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Did HoT ruin GW2?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

What I don’t get is why they didn’t lower the price in any way after almost 9 months… 50 is too high for such little content. We haven’t seen anything than four maps soon one year into the expansion – that’s just embarrassing given the fact there a mere 4 maps.

Since LS3 availability is tied to HoT purchase, they could be waiting to see if more buy when said new content ships. The LS does sweeten the pot.

Did HoT ruin GW2?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Why is this even debated, even Anet admited indirectly HoT was a bust, hence why they are trying to salvage what they can now.
Yes, HoT failed in all aspects, minus the art and music departments.

Actually HoT didn’t fail in all aspects. For a company to say sales didn’t meet expectations, and specifically saying new players didn’t buy into it, is very different from saying existing players didn’t buy it. NcSoft didn’t say HoT failed. They said sales weren’t up to what they expected, having gone free to play and expected more people to pay.

I still say the biggest barrier to that is pricing and nothing more. It’s being debated because people read a single line from a half an hour conference call and infer all sorts of things from that.

NcSoft said they made some mistakes. But those mistakes were NOT identified. The mistakes NcSoft made was getting a bunch of bad publicity before launch by not including a character slot, by making the price too high and by kittening off veteran players, having nothing to do with the expansion itself.

Given the context of the call (talking to investors) the mistakes by NCSoft referred to were almost certainly related to revenue prediction. Any mistakes related to XPac design, concept, marketing, execution, etc, would have been the province of the designer/publisher, ANet, not the parent company.

Death shroud?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Each of the nine professions has a profession mechanic. Death Shroud is the profession mechanic of the Necromancer profession. It is, essentially, a transformation which:

  • Gives a Necromancer a new look (dark and wraith-like)
  • Replaces the 5 weapon skills with Death Shroud Skills (attacks plus crowd control, mostly)
  • Gives a secondary health bar.

Use it by hitting F1 (unless you rebind) or clicking the Death Shroud icon above the Weapon Quick Bar. There are two reasons to use it:

  1. Damage taken subtracts from the Death Shroud Bar, rather than health. This can keep you going for a little while, giving you time to kill a target, buy time until your heal skill is off cool down, or maybe get away. The Shroud bar also depletes over time as you remain in Shroud, so you’ll eventually exit, regardless.
  2. The Shroud skills, particularly the #1 attack, do a lot of damage for Power builds (direct damage as opposed to condition damage). There are traits that buff Shroud, and builds that focus on maximizing Shroud up-time to gain better DPS. You still benefit from all your stats even though you aren’t using your weapon.

Finally, Life Force is what increases the Shroud Bar. Some Necromancer skills grant life force when used (see the skill descriptions). Stuff dying near you grants it, as well.

Those are the basics.

2 gold for dailies-- did it work?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

You are perhaps over-emphasizing the role of items being sold to NPC vendors with regard to inflation. Far more gold is made selling on the TP. than by selling to vendors.

Um… the TP doesnt make gold. At all. It’s a net-loss system that removes gold because EVERY transaction reduces the amount of gold in the game. Additionally, it transfers wealth from player to player. Generally, both those acts would be working against inflation.

It’s an expression. Maybe people don’t use it where you live. When people make money at their jobs, their employer is not making the money. It’s still called making money. However, given that the game does make money, perhaps we should refer to earning gold via selling on the TP instead.

/age of account without a precursor drop

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

3132 hours, 1411 days.

2 gold for dailies-- did it work?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

When you sell something to a vendor for gold you increase the inflation rate.

Not necessarily. While it does crate gold from nothing, it may not mean the rate of inflation will go up. It’s just not that simple.

While selling something on the TP doesnt directly increase the inflation rate, it does indirectly because the player you sold the item too, now has less gold and will go out into the world and do things that create more gold out of thin air.

Or he won’t do that, or would do so regardless, so no direct connection.

Its the creation of gold from thin air that creating inflation.

No, it’s an imbalance between sinks and faucets which results in increasing amounts of gold, coupled with demand exceeding supply for certain materials.

It would be much better if simple supply demand economics applied to gold creation, or some kind of mechanism existed in game to remove gold in a non discressionary way. eg sorry guys all the vendors in central Tyria have enough of your worthless junk and wont be buying any more until next week , as an example.

You are perhaps over-emphasizing the role of items being sold to NPC vendors with regard to inflation. Far more gold is made selling on the TP. than by selling to vendors. Players who sell mat-yielding items to vendors are indeed causing the game to make gold from nothing, but they are reducing their own purchasing power by doing so. Reduced purchasing power is anti-inflationary.

If you’re talking about junk items, that’s another matter. How well do you think it would be received were ANet to have the game continue to drop junk items, and make players destroy them because they cannot be sold? I’d guess kitten-storm. Far better would be to have the game simply stop dropping junk. At least players would receive a side benefit of having less clutter in inventory.

I’m not sure that’s advisable, though. Junk items, while being a faucet, are also a means to add gold to all accounts which actually play PvE and to some extent WvW. Removing them would have a disproportionate impact on the game’s have-nots.

Different Raid Difficulty Would Satisfy Most

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

What I’d like to see is a game community in which everyone recognized that everything does not have to be aimed at everyone.

Getting HoT trait line will take months?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

guys whats the basic method to getting these points? just rolling with a group doing what ? events? or what? roaming and finding the points or what?

I seen a guy talking about how he was needing to unlock his elite tree and did it in a day with a train, what is a train and whats a blob?

Trains are focused groups doing specific content. With Hero Challenges, just look for Hero Point (or Challenge) groups in the LFG or in zone chat. Blobs are generally large groups of players following a Commander or Mentor Tag, usually doing a large group event.

Sugg- Less reticle AoE and more targeted AoE

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Actually, after typing it, wouldn’t you call it drop targeting or something? I thought reticle targeting was what Tera uses.

The term used in the Options is “ground targeting.” Tera does indeed use a targeting reticle.

Players can, in Options, select Instant in the drop down for Ground Targeting, and also checks the box for Snap Ground Target to Current Target. This eliminates the ground targeting circle and allows one to target an AoE at a foe. There are a couple of problems with this option, but it is still, in my mind superior to the targeting circle/dual click option.

