Guild Wars 2

minbariguy.7504:

ANet continues to ignore the significant number of people on the forums who are unhappy with the pace of Living Story

THAT is first and foremost a good idea. Not that there aren’t necessarily a significant total number of people that feel that way, or that people who feel that way shouldn’t be listened to, but the forums… well, there’s a non-negligible amount of selection bias on any topic you’ll see here.

And yes, it’s true: we don’t have to do Living Story content. Duh. But our only option is to do it or miss it. And for me, that’s not an option, its a sleazy sales push.

“One time offer!”

“Act now!”

“Limited time only!”

While the enticement theory you’re referencing is definitely in effect, it’s pretty misleading to call it a sales pitch. They already have your money, right? I’m sure they’d love it if you spent lots more in the gem store, but the enticement is for you to keep playing, whether or not you spend any money.

Since ANet refuses to address these concerns, I refuse to log in and be counted as a metric they can use to claim Living Story is working. I have moved on to another game that has a more relaxed pace that is actually enjoyable.

Excellent- that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. If enough people feel the way you do about this, obviously it will effect change- because its intended goals will have failed. If not, you have no incentive or reason to log in and experience something you don’t enjoy.

And yes, I still post feedback here. I paid the same amount everyone else did at launch (and more than some newer players) so I have every intention of continuing to provide my feedback.

Ah now here you lose me a little bit. Continuing to… for how long? Are you gonna keep leaving feedback for the rest of the game’s lifespan even if you never log in again?

Some dungeons can certainly be done with 3 players if they are very skilled. It will be tough. Use AC story (the only one I’ve completed or really attempted to complete with a 3 man group) as a kind of gauge.

3 people is a great group size to just explore the open world together. There is a lot to see. You could also hop from world event to world event together.

Short answer- no. Almost everything is geared for 5 man teams, there is no scaling of dungeons for smaller teams and no solo mode at all. In fact, the game designers are heading in the opposite direction- Teq the Funless was designed to get 80+ co ordinated people all in ts standing around for hours planning for a 15 minute chance at failing.

Yeesh, I’ve received more than my RDA of sodium. Sorry you haven’t had the chance to beat him yet. It’s very satisfying.

Aron.8429:

Apart from advices about my personal equipment, I’d like to know if +4 in power, precision, vitality and toughness worth an ascended slot.

Nope. If you’re doing fractals at all a Simple Versatile Infusion for Agony Resistance is way, way more important than the +4 stats. Hell, it’s more important than the stat boost from exotic to ascended itself.

If you’re not doing fractals at all get a utility infusion on your amulet and save your resources by ignoring the rest.

While it truly sucks that you had guilds fall, and that your friends were perturbed enough by missing out on stuff to… decide to miss out on more stuff, this thread is a textbook exercise in the many issues which arise from using anecdotal evidence to form a conclusion (namely the equation in your thread title).

To illustrate this a bit- I haven’t read the responses all yet, but I bet you’ll get some that say their guilds are still very healthy or that they have more people playing now. I could offer you the “evidence” that my guild has actually had its highest concurrency within the last two months… but this would be just as anecdotal as what you described in the first post. It doesn’t accurately represent or explain anything beyond our own experiences.

The important thing to keep in mind is that ArenaNet didn’t just arbitrarily decide to start a consistent two-week content release cycle by picking the idea out of a hat. They studied the wealth of actual player activity data that we will never have access to and made this call based on what people are really doing, not the apparent conclusions one might draw from even 100 anecdotal experiences. It does appear to be working for them.

OP, just chill til ascended armor comes and you’ll have another little goal to complete. Won’t be more than 3 months. Nothing wrong with taking a break until something relevant to your interests is added (this applies to all players, not just the ones who crave vertical progression).

What city? “The city” is a bit on the vague side my friend.

You’ll want to travel to Lion’s Arch, the main hub, which you can do from an Asura gate in any race’s city, or by going to the Heart of the Mists from the PvP tab, then walking through the gate flanked by lion statues. From there, you can also travel to the other races’ cities.

Depending on your locale and time zone, it’s also quite early in the business/school day for a majority of North Americans. I won’t be able to log on for another 6 hours, for example.

Doing fractals 10 levels below your highest available level is the most efficient. Karma boosters (and infusion if you gots it) work!

TooBz.3065:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Craywulf.5793:

Time-gated is not the problem…anyone who feels “forced” is letting their emotions cloud their rationality. They make things time-gated to motivate and guilt you into buying gems. It’s up to you to have some self-discipline with your wallet and time.

I just want to point out that this is complete and utter nonsense, because NONE of the time-gated stuff (Laurels, particularly) can be obtained by “buying gems”. I wish people would stop claiming stuff is to make you “buy gems” when “buying gems” will not help with these issues at all.

Laurel’s can’t but the Acended ingots, plants, and leather things can.

Empyreal Fragments, Dragonite Ore and Bloodstone Dust can’t; the time-gated Ascended materials you just mentioned can also be bought with earned gold rather than converting gems. Generally speaking for all the hemming and hawwing about the evil moneygrubbers driving every decision behind this game’s additions, Ascended gear in general is not very friendly to the “pay2win”-inclined among us.

Mungrul.9358:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

I think that is why ANet needs to kep us all playing. If we clue in that were not really doing anything, we will find something more productive to do.

This is EXACTLY what has happened to me, and I’m a lot happier without GW2 in my life.

Plus you still get to have the official forums in your life. Everybody wins!

Daddicus.6128:

Hawkian.6580:

:-/

The current best sources of gold, rares, and exotics in the game have absolutely nothing to do with the temporary content released as part of the Living Story. This makes me thing that there’s something deeper going on, because essentially, obtaining full exotic gear should become rather trivial, even if you never touch a single living story release.

The idea that you get “left behind” in the sense of some kind of legitimate progression compared to other players by not completing LS release achievements is fallacious. I’d like to try to determine why you believe this to be true and see if I can help.

