Guild Wars 2

pixy.2946:

ugh the forums script seem to not work easily on my browser.

Anyway, I’m not actually here for a political discussion? Or to have to give a crap about what some bigots think.

Support said it is fine. They said I can use queer in a non-derogatory way and it’s fine. They said I can get around teh filter any way I want to and I won’t have to change the guild name.

They’re claiming they have no way to talk to the dev team. They said this was the only way to get in touch with the dev team. I did not want to do this in a video game forum for so many, many reasons. Just go away.

I just need a speak to a dev. I tried to do this privately through support. I’m not interested in a tiny inconsequential percentage of players that want to argue about how invalid I am. I could just get on twitter to do that.

And this is a forum for all who have purchased GW2. You should have expected players to chime in with their view on whether or not queer should be or should not be part of the guild name filter. And you should have realized that given the nature of the request, that there would be people on the other of the argument who would chip in with legit reasons for their side.

No one is saying you are invalid in any way.

They’re just saying that currently, when most people see the word queer, they associate it with the slur and get offended themselves or get offended for others. And that this would just cause support more tickets from people reporting the name, even if it wasn’t used in a derogatory fashion. And as such, should remain on the filter list until it is reclaimed.

Agemnon.4608:

Substance E.4852:

Dradiin.8935:

wolfpaq.7354:

imsoenthused.1634:

I find it distasteful in the extreme, but arena.net hasn’t declared it verboten, so this is what we get. Personally, I wish they’d make an official statement forbidding it, an then actively ban anyone who tried to do it. Of course, the kind of people who buy and sell these services are hugely offended about anyone who feels this way. They always immediately start screaming “How are they hurting you?” “shouldn’t they be paid for their skill?” etc. I could care less about their arguments though, it’s just tacky and sad, exploitative on the sellers side and pathetic on the buyers. At the very least if Anet banned it they’d have to make shady backroom deals on 3rd party forums and such, and you wouldn’t see it in the LFG tool anymore, and that would be much better. They could hang out in the dark alleys of the internet making shady, shameful deals all they want, always fearful that their dirty secret would come out and their account would be properly banned.

Lol someone is seriously overreacting to people who sell dungeon runs.

I think this is a low point in GW2, the bar is set by WoW players who proliferate this mentality. I specifically started playing GW2 because of the developers wanting to move away from this mentality.

Support it all you want but it is a slippery slope, once this is considered “Normal” then the WoWification of yet another game is not far behind.

The “WoWification”?

Pff lulwut?

Like Gw2 is going to suddenly become a mainstream household name and go strong for 10 years defining a game genre? That’d be terrible indeed…

Sorry to kitten on your parade but Anet has been okay with people selling runs since the GW1 Prophecies days.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_Drok's_run

Clearly the metamorphosis into a perfect facsimile of WoW is a very slow process.

Yes it really would be terrible and here’s why. When something goes mainstream then that means a wider audience base is aware and into it. Not a problem by itself, but then these people start making demands that traditional gamers wouldn’t. Demands such as cutscenes and more consistent story instead of actual content and challenging content, both bonus secret content and the parts of the game one would encounter naturally. More people also means a lower common denominator, meaning things get simplified too much for their tastes. It’s the same reason why whenever a band becomes popular they usually stop being good.

People always talk about how original WoW was fun, then they simplified it too much.

Why can’t a game shooting for great game play (mechanics + content) shoot for a great story as well? Don’t get me wrong if it’s either great game play or a great story and the other is just so-so, I’ll take great game play any day. But if it can be both, why is that a bad thing?

But in and of itself, asking for a better story isn’t a bad thing.

Astralporing.1957:

imsoenthused.1634:

I think that assuming none of them would help with out compensation if such compensation was clearly against the rules is incorrect.

I’m pretty sure you thing wrong. I also sincerely doubt, that if you banned the selling, LFGs for normal runs would go up. Or that the “metazerk” ones would suddenly start accepting casuals that cannot do it on their own skill.

This.

The sellers would just go out of game to sell or use map/say chat to advertise (depending on what was made illegal, using the LFG to sell spots or selling spots themselves). Like there was an LFG outside of the game before ANet made one in game.

It would also not affect any group type that doesn’t sell, such as the p1 ping zerk gear 15K AP no ranger no necro group or the casual anyone welcome group.

Can you find a dev post that says they were reluctant to do so? Time alone is not proof. That just shows that they did not assign it high priority until major changes occurred where people may wish to adjust builds.

And if they do actually succeed in making more builds meta for raids, this may be used often by players who wish to try out multiple roles. Certainly cheaper and quicker to stat swap and buy a new sigil/rune for the armor than it is to make a new one.

Not to mention, this makes any future major changes to skills and traits easier to get mass approval on. There won’t be players who will be angry that they now have to spend a month making new armor for each character they have.

Have your friend get on teamspeak or some other online chat with you. Turn her sensitivity up and the game’s volume up. Then have her go to a bank in game and have her type in chat when it starts sounding.

The problem is, for every choice, the consequence has to be coded into future story steps and things accounted for.

Player A may get Character B killed but not Character C.

Player B may not get any of them killed.

Player C may get Character C killed but not Character B.

Player D may get all characters killed.

If they had plans for Character C and Character B to be involved in a later chapter, they have to code 4 separate stories. One for both B and C being there, one for just B being there, one for just C being there, and one for neither B nor C being there. And that’s assuming that’s the only instance of past decisions having an effect.

That’s a lot of work for an MMO. Because they have to remember all of those possible combinations when designing future content for the game.

RPG’s only have to worry about the current game. Most will canonize one path when they do a sequel or the choices won’t really affect too many aspects of the game. Mass Effect is the only series I can think of where this does not seem to occur.

But MMO’s add more to the game more often than single player RPG’s. Think of how convoluted WoW’s story would be if there were choices given how long it’s been around.

It’s human nature.

We’re more likely to vocalize our opinion on a product or service if we dislike it.

We don’t go find a place to vocalize our enjoyment because we’re enjoying the product.

Khisanth.2948:

This seems like it would be better posted on the pages providing this information.

This. ANet doesn’t run Dulfy’s site. The best way to get Dulfy’s site changed is to contact Dulfy and present your case as to why the site needs updating.

Nike.2631:

See you in the raids. Only I won’t. Because ‘all orange’ is getting kicked by any sensible raid leader.

That’s what guilds and friends are for. Yes, not all guilds will be casual raiding guilds, there will be hard core raiding guilds where you must have the best gear and be meta and all that and that’s just fine, but there will be casual raiding groups where people go in with full exotics and builds put together that they’ve found will defeat the raid bosses by trial and error.

And friends would be willing to run raids together on occasion even if not everyone had maxed out gear. Because that’s what friends do.

BimBimZ.3285:

I’ve bought ultimate edition 4 days ago,,, I got my Gems in 70 hours,,, Gliding, Additional Character Slot, Finisher, Revenant Mini and Tittle directly,,, but I didn’t recive Additional Bag Slot, Living Wolrd 2 Complete Pack, Job-r Tron, BL Keys and Minis Pack…. Anyone has a same problem????

Bag slot, Living World 2 Complete Pack, Job-r-Tron, BL Keys and Minis Pack are not part of the Ultimate Edition. That’s why you haven’t received them.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Seera.5916:

And maybe the patch yesterday broke it again. Maybe the fix fixed it for most players but some still have an issue.

So now you want to use the forums to complain about the possibility that a patch might have broken something? I think the appropriate response to reporting a hypothetical bug is to imagine that ANet will fix it in the next imaginary patch.

