Guild Wars 2

I suppose that didn’t help, indeed. I guess if you can do exactly one run a day, people might just do it with other experienced people and then not bother again. I don’t have access to ANet’s metrics, but I’d wager that the overall number of dungeon paths being run by the playerbase went down with the change. I really don’t get why ANet feels a need to time gate anything and everything.

There are a lot of things that makes dungeons unattractive for people like me, though. Or rather, things that makes me unattractive for an experienced player to have in their team. Namely the speed run stuff, which requires some sort of familiarity with the dungeon to pull off. I don’t have that familiarity, making me a double-burden for the team, in addition to me not experienced with the boss mechanics. In games without speed runs, killing trash mobs usually doesn’t take any experience whatsoever. A first timer will usually do it right, too. I could sure kill the trash mobs in this game too, but most teams don’t want me to, but instead expect me to do something that takes prior experience and practice. GW2 is the only MMO I know having this issue, for most others I have played give trash mobs a chance to drop nice stuff too, so people are motivated to kill them.

Last but not least the LFG tool in this game is merely a sort of a first step in an application process like to be followed by questions, gear checks and whatnot. And I am fully aware that most people would rather weed people like me out. That doesn’t really add to my comfort using that tool. I have stared at the LFG tool a lot…but in the end I always closed it again. Being aware that the vast majority of teams don’t want to have me doesn’t exactly add to my self-confidence here.
In games having fully automated dungeon finders, people -expect- to be teamed with beginners, making me a lot more comfortable using these tools.

I guess it’s a little bit of everything. But yes, in the end it always boils down to some design decision on ANet’s side.

Victory.2879:

Actually , the only thing wrong with dungeons is the complete lack of solo mode.

I find myself needing 500 of a dungeon token to complete my legendary- but having never done that dungeon before, I don’t want to be dragging the rest of the group down and so I find myself avoiding doing it at all….

I am in the same boat. I need Arah tokens, but in contrast to most others, I have never done this dungeon before. I can’t join a group because nobody wants inexperienced me, but I don’t feel comfortable starting one either, for I obviously can’t lead a team there and feel I’d just let the group down if I tried to put one together.
No, I am not a superb player by any stretch of imagination, but I am not totally horrible either, and I can listen. But the issue with GW2 dungeons in the current meta is that unless you perfectly know every single step in there and are bypassing trash mobs like a pro, people are prone to call you every imaginable name. In the end, I guess I just don’t want to take the risk, so I stay away from it.

The new LS content sort of confirms what I said a few pages ago. The LS episodes are totally disjointed and the writing seems to follow the content as opposed to the correct way, which is content to follow plot.

Again, two random enemy factions teamed up to do something sinister. Where have we seen -that- before? Hmmm?

What’s next? Quaggan and Ettins team up to overrun Rata Sum? :p

As for the TV comparison – I don’t watch enough TV to offer a qualified analogy here, but I can tell you why the LS doesn’t work for me: Good series fiction has meaningful beginning, middle and ends for each individual episode AND a meaningful beginning, middle and end for the overarching plot. The LS doesn’t have either. The episodes are never really concluded – there are lots of beginnings and middles, but loose ends everywhere. What happened to the Molten Alliance? What about the Karkha? The consortium? Ellen Kiel? Tequatl? The Aetherblade? Nothing -ever- seems to get properly finished, the events and characters appear and disappear randomly, and if there is an overarching plot concept at all, I am really not able to see it. What the LS needs is some sort of stringency. So far it doesn’t have any. Episodes need satisfying endings and build on each other towards a big overarching climax, escalating the plot conflict (yes, ONE conflict, not two dozen minor disjointed ones!) over time.

Ok, my biggest gripe with the LS is that the writing doesn’t seem to follow a coherent plot at all, but appears to be driven by the content instead. I have the impression that the LS a pure wrapper around whatever content is scheduled to release for the game. Devs made a new TA dungeon path? So Scarlet gets to invade it! The entire storyline feels disjointed and thus cannot get me immersed at all for that reason. We got an alliance between Flame Legion and Dredge one week, a party crashing Sylvari the next, but neither storyline is then really continued as far as we could see. It’s not plot driven content, it’s content driven plot.

As for the actual content: I don’t know, but lately the LS seemed to drive waaay into hardcore land. We got a fairly challenging boss arena (Jennah’s Jubilee), hard more platforming (SAB) a super frustrating World Boss (Tequatl), a hard dungeon path (TA)… What’s next? Baseline is, that I have little to no interest in content like this and more often that not didn’t bother with it anymore at all. I love…you know…questing and events. The stuff that made GW2 famous! I love to collect clothing (and not just 10,000 back pieces!!!). What I don’t want to do is bashing my head against hardcore content. There are other games I could have played, had I wanted that.

Also, the LS is one of the things that might look better on paper than in practice. The temporary content leaves this unpleasant feeling to have to log in all the time, or miss out. Also, this way the game doesn’t really grow at all. Some small things change here and there, but overall the changes are not significant enough to keep areas we have visited time and again interesting enough to make one want to go there again and again. In the end, other than Southsun and the Fractals, this game didn’t really grow at all since launch. Even the new dungeon path just replaced another. And the focus on the LS is largely to blame for that.

