Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

mulzi.8273:

And raiding rewards is not exactly some sort of status symbol, at least to me. I see anyone with that, I don’t think ‘skilled’. I just think its another person with alot of time invested, with advantage of a decent guild backing them.

Exactly. Because that’s what it really is. Not that the raiders will ever admit it.

You mean a decent guild full of skillful players that successfully completed Elite content. Is there status? Heck yeah there is. Why else would Anet make Legendary gear to shiny and noticeable? To show it off.

And the apex of the skilled players are the ones who will play in our new E-Sports leagues. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the tourney rocking Legendary armor too.

Ohoni.6057:

Why should higher difficulty result in superior reward?

Because this new, harder content pushes players to their limits. In what world do you live where you feel that all players deserve the superior reward without putting in the effort worthy of such rewards?

Ohoni.6057:

So in open world content, you have 86% of the players working hard, and the other 14% are “unworthy leechers,” while in a raid you might have 90% “worthy” players and 1% “unworthy leacher,” but the latter is fine while the former is good reason why none of those players deserve high quality rewards. Seems fair.

It’s fine, because if only 90% of the Raid party does their job, then all 100% won’t deserve the high quality reward. Again, it’s a team effort. You don’t play for yourself, but rather the whole.

Ohoni.6057:

You’re using the wrong words here. You say “don’t want to put in the effort.” Nobody is talking about putting in less effort, and in fact the alternatives on the table would require more effort. Effort is not being debated here. The only thing being discussed is the type of effort being put forth, whether that effort is expended at completing a raid, or expended doing other tasks. The amount of effort would be in balance, only the variety of tasks available would shift.

Unfortunately, all the suggestions you put up lead to “less effort” for players like you who wish for an alternative. Back to your token idea. Someone who puts in minimal efforts could one day be rewarded as much as someone who put in god-like effort. That is inherently unfair.

Ohoni.6057:

I agree. Where I disagree is that I don’t believe there should be high end exclusive rewards. There should be rewards that take more time and effort than others, but anyone should have a reasonable path towards earning them, regardless of skill level and interests. There should be no rewards that are intended for only a small portion of the population to ever have one, or that force players to spend significant amounts of time doing activities that they do not enjoy. The exact reasons you give for why raids make for good high-end content are the exact reason why they should not be the sole delivery mechanism for any rewards.

1) Everyone has a reasonable path to take. Play Raids or not. Two paths to pick from. Anet doesn’t stop anyone from trying, regardless of skill level.

2) Exclusive rewards encourage players to try content. That’s good for the game.

3) If you don’t enjoy the activity, simply don’t play it. If you force yourself to play something you don’t want to, you only have yourself to blame.

Ohoni.6057:

Totally agreed. That’s the central point of my system. As I noted earlier, the main reason I stopped playing Dry Top was because I already earned everything worth earning there.

So since you agree once you achieve a goal and you tend to lose interest, why would you advocate for a system that helps everyone lose interest faster? You’ve just admitted to wanting to kill the game. Players without a reason to play, are no longer players.

Ohoni.6057:

And nobody is talking about removing any of that purpose. You would still have to set goals and work towards them, and that process would take at least as long as it currently does, typically longer. Nothing is being “lessened” as far as that goes.

To the other points – Offering the best items or gear to everyone is an insult to those who actually worked hard to get them. Professional game developers understand this, and that’s why certain rewards have gates. Those gates preserve the integrity of the luxury goods.

Ohoni.6057:

Only because people like John have a limited view of what constitutes “manipulation.”He doesn’t consider it “manipulation” when you buy an item at a low price, sell it at a higher price, and earn money in the process, for nothing more than taking items off the TP that could have gone to people that wanted to use them, and selling them to people who could have gotten a better deal.

This. I don’t even. You realize that no one on the Trading Post ever gets screwed over the price of an item they purchased? If you willingly pay 10 Gold for an item worth 8 Gold, you didn’t lose 2 Gold. You got the item you wanted. If you wanted it cheaper, put in a Buy Order. TP players profit off of people who have little patience to wait for a lower price. Paying here and now for instant gratification.

Ohoni.6057:

Congratulations, you have just described the existing ingame economy to a T, only theirs has the added problems of being open to TP manipulation.

At the time of your post, John was fast asleep. But he face palmed so hard, he woke himself up. I’m not sure how or where you get that our current economy is abusive or exploited. And TP manipulation? That conspiracy has been debunked a long time ago.

This game economy hasn’t been better. The only reason why things are gonna go out of whack is because of all the speculation with the new recipes and other changes.

Back to the topic at hand. Raids will be introducing rewards that aren’t tradeable, so it’ll have zero effect on the economy.

Behellagh.1468:

Possibly nerf to mithril from salvage.

Is that code for “Buy mithril ore now”? Because I get the feeling something is gonna happen to all the ore in game. Just a little while ago, I refined 6 stacks of Orichalcum in case they change it to 3:1 for ingots.

Ohoni.6057:

You mean like if someone plays a raid instead of a dynamic event, and feels that they are entitled to better loot for it?

Yes, because Raids are harder than a dynamic event. Ergo beating a Raid deserves a much higher, more exclusive reward.

Ohoni.6057:

Working hard and receiving something would not be a reward, it would be a salary. That the salary for doing a raid happens to be Legendary armor is a gift from the devs. It could have been anything, it could have been half a gold and a pat on the back.

The spin you put on that would make American politicians green with envy. So basically, you feel by playing the game, Anet is gifting all players with stuff. And you wonder why I keep bringing up the “Entitlement” term?

Ohoni.6057:

For all you know, that other guy, who did not complete the raid, might be capable of balancing a spoon on his nose for upwards of five whole minutes, which is a significantly more impressive skill than just being one of a ten-man team that beat a raid.

