW team are left now. To me that’s no coincidence. But yeah, out of context the manifesto is just a piece of marketing open for interpretation, specifically as the definition of grind is rather dependent on the person. But marketing uses tactics to make people believe it means something, by implying things without actually saying it. That creates deniability for them. But it’s not very honest. It’s very common, but not very honest in my opinion.

Vayne.8563:

And no, I won’t start editing posts. Once you edit for a living for a few years, you’ll learn to care a whole lot less about how well edited your IMs or forum posts are.

Again, I never asked you to edit your post. An assumption on your part. And really who cares what you’ve done for a living? You can make up your career as you please on a forum. It adds no credibility, it only detracts from your main point and if your point is so important, why don’t you focus on that?

You think it’s annoying that I focused on something that wasn’t your main point? Well, guess what? Here’s a mirror, you just did the same.

Yeh, GW2 is definitely not for min maxing. As long as you can dodge and ress, the rest of the combat system is entirely optional.

I also prefer games that give you more of a hold on what you are doing. I especially hate it when you have a buff that says it increases your power or armour or whatever, but not by how much. Then I see the same buff on someone else and then it tells me it’s 10% or whatever. I just don’t get that I can’t see that myself.

I think the idea is that they wanted to get away from that type of gameplay. Not really what I would’ve like but I’m sure plenty of people here will tell you that it’s great.

I played GW1 for six years and I loved it. GW2 I only play casually here and there because I don’t like it so much.

What I am saying is that it is possible to like both games, but understand that GW1 is a COMPLETELY different game. Other than some names and the background lore, the games are nothing alike.

So, make up your own mind, you might like it, but as people here will tell you to stop comparing GW2 to GW1, I will warn you not to think that GW1 has very much in common with GW2. So if you love GW2, it’s no guarantee at all that you might like GW1.

A couple of things to note: GW1 is darker and I find that the atmosphere is better than GW2. Many more classes to choose from.

On the other hand, there’s no jumping as the maps are 2D oriented and no crafting system. There’s also no auction house so trading is done via chat in the capitals.

GW1 has a fully instanced world. The towns are where you meet other people, when you go outside it’s just you and your team. You can go with other players, but you can also get henchmen, heroes (you can equip these yourself and control their skills) or even mercenaries (same as heroes but are visually copies of you actual alts).

So, just to give you a couple of ideas about how different the games are. Combat is also very different.

However, if lore is your interested, I would definitely give GW1 a go. For me it still is the better game of the two and even though it’s a few years old now and the graphics are older, the design team was actually better when it comes to equipment and creating a proper atmosphere.

If you want shooting unicorns and other childish things like that, you may find GW1 a bit too serious. Me, I prefer games to be a bit more serious. Again, your choice but I’d say it’s worth a try.

Wolfheart.1938:

Considering the fact that GW2 has loads of voice acted dialogue I don’t think their budget was low on that. Some actors are also pretty well known.

Also your post implies that sub-based games earn more revenue, which is something that goes against recent evidence.

Well, then I don’t know why they have made such bad voice acting in this game.

Sub based games do generate more income when successful. The problem is that they haven’t been successful since WoW basically. And as we know all existing MMOs that still have subs tend to have some form of cash shop along with it. So yeh, that combination does bring in more cash.

So you show me where this evidence is that games with subs dont generate more income (because I’m pretty sure WoW’s still doing just fine with millions of active subs) and I will reconsider your point. But make sure that you actually have evidence that shows that a successful game with subs makes less than a succesful game without subs and not that MMOs have been losing subs, because that’s not the same.

Ferik.3127:

this new trailer is awesome ONLY if muted. I simply cannot understand why such an epic new piec needs to be ruined by the horrendous voices..

Funny enough, that’s how I felt about GW2 in general when it came out. I came back just to play it very casually but I still skip all the conversations because they are horrendous. I guess they are staying with that tradition in the Chinese version.

But let’s be honest, when a game has no sub model, this can be expected. They have to cut corners somewhere to make it work and this is one of those things apparently.

