so in short, ppl who don’t like to grind and can’t stand craft grinding will never ever get them.
also, in short, they’re so useless even the TP don’t want them.I find it funny how some people think that everyone should be entitled to have everything… MMO is based on grind. If you don’t grind you get no juice. Simple as that.
no, an MMO is based on online play, nothing entales grind in MMO or do you not know what MMO stands for?
It’s not about what it stands for, it’s about how it was since MMO began.
How far back are we talking? WoW? EQ? UO? Muds? Most of the early games designed around quest line adventures, and you could beat content above your level if you were smart about it. Sometimes you had to farm, but usually in the context of affording an item, or finding something specific out in the field. Now days the design norm is that of a constant deficit; no matter what you are tasked with, you start at zero, and have to fight every system to make progress.
Its almost ironic that WoW not only broke the trend of how content was done, but also reestablished it in a more diabolical form. Lazy MMOs, and now lazy RPGs, use grinds as a game play element…. not a side effect of choices leading up to that point. The fact you think the two are fundamentally synonymous only shows you don’t seem to understand what any of these terms actually mean.
I fully agree. Wow turned MMO’s into big business. MMO’s since, even GW2, have tried to get a piece of the MMO pie. Early MMO’s may also have been about making money, but with a much smaller, and much more dedicated player-base, they had to go about it differently.
The thing is, that smaller player-base was perhaps also more discriminating. Unfortunately for old-time MMO players, games like Farmville proved that a company can make money by producing simple, repetition-driven game tasks and selling convenience in making progress towards the goal. Now, the state of the art in gaming seems to be, “Give me something to do that is pretty simple, that I don’t have to think about much, and I’ll throw money at you.”
I think ANet has done a decent job of keeping grind optional in GW2. Increasingly, though — and this may have been inevitable given the amount of time needed to produce new playable content — the things to do are getting smaller and the repetition is getting to be a larger factor. Farming has assumed a much larger role in the game than it had at launch.
Look at Bitterfrost. The event to Free the Quaggan from the Svanir is a lot more challenging than the Defend the Koda Shrine events. However, every time I go into the zone, the Free event sits unfinished. Meanwhile, players continually defend the shrines? Why? The Free event offers a reward chest. The Shrine events offer a reward chest AND free shrines so people can grab torches and open lots of Icebound Chests.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
Another grindfest expansion? Nice.
There are no MMO’s that are without time sinks. That’s the nature of the genre.
Back on topic, I too wish ANet well.
I’m not keen on unlocking WP’s with currency. I’d guess the idea of “use currency and unlock for account” is a test due to the requests to not have to run each alt to WP’s to unlock them. For my preference, I’d hope the test fails. I prefer the old system.
I prefer what we get with the new map. If you are REALLY dead-set against them you get one character-bound WP just by entering the map.
My objection is not to their existence, it’s to the unlock method. “Do without” is rarely a good solution, as the game is designed around the idea that it’s better to have them. Doing without such"optional" features is rarely as aggravation free as having them.
Meanwhile if you run around the shore gathering pearls you can then head up to a merchant and unlock an account-bound spot. The big difference is it is *****FREE***** to use thereafter. Say I do not do much and use 5 teleports per day. In a couple weeks that is a gold that I saved. How much do people think pearls are worth? Shrines are a STEAL, especially since you do not need to run around with all of your alts unlocking them.
See, I don’t expect other players to agree with me. I guess you can say I’m spitting into the wind in the vain hope that someone will get it. My objection is on the level of design philosophy.
MMO’s survive by using repetition systems. Without enforcing the need to repeat “stuff,” MMO’s can and do bleed players. As a result, there are going to be things that need to be repeated.
Maxing alts (i.e., getting them fully leveled, geared and ready to do whatever passes for endgame stuff) has been an MMO time sink since there have been MMO’s. Yet Gw2 has done away with a lot of the time sink aspects of alt generation. Insta 20- 30 – 40 scrolls and tomes mean no need to actually play the character to max level. Gearing is doable without leaving the home city. Now, assuming this is a test, we could see WP’s being retrofit to a currency unlock system rather than a play the character system.
