10:54 PM on a Sunday.
LA overflow and W3 queues don’t even come close to exemplifying population health.
Not saying that we should evict the forum mods, either; but if you gave me a choice between stacking forum mods or game GMs right now, my decision is pretty clear.
How is this thread not closed in its current state?
If you like the game enough to want to affect positive change, then make your claims / suggestions.
Lack of objectivity from both fanboys and doomsayers really have no place here.
Definitely one of those annoying nuisances, but I def read a thread saying they were addressing it.
My guess is it’s directly related to the fact that the TP is web based.
P.S. you may want to change the thread title.
Legit question… Doesn’t it feel like we have a stronger forum police presence than an actual in-game police presence?
I paid for the game, not the forum; why can’t we shift some of the forum moderators to in game GMs to police the botting issue??
Pop quiz:
If “everything is endgame”, then why is there a leveling system at all? Isn’t it contradictory?
At one point they were going to scrap levelling completely. They also considered including it but never having a level cap – only diminishing rewards at each level.
But the way I look at it levelling does 2 things:
1) “unlocks” new areas. In theory you can run straight from the starting point to Orr if you know the way. In practice you’d never get there because the enemies along the way would one-shot you. So you need to level up in order to be able to do everything.
2) It’s an easy way of tracking your progress through the various forms of character progression. You gradually unlock things like traits, new skills, elites etc. as you’re levelling up and when you hit 80 you know you’ve got them all.So to me it’s just another mechanic that enables and informs your progress, rather than a goal in it’s own right.
I would like to read where they would’ve scrapped leveling. IMO, that would be a fairly innovative direction.
The issue (I see) is that there’s so much that advertises the entire game as being “endgame”; however goals aren’t exactly atomic. IE, everything feels as if it was originally intended to be a vertical progression from content to crafting.
If they had actually came in w/ a no-leveling concept, that would have opened so many doors for the game (granted there would have needed to be some introductory pre-req to get players familiar w/ their character and the game mechanics).
Pop quiz:
If “everything is endgame”, then why is there a leveling system at all? Isn’t it contradictory?
Stop with the bullhonky tonk people! The game is fine and in great shape, ANet has made a masterpiece and will continue to make great changes to this game for an even better experience. Stop with the doom and gloom and the lies.
Good Job ANet keep up the good work!
We do know that this type of information is just as irrelevant and useless as the xfire data arguing GW2 collapse, right?
For one, server capacity only gives an indication of how many players live on a given server – it offers no value for their actual activity. Ie, each server could be at capacity with only a handful of players logging in daily. This may change, however as ANet gets more data regarding inactive players.
Also, the terminology used is entirely relative. Sure these servers could be “Full” or “High”, but you don’t know what the actual numerical cap is. “Full” could mean there are 20 players or 2000.
IMO, this thread holds just as much value as any one of the threads arguing GW2 is dying.
in Suggestions
Posted by: Lance Coolee.9480
Do you really need to start every sentence with “as a GW2 player”?
We’re all GW2 players :P
Sorry, I know it looks weird, but it’s a format the devs are very likely familiar with.
In agile software development, that’s usually how user stories are formed. It’s nothing more than a way of providing context to the issue (although in this case it appears redundant).
No he is VOLUNTARILY playing a video game. If he chose not to play, he would not experience this ‘punishment’. That’s like saying Breaking Bad punished me because I did not enjoy Season 3. His argument makes NO sense and is just kittening because a few things aren’t to his liking. I get that the current tuning of the DR makes players upset, but to call it punishment is wrong.
Is this really the best argument you have? Semantics have no place in logical debate. Close your eyes, compose a real argument why to keep the DR system the way it is, and come back when you have something of value to say beside “if you don’t like it, don’t play it”.
IMO, punishing (read: negatively affecting) players by imposing the DR system was the worst idea to combat the botting issue.
You really have to consider development / testing times.
