Guild Wars 2

Onshidesigns.1069:

Bright.9160:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Dungeon rewards should be based on how well explored the dungeon is. Speed runs should get a smaller reward.

I love the infallible logic bad players like to use…

Yeah, being punished for being a good player, that sounds fair.

While we’re at it, people that run a marathon the fastest should be shunned and the fat kids that finish last should be hailed.

SPEED RUNS ARE A EXPLOIT

Only if exploits are involved. Everything else is just skill, experience and perhaps bad dungeon design.

lordkrall.7241:

ProxyDamage.9826:

… Let that one sink in for a while…

So.. how many unique sets can you get from doing World Bosses?
People care about cosmetics in this game, therefore people that want the cosmetic look from Arah will do Arah to get that cosmetic set.
Simple as that.

Yes and once they have that skin they’re never gonna go into the dungeon again. Instead they will be doing 6-10min runs in CoF 1 simply because it yields the same reward in terms of rarity, namely guaranteed rares and excotics to either salvage or flush down the toilet. Or of course world events, which also guarantee at least 1 rare per event per character.

Arah is inifinitely more difficult right now than CoF 1 or any world boss, and yet basically yields the same rewards if you break it down to rarity. That’s wrong. Period.

Also what’s the problem with organized groups clearing a dungeon faster than PUGs? The organized group puts a lot more effort and time into it to become that good. PUGs are just… PUGs. Why should they be rewarded the same?

I agree as well. Sadly I don’t see it happening.

lordkrall.7241:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Sadly that also means some content is gated behind cash-shop bars. Even if it’s just optional skins, content is content. What’s even worse is that you can’t just say “Heck, I’ll spend some money, support ANet and get that content”, because the content is also gated behind HUUUUUUUGE RNG bars. That’s the absolutely worst thing.

Hmm?
I have yet to see a single piece of content in this game that required you to use the gem-store (and no, skins are not content).

Read again.
By the way: you cannot just declare skins as not being content. What else should they be? Random amounts of data that accidentally found their way into the game?
Skins are content. Skins are important to a lot of people. Otherwise we would not have all these drop-rate-nerf and skins-locked-in-rng-chests threads complaining.

lordkrall.7241:

Shiren.9532:

This is the part that people don’t understand. The game makes so many compromises to have a gem store in place of a monthly fee. A lot of people who use the store would be much better off with a monthly fee. People who don’t use the store settle for less than what a subscription MMO would offer.

In many cases (mine as well) it is a matter of principle though.
The fact that I don’t NEED to pay in order to play. I can CHOOSE to pay for stuff, but if I chose not to, I can still play the game, whilst with a P2P game I cannot.

Sadly that also means some content is gated behind cash-shop bars. Even if it’s just optional skins, content is content. What’s even worse is that you can’t just say “Heck, I’ll spend some money, support ANet and get that content”, because the content is also gated behind HUUUUUUUGE RNG bars. That’s the absolutely worst thing.

ninetales.5208:

Cheer up, you’re playing an mmo for free.

If ANets continues with this RNG crap you can soon discard that first m of mmo.

Well, seeing how each Moa right now has the same attributes like “Speed: slow” and “Skill: Dash”, I think ANet plans to actually add more skills, different speed and attributes. They probably just didn’t have enough time to implement more for this patch.

Vayne.8563:

That’s my point. I don’t think enough people care about this to have enough people make a fuss.

I’d honestly have no problem if Anet made two arenas. But what if that meant queuing instead of playing until another full team came in? I know if you queue for touraments in SPvP you end up having to wait, sometimes for extended periods of time.

You don’t think people would complain about that? Is it worth Anet’s time to make the extra effort just so those who want to play that way can wait in queues?

Maybe…maybe not, too.

I really think there are more than enough people who would enjoy a good 5vs5 team-match than having to play totally random. Including me and my guild. Given how this minigame is setup in a pvp environment and thus using the pvp mechanics (hello pvp armors!), it shouldn’t be that hard to implement either a server browser or a quick finder for team versus team without having a big queue. Especially since this mode is new there would be more than enough players around.

I also don’t get what is bad about sitting in queues. I rather wait in a queue to play with friends. If people don’t like that, they can just join the random skirmish, which is forced upon us now anyway.

You just need 10 achievements. But you’re getting the broken wings edition, which is different. But I like them more anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Just asking, I won my first moa race but didn’t get any achievement contribution. Am I the only one? :<

Sil.4560:

That doesn’t really answer the question I was asking. What kind of person looks at a simple rock area and says, “Oh, we can’t have that”, when it’s hurting absolutely nothing at all?

A game developer. Players are simply not supposed to go as high as the clouds. It was a bug. There was no intention that this was possible at all.
Try viewing this problem from the developers point of view: You create a map, let’s say a few indoor rooms. One of the rooms that’s connected via a door is blocked off with furniture. But you forget the invisible wall so it may actually be entered. You might not even know if players have discovered that they can enter that room, and it doesn’t matter. You later return to that map you’ve worked on, notice that you forgot the invisible wall and add it. Simply because nobody was supposed to be able to enter that room from the beginning.

