This is why I prefer to start the instance on long dungeon runs. They really gotta fix this soon though.
And if you’d read this post before replying to it, you’d know that I said that the statistic is not entirely meaningless as you want it to be, since GW2’s sales have dropped off faster than those of other major triple-A games in recent memory. It took them 4 months to sell as many copies as they sold in the first two weeks of the game’s release. Like it or not, that’s a statistic that has some meaning to it.
Squeezing my words while preserving yours for context due to character limit.
Assuming what you say is correct, now look at the rate in which new sales are occurring after the first two weeks and compare it to other MMORPGs. The rate is what’s important, not the numbers sold comparatively to how much sold initially. Suppose GW2 didn’t sell as well at launch and only sold 500,000 copies. If the sales rate after the initial two weeks weren’t changed, then wow, what a success right?
Well let’s see….working backwards, there’s the sale now, the long sale during December, and the Black Friday sale.
Having three sales over the first six months of your game’s launch isn’t a big deal?
How many sales did Rift, TERA, or even SWTOR have in that same period? Lemme answer that for you: none. They saw no reason to devalue their product when it was still selling just fine at its original market price.
Others have noted out the inconsistency here. Perhaps another 3 examples, otherwise “3 sales in 6 months” remains a minor detail.
Except that MMOs are not Steam.
This is a buy-to-play game. The game’s initial sales are its primary source of money in the initial months of the game’s release. The Gem Store is its long-term source of revenue, certainly, but the game sales are the big deal in this first several months, and if they were doing as well as they’d hoped, they wouldn’t feel pressured to have sales. You can argue that the sale during the holidays was normal, and I’d be okay with that….but now they’re having a sale in February. Do they expect a lot of people to be buying their family members a late Valentine’s Day gift? It’s relatively clear that they’re not doing all that well if they have to throw another sale.
If you can still sell your triple-A at $60, you don’t typically drop its price. Using your “Steam” example, many new releases into Steam don’t typically go on sale if they happen to release shortly before a major Steam sale. Skyrim didn’t go on sale until a sale months later, after the initial saturation levels had been tapped out.
It doesn’t matter if Steam games aren’t MMORPGs as long as they’re B2P with replayability. How long was Skyrim released before they had their first sale? GW2 didn’t go on sale until two months in. Even so, some games have sales right at launch.
Not reading, again.
I’m saying that the sales figures have nothing to do with concurrency or the number of active players. That’s rather obvious in context if you invest the proper amount of time into reading the posts you reply to.
I’m not arguing that the player base is in decline right now. Again, you’re clearly not reading what I write if you think that I’m saying that.
I’m saying that the scale of this increase they’re claiming is questionable since the sales figures don’t seem to reflect a high level of growth, and that the player base is most definitely a lot lower now than it was at the start of the game.
On second thought, the statement about “concurrent players” is irrelevant. We’re talking about a trend over time of months, not “right now”.
I’d like to note that a player drop isn’t really an indication of decline as it’s a common occurrence. If “playerbase decline” is based on such a broad scale, then every successful game ever made would be said to be in “decline”. Let’s retrospect… again.
Is the player base declining? That’s a fairly easy to answer question: yes.
Your statement is made entirely based on sales figures which is the crux of the matter here. Otherwise, if your intention with this statement is based on the “broad scale” I mentioned earlier, then you made a moot point. You seem to be flip flopping.
Perhaps GW2 is definitely declining. Having sales periodically is weak evidence of that however, if at all. If GW2 underwent a price cut and began merging servers, then I think that would be proof of a true decline.
But what does Anet hope to gain by saying that the “game is growing”? That’s where the assumptions pour in.
An active game is an attractive game.
His options are to say, “the game is growing,” “the game is stagnant,” or “the game is tanking.” He’ll obviously never say the latter, and there’s little reason to say the second one unless there was serious and credible reason to believe the game was tanking, but he’s happy to say “the game is growing,” even if he’s referring to 0.01% growth in the playerbase or in player activity.