If I could get Legendary armor for balancing a spoon on my nose, I’d work kitten hard to achieve that goal.

Ohoni.6057:

Unless you 1. Want that reward, 2. want to play open world content, and 3. don’t want to play raids, in which case you’re kitten out of luck. That’s the problem, ANet should try to avoid such lose/lose scenarios.

IF you don’t want to play Raids, THEN you don’t get Legendary armor. The concept is simple. Play the content, win, get the reward. It’s win/win situation for all players.

Ohoni.6057:

And if the team loses because one player is clearly not pulling his weight, then all of the members are unworthy?

What about in open world content? If 150 people beat the Wurm, then that means that all 150 of them are worthy? You would have no problem if they attached Legendary Armor to that?

1) Yes. If 1 person costs the team the win, then they all aren’t worthy of the reward. You don’t get an “A” for effort here. You win as a team, and you lose as a team. You also can grow as a team by learning from your mistakes.

2) In Open World content, you have have 130 guys working hard to earn the reward, but the other 20 are leechers who tagged a few mobs. That’s why it will never work outside of an instanced event. Anet can’t control the difficulty in Open World to make sure that everyone who participates actually deserves the reward.

Ohoni.6057:

Then it’s no longer exclusive. That’s better than the alternative of it remaining exclusive.

That idea only works for those who don’t want to put in the effort to play the content.

Ohoni.6057:

ANet benefits from people having fun.

Partly true. Anet has to make sure the game doesn’t give away everything, or the items become meaningless. And they can’t make it impossible where no one can get it. Raids are a good balance for high end exclusive rewards. Raids require coordination. Raids require knowledge of mechanics. Raids requires players to perform well. Do all that, and you start your journey to Legendary armor.

If Anet gave all the Entitled players what they wanted, they basically kill the game. One of the reasons people play is because they have goals. One you achieve those goals, you either find a new one, or you lose interest in the game. You would know this if you ever achieved something that took you a long time to get. For me, it was when I made my first Legendary weapon. After the joy of crafting it and showing it off, I got bored with the game for a few days. Why? Because I didn’t plan ahead, and think about what I should do next. For months, I worked hard to gather all the Mats for my Legendary. I had a purpose. Without a purpose, there was no reason for me to log into the game.

Firelysm.4967:

By ToT farming and SW you play the game, by flipping you don’t.
Flipping is something as side effect of bad model making of trading post.
If people want to play economy simulator, they can clearly instead of playing the game, play the “REAL GAME” go work for lets say 1 week, and use that money for real stock breaking.

The Black Lion Trading Post is a central part of this game. Therefore, if you’re sitting by it all day long flipping items, you are essentially playing this game.

The strategies in game work for real life too. I made a 60% return on one of my mutual fund investments. And that made me feel as good as when I made a return of 300% on my Elaborate Totems. Those weren’t instant flipping as much as longer term investments, but the fact remains the TP is a good place to make money.

By the way, I’m sure others have mentioned this to you, but if more people learned to play the TP, the less profits there are to be shared. So if you’re so against TP players, become one yourself. And when you get good at it, you become competition for others, thus ruining their returns.

There’s a saying: You gotta fight fire with fire. If you can’t stop a wild fire from spreading, you burn the path yourself.

phys.7689:

yes, as i said ascended aquisition is primarily a time/ loyalty reward, which makes it a pretty poor gate for challenging group content. I never said it was hard

The type of systems i think it would be best to design would be based around obtaining the gear or upgrading the gear, or unlocking stats.
This would mean a legendary would unlock all stats, whereas an ascended item would only unlock one stat.
There fore the legendary is still superior, = to like 14 different prefixes, wheresas the ascended is only 1/14 a legendary. Not to mention legendary is future proof.

At least with the current setups, you have access to nearly all stat combos in game. You just need to use the correct Mats to swap your Ascended gear stats with. There’s already a couple of combos that I think you need to unlock.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I said Lose Lose. You lose even if you don’t give up, because while you might eventually get the reward you were going for, you would do so by subjecting yourself to an unpleasant experience, wasting precious time that you’ll never get back.

No no no no. If you want something, you put in the effort to get it. You make the conscious decision to do it, and thus you’re not “wasting time”. In fact, once you get what you desire, all that time spent becomes meaningful.

Ohoni.6057:

The way you use the word, you seem to mean it as an insult. This is a game though, raiders are no more entitled to Legendary Armor than people chatting in LA, the developers just chose Raiders to be gifted Legendary Armor for doing what they enjoy. Raiders that defend that practice are no less “entitled” in doing so than players asking for alternatives.

It’s not an insult. It’s a description of a mindset where one person feels they deserve something when in fact they don’t deserve it.

Ohoni.6057:

No, they are not. They were gifted it for performing the activity the devs chose to attach to that armor.

Not sure if you understood what you responded with. Players who will beat Raids aren’t “gifted” something. Gifting implies it was free. Working hard to earn gear means they’re “rewarded”.

Ohoni.6057:

No, they are not better. They just performed a task that the other person did not. That makes the two of them different, but neither is better than the other.

There will always be players who are more skilled than others. If you manage to beat Elite content, that implies you have skill. Don’t try to short-change Raiders before Raids even come out.

Ohoni.6057:

But open world content is what makes this game great, it’s what this game does better than anyone else.

I agree. Open World in GW2 is awesome. But we’re talking about Elite content. You can have rewards in the Open World, and rewards in Elite content. Just so happens the exclusive rewards in Raids won’t be available in Open World. And that’s ok.