Sil.4560:

I bet half of Black Citadel isn’t supposed to turn invisible when I approach the laurel vendor there. I bet auras aren’t supposed to stick when you swap weapons a certain way. I bet you’re not supposed to animate forever if you use an attack and swap weapons at just the right moment. I’m probably also not supposed to be able to walk up a mountain and off the edge of the map, or access the Polymock Arenas right now. I can confirm that most of those aren’t “fixed” yet either.

And what do all these bugs have to do with anything? The stuff you listed ranges from gameplay bugs (auras) to serious issues with the graphic engine (black citadel turning invisibile). Yes, they’re not fixed. Because it takes time to fix them. Because they’re a lot more difficult to fix. Blocking off that specific spot can be done by a single world designer in about 5 minutes. Fixing graphic glitches in the engine is highly complicated. Not even fixing, just locating the bug will take hours or more and often more than one developer. Even if it is fixed it requires intensive testing and quality assurance, just to make sure the fix didn’t cause more bugs.

Sil.4560:

The point is that they blocked off a spot higher than their vista for no reason other than to cause a restriction to players who like to explore, and now another fun, beautiful spot has been removed from the game. Maybe Anet should start paying attention, because that seems to be their problem on a number of issues. They don’t seem to give a single kitten anymore about the actual player.

If you really think that ANet blocks off such spots to restrict players who like to explore, then there is no helping you. ANet doesn’t do that to tease you. Or to make you have less fun. They’re fixing the game, fixing bugs and shaping the world how it is supposed to be. The vista was probably supposed to be the highest accessible point of the mountain. So they fixed it.

Sil.4560:

Rangers and Guardians both have similar attacks (Swoop and Leap of Faith) which do not have this problem. It would be a small matter to mimic one of those. They already fixed the Elementalist’s Magnetic Grasp in that sort of way.

Oh really? Rush let’s you slide across the surface. Leap of Faith is a leap, you’re actually jumping. While you can jump from one rock to another with Leap of Faith, you would just fall to the ground with Rush. Different mechanics. Cannot be compared.
Apart from the fact that swoop is a combination of sliding across the ground and leaping, it’s bugged as well. I’ve played ranger more than enough to get stuck with swoop somewhere or the leap being delayed and so on. Fixing skills like this is not as easy as you want it to be.
And you know what? That wasn’t even the point. Even if it was just copying other skill mechanics, there STILL needs to be testing and quality assurance involved, simply because a game mechanic is more prone to bugs than adding an invisible wall. Comparisons like this is like comparing apples and oranges.

Get over it. ANet is not doing it to tease you, they’re doing it because it was a bug. Never supposed to be possible in the first place. And other, major bugs not being fixed as fast is simply a matter of complexity.

Sil.4560:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Problem with “bugs” like this is, they’re easy and quick to fix. Probably doesn’t take more than 5 minutes. Major bugs that affect traits and skills need more review, probably even a programmer and the guarantee that it’s working properly now. When it comes to balancing there’s even more stuff involved.

It is sad and discouraging, but that’s the way it is.

Doesn’t answer the question of why it needed “fixed”. My warrior’s Rush skill could easily be changed to function properly instead of running in place for a solid second and a half or missing the target and swinging at the air. Instead we get this, though it wasn’t something that was by any means necessary.

It “needs” to be fixed simply because it wasn’t intended to be accessible in the first place. This is just guesswork, but I bet ANet didn’t really pay attention whether the spot had been used or not. Someone at ANet noticed it wasn’t properly sealed off and fixed it.

Do you know about game development? What makes you think that fixing your warriors rush is an easy task? If he’s stuck in place that means there’s something wrong with the physics, the world or both. If it’s the world, then have fun fixing all spots that might affect the skill. If it’s physics you gotta be really careful, because changes on such a delicate system may create a backlash in a way you never expected.

morrolan.9608:

How is it even a bug?

Like I said, it was probably never even inteded to be accessible in the first place.

Jski.6180:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Jski.6180:

You try swing 2 weapons at the same time its not a good way to fight. Most of the time when you dual wield weapons you tend to use mostly the “main” hand weapon your left or right more then your “offhand.” The offhand weapon becomes more of a def tool that can be used in a pinch to attk. Why would you want to try to inflict dmg with your weaker side in the first places when you can do it with your stronger side?

Simply because your opponent will anticipate you attacking with your left hand again because you do nothing else. Being capable of attacking with both weapons alike creates diversity for yourself and openings in the opponents defense. If you use your offhand weapon simply for blocking, you could as well just take a shield.

From a real life view though your opponent knows that attks from your “weaker” side will come slower and with less power then from your other side. They do not need to think too much on the weaker side of a person as they do from the strong side.

You should pay some attention to CMFs posts. As he has stated (and as it should be) both your hands should be equally strong. Apart from that, if my opponent is ignoring my offhand because he thinks its weaker, well that doesn’t suddenly make my blade dull. It will hurt if ignored.