Coming from a software dev background, 1 week development sprints are ridiculously amazing. The shortest release cycles I’ve seen in even the most disciplined companies were 2 weeks and they didn’t have nearly as many end users.
in Suggestions
Posted by: Lance Coolee.9480
Miscellaneous gameplay
1. As a GW2 player, I would like to be able to quickly adapt to different combat situations. I would like to quickly choose gear and utility skills, along with weapon and primary skills, to adapt to solo or team play.
Solution:
Provide players with the ability to select “loadouts” that can quickly change a player’s utility skills, weapons and armor to a build that suits their gameplay situation.
2. As a GW2 player, I’m starting to find that the daily achievements get a bit repetitive and aren’t as compelling to complete as the first time I’ve done them.
Solution:
Vary the objectives for the daily achievements; don’t stick with just kills, variety, gathering and events. Mix it up a little, add some flavor.
in Suggestions
Posted by: Lance Coolee.9480
Make in game items more accessible; provide alternate paths to obtain in game items
1. As a GW2 player still leveling, certain in game items appear too far out of reach for me to obtain at my level. Examples: Level 40 faction weapons cost 9,800 karma, level 60 culture armor sets cost a total of 7g.
Solution:
Lower the cost of faction and cultural gear (under 80) to a cost that is reasonable based on what the player is capable of building up to that level.
2. As a level 80 GW2 player, dungeon, karma and badge gear appear to be available by only participating in their respective events. Enjoying the rest of the game world puts me no closer to achieving that goal.
Solution:
Normalize in game currency to use either karma or gold. In order to maintain that players show proficiency in a dungeon before purchasing the gear, provide a pre-requisite that players must complete before dungeon items may be purchasable (like completing the story and all 4 explorable paths of a dungeon). Provide a similar pre-requisite for WvW vendors.
Also consider lowing the cost of karma items to something reasonable.
(edited by Lance Coolee.9480)
in Suggestions
Posted by: Lance Coolee.9480
Being a software architect, I’ll propose these problems / solutions in an Agile user story based format.
Sorry, there is also no TL;DR
Connect the players to the content; distribute level capped players across Tyria
1. As a GW2 player, I would like to be more informed about what is going on in the world around me. It’s a rather large PvE world and lots of different events occur at unpredictable times.
Solution:
Provide town criers in the major cities that alert players to some of the major events that are occurring throughout the game world. These town criers can let the players know when the centaurs are acting up in Hirathi Highlands, or when the Splintered Coast is seeing increased activity and that Tequatl’s approach is imminent. Let the players know if the Citadel of Flame is under Flame Legion control or that Zojja needs our help at the Crusible of Eternity.
Town criers may also do more than inform us of the larger “epic” events, like informing us that forces in certain key areas are low and need our help (a call to action that there are very few players in that area), or when the forces of Tyria are planning an attack on Zaitan’s forces on Orr and need our help. Perhaps even increase the magic find in these troubled areas as an incentive to visit them.
aside: Town Criers are one example of how to implement this goal. Other options are available, like an in game notification tool that players can use to subscribe to events they want to be aware of, etc…
Provide the player with a more intuitive tool for joining events / dungeons like a dungeon finder.
2. As a GW2 player, I would like to be able to obtain crafting mats and gear relevant to my crafting level without being restricted to certain zones.
Solution:
Item drops and drop rates should be directly related to the character’s level. The nodes may stay how they are currently (ie nodes are related to the level of the zone they are in). Also provide a new node type that allows tailors to not be strictly dependent on gear drops.
3. As a GW2 player, I would like to be able to participate in events / dungeons even if I don’t have the currency to do so.
Solution:
Allow armor and waypoint costs to scale based on how much available currency the player has, not on the player’s level. Establish a cap on this so it doesn’t infinitely scale. If a player is low on currency, this system won’t restrict the player from playing the game; if the player has adequate funds, then provide them with the highest cost waypoints and armor costs as an incentive to put more thought into their decisions. If a player has no available currency, waypoint and armor costs are zero.
