Guild Wars 2

I am sure a good amount of people are happy with the game, but for me personally the AMA only supported the broken trust and didn’t mend any bridges for me.

So, maybe in a year, after a few more releases I might check in to have a peek, but as it stands now that’s a maybe and I’m not planning to spend any money on this game beyond the initial 50 bucks I paid for it. For me to invest time and money into something I need to believe in the product and the company behind. At least to some degree. At the moment I don’t trust Anet in any shape or form.

Although I must say that they did give one type of clarity. They made it very clear that their plans for the future are not what I want. That much was clear. Since they admitted though that this stuff was planned already before release, it would’ve been much more honest that this would’ve been explained before release. And they aren’t even apologising for that.

So no second change in the near future, and a small maybe in the far future, but I am pretty sure other games will be out by then and GW2 will be just another one of those smalller MMOs that didn’t make it big in the end.

It sounds to me that their “novel” idea is that instead of creating a real treadmill, they introduce a different type of powercreep system. I am not convinced this will appease a lot of people, but that’s for each person to decide.

For me, the best course of action is to let this game where it is for a year or so and then either forget about it or have a look and see what happened.

Bottom line is that I don’t trust Anet enough at this stage.

There are a few separate elements that tend to get mixed up.

1) The manifesto and all interviews that say this game is not about a treadmill. By itself this turn around came without warning and just is a complete 180 on your original course. By itself that is a slap in the face for many people like myself. I don’t like surprises like this because you broke a promise. That’s what your manifesto was, you should’ve realised that when you released it.

2) The actual effects of the FotM dungeon on the community. Aside from actually implementing a treadmill, be it very basic to begin with is also done in a way that is splitting the people who are still playing it seems.

3) Also adding stats to the infusion upgrades and adding a new tier really gives the game a new feeling, one I don’t like. I can’t log in anymore because of it.

4) Then the issue of communication. You respond to the bugs during the weekend but haven’t addressed specifically point 1 here. You cannot convince me that you didn’t expect this kittentorm, but you chose to let it just hit and stay silent on it. Just one attempt at easing people’s minds which totally didn’t help because of what was implied more than what was said and really ignores the key issue: You made a promise and didn’t keep it and have been acting as if nothing happened. That reeks of intent.

5) You wanted to make GW2 and let GW1 be and were excited about creating a persistent world. So you made one. Guess what, you have now sealed the fate of the persistent world by making sure people are either in WvW or FotM / LA. You might as well close down the persistent world and give people access to dungeons from LA and let them level in WvW.

I just don’t get what you did here, but to me it’s a big failure. You see, even if you took a million precautions, a lot of people just won’t believe you anymore when you say it’s not that bad and we are making sure it won’t affect casuals…Why would they believe you when you so obviously broke a promise and then refuse to address as if you are hiding something?

That just feels like either malicious intent or incompetence to handle communication. Either way, it’s not very encouraging for the future.

xiv.7136:

Gehenna.3625:

TL;DR Adding gear progression took away the forgiving attitude people had towards other flaws in the game. Now people reassess and find GW2 lacking as a gear progression game.

That’s because GW2 is not a gear progression game.

3% difference in stats is utterly meaningless, it’s pretty much just a vanity item.

People who cry so hard about this just can’t do maths properly.

Disagree. Even though the gear progression is limited it is simply the beginning.

Look at this:

Most people are grinding fractals and asking requirements of other players (fractal level)

I’ve seen the threads about what is needed to get these few exalted items. And this is just the first few pieces.

You say 3% but I don’t trust your math. And you miss the other point. It’s not just the stats that are the problem but also the attitudes that go with it. And this is already visible in LFG chat and the fact that people are just mostly grinding the fractals and basically ignoring the rest of the game in doing so.

Anet already indicated this is just the beginning, so even though it’s not in full yet it’s simply a matter of time. The gear progression is said to continue, just at a slower rate they said….but then they said there wouldn’t be gear progression.\

And another reason I don’t trust your math. No gear progression means 0 stat increases. Even if your 3% was right it still is more than 0 and therefore by definition it is gear progression.

To demonstrate this. If for you 0 and 3% mean about the same, I would gladly invite you to transfer 3% of your income to me since, well, it’s nothing right?

And again, I don’t trust your math skills anyways.

Memnoch.2589:

I think a lot of you are extremely exaggerating over this, it’s not that big of a deal, some of you are acting like a teenage girl where they run into something they don’t like and act like the world is going to end, if you don’t like the new dungeons don’t do it, stop being so emotional about it.

Also..rofl the person above me, you are complaining about gear grind but you GO BACK TO WOW which has a serious gear grind? WHAT?! /boggle I don’t understand some of you..wow..Hey guys Anet added 1 sorta grindy tier, I HATE GRINDING FOR GEAR, oh well I am going back to WoW where the gear grind is huge..okay that makes sense. Complaining about the gear treadmill system then going back to wow is crazy.

We are not exaggerating. You just don’t understand that people look at things differently.

The thing is that all companies lie to their customers to some extent. It’s called advertising. But Anet went above and beyond and then to do a 180 on a fundamental level is something that not everybody appreciates. So point one is that Anet lied on a much larger scale. Just understand that some people don’t like to be lied to. This is a separate issue from the actual changes in the game.

So then the actual changes in the game. Thing is, there are many games out there that already have gear treadmills. And if Anet wants GW2 to be another game with a treadmill, then there are many games that just do it better. That means that GW2 by itself already has a lot of flaws that people were forgiving towards because it was a game with a casual approach. I promise you that if this game had a gear treadmill upon launch and a sub model, people would’ve left already. The dungeons were bugged as hell, in fact some still are, the TP wasn’t working for weeks. There was no trade possible unless you trusted the guy to send you the money. Events werre horribly bugged and we all know how people feel about Orr.

But most people were ok with it because you could still find a way to progress and there was no feeling of urgency since it was a non gear progression game.

Now that Anet have changed towards gear progression, people start comparing it to other MMOs again because they are now more comparable and lo and behold, more and more people feel that a number of established MMOs actually are more solid and not as flakey as GW2 is.

TL;DR Adding gear progression took away the forgiving attitude people had towards other flaws in the game. Now people reassess and find GW2 lacking as a gear progression game.

People who say join a guild and such, seem to forget that guilds are small communities that do certain types of activities together based on what they decided as their focus.

If you go with this mentality then you completely miss the whole point of servers with thousands of people on it and a persistent world.

This “find a guild” attitude is perfect for games like Diablo and other RPG’s with online possibilities. Heck, there was more chat in GW1. A persistent world comes to its potential when people actually run into other players regularly and that people are talking to each other about what they’re doing ingame or just in general.

Now this game doesn’t have quests as other MMOs, it doesn’t require grouping up and this has certain advantages for events, but it means there is also no reason to talk to people. You just join in and do what you do with your class.

