Guild Wars 2

Isslair.4908:

tigirius.9014:

Nothing drops in the one dungeon they wanted us to do endless due to the age old and tired RNG system.

Really?

There is no RNG needed to get your exotics of any kind.
Karma and Orr gives you a nice boost upon hitting 80.
A 3 or 4 dungeon runs gives you another item plus the nice gold.
You can get exotic trinkets from TP really cheap.

Where is the RNG? Where is the grind?

I really don’t understand how people can say, that it is hard to get end-game items in GW2 =\

I think he meant Fractals, not the other dungeons. And he is right about that one….it’s about ascended items that don’t drop anywhere else. Not about the exotics.

Considering they are generally on full even in the middle of the frigging night, I get the feeling that full doesn’t actually mean the server has a lot of users online at that moment. I sense some odd math going behind this.

I mean how on earth would a server be full at 3am every day of the week pretty much? Honestly there is some weird stuff going on with that.

rtommaso.3120:

Gehenna.3625:

So, people are upset because of a hat?

Am I getting this right?

That is a way to see it. Another one is “people are upset because of a videogame?”. But Id say Im upset because the way Anet is treating their customers.

Well a video game is something that you can put a lot of time in. Anything you put time into has value for yourself. But a free promo item that is a town hat, that hardly anyone uses only has value to you because you decided to be upset about it.

When you put hundreds or thousands of hours in a game and all that effort is suddenly invalidated, I can understand people being upset. This not so much.

Level to 80 without any story line quests. Then do them all in one go. Then be depressed about how short and crappy the story actually is.

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

Gehenna.3625:

What is the meaning of leveling if leveling is meaningless. And if that’s the case why do it?

Try to make a list of things you can do at 80 that you can’t at level 79 and you’ll see that this list is very small. Reaching level 80 therefore has very little meaning in this game other than that it’s an activity that has ended and doens’t give you an achievement.

So anyone who says that leveling is just a precursor to the full game are talking out of their rear ends. You can do almost anything before you are level 80.

There is hardly any level 80 content
You don’t get any new skills or abilities at 80
You can go to lower areas but that kills the replay value for alts
Most dungeons are pre-80
WvW doesn’t require level 80
Story line ends in a most non-epic way
etc.

It’s just a silly idea to artificially create additional levels that don’t actually add any value. The game could’ve gone to level 30-50 max and it wouldn’t have made any real difference.

The story line could’ve been done within that time. Just do one or two story line quests per level and presto.
All skill slots are unlocked by then anyway.
Traits are a system with all kinds of unnecessary things in it so can easily be simplified and actually might make sense then.

And you needed a lot less persistent areas to level in per race so each race could level most of the time in their own regions adding to the replay value or use fewer areas so people are less spread out while leveling.

And then you could unlock dungeons and certain cool skills at max level giving max level something useful and thereby meaning. And a better story line would’ve helped also making it feel more of an achievement.

Just some ideas.

so your saying levelling is not meaningless.

unless its this game where it is meaningless because you get almost nothing for levelling.

The end conclusion is that leveling after level 30 in GW2 pretty much is meaningless because it essentially adds nothing to your character. In other MMOs I’ve played you do get things that add to your character progression, therefore giving it meaning by design.

Yeh merge servers. Just make the persistent world instanced and give each instance, including LA and other cities channels so it adjusts to population level.

Healix.5819:

The problem with horizontal progression is that when you feel your character is complete, you have no reason to continue, whereas with vertical progression, you’re (eventually) forced to continue.

The thing is that horizontal progression doesn’t force you but max stats doesn’t mean you’re complete in that set up. Every set up has things you do and don’t like.

Do you PvE and PvP or not? Some prefer one, some like both to different degrees or the same. But you can choose this. You are not forced to PvP or PvE or both.

With vertical progression it’s not just that your character progresses but it also invalidates your current gear and endgame gear traditionally takes more work to get together than leveling gear.

A better way for me would be to add vertical progression in a horizontal manner. This would allow for gear progression without invalidating existing items. So what do I mean with this.

Well, currently you have a number of gear items that you could equip. But what if the back item wasn’t there initially. So in an expansion or patch at some point you add new item types for level 80 characters like the back piece and say a belt. You could add something like infusion slots also but make sure existing gear can get it as well. You can also link new item types to level cap increases.