(edited by Lance Coolee.9480)
I’ll have to dig it up, but I remember reading an official red reply stating that changing orders is not currently possible.
You’d have to roll a new character to be a part of a different order.
I don’t know how it is that you are leveling, or if you are spending Karma as you go??
1st point- I have leveled 3 different classes past 40 and ALL of them had 20k+ in Karma by then just running event chains and doing heart/map completions.
2nd point- more important- You should not be using Karma really (especially 10k+) on a low lvl item you will out-level in hours or a few days at best. End game Karma gear is all 42K a piece and saving for that IMO is a better idea.
Even though the trade broker has been broken a lot- the fact is you can get green master work gear for close to vendor cost at most levels—- or sometime a little higher… but the “cost of ownership” is low- since even though it is “soulbound” you can vendor it when you upgrade and recover most of your initial investment
Karma gear does have slightly different/better stats at times but it isn’t “game changing” especially at level 40
You totally missed the point of his argument.
I agree, 9800 karma is ridiculous for a level 40 weapon; either remove the items at that cost or make the prices reasonable to obtain.
It’s used later in the personal story. No spoilers!
Man, that sucks.
I agree, company’s who claim to stand by their product should equally stand by their customers.
I too would like to see ArenaNet personally stepping up and taking responsibility for these issues by not just resolving them moving forward, but to compensate those players whom effectively have been QA’ing the product.
The pvp in SS crashed the server daily and that is why the battlegrounds were added.
Ahh, good ol’ SS pvp; you’ve gotta admit though, as buggy and as frustrating as it was, that was a lot of fun.
Folks, it’s entirely futile to compare GW2 to Vanilla WoW. Expectations change right along with technologies, practices, processes, etc.
If some new car manufacturer releases a vehicle with a mess of issues, do they get to justify it by leaning on “well Ford and Chevy had tons of issues when they started selling cars”? No, because that was decades ago and the technology has evolved.
I’m not saying GW2 is a bad game, it’s got great potential; but for us to sit here and justify the game’s issues by comparing it to another released almost a decade ago (I cringe thinking about what software language I was developing on at the time), then there is a serious issue w/ the evolution of game development.
(edited by Lance Coolee.9480)
Posted by: Lance Coolee.9480
3a) World drops normalized for 80s
Why do I have to farm Orr if I want level 80 blue green and yellow drops?
For a level 80 the Orr drop should be the whole world drop.This would spread people arround, make the whole world relevant to everybody.
And I don’t mean “give a high chance to as-good-as-orr-drops in the world”. I mean the same, otherwise people will logically gather in Orr to maximize effectiviness still.
This would also spread the income to less farm-minded people, making the economy a bit more socialized.
Use your own beautiful world ArenaNet. Make us use it efficiently.
My issue is that if you have to lure players into a particular zone using any particular reward (gear, mats, currency, or any other “carrot”), then it says a lot about the quality of content in that zone.
If all of the items, mats, etc were completely removed (or equally distributed) across the game, where would players play and where wouldn’t they? THIS should be the basis on what zones get the most development attention.
It certainly says a lot, though when the rewards are still not enough to convince players to visit certain game content (I personally am having a real tough time finding players to play with in Orr).
There was a fantastic discussion a while back about some tweaks that could be made to the travel system that would make grouping with lower level friends a lot better, among other things. I cannot find the thread but I think it was moved to suggestions. It has a heck of a great discussion though.
I think if a few tweaks were put in place, fast travel could be regulated and prohibitive enough to avoid zone floods and other issues without making it as illogical as it is now. Many suggested tying the costs to the zone level (not the player level), as well as making your jump to a major city cheaper or free, and more. Still searching for it…
Someone in this thread gave a great suggestion on the topic as well: to have waypoint and armor costs scale with usage. So initially, they’d start off relatively low, and as the player uses them more, the costs would also increase.
