Guild Wars 2

That’s actually one of the more reasonable ideas how to keep that fight in spirit with the content some people want to do, but still acknowledge that unleashing this fight on the general public was a bad idea. They’d still have to tone the boss down a notch, for most (even large) guilds aren’t able to field 100 players at once, but I think this is otherwise a very good solution for this mess. I support this idea. However, I still think they should bring ‘casual’ dragon fights back, in addition to keep the harder version as guild missions. Us casuals like to slay dragons, too.

Nokaru.7831:

Kimyrielle.3826:

In addition to your questionable “their 60 bucks are worth less than my 60 bucks” stance, you make an arbitrary assumption that people who don’t like hardcore content log in for only one hour a month.

I have logged 1,600+ hours in Guild Wars 2, and I don’t like hardcore content.

Case closed.

You get what you pay for with your $60.00. ArenaNet would be very foolish though to not support people actually using the gem store. You know, the people actually paying for the continued development of all of the new content.

How do you think they are paying their employees without releasing expansions?

You’re again inventing baseless assumptions about people to suit your opinion. I (and many other ‘casual’ type players I know) are using the gem store. I really love pretty gear…

Nokaru.7831:

Democracy is probably the worst way to make decisions. Sorry to be blunt, but a player who logs on an hour a month shouldn’t have as much power in decisions that affect the entire game as someone who plays 10 hours a week.

In addition to your questionable “their 60 bucks are worth less than my 60 bucks” stance, you make an arbitrary assumption that people who don’t like hardcore content log in for only one hour a month.

I have logged 1,600+ hours in Guild Wars 2, and I don’t like hardcore content.

Case closed.

Roybe.5896:

Wouldn’t it be great if those that are ‘casual’ found they were capable of running with those that aren’t and learning new things so they can function better in other groups?

You confuse being casual with being bad. Being ‘casual’ means that you don’t WANT to do hardcore content, not that you’re unable to.

People go where the fun is OR where the reward is OR to prove themselves. There are no other reasons. If you’re after a challenge, the urge to redo the content is non-existent, because if you killed the thing, you already proved that you can do it. Challenge will be a motivation only until you overcome it.
If you’re after fun, you go…well, to where the fun is. If you don’t think something’s fun, you might go there anyway if there is a high enough bribe to make you do so. It’s just basic human nature.

Conclusion: Tequatl is obviously not perceived as being fun enough to (re)do without a significant bribe.

But yeah, according to some people we need more content of that kind… rolls eyes

Nick.6972:

This really saddens me. Why. WHy can’t we have both challenging content for those who want it, and easier/medium hard content for other. Why?
Everything should be made just to please your play style, or everything’s should be made only for so called supposedly majority of the players ignoring the supposedly minority.

In an ideal world it would be like that. In real life, we have limited developer time/budget. Like I said above, I have never seen a MMO that managed to please both hardcore and casual players alike.

Helobelo.2470:

Kimyrielle, by casual and hardcore, we mean other things.

Yes, people have different definions of ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’. For the scope of this thread I created, I used “hardcore” in the context of “content with a higher difficulty level that requires practice and organization to overcome, aimed at players who play games mainly to prove themselves against hard challenges”. While “casual” in this context would mean “content with a lesser overall difficulty, that focuses on fun and entertainment, aimed at players who love a good story and exploration rather than overcoming challenges”.

In short, if an average player will find the content difficult to overcome without significant practice and organization, it’s hardcore, if an average player can complete it without much practice and organization, it’s casual.

My election idea is basically about finding out what sort of content players rather want. ANet used an election as a means to do something like that already, and given this is a very, very important decision, it might warrant another one.

Gabby.3205:

This is not hardcore content.

The fight requires a lot of practice and coordination to win. That’s the very definition of hardcore content.

Yes, I am a aware that players can beneficially leech the fight by showing up and auto-attacking some mobs near the cannons, which obviously doesn’t require a lot of skill or knowledge about the mechanics. But the same could be said for most raid content in other games – there always are really easy to play roles other than healing and tanking, and hapless players are getting dragged through said content all the time, carried by better ones. Same as with Tequatl, only that with Tequatl nobody can prevent people from leeching.