No, I was saying to not shoot down the possibility that it got broken again just because it was earlier fixed. Or that the fix fixed it for everyone. Which was what Behellagh was seeming to say.

That being said, I had no issues either at over or below the required amount of gold to buy 400 gems when I tried when I got on tonight. So chances are it’s not broken at all at the moment.

Behellagh.1468:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Behellagh.1468:

I can click anywhere in the red box in the image and get a cursor to appear. If that’s too small of an area for you, I don’t know what to say.

1) This has already been patched
2) You STILL don’t understand how the bug occurred, since you need(ed) to have less than the amount of gold required to purchase 400 gems.
(In your screen, you have enough gold to buy 400 gems)

We might as well be carrying on a conversation with a cardboard box.

And the bug was fixed already or so it was reported the same day this bug was first reported in the forum and that was a while ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Unable-to-custom-exchange-gems

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/custom-exchange-gem-broken

And maybe the patch yesterday broke it again. Maybe the fix fixed it for most players but some still have an issue.

I’ve got just over 99 g. I’ll attempt to change the gems I get when I get home. Then I’ll buy some stuff and go under 99 g and try again.

Ohoni.6057:

Why should aesthetic value trump exclusivity value? Why can’t they be treated equally?

They can, but that means that the one who values it for aesthetics gets it. Or at the very least, that if more players value the aesthetics than value the exclusivity, then the item would not be exclusive. If the exclusivity player gets to keep the item away from the aesthetics player, then that would be him trumping the aesthetics player.

And how do you know your changes would be revenue neutral? How do you know that it won’t cause more players to stop buying gems or future expansion packs than it will cause people to buy the game or players to buy more gems than before?

Because it wouldn’t interact with gems, or at least wouldn’t interact with gems any more or less than the existing system. That’s a far cry from ideas like “stop putting things on the gem store and give them to be for free instead.”

If players leave the game due to a change they don’t like, they don’t buy gems and they don’t buy expansion packs. That’s lost revenue.

Well obviously, but my ideas are predicated on the fact that they would attract more players than they would repel. If there were any reason to believe otherwise then I wouldn’t suggest them.

But given human nature and the number of people in this thread for and against your vision, I don’t think your ideal situation would be revenue neutral. I think it would be revenue negative.

As I’ve noted before, the number of people for or against the idea in this thread is entirely irrelevant to the final outcome. This thread is a horrible sample group for this sort of proposal.

If they are treated equally, it means for every 1 armor skin that’s put in to favor those who go after things for their aesthetic value, 1 armor skin is put in to favor those who go after exclusivity value. Not always to those who prefer the aesthetic value. That’s favoring one and excluding another.

And where is your proof or evidence that your ideas will bring more players in than it will chase away? Posts here and human nature show me that people tend to prefer exclusive items, especially when it’s the reward for something challenging. Restating that because I think you skimmed over the other half of my reason for believing what I do. Why do you think “Limited Time Only” sales are successful? They are successful because people don’t want to miss out. They want to be able to say that they got the limited time deal. So give me actual proof that you’re right. Something you can link to that’s a reliable source. Prove my hypothesis wrong and yours is right. Stating your hypothesis over again is not proof.

And if you can’t prove the above, you can’t claim your suggestion is revenue neutral.

Ehecatl.9172:

There are 9 professions and 10 raid slots. Not stacking is impossible.

It’d also be really annoying if you had a friend who happens to play the same profession as you and you couldn’t play with them because of some stacking rule.

That’s not what the OP means by stacking most likely. OP most likely means everyone standing on top of each other.

Bomber.3872:

Seera.5916:

1. Booster change. There aren’t many karma sinks. So people tend to have more karma than they know what to do with. Since it would be hard to make a karma sink and have it not affect gold inflation, they can only change the rate of acquisition. So they slowed the karma gain down. Not related at all to F2P.

2. F2P accounts can only buy and sell specific items on the TP. Those items are likely not tradeable expensive event items. No harm will be done to the economy due to this.

3. More like ANet saw that the key running was likely affecting key sales in the gem store and that during the $10 sale too many people for their liking bought accounts to key farm. F2P accounts will likely not be able to sell anything from the chest, even if it’s not account bound on acquire.

Don’t see a problem with what your solutions try to fix.

It’s really hard to argument on this forum

1. So it is fair to create a karma sink which mostly effects people that paid $ for blc keys and got boost enchantment powder to convert even 2 karma to one storageable booster? I know there are people in gw2 that have too much karma, but that only because they don’t really play gw2. Karma is a valueable ressource which you have to use for alot of things and it can be converted to gold. Noone who plays gw2 alot can ever have enough or too much karma. I converted around 50-100 Million karma during these 3 years and I still need millions more.

2. I even explained exactly how f2p accounts can have an impact on the tp+economy. Is there really a step to step guide needed for some people to understand how it works???

3. same as 2. I explained it above how f2p accounts did farm blc keys during the last weeks and how it impacts on TP+economy. Yes, f2p accounts have limits, but for malicious people these limits are gone after they buy an upgrade to full account.
I understand that this is a problem, so yes it probably wouldn’t be fixed if anet had only limited f2p accounts. But they could have limitied only all non HoT accounts or all accounts younger 1/2 years. There are countless better ways to just limit the problem accs instead of creating a limit on all.

1. You don’t get to decide who does play and does not really play GW2. What they spend their karma on, if anything, does not determine if someone really plays GW2 or not. And like I said, there aren’t many karma sinks. Not everyone needs or wants a ton of gold or at least doesn’t want it enough to convert their karma. Now, could they have given a couple weeks to a month’s notice that the choose your own booster was going to lose karma as an option? Yes. But the drop in the karma booster has NOTHING to do with F2P accounts. Nothing. Zilch.

2 & 3. F2P accounts can not buy and sell whatever they want on the TP. There is a very specific list. I highly doubt that the BLTC ticket weapons are on that list of things they can buy or sell. If you have proof, show me.

So, what else in the chests aren’t account bound that can be sold and do you have proof a F2P account can even sell them?

They can’t even BUY or SELL dyes.

And if they buy the game, then they are no longer a F2P account and therefore don’t have the limits and would become part of the loyal customer base you wish to support.

If you don’t like stacking, join or make groups that advertise no stacking. People who don’t like the stack exist in the game.

Unless they change boons and condi cleanse ranges, meta groups will likely stay within melee range of each other. Literally on the same spot against the wall isn’t all that useful since they nerfed FGS. PUGs are just slower on reacting to the change, especially when the behavior doesn’t lead to wiping.

Behellagh.1468:

I can click anywhere in the red box in the image and get a cursor to appear. If that’s too small of an area for you, I don’t know what to say.

That’s assuming a patch didn’t break that function for at least some configurations.

Ohoni.6057:

I think you mean that you don’t understand my point. There’s multiple reasons why someone chooses an armourpiece to wear. Exclusivity of said chosen piece adds value and identity to that piece and could be one of those reasons. Though, as i said, thats obviously not true to everyone.

Yes, but one player’s desire to wear a piece of armor for its exclusivity value should not trump another player’s ability to have access to that armor piece for aesthetic value, which is why armor exclusivity is such a bad idea. If people want to show off exclusivity, it should come in forms other than armor and weapon skins.

What about the players who only have purchased the core game and are NOT getting the xpac? Should everything be available to them just like your logic says ohoni?

