Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

This thread is specifically about the no grind philosophy which was brought up at the launch. If the word grind hadn’t been mentioned in the launch people would be talking more about HoT and less about this.

You have way more faith in people than I do, friend. This exact conversation might not be happening, but I can put money it’d be close enough to count. The title of the thread wouldn’t be the same, probably another shot at Ascended since that seems to be where everyone wants to pin the grind. There’d be less “they promised” and yet still “they changed direction”.

Honestly, it reminds me I should go back to my old cartridge of Dragon Warrior to remind myself of what grind really feels like getting to level 30.

See, I see that thing and I have flashbacks to Twisting Jaws.

And then I just want to kill them all.

Vayne.8563:

This isn’t some big huge thing that huge numbers of people are complaining about. This is a pet peeve of a small percentage of the population who got riled up because Anet used the word grind and said the game wasn’t grindy. If that hadn’t happened, this thread wouldn’t even exist.

Yes, yes it would.

I have utter and complete faith it would still exist in some form. We might not be complaining about the same things as far as grind . . .

KarlaGrey.5903:

Now you’re just spreading false information. All you had to do was buy a starting amount of, let’s say 100 tickets, which are extremely cheap to come by btw, and let the automated process do its thing.
It was extremely unlikely that the amount of tickets would hit 0 because the wins normally offset losses, depending on what ring you chose to sit in. if you’re after the unlucky title, you’d likely have to spend more, but granted you started with the lucky title first (for which, sitting in middle ring was usually the best) you’d have plenty of tickets to tackle the unlucky title. And again, much like its counterpart, the points can be obtained through many different activities and items.

I had to refill tickets roughly every hour and a half, 500 a pop and sticking to the center. 100 wouldn’t last me half an hour sometimes.

That was some serious plat.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Lucky/unlucky titles can be obtained literally by afking in the lottery rings during special events.

True, you can earn points doing that. Do you know how long I’d have to AFK and how much I’d need to spend to keep it running while I AFK’d? I ran the numbers once – it was pretty sad.

HoM is just a random add-on for GW2 purposes, and as such completely irrelevant to GW.

Yet it was still there, so it counts.

Obsi armor can be obtained at a steady pace (talking months here, not years)through various means, and ecto drop rate wasn’t a 0.0000…1% chance, so a normal duo farm nets a few each time, while a full party clearing the zone likely got quite a few more in total. And to repeat myself, there was no time gating, so if you got a lucky drop from w/e and sold it for a nice buck, you could obtain it even faster. And once more, the drop rates aren’t nearly as abysmal as they are on GW2. Oh and did I mention there was no wasteful crafting to further bog you down?

You’re going to need to explain how 75k per prestige armor set wasn’t something which bogged you down. Or the need for Jadite/Amber.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s in the same galaxy, at least.

It honestly is not.

No, no it is. You’re just not admitting it.

You can always try places that are more difficult to stay alive, if doing the same thing over felt boring to you. I’m sure there are plenty of places more rewarding than tengu-inhabited zones.

Not when Feathers were so incredibly lucrative to flip due to how Consets were so popular (Essence of Celerity, especially). And why would I risk places where it was more likely I’d die when I could make money just as well . . . if not better . . . doing this rather than trying for the lucky drop?

Hyperbole much? I had around 7 shard drops in duo FoW just a few weeks ago with a friend. After that run I had a 5 drop run+ gold items. I do hope you’re not passing your judgement off a single or a couple of runs where you got the short end of the loot stick.

Hyperbole? No. I literally had an UW run where every drop was a blue or purple Cane. We all had a good laugh about it. No trophies at all, just Canes. Any time I opened an end chest on an EOTN dungeon, I usually called “Diamond or Onyx” before opening and . . . yup.

Not hyperbole. I lived it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly, GW was where I learned to stop wanting to do things for that chance at sweet reward loot and more for the heck of it. Especially the four hour Urgoz run, which was the most ill-fated fun I had in a game since the failed Sleeper’s Tomb raid I sat in on.

Funny, my experience seems to be almost the polar opposite of yours, which is why I tend to hold other mmos to such high standards and frown upon gear threadmills, gear-critical pvp, rigid class roles and lack of concepts such as body blocking, preprotting, smiting, active interrupting, linebacking, etc.

