Guild Wars 2

If they don’t add in any more tiers of gear, it’s not TOO big a deal. I mean, yes, it’s a bit dishonest to their “Manifesto” (what isn’t?), but the difference between Exotics and Ascended is only about 5%. Hardly enough to make much difference in the PVE content of this game, which isn’t that hard.

Maybe if you’re wanting to do level 30+ fractals it would eventually become a big deal (unless you’re a Warrior, Guardian, or Mesmer, who will probably be welcome no matter what). The only thing you really need is the AR, and a little of that can go a long way, so I’m told.

I’m never a big fan of costumes that rely on highly popularized store-bought pieces.

Unless you’re really obsessed with min/maxing, I don’t see how this is a problem.

And people obsessed with min/maxing are generally the hardest to please. They want all the best stuff, and they want “content” (grind) to do over and over to get it. The problem is, they all want it at different speeds and in different proportions. There will always be some guy with 12 hours a day to play GW2 with better gear than you, which creates a “treadmill” effect. If you’re a min/max-er, you pay for it… and the price is a BUNCH of time.

The PVE in this game isn’t hard enough to require that you have every possible ounce of +2 this-or-that. If you have exo’s and AR, you can do fractals up to a ridiculously high number… especially if you’re a Warrior. (Not a Thief like me… ._.)

It’s got a LOT of good going for it; more good than bad, probably.

However, there are some core design flaws that are becoming more and more obvious. They’re not unfixable by any means… I’m thinking of the massive class imbalance in both PVP and PVE, the lack of scaling on any stat besides Might and Precision, and the profound lack of build diversity among the weaker classes.

These are things Anet want to improve, I’m sure. We want them improved too! It’s just that we play the game for hours every day and it feels like it’s taking forever sometimes. The new healing skills, for instance, could have been great. A couple of them are (Engi, Mesmer). A lot of them suck badly (Elementalist, Thief, Necro). So what is this? It’s a numbers adjustment. But how long will it take them to admit what’s been done and fix it? Probably a month at least. That doesn’t feel good from our end.

But yeah, I definitely agree: If you’re not having fun, stop playing for your own sake. I mean hey, there’s no sub fee, so just come back in a month or two.

Total honesty here: This is coming from a Thief main whose Necro is only level 20. I cannot understand your class at the moment or the depths to which it was nerfed. But I can say that my class has been getting significantly nerfed since launch, and I think it’s for the same reason:

There are just some poor design elements in certain classes in this game.

GW2 combat seems built for Warriors, Guardians, and Mesmers. Those classes are obviously well designed and, because of that, they’re fun. At the moment, half the game’s classes aren’t functioning well and the other half are absolutely facerolling. Luckily, the game’s PVE content is so easy that almost any party can succeed. Unfortunately, the “You can run 5 Thieves in endgame content if you want!” promise from launch is just not true due to the design challenges of making a Trinity-less game.

However…

I don’t think these are game-crippling challenges.

These are mostly numbers adjustments that need to happen. This is buffing some things, nerfing others. Toning down Warriors’ scaling with might in PVE, scaling up Healing Power, etc. They can be done with comparatively little development time.

I know. The rub seems to be that the devs are pushing all the wrong buttons.

And indeed, in some ways, they might be running for the fire extinguisher during a flood. I, along with everyone who plays this game —- and the devs themselves —- want better balancing and design to be done. There’s been a lot of bad so far, but a lot more good, IMHO. As funny as it was, being able to 100-0 any class in SPVP as a Thief was not good for the game, and I’m glad it’s gone. All I’m saying is that there are a lot of good things happening in this game, and that we should just keep giving feedback and make balance better.

These conspiracy theories are just silly. There is no major game company in the world that buffs and nerfs in order to make money… because that’s a horrible way to make money. It wouldn’t work.

I don’t know.