This is pretty basic economics. In the in-game economy, prices go up. Why? Because there is competition on the demand side that outweighs the supply. If I don’t have the resources to compete, I fall behind.

For example, I will never be able to buy a legendary, because the prices will keep going up faster than I can generate income. While I was earning more recently than when I started, the prices are accelerating faster than I can keep up.

Basic economics. First off all, you didn’t mention a word about legendary prices. You specifically mentioned the acquisition of gold, rares, and exotics as being tied to living story achievements. This is known as “moving the goalposts.”

But let’s run with it, and attempt to determine if there’s substantial validity to your new claim. Take a look at Spark, the precursor: http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/29167 So far as I can tell, its all-time high in terms of sell price came in April, or 5 months ago. If you wanted to buy it right now for market price, it would cost you ~40 gold less than it would have back then. While it’s not cheaper today than it was one month ago, the deviation in the August->Sept period is smaller, for example, than in the Jan->Feb period. There’s little to indicate that it will simply continue to increase in price arbitrarily.

Or look at buying The Bifrost outright (how fun -_-): http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/30698 If you’d wanted it back in December when supply really was tiny, you’d have been paying well over 5000 gold. However after the Jan. mark, sell prices became relatively stable for the following 8 months, and actually hit its all-time low about a month ago.

So generally speaking that argument is totally unsupported by reality. Prices will continue to fluctuate with all kinds of quirks but saying “prices will keep going up faster than I can generate income” is an unfounded claim of runaway inflation that just isn’t occurring. Gold generation has increased substantially, but additional gold sinks have been added as well, while significant ones such as commander tags, cultural armor and so on have remained fixed.

Just to quickly revisit your original point about the opportunity to better your character…

1. The most efficient source of direct, non-investment gold is gonna be champ farming, followed by dungeons, followed by invasions and finally activities.
2. The best source of rares is the daily bonus events, followed again by dungeons, fractals, or buying on the TP if you have a specific need (see point 1).
2a. These rares can also be sold outright for profit or broken down with a good salvage kit into materials and ectoplasm (which can in turn be sold for profit as well).
3. The best source of exotics will be (depending on desired stats) dungeons, followed by crafting, the karma vendors in Orr, buying outright on the TP (see points 1 and 2a), and finally fractals.
4. Ascended amulets, rings, and accessories are best obtained through laurels/badges of honor, fractals, and guild missions respectively.

None of these aspects of the game are restricted or related to the two-week release content and in many cases “keeping up” with a particular release will carry a substantial opportunity cost in terms of acquiring these things (SAB, for example, does not offer much in the way of obtaining anything described above). Of course, with this in mind, such content should only be touched if it’s enjoyable to you personally.

Hope this defuses some of your concerns.

Erick Alastor.3917:

I did a tl:dr of this thread.
I divided people who can accept the new direction of the game (green) from the ones that are not so willing to (red), there is also a group of players of which I did not understand very well their position (gray):
(22 pages are a lot of comments so I might have done a bit of confusion, please forgive me and remember that english is not my native language ç_ç)
Btw:
- 61 are ok with the current form of VP (top poster Vayne with ~111 posts)
- 132 are not ok with the idea of VP (top poster MikaHR ~89 posts)
- Of 35 I was not able to fully understand their position, some I suppose didn’t give a lot of weight to this topic, some other remain neutral and highlight the good points of both reds and greens (top poster Lanfear ~8 post)

p.s. I know I played the ape with some of the greens quotes (not even so much btw), but it’s not a secret that I’m rooting for the reds :P

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to compile that from a sort of empirical standpoint. It’s certainly a stark portrayal of the official forum community; despite your slight biases showed through it is definitely fascinating to see the breakdown.

Tragically (for both sides, really), attempting to draw any conclusions at all from the content of this thread would be a god-awful idea for anyone interested in the future of the game.

Hey I remember when Kripp was banned. Why’d you post that?

There is a Champion Skale in fireheart rise that only appears after you kill two Veteran Skales by a waterfall.

I’m sure they’ll keep that in mind.

This thread isn’t about Guild Wars 2 by the way.

Daddicus.6128:

Money. Rare items (to salvage). Occasionally an exotic. I don’t play for the minis (although I don’t fault those who do). I play for the chance of bettering my character (at my age, bettering my gaming skills is pretty much impossible, or I would include that). I get that bettering via chests and achievements and dailies. And, judging by the price of things, I don’t do nearly well enough to keep up with the game.

:-/

The current best sources of gold, rares, and exotics in the game have absolutely nothing to do with the temporary content released as part of the Living Story. This makes me thing that there’s something deeper going on, because essentially, obtaining full exotic gear should become rather trivial, even if you never touch a single living story release.

The idea that you get “left behind” in the sense of some kind of legitimate progression compared to other players by not completing LS release achievements is fallacious. I’d like to try to determine why you believe this to be true and see if I can help.

Check out the Forsaken Hall, Dredgehaunt Cliffs.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Hawkian.6580:

The idea of being “forced to play” eludes me entirely.-snip-

Of course it is my own desire. We’re not talking about that. We are talking about the game being designed in a way that requires me to log in every day, or face consequences.

That’s kind of… incredibly misleading. What consequences do you face by not logging in every day? What among those could be considered serious consequences by anyone who is not already heavily invested in the game- and thus likely to play every day anyways?

For example, what about those who decided summer was a nice time for a vacation and couldn’t take part in the “Living Story” where the reward was the crystal node in your home instance?

You and I both know that the Bazaar Ambassador achievement did not require you to log in “every day” for any significant period of time. It could be completed in less than a single day. Hell, if you hopped on Dulfy it could probably have been completed in a couple of hours. Players had 30 days to explore this content on their schedule. So this complaint, I’m sure you will agree, is completely different than “being forced to log in every day.”

