Guild Wars 2

You sound like my lawyer, and I like him.

But I am not testing stuff, I read the results, check ’em, and then I normally send the stuff back and say:

That’s not what has been advertised, if you sell this stuff like it is, you get in trouble.

I remember that anyone could ask for a refund last November. ANet did this for a reason, they probably feared to get sued for false advertisement. Now you could say it was just a generous move towards their customers, but hey, generousity and economy are just not two things that get along together well.

Ah, btw, I also speek three languages fluently (one being an Asian one) and I read lawyer stuff every bloody week. I know the meaning of words and the flexibilty they offer.
This doesn’t make the game less grindy though…

No, I work through a list that is given to me as a QA in the first step.

I check the list, then I check the product. I see the facts. I evaluate them.

Best gear easy to get for a casual (5h playtime a week). No.
Do content relevant bosses respawn in short time frames. Yes.
“Grinding is no fun, so we do not want people to grind.” statement. False

I don’t care about testing, or editing, I check he hard facts. And in this matter, ANet has failed his own Manifesto.

I see it as what it is. Maybe because I am old and I have seen so much before.
Maybe because I work in QA, so I have learnt to see what things are promoted as and what they really are.

Maybe it is my super power. I just don’t try too hard to make something a thing that it isn’t.

This game is a grind for the best gear. This games bosses in the living story (replacement for personal story that failed) respawn every few minutes. Nothing you will ever say will change it.

I just see the game for what it is, and it is no longer true to the Manifesto.

I love the game, I am a hardcore player (as my /age shows 4 digits in hours and my APs are 90% crew high).
I can easily get all the stuff. Why would I care?

I just think it is ridiculous to defend something, that has changed so much, that it is no longer true, simple story.

The Manifesto is dead, long live what we have now.

Not a single person trying to defend the game at it’s current state on my four points. Good. Looks like we at least agree on those topics.

The Manifesto is gone. It was like a temple but then they decided to destroy the main pillar. The whole thing collapsed and what we see now is a ruin, which some people try to defend with the argument:

“It is technically still a temple even though it lies in ruins…”

Ahlen.7591:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

azizul.8469:

Dr Ritter.1327:

I know the damage is already done with the ascended crafting materials and raising the crafting level cap, but I feel like ascended armor should be a reward from a questline.
Expand further on the background story of ascension and how it relates to fractals. This is the perfect opportunity to give what most GW1 players want to see, a return of familiar lore and possibly enemies.

+1.

no ascended armour pls ANET.

you don’t make grindy games. you leave that to others.

Seriously, what game are you playing? GW2 is worse a grind than WoW was in his first year.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH…oh god, I can’t catch my breath.

Wait, you were serious, let me laugh even harder.

I am dead serious. There was no equal amount of grind in the first year of WoW compared to what we have over here.
The bad grind started later with tiering up for raids after Molten Core. And when dailies started to be a thing. Dailies yeah, ANet started with that sooner… ^^

I played sooo many AAA MMOs, and the grind in GW2 is for sure upper class.

OK, this thread is still alive. Than I can clarify some things. Obvious things, where denial is hard to keep up.

1. The personal story failed.

We have not seen any new personal story in over a year. In fact, Dev’s have said that is very likely we never see any personal story ever again, as it was replaced with the so called Living Story.
The fairlure of the personal story is, that it offers very few quests per player compared to the effort needed to produce quests for everyone. It further excludes players from parts of the story. It diminished the time and money put in development so hard, that it is simply not economic. So what to do:

One story line for everyone, called the Living Story. No choices, no alternative routes, every one gets the same dish, everyone swallows the same stuff. Choice in a game is an illusion anyway, as you cannot influence what is going to happen next, the programmers do.

The personal story is dead, because it was bad game design. If it was good, it would be still alive and we would have seen more (the pact rotting in fort trinity and stuff).

2. Casual players do not play as much as you think.

A casual player, which is the majority of the players in game are not playing more than 5h a week. In fact, in a game as old news as GW2 is, they spend even less. That is why ANet focuses on bi-weekly releases, so that people feel the pressure to log in to see the content.
In short term, this is a valid and working strategy, BUT, this strategy has great risks:
- Burn-out: Players feel they are forced to do the content and stop enjoying it.
- Giving up: Players feel like they can no longer keep up with the content and simply stop logging in as it feels futile to play (like you stop watching a drama, if you missed too many episodes)
- Repetition: There is only so many things you can do in short time frames, which results in very little Living Story and tons of “go here and there” stuff and zerg events, zerg events everywhere.

