19 days is a pretty long time. Definitely long enough for everyone to have a go at it, and get their achievements. It’s really not quite as farm-able as the last time around, so I suspect the novelty will wear off in a week or so anyway.
Mmmm, I don’t support initiatives like this. I’m strongly against abusive speech and behaviour, but we’re all grown-ups here. We shouldn’t expect devs to censor people for having ‘poor’ tastes that don’t match our own.
Also, let’s be realistic. It’s never going to happen. They seem to be kind of struggling with more important things, like actual game content at the moment. There are also several other missing QOL features that should take precedence over this.
Here’s some examples of armor styles I’d love to see one day. I hope that the more Anet improves the core game, the more willing they will be in the future to devote more time into making fun, unique, and stylish armor sets. It was discouraging to say the least when they said that armor sets took too much time (6 times the effort as an outfit? Is that true??) and thus was the main reason why we received such a paltry amount in the HoT expansion. I understand that there are more pressing matters to attend to, but it would be nice if we could get substantially more armor sets in the future.
Love these.
If outfits were closer to this level of style and practicality, I think most people wouldn’t have a problem with them. I’d certainly not want to change a thing on most of ’em.
It’s unfortunate that GW2 was launched with so many intentionally rubbishy, low-quality armour sets, most of which are just taking up unnecessary space in our wardrobes. Would be awesome if some them could get a visual update of sorts.
I complete the 51+ Fractals and PvP dailies consistently. A one or two days each week I run three of my characters to the permanent rich iron and platinum nodes, and try to chop wood along the way. I initially planned to do this daily as well, but usually lose interest halfway through the second gathering run, and can’t stand to do it for another few days afterward.
My primary interest is to fully gear up my revenant on the cheap. Already got trinkets and weapons, and two armour pieces so far. I need to complete the Ambrite weapons set which will give me an armour chest at minimal cost. I will be playing a lot of PvP, since the Maguuma Wastes track is a better source of geodes and fossilized insects than Dry Top events.
After this is done, it’s back to regular farming and gathering to earn gold and buy what I need to craft the remaining 3 pieces.
Character customization. Fashion Wars 2 FTW.
Come to think of it I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just that more people, and particularly people who only do the story once, picked the Order of Whispers because they might seem like the more exciting of the 3, and they’re the one GW1 players will be familiar with.
Yep, this seems very likely. I’d never even heard of the other two mentors prior to this.
It’s pretty hard to miss the bright pink text on ascended items though, unless you vendor everything like a madman, lol. I wish I could get back all of the asc weapons I vendored for 1g because the stats were useless at the time.
Did you submit a ticket? If not, do so ASAP. They usually sort out things like this pretty quickly.
But you should be able to do them, just get on an organised map and either pay attention to teamspeak, join a squad and pay attention to squad chat and just follow the zerg
I think the gist of the OP is that zergs are inherently chaotic and un-fun. Some people simply don’t have a taste for it.
I am aware that this would take some work, but, I also believe that if you are going to do something, you should do it, fully, and complete the task, not leave things still hanging around.
Historically, this has never really been the case. The devs generally run a tight ship, but we’ve got lots of loose ends throughout the game, some of them are far worse (Tribal and Stalwart armours, the WvW exclusive weaponset for example)
They never intended to shut them down, just to ‘de-incentivize’ them. Which is reasonable, I suppose, as they don’t intend to do anything new with them. Leaving the dungeons open but unattended is better than making drastic changes. Quite a few people still enjoy them as they are.
I do like your suggestion though. I think it would work even if dungeons remain unchanged. We can always use more incentives for open world play in Central Tyria.
So many raiders seem to get a kind of satisfaction out of the ability to beat content that others cannot. Such a horribly selfish view.
’ I’m comfortable with this so it’s fine for everyone.’
It really isn’t. Lower level fractals never took anything away from 50s under the old system, they just let people have a go without as much hassle. Same principle here. You will still have your prestige rewards, and be able to enjoy beating raids the proper way.