Personally, I would like to see a system that implements some element of scaling based on how much money the player has (up to a cap). So effectively, if the player is broke, waypoints and armor repairs cost nothing. If the player is banking 80g, then waypoint and armor costs are maxed out.
Now consider this:
“Point A” being me and “Point B” being my gameplay. I can tell you, I see no resistance whatsoever on my path between A and B.
So what about you be more open minded and realize that we are arguing about opinions, nothing more. Unless the huge majority of the players decide to agree with you or me, it won’t ever be anything more than just a battle of opinions.
You’re using the term “resistance” as a relative term based on the context you apply it to. I did not, I used “resistance” as a mathematical value with intent to show possible pitfalls.
You see no resistance because the gameplay path YOU have chosen allows you to do so.
That is not the case with players that follow a different path, and it is very easy to see why that design fails.
(Queue the knee-jerk response: “well then you’re playing the game wrong”).
^ I’ll refute that before you get a chance to even think it. Show me where the game outlines the “right” and the “wrong” way to play, and I’ll give up my argument.
I consider enhanced travel of any form realistic not resistance. Same is true for armor damage repair costs.
These things make me care about dying, care about travel and help to immerse me into the world and have a stake in my progress. Much like in EVE, there are consequences to losing a fight in a ship worth 2 billion. In GW2, at least there is a repair cost involved.
The fact that you view these costs as insurmountable and unacceptable is a matter of opinion and perspective; both you are welcome to have and neither are facts.
Logical arguments.
I don’t believe I’ve stated that the costs are unacceptable, rather I argued that their existence doesn’t fit the intended goal.
It’s one thing to say they exist in game as a way provoke immersion (which I do agree with), than to say that they exist to keep the economy in check (which I don’t agree with).
I’d like to say that if we do keep waypoint and armor costs in the game, it’s not at the expense of the players ability to actually play. I’ve personally felt the pain of that when I’ve had to completely walk away from a dungeon (with a handful of pugs) simply because I couldn’t afford to do it anymore (we’ve wiped like 20 times, but the enthusiasm to complete it remained, so I stayed for as long as I could).
The only argument rebutting the “proposed” issues are “if you don’t like it, don’t do it” and “this isn’t wow, if you wanted wow, go buy pandaland”.
And I bought pandaland, despite not having planned to do so before hand. I can already predict the response from some of these people though, it’s “good riddance!” or “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” etc. I’m not sure why mmo communities have devolved to actually wanting other people to quit and play something else, even though the whole point is to have more people and play with people. The more people “your game” has, the more money the developer gets, the more content and overall game will be better. Keep shooing people out though, I’m sure it’ll end well.
I think everyone should buy every game and try them all; and even gasp enjoy them all! I see no reason to expect that everyone who plays one particular game should stay forever. There are many digital worlds to explore; no reason to limit anyone to one.
Enjoy.
I work with another software engineer that does JUST that. The last game I remember him talking to me about was the 50 Cent game. Totally ridiculous game.
Because what you call “problem” is not a fact based on unbiased research, but just your own opinion about something instead. You are so self-centered on your coments that you fail to understand this simple fact.
Show me one post where I spoke for anyone but myself and didn’t express simple observation.
The beauty behind “simple facts” is that they are indeed, simple and proven. It is proven that when you apply any resistance between Point A and Point B, the result is less than optimal.
Consider the player “Point A” and consider gameplay “Point B”; waypoint and armor costs are the resistance. Pretty simple wouldn’t you agree?
(edited by Lance Coolee.9480)
Next step would be implementing the solutions and testing the results, wouldn’t you say?
You are assuming others agree with the proposed solutions and the initial identified items are actually problems…
What sucks is I can’t even find one argument that offers valid reason why what some are proposing as problems, aren’t.
