Guild Wars 2

You’ve missed the point of mine. You say that players need to focus on having fun instead of getting loot, but for many players the reward—i.e., the loot—is a major part of that fun, period. He based his play on doing the content that he liked with the idea that to some extent it would be rewarded with skins. This did not happen and he is, therefore, not happy. His expectations are not yours, so just telling him to have fun and play the way you recommend does not solve the issue.

Torenn.2598:

I still prefer a monthly subscription fee to a gem store/cash shop. It keeps me invested in the game and I don’t get the feeling that certain things were designed to be just annoying enough to push me towards purchasing a convenience item. GW2 is pretty good with this to the point where it doesn’t feel slimy, but still. The subscription fee does limit how many MMOs I play at any given time, but I tend to focus on one at a time anyway since they’re all huge time-sinks.

The number of subscription-based MMOs that don’t have a cash shop as well is rather miniscule, so finding one without the other isn’t by any means going to be the norm going forward. More likely B2P or F2P with cash shops attached will be what most games offer their players.

If you want to see areas that you haven’t explored yet then talk to the scouts. When they point out renowned hearts, etc, they will reveal parts of the map. There’s a limit as to how much you can see without actually exploring the ares, and the discovery is just part of the game. Sometimes it will be hit-or-miss searching for POIs, vistas, etkittenil you reveal more of the map.

Love the lighting elements in this game.

Galeskyring.9617:

Prototypemind.4026:

Galeskyring.9617:

Snip

Bottom line is the shinies make the game enjoyable for many a player. There’s a reason that the new path will be questing on a track to gain the new Legendaries. As to skins, that’s debatable, but having a guaranteed way to gain those items as well over time would be nice. By that I mean a way that doesn’t just involve grinding out gold day after day.

That said, people want to accept gambling with this game via BL keys bought with real money, so in the end it’s what players are willing to put up with. There’s also the fact that servers only stay up and new content only comes out with money going into the game, so as long as players see the for-real-money items as worthwhile, then that’s a choice. For in-game items, though, everyone doesn’t feel the same as you that it should just be accepted that no matter how long you do content and no matter how good you get at it you may never see a reward for it.

I think you missed my point, people shouldn’t focus so kitten just getting an epic reward, they need to enjoy themselves so they don’t grate on every little negativity.

Having fun is more important then loot, if you lose sight of that then aren’t you just treating this game like a job and somehow expect to get paid for it.

For him having fun is doing whatever he enjoys doing. You don’t get to dictate what he does or doesn’t consider fun or worth his time in the game anymore than I do. Odds are that, yes, he went overboard, but it may simply be that he’s good enough at fractals that his one fractal a day more-or-less since launch is just as smooth as many player’s daily dungeons.

He isn’t the first player to report playing since beta, rarely missing a day, and having nothing to show for it. There do need to be incentives to keep people playing, but clearly even Anet agrees that RNG shouldn’t dictate some portions of the game as they stated back in 2013 when moving to a new Legendary system was first mentioned. I don’t see why your opinion that all players should take joy from the journey—even if that journey leads to nothing—should continue to be the common denominator of MMOs.

In life, some things will never be achieved no matter how much effort is put in, but why so many MMOs have decided to in the past and now continue drive this point home in-game I don’t know. I do know that there aren’t too many D&D/Pathfinder/etc. players who find much joy in playing with a DM who intentionally sets the odds against the group. Again, why this continues to be pervasive in MMOs I’m not sure, but the new Legendary system is a step in the right direction.

As to the OP and his skins, telling him to change his playstyle and suck it up isn’t really of value from my point of view. You’re entitled to your opinion otherwise, but I’ll never see that as being where I want to come from when approaching a game. I’m Western in my MMO outlook, and thoughts of grinding and grinding away for rewards that may never come doesn’t appeal to me.

Galeskyring.9617:

Snip

Bottom line is the shinies make the game enjoyable for many a player. There’s a reason that the new path will be questing on a track to gain the new Legendaries. As to skins, that’s debatable, but having a guaranteed way to gain those items as well over time would be nice. By that I mean a way that doesn’t just involve grinding out gold day after day.

That said, people want to accept gambling with this game via BL keys bought with real money, so in the end it’s what players are willing to put up with. There’s also the fact that servers only stay up and new content only comes out with money going into the game, so as long as players see the for-real-money items as worthwhile, then that’s a choice. For in-game items, though, everyone doesn’t feel the same as you that it should just be accepted that no matter how long you do content and no matter how good you get at it you may never see a reward for it.

Just a percentage counter would be nice I guess, but since most of the bosses don’t have phases like in some other games it’s not really a huge issue, at least not with anything that I’ve run into yet.