Add new shiney skins. People can then choose. Get the new shiny skins or stick to my existing ones. But statistically it makes no difference.

And with that any new item types or options should be made available in a variety of places. So different playstyles are addressed.

Horizontal progression also means more activities to me. More things to do than just leveling and killing and looting.
Mini games, player housing, more pvp formats, new skins all of that is underrepresented here. It’s a new game I know, but currently I feel it doesn’t take long to get bored. That’s of course a personal opinion but vertical progression, especially in the way it’s done, certainly didn’t answer my existing concerns.

What is the meaning of leveling if leveling is meaningless. And if that’s the case why do it?

Try to make a list of things you can do at 80 that you can’t at level 79 and you’ll see that this list is very small. Reaching level 80 therefore has very little meaning in this game other than that it’s an activity that has ended and doens’t give you an achievement.

So anyone who says that leveling is just a precursor to the full game are talking out of their rear ends. You can do almost anything before you are level 80.

There is hardly any level 80 content
You don’t get any new skills or abilities at 80
You can go to lower areas but that kills the replay value for alts
Most dungeons are pre-80
WvW doesn’t require level 80
Story line ends in a most non-epic way
etc.

It’s just a silly idea to artificially create additional levels that don’t actually add any value. The game could’ve gone to level 30-50 max and it wouldn’t have made any real difference.

The story line could’ve been done within that time. Just do one or two story line quests per level and presto.
All skill slots are unlocked by then anyway.
Traits are a system with all kinds of unnecessary things in it so can easily be simplified and actually might make sense then.

And you needed a lot less persistent areas to level in per race so each race could level most of the time in their own regions adding to the replay value or use fewer areas so people are less spread out while leveling.

And then you could unlock dungeons and certain cool skills at max level giving max level something useful and thereby meaning. And a better story line would’ve helped also making it feel more of an achievement.

Just some ideas.

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, it’s not an achievement. You have just finished the intro part, now get ready for the real game.

The real game…..

ahhhh Fractals.

@Magi….some might be because of bugs, but you can then technically exploit that bug if you know how it works.

It’s a different issue but still a problem.

Oreoz.2573:

But if you consider the pool of players from which to choose your team, then the game is very massive. Bit of a gray area in the classification.

Exactly my point. It is a grey area and your name was just made up. Nothing factual about it.

Oreoz.2573:

Your response is mostly subjective opinion so in a discussion between us concerning the facts, it doesnt hold up much.

I only responded to your inaccuracy. Nothing more.

Oreoz.2573:

At any rate, GW1 really wasn’t an MMO. No matter how you want to slice it. It naturally was going to have a pretty laid back grind/progression due to its small scale (1-4 people occupying a world at any given time).

First you admit it’s a grey area, now you say it isn’t. Please stop contradicting yourself.

Oreoz.2573:

To treay GW1 as the ultimate guide for how GW2 should operate is folly. It is also naive to expect as much for two general reasons:

1. The ever changing market and the 7 year gap in which those changes took place.
2. The aforementioned fact that GW2 is a true MMO that must appeal to and does reach a much broader market than GW1 ever did.

This is why your original answer of Guild Wars to the posed question of what mmo has less grind than GW2 is…..well…..wrong.

It wasn’t my orignal answer. You confuse me for someone else who said that. I merely stated that your reply that I responded to ws not factual but made up.

That hasn’t changed.

I don’t know if the game is actually dead and if these are the reasons for it, if indeed the game is losing more and more players….but it’s quite a list of hacks that I can’t imagine being good for a game.

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

Gehenna.3625:

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

Gehenna.3625:

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

80 should not feel like an achievement since its not meant to be.

Pseudo wisdom on Monday morning. Thanks for that completely meaningless comment. But then it probably wasn’t meant to have any meaning.

Someone is snippy this morning. That is not pseudo wisdom, that is just how it is. Don’t like it? I could care less. This is not a game about getting to the highest level.

You say it isn’t meant to be…based on what? You gave no reason or foundation for your statement. In fact if reaching max level isn’t a big deal then why did they go from 20 (GW1) to 80 levels in GW2?

Same reason attacks now do 100 times the number they did before.