I don’t care about PvP, and every time I try another MMO they wind up boring me to tears with the grind about halfway through. Plus, they generally require more out of my PC specs than I’m willing to spend upgrading to . . .

I miss the days of Meridian 59 and Ultima Online sometimes. Then I recall the non-consensual PvP . . .

Tei.1704:

Zelda games don’t have loot in the mmo sense. Almost every item is necessary to progress in Zelda. There are relatively few items and they show up in predetermined locations. Loot in most mmos and rpgs in general is just converted into currency or material so you can horde or get something you actually want. It’s almost always random, unnecessary junk with very little value that rains from the sky. Just because Anet is eager to compare apples and oranges doesn’t mean we need to follow suit.

That’s not entirely the point. I played through the original again, and I paid absolutely zero attention to most drops because it was either cash I didn’t need, items I didn’t need, or the stupid clock :P Add to that how every Zelda post-Ocarina has that habit of giving you an item in each dungeon necessary to finish it or beat the boss, but after that . . . it just sits in the inventory and does little unless you’re going for 100%.

Loot is entirely pointless and can be safely ignored. Much like how I find loot in this game 99% of the time. “Hey, cool, some greens . . . sell half, salvage half.”

I had to struggle to remember the last game even non-MMO where loot didn’t reach that point halfway through.

Also, Okami blows every Zelda game out of the water. I bet the new one will still make you use menus to hotkey items every time you want to use a different one while Clover solved this back in 2007.

Okami was a wonderful game, a very pretty game, and it’s a shame the studio was closed down.

Alvagon.8710:

plz plz plz tell us what you’re taking maybe a prescription ? So many more ppl can enjoy Gw2 the way you doo…

And remember “This is all in your mind.”

Speaking personally? It’s called perspective and patience, along with a heaping helping of veteran experience around MMOs and other games . . . computer or tabletop. You learn to realize your limits and do without.

I realize there is not enough skill in my body to actually beat “I Want To Be The Guy”, and so I don’t try. Ditto Battletoads.

I realize I will never speedrun Braid. That achievement will sit there until the Steam servers go down for the count. I’m okay with that.

I realize I will never own a real Black Lotus ; This placates the part of me wondering what I’d actually do if I had one other than try to keep it locked up somewhere nobody who knew I had it could get it.

I realize I will never, ever, get the hang of PvP in any game I play. This is why I avoided League of Legends until my brother needed a fifth for a team. (And sequentially, I uninstalled it when he found a more skilled fifth.)

Finally, I realize I will never, ever, ever find a female willing to put up with me. There’s a certain freedom once you stop worrying about that.

You know your limitations, and you work within them. Accept you will never have everything you might want, but try to get what it is you need. Accept you will never be the best at what you want to do, but still try to do the best you can without sacrificing everything else.

So, yes . . . it is all in my mind, and I’m okay with that.

KarlaGrey.5903:

GW grind is not even on the same galaxy as the grind in this game, buddy.

Gamer title track, Lucky/Wisdom/Treasure Hunter title tracks, pursuit of a full Monument of Valor or Resilience, and for the oldschool – Obsidian Armor.

If you want to claim no statistical advantage out of those, Lucky/Treasure Hunter affects a considerable amount when it comes to the lockpicking. And Wisdom was very useful for retaining items after salvaging out upgrades.

It’s in the same galaxy, at least.

Not to mention that farming whatever content in GW heydays usually meant making/using ingenious builds in an unorthodox manner, so it was not exactly a mind-numbing experience.

This usually resulted in people making those builds, then posting them, and others carbon-copying them. And it was mind-numbingly boring, running trapper-Ranger on the tengu for Feathers. Especially since it wasn’t all that difficult to stay alive, come to think of it.

It was actually rather challenging to farm for whatever with a build you’ve made yourself, or looked it up, but more often than not, and depending what you chose to go after, farming was rewarding, because not all high-end items had a 0,00000…1% drop chance, and a single mo/nec duo run to UW would net a few ecto minimum.

Seven years and five Ectoplasm drops. And one Shard drop. I never saw any of the high-ticket skins except in Req 13 where nobody wanted them, and even then it was a Gothic Sword. Low on the list.