And because there are different things going on like class quests, gathering, jump puzzles, completion, events etc. and because these things are not linked to level, it is rare to find people who are doing exactly the same thing you are.

The level scaling allows you to do whatever content but also doesn’t encourage you to help other players except jumping into ongoing events. But events are not active at set times so you can’t plan to do an event together for example.

This all together means a lot of freedom, but add to that the big events like Halloween and now this Lost Shores and next month Winter Day celebration most likely, it cause people to all group up in the same small part of the world during half the month and with FotM that’s where people will be the rest of the time.

It leaves a very big world with sparse population. All this means that people don’t really talk to each other much outside of their guild/friends (and even there many are silent guilds) and making the whole persistent world pointless.

From that point of view the game’s new direction made the social aspect of the persistent world virtually non-existent.

Dreamwalker.3617:

Most of the game hasn’t really changed. Just stay away from Fractals, and enjoy the rest of the world.

I’ve only done Fractals once. Solo.

Honestly, the only time I notice a change is when I come on the forums.

Funny thing is that once they introduced the ascended gear I knew that it was the first step towards a treadmill. Think of that what you may but it made me re-evaluate the game, because I thought also, well I could just ignore it.

But here’s the thing. I just had finished world completion and the jump puzzles, which was a lot of fun but I have no intention of going through all that again with alts. In fact I found leveling alts much less exciting as leveling my main. So then this update comes and here it is.

After completing the things I really liked in GW2, I must conclude that the game doesn’t offer what GW1 did and other games do. You see I can ignore the treadmill in other MMOs just the same and then in comparison GW2 loses out.

For me the lack of treadmills and just being able to play GW2 for fun and farming cool armour sets together and all that as I did with GW1, just isn’t available here.

I don’t like the crafting system
I don’t like sPvP (even though it was great in GW1 for me)
I only like WvW from time to time
I’m sort of done with the existing dungeons as I got the gear I wanted from them (most armour sets and weapon skins are fugly).
Story line = bad
Voice acting = horrific

Bottom line is that the ascended gear just sealed for me what was already happening. I think GW2 would’ve been a great single player game with online dungeons, but as an MMO it doesn’t have the appeal.

I will say though that a lot of things I was willing to put up with, simply because there was no stress about endgame stats. It was sort of the glue that held it together for me, while hoping various elements would improve. Now it doesn’t matter anymore.

Although I share your feelings, I would point out that there’s already a lot of threads about this subject.

I explained what I intended with it…why do you need another analogy? Was my last explanation not clear enough to get my point?

Actually in games in general I have found that doing stuff solo is faster than in groups.

Technically playing in groups should be faster but because people often want to do different things to do and then one person is on the phone or the other has to get his cat off the keyboard, someone is chatting to guildies or whatever it may be….

Truth is, the social aspect is more time consuming than just cracking on with your quests, events or whatever.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gehenna.3625:

What can I say, some people may decide lightning is coming whent hey see the clouds gather and hear thunder. People like you seem to need to be struck by lightning before they believe it was coming. Sometimes the signs are clear enough.

I dislike analogies like this. This is a “mortal imminent danger” sort of thing, at which I wouldn’t take chances. I don’t expect to be struck by lightning, no, that’s an unlikely chance even if I was standing in my backyard, in full platemail and holding a steel lance over my head. Of course, if there was a lightning storm I’d be inside looking for candles in case of a power outage and getting water chilled.

Please stop comparing this change to “mortal imminent danger”. Pretty please. I do not require playing this game. I do require my life. There is a nontrivial difference.

That’s because you focus on the wrong part. I was clearly refering to the point that you can see undesirable events or situations coming. To deny the obvious when there are clear signs is silly to me. That’s all I intended with that. The mortal danger element was not the point at all, so you can disregard that completely.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Gehenna.3625:

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Minus.3478:

You can now do everything in LA at any level without ever having to leave. I love exploring (still working on my gold star), but something tells me that most people will just spam LFG FOTW in the ‘LA lobby’ waiting to level there new toons. Ops I forgot, they will be crafting/leveling while waiting for a FOTW group. Sad really.

Why do you care what people do to have fun? Why would you not leave LA to go explore(something you love so much) just because people are spamming FotM in LA?

maybe he thought he bought an MMO and would run into other players while exploring…

If he/she cares so much about finding other people maybe he/she should of joined a guild or made some friends.

You know, if you have a persistent world, the whole point is that you can run into other players. I am baffled again and again that people miss this simple fact. If it’s just about guilds and doing things as a group, then you don’t need a persistent world.

Also the friends comment is nonesense. Even if you make friends, they are not always on at the same time etc. No, I refer to my earlier comment that a persistent world is there so you can run into each other while doing stuff.

GW2 would be the prime example with how events work and not needing to group up to join in.

It’s a big feature potentially but no, everybody’s doing 5-man groups in FotM now. God knows why these people play MMO’s if they spend their time only in town and dungeons.

The original GW was much better suited for that.

Face it, MMOs tend to have huge worlds but in the end people race through them to get to the so-called endgame. It’s a bit of a contradiction of the genre.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

Minus.3478:

You can now do everything in LA at any level without ever having to leave. I love exploring (still working on my gold star), but something tells me that most people will just spam LFG FOTW in the ‘LA lobby’ waiting to level there new toons. Ops I forgot, they will be crafting/leveling while waiting for a FOTW group. Sad really.

Why do you care what people do to have fun? Why would you not leave LA to go explore(something you love so much) just because people are spamming FotM in LA?

maybe he thought he bought an MMO and would run into other players while exploring…

Makes you wonder why they worried about creating a persistent world to begin with.

Enzomiles.6197:

I mentioned the 5 main things that sets Gw2 aside from other MMOs and how ascended armor doesnt change any of them! you think they’re all wrong?

Let’s look at them one by one then. You do have a point somewhere but I will get back to that.

Enzomiles.6197:

Ascended armor made Dynamic events less imerssive?

Considering that most people are grinding away now to get these ascended pieces which requires a lot of work and materials and such, one could argue it is harder to find people to do events with. So yes, there is an issue here. Not the gear itself but the fact that people need to do very specific things for it and are fully occupied doing it. As soon as this slows down I am sure Anet will be ready to introduce the next ascended gear pieces.

Enzomiles.6197:

Ascended armor made reaching max level take longer?

No, it doesn’t, but that’s really besides the point. The duration of leveling is not relevant to this issue since this is gear that is available to max level characters. So this is an invalid point.

Enzomiles.6197:

Is there any content at all I cant play without having Ascended armor?

Not at this moment but I expect that will change when the full armour set of ascended gear will be out. Apparently there is already a requirement for FotM for which level you are at. This is not directly asking for ascended gear but it does indicate that this behaviour is already starting and I expect it to increase over time.

Enzomiles.6197:

will I get destroyed in sPvP without Ascended armor?

will I get destroyed in WvW without Ascended armor?

