Guild Wars 2

Because Loot treadmills is what basically re-playability is in MMOs.

In WoW, PvP, it’s grind the gear every week till max points, then the majority just stop playing till the next week…rinse…repeat. Once they get their gear, then they basically start complaining that they need something to do/grind for again and want more content. Same with PvE. You get the gear, once you get it, the majority stop playing until next content patch.

It’s a vicious cycle that the developers just cannot solve.

Honestly, League of Legends seems to be the game that people enjoy playing that has a grind that is optional that doesn’t affect the game at all. (Skins/Champions). Probably the best example of something that seems to work. Not everyone likes that game in terms of the content/game style but they are going strong.

Another example was early WoW when they introduced the BG’s. Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and AV.

You had to play them over and over and over to get reputation with the faction which lead to gear for your toon. After you got that, most just stopped doing that BG since they got their gear.

@Melphina.9035

Community did not keep people playing WoW.

It was a large gear grind/treadmill that kept people playing and the new feeling of an MMO for lots of people those first years (and the majority of the Pop came in during BC). That died off in mid WotLK and other spots when people realized it was the way Blizzard kept them paying $15 a month. That community fell apart faster then anything when Cataclysm hit and it was the same grindfest.

@Knote.2904

If you mean a treadmill, then no GW2 does not have one to keep those players interested. People will have to learn that games end till new content. The only reason WoW had a treadmill was because they had a monthly sub and wanted to lock people into playing.

Just like a new book, if you rush your way through it, you will have a long time to wait till the next book. And yep..maybe that means only reading 1-2 chapters a night.

Yep…happens to me.

Also, the Quote/Flag/Link icons disappear from threads.

Ah….good old WoW….has programmed the masses to need a treadmill.

To say they did a lousy job is ridiculous. Just like WoW did at launch, there is going to be some real world tweaking and changes to the game. WoW was not perfect at launch and had tons of issues.

I think most of us just want something other then doing 1,1,1,1,1,1,1

It seems to be the biggest gripe.

My question to you is: What keeps people there (the other MMO) after they have gotten leveled up, got the gear and skins they like and grow tired of PvP/PvE?

People are just use to WoW…but it’s no different really. Besides bosses, all the mobs in WoW dungeons, even in Vanilla were just trash…and basically for zerging, spanking down.

The ‘trinity’ system didn’t even really exists till raiding in WoW. We basically DPS’d our way through all the 5 mans in WoW up till UBRS and even then didn’t have a dedicated tank or healers…just more off tank types and spot healing.

Most likely the rifle is going to be nerfed…don’t get too use to it.

Judge Banks.9018:

Pretty sure WoW had 10 unique dungeons before you reached level 40, not to mention the dungeons available at 60. We currently have 8 unique dungeons tuned to the difficulty of WoW’s vanilla dungeons. Surely you can see why some players may find PvE extremely boring and easy.

And Guild Wars 2 is probably twice to three times the size of the WoW in scope, quests, etc.

Add on top of that PvP & WvWvW and arenas coming up next and you can see GW2 has much more to offer then WoW did ever at launch.

I was a huge WoW player, but so far GW2 has been nothing short of amazing. Lots of people didn’t even play WoW the first few months of launch…they came in droves after Xmas that year when the word got out around the holidays…before that, the EQ fanboys were bashing WoW big time and it’s lack of key things from EQ.

Sound familiar?

Bombs should have range.

@Detahmaio

The issue again is your term of efficiently. Why do you have to be efficient at leveling? Are you trying to get somewhere quickly?

Efficiency is a term used for performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort.

And it really applies to people who are trying to ‘rush’ to level cap…that’s just the truth…otherwise you wouldn’t use the word efficient.

And yes, it did take longer because people we’re amazed because they were actively exploring. I’ve already experienced it with 2 other guildmates from WoW in here who when we play, are like..come on lets keep moving ankittenep telling them that we need to look here and here and here and their response is basically we just need to get to the hearts and poi and vistas so we can keep moving.