3. Not everyone can get BiS items.

Even though this was a major sales point of the game, this is no longer true. Saying that casual players will get them over time is just a cynic comment in regards of what they were promised.
It takes hours and hours of grind, and if you play 3 hours daily you are grinding the game maybe without realizing it, but if you try to get the stuff together to level and craft one ascended weapon, you will have to spend monthes in doing so playing casually. And you normaly use more than one weapon per character. It becomes a futile grind.

4. Bosses respawn every few minutes.

Just visit the labyrinth, that is your Living Story (replacement for the personal story). Mr. Legendary Skeletal Lich and Mr. Grand High Viscount want to have a word with you (or like a whole discussion, as they are horrible, boring HP sponges).

I have a hard time to even love my own PU build. In the end, everything works in PvE – sort of, but satisfaction looks different…

Mesmer

Add 25% runbuff to Signet of Inspiration.

Xae Isareth.1364:

There isn’t a hard zone for level 80, but you can’t step foot in Orr as a level 20. So there’s that feeling of one day, you’ll be able to go there.

That’s why all games need levels to have progression and there is no other way to make content something that is not yet available…

Xae Isareth.1364:

Pariah.8506:

Xae Isareth.1364:

There’s a certain sense of progression and achievement when there’s places you can;t reach yet. There’s advantages to opening up every single piece of content to everyone at once, but it dulls a sense of getting stronger.

Perhaps accessibility should then be decided by player skill instead of number magnitude, hmm?

For a start, how would you decide player skill? What’s too easy for some is too hard for others.

Secondly, you can’t level player skill, which means that if some people are bad at the game, you’ll have entire zones which they can’t access.

So what, there is no hard zone for a level 80 in this game. All zones feel the same besides the very early ones (they might be less challenging). So what on earth would be the difference? Progression can be through skills, quests and exploration, no matter what level a char is.

Sounds like an elder scrolls game. If they only ever made a MMO…

If you had all the story at hand, but only need one arc to progress in the story (but you could do more), and later on got the choice to go through the other arcs, you would have choices over choices.

And if you need levels so you feel progression, you can just stay in one area and never leave it and level to 80 there. Levels mean nothing. If I go back to Queensdale with my level 80, what level am I, 15? If I go to the labyrith with a level 2 char, what level am I, 80?

If it is the first time you play it, it is new no matter if it is the same for everybody. It is still my personal story, even though it is the same as everyone elses.

This is my story. Honestly, why implement all the story and then tell people you do not need to see it all, what is your point?

What a waste of time. Let me play all the story once, and if I play an alt, I can choose to do parts of it or not. I had the same choice on the first char, but if the story is not needed as you said, why splitting it up anyway?

Why having the story in the game, if it becomes something obsolete? Why excluding parts of the story from people just for the sake of a “personal story” that is not more or less personal if I have a choice or not.

You have more options in doing the quests if they are available. You have no option if they are not available.
Not everyone is willing to play 15 characters just to see all of the story.

So why is this open world hidden behind 80 levels? Why not make the whole world an even playfield like it is for level 80s?

Why stop at WvW. Make everyone scale up or down to the area, everyone wins.

It worked for karka island, it works in the labyrinth, why not everywhere?

Well he always has an excuse for bad game design that is for sure.

You got to play five different races to get the story? What is it good for than to have all those differnent personal stories, if it makes no sense to make 3 human characters? And then 3 Sylvari and so on…

Sooo many flaws.

I wouldn’t call it a step forward if players are excluded from large parts of the story.

As an example, if you don’t play a sylvari character, you will meet Trahearne very late in game. You won’t know him until it is too late (when your personal story becomes his). But all things related to Orr or the undead are part of the Sylvari story line.

So I have choices, but if I make the wrong one, like not playing a Sylvari, I miss out the story itself. How is this good game design and a step forward?

You miss the lore because of the bad design known as personal story.

And btw, what are hundrets of quests worth, that most players will never see. I honestly would prefer a less personal story, that gives me still all those personal instances.
Why would I not recruit all of the races? Why would I not help Trahearne early on?

Why would someone spend so much development time on things that are unused by most players?

They split between races depending on where you are in the story line. You get personal quests for the class you play. So a hobbit warden will have different quests than a hobbit burglar. And a elven guardian will have other stories than a human guardian.

Where is your choice in GW2 though, after recruiting the Quaggans or whatever race?
If you are lucky you get two options to do the same instance in different ways.