Did any of the fanboys stop to think that all these new players are people who bought the game (or received it as a gift) during the holidays? Or that these new players are just as likely to follow the same general population trends that all the release day purchasers exhibited?
Or even that the entire increase in “concurrent hours” is purely a statistical fudge of the increased activity during the holidays?
Is Colin’s full quote offered anywhere in this thread? I mean fully in context, including with the question he was responding to?
The answer to those questions are the assumptions. That said, when Colin said “the game is growing”, it wasn’t even a significant part of the entire interview. As a matter of fact, it’s only one sentence.
Maybe if the entire interview’s point was regarding player population, then would the meaning change.
I don’t know, walking through 15 areas and not spotting one player is a little concerning.
Likewise, I walk through every area and bump into people.
Saying Anet is being deceptive requires a lot of assumptions.
Just one; that they’re as unscrupulous as every other major game developer.
The depends on motive. If it’s anything regarding future tiers higher than ascended, level caps, or anything else that players may find disagreeable, then would I find Anet using doublespeak to “sugarcoat” their words plausible.
But what does Anet hope to gain by saying that the “game is growing”? Especially in such short mention? That’s where the assumptions pour in.
No, your post was attacking a point you thought was a weakness in my post, except that I never made such a claim.
What claim didn’t you make? That you said the player population was dropping? What I attacked was your point that GW2’s player population was dropping as reflected in sales by saying that it is far too ambiguous.
Yes, a game’s sales always decline in the months after its release. No, that doesn’t mean the statistic is meaningless, as many other triple-A MMOs were still selling better than GW2 in the months following their initial release, even after the locusts had left. Combined with the fact that GW2 has needed to have multiple major sales in the less-than-half-a-year after its initial release means that it’s clearly not selling well.
There is no official data on sales other than “3 million+ sales at launch”. Any claim you make now would be assumptive. You said you liked numbers right? To make the claim that GW2 isn’t selling well “after the locusts left” is based on what?
That GW2 had “major” sales? Tell me, how many sales has GW2 held? As far as I know, there were only two (or three if I forgot any). Both times the sales were limited (and only lasted a week), and having that many sales over that many months isn’t really anything surprising. If GW2 really wasn’t selling well at all, what stopped Anet from doing a price cut instead, or even repeat what TERA did?
Let’s face it. Something going on sale is not necessarily indicative of sales performance. Things that are selling very well even has frequent sales (like many Steam games for instance). Even if they just launched.
And it still has nothing to do with the concurrency rate or the number of players currently playing the game.
Here’s your initial statement:
Is the player base declining? That’s a fairly easy to answer question: yes.
Unless you’re going to say that the rest of your post was not about your initial statement, then I think it has a lot to do with “concurrency rate or the number of players currently playing the game”.
I’m not going to deny the possibility that the player population could be dropping. I am not arguing in defense of “increasing player population”. With that said, with whatever information we have right now, it is far more likely that it is not the case. Saying Anet is being deceptive requires a lot of assumptions.
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Xfire is actually a great way to predict trends… it has been historically spot-on for this kind of thing. GW2 engagement has declined over 1000% since launch on their reports, which means that “of the people that use Xfire” there has been a 1000% decrease in activity. That’s not insignificant, I would say.
Don’t try and defend against Xfire; there is none. Instead try and support your theory about how there IS an increase in players and a crowded world.
Where in my post did I talk about Xfire?
…
Too bad you didn’t read my post, because surprise, it didn’t have any disagreement with yours. A tl;dr of my response simply states that you made a moot point.
If they make dynamic events scale 1:1 with level, then I think we’d have more players in lower level areas. If T6 crafting materials dropped in lower level zones (eg. scaled to level), that would also make it better.
This is meant to prevent “rez rushing” which is basically to prevent 5 man “zergs”, and it’s definitely working as intended.
While the change by itself is a step in the right direction (agreeable by most people), there still remains broken dungeon mechanics that sometimes makes this change undesirable. They fixed that up for CoF Path 2 during “Defend Magg”, but they really could do a lot more.