Playing 4 hours a day though is more then average…that’s for sure. And if it’s everyday, then it’s more then average.

Well remember that things change after a game has gone live and months of gameplay have gone on that show strengths/weaknesses/flaws of classes. Adding some things and removing others wouldn’t be that bad of a thing, nor possibly changing some overall elements of a class style (like I said up top, there seems to be a big push for a GW2 Ranger that has no pets like in GW1, and other class requests like new weapons and abilities, etc. ) And no, I don’t have a ranger, I have an Engineer.

I don’t doubt for a minute that new weapons will be coming. Crossbow, 2H Axe, etc. =)

1) Stow Pet

2) Non-Pet build

Sorry, had to go there.

I think it has more to do with the aspect of a gun.

Guns go BOOM and make a lot of noise.

Bows and Xbows do not.

Think about that in terms of a Ranger who is a hunter, stealthy type, tracker type, etc.

JazzyJay.1367:

BobJoeXXI.2493:

• The last patch was a joke. I waited a week for a multitude of bugs to be fixed. A weeks wait only resulted in 2 bug fixes out of the 80+ currently discovered bugs for the Necromancer (and Necromancer isn’t the only class with bugs.) Anet, you said that you wouldn’t balance classes until you fixed all the bugs, yet you are altering the classes and nerfing/buffing the classes when there still are bugs with every class. Of the patch notes I only count 7 bug fixes across all professions with the rest being balance changes. Taking the average of bug fixes per week for the past two patches (simple arithmetic; [6+2]/2 = 4 only count bug fixes not balancing or changes) with 80+ and still discovering will take 5 months until Necromancer is free from bugs. And that is just Necromancer. And who knows what kind of “balance” will happen 5 months from now.

The last patch was a joke? You waited a whole week?!!?! Holy cow!! I bet your nickname is Mr. Patience. You can’t assume because they fixed 2 bugs for necros in each of the last patches (2 for the record), that only two will be fixed in each patch. What if they fix 5 in one patch? Your arithmetic goes right out the window. Your data set of two patches is pretty freakin’ slim to make such a bold prediction.

I know…he should go play WoW…wait to see how long it takes them to fix bugs and patch things. Whole arena seasons go by with broken mechanics.

ANet is a god-send in terms of fixing things.

Detahmaio.2014:

Edit
@Roth dude it takes about 2-3 weeks o hit level 80 if you know what you’re doing and you are playing the game to level and craft/gather.

All you guys screaming omg don’t rush it are slow levelers point blank if you were in a guild from day 1 that took the game serious you are lvl 80 in 3 weeks max. with the designed lvling a month is more than enough time to max a toon out if you do dynamic events,WvW and hearts because at lvl 71 you can craft to 80 if you saved all your mats.

My point is exactly about the player type you are.

If I knew exactly what I’m doing?

Pretty funny comment.

I know EXACTLY what I’m doing, which is taking my time and not playing every hour of the day/night non-stop.

But hey, keep thinking we’re not serious or good players.

azurrei.5691:

I really hate when people say “you rushed to endgame.” No, we didn’t rush to endgame. – the game has been out for 6 weeks.

Actually you did.

When WoW came out, the normal play of most of at least my group of friends was a few 2-3 times a week and a few hours at those times. So maybe 6-10 hours a week on WoW. It took most something like 4-8 months to get their characters up to 60. In fact, everyone I knew took their time playing WoW until around BC where it became a nightly thing.

So again, in terms of what’s considered play time, anyone playing nightly and more then a few hours is in reality ‘rushing’ through the game.

Swifter.6451:

I feel like all the people who bring up these problems have NEVER played an MMO at launch. I’ve played many in far worse condition upon launch, with far far less content.

Exactly…a few posts up you can see the WoW patch framework. There wasn’t much until at least 5-8 months later.

fefner.5729:

I’d rather see the downed system dropped from the game altogether but yeah Ele’s downed skills are very bad.