Ohoni.6057:

Two issues with this. First, what if 9 people are “worthy,” as you put it, and the 10th isn’t? Does that mean the other 9 suddenly cease to be “worthy,” for allowing this “unworthy” person to associate with them? Why should the content fail to reward those 9 people for doing an adequate or superior job, just because this 10th guy did not?

There’s an old saying: There’s no “i” in “team”. You either win as a team, or lose as a team. So as a team working together for a common goal, and to achieve that goal, then all members of the team is worthy.

Ohoni.6057:

Rewards should be an individual thing, you should be happy for what YOU get, you should not be upset because someone else gets something that you don’t think they’ve earned.

Rewards can be an individual thing, if you’re doing content that rewards you individually (i.e. Clocktower JP). Rewards can also be for a team effort (i.e. Raids).

Ohoni.6057:

And I don’t care. If your happiness can only come at the sadness of others, then I don’t care about your happiness. Learn to be happy within yourself, not only happy because other people have less than you.

Sadness is a state of mind for the individual player. It doesn’t affect my desire to go out and be the best I can be. So take my own example of being bad at PvP. I went out and started to play. Now I’m fairly decent, and growing in rank day by day. I overcame my own sadness, and am walking to path to (hopefully) get exclusive PvP rewards.

Ohoni.6057:

So? It would take them longer than it would take the Raiders, they would have to work harder for those rewards than the Raiders, and the Raiders would still get their rewards, so why should the Raiders care?

Exclusive content is no longer exclusive if you allow everyone to have an Easy Button. That kills the content. It kills the prestige. And it hurts what Raiders worked hard for.

Ohoni.6057:

And if Raids are never at the point where the majority of players can complete them, then your opinion or no, ANet have failed.

Anet succeeds in introducing new content that pushes everyone’s skills to the next level. I’m not saying I wouldn’t love to see a lot of people getting Legendary armor. In fact, that would be a testament to Anet helping teach these players how to play difficult content through introducing Raids. As long as they’ve earned their Legendary armors, I feel they’re worthy to wear it.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Ashen.2907:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

…They are better than other players who don’t have it…

Nope.

Legendary gear will not mean anything more than that you did some raiding. Big deal. People get carried in raids all the time, and there will be people wearing legendary armor that don’t play any better than the average casual joe gamer. So, no, raiding or wearing anything gotten from a raid does not necessarily mean a person knows how to play on a better than average level.

Over time, I’m sure Raids will be more doable with practice and Dulfy guides. However, I doubt that players will be able to carry others. I believe Anet set the bar so high, that all 10 players need to put in effort to win, and not just 8 or 9 of them. Remember, this isn’t a 50 man Raid. With only 10 players at a time, the pressure is divided more intensely. Big difference between having 1 out of 50 players screw up, as compared to 1 out of 10.

Edit – If Raids got so easy that players can carry others, thus allowing for paid Raid taxi services, then in my personal opinion, I’ll say that Anet failed. I have faith in Colin, though. I’m sure they’ve seen Fractal and Dungeon taxi LFGs, and considered this in coding the Raid difficulty levels.

phys.7689:

yes this is the other big flaw with the ascended changes and requiring different gear sets.
The devs didnt experience this because they can auto create any set they need, but ascended aquisition and inventory rune sigil etc are huge headaches an impediments to the lets figure this out and use whatever classes/stats/builds we need to exceed type of gameplay they said they wanted people to do for raids

short version:
trial/difficulty based ascended aquisition
better gear swapping/inventoy/rune/sigil system for the game as a whole.

A couple of things.

• 1) Ascended gear is not hard to make. It’s just time consuming. If you play the game normally, you’re rewarded with Mats that you can use to craft your Ascended gear. I have a full set for each weight class. Most I crafted. Some I used Ascended armor chests. Same goes for the weapons.

• 2) As a convenience item, you can purchase Gem Store items that can remove runes and other stuff. But from a value standpoint, it’s cheaper just to buy another few rune sets. Then after you swapped your Ascended gear stats, slap on the new runes and you’re good to go. When you succeed at a Raid, you’ll be rewarded with gear that you can swap stats on the fly. That’s the best incentive of all to succeed. If there were gear swapping outside of Legendary gear, you take away from the prestige of those luxury goods.

Ashen.2907:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

…They are better than other players who don’t have it…

Nope.

When HoT Raids come out, you can prove me wrong by showing off your Legendary armor. I will praise you with all the Six’s glory, as I would anyone else who walks around with the armor on. Because at that point, you’re better than me.

Ohoni.6057:

And beating and mastering the content would give the better rewards, nobody would be satisfied by just going around and collecting the “try me” rewards, that is not their point. Their point is to try and provide just enough inventive that you go and try it, they are not meant to be the main course, they are an appetizer. Think of it like those Jumping Puzzles that have multiple smaller chests along the way. No, you don’t get the biggest chest until you reach the end, but getting the first chest is usually not that big a hassle, and it gives you some idea of what you’re in for.

In my opinion, this idea would just be a slap in the face of Raiders. The incentive to playing Raids is to not only beat it, but claim the exclusive rewards. There’s no need for small prizes for trying. By having token rewards, someone can just farm the easy sub-bosses over and over, and over a long period of time, get the same rewards that Raiders actually had to work hard for. Unless you make it so the easy tokens you get have absolutely no way of being traded up for Legendary armor. Then maybe it could work. But then what’s the point in having those tokens in the first place? So we’re right back at the current standard, which is to leave the exclusive rewards to those who are worthy of it.

Ohoni.6057:

And I’m saying that this attitude is bad business. It’s forcing a lose/lose situation on the customer. Either lose by giving up entirely on something that you want, or lose by engaging in activity that you do not enjoy, making that portion of your life a negative rather than a positive experience. Who benefits from that?