If there’s anything I learned from being a 6-year Feral Druid in WoW, it’s that you don’t base your entire outlook on a game or perspective of “fun” on the dev’s ability to balance classes properly. MMO’s have hundreds of stats, spells, passive effects, and etc. That is just too many variables to create a really balanced experience, since inasmuch as classes differ, they are imbalanced. There is a reason MOBA’s only give each champion 4-5 abilities. IMHO, no MMO will ever be MLG-ready on a balance level. But I’ve come to accept it. I still play my Thief sometimes, but I’ve also got an Elementalist and a Mesmer up-and-coming.

I tried gluing myself to one class/spec and saying “No, I’m going to MAKE this as good as the other classes!” It ended up being a huge waste, because the devs just couldn’t get Feral right. I’m not gonna do that again. I guess I don’t know why I typed all this. I hope that we can learn to find fun in the game anyway. Otherwise, we should leave. Right?

The downed state is very unique and, as has been said, is necessary to the core mechanics of this game due to lacking healers.

I don’t care if the time comes when NOBODY likes the mechanic. It’s good for the game. Sometimes in game design you just need to go “you know what? stick it out, kids.” Otherwise you turn into… well… World of Welfare Gearcraft.

I don’t understand the sigil of dhuum. Since we can’t weapon swap…

what the heck is geop.

lol.

I’m curious what buff you think we Thieves got.

Are you talking about the MASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIVE base initiative regen? lolol

AshinDreidon.3861:

. . .the bottom line is really whether or not you enjoy the game’s mechanics and flow of battle.

Interesting insight that I failed to touch on.

For me, certain aspects of the game’s combat are great. Limited, named boons/conditions, the downed state, dodging, and move-while-casting to name a few. I always hated that feeling in WoW where icon #256829 appeared over my head and I just had to KNOW whether it was a buff or debuff, what it did, and etc., which was an unnecessary and un-fun burden of knowledge.

For me, the most frustrating mechanics could be mitigated by numbers tweaking. I think certain immunity mechanics Aegis and Block are completely out of control. Warriors and Guardians can string together upwards of 20 seconds of damage immunity, CC immunity, auto-attack immunity, and damage-immunity. From my Thief’s perspective, who has to dodge, blind, or otherwise work hard to get to total immunity, it feels very unfair and un-fun. I mean, talk about Stealth lacking counterplay! What’s the counterplay to “total immunity to attacks”??

However, the above is a balance issue which, if the devs ever get onto it, can be adjusted with some simple numbers tweaking. Unfortunately, as has been said already by others here, the developers sometimes seem remarkably out of touch (no offense to them) with the game’s balance and mechanics.

But I guess that’s just one man’s opinion against another’s.

Full disclosure here: I’m a Thief that’s been playing since launch. I’ve never been good at PVP in this game, and I have no idea why. I’ve tried everything I know to try, and Warriors/Necros/Guardians just smash me no matter what I do (on my Thief). My question comes from two motives:

1. Everyone on the Thief forums is really kitten ed (maybe rightfully) about the direction the Thief has gone since launch. It had a few gimmicky builds at first, but now it’s kind of a joke. Everyone seems OBSESSED with PVP, with little discussion of a “PVE Thief,” if such things exist.

2. I feel the tendency to validate my difficulties in PVP to the rather-silly-at-times class balance that goes on in GW2 and many other MMO’s. There are so many variables, spells, and etc. in an MMORPG that I don’t feel they’re conducive to a balance-able environment.

I play League of Legends (don’t hate), and I feel that it’s a much “more serious” PVP experience. Sure, balance is still kind of silly at times (Targon’s Embrace lololol), but they patch it a lot and are generally pretty good about not letting a single champion run rampant for too long (like Warriors and Guardians have here, imo).

I dunno. I just feel like everyone who plays this game solely or mainly to prove their PVP awesomeness are just playing for the wrong reasons. That can be done in other games which are better balanced and require more skill and coordination.

Thoughts?

Wait… you’re not serious, right? You didn’t actually think the obscenely overpowered god-class that is the Warrior wouldn’t EVENTUALLY get brought down to earth, did you?

…and did you REALLY invest tons of money into a weapon because it was really overpowered and are now asking for a refund?

Just to clarify: Are you here just to drop the giant bomb on us and then leave, or are you guys actually looking for feedback here?

