The summer metrics and concurrent playerbase show it’s working.
Not really. Numbers are just numbers. They don’t show how many people are truly enjoying it, how many are doing it because they are addicted or fanatic AP collectors, or how many don’t like it but are fanboys doing it anyway cause there’s nothing else to do.
You may be right, but you may be wrong. Numbers don’t tell anywhere near the whole story and you can’t claim it as fact.
I think maybe we’re looking at this wrong. Why do we always want to live in the past?
You can’t avoid it. People inevitably ask : how do I get (insert name here) skin? How I do I get (insert name here) backpiece? Where’s the content they claimed they added? Wheres the new dungeons? How did you get so many AP’s?
The answers are always : you can’t get it anymore, its gone and they’ve been removed. There’s new stuff coming yes, but you’re kitten out of luck if you want any past skins or titles or anything else that was a permanent remnant of past content.
its not all negative, I do tell people they’ve done some changes I like to world bosses, the changes to Tequatl and those improvements, but when the company claims they’ve added more content than anyone else in less time, people inevitably ask where the hell is this content? Its frustrating to me too as I start new characters and want past skins and want to run past dungeons with them. How was I supposed to know what skins I wanted for a character I might create 6 months down the road?
The biggest flaw of the Living Story is that it and the methods to obtain items from it (w/o cashshop) are all removed.
See I don’t think so. I think it’s still on a moderate progression path…and they intend to stay that way..that is the gear progression is going to be relatively minor stat-wise compared to other games. You won’t need the gear to run dungeons.
That’s my prediction anyway.
Really? Its still the same thing though. If they add another gear after Ascended, say, with another ‘minor’ stat boost of 10%, then another tier after that…..its still vertical and will still divide players as the stat difference from exotic to whatever the current tier may be gets larger and larger. Just because they’re doing it in smaller increments doesn’t mean it’s not there or gets to be called something else.
Its like your power company throwing a power rate increases at you – suddenly hike the bill by $200 in one shot or by increasing the bill by $10 over time so they can claim its better than the other company who does it in one shot.
The living story is a horrible design. I don’t even do it anymore, shallow characters, forgettable stories, content thats removed in 2 weeks. Its kitten ing me off now actually that I made a new character and cannot get the skins I want for him because they’re gone and the method to obtain is gone. Having to explain to people theres been a ton of content and stuff added, but that its all been removed since they last played gets tiresome. Watch them be frustrated they can’t get something or do something thats been removed. Watch other people say they not going to bother coming back since the new content is all time-gated…….which it is – do it in two weeks or else you never will.
People may leave and people may stop doing it, but Anet will keep doing it. Because the numbers say its a good design – because you have fanboys who love everything Anet does blindly as evidenced here and you have the addicts who must do all the content for the sake of it and must have those AP’s. Numbers are just numbers.
GW2 is quickly becoming just a placeholder for me, because unfortunately there’s nothing better out there right now. Its a selling point alright tho….a selling point for other upcoming games where the majority of your new content isn’t temporary and shallow. NUmbers is all they seem to care about. On the anniversary they bragged about how many updates and new content was pushed into the game……thats misleading to anyone new or players that have been away. They failed to add that 90% of that content has since been removed and gone.
I was looking for a game to replace my old MMO (where I spent almost 5 years) and had planned on GW2 being that. But the path they’ve been taking in conforming with other MMO’s and adding content thats just an AP farm with no real substance has made me start looking for something else to play. I’m far more looking forward to what someone may actually do in terms of innovation in a new game than whatever lame boss-of-the-week AP farm-fest Anet is adding on any given week.
And just telling someone they don’t have to do the living story is like telling them to play a stagnant game, since most of the updates or content is all Living Story.
Gaming alone wont make or break this. I’m not a fanboy of any OS…but Windows is reigning King. People who want Linux as a main OS or even want to dual-boot Windows and another OS is a minority. Not to mention competing with the PS4 and XBone and to a lesser extent, Nintendo.
You also have Apple out there, Android seeping in via Kickstarter projects like Ouya and Nvidia trying their hand at a platform.