Oh and demanding that content be brought down to your difficulty level isn’t the selfish thing? Please continue to tell me how I am selfish. I’m starting to think YOU guys are the toxic people.
Do you understand the proposal being made here? Adding difficulty scaling doesn’t take anything away from the existing raid. It would create an additional, separate mode for other people.
This isn’t even a personal crusade for me, I can manage normal raids. But there are a lot of people who simply do not have the time or ability to ‘get good’. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for the a difficulty setting that could accommodate everyone.
So many raiders seem to get a kind of satisfaction out of the ability to beat content that others cannot. Such a horribly selfish view.
’ I’m comfortable with this so it’s fine for everyone.’
It really isn’t. Lower level fractals never took anything away from 50s under the old system, they just let people have a go without as much hassle. Same principle here. You will still have your prestige rewards, and be able to enjoy beating raids the proper way.
I actually, respectfully, disagree. A casual player is not one who refuses to better himself or eventually use outside sources to better his performance. That is a ridiculous line of thought. What kind of a gamer is like “I’m going to play this game but I have no ambition in becoming better in relation to the time I put into it.” Eventually you’re going to find your way to metabattle, use outside sources as guides, etc.
Fair points, but I suppose we have fundamentally different definitions of casual. The term ‘casual’, as it applies to various activities – gaming, sports…sex, to me implies an interest in the immediate activity, without any real commitment or serious effort. I don’t propose that casual players don’t want to get better, but that they are not willing to do as much as their hardcore counterparts. It’s great that we have all of these additional resources, but I see it as a minor flaw in the game design that so much content absolutely requires their use.
Consider that we all play for vastly different reasons. Me? I’m a fashion kitten. I will do just about whatever it takes to get the skins I need to complete my characters’ looks. And it hasn’t been easy, I had to became ‘hardcore’ for pretty ‘casual’ reasons – just to play dress up. Some people are more goal oriented and get satisfaction from overcoming challenges, while many are simply content to play and talk with other people. For the latter category learning, adapting and improving can have relatively little value.
It’s a commonly held view that ‘real’ gamers enjoy being challenged, but I disagree with this. I’ve been a huge RPG nerd for almost twenty years and have never cared much about difficulty. I’m perfectly willing to try, but generally combat and activities just need to be challenging enough to keep me engaged. If I’m playing a rogue I want to feel like one. Sneaking around and stabbing kitten. Really getting into character.
As for being able to jump straight into content. This is literally the game for that. Quick open up the timers, oh DS is up in 10 minutes, travel there. Bam. Travel to Auric Basin and you’ll always see pylon event groups. Travel to Verdant Brink and I guarentee there are people working on outposts. Want to run a fractal? There’s 20 groups posting throughout the difficulties. Want to do WvW? Invest in a T1/T2 server. There is always something going on there. Want to play some PvP? It’s as simple as a 60 second que timer. My point is eventually you’re going to learn how this works no matter how casual you are. What holds a casual player back is the time commitment to do these things. Some things in this game are up to 2-3 hours of time commitment. This isn’t possible for one who can’t spend more than an hour a day doing this content. The most progressive content is saved for the user who is able to put the most time into it… at least for the most part.
This has not been my experience. Many others have posted complaints about it as well. The only map-wide meta that is consistently available, round the clock is in the Silverwastes.
Your last point is correct though. Play more → get more is perfectly reasonable.
I think the larger issue is the amount of time a casual player has to put into this game, but then again, how do you design an effective MMO that doesn’t require endless amounts of time? It’s this lack of understanding that drives me crazy when casuals call for nerfs. The casual player needs to understand that if he can only put in 30 minutes a day then he will be severe disadvantage when comparing to the player that puts in 5-15 hours a day, and this is the way it should be. This game (Or any online game) would not be appealing if the player who plays 30 minutes on average a day was rewarded the same as the person who lives in his mom’s basement and plays 15 hours a day. You can’t punish the dedicated gamer.
Casual in MMOs is really less about play time than play style. A casual can spend hours at a time wandering in maps, gathering from nodes, doing the odd event here and there, that sort of thing.