I don’t want to waste a lot of time trying to talk to people who aren’t listening.

What’s awesome about my favorite T.V. shows/books? CONTINUITY, CONTINUITY, CONTINUITY.

I’ll give you an example. My favorite sci-fi series ever is Animorphs; something about it just grabs me every time. There is nothing better than when a book not only acknowledges, but builds off of an event or idea in previous iterations. #19, The Departure, is regarded by fans as one of the best books in the series because it is a culmination of several character hiccups or flaws in Cassie from the past and turns them into an entire ideologically provocative episode.

I’d love to see this from the Living Story. But there’s something that needs to be done first.

First, you need to set the stage. Your storytelling thus far has not been done well. My apologies to the writers, but every single person I know who plays this game has commented on how awful the single-player story was. It’s uninteresting, you don’t feel impactful, Trahearne is unlikable, the final mission is abhorrent, and you can tell the story has been stretched out. It doesn’t feel full of content, it feels full of filler.

We can tell the difference between fake continuity and real, meaningful continuity.

It feels insulting to just dab a little reference to past LS/LW stuff here and there. That’s not what we mean by continuity. We want things to matter, and in an interesting way. not just “Elect a politician and choose path A or B” way. That felt stilted and, to be honest, politics is one of the worst things you could emulate in a video game!

It’s very obvious that your writers don’t have an overarching story in place. Not that every LW event has to be a part of a larger scheme. Indeed, some shouldn’t. But you don’t have a clear direction, and it shows. Heck, hire me at minimum wage and I’ll write you an overarching story that fits with the current lore! You have SO MUCH to work with story-wise! Make it work! I believe in you!

I think the two-week pace, the lack of well-developed story, and alllllllllllllllllllllll that other stuff are very important; but I won’t waste time by echoing others’ thoughts. Let’s just say, “I agree: 2 weeks isn’t enough dev time and it shows.”

One problem I have with the LS, and this game in general, is that it isn’t very challenging/rewarding. I don’t mean “It’s too EZ wtf!” I mean that the content, bosses, and etc. aren’t designed well enough to be interesting. Killing anything in this game has been very much a zerg-fest so far, and LS suffers a lot from that. Invasions are the most boring thing in this game to me.

In other MMO’s I’ve played, the best part about them was the incredibly interesting mob combat mechanics. Make it feel GOOD to kill Scarlet not only as part of a 200-man zerg spamming 1 on your Longbow… make it feel GOOD to kill Scarlet as a Thief or as a Warrior. Fix the mechanics of the bosses, and suddenly you have a platform for all kinds of ridiculously interesting stuff!

Keep up the good work Anet.

The real question is: Did that 1 minute of poison that the Thief put on you matter at all? Because my guess is it didn’t.

Probably shouldn’t have left this open to replies.

We Thieves aren’t very happy with Arenanet and its ability to effectively balance and remove bugs at the minute —- at least, that’s the impression I get from others and certainly how I feel —- and we’re not much in the mood. =/

English not your first language? I can’t even understand what your’e saying.

If this is a troll story, 10/10. Pretty funny and very bait-ful.

If it’s serious, my advise would be not to believe the hype about Thieves. I’ve never —- EVER —- been able to instagib somebody except when the game first lanched and Assassination Signet was brokenly OP. Thieves have been nerfed to the point that 100-0 assassination of anything but the squishiest of classes is a myth.

Unless I’m an idiot. Which is possible.

Stopped reading at the “I try to stay out of the forums after a patch, BUT…” part.

You TRY to stay out of the forums? What happened? You tripped and fell on your keyboard and landed here with a bunch of scathing remarks about how we shouldn’t comment on our own class balance? You TRIED to resist, but you just HAPPENED to type all of that up?

Gotta watch those banana peels man.

There are going to be 2 parts to the post I’m about to make: The first part is a bit of complaining (I think it’s justified) and the second part is a few questions to experienced Thieves… take your pick.

Part 1:
In my experience, my Thief is on the floor almost instantly when enemies look at him. The typical response is “l2p noob lol,” but I’ve been playing him for a while and I’ve tried every build I can think of. I try to watch and dodge, but there’s a LOTTTTT of unavoidable splash damage in this game (much of it invisible/undodgeable). You take a couple of hits, you’re done.