Vayne.8563:

You speak as if this is a rule, not the exception. SWToR wasn’t out when this was made. MMOs didn’t have personal stories where that happened. That’s why they mentioned it.

World bosses and dungeons/raids are all that were in most MMOs. The personal story is most certainly different and something they wanted to tout. Why wouldn’t they?

The personal story is just a copy of LotRO’s Book quests and class quests.
But while the book quests in LotRO at least span a wide arc and carry you around the world with story instances in between and many of them, the personal story makes you go to point A, do a quest and than go to a completely other point to do quest B.

And after level 40, the only sort of unique thing (personally different stories) dies and you do the same solo instances like everyone else. Trahearne’s personal story so to say.

lordkrall.7241:

He will however get it sooner or later, even if he only plays that little.
And then again, if he plays that little why would he even care about it?

And with that logic, an asian grinder is not a grinder, because, even if you play just a little, you will reach the level cap sooner or later…

Because the game was advertised like that, because he chose this game on that base.

Because you spend 30 weeks of work time in it.

Your average John Doe plays 5 hours a week, after a year he has what, 120h in the game, show me how he can get BiS items withouth grinding like no tomorrow.

lordkrall.7241:

Casual doesn’t really have much to do with the time spent in a game.
Someone could have been standing around chatting in LA for 2000 hours, that wouldn’t make them hardcore players, even if they have a large mount of hours logged.

So what, this casual would not have the BiS gear unless he grinds his back of too. What is your point?

Red Falcon.8257:

I’m pretty casual actually.
Played since BWE1 and I have 1226 hours of /age, which means average 3 hours a day (which really is 10 hours in weekends and 1-2 a day in the week).
The only items I needed to go out of my way to get were rings since you just had to complete several fractals to get exactly the rings you wanted.

The only BiS gear I can complain for is weapons since it requires crafting and a ton of cash.
But they said more ways to get those will be created, so everyone should be ok.

You sepend 1226 hours on a video game and think you are casual? That’s over 153 workdays in about a year. With 40 hours a week for a job, that would be over 30 weeks of work in just about over a year.

If you think you are casual and that GW2 is not your second job, that is your personal thingy.

But if you think that casual players invest this much time in a game, you are wrong.

Colin, taken from the Manifesto:

“Most games, you go out and you have really fun tasks occasionaly that you get to do. And the rest of the game is boring grind to get to the fun stuff. I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey, I swung it again – that’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2 – noone enjoys it, noone finds it fun, we want to change the way people do combat.”

For a game where the director says they don’t want people to grind, there is a bloody high amount of grind in it…

Colin Johanson (Game Director/Big Boss):

“Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game."

What do I not see? What is there that is beyond my reading capabilities?

“We want everyone on an equal power base.”

Which is no longer true.

Nothing leaves ANets office without Colin giving it a go. Especially not a thing like the manifesto.

Red Falcon.8257:

I have all BiS gear and never grinded, so either I’m a wizard haxor or the manifesto is true.
I believe the main issue is that people de-contextualizes or gives different meanings to the manifesto, either genuinely (i.e. they actually misread) or they purposely twist its words to blame Anet for one’s shortcomings.

You are simply not what in general is seen as a casual. A casual is one that plays mayby 5 hours a week.

It is those 50% of the playerbase that has 770 achievement points or less. And that is not entirely true, as you would call those 50% with more than 770 AP hardcore already..

90% of the poplulation has 3500 AP or less, how many of these people will have all BiS items?

lordkrall.7241:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

If a lead developer explains the game, that was promoted by the manifesto, one would expect him to know what the kitten is going on.

Indeed, but Colin has never been a lead developer of this game. He is a game director.

Than it is even worse, as a director you are suppost to know simply everything. He gives directions and makes people do what he wants them to do.

He is the boss of the lead developers, he of all should know what’s going on.

That is nothing personal against Colin, because I am 100% sure he knows what’s going on, and he is giving the direction he thinks are right.
But in matters of the Manifesto, the past things said are no longer valid.

If a lead developer explains the game, that was promoted by the manifesto, one would expect him to know what the kitten is going on.

You act like the Manifesto was written by some stranger outside of ANet just for the sake of writing it.

We do not want grind that’s just not fun. It has been said. We have grind, and it is a necessity if you want to compete with BiS items.

And I would not say that Colin is just a small number in matters of GW2 who is just throwing around ideas out of the blue in an interview…

What about the bosses in the labyrinth?