A big time sink (alt readying) may end up being removed completely. Maybe not, of course. Maybe the shrine concept will only be used in new maps. That would be a lesser time sink loss. However, most of the complaints about WP unlock have been about the core WP’s, probably because things like guild missions, world bosses, etc. take place in core maps. Who knows what ANet will do.
In the end, I wonder what other time sinks will be added that I’ll end up disliking more than I do running alts around. Because MMO’s absolutely are going to have time sinks. I recognize that this is a somewhat pessimistic view, and that it’s likely to be unpopular. Convenience seems to be a major overriding concern for a lot of players.
Fortunately, I’m not claiming to represent a large group, just myself.
Teleport to Friend is now a “special reward?” Good grief. How low we have fallen.
OP, about which endgame content are you upset? There are power builds in the meta for raids, fractals, and WvW.
Modifying content, which is what you are requesting [“but your raids are set so high that it take hours of kicking people out of teams (which is just bad for the community) to get a team to complete one boss … It about time u addressed this issue…”] is an extreme request when the real issue is your belief that you ought to be able to PuG raids.
If you chose to PuG, you will never know what you’re getting. If you cannot find people who meet your standards by pugging, join or form a raid guild. Pugging content is neither a right nor an entitlement.
With regard to interesting and immersive MMO game-play, the daily task which puts many scores of people onto low-level maps where they spam AoE where mobs are going to spawn is the most asinine design choice I’ve ever seen.
I’m not keen on unlocking WP’s with currency. I’d guess the idea of “use currency and unlock for account” is a test due to the requests to not have to run each alt to WP’s to unlock them. For my preference, I’d hope the test fails. I prefer the old system.
As to other LS3 maps, I cannot say that I find the number of WP’s light in general. While there are some core maps where you trip over WP’s all the time, there’s also others where they are considerably scarcer. At least so far, the LS3 map WP’s are not contested and thus unavailable.
It’s funny. ANet tried some really visionary things for an MMO closer to the start of the game. Things like no levels, easy acquisition of BiS stats, and a near-universal reward currency, with RNG playing little role beyond getting Precursors. The MMO fan base said no to all of that, either directly, or by taking actions which were bad for the health of the game.
As to the “recycled” comment. Yeah, what the heck do you mean by that?
I dont know how you can say that.
Literally its like 50/50 from the people i know.
Many of us loved the LW with the dungeons, World Events and so on. Like the destruction of kessex hills and LA were amazing.
Then you have the other 50% who said " look what i missed out on, thats not fair" and voiced complaints.
Anet probably saw the issue of time. They spend time to create events where people might or might not have time to play it. They have gone very traditional with how this MMO is.
I mean Guild halls are a grind, unlocking new specs are kind of a grind. I mean in GW1 you had to do story, events to unlock skills. Ok that made sense, HOT you really just pick a path to learn and gather XP.
Dont know how you could comment on health of the game from the LS differences. heck PvP and WvW have been on life support for the past 2 years.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t comment on the health of the game based on LS differences, then. Seriously, I comment about the move away from no levels and easy BiS stats and the decline of Karma, and this somehow gets equated to LS?
Very traditional? While the things I talked about changed to incorporate more traditional elements, that does not mean the game has no innovative features. Cooperative rather than competitive PvE, gathering, etc. are still a thing. Quasi-action combat is still a thing. Events, while no longer gone once their window passes, are still not quite the same as quests. Then there’s the stuff Vayne commented on.
Unless ANet changes its bundling policy late in the process (heh), the expansion price will include HoT. I’ve seen no statements about HoT being available to free players. Also, it would make business sense not to include HoT in PFF. They’d also have to include it for core owners who buy neither XPac, or face another PR storm. Finally, HoT access is part of the incentive for free players to buy the new box. It’s also added incentive to buy for any players who own core but did not buy HoT, whether due to inactivity or any other reason.
Oooh, thanks for that, too. I may be as old as dirt, but I’m not too old to learn.
