Guild Wars 2

Carighan.6758:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Replacing fun by knowledge is really the way to go to motivate all those new players you got with the NPE.

Because old dailies were so much fun, yep. That’s totally not the main issue with them, that they were this ginormous chore which took up quite a lot of time, especially if you were after AP.

Running around, doing stuff, gaining the dailies on the run while having fun is fun.

They have changed dailies so many times, I am fairly sure that this worst of all incarnations will soon be replaced with something better.

Oh wait, it’s ANet. Nope it is here to stay, because Metrix said so.

Replacing fun by knowledge is really the way to go to motivate all those new players you got with the NPE.

This is all so contradicting. It is like the left hand at ANet does not know what the right hand is doing.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Minimalistic? Are we playing the same game? Typically, every two weeks, there’s new content. New items added to the gem store. New zones. New cinematics. New quests. New story lines. New events. New achievements.

Every. Two. Weeks.

What other MMO does that?

Living Story episodes in 2014: 11. Now count the weeks. Now do the math.

If every MMO would list QoL changes (feature patches) or Store items as content like GW2 does, those game would just explode of content.

I have not touched WoW in seven years. Or LotRO in four. I have outgrown those games long ago.

Doesn’t change the fact, that they offer more content, story, and classes (or at least new stuff for classes) frequently.

If you come from any other MMO, the amount of stuff added to GW2 is minimalistic at best. It is very disappointing.

I will say a positive word about GW2, when the game is moving in a direction that is not looking like South anymore.

So my motivation is hope (even though I know that hope is just missing information) that this game one day will be more like a shadow of what it could have been.

If all hope is lost, I will be gone. Feel free looking forward to this day if you want.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I must admit I’m surprised by so many people kitten over Guild Wars 2 winning an award. If World of Warcraft is so great, please feel free to play and post on their boards. Coming here, when it’s obvious you no longer play, to kick and scream about some random award is just silly.

I crafted an ascended chest yesterday, does this count as “still playing the game”. If so, I feel free to comment on this board as an active player.

Doesn’t change the fact, that if this game had offered any less than we got in 2014, we would have gotten nothing. Best established MMO of 2014 my kitten…

Overstatements aren’t truth. They could have offered less and we’d still have gotten something.

You don’t like what we got, fair enough. But that doesn’t change the fact that we got stuff.

You don’t like the game, so what are you actually playing? Because for a person who doesn’t like the game you sure post here a lot.

But Vayne, you of all should know.

I post here because I can. And so do you. I have the same right as you do, so does anyone, as long as they stay in the borders set by the forum rules. Noone can tell me to leave.

I do not hate the game. But while you are defending what you got, and at the same time accepting mediocrity, I try to push this game to the image many players have had in the past.
Do I succeed? No, looking at the NPE and trait stuff, I do not.

Still pointing out what is wrong, be it my opinion or not, is what I am allowed to do.

For the better of us all, I will stay. Nothing worse than a forum with only like-minded left.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I must admit I’m surprised by so many people kitten over Guild Wars 2 winning an award. If World of Warcraft is so great, please feel free to play and post on their boards. Coming here, when it’s obvious you no longer play, to kick and scream about some random award is just silly.

I crafted an ascended chest yesterday, does this count as “still playing the game”. If so, I feel free to comment on this board as an active player.

Doesn’t change the fact, that if this game had offered any less than we got in 2014, we would have gotten nothing. Best established MMO of 2014 my kitten…

You can’t write in any Asian language either on the western servers.

It was great fun to abuse the asian fonds while we still could though. Writing in giant letters was awesome.

The Good:

Daily rewards. No more need to play, can level alts without playing them, get stuff for free. The game literaly plays itself.

The Bad:

Both feature patches. Who ever thought most of that stuff was a good idea? DEV’s must live in an ivory tower.

The Ugly:

More communication they said? It is worse than ever. That’s why we got all those features in the first place. Welcome to the Metrix!

Best change ever.

Better loot for just logging in than for playing the game – check.
Leveling my characters without playing the game – check.
No more need to play the game, as you get all the stuff for free – check.