In the end, I’d gladly exchange the LS for permanent additions, such as new areas. If you guys are absolutely stuck with the concept, -at least- write a coherent plot, that doesn’t leave the impression it’s just an add-on to whatever content you want to publish. Keep the content fun for average players and not just a few hardcores. And add some variety in terms of rewards. This game has enough (more or less silly looking) backpieces already.

I think if your only goal is to get a character to L80, there are enough different ways to do that to keep it interesting for say 3-4 alts. The personal story is a different story, though, for large portions after the cultural bits will cause serious deja-vu after the first time through. Also doing the world completion will get old, and fast, too.

So I’d say it depends on what your goals other than the sheer level is.

I don’t want to be in a formal organization complete with a hierarchy, so I don’t join guilds. But this doesn’t mean I play alone, at least not all the time. I don’t get the logic behind the “guildless = alone” assumption. One can have friends to chat and play with without being a member of a guild…

Siphaed.9235:

Southsun was introduced November and then morphed in June, yet even as a new, high-level area it has been all but abandoned by the playerbase. This is kind of a red flag for A.Net that if they introduce large content areas, players will rush to ‘complete’ it directly then abandon it later.

Southsun got abandoned because the area was all around horribly designed. It didn’t make the slightest sense whatsoever in the overall storyline and still disjointed with the rest of the game. It features unfun to fight against mobs with insane aggro-ranges that obviously were meant for group play, but point is that people rarely run full sized teams in open-world content, so they obviously shy away from going there. Southsun isn’t a case against more areas, it’s a case against bad area design.

Look at what’s coming next update. It’s a new addition to the game that’s in Kessix Hills. It’s Krait related and will replace the less-than-popular Krait Witch. It’s some major changes to a zone less traveled to get players to go there and enjoy the content around the main content of the event/update.

I haven’t heard of that yet, but tell you want’s funny: Kessex Hill is a great zone for the most part. The Krait Witch sucks, yes. But if they replace her with something else, Kessex Hills will still be largely Kessex Hills. I have been there. Often. As in often enough. I want to go someplace NEW. Replacing an unpopular mob in a huge area that people have been traveled to dozens of times is pretty much what I would call an insignificant change.

And yes, it’s my opinion. Should go without saying that what people say on a discussion forum is subjective. My impression is that I am hardly alone with mine, though.

1. Expansion-type content
I’d love to see GW2 adding more areas, particularly Elona and Cantha themed. This game has enough gimmick content already, we really don’t need more crab tossing and costume brawling type of stuff at this point. I’d soooo love to have new places to explore, for exploration is what made GW2 so awesome. To be honest, while I don’t mind some jumping puzzles in the game for those who love that sort of thing, but if I wanted to play a platformer, I’d go play Tomb Raider! In the end – despite I am really amazed with the frequency of patches, GW2 has added remarkable little actual (permanent) MMORPG content. Time to develop what’s actually the core game!

2. Gear design choices and customization
GW2 needs a lot, and I mean a LOT more variety in gear design. Instead of yet another trenchcoat for rangers and yet another robe for mages. I do like some of the designs, but I am really unhappy with the near total absence of choice. In MMOs, I like to have an actual choice what I am wearing. Give us pants, skirts of various length, blouses, shirts. All of it! And while we’re at it we need a gear customization system that’s not totally horrible (unlike the one in place). Do away with those silly transmutation stones that effectively prevent me from using more than one look on a character ever (I really, really don’t want to craft 10 berserker sets just to be able wear all the armour skins I collected in a game that’s mostly about collecting skins!). Give us costume/appearance slots like the ones other games have and allow us to put any skin in there, including town clothes. Actually just copy what Rift did. Because that works.

3. (customizable) Player housing.
Let us buy homes, cottages, and hideouts and furnish them with all sort of collectibles! It’s fun. And while I personally don’t care about it due to being unguilded, I guess guilds finally want their halls, too.

Siphaed.9235:

1) No, not really. Doing something with current lands keeps activity within the game even. Expanding maps causes player spread and content degeneration. It’s not a good thing at all (just look at Outland and the Wrath zone from WoW as examples of such).

While this is not a desirable side-effect, the alternative is to stop growing the game altogether, and watch areas die because people are getting tired of seeing the same old areas all the time. Does ANet really think making insignificant changes to existing content for years to come is keeping players interested in the game for long? Personally? The Living Story is boring the hell out of me tbh. While I love GW2, I can’t see me playing this game in a year from now in without significant -permanent- content additions.

Area growth is the lesser of the two evils, if you ask me. ANet can still have world boss events and invasions etc. in the areas that make people go back to older areas. It’s the beauty of their event/downleveling system.

1. More areas, particularly Elona and Cantha. This game has enough gimmick content already, we really don’t need yet another mini-game. I’d soooo love to have new places to explore, for exploration is what made GW2 so awesome. If I wanted to play a platformer, I’d play Tomb Raider!

2. A lot, and I mean a LOT more variety in gear design. Instead of yet another trenchcoat for rangers and yet another robe of mages I’d like to have an actual choice what I am wearing. Give us pants, skirts of various length, blouses, shirts. All of it! And while we’re at it Give us

3. a gear customization system that’s not totally horrible. Do away with those silly transmutation stones that effectively prevent me from using more than one look on a character ever (I really, really don’t want to craft 10 berserker sets just to be able wear all the armour skins I collected!). Give us costume/appearance slots like the ones other games have and allow us to put any skin in there, including town clothes. Actually just copy what Rift did.

