Guild Wars 2

ANet has always loved mob mechanics other than just having the mob do damage. GW2 is nothing new in that regard. Some mobs do their CC effect faster than others.

I know some knocks were added to some graveling types in AC. I’ve experienced it and seen references in the dungeon forum to “Graveling Ping-Pong.” I’m not sure that I can agree that previously existing CC in AC is happening more often. Then again, dungeons have been CC and condition fests since launch.

A knock was also added to the Risen Wizard. That mechanic can come up more than once in a fight if the mob uses it first (they don’t always) and/or if you take time killing them (e.g., using mostly ST and there is a more dangerous mob to kill first, or are playing a character whose damage is not good).

On the flip side, the Risen Putrifier’s pull attack doesn’t seem to anymore, which might be a bug. Also, the Risen Farmer no longer knocks AND stuns. He now drops an undead arm turret, and then does his stun or knock (tbh, I’m not sure which CC he still has as I’ve managed to dodge it since the patch).

Other than the changes noted above, I have not seen anything else new in game with regard to mob CC.

Ratty.5176:

So Overall I feel the lack of speed on AC is down to people not knowing the fights rather than it being much longer. In fact most of the time HP has been lowered on bosses. So if you can avoid dying they should go down faster.

Dungeon mechanics, especially in GW2, always boil down to the learning curve. For many people, including at least some of those who find dungeons easy now, there was an often painful learning curve. People in general do not like change. Some people were not going to like having to relearn mechanics in a dungeon where they had the mechanics down.
__________________________________________________________________

And for the record, any mechanic that is likely to produce the idea, “Hey, we can do this if we can spam x.” is going to produce exclusion if not all classes can bring x to the table. The dungeon team should be designing mechanics with these ideas in mind: “What will people figure out to be able to deal with this encounter in the fastest easiest manner possible?” and “Will this cause certain classes to be unwelcome in these groups?”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Maybe it’s not about pride. Maybe it’s about preference. As a member of either a large or small guild, I would not be comfortable with not representing. If I’m going to be a part of a group, I’m going to participate with that group as much as my game-play preferences allow. I won’t say that all who are reluctant to be in two guilds feel the same way, but it might be that, or something like that, for some of them.

It definitely may be about preference instead of pride. But pride is what I hear a lot of. Pride to be part of a small guild and not the “server-killing monoliths”. Pride to “not be one face in 500”. Pride to be “a member, not a number”. They’re the people who should really look and see how badly they want to do this.

There are three options right now. Get over the limitation and know you’re not going to get access to everything. Get around the limitation by getting help and giving help when it’s needed. Or join a large guild you find not objectionable to do the content.

Technically, there is a fourth and fifth: come here and ask either politely or not for ArenaNet to pretty please revisit the system so more people have the hope of doing it. Or quit the game.

I’m a big fan of #2 then #1. And I’ll resort to #3 before #5.

I’m also not going to sell pride short. It’s worked as a motivation for a lot of people in a lot of small and large organizations. That said, I also think people need to accept the reality of this content rather than hanging on to the expectations generated by the way the content was communicated pre-launch. Oh, and there’s a sixth option, which is to decide you don’t give a kitten about the new missions and go about your in-game business — which is distinguished from your #1 by not making a big deal about it in the first place.

Now that more stat combos have been added to the laurel vendor, I was able to compare my Knight’s Amulet directly. If I slot the Ascended item, the result would be: +6 Power, +21 Toughness, -4 Precision. While I realize that once there is Ascended armor and weapons, the small differences will be compounded, but we’re not there yet. At the moment, it’s really hard to get excited about it.

Sorry, but I have played games with far more grind for less reward. Sorry, no quests or anything left at your level, so kill thousands of these mobs to level up, so you can then kill thousands of these slightly more powerful mobs to level up again.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

There does come a point where you have to dial back the pride of being a small unit and work with someone else. And there comes a time when a bigger guild has to either decide they want to remain “100% rep required” or if they want to put an effort in to help other people get to the content and enjoy it if they want. We’ve seen a couple times that smaller guilds will band together if they feel okay about it, and I’ve seen at least one ad for a large guild going “We’re mission-ready and we don’t require 100% rep. We don’t bite.”

Maybe it’s not about pride. Maybe it’s about preference. As a member of either a large or small guild, I would not be comfortable with not representing. If I’m going to be a part of a group, I’m going to participate with that group as much as my game-play preferences allow. I won’t say that all who are reluctant to be in two guilds feel the same way, but it might be that, or something like that, for some of them.

Shonie.5297:

It’s your own preconceived notions about large groups and your inability or unwillingness to join that is the problem.

A little bit of research into joining a guild will go a long way. I did before launch and am currently in a wonderful and helpful guild full of great people. We finished bounty tier 3 earlier this evening and had a great time.

I’m sure if I had joined just any random guild spamming chat with recruitments, yes I suppose i’d be rolling the dice. A little effort and research goes a long ways. But in the end, it’s a YOU problem that is not enabling anyone from joining a good larger guild.

Sorry, no. Small guild players need to accept that the content is not for them OR that they have to make some different social arrangements. However, peoples’ social preferences should not be considered a problem because of a game. Had you offered your suggestion without the blame, I’d have just given you a +1 rather than replying. As it is, your target audience is going to react to the zing, not the message.

stobie.2134:

Dodge is the easiest, fastest daily there is – it has shoved gathering aside, laughed at crafting, & so long as a thief with a spear can swim around, it’s the best. And you can be on a baby thief – it doesn’t matter. My record so far is full dodge daily in 4 quests.