Not like my brother who led a charmed life with the RNG.

Honestly, GW was where I learned to stop wanting to do things for that chance at sweet reward loot and more for the heck of it. Especially the four hour Urgoz run, which was the most ill-fated fun I had in a game since the failed Sleeper’s Tomb raid I sat in on.

kokiman.2364:

Does this sound fun to anyone? It’s tedious and boring. And this is a system that got recently added into the game, reminds me of those Matryoshka dolls, inside the first box is another box that contains another box, etc.

Honestly, if I step outside the game?

Loot in any case seems tedious and boring. I haven’t had a game where it’s not been tedious and boring. Yes, even Zelda – especially Zelda. (“Oh, look, a neat toy I need for this dungeon and may use only once more in the entire game.”)

I usually take care of it all when waiting for something else to happen or when I’m about to get off.

BrunoBRS.5178:

a somewhat similar comparison would be GW1’s reputation system: you can’t earn norn rep points by doing asura related tasks, that would be silly.

Speaking of grind . . .

Bernie.8674:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bernie.8674:

Serophous.9085:

GW1 had plenty of grind with its faction grind and grinding for ectos. Then grinding the same mob over and over again for its rare drop.

But there were also many title tracks that were not so grindy. Legendary Vanquisher, for example.

I stopped reading here, because that particular title was so repetitive and boring . . . I gave up.

The only time I vanquished was with the alliance to keep me entertained.

You had to kill every monster in each area one time how is that repetitive? This is something you could even do your first time through. How was that grindy?

You could do it your first time through, sure. But it doesn’t count until Hard Mode – which means you already went through it once. And if you happened to fail enough to get a nice thick Death Penalty going? Start over.

It was boring having to comb the are for those last few you undoubtedly missed. It was repetitive killing the same junk over and over.

How is that any more boring than repeatedly defending the same four forts for twenty minutes and then picking one of the four champions to kill and then repeating the entire sequence again ad-nauseum? That’s pretty much all everyone in my guild does now.

You seem to have mistaken part of my post for saying those things you listed here . . . aren’t boring and repetitive themselves. I did not say that.

They are, at least, more entertaining since I’m doing it with people I can chat or have fun with over the time I’m doing it. And I don’t care too much about the drops – it’s just better than WvW this week on my server.

Ozgar Heavyhammer.6701:

kokiman.2364:

adds Mastery design lead Crystin Cox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkr9p5LqJXM

Soooo whats your beef with Crystin Cox? What systems did she work on previously?

The beef is how she used to work on monetization efforts for Nexon. There’s this belief everything she touches is Ruined Forever because of that. And the belief her existence anywhere near this game is proof Nexon, not NCsoft, is calling the shots.

Though if NCsoft was calling the shots, this game would have been cancelled immediately after the expansion was announced.

Randulf.7614:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Think the Itzal are going to be a tengu tribe.

Tengu already exist – it specifies they are a new race

Because IGN hasn’t been fuzzy on details in the past

BrunoBRS.5178:

we learned a few new things today:

one of the new races we meet is called the Itzel (going by the mesoamerican theme, my bet is that they’re those frog guys), and to communicate with them we’ll need to spend points in the language mastery. this will allow us to access things like vendors and locations, as well as obtain information and maybe even methods to defeat enemies.

source

Reading through this article again, here’s what it seems like it unlocks.

- Vendors will sell to you. Probably goods like the Skeleton Keys/Lockpicks or such.
- Collections are opened up.
- Access to locations. I’m assuming shortcuts around the map independent of Waypoints. (Especially since there are less Waypoints in Silverwastes and Dry Top than in some original areas . . . if you combine the two!)
- Masteries. What was described sounded like masteries.

Think the Itzal are going to be a tengu tribe.

Bernie.8674:

Serophous.9085:

GW1 had plenty of grind with its faction grind and grinding for ectos. Then grinding the same mob over and over again for its rare drop.

But there were also many title tracks that were not so grindy. Legendary Vanquisher, for example.

I stopped reading here, because that particular title was so repetitive and boring . . . I gave up.

The only time I vanquished was with the alliance to keep me entertained.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Are YOU not paying attention? I said it takes a bit of extra care on the player’s end, and reading/checking item names and the amount specified in the money section. If you’re either careless or simply lazy than paying extra is surely the preferable option.