Baseline – If Tequatl isn’t hardcore, nothing is.

Helobelo.2470:

@Kimyrielle

If you love Overflow Otto, then you should know your thread is nonsense.

I can’t appreciate a funny and creative line made by some other poster without thinking my own idea is nonsense? Hm…ok…if you say so.

There should be both casual and hardcore content in the game

From a purely philosophical point of view I can agree with this, but I have yet to see any MMO where hardcore and casual content would co-exist peacefully, without causing arguments and/or either side feeling left out. It’s just not realistic.

Mind you, the new Tequatl -replaced- his own casual version. It was a clear either/or decision in this case. According to the interview, ANet obviously plans to replace at least some dungeon Explorables with versions a LOT more challenging than the existing ones. Also, it’s either/or. Not both.

In the end, developer time is limited. It’s just not realistic to ask for a meaningful amount of -both- hardcore and casual content. I couldn’t name you -any- MMO having raid-style content where the casual side of the game was equally meaningful and satisfying. Most often, the casual side is then the red-headed stepchild, getting a handful of boring dailies with meaningless rewards to do and not much else. This is then emphasized by the presence of challenging content in the game making the designers tend to make everything remotely desirable drop there and only there. Which alone will divide the playerbase. If a casual player isn’t allowed to ever get the good stuff – why play the game in the first place?

Personally I would be all for having both (although -personally- I’d still argue that Tequatl is not really a fun fight – as far as challenging content goes, I liked the old GW1 instances Urgoz, FoW and Underworld much better), but like I said, it’s not a realistic thing to ask for. The game won’t be able to please everyone, particularly not when the master plan is about -replacing- existing content with harder content.

The Spiral King.2483:

No loot? This is an MMO, let’s be realistic. People play MMOs for loot, certainly not for the “amazing” skill mechanics and gameplay they offer.

You misread it. What I said is that both versions offer loot. The -same- loot and the -same- drop chance. There is no ‘exclusive’ loot in the (more difficult) Hans dungeon. Otherwise you’d falsify the election results by encouraging Cathy supporters to do Hans for the more awesome loot, despite they’d otherwise not wish to do that sort of content. This is really all about what content people really would want to play, other things being equal except the difficulty.

PS: I love Overflow Otto! :p

It’s quite obvious that the Tequatl fight has split the community into a “love it” and a “hate it” camp. I think the game is now at a crossroads of whether or not it wants to be a raiding game, replacing more and more “easy” content such as world bosses or dungeon Explorables with versions at a lot more challenging, giving the hardcore players something to bash their heads against for exclusive loot and bragging rights (raiding-game style), or it can remain what it sold as: A game that locks nobody out of anything even if they are average players, focusing story, entertainment and fun (casual focus).

Since it’s not realistic that it can be both and since discussions on the forum are not representative of the general playerbase – I am going to propose having an election! (Like the one we recently had)

How about this?:

Knut Wildbear needs to pick an ambassador to Lions Arch. The person needs to be a great representative of Norn spirit. Here are the two candidates you can support!

1. Hardcore Hans
Hans is a legend among Norn. Strong, mighty and courageous, he will back down from no challenge. When he hears of a mighty foe named Boris the Bold moving into a nearby cave, he grabs his greatsword and sets off. Will you stand by Hans and become a legend?
[Description: Boris the Bold is a Tequatl sytle raid boss. Uncoordinated groups need not to apply. His mechanics will require hours and hours to master, even for a guild team of great players. He will spam enough red circles of doom to make even Alpha Subject dizzy and without boon stacking and bringing the best game you have, he will eat your group alive etc.]

2. Casual Cathy
Cathy is also a legend among Norn, but she has never touched a weapon in her life. She is famous for the best brew and the best drinking parties of all of Holbraek. But Boris the Brittle has stolen her ale recipe and she can’t remember the secret ingredients, for she was always drunk when she brewed it. Boris isn’t exactly a legendary foe, but Cathy needs help. Will you be the one to save the best ale ever made?
[Description: Boris the Brittle is more bark than bite. While he has a number of tricks up his sleeve, he has no one-shot mechanics and will telegraph every halfway dangerous move he has quite clearly so, so people can counter it or move off (think the Dwanya fight in Orr). A group of five strangers can complete this fight with very limited trouble.]