I laugh at the idea of dodge as the easiest daily. Condition applier is obviously easier — with the right character. Using harpoon gun on thief I thought to do underwater and conditions at the same time — and completed conditions in < 3 kills.

Shonie.5297:

Kasaeva.4691:

TurtleofPower.5641:

Sera.6539:

Having just tried a T1 bounty with my small guild. We had about 5 people for this. Don’t even bother unless there are people on the map willing to help you.

You can see in any guide that there are 15 targets to cover. Of course there’s a problem there if you did it with 5 people. Why not just rep a big guild and still hang with your buddies?

Why should we have to? This is the question everyone’s asking. Why did Anet make content exclusively for large guilds without a single thought for the small guilds made up of local friends and family? Is it so wrong for us to enjoy hanging out with people we know IRL and want content to do with them?

Because it’s larger scale content. I know it sounds strange, but many people like large scale content in MMO’s. Does everything in the game need to cater to incredibly small groups of people? What does the game currently offer for challenge to larger guilds? Absolutely nothing aside from guild missions. What’s achievable by a 5 person guild is meaningless to a larger guild. It would be too easy and rather boring.

If you’re so stubborn not to want to enjoy the content with a larger group of people, then go about getting your earrings with laurels and ectos. But don’t trivialize the content just because you don’t want to play with anyone outside your 5 person circle of trust.

I agree that larger scale content in the game is a good thing. However, I do not agree that people are being “stubborn” for not wanting to join a raid … uh, I mean big guild. Guilds are social groups, particularly small ones. In other games, people in small guilds Pug raids all the time. GW2’s guild scene is a bit more complex than that because of the influence thing.

I still say that the community needs to accept that these missions are meant for large groups, and that ANet needs to fess up that this content is just not aimed at small guilds. If they’d said that from the start … well, there would still have been upset, but dashed expectations were going to produce worse reactions than an up-front announcement that they were making large-scale content.

Sera.6539:

Having just tried a T1 bounty with my small guild. We had about 5 people for this. Don’t even bother unless there are people on the map willing to help you. They take too long to kill, even if you do what most guilds are doing (sending one to each map to halt NPC movement).

I was looking forward to guild missions. I was trying to be optimistic about them, despite the initial shock of the influence amount. I don’t want to have to join a large guild just to be able to do the new content. I shouldn’t have to join a large guild. I’m honestly baffled at how ANet thought this was a good idea.

On the flip side, with a big guild, lack of coordination can be detrimental to a lack of fun for some members. We sent scouts to find the bounties beforehand. It was easy for scouts to miss info with guild chat coming fast and furious while looking at the surroundings. When the decision was made to actually start, people missed the notice. WP links were provided but poor directions once you got to the WP led people to hare off in the wrong direction. Some folks didn’t get to fire a shot because of these factors and because the bounties died really fast.

Hopefully, now that these missions are live and ANet can data mine with large and small samples across many servers, they will make some adjustments.

DeathPanel.8362:

IndigoSundown.5419:

DeathPanel.8362:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Let’s face it. Dungeons were intended for “coordinated teams of skilled players.” It’s pretty clear that there is a sub-set of the player base that has taken that to heart and learned how to do the dungeons to the point where they find them easy. On the other hand, we often see posts asking for nerfs and otherwise complaining about dungeon difficulty.

While the dungeons can be learned, let’s face it, there is a sub-set of the player base that will avoid this content because they don’t enjoy the steep learning curve. The idea of easy and hard mode dungeons is not new — wiser heads saw this need before I did. However, the changes to AC this past week gives new life to this topic.

Having an easier and a harder mode would accommodate both groups. Harder would challenge those who say dungeons are too easy. It might breathe life into dungeons for those bored with how easy they find them. Easier would provide access to those who avoid them like the plague now. Maybe it’s time to step back from the original intent of dungeons and please both groups?

It’ll take too much development time to come out with an easy and hard version of each explorable. I’d rather they spend that time coming out with new dungeons or content.

Well, that’s certainly an opinion. Are you a game developer? I don’t know exactly how much work would be involved in either option, but taking existing environments, mobs and boss fights and tweaking them seems like it would take less time than making new environments, new boss mechanics and of course in the case of new dungeons, new rewards.

I’m a developer. Not with anet of course. And my “opinion” is informed by facts and experience, unlike yours.

To implement a different difficulty of each of the dungeons takes tons of QA man hours to do right because you need to balance and test the encounters of every single dungeon again against possible exploits and bugs.

It’s not something as simple as just tweaking the mob lists and calling it a day.

Costs and risks outweigh the benefits, which is why you most likely will never see something like that implemented in this game.

I’m not trying to dispute your claims. What I also don’t know was how ANet was able to make a Hard Mode work across three campaigns plus “dungeons” like FoW, DoA and UW. Maybe it was the ton of work you describe. Well, if it never happens in GW2, so be it.

Yet again people in the community are complaining about ANet doing something that they did because it was requested by people in the community. Many times, systems implemented have consequences that were not foreseen. Perhaps this is something the collective “we” should bear in mind.

I’ve attended several chest -spawning events, and have yet to see an overflow for any of those zones. It isn’t happening everywhere.

The rush to them now is at least in part because they are new, and because rares are valuable. If the price of rares drops as a result of increased supply, and the novelty wears off, will usage drop off? This may be a non-problem in 2-3 weeks.