If the point is more that “you can miss things at all,” meaning that if you stop playing the game for extended periods you’ll miss out on certain rewards, then of course you’re absolutely right. It’s going to happen to everyone, it’s happened to me, it’s just the way it goes.

Luckily, you never miss out on anything crucial for your progression or relevance as a player…

I’m required to show up for the game like a job, because if I want to continue to progress and stay relevant in the game, I need to keep grinding those achievements.

Oh come on! You can’t continue to progress or stay relevant in the game because you don’t have the ability to craft your own celestial gear from scratch? You can still buy quartz and charge it yourself. You can still buy the crafting components. You can even buy the gear outright! Plus celestial gear isn’t even optimal for a single piece of content in the game.

You have to have a better example than that to make this argument. I’m not disputing that you do, but the Gift of Quartz is certainly not a compelling one.

Achievements give you points. Points result in gold and gear. They also result in rewards (Crystal Node, Back items, Minis, Weapons, Access to content (Gauntlet)).

A few things.

1. Achievements points really don’t result in a notable amount of gold. If this is a big deal for you it means that you’re not acquiring gold during your normal gameplay which is a completely unrelated problem.
2. Achievements don’t result in gear. I think you may be talking about the unlockable skins, in which case… yes, you unlock skins through achievements. They are among the easiest prestige skins to obtain in the game. They are also infinitely reusable, permanent, available to all characters on your account, etc.
3. No idea what you meant by “access to gauntlet”, but yes, there are individual rewards tied to showing up and completing Living Story content. This is pretty crucial to the system working.

I think where we’re getting tripped up is this: if you want the reward, you have to do what the reward requires- yep. Do you need the reward? No.

I obviously have a different mentality about achievements than some players, but I really think that points to a change in perspective making the experience more enjoyable, rather than changing the systems of the game to accommodate people looking at things the wrong way.

Fair enough. If you think that is best for the game to have frustrated players leaving. Seems counter productive to me though.

I certainly disagree with all my heart that it is counter-productive. In fact I argue without hesitation that frustrated players leaving can only benefit the remaining players while also making those frustrated players less frustrated.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

While I understand the need for overflows, I don’t think they’re making the game more enjoyable.

That’s definitely where we diverge then. The alternative is a simple queue a la how the WvW maps. Which is to say, you can’t get in- play the game- at all in that zone when it’s full. This is a problem that is solved by overflows. People take this feature for granted with such regularity that it is criticized as though it is one of the game’s flaws.

Per the rest of your discussion of overflows, just to be pragmatic: if you get in a party with someone in the version of the map you want to be in (either the main, or a particular overflow), you can right-click their portrait and click “Join in..” If very full, you may have to keep trying continuously to get an open slot. This will help you remain with your community during these scenarios. It’s annoying that you can’t always sitck with them seamlessly, but again I cannot stress how much better this system is than traditional queues.

Car crashes are also not intended, but we can expect them to happen.

If this is the analogy you choose, you’re making my point for me. Car manufacturers take all sorts of steps to reduce the number of crashes and the damage and injury that results from them. Likewise, ArenaNet has arleady made a number of concessions to mitigate crashing/disconnects- if you’re in a dungeon instance and get disconnected you can jump right back in; if you’re disconnected during a guild mission, nothing prevents you from completing it when you log back in. Daily/bonus achievement chest popups are retained on your UI until you click them. Nonetheless, damaging and fatal crashes still occur. It would be a lunatic fringe position to argue that car manufacturers are to blame for not protecting drivers from every possible accident scenario, and that’s what is being advocated by saying “I’m getting so tired of this game” with disconnects as a reason. Nominally I don’t even take issue with the concept of a “grace period” or whatever other further steps they could take to make things even safer, but there’s always going to be a way you can get screwed by being disconnected, and your getting disconnected might not even be related to the game.

The problem here is that you assume players care enough to improve.

I assume no such thing. I guess the assumption I would make in its place would be that the players who do not care enough to improve will simply move on to content that does not require them to do so. The jungle wurm, shadow behemoth , AC story and level 1 fractals don’t have you worrying much about “insta-down” combat scenarios. That’s how it has to work. I’m sure it does in many cases: people like you and others may continue to do things they are simply not enjoying solely for the achievement points, and I have nothing against that approach personally- it just isn’t how I play- but I imagine the retinue of players who would simply quit doing something they didn’t like is larger.

Players don’t like to be downed, bashed around, knocked back, insta-killed, and constantly frozen

Do you tend to keep one or more stun breaks on your utility bar?

As I’ve said before many times on this forum, I have no issues with playing the game. What I’m not interested in doing is spending the little time I have randomly wandering the world hoping that I’ll randomly come across something I need…if I even know what I need.

Meh, then use Dulfy. If you don’t mind spending the time you can, if you don’t want to you don’t have to. This one is a self-solving issue in my opinion.

To clarify, I completely agree that ArenaNet could do a better job of presenting in-game direction for its content additions in many cases. It’s not their strong suit; I ran into this in GW1 as well. Relying on the mail system to guide players toward story content is very much a band-aid, for example. However, I just don’t consider this particularly related to Dulfy. Dulfy would be there even if the in-game requirements were made five times clearer, someone else would be there if Dulfy wasn’t, et cetera.

Orpheus.7284:

This game (PVE) has no sense of progression other than Achievement points. (Fractal 50 was fun but that’s the only progression mechanic in place after hitting 80.
The way of getting the said AP is pathetic because it involves so much timegating and deadlines. It was all well and good until AP rewards are introduced. Because It created a potential of very appealing rewards obtainable only through AP.

If the game ever gets good again (has not been since Fractals was implemented for me), returning players don’t want to feel behind and unable to catchup as fast as they’d like due to time gating. So they grit their teeth and carry on with boring dailies.