Yup.

. . . but since it was such a widespread issue in, well . . . every game ever I played without a centralized auction house? I don’t think its unreasonable to draw the conclusion people aren’t paying attention.

Much like yourself.

Moreover, whenever the initial offer would be changed, a large red text popped up saying the offer was changed. If people are both blind and illiterate on top of careless and lazy, then by all means do cough up the extra money.

That got added much like the nice “this email is not from ArenaNet staff” text in the mail system now, because people were falling for scams often enough to impact support.

So . . . it’s not solely about losing out. It’s about them going to support about it. And support going to the coders and going “please help us babysit these people”.

Moreover, where exactly did I state such things ’weren’t happening’? You’re just pushing your assumptions here based on me saying I had no ill experience. I’m aware of every single one of those, as a matter of fact, which is why I always took extra care with those things. How preposterous of me.

I did as well, and I never was successfully scammed on. And yet . . . as I noted, it was tried. Multiple times. Including one where the scammer threatened to report me for scamming since I didn’t buy into their gig.

I’m also fully aware not everyone is so fortunate, and some people believe that letter they get in the mail which says they won a lottery they never entered.

It’s all about being informed and paying attention, something that tends to be rather useful not only in a virtual but also rl environment.

. . . which, I’ll note for the record, doesn’t have all that good a track record either on average.

IndigoSundown.5419:

KarlaGrey.5903:

Outside a few random wts/wtbs here and there, I don’t remember seeing All chat flodded by trade spam.

My memory is that I could rarely have a conversation if I was in Kamadan, because chat would scroll too fast with all the WTB and WTS. Before Nightfall came out, Kaineng Center was pretty much the same. Not sure about LA, I didn’t hang there that much and was not in the game until just after Factions released.

LA was like that up until Nightfall and Spamadan. Why?

Loads of players bought Nightfall for the heroes since they were incredibly useful. Ergo, they had access to Kamadan.

Eye of the North (Outpost) also was a bustling marketplace for miniatures or things which would be useful for the Hall of Monuments.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Secondly, it’s an insulation against scamming – if you want to be sure you’re not getting scammed? To the Trading Post instead of the nice charr you just met today who said he’ll give you 5g for that Superior Rune, but you need to send him the rune first since his mail system is bugged.

Also, no Spamadan. That, alone, is worth the tax.

. . . you’re not listening to some of the people anyway, given what followed this statement. The reasons to not have person-to-person trading have been cited, and experienced, by many of us GW1 veterans.

How could scamming be a problem in player-to-player trading when anyone could simply do a quick check on the average price at the TP?

Moreover, GW trading took place in a special trade-only chat tab, which you could – like any other chat tab – turn on/off very easily.
So the argument on wtb/wts spamming map chat is moot, as one could simply turn it off.

I see no real downsides to p2p trading unless you’re being extremely careless and don’t even read or don’t even check the amount of money specified in the trade window……..

I also never got scammed, or had any real issues with trading as such, so yea.

Please . . . are you listening? Or are you not paying attention?

First, there were at least four known scams I ran into. All of them relied on inattentiveness and carelessness, or just plain lack of knowledge. And they still got plenty of people.

- Mursaat Token mistaken for Ecto
- Faked Althea’s Ashes (or the wrong item)
- Selling customized weapons.
- Selling Dedicated minis as Undedicated.

Second, there are at least two others I know of but did not run into

- “My trade is bugged, drop it on the ground so I can pick it up”
- Trading for items quickly swapped out, such as a gold R13 for the presumed gold R10 you were paying for.

Just because you never encountered them, or think that someone would need to have the brains of a turnip, doesn’t mean they weren’t happening nor does it mean people were completely avoiding getting scammed. It happened. ANet support knows it happened. Fan forums knew it happened.

. . . The wiki knows it happened

aerial.7021:

Its a reaction to the rhetoric by some of “want something ‘work’ for it” attitude, and the general philosophy by the game industry on the whole that grind be it small or large must exist in a game too cover for there lack of content.

Look, if you’re not going to answer the question, then don’t bother trying to sell me on how right you are.