The only argument rebutting the “proposed” issues are “if you don’t like it, don’t do it” and “this isn’t wow, if you wanted wow, go buy pandaland”.
Next step would be implementing the solutions and testing the results, wouldn’t you say?
You are assuming others agree with the proposed solutions and the initial identified items are actually problems…
Sorry, yes you are correct. I did simplify the process for the purpose of illustration.
Heck if thats the only logic behind player experience you learned from that class, lets just make a whole virtual world where anyone has GM powers so they can do whatever they want in there and have the most fun they ever had on any virtual enviroment, no barriers or limitations at all…
Show me how waypoint and armor costs ADD value to the player’s gaming experience, and then I’ll start to listen to your arguments.
Unfortunately (for you, probably) there are a lot more behind money sinks than just what you described. Reducing money sinks randomly could unbalance the economy and players could play less because economy is a mess now.
Again, Scientific Method. Nobody advocated anything be done randomly at all. I’m merely 1. Identifying the problem and 2. Proposing theories to solve the problems.
Next step would be implementing the solutions and testing the results, wouldn’t you say?
The real issue is there are quite a handful of players arguing against the “problem”, but aren’t offering valid reasons why it’s not a problem. The largest consenting reply I’ve read was “if you don’t like it, don’t do it”.
100% agreed (plus 15 chars).
You are indeed advocating the removal of these two money sinks.
Correct, I am.
I never said I’m advocating the removal of ALL money sinks.
But again what would change in the end?
The overall gameplay experience. People will play more simply because there are fewer barriers for them to do so (User Experience Design 101).
Why did I use this argument on our discussion about waypoint costs? Simply because there is no formula available to tell us what should be the ideal price for them. Noone can safely say that they know, for a fact, what would be “the best” for the game. They only say for their personal interests and opinions.
It would do you some good to take some User Experience and Design courses. That alone would answer this question.
Simply put, the ideal cost is ZERO. Waypoint costs and Armor costs are a penalty, they offer no added value to the experience (the argument really can’t be made that they’re a strategic factor that forces players to think about “not dying”, because dying alone is penalty enough). They’re there solely as a counterbalance to some other mechanic in the system. All I am saying is that there are far more creative ways to impose the same counterbalance without detracting from the overall experience.
Again asking me to educate myself, eh? Should we keep on this like on my last economics class? Hopefully not…
They are just money sinks, and as such, completely necessary. Removing the money sinks from one aspect of the game just to put them somewhere else, won’t help you and your pockets at nothing at all, so why are you asking for their removal again?
Show me where I said I’m advocating the removal of money sinks?
Why couldn’t waypoint travel (and armor repair) scale (with a cap) based on the amount of money the player has available? Why couldn’t waypoint travel (and armor repair) scale based on usage? Why couldn’t we just find alternative money sinks like replacing all dungeon tokens with gold cost?
There are a significant number of alternatives to balance the economy than waypoint and armor costs (which deter players from playing more, instead of promoting players to play more).
Why did I use this argument on our discussion about waypoint costs? Simply because there is no formula available to tell us what should be the ideal price for them. Noone can safely say that they know, for a fact, what would be “the best” for the game. They only say for their personal interests and opinions.
It would do you some good to take some User Experience and Design courses. That alone would answer this question.
Simply put, the ideal cost is ZERO. Waypoint costs and Armor costs are a penalty, they offer no added value to the experience (the argument really can’t be made that they’re a strategic factor that forces players to think about “not dying”, because dying alone is penalty enough). They’re there solely as a counterbalance to some other mechanic in the system. All I am saying is that there are far more creative ways to impose the same counterbalance without detracting from the overall experience.
OK, let’s be honest here. While you have a point that that would mean i coldn’t “play my way”… everyone can’t “play their way”. Let’s say “my way” is to hack people’s accounts, steal their gold, and scream racial epithets all day? Yes I know there are people doing those things, but they get banned. Therefore Anet is not allowing them to play their way. A line has to be drawn somewhere for the sake of decency and fair play.