This type of player generally doesn’t want to read meta build guides, watch video tutorials, or consult 3rd party websites just to figure out the best time to play specific content. Lots of people just want to log in and get right to the action. Unfortunately HoT is designed in a way that doesn’t really allow this, and naturally people are dissatisfied. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a threshold for effort that just takes all the fun out of playing and makes it seem almost like a job.
What is not casual about this? I do not understand. Y’all need a little more challenge in your life.
As a general response to this thread – I think one gaming became casual when gamers grew up. There’s a point a lot of us reach where we still love gaming, but feel like we’ve gotten as good at video games as we need or care to be, and don’t enjoy anything that demands more from us.
I’ve deleted a few for mostly cosmetic reasons. Mostly warriors (deleted 4 so far). Never really got a feel for that class somehow.
The main problem with “casual v hardcore” is that games are made with this duality in the first place. When I was young you had one difficulty called “the f-ing game you just bought” and you either beat it or you didn’t. There were no difficulty settings.
I don’t know what kind of games you used to play but what I used to play would be considered ultra hardcore by the average casual GW2 player. The so called “casual” gamer didn’t exist some years ago. “Gamers” were all players who loved games for what they are, loved games for what they presented and felt good when beating them. The “I just want to play 10 minutes to relax” mentality appeared after the actual “casual” games became a reality.
Now every game tries to be “casual” and all that wonder of old is lost.
Nope.
Difficulty settings were commonplace since the days of 16 bit game systems, almost 30 years ago.
Some games were definitely hardcore. But there were also lots of titles that were less demanding and could be played at a more relaxing pace.
Also, consider that one of the main reason the gaming industry flourished is by making games more accessible and appealing to a wider audience. We wouldn’t have half of the awesome stuff we do today if they kept gaming ‘hardcore’.
The main problem for me is putting them in jumping puzzles, mini games and behind time gated / meta events that lock you out. That being said, I have two character with 100% map completes , all strong boxes and mastery poi. But now I am stuck playing aspects of the game I have never cared for like JPs and those mini games. There has to be a better way to let players earn mastery points playing the game as one wants to. So I agree, it’s a fail for me.
So I need 12 more points to complete the central tyria masteries and decided to take a break from my usual routine and have a go at them. Worst decision ever.
I swear to God, for the first time in almost three years playing I legit raged trying to complete Zephyr’s Ascent, to get one manky little mastery point under the Point of No Return achievements. Like, literal veins-bulging, cursing-and-sputtering, keyboard-smashing anger.
Skipped that and checked out the rest of my options. Pretty much all of ‘em suck. All of the points are distributed between the kittenty achievements and collections that I kittening ignored for a reason – I don’t kittenin enjoy that stuff.
Now, I don’t like those either, but I can at least understand the logic behind the placement of HoT masteries. But for core tyria, just to access some basic-kitten features touted as selling points for the expansion, I need to endure the tedium I ignored the first time around? Not fun, not fun at all.
/rant
My experiences have been a bit different.
Dungeons well…..most people are just happy to have anyone show up at all. I’m personally in the ‘80s only’ camp, but will make exceptions from time to time. It’s generally better to run dungeons with at least exotics and all traits. Everyone knows this.
Fractal groups on the other hand, form so quickly that even getting booted a couple times won’t be much of a setback.
Raids aren’t really for everyone, but they are working as intended.
The thing is, the content you’ve mentioned has basically always been this way – varying degrees of elitism and belligerence. Dungeons, fractals and Ranked PvP have never had particularly friendly communities. Maybe it’s lost in translation but you’re writing as if you used to enjoy this content but no longer do. What do you think changed?
ANET either poop or get off the pot. Raids are supposed to be playable by everybody not just SOME of the people playing this game.