Problem with “bugs” like this is, they’re easy and quick to fix. Probably doesn’t take more than 5 minutes. Major bugs that affect traits and skills need more review, probably even a programmer and the guarantee that it’s working properly now. When it comes to balancing there’s even more stuff involved.

It is sad and discouraging, but that’s the way it is.

Jski.6180:

You try swing 2 weapons at the same time its not a good way to fight. Most of the time when you dual wield weapons you tend to use mostly the “main” hand weapon your left or right more then your “offhand.” The offhand weapon becomes more of a def tool that can be used in a pinch to attk. Why would you want to try to inflict dmg with your weaker side in the first places when you can do it with your stronger side?

Simply because your opponent will anticipate you attacking with your left hand again because you do nothing else. Being capable of attacking with both weapons alike creates diversity for yourself and openings in the opponents defense. If you use your offhand weapon simply for blocking, you could as well just take a shield.

Vayne.8563:

I’m sort of in your boat. I hate farming. But I like running around with guildies. Whatever they’re doing,. it doesn’t really much matter. We can be doing a zone completion, helping them with a jumping puzzle or vista, doing meta events…but you see I’m not really farming. That is to say, the activity I’m doing is hanging out with friends.

Someone needs a hand, I’m often the first person to volunteer. Even if it’s just someone who happens to need some mats from Orr. Now they could very well be farming, but I’m chatting, and enjoying myself. A lot of time, I’m having so much fun with friends and guildies that it doesn’t really matter so much what we’re doing.

I liken this a lot to going out to dinner with friends. The food isn’t always great, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re having a good time together. It’s why I’ve run most of the dungeons I’ve run, why I’ve gotten into WvW and even why I tried SPvP.

Sitting around solo and just trying to farm…I’d be just like you.

You know this last comment of yours can be misinterpreted as being pretty insulting. Apart from that you don’t even begin to having an idea how I am playing the game, it’s a nice little story you have there. And I think the entire forum knows how you like to play. And that’s fine. It’s your way of playing, and with all that help you provide a good one at that.

But other people have different playstyles. And I know you know that. But when we feel there is something wrong, or something could be better, we say so in the forums. And that’s plain and simple criticism. And not every criticism needs to be answered or argued with. There is no need for you to come into every topic and answer each and every bit of criticism you find. Especially not when all you do is keep repeating yourself. We get it. But please, get us. We criticize so ANet gets an idea of where our priorities are, what we would like to get fixed rather sooner than later.

It’s like the precurser drop issue. ANet has recognized that RNG isn’t the best solution and is working on an alternative way for players to obtain precursers. You don’t barge into a topic about alternative ways to obtaining a precurser and telling them just to play the game because it will eventually drop, do you? It’s pointless.

Blaine Tog.8304:

You’re drawing a false equivalency between “being literally incapable of completing a task” and “finding a task unpleasant,” but I do see what you mean. I’m not going for a Legendary for precisely that reason.

Hardware issues aside, there is no literal incapability concerning skill. Everyone can improve if they just want to. It’s how people progress and become better. By trying. If you don’t try, you cannot become better. Simple as that. But some people don’t want to, because they don’t like a certain aspect of the game. I get that. It’s the same with me and farming.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I guess what confuses me overall is the general tone of the OP. It would be great if every piece of cosmetic progression players could possibly want had multiple paths, but I don’t understand the implication that Legendary weapons are some kind of “right” to which players are entitled. Putting aside whether such a system would be feasible (and whether it would be worth Anet’s time to implement such a system rather than fixing profession balance or de-bugging dungeons), Legendary weapons are completely frivolous to the rest of the game.

It’s not like Anet is requiring you to spend 9 months or more to farm for your Rare armor, is my point.

That I don’t get it. On one hand you say people are not entitled to getting a legendary, that it’s something you have to work for, or perhaps might never even get.
On the other hand you argue if it’s gated behind skill barriers, people are kittened off. But that shouldn’t matter because nobody is entitled to it, right?

Blaine Tog.8304:

RoterFuchs.9216:

As I said, ANet figured out grinding to get to the fun parts in a game sucks, but once it came to acquiring special items they stuck to old and boring patterns instead of making that fun, too. That’s what I don’ get.

Ahh, I see what you’re saying.

I feel like any time you gate content behind out-of-game skill requirements, you’re going to kitten off anyone who can’t achieve part of the list. For example, I have a friend who hates jumping puzzles with a fiery passion. Absolutely despises them, partially because she’s just not good at that kind of task but mostly because you have to complete minor “jumping puzzles” occasionally to get certain vistas or skill points, which means her lack of platformer skill (made substantially worse by her underpowered computer) is gating her from map completion in certain parts. It’s a solvable problem in her case since I can eventually just complete those sections for her, but it’s nevertheless a serious frustration for her.