Problem One: The option does not always work if you select a target (click or tab) and use an AoE to initiate combat. By not always work, I mean almost always doesn’t work. What happens instead is that the AoE goes off wherever the cursor happens to be (if in range). The workaround for that is to put the cursor on the target as well as selecting, then initiate combat. I have not had similar problems with dropping an AoE once combat has started.

What this suggests to me (I may be wrong) is that the “Instant” option (which triggers the AoE where the cursor is is available Ooc, whereas the “Snap to” option only works if in combat.

Problem Two: It seems that, if the target is moving, that the AoE cast targets the point the target occupies at the time the button press registers with the server. Depending on target speed and the size of the AoE, the target may well not be in the area once casting is complete. This is especially noticeable with longer cast time AoE’s.

I’m not sure if Problem 2 is really a problem, although I accept it is for the OP. In a faster moving MMO, particularly in PvP modes, being able to hit an AoE on a target regardless of its movement seems problematic. Also, unless I miss my guess at least half of the OP’s issue has to do with friendly AoE’s, as in heals.

Make jumping puzzles great again

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The Op expresses two aspects to his suggestion: (1) more/better rewards for JP completion; and (2) eliminating use of portals. He seems to believe that there is a connection between the two aspects. By this, I mean that he seems to think ANet will not buff JP rewards unless they also make it impossible to bypass some or all of whatever challenge the JP possesses.

I don’t believe that the history of rewards in GW2 supports that assumption. JP chests award greens and blues. ANet changes to reward structures, except the guaranteed rare from meta events, consist of throwing more greens and blues at players, often for equivalent or less effort. Without knowing exactly what the increased rewards might be, it’s not possible to say that any change by Anet would be anything more than an incremental increase to salvage bait.

My guess is that any attempt to buff rewards will be met by the same indifference the forums have shown to other attempts to buff rewards. I see this as another needless waste of dev time and resources to revamp legacy systems. There’s been way too much revamping and way too little new, and I believe that has to change for the good of the game as a whole.

Am I at a disadvantage if I don't buy HoT

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m going to be one of the dissenters here, sort of, and say you don’t NEED HoT to compete. I have builds I’m quite happy with that don’t use the elite specs.

For example, I main mesmer, and I have a build that I use enhanced phantasm attacks to pummel my foes with, while keeping myself cloaked or heavily cloned (the latter doesn’t help against very experienced foes, but can still confuse some).

However, it needs to be said that the elite specs DO offer you more variety in builds, and that alone I think is important, power creep or no. For example, while I loved my old condi shatter mesmer before HoT, fact is my new shatter build using Chronomancer is much better.

Thing is, I don’t, necessarily, buy the entire idea that the elite specs are more powerful in every case, but they certainly are more powerful in some cases, and, as before, having diversity in build availability is a good thing to have.

Plus having access to some of those items as named above that only HoT owners can get is also a nice thing.

TL;DR – get HoT.

To add to what Morfedel said, PvP is about both skill and builds. Counters to prevailing builds are an important part of PvP meta balance. New specs provide more options, as he points out. More options means more likelihood that counter-builds will be accessible, and/or that players will come up with builds that as yet have no counter.

Lets meet half way: Raiders Vs Casuals

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m not in favor of the idea of a story mode for the raids. This position is based on what I believe to be a waste of resources by ANet on developing the story mode dungeons. Harder, instanced content in MMO’s is largely about fostering the repetitive play necessary to the MMO business model. This means the incentive to redo the content needs to come in the form of rewards.

Story mode instances, by and large, have much less staying power than reward instances. Never mind players who don’t care about story at all, there are few players who will like a story enough to replay a story instance a lot. I believe the best a developer can hope for is repetition on alts and helping friends/guildees. No doubt, there are exceptions to this, but I think that is not a huge demographic.

Did HoT ruin GW2?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The core game refunds for ppl who fell victim to this change in the sale system are the best proof – multimillion dollar gaming projects don’t happily toss money back at ppl cause they’re “good uncles”. They do so because otherwise players might have a easy to win case in court.

Actually, as anyone who’s ever sent a support ticket to Anet can attest, the company’s customer service is remarkably lenient with product replacements and refunds. Your accusations are unfounded based on the company’s actual history for customer service.

I agree that ANet policies regarding refunds are better than the industry standards. That does not change the fact that Anet did indeed announce that GW2 ownership was required for HoT access. That was on the HoT web site shortly after the HoT reveal in late January. Until the bundling of core with HoT was announced in June, the natural assumption was that one would have to purchase core to be able to apply HoT. ANet did announce they would refund core purchases made after the initial HoT announcement, which is to their credit. Therefore, it is not the return policy which provides any sort of proof, it is that a specific announcement was made about refunds of those particular purchases in response to the outcry.

Now, back to the topic. That is, I believe, damage to the company/game due to HoT. Loss of faith in a company does not have to be rational. In fact, in many cases, it is going to be irrational. So, while false advertising is not what happened, some people do have trust issues over what happened.

While such an issue might be a last straw for some people, it’s more likely that any detrimental effects on the game or ANet are due to the fact that a lot of complaints have surfaced since HoT was announced. Even if the loss of faith — or players — due to any one issue is small, enough straws can in fact break any camel’s back. It does not look to me that GW2 is at that point yet, if it ever will be. However, it would be irrational to believe that the company does not want to reduce or eliminate similar future fiascos.

Disclaimer: Only virtual camels were used in the making of this post. No real animals were in any way harmed.

Useful Features That Should be Added

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IndigoSundown.5419

Re: #4: I believe certain gear being not salvage bait (i.e., some Karma gear, leveling rewards) is because some players would farm it for mats/runes/sigils. Overall, though, the “feature” as is feels pretty chintzy.

They could set them to not give any crafting materials like those useless leveling items that drop in lv 80 zones.

I guess what I’m saying is that the feature “prevents” leveling a character for the mats salvaging the rewards would bring, but the game throws multiple gear boxes plus 3 crowbars for even more salvage bait at you for doing a 5 minute event in VB. Karma is, I suppose, another matter, because there’s a huge amount granted but not that much to do with it.