Here is the catch: You can support only ONE of these characters during the entire event – siding with one of them counts as a vote what sort of content you want to see in GW2’s future. Except the challenge level as described above, the two dungeon paths are 100% identical. The Hans dungeon offers no loot the Cathy version doesn’t. This is about the type of content you really want to play, not about your price that makes you try content you otherwise won’t do. The only difference is that for Hans you get a displayable title “I live for the challenge” and for Cathy you’d get “I live for the party”. So you -do- get bragging rights for completing the challenge if that’s what you’re after.

No thank you. I can do without that sort of content.

Isn’t it awesome how this new content is bringing our community so closely together? It almost feels like any other MMO now, I have really missed that cooperative and friendly atmosphere!

Draknar.5748:

Kimyrielle.3826:

That something can be beaten doesn’t mean it’s fun. I simply don’t enjoy that sort of content. Had I wanted that, there would have been plenty of games for me to buy other than GW2. There is a -reason- why I bought this one, you know?

Well there are dozens of other world bosses you can fight, or not fight, who really cares you can do whatever you want in this game or whatever you don’t want. I didn’t like Liadri in the Gauntlet because I didn’t want to put the effort into learning the fight—so I didn’t fight her…I also didn’t complain that it wasn’t fun, I just didn’t effing do it.

Your point is valid, as long as they don’t change more world bosses in this fashion, because if they do, it’s obviously less easy to just go do something else.

Now if the hardcore side could enlighten me why they didn’t heed to exactly THAT advice and just bought another game in the first place? There are dozens of other games to play having EXACTLY that sort of content we were oh-so missing here, no?

That something can be beaten doesn’t mean it’s fun. I simply don’t enjoy that sort of content. Had I wanted that, there would have been plenty of games for me to buy other than GW2. There is a -reason- why I bought this one, you know?

They should add a portal named “Want raids? Enter here!” that teleports everyone who enters directly to World of Warcraft.

I approve of this suggestion. Suits the nature of this change quite nicely, as this sort of content is not my idea of fun.

Having to dedicate one of my two weapon slots to a weapon set I don’t normally want to use (X/Focus) just to be able to keep up with my group is highly irritating (I am usually a GS/Staff mesmer). I definitely support getting a utility slot out-of-combat run skill for Mesmers. People who think it would make us too powerful seem to be forgetting that we’d still have to sacrifice one utility slot for it.

FA – please ignore the less-than-constructive posting of that…person that shall not be named. Personally I have to say that I really enjoy this match-up tremendously. You guys are really putting up a great fight and despite some of the barking going on on this forum, on the battlefield you’re nothing but good sports – at least I have yet to see any of you dancing on my dead body. Thanks for that and see you around.

Like Jayne said, I am also not aware of -any- TC veteran player or regular WvW guild that condones of corpse-jumping. It’s disrespectful and low and has no place on our server. For what it’s worth, I don’t see it a lot during “normal” times (read: when we don’t have a lot of world mappers running around in WvW). The vast majority of us want to be good sports.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

You guys recruited to try to move up tiers and fell flat on your faces in the next tier up.

That’s not quite what happened. We never had any large-scale influx of guilds heading our way, at least none that were even remotely comparable to what other high-tier servers got. I can recall only a handful of guilds ever transferring to TC, really. We -do- have a glaring hole in coverage that kept us from being a real contender in T2, which we tried to fill via that recruitment posting, but that was all. TC is a lot of things, but it’s really not a bandwagon server.

Thank you BG and KN for being such great sports and the awesome fights. It has been a blast. @BG: Good luck in T1, I will be rooting for you guys there! @KN: Keep our seats warm, we will be back!

I am mostly happy with the patches. ANet has been really careful with buffs and nerfs, and seemed to have mostly hit what needed to be hit and buffed what needed to be buffed.