About the second part, typically I have more luck with the RNG with dungeon chests than drops. But that’s just me.
Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.
XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q
Web searches for GW2 does not reflect a growing/declining player population.
Likewise, here’s a graph for TF2 which is a game that’s definitely still growing with no end in sight:
http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=tf2&cmpt=q
Notice that the line jumps all over the place. I don’t expect that to be different with GW2. If an extrapolated line was drawn for both graphs, they’d both be increasing. For GW2 though, the sample is too small to make any predictions for the long run.
It takes 80 hours to raise a level 80. In contrast, it takes 80 hours to raise three or four times the money to get an additional character slot.
I’d go with the character slot.
All mmos lose the locusts after early launch, then the people that didn’t read what the game was leave, and now the people playing are the actual gw2 players. Same in any mmo. A slow growth is great.
But a fast decline of players isn’t ~ The game already had lost a ton of players with the Lost Shores mess, and now the next patch it set to cause another round of players quitting.
I beg to differ about “fast decline”. Plus, the next patch isn’t going to make people quit; it’s not the same nature as Lost Shores.
Lost Shores involved the introduction of an additional gear tier and an extremely glitchy one-time event that caused endless frustration.
For this patch, , at the most there’s only going to be mass migrations between guilds. No one is actually gated; everyone can get the content they want immediately if they choose to which is unlike the case in Lost Shores. If people quit at all, it’d be minimal compared to Lost Shores.
The playerbase has massively declined since Lost Shores – stop spreading false hope.
Or you could stop spreading wrong data.
Anet data has shown a major increase in the playerbase and concurrent players.And you trust anet?
I don’t think it’s a matter of trusting Anet. It’s more of a matter of proving your case with statistics. Personal experience doesn’t count by the way as others have stated contradicting experiences.
Is the player base declining? That’s a fairly easy to answer question: yes.
Their sales dropped off tremendously after the first month. They went from selling two million copies in two weeks….to just recently breaking three million back in January. And it’s known that the player base was already in decline as early as November, given the reactions to changes being made at that time and the subsequent damage control rush from the devs following the event.
Now it’s technically not all doom and gloom. According to Colin, their numbers “went up” after the holidays….though to be fair, that could mean anything since he didn’t specify how much that “increase” was. However, if we’re to take the home page’s most recent announcement as evidence of a problem, I’m guessing that their sales are doing badly enough that they’re starting to get really worried.
So, yes, the game’s in decline. I don’t think it’ll be enough of a decline that the game keels over and dies, necessarily, but it’s certainly not on pace to compete with WoW either.
I don’t think this is an issue here.
Rates of sales always decline after launch. The most sales for any game always happen within the first couple months of release. I don’t think there has been a game in history where its rate of sales were higher than at launch.
Take Call of Duty for example. Black Ops to be precise. Best selling game in history. Nowhere after it launched did the sale rate was ever higher than at launch.
Also, game sales happen all the time. TF2 had $1 days back when it was B2P. It certainly wasn’t any indication of “decline”. What would be disconcerting however is if price cuts happen, or if GW2 went F2P like TERA.
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It’s not so much that the playerbase is shrinking, but more due to where players are allocated.
@Waage I considered that we are missing information, but Anthony clearly states that the first Mission type requires Art of War level 5. If researchig Guild Bounties isn’t a requirement for the next Mission types, why would it be labelled as the first.
I think “first” means the “first to select from”. The “second type” and “third type” likely does not need Art of War (unless Anet has no common sense).
ORGH The amount of whine and WOE is me is over the top.
Everybody sit down and relax this is what we know.
1. There different events that have different difficulties and need for numbers. Bounty was a Multi-zone event so chance’s are you will need to be in a BIG guild for it to work.
2. The different events size might coincide with different levels of the tree. A 5 man event will need tier 1 and 20 man event needs tier 5.
3. There is no talk about it only being in the Art of War tree. Only that the Bounty one will be in that tree.
4. It is something to work towards. It is a thing that will take effort and planning from your guild. IT is not meant to be a easy way for you to get loot. Yes your 2 man guild will have a hard time doing things and that is why there is the multi-guild function.