DeathPanel.8362:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Let’s face it. Dungeons were intended for “coordinated teams of skilled players.” It’s pretty clear that there is a sub-set of the player base that has taken that to heart and learned how to do the dungeons to the point where they find them easy. On the other hand, we often see posts asking for nerfs and otherwise complaining about dungeon difficulty.

While the dungeons can be learned, let’s face it, there is a sub-set of the player base that will avoid this content because they don’t enjoy the steep learning curve. The idea of easy and hard mode dungeons is not new — wiser heads saw this need before I did. However, the changes to AC this past week gives new life to this topic.

Having an easier and a harder mode would accommodate both groups. Harder would challenge those who say dungeons are too easy. It might breathe life into dungeons for those bored with how easy they find them. Easier would provide access to those who avoid them like the plague now. Maybe it’s time to step back from the original intent of dungeons and please both groups?

It’ll take too much development time to come out with an easy and hard version of each explorable. I’d rather they spend that time coming out with new dungeons or content.

Well, that’s certainly an opinion. Are you a game developer? I don’t know exactly how much work would be involved in either option, but taking existing environments, mobs and boss fights and tweaking them seems like it would take less time than making new environments, new boss mechanics and of course in the case of new dungeons, new rewards.

morrolan.9608:

Wolfheart.1938:

Good news everybody! Cleric, Knight, Rampager and a new variation ( precision main + power/tough ) have been added to current Ascended Items! Thanks Arenanet!!!

Yes and then you see the cost in a game when the only grind was meant to be for cosmetics.

ANet tried that. The result was players speed-running dungeons, getting their sets and saying, “nothing to do, no sense of progression, etc.”

Horrorscope.7632:

An easier mode also gets more into the dungeons and as we learn them perhaps we might try it on hard some day.

OR what every other mmo has done with instances. DDO is built on that idea alone. Que AT&T commercial “It’s not complicated….”. Kids even get it.

Excellent point. I was in a foray into AC P2 (before patch) by 2 people who’d never done a dungeon and 2 more who had limited experience. While they seemed to enjoy finishing, the new players were not in a rush to do another path. With a more forgiving “get your feet wet” experience, they might have been.

While I appreciate the original design decision — to provide content for skilled players — the dungeon team/ANet as a whole should look at the idea that any content that keeps more players interested is a good thing. Also, revamping an existing dungeon is easier than creating new from scratch.

Let’s face it. Dungeons were intended for “coordinated teams of skilled players.” It’s pretty clear that there is a sub-set of the player base that has taken that to heart and learned how to do the dungeons to the point where they find them easy. On the other hand, we often see posts asking for nerfs and otherwise complaining about dungeon difficulty.

While the dungeons can be learned, let’s face it, there is a sub-set of the player base that will avoid this content because they don’t enjoy the steep learning curve. The idea of easy and hard mode dungeons is not new — wiser heads saw this need before I did. However, the changes to AC this past week gives new life to this topic.

Having an easier and a harder mode would accommodate both groups. Harder would challenge those who say dungeons are too easy. It might breathe life into dungeons for those bored with how easy they find them. Easier would provide access to those who avoid them like the plague now. Maybe it’s time to step back from the original intent of dungeons and please both groups?

Fortuna.7259:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I asked questions. You make the assumption that those questions are the argument. I was asking the questions to get people to focus on what they are actually doing (i.e., the choices they are making). Perhaps my approach was misguided.

Really? OK, the answer is still “NO.”

IndigoSundown.5419:

The OP calls dailies shallow. Yet the current dailies offer choices. If, as you say, "The intricacies of this processing and its level of complexity would indicate the “depth” of the activity." then wouldn’t having more choices as we do now indicate greater depth than before? However, the current dailies (in some cases, anyway) limit choices about where to do while adding choices about what to do. In the terms used in the non-link provided by Tobias, ANet has added complexity but not depth. While they added options, they also removed options.

Choices do not have to indicate any depth of significance. I can have you choose to differentiate triangle/squares, circles/triangles, or circles/squares. Big deal. Most of us probably mastered all of these tasks by the age of 4 — no matter what task we choose the game is overly simplistic and trivial to our capabilities. The choice itself can be done irrationally or randomly and is of little consequence.

IndigoSundown.5419:

However, the fundamental choice is neither where nor what. It is the choice to do or not to do. So why are people choosing to do the dailies if they would really prefer to be doing something else? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Yes, we know. They are being manipulated into doing them. What is your point?

IndigoSundown.5419:

And thanks for engaging in the discussion.

Patronizing… nice.

It seems that you are more interested in having an argument than making one, so I’ll pass on continuing. Good day to you.

Assuming that the note in the patch notes of 28 January were the only notice, 28 days notice seems like it ought to have been enough.

Avatar.1923:

^
dont tell me you like everything about halloween and wintersday if you dont like platforming!

(btw platforming rocks!!!)

I’m glad you like it. I don’t have anything against it other than issues with arthritis causing frustration, which is why I said not fond of instead of dislike.

Edited Mad King to say “everything … I did,” since I did not do everything. I don’t remember any platforming in WD event, but that might mean I missed it.

I’m not likely to say that an event was bad if there were 1 or more activities in it not aimed at my preferences.

Blacklight.2871:

kmc.7681:

After 29 pages of this thread, I’m compelled to ask why a few small guilds per server, such as my guild with about 8-10 actively playing members, don’t seek out other small family type guilds, compare influence and number unlocks and discuss merging with the most influential? It wouldn’t be a “large guild” mentality so much as one small family helping another so both or more of them reach the same common goal in the end. And the chances are astronomical that neither guild would ask for payment, application, interview, or any other ridiculous process to join. Not to mention, we’d all have someone to run regular content with as well. We small guilds are all in the same situation. Why not help one another instead of buck the new content or continue to rehash the same points over another 29 pages and hope by some miracle that Anet will respond or even READ this entire thread? We all want to play the new content at some point, I’m sure. So, we can either sit here and reiterate our points over and over again, subject ourselves to abuse of all types from people who don’t understand what we’re trying to express…OR, we can band together and help each other. Isn’t that what “community” is all about?