I know very little about OS’s workings besides Windows is bloatware (unlike the majority of MMO forum goers who are self-proclaimed experts), but its reigning king and will be catered to because of its compatibility with not only games, but pretty well every other program people want and ease of use for non-techies.
In the end sadly, it doesnt come down to how efficient it is, how good it is, or how powerful it is…..it comes down to how many people accept it as a main and convenient OS. Without market acceptance and saturation, you can forget porting any existing games to it, it wouldnt be worth the cost. And any new games would be available on Windows and Steam both, which again prevents acceptance as there’s no exclusive reason to get a Steam-only box.
Ascended is here and its stats set, it’s too late.
Right now, I’m not working towards any and don’t care about them. Nor do I care about upcoming Ascended armor.
Why?
I was against the implementation of vertical progression, but its here. Its also a gear-grind for the sole purpose of being a gear grind. There was no new content, areas or any purpose for the addition of the gear.
I don’t care to grind out gear I don’t need. Or spend a crapload of coin or grind to level a crafting profession for this pointless gear.
If they made other ways to get it, I would probably focus on it more. No, I don’t mean easier ways or have it handed to me. Just options other than buy/grind mats and crafting, which in itself isn’t hard. It’s tedious.
Or even if it had some point besides being new gear for the sake of new gear. As it is, I may get one made someday due to accumulation of the mats through normal gameplay, cause if they can’t be bothered to add something worth while or some better way to get the gear, I can’t be bothered with their carrot-grind.
And you wonder why Anet won’t give a straight answer about a lot of things. I don’t know about Anet, but I know I’m tired of seeing the kittening thing.
It’s one thing to lobby for a change in the gamestate or help shape and push it in a direction that you would like or feel that it would be better, its another to cling to this one kittening statement and whip it out like its the golden law every week.
You can bet if Anet learned anything from the Manifesto…its to not have one out there and to say as little as possible because this is what happens.
Then don’t go to Dulfy.
This is a problem that goes well beyond GW2. It’s inherent to current generation of gaming as a whole. Games are watered down with walkthroughs, hours of tutorials, holding your hand, telling you every little detail about what you have to do. On top of that, countless sites devoted to telling you exactly what to do.
If you take many gamers from this current generation, plop them in front of an old NES/SNES game they don’t know what to do. The original Zelda – here’s a wooden sword and a map that shows you little to nothing, go save the Princess and the world.
Super Metroid – here’s a planet you’ve landed on, go find that Metroid and figure out and get everything on your own, cause we’re not going to tell you anything.
Games used to be built on exploration and finding things on your own. Now they’re built that way….with hand-holding every step of the way. dulfy is just a result of this.
Why should people be able to wait until the event starts and then kick out people playing with their friends because they happen to play on different servers?
Because you shouldn’t have to go to the map and sit and wait doing nothing for god knows how long before the event to ensure a spot on your own server. People do like to actually play other aspects of the game before an event.
Once you’re at 450 and can refine them, your collectibles lets you store enough for 50.5 ascended weapons. Not exactly a tiny storage.
This is what I did. Just got weaponsmithing to 450 so I could refine them and store more. No real interest in Ascended atm. Just saving them up as they fill my inventory and if I ever have enough I might make one someday. Figure this is better than destroying them in case I ever actually want Ascended.
I wouldn’t say that is fair at all.
Why should someone suddenly be kicked out of a map just because someone else turned up?
Flip side is, why should someone who is trying to do things on their own home server not be able to and miss out because guests are filling up the maps?
Though this problem has little to do with the lfg tool as it was happening long before it………….you do have the option to kick. If they’re being that way, simply kick them. Don’t say anything to them, just kick and block, use the fancy new lfg tool to refill the spot. Done.
This is not an issue. If they shorten it, it further trivializes content. The whole concept of getting out of combat is easy mode. If mobs are still aggro on you, you’re going to be in combat, guess what, monsters don’t like you.
Go play Everquest for some perspective.
This isn’t the whole problem. I’ve had what the OP has stated happen to me and still remain in combat AFTER killing the mob. This prevents movement through a jumping puzzle when you kill the mobs and the game won’t release you to jump properly.