Now, imagine that soloing Lupicus were a requirement for getting Bifrost. Know what would happen? Either there would be guides describing how anyone could solo Lupi (so doing it were merely a matter of following the guide, probably standing in some exploit spot, and spending a few hours whittling him down), or there would be a vast number of people who would be simply incapable of ever getting Bifrost just because they suck at that one specific task. You could make it more like the dailies where you get to pick and choose, but then the community would simply find the path of least resistance and everyone would do do those things. That’s hardly Legendary either.

My point is, there’s no perfect way to do Legendaries. It would be nice if there were a few other skill-based points involved in their creation, but then you’d just be locking out people without specific skills rather than people who aren’t willing to put in the time and effort (like me). Even giving skill-based “shortcut” options (like, getting a free Gift of Fortune for completing all the Jumping Puzzles or whatever) just cheapens the trouble required for people who can’t make use of them. If there must be a single basic requirement for getting your Legendary, I’d rather it be dedication than being good at jumping puzzles or being able to solo Lupi. Which isn’t to say there isn’t room for improvement, but I also don’t see anything wrong with putting cosmetic items in the game which are gated by something anyone can do if they’re willing to put in the effort at their own pace.

I do get your point, problem is as much as your friend hates JPs with that fiery passion, so do I with farming. It’s not about dedication to be honest. I just can’t farm. I can’t. I have tried. And I always end up stopping after 5 minutes. And I also cannot force myself to do so, because if I would, I would end up hating the game and never playing it again. So right now I am the one who is kittened off.
But as you have pointed out gating it behind skill requirement isn’t the best solution as well. The best solution would be to offer alternative ways to acquire the legendary. One via skill. One via farming. Perhaps you can combine both, whatever.

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

I wouldn’t expect “serious” changes. I’d expect some changes, a bit each month, until it’s done. Changing everything at once often leads to more problems than doing it a bit at a time.

Do you really expect forum posters to understand that? To forum people “balance” means “buff my profession and nerf all others”.

Since I am playing all the professions, all are getting buffed. Hooray for me!

Blaine Tog.8304:

RoterFuchs.9216:

At the same time they totally dumped that principle and went back to good old “Grind all the way!”, with the only difference being, that the items are not needed for progression (but are still very much wanted by the community).

This difference makes all the difference.

I feel like I must be misunderstanding your point, because it seems like you’re saying that players are entitled to get whatever they want in the game without any time or effort on their part but that can’t be true. This is an MMO. As much as GW2 departs from the basic formula, it’s still very much a member of its stated genre. Pretty things are supposed to be hard to get in MMOs. That’s how they get their prestige. If everyone had Bifrosts, they wouldn’t be very cool at all. So I must be misunderstanding your point somehow.

I never said I wanted them to be easy to get. It should take time and if possible, should be a challenge as well. But acquiring them should also be fun. Like they wanted the game and combat to be fun starting at level 1. Sadly, grinding – or farming – is not fun. Hard to get shouldn’t be influenced so much by luck and monotonous farming. That’s not legendary. That’s not worthy of legendary.

I think there have been numerous suggestions on possible ways to acquire a legendary, for example a long quest series which is difficult and needs time to be completed. In addition you would need special “achievements” like dungeon master, or killing lupicus alone. The possibilities are endless.

As I said, ANet figured out grinding to get to the fun parts in a game sucks, but once it came to acquiring special items they stuck to old and boring patterns instead of making that fun, too. That’s what I don’ get.

I feel with ya, OP. I still want the game to be great, I want to play it. But everytime I do, it feels hollow, like you said. It feels like all immersion is gone. Nostalgia incoming!

Tulisin.6945:

RoterFuchs.9216:

I’m all for the rifle.
While I can understand the argument that a rifle would make the thief rather stationary which doesn’t go along with the acrobatic design, neither does torch to be honest. “Hey look at me, I am a stealthed thief. So wait, don’t look at me, cause I am stealthed. But I have this super bright torch giving away my position! So yes look at me!”

The problem with that line of reasoning is that mobility is innate to the thief but stealth is not. Stealth is a play style choice, and one that a couple weapon sets are already ineffective at. More weapon sets that don’t choose stealth is a good thing for the profession and increases the options and variety available to thieves. Stuff like Burning application to make condition builds more viable, a fire field for Might stacking synergy, etc are things that will increase the thief’s utility and build diversity and get thieves away from the exclusively “stealth + high-damage ambush” role and play style that is so prevalent.

I’m not even against another low-mobility weapon set like P/P is, but “Torch would be bad at stealth” is a point in favor of the idea, not against it.

How can you say that mobility is innate and stealth is not? Mobility is also a playstyle choice. I can go fullstealth D/D with stealth utilities only. The only skills that come remotely close to mobility in this setup is Heartseeker and Steal. The latter can be traited for stealth.
On the other hand I can go full mobility and ignore stealth as much as possible. And yet depending on your build you might still encounter some stealth elements.
Both are innate. I haven’t counted, but I would almost bet that there are more ways / skills to gain stealth than movement.