5. It is a very short passage so keep your impotent nerd rage in check until we actually know the entire picture and stop being so dam reactionary.
6. The people complaining about having to go into the wvw tree when they don’t wvw. I have to do kitten Dungeons for my monthly and Fractals for ascended gear.
IN the end relax and let’s see what happens before you blow the top of your head off in pure anger.
Not to mention that big guilds should be rewarded in some manner as well. All in all however, there is a reason why the ability to represent different guilds exist.
I get a lot of exotic drops. They’re all from instances however.
Well, if people don’t want to join a separate larger guild along with their smaller one to access the content for free, there’s always paying 20g per 10k influence.
IMO, not a bad investment for content.
Edit: Art of War guild missions might be for WvW only. Nothing to lose here for PvEers.
(edited by Heijincks.9267)
I have a novel idea. Why not see the content before commenting on it? A blog post doesn’t give you an idea of how hard this stuff gets in the long haul. Or how much coordination you need.
Do you know the word prejudice? It means to prejudge. At least wait until you see something before saying it sucks.
It doesn’t matter how many mobs they put in the way of the chicken race or how many platforms i have to jump on, this sort of stuff is shallow to me for reasons listed, i’m judging it by what they’ve said and what i’ve seen. Plus, when has anything promised in this game actually been better than first advertised? Let’s make a check list.
Personal Story: Nope
Lost Shores: Nope
Must i go on?
I apologize if you can’t handle a negative opinion, but i feel that i have more than enough to go on to judge the salt of the upcoming patch. The only thing i can see actually making a difference to player movement would be the reward systems going along with this shallow zerg content. Transforming into a chicken and running past enemies with a skill bar made up in 5 minutes..well, that may appeal to more casual, traditional MMO fans, but i played GW1 for 6 years and i’d like to know when long time fans can actually expect this game to feel more like a sequel rather than a curtained cash shop operation to rake in the casual kitten cash.
Apparently ArenaNet’s idea of fun content is changing into an animal and running a dopey, clunky race for a pittance. Taking out the complexity and depth with one fell swoop. Why not just design an angry-birds like game mode? While they’re at it, they can open up the floor to the players to design GW2 themed mobile games and integrate scoreboards for those games into GW2, talk about a freaking mockery of GW1.
This isn’t GW1 so there’s no obligation for the game to be the same. And what’s wrong with casual? If you don’t like casual, go play your “hardcore” games.
How I would have done legendaries?
Well, I don’t really have any ideas for a quest (which is really quite needed) to get one. What would be nice though is if you can name them. It’s more personalized that way.
I truly had a blast up to lv 80, heck even doing the terribley written story was fun. The way the quests worked, DE worked was just amazing compared to almost any other mmo. I understand why the game got an 8ish out of 10.
Then came 80.
Honestly there isn’t alot to do. Once you finished up heart quests, finish the jumping puzzles there isn’t alot to do. You can play pvp, but imo pvp in Gw2 is boring compared to Gw1 due to a lack of builds you can create.
So your only choices are:
Dungeon grinding which involves:
1. Making money
2. Grinding for skinsAnd the same goes for any farming such as Orr Tunnel.
You can get legendary weapons but its just not possible for most players to ever see. The prec. weapons are getting more and more expensive, and getting the clovers becomes funny when you just can’t get them.
Really it just seems like there is nothing to do other then try and get skins. You can argue that you can make a new character but people who work/university lack the time. Of course its possible but some are not willing to put another 80 hours into it. And the story isn’t like Gw1 story where you actually cared about the character and did the with the Salad Man would die. But seriously why couldn’t Trahearne just die. But thats another argument.
Point is it would be nice to see other things to do. Even new places to grind would nice. And fixing WvW and making it as worth it as playing PvE would help.
What do you all think?
I find this post extremely contradictory (bolded for context). It seems you refuse to do things which are available, but yet complain about the lack of things to do.
When you stated that people would lack the time due to work/university to do certain things, you imply that there is too much to do.