It can’t be on purpose or ‘easy mode’ to remain in combat mode long after everything around you is dead.
Giving people priority in queue for home server sounds pretty reasonable… surprised it doesn’t already exist.
I’m pretty sure it does this already…..only in the queue though.
The problem is if people guested to a popular or known server for getting something done (like Tequatl) and camping in the map long before the event starts to ensure a spot. – yes this is happening. There’s nothing in place to give priority to people native to the server once guests are already on the map. Should they be kicked in favor of people native to it? I lean towards yes on this one. People on the server shouldn’t miss out on things on their home server due to people guesting.
How long depends on you. It does involve WvW, so that will likely take some time to get into everywhere as your server controls it. Doent take a real commitment really, you can just do it as you want. The worst area in PvE is probably Orr.
For professions, I had no problem doing it solo with Thief and Guardian. Elementalist needed a partner for some things.
I say go for it, just don’t treat it like a job. Do a map or two a day and it’ll be done before you know it. Check the WvW status window and go in to get what you need when your server controls it……………………do not leave WvW for last. Its horribly frustrating when everything else is done and you’re waiting on WvW.
However, there is no mandatory distinction on what exactly the group wants to do in the dungeon. I think this is a major problem because unfailingly I immediately found a notice in which the person was hosting a party in Sorrow’s Embrace and left no description. What the hell good is that?
Need to have a check-mark system for people to hit what they intend to do in the dungeon. Otherwise you can get a party of people with varying opinions and that may ultimately lead to the destruction of the party.
This is the fault of the user, not the tool. The tool has a box for you to enter whatever you want for your group, which path in a dungeon, any specific details you want to add. If someone chooses to not even bother to fill in what path it is….then thats likely only going to be their problem as it’ll be harder to get ppl to join. And if the person is too lazy to fill out a little box with minimal detail….doesn’t sound like someone I should join anyway.
Check mark system would be too rigid, IMO, except for dungeons could just have one for paths. An open comment box as it is allows you to put whatever details you need (New to dungeon/path, speed run, we’re elitist so you better have zerker, multiple runs in specific path order, and on and on)
I think it looks great and I’m sure more functionality and tweaks will come.
The first ones that should be taken care of have been mentioned by other already:
-a way to stop advertising (I don’t see a way to)
-some kind of confirmation or accept button, rather than auto-join/merge
I got added to the beta at some point tonight. Looks very good, I like the set up.
Ofc, its pretty empty due to not everyone having it, but I see some AC groups and a couple people doing map completes. Looks pretty well like an in-game gw2lfg.com
This’ll be very good when everyone has it
I’m for increasing the rewards……with the side-effect of having to earn them.
You should get a reward based on contribution to the event. This could be determined a number of ways – doing pre-event chains leading up to, % of boss up time that you do damage (so you can’t come in when boss is at 5% and get best reward), number of landed hits, and so on.
The current situation of people running in and tagging and doing little to nothing else is ridiculous, especially the ones who do no pre-events but have the balls to complain how long it takes for other people to do them.
Tagging and doing nothing should get you the lowest drop table, less chance for anything good (maybe no guaranteed rare at all). Its not a good system IMO and makes for very lazy players who will do the absolute minimum. Its the players choice to do…but they should get less for that choice.
People who do pre-events and contribute the most should get more and better rewards.
just out of curiosity. what makes an expansion different from a bunch of updates grouped together?
Where is all this content now? Most of it has faded into oblivion. New dungeons added, then removed. New players can’t do it. Veteran players can’t give it a go on new classes. The rewards from them not able to be farmed out anymore. New players seeing people with skins and rewards from past updates ask how they can also get it….only to be told they can’t (unless they buy BL keys in some cases.)
As it stands now, a lot of the content as of late has been alot of zerg and an AP farm fest from flavor of the week badguys.
I might be inclined to agree with you if the content on their 2 week schedule remained or if there was even some evidence some of it was even here to begin with. People are wanting an expansion as opposed to this “Living Story” because chances are the content would be of higher quality and be permanent.
Maw was an event that desperately needed a buff. It was a terrible joke before this last patch. Now its great fun, you actually have time to use skills, have to move your character, dodge, and can vary up attacks and help other people out.