Not today, but the prospect is there. Once ascended gear is a full set, there will be a significant difference between players who have this gear, fully infused blah blah and those who don’t. Also because it is harder to collect than exotic gear it will take longer. This will affect WvW within the next 6 moths in my expectation. sPvP has it’s own gear and there is no ascended gear there…….yet.

Now, I do get your general idea that ascended gear by itself doesn’t suddenly change the complete game as it is today. But what we do see is that the game is going into a different direction. If you don’t like the direction, you tend to not wanna tag along. Let’s say that you take a train to visit family in town A and the train changes direction to location B. You may not be far off track yet but you don’t want to go to B, you wanted to go to A.

So the big problem is where this game is going. But along with that, I now see people coming to the forum talking about people requiring level xx for FotM and other areas emptying out because a lot of people are grinding FotM. So there is a direct impact that is starting to take place, also in attitude and a future direction that a number of people find undesirable.

What can I say, some people may decide lightning is coming whent hey see the clouds gather and hear thunder. People like you seem to need to be struck by lightning before they believe it was coming. Sometimes the signs are clear enough.

The thing is that this discussion isn’t about right or wrong when it comes to your personal opinion.

OP, you explain your feelings in much detail, but it’s how you see things. That is right for you, but just because it works for you, doesn’t mean that it works for others. Many discussions go wrong over this point. It works for you? Great. That doesn’t make it work for me.

And I have no issue with people being ok or loving gear progression. What I am not ok with is that because they feel it’s ok, that others shouldn’t complain about it. As if their opinion invalidates someone else’s.

The whole point revolves around what Anet promised for many years and what they are actually doing. Some think it’s ok or great and for others who bought the game for what Anet promised it to be, it’s simply a slap in the face.

You don’t get why people are upset? Ok, you can’t get other people all the time either. But just know that what works for you doesn’t make it a template for mankind.

If you discover that it’s ok for you like this then that’s great. But don’t go down the road where you think “if I can do it, so can everybody else”.

Trust me, I don’t know what music you listen to but if you like pop music and I replace your CD collection with metal music, I think you might be upset. Is that too extreme? Well, maybe you like one band and then we replace all your cd with another band from the same genre…just not the band you like.

Even if other people like that band, doesn’t mean you like it too. This is the same thing. GW2, like GW1, was not about gear progression. Now GW2 is. It’s a different type of game in the same genre.

I am sure that even if you don’t have to get the new gear, the vast majority is doing what they can to get it and ignoring the rest of Tyria so they can get those ascended items. And when enough people get them, the next ascended items will be introduced and it starts all over again. Even if they don’t have to, people will do it because they feel they want or have to. And that’s exactly how GW1 didn’t work and GW2 didn’t in the first few months.

It’s really a different game now than last month.

Didn’t they just nerf mesmers in that respect recently? I don’t play anymore but I could swear somebody was complaining about this in the last few days.

My gaming background

Started really getting into gaming with Unreal Tournament and Diablo 2. Got into Warcraft 2 and Red Alert Command and Conquer. Played loads of all those games. Then Neverwinternights 1 (didn’t like 2) and got into GW1. Played as many hours as the OP. Tried WoW and lasted less than 45 mins. Tried Lotro, didn’t like it, tried STO and also didn’t like it. Tried DDO…didn’t last. Rift Beta…whatever. Aion for 18 months, left hating NcSoft. Played SWTOR…well actually I play it again after quitting GW2.

Do I hate GW2?

No, I don’t hate it but I do hate what they’ve done with the latest patch so I quit playing. In any case though, I still think GW1 was and is a better game than GW2, although GW2 did add some nice items like jumping puzzles.

If GW1 had real content updates like the expansion before I’d play that again before GW2 in its current state. SWTOR and GW1 have a better world than GW2 so I prefer leveling there and well SWTOR, with its flaws, is just the better choice for me.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gehenna.3625:

You say that at some point there wasn’t much left to do for you in GW1, but let me remind you that the main reason for that is that they started making GW2. 5 years ago they pulled the plug out of real content for GW1 for the benefit of creating GW2. We all sort of dealt with that and accepted that because we were told that GW2 would be a similar experience but better. Don’t blame the lack of things to do in GW1 on GW1, it really was because they diverted all their attention to building GW2 that this happened.

Sadly, GW2 isn’t what they promised it to be. At least that’s my view…although the new direction with gear is a fact that they didn’t keep their promise.

What gets me most is that even after this they have the gall to keep their manifesto video on their website. They could at least admit that their philosophy changed when it’s that obvious.

Well there wasn’t much left for me to do other than:
Filling the Valor Monument
Filling the Resilience Monument
Party, Sweets, Drunkard, Lucky/Unlucky, Treasure Hunter
. . . and PvP titles

That’s pretty much it. And I didn’t want to do any of that long enough to make progress.

And I don’t blame the lack of content in GW1 on GW2, I blame it on them not having good ideas for what to do next with the engine. They still managed to do pretty good with “Guild Wars Beyond”. I loved War in Kryta, Hearts of the North was a great character piece and it made me hate Gwen a little less . . . and Winds of Change was just . . . interesting. (I used ellipses there to try to illustrate awed speechlessness. I loved it but it was at the same time so hard for me to get through.)

They had content they put out, but I still wound up taking about a year off between War in Kryta and the GW2 release. I showed up for special events and a few guild events (UW through Dhuum, something we never managed because screw Smite Crawlers in their ghostly carapaces . . . and Domain of Anguish, which I never managed because screw Titans with whatever’s left after the Smite Crawlers. Both these things were absolute terrors for myself and my guild even after we had a way of dealing with them.)

And I won’t get into my opinion on this “manifesto” point people keep harping on. It’s not a popular opinion I have on it so let’s not get into it.

Well you can call the blue sky pink if you want to, but the fact is that they did stop putting work into GW2 and pulled people from GW1 to do it. If they ran out of ideas, ok but I think that was more of an excuse to explain the shift to GW2. The content you refer to that was added later was hardly new content. It was the best they could do with minimal resources, although I will say it wasn’t all bad. Just minimal and war in kryta was far better than the rest at that.

People keep bringing the manifesto up but that’s Anet’s own fault. I don’t even care what exactly they did or didn’t say in the sense that I mostly care that they said A and are now doing B. That means they have nothing to stop them when pressure comes. It’s a matter of spine and character. It’s not important if you agree with it or not, but it was Anet themselves setting themselves up for disaster when they make bold claims and at the first sign of trouble do a 180. That I find more disturbing than the actual direction they are taking with this game.

Lifelike.5862:

Memnoch.2589:

So Arena Net promised not to add better dungeons or gear? Meaning once you hit 80 zero progression at all?

Yep. And some people actually think that’s a good idea. Kind of sad, really.

Nope, GW1 has done this for over 7 years without any problem. Not sad at all.

What’s sad is that you cannot see beyond stat progression and don’t get that not everybody wants the same thing. Gear treadmills is exactly the reason why all other MMOs fail and go down to small populations and GW2 decided to go the same way. That’s even more sad when I think about it.