When the main carrot on a stick of the game is horizontal progression, there isn’t a lot that you can compensate with. That’s the main motivation for everyone to play. Unless you go with vertical progression, which judging by other posts is something you’re blatantly against, so that would be extremely self-contradictory.
More so, this game is 6 months old. For the content which is available, I don’t think there’s anything to complain about. Heck, I poured 500 hours+ into this game, and I still haven’t completed half the stuff yet. If anything, the only people complaining would be those who had the time to do everything. That’s another contradiction by the way.
My opinion? I think pre-80 is the boring part. I don’t like leveling my alts as much as playing on my level 80s.
Given by other posts you’ve made, you seem to be the type who only complains for the sake of complaining. All in all however, it seems like this game isn’t the type for you. Comparing GW2 with GW1 isn’t a very good comparison by the way. GW1 is rather different.
Remember when ~1 gold can get you ~300 gems?
So far only 3 of the ascended items have been introduced and they require between 20-60 days to get all 3. So I imagine when the new ones are introduced, the amount of time to get them will be joyous.
The 10%+ difference in stats between exotics and ascended gear has been just as horrid as everyone expected it would. While the 3 items available so far don’t make much of a difference on their own, it has become apparent to almost everyone (minus 2 posters above me) that the full set will be quite a leap from the current stats of exotic gear.
And yes, despite what one would consider common sense, the stats still affect the world outside of fractals… including WvW.
However, one change has happened in Forums at least- Ascended gear grinders have begun whining right alongside the ascended gear haters at the realization that yes, a level cap increase is coming and yes, this means all their gear grinding is pointless and they’ll get to do it all over again. Looking at some of the “Do you want a level increase?” threads and seeing an overwhelming “No” from both sides at least shows some small semblance of mutual understanding can be reached.
So yes, it is painfully obvious the treadmill was introduced. Grind grind grind to get exotics. They introduce ascended gear. Grind grind grind to get ascended gear. They’ll raise the level cap. Start over grind grind grinding to go back up to the ranks to ascended gear. And the only guarantee we have in all this is that no new tiers will be added in 2013. They were quite specific on that.
So… I hope you like grinding!
Level cap increase is likely not going to happen the way you think it would. If ANet is smart, they’d do it in an expansion independent from the main game. I don’t think they’d simply just “bump” the level right now from 80 to 90.
Likewise, full ascended has not come yet, so we don’t even know how they’ll be obtained. That said, it would be too inconclusive to say we have to grind for it the same way we have to “grind” for our current ascended.
If you are asking if everyone’s fears and conspiracies came true…they didn’t. Ascended items offer a small stat increase over exotics. They do not get normal upgrades and can only be infused, which is a +5 bonus to a single stat.
Players with ascended gear are not steam rolling players in exotics or even with the occasional rares. Players are not kicking people from groups because they don’t have two rings and a quiver (unless you get to Fractals level 30+).
Now you can get rings from using fractal tokens instead of relying on drops. So you can get any combination you want. They are account bound so a higher level character can feed the gear to a lower level character. The amulets, rings and infusions can be bought with dailies, so if you don’t want to do Fractals then you never have to set foot in one. But instead of two weeks to buy one with the respective currency, it will take four.
No treadmill happened. Ascended are exactly what they said they would be. Slightly higher end armor to work towards between exotics and a legendary. No mandatory grind was introduced. Get your daily within an hour of playing normally and you have made progress.
All in all it was a whole lot of community noise over something that ended up being nothing.
Well, there are people who demand agony resistance, but that’s only prevalent in 20+ fractals, and that isn’t even that significant (magic find leeches are a bigger problem).
Mostly WvW. Whatever I do in PvE is mainly to get gears for different builds to play around with.
Anti-melee? I’d say the total opposite. If you’re at melee range, you should expect to take more damage.
On the other hand, melee has the highest DPS in the game *cough*cof1farm*cough*
Thieves are too elusive to stomp. It’s faster to just autoattack to finish them off.
Apparently there’s a plastic surgery item now (not sure if it includes sex change). But it’s only that.