That would explain it, thanks.
So I’m watching Real Madrid v. Manchester City and during halftime, I look over at my friend’s screen. He’s solo roaming in WvW, and runs into a Daredevil (of course). So, every 15-20 seconds the DD disappears, a tree icon appears, and he returns to the fight with full health. So, I’m thinking, where have I seen that tree before?
Then I remember a Wooden Potatoes video where he was messing around with a healing build, using the Healing Seed Pod bundle item. So I look it up, and lo and behold I see:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Seed_Pod
Notably, I see, “Not usable in World v. World.”
So, I wonder, is there some legitimate skill available to a DD which would account for the tree? Is this hacks? Anyone got a clue?
It’s funny. ANet tried some really visionary things for an MMO closer to the start of the game. Things like no levels, easy acquisition of BiS stats, and a near-universal reward currency, with RNG playing little role beyond getting Precursors. The MMO fan base said no to all of that, either directly, or by taking actions which were bad for the health of the game.
As to the “recycled” comment. Yeah, what the heck do you mean by that?
The link only takes one to the expansion announcement page, and a Google search right now did not produce the same ad that the OP’s image shows. While possible, I’m not convinced this is a certainty.
As someone for whom 2-3 hours represents a long play session, I’d say that you can certainly play GW2 with that kind of time investment. There is almost nothing in the game that you cannot do with limited play, as long as you are OK with things taking longer than they would if you were throwing MMO hobbyist hours at the game.
As far as spending money:
A new XPac announcement is due in a few days. If they price the new XPac at the same price as HoT when it launched, it will be $50. I’d wait and see if ANet holds to their previously-stated policy of bundling HoT with the new XPac. If they do, you will be able to get 2 XPacs for the price of one.
As far as upgrading one’s account, it is very possible to enjoy the game without maxing bank and bag slots. Thinking you need to max those is rooted in impatience (i.e., not wanting to salvage and find a merchant to sell junk a touch more often). Believe me, this is more of an issue for those who play a lot, and not so much for those who play less.
You can also get gems by exchanging gold for them in the in-game gold exchange. You won’t have a lot of gold while leveling a first character, although you can harvest wood, ore and plants as you work through zones, sell them on the TP and begin to build a stash. If your objective is not to spend a lot of money, that is very doable.
Other things:
- Mega server technology means even in vanilla GW2, you will run into other people.
- The community is very friendly for the most part.
- The one thing you’ll want to avoid is joining instanced-content parties that are advertising requirements, at least until you can meet those — if dungeons and raids is even on your radar.
- A potential downside is that if you want to follow the story all the way through, you will need to use gems to get Season 2 and episodes 1-5 of Season 3 —you’ll unlock S3 Episode 6 if you log in within the next few weeks, and will gain access to the unlock when/if you gain access to HoT. Again, the gems can be gotten via the gold exchange if that’s how you’d prefer to roll.
Should you decide to play, good luck in the game.
OP, while I support you in being critical, you haven’t really given ANet anything to think about; no actual criticism; no explanation of what you think is wrong; and thus nothing to latch on to. That also means there is little to discuss.
If you just wanted to vent for some reason, so be it, but don’t expect venting to bring any changes.
people without commitment
/thread
Staff Meeting:
- So, we have a new weapon set on the table for the next release. Management says we have to increase revenue. Ideas?
- Instead of having one ticket needed when the set is introduced, we could try requiring two. We always get the best response when sets are the hot new thing. Why not take advantage of that?
- People will just exchange more gold for gems.
- Yeah, but someone has to buy the gems. The exchange rate will spike, and that will create more incentive to exchange gems for gold.
- Yeah, and the exchange is a gold sink. John Smith will be happy.
- OK, so we run 2 tickets by MO?
<all> Yeah!
Been asking for this since shortly after launch. Yes, please. Even with the “fixes” provided so far, I still cannot see the models for group event bosses very well.
I also agree with the OP. Meaningful choices and opportunity costs make for a more interesting game. They also promote build diversity, which is good for the game as a whole. Maximum boon up-time is achieved far too easily, and with little given up.