How is exploiting the system even remotely comparable to asking the devs for less restriction on gameplay? You’re on two completely radical ends of the debate, and this cannot be an argument in favor of keeping waypoints and armor costs the way they are.
Now the original topic at hand was whether Anet lied to us in the Manifesto. The answer is, and always will be, no. Why? A manifesto is not a strict legal document. It is not a binding promise. It is simply a statement of intent. Anet tells us what they WANT for the game to be. That the INTEND to make it such by the best of their ability.
Following that logic, if the President of the US doesn’t follow though on his (non contractually binding) promises, then we have no right to demand better either, right?
Question is: do you like their product? If you do, then have faith, keep posting suggestions and reporting bugs, but also have an open mind about the fact that not every single suggestion you make will be a good thing, in the end. We can’t take our personal opinions out of the equation this easly. In any case. hyperboles about your problems with the game won’t help anything at all.
If you read the posts, you’d likely find that I’ve done EXACTLY that, only to be countered with rebuttal that holds no value and doesn’t add to the overall progress of the game.
Regarding waypoint costs. OK, 5s from one side of the map to the other sucks. Want some advice? Stop doing that.
And we would still have people complaining that prices are still high because people are usually lazy and will always port around instead of walking.
So which is it then? Post suggestions and get flamewared against by those blindly supporting the game? Or am I only allowed to post suggestions that everyone agrees on?
If it’s anyone that has to bring a logical argument to the table, I would think it’s you. I have yet to read one that counters anything anyone has said aside from “well it still won’t make ppl happy, so why bother doing it?”
It’s more than feeling lied to. I feel like the product is incomplete (for whatever reason), and concepts / ideas were shoehorned in at the last second to make it to production.
Never once had I said that I’m not having fun. I play with friends and my two sisters; however, aside from sPvP, I don’t really feel that there are any real challenges in the game.
And to say that looking for ways to improve the PvE experience are semantics does nothing to help improve the game. If you have a logical counter to the argument of whether or not to keep waypoint and armor costs the same, then make it.
Just don’t sit there and hinder progress w/ the same canned response of “if you don’t like it, don’t do it”.
Sorry but you are wrong…
Production costs are always passed to the consumer or anyone else for the matter. In RL besides the consumers, we would have shareholders and labor costs… One of which would pay for the production costs.
Supply/demand balance and market price would never change this fact.. Someone will always pay for production costs.
Now find an analogy for that on Guild Wars and I’ll give you the point in this discussion.
Are you really taking that analogy this far out of context? It wasn’t intended to demonstrate apples to apples how travel costs are supposed to be formulated in a game world; rather how we go about solving issues. I could’ve used any analogy.
If the cost of shoes decides to go through the roof, are we going to shrug it off and start walking barefoot?
I’d be fine if the prices of the waypoints varied on usage.
Usage increases, the price increases. Usage decreases, the price decreases.
Let the populations willingness to use and pay determine the price.
See, there ya go, that’s creative.
I actually rather like that. It make sense, and it adapts to the player’s style. Almost feels sort of mini-game ish. Player Vs Waypoint Cost.
Altho the I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.
Are you going to start walking the moment gas prices get too high to drive? Likely not – people will beat down the walls until those prices become reasonable. I see no difference on this topic.
You see no difference getting up at 3AM so you can walk 4 hours one way to work and spending 5 mins on your rear virtually walking down the road?
C’mon, obviously they are two completely different scenarios; the analogy still stands.
If you have an issue, you find solutions to the issue and not work arounds. Walking from one end of a map to the other (and I’m not complaining about walking within the same zone here) is not a long-term viable solution to traveling in game. People will clearly get bored of it and fast.
I still think that GW2 has some really good potential, but seriously, for a game that claims to be all about the “fun” factor, there are more than a handful of attributes that contradict.