I am speaking from the perspective of the scaled down event. I did it with a huge number of people and it felt like the same old Maw, just longer. Did it with 8 and 5 people and had a great time.
Yeah, I agree. Obviously by my previous posts, I’m a big fan of this update. Its not perfect, but a good step.
The timers would be something I don’t care for though. I’m not sure what the point is and would like to see them removed.
Or changed perhaps. Like if you beat the boss within the 15mins span you get the regular/current rewards + bonus champ chests or something. Over 15mins and you still get the regular/current rewards.
Yep, logged in, nothing left to do, logged out. I mean I can go to teq and watch it fail over and over, or I can go to something like fire ele and hope a huge wall of zerg farmers come in once the fire ele pre is done and whack-a-mole so we can succeed. Went to other boss events, temples etc etc and no one is bothering any longer. And certainly, as I play more after peak, I won’t be seeing any game content any longer apart form JP’s. So I’m usually playing at this time, already grinded my daily, now dusting off another game to play. wtg anet!
Your server must be absolutely horrible to begin with if the entire population was avoiding even the unaltered boss fights.
I know you dont speak from experience on the other bosses on where they are doable or not. We had a bunch of bosses pop at the same time, thus leaving some with fewer participants. FE was not bad at all with 5 or 6 people, it was dying pretty quickly until closer to the end of the fight a slew of people from another event that ended showed up and it got alot worse once it scaled. Maw took about 10mins, but 8 of us took it down easily enough. Doesn’t sound much like needing a zerg to me. In fact, I found both of theses events to be alot more fun with fewer people, that I would rather try to hit them in off-peak hours.
Love the conclusions being jumped to without even trying it. You shouldn’t be able to solo them, but they should be doable with a small group…and the ones I’ve tried so far are. They just require more than standing still.
EDIT
Just did Shadow Behemoth with a minimal group (less than 10), took a whopping 3 mins EDIT
Just did Maw again, with 5 people this time. Actual Svanir boss part took 10mins (a lot fewer deaths this time, since we knew what he was gonna do).
If people are abandoning these in off peak-hours because its 10mins and involves actually playing the characters, then thats kind of sad.
I like the boss changes. Granted, I havent been involved in a successful Tequatl fight yet. The others I’ve done, I’ve enjoyed. Maw, for example, took time and actual movement of my character. It wasn’t 30secs of auto-attacking it.
Given the new content lately, being mindless zerg-fest, I’ll take these tweaks over new content. This is my favorite update in a while.
People got way too used to these being an after-thought and something that was a lazy mans go-to for easy rewards. They are world-bosses. They are supposed to be hard, have a chance at failure and involve more than auto-attacking. Cause let’s face it, noone can say they weren’t a joke. They had fallen into a daily task and they never should have been.
The first time Maw popped that I was at people were upset, screaming hatred at Anet because it didn’t go down in the 30secs they were used to and they actually died (le gasp!!). What is Anets fault, is that we got used to the lazy, no effort required world bosses. This is a step in the right direction IMO.
I don’t see what the big deal is. I got 3/4 WvW so far with more ease than some of the PvE maps, and I am rarely in WvW otherwise. The only reason I don’t have the 4th WvW map done is I need our server to get the Green BL.
All you have to do is check the WvW info window to know when you should go get some done.
You use the same gear, items and equipment in PvE and WvW, thus they are treated as the same entity. WvW-only people complain about having to do PvE aspects to get a legendary……a helluva lot more than a non-WVW player like you.
It’s an aspect of the game and Anet doesn’t have to justify it to you and they won’t.
The only thing I don’t like is the 3 identical BL’s. I would prefer each one had different locations for pois, vistas and whatnot.
Well anything outside zerker and in some cases assassin is fail.
Well, if you don’t know how to play without a squad of zerkers carrying you, that’s your problem I guess. Doesn’t need to be dragged out on the rest of us with an info tool.
What, are you worried your bad build with non-berserker will get you booted from dungeons?
What? All my characters that have Berserker sets along with the other sets they have?