Agreed. I don’t think it’s really needed.

arjeidi.2690:

They’ve done this in Champions as well, take some time to focus on a single framework and overhaul/rebalance the whole thing. I would love it if ANet did that. Looking at some of the weapons/utilities/traits of the classes, I can only say that the game needs that kind of attention. Whether that actually happens or not… maybe in 2014.

I think we’ll see something in the next months after the holidays…ANet seems to know that they need to stay on top of things and I love how they have all these individual teams working on certain aspects of the game.

Sorry, yah I forgot MC.

But yes, I know GW2 model is different. The point I’m making is that many people have been programmed by WoW end game and expect that here…which is NOT what ANet has done and you end up with these ‘Im Bored’ postings.

You and I know what to expect and how it’s working…but most don’t.

Honestly…tired of the I’M BORED posts.

Anyone who is playing this game at an average pace is not bored…in fact they aren’t most likely 80 yet or have come close to doing all the content in the game.

It’s unfortunate many of you have been brainwashed by Blizzard and their hamster wheel of a game called WoW where they made you addicted to logging in every night and doing the same grinding, repetitive things over and over again while paying them $$$ to do it. Where they convinced you you had to rush to end game (much more apparent in BC and beyond) to do meaningful content. Look many of us played a lot of WOW, myself included. I was in beta through Cata before I stopped playing. But I never fell into that grind of WoW other then doing some fun PvP with others because PvP is always random and new each time.

Many of you need to go out to WoWwiki and go look at the WoW patch notes and see just how long it took to get content out and how long the game had dead patches of nothing but grinding because that is what they put in the game to make you keep paying them $$$. Meanwhile, you thought you were accomplishing something.

WoW 1.0 patch notes for the first 2 years
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patches/1.x

Meanwhile ANet is doing a hell of a job every day or every other day making class balance changes, fixing bugs, and so on.

The game has BEEN OUT A MONTH.

I don’t feel sorry or any empathy for people who are bored. Go find something else to do with your time, go play the hamster wheel WoW game, or just come back when Anet puts up content.

It’s like complaining that your favorite author doesn’t have a new book for you because you read the kitten novel in one sitting. Tough.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

@Bast Bow

Wishful thinking. I cannot count the posts I’ve seen today where someone said “Well, insert dev in charge of balancing classes here (forgot his name) loves warriors, so they won’t get nerfed. Ever”

Wasn’t that Tigole in WoW?

In regards to End Game.

I think a lot of people rushed too quickittenhrough GW2. That’s just my opinion but most have been programmed by WoW to rush to the end.

Go look up WoW patch notes and see where the end game was…it was a hamster wheel of grinding reputations and a few dungeons. After launch, look at the list of what they had and how long it took…

-Maraudon was introduced a month after launch which was a mid level dungeon.
-Dire Maul was introduced 4 months after launch as an end game dungeon.
-Battlegrounds were introduced 7 months after launch
-Blackwing Lair was introduced 8 months after launch. The first raiding content.
-Zul Gurb was introduced 10 months after launch. The first 20 man raiding content.

And so on…

So basically, for the 6 months of the game after launch, you had only Stratholme, Scholomance, UBRS as end game content and 1 raid with Onyxia.

Lets give ArenaNet some time to get some things out folks. We’re getting a Halloween event shortly and I’m sure the live teams are going to be adding lots of new content.

=)

Very interested…why? I’ve had it 3 weeks and am only level 25.

We’re taking our time…logging in a few hours a day to play. No rush, exploring, talking to every NPC and reading their stories, exploring every nook and cranny and so on.

People are stuck on the WoW mentality of non-stop playing, playing every night for hours and hours and expecting something.

Not sure what you expect.

Hunterdan.4921:

Still rather interested. I play a moderate amount since I both go to school and work full time. Also quite interested in what they have coming down the pipe.

Exactly…game’s been out something like 1 month and 1 week and people are complaining. Can’t wait for the new stuff.

We have a gamer culture now that is like someone who consumes everything in one sitting.

People need to learn to pace themselves. No game can keep you playing unless they put you on a hamster wheel of grinding (a.k.a. WoW raiding and PvP). If that is what you like ….

