Guild Wars 2

Opsfor.2814:

Which games isn’t about Grinding? name one pls. other than FPS-type.

Which games in their development boasted about not being like all the other MMOs out there and creating a game without a gear grind?

I’ll start the list… Guild Wars 2, please continue adding to the list.

Hawken.7932:

It’s irrelevant, as MMOs should have organic and evolving design, and not be held hostage to the principles they used while fleshing out the design pre-release.

But how many just come out and say this is what we’re about fundamentally and then just go to the other side?

You know, this game also said it was a MMO without a monthly fee, what if they cross that line too? Quite easy to do, they keep a free “basic” version while new gear that will make a difference in all areas of the game because “expansions” that require a monthly fee to acquire… then possibly toss in the ability for armor/weapons to decay unless you go to a certain person in the monthly fee areas?

This is the problem, once a major line is crossed the player base no longer can just take what the company says as the truth.

Nerth.3940:

NastyPiggy.2046:

Erasculio.2914:

It’s interesting to see how much this one has fallen.

The weekend with an event is over? It’s not unusually for a huge drop off after a weekend.

What, what? But they’ve implemented this awesome gear so people can grind it because they requested it? What the hell?

It’s also hilarious how fanboys on every blog/podcast downplays the situation. Funny how nobody wants to say anything bad because that next interview might get canceled.

I really hope they will pull it off though. I would hate to see another BioWare.

I’m completely against Ascended gear, I’m just pointing out the drop off is as dramtic as the climb when the weekend started. I believe the numbers will stay about the same because the grinders will be in game longer and the others will not be. I know I haven’t played much since Friday.

Erasculio.2914:

It’s interesting to see how much this one has fallen.

The weekend with an event is over? It’s not unusually for a huge drop off after a weekend.

Twaddlefish.6537:

But most of all, I am confused. There’s no real need for Ascended gear at the moment in main PvE, and odds are if you go deep enough in FotM, you’ll get them anyway. I am fully aware of the arguments for and against this new tier.

The part I’d like to point out is where you say… AT THE MOMENT. So do you believe they decided to cross a line this one time only? They’ve already said this is just the beginning and bringing ascended gear aquisition in PvE and WvW, they’ve decided to cross a line and continue walking.

Cheiron the Centaur.1829:

Oh, believe me, they care. This has grown way too big. Even after this patch and the trial weekend, the number of active players on their servers is dropping noticably. ArenaNet will surely realize they’ve made a mistake. They just don’t have a good reply yet. Telling us “sorry guys, we messed up and we know it” won’t solve anything if they can’t also come up with a plan for the future that will keep all parties satisfied. There have been several good suggestions in these threads on how all this could be improved. But I believe that Nexon has a big influence in the direction this game is currently heading into (just like EA was the driving force behind Bioware’s downfall), and unfortunately, I doubt that ArenaNet will be able to change things around without approval from Nexon… meaning they have to be able to convince Nexon, with actual figures, that this approach isn’t working, and that they can come up with an alternative that would work. I’m prepared to just lay this game down, wait 2 more weeks, and see what ArenaNet has come up with. I hope you can do the same.

You don’t think that whoever made the decision to put this in the game won’t point at a game like Planetside 2 and say no… it’s not that we put this in the game, it’s that a new big game came out. Push forwad with the progression!

Snapydubi.2307:

NastyPiggy.2046:

Snapydubi.2307:

I have the feeling that infusion slots wont be active in WvW, making Ascended items equal to exotics and only increasing power in the new dungeons, it makes sense if you see the numbers of stats in this items and that the special slots are not the same as jewel or rune slots. This would make ppl who like grinding go and keep increasing power in PvE, and keep things more fair in WvW. I can bet this is the intention of this items but ppl rage and rush to state uninformed “opinions” about everything… my guess is as good as anybody else but im keeping a positive perspective until we got more info about this items.

How about an example from the wiki?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Ascended_example.png

Want to have the same stats as everyone else maxed out in WvW… you gotta go PvE grind.