The way the game is designed, boons are the main way to maximize effectiveness. Having them constantly available may not be quite as boring as not having them at all (and being stuck at whatever effectiveness level that represented) but it is far less interesting than having to pick and choose when to use what. If one always has max effectiveness, there is no possibility that a wrong choice can lead to failure. Without a chance to fail, there is no challenge.
I disagree about older PvE mobs being mechanically sound. Far too many of them lead off with an attack that takes them more time to complete than their TTL (time to live). ANet has tried addressing this with later mob armies, with little success.
Part of the problem is that GW2 is a quasi-action game. Either you can dodge or block the big attack or you can’t. If you can, the game is too easy. If you cannot, the game is too hard. The only in-between is for people who dodge enough of the attacks to mostly win fights, but enough to feel like they could lose.
Another part of the problem is the nature of PvE combat itself. No matter the encounter, it has to be beatable. If it isn’t beatable, it’s “over-tuned.” If it is beatable, then people learn the mechanics, practice the moves needed to win and it becomes old hat. Every addition of greater difficulty to the game has started with hard content aficionados praising ANet for adding it, followed within a varying amount of times by claims that it’s too easy.
Also, , there’s really only one tier of content. This means that no content can be tuned higher than (perhaps) the median in reaction time and skill of the expected user population. Dungeons are harder than open world. Raids are harder than most dungeon paths. They can be because the expectation is that the players who find story missions and open world to be right (or even hard) for their skill level were not expected to want to use dungeons and raids.
Finally, power creep has not helped — at all. Expected DPs for meta raid groups (on golems) is more than twice the numbers that were being tossed around before Heart of Thorns. Old content was not updated to account for this.
Reducing the size of squads will have little effect on zerg size in WvW. Say ANet halved the size. If people want to run in a huge group, they’d just use two commanders. There are servers doing that now. The smaller squads split to go for different objectives, but come together to face a map zerg, defend a keep, etc.
I hear your complaint. I get it. However, I don’t expect a lot of change. ANet has been responding to requests for more difficulty since shortly after the game launched. They’ve had little success. Still, it does not hurt to ask.
With regard to being a “raid equivalent”, open world was never going to fail due to lack of exclusive rewards. It failed because it was a joke that didn’t even come close to raids in any way.
You are wrong about the reasons raiders wouldn’t accept that content as equivalent to raids. Raiders would never accept content that is brain dead easy, like most open world content is for the majority of the participants.
So, you want me to believe that if the difficulty was there, but the rewards weren’t (and they really weren’t) that people whose preferred content is raids would have kept doing temple events? Sorry, not buying it, at least not in the amount of that type of player the developer wanted to attract and keep.
Kickstarters are great for companies that don’t have backers or money. Using one for a company that either has a backer or has a product that produces good revenue would be consumers throwing away their money by failing to demand a quality product/service for their money.
And the flip side of that was that the content that was hyped to scratch that itch turned out, with the exception of a few paths, to be much more accessible.
Not talking about dungeons btw, although dungeons were also considered really hard for a time. But they weren’t the “supposed” Raids. Orr was supposed to be the content for Raiders, or rather the big open “raids” to retake the Temples were. How did that turn out? Nothing like a Raid at all, and sure not something for a raider to like.
The Living World gave us multiple versions of their “Raids”, Ancient Karka, Marionette, Scarlet’s Hologram. Permanent updates also gave us their version of “Raids”: revamped Tequatl, Triple Trouble and so on. I guess the entire thing didn’t work out for what it was supposed to be, that’s why we never got another encounter like Triple Trouble.
You should take a look at the accessibility of Raids too. Raids in Guild Wars 2 were advertised as hardcore content that only organized Guilds could complete and pugs wouldn’t be able to, with the exception of some bosses. Now pugs clear all the Raid bosses daily. Now we get low-man and joke runs with random builds in Raids.