Many guilds are doing just that. Just read the Guild forum and see how many are disbanding and being absorbed. One thing you over look though is that in some cases, many cases I would bet, these small guilds are more emotionally invested in their little groups than you might think. Just letting them die (along with everything they’ve managed to achieve with it so far), may not be as easy for them as you might think.

But here’s the point though — they should never be asked to do this at all. If ANet had done a decent job of implementing guild missions in the first place, no one would be feeling forced to let their guild die. Or worse, actually having pulled out from under them as the lure of the larger guilds and their influence wealth, attrit them into the ground.

So bottom line is, for some, their guild is more than just a name and a symbol on a banner. Killing it to be absorbed by someone else is NOT a pleasant prospect.

This patch introduced two PvE mechanics, modified dailies and guild missions. Each mechanic seems designed to address multiple issues at once. It only takes a quick perusal of the new daily objectives to see that they were trying to address perceived issues like: no reason to kill vets/champs; no reason to go to various under-used areas; no reason to do group events; etc.

With guild missions, it looks like they were trying to address issues of: introducing large group content other than WvW, increasing the functionality of guilds; and putting in another alternative means to acquire Ascended gewgaws.

The new dailies don’t work for everyone. However, that kill-many-birds-with one-stone implementation was better reasoned than the guild missions one. Imo, ANet did not anticipate the negative social impact this type of gating was going to foster.

Earlier, they failed to realize that all not players are process-oriented. Some are results-oriented, meaning they will take the fastest, easiest method to obtain what they want. The result of that failure was Ascended Gear. Since they have demonstrated a desire to try to please players, I wonder what their reaction to this fiasco will be.

• Nerfs/Buffs: Mixed bag; some seem warranted, some over-the-top
• DR: More of a perhaps necessary evil than something to promote fun
• Fractals: Don’t care for them; like Kimyrielle, I’m not fond of platform-style play
• Ascended Gear: not fun per se; not fun killing either — but then, I didn’t need a reason to log in
• The Lost Shores: Fun concept, would have been better if vetted through a test server first
• Mad King’s Day: very fun; I liked everything about it that I did
• Wintersday: mostly fun; didn’t care for doing Tixx dungeon to get wool sweaters as a final reward
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.: I like that they’re listening; I still think MF was and is a fun-killer
• New balancing towards dungeons: don’t fix what isn’t broken
• New gem store items: give me armor/weapon skins or give me nothing
• Bug fixes: outstanding with relation to bugged DE’s; my necro melee minions still don’t attack my target reliably
• New sPvP maps: no opinion
• New WvWvW mechanics: no opinion
• Banning bots: kudos, well done
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc. like that there are choices for dailies and that they are using dailies to address other community complaints; ; March is the 2nd month in a row I will do the monthly after skipping Nov., Dec. and Jan. 2 thumbs up

Astralporing.1957:

I’d also like to point out that with the big guilds, you do have enough people to find all the possible bounties before activating the mission, practically eliminating time to find them.

So the Bounty NPC’s are in the world even if no guild has activated a Bounty Mission? They are not spawned by the mission activation?

Fortuna.7259:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ah, but I never said disordered or random. Even players who choose to go see what’s over yon virtual hill are making choices. This does not change the fact that they are indeed at a computational device, using a man-machine interface to exercise those choices. The actions the player is taking are similar no matter his choices. However, through suspension of disbelief, the actions the player is envisioning are very different depending on where he moves his game piece, and what he chooses to interact with.

No, you didn’t say they were random, what you did say:

IndigoSundown.5419:

• Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?

So what I say is that by closing my eyes and clicking (psuedo)randomly, would I not be sitting at my keyboard, clicking the mouse, and having my piece interact with the virtual stuff in the game? If your argument is valid, then you have reduced all gameplay (and use of the keyboard) to something no more meaningful than random clicks. You didn’t say it, but it follows from your argument.

The moment you concede that there is order in the movements, clicks, decisions, then you need to concede that there is a level of complexity in this order. Information is being transmitted and processed. The intricacies of this processing and its level of complexity would indicate the “depth” of the activity. For example, a game where you are repetitively presented with a square and a triangle and must click on the square is also just a series of mouse clicks and decisions. I hope you can understand why this game would not be judged by humans as “deep.”

So if you wish to honestly compare the depth of activities in the game, have at it. But your argument that boils down to:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?

doesn’t hold water.

I asked questions. You make the assumption that those questions are the argument. I was asking the questions to get people to focus on what they are actually doing (i.e., the choices they are making). Perhaps my approach was misguided.

The OP calls dailies shallow. Yet the current dailies offer choices. If, as you say, "The intricacies of this processing and its level of complexity would indicate the “depth” of the activity." then wouldn’t having more choices as we do now indicate greater depth than before? However, the current dailies (in some cases, anyway) limit choices about where to do while adding choices about what to do. In the terms used in the non-link provided by Tobias, ANet has added complexity but not depth. While they added options, they also removed options.

However, the fundamental choice is neither where nor what. It is the choice to do or not to do. So why are people choosing to do the dailies if they would really prefer to be doing something else? I think we all know the answer to that question.