Nope. In times when Anet still communicated regularly with the community, they got as feedback that the leveling experience was too short. They said then they would change that in GW2. I think they went overboard with it.

The damage and HP are a lot more because it feels more epic to a lot of people. Level 80 doesn’t feel epic because it’s a higher number….in fact come to think of it, that’s what this thread is about.

Vertical progression as major drawback is making older content and efforts obsolete.

We see now since this was introduced that most people are spending their time in fractals. As soon as the rest of the ascended gear comes out, people will go there, making it harder again to get groups for fractals below level 20 at least.

This also puts pressure on casual players and dedicated players alike. Why because even if they spend a lot of time in game they only get rewarded for doing specific content instead of being rewarded equally all around. I am convince that when the new dungeons come out in a month or two, they will drop ascended gear. Nobody will be doing the current dungeons anymore at all, when that happens and the leveling zones are already emptying out.

Why, because leveling is a basic requirement and not that experience they claimed it to be. It means there aren’t as many new players and the replay value is lower than gear grind for a lot of people.

So by itself vertical progression can be fun but in general it devaluates existing gear and content and so instead of adding variety to a game it replaces content.

Also the level of grind needed for the few ascended items that are there, not too mention the RNG element makes it much worse than it needs to be.

And then there was the expectation people had that it wouldnt have gear progression just like GW1. They never actually said there wouldn’t be but certainly didn’t do their best to debunk that general expectation from the original player base.

They just opted for something to keep people busy and as admitted by them it was brought out too soon.

If you step over the point of whether or not the game should have vertical gear progression, you can still see that it was implemented in a really bad way and because of the rewards compared to the rest of the game it already invalidated most of the existing game as endgame.

In fact it keeps people busy but gives them fewer viable endgame options as a consequence. Less variety means boredom sets in faster. I guess that’s what the events are supposed to do….keep people busy from one event to the next. Not my kind of game then.

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

Gehenna.3625:

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

80 should not feel like an achievement since its not meant to be.

Pseudo wisdom on Monday morning. Thanks for that completely meaningless comment. But then it probably wasn’t meant to have any meaning.

Someone is snippy this morning. That is not pseudo wisdom, that is just how it is. Don’t like it? I could care less. This is not a game about getting to the highest level.

You say it isn’t meant to be…based on what? You gave no reason or foundation for your statement. In fact if reaching max level isn’t a big deal then why did they go from 20 (GW1) to 80 levels in GW2?

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

80 should not feel like an achievement since its not meant to be.

Pseudo wisdom on Monday morning. Thanks for that completely meaningless comment. But then it probably wasn’t meant to have any meaning.

Daendur.2357:

Gehenna.3625:

People are either doing fractals or quit playing. I think that covers about 80-90% of the original population. The rest will be doing some WvW, leveling an occasional alt etc.

lol @ random %

on my server LA has always overflow
time to wait for a CoF pug run < 1 min
WvW has always ppl (sometimes too much ppl)
i’m levelling an alt and i find ppl around the world (obviously not like 3 months ago)

As I will freely admit, the numbers are not exact in any way, but it does seem that LA is busy because of Fractals mostly and the rest is secondary. Since WvW is capped for number of players I do not know how much of a percentage it is in reality compared to the total server population. Bottom line is that we have 4 WvW maps, Fractals and a HUGE persistent world that is more and more empty for a lot of players. It does make me wonder why so many MMOs make huge persistent worlds if they’re gonna stick people in dungeons and PvP/WvW maps anyways.

Adine.2184:

Although i played GW1 for 7 years i dont know i could go back and it have the same feel . I’ll probably check in on it every now and then but as far as enjoying it as much as i once did im not so sure

Yeh the thing is that since they started working on GW2, GW1 hasn’t really had much of new content added to it. War in Kryta was ok but the main problem with GW1 is the lack of expansions. Also for a lot of people the 2D maps (cannot jump on things) is rough as well.

I do believe though that GW2 could’ve stayed a lot closer to GW1 in many things and I think I miss GW1 especially when I played GW2 because it was more immersive. It seems GW2 is all hype and shinies oriented, with little actual substance. GW1 did much better in that department.

People are either doing fractals or quit playing. I think that covers about 80-90% of the original population. The rest will be doing some WvW, leveling an occasional alt etc.