That’s because they didn’t pay for the content, and why I think Devata’s never going to get anywhere complaining about gem store items. I’m not suggesting they mess with their business model, I’m not suggesting that they do anything that would reduce their own income, all the changes I suggest would be revenue neutral.

Why should aesthetic value trump exclusivity value? Why can’t they be treated equally?

And how do you know your changes would be revenue neutral? How do you know that it won’t cause more players to stop buying gems or future expansion packs than it will cause people to buy the game or players to buy more gems than before? Now, I’m not saying I know your changes will be revenue negative, I can’t claim that with 100% certainty anymore than you do. If players leave the game due to a change they don’t like, they don’t buy gems and they don’t buy expansion packs. That’s lost revenue.

But given human nature and the number of people in this thread for and against your vision, I don’t think your ideal situation would be revenue neutral. I think it would be revenue negative.

Bomber.3872:

Like some of you wrote, I know that f2p accounts have already some limits. I want more limitation only for f2p accounts instead of all other accounts.

I think noone can deny that only since gw2 went f2p there were strange patches which somehow limited all existing accounts:

Anet often did rework different things, but I can’t recall any that had such strange effect mostly on existing “veteran” accounts:
- Short before f2p: Change of boosters. This is still strange if you think about the way how now boost enchantment powder works and that you can’t get karma boosters back.
- The “first” ingame event since f2p: Mordrem invasion. We already had scarlet invasions which worked fine ingame. If you look on all posts and problems people had with this event, its strange for me to understand why anet created it this way. Only reason I can think of is that it was especially designed for f2p player, but everyone got the same “restrictions”.
- Today’s change on blc keyruns is for me hard to understand. I know for sure that at least one dev from anet postet on this forum that keyruns are ok. Basically it was probably the main reason to make keyruns “less” efficient at the time anet changed the peronal story to be only available after you reach level 10. So why this change now after 3 years? Again the only thing I can think of is that f2p accounts somehow could do alot of keyruns and somehow gain too much out of it. (Maybe something like doing alot keyruns to get high amounts on blc keys and then upgrade the account, after that everything gained could be used).

So this are for me three major changes in a very short timeframe that kind of feel like restricting old customers for f2p reasons. That’s what my suggestion is about.

Maybe better solutions would have been:
- Boosters: The new ones could have been added as 1h versions only. That would have prevented any strange changes and would have been a nice change for all existing accounts. Instead f2p accounts could have been limited to not gain any boosters outside of the gemshop.
- Mordrem Invasions: Since loot and event rewards are char/account based, why not only limit f2p accounts on getting no loot and no event rewards? For all others it could have been like scarlets invasion.
- Keyrun limit: It seems possible to limit the gained keys to one/week per account. So why not create this limit only for f2p accounts? Then it couldn’t be abused by these.

1. Booster change. There aren’t many karma sinks. So people tend to have more karma than they know what to do with. Since it would be hard to make a karma sink and have it not affect gold inflation, they can only change the rate of acquisition. So they slowed the karma gain down. Not related at all to F2P.

2. F2P accounts can only buy and sell specific items on the TP. Those items are likely not tradeable expensive event items. No harm will be done to the economy due to this.

3. More like ANet saw that the key running was likely affecting key sales in the gem store and that during the $10 sale too many people for their liking bought accounts to key farm. F2P accounts will likely not be able to sell anything from the chest, even if it’s not account bound on acquire.

Don’t see a problem with what your solutions try to fix.

Jana.6831:

Agemnon.4608:

If your mouse DPI is too low then you’ll turn slower too.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

You said you were adjusting your mouse, which indicates the speed that the mouse-cursor moves with. I just told you how to adjust the speed that the camera moves with, without altering the speed of the mouse-cursor.

The patch that completely overhauled the camera system and introduced the camera-sliders was around the same time they introduced first person view. Or was it the same patch? I don’t remember.

Not perfect yet, still have to find a way around the latest patch(es) – if possible.

The first line under the word Camera on the in game options is: Rotation Speed. Move THAT more to the right and your rotation will speed up. Then you can slow down your mouse’s movement so you don’t miss things.

Zaklex.6308:

Daharahj.1325:

~Snip~

you guys really are blowing this out of proportion, it’s just a duel, every other game has it.

Your last 5 words are all the reason NOT to have it in GW2, because every other game has it…if you like open world dueling so much, go play those other games. It has no place in GW2, it doesn’t fit the premise of this game nor does it fall into how A.net wants their community to behave…and there have been numerous studies that show open world dueling increases the hostility level and conflict between players/community members. As for your contention that sPvP is to intimidating to new players…that was the whole purpose behind PvP101 on Points of Interest(which I’m sure will return after HoT launches)…and HotM vs the bots isn’t intimidating at all…or people can read the forums, numerous websites, watch YouTube video’s…there’s countless ways to learn PvP…even those custom arenas…or joining a Guild that will teach new players how to PvP.

But just because every MMO has it doesn’t mean GW2 can’t have it.

To the thread:

Another reason it likely isn’t in is if they add in dueling, they directly support 1v1 fights and the game isn’t balanced around 1v1 fights. Which would add in yet another area ANet has to balance against if they add in anything that would directly support 1v1 fights. And ANet has enough issue balancing with just PvP, WvW, and PvE to consider.

What’s coming in the Guild Halls will likely be officially for GvG. But everyone knows people will use it for 1v1.

runeblade.7514:

Seera.5916:

And you do realize that some of us enjoy playing GW2 because it lacks open world dueling?

ANet wants PvP to be about player skill. Not who has been playing the longest or has the most money. You can’t get that in open world. There’s no way to do that without having everyone have no progression at all. And lack of progression isn’t good for an MMO.

Then you can enjoy playing GW2 by not accepting dueling invite. With dueling implemented, no one has a gun forced on your head to duel with that player.

Open world Dueling can still have player skill. Unlike other MMO, level 80 are downscaled to the level zone. Second, The gear in Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a big gap unlike other MMO. Plus, the lower level and PvEr not interesting in dueling has the option to not accept dueling invites.

I personally don’t have a problem if they add duels or if they don’t add duels. I just know of players who seem to be a magnet for the trolls who abuse the duel system. Even with a decline function. GW2 being the only MMO I’ve ever played, I can’t say if that’s a majority or if that’s a minority, just that they enjoy GW2 partly because of the lack of duels.

Daharahj.1325:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Sounds like you’re new to the game.
Dueling creates terrible community and ArenaNet wants to keep their community friendly as possible and I’d hope dueling never comes. If you want to get better at PvP then go sPvP and study your skills and learn how to encounter your opponents. Spvp gives you all the tools you need to study and learn your class to the fullest to go against other players.

Dueling creates a terrible community, how did you come to this conclusion? The reason this community is friendly is because the game promotes and rewards team play, dueling or the lack thereof has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I’m not new to the game, but that’s hardly relevant to this discussion.

I already explained why trying to get learn pvp in a tvt environment is a terrible idea, it’s overwhelming, and outright offputting to new players, they need to take in too much information at once, they don’t know why they’re dying or where the damage is coming from, because they simply don’t know what other classes do due to lack experience. So they have a bad time and never return, or simply wait until they have to whole game figured out before jumping into TvT due to their insecurity.

Then again, just like you enjoy a pvp-free game, some of us would really enjoy the ability to duel eachother outside of hotm because it’s fun to us, and implementing this system with the option to auto-decline is the best of both worlds.

I’d accept an auto-decline if that was the default choice (meaning those who wish to duel have to turn auto-decline off, those who don’t want to duel don’t have to do anything), not allowed in starter zones, and not possible on the Play for Free accounts (you have to risk your paid account if you wish to be a jerk).