WoW >>>>>>>>>>>

I was telling my one friend who keeps going back and forth about the game that he needs to unlearn what he has learned from WoW because he’s basically stuck in that ‘WoW’ mentality.

He keeps saying he needs a reason to log in…I’m like…um…FUN?

He’s stuck in that hamster wheel treadmill of WoW where they make you grind gear and pvp stuff over and over.

Had a question for the developers.

I know that you tweak the game every few days and classes get looked at and abilities get adjusted, changed, etc. It’s awesome to have a game where things get adjusted on the fly, not every few months leaving things broken.

But I had a question about the overall professions.

Q: Will there be a time, like in early WoW, where you dedicate a time period to re-evaluate each profession and spend time just on that profession for possible changes, etc?

In WoW, after the game had been out for say 6 months, the developers went back and overhauled each class. They took into account obviously the data, forum feedback, etc. Classes received massive changes to their core abilities, etc.

Do you think you’ll be doing this for GW2 in some way shape or form? Possibly adding new traits, skills, removing traits, removing skills, possibly modifying classes (like the recent ‘Pet-less’ ranger suggestion) etc.

Like many games…once they are released and you get real world data back and gameplay, some things that worked well in beta, don’t work in reality and you realize some things should be added and others taken away.

Hopefully we get these class overhauls…I think it’s a good thing.

Thanks again for the updates going forward on the most recent blog post. This is the type of communication that makes the community feel like you listen to us and keep us in the loop.

CAN’T WAIT FOR THE HALLOWEEN EVENT!

People need to realize that unlike WoW, GW2 is great because you can come and go when you please…without feeling like you HAVE to log in to play.

Trust me…people are playing…they just aren’t ‘addicted/programmed’ anymore which is a good thing.

Go out to MMO-Champion and look at Chaud’s builds…there is an article today giving you 4 types of builds (cheap, low, medium, high) at different price ranges. You are looking around $900-$1200 for a good GW2 machine. I just built my own and it ran about $1050 without the monitor (i ended up getting lucky with a bunch of newegg stuff that went on sale at the right time with promo codes..ended up saving over $100…).

TheAltarBoy.3176:

Ebs.6280:

Saying you like the Ranger but not the pet is like saying you don’t like the Ranger. Pets are part of the class so my advice to you would be to not play a Ranger.

No. Saying you like the ranger but not the pets is like saying you like the elementalist but you don’t like fire spells, or you like the thief but don’t like stealth.

Pets are just one aspect of ranger gameplay. Maybe I like the ranger because of all his ranged abilities, his spirits (which are also weak), or his traps. It is entirely valid to like most of a given profession without liking their entire profession.

Exactly. You can like the class but not an aspect of it.

I literally love EVERYTHING…the skills, the traits, the weapon choices (other then we need a Xbow and dual swords) EXCEPT the pet.

I think it’s pretty obvious there is a large group of people that want that medium armored melee fighter but don’t want the ranger due to the pets and don’t want the rogue due to the stealth/poisons/dark aspect of it and ranger probably is the closer one that can fulfill that.

If GW1 again had the petless ranger, then GW2 really should have it. Just like the Necro can go minion-less, so should the Ranger have something like that.

A Ranger is someone who is a fighter type who is very good in the wild, at camoflauge, trapping, and moving quick over terrain. That shouldn’t automatically make them have a pet. Look at the Ranger from D&D. Look at say Aragorn. Look at Army Rangers, etc. To automatically attach a pet when in all sense of the history of other forms of rangers (and yes, this is GW2/Arenanet’s vision)…is kinda silly.

I don’t know why they didn’t do both. It would resolve a lot of issues. You should have the Ranger and two types…the Scout and the Beastmaster.

The ‘Pet-Less’ Ranger should really be an option.

Many individuals want the medium armor fighter without having to use a pet. Many considered a ‘thief or rogue’ individual who steals or uses poisons, etc as that class…. but again, we don’t want the stigma of poisons, stealth, stealing, etc.