The truth is that there are a lot of people who do a lot of soloing in MMOs. People who like the persistent world so you run into actual people and be able to chat with people in your zone etc, but just doing your own thing at the same time.

I don’t think GW2 is the most soloable MMO actually but you can solo to 80. I think for leveling this is important. I remember that in Aion some parts of the story on the Asmodean side where group quests and people actually got stuck there for ages not being able to progress. I don’t think that is good for establishing a customer base.

Reality today means that many different types of playstyles are out there and if you want a decent size player base you must have enough activities for various playing styles.

A lot of MMOs are too focused on one or two areas, or do a little bit of everything, which means it’s not enough for anybody.

I suppose one of the biggest surprises about GW2 is that there is so little variety in what you can do especially at 80, whereas there was plenty to do for max level in GW1. It just seems odd. Also the replay value is lacking.

In GW1 I had about 10 characters with full protector titles (title for completing the campaigns). In GW2 I got bored while leveling my second toon. It really was good the first time around but already with the second I got bored. So even though there are lots of zones to solo. A good number of events you need more people for, who aren’t always around and the tasks do get repetitious quickly.

No, I think even the solo content could be better. And it does get annoying when they constantly put mobs in the way which take longer to kill than in GW1 as it is, making exploring tedious rather than fun. Another solo activity that just isn’t what it could be to me.

So all in all, solo content doesn’t hold up over time. That’s the main reason I stopped playing myself even though I have done a lot of group content like dungeons, WvW and events.

I do miss it. The world felt like something I was a part of, that never happened to me in GW2.

I did log in again yesterday and it was just nice to be there. I think I will start playing it again when the winter event hits. Just something about Ascalon in the snow…

I understand the feeling of the OP. In this game they added a lot of levels. There’s a reason why a lot of MMOs start with level caps like 50. It’s a long road. I read all about the leveling curve but the truth is that leveling to 80 in this game took me just as long as leveling to 50 in SWTOR or Aion. That may be in part because of how I play but the reality is there.

And so it’s a long road to 80 and the problem is that each zone is done too quickly for completion and therefore there are lots of zones, splintering the player base. So you are leveling along and at around level 50 it gets long. Still 30 levels to go, the story line turns boring and once you get to 80 it feels like you really haven’t done much except running from here to there and back again. And if you do manage to get into Arah for that final confrontation, well, let’s just say it’s a disappointment. Nothing epic about it. It’s a long boring dungeon with a lame boss fight at the end.

The story line is in the background. You forget half the time what the main story line was while hunting for events to level to the next story line quest….whatever it was again.

So either from a point of view of completing the story or simply turning level 80 as max level…..I agree it doesn’t feel like you accomplished anything, because in fact you didn’t.

And this is also because the biggest challenges in the game aren’t difficulty but annoyance (Orr anyone?).

Bottom line, the game isn’t story driven and there are too many levels, making it feel longer than it should. And there’s little real challenge and no real road markers on the way. At least in GW1 you had story missions that weren’t all easy, especially in the beginning that were marked as completed, and bonus objectives. You could see yourself advancing over the map, wondering where it would bring you.

I do miss that feeling. And then vertical progression is added in a way that is just silly. Do it right if you do have to bring it in and also horizontal progression is totally lacking. So you’re level 80……so what?

goldi.3129:

Also in answering of the post regarding signets (yes I believe in broadening ppls horizon) a quote from another thread (not written by me):

Take a look at 2 similar skills: Signet of might vs For Great Justice. Signet of might gives you a passive 90 Power at all times, as well as 40 prec if traited for (which most signet builds do). For Great Justice gives you 105 power at all times, as well as fury (20% crit chance) for about a 3rd of the time. FGJ also benefits your entire party, meaning you can maintain +525 power collectively at all times, as well as add some fury uptime to everyone. If you trait healing shouts, Not only will FGJ also heal everyone, but you can maintain 2 stacks of it a 3rd of the time due to the +boon duration. I think its pretty obvious which one is better based on that. So even in a SIGNET BUILD, FGJ IS A BETTER SKILL. This is why people dislike seeing signet build warriors. Its a huge tell that the player does not know what hes doing really.