Fractals were added in November. Have you been playing a game you consider bad for ~9 months? :-/

It’s clear that you are player who is primarily motivated by “progression,” with the operating definition being an increase in some numerical gauge or another- your stats, your achievement score, your fractal level., etc. Fractals and Ascended gear in general, and Ascended weapons in particular, were added to offer something for this kind of player. Do you have any interest in gearing your characters with Ascended weapons?

While it’s nice that to some extent Guild Wars 2 can entertain and sustain players of this type, it’s also not designed exclusively or anywhere near primarily with them in mind- despite what many on these forums bemoaning the game’s unprecedented “grind” would have you believe. Indeed, I consider it remarkable that you are still here- but I can’t tell if that’s because the design decisions have been more effective than you think or because of some kind of compulsion.

Generally speaking, I don’t think I’ve ever played a game I considered “not good” for more than a few days.

Do you have a guild?

Balthazar is a relatively tough event that takes coordination. It’s good that it’s not constantly tackled. But if you organize groups and announce in LA that you’re taking it, people will show, and it’s very satisfying to pull off.

I am also a huge fan of the rarely-done Zho’Qafa Catacombs daily event. A party of 5 is recommended for this- the Champ abom is likely to give you some trouble until you learn the tricks with dodging him.

There are quite a few open world champs just hanging out to kill as well. I think it’s a great zone, but it’s definitely best while running around with a decent group. You can’t just expect your server to populate every area and present it to you, you gotta take some initiative and make things happen! :-)

Do you actually consider getting exotic gear to be that onerous?

xephire.8324:

There is a dev that favorites black gate and wanted to make sure Tequatl can be beaten so that everyone else believe they had a chance of winning.The dev was within and he was dealing heaps of damage and tequatl’s hp was reduced.

Gotta be my favorite conspiracy theory yet.

You hear that Blackgate? To hell with your all-day strategizing, ANet hit the win button for you.

Jordy.1570:

do u think, someone who is playing as much as u r and never looted a precurser has the same gaming experience?

your point of view is totally different

Come on… nothing the OP raised has anything whatsoever to do with anyone’s likelihood of looting a precursor. I certainly haven’t done so, and like you I haven’t ever had an item drop worth more than 7g (I did get a celestial dye drop once actually, but I used it). Guess what? I disagree with the OP probably about as strongly as Vol does. He may have been dismissive but criticizing him as though his luck has completely changed his interpretation of the game is just shallow.

Here are my responses to the points and attitude expressed in the OP:

Overflows are a feature that helps avoid the typical pitfalls of maxed population on maps in a popular game (read: queues), and guesting adds further flexibility to the solution. It doesn’t make it worse, and you’re using it as a scapegoat. It’s almost universally ignored in these conversations that the true “fix” for overflows is for less people to be playing.

Disconnects are not intended and no one likes having progress interrupted or missing out on something. However since this isn’t a game design decision it’s barely relevant to the rest of the points. It also isn’t a universal problem.

There are very few actual insta-kill mechanics in the game. If you mean insta-down, then sure- depending on your class, HP, gear spec, etc, this can happen to you frequently… but it’s best viewed as an opportunity to improve. Almost everything that would do this to you has an enormous tell, every class has a vast array of active damage mitigation, and the fact that downed state exists at all, and anyone can res, means you can still progress and contribute even if you fail at any individual action. I’m going to be honest with you: for skilled gamers, nearly every single piece of group content in GW2 is very easy. It’s a difficult balancing act to provide a supply of things to do for very casual players who do not have a high skill level or aren’t interested in improving, while not making the rest of the experience mindnumbingly boring for those who are playing at a high degree of skill. For some, Tequatl represents the first real challenge outside of very small group or solo encounters the game has ever seen. The question “why is it I can spend a bunch of gold on my 80 character and still get easily downed?” is answered with “because GW2 rewards skilled play more than having the best gear.” I’m sorry if that contrasts with how you would like things to work, but as much as people would love to argue that gear matters sooo much, it’s as true now as it has ever been.

Dulfy is an external resource. If you believe that you need to use it to complete tasks (hint: you don’t), then use it. If you don’t want to then ignore it. I will concede that it certainly requires more effort to figure everything out in-game yourself.

The idea of being “forced to play” eludes me entirely. Literally nothing is actually compelling you to play the game other than your own desire. Seriously. If you feel forced to play, that means you don’t want to play; thus you shouldn’t play, and since you can in fact choose not to play at any time, that means you aren’t being forced to play. Believing this requires some kind of escherlike semantic maze to keep the logical components intact. If you have to ask “How is this fun?” or “Why am I here?” then you have already decided that it’s not and there’s no reason to be. Just go do something else!

Achievements have no impact on me; they can be safely ignored. The fact that people seem to cite this as a massive issue does indicate that ArenaNet could do a much better job presenting the concept. But again, similar to the previous point, if you’re “no longer here to play, here to blast through as many achievements as you can” then you simply shouldn’t be here at all. A change in perspective is the best thing you can do to get over this.

Time-gating is a complex and onerous issue dealing with giving some structure to concurrent player distribution. If you interpret this as “forcing you to play every day” then you’re certainly going to have a bad time. Some time-gated rewards do bother me and I certainly miss running SAB once per character. For some rewards, gating acquisition makes more sense than others and I definitely think they could take a look at this. This is the closest I come to agreeing with you on any point.

I hate to boil it down this much but in general if you find yourself “getting so tired of this” you should pretty clearly just stop playing. I don’t know how it gets more complicated than that for anyone, but it happens all the time. Surely you will agree it is unrealistic to expect a game’s development team to dramatically alter said game in the hopes of retaining you personally.

gumoor.5674:

I understand what you are saying Hawkian and appreciate the suggestion…but then I’m farming zone to zone instead of enjoy the content of the game. I’m learning about the centaur problems and all of that Kessex Hills, and now I have to go out immersion, go into some totally different zone just get some small bones or whatever?

If immersion is really your refuge here…

Would it really be more realistic if every zone had every material you needed in it?