Useful Features That Should be Added

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Re: #4: I believe certain gear being not salvage bait (i.e., some Karma gear, leveling rewards) is because some players would farm it for mats/runes/sigils. Overall, though, the “feature” as is feels pretty chintzy.

What's max armor in the game?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Boons are a more important component of a defensive build than armor. While Anet added an aggro control role to raids, the true GW2 archetype for the bulky character is the bunker. Boons such as protection, as well as vigor and regen are important to sustain, which is what makes a bunker build.

Making Hall of Monuments assets available

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IndigoSundown.5419

I don’t want the skins. They’re n ot my cup of tea to be honest. and I barely have enough time to play GW2 to start another game now.
I’m just curious why people even care. It’s not the first time a gaming company backtracks on something they said before.

I care because I like GW2. Hits to credibility can damage peoples’ faith in a gaming company. Anet has already taken some such hits. It does not need more.

Also, there does not seem to be that much of a payoff for ANet on this issue. I might feel differently if there were huge numbers of players who might pay Anet a boat-load of cash to get access to these skins. However, I very much doubt that to be the case.

Fix PvE Parking

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

PvE parking? I don’t see it as an issue. Also, I’m not fond of the OP’s solution. I leave characters where I want them to be in PvE, so I can jump into what I want to do when I get on. Sometimes, this is nowhere near a WP. No, I don’t usually park at the ends of JP’s either, but I do park near stuff I might want to do. This is a convenience, especially in zones with few/contested WP’s.

Darn! I thought this was going to be another back-door thread about mounts (vehicles).

Battlemage or Monk class?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Imo about as close as this game can get to a DnD monk would be a double dagger wielding Thief. If Anet would put in a Cestus skin for daggers, or a Brass Knuckle skin like they did in the original GW, the D/D thief could come even closer to looking the part. If you don’t mind your monk using a staff, the thief elite spec Daredevil captures that fighting style fairly well.

If by Battle-Mage you mean some of the DnD Prestige Classes with heavy armored casters, then Guard and Rev are both decent options. Guard can look more like a mage with Scepter or staff use. They’re also more geared towards defensive spells.

Rev uses fighter weapons. Imo, Guards cannot produce the same feeling of being a bad-kitten as a Herald specced Rev using sword 2 and 3 to strike from range, teleport to mob and waste them.

Most fun/Boring classes in the game atm?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

At level 33 on Engineer

  1. Slot Strong Gear (Power + Precision), use runes that add Power, use Minor Sigil of Bloodlust on your weapon (put one on your UW weapon also). If you need coin to buy these, farm some iron/soft wood and sell it on the TP.
  2. Equip Bomb Kit.
  3. Kill things fast.

Those stats/runes also boost Flamethrower and Grenade damage. Beginning a fight with FT 2 usually takes away ~1/2 a normal mob’s health.

Legendary Armour

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Legendary items are pretty spotty for me. Most of the skins I don’t care for, and the tier, well I care about that not at all.

When Will the PVE Berserker Meta Change?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

No thats not what I was saying, I was saying you should be able to play to the strength of your class, im saying that you can be diverse and have a main role at the same time, and yes you can in other mmorpgs with no problem but you need to find certain classes to put in your groups depending on what you have, while certain games like eq1 or 2 had tons of classes you still may need to fill kitten or two depending on what you have however you could do content in many different ways with all different kinds of class combinations and builds.

GW2 profession design is such that all professions have uses and strengths. You can play to the strength of your class. You seem to want me to believe that there is no meta in some other MMO’s? That there is no exclusion based on which classes play a role better? Not only is this contrary to my experience, it’s hard to believe. Are you assuming that developers can design a game so that diverse classes are all going to be thought equal by players who care about efficiency?

I agree with this but as I said earlier we should be able to play to out strengths but its to discouraged because people find ways around not using those roles as you pointed out.

That was definitely the case in v. 1 dungeons. Still is, afaik. ANet has promoted the aggro management role in raids, as well as healing. They’ve promoted condi use by putting high toughness on some mobs, and the break bar mechanic provides more easily understandable and accessible of the control role.

I’m unsure what else they could do without: (1) reworking the whole game over to hard trinity+; or (2) nerfing the damage dealing stats. Since (1) would alienate all the players that like greater self-sufficiency and take developer resources away from new content generation — which is sorely needed, I don’t see that as advisable. Also, since glass stats and bulwark/sustain stats seem fairly well balanced in the PvP modes, I don’t think a nerf sufficient to turn players away from glass is warranted.

When Will the PVE Berserker Meta Change?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

- snip -

Ok but we aren’t talking about that, of course you can find people to do this with but realistically the majority don’t and people who want something different won’t always be available when you are, so it still is an issue for many. As far as builds being effective they can be in different ways if you played other mmorpgs you should know it’s hardly a pipe dream and im not saying all builds.

So, you admit you can play whatever role/build you want in GW2. However, you want the convenience of being able to do that with whatever other players happen to be available. No MMO has offered that level of accessibility in harder, instanced group PvE. To make it fly in WoW, Bliz had to implement Looking for Raid and lower the challenge level dramatically. As long as the challenge level is up or as long as people with time issues want to farm rewards as fast as they can, you will find exclusion based on perceived effectiveness. This is and will remain a people issue that is only susceptible to developer intervention via anonymous hot join and content difficulty nerfs.

people have no clue what they are talking about when they say trinity when most mmorpgs cover far more roles and classes then the trinity and those classes that tank, heal, or dps can do allot more things then just that.

GW2 offers multiple roles for each profession. Not all professions can play all the roles the game offers. Offensive buffers, defensive buffers, controllers, aggro management, heal provider are all roles good groups use. The problem was twofold.

  • Players found ways to complete dungeons that allowed them to ignore most of the options available to the professions. Anet has and should continue to address this through mob and encounter design.
  • Some players cannot wrap their heads around the idea that gear choice, which is central to role design in older MMO’s, was only central to damage in GW2. Now, it plays more of a role in aggro management due to the tweaks to make Toughness central to aggro.

ArenaNet dying from inside??