Geez, how am I supposed to sleep tonight knowing Nautika quit GW2? What might make me feel better is if he gives me his stuff though….
You can’t. What you can do though is transfer tokens onto your alt then buy it on your alt.
well I didnt know playing or working more hours into a game should get you less…. lets say Mystic forge didnt exist how would you feel if a friend who played even less then half of the time you did and got more rewards then you?
Whatever that friend got, if it’s due to RNG, it’s luck. I can avoid working all my life and get rich by winning the lottery. Is it then unfair for people who have worked all their lives?
It doesn’t work that way. What would be unfair though, is if the friend was personally endorsed by ANet and selectively had better drops than I did even though he did nothing. But of course, that doesn’t happen.
ok for once think… a guildy got 3 sparks on 200 daggers and I got nothing on 10000 dagggers, that same guildy played half the hours I did… how is that even fair. its like players who are playing a lot more hours are getting less……
its like saying hey you play to much just leave the game for a while and see what you get after a couple of months… no MMO is designed for that
No, he simply got lucky.
If you’ve been gambling for 10 years and won nothing, and some new first timer won $10,000, how is that fair?
Luck’s against you, but you can’t blame it for being against you. Honestly, you just got unlucky. You can’t whine about that.
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anyone who is actually saying it is a choice of the player has the gold already… seriously….and please dont tell me its easy to get…. it is at least 500 gold + to get the lowest precurser on the market….even with 2 000 daggers as rares it still wont get you to 2000 gold , Arenanet failed in this and to all the fanboys who actually got a precurser gratz but you all know it should be just as farmable as a total gamble
I agree that there should be alternate ways to get precursors. What I disagree with though is that the RNG has to be changed for precursors. You can’t expect to win if you gamble with low stakes.
Coppers just seem like you’ve been running a dungeon too much. I consistently get 10s for CoF P1 for example. As for the rest, meh. I have good and bad days.
The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.
So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.
Again, I don’t see leaving the current system resulting in a dead game, especially not soon. I do, however, think the game would start to grow at a higher rate if the system was tweaked.
I don’t know, maybe we just have different takes on what a “dead game” is.
By dead game I don’t mean nobody playing it. To me a dead game is one that is shrinking. Once a games player base starts shrinking it’s very difficult to pull it back into line. Investment gets cut, updates reduce, more people leave, difficult to attract new players and the cycle continues until they eventually pull the plug.
A shrinking player base in the way you mentioned it takes on the assumption that the shrink is indefinite. There can be decreased sales, but eventually the population will hit an equilibrium in response to that. ANet would have to do something extremely appalling to get to that point however.
The number one problem is terrrible loot. I have not received a single exotic since the Nov patch (barring mapping or special events). Even rares, which are really not worth much at all, are indeed very rare. It just seems pointless playing sometimes as there is no reward in a reward based game.
I already know droves of people (over 100 players in my original guild) that have left because there was no incentive to play.I am still playing because it’s free but I am acively looking for something to replace it with which is a shame. It could be a good game but at the moment it just isn’t. Every boss or dragon ends in disappointment as soon as you open the loot. Nobody will continue with that for too long, even the fanboys will have had a gutfull sooner rather than later.
So without a loot rule change I think it will soon be a dead game.
Is loot seriously that super important enough that bad drops means GW2 is dead? I can’t think of anything that can’t be obtained without farm except for fancy exotics and legendaries. There isn’t a particular item that allows you to use content that can only be achieved solely from farming. The only thing I can think of that a consistently flawed RNG would do is to inhibit farming thus not allowing players to “play the way they want to” (although I honestly don’t see the fun in farming).
Oh, and as far as where I think GW2 is heading, it’s definitely sailing and I can see it afloat for as long as concurrent hardware remains relevant to the engine GW2 runs on, given that the developers don’t decide to bail at some point. It’s just not sailing in the direction some players would want it to.