And thanks for engaging in the discussion.

Fortuna.7259:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Just looking at the thread’s title and the gist of the discussion, I’ll ask:

• What would a deep gameplay mechanic be?
• Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?
  * Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?
• Why is doing the above in one fashion shallow, and another not shallow?
• Aren’t these rewards just more virtual confetti?
• And above all, are these rewards really that important that you have to have them?

Ah… a reductionist argument. No, you are incorrect. Wholes are more than the sum of their parts. Playing games are not disordered clicks of mice and random firing of neurons. I can simplify you as a configuration of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen (etc) atoms but that simplification does not represent you, even if it accurately accounts the material of which you are made.

Ah, but I never said disordered or random. Even players who choose to go see what’s over yon virtual hill are making choices. This does not change the fact that they are indeed at a computational device, using a man-machine interface to exercise those choices. The actions the player is taking are similar no matter his choices. However, through suspension of disbelief, the actions the player is envisioning are very different depending on where he moves his game piece, and what he chooses to interact with.

The OP calls the dailies shallow. This would imply that he thinks peoples’ choices are constrained because of the dailies, robbing the game of depth. The new dailies do in fact entice people to particular areas of the game. So, in that sense, once you choose to complete the dailies, your choices of where to go to do so are limited – but choosing to do the dailies is still a choice. However, people feel “forced” to do the dailies because of the reward.

So why is the daily mechanic in its current form in the game? It’s there because the community asked for it, not in so many words, but by asking for a great many things. Most of the new daily requirements are keyed to try to address shortcomings in the game pointed out by players, or to try to accommodate as many players’ preferences as possible. Did ANet fail in this implementation as the OP believes? Perhaps, but if they did, it is because they listened to the community.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Just looking at the thread’s title and the gist of the discussion, I’ll ask:

• What would a deep gameplay mechanic be?
• Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?
• Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?
• Why is doing the above in one fashion shallow, and another not shallow?
• Aren’t these rewards just more virtual confetti?
• And above all, are these rewards really that important that you have to have them?

Here, go check out “Extra Credits” at PATV (I’m too lazy to get the link) and look up in their most recent season, Ep 19: “Depth vs Complexity”. They’ll cover it better than I, and probably more entertaining as well.

Thank you, that was fairly entertaining. Thanks for the FYI!

OK, then to return to the OP’s issue…

Dailies metamorphosed as a cascade result of the decision to cater to players who wanted more reasons to play repeatable content. Yes, I’m referring to the introduction of Ascended gear. This led to the backlash to Ascended, and to it being exclusive to FotM, which resulted in the promise to make the new gear available through different means.

Since one of the player demographics (dungeon runners) had been catered to, a logical next step in the process of fulfilling that promise was to make the gear available to non-dungeon runners. So now, they needed a mechanic. Can’t just give the stuff away, since that does not fulfill the purpose of introducing it in the first place — giving people a reason to play. So, they chose the dailies and we know the rest.

However, they also tried to fix other problems that players have complained about:

• ANet, do something about empty zones. No one goes there except to do map completion.
• ANet, motivate people to do DE’s in various areas because so many DE’s are not getting completed.
• ANet, make killing Vets and Champions more worthwhile, it’s just a waste of time to kill them.
• ANet, make Group Events more rewarding; no one does them because the effort to reward ratio is skewed too much toward effort.

So, dailies were chosen as the medium for the new reward. However, leaving the dailies as they were at launch would do nothing to fix those other issues. The original dailies were too generic and could be completed anywhere except Orr. Leaving them the same would not do anything to move the players around to underutilized areas.

Changing the dailies to funnel players to different areas, to do events, to fight the tougher mobs and tying the dailies to the shiny stuff was an attempt to solve several issues raised by the community. The devs might even have seen it as an elegant solution to “kill several birds with one stone.”

So, I can’t answer to claims that the new dailies are shallow. I don’t see it, but people are different and I don’t have to see it for it to be real to someone else. However, I do know why ANet did it. They did it because “we” asked them to.

Just looking at the thread’s title and the gist of the discussion, I’ll ask:

• What would a deep gameplay mechanic be?
• Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?
• Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?
• Why is doing the above in one fashion shallow, and another not shallow?
• Aren’t these rewards just more virtual confetti?
• And above all, are these rewards really that important that you have to have them?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

I know that the user agreements in many games have provisions relative to the official forums, that ideas expressed thereon are considered to be the intellectual property of the developing company, and not the posting fan. While I do not know if the GW2 UA has such a provision and don’t care enough to reread the thing to be sure, I wouldn’t bet against it.

Ghanto.9784:

I’d just like someone to tell me AN’s reasoning behind making us wait three days to unlock the quests, without me having to read this whole bloated thread. Because none of the reasons I can think of make much sense to me. I was thinking at first that maybe it was to give smaller guilds a chance to get their art of war ranking up or something, but realistically how much could they accomplish in three days? So the whole thing just seems like a big tease to me. If they wanted to make us wait three more days, why not just wait three more days to put the patch out? If they weren’t sure it was all ready for prime time, that would have been the best way to go about it. Anyway, I’m not crying about it, I’m just genuinely curious. Can someone point me to a AN post that gives an official explanation for it?

Afaik, there is no such post. However, some in this thread are already reporting about doing bounties. I believe it is possible to speed up the “research” process by spending even more influence. My guild leader in chat said something like, “75K influence for a 25% increase in research speed, not worth it.”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

darkdomino.9578:

There is no difference between having a quest NPC tell you to “kill 10 centaurs” and have a daily objective of “10 underwater kills” – THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

Actually, there is a very real difference. The 10 centaurs in those other games are always in a fairly small area. The centaurs on the other side of the hill don’t count. GW2 underwater kills can be obtained in any zone that has water deep enough.