But even though the accessibility of Raids isn’t the “expected one”, it’s still content for Raiders. On the other hand, the content that was supposed to be “for raiders” at release was never going to work as content “for raiders”. That’s the difference
“Colin Johanson: There will be endgame content where you can play in maps filled with dynamic events. There will be endgame content that we’re calling dungeons, and many of these are high-level raids.”
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-dynamic-events-interview?page=3
The above contradicts your assertion that ANet did not consider dungeons to be raid equivalent content. ArenaNet said a lot of things, some of them conflicting, some of them fell by the wayside, some were not accepted by consumers. <shrug>
Frankly, open world content was always going to fail as a raid equivalent. Raiders were never going to accept a “raid equivalent” which anyone could join and which did not result in exclusive, prestigious rewards. If ANet ever thought they would, it was yet another psychology fail on their part.
Where would the game be if people who complained about lack of raids had said nothing?
The HUGE difference is that the game was supposed to have content that raiders in other games would love. So those complaining about the lack of Raids had a very good reason to do so. If this supposed content for raiders was actually content for raiders to begin with, we wouldn’t need “traditional” Raids in the game.
And the flip side of that was that the content that was hyped to scratch that itch turned out, with the exception of a few paths, to be much more accessible. That created expectations, too.
Nice cherry pick, btw.
I really doubt that people who have 60 additional character slots actually paid 600€ for them. By the time you feel the need to get #31, you have probably played the game for years and will just buy the gems with gold instead of paying real money. Same goes with bag slots, bank slots etc.
Players who exchange gold for gems are also contributing to ANet’s bottom line, albeit indirectly. If fewer players want to exchange gold for gems, the exchange rate goes down. This makes buying gems to exchange for gold less attractive, and that could have an impact on revenue.
However, there’s a flaw in your argument. That is, that challenge is not the only alternative to rewards as a motivator. Challenge only extends the half-life of content for a subset of the whole player-base. There are a lot of other motivations to play MMO’s: being social; relaxing after a hard day at work; power fantasies; and immersion being some.
And you absolutely can’t relax or be social anywhere else, except in a dumbed-down version of the most challenging content has to offer. Right?
I certainly can, but I’m not the type of player under discussion. Or was that a generic “you”? For those who might feel that way, perhaps it isn’t a matter of cannot but one of want to.
The question I’d ask, and I’ve asked it a lot in the GW2 forums, is, “Why does every bit of content and every reward have to be accessible to a particular group’s preferences?”
The content in such a large game is targeted toward different groups, with different preferences. Meaning there will always be content designed for specific players which appears inaccessible to others. Like raids appeal to me but PvP doesn’t. The difference is, I accept that and don’t complain on the forums why there is no story-mode PvP.
That’s certainly what I’ve been saying all along. However, I don’t see any problem with people asking for something. Where would the game be if people who complained about lack of raids had said nothing?
Either way, you’re right about rewards being the central issue in these discussions. The “easy raid wanters” mostly want the raid rewards, and the raiders want the rewards to remain exclusive. It’s not about challenge v. less challenge. If it was solely an issue of degree of challenge, then those who wanted easy would play easy, and those who wanted hard would play hard, and never the twain would meet.
Even if it was only about challenge level, though, I’d be against tiered raids. I’m someone who truly does not give a kitten about the exclusive rewards. My preference for the status quo is rooted in the recognition that developer resources are limited. Making tiered raids would either impact raid delivery, or the devs would have to be taken from something else. I don’t think either option would be good for the overall health of the game.
Here’s an interesting thing – people keep repeating content for two reasons.
1. Challenge
2. RewardsEverything else is a drive to play the content once and maybe revisit it once or twice after long time, but doesn’t really keep people playing it.
So if you’re not after the challenge, you’re after the rewards, yes?
Rewards are indeed a big motivation for the MMO customer base. This is a no-brainer. Devs rely on rewards to keep people playing long past the time when the fresh new-content smell turns into the stale-popcorn and spilled beer smell of over-played content.