Actually, you only lose if you give up. Sine you made the decision to give up, there’s no room for argument. It’s perfectly fine to reward players who are worthy of the reward itself. All players benefit from this, as luxury goods stay a luxury, and thus you constantly have something to desire.

Ohoni.6057:

And in the real world, we can both agree that this would be silly. But this is a game, the rules can be anything ANet says they are, and if they say you can get an economics degree without going to school for it, then sure, why not?

No, that would be Entitlement. It applies to both real and fantasy worlds.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody is “worthy” of anything,. It’s a game. You are handed what the developers choose to hand you. The people that receive fancy things are not better or worse than other players, they just happen to fit into the right shaped hole that the things they are willing and able to do are the things that needed to get done to be handed that item. That’s it. I’m just asking that they widen the options for being given those items.

To correct you again, yes those player who earned the Legendary gear are now worthy of it. Its shows that they put in the efforts to play the content, and succeeded. They are better than other players who don’t have it, but I don’t mean that in a negative way. Just as the top PvP players will have the best Mini Llamas in the game, and have the rights to now win a share of $400,000 in our new E-Sports league, some players are just on a higher plane of existence that others. This should serve as inspiration to everyone else. Try hard enough, and you too can succeed.

On this point, I’m glad you did respond earlier with your idea that an alternate method would be from Open World content. But while you honestly think this would work, it again simplifies the content with an Easy Mode. If you remember the LA rescue events, players who would AFK benefited from everyone else doing the work. How does this justify giving them a Legendary armor piece, when the other players put in 10x the effort? And remember the fall out when GM Chris was going around and kicking these AFKers? Or take the Great Wurm. Some players will just tag a few mobs, and still get full credit when all 3 heads are killed. Open World is not a place to reward Elite gear, because there’s no way to judge effort of one player over another. Instanced Raids allow Anet to control how much effort needs to be put in to win. If you have 9 guys working hard, and 1 guy doing nothing, the content punishes the whole team. You’re only worthy if all 10 of you work hard and win.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not that they must, it’s that they should try to adapt the game to as many players as possible, so long as it does no harm elsewhere. Look, if it were just me who wanted this then they should obviously not do it, Totally not worth it on their end. I don’t believe for a second that it’s just me though, and neither do any of you or you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get me to shut up about it. If my cause were as hopeless as you all make it out to be then there would be no reason whatsoever for the vitriol thrown my way.

It’s not that we’re trying to get you to “shut up” about it. We’re trying to explain to you that altering the game’s model and direction to cater to the Entitled is bad business.

If you don’t want to play Raids, don’t play. Simple as that. If you really want that Legendary armor, but don’t want to play Raids, then you’ve agreed to never getting it. It’s hard to make a complaint over something that you’ve consciously decided to not pursue. It’s illogical. It’s like saying “I want a college degree in Economics”, while also saying “and I prefer getting it without having to go to school”.

Yes there will be a lot of players who won’t like Raids. At the same time, there will be a lot of players without Legendary armor. And to the point of this thread, that is ok. I may very well be one of those players who won’t have Legendary armor. But that would just mean I don’t deserve it. Legendary gear, going forward, will only be for those who put in the efforts. You can call them Elites, Hardcore, what have you. The common theme they’ll all share is that they’re worthy of such gear.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I suspect a fair number of shards gained by PvP play are going on the trading post to sell to non PvPers. I’ve seen a couple of threads where PvP players expressed interest in the gold from selling them.

So much for Legendary effort on that part.

Do you honestly think that there will be enough PvP players selling Shards of Glory to satisfy the demand market of PvE players who don’t want to PvP? But I guess it’ll all depend on how many Shards are required.

Apolo.5942:

Interesting to hear about this, since the begining the devs have stated that there was no grinding in GW2, not that anybody believed them, but now they pulled 180.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-economy/
“I want to be up front: scarcity is important.”

Not sure you understand the concept here. There is no required grinding in GW2. None. Never has been. If you decide to “grind” out content, that’s your choice. The way the game is designed, you play the content in one story, and you move onto the next.

You only need to unlock the Legendary weapon once to get the skin. Simply skin an Ascended weapon, and you’ll have another. To take that further, get Ascended weapons with different stat combos you like, and skin them all the same. Then you can swap out “Legendaries” to fit your build.

Firelysm.4967:

I’m not even dungeon runner, but i feel sorry for those that love doing dungeons, and still getting rewarded for it, but now they will be left out. What is happening right now is, that dungeons will get a decent nerf so that HoT content(NEW)¸will be more rewarded then Core (OLD) content.

But i wonder, why are Trading Post flippers still allowed to flip without punishment? Those people control the economy, and those people don’t even play the game for real. I’m not saying how people should play the game, but this type of playing is killing the game economy and gaming experience is suffering because ArenaNet is allowing this!

MY SOLUTION:
Every item should become account bound once you purchase them, lets kill trade post flipping and fix the economy and with that GAMING EXPERIENCE!!!

Post your opinion how to stop this game breaking feature!

I’m not sure you understand how the TP works. TP players are actually good for the economy, as they create equilibrium. If your suggestion were implemented, it’s guaranteed to destroy the economy, making all things broken.

Economic experts all agree – The Black Lion Trading Post is the best thing to happen since sliced bread.

Ohoni.6057:

Ultimately though I don’t have to detail the alternatives, that’s ANet’s job and they have far better data to use than we do at the moment (since we don’t even know how difficult earning them via raiding will be yet). I’m just pressing them to create those alternatives.

This is the type of post that Colin himself says he doesn’t like. It’s not constructive in any way. If you truly want to change the game, do what other posters have done, and actually suggest your alternatives. Anet Devs read these posts, and compile the ones that people put effort into, thus the reason why we have the new account bound Legendary weapon crafting.