I find it funny also that people like Memnoch apparently never read any interviews, completely missed the manifesto and bought this game without knowing what type of game this originally was.

Don’t worry I already stopped playing GW2, because it’s like other MMOs now and for me there are better games than GW2 for that type of experience.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gehenna.3625:

In GW1 I played over 6000 hours and farmed a lot of stuff cause I wanted to.
In GW2 I didn’t make it to even 600 hours because I feel I have to farm and do it only where Anet wants me to do it.

This difference is there because all gear in GW1 was the same level. So you could choose where to farm and what for. Even if it wasn’t efficient, it didn’t matter because it didn’t put you at a disadvantage.

That is the main difference for me.

Ehh, in my opinion the difference was there because there was less complexity in the game and what the grind/farm (I’ll use that since it’s hard to be sure if it’s a grind or a farm, I’m getting fuzzier on the meaning) could get you. Generally it wasn’t materials . . . it was straight-up cash or things to transform into cash.

(Or it was title track points. Which was a heck of a lot more grind-y than going out to farm/grind for cash. There are ways to do it faster but it still takes A WHILE.)

I farmed in GW1 as it was all that was left to do for me I hit Legendary Guardian, Legendary Cartographer, Legendary Skill Hunter and after that anything more was going to be a grind or a farm.

If I’m doing it in GW2 it’s for basically the same reason. I hit my 100% Map Completion and stalled out on my Personal Story since it’s in Orr now and I overdosed on Risen doing the completion.

I get confused about farming vs grind as well. The thing is though that I don’t mind grind so much as long as it’s not too much and taking my time in doing it doesn’t negatively affect me in the gameplay.

You say that at some point there wasn’t much left to do for you in GW1, but let me remind you that the main reason for that is that they started making GW2. 5 years ago they pulled the plug out of real content for GW1 for the benefit of creating GW2. We all sort of dealt with that and accepted that because we were told that GW2 would be a similar experience but better. Don’t blame the lack of things to do in GW1 on GW1, it really was because they diverted all their attention to building GW2 that this happened.

Sadly, GW2 isn’t what they promised it to be. At least that’s my view…although the new direction with gear is a fact that they didn’t keep their promise.

What gets me most is that even after this they have the gall to keep their manifesto video on their website. They could at least admit that their philosophy changed when it’s that obvious.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

“No, let us all face the truth. Guild Wars 2 as advertised has failed. It’s a failed business model, as other posters have stated. They cannot make enough money in non-traditional ways to satisfy their investors while covering costs. The MMO industry is locked into this formula of dungeon running from now until that fails to make money, too (and may that day come soon)."

The fact is that we don’t know that to be the truth, and available evidence contra-indicates it. ANET has never said that they weren’t making enough money off of GW2, and I don’t know of any reputable source that shows this to be the case. All we really have to go on was Launch, which from where I’m sitting looked to be a success, since they had to actually stop digital sales to get capacity up, and since after launch they had to add servers.

Saying that you’re making the change “because of players hitting the Legendary wall before they were expected to” is not the same as saying that changes were being forced by lack of projected revenue.

I think that Anet got more people to buy this game than they expected and instead of consolidating around their intended fanbase, the dollar signs told them to follow the new majority of treadmill lovers that will leave anyway in a few months.

I’m convinced if they hadn’t gone with that flow and stuck to their guns they would’ve had a better chance at creating a solid fanbase that would be happy to spend a little extra coin in the gemshop, creating a more stable cash flow for a longer period of time.

Now, they have to work a lot more at keeping people happy and do it more quickly. The thing is that it’s not possible to tell from metrics why people do stuff so the answer to the question “why” takes longer. This means that they will be forced to take risks and hope that whatever new flavour they introduce gains them more than it will lose. And that gambling game will inevitably reduce this game to a small fanbase like any other MMO (WoW aside I suppose).

I believe that if they would have kept their spines and held the line they could’ve created a great game with their community. Now we see them ignoring the outrage and there’s the sign. They have separated themselves from the community and are talking to us instead of with us.

The gear treadmill is not the saviour of GW2 but an insidious parasite that, as the skill in GW1, takes their livelihood with each action they take.

The point you are obviously missing is that there are tons of games out there that already provide this type of experience.

Anet promised a game that was different and this appealed to many people. What happened is that there’s a lot of people burnt out on other MMOs that saw this game as the new game to jump to, not realising it was different. These people became a large part of a community that wasn’t meant for them. So Anet looked at some metrics and saw dollar signs when this many people bought their game, but then people started leaving because they realised this game didn’t offer the carrot.

So they kept their pink glasses on and thought that almost everybody wanted this. They were insanely naive to think this because their original fanbase was used to GW1 which didn’t have a treadmill as max stats were fixed and have been fixed for over 7 years. And they did find ways to make it interesting.

And all these things that made farming worthwhile in GW1 they threw out. I cannot even begin to understand the level of insanity that they must’ve suffered to do that. And instead they cater to their new fans and start the same old gear treadmill.

So here’s the problem.

A large part of the original fanbase and people who were looking for a more relaxing game to play have been alienated.

Now, that leaves the people who are still hoping for changes, people who accept and are ok with this and those who wanted this.

The ones hoping for chance will be disappointment in my view. I don’t see this being turned back. The damage is done.

The people who accept even though this wasn’t what they bought the game for may stay, but this group is not that big in my estimation.

And the people who screamed for the treadmill will still get bored and therefore will start complaining again with a matter of months or even weeks.

It’s a downward spiral that every other MMO has had except maybe WoW. And from this lesson nobody learns.

Your assumptions also don’t hold water.

Ascended gear is better statistically and infusions also add even more stats and not just the resistance. The difference is significant especially in WvW but even more so, we know from Anet that more of this gear will come so you can fully equip in ascended gear and that infusions will be required for future content. Not just FotM.

Add to that the comment that they won’t be like other games and release a new tier every three months and we can conclude that there will be new tiers after this, just not as fast as in other games. This is the logical implication.

Now if you like that, that’s fine, but the truth is that this will bore people like it does in other games. I am sure GW2 will survive but I think the peak has been reached already because of this new direction. It will start hemorrhaging players like any other MMO and as much as it is without sub making it easy to come back to it, it’s also just as easy to step away from it. And for me that is because the world doesn’t really have a pull. Interestingly GW1 does have that pull still because it felt like a great place to be.

You see, I don’t need another perspective on this because for me the determining factor in playing GW2 was the fact that it WAS non-gear centric as far as treadmills go. Now that they go the same way, my main reason is gone and I am happily playing another MMO again. Why? Because I like good stories and voice acting, I like a simple quest log because it’s me who decides what I do next and not the game telling me when I get to do something. Events are kinda fun but having to spend money to travel places to see if events are active or not is just not what I really want.