However, there’s a flaw in your argument. That is, that challenge is not the only alternative to rewards as a motivator. Challenge only extends the half-life of content for a subset of the whole player-base. There are a lot of other motivations to play MMO’s: being social; relaxing after a hard day at work; power fantasies; and immersion being some. Then there are all the imports from games like Farmville. I have no idea what motivates them, except perhaps wasting time. I doubt challenge enters into it.
I can only conclude that your personal preferences and experiences are behind the flaw. There are a ton of players who don’t give a rat’s behind about challenge, and who have other motivations behind their choice to play a given game besides rewards. Those who care about challenge may tend to congregate together, especially because MMO devs produce “hard” PvE content for groups. Perhaps your perspective is limited because you hang out more with people who like challenge.
You might be better served to focus on a different point. We’ve all seen that many who ask for easy raids balk at the prospect of getting them without the rewards. The question I’d ask, and I’ve asked it a lot in the GW2 forums, is, “Why does every bit of content and every reward have to be accessible to a particular group’s preferences?”
I found the OP’s proposition to be riddled with arguments in favor of said proposition that amounted to little more than wordy versions of, “I like it.” I did not find these arguments convincing. However, I did find his characterization of Asura as a “beast race” interesting. I find myself in agreement with the OP on that point, but not the one that beast races are appealing in general. However, I’m sure that most Asura, did they really exist, would return that they are the only non-beast race in Tyria …. the little rats.
Unless there is some technical reason why the OP’s request would break the game, or that it would take ANet a lot of engineering resources to increase the limit, I see no harm in allowing those who want to throw time and money at the game to do so.
ANet has already added rune change functionality to Legendary armor, and spoken of sigil change for L. weapons. Imagine the reaction from those who thought the rune/sigil swap feature was an added reward for the time and expense they put in to get the weapon/armor. If it is taken away to be put behind another pay/time wall, I guarantee there will be protests.
The legendary tier was originally supposed to be cosmetic. However, ANet added stat swap, so now it’s not entirely cosmetic. The idea of Legendary runes and sigils (and trinkets, for that matter) seems off, since they don’t affect a character’s appearance.
That said, the game is going to — at some point — need new carrots for the carrot-chase play-style players to chase. At this point, I haven’t got a clue what they could do. Let’s hope they do, especially since Legendary Armor looks like it’s going to be raid-only.
If “toxic” means “have preferences,” then nothing ANet can do will stop the behavior the OP objects to. All such people would do is find another criteria to make a selection.
Maybe… just maybe… Anet is selling an expansion for its full price and discounting prior expansions and the core game at zero cost.
No maybe about it. That’s exactly what they did with HoT, and absent any update to their policy, it’s what they’ll do with EoUN (Expansion of Uncertain Name). However, that policy leaves them open to criticism from the OP and those who think like him (?). Healix’ suggestion would remove the justification used by those people, which would at least force them to find some other aspect of the price to kitten and moan about.
If the price of old XPac+Core were to drop to $10 or $20 when the new pack releases, the financial burden on new players would be greater than now, but at least the rationale behind thinking that new customers are getting a better deal would be removed.
Selling the expansion by itself and everything else bundled together for $30 would actually be a better deal for new players and a better experience. The one box model may sound good if you know nothing about the game, but what they don’t tell you is that each season is sold separately at a fixed price. Season 2 + 3 is an extra $30 in gems and with the current plans, each future expansion will add another $10.
That’s a solid point — and it would still remove this justification for the veteran player entitlement complaints.
WoW sells the base game and all prior XPacs for one low price. They then charge the full going rate for their latest XPac. Oh, and you only rent their game. They don’t give any discounts to Vets.
The only difference between Blizzard’s policy ANet’s is that ANet gives a better deal to the new players. I wish they’d rescind that policy, require new players to buy a core+older XPacs bundle and then the new XPac. If the price of old XPac+Core were to drop to $10 or $20 when the new pack releases, the financial burden on new players would be greater than now, but at least the rationale behind thinking that new customers are getting a better deal would be removed.
And then we would be back to -hey guys I started this, need to do something afk for 10 mins leave or finish without me.