And you do realize that some of us enjoy playing GW2 because it lacks open world dueling?

ANet wants PvP to be about player skill. Not who has been playing the longest or has the most money. You can’t get that in open world. There’s no way to do that without having everyone have no progression at all. And lack of progression isn’t good for an MMO.

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

maddoctor.2738:

Nike.2631:

Ultimately it’s about identity in our shared space. Mounts, minis, and titles all float around ‘you’ in your vicinity. Tonics completely replace ‘you’. Even weapons are something ‘you’ are holding. But clothes doth make the man and armor skins have the most direct aesthetic impact on ‘youness’.

That’s good and understandable/reasonable, at least you give some “room” for any kind of compromise by not dismissing everything exclusive.

I like to think I’m reasonable . Ohoni has never responded to my posts in this thread that I recall, so I suspect they’ve either blocked me in some fashion or they simply consider me a traitor to the cause for not being militant/radical enough .

It’s funny if you consider the fact that Armor is by far the worse option to “show off” because unlike weapons, minis or titles, it is affected by graphic settings. In a crowd you won’t be seen at all.

That’s not a coincidence… it’s a byproduct of the exact crux of the difference in the two use cases: People who want exclusive visual rewards want to be seen by others as determined, capable, and skillful. People who want accessible cosmetic rewards want to be able to see themselves as pretty, scary, or tastefully refined.

I think the question we were all arguing about on this thread for many pages has been wrong all along. The question “should we have exclusive rewards?” isn’t the right one, because I think everyone that ever posted here agreed to some form of exclusivity, be it titles, minis, outfits, armor or weapons.

The real questions are:
What kind of rewards are better suited as exclusives. and the follow up:
Are those exclusives enough to make the content desirable.

Making progress after 30 pages

Indeed. Now you’re asking interesting questions.

I’ve said my piece on the first – visual cues are important, but armor is in a different class from other flags. And just to clarify, if they were to offer access to hairstyles and faces as rewards, I’d be as protective of those as I am of armor.

The second question… wooo. That one’s a doozy. As a successful raid leader in multiple MMOs… I don’t play raids for rewards. Ok, maybe a little when there’s stat advancement on the line that’ll makes the next run more likely to succeed, but really, I play for the pleasure of winning. I’m happiest when I’m there for the gameplay, not the chest. Ok, I also like enough coin to cover the cost of expenses for the evening (travel, consumables). In general all the people I care to convince I won were either in the raid with me or know me well enough to believe me when I’m in the mood to brag or regale them with a story of how we had this awesome time where things went pear-shaped but we pulled it out anyway… And for really awesome runs, posting a good video is way more effective than any in-game reward.

Titles, armor, etc. are for showing off to strangers. Not a big priority to me, but I understand the impulse. I do want a good reward structure – because happy raiders gives me a bigger pool to draw team members from. I want raiders with a variety of outlooks eager to participate. (ooo, enlightened self-interest)

nah, in most of those cases in other games, i wanted it for myself. Im not really an external validation type. However, a reward that i can get doing something else diminishes my motivation to do specific tasks.

Also armor is not part of your charachters self imo, its a representation of what proffession/race they are, and what they achieved.

tatttos, hairstles, skin colors, those are the things that should be easy access always. But Armani suits, Military clothes, these things are about what you have earned (like armors)

That said as long as items are cool and compelling, it doesnt matter if they want to give those instead, but I wouldnt want to rule out clothes/armor for cosmetic progression rewards as an option.

So would you have an issue with Legendary Armor Skins Set 1 being exclusive to raids for say a year before being added to other areas of the game and Legendary Armor Skins Set 2 being added as a new raid exclusive reward. Then later set 2 going non-exclusive and set 3 being added as exclusive and so on and so on?

WuGzaGenius.5684:

Roundabout.1752:

Why the need to take it into PvP into the open world if you don’t want to do open world content?

I don’t mind the open world or its content, but i dont understand the phasing behind the heart of the mists and why we can’t duel in the open world.

Because not everyone likes dueling in the open world and the community that typically brings along.

And the skill sets and gear for PvP and PvE/WvW are completely different. PvP being separate allows for ANet to keep PvP balanced and to where it comes down to the differences in skill levels, not who is richer or who has played longer.

Makali.7508:

Sorry for digging up an old post but why do some people get theirs instantly, and others do not? :O

The only ones who are on the delay are players who purchase HoT: Ultimate.

The ones who say they got HoT: Ultimate and got their gems right away likely purchased and applied the key to HoT to their account before the fraud protections were put in place due to the high instances of fraudulent keys being purchased and used.

Torolan.5816:

But that does not cancel out the problem. It rather additionally fires it, or not? Lets say a raid group does it´s success on Monday. Tuesday, all 10 people are there and want a piece of the cake that is selling the last place. What to do?

Sell multiple times and rotate out. This may not be a huge issue on who gets to sit out first or not as over the course of the week, different players will be available at different times or may not want to raid that particular night anyway.

Have two people leave at the end, but give them a cut of the profits after the gold from selling the run is collected.

Shinzan.2908:

How come there even are fraudulent keys, wouldn’t all have to ultimately be purchased from Anet directly?

Shady sellers with stolen credit cards generate fraudulent keys.

Torolan.5816:

Sykper.6583:

I don’t disagree at all with the prospect of people finding their ways around a difficult objective. In fact Arah P4 runners selling their spots for gold is a perfect example of this. But I doubt they will remove the novelty, the Legendary Armor whether it be for the very slight convenience of changing stats to perhaps its impressive visual effect whatever it may be will still be a good to be earned or bought. I believe Colin also mentioned how raids won’t be any different in difficulty a year from their release, they will still retain that same bar of success and failure. I’ll have to go find that clip in the Raid announcement…

Does that mean 9-man guildmates selling boss runs in LA? Perhaps. It still signifies that players are putting a solid effort to doing the work, and this could hold especially true if the raid is tightly tuned so a 1-man handicap is extremely tough! Solo Lupi runs are a prime example of how players are more than willing to hop through hoops for a challenge, but that novelty has had years to mold, these players need something new to keep them around.

Let´s follow that thought for a moment then.

To do the raid at first, you need 10 dedicated people that put tooth and nail into it. After a while, the raid kind of turns into a routine, and a new raid is not there yet. What to do? Let´s make some money from the raid. Has happened before, will happen again.

I assume now that most raids have a leader or an organizer at least.
So the raid leader has to make the difficult desicion which one of the guys has to go, or tries to go the diplomatic route by majority vote.
-If he is lucky, one of the 10 guys just wanted the raid to be done, has all he wants and vanshes from the group. Problem solved, no sweat.
-If not, everyone wants a piece of the action and the raid is screwed. If you have two players that are willing to sit out a raid but are set for the next, problem solved.
-If everyone wants to stay in and the raid leader is a good achiever but not a good socializer, things will turn ugly. Factions will be built, borders drawn. For example, Steve the socializing Achiever will want to make Maria stay because he likes her, but Killer Achiever Bob thinks she is the weak link and has to go.
-The leader is also human and will want the best for his guys, but he has difficult desicions to make now:
Will he give up on his best player that stemmed the tide multiple timers because a large faction does not really like him because he is rude in TS?
Who has to go? Friendly Maria or effective Bob?