Just because you would like to see thief going in a less stealthy direction doesn’t mean it’s right. A low mobility set like P/P or potentially a rifle – with the first being also low stealth – might just be as right as a torch which would totally neglect stealth.

What I wanted to say: a thief is by definition quick and sneaky. He mustn’t attract attention. Guess what a torch does. A sniper rifle on the other hand means a (probably) silent kill. But it’s less mobile.

Peetee.9406:

There’s a difference between grinding and farming.

You killing the same set of creatures over and over is grinding, devs don’t like that.

Farming would be you killing those spiders 1 time then going and killing spiders somewhere else, devs are okay with that.

Wait what? So my goal is to farm let’s say potent venom sacs. Spiders drop venom sacs. It is not okay to farm the same set of spiders, but it’s okay to farm spiders as long as it’s a different location? Why? What’s the difference? Both is farming. Both is essentially killing the same type of mob. The only difference is, that you’re moving, and perhaps wasting money for waypoints. I call bullkitten.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like farming myself. But I also don’t care if others do it. I just don’t get the reasoning behind “you’re only allowed to farm as long as you run around in the world and don’t stick to one place”. Why? Do they want to keep people moving around in the world? If so, why not create an incentive to do so, instead of forcing people?

wolfie.7296:

People like the Op can play a korean mmo if they likes ‘challenges’. Oh…they won’t. Wonder why that is. I leave mmos because of people like the op who whine at casual players/and like grinds that suit them. casuals like difficulty but hate the grindiness that is needed to counter no-lifer players.

Read the op again, then come back.

I’m all for the rifle.
While I can understand the argument that a rifle would make the thief rather stationary which doesn’t go along with the acrobatic design, neither does torch to be honest. “Hey look at me, I am a stealthed thief. So wait, don’t look at me, cause I am stealthed. But I have this super bright torch giving away my position! So yes look at me!”

I just love that ArenaNet puts in objectives that, to reach them, you have to farm for, and then goes and nerfs every possible way to farm. So where’s the logic in that?

And if you’re not supposed to farm, why the need for so many mats for a single item? How would you ever acquire it? By simply playing and then sometime in the distant future you have all the materials? Best delaying tactic ever. Not.

Why not make challenges? Literally. Like “Do Dungeon Path X in under Y minutes.” Or “Defeat Lupicus alone”, and so on. There’s probably hundreds of ideas a lot better than mine. You get my point.

Blaine Tog.8304:

His point was, GW2 doesn’t start after you’ve hit level 80, and getting there doesn’t require standing next to 100,000 bears and pressing 1 until they die. The video wasn’t trying to say what you’re interpret it as saying. It was saying, “Look at how fun and awesome or combat is, and look at the cool things you can do and the kitten monsters you can fight! And you get to do all that from the start!”

And while they discovered that grinding to be able to do the fun things isn’t any fun at all, they went and totally ignored that new found knowledge when it came to items? Because right now the discussion is leading right back to this:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Here another approach: Why do casuals dislike the gear treadmill and raids? Because it gates content behind gear. What if I told you that this content was optional and no one forced you to do it? (The same as no one is forcing me to go for certain items, right?)
Just play the rest of the game and in time you might gather enough stuff / money or might have time for a raid and get past that gate. But I guess you don’t want to spend that much time just to achieve this one goal.

These are essentially the same arguments people keep bringing up whenever there’s the discussion that you must grind to acquire special items / legendaries.

In both cases people miss out on content. Be it special items or other playable parts of the game. And it’s both gated behind grind.

It is no fun to grind items either. And that is what this whole thread is about: paradoxical game design. They knew grinding to do the fun stuff sucks, so they improved it. At the same time they totally dumped that principle and went back to good old “Grind all the way!”, with the only difference being, that the items are not needed for progression (but are still very much wanted by the community).

Vayne.8563:

Why do you take an entire paragraph…highlight the bit to prove your point and completely IGNORE the last line of the paragraph which says, “we want to change the way people view combat.”

It’s about the combat. It’s about having fun things to do from level 1. How this equates to gear grind in your mind shows a complete lack of reading comprehension.

The fun stuff isn’t items. They’re talking about the fact that you can fight a big boss right in the starter zone. You can jump into PVP as a level 80 character without playing PVE at all or leveling at all. You can even jump into WvW at a low level if you want. That’s it. Anything else you’ve read into it is your own problem.

Edit: Does the paragraph mention gear at all? No. Does it mention crafting? No. It mentions fun things to do and combat. That’s what the paragraph is about.

How does it relate to gear grind? Simple. Gear is mostly acquired through crafting or RNG in this game. How do you achieve either of it? Combat. Is combat in itself fun? Yes. Is it fun killing hundreds and thousands of mobs to acquire one final item? No.

“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, ocassionally"

And with GW2 they wanted to have fun stuff always and everywhere. So where are my fun tasks to acquire mats? Where is the fun, alternative way to grinding?

Oh and btw, that paragraph also isn’t talking about fighting bosses early on, or WvW, or sPvP. Dunno where you got that. So right back at you.