Stark.1350:

No, this is exactly what people are asking for. You already has someone mention earlier that they were SO happy they were fully raid geared out in WoW in 2 weeks.

“I can only play one hour a night. I expect to be able to be fully geared out.”

That’s still not asking for just being given it. As with the poster just above me, you’re going hyperbolic about this.

So, one person suggested that ascended armor drops from “mid-level” fractals. What about the person who isn’t skilled enough to do them? How is it fair to them to spend a lot of gold to craft them when you’re getting them for free?

I got my Wupwup Greatbow for “free” when it dropped off a Bonus Chest in WvW during the “Season 2” event between LS parts. So, should I bow down and beg forgiveness for that?

It’s not a terrible idea. Especially considering how the Ascended gear’s functional separation from Exotics is related to Agony. It’s almost the only reason to be using it, since when you start downscaling you might as well be using Exotics anyway.

Nevermind you can get all your ascended trinkets/jewelry just by logging in and getting laurels. Or you can get free ascended mats once a month from the chest of loyalty – again, simply by logging in.

And you can get free Exotic equipment the same way too. You’re not complaining about that being handed to people either. (Especially since it was given to you for map completion of high-level areas, before now.)

Nevermind that ascended armor boxes do drop anywhere. But then you have people whining about the drop rate isn’t high enough.

It’s really not.

What you choose to invest, is what you get out of it. If you can’t invest, don’t expect top flight things. This is the way it’s been in MMO’s since the dawn of time, except for WoW now, which they’ve nerfed into oblivion. Learn to deal with it.

I really don’t care all that much myself – when it came to Ascended and Legendary items and the problem of earning them . . . I opted to just wait and do it at my own pace. They don’t matter to me the same way they do to other posters here – I played fine in Rares before I got the Temple Armor for myself.

But.

There’s a difference between “this stuff shouldn’t require enough silk to clothe all of Cantha” and “gimme now plz”.

aerial.7021:

Though in retrospect maybe we should! this is a game and until Arenanet start handing out our weekly wage packets for working at there grind mill, this is supposed to be entertainment not a place of work, there is place of work it is at the Arenanet office and not at our keyboards. There is another form of work in which involves grind too its called “slavery”.

Mmm, I give it a 4/10 on the rhetoric. Needs improvement, especially in going right to hyperbolic choice of comparisons. What are you being forced to labor over, lest you get fired from the program? I mean, since we’re comparing it to a job, or worse, surely they must have some force over you to not just compel but . . . nay . . . force you into doing things you don’t want to be doing or else!

Prophet.6257:

Uden Reavstone.3426:

I found this by the Imperator’s Waypoint in the Black Citadel. Look next to my right hand in the picture below. Any idea on what this is?

Know what cannot be known dear Charr.

I believe he has seen the unseen, too.

Stark.1350:

So because you have more important things in real life to attend to, you should feel you should be handed everything in game. If your guild mates are so high up there, why don’t they help you get mats? Nevermind the fact that the chest of loyalty at the end of the monthly login period gives you free ascended mats.

. . . are you being serious right now? I can’t quite tell.

Because there’s a lot of conversations going on here now, and being handed things on a silver platter? Nobody has asked for that. Not even in jest.

So go take a breather, have a glass of water, and try that again with less of a loaded question at the top and less rhetoric later.

Azure Prower.8701:

So what was the point of not allowing secure player to player trades again?

I think Gaile already answered this elsewhere.

Other people have answered with versions of the same answer which has been given since the TP was mentioned to replace direct trades. And yet, sure, people have found ways around this indirect, impersonal, and taxed method. And like in GW1, the trades are at ones own discretion and risk . . . and also like in GW1 – there’s a defined “we can not replace the items or money lost in a scam” which has been set down.

So, really, it’s just about the same as the previous game only with a secure option. If you don’t like it? Feel free to use the other avenues to your heart’s content. But don’t be surprised if there’s a scam waiting for you, because you were warned and chose to do it anyway.

Zephyra.4709:

Didn’t even know these chests spawned in home instances till I stumbled upon one in the DR instance. Why do they spawn?

Well, when a daddy chest loves a mommy chest very much . . .

. . . just kidding, you finish “Point of No Return” and the reward includes getting a Lost Bandit Chest at your home instance.