. . . you forget also that if you killed 400 centaurs before being asked to kill those specific ten centaurs, they wouldn’t count at all.

Also, is now a good time to bring up Renown Hearts and how they work almost exactly as you suggested about “the centaurs on the other side of the hill don’t count”?

Shush, you. Hearts are off-topic in this thread. the thread about hearts is over … well, somewhere…

And yes, I remember the 400 centaurs thing. I also remember needing to collect 3 antlers from antelope. I could see they all had them, but for some reason after killing them, they must have disappeared.

It’s a point I like to say. GW2 kind of altered how those things work to be a bit more friendly. They’re not gone, they’re just smoothed out a bit. This, along with instanced resource nodes, I hope show up in games in later generations of MMOs

As for those antlers? Someone justified it to me once by saying I was damaging the antlers or pelts or such in the battle since “Hit points” is such an abstract concept. I didn’t like it any better

As long as games are based on current computer technology, players are going to have to interact with virtual stuff in one predetermined manner or another. Under the existing constraints, smoothed out is good.

AoC tried resource instances, complete with random encounters. Of course, the instances were shared, so they were little different from other instances except for no quests and no hostiles every 50 feet. GW2 got nodes just right, for my tastes.

Breaking the antlers, however unpalatable an excuse, is at least feasible. However, it could be argued that applying real criteria to games is futile. Just consider the ecology of a world with hostile predators at around 4 per 100 sq. ft.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

darkdomino.9578:

There is no difference between having a quest NPC tell you to “kill 10 centaurs” and have a daily objective of “10 underwater kills” – THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

Actually, there is a very real difference. The 10 centaurs in those other games are always in a fairly small area. The centaurs on the other side of the hill don’t count. GW2 underwater kills can be obtained in any zone that has water deep enough.

. . . you forget also that if you killed 400 centaurs before being asked to kill those specific ten centaurs, they wouldn’t count at all.

Also, is now a good time to bring up Renown Hearts and how they work almost exactly as you suggested about “the centaurs on the other side of the hill don’t count”?

Shush, you. Hearts are off-topic in this thread. the thread about hearts is over … well, somewhere…

And yes, I remember the 400 centaurs thing. I also remember needing to collect 3 antlers from antelope. I could see they all had them, but for some reason after killing them, they must have disappeared.

darkdomino.9578:

There is no difference between having a quest NPC tell you to “kill 10 centaurs” and have a daily objective of “10 underwater kills” – THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

Actually, there is a very real difference. The 10 centaurs in those other games are always in a fairly small area. The centaurs on the other side of the hill don’t count. GW2 underwater kills can be obtained in any zone that has water deep enough.

This update sort of reminds me of Rift Update 4, which introduced a new raid along with some fluff open world content (more rifts — surprise!). The small group/solo/not-interested-in-raids players got up in arms. 1 or 2 updates later, TW implemented harder content for smaller groups. I don’t remember the details, but the reaction to Update 4 is similar to what I am seeing here.

In an effort to actually get the thread back to productive discussion:

What would satisfy me at this point is:

• The player base accepts that this set of guild missions is designed to fill the void for those who wanted large group content in GW2. I know a lot of people don’t like it, but it’s time to ride the horse in the direction it’s going.
• ANet promises to expand the system in a future patch to provide guild missions that are feasible for smaller guilds. this may not please all small guild players, but it’s likely to please more of them than the current patch did.
• Remove the 50 glob cost from the Ascended Accessories. Replace it with a Karma requirement. I suspect the accessories were put on the laurel merchant because they anticipated that some people would want them but not want to do the guild missions to get them, so they presented an alternative. Why remove globs? They are already required for too many things. Also, 50 is enough for a jeweler to make exotic amulet, rings and accessories for two characters. That being the case, 50 globs on top of 40 laurels is exorbitant.

I kind of like the optional dailies, so they are for casual old me.

Why, yesterday I was able to complete 5 options in Orr. Orr! Take that, formerly required kill variety! I kitten in your general direction!

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Hindsight is 20/20, foresight isn’t. While choice is an important part of games, so is knowledge.

Leftover, unspent influence accumulate. Done

While I understand saving for retirement, new car and such irl, influence was, if any irl comparison can be made, discretionary income, stuff you spend for fun. Sure, if a small guild spent very little, they would have more. However, some didn’t, whereas if they’d known this was coming, they might have…
_________________________________________________________________

Heijincks.9267:

How the content was implemented, yes I understand why some people abhor it. On the flipside, many people seem to be pretty happy. This seems to be a case of politics really; you make one group happy and make the other group disappointed.

Of course, where there’s less time, there’s less progress. This is something that’s unfortunately unavoidable, and with regards to small guilds, the lesser resources to work with makes the cost heavier per person. Each member would have to therefore invest more time/energy to get the content. I personally like to make the best of my time; to complete things through the path of least resistance. To my end, my solution was to simply join a bigger guild (and get all friends to do so as well). Of course, not everyone would agree with me on that.

Asides from just the general disdain of big guilds, what other reason do small guilds have for the refusal to join a bigger one?

As far as getting money for the new content is concerned, I don’t really have any ideas other than the alternatives available (eg. Orr farming). I personally run dungeons which I find is far more time efficient for money than anything else.