How did you got your current equip? magic?? stat difference is not that big for all the kittentorm im reading here and for what i see in the bazaar, ascend equip can be crafted so you can acquire it the same way you acquire exotics, and rlly powerful equipment will be harder to get and equal in power to Legendaries. Either way… i prefer my idea of the infusion being the one material that keeps rising power to the item and making it noneffective in WvW, and increase the variety of cosmetics. Equipment doesn’t win WvW

So this is acceptable, every few months instead of just WvW you have to go back and grind for new stats. Sure 1 or 2 items don’t make a difference, but a whole suit of armor does.

Equipment doesn’t win in WvW… not in a zerg, maybe not in small skirmishes, but I do believe it makes a difference when you’re caught by yourself 1 on 1 with someone(say running back to your group after a death). I don’t really have a guild nor a normal group to run with so I’m kinda that casual player so yes… stats help you when you don’t have people to lean against.

Lemuria.3195:

Nerth.3940:

Verteiron.8734:

Leave Ascended gear, it’s a nice balance point between Exotic and Legendary. Make sure it’s flashy and showy. …

For the gazillionth time, how could something be a nice balance between two pieces of gear if they share exactly the same stats? In case you didn’t know, Legendaries and Exotics have the exact same stats. There is no gap, never was.

Yet still no one even cares about the gap between rare and exotics. The funny part is the gap is actually wider between those two than it is between exotics and ascended. Seems pretty clear to me that stats aren’t the reason people are angry, it’s all squabbling over the alleged broken promises.

I care because it’s a major price difference at 80. I can get full set of rare armor/weapons for cheap. The difference for a full set of rare vs exotics is huge and there are people out there that paid real money for gems to convert to gold to get a full set of the top tier gear in a game that said they didn’t have to grind for gear. Low and behold that’s no longer valid, so those who spent a lot of money on gems will now be left standing with 2nd tier armor/weapons while grinders will have the top tier.

If Guild Wars 2 didn’t come out basically laughing at other games putting in grinds(instead of fun), people wouldn’t have had expectations of a no grind game for stats(but a grind for cosmetics), but this wasn’t the case we’re finding out 3 months after release. They could have published “progression in the future” since they must have been deep into development of it when the game was released… but that would have stopped a lot of money flowing in to buy the top “current” gear.

Narkosys.5173:

That is where you are wrong – they dont have my money – it is coming back to me.
I will also dissuade anyone from purchasing the game.So it hurts the bottom line.

I have been supporting and singing the praises of Anet. Now I will be adding negative PR everywhere I go. It is not a smart move really – if you think about.

I really hope they do come out and take a stand one way or another I still have time before I get my money back but I dont know if it would be enough.

I don’t know what you wish to accomplish with spreading negative PR. Just don’t praise it anymore. Is it a great MMO, sure, is it no monthly fee, for right now yes it is till they cross that line too. But Arenanet has crossed 1 of their lines that they said they wouldn’t because they were different, we’re finding out they’re not. They’re now just a company that doesn’t stick to their principles.

My question is… why didn’t they talk about this before release? Obviouisly it was in the works when Guild Wars was released 3 months ago. Why just come out of nowhere with this when it’s such a huge change to the way they’ve said their creating the game… other then to get the money from people who supported their non-progression gamestyle.

Snapydubi.2307:

I have the feeling that infusion slots wont be active in WvW, making Ascended items equal to exotics and only increasing power in the new dungeons, it makes sense if you see the numbers of stats in this items and that the special slots are not the same as jewel or rune slots. This would make ppl who like grinding go and keep increasing power in PvE, and keep things more fair in WvW. I can bet this is the intention of this items but ppl rage and rush to state uninformed “opinions” about everything… my guess is as good as anybody else but im keeping a positive perspective until we got more info about this items.

How about an example from the wiki?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Ascended_example.png

Want to have the same stats as everyone else maxed out in WvW… you gotta go PvE grind.

Urxx.6840:

NastyPiggy.2046:

I paid for a game that had a manifesto that said…

GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

Also, I think thet whoever purchased the game because of that manifesto, deserves that ArenaNet has the guts to tell us in our face “Yes we have changed direction because the manifesto didn’t work.”

Do they believe they’ll make money in gems from the grinders? They’re the ones that don’t have to worry about in money game because they play enough to make it with selling items to vendors or the Trading Post.