4. (customizable) Player housing. Let us buy homes, cottages, and hideouts and furnish them with all sort of collectibles!

5. Mounts. Yes, I know I am going to get flamed for this, but I always wondered why some MMOs with tiny areas have mounts, while GW2 (one of the few MMOs large enough to actually warrant mounts) doesn’t. I don’t care if they are purely cosmetic, but I think they add a lot of flavour to a game.

Special wish: Stop with the RNG obsession. Pretty please. This game overdid RNG so thoroughly that I swear that every time I read “has a chance to drop <nice thing>” I want to cry. In particular, fix the precursors already.

Remembering Guild Wars 1 – a lot, and I mean a LOT of players switched the guild capes off as soon as ANet made their display optional. Back items have their fans, sure, but they are nowhere near omnipopular. Probably the devs consider it not worth it, given the loads of clipping problems they cause.

Personally I’d never display a cape or other back item. I switch off helmets and shoulder pieces in all games I play, too. I am really minimalistic with costumes.

I would by any expansion, but a Cantha or Elona one I’d buy -really- fast.

Levels are indeed meaningless (you level, but the mobs level with you – so levels are really only an illusion of progress), but at least ANet did a fine job in dealing with their problems (leveling down, so earlier areas don’t get obsolete as with many other MMOs), so I don’t care about them.

Anything with platforming. In contrast to an actual platformer, GW2 wasn’t designed to be one.

And yes, I am playing a norn.

MrRuin.9740:

I don’t understand where you’re coming from with the whole hierarchy bit. Yeah there’s ranks, but I’ve yet to be in a guild thats like a Military scenario you seem to paint. Just people talking and doing things together.

Last time I checked you couldn’t operate a guild without a hierarchy. I guess the only workaround would be to delete all ranks except “Leader”, make every member a “Leader”, and agree not to recruit anyone without unanimous consent of every member. I have yet to see a guild being run like this. 95% of them are being run by leaders that…well…do what leaders do, which is making executive decisions. They rest are super-small to the degree they are little more than a banking guild and chat for a handful of friends.

Arrow.3856:

Arrow.3856:

you are simply arguing for the sake of arguing

Um, yeah…isn’t discussing stuff the point of discussion forums?

Arrow.3856:

I am sorry you had to go through 6 guilds and seen all of them disband. That doesn’t mean guilds are useless. It just means you haven’t been able to stay in one long enough to experience loyalty and growth. Pick wisely

You got that wrong, I never actually joined them. They were guilds of friends of mine that I witnessed dying from an outsider perspective.
Whether or not I had bad experience doesn’t have any influence on my basic statement, though. Guilds are indeed an unneeded feature of MMOs that doesn’t really add anything to the games. Normally I wouldn’t care about them at all – the only reason why I do is because devs usually think elaborate social features (e.g. custom chat channels, advanced social networking functions etc.) aren’t needed anymore as soon as they implement guilds. Which is sad.

Vayne.8563:

What you are doing is acting like a guild without calling yourself a guild.
Call it anything you like, but it’s just semantics at this point.

Yes. That’s pretty much what I have been saying all the time, except it would never occur to me to refer to the people on my friends list as a “guild”. And while I would still say that a friends list lacks the most defining feature of a guild, which is the formal/hierarchical structure: It’s largely semantics. In the end, you don’t seem to disagree with my basic point that guilds are a pointless feature of MMOs, for they can’t do anything a circle of friends can’t do. So we don’t really have anything to argue over.

Vayne.8563:

Kimyrielle.3826:

Vayne.8563:

Kimyrielle.3826:

Vayne.8563:

So if you play with the same friends all the time, how is that not a guild? That’s what a guild is. If you choose not to make a guild for the extra storage, that’s fine, but essentially a guild is a group of people who play Guild Wars 2 together. If you’re playing with friends, for all intents and purposes you’re a guild…if only a casual one with no hierarchy.

Next time you’re meeting a handful of really good friends in a pub, go tell them that you’re not just friends. You’re a GUILD!

Well….except that you’re not.

A group of friends shares mutual affection and sympathy. A guild doesn’t necessarily (and in larger guilds, it’s actually safe to assume that not everyone is friends with everybody else in there, quite the contrary actually!).

But the major difference between a guild and a group of friends isn’t the bank space. It’s that a group of friends is an informal group while a guild is a formal group. In contrast to a guild, a group of friends has no leadership, no ranks, no rules, no attached strings, no charter, no mission statements, no exclusivity towards other groups, no “we vs. them” attitude. Guilds tend to have these things, at least to a certain degree. And that’s the exact reason why I don’t join them.

Terrible example.

I’m not just meeting friends in a pub. I’m meeting friends in a game. And sometimes I’m running dungeons in that game. That at very least would make you a team. A team of people in a game like Guild Wars that do stuff together all the time, are distinguishable from a guild how?

This isn’t a casual I’m having a drink in a pub. It’s a single shared interest. If you were all playing football you’d be a team. If you’re all running dungeons. for all intents and purposes you’re a guild.

If you don’t want to call yourself a guild, that’s all fine and dandy but you’re doing exactly what a guild does/would do.