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Without putting too fine a point on it, A.Net is not a well managed company. Their coordination and control structure is a mess and they waste an enormous amount of work. Private equity would be thinking leveraged buyout.

At the same time, building a game like Guild Wars is not like managing a P&L at a factory or retailer. A.Net really is building a work of art – and it shows in game. Sure, it could be better managed, and look more like, say, EA, but the game would likely follow suit. A.Net has a culture that runs on collaboration between a big jumbled mess of passionate creative types, and while I’m sure you could fire management and bring in professionals that would improve productivity and efficiency by leaps and bounds, I’m not confident at all that you could do that while maintaining the energy and soul that brought us SAB and all the other countless small touches that make the game what it is.

I think you need to look at it with a healthy dose of perspective. A.Net is not a publicly traded company tasked with maximizing return on equity to shareholders. It’s a private company owned by millionaire veterans of the game industry that want to run a company that they like working at – and if that resembles a kindergarten classroom of passionate artists and designers doing what they love, then so be it.

I also think this is an excellent analysis, which fits quite well my own observations.

If anything, ANet’s attempt to provide what’s behind what gamers ask for (v. what their words say in some cases) tells me that the company is trying to make a game people will like, while sticking to a certain vision, likely because it’s the vision that those creative types, and MO, have. Despite my own dislike for some of the aspects of the game, and for some of those decisions Anet has produced value for money spent for the most part, and I appreciate that. It’s actually kind of rare. Ensign’s point about EA is well taken.

So, is ANet dying? I very much doubt it as long as that passion still exists.

When Will the PVE Berserker Meta Change?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

- snip -

But your saying they would have to enforce the trinity, now lets say your right that part is true then where is the diversity in being able to choose more specific roles if one wants to? Sure you can build for more support like a tank or a healer but is it really needed?

It isn’t really needed that one go glass, either. Perhaps you meant desired by meta players? If so, you should look at the concept of meta. It’s the build believed to be best — whether it is actually best or not. That means, by definition, that the only diversity in meta play is that enforced by the content. If the content requires a tank or healer, there will only be one best tank/healer build, per profession anyway. there will be one DPS build. There can only be one best.

No it isnt since everyone goes bserker, you can balance it in such a way where it can be needed but still an option, of course im not saying anet should drop everything and focus on this but its certainly something they may be able to change in the future.

No, you can’t balance it that way and affect the meta. Needed in these sense of “can’t do without” and “optional” are not compatible. Need in the sense of wanted, well , that’s possible now as long as you don’t care what other people think. In most of the game’s content, you can go bunker or healer and contribute, it’s just that your contribution won’t be valued by random people on the internet.

The point is you can sit there and say the holy trinity is bad since its not the intentional design but then again you cant claim there is real build diversity either which is also something the design was trying to do, which give players more variety of ways to play. So if everyone is going beserker and not using these other optional builds then the diversity just isnt there due to the meta of beserker.

Yes, I can and am claiming there is real build diversity. I can build my character as I see fit, in ways that are pleasing to me. I can use those builds to do anything I want in the game with varying degrees of success except I can’t be accepted by groups that don’t want that build. So what do I do? Well, I get off my dead kitten and find people that think like I do, and we play the way we want to. If “real” diversity is being accepted by meta groups then you will never find real diversity in an MMO unless the content enforce a particular type of build. Meta groups will never accept any non-optimum build that someone likes. Also, as I said above, for any role that is deemed necessary, there will be one build that is acceptable.

Typically, what’s behind most of these discussions is the desire to play a build you like, and to get into any group, and to be equally effective as other builds. This is a pipe dream. The only way to do that would to have all builds balanced so they are all equivalent. What can be done is to provide content that allows different builds to shine, such as with tanks/healers in raids, or mobs like Husks who are more susceptible to condi than direct damage.

Other responses above in italics.

Do you miss hardmode/vanquish ?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The GW Hard Mode worked solely because the maps were all proprietary instances. The GW2 maps are not. Mobs respawn, for one thing. Other players are there.

If they made a “hard mode” map copy, they’d have to convert the server architecture to spawn separate, zone-wide copies for every player/group that wanted to access them. I don’t know how hard this would be, or how much server bandwidth would be required. I do know that GW HM took a fair bit of developer resources to produce and suspect that doing this for GW2 would require more, maybe a lot more.

I also know, because Anet stated it, that they had no plans to implement Hard Mode in GW2. For one thing, the game design — based on large group content — is dependent on having enough players around to do these events. So, ANet is reluctant to do too many things that would split the player-base.

And, yeah, HM in GW was enjoyable. Also, it’s still there.

When Will the PVE Berserker Meta Change?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

ANet did a good job of providing a role system that is tied to a variety of profession choices, trait choices, weapon choices and stat choices. The thing they could not provide was a new mindset for players who either don’t see or discount all of that because they define diversity only in terms of the classic static roles and at the same time insist that gear stats have to match role choice. The only way to promote that kind of diversity would be to scrap the current game design and retool the game as an old-style trinity MMO.

The OP claims he would like to play a Guardian Healer/Tank or a tank-like warrior with some damage. GW2 absolutely allows him to do so. Moreover, the content allows him to do so, successfully, in dungeons or persistent PvE.

I can’t say with certainty that his choices would fly in raids, but then raids are based on more tightly defined roles in the first place. By definition, a meta build is that which is perceived best by players. There’s no diversity within the meta, except that enforced by defined, required roles. The same applies to meta-preference dungeon runs.

What can be done, ANet has tried. They’ve made condi viable. They’ve changed aggro mechanics (at least in HoT) so that aggro prioritizes toughness more. They’ve made mobs more difficult. They’ve used unavoidable damage, melee hate and other mechanics to get people to stop doing the exact same things with the exact same builds every time. No doubt they’ll do more of this type of design going forward. They may even think of new ways to shake players up.

Is this game raid centric now?

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IndigoSundown.5419

Raids have gotten a lot of updates recently…

The 2nd and 3rd raid wings have dropped an average of 3.5 months apart. That’s a slightly longer gap than the 3 month releases. You know, the release cadence that people are griping about. The first raid wing dropped ~ a month after HoT did. We’ve had:

Raids: 1st wing a month after HoT; 2 updates since
Other PvE: HoT dropped, 2 updates since

HoT content was originally designed to last longer. However, some players convinced ANet to reduce “grind,” which has to some degree lessened the staying power of HoT. Also, revising HoT cost ANet at least some dev effort.