Well, I’ll try to show you the “you guys” later when I feel inclined to search through all the complain posts you and others like so much to participate.
Anyways, there is no logic at all on what you said. There is no comparison. In RL prices are calculated based on many facts like prime materials costs, profit margins, hour/work costs and many other details that will never take place on a virtual world game economy… Here prices just exist for no reason at all.
Could you bring me the formula behind waypoint costs, please… The cost of the technology envolved, the energy used to make the time/space portals work etc? I know I will enjoy every second of my time needed to read it if you manage to.
Sorry to say, but you’re far from complete there. Go take an economics class.
The prime driver in pricing in RL is market value, not raw material / production costs.
Regarding waypoint costs you are also incorrect, they have a very specific “reason”, but the challenge is that there are more creative ways to accomplish that same goal without it having a restricting affect on gameplay.
I’d not be opposed to LA as a free waypoint, nor a reduction of WP costs. Although Again I wonder why they’re a problem. 30 minutes in a zone and I’ve more than made up the cost of any jump. The only way I can see this being a problem is if you are constantly jumping from zone to zone (possibly to farm high-pri events like Shatterer or Claw). Even then the rewards from one of these events tend to be more than the cost of a single jump from anywhere.
I do think there needs to be some further analysis on what the deep rooted problems are. I hear quite a bit from both sides that waypoints are either an issue or not.
However, to think about it logically and without acting use cases, the mere existence of waypoint and armor costs kind of contradicts their mantra of “play the game your way”. The ability to continue playing “your way” is entirely dependent on either:
1. Playing efficiently (fewer deaths, smarter waypoint travel)
Or
2. Gold farming to counterbalance your inefficient playstyle.
Now, considering the game claims to appeal to all audiences (especially those new to MMOs), you can easily start to see where problems begin to arise.
Altho the I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.
Are you going to start walking the moment gas prices get too high to drive? Likely not – people will beat down the walls until those prices become reasonable. I see no difference on this topic.
Real life analogies, really? You guys hate so much when others do exactly this to defend the game and now you are doing the same?
Who are “you guys” and when did I fill out a membership? I never argue against analogies that make sense, and I do intend on using them (although rarely) when appropriate.
Altho the I never minded walking a bit just to reduce my waypoint fees… Guess that’s exactly what people should do and it really doesn’t hurt.
Are you going to start walking the moment gas prices get too high to drive? Likely not – people will beat down the walls until those prices become reasonable. I see no difference on this topic.
Engineer named Sprocky Balboa
Regarding waypoint costs. OK, 5s from one side of the map to the other sucks. Want some advice? Stop doing that.
Go to the Mists, Go to Lion’s Arch. From there, I don’t think anything costs more than maybe 2s. I make more than that as a reward from a DE, not counting once again vendorable/tradeable loot.
A workaround, not a solution.
If players can just as easily use the Mists as a proxy for navigating the map, then why NOT lower the cost of waypoints?
There are plenty of threads asking for LA to be a free waypoint for this argument alone, but that isn’t even gaining any traction or attention.
Well then, if they can’t come up with anything besides grinding to keep players busy, they’ll be remembered as another MMO that wanted to wrestle the giant that is WoW and got knocked into the dust. They say they want you to explore the world and have fun. If you did just that, without any farming at all, you’d be broke because of the waypoint travel costs. Reducing the waypoint travel costs or even removing them altogether would be the first step towards removing grinds.
So you remembered nothing about the game except the grind at 80? That is the only thing that comes to mind? Wow (no not WoW, but wow). How did you get to 80 if you couldn’t afford waypoint travel? I have had no trouble at all with waypoint costs. I walk a lot of the time and gather mats and such on the way. I get a couple drops decent drops from monsters and I have no trouble paying for waypoints.