The thing is though, that it doesn’t bother them. They are not in that sense punished by this build, the rest of the party is. And in this MMO of not needing to team up for a lot of content, no clear roles (trinity gone, so now what?), and guild misrepresentation as I call it, why on earth would the warrior care?

I think we can add another rule to the rules of the internet,a s I mentioned before: If a game allows, it will exist.

People can come here and whine about it but the connection between skill bars, traits and gear is too complex and the pve is generally to simplistic to worry about it. So a lot of people don’t.

Why care about going down, if people ress you? And if they don’t, just blame them for not ressing you.

There are no clear roles and there’s another thread here about how the trait system is bad. You tell me if it’s a good choice for Anet to give an effect that rewards using multiple signets if that is in fact a bad build?

What I don’t like about the trait system is that it unlocks abilities or effects that generally don’t fit in my build together. So if I raise a trait line I will encounter things I do use and things I don’t. That makes the trait lines illogical to me.

It’s the same as the weapon sets. If I want certain skills I must choose the weapons that go with it. Even if I don’t like the weapon type from a cosmetic point of view, I must use them. But then when I take the weapons and the 5 left skills are pre determined I always have at least 1 or 2 skills I don’t really want or use.

So this goes for both the trait lines and the weapon skill sets.

Add to that the rigid assignment in the remaining slots (you must take a heal on 6 and a useless elite on 10). Add to that too many skills don’t work underwater and the long cooldowns on many skills and the fact that a number of skills really are built around pvp but are part of the pve skill set…..

Well add it all together and you get a system that just is full of limitations and forced choices and that takes the fun out of it for me. The fact that there are cookie cutter builds is nothing new.

So warriors can do a lot of damage and wear heavy armour. This is every nerd’s wet dream is it not?

So glass cannon it is because you can do awesome DPS and still have heavy armour.

When you do dungeons, well, you go down a number of times, but it’s not just dodge my dear OP. It’s the combination of dodge and ressing each other that enables this. The down side of the downed status is that you can ignore a lot of support functionality.

Move fast enough, dodge whenever you can and ress each other, while auto attacking and most, not all but most, bosses can be handled. Especially if you have support players in your party already.

And cause they pwn fairly well in WvW/PvP it is indeed favored as such. You can hate the player but there is not reason to worry about being downed. And if you actually are defeated they can simply blame their team mates for not ressing them in time. Problem solved. The game allows it and therefore it exists.

Danikat.8537:

Norb.4253:

Gehenna.3625:

So, people are upset because of a hat?

Am I getting this right?

Apparently it’s a thing now.

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

It’s a hold-over from GW1. Every festival event there gave out a hat, usually a unique one, that was only available during that festival (usually during the finale).

And every year there were people demanding that they had to make an exception and let them get it later because they’d missed out but still totally deserved it and now their hat collection and/or life was ruined and it was so unfair.

Then they started adding other ways to get them, even letting people get hats from previous years and a different group freaked out, insisting that they’d ruined the entire concept because their super special leet hat of awesome wouldn’t be impressive any more now everyone else could get one.

(And in case you’re wondering yes these were exactly like the GW2 hats. A cosmetic item with absolutely no purpose other than wearing around other players and hoping the odd person would a) notice and b) care.)

I played GW1 for 6000+ hours. Yes we had hats there but no they weren’t just that. You could actually wear those skins in combat and not just in town, which to me is exactly the reason why the hats were popular in GW1 and a complete failure in GW2. But that’s just my opinion. They learned a lot from GW1 they said. We take everything you love from GW1 and….

Well, we all have our opinions, but in this game the hats are even less significant than in GW1.

Oreoz.2573:

Guild Wars 1 was never officially called an MMO by Arenanet. The fans called it that. Technically it was a Massively Multiplayer Instanced RPG.

Technically, you just made that name up. It is a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG. It may surprise you but GW1 really was online. Now it didn’t have a persistent world as MMOs tend to have and that is the main difference between GW1 and other MMOs as far as the genre is concerned. On the other hand you could argue, as you see now in GW2 as well, that this persistent world is slapped down and then ignored. Empty zones because everybody’s in a dungeons. So in that respect, GW1 actually was more realistic in its set up.

I hate to harp on the small things but GW1 and GW2 are two very different games.

No you don’t hate to harp on small things and the fact that GW1 and GW2 are very different things isn’t even a small thing. In fact they are so different a lot of people question the name of GW2. For all intents and purposes GW2 isn’t really a sequel at all as the name would indicate.