ArenaNet dying from inside??

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Is anyone looking at the dates of the reviews or are we all blindly going to assume trends based on 2 datapoints?

This is an internet game forum. People don’t need data points to assume trends…

Is this game raid centric now?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m seeing a ton of raid updates and not much else.

If, by “a ton” you mean two since the end of 2015 — which completed the HoT raid — then OK. In the meantime, we’ve had two quarterly updates which added gliding to core, revamped Shatterer and revamped a lot of open world HoT. In addition, we’ve gotten ley line events and bounty events, possibly stand-alone stuff, but ley line might be leading into LS3. Sure, “tons” of raids, not much else. Delusional.

Anyone Else getting Bored

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m with Vayne. Posting this as a question thread implies that there is a right answer. What’s the OP going to do, select the, “Yes, I’m bored, too” post he likes best?

This thread is just a back-handed attempt to garner agreement that Anet is not providing new stuff to do fast enough. I would respect the OP more if he had just chimed in on one of the existing threads about lack of new content to say he’s bored and thinks ANet needs to get the lead out.

And I’m no more bored now than I was when HoT first released.

Suggestion, Patron Membership

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m not in favor of the idea.

VIP benefits could theoretically be things that can be totally done without. However, that isn’t how marketing people think. The thought process is more likely to be along the lines of, “What benefits can we offer on a monthly rental basis that people will think they can’t do without.”

I might purchase such benefits. I absolutely would not rent them. When I quit WoW I said I would never again rent any aspect of a game. I’d likely leave the game if the rental benefits were actually good enough to warrant the rental fee and were not available for purchase. I think this is what would happen. Thus, my opposition.

If the intent is to give Anet more money for development, there is already a solution. Buy gems and buy the permanent items that give the benefits the OP suggests as rental benefits. This way, there’s no controversy over “optional” subs and no dev time taken away from content development to make the systems overhaul needed to make this happen.

Letting Events Fail in PvE

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

These types of events are, I believe, an artifact of pre-launch design philosophy. ANet stated they were trying to make a dynamic experience wherein player choices to participate in events mattered. The idea was people would do events because it was fun. If there was no one around, an event would fail, but there would be another event (or an event chain) following that failure. It wouldn’t matter which, because there would always be one thing or another happening, so there would always be fun to be had.

What’s happened since is that a massive number of players have let Anet know at great length and in no uncertain terms that fun and a dynamic experience are very much secondary to loot. However, the design is still there from the original intent. If you look at events constructed since, ANet has gone away from conditional events and chains, instead opting for cyclical events that propagate on a regular basis and don’t cause such conflicts. ANet’s learned. However, reworking existing events is at best going to be a piecemeal thing. ANet has only done so when the chat arguments and/or abuse get to be too much.

So, I don’t expect a systematic rework of conditional events in core. Honestly, ANet has done so many reworks of so many things already, and needs to focus on producing new content, on a relatively short, sustainable schedule — and reworks will interfere with that.

Why is everything so unfriendly to melee?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The 3-specs for a build makes me have to make tough decisions: sacrifice survival for damage? Heal more, or run faster? Etc. Quite frustrating to say the least.

What you are describing is “opportunity cost.” You cannot have build diversity in games without opportunity cost. If anything, this game needs more, not less.

Wing 3 Feedback

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Except I heard new raiders still can’t find groups to raid with. Thus only fun for a very limited # of players in game.

Either the number of these new players who can’t get a raid group is very small, or it isn’t. If their number is very small, well, there’s no way for ANet, or anyone, to ensure that everyone can raid any time they want to. If their number is significant, why can’t they make an effort to find each other? Is it too much to ask that players who want to raid take responsibility for putting a group together?

A Personal Opinion and Rant

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Yet to get content I enjoy, I have to wait. I’ve waited through three raid wings and two PvP seasons so far, and I still haven’t had anything I feel like I can sink my teeth into.

You got HoT. This was a bunch of PvE content that dropped all at once. It’s unfortunate that Anet has not provided additional open PvE content and/or story since HoT. It’s also unfortunate that HoT has not lasted as long in some posters eyes as XPac’s are expected to last in other games. If people want to sling blame for the PvE content gaps, they should be looking at the real culprits. These, in my mind, are:

  • The people who insisted ANet adopt an XPac model. ANet may be innovative in some ways, but XPac’s in MMO’s always represent lengthy waits in between, so it does not surprise me that GW2 has the same content gaps other MMO’s using an XPac model have.
  • The revamp of HoT.

Instanced group PvE and PvP represent the second and third most ignored demographics in the community. The HoT raid dropped over eight months rather than all at once. Sometimes I think there would be less complaining about content gaps if ANet had dropped HoT open PvE piecemeal, also. Then again, if they’d done that and still charged $50 for it, there would have been a ton more complaints about “Not worth it!”

A Personal Opinion and Rant

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

2. I strongly believe that Raiding and PvP have not benefitted GW2

This game was not about a group of 10 people being locked into an instance that the remaining 100 behind it could not enter, that was never the intended design for this mmo even once. This mmo advocated itself infact as a game filled with challenging world bosses (world) being the enphasis, where masses of people would rally together to figure out a challenge all at once as a community, not just a guild.

Actually, the original intent was to have the instanced content be 5 player, not 10. Explorable dungeons were intended to be “challenging content for coordinated groups of skilled players.” Colin Johanson even referred to them as the GW2 equivalent of raids. They didn’t work out, so now ANet has put out a new iteration that is 10-person, and they’re trying to make it live up to the “challenging content for coordinated groups of skilled players” wording. So, leaving out the number 10, your contention that the game “was never supposed to be about a group of people locked in an instance” is factually incorrect.

Furthermore, the game IS largely about persistent world boss encounters. HoT brought a total of 9 raid boss encounters. There are 6 meta boss events in Verdant Brink alone. There are more in the other zones. Yes, the game is supposed to include such bosses, but it was never supposed to only offer those types of things to do. As for the army versus commando thing, most people zerg the HoT events the same way they do the core ones.