I’d rather they deliver a finished product with a new major questing system that will appeal to all professions. There should be viable Legendaries of each type from my perspective. It doesn’t server the game as a whole to introduce a feature that so many are excited about then to leave some professions completely out in the cold.

tfcgeneralkmk.9508:

Nonoka.7028:

…if you look at what they did in the last tree years with their game, and the very little information they give to us about HoT, it’s just logical to be scpetical about these things

imo you have gone past skeptical to downright pessimistic

not saying you can’t or anything of course

as someone who hasn’t gotten any legendaries yet (mostly my own reasons and not anets (quit for a while) i’m looking forward to the new system

I’m new to the game, but it’s hard not to be skeptical when they promised players new Legendaries by the end of 2013 as a part of the game without additional DLC/paid feature requirements as well as a new means of obtaining them. It is now 2015, said items aren’t out, and when they do come out additional cash will be required to get them. Just playing devil’s advocate here, but over a year-and-a-half behind schedule and with promises broken wouldn’t make anyone optimistic about anything.

They need to just put musical instruments on hold until they can get it right. The harp is the only one that’s remotely responsive, and even it is still lacking in many ways.

Siphaed.9235:

What I find interesting is the last part of the article:

*

• I know you’re all dying for more information on new legendary weapons, but we’d like to delve into them more with a dedicated blog post in the future. For now, I’ll say that we’ve been working kitten new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates. The methods by which you’ll craft these legendary weapons are similar to the existing system, but we’ve refined it into more of a journey, similar to precursor crafting. We also want to better preserve the prestige associated with crafting a legendary weapon, so the new legendary weapons, and their precursors, will not be tradable. Keep an eye out—we can’t wait to start showing them off when they’re ready!

The selling of Legendary weapons and Precursors has made a market out of spectators and horders who buy at a marginally lower price to then flip it up and repost at a significantly higher price. And worse is that these same people would take their high profits, buy (or Mystic Toilet) a new Precursor, buy up all the materials, craft another Legendary, and flip it for a double-down profit yet again against the initial investment. In the meantime, the price of Legendaries is skyrocketing, same goes for the Precursors, and also -worse yet- the price of top tier crafting materials.

What I see happening is that sure, some will start crafting the old [current] Precursors/Legendaries via the Mastery system. But what I really see happening is that vets will craft the select NEW Legendary that they want, then…that’s it. Selling off most of the materials that they don’t want or need, possibly flooding the market with them as well.
~The market will already be severely overloaded with Exotics and Rares that are no longer needing to be dumped into the Mystic Toilet. …..but that leaves another issue entirely with this system:

• Where is the gold sink going to go?

For those unfamiliar with the current system attempts to get a Precursor, players take 4 Rare/Exotic items and dump them into the Mystic Forge in hopes of getting one of these ultra rare items. They get these things through a number of resources including chests, crafting, and purchased through the BLTC. With 1,000 items to start, a player ends up with 250 items through first round attempts. 64 items remain after rolling through the second wave of attempts. Third wave leaves only 16 left. 4 more at the fourth wave. And finally a single item remains. So after 332 attempted -yet failed- tries to get a Precursor from the Mystic Forge, only 1 item remains. That just eliminated 999 items from the system. Where ever they came from is moot because their potential to become salvaged materials and/or the materials used to craft them are gone. Poof!, all gone! No more.

That system worked great as a way of preventing market bloat, or at least slowing it down (although I think it worked “too good” as far as the top-tier crafting materials that are required to make the Rare/Exotics, which in turn are also used to make the Legendary weapons that are being sough after, a doubly painful infliction on market progress towards same goals). Point being that with the new system having players going through these Mastery Quests, there will lesser and lesser amounts of attempting the old method. The gold sink will itself sink, into obscurity. So to my question mentioned above, what kind of system will be in place as a sort of “check” that gets rid of so much of the bloat items at the level cap?

A lot of those items come from grinding to get them in the first place. Players won’t be grinding out the same content over and over to get those items anymore because there will be a set path for getting Legendary items so the tide will be stemmed on its own. There won’t be a need to pump items onto the TP, into the toilet, etc.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I see everyone missed the part that they pushed back new legendary weapons…

I mean seriously… 3 years and you STILL can’t get them into the game… COME ON!

I honestly can’t see myself buying the expansion if there are no new legendary weapons.

“For now, I’ll say that we’ve been working kitten new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates. "

kfc.8170:

Who ever said the current legendaries are easy to obtain, im simply saying in comparison to the new ones they are, just for the fact that you CANNOT buy them from the tp, and instead have to work your way to them. The truth in the matter is it took them 2 1/2 yrs to correct this! I like the new idea, but I think its bs that it took them this long to fix something crucial to veterans. Most people who disagree have little experience in fashionwars or can care less, but its what kept the people who beat the content over and over still interested in the game. All in all im not here to bash peoples opinions, but instead voice my own, I have TONS of love for this game… but I and many others feel like all we did was grind a timesink that is hitting the reset button with little to no care about those who spent it all.