Oreoz.2573:

Similar in many ways yes, but times have changed since 2005. The same rules no longer apply.

I disagree. GW2 is nothing like GW1. Some history and some names have remained but a mesmer in GW2 is nothing like a mesmer in GW1, for example. So the name is there but it’s a completely different class.

The reality is that GW2 is a completely different game and the company used the GW history because it’s easier not to have to create a new world but just build upon the existing lore. I think it would’ve been more correct if this game wouldn’t have been called GW2 but something like Tyria Online. Because I do agree that GW2 is completely different from GW1.

Sharkinu.8096:

Romeo.4378:

The next day, or the next week, whatever, you walk past the same shop and see that they are now doing a 20% off sale, and/or that the Xbox is now being sold with an extra game(which is not available at all for current xbox users unless they buy a new box and they can play it only on the new box) as part of a special package.

Fixed it for you. See the difference and why people are complaining?

I don’t think a hat is comparable to a full game.

People are still really upset about a hat. Not an ascended helmet, but a hat.

I appreciate that you are colour blind, but there are people who aren’t and do much worse. I’d just stick to what you like or seems right to you rather than worrying if it looks right to others.

Because let’s be honest, who decides what looks right and who actually decideds what looks good or doesn’t? Exactly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So, people are upset because of a hat?

Am I getting this right?

I am sure they can find another guild….oh wait, they already did.

Katostrophe.3274:

Douzeh, I beg of you.

Do not get the impression of GW2 through these poisoned forums.

There are 2.8 million users currently playing GW2. Out of those, 300,000 or so are on the forums and even less post. Everyy server in this game is at full capacity 24hours a day. This game is anything but dying.

2.8 million users? Total fabrication. Maybe they sold 2.8 million copies but a lot of people quit as always happens. I think it’s less than 1 million now. Why would I be wrong and you right? Exactly, it’s just a gut feeling, not factual.
300000 on the forum? Based on what? Another fabrication. I actually think it’s much less tbh.
Every server is full 24/7 ….this should make you raise an eyebrow. It’s not normal that servers are full at 4am. That makes no sense. There are not that many people on. The only way that could be is that there is cross continent overlow and then people should be in overflow often during their prime time. I don’t think that’s the case.

I agree that the forums shouldn’t be why you like or dislike a game, but your completely made up figures don’t help anyone.

Dying is the word that people use when they are disappointed and angry. All MMOs go through that initial phase because, well, companies always overpraise their own game and games cannot please all players anyways.

What happens a lot though is that games get hyped a lot to the point that many people jump on it, hoping it will bring them whatever they are missing in another game etc.

More than half of the initial players quit withing a few months in pretty much any MMO. I agree that even though a lot of population is lost, it doesn’t mean a game is dying. It could mean though that a game slows down and becomes one of the many small population MMOs that are out there. It’s the fate of most MMOs, aside from the big WoW that still has more subs than any new game out there. It’s an odd segment of the gaming industry really.

There is no sub but as easy as it is to stop playing for a while, it’s also just as easy not to come back. What I mean is that yes, you could log in a couple of weeks or months later, but unless something made a lasting impression (in a positive way), there’s no real pull to come back.

For me, that’s where GW2 is at. I enjoyed some of it for a while but I have nothing that makes me want to come back. If for example vertical gear progression was turned back, I still wouldn’t play again for whatever reasons I have.

So has GW2 lost a lot of players? Yes, but that is generally the norm. Is it dying? Can’t tell but I would say there’s enough population left to last for a while. I do wonder what all the negative vibes recently will do for getting new players into the game.

Because if anything, a dying game is a game that loses more players than it gains. That could take years even but if GW2 is at this point losing more players than gaining, then yes, I would call it a dying game. But that can be turned around still if it were the case.

I love GW2 because it made me realise why I love SWTOR so much more.

It’s a big world and it looks amazing. Whether you will find a lot of players on the way there is another matter and if you like the story lines and endgame grind is another matter.

Is it different than WoW? Of course it is. Instead of a quest log that gathers your activities, you have to walk around the world to find fixed tasks, which are like quests but allow multiple ways to complete and events that happen when they happen, some of which are bugged and some of which you can’t do cause you need more players for it.