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I dont see any level 80 exotic soldiers (P/V/T) weapons on the TP
They’re under different names (they don’t have the Soldier prefix). For example, Incinerator (well, I don’t really recommend buying that one). I’d filter out the weapon type you’re looking under, then browse through the available exotics. They all have different skins too.
The only practical solution is global servers, nothing else.
the sooner Anet realizes this the better for everyone.
Global servers will have higher latency. That doesn’t help with lag nor culling.
Your best bet is probably dungeons if you don’t want to buy them.
I’m a proponent of keeping WvW unbalanced based on gear, classes, and force population.
But THAT is just stupid and an exploit. That should be bannable.
I disagree that it should be bannable, I agree that PvE consumables should be excluded from WvW minus what can already be obtained there.
Also, the game was never advertised to be low-grind. It simply advertised against the kind of grind that’s so prevalent in other MMORPGs, such as MapleStory. Do you really think ascended is worth so little that you’re supposed to get it on the same level as exotics? Because it really isn’t that hard. That sounds like entitlement to me rather than justice.
No, it was advertised as having no grind.
Mike O’Brien’s now infamous quote:
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games – we leave the grind to other MMOs.”Sounds great doesn’t it, if only that was the reality today.
“No grind” is pretty much impossible in any MMORPG. As long as rare items exist, then there will be grind one way or another. Also, additionally bolded for context. Ascended isn’t that “legendary” gear that puts one above everyone else.
(edited by Heijincks.9267)
Logic? In an MMO forum? Really now, you’re asking far too much.
The dailies even before revision could be done in less than an hour if you were crunched for time by going to a starting zone. After the revision . . . they can be done in less than an hour in a starting zone. There’s people who gladly offer advice on these forums, or on Reddit, or in game if you ask nicely. (Granted, there’s people who don’t answer nicely or who laugh, but hey, we’ve got the rude folk like every other game ever.) “I don’t know how to get it done fast” is less of a reason and more of an excuse.
Monthlies are different, and require actual effort; I still haven’t hit my Monthly Dungeon quota. Mostly because I’m not actively working on it yet, but I still have a week and a half to go. I can probably find something over the next two weekends.
Ascended used to be “out there” because you had to do Fractals and get lucky with the RNG. Now it’s not, because you can just do some time-budgeting or have patience to earn the Rings and/or Amulet. This is a step forward towards people having Ascended more easily, not a step away.
Okay now not only are you defying logic but you’ve comitted a logical fallacy.
Want to know which?
Its when you said “look at her!, you can’t blame me! She’s worse!” fallacy.Honestly saying ALL mmo forums are illogical is also hasty generalization too.
You’ve committed 2 different types of logical fallacies (probably more if I carefully read it).
Honestly I don’t need to defend my view if you won’t follow basic logic in yours and since it is not logical this only proves my view that grind is hurting the players that this game advertised for more.
You do realize that grind is inevitable right? You do also realize that the level of grind is rather subjective to an individual. That being said, players themselves choose to grind. There is nothing gated by grind unless your standard of what you consider grind is so high that even playing the game is considered “grinding”. This brings me back to the “subjective” point I made at the beginning.
Also, the game was never advertised to be low-grind. It simply advertised against the kind of grind that’s so prevalent in other MMORPGs, such as MapleStory. Do you really think ascended is worth so little that you’re supposed to get it on the same level as exotics? Because it really isn’t that hard. That sounds like entitlement to me rather than justice.
(edited by Heijincks.9267)
If you try to remove the stats from the ascended gear at this point, you’ll only trade one group of angry players for another. If adding ascended gear to the game was a mistake (and I’m not saying it was or it wasn’t, personally I’m on the fence), I think the only fair way to correct it at this point is to add the gear to other vendors. Put it on the karma and the WvW badge vendors at an increased cost compared to exotic gear, and then everyone has access according to his or her playstyle. From that point, you could keep any further vertical progression in the fractals limited to increased agony resistance via new infusions.
I’m thinking maybe ANet can minimize the number of angry players by changing WvW to sPvP style gearing, but with free transmutes for PvE armor skins. The raiders and traditional MMO endgame players can have their gear treadmill, while WvW players can freely experiment with different builds without grinding.