A genius move from ANet, the game now plays itself!

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

My wife has been skipping dailies for since she started playing GW2, she was even skipping playing GW2 for over a year (well she never really played GW2 with a passion anyway).

Still alive.

So little point in this thread – but hey, at least someone from ANet spoke to us. Thank god for all this communication!

Certainly little point to your post, since she wasn’t really into the game. I’m pretty sure my wife would not willing miss a daily even now.

The point is, there is a degeneration in matters of gameplay. Before: play the game and you probably get rewarded with achieving the daily. Now: log in, get reward, log out.

I have not done a single daily since the change. If ANet’s goal is to make people play less, they are really successful with it. If I get more enjoyment and reward out of just logging in in LA than from playing the game, something is wrong.

My wife has been skipping dailies for since she started playing GW2, she was even skipping playing GW2 for over a year (well she never really played GW2 with a passion anyway).

Still alive.

So little point in this thread – but hey, at least someone from ANet spoke to us. Thank god for all this communication!

Vayne.8563:

I have people in my guild who played the WoW expansion, found they had nothing to do because of how dumbed down WoW has become and they’re back here. Imagine that.

Fighting fire with fire. Hard to imaging that anyone would come back to GW2 for its complexity…

GW2 is not a bad game. But this award is just too much credit for the very little we got.

I did create new characters lately.

In another MMO though.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

This bears repeating: The winner of our game of the year award two years in a row, Guild Wars 2 remains one of the best MMOs on the market in 2014. Living World Season 2 is a shining example of how to inject meaningful, story-driven gameplay updates into an established MMO, and is just one of the many reasons why the Ten Ton Hammer editors selected Guild Wars 2 as our Best Established MMO of 2014.

As one can read, they’re basing the decision on the story-driven gameplay and updates among many reasons not disclosed. And apparently, Guild Wars 2 is a twice-in-a-row winner.

Regaining 4 million players means you also lost 4 million players. So, logically, calling this established, given the criteria of releases and updates, isn’t sound.

They lost 4 million players and were still the strongest MMO in the West. It is a sub based game, convincing 4 mio people to pay a fee every month next to also buying a full price expansion tells a lot. They actually give numbers of active accounts, because they have enough players and faith in their product.

How many active players has GW2? Nope, no official statement. Accounts created doesn’t tell us kitten in a B2P game.

And seriously, ANet got the title for the story?
Look at Season 2, do you (or tentonhammer) even realize how little story there is? If story was a factor, than this is even worse a joke of a descision. Other MMOs offered way more story-driven gameplay updates, called content patches or expansions.

Look a LotRO, three major content patches (not even counting the expansion which hit end of 2013), tons of story driven gameplay + many regions + new class. How does GW2 come even close to that?

The LS is slow, meager and more offline than online. This should have been a negative criteria for GW2…

Tentonhammer does still exist?

Well, what is their method of measuring this “best”?

Established MMO #1: Regained 4.000.000 subscribers with a single expansion this year. Looks like success to me.

Established MMO #2: Expanded to China with very limited success (being kind here) while just trying to keep the status quo in the West. Sounds not as successful as MMO #1 to me.

Logic? Tentonhammer is not good at it.

Just accept it.

ANet wants people to play fractals. Achievement hunters deserve to suffer.

Ask my American wife, it is pronounced like “hihi” (laughing) just with a “T” in the beginning.

While I am aware that katakana English can be sort of misleading, this case looks more like a wannabe meme made by someone who wanted to show off his “Japanese knowledge”.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Hmm, why is it [katakana for TeHe] in Japanese?
Shouldn’t it be more like [katakana for TiHi]?

Why not? If it’s “long e” with “e” pronounced as in ant, and not “i” pronounced as in tea?

I double checked google before I wrote my comment and it told me, that the pronunciation is like in “tea”, if not shorter, therefore no lengthening. If it was a “long e”, we would still miss the lengthening “-” (like Te-He-)…

Hmm, why is it [katakana for TeHe] in Japanese?
Shouldn’t it be more like [katakana for TiHi]?

This makes no sense.