Yes, I’m terrified. Just cause I have zerker sets on mine doesn’t grant me the right to be a kitten and judge other people and call anything but zerker fail. You are right, elitism runs through this game now…the last thing it needs is a tool to make it worse.
Considering the ease of farming zerker gear, you actually have no way but to assume they are wearing the gear they link you.
This is a different topic, but I would like a way to judge whether a player is suitable for grouping or not. The ideal would be a way to tell what their stats currently are; ie. are they zerk or pvt, what’s their actual AR, etc..
No, there should be no way for this ever. This leads to the most horrible elitism. People kicked because of what build they are (even if its viable, but someone just doesnt like it), because they wield a weapon someone in the party doesn’t agree with, because they’re wearing only half berserker and half something else.
The only part of this I would agree with is AR as it is required for that particular dungeon. Noone should have to be subjected to random kicks and exclusion for playing in viable gear or a viable build but its just not the accepted norm. Regardless if that’s your intention, I guarantee it would happen. I’ve played an MMO with that (get a window with other players full info) and it was terrible.
On the flip side, should a dungeon party have to put up with a non-skilled, inadequate geared player? No, but you still have the option to kick at any point when that becomes evident. Once you implement this, theres a lot of conform or GTFO.
The legendary as a “gold grubber” item is simply unfortunate. If it had been done with grouping required, it could have been a useful indicator. Now, it’s not. Would you have preferred it to be a sign of skill or as it’s become, a sign of grind?
I would prefer it to be a sign of skill. But you cant say any different about Ascended. Its just a sign of mob tagging in a zerg. There’s barely any weapon or armor sets that point either way, especially with transmutation crystals. The only ones I could think of might FotM skins as they have to complete higher FotM’s to get the drop or an Arah set…..and both of these are still agruable either way.
Why would you hold a legendary user to a higher standard? Ascended weapons take no effort or risk. They take no ‘skill’ to obtain either. Its not hard to zerg the mats you need (PvE or WvW), you barely even have to be looking at the screen. And you can buy the ones that aren’t bound. Time gating is the only difference.
By your logic, all you can ascertain from someone wielding Ascended is that they know how to tag mobs in a zerg.
In one respect this is good to not know. Because you can’t just kick someone because of their choice of weapon, like you alluded to wanting to be able to do.
In either case, neither require skill and can’t judge a user of either for being ‘skilled’ for using one or the other because neither require it.
Most of these sound great. TBH, the changes you guys have made to Ranger lately have made me start one. These changes look even better.
Especially love the fixes and additions to tab targeting, great stuff.
Staff Ele……fixing up the support is great and all, still waiting for better damage changes, along the lines of what other people have said in this thread about it already.
And many thanks for the sneak preview of what’s coming
Most of this looks like it’s not even to do with the OP’s question.
He didn’t ask about tagging to get drops VS not getting drops. Or the qualifying damage to get credit. Tagging while in a group may very well ensure that you get credit and a reward, but that doesn’t look like what he asked.
It looks like he’s asking, assume you get credit for the mob and will get rewarded, does the following then come into effect:
Does being in a group ensure MORE drops? Does doing more damage than other players give MORE drops?
The answer to both is no.
Mobs drops use an RNG system. The only thing that directly affects that afaik is magic find.
Cash shop model requires lots of bodies playing the game. You don’t need many of them to open their wallet once a month to keep you profitable.
To keep people playing you need to have a constant stream of new content. Things to do. Doesn’t need to be permanent, actually it’s better if it isn’t to get players to show up now for it. If the new content is infrequent or permanent, a player can wander off to try something new which means you could lose them forever, or at least a long time.
That’s the logic behind the “Living World”. Keep people showing up today and hope that a few are willing to buy something with cash.
I see the logic here, but its also a double-edged sword. Too much content, too fast in what has always been touted as a play as you want game can have the opposite effect.
Can’t keep up with the story and get all thats offered for AP’s and rewards within the 2-week time span….might go check out other games with content that some players actually have a chance to do without having to rush through it on a deadline.