All of this endangers the tight group maddoctor has mentioned, so do we agree that these battle groups could also impode because they are finally defeated by success? Of course this also applies to fractal groups, dungeons ansd stuff, but all of this stuff is pugable if the need arises, and raids obviously not. It takes time to jump into an organized raid group that lost a member I guess, so I see the danger of:
a) People becoming outcasts because they are deemed the weak link and the other raiders prefer the money over the member.
b) A spiral of: we are done, where is the next raid?
I am not even talking about elitism here, just about simple math. You have 10, and 1 needs to go if you want to make the money.

The major raid rewards are given on a per week basis. Sellers just have to do their weekly run once and then sell runs, charging enough to make it worth while for them to do without the major rewards. And we’re not likely to see selling until people have learned the mechanics well enough to do them short a player or two consistently.

Ohoni.6057:

Just because you don’t agree with it, doesn’t mean it’s invalid. It is a valid response.

If you believe that, then let me ask you this. If someone had a problem, and that was your response to them, can you imagine an actual human being that would respond with “thanks, that helped!”? In a non-sarcastic way, I mean.

I don’t like going to work. But I want to be able to purchase luxury items (I can go on welfare for the necessities if I didn’t want to work and still be able to live). So I got a job. I don’t yell at the government for forcing me to do something I don’t enjoy in order to get what I want.

Yes, but that’s a straw man, because nobody is saying that you shouldn’t have to work for the rewards, just that the method should be of your choosing. You can’t relate that to “get a job, hippy,” because jobs aren’t assigned by the state, and the things you can purchase aren’t restricted by the occupation you choose.

Just like in GW2. I can do what I want and get the necessities. You only need exotic gear and you can buy your way into ascended anyway. Legendary weapons and armor are luxury items. Luxury in the sense that you don’t need them to be successful in the game.

That is entirely dependent on your personal definition of “success.” If you define it as “being able to complete the latest raid,” then no, a lack of Legendary armor won’t hold you back in the slightest. If you define success as “having legendary armor,” then not having legendary armor will really put a crimp in achieving that goal.

I don’t like WvW. Yet, I’ve got two characters who got to 100% WvW completion before WvW became not required. But I wanted to make my own legendary scepter and I can’t stand looking at 98% map completion. So I grinned and beared it. Guess what, it didn’t kill me.

Yes, and as I said, if the raid component of earning Legendary armor will be as effortless as the Dungeon/WvW components of earning Legendary Weapons, then sure, I wouldn’t like it, but I’d put up with it. But a lot of people, on both side of the divide, believe that it’s likely that earning the Raid-based components of Legendary armor will involve considerably more time, effort, and skill than the WvW/dungeon components of Legendary weapons ever did.

The more time, effort, and skill they require, the less “grin and bear it” is an appropriate response.

There are certain insurance policies that you can only buy if you’re a veteran. Then there’s the health plan that only the people in Congress can have (or have been in Congress). Many places also offer discounts for military personnel and for teachers. So there are things I can’t buy because I don’t have a specific job.

Most loan applications ask for what your job is to judge if you’ll be able to pay it back. So things you get loans for are predicated on what your job is. And let’s be honest, a janitor making minimum wage is unlike to earn enough excess income to overcome inflation to be able to afford the Ferrari, let alone get a loan for one. And last time I checked, ANet didn’t send me a message saying what I can and can’t play in the game, so I don’t know where the whole " jobs aren’t assigned by the state" line came from.

And as long as you’re progressing toward it, it’s a successful venture. Rewards shouldn’t be non-exclusive just because some people don’t value the worth of the reward more than the hatred of the content needed to achieve the reward.

Grin and bear it is an appropriate response unless the RNG factor is to such a degree that even the die hard raiders start complaining about how long it’s taking them to get the rewards.

And by the way, I’m one of those players who likely won’t raid because the whole playing with a group is more nerve wracking than the benefits of the legendary armor would be. I can’t place a value based on looks as those aren’t out yet, but I doubt they’ll be so great to overcome my own personal problem. One that ANet can’t fix. I’m not on the future die-hard raiders. I’m the rare MMO player who prefers solo play. I hate when my success or failure is also dependent on others.

But I’m not asking for ANet to make raids soloable because I hate playing with others. That’s bad business for an MMO.

Nutjob.9021:

No, the deadline to get the free character slot with pre-purchase came and went a while back. If you didn’t order back when the free slot was available, even if you pre-order today, you don’t get it. I’m a vet. I’ve played since a month or two after the game was released. I pre-ordered maybe a week or two ago. I didn’t get a free character slot for the lowest cost package. For $25 dollars extra I could have gotten a “free” character slot. I’ll just buy it with gems purchased with gold if I have to. It’s a lot cheaper than $25 in real money.

Frankly I’m kind of underwhelmed by the beta testing. I had originally planned to take the revenant to level 80 in my “free character slot” I assumed I’d get, using tomes of knowledge. Having seen the revenant in action in beta, I’m not that interested. I’ll just stick to my current character class I favor. Really I’m not sure I’ll even go the daredevil route with my thief. It’s gimmicky and not that effective compared to existing builds.

Not true. The veteran character slot is valid as long as you pre-purchase HoT. They are releasing the vet slots every Friday, so you won’t automatically get yours.

There is no upgrading an account to Ultimate from HoT standard.

Ohoni.6057:

That absolutely is a valid option. Attaining specific skins is an intended sub-goal but not required to complete any form of material character advancement. People genuinely don’t have to complete any given dungeon or whatever. Players being unable or unwilling to reach voluntary sub-goals is not necessarily a fault of the game’s design.

You don’t get to decide what is and is not a “sub goal.” To some, acquiring a desired skin is the most important goal available. A lot or people seem to take as a fact that stats are more important than cosmetics, that if an item provides better stats than another, that this is automatically a bigger deal than if it provides a unique appearance. Newsflash, this is your opinion, it is not a fact.

If a player sets his goal as acquiring a legendary skin, then that is his goal, and he should be able to pursue it without being shoehorned into content that he does not enjoy. Saying “well he’ll just never get it then” is not a valid response, that does not lead to a satisfied customer, it leads to a burnout.

Just because you don’t agree with it, doesn’t mean it’s invalid. It is a valid response.

I don’t like going to work. But I want to be able to purchase luxury items (I can go on welfare for the necessities if I didn’t want to work and still be able to live). So I got a job. I don’t yell at the government for forcing me to do something I don’t enjoy in order to get what I want.

Just like in GW2. I can do what I want and get the necessities. You only need exotic gear and you can buy your way into ascended anyway. Legendary weapons and armor are luxury items. Luxury in the sense that you don’t need them to be successful in the game. If a player doesn’t want to do raids but wants the gear you get from raids, then they must not want the gear that much.

I don’t like WvW. Yet, I’ve got two characters who got to 100% WvW completion before WvW became not required. But I wanted to make my own legendary scepter and I can’t stand looking at 98% map completion. So I grinned and beared it. Guess what, it didn’t kill me. My other characters will likely also do WvW map completion at some point. I wanted to make my own legendary more than I hated WvW. I’m neutral on the removal of WvW from map completion before you assume I was in favor of it.

I don’t see where he claimed that it was fact and not opinion. I don’t even see where he said that. Can you please quote the exact phrase in which he claimed that it was fact. And properly tag it with the quote system since you like to cut and paste. So that we can read the whole post in it’s entirety and see what the person was responding to. You know, for context. By the way, when you properly quote a post, the name of the person you quoted links to the post you quoted. Which is helpful in merged threads like this to make sure when you respond to someone who is responding to a quote that you get the context for the post correct.