The fact that you can’t name a single alternative is because none exist. You say you don’t like Raids? Ok, then what do you want? “It’s Anet’s job to come up with ideas” is not a statement that will help your cause.

Ohoni.6057:

The only point I’m pushing for at the moment is “Precursors need to also be available elsewhere,” OR “Raids need to be convenient and accessible to players of all skill levels and scheduling commitment levels.”

First point, Precursors will not be available any other way. So that ends the argument right there.

Second point, Raids are already convenient and accessible to all players for all skill levels. Anyone can log in and attempt a Raid. Now if you want clear a Raid, you’ll need to have a team that coordinated, skilled, and geared properly. There is no Easy Mode mote that you can activate. If a player is serious about Raids, they need to make the time with friends or guilds. It’s up to the players to coordinate times to play together. Since this game is active 24/7, you have many hours in a day to get together with others to make an attempt at a Wing.

People for years have ask Anet to come up with an alternative way to earn Legendary weapons. While the original Legendaries did require a lot of “legendary effort” to get (i.e. lots of Gold or Luck), people complained that since you could buy Precursors or the Legendary itself from the TP, it didn’t mean as much.

Fast forward to HoT. Now, all new Legendary weapons require having access to HoT, and you must play all different types of content to get it. People will say “I’m being forced to play WvW or PvP”. But in the grand scheme of things, this is ok.

Anet is doing the right thing here. Legendary weapons and even armor needs to have prestige. It’s a luxury item in game. Now, in order to earn the right to own one, you must put in “legendary efforts” to complete collections, succeed in PvP, and run WvW. If you manage to do everything that’s required, that means you’re worthy of the Legendary. If you decide that you don’t want to play the other types of game modes, you’ve decided that new Legendary weapons and armor aren’t for you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have one, as the original Legendaries will still be available to get.

What does this mean for the other game modes? Well, for a time, things are going to get a bit unbalanced. I’ll break down my thoughts.

PvP

A lot of new players will be entering PvP because of the new requirements for Legendary weapons and armor. This means that there’s going to be a lot of players who might be unfamiliar with PvP tactics. This would actually affect Solo players more than anything else. Full, coordinated teams will have more of an advantage going forward, as newbies may end up on teams with Solo players, making for a sharp learning curve. Overall, having more players interested in PvP is a good thing. It expands competition by introducing more people to this game mode.

WvW

As we know, there’s only so much space on each Borderland server. WvW has no preference to being in a Guild, or how high you’re ranked. It’s first come, first served when logging in. The added interest in WvW for Legendary mats will attract a lot of non-WvWers, creating giant queues on the BLs. This will cause problems for Commanders trying to get their people into the same maps. Higher Tiers usually have the most WvW interest, so they’ll probably feel the queues the most. And this could snowball down to more server shuffling, as Guilds may leave higher Tiers for lower ones will less activity. But when you think about it, this is ok too, since player initiated server rebalancing is good to keep competition fresh.

BaconofPigs.1683:

Believe it or not, some poster here in this thread believe that Anet should satisfy Player G’s request. That’s the scary part… They really believe that.

Honestly, I know how they feel. I really want a Mini Llama, but I’m not a good PvP player. My friend Zilent is one of the top PvPers, and has tons of Llamas. Is that fair? Not to me, yet because I understand it’s a reward for the best PvPers to show off with, I’m ok with never getting my own Mini Llama.

I think once everyone understands that certain rewards will always be out of their reach, the world would be a better place. On the flip side, if one truly wants that reward, they can get it if they try hard enough. That’s why I’ve been getting better and better at PvP. Before the Mini Llama, I only PvP’d Casually for the daily. I was never comfortable with PvP in GW2. Now, I’m playing more hardcore, and got myself up to rank 64 fairly quickly.

Vayne.8563:

If they made rewards sellable, it would cater too more people though. They did this in Guild Wars 1 with almost every single end game item, including tormented weapons, and I don’t really see why it can’t be done here.

And after a while, everyone had a Tormented weapon. At that point, no one cared anymore. Tormented weapons lost their prestige. That’s the problem when you allow everyone to have luxury items. In real life, know why diamonds are so valuable? It’s because De Beers creates artificial scarcity to keep the value high (as someone here brought up).

Anet head enough complaints that Legendary weapons were too easy to get by purchasing Precursors or even the Legendary itself from the TP. While I’m for the trading of these luxury goods because I profit off of it, I fully understand the reason why Anet is now gating all Legendary weapons and now armor. They want people to EARN it.

In order for players to EARN it, they must play the content. If you want Legendary armor, you play Raids. Period. No alternative methods. No buying from the TP. If you walk around wearing the new Legendary armor, you deserved it. You earned it. You’re worthy to wear it. Because you put in the time and efforts to play the content that granted it as a reward.

To address all the other complaints about “this type of content I don’t like, so they should make alternatives”, that’s just code for “give me easy mode”. Why do I say that? Because these players aren’t comfortable with certain game types, so they want another method that falls into their comfort zone. Imagine the following:

Raids = Legendary armor progress

• Player A – “I don’t like Raids, put Legendary armor in Dungeons”
• Player B – “I don’t like Dungeons, put Legendary armor in Jump Puzzles”
• Player C – “I don’t like Jumping Puzzles, let me make it using my high level crafting”
• Player D – “I don’t like crafting. Why am I forced to level my crafting? Let me PvP for Legendary armor”
• Player E – “I don’t like to PvP. I only WvW. Make Legendary armor drop in WvW!”
• Player F – “I don’t have time for any of that. Let me buy it from the Gem store”
• Player G – “I only Roleplay in Divinity’s Reach. It’s not fair that I have to play content to get rewards. How about holding a raffle for a Legendary armor?”