As for PvP:

The E-sport scene is not a good move for A-net, this attempt to pretend to be the next league of legends, or try to intergate an MMO with heavy pve/world vs world focus into a pvp scene actually detracts the greater community from itself. It isolates everyone in favor of a pocket full of people who will be nameless individuals only a minority of spectators will ever take an interest in, again, same problem, its the small minority, vs the larger majority.

ESports has always been on the agenda for ANet. I saw stuff about this aspect of the game long before launch. As for your isolation hypothesis, I doubt it holds water. Some players who PvP also do persistent world stuff. The ones who don’t wouldn’t likely participate even if there were no PvP. They’d go play LoL, or some other game.

The majority always wins, more, is always better.

While more is certainly better for ANet in terms of their metrics and bottom line, there is no evidence that focusing solely on one demographic, be it a supposed majority or not, will generate “more” for an MMO company. It is no accident that every MMO trues to appeal to multiple demographics.

Its become clear to me A-net understands by now that while raiding has obviously been a success for the playerbase that enjoys it, and e-sports is clearly fun for those actually participating, the majority who dont even get to see this content are missing out and feeling left out.

Actually, while there is some subset of the players who don’t PvP or raid who feel “left out,” there is no way to prove that that group is in any way a majority. All of the people I know who play GW2 neither PvP nor raid, and not one of them has said they feel left out.

This attempt to focus on quality over quantity may be a reflection of that in future season 3 and expansion 2 updates, this is me being blindly optimistic, but I believe it is because of that, they recognise that people want content “everyone” can be part of in large scale.

Because frankly?

Id rather be with my 2-3 friends joining a huge army fighting against other players, or dragons, or mursaat/mantle armies.

Than be forced to join 9 other specialists, who I barley know, whom will judge me on my skills, ability to participate on an active basis, and attempt to burn me for making failures I may not always be able to help.

I do despite this, want to improove at the game, I would love, for raiding to have accessability to those that want to relax and enjoy the story. I dont even mind if that content comes at the cost of no unique raid gear, I dont care.

All I want… is to enjoy the game I paid to enjoy, and I know my friends want to do the same thing.

Now I am sure, ALOT of raiders, alot of E-sports players DO, enjoy the raiding, DO, enjoy the game, infact im sure casuals that raid enjoy raiding as much as they enjoy world content.

But that content, is… no matter how the cookie is cut, exclusive.

And this game was never meant to be built on that foundation, exclusivity, was supposed to be something that GW2, was “never” meant to have.

Maybe the devs minds have changed, maybe, I dont know.

But I miss the days everyone could enjoy things at their own leisure, without feeling like they had to be on a band wagon, perform excellingly, or be forced to join guilds to enjoy content.

Because im fairly sure when this game launched, I never had to join a guild, or make a group.

I just got to play with lots of people, and we all had fun who ever was there at the time.

The beauty of the game is that you don’t have to join a guild if you don’t care to. The game offers a lot of content for non-instanced PvE and no doubt will offer more going forward. You can still do all of the things you claim to want to do. You just seem to want everything Anet adds to the game to appeal to you. What about other people who paid for the game who like those other things? Why does the whole game have to be aimed solely at your preferences? It never did in the past, except perhaps in your mind.

Other comments in the embedded quote in italics.

Why is everything so unfriendly to melee?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

My problem in HOT is the unavoidable attacks. For example when you engage onto a smokescale, it goes untargetable and teles to you, taking off half your health. Nothing you can do, be you melee or ranged, to avoid this. The Ogotl are similar in that they can go invis and hit you for large chunks of health while still invis and thus you can’t really avoid it. Your only hope against them is blocks or reflects, which makes it required to have at least one of those slotted in HOT maps even if they aren’t normally a part of your rotation.

Or, you know, dodge. Which is a defensive tool everyone has access to, and is exactly why they gave those abilities to the HoT maps cooldows which roughly align with the amount of time required to recharge enough endurance to dodge again.

If you’re taking half of your Hp from a smokescale, you either weren’t paying attention and aggro’d it while fighting something else, you are just plain wasting your best defensive tool for non-defensive reasons, or you’re deliberately pulling more mobs than your build is designed to handle solo.

To be fair, there are events where multiple smokescales appear, and they can aggro onto the same target courtesy of ANet aggro mechanics, which seem to be either not or at least poorly understood by most players. The proper thing to do as a player when that happens is to ask what one did to get so much hate.

What I believe to be the source of so much HoT hate from players results from a perfect storm which seems to happen way too often.

  • Most of the events seem to be designed for multiple players. There’s nothing wrong with this, as long as there are multiple players.
  • Megaserver was designed with the intent that there would be a much greater likelihood there would be multiple players.
  • Players following the path of least resistance tend to stack certain maps, leaving other copies short on players, essentially subverting the intent of megaserver design.
  • A lot of players just engage with content when they see it. They have the expectation, fostered by core, that this is a viable approach. In HoT, the skill threshold to get away with this is higher (much higher if mob numbers are great enough).

All of which results in situations where players can get overwhelmed by mob numbers. I see it every time I go into HoT unless I take advantage of the taxi workaround.

(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)

Who thought the bandit events were balanced?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’ve been in one battle and witnessed several. If anything, the Champions suffer from the same issues most Anet bosses in persistent world suffer from. They’ve only got 3 or so moves, and just repeat them over, and over, and over. Add in high health pools and/or high toughness and they’re more of a slog than a fight.

The 4-5 Champions I’ve watched my friend fight seem to all have at least one move in common. Resource saving at its finest, I suppose. I guess if that’s what it takes to get something new, then so be it.

The fight I took part in was vs. an Executioner in Kessex Hills. The only complaint I had was the stupid circle that I stumbled into unknowing. I’d swear I didn’t see the stupid thing, though even if I had I wouldn’t have known what it was. The other players there kept the Legendary outside the circle most of the time, so I didn’t actually get to fight him 60% of the time. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if this mechanic went away. There were people getting downed repeatedly in the circle. Getting them up was “interesting” with the Bandit Fire Ele’s dropping AoE every ten seconds or so.