Edit: Oh good, no Japanese allowed on this board…

Oh, i totally forgot that underwater combat is still in-game.

I think ANet pretty mich gave up on that matter…

Cliffhangers in MMOs can and do work, as long as the episodes told are feeling completed.

GW2 fails at this. Ending an episode in front of a closed door? Wait six weeks to open it? That is not a cliffhanger, that is just a sad decision.

You create an arc. A meta story so to say. You create episodes that follow the arc, but at the end of each episode you give the players a conclusion. While a player won’t get the answer to the arc itself, he/she will still feel they have accomplished something.

You know what ANet story writers? Watch “Breaking Bad”. Do it.

Seriously.

Do it.

nGumball.1283:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

OP a few monthes ago:

“I am not satisfied with GW2, let’s play something else.”

OP plays another game and is not satisfied either.

OP comes back and is happy that the unsatisfactory experience in the other game was more unsatisfactory than the unsatisfactory experience in GW2.

Now starts praising GW2.

Wut?

Whiners who complain on every singel detail, stastisfying themselves with rubbish rather than facts, make even less sense than that. Don’t be surprised.

I dunno, whiners complaining over every single detail give ANet valuable feedback on the game.
A general statement that another game is worse doesn’t help anyone, does it?

Rune of Random Riches

Get random amounts of cash after killing something (mostly 1c, but chance for more) and a chance for a loot drop if using a full set.

Something different at least…

OP a few monthes ago:

“I am not satisfied with GW2, let’s play something else.”

OP plays another game and is not satisfied either.

OP comes back and is happy that the unsatisfactory experience in the other game was more unsatisfactory than the unsatisfactory experience in GW2.

Now starts praising GW2.

Wut?

Linken.6345:

I dont see what raising the lvl cap would do when we down level anyway much rather keep going sideways adding more skills weapons and classes

The illusion of progression. Not that I am a supporter of the leveling mania, but I would already be happy with an illusion of the illusion of progression.

Look I don’t care about the tonics anyway.

The problem I have with it, is that it was fun last year, it was content. It was new and exciting.

This year, it is just old news. ANet could just hand it out for free, the hardcore players would not care. Everyone would be happy. The stuff from last christmas is just that, stuff from last year.

But no, ANet has to put it on a RNG in the mystic toilet. Seriously. What is the point. Why does ANet have the tendency to make a chore out of everything no matter how small. Where is the christmas spirit in this?

It is not hard to get the stuff, it is not challenging, unless you count repeating a mindless task as challenge. It is just lame.

Anyone who thinks that flushing stuff down the mystic toilet is great fun should try a virtual slot machine, because you know, it is pretty much the same.

It just looks like ANet didn’t think this through, if you know what I mean…

So people think, the fun part means, that you can actually play the content.

Like dungeons (after leveling) and open world or PvP/WvW.

I just don’t see what’s the difference to most other MMOs out there. Say Arah is part of the fun stuff, than you have to first level to 80, gear up and practice to succeed. So there is no instant gratification to it.

Of course you can go to WvW, but you will be in a disadvantage as long as you have not leveled your character to 80 and managed to get your traits.
PvP just is just a seperated game mode. They could release a free stand alone version. A bit like MP in LotRO.

Open world is the same like in most other MMOs, you level your character until it is appropriate to a new zone, you go there and do stuff.

So you can play the game, welcome to the fun. This concept has sort of out-lived itself over the past two years. It is no longer (and probably never was) rewarding. Everything rewarding is either grindy – like getting BiS, festival stuff or stuff in the new zones, monetary bound – like skins or QoL tools, or locked behind a RNG.

So being told that you have two options to get some of the fun stuff, #1 being praying to the RNG gods and #2 buying it from the TP seems to be troublesome.

You can always say, you don’t care about character progression (BiS), about skins, about festival items, about any reward. Which is cool. I do so. But I also stopped caring pretty much about GW2 as a result.

I just don’t think this is very helpful for GW2 in general.

That’s not a window, it is a giant emerald!

After reading an other topic on this board, I got troubled with the idea behind the concept of “fun” in ANets books.