I’d think the people who were going to buy gems with real money are the casual players who don’t want to grind, play at their own pace and if they can get what they want with 20 bucks, the do it. Right now they’ve alienated a good portion of that population. Sure hope they catered to the group of people they’ll make the most money off of.

Urxx.6840:

NastyPiggy.2046:

I paid for a game that had a manifesto that said…

GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

Also, I think thet whoever purchased the game because of that manifesto, deserves that ArenaNet has the guts to tell us in our face “Yes we have changed direction because the manifesto didn’t work.”

Do they believe they’ll make money in gems from the grinders? They’re the ones that don’t have to worry about in money game because they play enough to make it with selling items to vendors or the Trading Post.

I’d think the people who were going to buy gems with real money are the casual players who don’t want to grind, play at their own pace and if they can get what they want with 20 bucks, the do it. Right now they’ve alienated a good portion of that population. Sure hope they catered to the group of people they’ll make the most money off of.

DegoLocc.5976:

I’m happy with the new gear, Anet, thanks for the best MMO, and thanks for making sure you maintain long term players by adding new content and gear, so our characters can continue grow past 80, thanks for not making this an arcade game.

I will be playing for years, as long as you keep it fresh and provide constant growth.

A step in the right direction for sure.

Grow past 80? They can continue making new and exciting content. They can add new visuals to the game, they don’t need to put in new higher stat gear that makes everything else obsolete.

Why would a big portion of the player base go back and play some of the "fun"content all over the map when it doesn’t drop the right “new stats”. They basically overnight went and made 90% of their content undesirable to go do once you hit max level. What happens when you max out with your “new stats” do you log out and wait for the next patch to give you “new stuff”?

I think a certain portion of the player base will like what they did, they did a good job overall, but it goes against what they said they would do all those years developing this great game.

So the belief is, if you don’t get an extra +5 power on gear people won’t do the content? +5 isn’t that big of a deal, it is when it’s done over and over till it’s now +50 from the original number.

Love the game but once you step over one line, stepping over more lines aren’t nearly as tough. Maybe this won’t be a big thing for Guild Wars 2 or possibly it will be, the only way they’ll really know is with the cash flow in the gem store.

Alliestiria.8193:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Alliestiria said: “Even if this new Ascended armor stays and is implemented exactly as is currently planned (adding more and more armor pieces each patch) this HAS to be the last tier of gear.”

Not good enough. What are they going to do, promise it’s the last? Already been down ANET’s “promise” road. The only way to begin restoring trust is take them out or flatten their stats.

I know, I know. I really do agree with you. I guess I was just so excited about this game that I’m not willing to give up yet. I’d like to give them one more chance. If a new tier of gear is introduced after ascended (promises or no promises) the bf and I will be quitting for good. I know it’s not as impact-full as it would be to quit a sub game… but yeah.

Edit: Also, thanks for taking time to read at least some of my posts! My feedback ended up being even longer than I had anticipated… and I’m not sure if I actually said everything I wanted to.

If ArenaNet is willing to do this big of a change(progression), what’s to stop it from adding more content then locking in people to the released product(basic) for free and then charging a fee for more?

See, this is the problem I have with ArenaNet being able to step over a line they said they’d not step over, you just don’t know what other lines they’ll cross. Even if they only retain 500k people, that’s 7.5 million dollars a month they could get by just “changing” their thoughts on free to play. Not entirely bad but it will split up the player base just like this gear progression will do.

I just don’t get why they couldn’t just just make any gear with the ability to add infusion slots and kept the stats of the new gear the same. You still get to grind for the ability to create the infusion slots and then the infusion items WITHOUT changing stats.

This is just trying to keep a certain % of people in game grinding in hopes that a small percentage of people will buy gems… never realizing the negative effect could be losing your loyal base of players who have followed this game’s development for years only to have them go in a completely different direction in the 3rd month of release.

I paid for a game that had a manifesto that said…

GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

This game has went away from this, so what else will this game “evolve” to that it said it would never do?

To take it one step further… how can I believe them that this game won’t “evolve” to a monthly fee game? I mean they hooked everyone on their manfesto and changed it, why couldn’t they do this on the monthly fee. Sure… the base game could still be free but if you want the rest of it, time to pay up!