Yes, it has been a learning experience for them, and some blunders here and there are testament to that (cough…Kharka final event disaster, anyone?), but overall I think they are easily outdoing both quality and quantity of what other MMO companies deliver. Perhaps the (fantastic!) seasonal events actually did them a disservice in terms of recognition of that fact – for an obvious lot of effort went into Mad King/Wintersday, but of course that content is disabled for the time being, making the total amount of new content appear smaller than it really was.

Yes, I would have done a few things differently too, and made a few different decisions here and there. Particularly:

- While I don’t mind Ascended Gear per se (as long as they stick to their promise to make it available through all types of gameplay, including WvW!!!), adding a layer of hard/slow to obtain gear really made the game less alt-friendly. The rate at Laurels can be gained is strictly limited and for me (I am neither in a guild nor do high level fractals, more about that later), that means I had to decide for one and only one character to stick with and gear up, as for me there is no feasible way to get Ascended gear on more than one character in a finite time.
On a side note, I do also think that prices for infusions are waaay over the top and that’s coming from a person able to make a decent income in the game. For a game advertised as having little to no grind, that’s a lot of grind right there.

- As for the fractals, while I generally like the idea and enjoy playing them, adding platforming challenges to them really killed the fun for me. I suck at platforming, and the sheer thought of getting either the Uncategorized or Cliffside Fractal assigned to me and become a total burden to my team that way scares me so much that I am reluctant to play them at all, particularly considering that horrible knockback attack Harpies get at L10.

- A thing I had loved them to do but so far didn’t see was them adding new armour skins, as the one thing I am really unhappy with in GW2 is the near total lack of variety in gear design (almost all medium armour is some variation of (trench-)coat, almost all light armour is some variation of robe, and too many dungeon sets follow the “more spikes = cool” scheme, making them totally uninteresting for me to collect.

- About the balancing for dungeons I have mixed feelings. In the case of AC I am really convinced that they were trying to fix what wasn’t broken. Being the ‘entry-level’ dungeon, AC has no business being overly hard or even requiring all that much coordination (the latter is a general concern for me anyway, as coordination-tests are intrinsically PUG-unfriendly, and PUGs are the way I do this sort of content with), but that exactly seems to be the direction they want to head to for dungeons. Not sure I am overly happy with giving bosses more and more fuzzy mechanics people are expected to know how to beat even before they enter the dungeon for the first time. I know that some people love exactly that sort of thing, so feel free to disagree. It’s just my opinion.

CoRtex.2157:

Zepidel.5349:

without dailies any hardcore player could be in BiS gear in less than a week easily, and then have nothing to do. It took me 2 days to go from my 1st lvl 80 to being in all exotic gear, about 5 days to have all the dungeon skins I wanted. The sad truth is there is really no endgame in gw2, there is 0 incentive to bring your realm glory in WvWvW by defeating the other 2 realms. The fractal “infinite” dungeon doesn’t get any harder with each successive level rather it just add artificial difficulty via agony (would it of been so hard to change the fight/level mechanics each tier and then scale damage and resists for those 10 levels?) oh and agony resists are based off of your RNG on getting loot.

So,, time to bring back skill-based dungeons with extremely rare drops in end-chests (like new legendaries for example) & ecto alike mob drops. -> this will keep you playing for months until you got most of the rares u want, and it doesn’t feel like a grind, because it’s not easy content and you get great rewards from it. Also it would take you atleast a few weeks to properly do the dungeon. if not, then the dungeon is too easy.

There are plenty of games that do it exactly that way. I still wonder why people buy this one and then want to turn it into a carbon copy of some 20 MMOs already out there and ready for this type of player to buy.

For the record, I don’t mind somewhat challenging content, but I don’t want to play with sweat on my forehead all day long either and/or wipe 10,000 times in a row before a lucky critical hit finally downs the newest ridiculously overpowered gimmick boss. No thanks!

I love the “do what you want” approach in GW2 (and it’s not that there is no challenging stuff in the game) and would prefer it to stay that way. And yes, they need to make all Ascended gear buyable with Dungeon/Fractal tokens too, so people who don’t want to do dailies no longer have to. Problem solved.