I don’t know if this is some kind of elaborate in-joke or something that is making fun of the things people complain about (especially with your bizarre derail about the cash shop at the end), but on the off chance that you’re serious…

You’ll want to find out the specific zones that have the individual materials you’re looking for and seek them out specifically. If you post what those are I can even help you eliminate that dangerous and time-consuming step as well.

GOSU.9574:

MOAR GEAR STATS BEGETS MOAR BOSS HEALTH.

Film at 11.

Ludicrous; you obviously know very, very little of the encounters in question.

Stellar idea.

15charrs

Chuo.4238:

Himei.5379:

superbeast.9873:

It’s just another broken promise of ‘innovation’ from Arena Net.

This game is grindier than the oldest effin’ Korean MMOs.

And the players are too kitten blind to see it.

Or players HAVE PLAYED those Korean MMOs and see this as nothing compared to those.

I guess what I’m seeing is that people think of gear grind as a relative thing. It’s better in some games, worse in other.

I appear to be in the tiny minority: I think that any gear grind is unacceptable.

I believe that interesting games are about content, skill, thinking, and teamwork; time spent there is quality, and of its own nature encourages more time spent.

Likewise, uninteresting games don’t engage the brain or imagination: they include gear, grind, poor storytelling, limited skills, limited encounters where teamwork makes a marginal, if any difference. Time spent there is driven by the need to acquire, is independent of skill and teamwork, and is often just mindlessly repetitive.

Which do you think best describes Guild Wars 2?

That’s a fair question.

Guild Wars 2 is an extremely interesting game that allows its players to play it like an uninteresting one, while being unfailingly perceived by some as requiring its players to do so.

Irrodesia, I want to thank you for providing some supporting evidence based on dev comments for how continuous vertical progression that became non-optional might be added to the game despite there being no more tiers. Despite a lot of speculation still being involved I really appreciate the concrete example of how a player might get left behind (hinging on the gradual adding of stats through infusions and then making tougher content that requires it).

That definitely sounds annoying to me, and I especially really don’t want the game’s level cap to increase… I hope against hope that they change their minds about ever doing that, attractive as a player goal it might be for them to set.

While the scenario you paint is dire, there are a few things that jump out to me quizzically. You state that there’s a 10% difference in relative stats each tier; then say that after the first upgrade it’d be a 20% increase over exotic, 30% after the second. So in your theoretical the stat additions to existing Ascended gear are statistically equivalent to adding a new entire tier of gear each time. Is that correct? If I’m not misinterpreting you, I wonder if you consider it unreasonable to speculate that such increases would be nowhere near that amount, especially if occuring in all-at-once batches at 6-month intervals as you suggest? That is to say, aren’t you assuming that the difference is going from 10% to 20% when it might just as well be going from 10% to 13%? Or to 11%? I do take your point of course: assuming the difference was as big as you claim and new or existing content was matched to that level (rather than Rare gear as it is now), keeping up would absolutely not be optional.

I have to address, though, outside of misinterpreting what you meant by “relative” stats, a 10% difference between the gear tiers isn’t accurate. I know you may have been just simplifying for the example, but it’s an important distinction. Currently, for a full set of gear, the difference between Fine and Masterwork is 28% (notably adding two pieces that there are no Fine versions of), Masterwork and Rare 9%, Rare and Exotic 15%, and using a 105% increase per piece over Exotic, Exotic and Ascended 12%. It’s important to note that the curve is colored by these differences not being equal each jump, and most importantly, that Rare-to-Exotic is larger than Exotic-to-Ascended. Since no content in the game currently exists that cannot be completed with Rare gear*, this further clouds the idea that acquiring best-in-slot items will be required.

I also want to ensure I get the full scope of your hypothetical to be able to think about it fully. In your scenario where the level cap has been raised twice, is there a such thing as level 86 exotic gear? Or does Exotic gear past level 80 not exist?

Finally, I believe it really does all come down to this:

It would be silly to think that the increase in stats is just to say you have an increase in stats, so it reflects that there is harder content to go up against. Otherwise what is the point of increasing the stats?

This “plainly obvious” presupposition is I think where you and others are arguing a point I can’t adequately rebut. Were it the case that new content required Ascended gear to complete*, then I would have no recourse by which to argue that obtaining it was optional. As of yet, there’s simply nothing to indicate this will become true, but we will of course see what happens. I will say, gladly, that if this does occur (and Ascended gear has not become trivial to acquire for even casual players at this time), I will leave the game behind as the concept of gear being “more important” in this game doesn’t really interest me at all, and thus I don’t care how long getting Ascended pieces for all my characters will take, etc…

But when you ask “what is the point?”- the point has been obvious to me since Ascended gear was first introducted in November. It’s to cater to a very specific type of player that plays a lot, and apparently enjoys Guild Wars 2 possibly more than expected- people that absolutely need to have the statistically best items and feel as though they have nothing to do if they aren’t working toward better ones, sometimes even going so far as to claim the game lacks an “endgame” because it has no gear progression. I know this is where our views of the game’s future irreconcilably diverge, but it’s actually pretty clear to me that “just to say you have an increase in stats” is almost wholly the point.

If in two years, content is put out that I can’t do with the gear my characters are currently wearing, then you’ll absolutely be right and I’ll be wrong, and very disappointed. But so far nothing has convinced me to take the doomsday approach.

*The exception of course being high-level fractals, again due solely to the need for Agony Resistance rather than the stat increase.

The best source of karma in the game is now doing Fractals below your fractal level (and use a karma booster!) http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1lqrjl/karma_nerfs_got_you_down_you_can_still_make_20000/

In reading this, it’s clear that you haven’t provided any new information and have muddied your argument even further…

In discounting the presuppositions I derived from your claim, you end with “I make no presuppositions about content other than:” and then follow it with the tl:dr version of what I attempted to be specific about with regard to your claim that “the top of the curve will one day be the relative bottom.”