The problem here is that in the paragraph fun stuff and fighting are connected, because it had to be brief and combat is the one thing you will do throughout the entire game. Of course it is connected to fun stuff. But that doesn’t mean fun stuff is only connected to combat. And as I have already said earlier, nobody gets to decide what fun stuff is. Except for themselves.

Vayne.8563:

RoterFuchs.9216:

penatbater.4710:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Let’s try it this way: ANet said Guild Wars 2 would not be grindy at all.

They said nothing of the sort. From what I understand, they’re just gonna make grinding less… mindnumbing than standing in 1 spot for hours everyday killing the same mobs over and over and over again.

Actually they did. I clearly remember a video where phrases like “We don’t like grind” or “We want to eliminate grind” were being thrown around.

The video you’re thinkining about is the much maligned MMO Manifesto, where Colin was talking about how in most games, you have to grind to get to max level before you can do anything fun. Not the grind you’re talking about.

Well that’s odd. While I am indeed talking about the manifesto, what you’re saying is outright wrong.

“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way people view combat.”

Straight from the manifesto. Don’t believe me? Here, take a look: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/media/videos/ (at the very bottom)

Essentially he is saying: grind = bad. He is also saying that GW2 should be the fun stuff all the time, and that you don’t need to grind to get to the fun stuff.

Any discussion at this point is obsolete, because nobody gets to decide what fun stuff is for others. Everyone decides for themselves. For me, having an awesome weapon or armor skin is definitely fun stuff. Because I like to relate to my character, to the role I am playing. Having nice looking gear is important and fun to me. And to acquire that, right now, I need to grind. That’s really awesome, isn’t it?

Blaine Tog.8304:

For example, let’s say I have a restaurant. I advertise it as selling healthy food, as being a good play to come for a delicious, filling meal that won’t clog your arteries. Am I not allowed to serve ice cream on the desert menu? Am I not allowed to give people the option of ordering fries? That’s essentially what you have here: the game, fundamentally, isn’t about grind, but there’s an optional amount of grind available for you if you want it.

Well careful on the wording here. Are you only selling healthy food, or are you also selling healthy food? There’s a difference. By saying “I’m selling healthy food” you are generalizing, leaving things open for interpretation. And I did do exactly that. I interpreted the message I got. And you’re critizing this, based on what? Your own interpretation? Come on.

In fact, “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.” is pretty much straight forward. They don’t, oh wait, didn’t want grind. It’s in their manifesto. Which is still out there to advertise for the game.

penatbater.4710:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Let’s try it this way: ANet said Guild Wars 2 would not be grindy at all.

They said nothing of the sort. From what I understand, they’re just gonna make grinding less… mindnumbing than standing in 1 spot for hours everyday killing the same mobs over and over and over again.

Actually they did. I clearly remember a video where phrases like “We don’t like grind” or “We want to eliminate grind” were being thrown around.

Blaine Tog.8304:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Inb4 “but you don’t need any of these items”:

I’m sorry, but you don’t get to shut down this argument just because you’ve heard it before.

Oh don’t be sorry. I am not trying to shut it down, I am just trying to show another point of view.
Let’s try it this way: ANet said Guild Wars 2 would not be grindy at all. They didn’t like grind and that’s why they’re trying to keep it out of the game. And then there are these items which require either a huge amount of time and / or grind, totally ignoring their statement.

So now you say “but it’s optional”. And I say “it’s grind”. Whether you want the item or not. A part of game content is gated behind grindy bars.

Here another approach: Why do casuals dislike the gear treadmill and raids? Because it gates content behind gear. What if I told you that this content was optional and no one forced you to do it? (The same as no one is forcing me to go for certain items, right?)
Just play the rest of the game and in time you might gather enough stuff / money or might have time for a raid and get past that gate. But I guess you don’t want to spend that much time just to achieve this one goal.

These are essentially the same arguments people keep bringing up whenever there’s the discussion that you must grind to acquire special items / legendaries.

In both cases people miss out on content. Be it special items or other playable parts of the game. And it’s both gated behind grind.

Yargesh.4965:

RoterFuchs.9216:

Yargesh.4965:

Ah, another they lied to us thread. Nothing beats them. Except walking away from people who continually lie to you, but that would be too easy.

Or you could tell those people to stop lying and man up. Nah, rather run away.

I have yet to see these so called lies. But I guess I am just not you.

Oh I never said they lied. I just picked up on what you said (Reminder: “Ah, another they lied to us thread.”). No need to get personal, I wasn’t attacking you.

However I simply do like what I see in those videos more than what we have ingame right now. It might be just marketing, or they decided to take a different path from what can be seen, I don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter, since I guess it won’t be changed anytime soon.
Still, bringing up such topics shows ANet that changing the current combat might not be a bad thing and that there are players who would enjoy that, even if it was just little changes. There’s always room for improvement. We just show ANet where they should look.

@Vayne: Not everyone played beta I guess.