You must learn that dodging is more important than your skills and that there is no such thing as a tank or healer. Everybody is DPS, support or a mix of the two.

At end level you can get decent gear quite quickly and when you get to fractals you can grind your brain out.

It has pro’s and cons…I just got bored way too quickly with it. Also it’s not alt friendly as a game. I suggest sticking to one character as a main unless you want to do insane grind for ascended gear and legendary weapons for multiple toons, not to mention the horrible story lines and voice acting that you need to stomach. “My story” actually isn’t about you.

Don’t ever watch the manifesto video. It’s best to appreciate the game for what it is, not for what they said it would be with so much fervour and conviction. I was disappointed, but others like this game. You decide where you stand.

However, for the 40 bucks you spend, you will likely got your money’s worth. I played over 400 hours before I got to the grind and boredom and that’s not bad for that money. World completion and jump puzzles were great to do. At least for one character. I couldn’t do all of that again.

It’s always a matter of definitions.

What is considered online population? Did they actually state this and if so, did they define how they measure online population? For all I know they consider someone online population if they logged in in the last week. Just saying.

Without an actual and precise explanation of what they measure and how they interpret these measurements, we will never know and I seriously doubt Anet are willing to divulge how they do this, simply because it allows manipulation.

JumblyJebus.5903:

A problem that will be solved over time.

Yep by bringing out new dungeons for higher tier armour….oh wait, that caused part of the problem.

Never mind.

I guess, since they can’t reproduce the quality of armour design of GW1, they decided to throw stats on it instead?

I collected nearly 50 elite armor sets in GW1 and it was fun to do, even when some of it was grindy. In this game I never got that thrill of “wow that armor looks awesome”. I just found one or two sets that looked alright and that was it.

…when you’ve logged in.

ShadowGryphon.6257:

In all seriousness, I fail to understand why this game is being treated with such seriousness.

In all seriousness you wonder about seriousness.

That was the funniest part for me

Vakirauta.6397:

Mirta and Galen the “Gray” Knight is here! RUN!!11!!!1!

This can be an indication http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gaile_Gray

I am sure Galen derived his name from here.

I think the discussion is about the wrong element. Anet have their security measures and they will improve them as they go along. Hackers at the same time improve their methods also. It’s a constant battle.

What concerns me, in general, is not the actual security of a game, but what a game company does for its customers when something goes wrong.

I think it’s fair to ask people to participate in security as in the article that was linked, but I don’t think it’s good customer service to lay the responsibility and blame simply with the customer as well as the consequences. And this is where I think Anet has its shortcomings. I already got my account hacked in GW1 once and as people who have had it happen here, there is ZERO assistance in recovering your account beyond what the hackers decided to leave you with…usually naked characters.

This is the real issue to me. And having found out this is still the case for GW2 (even though they said they were looking into this for GW2), I have another reason not to want to pick up this game. GW1 is still the only time I got an account hacked. It never happened before nor since.

Regardless of whose fault it was…there was just not support and everything I collected over years was gone and Anet couldn’t help. That is just an experience I wish on no one. Anet in any case has no tools to help with this if it does happen, whether it was your fault or not.

@ Mirta…the key is in the word MIGHT. We don’t know how much easier if at all and because of that you feel you need to prepare on time….just in case.

That’s the trouble for a number of people. I’m sure not everybody worries about this but there you go.

Reihert.1509:

I dont agree with the dificulty of getting exotics and getting to 80 on top of gear… it is easy.

Nor I cant agree that playing a support is useless. Please.
Any good group on a harder dungeon needs support.
In fact, if you trade off all dps for supporters or hybrids your group will fare better.

Getting exotics is not that hard but it definitely takes a lot more to get a set of exotics than a max stat basic armour set in GW1. It may not have looked expensive but the stats were the sasme.

Support is important but in GW1 the effect of your build was more noticeable in what you did and not just the end result. Also because of much lower cd’s on skills it was much more active and direct. I think a lot of people miss that feeling where you really instantly feel involved because what you do makes a clear and undeniable difference. In GW2 I don’t really get that feeling. If I change a skill in GW1 I usually instantly notice the difference. In GW2 not so much.