To be more precise the topic is found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-Mystic-Forge-Recipe/first

And Gaile’s quote that is sort of troublesome is this:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Gaile just announced this as being a “good thing”.

Yes, I believe it is a good thing. Here’s why:

• The items needed to make the recipe from prior years no longer are fully available. This means that that players could have been locked out of highly-sought-after items (unless someone happened to retain items from previous years).
• With the new recipe, those who choose to do so may try for the popular tonics and other rewards. As you can see in this thread, both tonics are confirmed as available and forge-able.
• As with everything, this is a voluntary activity. Nothing requires a player to do this. No one “needs” one of these tonics to play. But if they want one, they now have a means to get it.

In the end, this recipe is voluntary. The item is desirable but not essential. Players may decide for themselves if going for a particular item is right for them. In the end, I believe that it really is that simple.

The point is, many people are playing this game for fun in the first place. In the end, nothing is more essential and desirable than fun.

In fact, playing the game is not essential, unless you are addicted to it. Which is not fun. Therefore, the question is, why would ANet artificially limit the fun people can have.

More arbitrary RNG stuff won’t help the fun. The concept of rarity is understandable, but the amount of potential frustration with this system is beyond good and evil.

This game was once advertised in a way that you do not have to do tons of boring stuff or grind before you get to the fun stuff. This is the opposite of what has been once the goal of this game. The fun stuff is now hidden behind grind and RNG, which is sort of crazy.

So the question is, how much fun is enough in ANet’s eyes to keep the players going. And what is essential for this game in the first place?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

and there we go, new patch, look at all those PvE players complaining, demanding, totally impossible to satisfy!

Ha, made me smile. If we would get any more stuff than we got with the last patch, we would actually get stuff. Wow.

The game is what it is.

ANet changed some early gameplay because of METRIX™, but over all the game won’t change.
Sorry. If you don’t like it now, there is very little chance, that you will ever like it.

Logging in every day doesn’t sound like freedom to me.

Santa “RNG” Claus will make many people angry this christmas.

He is a very evil entity in GW2.

I would totally buy ascended armor from the gem store!

skullmount.1758:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Oh ANet…

Can someone post the meme with the triple facepalm?

Well heres the one I have.

Perfect! If I had three heads, I’d unfotunately still be a hand short to achieve the amount of palm needed for those faces in matters of ANets way to decide on changes.

THIS IS MADNESS!

Yeah, the METRIX™ told ANet:

“Noone is playing this kitten, make them do it, so your new God is happy.
Make them suffer!”

I for one welcome our new overlord!

ALL PRAISE THE METRIX™!

Oh ANet…

Can someone post the meme with the triple facepalm?

Honestly, this is futile anyways.

If GW2 wins:
- Supporters will say: “Look, I told you GW2 is what we said it is!”
- All others will say: “This award is worth nothing.”

If GW2 loses:

- Supporters will say: “This award is worth nothing.”
- All others will say: “Look, I told you GW2 is what we said it is!”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Many players = more people who complain.
Few players = less people who complain.

I am not sure if you really should be happy about this development.

I’m . . . not too sure on your logic here. On the one hand, it’s pretty much true on the surface. But it also eschews any other interpretations in favor of one . . . and only one . . . correlation of the data.

Though the sentiment of only keeping the people who don’t complain? Yeah, that one I can get behind saying is a point to be conscious of – to that way lies complacency.

All I wanted to say is that not all positive effects are always based on a positive premise.

It is like if you start with a sample size of 1000 and got 100 negative feedbacks and take a second data with only 100 participants and only 10 negative feedbacks.
Wow, the negative feedback is down by 90%, not.

From personal experience, a community getting more quiet is never a good sign in MMOs, as normally the “gamer demography” (from casual to hardcore) won’t change much over a short timeframe.

So the most reasonalbe approach is probably a smaller sample size.
Which would be a bad premise. So one should always reflect if what you get is what you really wished for.

Many players = more people who complain.
Few players = less people who complain.

I am not sure if you really should be happy about this development.

Most casual players won’t play like a pro, because they can’t.
For most players, ascended stuff is already the long term goal, and even that seems impossible for many.