Needless to say I feel GW2 doesn’t deliver in these areas like other MMOs and now the main argument for me is gone, I stopped playing. You can say all you want about how it’s not so bad but if I wanted this experience I can play another game that’s better at this…and so I am.

ref.8196:

Why should farming require skill?

It tends to be less boring if you have to pay attention to what you’re doing.

Azelroth.6801:

I like the idea of Ascended gear. I think it gives a lot of players something else to do.

Prior to it’s release a lot of people were bored and didn’t have much else left to do in-game and most were complaining about it. At least the Ascended gear gives people something else to work towards.

If you don’t like it and you feel like you don’t need it – then don’t chase it or work for it. It’s not that bad guys. It’s not like they suddenly dumped a bunch of super crazy weapons/armor with uber stats and are forcing everyone to get it just to remain competitive..

It’s more of a subtle addition to the game for people with nothing else left to do (or for people who are working for legendaries and are getting bored).

I really don’t see why it’s such a big deal?

It’s a big deal because of 2 things:

1) Anet said that just like GW1 there would not be gear progression. Regardless of whether you like gear progression or not: they lied. Call me strange but I don’t like it when people flat out lie to me.

2) Anet already indicated that infusions will be required for future content. This means people will be required to get new gear or they simply won’t be able to play this future content. So, no, it’s not just for people who are bored. They are in fact planning to bring out more gear like this so you can be completely equipped in ascended gear, which has better stats and the necessary infusion slots to play on in this future content they speak of.

I hope that makes it clearer for you.

In GW1 I played over 6000 hours and farmed a lot of stuff cause I wanted to.
In GW2 I didn’t make it to even 600 hours because I feel I have to farm and do it only where Anet wants me to do it.

This difference is there because all gear in GW1 was the same level. So you could choose where to farm and what for. Even if it wasn’t efficient, it didn’t matter because it didn’t put you at a disadvantage.

That is the main difference for me.

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

They have real time metrics and statistics. We do not.

They do. But that doesn’t mean they understand what they mean. Numbers mean nothing without context.

They can measure that people don’t do a certain dungeon for example or skip a certain area etc. What the metrics don’t tell them is why.

And the thing is that if you want to fix an issue you need the cause and not the symptom. If you go by metrics alone you will forever be fixing symptoms and never causes.

So, trying to figure out why people like or not like something is at least equally important, if not more important than metrics.

Perhaps they saw that people stopped playing and were crying for stats on the forums and such. So they brought out gear with better stats, but now the opposite has been achieved. Why?

This action shows they don’t really understand what goes on within their own community. They knew that this would get a lot of resistance and did it anyway and dance around the issue. They refuse to directly address it.

So, we’ll see what the metrics will tell them in the weeks to come, but I think they’ve added something that they have very little experience with themselves. So it requires people from outside to make a gear treadmill work and with that the game and community are changing.

Even if GW2 ends up becoming successful in spite of this, Arenanet have lost their name of being a company that had certain principles and stuck to them, a company that wanted to add something different to the existing games out there. Even if you like this new direction, you can only admit that it’s not what Anet was about for many years.

I don’t like the new gear, others do. Anet then just focuses on the group that does and says " many of you like it ". What is many? Many doesn’t even mean majority. It just means a good number. Could be 20% of players, could be 80%. Many doesn’t tell us that.

They focus on the group they are trying to please and hope that the group of people they pissed off isn’t too big. I think this was a huge mistake as far as their company identity is concerned.

Even when NcSoft took over Arenanet completely, a lot of fans still felt that Arenanet could do their own thing and make something special. Now we know those days are over.

And then GW2 is really just another MMO and then I prefer other ones because if there’s anything GW2 hasn’t been good at it’s story telling and creating an environment where leveling alts is still exciting. It’s the first MMO I played for more than a month where I got bored with leveling alts this quickly. Just saying…

The thing is that GW1 had plenty of grind in the sense that certain armour sets (obsidian) took a long time to get. Some weapons were rare drops and also were hard to get and thus expensive.

It didn’t matter however because the stats were the same, so it was ok if it took you 2 or 3 times longer to get it than the other guy.

Where GW2 failed itself is that the armour and weapon sets that are available aren’t interesting enough. Legendary weapons have far too few skins and the existing ones are meh in my view and the armour sets are also of much lesser design quality than the elite armour sets in GW1.

No wonder people got bored. In a way, the poor design of gear in GW2 is possibly what caused the game to fail on an endgame level and made people cry for better stats. That wouldn’t have happened if people had a great variety of gear to collect, simply because they are awesome…it lacks that awesomeness factor.

Add to that less flexibility in swapping builds (traits cannot be reset anywhere you are nor for free) as was possible in GW1 so there was a real point in having at least 2 armour sets for different builds. It just fit together.

GW2 is too fragmented, it doesn’t have the cohesion they managed before and by doing that they set themselves up for disaster perhaps.

Fundamental design flaws causing a lack of coolness in gear that ends up causing the company to throw their own principles to the wind and resort to stat tread milling.

Again, it’s not about grind in general or farming rather, but about a cycle of getting gear for the sake of content where you can get gear for content where you can get gear for….well, etc etc.

People were expecting a game with that push to keep at endgame to keep up with the stats. Anet closed that door due to their own inability to understand what they achieved with GW1 and why it worked.

At this rate I don’t think the game will have long term appeal and will go down the same road as other MMOs that failed to deliver in recent years. Sad but true…at least from my point of view.

The article the OP quoted is not very reliable but there is truth in Nexon buying 15% of shares in NcSoft and thereby owning a majority share in comparison.

Nexon is known for their f2p games and I am pretty sure it will affect NcSoft operations. If the Consortium is a personification of Nexon in GW2 is speculation. An interesting theory but still a theory.

In line with their current approach I expect they will say C but not actually do it. As long as enough people believe it for long enough, that will be fine for them. And they will just throw more shinies and events on people in the hopes they will forget all about this.

Karizee.8076:

A better indication of how well the game is doing:

http://www.guildwarstrade.com/gems

Both volume and price steadily increasing. The game is doing great

Actually that means nothing.

First of all it is known that the price is not purely supply/demand but Anet actually influence the price as they have said themselves.

A rise of silver cost for gems and higher prices on the TP means that people can buy less gems with gold. That means it encourages people to buy them with real money rather than in game gold.

So, if anything, you can conclude Anet is encouraging people spending real money. That would mean to me they need more cash, so perhaps this actually means the game is not doing so well.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Oh no . . . no no, if there is a monthly fee instead of cash shop I will depart with a foul taste in my mouth.

No game really thrives on just subs these days. There’s f2p and games with subs and f2p options, but pure subs are of the past.

The irony is that f2p tends to milk more cash out of players than subs ever did. You talk about a foul taste in your mouth because you fear having to pay 150 bucks a year on a game that you spend many hours in, but are not worried about f2p where people spend hundreds or even thousands in that same year.

Sure you have the choice but a game company will do all they can to get you to make that first fun purchase with real money and then it becomes easier and you end up spending more than on a sub.