That combines with the fact that melee for a Thief is very dangerous in this game… and thus I feel relegated to the very lackluster Shortbow or P/P. Sure, SB has a spammable blast finisher, but the projectile speeds are slow and it just doesn’t feel “Thiefy” at all. I detest it.

Long story short, there is no reason to play a Thief over a Warrior.

Part 2:
My question to experienced Thieves, then, is: Am I missing something? I’ve tried both Backstab builds and Sword/* AoE builds, and I seem to do little damage and die very quickly. I’ve read some guides, but I just don’t seem to be getting it right… unless the guides are all rose-colored hype.

I’d like to see some interesting utility added to the Focus rather than damage.

You’re exaggerating a LOT… and I’m cautious to even honor it with a reasoned response.

I don’t understand. Elementalists got a lot out of this patch.

This is the most useless thing ever. This is arenanet’s idea of something supportive for Body Shot? Dual pistols are even MORE useless in dungeons now.

I’m so disgusted by this “massive balance overhaul.” rofl

This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

You can’t compare PVP in an MMORPG to a solely-PVP game like Smite or League.

Period.

Are you talking about Skyhammer? O_o

IMHO, MMORPG’s make for an impossible-to-balance PVP experience. Everyone has different ideas about what to do, and some of the best game developing companies in the world fail to deliver compelling balance. There are SO many different factors to this, but they’re a bit beside the point.

My stance, as a Thief, has finally been this: I’ll play PVP in this game and not take it too seriously. It’s like a mini-game, where I can take my character in and see how well I can do. I expect to be WTFPWND by Warriors, Necros, and whatever else happens to look at me sideways. Still, it’s a fun distraction.

To think of this game as a serious esport though is completely and absolutely out of the question at this point. Unless the devs have a MASSIVE change of heart with regard to PVP class balance, it’s doomed to stay a casual mini-game forever.

Phoenixlin.8624:

If you are casual you do not need to care “being behind”. Being casual does not mean “play less, lose nothing”.

QFT, this coming from a casual player.

I don’t expect to log in and be able to get Legendary or Ascended weapons instantly. I play about 10-15 hours a week, if that. People need to realize that they’re not entitled to the best shinies in MMORPG’s.

What I DO expect, though, is to be able to engage in fun activities all the time. If I’m ever not having fun, I’m just going to turn the game off and find something else to do. Call me crazy! What I want from a game is interesting content that makes room for all kinds of players, and doesn’t isolate me because I haven’t played in a month. GW2 does that beautifully, I think. WoW didn’t, and that’s why I quit.

…Seriously.

Can you tell I’m a Thief? lol.

….But seriously.

I don’t get the reasoning behind this, especially on DPS-checks like Teakettle. It’s just a way to force players into buying two sets of gear — or having their DPS fall to almost nothing. I don’t get the point of it, it shouldn’t be in the game at all from my perspective. It’s incredibly frustrating, and I won’t do Teakettle or any other world boss that’s classified as an object until it’s changed.

(P.S.: Little, unnecessarily-annoying things like this really detract from the game for me. It’d be such an easy fix… unless someone has a good reason they should be uncrittable?)

This is… really awesome. The amount of skill you display at that speed is truly impressive. If I were your opponents, I would be totally dizzied by the amount of shadowstepping going on… not to mention the barrage of dazes. Wow.

I think it’d be awesome if you did a video with commentary, that slowed or freeze-framed some fights or something. Or not, just with a voice over commentary explaining what you’re doing and why.

Either way, this is very entertaining!

Holy crap.

Rune of Air.

/thread.

Thanks for the replies.

What SEEMS to be happening is that I’ll go into stealth — without Revealed on — and somehow be knocked out of it when I take damage. I’m not being knocked out of Shadow Refuge, and I’ve tried multiple ways of stealthing (dagger/pistol combo, hide in shadows, etc.) Maybe I’m just making it up?

Are they CONSIDERING adding these kinds of abilities to the game? :/ I’ve heard rumors.