Its the right idea, just executed poorly, IMO. A month between these larger LS updates would suffice. Gives players a chance to slow down a bit and actually do it all, while keeping fresh content coming in 12 times a year which is still much, much more than the majority of MMO’s. to me it seems like they’re just pushing for numbers, like being able to make the claim of how often they update for the Anniversary. They could space it out more and still make that claim.
The ease of Orr can depend on your class. I solo’d 100% Orr with Thief and Guardian.
Had to take a partner to duo them with Ele.
WvW – don’t put it off. Check often to see what you can get that you’re missing and get it gradually as you can. Its very frustrating when everything else is done and you’re waiting on certain spots in WvW for 100% map.
The WORST people are the ones who don’t say anything or only praise everything that happens. If you are not happy about something in the game but you don’t say anything about it, then it won’t be fixed or improved. Without all these complaints, the devs would have to guess at what would be best for the players.
This exactly. I’ve been I guess what you call one of these complainers with the last couple updates.
I don’t blindly hate this game. I think it’s the best out there atm and has potential. But I also don’t just happily accept whatever they throw out there. If they do an update and change things you don’t like, but sit with a smile and say oh well….they’ll never know otherwise and keep putting in the same stuff. Who does that help? Noone. You’re unhappy and they’re putting out content that they don’t know is unpopular.
MMO community forums seem to be pretty hostile and the developers can’t please everyone, but they can take feedback to alter their original plans to try to please a majority.
Take this Ascended fiasco. Some people like it, some say they don’t care for it but blindly accept whatever, and some really don’t like it. The people in the middle are the worst as they contribute nothing either way. Developers can take from the good feedback and the negative and maybe come up with something that could work for both.
That being said and as others have said, its better to add in as much information as possible as to what you like or dislike rather than “This rocks!” or “this sucks!”
2) Likewise no level gains ever….guild wars 1 didn’t do it and there has been no snippet of any suggestion that level cap will ever be increased.
This is conflicted too. I’ll try to find it if someone doesnt beat me to it, but I remember an interview where they were talking about it not being possible to raise the cap in GW1, but that they made it fully possible to raise the level cap if they wanted in GW2 and was a possibility.
I’ll see if I can find that interview.
I think this is being interpreted too much as 100%. There’s too many maybe’s, if’s, should’s.
He doesn’t know. They “miscalculated” once already. And he’s not the absolute final say by himself. And he may not even be employed by them in a year or two. There’s no guarantee either way. He just gave enough of a vague answer to pacify for the time-being.
I’m not saying there will or won’t be. Just that this is not a concrete answer either way, and you won’t get a concrete answer either way because no one knows for sure.
No, I have 4 level 80’s in Exotic/Ascended and soon a 5th and combined hours for all of them isn’t even half of what you have on that one. And tbh, I’m glad for that.
It is not “confirmed” that Ascended is the last one. Even for years. Yes, I have read Colins interview and he’s vague about it, not committing for sure.
He doesn’t say 100% that there will or won’t be more. “This should be it” or “Maybe in 7 years we’ll add a tier” or “maybe someone else will be in charge” or “no new tier this year” is hardly confirmation and is just side-stepping a direct answer. He doesn’t know what will happen. Look how much the game has changed in just 1 year. He could not even work there in a years time, maybe he’ll get a different job elsewhere. He’s not hinting that there will be new tiers either. They’re open-ended answers that pacify the playerbase for now. Yes, you can interpret it as him saying 100% no new tiers or you can interpret it the other way too – thats the point though.
With such a wishy-washy answer, I don’t blame people for doing this with Legendaries, they’re future-proof.
Yeah, feeling forced to do something like a chore isn’t fun. I barely played for almost a month with the last couple updates simply because I didnt like the content they were adding (zerg, zerg, zerg). I’m told it was great coin and mat farming, but I don’t care. I did try it, but was unbelievably bored very quickly.
I’m playing again some now because I do enjoy SAB – but just to have fun in it, I’m not farming the achievements.
The LS could be a good concept, but its execution is severely flawed IMO. Not only is the story uninteresting with shallow characters, but its too much grind goals in too short a time. Farm xx amount of achievement points in 2 weeks is basically what the LS is, alot of times from killing xx amount of whatever. It’s burned me out on AP’s and the LS, as I’m sure it has alot of other people.