Where does it end? There’s absolutely no way to satisfy the entire player base. So instead of pandering to everyone who players different game modes, just set the bar high on one specific content. Allow all players to have access to the new content, and may the best win and earn the rewards.

Oxidia.8103:

When worn, it will mean player went trough hell and back to have it. Not everyone will have it and it’s fine. Funny how people riot when they have to earn something with their skills rather then their wallets and feel entitled to get everything with minimal effort.

Just to clarify the position of the opposition. It’s not only some feel Entitled to the best gear with minimal efforts. Some don’t want to do the content, yet feel Entitled to the rewards.

A real life example of this would be getting a college degree. The requirements are taking X amount of classes that take an average of 4 years to complete in order to get your degree. The classes aren’t easy, and sometimes requires getting together for group projects. One student refuses to take classes, and argues that the school should have an alternative way to get the degree because they’re paying the tuition. That’s similar to what’s going on here. Raids are the classes needed, Legendary armor is the degree, and Anet is the college.

Basically, if you don’t want to take the classes, you don’t deserve the degree.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody said anything about putting them on the TP, I’m perfectly willing to work for them, I’d just rather work for them in a way that is constructive to my time and play style, not by banging my head against a wall that I have no interest in until maybe loot falls out.

If you want something, you need to earn it. The solution here isn’t to ask Anet to make things so simple that it fits into your play style. You need to get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Raids are here to challenge people. If you’re unwilling to adapt and learn, then you’re not worthy of the rewards.

But when you think about it, Anet isn’t really excluding players from content. Players are excluding themselves.

• If you’re not skilled enough to beat a Raid, you get better. Keep trying and learn what works.
• If you don’t have enough friends to form a Raid group, you make new friends or join other guilds. MMOs are meant to be social. I’ve joined great guilds that do everything from PvE World Events, WvW, and PvP.
• If you don’t have the right gear for Raids, you go out and craft it. You can get T6 and T7 mats from playing the game normally. Ascended chests drop all over the place too (PvP, WvW, World Events, FotM, etc).
• If you don’t have time to play a Raid, you make time by organizing your real life so you can log in. In GW1, me and my friends spent 16 hours on a single DoA run when it first came out, because we wanted to be the first to clear all 4 paths in a row.

The game gives you all the tools you need to succeed. The question here is: Do you have the drive to use those tool?

Ohoni.6057:

As legendary armor has the same stats as ascended and without the option to switch runes on demand its just another skin, so there is no reason not to hand it out to people who want the easy mode.

My friend. The only thing we’re all Entitled to is our opinions. If you want Legendary weapons and armor, you’ll have to earn them, as with everyone else. Anet understood that luxury items should have some prestige to them. So no longer can you get stuff by just going to the TP. Now you have to go forth, and play the game in all its glory!

Bob.7189:

Not to mention you contradicted your original post: “Raids…exclude some people….”

You have completely baffled me as to the point of your thread.

You need to read more to understand, and not skip over everything except a key sentence or two.

The point of this thread is to help people understand that Raids are not for everyone, never will be for everyone, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If Legendary armor is exclusive to completing Raid content, that’s a bonus to those players who are skilled enough, coordinated enough, and geared properly.

Anet created content that caters to a small group of players. But they don’t lock you out of trying. This way, if you try a Raid and fail, you can keep trying and grow as a player. The more you fail, logically the more you learn. In a round about way, Raids are a learning tool to help increase the skill levels of all who enter.

People need to remember that we’re not Entitled to having everything in this game handed to us. There are some things that must be earned. Anet understands this, and is now making all the new Legendary weapons account bound. No more arguing over the price of a Precursor. Now you need to play all the different types of content, travel throughout the world to fill collections, and succeed in meeting all the requirements. God Bless you Anet for adding more Challenges to GW2.

Post to fix forum bug.

Kevan.8912:

All true. And "You have to be “this” tall to enter." is exactly where the problem is.

I contradicted myself there. It should be: You have to be “this” tall to win.

Inb4 Scarlet was just Trahearne’s alter ego to test the Commander’s resolve.

Didn’t log into the forums for a day, and I walk into this…

Anyways, let’s go over some of the discussion that’s been going on in this thread. I’ll take the arguments apart one by one to make it easier to digest:

Raids should have different levels of difficulty like FotM

No. Raids are hardcore end-game challenges. What’s the point in saying “I beat the first Raid Wing” when someone can say the same thing with an easy button engaged? There should not be the opportunity for everyone to beat a Raid. Either your team is good enough to beat it, or they’re not. Simple as that.

Raids with lower difficulty levels won’t reward as good

It’s not just about the loot. It’s about the accomplishment of actually beating the content. If Anet were to implement easy Raids and hard Raids, you basically kill the content.

I can’t do Raids. I’ll quit the game.

Raids are just one single challenge in an entire game full of Casual friendly content. Just because you can’t complete this 1% of the game, doesn’t mean the other 99% ceases to exist. No one will quit the game just because of Raids.

Designing Raids means Devs have no time for other content

There are multiple teams working on multiple projects at any given time. Once HoT goes live, the team goes right back to designing Cantha making other content. I wouldn’t be surprised if Colin already has people working on the next expansion.

Raids are an MMO trap the Colin promised there wouldn’t be any

No, Raids are just one more type of game play. Don’t like Raids? There are still Dungeons and FotM for you and your party to run.

I’m a Casual gamer, so I can’t play Raids

Not true. Raids are open for anyone to try. It’s not locked away from you. The part that will prove to be difficult is beating the end boss. But failures should encourage you to become a better player, and a better team.