So there is this ‘want’ for this type of class…one that medium armored, mobile, quick, etc but doesn’t use pets, doesn’t steal, doesn’t use posions, etc.

I don’t see why they couldn’t ‘work’ this into the class. They have a ‘petless/no minion’ necromancer. They could build the Ranger the same way and work that into a few abilities and skirmisher/marksmen lines.

There has been plenty of history throughout books, games, comics, D&D, etc with ‘Rangers’ who are skirmishers that don’t have pets.

Like many of said, you can have BOTH types of Rangers…with pets and without…just like you can have Necros that don’t use minions and Necros that do.

In terms of unique to each..like Death Shroud for Necros, Belt for Engineer, etc…they can ‘re-work’ something for rangers to be unique for pet rangers (which is the pet) and something else for the pet-less one.

I’d prefer seeing both options, just like you had in GW1.

It’s doable. And maybe we’ll see it happen.

My issue is that ‘armors’ are assigned to classes and pigeon hole them.

I mean Warriors…heavy armor every game. Really? Do you know how many types of Warriors there are? A light fast warrior is not a rogue or ranger. They are a Warrior and spec’d/geared for fast paced in and out combat. That same warrior can also wear heavy armor if needed if the fights will entail something that requires it.

That’s my issue with all MMOs…how they just pigeon hole each class into X armor.

I’d love to see armors take into account mobility and movement. The heavier the armor, the slower the movement and mobility but stronger defensive absorption. Mind you someone in leather should still be as mobile as someone in cloth (since their weights are negligible), but there should be other advantages and disadvantages (like casting issues, etc).

Then you can have your fast paced agile Warrior or your heavy geared juggernaut.

I just hate seeing someone who wants to play a Warrior stuck with bulky looking armor where they might want something that is more mobile like leather. Same with how say classes like Thief get pigeon-holed into the stealthy, poison using category when there are lots of different ‘rogue’ types.

- What kind of continents/areas would you like to explore in expansions?
Something honestly that is dark/spooky/scary. And I’d love to see an MMO actually make night feel like NIGHT. 75% reduction in visability…needing light sources and so on. Part of the effect/mood/feeling.

- Would you like to play new races in expansions? (if yes: which ones?)
Too early for this…maybe in 2 years.

- What kind of dungeons would you like to explore in expansions? (ex: UW)
I would like to see progression dungeons where you can’t go into the next one until you finish the previous along with ‘attunement’ types of questing that sends you around the world to accomplish tasks to do these events/dungeons. I think one of the best things from WoW was the BC attunements (the issue there was it should have been across account) and the original set upgrades that required you to go into dungeons and do things like the 45 min Baron of Strat run, etc to get the better set pieces and upgrades. I knew MANY raiders that couldn’t do a 5 man strat run because they weren’t skilled enough…yet of course they could 40 man raid due to the carrying.

Eveningstar.6940:

I’m curious to know what’s coming in the big picture, but I wouldn’t expect any news of that sort for a little while. The last few patches have all been bug fixes, Dungeon tuning, exploit fixes and anti-botting/anti-scamming measures.

We have another patch due on October 1, which I imagine will also contain bug fixes, tweaks and Dungeon tuning. Right now, if you look at all the Dev posts in the forums, you’ll notice they’re much more concerned, in the short term, of making sure that what they already have works, before launching new content.

Yah I figured as much about that stuff has priority…but that is most likely a different team then the team working on the next stuff and with how these games are made, I’m sure they are 6-9 months out ahead in development. Like you said, I think many on curious of what the big picture is.

I was wondering if the GW2 team could do a blog post or news update on their future plans for the game and what is ‘next’ on the horizon for the game and their views of what happens at 80 and beyond and how they plan on release content and how often.

Now mind you, I’m not even close to finishing or even being through the game. I just got GW2 last week and am loving every minute of it. After about a week of play, I’m only level 8 and just spent 3 hours the other night exploring Hoelbrak…so I’m not one of those rush to 80 types.