Every system is likely going to bring possible abuses. I’d rather have that one then the one the OP describes, or the one where people join a group someone else started and decide to kick them.
Fwiw, Cryptic uses a system similar to the one the OP proposes. They put it into Champions Online, then later used it in STO and Neverwinter, iirc. Say someone with the account handle mogul498 wants to name a superhero Maximus. His name would appear in chat, friend’s lists, etc. as Maximus@mogul498. Another Maximus would appear as Maximus but with the different handle after the @. In game, you only see Maximus on his name plate, but if you chat, report, add, etc. you automatically get the @ plus the account handle.
If Cryptic can do it, I imagine ANet could. However, what I don’t know is:
- Is the current way names are handled baked so deeply into the game that changing would be non-trivial. It might even be impossible, or at least difficult enough that doing it would involve major changes to the game’s underpinnings.
- Whether there would be sufficient interest to warrant the effort. Of course, the more effort that would be needed, the larger the interest would have to be to warrant that effort.
My suspicion is that this type of feature is best added to a game while the game is being constructed.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
It does seem a pity that rather than creating an “ownership” system for a party, ANet chose to go with, well, whatever it is that we have now. If the party initiator owned: (a) the party listing and description in LFG; and (b) the instance (if entering instanced content), and if ownership transferred if the owner left the party/instance, there would be less opportunity for group or instance hijacking. As far as party merges go, the initiator of the group joining would pass ownership to the group initiator being joined.
You’d think after four years of having the same sig line ….
So it’s been No Exit for you, four years.
The things the OP complains about are common to the MMO genre. In WoW, for instance, I never felt like I was even participating in the main story, although I did a plethora of quest chains that told “stories” that I would later repeat on alts. The same happens in GW2. It’s baked into the genre conventions.
ToR did a somewhat better job of telling stories, but the same thing happened. When done with a quest line in the open world, the mobs still respawn in their endless cycle. The same thing happens in Orr in GW2, or any other zone in which story is lodged. The Pact needs to rally from the destruction of its airship fleet in Verdant Brink every couple of hours or so.
ESO has implemented a very small feature that at last gives the idea that things change. NPC’s that are hostile while you are doing a quest line can become neutral once you’ve completed that quest line. Like I said, a small nod to things changing. WoW tried the thing where people who were further into a zone’s progression experienced different things than those less far along. There were tons of complaints about not being able to play with friends as a result. MMO’s have to be static in this way because not all players do the stories at the same time.
Ideally, someone who wants a game where change happens based on their actions should be playing SPRPG’s. That’s the genre where things change. It’s also the genre in which there are many less hours of play for your money. Both genres serve different needs, OP. I’m sorry GW2 did not serve yours.
I’ve only gotten one Lesser one. ;(
I’ll pass the info about the loyalty chest to a friend who does not know, either. Thanks.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
Or collections, such as the Caladbolg one. That one’s not too difficult.
The Caladbolg quest requires a Vision Crystal, an Account Bound Ascended component. What are the odds people who don’t high-level FotM or raid have the spare Ascended to salvage in the hope of getting one? Of course, they can craft it…
There are 2 ways to get Asc. armor and weapons without crafting: Magnetite Shards from raids; and the laughably abysmal drop rates anywhere but higher tier Fractals. That’s it. Other than those ways, you either craft them directly or craft GM Marks and use the reward tracks in WvW and PvP.
Our crafting overlords have spoken.
Before the skirmish rewards patch, I had been playing some WvW most days — about an hour (that’s a pretty long session for me, plus my old comp, which I was still using at the time, started having heat issues with GW2). The rewards patch dropped at around the time I built a new computer (no heat issues), so between the two, I played more. This equated to about 2-3 hours/day. I was enjoying myself. I wasn’t thrilled about the rewards. My primary interest would have been a crafting-free way to get Ascended gear, but as our crafting overlords have spoken, that was not in the cards. Still, getting extra Proofs and other miscellaneous things was nice.