As to the OP’s complaint. I can’t swear I’ve seen those particular bosses. Of the ones I have seen, I’ve see nothing like what the OP claims. My friend has gotten dropped a few times,mostly from the Shadowstep move. The AoE Line move he seems to be able to strafe out of most of the time. I did notice he has had aggro most of the time. Not bad for a mostly exotic glass Ranger/Druid using LB/Staff.

Has ANet Forgotten the Casual Gamers?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Lets get something clear here, HOT content among Casuals, is a “never was”, between the long drawn out chained together meta’s and mob density, with everything being scaled to be just a little bit harder I don’t think they could have done a better job of alienating the Casual group, if they tried, and you know, if not for their sudden change, it kitten well looked like that was their intention. The only people that ground HoT Open World were Content Locusts not Casuals, there is no surprise that group devoured what they could and moved on, treating it like yesterdays trash, and no wonder it feels old and worn out now, since it was literally anti-Casual content, which would have been the group of players that would have moved in and carried the population for the later months and years, making it feel alive. But given how badly against Casual Play All of the HoT content was designed, it’s no wonder that HOT Bombed as bad as it did.

Yah, we all know that Anet realized their total screw up, and dialed it all back, and pumped it full of rewards, and whatever else they did to try to make it attractive, but all that did was get some ‘hard core’ gamers a playground to grind it for loot, it did not really bring the casual group back into it.

You want to talk about a total blunder in the PR department far as GW2 being marketed as Casual Friendly, HOT was like a shot in the head. Nothing about it was attractive to the casual demographic, and the next Expansion, I’m gonna bet bombs so bad, it won’t even be funny.

Is it all because of raids.. Not at all!. It was this massive package of “Lets kitten this entire Casual Demographic” called HoT, and there were issues long before the first raid wing was put in, it was just a really bad package, coupled with the fact that Raids were the only new thing seen in several months, being that final nail in the coffin.

They could have put out some stupid spring festival for casuals to grind, to distract from the whole lack of anything but raids, and that would have done wonders to build relations, but too late for that.

Anyway, love the post. Great Props, and lets not start any name calling we both know my feeling about Elitist.

I won’t/can’t disagree that there has been backlash against HOT, and that posters making those complaints often self-identify as “casual.” That they don’t always complain about the same things highlights the fact that “casual gamer” is a broad term, and that not all who self-identify as casuals care about/want the same things. For example, Vayne and I both identify as casuals Other than a desire for immersion and a predilection for PvE, we don’t seem to share that many preferences.

What I’m left with is a question. I’ll start with the premise that “endgame” is an aspect of MMO’s designed to keep players interested in p(l)aying after the leveling experience is over. Because of the old “devs can’t produce content that keeps up with the players” thing, this generally involves a great deal of repetition, usually fueled by pixilated rewards. Given that, what constitutes a “casual’s” endgame? I think the answer is going to vary much more for the “casual” demographic than it does for the raider, the so-called Elitist or the dedicated hobbyist. To my mind, this makes the casual market harder to design for, because what motivates some of them does not motivate the rest.

Story I can see as a possible element. Collections. Achievements. Possibly other game elements. I’m not sure what else.

So why has ANet taken this long to start coming out with new stuff? What I’m hoping (for the sake of the game) is that the lengthy projects to revamp systems and also HoT is over, the next XPac ix underway, and we will start to see story chapters every 2-3 months, without the lengthy downtimes that preceded and proceeded from HoT.

Fingers crossed.

Has ANet Forgotten the Casual Gamers?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown, I was a “complaining casual” because I bought the expansion only to find out it was too hard for me. A whole new beautiful jungle and I could not participate in it because I am a clutz.

When they made the Jungle easier, I was finally, finally, able to play it and marvel at all the work the artists put into it.

If they had not made the Jungle easier I would not have my elite specs , (happy grin, I have added a Tempest and a Scrapper to my stable of Elites now ) nor would I have my advanced gliding…let me tell you, to me, the ability to be able to glide through the Jungle without worrying about endurance is totally worth the required number of mastery points.

Not all of us casuals who cried about the difficulty of HOT have turned their back on it..some of us are deeply appreciative for this gift.

Lisa-Hoping that the next Living World story thingy has this level of difficulty.

I’m happy that you’re enjoying the game more, Lisa. I remember the thread(s?) you posted, and was pleased then when you found you could enjoy HoT.

Honestly, my post was intended to focus primarily on the people who cried about stuff “taking too long to get,” and the ones who want raid rewards with less difficulty. I’m sorry you felt tarred by my brush.

(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)

Why is everything so unfriendly to melee?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The problem is a pretty thorny one. Anet is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place.

For PvP and WvW, melee skills deal more damage because getting and staying in melee is hard when fighting players. Thus, the melee skills have to hit harder because they have limited up-time. Ranged can pretty much reliably hit unless the target is blocking, dodging, reflecting, retaliating, confusing etc, most of which are also available v. melee attackers. So, ranged damage is lower.

So, what can ANet do?

  • They could divorce the skill coefficients for PvE from those for WvW/PvP and have melee attack kitten like wet noodles. This would punish players skilled enough to get away with melee and encourage most players to go ranged.
  • They could leave melee skills doing more damage and reduce/eliminate a lot of the PBAoE, knocks, etc. What this does is trivialize the encounters. Those skills are the mobs feeble attempts at offering a dollop of challenge. Take them away and the alternative would be making the mobs just do more damage, and/or more unavoidable damage. You think melee hate is generating complaints? Imagine the kittens flying if Anet did that.
  • ANet could reduce the number of PBAoE stuff. This would be easy if the game did a better job of staggering the types of mobs that appear in encounters. If you look at core, for instance, sometimes Risen packs will be all Nobles. Holy AoE, Batman! This solution might be the best option because it preserves the melee damage boost which offsets its up-time issues, while maintaining some degree of mob challenge.

Has ANet Forgotten the Casual Gamers?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

One answer would be to build more content geared towards casual players, that has equal rewards to raids, and feels “end game”, right now the ‘end game’ is all about raids, where at one time there is a vibrant “Choose your own end game” where you could do all kinds of things, now there is only raids. So if they somehow (No idea how) manage to bring back that original lateral end game that they once had, that might fix the problem, but lets get real, doing that would take a ton of time and resources.