I’m just curious on what’s ‘next’ for the best MMO on the market that broke the mold.

I think the majority of us are just loving the game and taking our time. But eventually we will hit 80 and I’m curious on what lies beyond that and what the future holds.

Oh…one thing that I just don’t get about games is the armor. I wish a game would come out that related your armor type to damage absorbed but also to movement.

Imagine being a Warrior and having the option of wearing light, medium or heavy armor, but that choice also affects your movement speed and damage absorption.

The biggest pigeon holed class is Warriors, but it’s just so generic to drop them into heavy armor and that’s it, they wear heavy armor. There are so many types of Warriors, especially very mobile, medium to lightly armored ones.

Just like GW2 pigeoned holed thiefs into the standard cloak and dagger type, there are many other thief types that don’t use poisons, don’t use cloak and shadowy type stuff and so on.

Would love to see armor become something of a ‘choice’ vs having it assigned to your class along with more ‘options’ in the individual classes of ‘direction’

1. Content every 2- 3 months. I just would like content to come out every 2-3 months as xpacs and content that is more challenging and requires you to have accomplished certain things.

2. New Weapons. 2H Axe (come on seriously..not in the game now is ridic). Crossbows. Spear, etc.

3. New Skills. I definitely feel that WoW has too many…but I feel like GW2 needs a tad few more.

What I do miss, however, is proper risk vs reward balancing. Right now some of the best items come from crafting, which is 0 risk, while uniting Tyria and taking out an elder dragon gets you a few lv 78 greens.

I think that you need the ‘risk’ factor in the games. It stops mindless zerging and play styles and actually promotes actually learning of your character skills, etc.

Now mind you I sure don’t want any grind type of game anymore either…though I do think an ‘arena’ system that WoW had on the Arena realms isnt a bad thing to have.

Pluckerpluck.8692:

What I am sad about is that nothings asks you to travel a long way away (ignoring personal story). WoW did lead you around, but it gave you a reason to travel to places. GW2 lets you be free but it makes me feel like I’m someone without any real purpose in life. I randomly wonder the world and solve peoples problems.

I’m not sure about you but I rarely randomly travel somewhere I haven’t been in real life unless I know it may be interesting for some reason. In this I follow the shinnies.

I do somewhat agree with you that certain ‘travel’ quests in WoW were always not a bad thing. I remember the first times/travels to places like Hillsbrad and you had to go through Arathi where the place outleveled you or going from SW to Booty Bay.

Being sent someplace, sometimes, isn’t a bad thing.

The trinity is what exactly KILLED WoW.

LFTank, LFHealer while sitting inside a city for the majority of WotLK and Cataclysm is what started the nails in the coffin of WoW.

Trinity design basically is a crutch for needing to ‘control’ the encounter via the developers/designers. No encounter in real life is controlled…ask any military officer that in terms of planning vs on the ground reality.

If you want the trinity, then go back to playing WoW…no one is forcing you here to play a non-trinity game. And you know, GW2 combat in dungeons is akin to the PvP encounter in the WotLK ToC. Tanking is control…the issue is most people playing this game don’t know how to ‘control’ an encounter.

GW2 is not WoW and isn’t trying to be WoW. Thank god it’s not.

I think many people want the ‘Pet-less’ ranger…

The issue is that the class is based around the pet and the damage from the pet

So they would have to re-work the class and add a new trait line that either discounts the pet or adds in the pets damage, etc.

I know many of my friends and I do not like it that we gain experience when gathering or crafting.

We want our leveling experience to take as long as possible while only gaining EXP for completing questing and killing monsters.

As an example, we had a guild mate get over 9 levels just cooking…

I have no issues with people wanting to level up the way they want, but it would be nice to give players the options to ‘Turn Off’ experience gains when doing crafting, gathering, etc. For many of us, these gathering/crafting professions should only level up the skill in the profession, not the characters EXP or level for doing them.

Please consider this…otherwise we’re forced to wait to gather/craft till max level.

Thanks!