I thought my simple example of a game with very shallow and terminal vertical progression would communicate that I understand the concept of vertical progression perfectly well, and I was simply distinguishing it from the related but distinct concepts of power creep and gear treadmills; you have merely suggested I google it. Indeed, you link me to a Penny Arcade episode specifically about power creep and a taugrim article describing “vertical scaling” solely as it relates to tiers of gear. There is no difference in definition between my understanding of vertical progression and theirs; you are merely attempting to conflate related but separate ideas into one.

With the clear inability for us to find common ground on this relatively mundane concept in mind, I’m happy to concede for the purposes of this argument that you’re a more serious gamer than me and know more about what simple and basic concepts like vertical progression are. That’s fine; I don’t need to convince you I’m more knowledgeable than you are to rebut your initial assertion.

So I’ll just reiterate my position simply. You say:

eventually you will no longer be able to play the game if you don’t follow the power curve

This is a positive claim and demands evidence. You have provided none. Your rationale is filled with clauses like “it takes no argument to prove” but you cannot simply say this and have it translate into truth. Again, this is an argument from self-evidence and simply fallacious. Demonstrating that larger numbers are larger than smaller ones (a proposition that I agree requires no further proof) really does not further your claim as much as you appear to think it does.

I take no issue with the way you’ve defined self-evident. It’s certainly accurate that you are attempting to argue without proof or reasoning. But the fact that something seems obvious to you does not make it correct; in fact, if the only line of argument you’re relying on is that it seems obvious to you, it’s a good idea for anyone you are making the statement to not to accept your claims. I certainly see no reason whatsoever thus far to describe the acquisition of best-in-slot gear in Guild Wars 2 as non-optional.

On a tangential note I think you may be a little confused with the term “prima facie.” The term res ipsa loquitur is closer to what you’re getting at.

Fire Ele certainly was made objectively easier. Maybe its old self is coming back tuesday, who knows.

FYI, karma boosters still affect what has become the best source of karma in the game: doing fractals below your current fractal level. http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1lqrjl/karma_nerfs_got_you_down_you_can_still_make_20000/

Healix.5819:

It’s not like you can force people to not create min/maxed speed run groups. There will always be a requirement of some kind.

The LFG tool will be out in a week and it’s cross server, so join one of the many other available groups that doesn’t specifically state they’re doing a speed run. I imagine the tool will be terrible however, since either it will only work across a set group of servers, similar to WvW pairings, or the listings will move by so fast that by the time you click on one, it’s full.

Where on earth would you get the concept for the bold?

Septemptus, I really think this is just a matter of perspective. You’re making the experience out to be onerous and frustrating, so of course that is how it will feel to you. No arguments against your points (and there are deep, controversial flaws in your reasoning on some things) will persuade you because you are viewing the day-to-day experience of playing the game antagonistically. It doesn’t matter what metaphor you use: a race (as you have here), a “job,” a “grind,” “entrapment”- no one will be able to say anything that makes you feel better by countering the lines of your argument, because to you it will sound like, “well, it’s not that much of a race.”

Guild Wars 2 is none of these things. Guild Wars 2 is a game. All that ultimately should matter to you is whether or not you are having fun in the moment-to-moment experience of playing it. If the answer is yes, then things will surely still bother you like they do me, but these flaws won’t resonate enough to really hamper your enjoyment. If the answer is no, which it sounds like it might be starting to be for you, then that’s okay too. You aren’t being financially compelled to continue.

I will say that “it’s hard to stop when you’re into something” sounds a little indicative of a propensity for addiction. If you would feel like you should keep playing no matter what ArenaNet did, that would be a problem. I certainly don’t feel that way.

It’s a pretty loaded question, but I’ll try to answer it honestly.

The time investment involved is not proportionally tied to the increase in stats (this is hard to quantify but the stat boost isn’t “worth” the time it takes to prepare to craft one from my perspective).

Furthermore, since in-game content isn’t balanced around the slightly higher stat ceiling in question, it further deincentivizes the effort required (anything you can do with an ascended weapon you can do without one, a common and crucial point).

However, it also isn’t that onerous to collect the materials through the process of just playing the game as you see fit, and a stat boost is a stat boost. The overwhelming majority of the expense and effort required to craft one is, at the moment, simply reaching 500 in crafting in the first place. This is inexorably linked to the economy and currently a bit out of wack due to the rush of early adopters. Eventually it will stabilize and be more realistic for everyone.

Finally, in addition to the one currently available becoming easier, further methods of acquisition will be added that continue to lower the time-to-acquire per piece for the player.

So in summary my answer is: currently no, they’re not worth it unless you have to have the best as quickly as possible. Eventually they will be worth it, and further trend toward becoming more and more trivial to acquire.

edit: I left something out.

I forgot any focus on the skins themselves, some of which are pretty cool! If you want any of the skins badly for your character’s look, then (just like T3 Cultural Armor, Infinite Light, a Legendary, etc.) of course it’s worth it regardless of the effort.

“Unorthodox tank” sounds like Necro all over. They have crazy high HP even before Death Shroud, other mitigation options and of course minions which act as extra bodies. I think you’d probably like it. So that’s my answer to both questions. Whatever you do, enjoy

Doing Fractals below your Fractal reward level (i.e. helping people out) is now the best source of karma: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1lqrjl/karma_nerfs_got_you_down_you_can_still_make_20000/

All still affected by karma buffs.

Haha… of course vertical progression equals an increase in power over time. That has nothing to do with whether or not it stops, and the baffling part is that you’ve somehow incorporated it not stopping into your understanding of the term as defined? I think you actually are ill-defining it despite your confidence in what it means.