Not that I’d really understand what you really want to say here. Or why you are trying to disagree with me, for basically you are just reinforcing what I said: Guilds cannot do anything a group of friends can’t do. The only difference between them is guilds having a totally unnecessary formal overhead that doesn’t add any real benefit. A group of friends in a dungeon is indeed indistinguishable from a guild group for all practical purposes.

I’m saying all a guild is is a group of friends who play together. And since you’re already a group of friends who play together, forming a guild gives you bonuses you wouldn’t get if you didn’t form one.

Being friends is in no way a requirement for forming a guild. I wager that in any sufficiently large guild, you will find people that actually loathe each other. It’s the same as in companies. It’s entirely possible that you will be friends with some of your coworkers, but chances are that you dislike some of them. Point is that as soon as your guild isn’t super small or you’re the leader, you have zero control over who they recruit. Chances are that you will end up with at least some guildmates you actually cannot stand. For that reason the equation “guild = friends” is invalid.

Vayne.8563:

Kimyrielle.3826:

Vayne.8563:

So if you play with the same friends all the time, how is that not a guild? That’s what a guild is. If you choose not to make a guild for the extra storage, that’s fine, but essentially a guild is a group of people who play Guild Wars 2 together. If you’re playing with friends, for all intents and purposes you’re a guild…if only a casual one with no hierarchy.

Next time you’re meeting a handful of really good friends in a pub, go tell them that you’re not just friends. You’re a GUILD!

Well….except that you’re not.

A group of friends shares mutual affection and sympathy. A guild doesn’t necessarily (and in larger guilds, it’s actually safe to assume that not everyone is friends with everybody else in there, quite the contrary actually!).

But the major difference between a guild and a group of friends isn’t the bank space. It’s that a group of friends is an informal group while a guild is a formal group. In contrast to a guild, a group of friends has no leadership, no ranks, no rules, no attached strings, no charter, no mission statements, no exclusivity towards other groups, no “we vs. them” attitude. Guilds tend to have these things, at least to a certain degree. And that’s the exact reason why I don’t join them.

Terrible example.

I’m not just meeting friends in a pub. I’m meeting friends in a game. And sometimes I’m running dungeons in that game. That at very least would make you a team. A team of people in a game like Guild Wars that do stuff together all the time, are distinguishable from a guild how?

This isn’t a casual I’m having a drink in a pub. It’s a single shared interest. If you were all playing football you’d be a team. If you’re all running dungeons. for all intents and purposes you’re a guild.

If you don’t want to call yourself a guild, that’s all fine and dandy but you’re doing exactly what a guild does/would do.

Not that I’d really understand what you really want to say here. Or why you are trying to disagree with me, for basically you are just reinforcing what I said: Guilds cannot do anything a group of friends can’t do. The only difference between them is guilds having a totally unnecessary formal overhead that doesn’t add any real benefit. A group of friends in a dungeon is indeed indistinguishable from a guild group for all practical purposes.

Vayne.8563:

So if you play with the same friends all the time, how is that not a guild? That’s what a guild is. If you choose not to make a guild for the extra storage, that’s fine, but essentially a guild is a group of people who play Guild Wars 2 together. If you’re playing with friends, for all intents and purposes you’re a guild…if only a casual one with no hierarchy.

Next time you’re meeting a handful of really good friends in a pub, go tell them that you’re not just friends. You’re a GUILD!

Well….except that you’re not.

A group of friends shares mutual affection and sympathy. A guild doesn’t necessarily (and in larger guilds, it’s actually safe to assume that not everyone is friends with everybody else in there, quite the contrary actually!).

But the major difference between a guild and a group of friends isn’t the bank space. It’s that a group of friends is an informal group while a guild is a formal group. In contrast to a guild, a group of friends has no leadership, no ranks, no rules, no attached strings, no charter, no mission statements, no exclusivity towards other groups, no “we vs. them” attitude. Guilds tend to have these things, at least to a certain degree. And that’s the exact reason why I don’t join them.

colesy.8490:

“Experienced only” is practically like writing “lfm”, it makes no difference.

I guess the definition of “experience” just varies. To one, it means “I have seen it before and sort of know what to expect”. To others it means “I can do Arah with a blindfold, a coffee in my right hand and the left hand typing a forum posting about how 99.99999% of all GW2 players suck at what they do”.

Looking at threads like this, I think ANet’s idea of a LFG is an equal opportunity offender, that tries to suit everyone but satisfies nobody. I’d rather have a totally automatic tool. At least then everybody would know what to expect when using it. This way…it seems that I have to feel bad about myself when using it for not being 100% perfect.

Arrow.3856:

1) Guilds provide a way for people to become friends

Sure. You can make friends at the company you’re working for, too. But companies are certainly not required to make friends, and neither are guilds.

Arrow.3856:

2) You can’t get to know/become friends with everyone in the server

Yes. So? I can’t befriend every human on the planet either. Didn’t keep me from picking a few I liked and become friends with them.

3) You can’t organize events in open world. We saw this in teq, had to get dedicated guilds for extra communication

Whether or not content like Tequatl is a good or stupid idea is a whole different debate.

4) After all the content in the game, people only log on to play the same c
content with friends.

Yes. Like the ones on my friends list.

People not in guilds eventually quit faster then people in guilds due to the LS content they don’t like etc.

That’s a completely made-up statement that I’d love you to back up with actual hard facts. Personally… I have seen SIX guilds die I had friends in. Guildless me is still around. Just saying.