Yargesh.4965:

Ah, another they lied to us thread. Nothing beats them. Except walking away from people who continually lie to you, but that would be too easy.

Or you could tell those people to stop lying and man up. Nah, rather run away.

Astralporing.1957:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Aeonblade.8709:

This is where the problem lies. For a lot of players, the way the game is set up makes farming required.

This confuses me. How does the game require farming? For whom?

Have you looked at the mats prices lately? Even at start there was a lot of the prohibitively high ones, but since november 2012 it’s getting much worse. It’s now 50 ecto for this, 100 passion flowers for that, 250 t6 mats for these, 250 lodestones for those. The theme is clearly visible – you are supposed to farm for that, and farm hard, because you won’t get it through normal playing, or feats of skill.

Quantity over quality. Cheap delaying tactics that are supposed to keep you away from your goals through sheer boredom, instead of keeping you captivated through immersing or challenging content.

Everything this game claimed it won’t ever be.

Inb4 “but you don’t need any of these items”:
That doesn’t matter. They’re there. ANet put them in to be acquired. As a possible goal players might set for themselves. But actually acquiring them is difficult as hell. Well, no. Not difficult. Just grindy. Unless you’re willing to take your time and wait ages. And this just goes to prove the delaying tactics argument that I have quoted.

Why again is not casual = “I wan’t gear grind and gear treadmill”?

Casual usually means two things: You’re either playing just from time to time and often a small amount of time per session, or you’re playing casually, as in trying to relax, not putting in much effort and don’t caring too much about challenges in particular.

While there are of course hardcore players who enjoy a gear treadmill and gear grind, there are also those who enjoy challenging content. And right now there is basically no challenging content, which is really sad.
A hardmode for the currently existing dungeons would easily satisfy a lot of the more ambitious players for quite some time. It doesn’t even necessarily have to end in better rewards. An achievement would probably be more than enough of an incentive that most players need.

Well you don’t need to understand it. You just have to accept it. It’s a different playstyle, that’s all.

Cameirus.8407:

It was not an if you dont like it quit post.

It was pointing out that content shoudl be fun in and of itself. If you need rewards to run it, then why run it at all? since you are effectively needing an incentive to bother?

While (on a personal note) I do agree with content should be fun in and of itself; it is just one way to view and play the game. A lot of people play for the sole reason of being rewarded. People like being rewarded. They like to achieve something, why else did the current achievement-madness in the game industry occur? Every game has achievements for even the most minor stuff nowadays (Hooray! You managed to start the game!). And people like that.

And the fact that there is loot, dailies, loot chests for world bosses, dungeon rewards and special items that you have to work for in the game shows that ANet recognizes and acknowledges the need for rewards. It is a way of playing. It might not be your way of playing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

That doesn’t change the fact that the gameplay and combat style presented in this video is a lot more appealing to me than what we have right now. I know it’s not gonna happen, but a “what if” discussion doesn’t hurt, does it?

Vayne.8563:

I like moving while firing. I like dodging.

Thing is, the dodging and moving bit wouldn’t change. The game would just become somewhat harder and less auto attack focused. In fact moving and dodging would become even more important, while you have to chose which skill fits best, instead of simply doing your skill rotation and then auto attacks.

I guess that’s the reason why over time thief has become my main class. Combat is much more engaging (and difficult), and you can actually choose from your skills more than once in a short time frame, so you don’t have to rely on auto attacks all the time.

Cameirus.8407:

Are you having fun? if yes, who cares about the reward.
If no, then leave as why play a game you dont find fun.

If you only run content if it rewards you, then you are not really enjoying it. So why bother at all?

Why oh why is this “argument” coming up in every topic I seem to read?
Let me get this one straight. Just because people complain, doesn’t mean they don’t have fun. It actually means that they care. They express criticism and point out flaws. These flaws might just be true for a small part of the community, but that doesn’t make their opinion wrong, and neither does the flaw cease to exist.
I too love this game. I love the lore and the world and the books. But it has flaws. Be it the non-existent difficulty, the RNG issues or the grind required to obtain certain items (yes legendaries, I am looking at you).

People enjoy different parts about games. Most like to win. A lot like to try and get better and improve. Lots of people play to relax. Others are achievement hunters. And then there are those who like to be rewarded for completing difficult content, or content at all. The latter are probably those that like to win and / or improve, since winning in a PvE environment isn’t really… possible.

So if certain aspects are missing in the game, the affected part of the community will raise their voices in concern, pointing out a possible flaw, which might lead to improvements. That’s a good thing. And it should by no means be answered with “just quit if you don’t like it”. That’s ignorance.

Well to be honest, the combat in that video looks so much more alive. Yes, it might be slower, but at least there you don’t have to spam auto attacks all day. These skill videos played a big part in hyping me for the game. All of the professions look so much more fun.

I just need to take a look at my Mesmer cooldowns right now (apart from auto attack): 8s, 14.5s, 28s, 28s. And that’s already traited for 20% staff cooldown. It’s obvious that most of the time I will be auto attacking. And I won’t even start with utilities (loved that warrior chaining stomp and rush in the vid).