Eduard.8062:

OK, what are my advantages of having bought the Guild Wars 2 at full price over the people that are getting it for free? I am looking for what I can do now instead of what I could have done prior to it being free.

Talk in map chat

Buy and sell anything on the trading post. Based on a thread I’ve seen in the Players Helping Players section, F2P accounts can’t buy or sell dyes.

Receive Daily Login rewards

Post here on the forums

Can exchange gold for gems. If you had a F2P account and wanted something from the gem store, you’d have to pay for gems.

Can send items or gold via mail.

Guild vault access

More character and bag slots to start

The ability to transfer from one world to another.

Unlimited ability to whisper non-friends.

Your paid GW2 account does not have the restrictions that F2P accounts have. You’ve gotten AP they can’t get. F2P accounts also have a very restricted list of what they can buy and sell on the TP, from what I gather F2P accounts can’t buy or sell dyes.

You’ve had hours of play time that they’ll never be able to get if both you and them play until ANet takes the servers down.

However, feel free to use a second email and create a second account with a HoT purchase. You’ll then have 2 paid GW2 accounts with one of the accounts having access to HoT content. Just try to remember about all of the NPE content that your main account has gotten past.

You will get your gems when the payment fully processes due to several instances of fraudulent purchases. This can take up to 72 hours.

Serious.6940:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

They had masteries disabled completely in tyria. It just went back to a normal experience bar if you left VB.

They don’t want people stockpiling the things you’ll need for precursors before hand. If you want to be very rich, ignore HoT content completely and grind out the precursor masteries in a 24 hour binge run on release.

First person to unlock them gets to be very very rich.

I think you missed something. All progress during betas made on the beta characters will be deleted before HoT goes live. It therefore doesn’t matter if you were to max everything out, you would end up with zilch anyway.

Even if you did get everything sorted and made a precursor you still wouldn’t be able to sell it as beta characters cannot use the TP or mail stuff.

Normal characters cannot get the stuff or do masteries until HoT goes live.

Great plan though.

If they were able to see what was needed, they could stock pile anything tradeable on their non-beta characters and then sell it for profit once HoT launches and it becomes known to more players.

Ellieanna.5027:

Angus.5961:

Anet is not the sole retailer of official copies of GW2. There are still authorized retailers selling the original game, and in some cases for significantly less than $50. Yet if somebody buys it now, they apparently are not entitled to the same rights as somebody who bought it 2 weeks ago.

It’s really not that hard to understand. Talking in circles is not going to change the fact that they are not dealing fairly. Or else they have made some serious errors or oversights in the implementation.

Back to the post I quoted from Anet, they were extremely clear before the date the changes occured that new accounts would have limits. They are allowed to change that. That’s also in the EULA. As to “have to buy the expansion to have access” that you also said. Again, Anet doesn’t sell the base game anymore, so they can’t advertise something that they don’t sell. And it’s pretty silly to advertise something and say "We don’t know where it’s available still (base game only I mean) so good luck finding it. That also seems really dumb to do.

If you feel you should have access, talk to support. You’re now just using the forums to complain because Anet changed things, which they announced before the changes occured.

And wouldn’t recommending to buy base game only be something akin to please spend more money if you do end up really liking the game? ANet’s just trying to save potential customers money.

Ohoni.6057:

Exclusive rewards makes games fun for some people. They don’t win the exclusive item to show off to others in a mean spiteful manner. They take a quiet pride in knowing they beat whatever it is that awarded that item.

That’s not true. If it were true that they take quiet pride in their achievements, then they would take that quiet pride whether it offered a unique reward or not. If they require the item take pride, then it is in owning something that other people do not.

So you’re saying the fact that I don’t gloat and rub it in people’s faces when I earn something unique is a lie? That everyone who likes exclusive rewards is a rude immature braggart? Newsflash, we’re not all like that. Stop assuming the majority are like the vocal minority. Just because the rude immature braggarts are the loudest when they get something exclusive doesn’t make them the majority.

And no duh it’s taking pride in earning something not many people have as it is a reward for doing something difficult and that doesn’t make them a horrible person. How they broadcast their pride, or not, does. The ones who run around Lion’s Arch and flash it in people’s faces for hours on end and spamming it in chat are the rude immature braggarts. The ones who go yea! with their friends and guild mates when they get it and then quietly go about their business are the polite mature players.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, apparently we need to spell out a few ground rules.

1. GW2 is a game.

2. A game is an entertainment product, designed to cause people to have fun.

3. Any design element that causes people to have less fun than they otherwise might, is a failure of the game.

Therefore, keeping these three things in mind, any element that causes more players to enjoy the game less, is a failed design element. That doesn’t mean that a game cannot survive some, or even many such failures, but they should make effort to correct as many of them as they possibly can.

By your definition all games are a failure.

GW2 is a failure because it doesn’t have a trinity and some people are having less fun in GW2 because of that. WoW is a failure because it has a trinity and some people are having less fun in WoW because of that.

Sims 3 is a failure because it has an open world and some people have less fun when dealing with what the open world brings. Sims 2 is a failure because some people have less fun dealing with what a closed world brings.

Sometimes what is fun for one person is not fun for another person and they completely opposite of each other with no room for compromise.

For the sake of the rest of this post, people = everyone who plays GW2 that are not jerks or engage in jerk like behavior. Jerk like behavior includes behavior like that of a sibling who goes “na na na na na” to their younger sibling when they win.

Exclusive rewards makes games fun for some people. They don’t win the exclusive item to show off to others in a mean spiteful manner. They take a quiet pride in knowing they beat whatever it is that awarded that item.

Exclusive rewards makes games less fun for some people. For some, knowing that for whatever reason, be it laziness or disability, that they won’t be able to do the content and that really bothers them. They also don’t want to just buy their way into it because that feels cheap to them and lessens the worth of the item for the players who can.

To please one group, you have to displease the other group. And there’s no real compromise that can make both groups completely happy. Because in a compromise, no one gets exactly what they want, they just get something that they can live with. Both groups give up a little bit of what makes the game fun for them. So in that case, all game’s are failures if they compromise because people have less fun under those circumstances. ANet can’t have a success no matter what it does so it might as well just leave the issue alone because that’s less money and time on their end.

Windsagio.1340:

Kjell.8379:

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

So you know what all is going to go into legendary armor? You know how time consuming and hard raids are going to be exactly and just how nit picky the players are going to be?

No one can claim which will be easier or harder to get between legendary armors and the current legendary weapons or the new legendary weapons because we don’t know the exact specifics and likely won’t until HoT launches.

mercury ranique.2170:

Tic Tac Toe.1482:

On game day, I’m planning to have the following items ready for what will be my new Revenant, the goal being to max the masteries, and enjoy the new content – am I missing anything?
-Full lvl 80 heavy set of armor w/sigs
-Full lvl 80 set of weapons, 2 swords, hammer, mace axe, shield, hammer, staff, and spear w/upgrades
-Full lvl 80 set of trinkets (rings, amulets, accessories, back piece)
for me, a mix of exotic and ascended on the above items depending on time/budget
-a +30 scroll and 50 tomes for insta-80
-Ample food w/15% +exp, ie; spicy pumpkin cookie, omnomberry ghost – you may want to have some RL food ready as well :-)
-Ample nourishment (any anti-Mordremoth potions like the scarlet one?) for the +10 exp
-Four 20-slot bags, probably one of them invisible for my play-style
-My unlimited gather-tools and salvage-o-matic
-Will add boosters to taste (birthday, +experience, etc…)

I would advice against going instant -80.
It will lead to poor understanding of the class. Specially cause there will be no good builds available online yet. So I’m personally going into HoT with a different character and will take (some) time with my revenant. My plan is to get atleast 1 waypoint in each map, do all of the personal story (might skip Zhaitan) and get a good amount of hero-points. Byy doing so I expect to gain enough experience for bout 15 levels, and so saving me 15 tomes. I got the full 50 ready if needed, but just not planning on using them.