5) I have a list of friends from other guilds/servers I get adds all the time. I would still not join any of those randoms who I have run 1 maybe 2 dungeons with again. I dont know them…I dont have an opportunity to know them.

So you need to share a guild tag with somebody to be motivated to talk to them? I don’t get that. Does this mean you don’t talk with people not working for the same company you do, too?

6) Friends list is just a dumbed version of lfg.

Umm..no. Friends lists are where you put people you like. LFG is a way to meet people you like.

People don’t stay in the game for your LS they stay for their friends.

That’s the only thing about your post I agree with. Funnily enough I have friends in this game despite I never joined a guild. Which disproves pretty much all you said anyway.

Atlas.9704:

Having a tag stopped the constant spam attempts to get me into other people’s guilds. I can finally play in peace.

Haha, don’t laugh, but I have met pretty awesome people that wanted to recruit me to their guild. And despite I declined (obviously), we ended up being on each other’s friends list. The ones that just send spam invites without talking at all I just put on my ignore list, for that’s something utterly disrespectful to do. Problem solved.

I have a banking guild too, but I don’t represent it unless I am banking. I am not ashamed of being guildless nor do I feel that I should need to conceal that fact. 99% of the time I (correctly) display no guild tag at all.

Vayne.8563:

I disagree with this. A guild isn’t just a custom chat channel. One thing that I find is that dungeons are MUCH easier when you’re in mumble, particularly when you have to coordinate things.

Last time I checked you could use voice com programs with friends. Having the same guild tag wasn’t a requirement, but maybe it’s just me.

Josip.8267:

Kimyrielle.3826:

No. I don’t understand the purpose of guilds and why I would want to join a formal organization complete with a hierarchy to play a computer game . Guilds can’t do anything a friends list can’t do. In addition, I have full control over who’s on my friends list, but zero control over who the guild’s recruiting (unless I am the leader, of course). I’d rather have MMOs add custom chat channels, plus more elaborate social networking functions (e.g. ability to create Google+ style groups).

Wrong you cant do guild missions.

My statement was only covering the social aspects of guilds of course. What I basically wanted to say is that a MMO wouldn’t be much different if guilds wouldn’t be there at all. In the end, guilds are nothing but a glorified custom chat channel.

If a game deliberately adds exclusive content for guilds, it’s obvious that unguilded players cannot participate in them. But that’s an arbitrary decision on the developers’s side. Guild Wars 2’s guild missions do no not have a single aspect about them that would otherwise prevent a PUG from completing them. Since there are no really compelling reasons for the existence of hierarchical organizations within a computer game, some developers seem to feel the need to artificially create some. shrug

No. I don’t understand the purpose of guilds and why I would want to join a formal organization complete with a hierarchy to play a computer game . Guilds can’t do anything a friends list can’t do. In addition, I have full control over who’s on my friends list, but zero control over who the guild’s recruiting (unless I am the leader, of course). I’d rather have MMOs add custom chat channels, plus more elaborate social networking functions (e.g. ability to create Google+ style groups).

I always hated being forced to lay dead on the ground for a substantial amount of time, being useless while watching my teammates fight the boss. It’s a stupid idea of mechanics. Particularly in a game like GW2 where can you die to silly one-shot mechanics without having done a whole lot wrong. No thanks. Want to play hardcore? Get a group of like-minded players and agree not to make use of the resurrect skill until the fight is over. Problem solved. I don’t know why people always need to force their idea of how the game needs to be like on others.

I don’t agree with at least half of the points being raised by the OP to be a problem in the first place, but there is nothing in that list that can’t be “fixed”. GW2 has a fairly solid core game, fixing its hiccups is entirely doable. I agree that the total domination of offense gear/builds needs addressing, as does the (painfully boring) process to get legendary weapons. The latter at least ANet communicated intent to address.

My personal main gripes with the game is a) that its main idea of difficulty is bosses with silly one-shot mechanics that result in combat being a chaotic dodge-fest and b) the utter lack of any meaningful variety in gear styles (90% of medium armour is trenchcoats, 90% of light armour is some sort of robe etc.) and that most weapon skins suffer under the anime-syndrome (oversized greatswords anyone?).
Even those would be fixable if ANet wanted to, although as far as the silly one-shot mechanics goes, my hope is limited as ANet really seems to love their red circles of insta-death.

Queensdale, Timberline Falls, Kessex Hills, in that order.

Can’t stand the Charr areas.

@Mourningcry:

What I said isn’t contradictory at all: In both real life and this game it’s trivial to make money when you’re already rich. So, yes, the 1% of GW2 can use the system in place not only to reliable fabricate precursors for themselves but also generate a healthy amount of gold with.

But as stated multiple times in this thread, the current state of the precursor prices prevents most players from participating. Average players do not have legendary weapons in this time (unless they -really- had luck with their drops), neither they will be able to.

Yes, not everyone will have a legendary. Many players don’t want to face the huge workload required. Some don’t even want one to being with. And that’s ok. However, unless you’re already rich in this game and can effectively print money, a legendary is largely out of your reach at this point. The only way being brute-force farming huge amounts of cash (and most players can’t do that fast enough to even keep up with the price inflation, mind you that precursor prices went up by up to 500 gold from a level that already was considered prohibitive for most). Stupidly farming cash is not fun at all. Which is not what I believe a “Legendary” weapon is all about or should be.