Even now people have to pick activities, as the game simply offers more things to do than most people, even hardcore players, can do in any single day. WvW, sPvP, Dungeons, Fractals, Dailies, Dynamic Events, Gathering…they all -already- compete for your time. That something has got a reward waiting for you doesn’t mean you -can- do it all. An expanded daily would just be yet another thing to do in GW2.

damny.9342:

Kimyrielle.3826:

I would love it if you could get an extra laurel for completing ALL available daily objectives.

That would just invalidate the entire idea and people would feel obligated to do all nine again…

I’d call it a choice. That there are eight dungeons in the game doesn’t mean I have to do them all every day, either. But I could!
As a player who doesn’t run a whole lot of instances and prefers PvE in the open world, I wouldn’t mind having an -optional- longer daily to do.

I would love it if you could get an extra laurel for completing ALL available daily objectives.

I have mixed feelings about that. While I can understand why ANet felt the changes were needed, another part of me disagrees with ANet nerf-hammering literally every surface-world means to actually make some money in reasonable time, forcing people to farm dungeons/fractals, generate wealth via TP manipulation and/or buy gold with gems instead.
In my opinion, the different ways to play the game (namely open world PvE, instances, WvW) should yield a roughly equal monetary reward per hour played. If this were the case, people wouldn’t be forced to artificially ‘farm’ gold, they would get it from playing the game normally. Which in my opinion is the way it should be.

First the large guilds said “Cool, ANet made Guild missions prohibitive for smaller guilds so everyone now has to join us. Small guilds shouldn’t exist anyway.”

Now they say “Bad, Anet made Guild missions prohibitive for smaller guilds so everyone now has to join us just to get their missions done. We feel exploited now.”

Is there something I am missing here?

I love my ranger. I still do. Or at least I want to. But I haven’t played her in ages, because my mesmer alt totally stole her show and is now my main. My ranger is a sad panda now, despite her pet isn’t actually a panda. I’d like having a reason to play my ranger again. But there is always hope. Right, ANet?

Phew – glad to hear it’s not intentional. I am relieved…

I shall add my hope that this is indeed a bug, not a feature.

Mesmer FoW and mesmer Elite Canthan.

BadShrooms.3094:

while FINALLY we have content requiring LOTS OF PLAYERS

You had stuff for large guilds before too, it’s called “WvW”.

Tower Guard.5263:

Last time I checked this was an mmo right?

Since when are MMOs all about huge zerg guilds?

Mungrul.9358:

People would rather have access to them now than join a small guild with no access, so you won’t be able to recruit.

Some sure will, but not everyone will now flock to a large guild, which are prone to recruit every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants in. Some prefer to join with…you know…like-minded people they actually like to be with. Actually, I would think the guild missions will not have all that much impact on recruiting chances of smaller guilds. Smaller and larger guilds never have attracted the same sort of people, they compete less for recruits than most people think.

My willingness to pay monthly subs has been on the decline even before GW2 came out, and GW2 outright killed it, as it showed that even high-quality games don’t need to be P2P to be great.

I will never, ever, pay a monthly sub again.

RNG works fine for mundane drops (whites, blues, greens, even rares), because we all get so many of these drops assigned to us during our gaming life in GW2 that math demands that the total value of these items will be more or less even for everyone, and yes, it -does- avoid the problems listed in the OP.

However, RNG produces extremely unfair results for very rare drops (Exotics, precursors), which is why using RNG for this sort of item should be avoided.

That’s basically it.

-IF- guesting would work cross-continent, I’d say the prices are fine. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Add more gear variety (e.g. more pants/skirts, not just trenchcoats and robes). Right now, game has a lot of gear sets, no doubt, but for some reason most still look really similar anyway…

Did they ever hint at planning to do any more races, or is all of that just speculation?

As others said, the very point of those lottery chests in any F2P MMO is to encourage players to wast…errrm…invest a huge amount of money into the abysmal chance to get anything decent out of them. As with all sorts of gambling, bank always wins. ANet has zero interest in making keys any more available through gameplay than they are right now.

Larynx.2453:

I wonder how you would react to the clock tower if you can’t do breached wall.