Some people learn things differently. For me, I don’t worry about build really until my character approaches 80. Because there’s no real point beforehand.

I personally would say copy & paste builds because someone else deems they are good is just as bad as insta-leveling if not worse. You don’t know why the build is built that way or if it fits your own play style. There’s nothing wrong with the trial and error approach to finding the best build for one’s play style with a class. Which is what the insta-level and the non-copy & paste builders do.

Ohoni.6057:

But if you’ve got half wanting to follow the story the GM planned and half wanting to do something else, what do you do? (Since neither side can claim numbers, I’m using the fairest division possible – each side having half of the population.) If I was the GM, I would stick to my plan for this mission and then for the next get input from the other half. This isn’t a case of all wanting something or no one wanting something.

Split the party, let each half do their own thing. There’s absolutely no reason for half the players to be beholden to what the other half want to do.

Can you find a GM that’s able and willing to do two stories simultaneously? Because the moment you let the parties split up, it may be hard to get them to come back together if you let the party completely control your story. That’s twice the work for the GM and he has to keep in mind that the group synergies will no longer be completely present when he designs the encounters. What if the situation is a one or the other and there is no both option? Yes, the GM has to take into consideration what his group wants to do. But his desires are also part of the agreement. If it was going to be completely up to the players what happens, why do they need a GM directing the story at all? If the GM has any control over the story, then his desires for what happens and where things can be earned, bought, rewarded, etc. are a big part. They can take my desires into consideration, but they are under no obligation to follow through.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, but if you do have a group of players who insist on raiding the goblins, then you need to adapt to that, and start involving them in the most interesting goblin-raiding story possible, even if that means completely abandoning the story you’d wanted to tell. It’s like improv, "yes, and. . . " not “no, instead. . .” If the players have no interest in an epic world-saving adventure against some mechanically challenging boss, then its your job to not force them into that sort of story.

That’s true. Reaching that point probably means the story teller failed to tell a compelling story so the players got bored or lost interest or he underestimated what kind of story the players wanted. Still they won’t get the epic jewel by raiding the goblin town.

Only when GM is bad, or players are uninterested either in the jewel, or the goblin town.

maddoctor.2738:

Yes, and in an RPG, the GM/dev is NOT the storyteller. They are just a co-equal participant in the story. The players have full autonomy over their own stories, you just control how the world reacts to their choices (including ending, if that’s what happens). they are not being led through your story, you are helping them to write their own.

An RPG GM/dev IS also a story teller. If the story fails to grip the players and they go after random mobs instead that’s a failure of the story to be interesting for the players.

Yes, that’s what we’re saying. A GM that fails to incorporate player wishes in his storytelling is a failure.

maddoctor.2738:

/sigh. I realize at this point that you’re just going to change direction any time you’re confronted with an unpleasant truth, so I’ll leave you to your happy delusions.

What truth? That the best item rewards even in DAI come from specific content, much like in any game ever? That’s how every RPG ever worked, work, and will always work, that’s the truth and I never made that statement as a question.

The truth that what you claim (“every RPG ever”, lol) is simply not true. Do you know, that there are RPG systems that will let you start the game with a weapon that quite possibly will never be overshadowed by anything you might find later? Yes, they do exist.

maddoctor.2738:

The only question is why Guild Wars 2 players when regarding Raid exclusive gear are so against it while it works in every other game AND in Guild Wars 2 itself.

Perhaps because lot of them are in this game specifically due to raid exclusivity not working for them.

TL/DR;
You claim that exclusivity works in every other game, but fail to notice that it works for you, but not necessarily for others. Yes, we get that something you like works for you, but you have to realize it only works because you like it. And that many people think otherwise. And that you liking it doesn’t mean it’s automatically a good idea.

But if you’ve got half wanting to follow the story the GM planned and half wanting to do something else, what do you do? (Since neither side can claim numbers, I’m using the fairest division possible – each side having half of the population.) If I was the GM, I would stick to my plan for this mission and then for the next get input from the other half. This isn’t a case of all wanting something or no one wanting something.

morrolan.9608:

Seera.5916:

Gold is a perfectly fine token system.

No its not, it reduces everything to the 1 common denominator, a gold grind. If GW2 has done anything its shown that this is not a good system.

We don’t need new currencies to serve as a conversion between two other currencies. And for the person I told it to, served as the best token for what they want: absolutely no unique rewards for anything.

I can get gold doing pretty much whatever I want. Why should there be another token that’s gotten by doing pretty much whatever I want? Why shouldn’t it just be gold, if that’s the goal?

I do agree that it’s a horrible token system in that tokens are supposed to be for special things. Unique things. Not things you get by doing whatever it is you enjoy doing.

Torolan.5816:

So if you eat a wagonload of melons and are still malnourished, you win this argument?^^

The analogy was a dinner. One meal. That had something a child didn’t like. A side of cucumber along with other things is not a wagonload of melons and would not lead to malnourishment.

Torolan.5816:

Seera.5916:

You can’t claim in one instance that a meal can be analogous to a game and then tell someone else that it can’t be. You said food a child hates. 9 times out of 10, that food is a vegetable. Can you come up with a food that a parent may serve at dinner that has no nutritional value? If not, then you can’t claim raids are a nutrient free food. Not in your analogy of a dinner with a food a child hates.

A raw cucumber has 56 kcal per 100 g. A healthy man needs 8000 kcal(2000 kj) to hold his weight or 4800 kcal to avoid malnourishment. So a cucumber is basically just solid, dirty water. Best of luck with eating so much cucumber that you don´t starve or are at least not malnourished. And I know forst hand that many children hate cucumber.
A melon has 72 kcal per 100 g. Although love them, they are also solid, dirty water from a nutrition point of view.
So either if you hate cucumber or love melons, their nutrition value alone is not enough to keep a man alive.

And for those of you that think something dirty with cucumber and melons: Tsk tsk, naughty! ^^

But it still has nutritional value. It does offer calories, which children need.

Ohoni.6057:

PvP is player vs player. Raids aren’t player vs player, so saying it should be on that side is illogical and irrational.

It really depends on how you choose to divide things up. I believe that the mentality of a serious PvPer is closer to the mentality of a serious raider than to a casual PvEer. I believe that the sorts of players who would enjoy raiding are more similar to the sorts of players who enjoy PvP than to those that enjoy casual PvE. I believe that if you had to say “well, we can add a method by which Raiders and PvPers can earn rewards one way, and casual PvEers by another,” then that would end up pleasing more players than if PvEers were lumped in with raiders, although certainly there would be people upset about it either way.

The better method would be to give ALL gameplay styles their own route.

And just because raids are new doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t follow what’s been done in the past and been successful. Exclusive rewards have been successful in this game. Mawdrey, the Luminescent gear, the WvW skins, etc. I don’t recall a single thread with the direct complaint of I can’t get X skin because it’s tied to Y content. Not even with dungeons. And there are players out there that hate dungeons and PvP and I don’t see them complaining about not being able to get a dungeon skin.

Because none of those are raids.