ANet actually got the right basic idea with them – a legendary weapon is a reward for dedicated players who participate in many aspects of the game for a substantial period of time. Which is why it requires such a huge laundry list of different ingredients from different parts of the game. Gold farming is already a part of that laundry list as is, but the precursor drove that requirement over the borderline of silliness. Which is why I think the system is broken. Particularly since there is no guarantee that precursor prices will just continue going up.

Legendaries – in my opinion – shouldn’t be necessarily “exclusive”, they should be hard to get, and that’s NOT the same thing. I find “exclusive” items silly as an idea. Everyone should be able to get anything if they work hard enough for it. Legendaries will always be “rare” because not many players have the willpower to even farm for one of the gifts, let alone four. And mind you, I don’t want a legendary to be easy to get at all. But I want the process to be FUN and not a silly, uninspired “farm gold until you drop” treadmill.

Mourningcry.9428:

In theory yes, but in practice, that ugly thing called economics comes into play. The cost to increase the sample size to reach inevitability quickly erradicates any profit, thus making it a losing endeavor. Uncertain cost to manfacture can simply easily exceed market price. Thus making it a losing proposition.

Of course these people will do it only if it’s worthwhile. It obviously is, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. And people have admitted in this very thread that they did it large scale, so why you deny what’s essentially a known fact is beyond me. Yes there might be periods of time when the average costs of fabricating a precursor in the mystic forge can be higher than the current market price (it probably was that way for a while when ANet decided to make them drop like rain in the Karkha event), but it doesn’t seem to be the case at large.

It’s been discussed numerous times in the BLTC subforum. There are actually better markets then precursors to achieve this “infinite” cycle which have been discussed. But once they’re discovered, that margin disappears, and they too become unsustainable.

Playing the TP is a very dynamic endeavor, yes. There might be windows of time when making precursors is very profitable, and then others were making Omomberry bars has a much higher margin of profit. Yes, economic theory demands that very profitable markets are getting entered by new suppliers over time, shrinking the margin of profit (right now everyone and their granny is farming Ancient Wood, bringing the prices down that two weeks ago made farming it a money printing press). This does in no way defeat my point, though. Getting a precursor dropped for you, has largely nothing to do with “dumb luck” as you claimed, it has something to do with being rich enough to eliminate the R of RNG.

Mourningcry.9428:

I think it also should be noted that the simple fact is that every precursor was brought into the game through what some people have called “dumb luck”. Every. Single. One. As intended.

Not quite. Again, it’s math.

If you have a large enough sum of gold to start with (aka. are rich), you can buy Mystic Forge fodder (e.g. rare weapons) by the hundreds. Statistics demand that by increasing the sample size enough (=using the forge often enough), chances for an precursor to drop for you will eventually rise pretty close to 100%.

Ask our friends from the TP manipulator department, because that’s how the majority of all precursors is being created. It actually has remarkably little to do with “dumb luck” in their case.

The problem is obvious: You need to be already the GW2 equivalent of Bill Gates to participate in what’s essentially a money printing press. The more often you are using the mystic forge, the more your personal precursor drop rate will match the actual drop chance as set by ANet. In their case, the system has not much to do with “luck” anymore. Average Joe and Jane can’t participate though, for they totally lack the funds to play the Mystic Forge often enough to (largely) eliminate the luck-component from the game.

In the end it’s one of these systems that make the rich richer. Which again might explain why I call it “broken”.

Osi.3504:

That’s called supply and demand boys and girls, nothing more.

Yes, the problem in this case is the supply side a.k.a. drop rate, which is set by ANet to such a ridiculously low value that the prices had no other chance than to rise to the moon. That’s basic economics at work, would take less than 2 minutes to adjust on ANet’s side and completely solve the issue.

ANet obviously doesn’t care that legendary weapons have become a “Look at me, I am awesome enough to know how to play the TP!!!” weapon, otherwise they’d do just that.

Weapons are ok on average (some are even beautiful, like the greatsword!) +1

Armour is very extremely ugly -1 (should be -10, though)

Mourningcry.9428:

On another note, I think ANet’s original estimation for completion of a Legendary was 6-8months minimally and intended as a “long term” goal. Now, despite the early exploits, I think it would be entire reasonable to say that ANet was way off in those estimates. How about ascended crafting… what did it take, 2-3days before the first one was crafted? How about the new Teq – less than 24 hours before being downed.

Needless to say, ANet has a record of grossly underestimating their playerbase.

Given that, I think that if they do go down this reliable plath, and intend a crafted precursor to take a month to craft, I’d suggest they multiply those efforts tenfold. And then double it again. Maybe then they’d get closer to their expected results.

Yes and no. If they based their estimation on the -fastest- player to gain a legendary, they were obviously off. However, if they based their estimate on the -average- player, they erred on the -wrong- side, since the average GW2 player doesn’t yet have a legendary. That group got long priced out of the market by the steadily rising precursor prices in particular.

In general, it’s a bad idea to take the most hardcore of all hardcore players as basis for scaling time requirements for achievements like this (same goes for Teq btw.). For if you do that, you’re basically guaranteed to lock out 99% of the playerbase from -ever- completing the task. If they had set the workload required to get a legendary so that the fastest player in GW2 would have needed 8 months to get it – the average GW2 player would certainly have needed multiple lifetimes for the same achievement . Which I am sure is not their intention, despite how much some of the more elitist players might love just that.