What I find to be a shame about the implementation was that if there had been no cost, then there would have been no politics about that issue. That would have been a way to make both groups happy. Now, ANet is facing a stiff challenge with keeping people interested in logging in, and may feel a need to time gate content. If the influence buy was their best option to do that, fine. At least let people know up front what the mechanic is so they don’t build expectations that turn out to be unrealistic.

As to the folding into large groups … it just isn’t everyone’s thing. Maybe they prefer being in a smaller group where their presence actually matters? I had been thinking of leaving the largish guild I’m in (where people are kittening about the 72 hour wait, so almost nobody has patience) for precisely that reason.

I’m also fine with my choices leading to my being barred from content. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t think it would have been better if it had been implemented inclusively rather than divisively.

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Game economies do not usually involve taxes (non-disposable income). Hence, disposable income is a real world concept that does not apply in a game. However, irl if disposable income is not spent, that would be “savings.” If it were spent on non-necessities (like, oh, games) it would be discretionary income. Since game economies also do not involve necessities (rent, food, transportation, etc.), the term discretionary income does not apply either.

So what was your point?

You can dodge the topic. You knew precisely what I meant and avoided confronting it.

Hindsight is 20/20, foresight isn’t. While choice is an important part of games, so is knowledge.

Legend.6941:

The ugly:

- Omnomberry Pies Nerfed. Let’s face it, it gave a lot of classes a decent cushion for the more difficult fights in dungeons. It was specifically targeted towards Warriors, where other modifications could have been implemented. Warriors have to pick up the DPS where the guards slack and are busy tanking/buffing the group. Why cut them down so much?

Maybe they didn’t like all the posts by the “pro” dungeon runners about dungeons being too easy and decided to remove one of the contributing factors?

As to the patch, I have mixed feelings.

• I love the preview in the TP. However, a look through coats reveals that many of the unique “named” exotic skins are the same.
• Guild missions seemed like a great idea. I like the idea of large group content; however, what the game right now needed was content for everyone, not just for large groups and not gated.
• Ascended earrings was another step in the “alternate means to acquire Ascended gear.” However, tagging a 50 glob cost on top of laurels seems excessive unnecessary unless … (see below).
• Daily choice is a good thing: having at least one per day aimed at Wv3 players is a good thing as it means they might be able to complete their dailies without leaving Wv3 if they choose not to.
• I like the new Risen that I’ve seen, except the perma Weakness applied by Vet Wizards and Nobles. The net effect of this debuff is that they have “bigger” health pools since 50% of non crits glance. Giving mobs more health does not often make them more interesting.
• AC Changes: haven’t seen all of them yet. Of what I have seen: Kohler’s adds, graveling knocks, buffs to baby spiders and the spider queen AoE; did not make them more interesting to me, just more un-fun. Constant application of conditions seems to be one of ANet’s hallmarks going back to GW1; however, changes wherein perpetual condition application or perpetual knocks are put in game are going to channel success towards parties that have the “right” class make-up to deal with these things, so I expect to see more “lfg dungeon x, class y pls” as a result of this.

All game developers should have this sentence on a placard where they can see it every day.

Any system in an online game that can be abused will be abused.

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Heijincks.9267:

Let’s put this into perspective. How old are the small guilds that are complaining about this? Small guilds that have been around for a few months have more than enough influence to get what they need. If a small guild was say, 2 weeks old, then of course getting the new content seems like a far reach. Simply put, the guilds that are able to obtain the new content faster only had a head start on influence building. Timewise, it probably won’t take any longer for a guild of the same size.

Because, of course, they should have had 20/20 foresight and known to stockpile influence for this update instead of spending it on any of those other frivolous things that influence can be used for.

What do you think disposable income is? What happens if you don’t spend disposable income?

Game economies do not usually involve taxes (non-disposable income). Hence, disposable income is a real world concept that does not apply in a game. However, irl if disposable income is not spent, that would be “savings.” If it were spent on non-necessities (like, oh, games) it would be discretionary income. Since game economies also do not involve necessities (rent, food, transportation, etc.), the term discretionary income does not apply either.

So what was your point?

Heijincks.9267:

Let’s put this into perspective. How old are the small guilds that are complaining about this? Small guilds that have been around for a few months have more than enough influence to get what they need. If a small guild was say, 2 weeks old, then of course getting the new content seems like a far reach. Simply put, the guilds that are able to obtain the new content faster only had a head start on influence building. Timewise, it probably won’t take any longer for a guild of the same size.

Because, of course, they should have had 20/20 foresight and known to stockpile influence for this update instead of spending it on any of those other frivolous things that influence can be used for.

Drasleona.5049:

really why is it that small guilds need to be on par with a large guild, whats the point of managing a large guild that is a huge force to reckon with. a collective that can make a difference in PVE and WvW, not to mention dominate SPVP. so my question is this, why are 5 ppl expecting to do the job of 100 people?

would you really feel safe knowing you are sending 5 people after a criminal that has continuously escaped capture from 50 people, and the criminals target is you? would you really hire the 5 people? NO if you care for the criminal to be caught you would hire the 100.

I have no problem with large group content being introduced into GW2. I do have problems with:

• Timing: Players are starved for content and significant content is introduced, but it is aimed only at a portion of the playerbase. Later for large-only content would have been better. What the game needed now was something aimed at a larger percentage of the players.
• Misleading Hype: “Small guilds can participate” with no mention of costs. Also, the fact that they might need to get help from non-guild members is mentioned, but no mention is made that these non-members will only get DE rewards, not the new rewards until the content goes live. People may help at first, but what about over time, when the umpteenth request for help appears in chat?
• Divisive Implementation: the cost as designed is going to be more divisive than it is inclusive. Guilds will break up, small guilds will have a harder time recruiting. Many guilds already kick people who do not represent 100% when online. With influence being even more desirable, that trend is going to increase.