It happens a lot. And yes Anet allows you to buy gems with gold but that’s why it’s good for them that things in game get more expensive as they recently did. Because that way your in game gold isn’t worth many gems and so you’d be better off buying em with real cash.

It’s not Anet, it’s f2p in general. People who think f2p is free are kidding themselves. It’s only free if they put up with certain limitations and/or have complete self control over their spending. That is not most people.

Still, I understand that games need to make money. I prefer a sub for that but there you are. So don’t get me wrong. I don’t think companies are evil for wanting to make money. I just think they figured out that they can trick people into spending much more money with f2p models.

And even that is fine with me. I really just laugh at people who think that subs are evil.

I do think there are some ethics involved here though. Anet actually set themselves up with their manifesto. They drew a line in the sand and said “this is what we stand for”. And when you buckle after that…well, it’s a sad thing indeed. If they’d never taken that stance, there wouldn’t have been such an uproar. They created expectations and created a fanbase with it. Then more people came in with different wishes and they spit out half the original fanbase that doesn’t agree with this new approach.

That to me is much more evil than cash shops, subs or people wanting to make money in general. It’s not the what but the how.

Alice.8694:

A gear treadmill is a system where you must perpetually put in effort to maintain the same level of power as the content around you succumbs to power creep.

Ascended is not a treadmill, as it acts as a higher plateau, demonstrable by the fact that legendaries will be elevated to ascended strength. similar to how exotics were before ascended was introduced.

You can only rightfully claim that there is a treadmill if they add another degree of equipment stronger than ascended at some point in the future. With the express intent of drawing out item progression and forcing you to put perpetual effort into the game to maintain the plateau of power.

Well, you should read what Anet are saying. They didn’t say much, but they did say something.

You see, when they say that they won’t be bringing out a new tier of gear every 3 months (and this is in fact what they said), the implication is that there will be more tiers of gear, just not as quickly as every 3 months. It also implies frequency, so more than once in the future.

You may say that it doesn’t prove they will do it, but you cannot possibly maintain that Anet didn’t see this reaction coming. So if they would’ve wanted to maintain trust they could’ve simply said they were not bringing out another tier after this. Instead they said, as above, that it won’t have a high frequency as some other games.

I submit there is no way you can miss that they are planning more gear tiers.

Also they said that they would bring out more pieces of gear gradually to build it up slowly to a full set and that this infusion business would become mandatory to do future content.

So twist all you want but Anet clearly implied a gear treadmill. Infusion, which is not available for exotic gear will be a requirement for future content and there will be more tiers, just more slowly.

If that is not what they wanted to indicate, they are even more careless in their communication than I could imagine. No, I think they know exactly what they are saying.

And this is all indicative of a gear treadmill.

But it doesn’t end there. The FotM dungeon is not just a new idea. It in fact tops what is out there and I see it as the treadmill of treadmills. Where other games have maybe 2 or 3 difficulty levels, FotM is the dungeon with limitless levels. Eternal replayability…or boredom depending on your point of view.

I see it as a token of things that are to come, but it looks like GW2 will manage to make the gaming history books as the ultimate reverse psychology induced treadmill of all times.

Now the last bit is my opinion, but the comments Anet made are theirs and they leave little room for interpretation. They are ready to add more tiers and hope to convince enough casuals by doing it slowly, completely bypassing the point of why a lot of people are against this new direction. It’s not just about stepping away from a game for a few months and being so far behind that it’s no fun coming back, but also that the vertical style is not the TYPE of content people are after and why.

But to say there is no reason to see the current changes as the start of a gear treadmill just means you haven’t read the most recent comments of Anet themselves on this very website.

Urxx.6840:

This post shows contempt rather than a genuine desire of a better communication. And nobody is going to take you seriously after you have told them to grow up without even knowing anything about them and their personal evolution.

Or, in other words, it creates an environment which is hostile for communication, blatantly contradicting your own stated intentions.

I suggest you follow your own advice.

But I am the customer and they are the company. As much as you are right (and you are) about there being many stabs in this post of mine, the point is that it’s a choice for a company to show customer service or not. It is not up to the customer to start building a bridge but it is up to the company. They are trying to sell a product or service.

What do customers think when they do not communicate or in ways that ignore the customer’s reaction? And that is what is in my post, as you noticed.

I really mean it. I do wonder what Anet thinks about communication with their customers, because I really don’t get it.

I would agree with the OP. Well written and to the point.

Others are free to feel differently, but this is how I feel also.

Agenteusa.6380:

If you were actually reading the forums lately, you’d have answers to those questions. Everything has been clearly explained ad nauseum, time and time again.

The question wasn’t for you. And stop being vague I asked a question about something that’s been said and provided answers to it.

Have you watched the Manifesto video from Arenanet? If not or if it’s been a while watch it again and LISTEN to what they explain about their philosophy.

I understand if you like the new approach, but if you watch that video where they proclaim their way of doing things and compare it to this new direction, you must surely see that they are not a match.

I am not arguing here what’s good or bad about GW2. Just saying that when you hear what Anet have been saying over the years and what they are doing now, you can only conclude it’s not the same.

Truly, I invite you to watch that manifesto video. It’s still here on the official website and on youtube. No one who can reason can argue that this new direction fits what they said in this video and all the other interviews and press releases they did.

Whether you like this new direction or not is besides the point.

Yes , I read the manifesto. And I agree with some things and I disagree with others. What I disagree is people that think they are the owners of the game content. They are not.
The manifesto is as you rightly proclaimed it their philosophy. Well my point is they can change their philosophy anytime they want and as they please.
My answer to the post above was purely because someone now is saying they wanted a refund because ANet changed the “nature” of the game???
No they didn’t period. This isn’t even a discussion.
Bottom line is only I’m fed up with posts that have no logic whatsoever.
Some don’t like the gear treadmill, some do. It was their philosophy to not make a treadmill, well they changed it. They are entitled to it. Like it fine, keep playing, don’t like it don’t come here with futuristic predictions and “it’s the end of GW2” posts.
Move on like I did in several other mmo’s when my requirements to play weren’t fulfilled.
GW2 is ANet’s son. It’s not our property.

Perhaps we don’t own it but we invested money and time into it based on certainly promises they made. If you cannot trust what they say to the point that they go the complete opposite direction of what they have said and done before, it’s not strange people are unhappy about it.

Like it or not, it DOES make this game an entirely different type of game. The focus has changed. So the anger at that is justified.

The logic is simple. I buy something because of reason A. They change A. I feel cheated.

If you cannot grasp this then you have a problem. I cannot make it more simple than that. Now, I do get that most companies if not all are liberal with the truth but a complete 180 is a big deal. It just completely changes what this game is about.

If you bought a box with ingredients to make chococolate cake. If you then make it and it doesn’t look exactly like the picture, you would kinda figure that’s how it goes. But if you open the box to find ingredients for a strawberry cake, you may be ok with that if you like strawberry cake as well even.