If an ArenaNet person has time, could you let your customer base know exactly when you decided to alter your manifesto and why you didn’t make that public? You make the manifesto public but non of the decisions to sway from there.

It’s one thing to have a game change(they all do it), it’s another thing to change a game to the things you said you weren’t going to do and that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Alliestiria said: “Even if this new Ascended armor stays and is implemented exactly as is currently planned (adding more and more armor pieces each patch) this HAS to be the last tier of gear.”

Not good enough. What are they going to do, promise it’s the last? Already been down ANET’s “promise” road. The only way to begin restoring trust is take them out or flatten their stats.

Right, why does any of the stats have to be higher? Just add a way to infuse current gear, simple! What’s the matter, content not good enough to have people enjoy it without dangling the new carrot in front of them to make them go forward and use the new system?

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

Checking thread for a sign of a transparent reasoning and/or apology from Arenanet.

I don’t care if it was a hostile takeover or not, customers deserve a genuine reply.

I will just catch up on some reading instead of playing and buying gem etc…. Falling numbers may at least get their attention.

They won’t have a kneejerk decision, I’m sure there’s going to be multiple meetings for this current situation before they address the customers.

Anishor.6921:

It’s quite simple, we keep the pressure up here and start taking it to twitter and to facebook. We are their core and their dedicated gamers. We’re the ones buying gems not the content locusts. They’re just on the forms whining about how there’s not new gear to grind or content to go through.

You can have new content, that’s fun for everyone, you just don’t have to have new and better items with stats. Just keep making new skins that are cool and different. I don’t see why you need new “stats” to get people to do new content, you’re going from playing for fun to playing to keep up.

Don’t forget Utility Goggles, 20% crit and Blind Immunity… plus Analyze which puts up 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds to increase damage 10%.

Zahdane.4029:

lepri.6504:

may be in the expansion they will remember us.

Ahh, but how many of us do you think will remember to pull out our wallets?

Hopefully a lot unless you don’t want to support an MMO without a monthly fee.

BTW… on Granades not being tabbed tageting… if you had tabbed targetting you wouldn’t be able to throw granades ahead of fleaing targets in WvW. What a wonder thing it is to slow up 2-3 people running, put poison and fire damage on them and then help burn them down with a flamethrower. People don’t have unlimited dodging. Just bind autorun to your mouse scroll button and while chasing them target ahead of them and fire away!

I felt like a bunch of you guys early on, I got killed easily early on, but the engineer has a wide variety of skills and as you try different combinations you’ll learn to do better.

If you stand still a thief or a warrior has the ability to kill you nearly instantly. An engineer has a number of escapes from being slaughtered quickly, if you don’t dodge you’re dead. Elixir R is GREAT for survavability, it breaks stuns and refills your endurance, you have the ability to dodge 4 times in a row, that’s actually a long time to not be hit while having your opponent burn through their biggest hitters.

Grenades in WvW… people seem to dodge those pretty quickly, I’m good with the 10% nerf while speeding them up so we have a better chance to actually hit them. To me the only times grenades really worked were catching people/groups off guard or in situaitons where people need to be in a certain area(attacking and defending).

Like I said, early on with engineer I didn’t think it could hold up, it seemed very weak… but after trying different things, different builds, different ways to attack with it I absolutely love the class. I will also say this… I do change tatics when alone(for survivablity in 1 on 1 attacks) then I do with a small or large group.

Hmm…

Flamethrower – You can attack through doors to keep people away from the doors and also to help destroy the rams. If you’re group decides to rush another group, it’s a great way to do a lot of damage to a lot of people. During fights, it’s nice to throw down Napalm to give your teammates more damage ability firing through the field. Not to mention flamethrower is a great way to destroy siege weapons so if you take a keep they can’t come back and reuse them.

Elixir Gun – You can slow up rushes or slow down people trying to escape with Elixir F. You also have Acid Bomb to get out of trouble. For support you can drop Super Elixir to help heal your teammates and remove conditions on them.

Mortar – A nice little addition in WvW, if you catch the other server off guard, you can do a lot of damage… just make sure you slow them first with Launch Ice Mortar and then then let it rip. Also, when your team is attacking, you can use Launch Elixir to do AoE heals for your teammates.