Hello guys,

Please be patient with me as I’m rather new and I’m trying not to rage here after having come out of three losing battlegrounds.

How long has this been in the game (or have I just not noticed)? Is it any AoE spell that reveals you on hit, or just certain ones? I was fighting this Elementalist over and over and he just seemed to Reveal me with every spell he slung. It was incredibly frustrating.

If this is a thing, I’m 100% abandoning my Thief, and possibly quitting this game. Funny thing is, I tell myself I only play GW2 for the PVE stuff, and PVP is just a mini-game due to balance issues. I get my PVP fix from League. Still, I want to be able to have fun when I need to do SPVP for a daily or WVW… and I might just quit if this is true and doesn’t change.

Galtrix.7369:

Living Story is all that’s available at the moment, which isn’t much at all. I’ve been so bored with the LS that I haven’t even logged in for the past 4 patches because what I read on the forums didn’t interest me in the least. Hopefully you’re right and Anet creates bigger and better content so I’ll enjoy playing more often.

I used to think exactly like you do. I didn’t log in for several patches because the patch notes didn’t look that cool to me.

Since the game has no sub fee, I’d encourage you to log in and give the LS stuff a try at least once while it’s here. It’s surprisingly fun, and you might just find yourself liking it. The quality bar has gone up a bit, and the Queen’s Celebration stuff is pretty fun, actually. It’s a shame to miss out on something just because you THINK you wouldn’t like it… especially if it’s free!

Oxstar.7643:

I understand that, and I like how you’re trying to break the mold, but I’m serious about some of the events lacking creativity in difficulty to the point of being cheap.

Btw, thank you for taking the time to respond.

He… explained it. And his explanation was good.

And you admitted to not knowing that you needed to kite him.

This is the part where you say “’Doh! Silly me! Sorry! Thanks for the info!!”

Currently, there are two stats which scale immensely well: Power and Precision.

The other stats, say, Healing Power, do not scale well at all. There’s a ton of math involved here that I’m not at all prepared to do: If anyone has done/wants to do it, go for it. But it’s not necessary to prove that this scaling problem exists, because of the “problem” it creates, which looks something like:

“LFM ZERKER ONLY PING GEAR SPEED RUNS WARRIORS ONLY ZERKERZERKERZERKER”

People are stacking Berzerker gear because the other stats simply don’t give enough in the tradeoff. For example, a full set of stamina/defensive gear will let you live slightly longer, but you could just go zerker and beat the content twice as fast anyway. People are stacking Warriors because in PVE they are currently broken…. but that’s another issue.

The reason berzerker gear and warriors are broken is because Power and Precision are the only stats that scale anywhere close to well enough to matter.

Well… That, and the content is “too easy.”

When I say “too easy,” what I mean is that it was not designed around the stats players can achieve. Healing Power exists, but you’re not “supposed” to be able to be a “healer” spec. Stamina exists, but you’re not “supposed” to facetank. This lack of a holy trinity is perfectly fine, except for the fact that holy trinity stats exist without holy trinity roles.

These two issues — stat scaling and “difficulty” of content — are not easy or simple fixes. Many may not even believe they exist. What I’d like to hear, though, is some statement from the devs acknowledging it.

Let me be clear.

These things, if left unchecked, will ruin the future of PVE in this game.

I’m not being dramatic. As it stands, 4 Warrior + 1 Mesmer/Guardian groups are the most efficient PVE dungeon group possible by an unacceptable margin. I love my Thief, and I play him because he’s my main… but there is no reason whatsoever to take a Thief over a Warrior in PVE. Furthermore, there is no reason for me to wear anything but Berzerker’s gear, because everyone scales infinitely off of those stats and nothing else!

While it’s okay to have a “best composition” team, I think, from a developer’s perspective we would want to play this cat-and-mouse game. In League of Legends, there is a constant cycle of fotm champions -> nerf -> new fotm champions. Some see this as negative, but in reality it is the nature of game design. Difference is power. Inasmuch as classes/specs/spells are different, they will be more or less powerful than one-another. This is why we need game developers to constantly buff/nerf. Buffs are for those powers that are useless (Body Shot); nerfs are for those powers that are dominating the scene to the exclusion of others (100 Blades). We need this for the game to be healthy.