Imagine a game where you start at level 1, with a max level of 2. Level 2 characters are more powerful than level 1 characters. No more levels are ever added and there is no gear. This game has vertical progression. The vertical progression in this hypothetical game is very shallow and ends very quickly; however, vertical progression it remains. This game has vertical progression despite not even having gear, let alone a gear treadmill. I hope this clears things up a little bit. The terms can be confusing but vertical progression is not quite so specific as you’re making it out to be.

The presuppositions I was referencing entailed by your assertion would be that 1) more tiers of gear will be added to GW2, 2) enough tiers would be added for the stat total range from whites to ascended to be replicated in going from ascended to whatever the new best-in-slot would be (the only rational way to explain what you meant by the top one day being the bottom) and 3) existing content would be updated to require a new expectation of base player power level (as otherwise presupposition 2 would essentially mean halving the difficulty of all existing content). Of these, 1 is the only one I even entertain as a possibility, but it remains unsubstantiated.

As far as other fallacies your line about experienced gamers is an argument from authority, your discarding of my point about the current difference in power being optional is special pleading, and your entire thesis is an argument from self-evidence. In debates, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, the term “self-evident” is almost always a terrible idea. The vast majority of the time it’s an overt indication that actual evidence is lacking. In terms of epistemology very few assertions can actually be claimed to be self-evident, and they’re usually weird philosophical bits like “discounting the notion that this is a dream or some sort of simulation, the statement ‘we are alive’ is self-evident.”

TorsoReaper.8530:

DiogoSilva.7089:

The richer will become stronger faster, the poorer will have to work harder. The more skilled players will be forced to farm, as well, because unlike what was advertised to us at the beginning, being skilled in this game means zero.

I 100% agree. I was running around in the Gendarran Fields an this guy who was obviously a farmer came up and started stomping my character. I couldn’t fight back since he had a legendary weapon, legendary armor, an epic mount, etc… Obviously all farmed. I was dodge rolling, casting spells, everything, but my skill could not stop him from killing me.

No matter how skilled someone is, they will never beat a farmer and that is why they shouldn’t have open world PVP in this game anymore. They should do a different PVP mode where everyone is given the same gear, pre leveled up to 80, and you can’t farm your pvp equipment.

I needed that. Thank you.

Again you’ve said it’s self-evident and obviously non-optional with no evidence, not a single example. Your proposition that “the top of the curve will one day be the relative bottom” relies on a number of- at least three- presuppositions about the future of the game that are completely unsubstantiated. You imply I’m not a serious gamer and need to educate myself to understand, rather than explaining anything. All of these are rhetorical fallacies. In addition to not being evidence, which is all I asked for, they’re just totally useless in response to my question. They’re merely creative ways of telling me I’m wrong, when the burden of proof is to provide evidence for the initial claim.

Your line “vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping” is a little on the baffling side as well, and makes me think you might have confused the concepts of vertical progress in general with the notion of a gear treadmill, which is a related but distinct convention.

MikaHR.1978:

“Majority of the people who play online games”

Really?

In fact, majority of MMO players (limit yourself to MMOs at least it will look less silly) are rejecting that cheapo mechanism, or you havent noticed trail of failed WoW clones that were based on that or that WoW so many players that GW2 will never have that many, and it perfected it.

This is a pretty silly counterargument. One, I specifically didn’t limit myself to MMOs because ArenaNet did not do so when targeting its prospective playerbase. And indeed, tons of popular modern multiplayer online games of all kinds from FPSes to loot-driven dungeon runners employ some system of persistent progression. People like it, I swear. Second, the “trail of failed WoW clones,” which I absolutely have noticed, in contrast to GW2’s outstanding success so far, is mere ammunition for my argument that a shallow and optional vertical progression curve can be as appealing as a deep and required one, if not moreso. Finally, if a majority of the people who play online games shared the position that I have about MMO progression, there would be a lot more games that attempted what I suggested- or even a single one. Even EVE to some degree employs a progression to better ships over time. Ironically, the closest example I can even think of is the PvP of Guild Wars 2 itself, which has no vertical progression to speak of and gear tiers are irrelevant. It might also interest you to know that at one point early in its dev cycle, Guild Wars 2 didn’t use player levels at all (further embracing GW1’s tiny level range rather than straying from it) , but this was so jarring to traditional MMO mentalities that the idea was scrapped in favor of the more familiar 80-level curve- just made far more shallow and less exponential.

The truth is that there’s a vast middle ground of players who enjoy a little vertical progression but also don’t want it to become a bottlenecking factor for their fun or their ability to do what they want. Guild Wars 2 is ideal for those people and there are a ton of them.

You could have constructed a way better rebuttal to my claim, by the way. You could have said “look at Guild Wars 2’s initial success without Ascended gear, when people all had best-in-slot gear after 24 hours, and contrast that with the failed WoW clones that relied on longer vertical progression; why would ArenaNet want to make their already-successful game more like less-successful games?” This would be a much tougher question, to which my response would be that they have data on their playerbase that I don’t, and it must have been determined that they could compel a significant enough number of some subset of players to continue logging in by introducing a small amount of vertical progression. Based on their continued growth it would have to appear that this was an accurate determination.

Seras.5702:

Alright, I gotta ask though. I always use the double-tap to dodge and have only accidently dodged a few times and always when spamming engi grenades (finger fatigue). I like the ability to dodge in the direction I want by double-tapping. Doesn’t the dodge button just dodge you backwards? I wanna be able to dodge strafe or dodge into my target to close the gap.

Hehe, you just hit the direction you want to go+dodge.

If you wanna have your mind blown a little further… for me, this input equals tilting the analog stick in said direction and pressing the right trigger.

Sardonia.8196:

If the gear is not required for anything, why even have it at all?

Specifically to cater to the subset of players who like that sort of thing, or even feel like they need it to have a compelling reason to play.