Vayne.8563:

Sorry but if people interpret the manifesto wrong, it’s their problem. I’ve pointed out numerous times how a single line taken out of context changes the definition of what’s being said.

The manifesto was a piece of marketing. It was promising things that weren’t actually realised. Interpret all you want, but for a lot of people who were playing GW1 and were looking forward to GW2, there were a lot of developer comments along the way that certainly supported that interpretation of the manifesto. So I will kindly disagree with you on this point. There was context that I would suspect most current players aren’t even aware of that caused a lot of people to be upset when the game came out. Lots of people did stop playing because of exactly that.

Having said that though, this is normal for any MMO. The big difference I think is that more people were willing to believe Anet this time around because of how they handled GW1.

But, this is all in the past now to be fair. The manifesto was marketing spin and what’s happened has happened. The best thing for anybody to do is the disregard the name of the game and judge it on its own merits. GW2 seems very different than other MMOs but it’s not as different as people think. Hearts are just area quests, delivered in a different way with a bit more freedom on the activities. It’s still a matter of collect this, kill that and escort this person or defend this location. Same goes for the events.

The advantage is that you don’t have a quest log full of quests, the disadvantage is constantly running around trying to find events without much direction. It’s different and for some it’s great for others not so much. But as someone once said “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”, the only conclusion for me was that with GW2 we’re not in Guild Wars anymore. What that means to you as a gamer, depends on you. Some love it, some hate it. This is simply the way of things.

Vayne.8563:

In a writing class I taught, I used an example from Shakespeare…“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are thou, Romeo” and asked the class what it meant.

100% of most classes said she was asking where Romeo was. They were all wrong.

Anet clearly defined in the manifesto what they meant by grind, then referred to that grind two lines later. The only thing really up for discussion here is the standards of school education in different countries.

If you claim to be an educator and are going to quote Shakespeare, then at least do it right: “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

I will trust you can find the rather unfortunate spelling mistake yourself.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Ah, conspiracies! NCSoft is a North Korean company, but they aren’t the publisher for the Chinese release.

Well Anet themselves have always been in Seattle, but I have always wondered why GW2 had a much more Asian feel to it, specifically in the character creator. I do wonder what it would mean for the game though. I haven’t read up so are these people going to be playing the same game with the same updates…or are they going to have separate servers doing their own thing?

The reason I wonder is that GW2 already has a lot of Korean style written all over it and if the game becomes a big hit over in Asia, those players will have a bigger voice than we do. That could take the game in entirely new directions.

NcSoft already tried to make a MMO to appeal to both east and west, called Aion. I played it for a while but it was no big success in the west. GW2 has clearly taken over a fair number of things from Aion. So, time will tell what the impact will be on the game once Asia goes nuts on GW2

Ahh the joys of LFG tools…they have advantages but you’ll also find out how many idiots there really are in this world.

Wukunlin.8461:

you really raging over a trailer? also the chinese voice acting is terrible.

The English voice acting in the game is also terrible, so no difference there.

The trailer by itself looks pretty awesome though. Sadly, the game isn’t actually quite that, but that’s my personal opinion of course.

I do think though that GW2 was made with Asia in the back of their minds. I wouldn’t be surprised if it would prove to be a bigger hit there than here. And since the financial report already showed that the income for GW2 has gone down considerably (which happens to pretty much ever MMO so this is not meant as a stab), the timing is right.

It does make me wonder though if the West wasn’t the big beta so they could get the game ready for the China release, but hey, that’s tin foil hat stuff of course

Vayne.8563:

As long as you think in these terms, you probably will leave. But dismissing the new content before you’re seen or tried it doesn’t seem all that productive to me. Some of the new content is entertaining to some people. ?

You misunderstand me. I just started leveling a toon and I get this quest to go to a location that I’ve never heard of, but I am leveling my toon. So I would like to do this later…but oh this content will be gone again.

The problem is that events are ok but there are too many and they take the place of consistent content that stays in the game. One of the things I had a problem with from the start is the approach that the game is trying to tell you when to do what. I can’t set my own pace unless I avoid a lot of this stuff.

Now, some of that can be fun, but it just seems it’s coming and going at a pace that makes it I’d rather not get involved. What do I care who wins this election between two npc’s that just got pulled out of a hat?