@Chris: I hear (and believe!) you guys reading these forums a lot and trying very hard to separate the good from the bad suggestions discussed here and take some of what we say into shaping the future of this game. I also fully support the urge for people being polite (evidently that’s not a given in the gaming community, sadly as is).

However, communication is a two-way process.

Personally I sometimes wish that if the community is engaged in a very lively discussion about something (a recent example would be the issue about hardcore vs. casual content), that developers would weigh in and offer -their- perspective and reasoning and plans for the future. It can be frustrating offering a lot of feedback and ideas (and yes, I know that some of what we say might be silly or infeasible), and getting not a lot of reaction in return. Being able to listen is good. Being able and willing to explain is better.

Yes, and no. Some features are definitely alt-friendly, such as the shared wallet and the account-wide Achievement Point mechanism.

Some others are not at all, like Soulbound anything, particularly legendary items, or the time-gated Laurels that make it really hard to gear a zoo of alts in Ascended items. I’d also argue the comparatively large grind required for Ascended weapons (and likely the upcoming Ascended armour) count towards not alt-friendly.

I guess ANet didn’t really know whether or not to make the game really alt-friendly, so we got a world painted in grey, not black and white. In their credit, GW2 is more alt-friendly than many MMOs I have played.

The scavenger hunt sounds like an awesome idea, if done right. If course, you never know what they’d do. Perhaps they’d think it’s the best idea since sliced bread to put one of the pieces on top of the Clockwork Tower JP. giggles

But the general charm about the scavenger hunt idea is that it would reward you for actually playing the game. Shocking thought, I know!

The danger with the crafting idea is the possibility that farming money for the precursor is getting effectively replaced by farming money for the mats for the precursor. Or having to salvage Ascended weapons for super-rare mats that replace the silly precursor drop RNG with an equally silly salvage RNG.

Baseline is – and sorry for being a Negative Nancy for a second – that the result of them overhauling the precursor system doesn’t necessarily have to be any better than the current mindless grind for cash.

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

Absolutely not their too busy working on Wildstar to even give a puppy about furthering GW2.

That’s not even the same studio… rolls eyes

I, for one, would love an expansion. What I loved about GW1 was that the world grew all the time and I had new places to explore. I don’t care whether or not it’s “more of the same”. GW2’s base gameplay is very solid. What I can do without is more gimmicky instance bosses and their “don’t stand in my red circles or you shall dieeeee” mechanics.

@Mourningcry.9428:
I understand. You’re looking at the a-priori chances (which are indeed even per kill, I can’t argue that) and neglect what math will do with these. Me? Statistics is part of what I do, so I am looking at the results such a system will produce. Which are quite uneven (you can’t argue that point in return, for it’s just applied statistics).

Anyway, perhaps we can agree on farming gold not being a very satisfying gaming experience for anyone? And since you can’t argue that RNG isn’t a -reliable- method to get a precursor, even if you think it’s a fair one…. maaaaybe it would be awesome if we’d get a -reliable- method for dedicated players to get their precursors that doesn’t involve repetitive, mindless grind of that magnitude?

Mourningcry.9428:

I’ve argued elsewhere that RNG is a fair mechanic- that’s where i’m coming from.

RNG is a fair drop mechanism for high-frequency drops. Like greens and blues, even yellows.

However, RNG is a horribly unfair mechanic for anything rare. Why? Again, it’s math. We all get a lot of greens and rares, so chances are very good that the average total value of all items assigned to us in that fashion is equal (math demands this to happen with large sample sizes). But with super-rare items, the sample size will be too small to even out, even if we all play the game for a decade. Player A will get a precursor for killing her very first Risen, Player B will annihilate entire armies of mobs and -never- get one. That’s entirely possible. And intrinsically unfair, for player A didn’t do anything to deserve or earn that additional reward. She was just…lucky.

So yeah… I guess that’s why we’re unlikely to agree on this. My definition of fairness doesn’t include randomly making a player considerably richer than others. I believe in equal work = equal reward. With common drops using RNG doesn’t matter, for the distribution will still result in equality. But like I said, MMO makers need to understand that it’s a horrible idea to use RNG for anything rare.

Mourningcry.9428:

It sounds harsh, but the fact that that particular method is beyond the capabilities of most players isn’t necessarily an issue. Not sure where it was mandated that all aspects of the game be accessable to all players equally.

Beyond that, if an outright purchase isn’t viable, then the other two methods most certainly are. Albeit, they may not be enviable, or favorable alternatives.

It might sound equally harsh, but the habit of brushing away valid points against broken systems with the “It’s not meant to be easy” line is getting a tad old, really.

Particularly since I already said that I don’t want this to be easy.

The three methods you keep defending so vigourously are

a) Sheer luck.
Ok…that’s not something you can control, right? For some, this thing will drop from a L1 bog skale (apparently that’s possible), but with a chance that abysmal, there is nothing really you can do except keep playing the game. It’s a truly random reward, in the most literal sense. It rewards for…well, doing nothing actually. Calling this a viable method is a silly thing to do, because it’s not a “method” at all. It’s the GW2 equivalent of saying walking up and down a street mall is a valid method to make money for someone might have dropped a $1,000 bill on the sidewalk.

b) Gambling.
You can get a precursor drop from the mystic forge. That’s easy! Well, except that you have to drop in a metric ton of valuable items to get a remotely high chance for the precursor to actually drop. It’s called math. Oh, and it costs a lot of money.