If I may ask, how would they make something like this right? Can they do that anymore than they can give back to those who did WvW to get map completion now that it’s no longer a requirement? I agree that the current method is garbage, and I’m likely going to stop worrying about it as I don’t foresee completing what I’ve started before this becomes viable, but I don’t see how they can “correct” things for those who ground it out the hard way over the past few years.

Honestly, I enjoy a few dungeons here and there, but most of them aren’t exactly appealing. Every time I check Arah, it’s “accepting gold to win;” the majority of others are “zerks-a-lot or die”, with no enjoyment of running it. AC is skip mobs, burn, repeat. CoF is the only one that I have fun in, and it’s still no more than 10 mins with most groups.

Fractals seem to have a much more laid-back group running them as a whole and a lot more patience out of the groups in terms of helping other players through, explaining fights, and not rushing the content. On the surface I thought dungeons would be a great experience when I started the game, but they are one of the least enjoyable things I’ve done, and if it weren’t for CoF being my one saving grace, or needing tears for my Legendary, I probably wouldn’t step foot in them.

Because of how most of them are handled they just become wallbangs where everyone rushes from boss to boss and finds ways to hide from adds while completing objectives. I do hope they have something new to offer, or if dungeons continue to be present in new content, that they’re handled in a more enjoyable way.

Honestly this is a much more enjoyable idea on the surface. I’m working on my first Legendary currently, and the world completion is tedious as my motivation for clearing each area is nothing other than that. There are no special quests to draw me there, and nothing of great interest to pull me in. Grinding mats for an amazing weapon takes the polish off of it as well.

A journey to acquire Legendaries, giving them a real back story as to how they were acquired rather than, “I spent months grinding out chests” is a much more exciting and meaningful experience for all players, on top of making it so that the new precursors and Legendaries won’t be up for trade. A journey for each gives a lot more playable value to players than a mat and gold grind with prayers to the RNG gods mixed in.

It’s also nice that the new ones can’t simply be bought. Players who have them will know that they did what was necessary to get them, there’s a clear path to gain the achievement, and there’s no buy in through real money or gating for attainment via TP games. All things have opportunity costs, but the ones introduced with this system are much more palatable than the current ones.

The harp is the only one that seems to have any kind of responsiveness.

There are about 10 threads on this. It was supposed to have been fixed with the last tweak, but it’s still happening.

That did give me a laugh. Anyone with input on the reasoning behind this though?

It’s also annoying having karka all over you. Just icky.

Just wondering what the difference is on cpu/gpu load. I see around 60fps inside of fractals, but only mid-30s or so in dungeons and general open-world content. The open-world drop I understand because of the number of players and NPCs plus using max viewable distance, but I’m not sure why dungeons should still be so much lower than fractals. Searched but didn’t see a topic on this.

Just in case there’s anyone out there.

Haven’t seen any response on this in any of the threads posted. Is there an ETA on a fix?

Started another thread for this but I’m having the same issue, whether in party or not. Has been occurring since Wednesday or Thursday’s build, worse each day actually.

To update, it happens anytime I /leave a party. It happens randomly outside of that at times as well, but always when quitting a party.

I’m crashing to desktop two to three times per day with these newest builds. Is anyone else experiencing this? Began Wednesday or Thursday. Zero crashes beforehand.

I just don’t think most of us would accept a zero-grind situation, knowing that the rewards we want are there instantly without any “work”, even in a game. In the same way that most people over the age of 10 or so don’t go back and wax nostalgic over Candyland, I don’t think even in games that most people want the easy way to the majority of things even when doing leisure/non-work activities. The fun of the reward is far less when it’s too easily obtained.

Than said, almost anything in-game can be had through gems converted to gold, so if you really want to skip the grind and insist on having all the shinies, real life money can make that happen. There’s no pleasing everyone, and I guess that unlike a game like EvE that does nothing to give the illusion of attainment without time and grind, because this game has many more fun, casual elements, there’s more diversity in what people expect in terms of how rewards are gained.

With that said, is something really a reward when a player does nothing to get it? I think GW2 has a good balance. I’m currently working towards and armor set and weapon, but in the meantime I got a pretty freaking awesome skin via achievements while out and about tracking down what I need for crafting the and attaining the other items. Overall Anet does a good job of rewarding every type of play style, and with the exception of those who can’t be the bards they always dreamed of and gain experience by serenading other players and regaling us with tales, I think as many possible methods of attainment as are realistic are at hand to be enjoyed.

If the enjoyment becomes lost, it’s probably time to take a break and enjoy the sun for a while.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

I’ve already linked my human guardian and thief in here. Now it’s time to show my norn guardian.