If they are going to do this, I’d prefer it if the loadout includes stats on armor, weapons, and 6 accessories instead of what we see in sPvP. That way stats can be more diversified which also implies more diversity in builds.
By the time ascended is fully released, it’ll be easier to obtain, and definitely not just through the current methods. Or at least we hope.
You are being WAY too optimistic there. >_> They have given no reason to believe that the rate of grind to receive items will change just because more are released. Atm, it takes between 20-60 days to get 3 items. Expect similar rates for the remaining ones.
That’s the point of a grind. It wouldn’t be a very good one if they made the items easy to get.
I’m being more realistic than optimistic. First of all, we know for a fact laurels can be obtained other than doing dailies and monthlies somewhere down the road. That might cut down that “20-60 days” to “15-45” days. Secondly, given other methods to be established for obtaining ascended, that means there’s only more ways to do so, thereby also increasing the rate in which you can get it.
Lastly, everything is grindy to a certain extent. I don’t know if you think doing dailies is grindy though (I sure don’t).
Roll a thief and instagib people all day. Especially those with a upwards arrow next to a number 80. It’s fun in the sun.
Don’t forget to /laugh after.
I don’t have ascended gear save for a few random pieces I picked up in Fractals that don’t even match my build. Yet I do just fine in WvW. I mean the difference is so negligible that one single lucky crit in exotic gear makes up for the damage I would have gained with ascended.
No, it doesn’t. The person in ascended gear is going to get lucky crits as well. In fact, his crit chance (and crit damage) will likely be higher.
Perhaps. 1v1 just standing there and whacking each other with 50% chance crit, the ascended guy probably will have a slightly higher than 50% chance winning.
That being said, that’s hardly anything, let alone game breaking. It’s also not practical in a real fight. Hits miss. Reaction times count. Builds are different. Is such a slight difference really going to make a huge difference in the fight?
Currently? No. With full ascended set? It’s going to be significant.
Not to mention most fights aren’t 1v1. Okay sure, maybe the other guy was on par with you, but how often does that happen? Ascended isn’t a crutch to lean on.
I’m definitely not going to enjoy seeing full ascended burst thieves in WvW in any mode of play. They are a problem as it is. With 20% extra damage…
By the time ascended is fully released, it’ll be easier to obtain, and definitely not just through the current methods. Or at least we hope.
I don’t have ascended gear save for a few random pieces I picked up in Fractals that don’t even match my build. Yet I do just fine in WvW. I mean the difference is so negligible that one single lucky crit in exotic gear makes up for the damage I would have gained with ascended.
No, it doesn’t. The person in ascended gear is going to get lucky crits as well. In fact, his crit chance (and crit damage) will likely be higher.
Perhaps. 1v1 just standing there and whacking each other with 50% chance crit, the ascended guy probably will have a slightly higher than 50% chance winning.
That being said, that’s hardly anything, let alone game breaking. It’s also not practical in a real fight. Hits miss. Reaction times count. Builds are different. Is such a slight difference really going to make a huge difference in the fight?
Not to mention most fights aren’t 1v1. Okay sure, maybe the other guy was on par with you, but how often does that happen? Ascended isn’t a crutch to lean on.
Hit level 80 on my necro and I feel lost. What should I be doing now?
same as before: grind. but now you should grind armor and ascended stuff. or go play anoher game which will probably be more fun.
Pretty much this.
You can join the boring zerging in wvw.
Join the 12 or so people that still do spvp.
If you want to pve you either grind events for karma for gear, grind dungeons for tokens for gear, grind mobs for crafting mats to make your own gear, or do all of it to make gold to buy gear from the TP.
Once you have done the events/dungeons hundreds of times or crafted the gear you quit playing because there is nothing else to do.
Please keep contributing to these forums.
We need more people like you who stopped playing to sacrifice their precious time and make sure to keep as many people away from GW2.
You are a special martyr, deserve a medal and a monument!I am sorry the truth hurts your feelings
Since when truth was a subjective thing?