Dark Jericho.8609:

People keep to the grey text trade channel in GW1 when buying or selling, and the same can be done in this game.

If they don’t? There’s a nifty report and block feature you can use as well.

Except, I’ll point out, there’s no guarantee of you getting your money/goods back if you get scammed. In fact there’s an explicit guarantee you will not.

So, is it worth the risk?

Actually, according to rules of debate if you rage quit over your opponent making no sense? They win.

Gehenna.3625:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They’re going back to those ideas because, I must say this is important . . .

A lot of people seem to enjoy what they had in GW1 over what they tried to do in GW2.

So, it’s a matter of “let’s keep the players we DO have”.

I think you are right, though I will say they still did it better in GW1 from my point of view. Perhaps in a bit more time it will be closer yet and more interesting to play again.

Of course they did “it” better in GW1. GW1 was built for those purposes and those systems in mind as opposed to retrofitting something else to emulate it.

They’re going back to those ideas because, I must say this is important . . .

A lot of people seem to enjoy what they had in GW1 over what they tried to do in GW2.

So, it’s a matter of “let’s keep the players we DO have”.

Gehenna.3625:

lol, first they tick off a lot of the original fan base with their threats of raising the level cap and bringing in another tier of gear and now they have done a 180 on this as well… discuss all you want but this is just hilarious.

It’s probably too expensive to realise their original plan so now the tune has changed from "we will raise the level cap " to “we don’t want to invalidate people’s current efforts”.

Hate or love GW2…this is just so sad it makes me laugh.

Well, their original plan was to not have levels at all. That changed in development. Then we got to watch a slow trainwreck as they released the game about six months early based on the fixes which had to be shoved into place.

Honestly, I expect somewhere around Lost Shores when their first “one time only event” blew up their servers and . . . annoyed . . . a great big slice of the players? They shredded the original idea and worked instead on figuring out how to deliver something else close to it . . .

Test.8734:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You also get them for doing the Living Story parts. I got all of mine doing that, plus the one guaranteed Coat box for beating the Vinewrath.

So . . . do you even play this game anymore, yourself?

Yep. I never said there isn’t a way to get them without gold; only that it’s not true that you cannot use gold to get them, as Vayne said.

Well, you can’t just throw Gold at the problem. You need Bandit Crests also.

Let’s take a look at it then. You either play the LS chapters for one skin per part (guaranteed) or you play the game to earn them through Bandit Crests and Gold. There’s an easy way with no grind, and a somewhat tougher way with some grind but no time limit on it.

So . . . were you going somewhere with that?

Test.8734:

Vayne.8563:

Just because gold is needed for a small portion of some of it, doesn’t mean you can buy it with gold. If you had nothing but gold, you couldn’t get it.

You need to make your arguments better. Saying you can get something without gold (which you said) is different from saying you cannot get something using gold (which you also said, and in which you were wrong).

Oh, right. Trying to score points off Vayne. Carry on.

Test.8734:

Vayne.8563:

That is to say you can get ambrite weapons without gold. You can get carapace armor without gold. You can get luminencent armor without gold. you can get the new PvP armor without gold.

(…)

So the last three armor sets added to this game you can actually get without spending gold, but yes, you have to farm for them. In fact, there’s no way to get them with gold.

Uh… Caparace armor boxes are sold for crests and, guess what, gold. So yep, there is a way to get them with gold.

Do you even play this game anymore?

You also get them for doing the Living Story parts. I got all of mine doing that, plus the one guaranteed Coat box for beating the Vinewrath.

So . . . do you even play this game anymore, yourself?

Test.8734:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Test.8734:

Obtena.7952:

Always would not be reasonable; a persisting theme in this thread.

“Not reasonable” does not mean “something I would not enjoy”.

No, it means “not reasonable”. As in “it’s unreasonable to demand or expect such”.

Which is actually being used, in this discussion, to mean “that would mean removing something I like and I don’t want that to happen, so I’ll say it’s unreasonable to ask for it”.

. . .

Sure, let’s go with that, why not?

Test.8734:

Obtena.7952:

Always would not be reasonable; a persisting theme in this thread.

“Not reasonable” does not mean “something I would not enjoy”.