The difference is that because of ANet putting Vista/SP on top of Breached Wall, this JP is getting attempted by many, many players who otherwise don’t want to be bothered with platforming at all, but feel forced to in order to get map completion done. The clocktower doesn’t have that problem at all. I guess that’s the best answer I can give you. If you want to know how I personally reacted to the clocktower…I looked at it, giggled and left with the warm and satisfying feeling that I really really don’t have to do this.

I really have no problem with jumping puzzles being present in the game, but I would honestly have preferred it if they had refrained from putting Vistas/SP on top of them. Yes, I got my 100% map completion done anyway, but platforming gameplay isn’t for me. And PLEASE people, stop labeling trying to complete one of the most classical MMO objectives (map exploration) “optional”, it’s a tad silly tbh.

I agree that the lack of a proper LFG tool is bad (Devs also said that they are working on one, so that issue will get solved). I disagree with everything else listed. The absence of direct trade might be seen as an oversight, but at least people can’t run to me and ninja-open trade windows anymore, unlike in GW1.

That they didn’t bring the silly trinity to GW2 is actually one of its best features, in my opinion. But I know, tastes are different.

Lafiel.9372:

Ursan.7846:

No, it’s not a completely “free” market in the sense that Anet created this world.

However, in the context of this world, prices are indeed based on supply and demand. Players really like greatswords, daggers, and swords. So the prices of Dusk, Dawn, Zap, and Spark are muuuuuuuuuuuch higher than the price of the Speargun precursor, assuming same drop rates for everything. Heck, I bet more Dusk/Dawn/Zap/Sparks exist simply because who wastes Spearguns in the MF?

To completely dismiss supply and demand from this in-game economy is silly.

Exactly, take off those tinfoil hats and stop assuming anet has COMPLETE control of precursors in the game. The supply price is determined by the demand in which players believe is worth paying.

ANet has absolute and total control over precursor prices. They can make them go to 1000s of gold per piece or make them go down to mere fractions of a silver with one click of a mouse. All they need to do is adjust the drop rate to any rate that makes the desired price happen.

Refer to any textbook about economics to understand why this is so.

Also, I love my tinfoil hat, thank you.

PS: To be scientifically correct, I should add that the maximum price they can ‘set’ the price to is the highest willingness to pay for a precursor occurring in all players in GW2, which is a number lesser or equal the wealth of the richest GW2 player. Sorry for being sloppy.

Vees.7816:

Kimyrielle.3826:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

raid dropped gear could have unique armor/weapon skins, crafting recipes, etc.

That’s pretty precisely why I don’t want to see raids in this game, EVER.

What if they don’t have unique drops?

Hypothetically? I wouldn’t mind it, then. But I have never seen any MMO that did it that way. First thing raiders would do after “for-fun raids” would be introduced is coming to this forum and say “Hey ANet, why do you give us hard content when the scrubs can get everything elsewhere?”.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

raid dropped gear could have unique armor/weapon skins, crafting recipes, etc.

That’s pretty precisely why I don’t want to see raids in this game, EVER.

I don’t like raiding, main reason for that being that this content cannot be reasonably played with PUGs anymore, at least not in any game I have seen before (heck, it’s hard to find 5 people for a dungeon already!). And no, I don’t want to join a raiding guild, so let’s not go there.

But I DO love crafting. And collecting armour skins. Now guess how much I’d love it if suddenly the best crafting recipes and the nicest armour skins would be out of my reach! I loved it so much that I actually unsubscribed several MMOs just because of that – I don’t want to be a second-rate player anymore just because I don’t raid. And raiders are never happy unless they get the best of everything. Best gear. Best skins. Best materials. Best recipes. Best mounts. Best anything. For the rest of us.. what is there left, exactly?

I love Guild Wars 2 among things because it doesn’t have raids.

Vol.5241:

Nothing is wrong with precursor prices, it’s based on supply and demand.

Free markets do not work unless certain conditions are being met. One of them is neither supply nor demand being substantially influenced by any given party. ANet controls the supply of precursors, for that reason alone your assumption that the result of such a market would be optimal in any way is…flawed.

No thank you. If people want frustratingly hard content, there are plenty of games out there that deliver that sort of experience. Why do people buy a game and then want to turn it into something completely different? I don’t quite understand that.