-_- just forget it… You are being difficult for no reason.
Actually, he had a legitimate question. Semantics aside, what things were you talking about (Guild missions aside, I’m assuming)?
I’m curious myself for ideas
Wasn’t keeping track, but I missed a bunch. It depended on if I played on a particular day, cause they dailies generally take care of themselves through normal gameplay.
Monthly, I know I havent missed any. Monthly so easy to do through casual gameplay, it just does itself.
That’s exactly what I’ve been telling to my friends. Doing innovative stuff can make you exhausted. While the simple stuff cost much less effort and can give you profit anyway. So why bother?
Guild Wars 2 is another one example that mmorpg is a mindless grinding stuff, while innovative and interesting stuff belongs to offline rpg.
Guild Wars 2 is a perfect example that mmorpg will always be the same and will never change. At least I don’t believe in it.
I think that Guild Wars 2 isn’t innovative by the way. Yes they have some new stuff, but in general, Guild Wars 2 have just collected many things from innovative Guild Wars 1 and other mmorpg projects.
This is a huge problem with the MMO genre. Its getting stagnant very quickly. ANet can get away with introducing a new tier of gear and grind and zerg-only content and have people defend them in droves because the population isn’t dwindling. Well, there’s nowhere else to go. With most MMO’s following the tried and true safe path of content, why bother starting and investing time in another game when you’ve already started here (or wherever) and all other options are the same cookie-cutter MMO formula.
I don’t hate Anet or GW2. I don’t want to see them fail. This game has so much potential and I’d like to see it realized, not thrown away on shallow temporary content and conforming to the same old boring MMO standards in terms of other content. Ascended just seemed like a cheap cop-out to match every other MMO out there.
I don’t really lose much from the mystic forge. I throw in golds every now and again…and never got a precusor. But I’ve gotten some very cool exotics that aren’t percusors. It’s not really all that expensive when I do the math. I’m close to breaking even.
And since I’m only using drops, and event rewards and such, it’s not like I’m spending gold on it.
This is exactly what I do. The MF is like an impulse scratch ticket purchase to me. Like throwing spare change at getting one of those, I’ll throw whatever gold drops I have on me when I’m in LA to see what I get. Get some cool stuff sometimes, sometimes not.
So players who have more time but not necessarily more “skill” should be given a statistical advantage?
Why not? It’s the nature of MMOs. You invest more time in a game, you will get more rewards.
Skill in MMOs is pretty much non-existent. The closest thing to skill when it comes to games is fast reaction time and APM, and that’s not important in MMOs.
This is worse than complaining, IMO. Its just accepting whatever an MMO developer throws at you because its the nature of them. Why?
Yes, MMO’s have the tendencies that you say, why settle for that though? Why not voice for rewards beased on teamwork, coordination, strategy, actual gameplay. If someone got a statistical advantage through earning it via such means, I would have far fewer problems with it. Yes, its a game, but someone shouldn’t be rewarded for having more time on their hands. Someone could be an absolute terrible player, no idea how to use any skills, leeching off of players and have 60 hours a week to play. So this person deserves to have higher grade gears and stat advantages over someone who could be a skilled player but is limited to 10 hours a week? No, they dont IMO.
That’s a part of MMO’s that outdated and needs to be fixed, not just in this one. Its stuff like this that’s making the genre stagnant, noone strives for more because its the accepted nature.
What the removal of the trinity opens up, in my opinion, is the capability of going way beyond the box of tank-n-spank. I know in most MMOs I’ve played, I’ve always boiled down encounters to tank-n-spank with a funky gimmick tossed into it just to make it “interesting”.
Instead of those three simplistic roles, you could be lumped into encounter-specific roles. For instance, you may be asked to utilize environmental weapons, NPC interactions, or even control some sort of remote device.
You are right…..the potential is there for opening up for this type of play. But it’s not being introduced. Most of the new gameplay is reduced to zerging, where your class, gear, skills don’t matter in the slightest.
Currently, all it does is prevent class hunting for certain tasks like tank, healer, whatever. However, the potential could be there to open up in other ways besides a zerg, as you say.