What the kitten, he is explaining what the Manifesto means, on what idea it was founded. The ideas on what the whole game was based on. The bloody concept.

But well, nothing is harder to see than the things you don’t want to see…

Source:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview

Colin Johanson:

“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.”

That’s on what the Manifesto is based, read the rest. I really don’t care how you interpretate the Manifesto, I just take what the DEVs said about their goals, that’s good enough for me. And that Manifesto is dead.

Hey, thank you for inviting me to your party, I will bring your gift next year.

What the kitten is ANet thinking, and why on earth would anyone defend this?

The bagspace alone is prohibitive.

Stop beating the dead horse. The Manifesto is gone.

You spam autoattack. You press one, one and one again.
You grind your back of for BiS items.
Casuals won’t get stuff (ascended weapons anyone) and crafting is time gated.
You grind for everything btw.
Did I mention grind?

They even stated officially, that the Manifesto is no longer valid. So why won’t you adapt the one or the other way. The game has to, down South…

No, I give up.
If you cannot see the difference between ascended and exotic gear, their possible ways and difficulties in getting them or that better gear is just better, well how would I convince you?

But maybe you can tell me, what was the introduction of ascended gear good for, besides being a carrot on a stick?

Mackdose.6504:

It was already like that before ascended gear, there’s level 80 permutations of all rarities. What difference does one more tier that’s been there for the majority of the game make?

As for PvE, you’re arguing a hypothetical scenario that while plausible doesn’t seem to be common. Even less so when you have a guild or a group of friends that you play with.

Before ascended gear, a level 80 char could easily get exotic gear, the barrier was low.
Ascended gear has a very high barrier, especially weapons, which have not been introduced a year ago.
In fact, only the rings have been introduced about a year ago (well and the back). The other stuff is way younger. Keeping an artificial item creep alive.

I’ve been playing MMOs for close to 15 years, I am not blinded by carrots or excuses, “run stuff with guilds and friends” and that stuff, I just see it as what it is.

And in matter of PvE, I can’t be the only one who is forseeing following:

LFM xyz only full ascended armor and weapon / link gear

I did. If skill is more important than gear, why would you introduce a gear difference. Ascended gear is futile, unless you want to give the less skilled players a chance to beat the skilled ones, which would be stupid.
On the other hand, ascended gear on a skilled player will create a gap between equally skilled players and result in not the skilled one winning (in theory a draw) but the one with the better gear.

How can you not see all that?

What is wrong with a balanced game even in WvW or PvE, just statwise?

So why enjoy the game now, when you can have a carrot on a stick.

Besides the fact that runes of perplexity are sort of a mess, what I said is still true.

If A is the same for both (skill), then the one with more of B (stats) is better than the other.

Source:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview

Colin Johanson:

“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.”

Edit: Oh, someone deleted his post… ^^

Suddenflame.2601:

I have 3 ascended weapons and have enough materials to make another 9 from just playing. .

A bit more he said.

5 hours a week is casual. Even less. You sir, are a hardcore gamer.

The calculation is correct.

Suddenflame.2601:

1600hrs. based on that number I am a causal player. Congratz you proved nothing. I got 9300AP which based on leaderboards is not that high either.

You are a funny one.

Over roughly a period of 400 days since release you spend 200 working days (8h a day) on GW2. working five days a week means you spent 40 weeks of work on this game…
I really hope you are sarcastic with this casual thing, if not, well, sorry.

Suddenflame.2601:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Running your daily circle for ori and wood. What is the purpose of running to those nodes. Because you are on the way to somewhere?

So you are telling me I am doing it wrong if I do not spend half an hour a day running around gathering stuff instead of playing the game?
Are you serious, you can not see the grind that is right in front of your eyes?

Yes your doing it wrong still. I havn’t ran around gathering those in months cause i changed my method and having fun while getting materials. Play the game not try to grind for those and you will see different results. Hell i don’t run to all the World bosses just to get my daily rare for some ecto. I get my rares from drops from playing and I get a lot of rares cause I play for fun. I have 3 ascended weapons and have enough materials to make another 9 from just playing. Did i grind? Nope didnt even make an effort but here i am with enough materials.

Log in your game.
Type /age
See result.

You are not the average player. You play so much that you get alot of stuff.

It is like telling people playing an asian grinder, the game is not grindy, just kill stuff at your own pace and you will sooner or later level up…

But it is like in Soviet Russia, we were all promised a car with the same motor.
Just the design would be different.

Now, the elites get bigger cars. That is like Russia after Soviet times. Welcome to capitalism.