Please let me know what you guys think! I’d really appreciate that.

I’d maybe mix up that secondary dye color to make the bronze or whatever more prevalent, but I definitely like the armor choice.

I’d just like to know where these bug-free MMOs that people seem to be alluding to are, cause I’ve never played one or heard of one. There are issues, but the vitriol is a bit heavy considering that the majority of content is still doable and that fixes are being implemented seemingly as quickly as possible.

Definitely do like the camera change.

http://dulfy.net/2015/03/16/gw2-upcoming-items-from-march-16-patch/

Random Weapons post is showing a new sword and dagger. Thought I’d bump a relevant thread rather than making a new one.

Still glitching out two years later

I’m new to the game, but other than the monotony of spamming one—especially boring on an elementalist—the system didn’t turn me off of playing at all. I do wish the flow to the story were better, but the way abilities unlock overall isn’t really a problem. I do think that most who are up for the challenge of an MMO could handle it easily, but it doesn’t feel like it hurts my progress, and it makes the game simpler for others to get into.

There are people every day in gen chat asking for help with how to access their skill points, thinking they have to buy them, etc, so a little help isn’t hurting the player base IMO as a new player. I don’t get all of the elements of how things used to be, but grinding kills with each ability doesn’t really sound enjoyable. I go out, kill things, play, have fun doing events, and I get my abilities and traits as I go. I’m not sure what it is the OP and his friend were seeking, but I don’t find the game lacking at all in that regard.

I will say that having dungeons open up but the story not sinking with that is a little off.

Definitely love what I’ve seen in the thread so far, though lots of pages to look through. New to the game so I’m just getting to see what’s out there, but I’ve found a lot that I like so far.

Again, I just find it surprising that is so varied in terms of character customization and the personal element for players has so few emotes. Working in-game instruments but no robust emote list? Wouldn’t have expected that.

I asked about a partial refund. This is digital, but the old brick & mokitteneal was pretty much that if an item went on sale within a “reasonable” time frame you could get the difference back as long as you had the receipt. Didn’t get it, but it never hurts to ask. The game is worth the full price, just sucks to miss out on so much cash that could have gone to gems.

lol, I can’t say m o r t a | r?

New to the game but I agree. I was quite surprised with all the other elements that are so well fleshed out that there are so few emotes. Definitely something that would be much appreciated.

I’m done with SWTOR for the most part and looking for someone here who’s active to trade my creds for your gold. No sense in letting all my creds go to waste, so please PM if interested in a trade.

I overpaid, but I still paid much less than that. Thanks for the input though. Think I saw in another thread where a guy built a machine to more or less max the game out for around $300, so I may just build a new rig as I got a great monitor when I bought this thing.

http://www.amazon.com/CybertronPC-Hellion-GM1213A-Desktop-Black/dp/B00D1KWRES

Bought this a while back elsewhere for a good deal including monitor. Could have built something, but wasn’t really interested. Anyway, I’m wanting to upgrade this as I’m only seeing 30-35 fps with normal, and I’m hoping I can pull around 60 with everything on max settings by upgrading the video card assuming that the mobo isn’t limiting me.

Looking for some input on an NVidia that won’t set me back too much. I’ve been checking Overstock, NewEgg, etc, but there are so many cards to pick from that it’s silly. Trying to stay around $100 max. I’m literally doing this upgrade just for this game. I suppose it would be nice if it would be enough to render BF4 or something else should the mood strike, but this is my main concern for now. Thanks in advance.

I don’t mean items that no one else has found, I simply mean items that can only be gotten by exploring. Unique skins/armor/weapons that can be discovered in game.

I’ve browsed around and seen some interesting armor sets and weapons that drop on certain encounters, or at least have a chance to. I’ve also see the interesting method in which the armors and outfits have been implemented in the Gem Shop—I was none too pleased learning about trans charges the hard way. I’m sure everything that’s around has been datamined, but I’m just wondering barring actually looking at that myself, are there unique weapons, armor pieces, or items that are just randomly out in the world if you happen to find the right cavern, underwater cave, or hidden cranny? Unique skins or such that aren’t found anywhere else? I love the open world of the game, just wondering how well it’s been put to use.

Just came over from TOR, and my only hope is that if they’re added, they are interesting and don’t end up with the pitfall of most MMO end game raiding where there are 10,000 circles around the bosses, forcing melee to stay on the run and lose viability while ranged sit back and plink.

That said, with the abilities classes in this game actually have, melee-focused classes don’t go to zero effectiveness because of temporary need to work at range. Anyway, I hope raids are coming because as a whole I’m loving the game so far and it definitely could support some amazing looking instanced encounters.

As to aggro, perhaps things can vary by encounter and in some cases items can be picked up to cause the boss/adds to target/not target certain players. Guess time will tell.