Raids require me to have good gear

Yes. Yes it does. And that’s not a problem at all, since this is end-game Elite level content. If you’re not geared to walk into the hardest content available, then you’re not prepared to win. There’s a Gear Gate, Skill Gate, and a Mastery Gate. Later wings require all three, and then some. Think of it like that sign at the Disneyland rides: You have to be “this” tall to enter.

Pockets.3201:

It also tells some players that they can’t play the endgame, so they should find another game to play.

My friend. That’s like someone saying “college is too hard, I’ll go work in a fastfood joint instead”. IF someone invests time in themselves, THEN it pays off. Anet can’t change a player’s mindset. The drive comes from within.

Besides, there’s other end game available to those who can’t beat a Raid. If someone chooses to leave the game, they can come back at any time, since there’s no subscription fees.

I’d like to take this moment to discuss how Raids (and other Elite content) excludes some players, and why that’s actually good for the game. As it stands, GW2 is a very Casual friendly MMO. Anet designed this game without any required grind, staying true to their core principles since Day 1 of this game. You play how you want to play, level how you want to level, and ultimately decide what “fun” is. If that “fun” includes grinding content over and over (i.e. FotM, SW chests, Dungeons, etc), that’s your choice. Anet doesn’t stop you from voluntarily putting your time and effort to repeating content.

There’s something for everyone in this game. But the content for Elite/Hardcore players, while there, was sorely lacking. Thus the reason why Raids are now being introduced. These players yearn for challenging content with exclusive rewards. The best thing about how Raids are being introduced is that absolutely no one is being left out (technically). All players are allowed to try and play Raids as much as they want, as often as they want.

Here’s the part that might upset people. Raids are hard. There is no easy button for this content. While all players are welcome to play in Raids, not all will have the skills or equipment to succeed. This inherent design is working as intended. Challenging content isn’t made for you just to beat. It’s made for you to push your limits. It requires players to have a full understanding of their build, their party member’s build, and be able to coordinate all together to achieve the goal of beating the Raid. It also requires you to invest time and money into your equipment, thus helping you be more prepared for enemy encounters. Players who cannot adapt will be left out.

The million dollar question: Why is it ok for players to be “left out”?
There’s always a skill level difference between people. There’s also a difference between the time one can invest in playing this MMO. So with Raids, the assumed hardest content available, having it clear by anyone at any skill level takes away from the prestige. Why make hard content if it’s not actually hard? Why offer exclusive rewards if everyone can get them? Having some players excluded from succeeding in clearing the Raids serve as a reason to become a better player. It brings balance to game rewards for those at a higher skill level. Remember, GW2 was never designed to be a “hack & slash” game. Combat was meant to be dynamic. Standing still and swinging your sword may work on weak enemies, but will punish you on the more moderate to strong ones. Each time you learn from a mistake, the more you grow as a player.

People who invest time in learning and adapting in this game should have content that rewards them for their efforts. Raids cater to the Elite/Hardcore players, and gives them rewards based on skill and coordination. It excludes those who aren’t up to that level of commitment. But fear not, Raids will always be there for you if you choose to invest in yourself. Exclusive rewards are never impossible to get if you believe in yourself! Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars.

tl;dr – Raids are good for this game because it allows high skilled players to earn rewards worthy of their efforts, gives incentives to grow and become a better player, and gives Hardcore players content that they can enjoy.

It was about preserving not only the economy, but also the status of the luxury item that Precursors are.

On a side note, since I missed responding to the other topic in this thread: Gem -> Gold exchanges does not impact Precursor prices. In order for that to happen, you have to have a lot of players with an incredible amount of disposable income constantly feeding Anet’s coffers with Gem purchases. I would say with confidence that a very tiny percentage of the player population invests money into large amounts of Gems regularly, only to convert them to Gold. With the GW2 market being so large and dynamic, you’d have to have a cartel of thousands of players buying Gems for Gold just to ding the Precursors.

I’ve gotten numerous Precursors as drops in the past couple of months. With each one I sell, that eats away a tiny bit of the actual Demand for the items. By that, I mean that I’m fulfilling transactions of players who buy them for themselves to craft a Legendary.

People bringing up the term “grind” in relation to Precursor Crafting is losing track of what a grind actually is. Doing SW Chest farms for 15 hours a day is a grind. Killing every single Karka in Southsun is a grind. Traveling to remote locations once to satisfy a prerequisite is a Quest.

I think Anet learned it’s lesson about how quick the Hardcore groups adapt to “Elite” events. Tequatl and the Great Wurm turned from organized open-world raids, to a daily farm. The new Raids they’re implementing is probably so punishing, than even if we got good at it, it would still require high-end skills and coordination with voice comms.

I’m assuming that if a player decides to go full Zerker in the new Raid system, he’ll be pulling too many heals from the assigned Druid, thus taking away support from the other team members who’ll also need heals. That would be detrimental to the whole team build.

I look forward to future Raids so punishing, that 3 hours would be considered a “speed clear”.

Post to fix forum bug.

maddoctor.2738:

Wanze.8410:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kind of relevant and also because I don’t want to go searching for it again:

All pre-HoT precursors crafted from the mastery collections will be sellable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3mi5y2/twitchcon_day_2_panel_2_legendary_journey_notes/cvfpdys

So what will happen is players making the most expensive precursors to sell them on the tp, then use the gold to buy the precursors they want (assuming they don’t want the most expensive ones)

Yes. This will lead to a closer price spread between precursors, i guess, assuming all collections need the same amount of mats to finish. However, if finishing the collections will probably take a couple of months, its not guaranteed that the most expensive precursors will still be the most expensive ones, once someone finishes his collection.