Now, the devs know this, I hope. I’d just like to hear a statement from them saying, “We’re looking into it.” That’s it. I’m willing to stick around as long as I’m having fun — that’s what games are for — but eventually, if Warriors and Guardians are dominating PVE to the point where I feel useless as a Thief or Ele, I’m going to quit the game. I hope that’s a long time down the road, and I hope the devs will nip it in the bud so I can play forever and support this amazing game.

What do you guys think?

Sea of Sorrows is the best. Come here.

I’d be interested. I work 2 jobs though so people would have to be cool with either a lenient schedule or letting me miss some “raid” times.

Travlane.5948:

think you highlight the bright points well. but i also think you forgot to keep the big picture in perspective.

I agree. You bring up some great points about Thief PVE, and I like that you’re not all gloom and doom like most posts are on that subject.

However, the state of Thief PVE is, in fact, abysmal. We can’t do anything that a Warrior can’t do much better. Warrior DPS is completely through the roof and needs to be nerfed, but that’s a separate point. Outside the 2-3 things you mentioned, our group utility is non-existent. Combine that with the tendency for the Thief to faceplant on the ground every ten seconds and, well, almost any other class is better at PVE than the Thief.

By the way, don’t forget the rather pitiful state of Pistol/Pistol.

Erasculio.2914:

…

I think the real conflict isn’t whether the Manifesto was right or wrong, rather if the Manifesto should have been right or not – if a GW2 without grind would have been better than what we currently have. Those who seek the grind are happy with it being a part of GW2, so they don’t really care about the Manifesto. Those who wish GW2 had no grind are obviously unhappy with the way the game is, and so they care about how the Manifesto is not true.

I think this is an excellent point that should be received by all in the discussion.

The Manifesto kind of promised the moon, without realizing that nobody wants the moon anyway because it’s a big hunk of rock.

An MMORPG without a “grind” is one without progression. The genre is defined by working towards becoming more powerful, more unique, more beautiful, and etc. RPG’s without this sort of thing have no sense of character growth, and are really just adventure games.

With growth comes spikes and dips in progression. For instance, I want my T3 Cultural Armor on my Sylvari Thief. I think it looks awesome. I also think 100g is crazy for that armor set! But I recently purchased the shoulders, and they look great; in fact, it’s strange how much they change the silhouette of my character. I notice them all the time. Now, if I’d sat back and counted each gold piece, or run CoF 20 times to get it, then yes: I’d be bored. That would be a grind. But I get gold from all sorts of places, and I don’t sit there thinking “OMG 18g TO GO.” That’s silly. I just have, in the back of my mind, the idea that I’d like to save some gold to eventually buy the T3 set. When I buy a piece, that’s a spike. When I’m put back to 5g and have to earn more, that’s a dip. That’s how growth works.

What did people expect the game to look like, I wonder? A single-player game with infinite content? That’s unrealistic. To me, the Manifesto built up excitement for a game that was consistently and constantly fun (it is) with interesting dynamic events (they are) revolutionary combat (…meh, mostly) and a great story (total failure here!).

Everyone had different expectations, I think, but I wasn’t naive enough to think that this game would be KOTOR’s storyline + God of War’s combat + Uncharted’s atmosphere + World of Warcraft’s infinite content model.

The kind of combat you’re describing does not exist in this game. There is no class who’s most efficient rotation is 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1. You’re exaggerating to make a point, and your point is wrong. There are plenty of interesting skills and talents in this game.

If you really believe your OP, just leave.

Good thing they closed my thread so we could come to this one, which is full of ad-hominim fighting and vitriol. :P

All I wanted to see in my thread was how people felt about it. There’s not going to be an objective truth on this, because trailers are ambiguous. On top of that, Arenanet’s language in the Manifesto was ambiguous.