That’s incorrect. Raids should be playable be everyone, but they didn’t intend for everyone to be able to raid successfully. (I recall a dev saying this a while back, but I cannot find the source)
You people need to make up your mind. Before HoT, many used to say “omg Anet give us something harder, core is too casual!” , then when HoT came, many are like “omg Anet nerf HoT its too hard”
Not only that, but every single patch after release gave us harder and more challenging/interesting mobs to fight. Then HOT followed the same pattern and we got all the “please nerf” now. Where were all these people all these years anyway?
My best bet is that the lack of new content between the end of LS2 and HOT release made some players “think” that the game is all about mindless trains and chest farming and by doing only that daily, they forgot how to play.
There’s always groups of players lobbying for/against every single piece of content in this game. Literally, everything that Anet does has supporters and detractors.
What I believe most players truly want is to be (a) rewarded and (b) engaged. The cries that the game was too easy mostly had a subtext of ‘give us harder content, that we may earn more/better rewards.’ Of course, some are here for an actual © challenge.
The problem many have with HoT, to my mind, is that it’s not simply a bit more challenging. It took a lot of people right out of their comfort zone. Also, what is engaging for a casual player will push a hardcore away, and vice versa.
How many Charrs does it take to fix a forum?
Fifteen!
It’s nothing more than another gold sink and time gate, really. Adds little to the experience for players but the devs like to toss these in because of the economy and reasons.
Raids are probably bad for GW2. Everything about them reminds me of Arah, that one dungeon relatively few players could beat successfully and even fewer actually enjoyed. Consistent gear and achievement checks (remember when groups only took people who had the ‘Dungeon Master’ title and Arah gear), and or course all the belligerence, frustration and impatience that comes bundled with challenging encounters.
I don’t think this content was worth creating an entirely new game mode for, especially since the implementation was a bit half-kittened. Would much rather have had this as the very top tier of fractals.
Fractal leaderboards were kind of pointless to begin with.
The actual content that will be added mostly sounds fun. I’m a dungeon runner at heart, so anything more complex than ‘stack on this guy and attack until he’s dead’ feels like padding to me, but I’ve got an open mind towards the new mechanics they’re hinting at.
My bottom line will be the reward: effort ratio. If it’s any harder, or takes longer to complete my dailies without a proportionate loot or reward increase, it’s just going to feel like they’ve gypped me.
Yeah, it’s a real pain.
Also, avoid using the Royal ‘we’ on this forum. Some people like it to be clear when it’s just like, your opinion, man.
Even if the majority here don’t exactly like the Mastery points, let’s be honest; it’s not like ANet will take notice, realize their error and do something about it.
I feel like we should have kicked up a bigger fuss about them, like the hero point requirement for elite specs, and gotten them nerfed to be more accessible.
Honestly, there aren’t many groups with requirements for fractals at all. I haven’t seen a single one since the update and I do all three tiers of fractals basically everyday. Most just list the fractal levels they intend to run. AP and build requirements were far more common for dungeons.
Are there even any truly good MMOs anymore? I feel like cash shops have basically ruined the genre.
GW2 was (perhaps still is) the best all-round MMO on the market. There’s other games that definitely beat it as far as specific types of content go, but as a whole this is still a winner.
It’s no different than companies requesting potential employees to have a certain number of years experience. Does it mean that the potential employees will have the skill level to perform the job adequately? No. We’ve seen plenty of people who are terrible at their jobs but still employees. Should companies stop using experience as a filter criteria?
All AP does is allow some players a way to filter players. It measures general experience level with the game but of course it doesn’t measure skill level. Does it affect you? No. Can you create your LFG without any restrictions? Yes.
Great post. This is probably the best explanation for AP requirements that I’ve ever read.
so it was a joke back then and now it requires a tiny bit of effort
Far from. Dungeon running required considerably more effort in the early days
- Base professions aren’t as strong as the Elite specs, and we had exotic weapons and armour only.
- There was no in-game LFg tool, you had to use 3rd party websites to join parties and find the maps where contested dungeons were open, then guest to that server.
- Players were generally much less experienced and still in the process of learning about combo fields, basic skill rotations, team comp and strategy making each path take a bit longer.