If you really wanted a chocolate cake though, this discovery would be disappointing and you may go back to the store and complain. I know I would.

If the store then says, well it’s a cake (MMORPG) so what’s the problem? You might get upset even. And this is what happened here.

So yes it’s still a MMORPG, it’s still fantasy but it’s not what people thought they bought, in fact it’s turning into an opposite style of game.

I would advise you to stop calling other people unreasonable simply because you disagree with them. It’s not a lack of logic, but perhaps unclear communication and lack of understanding or even a lack of a wish to understand it from your point of view.

I cannot make it more clear than this in any case. If you still don’t see the point, I cannot help you. I can assure you though this is quite logical to many people. And please note that understanding it doesn’t mean you have to agree with it. Those are completely different things.

Edit: Oh and whether you disagree or agree with the manifesto is not point. It’s that that’s what they said and now they went a different way and people bought the game because of the approach Anet had before this change.

In Customer Service there is a subject called Communication Skills.

Within that realm we can learn that when there is a conflict that involves emotions because a customer is unhappy with something, the customer will keep reiterating the same thing over and over again until he/she gets the feeling they were heard, understood and taken seriously.

You could argue that the worst thing is the customer, but for a company it’s their bread and butter.

All I can say is that if these forums keep getting the same message over and over again, it means that these customers feel they have not been heard, understood or taken seriously….or all of the above.

What I then wonder is, why is Anet then not dealing with this, because there is nothing coming from their side to address these emotions or opinions. Well, they could decide that answering here directly will only make things worse (fear) or that these customers are an acceptable loss (calculated loss).

Either way, we will probably never know. I think that terrible as customers may be, Anet and other game companies still have a lot to learn about customer service. On the other hand, they might feel that in the overall balance they come out on the positive and then why would they invest in customer service?

A tricky subject at best. Just some thoughts.

I stopped playing entirely. The thing is that I completed the world and all the puzzles just before this update and already got bored leveling alts. I am a massive altoholic and I don’t get bored of leveling that quickly but here I did.

I just don’t feel a connection with this world, beautifully crafted as it may be, as I did with GW1, SWTOR and other games. Part of that are the poor story lines and even worse voice acting. I actually can’t stand hearing my own characters speak in this game.

So I hoped this update would bring some fun things to do, but instead it introduced a complete 180 from Anet from their own philosophy which was also the main reason why I started to play GW2.

So yeh that killed it for me.

But I guess I am interested how different people feel about this. I see people who are happy with it and people, like myself, who just can’t believe that Anet managed to do this 180. It’s like losing your religion type of magnitude.

So I stick around but try to stay out of the flaming zone because it is abundantly clear why people feel the way they do. But I am done with it and I don’t think this will be turned back. So I stay on the forum to see the discussions and add a note here or there.

Agenteusa.6380:

Are you delusional? Did you read the terms at least? They haven´t changed the nature of the product. It’s still a fantasy based MMORPG so your argument is heavily flawed.

Scamming? Can you point exactly where did they scam you. Where in the terms do they say they can’t include/update content as they see fit?

I’m the one asking, don’t YOU understand that??

Have you watched the Manifesto video from Arenanet? If not or if it’s been a while watch it again and LISTEN to what they explain about their philosophy.

I understand if you like the new approach, but if you watch that video where they proclaim their way of doing things and compare it to this new direction, you must surely see that they are not a match.

I am not arguing here what’s good or bad about GW2. Just saying that when you hear what Anet have been saying over the years and what they are doing now, you can only conclude it’s not the same.

Truly, I invite you to watch that manifesto video. It’s still here on the official website and on youtube. No one who can reason can argue that this new direction fits what they said in this video and all the other interviews and press releases they did.

Whether you like this new direction or not is besides the point.

Just in case I decide to give GW2 a second chance some time in the future:

Will Trahearne become a traitor in future stories, so we can kill him in a boss fight?

All game forums are like this. I chose my signature for that reason

But an appeal to the community to tone down is a lost cause. Right now one group of people is upset in the hopes they can get Anet to listen to them. This won’t stop until they feel it’s pointless to comment on it anymore. That might be a while.

By that time the next issue will come up and the next group will start flaming. It’s just a reality of game forums and human nature in general. If it affects you that much, just ignore the general forum. That’s all you can really do….fair or not.

If you’ve played other MMO’s before and never played Guild Wars 1 or saw the Manifesto video they brought out last year and never read any of their interviews in the last 5 years, I can see how this might surprise you.

However, if you have played GW1 and have seen the manifesto video and have read any of their interviews up to and including the launch of the game, then you understand the hatred against this new gear.

For me, if this is the way they want to go, I am not happy because I thought they would stick to their principles. They didn’t. I got over it.

How did I get over it? For me it was simple. I quit SWTOR to play GW2 because I didn’t like the gear treadmill and I knew a game was coming (GW2) that didn’t have any gear treadmill. So here I was.

Now the gear treadmill is introduced and that by itself can be defended in any number of ways. However, then I need to reassess. And I see that I can stay in GW2 and ignore the treadmill and focus on the rest of the game…or I can go back to SWTOR (or any other MMO I might like) and ignore endgame there.

And then I have to compare the world, story line, voice acting, leveling experience etc. Needless to say for me SWTOR won. I love Star Wars in general, the storylines and voice acting are vastly better than here and I don’t mind questing.

Don’t get me wrong. GW2 might still be a success. More power to Anet. But it isn’t what they promised, in fact it’s turning into the opposite and the problem for me is that that was exactly the reason I wanted to play GW2. So now that reason is gone and the rest of the game by itself isn’t strong enough. I did all the puzzles. That was lot of fun. I completed the world. That was also fun. PvP and WvW are fun occasionally, but not enough to keep me busy.

So I was very upset at this turnaround by Anet because this is opposite to what Anet was set up to do from the beginning. But it’s done and so be it. No more anger from me, but just an explanation why it made me stop playing and why it was upsetting that Anet did this (not even touching the communication issue).

I play another game. I hope the rest here enjoys GW2 for what it is.

I disagree with you simply because the manifesto video is not that old and has people of the current team speaking in it.

I do see your point that there are many new people there and that may have to do with some of the changes but this manifesto is not from the old guys you mention in your post.

I played roughly 500 hours and now quit playing. I think I got my money’s worth for the box price.

But I am not going to continue in a game that now goes the road other MMOs have all gone before. I prefer a game with better story telling and leveling experience then. GW2 isn’t that for me.

I never actually played WoW myself but from what I learned from forums and rl friends who play(ed) it, WoW was just at the right place at the right time. They had the will to make something exciting and the longevity to make it work. People believed them.

Ever since WoW, other companies have fallen in the same trap. They saw WoW as the mold for a MMO. Either by copying or wanting to be different from it. And they all failed to measure up, because they made the same mistakes. At best, new games had one or two things that were different but it was still a similar experience and none of these companies has had the will to support their own ideas, even through tough times.