But again, I’m willing to compromise. So long as earning Legendary raid armor takes no more time or skill than earning the dungeon tokens needed to earn a Legendary Weapon, then I guess I’d be fine with that. I wouldn’t enjoy myself any more than I did earning those tokens, but I could hold my nose for the few hours that would take.

My concern, however, is that it might instead require dozens of hours in the raid over a period of weeks, and that failure might even be possible, wasting any time spent on that run. If that’s the case, then it is a different thing entirely than dungeon running, so comparing the two becomes impossible.

It’s not war just because one side has to be incentivized to play and no one has to burn. In time, there will be groups who will sell raids for a fee. Then players who do not like to raid, can do the content they want and earn money to buy a raid run.

I shouldn’t need to say this, but I guess I need to say this, selling raid runs is NOT a solution. That solves absolutely nothing. for one thing, all it does is increase the wealth of raiding players, who are already winning better rewards, and draining the wealth of non-raiders, who are already not making good rewards. Who thought up that idea, Wall Street?

Second, even setting aside the money factor, a player would still have to go through the hassle of finding a group selling raid spots, joining them in the raid, and then waiting out the duration of the raid. If you’re going to go to all that trouble then why not just do the raid normally? The hassle involved in the raid itself is one of the main problems with raiding, and selling spots does nothing to reduce that, unless players can just drop in at the last minute, in which case it solves at least part of the problem. If you’re willing to put the time in to actually existing inside the raid, then why bother joining up with a “selling raid” group? Just join a normal raid party and do it.

The number of raiders around here wringing their hands with glee over the prospect of other players paying them to run the raids for them is just sickening.

And you wanted a token system. Gold is the perfect token system. It’s very easily earned. You can get it through just about every play style. Use the gold “tokens” to buy a spot in a raid.

Gold had the potential to be a fine token system, but ANet have thoroughly botched the gold economy. It’s way too distorted at this point to salvage, like the Karma economy. They would need to use a non-gold currency.

And every time they release the gear to be less exclusive, there are complaints about it being less exclusive. They may just not be vocal as once it’s done, there’s no real way to go back to being more exclusive and maintain the prestige. You no longer know if someone earned it using what method.

Yes, and since that’s never actually been a problem, it continues to not be a problem. Regardless of where that other character got a skin, he’s happy that he has it, and his happiness over having it automatically trumps any confusion you might have about where he got it. If you’re that curious, ask him.

1. You put in a horrendous example of a child being mildly allergic. No one is allergic to doing raids. Those that have physical limitations that make it hard to raid can buy runs when those start being offered or play with friends, family, and guild mates who would be more tolerant of their limitations should they want the rewards that come with raiding.

First, it’s metaphorical. Nobody is literally allergic to raiding, but many people have physical or circumstantial issues that make participating in a raid “negative” to their lives, as a mild allergy would in a food. Perhaps they don’t have the time to do a long, dedicated session. Perhaps they have outside needs that require them to take constant breaks. Perhaps they have physical issues that prevent extended play sessions. There are all sorts of reasons, and being able to “buy a slot” is no solution for them, it’s just discriminating against them for their circumstances.

2. The food the child hates might be vegetables that are necessary for the health of their child. The parent could be putting the dessert behind them eating the vegetables so that their child will be healthy. Plus, it also teaches the child a lesson about life. That sometimes you have to do things that you don’t necessarily want to do. Like in a job.

They might be, but then that wouldn’t fit the analogy, because in this case raids are not necessary or even beneficial to the health of the child. They are a nutrition-free food product, if you enjoy them, then great, if you don’t, then they will do nothing for you.

I still don’t have ascended gear because I don’t like crafting and that’s the only way to get it, in spite of the fact that ANet blatantly stated when they introduced ascended gear that there would multiple means of obtaining a set.

I sympathize, but really the time and effort of crafting ascended gear is nothing compared to clearing a single dungeon. You can knock it out in less than an hour per craft. All it takes is a sizable amount of cash, really. There is no logical barrier to making a set of ascended armor like there would be in farming raid loot.

You don’t call PvE things PvP things because you feel the mentality is the same between the players. Raids are PvE. PvP is player vs player. No regard to what their mentality is. If a player who hates PvP is in PvP area doing it for the rewards it’s not suddenly PvE because of that player’s mentality. The PvP rooms for the daily aren’t PvE rooms because of the mentality of the players in the room. It’s still PvP. Raids are PvE no matter what the mentality is behind the players who enjoy the content.

And we don’t know that you won’t be able to join in the raid at the last boss and get the rewards. You may not have to sit through the entire raid. We also don’t know how long they will take once everyone knows their mechanics like the back of their hand. It took a while for dungeon spot selling to take off. It will take some time for raid spot selling to take off.

Gold is a perfectly fine token system. You apparently have an issue with people who have put forth the time and effort to earn a lot gold, even if that time and effort was in real life. And short of the exclusive drops in dungeons and fractals, they aren’t that lucrative for players who run them from beginning to end.

I love how you glossed right over the friends and guildmates portion of my discussion on what players with real life limitations can do if they want the gear from raids.

And just because the means to earn Mawdrey and the Lumi gear isn’t raids doesn’t mean that raids shouldn’t have exclusive rewards.

Just because they aren’t vocal about their problem doesn’t mean it’s not a problem and one that ANet can overlook when deciding if something should change between exclusive and not exclusive.

No duh it’s not metaphorical. I’m not stupid. I know what an analogy is. Let’s stop insulting my intelligence, please. Thank you. I’m saying it’s a horrible one. Because there is no corrolary into the game. You can’t pay your brother to eat the food that you’re allergic to and give you the nutritional benefits. Your brother gets the nutrients.

You can’t claim in one instance that a meal can be analogous to a game and then tell someone else that it can’t be. You said food a child hates. 9 times out of 10, that food is a vegetable. Can you come up with a food that a parent may serve at dinner that has no nutritional value? If not, then you can’t claim raids are a nutrient free food. Not in your analogy of a dinner with a food a child hates.

Conncept.7638:

People are getting ahead of themselves here, there are two definitions of unique in this case and ANet hasn’t stated which one they mean.

A: That specific items are only available from doing this content.
B: That specific types of items are only available from doing this content.

Option A I have no problem with and even encourage so long as it isn’t RNG based, option B I have every problem with.

I still don’t have ascended gear because I don’t like crafting and that’s the only way to get it, in spite of the fact that ANet blatantly stated when they introduced ascended gear that there would multiple means of obtaining a set. They better not repeat that same BS here. I have no problem if there are unique items tied to certain content, if I really want that specific item I’ll put in the work for it as anyone should be expected to, or if I decide I don’t like the content enough to warrant the effort, I won’t.

But if they shoehorn an ENTIRE CATEGORY of items in to one content type, that is just poor game design, as poorly handled rewards as a game can make. Any item category should have multiple venues for being obtained, so that if people don’t like certain content, they don’t lose out on play options which affect the entire game because of exclusivity to a single game mode they don’t enjoy.

This. I have no problem with the current legendary armor skins that are coming only being available through raids.

But within 6 months they better at least announce if not release a set of legendary armor skins that are different into content other than raids.

Skins can be unique to content. Stats and tier level can’t. Everyone should be capable of having the meta build (playing it is another issue) or any other build. You can’t do that if you lock stats and/or tier level behind content.

Luckily, they’ve basically upped the chances of getting the ascended drop you want from fractal RNG with the ability to change stats. Not that the drop rate of any fractal skin was all that high to begin with (they could up this without crashing the mats market or making ascended too quick to earn comparatively).