Overall, it didn’t feel like a joke… just a different approach to game design. Good gear and stats were easily accessible so we could focus on playing and enjoying the content (which was frequently updated) and making our characters look cool. Maybe I’m looking back at everything through rose-tinted glasses, but it was a hell of a lot better than the current situation.
All that aside, there’s nothing ‘tiny’ about the effort required to obtain ascended gear. Straight up crafting is expensive and tedious. Some of us got lucky with the last update to fractal rewards (I got enough chests for one full armour set, and I’m 1/3 of the way through two others) but RNG hasn’t been that kind to everyone.
Agreed, it would be nice to see more realistic or at least practical looking weapons.
From the top of my head, you might like the Gallant, Merciless, Ascalonian and Order of Whispers weapons. The Inquest and Mystic set are reasonably sized as well.
Take some more time to browse the wardrobe, there’s usually stuff you overlook or don’t like at first glance that is actually pretty neat.
Fashion Wars 2, man. This meta was pretty great until they started creating outfits instead of armour sets, and putting most weapon skins in BL chests.
Now I spend most of my time playing Forum Wars 2. Sucks.
are u nuts?
gear is extremely easy to get considering the fact that u dont ever have to switch the asc gear
It used to be easier. Back when Exotic Berserker gear (with Ruby orbs!) was BiS, running all paths for CoE every day for two weeks gave enough tokens for a full set of exotic armour, and another four days for a set weapons. Gearing up was effectively free. And we still got gold to boot!
Compare that to well over 500g in mats required to craft the equivalent in Ascended gear.
(edited by Jahroots.6791)
yeah fractals that gives end-game stuff and a lot of golds have to be easy. you’re right. /sarcasm
It’s like 10g a day average plus maybe another 2 or 3 in drops, not that much to be honest. The only consistent endgame rewards from fractals are Ascended rings, and everyone who ever did fractals has a surplus of them anyway. The armour and weapon chests have a relatively low drop rate (around 12%).
Either way, there was a time when getting max level. BiS gear wasn’t prohibitively expensive or tedious. Those were good days.
There’s a pretty big demand for accessible and rewarding 5-man instances, and a lot of people miss the daily dungeon tours. Thus, fractals have to be quick and easy because they are replacing dungeons.
Raids are the go-to for time consuming and challenging instances.
It ain’t third party programming if Anet releases it.
There’s already ‘unfair’ advantages in the gem store. TP and bank summons. extra bag slots and the collection expander.
At this point, most players would happily spend money on a permanent solution to these issues. Even though Anet designed them specifically to keep us busy with drudgery.
Nope. I’d rather they let us make continue to make our own lazy decisions. And I especially don’t want to see 59 or 69 Cliffside again, as long as I live. We get plenty of variety on the lower levels. 51+ is just a quick gamble for Ascended chests.
With the current set up, I wouldn’t bother playing. There’s too many long term goals, losing all of the progress would be pointless frustration.
However, if the game was properly scaled to that level of difficulty (much easier access to gear and skins, appropriate loot for the risk involved and so on) I’d probably try it out. Could be fun. I’d just play tankier builds and range everything. Rangers would be king in permadeath GW2, lol.
That doesn’t invalidate the post though. We’ve had loads of gem store content added, but no new armour sets at all in the last 4 months. Considering how few the expansion launched with, it’s not unreasonable to expect another set by now.
Still holding out for dreadlocks for human females. Please and thank you.
I usually notice the ones who really stand out in LA or in Fractal/PvP groups, and sometimes compliment ‘em on it (sometimes people have done the same to me, which is always cool). I’m constantly tinkering with my characters’ looks and sometimes get inspired by other player ideas.
I’m most impressed by characters that seem to have a cohesive theme, where the character’s overall look – physical attributes, armour, weapons and accessories blend well together.
I’m surprised that so many people want playable Tengu, they’re kittening hideous with those creepy rat ears. Y’all seriously want to play rat-eared bird people? Although in fairness, they’re still better looking than most Charr (I am not a fan of the bestial races)
Problem with playable Tengu is making them backwards compatible with all the armour skins and outfits that have been added. Would prefer it if those resources were used to add new armour skins instead.