Which leaves…

c) Actually farming money like a Chinese goldfarmer.

What you don’t seem want to see is that methods b) and c) are virtually identical. Both require you to stupidly farm large amounts of money, except that b) comes with a gambling component that might either lower or raise the total price you’re paying. It’s again nothing you can control. On -average-, this method isn’t any cheaper than outright buying it.

You’re covering your eyes and ears, uttering the mantra “There is no problem” because you don’t want to see it. Fine, I can’t keep you. shrug

Mourningcry.9428:

Don’t like RNG, the trading post offers an absolute way to acquire one. If a player is incappable, or unwilling to employ any of those methods, that is their problem.

Three solutions (perhaps only 1 viable) solutions already exist to what you call a “problem”.

Except that precursor price inflation outpaced most people’s ability to farm money by an order of magnitude. The went up from 300k to 600-820g in matter of months, after all.

Not that requiring people to waste endless hours with mindlessly farming cash like a Chinese goldseller to pay off a gambler is something that’s worthy of being in a modern MMO, mind you.

So I can’t exactly agree with you saying it’s not a problem.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Anyone remember this lovely tidbit when Dusk was under 300 gold

LinseyMurdock.4165:

We have been watching the prices climbing on Legendary precursors and share your concerns about some of them becoming too expensive. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make any adjustments we feel are necessary.

Obviously you didnt share those concerns or we wouldnt be staring down 800+ gold precursors.

Haha, so true!

If they -really- wanted to fix precursor prices until they (finally) manage to implement a replacement for that silly lottery game that precursors are, all they’d need to do is adjusting the drop rates. No programming required. Just changing a handful of parameters, increase the drop rate by a factor of two or three and prices will come down to more reasonable levels. Their economist person likely has a UI for making chances like that already.

That they don’t do that means they don’t care that the precursor is THE single thing putting legendaries far out of reach for the vast majority of players.

And before I am getting flames tossed at me, I think getting a legendary -should- be hard. But it shouldn’t require gambling. Or mindlessly farming cash for weeks and months just to pay off a gambler. Make us…play the game, perhaps?

Ethics.4519:

Yes, because we all know, nobody likes challenges. We should just complain until it’ so easy that my 6 year old brother can do it.

For me personally, it’s not that I’d mind somewhat hard content (I used to love the GW1 endgame areas), but rather that I don’t agree with ANet’s idea of difficulty, which is mainly about having to evade insta-gib skills within a 0.5 second time window. Let’s face it, most of the hard content in this game doesn’t require you to play your class all that well, or have a whole lot of battlefield awareness. It’s dodge, dodge, block, dodge and clobber the bad guy in between dodging. Many fights can be chickened by stacking your group in the right place and just whacking the bad thing dead before it even makes you do the chicken-dodge dance. The difference between experienced and not experienced players in GW2 PvE isn’t about player skill, it is knowing the correct exploi…errrm…“strategy” for each fight. Which is my main gripe with that gimmicky sort of raiding-type content in general and with the GW2 interpretation of it in particular. Underworld or Urgoz were 10,000 times more fun than any GW2 endgame instance, because they weren’t like that.

I think the tool should be able to take a lot more parameters than now but in turn assemble your group automatically. Right now it doesn’t produce any better results than a purely randomized dungeon finder, but is still a complete pain to use.

The charm of that would be that reasonable limitations could be implemented tool-side (like class, level or AR), while the more silly restrictions people seem to invent in arbitrary ways (Achievement points? I mean…seriously??? AP are about as reflective about my ability to perform in a dungeon any more than the hair colour of my character, so people shouldn’t be able to ask for something silly as that) wouldn’t be enforceable at all anymore.

People will never agree about hard vs. easy because it’s not an objective thing. People generally find things “easy” if they practiced them enough or are just naturally talented for them. It doesn’t mean they are easy for others. And vice versa.
I think the proper thing to do is indeed designing challenging content to behave like Fractals and make it scale. Then people who want to bash their heads against a challenge can do that and people who don’t want to practice some fight for 50 times unless they can finally beat it don’t have to anymore. Both sides win.

I think the fairest solution for Ascalon would be sharing it, as both humans and charr have a legitimate claim to it. The west (Black Citadel) should go to the charr, the east (Ebonhawke) to the humans, and Ascalon City could be rebuilt as an open city for both charr and humans.

I have an account full of norn, plus two humans. The other races just aren’t for me. While I normally play “the elvish race” in every MMO that has them, I just couldn’t get a sylvari looking the way I wanted her to be. While norn are the much cooler dwarves, sylvari aren’t the cooler elves at all, sorry, ANet.

Charr…sorry, but as a former GW1 player I will never be able to look at them as anything else but a warmongering, evil race that committed genocide on the people of my GW1 character. And I don’t want to play something evil, period. That and I am not into furry races. I never play them in any game.

And while the scientific mind of the Asura is appealing to me, I don’t want to play an arrogant little rat either.

Humans are usually popular in any MMO to begin with, but in this one they even got a good background, as they are not the master race unlike in pretty much all other MMOs, but the underdogs on the verge of total extinction. It’s interesting. And I like it. In the end, the popularity of humans is just proof that ANet did a good job with them. shrug