Marketing or not, it’s looking outright better than what we have right now – auto attacks all day long.

dronzer.8392:

I do agree with the OP with all his points, this game is sending out mixed and confusing messages, I swear at one point I saw an ANET video saying they don’t want people grinding and how it wasn’t fun, reading blocks of quest text etc etc, it seems with every update they ignored this completely.

You don’t need to swear it. I remember it clearly (as I do with most GW2 related stuff, was so hyped for this game I simply absorbed everything about it prior to its release). They said no grind. They said quest text is boring and instead the stuff should just happen in the world, while all the npc does is basically saying “Help me!”.

The “we don’t want grind in our game” is what’s bugging me completly. That was such an important thing they said that has burned itself into my mind. And yet here we are. To achieve certain stuff in this game we actually have to grind. And don’t you dare telling me that I don’t have to do it, because it’s my choice. That’s bullkitten and past the point. Whether I want to do it or not – it is grind. It contradicts a major statement about the game. Sure you might say that the mats for it simply gather over time if you don’t pay attention, but it is still grind. “Get 250 of this, get 300 of that…”. That’s grind. Whether you do it in within an hour or a year doesn’t matter. Heck, I hate that hypocrisy. I never understood why they decided to go this way. It is one of the big "WHY"s that’s bugging me. Dammit.

Arkham Creed.7358:

TooBz.3065:

There’s no carrot to keep me playing when the next game comes around.

Play for the game, not for the carrot.

I don’t mean to sound rude, I really don’t, but if there is nothing about the world, the lore, the mechanics, the story, or the community that you genuinely enjoy then you’re better off finding a different game. I’m not trying to defame you with that, it is the honest truth; Guild Wars 2 isn’t about the carrot, so if you’re just looking for lunch you would be happier elsewhere.

If it isn’t about the carrot, what is it about then? “Having fun” I hear you say. How? How to have fun, if you have done everything there is already?

Just out of sheer curiosity, this argument:

GW2 – have fun. Do what YOU want to do, you are not forced to do this “objective” It’s YOUR personal objective. Hard and expensive.

has popped up again and again and again. But really, what is it you guys do to have fun? To keep you playing Guild Wars 2?

I for one have played about 1314hours total (with about a 3 month break), I have 7 classes at level 80 (just cannot bring myself to play engineer), obtaining level 80 exotics is easy as hell. I have had my fair share of WvW, Dungeons, Fractals and sPvP (still playing the latter from time to time), and the only goal that’s left is acquiring a really good looking weapon skin, namely a legendary. But contrary to what has been said over and over again, that there is no need for farming in guild wars 2, I have to farm like hell if I ever want to even have the chance of acquiring a legendary. But I do not like farming. And I haven’t done it. So my chances of attaining a legendary are really low.

So right now there really isn’t much left for me to do. “Then stop playing.” Sure, that’s an option. But I love this game, I love the lore, I love Guild Wars 1 and have read the books aswell. I want to keep playing it, but I am lacking the incentive. Doing stuff with guildmates is the last straw, the last activity that keeps me from taking a break again. It is the only thing that is fun. But that has nothing to do with Guild Wars 2, it’s simply about doing stuff together. We could also play any other game, as long as we do it together.

So what are you guys doing, that’s so fun? What is keeping you hooked?

Red Jay.2516:

Is there even any word from devs that they are aware of the sucky state of p/p? Or are they trying to ignore this weapon combination out of the existence?

I recently tried getting an answer from ANet regarding this issue, without success of course. :/

Theftwind.8976:

Sadly although it is clear the person in the video is using some form of hack the OP is going to end up with an infraction for posting the video as the character’s name is shown. That is just the way ANET operates.

There is nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t call / show other players names on forums and the like and claiming that they are doing X. That is to prevent witch hunts, going by the concept of innocent until proven guilty. And while what’s going on in that video seems to be blatantly obvious, the final decision whether it is cheating or not is ANets to make. The proper way to report this cheater would have been to send the name + video to a moderator / support and let them deal with it.

Reminds me, I had seen someone teleporting like that in the WvW JPs ages ago. Was pretty confused at first, thought it might have been lag. But he kept teleporting too fast for it be lag. Sadly I didn’t catch his name to report him.

Elbegast.6970:

I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be looking at.

Everything I saw in the video, I can do on my Thief. It’s called shadowstep/shadow return. I don’t play other classes but I just assume everyone has a similar ability.

Did you watch it till the very end? In the end he teleports great distances, more than 1200 in rapid succession. Can’t do that with shadowstep.

Also he’s a ranger.

Doomknight.7923:

EDIT: i was just contacted in game by a moderator. THANK YOU ANET for the quick response and compensation. This has deffinetly made the ecto bug a little less painful.

Care to elaborate?

I guess we can leave it at that.

You can find the timestamp option in the menu that pops up when clicking the cog in the top left corner of the chat window.