1. Which map is your favorite to EXPLORE?
TD. It’s a pain in the kitten but truly beautiful.
2. Which map has your favorite MAP META mechanic
DS
3. Which map has your favorite REWARDS (unique zone rewards)
TD. I like the Chak weapons
4. Which map has the best STORY (both personal story and event story)
Meh, none of it really stood out. DS by default.
5. Which map has the best VISUALS (map design, best view)
TD
6. Which map has your favorite MAP CURRENCY acquisition method
VB
7. Which map has the best ENEMY DESIGN (mechanics AND visuals)
I hate them all equally.
8. Overall which zone is your FAVORITE
TD
For me, the difference between casual and hardcore is in attitude.
Casual play is just for fun, kittens and giggles and so on. Not worrying too much about anything or putting a lot of effort in due to not having enough play time, interest or ability (or some combination of these).
Hardcore is the opposite. Min-maxing, achievement huntin’, gotta be the very best and have and do ALL the things kind of gamer.
Of course, the vast majority of us fall somewhere in the middle of these extremes.
1) Has the move away from dungeons in to Fractals been made potentially from a corporate perspective within Anet that to design, create, release batches of new fractals been a time/money factor. Quicker to make and release over Dungeons, thus the push on these?
Absolutely. And I quote.
‘There are no developers allocated to dungeons, nor will there be as far as I’m aware. Their corporate stance is that dungeons are unsustainable and that they will support Fractals as their end-game 5-man instanced content. It is, for better or worse, simply how it is.’
The original dungeon team left the company a long time ago, and none of the people who worked on that content since did much to improve on or fix them
2) As a general player, is this really a bad thing? If you are a diehard Dungeon specialist, then sure, but in the same way for a diehard PVP’r you probably don’t care about Fractals. But from the “General Population” is it a bad thing
Dungeons were the go-to content for people who wanted to run small group PvE content, and for all their ‘flaws’ dungeons offered a lot of content and unique rewards to players. From a general perspective, Anet’s decision to reduce dungeon rewards in order to discourage people from playing them simply means that everyone has fewer things to do in game. This is definitely a bad thing.
It’s not ideal, but realistically…it usually works. Low AP has a strong correlation with low skill, manky builds and a lack of experience. And while high AP is not a good indicator of skill and experience, this requirement does increase your chances of running with decent players
It’s funny that someone would bother with this for a 32, but I’m guessing they had a few terrible experiences they’d rather not repeat. I’ve run a level 2 where the wisp run inexplicably failed twice in a row (a warrior kept dying) so I’d not rule anything out.
Rarity is overrated, imo. I want everyone to be able to look cool for a reasonable cost. It bums me out a little that there’s people who’ve been playing for years and can’t afford much beyond the basic skins that were available at launch.
I suppose it’s good for business, but we’ve got a ton of low-quality skins that nobody wants, and a bunch of amazing stuff that most can’t afford. The middle ground between ’em is just far too limited.
Good point, Khisanth. I genuinely forget that people generally want legendaries. I’ve tossed entire stacks of shards out and vendored all of my clovers.
Yep… I was doing the uncategorized fractal with a pug a few days ago. During the harpy platform jumping parts one particularly heavy-set charr with huge chicken wings completely obscured not only entire platforms but also my entire character. I could literally not see myself nor the ground I was standing on whenever that monstrosity was anywhere near me. Mind, I wasn’t playing a tiny character by any means. Max sized human, in fact. I had to just stand there and wait for it to jump on, or do a hail Mary and jump blindly to the next platform.
It’s getting absolutely ridiculous.
It took Guild Wars 1 many more years before the horribly character appearance options completely destroyed its world’s aesthetic coherence. But then again, they didn’t have a cash shop fueling the fire.
I’ve had the same experience, and it was pretty frustrating. Wouldn’t mind the wings as much if they scaled better (the hawk and golden wings nail this) and folded neatly behind the character’s back when not in ‘flight’.