Why do people think there needs to be a long term goal for the pros? This game does not cater to anyone with skills by any content that is ever added.

So we have a long term goal: Ascended items. Now you want to introduce legendary stuff where one piece will be as hard to get like a whole set of ascended armor? This is not progression, this would be bad game design. Even the fairly hard core people would get demotivated by this piece of kitten. Grind or die?

Colin Johanson: “In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this 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. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

But what you are talking about is probably the biggest grind in an AAA MMO up to date.

I know that ANet does not give much about the stuff they said in the past. Hell, the manifesto is as dead as a manifesto can be.

But not even ANet would be dumb enough to put such an epic grind in GW2. If you remember the uproar when they introduced ascended items back in November 2012, you can only imagine how these forums would burn the day they introduced something like this…

But you get Wintersday. Again.

The same present at christmas for the third time in a row.

It is like a kid gets the same toy from his/her aunt every year, and she expects him/her to be greatful. Yeah, the family will say, “It is free so just act as if you like it”, but in truth the kid is deeply disappointed.

So thank you ANet for yet another Wintersday! Yay!

ANet are the masters of recycled content. The new maps are nothing but a nonstop rotation of the same all day long. It is just the nature of GW2.

No other AAA MMO is as repetative as GW2. On one hand it is just because of the very, very limited content they added, as well as the nature of season 1 – to do the same stuff over and over again as long as it lasted.

That’s also why it feels like this game is going nowhere, because no matter what you do, nothing matters. The big wheel just keeps on turning and will reset all and everything you achieved.

The problem is, there is very little finite content – like classical quests, that give you a feeling of progression. Even the story instances are there to be repeated several times.

This game is the only RPG I ever played that really tries hard to give you the feeling thatthere is no progression, be it character-wise or story-wise…

nGumball.1283:

MMOs aren’t for you and no, GW1 was never an MMORPG.

Mike O’Brien: “If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2.”

This game was made for people who do not like the traditional MMOs Mike said.

steveway.3167:

I was thinking why don’t we tie the Legendary Armor into the OoW, DP, and Vigil. We could do a scavenger hunt to collect the gifts needed, then bring them to an NPC in our repective order to buy a set of Legendary Order armor.

What does everyone think? To make it more difficult we could even introduce a rank system that requires us to reach a certain rank to be able to buy from the NPC.

Wait, so you want to introduce a reputation grind. Which I never had a problem with in other games, but this would make this game just like every other game. Grind rep for better stuff.

Why do people think progression is farming for tons of gold and materials? That is the worst of all gates possible. It punishes new players, as they will take forever to get the gold and the materials. It punishes the casuals, this game was made for. If the illusion of progression is getting so far out of reach – the stick the carrot is on sooo long that you can no longer see the carrot – people will stop playing this game.

We do not need less players, or scare off the new ones (they even created the NPE for them), so take all those ideas and put them where no light will ever shine.

I understand that people fear the idea of challenge, especially in a ultra-casual game like GW2. But at least let the players feel like they progress with their goals while playing the game, and not by taking over the job of a bot.

The last thing this game needs is another hardcore grind in a game made for casuals.

That sounds like another horrible grind, that involves zero skill.
Don’t we have enough of this in this game already?

Actually, you put a grind on a grind. What is legendary about this? The grind?
This will make GW2 just more of a TP simulator.

GW3

Pretty much given up on GW2 in matters of content. Maybe they are working on GW3.
Would only buy GW3 if we get a new Manifesto though, something like:
“We took all the crap out of GW2 because noone likes the grinds or pressing 1, 1 and 1 again, and refocused on GW as inspiration. If you loved GW you should play GW3, and if you disliked GW2, you really, really should play GW3!”

Same old same.

If you left because you were bored in the first place, there is nothing in GW2 to find that will entertain you now.

I’m sorry.

What else should Gaile say?

This does not really hurt anyone. I think this game has greater problems than something that actually works as intended.

The title can wait a little bit longer, don’t make them spend any more time on useless changes to the game like with the NPE and hope they work on some real stuff…