Actually I doubt that many people quit just because of the ascended gear. I think the majority of people who quit when this patch came out quit for more reasons aside from this.

For me this is certainly true. Ascended gear was just the symbol that was raised that represented the general feeling a number of people had that Anet wasn’t doing what they promised. I find that the aspects of grind and my story are the bigger disappointments for me. If I actually still would enjoy leveling toons in this game I could’ve ignored this new endgame and just stick to having fun. Problem is that this patch came at a time when I was no longer really enjoying the game and the patch just made the decision easy to quit.

Mirta.5029:

No reason to get ascendeds before they introduce it in the rest of the world. The only place where you need them right now is fractals. And complaining that you need to run fractals to run fractals is silly.

I cannot agree with this part of your post. The work needed to get these items takes a long time and is very boring. And you do need to run fractals to run the higher level of fractals because of the infusion, which isn’t exactly the same but close enough.

But back to the first point. Once they introduce the rest of the gear, you will not want to have to do all this work to get these items because you will need your time to get the new items. It will then be too late to start then. That’s the whole point of the phased introduction. Even though I am sure they will tone down the requirements for this gear, I doubt it will become a total turnaround. It will still take some effort at that point.

So especially casual players will feel they need to get it now before the next items come out, because then it will be double the work. Since no one knows when this will happen people will feel the pressure to get it done asap, just in case it hits sooner than they would want from a grind point of view.

That’s why I think you shouldn’t wait with getting ascended gear till you need it because by then it will be a sort of mission impossible for more casual players.

I remember a discussion like this a month ago or so. I suggested that we should be able to stick normal skills in the elite slots since I rarely used the elite.

People were against it, because “that is too powerful”.

That said it all to me.

Raf.1078:

Quit over a gear type that my play style will likely never see me accomplish? Hardly.

Not the least bit interested in ascended / legendary gear or dungeons of any type for that matter.

My interest may begin to lessen once I’ve leveled every profession to 80. Every crafting skill to max and I run out of open world to explore down to the nth degree.

So when’s that then, next week?

Emotions are always personal. I saw it as a betrayal of what Anet stood for but then on the other hand people do change their minds and I guess I just didn’t notice that in time. It happens.

Still, I am entitled to feel the way I do and to voice it. I don’t like what they did but the new tier was in the end not the main issue for me. The fact that it takes a big grind and that it’s only in one dungeon where you can do this is actually the worst part of the new tier and I suppose in the AMA they admitted it wasn’t implemented properly.

Having said that though, I do believe there is too much grind for the BiS items at this point and for a company who still says they don’t want people to feel like it’s a grind they have a made a remarkable mistake in the amount of grind that it does take. Also combined with the legendary weapons as they were before and how they were surprised that people were going for them so quickly I can only conclude that 1) they’re full of crap saying that or 2) they really haven’t got a clue about how people work.

Of course this was to be seen as grind and of course people were going for legendaries as soon as they heard of their existence. Seriously, how could you not expect that?

But more important than that even is the leveling experience for me. As much as I did enjoy leveling my first toon to 80, I had to force myself to level the 2nd one to 80 and then I just gave up. “My story” is for me still the biggest untruth of the manifesto. And here is why:

1) There is just too little story for 80 levels
2) The story lines I have played were generally disappointing
3) It isn’t actually My Story. Level 1 I am the hero. Level 2 I get promoted to assistent of a local organisation. Then I get promoted to a newb in an organisation like Whispers and then I get to play second fiddle to Trahearne the Boring.
4) The higher the level the more the story lines converge so the replay value is diminished the higher the level.
5) Can I say voice acting? Terribad scripting and horrifying acting. It makes me cringe and hate the voice of my own toon.

So yeh in the end I do not ever feel heroic or the hero. I do not feel powerful and I hate my own voice in the game. Not too mention the goodie-goodie pedantic tone the whole story has.

I fear that no patch will fix this. Anet will go on from there. They won’t go back and change existing content except for balancing and bug fixing.

TL;DR Story sucks and they won’t fix that.

Adine.2184:

@ Gehenna
You poor poor soul . you must have never seen a G.I JOE PSA

I haven’t, but not sure if that makes me a poor soul or lucky

Sorry if it’s a bit off topic, but after Martin’s reply it seems this question is answered, except for people who don’t read very well :P