Do people really think we’re all just making it up? That the people who take “we don’t want you to grind” as being true for this game are just fanboys or work for Arenanet? Is that a joke? Really? If so, I’ll just leave these forums and not come back, because at this point language and conversation are dead. Conversely, it needs to be acknowledged that the people who feel lied-to or cheated have a valid perspective in some ways and make some good points.

As long as we keep accusing each other of being liars, fanatics, evil, etc., we might as well not even talk to each other… or rather, talk past each other.

Point 2: You affect the world in a permanent way.

This one is, in my view, almost a total success.

Dynamic events are awesome and I can’t see how I ever lived without them. It’s hilarious to have an NPC —- and NPC! —- run up to my character and go “Hey! Help! Meteors are falling on my village!” …and then I turn around and it’s really happening! I think that’s freaking incredible! I laughed out loud the first time it happened because it was so cool.

Does “that village you saved STAY saved”? Well… yeah, for a long time. Not forever. There has to be some rotation, of course, in order for new people to get to play the events. Are some of the timers a bit short? Maybe. I dunno… I haven’t sat around waiting for the same event to happen twice… not to mention the fact that there are SO MANY events you almost can’t walk through a zone without seeing one! On top of that, every event is unique. None of this “Oh look, a WATER Rift this time!” nonsense. Sometimes you’re feeding cows, sometimes you’re putting out fires, sometimes you’re just killing things.

All of this is not to mention Living World, which although the content is temporary is clearly intended to change the world in some permanent ways based on player decisions. Cutthroat Politics is just the first step. What if there’s a dragon we had to defeat, but didn’t? What if someone got assassinated? Not to mention that Fractals of the Mists provides an excellent opportunity to re-introduce old content!

Conclusion

If you’ve read all this, thank you. I maybe just needed to get it out after reading the whiny YouTube comments. Feel free to add your own opinions, I will read them and respond.

In summary, I play this game for a lot of reasons. The phenomenal graphics/art, great music, innovative (although horribly balanced!) PVP, fun combat system, compelling races, rapidly-paced new content, friendly party/guild/looting systems, lack of subscription fee, vibrant community… the list literally goes on!

Do I take long breaks sometimes, up to a month even? Yes.
Am I still enjoying the game? Oh yeah.
Do I think there’s a lot of room for improvement? Yup. Lots.
…But do I feel lied-to regarding the MMO Manifesto and Arenanet’s mission? No, I don’t think I do.

Preface.

I’m not here to bash or to be a fanboy. If you think Arenanet are a bunch of scheming capitalist overlords who created an entire game just to fleece people, please do us all a favor and don’t post anything. (We think you’re crazy anyway.)

If you think the entire game of GW2 is a failure and WoW/Rift/whatever is omgsomuchbetter, fine. You’re entitled to that opinion. But doom and gloom posts just beg the question… what are you doing here? Please don’t waste your time trying to convince us to go to another game! That’s just silly.

On the other hand, let’s not be coy here: If you think there are problems with the game, please feel free to state them. If you’ve posted them a million times and I haven’t seen it, sorry: I get exhausted by the amount of negativity on these forums and sometimes can’t be bothered to sort through it for real constructive criticism.

On Topic: Does GW2 live up to the “MMO Manifesto” we were all so crazy about?

If you don’t know, the MMO Manifesto can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E and I encourage folks to watch it again after having played the game for almost a year now. It had a very interesting effect on me to watch it… which is partly why I came here and started this discussion.

The MMO Manifesto makes 2 points that are topics of major contest:

1. “We don’t want you to grind in Guild Wars 2!”
2. Your actions truly affect the world in a very personal and permanent way.

Point 1: “We don’t want you to grind in Guild Wars 2!”

This is, for me, about a 75% success and a 25% failure. Let me explain, starting with the bad news.

Guild Wars 2 launched too early, I think. During the first few months, there was quite literally almost nothing fun to do at level 80. Old Orr was unbearable, World Completion was only for Legendary-seekers, and the original dungeons are a bit stale. Due to this “no endgame!” factor, players did what they’ve always done at the end of MMO’s: Grind! They grinded for gold, mostly, towards Legendary weapons.

Let’s clarify something.