To be sure, I’d prefer it did not exist- but my personal desires extend much further than that. I’d prefer there were no stats tied to tiers of gear at all, no leveling up in the traditional sense; essentially no vertical progression of any kind from minute one. But I also understand that this is a fairly extreme position not held by the majority of people who play online games, and don’t consider it realistic. It’s not hard for me to understand why Ascended gear was added to this game, but it is hard for me to be bothered by it, because the implementation is such that it will impact me personally in a very, very tiny way if at all.

Would you prefer that it were required? :-/

Raine.1394:

I’ll be happy to break it down for you.

You used an enormous number of words to provide no concrete evidence whatsoever. Nothing- literally nothing- that you typed in that post adequately defines reaching the top of the power curve in Guild Wars 2 as non-optional. You provide no examples and attempt to prove that obtaining best-in-slot gear in every slot is required with logical assertions that essentially stipulate “larger numbers are bigger than smaller numbers, and if you’re good at math you’ll understand why this proves my point.” But your argument absolutely hinges on this statement:

It is self-evident that there will come a point where the difference is not immaterial but rather significant.

You can’t just say it’s self-evident. I’m asking you to provide evidence. If such a point does come then your interpretation of what Ascended gear is for will be correct. Such a scenario would provide you with an example of the sort I was asking you for.

But thus far that scenario does not exist, nor does anything remotely close. None of the content in the game requires you to have Ascended gear; none of the content in the game even requires you to have Exotic gear. The exception of course is Fractals, but this is solely and completely because of the need for Agony Resistance, and is not at all dependent on the increase in statistical power afforded by the tier upgrade.

Game developers introduce VP for two primary reasons: 1) to provide players with a sense of character progression, and 2) to motivate continued play. It is the second purpose here that has to do with it being non-optional. Because we are talking about the power level of the game, and since it’s ascending, players are motivated to follow the power curve. Long term, if players wish to continue playing, they realize that they must keep up with the power increases that developers periodically implement to keep them playing.

I think what you’re correctly identifying here is that ArenaNet is definitely catering to a powerful desire of certain players (especially those used to more traditional MMO conventions) to progress, even feeling as though they have “nothing to do” in the sense of continued play unless there is something requiring some degree of time investment to improve their power level.

This is wholly distinct from whether or not doing so is optional.

My much simpler assertion to counter yours would be that it is optional, because it is not required.

Raine.1394:

I can predict the outcome of the new Teq based upon experience with all other attempts to satisfy the ‘hardcore’ player in open world PvE.

First off, I sort of loathe the phrases “hardcore” and “casual” in these conversations in general. Far from evoking a meaningful set of operating definitions they just sort of foster a bunch of preconceptions on both sides based on which of two distinct groups- neither of which actually exist- you are supposed to belong to. You go so far as to say “if you’re truly hardcore” you’ll tick all the boxes on a certain list which is a fairly basic No True Scotsman fallacy. It paints me into the position of saying something along the lines of “no really, I am hardcore, here’s how I can be without matching your description” when really I’d much rather say “I don’t care at all if you think I’m hardcore or not.”

Players are not merely “casual or hardcore: pick one.” Some players play for a zillion hours in the open world and hate dungeons. Some players are fanatically about WvW and don’t give a crap about PvE being challenging. Some players only play for a few hours on weekends but spend all in difficult dungeon paths, guild challenges, and Orr temples. Some have more skill, some less, some have a deep understanding of all of the game’s mechanics and some don’t care that they have none at all as long as they’re able to have fun.

The proposition that ArenaNet has inordinately attempted to cater to a certain category of “hardcore player in open world PvE” is ludicrous. What they have done is created a large number of daily events that span the spectrum of difficulty to complete, but all have nearly identical rewards. The fact that the most difficult ones are less popular in this scenario is not a symptom of an aversion to challenge but a simple instinct to seek the path of least resistance.

Second of all, I don’t see any reason to believe you can predict anything of the sort.

The Karka Queen was introduced (i.e. added to the game for the first time) while the Southsun MF buff was in place. Furthermore, because there are not a significant number of adds during that fight, the MF was not particularly revelant to it. It was popular then because it was new. The two rares it gave (equivalent to, say, Fire Elemental + Jungle Wurm) were not notable and it was abandoned as soon as the Living Story left Southsun Cove. These rewards were highly inappropriate for the effort required and the rewards remained the same in the months to follow. Before this patch, when my guild ran it the last time it had reached over 1000 hours of downtime since being defeated. Her rewards were buffed, and without any extenuating magic find buff or trip to Southsun with the LS… she was last defeated under 9 hours ago. This flies directly in the face of your claims; it was the most cogent piece of evidence I brought up, and you did not even provide a token argument against it.

Finally, I also mentioned the threshold completion rewards that provide a return on time invested even in cases of failure. This is a direct counter to your claim about the "failure fest nature of activities offsetting rewards. " You also did not address this factor, which has made the Scarlet invasions very popular despite the constant threat of failure and will be employed in the new Tequatl fight.

MikaHR.1978:

If you like grinding gear, sure, if not…skip it.

I hate grinding gear and I love playing this game what do I do so confused help me stop the graphics

Not only is there a way to do so DO IT IMMEDIATELY.

Died twice during a jumping puzzle on launch day because of that “feature,” never again!

stof.9341:

Hawkian.6580:

Wait, why wouldn’t you just go straight for the legendary if you’re working toward one?

Because getting BiS items trumps getting a nice skin. Well I think, the effort for both is so big I’m not sure anymore.

Well if it’s more important to you it’s more important to you. Assuming it’s your first legendary it seems like the better investment to me :P

fellyn.5083:

OP is spot on. Sarcasm aside. I thought about making a similar thread.

There are people at every event you go to practically. It’s crazy. And not just 5 or 6 people. But 50 or more.

Best update since release.

I must agree, it had far more of an impact than I would have expected in terms of just increasing vibrancy in the open world. I love SAB and I’ve barely even touched it because there’s so much else to do with a hearty population (and I’m making rather a ton of money helping out the early ascended adopters :P).