You’d think the decay patch would have meant little to me. However, it seems to. The participation mechanism also gates reward tracks, and I have been having trouble keeping participation up, thus progress is slower. At no time (before rewards, before advanced decay, after advanced decay) did I ever sit in spawn longer than the 2-3 minutes inventory clearance took. As a result of decay, I am playing WvW less.
I’m pretty sure that, just as with PvE content, I’m kind of a fringe case. I don’t expect ANet to cater the game to my peculiar preferences. However, this is not the first time game system changes negatively impacted my enjoyment of the game because kittenhats find ways to get rewards by bypassing intended processes. If decay means they are getting less by cheating the system, and as a result no longer coming to WvW, I say, “Good.”
This is NOT WoW. In this game if you are downed or dead, you can’t loot manually. If you can’t loot manually why would anyone expect that you can if you have autoloot?
This game was without several things WoW has, likes raids, name change or LFG. It has those things now. There are even rumors that mounts are coming with XPac 2.
What the OP is requesting is more convenience. I’d guess more than 50% of the requests on these boards are for more convenience. I’d say the OP might expect the request to be granted because so many other requests for convenience have.
Finally, of the features found in WoW named above that GW2 didn’t have at one point, requests for raids and mounts have seen far more push-back than this request has.
There was some vertical progression in the Heart of Thorns expansion in that ANet introduced gear prefixes which are objectively better than the ones available in core.
No. HoT combinations are not “objectively better”, that’s an inane statement. Just different combinations adding a bit of depth and variety.
A whole set of 3-stat Ascended armor has 1 major stat at 439 points plus 2 minor stats at 315 each for a total of 1069 stat points. A whole set of 4-stat Ascended armor has 2 major stats at 376 each and 2 minor stats at 207 each for a total of 1166 stat points. That is a difference of 97 stat points. The full-set-of-armor difference between 3 stat Exotic armor (@ 1017 total stat points) and 3 stat Ascended is only 49 stat points.
Since you didn’t check your facts before throwing stones, I’ll let you do the calculations for Weapons and Trinkets if you feel the need to.
Well, too bad those stats and combinations are mostly garbage in PVE.
The only reason Viper gear became condi meta is not because of some extra statpoints, but because it introduced condi duration stat.
For power, while Marauder gear can be considered for power builds, it still remains inferior both as glass cannon gear (to Zerker) and as high HP gear (to Valkyrie), making it training wheels set if anything.
Every other 4-stat combination might as well not exist.
Now you’re talking subjectively better. I was not discussing that.
There was some vertical progression in the Heart of Thorns expansion in that ANet introduced gear prefixes which are objectively better than the ones available in core.
No. HoT combinations are not “objectively better”, that’s an inane statement. Just different combinations adding a bit of depth and variety.
A whole set of 3-stat Ascended armor has 1 major stat at 439 points plus 2 minor stats at 315 each for a total of 1069 stat points. A whole set of 4-stat Ascended armor has 2 major stats at 376 each and 2 minor stats at 207 each for a total of 1166 stat points. That is a difference of 97 stat points. The full-set-of-armor difference between 3 stat Exotic armor (@ 1017 total stat points) and 3 stat Ascended is only 49 stat points.
Since you didn’t check your facts before throwing stones, I’ll let you do the calculations for Weapons and Trinkets if you feel the need to.
Because… uhm… you’re dead…
Except you’re not; you’re defeated.
True. But you’re on the ground, unconscious. Even if you’re not dead, you’re still not likely to hop up and grab loot while in said unconscious state.
It’s also a distinction without meaning, for the purpose of discussing loot acquisition. ANet might not call the state “death”, perhaps to make it less scary, but it works the same way as death in other games: you cannot move, you cannot use skills, you cannot interact with objects (including loot, which requires some sort of interaction to pick-up, even though that can be automated).
Thus, while players are technically incorrect to refer to the “failed to rally from downed” state as “death,” the use of the word doesn’t steer people the wrong way for discussion purposes.
Either way, it’s a moot point. After they’ve tagged targets, players don’t need to do anything to have loot appear in their inventory. Hence they are not interacting, picking things up, etc.