GW2 seems to’ve gone the direction of a roller coaster ride or rather going from one ride to the next. To me they’re just meaningless snippets. Maybe when you’re 80, got your legendary sword and wonder what to do this will keep you busy, but I prefer more content that stays and that I can decide when I have time for it.

Vayne.8563:

Why cut yourself off from potential entertainment? Why is the previous definition of end game in an MMO something that can’t change…or even be improved upon?

It can be. But as explained above, it doesn’t work for me in this way. It’s always a matter of preference but different isn’t always better.

Well, I decided after many months to give it a go and make a new character (I deleted my old ones and don’t regret it). I’m level 16 I believe. Now, it’s been a while so I am getting sort of reacquainted with the game but all this stuff happens in place I haven’t heard of and it’s all sort of out there.

For me, I am just happy to ignore these events, because they don’t make much sense to me and I am apparently completely out of the loop.

I will just stick to a casual style leveling but I suspect that when I get to 80 again, that’d probably it again. Even though I quit and probably won’t play for that long again it probably was worth the 60 bucks but I kinda get that people aren’t happy with all this stuff coming and going. It certainly doesn’t give much stability to the activities and endgame by itself is a handful of dungeons and a legendary grind as far as I can tell.

But hey, what do I know…it’s just my impression at the moment but I find all this content that’s coming and going more irritating than interesting at the moment.

Some sort of elections now? Suppose it’s good I don’t care for politicians. I’ll just prod along as a diversion when I want a break from other games. It is a good diversion from time to time.

aspirine.6852:

You’ve made up your mind in your own post. It would be best to find another game, its not gw1 and it never will be. Maybe neverwinter is more to your liking, it’s more like gw1 than gw2 is.

Perhaps, but here I was the last few days, wondering about GW2 and feeling like I might want to give it another shot, because you know what: I also know it wasn’t all bad.

So I thought let’s put down some negatives (at least negative for me) and see if anything there has gone through some changes and perhaps get some insights that might tip me off to another approach to this game, because even though a lot of things are very similar to other MMOs (still kill x mobs, collect x items, escort this npc, defend that location etc), it is also very different in various aspects.

As some pointed out it takes a different approach and I thought it was interesting to get some points of view from people who’ve been playing the game for a while and have some more insight perhaps.

My view has always been that the downed state and dodge mechanic are too powerful in combat in comparison to the skills you have.

When it comes to the downed state, I at some point realised it was an integral part of combat and it was an expected part of it. To me, however, getting downed doesn’t feel heroic if it happens a lot. It should not be an expectation but an exception in my view. And this is were I felt it was not a good mechanic.

To me, being downed should be a warning that you are not playing your class right or are undergeared for your level, not a part of your tactics. And as it’s expected people often will just assume the problem is not themselves. I am really not against people having to learn something and the way downed works, gives me the feeling it gives people an excuse not to learn.

Cause of course if you are completely down, it’s the other players’ fault for not ressing you on time…

I am just thinking about coming back to the game and to be honest, I do feel for people who invested a lot into items and hope the items will get the options of being traded in or something, but I must say that this is a really positive change from my point of view.

Not sure why it took so long for them to do this as it’s been an issue pretty much from the beginning but I think this is a good thing.

butch.8136:

GW1 was a grindfest too, less about gear but as much for titles/cosmetics. But it’s all optional for enjoying all the content there is. Stop the whining about this.

I’ve tried to make sure people understand this is not about whining but to get some input from people who are playing the game to see if there were some positive changes.

It was to be expected but please, your comment shows me you completely missed what this thread is about.

I know GW1 was a grindfest but the advantage I had there was that there were lots of rewards I wanted. Lots of armour sets I liked and to me I also liked the story lines.

Now, I am thinking about trying GW2 again and I just want some honest opinions from people who are playing the game about GW2 and the current state of the game to help me in deciding how to approach this. I actually hope to find some positives to be perfectly honest. So please don’t see this as a whine thread. It really isn’t and I would like it to continue in that spirit without comments like this that really can derail the thread.