“will be remembered”=/=“I will remember”. Of course I could afford waypoint travel; leveling is easily the most profitable avenue of gold. I can afford waypoint travel even now, but that’s because I farm gold. And even when I had 30 gold (before buying the first piece of T3 Cultural), I would still get annoyed by the fact that I had to pay 3 silver to get to Orr from LA.
I do understand how you feel about the cost. In my opinion the cost has the perfect weight. It isn’t so cheap that it is like, “Yeah whatever”, and it isn’t so expensive that I think, “Not a chance I will ever use that.” I weigh my travel expense before I go knowing I will have to work that cost off.
I won’t complain if they lower it, I promise you that.
The point people are missing is that although gold sinks are needed in the game, this is a poor way to implement them.
They are a logical barrier between the user and the gameplay.
Think about it… Waypoint and repair costs don’t promote more gameplay, they restrict it. There’s no added “fun” value to the xmer by introducing them; they exist as a counterbalance to some other aspect of the game. Simply put, get creative and find another way to implement gold sinks so that they don’t have a negative impact on gameplay.
Don’t need weapons, either. Let’s all just kung fu fight each other.
There are so many complaints about grind at level 80. Then there are people that say there is nothing to do at 80. What way do you want it? If they just give you EVERYTHING at 80, there will be absolutely nothing to do. If they make is real quick, why bother at all? If it takes a long time it is suddenly considered a grind. Because ArenaNet said they were trying to avoid the grind, people jump all over them. How can you make anything last a long time in an MMO without some sort of grind? It isn’t possible. Devs cannot write code as fast as people can conquer it. Would you have preferred to wait another 10 years for this game? Waited until ArenaNet exhausted its resources and went out of business with the game unreleased because too much time went into content?
Freaking Ridiculous.
Honestly, I expect creativity. I expected the innovative experience they’d advertised since I started following them 2 years ago.
1-80 wasn’t terribly innovative. It was fun, it just wasn’t challenging in the least.
80+ isn’t really challenging, nor is it fun. And there isn’t even an incentive to ignore those two aspects and tough it out anyway.
These are just my opinions.
I had to leave WoW because of the community. I played it since beta while I was deployed w/ the Marine Corps. At first, it was fantastic. Now, it sucks all sorts of terrible not necessarily because of the gameplay, but because of the people.
I never expected GW2 to be anything like WoW. And it is that fact alone that I was so disappointed. It’s got the same grindy feel (just not in the early levels), it’s got the same egotistical community.
It doesn’t have the challenging content. It doesn’t have the sense of accomplishment.
I am STILL however, deeply rooting for ANet to get it in gear. One can still hope, right?
[Edit]
What a BRILLIANT concept!
I swear on all things holy, if ANet opened a position up for a permanent bot farmer, I will QUIT my software architect job and take that up in a hearbeat.
[Edit by CC: Video removed]
(edited by Moderator)
@Mackdose Where am I getting that information? Why, the manifesto itself, of course?
“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun.”
When they say they don’t want players to grind, it means there aren’t supposed to be any grinds. If there are, there will be people who are doing it and as such, they will have gone against their philosophy in the manifesto. It’s simple logic, really.
Moreover, like someone else already said, they put in huge grinds in the game and then tried to make sure you couldn’t them do. They increased the cost of the Tier 3 Cultural armor tenfold since beta. All the while, we can’t even sell the crafting materials that we get as drops at decent prices, because there are bots farming tons of them and then selling them at ridiculously low prices.
Is this the game that you were promised? A game where, if you just ran around the world, having fun, you wouldn’t be able to withstand the cost of waypoint traveling? A game that is played by more bots, than people?
And don’t try to combat this with the generic “well anyone can grind if they want to, just stand in one place and kill the same thing until ur fingers bleed. how do you expect anet to keep players from doing that”.
The designers PURPOSEFULLY emplaced rewards with no path to obtain them aside from grinding. This was very likely done (my belief) so that there was something for players to do when they hit level 80. This feels like a major cop-out and there are much better solutions to that problem.
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