Raids as endgame content drop rewards that seem to take a lot of repetition. Afaik, no one has made L. Armor yet. There is a skill gate, and a time gate associated with those rewards.

HoT dropped a ton of “endgame” open world content. This came in the form of multiple goals, many boss battles, and several zone meta events. However, when ANet attempts to make the repetition of such content anything even in the same ballpark as they did for raids, they get lambasted for making content not geared towards “casuals.” People post hate for time gates. Others post hate for skill gates.

The raid came split into three parts. Raiders are still doing all three, religiously, afaik. Open PvE aficionados, on the other hand, are already treating HoT as old content not worth doing. There’s plenty of “endgame” content for open PvE players, but they turn their backs on it because they browbeat ANet into making it easier to get the carrots. So, they’re done with it and ready for something else. The problem is, that isn’t how MMO’s work.

There are times I think the complaining casuals are their own worst enemies.

Do you ever feel guilty?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I used to do it more. One day, I did the event near Honor of the Waves in Frostgorge wherein the Icebrood attack the Quaggan Village. With the quaggan guards all defeated, I single-handedly drove off the blackguards. Once the Quaggans revived, I heard them crowing, “Quaggans did it! Quaggans defeated the Icebrood!” Ungrateful snots. I don’t go out of my way to help Quaggans anymore, and would love to be able to give them what they richly deserve.

#theonlygoodquagganisstuffed

Is GW2 demanding more and more time from us?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

GW2 is simultaneously receiving complaints about “not enough to do,” and “too much to do.” In the meantime, none of what there is to do is mandatory. Thus, the game is not demanding you do anything. At worst, it is offering things to do. It is your own desire to be a completionist that is doing the demanding.

Could we get an in game barbor

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

You’ve presented two different issues in your title and opening post, making things a bit confusing and misleading. I agree with your title – an in-game npc who cuts your hair would be interesting. How much that npc would cost is another debate altogether, but some cost should probably be involved.

If you’re confused that is on your side my friend. Can’t have been more plain.

It’s possible that some forum dwellers are unaware that some other MMO’s, notably World of, refer to the in-game hairstyle change NPC as a barber. In such a case, confusion is not only possible, but likely. You made an assumption that people might know this tidbit. That’s not necessarily so. So, yes, you could have been more clear.

Want more players?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m not trying to say anything derogatory about any specific game mode, only that it seems reasonable to assume that most of these potential new players would be more likely to join the game if all rewards were available in the game mode of their choice.

There’s a problem with that approach, though.

ANet only has so many developer resources. Even with what they have, people who play all three main modes — never mind the multiple exclusive play-styles in PvE — are almost constantly complaining about not having enough to do. So, ANet has to prepare new stuff for each mode, as often as they can given the resources they have to do it with.

Using rewards as carrots to entice players to engage with game elements they might otherwise avoid is a means to stretch player interest in the game as a whole. The more game modes a player has a reason to play, the more likely s/he is to stick around. MMO business models are extremely dependent on keeping people playing.

As a player in the demographic you’re referring to, I can say that I am at peace with ANet decisions on where to put rewards. One thing I’ve gained with age is a modicum of perspective. I don’t have to have everything.

That demographic is not so much embedded in the entitlement attitude that seems to be flourishing in the First World. Such thinking was certainly not encouraged during our upbringing. Rather the opposite, in fact. Not to say that some of us haven’t embraced such thinking, but I’d venture that there are less people in that generation with entitlement attitudes than there are in later generations. Thus, I don’t think your concerns about such potential customers avoiding the game if they can’t get anything they want no matter what they might want to do are that much of a deterrent.

Measurement of Success in game.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The OP equates success in the game with accumulating stuff. This reflects some folks’ approach to success in life. The difference is that some of the stuff that we gain in life, we actually need. GW2 accumulation is not about gaining necessities, it is about gaining bling. Some like that in life and games, others prefer just to have fun in games to escape the whole accumulation thing.

Pay-to-win is a term invented to apply to competitive games. The purchase of power allows players who spent real money for it a large advantage in the game. This allows them to more easily beat other players who didn’t spend that real money.

In those games, the competition is real. Players who don’t want to spend that money cannot avoid the competition. Well, they can only if they stop playing the game — or at least stop venturing into zones where competitive play is enabled.

In GW2, the competition is purely in the minds of certain players. They cannot force other players to compete. Any “victory” is simply a mental trick in which the player who wants to compete decides he “wins” because he has more/better stuff, whereas the other players may well be ignoring him and his stuff.

"Experienced only" for new raid

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

They are asking for experienced with this wing, or with raids in general?

Has ANet Forgotten the Casual Gamers?

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

- snip -

He called it the equivalent of raids from other games if I remember well, not that there would be raids in general.

I didn’t quote him as saying there would be raids. He said, “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.” Thus, yes, raid equivalents. This means that players who bought the game expecting raid-like content were justified in doing so.

Then the players who bought GW2 waiting for a raid did not really pay attention to the receptions it initially got:

GamesRadar’s Hollander Cooper wrote in his review:

“Everything a massively-multiplayer online RPG should be. It’s original, massive in scope, and wonderfully social, removing many of the gates that held back the genre in the past. Being able to play with friends regardless of level or class is a gigantic leap forward, and one that, when mixed in with all of the other innovations in the genre, make Guild Wars 2 one of the best MMOs currently available.”

Computer and Video Games Games Editor Andy Kelly:

“An entertaining MMO that combats the dreaded grind with smart design.”

Call it as you want, playing with your friends regardless of their abilities and/or level is pretty much the opposite of raids. Anyone wh played regularly while waiting 3+ years for a raid surely is much more patient than I am.

People played dungeons, fractals, and took breaks. Who do you think the guilds were who play-tested the raids? Also, one of those quotes does not address hard, instanced content, or any lack thereof. The other refers to down-leveling, which means that you can play with your friends in the open world, or in the dungeons. That a reviewer spoke in error does not surprise me. They do it all the time.