After having a day to think about this issue, I find myself taking a new slant on it. As is, the system seems designed to produce content that large groups (i.e., bigger than a 5 player party) can do. If this is ANet’s answer to, “Why does GW2 not have raids?” it might have been better to have told us that (using public relations speak, and of course omitting the rant-trigger word “raid”). They could have said, “This content is only for large groups (and given a bloody number).”

Putting out info in a blog that “small guilds can also participate in this content” was disingenuous. The blog included neither the cost nor the fact that non-guild participants would not get the new rewards. The way they did this, building up anticipation for large and small guilds, then revealing the drawbacks for smaller groups, was a mistake.

I am in favor of the game including as many people as possible in game activities. After all, it is in the best interests of the game to keep more people active. That said, let’s be clear what the OP is talking about here.

The OP can still do whatever he was doing each day before the dailies changed. The difference is that in doing so, he was completing dailies, now he isn’t. So what’s changed? Well, in addition to the requirements changing, the dailies now have more rewards. Some might say better rewards.

So, since anyone can still play any way they want, what we are talking about is the rewards. One can no longer get the rewards by doing “anything” they want.

SilverWF.4789:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

It would help developers parse through the hundreds of threads of posts worth of feedback if people would use descriptive, concise thread titles. Thread titles consisting of half sentences (i.e. “I think that…”) or titles that are too vague (i.e. “Skills”) are really not helpful. Those sorts of titles give no indication of what a thread is about, so most readers will simply skip them.

Wow, so why all devs still ignoring both of my threads about Flamethrower suggestions and Combat chat but you have answered in the thread with the “too vague” name like this one?

Look at her title. Not a dev.

Lane.3410:

I was disheartened to see many options that are either terrible (PvP/fractals*) or unfeasible (skill points/personal story when you’ve already completed both).

On skill points … so, you’ve done 100% map — no skill challenges left … you still accumulate skill points by leveling (even after hitting 80). Granted, getting three that way takes longer than 15 minutes, but still doable if you have the time. So, only “not feasible” if you don’t have time. There are ways to speed that up to (events, dungeons net 177k exp per path).

I frequently look at threads expecting (based on the title) the thread to be about something that interests me, only to find that it was about something else about which I have no opinion. Rather than throw in my $.02 when I don’t know what I am writing about, I leave the thread.

In MMO’s, people ask incessantly for something new to do. The provision of new content to satisfy a player-base is one of the main challenges for developers.

In such an environment, why was:

A: Locking such new content behind an in-game cost
B: Doing so in a way that favors larger guilds over smaller ones
C: Making the content available in a patch, only to have players have to wait to unlock it

considered a good idea?

In MMO’s where players are perpetually begging for more content, who thought:

• Creating new content and locking it behind a cost was a good idea?
• Fostering anticipation of something new to do, then making people wait to do it was a good idea?
• Creating an environment that makes it harder for small guilds to recruit was a good idea?

This is not the excellence I grew used to from ANet in GW1. It’s crud.

VidGhost.3215:

What you want to do from now on is hop on gw2lfg go into a 14+ fractal and after an hour you will come out with 2-4 gold! and maybe a pink ring or COF run 1 for 40 mins buy RARE items with your tokens and you will have 2 gold

Unless those get changed next…

FYI: I logged in after the patch but before the daily reset. The dailies for “yesterday” were different from today’s, so yes, they will change.

We were looking to skip Kohler and he aggroed when he tried. Anyone else?

Robotukas.1673:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I just did zone completion there on my warrior. The only time I had any issues was in one area where I was down-leveled to 63, the mobs were 69 and I got jumped by 5 of them. Judicious use of melee circle-strafe, condition removal and healing shouts pulled me through even that. Other than that one fight and an over-aggro at one skill point, I found the zone easy.

OP, what are your traits, utility skills and weapons? Are you using kite/circle strafe when facing multiple foes or do you just rush in and get in mobs’ faces (which I find a warrior can get away with if the mobs don’t have condition damage)?

Can You post your build and weapon and armour set. Yeah, I wanted to reach that vista where I have issues with Fire elemental and Legion Ranger. These two types mobs do most damage. I can compare damage with champion where is appears in CoF. I hardly handle to defeat one mob. And where no place where you can fight 1v1.

Please, can some post build that type of weapons is better to use to defeat this mobs. I need to pass to reach that Vista, but is to many of them.

My build and the traits I usually run:

STRENGTH: 0
ARMS: 25: Deep Cuts and Crack Shot
DEFENSE: 15: Turtle’s Defense
TACTICS: 30 Desperate Power, Lung Capacity, Vigorous Shouts
DISCIPLINE: 0

Gear is all over the place between: Soldier’s, Rampager’s, Carrion and Knights.
I use sword/ax and rifle.
Heal is Healing Signet
Utilities (when soloing, unless specific mobs require me to change) are Shake it Off, For Great Justice and either On My Mark or Fear me; Elite solo is Signet of Rage.
Runes are Melandru.
Sigils are: Perception and Fire on sword/ax and currently Air on Rifle
When faced with over-aggro, I usually circle-strafe mobs, out of reach half the time to allow Healing Signet to add to my health while bleeds lower the mobs’.

While this build does not make me welcome in dungeon speed runs, it works very well overland and in WvW.