Grinding is not defined as something that you personally find un-fun.

To me, a grind is repeating the same task over and over because I have to in order to progress. WoW makes you run the same dungeons and raids dozens of times to get gear for the next dungeons and raids, and so on.

Let’s not sanitize it, though: There’s a KITTEN-ton of stuff you can do over and over for benefits in GW2. Dungeons can be grinded for tokens for sets of armor/weapons, CoF farming is an absolute abomination, and fractals are the definition of a grind.

I absolutely can and do grind in this game… about 25% of the time. The other 75% of my time is spent on Living World content, leveling alts, PVP, and dungeon-crawling. (I consider dungeon-crawling to be running a couple of different dungeons mostly for fun, not farming one over and over!) Since a little bit of grinding is actually fun to me, I rarely spend a single second playing this game where I’m not having fun. If I did, I’d stop playing, because that’s what work is for!

I think Arenanet genuinely wanted to deliver on the no-grind promise, and they’re still trying to do that with Living World. However, I also think they’ve realized that some grind must be involved in a game where people are ready and willing to dump 1000+ hours into it.

Wholeheartedly agree here. Abusers/exploiters should not be able to ruin queing up with a friend for honest people who just want to have fun.

MakersMark.8420:

I find the entire living story update each month is not even on par with user made content (for free) in some other MMOs.

Makes me think that a large portion of the staff is actually working on another project (expansion, new game, etc.).

I dunno about that. SAB was pretty awesome.

I do agree with your conclusion, though. I feel like the development speed went wayyyyyy down after release… but then again, monthly content is pretty rare! I’m thankful that when they say monthly, they deliver on their promises.

Thank you for the insight, everyone.

I think the person who seems most like me in this thread is Seras; although it looks like you’ve stuck with it, and I’m giving it a break.

I certainly don’t mind mini-games or non-combat-content, but it seems like GW2 might be focusing on that to the exclusion of the real meat and potatoes of RPG’s. I didn’t go through 80 levels of questing and learn 30+ different skills/spells so I could kick a Dragonball. :/

For me, an MMO’s main content needs to work within its own system. I want newer and more challenging events. That doesn’t have to always mean bosses — although raid bosses are awesome — it can mean exploring trap-laden dungeons, scripted events, and other stuff. I do not want a gear treadmill. However, some form of character progress is tkittenence of an MMO. Appearance items and skins only go so far for me.

Maybe I do belong on WoW or RIFT. I dunno. I’ll check back in a month or two, maybe.

I quit playing GW2, with no ill feelings, in March. I simply stopped having fun, and if I’m not having fun, I’m not playing a game. As a long-time MMO veteran, I found GW2’s “endgame” model to be disheartening. Legendaries are neat, but there isn’t enough variety among them to be interesting to me, really. (“Yay, I’m player #23859262 with Eternity…”) So I got stuck running Fractals over and over… and over… and I got bored. I understand lots of folks think WvW is awesome, but I’m not one of them.

I’m here today because, a quarter-year later, I’m wondering what it’s like to have a level 80 on GW2.

The whole temporary content thing is really strange to me. I can understand that GW2 doesn’t want a gear treadmill. That’s awesome. Problem being, to me, their replacement seemed to be “Play some cheap minigames in this month’s content, get some tokens, and MAYBE we’ll give you a weapon/armor skin.”

I don’t want that. Where’s the actual playing of the game at a high level? I’m talking about fighting enemies that are interesting, bosses that require skill and coordination, and new content (not just re-playing old content)? I know there was a dungeon at the end of Flame and Frost, but my understanding was that you had to go back and do the other sillier F&F stuff to get access to it. Sorry to tell you this, that makes the content seem rather inaccessible to me.

So how are you guys liking this temporary-content model? If you’re still playing, why are you still playing? Without starting a gear treadmill or increasing the level cap, what could a true endgame look like in GW2?

How is this suddenly a thread about Neverwinter. lol.

Still, this shows, I think, how important it is to MMORPG players that they feel like they can contribute as much as the next guy to a group. Some folks like to get carried, but it’s much more fun to feel like you’re needed.