It took me a while to get use to the engineer but now I love it. There are a ton of different ways to be effective as an engineer in WvW.

Oh… don’t forget to use Elixir B as much as possible, it does help your damage output.

Brome.7036:

There is enough wvw people that there could be a top 6 and maybe a top 9 on the NA side.

There’s enough WvW people that ALL servers could be competitive with each other(and have lower queues), the only problem is that people don’t want to be competitive, they want to win and with that, they pile onto the server that does that for them. You actually make money on a winning server, getting your kills, taking over towers and keeps, on a server that’s losing, you just keep having to repair and lose money overall. Mind you I’m talking about servers who are just getting destroyed because people are moving around on servers to make the current tiered system invalid for making balanced matches.

mangarrage -
“No it does more harm to the server and the system.
A person who randomly walks around following a commander from place to play not contributing anything except auto attacking they can do that on any server.
I fail to see how doing nothing on one server or another makes it somehow a better experience
If anyone transferred to JQ last week they had a horrible experience because it was over on Saturday and the map was 90% or more green the whole week. So no it wasnt a better experience”

Do nothing? You can do way more when you dominate a server then you can being dominated because of your servers WvW size. Wow, we can take out a sentry and then have to run from the zerg. I do love taking a tower and then have it instantly taken back over by the dominating team because they have numbers. Yes, 2 people can take out a supply depot only to have it retaken over 5 minutes later in a fraction of the time.

From time to time a smaller population can get enough people together to have some battles, but more times then not it’s a slaughter and if you try to take anything out on the map, you can be sure a zerg will be there to farm you.

I think the thought of this thread is to just designate 6 servers as the competitive servers and if you wish to be competitive go there BECAUSE the big population servers with the queues have decided to not move to smaller servers to increase the amount of competitive servers in WvW and reduce their queues which would allow them have more time playing WvW.

I HATE the idea of consolidation… I wish there wasn’t a dominate server or set of dominate servers because it’s better for the community, but it’s getting to the point where people are walking away from the game because it isn’t fun.

My only guess is that ArenaNet thought the people would be smart enough to spread the WvW to all servers, they were wrong, instead you have people complaining about queues that can be fixed easily by moving to another server because most people don’t care about “fun”, they care about winning and the bonuses and chest pounding they can do because of it.

Just like most PvP games, the top PvPers say too bad to the worse players and soon after, have a very small pool of players to play against. PvP needs as many people in it as possible.

I’m still confused why there’s a free transfer every day? You’d think if playing with your friends were that important, you’d be on their server. If you have friends on multiple servers either persuade them to move or make a decision till the guest ability shows up.

mangarrage.1062:

Yea the top 6 servers wont be the top 6 in a couple weeks I cann assure you of that while these transfers are open. Really 2 weeks ago ET and HoD were top 6, next week they will both be in tier 3 probably

And the list doe alot more harm then good. Being on JQ I can tell you if the people keep xfering in we wont be in tier 1 cause for the most part the bandwagoners are horrible and just take up space.
Very hard to be effective when more then half your guild is in a queue and the “I never buy siege, I never carry supply, I take supply from garrison and keeps to repair walls being trebbed, I auto attack reinforced doors, I wander around mindlessly with anyone with a blue icon crew” is in their place

It does harm to YOU, not the people transferring. Even if the new people lost on the new server, it’s a much better WvW experience then most have been having by far.

Judas.5432:

Transfering to the top 6 does NOT make WvW more fun for anyone.

WHAT? I play only for WvW and here’s what the last 2 weeks have been…

Sitting at spawn points looking at a zerg with siege equipment or….
You and small zerg take a supply depot or tower only to see a much bigger zerg come and take it in a fraction of the time.

So yes, being able to do something in WvW will be fun for me which nullifies your “not make WvW more fun for anyone”.

You know what would make WvW really fun? If a bunch of the top WvW guilds would spread out as even as they could on all the servers. Not just transfer from a top tier WvW server to a middle tier server. Low queue times, some oranization on each server which may bleed into other people “getting it” how WvW is suppose to be which would lead to a much healthier WvW game for EVERYONE.

What in the hell is a queue? – GOM