If all the precursors from the collections take the same amount of mats to finish, the next question is will these mats be the equal price of the most expensive precursor, the least expensive precursor, average price of precursor or what else?

From the stream, it would appear that a majority of the required mats can’t be purchased from the TP. That ones that can will probably see a bump in price, but that would be only short term, as the rest will take a tremendous amount of time to complete.

Falling for 10 seconds without touching ground, kneeling before the Collosus in FotM, etc. Once the player population realizes that Precursor crafting ain’t no cake-walk, demand will slowly drop.

Wanze.8410:

I never bought a single gem with real money but purchased around 100k gems with gold to buy stuff from the store. If i wasnt able to convert my gold to gems and could only spend it on in game items, i would probably have bought more precursors or legendaries.

Just a little sidebar here:

100,000 Gems = ~21,000 Gold. 21,000 Gold has a real world value of $1,890.00. If you spent that amount on Gem purchases, Anet could hire another Dev for a month.

Back on the topic of Precursors. Since all new Precursors going forward will be Account Bound, will the value of the original ones go down due to an assumed decrease in Demand?

Zaron.1987:

look at Spiritwood Plank after twitch show yesterday and the person who try to buy out all

Just FYI – It’s not against the rules, nor morally wrong to profit off of other players. <3

Cheby Shev.4671:

You are making my point for me, $20 for 6 pc. of armor plus about 8 Ascended weapons is $280!!

That’s working as intended if you want to save your upgrades. The better options would be to just buy new upgrades, or keep extra sets of alt Ascended gear. Pay Gems for the convenience of saving your stuff, or take the time to craft different Ascended stats sets. You can get enough mats to craft gear by playing normally, so no grind is necessary.

Well, if Condis will play an important role in Raids, then one could speculate the Celestial gear will be the next Meta. Jack of all Trades, but master of none. Then we’ll see a spike in Quartz prices, as everyone’s gonna want to make Charged ones.

Underwater combat is a prelude to Air to Air combat. Just saying.

/aion

We learned a lot this weekend. Ele Ice Bow party spam is getting nerfed. Devs confirmed that Zerker builds will have a harder time in the newer content. And Druids will be the GW2 equivalent of GW1 Monks. So what does this mean? Holy Trinity coming back? Not quite. It just means it’s time to rewrite the meta.

Speculating on how dodging and evading just won’t cut it, all players are gonna need survivability. At the same time, you can’t go all Tanky, lest you not have enough DPS output to complete missions and raids. So considering all this, Balanced builds will be the next “in” thing. The best options seem to be leaning towards Soldier’s/PTV armor (Power, Toughness, and Vitality). That will give you some straight damage increase, with damage reductions and increased HP pool. Druid specs are most likely going to be pure heal, which uses Nomad’s (Toughness, Vitality, and Healing) or Cleric’s (Healing, Power, and Toughness). The latter allows Druids to have some damage output.

The good thing about this is now you can change your Ascended armor to another preferred stat combo. For people who can’t afford to craft multiple Ascended builds, this is a Godsend. It would be wise to begin investing in materials that allow for conversions, such as Soldier’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia and Elaborate Totems before prices spike.

I really enjoy it when people talk about “ending the meta”. But as stated, once one meta dies, another is born. The anti-meta becomes the meta. It’s Metaception!

Eirdyne.9843:

I’ve heard there is a website called:

Gw2efficiency

I’ve never heard about this site until now. Wow! This site is awesome!

As someone with Business-Marketing degree, what just happened with me is a prime example of a Negative Marketing backfire. A real life example would be Donald Trump in American politics. By shouting it out to the community, you’ve drawn attention to the site, and now there’s more interest than before. Unless that was your aim all along, in which case you’re pretty savvy.

Sanus.3502:

I see options for PvP/WvW players to get their daily in. I don’t think anyone should be forced outside of a preferred style of play to get the rewards of the day. One of the joys of the “sand-box” style of game is you can find the level of game that suits you …and be rewarded for your effort.

You’re not forced to do anything. Daily rewards are just that: rewards

Heck, I do all the PvP, WvW, and as many PvE as I can every day. That’s my choice, as it is yours not to do them. Sometimes, PvP daily is to cap a point. That takes 10 seconds of your life, and you don’t have to fight. In WvW, the daily can be to kill a Sentry or Guard. That’s basically PvE as you’re killing an NPC. If you can’t manage that, then you don’t get your reward.

America has enough voice talent to fill any void. If foreign voice actors refuse to record for German, French etc, there are those in America that can do that. Put out a request in Los Angeles, and you’ll have hundreds of actors auditioning for the parts. You can find any shape, size, color, accent, or dialect actor there.

It’s not your computer, it’s your ISP. Anet can’t fix that.

Vayne.8563:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I do recall a Dev discussing the fight as how GW2 Mesmer fights would be. But ultimately, if the Winds of Change was just a story about how or why Cantha became closed off, I’ll be quite disappointed.

I like finding little pieces of lore that connect the two games together. I didn’t spend 8 years of my life playing a game, only to forget about it.

That’s all it is, sorry to disappoint you.

If I could, I would demand Mike O’Brien give us back a part of the GW universe that is sorely missed.

Edit – I’d prefer the Mods lock this thread than to merge it with one that’s 3 years old and forgotten.

I do recall a Dev discussing the fight as how GW2 Mesmer fights would be. But ultimately, if the Winds of Change was just a story about how or why Cantha became closed off, I’ll be quite disappointed.

I like finding little pieces of lore that connect the two games together. I didn’t spend 8 years of my life playing a game, only to forget about it.

Tuomir.1830:

Yeah, there’s been some talk about Cantha in the past…

I’m talking about the Winds of Change storyline, and how it connects to GW2.