Oddly, most MMO makers are not using long term strategies. It requires an investment nobody is willing to make as it is already expensive enough.

So, Anet had a chance to do something different but they have now buckled and bowed to the MMO stigma’s that exist.

It’s like Hollywood. Movies are made based on standard ingredients and even actors. Guys like Will Smith and Tom Cruise are paid millions to do the same tricks all over again, because this way they will get people to come to the cinema’s. But how many movies of actual quality, that really make an impact come from Hollywood?

It’s not all bad but nothing is really great. And the MMO world is the same way. So Anet could’ve at least given a nudge in a differen direction, but it failed. Perhaps it couldn’t be helped and they really wanted to give that nudge, but reality is that small as this step may seem, it opens the door to the same ole MMO experience and that’s a shame.

RhysSebastian.7651:

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

It’s not a problem with getting more content but the type of content and the repercussions of that type of content.

I would be happy with more content that I enjoy. But not grinding gear so you can do more content to grind more gear to do more content, to grind more gear to do more content.

To me that’s just endless repetition. It’s mind numbing. It’s dumbing down content rather than adding new things and variation. I guess the title 50 shades of grey comes to mind. Never read it but apparently it sells well and the content is crap and the title is very well chosen.

GW2 just added 50 shades of gear progression. Sure they just added the first 2 shades but there’s 48 more coming. And in fact the most exciting part of it, according to themselves is that they can milk, I mean expand upon this endlessly.

So who’s ready for endless shades of grind?

Not me, but apparently many people think it’s the greatest thing since….well, anything you like to insert.

I am not happy with this new approach so today is my last day here, but asking refunds goes a step too far for me.

GW1 wanted to give people an alternative to the MMOs they were already playing. Then, as they said, to their own surprise people started playing it as an MMO, literally putting thousands of hours into it.

So, then they realised that their world with 2D maps without crafting and such were limitations that weren’t easily overcome. Add to that the issue of expansions adding more and more territory and there was the idea of GW2. A new game that would build on the good things of the original, while adding things that were missing in the original.

By itself, this sounded great and I, as many, were excited to look forward to that promise.

So some years later GW2 comes out and it barely ressembles the original. It’s not GW2 in the sense of a sequel. But it was a new game with much excitement and even the most hardcore GW1 fan could take a step away from GW1 and just judge GW2 for the game it is.

But even doing that, I have to admit, that this weekend marks the end of my enjoyment of the GW universe. Aside from what GW1 was or wasn’t, GW2 simply isn’t a game I enjoy anymore and that’s a personal decision.

See, it doesn’t matter if GW1 was a full MMO or not. It was a game many people enjoyed and when you don’t end up enjoying GW2 as much as you did the original, the comparisons will happen. Why? Because it also has the name Guild Wars on the box and it is the same company making it with the same philosophy. At least, that’s what they said.

So, what can I say? It didn’t work out for me. Doesn’t mean it’s terrible for everybody. We all have to make our own choice in that. But don’t think it’s odd that people make comparisons, because even though the games are different it was meant to cater to similar groups of people: people who play MMOs.

Jumping skills are already needed in a few storyline quests and for completion of the world, because even though they aren’t part of world completion, a couple of vistas cannot be reached without doing a jumping puzzle.

The thing is, I just hate treadmill endgame. So now Anet have started this here I just needed to look at the other parts of the game.

So I resubbed to SWTOR because leveling is more fun there. I like the world better and I can ignore endgame there and still have fun.

In GW2 the storylines are poor, voice acting horrible and I agree with the OP on most of his points. I personally like the jumping puzzles but I for one have fear of heights and need to take my time, so the mad king tower was impossible for me. So, big deal, but I completed the world, did all the jumping puzzles and dungeons are boring now after doing them a few times and alts are boring me cause the leveling got stale already. And I am an altoholic at that, so that is saying something for me.

No, it seems this game is way out of whack and even though I enjoyed completing the world and the jump puzzles, I don’t like where the game is going and leveling alts is just not for me in this game. PvP? sPvP was good in GW1, not here. WvW? Fun from time to time but not a big thing to me.

So yeh, I guess the OP brought out some points which tell me the game is getting more grindy but more to the point less enjoyable.

And it seems that Anet are actively turning people off from most of their content. Still, maybe lots of people like it and enjoy all of this. More power to them. I’ll be elsewhere.

The genius is that they only added a few items (accessories and backs) for this new level of gear. By doing this, the initial difference between players is relatively minimal.

But when you look ahead at the future, they already said they would introduce more and more items. So in the end you will have a complete set of this gear.

So how much time will it take to collect it then, because new players will be way behind? How long before there are alternate ways of getting this gear, because if you don’t like this fractal dungeon, what can you do?

And they are already talking about level 10 in this? How much grind do you want having to get to level 10 etc. There are a limited amount of fractals at this stage.

On the one hand I doubt it’s enough to keep hardcore players happy for more than a few weeks and a lot of other people will just sit there wondering what to do with this gear progression. There will be a point where it will have a detrimental effect on players in WvW and there will be a push to make it easy to get. And that will then happen as well. In the mean time, I was hoping there was going to be some more content in the horizontal direction but that’s also very small.

But even if it all were to turn out alright for most players. It doesn’t matter to me. I am used to game companies being late with patches and updates and marketing campaigns that exaggerate what their game does. But to do a 180 from what you’ve been advertising for years as your core philosophy is something I am not used to. In that sense Anet have reached a new level of dishonesty that I simply haven’t seen.

So yeh, the are introducing it in the smartest possible way, but I would’ve preferred they had actually openly admitted that they were going a different direction from their own philosophy but that they would do their best to allow more casual players to not be left behind. Still not good but at least honesty would’ve been on their side.

But now they just introduce it and when people get mad about it they slowly bring out ambiguous messages without as much as an acknowledgement that indeed they abandoned their own manifesto. And why else would they do this but revenue?

Either they flat out lied for years hoping to sell copies and then spitting out part of their fans on purpose or it’s a panic reaction to a lot of negative feedback. You could say Anet is displaying a lot of flexibility but it may leave more and more people wondering what exactly they stand for and are trying to do.

Fractals are simply raids reinvented. You don’t just have hard mode but various levels, endless if needed. The fractals gives variation because you will have 3 random ones each session, but in not too much time people will know them. The variety will be of limited time again.

Casuals probably won’t like this as much because it’s doing the same stuff over and over again just the same. After doing this dungeon a few times I suspect that most casuals won’t even get to level 9 or 10. That’s just my expectation, but I think it’s the type of content and not just if it’s easy enough that is the issue.

I think for a game that does gear progression and wants to add another level of insanity to their gear progression, this is probably a really good idea.

Anet actually invented something with these fractals that allows gear progression to the nth degree in a way that is easier for the game company to create.

Not sure if anyone realises that. So genius? Yes, but the evil kind in my point of view.