Sadly, this along with every other money making nerf is just more
incentive for people to buy gold (which I oppose).
GW2 boast of a game in where you can casually play it, which is true,
but the reality of it is its very hard for the average player to make money
in the game and the costs gear is up 2-3 times where it was a month ago.
Coming from someone who has played 7 years of heavy MMOs, the following
is my two cents.
Without WvW I would have quit along time ago. To me, it is really the only
thing keeping the game interesting. Even than, I only do a few hours before
the “zergfest” gets old hat for the night.
One of my most favorite pasttimes in past games was grinding mobs, especially
first thing in morning when Im trying to wake up. It was actually fun for me
to do these for a few hours a day. There are two problems with this in GW2:
1) Grinding rewards are very low 2) Someone will label you a bot and get you banned.
Fractals were fun until level 4, than I realized they grew boring the 5th time around
(and they are VERY unfriendly to pugs not on teamspeak).
All in all, its good to kill time on but I feel bad to new players to the game
who are facing 2-3 times the gear cost we had to deal with.
I agree with much that is being said here. Out of 7 yrs of WOW and Rift,
GW2 takes the cake on the number of people I know buying gold. This is
something I refuse to do for many reasons, but I cant say I blame them since
they are all working people.
Im tired of seeing the “learn to work the auction house” posts on the forums. The
reality of it is that buying gold is like drugs: Most people dont admit to it. Personally,
I think its a huge negative to GW2 on the difficulty of earning gold the honest way.
It prohibits you from having 3-4 toons who are equipped in all exotics.
I really do feel bad for new players to this game. My exotic set costs 10 gold a month
ago, now thats probably up to 25 gold with NO easier ways to make money. In other
words, the costs have gone up massively, but the means to make the money have
seen nothing but nerfs.
The way things stand now, the Ele is not my “vision” of a wizard/mage
prototype. Why? In following fantasy for 20 years, my concept of a casting
mage is not “dual wielding daggers and being tanky.” In fact, I refused to do
the d/d build and tried everything else. In the end, Im just another d/d ele
in WvW because it is the most effective in disrupting the enemy forces.
As far as the reference above to people saying “learn to play,” my bet is they
are all d/d ele’s. Ill admit, going full zerk staff build was fun for a long time.
Root with skill > lava font > flame burst is an awesome nuke. The problem
is getting caught in the open against a thief and you are dead.
Lastly, Im also concerned about the time it takes to change things in this game. Longer
than any other MMO Ive been in.
Very short version of history (Ive been playing computer games since the 80s).
Played WOW for 5 years before Rift, than sunk enother year into that. Ive played
all aspects of both games (end game raiding guilds, plus PvP high ranked).
How I feel about GW2
Definitely has potential, and the reason I came here was the “non raid” setting. Even
though I enjoy raiding the most, its was ruining my real life. With that said,
WvW needs allot more attention to make it long lasting. Think about it. You are
fighting for a week to get what? Recognition? At the very least change the rewards
to bonus Karma/badges based on 1st, 2nd, 3rd place (outside of making the dang
loot bags some REAL auto loot system).
Ive thought allot about MMOs in general. The truth of the matter is, Arenanet can
never keep up with enough new content to keep people happy. Face it. So spend
more attention on what you have that will keep the game long term. I cant help
but think about BGs in WOW. It was so fun to log in for a few hours, and really feel
like you did good for the night. The downside of that was the neverending struggle
to get top PvP gear, which GW2 took care of.
As its stands, one of the 3 sides in WvW is losing so bad, they quit trying for the week.
How do you fix this? Im not sure, but I do second guess the week long battle in WvW.
IMO the shorter scaled battles is what makes a game real fun for the night (based on my hundreds of hours in FPS games, Leagues of Legends, BGs in WOW, etc).
Just my 2 cents.
Ive held back posting much on the forums, because most of
my impressions were already covered by someone else. After playing
every day since release, however, Ive had enough time to formulate
how I feel (both good and bad). I come into this with 8+ years of
experience with MMOs, with thousands of hours played (WOW and Rift).
Below are some of the postives and negatives of my experiences:
Positive:
-The PvE experience was more enjoyable than the past MMOs Ive played,
mainly due to the “tagging” of mobs taken out.
-The “need” to have allot of gold is not a main part of the game.
-Dyes and transmuting really make each player character stand out from the
others.
Negatives:
-I spend most of my time in WvW now, and I believe that the reward for winning
each week needs to change. Simply make it +badges and +karma, with different
amounts for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. As it stands now, we are fighting a week long
battle for what? Buffs? Really? Allot more thought should go into this, and it would
give more meaning to the week battle.
-For the love of all that is sacred make badges an automatic thing so people dont have
to run around looking for loot bags.
-After playing to level 3 in Fractals, I quickly gleaned that they are definitely not for me.
So in other words, I am going to mindlessly grind a dungeon, which will give me better gear solely to keep grinding the same dungeons? No thanks. Allot more thought could
have gone into the vendor awards also for the dungeon tokens. At least tease me with
a armor set. I feel bad for the people PUGing fractals without teamspeak, theres a few
I can think of that are very “PUG unfriendly.”
-Sometimes in the morning I would grind for an hour or so since it didnt require
much thought. Until we understand the methods being used to identify and ban
bots, Ive had to cease this to avoid mistaken identity.
-As others have posted this week, the Trading Post feels more like the stock market
than an auction house.
Im was actually hoping more would come out to keep my engrossed in the game,
because there isnt much else I play. I really wish Fractals would have captivated me
more for the PvE side. As far as the WvW campaign, I feel more needs to be done
to that to keep people engaged.