No, it means “not reasonable”. As in “it’s unreasonable to demand or expect such”.

naiasonod.9265:

And before some smug little part time burger flipper tried to tell me how lazy that must mean I am, I make craft beers, do my own custom cabinetry and woodworking, am a hobbyist electrical engineer when it comes to messing around with my own tweaking of computer hardware, a frequent world traveler for both work and leisure, a once-a-week member of a local church’s choral group and a regular volunteer down at my local food shelter.

More? I’m also a full time husband of a wife that firmly believes that going mountain biking and hiking on everything is the perfect way to spend a weekend. Consequently, we do a lot of those, as well as going to beaches with friends and having regular once or twice weekly barbecue cook outs on our patio.

“Dude, you only do all that, pffft . . .”

:)

I’m luckily not married (luckily for her, not for me), have no children, but I have a fair variety of my own issues to work through. As for hobbies, one of them is trying to plot together how to get out of the “minimum wage trap” step by step.

I play more meat-side tabletop games than I do GW2. And by that I don’t mean D&D but things like Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, Risk, but never doing Monopoly again.

Oh, and fiddling around with homebrew variant design for the aforementioned games. Except Monopoly. We are never touching that game again. (EVER.)

I’m not willing to sacrifice any of that to ‘work harder’ at a game. Frankly, I feel it to be a giant joke to work at these things at all. Defeat the point much? It certainly would for me, to them this into yet another laborious task in my life.

I prefer to work for something steadily over time. As in, if I put in X amount of time a day, it should eventually find its way to me. This is, interestingly, on par with what one considers “learning a new skill” via self-teaching.

But when it comes to things like . . . I dunno, precursors and Ascended? Could care less, I’ll get it when I get it. I long ago weighed the benefits of going all-out to try to earn them as quickly as possible and realized they were entirely unnecessary . . . and probably were not going anywhere so time was not a factor.

I’m patient enough to wait for RNGeezus to bless me with a precursor I can use, then worry about how to make my Legendary.

Thunderbird.8036:

Others feel as I do that personal trading can work if done properly without that high % to the middleman.

Of course it can work, it’s worked in the past. That’s not the issue which drove the Trading Post to exist; it’s two fold. First, as noted, it’s a money sink to the economy (a persistent one which works better than other methods). Secondly, it’s an insulation against scamming – if you want to be sure you’re not getting scammed? To the Trading Post instead of the nice charr you just met today who said he’ll give you 5g for that Superior Rune, but you need to send him the rune first since his mail system is bugged.

Also, no Spamadan. That, alone, is worth the tax.

But at least this thread proves there are people on both sides of the fence so to speak.

. . . you’re not listening to some of the people anyway, given what followed this statement. The reasons to not have person-to-person trading have been cited, and experienced, by many of us GW1 veterans.

You’re rather focused on a different problem which isn’t a social or liability problem. These were the problems majorly cited as the creation of the Trading Post as an entity and peer-to-peer trading being disabled except through mail.

Devata.6589:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

Do you really make the money you need to buy all the cosmetics you need? Well maybe you do depending on how much you like cosmetics but I can tell you I don’t even get close to the money I would need and so the only option left would be grinding. (What I do not do)

Do you need them or do you want them?

I mean, I don’t make nearly enough money to afford Dusk. But then, I don’t need Dusk.

It’s not relevant. I like to collect them, to hunt for them and if I was to do that grind is the only options. That’s the problem.

I do not need them just as much as I do not need BiS gear in other so called grindy games like WoW.

Well, to be honest . . . you don’t. Even so far back as EverQuest I got along fine without BiS. Mostly because I could never get BiS thanks to random chance plus DKP system equals “no loot for you, come back next week”.

You might like to have BiS for what you’re doing. Other people might like you to push to the absolute best numerical point you can have. But, really, there’s a nice big gulf of leeway which is enough to get by without being “carried”.

Ronin.7381:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

My complaint is the pacing, as it has been with most of the rest of the game. The pacing is off, and the cliffhangers are overused due to the breaks we had going on.

Yeah. I’m going to agree here in saying that the pacing has been off. Especially given the amount of lore-density some of these simple episodes were trying to build, it just didn’t dive fully into the important bits in setting things up – not enough or even at all IMHO.

That’s another can of worms, and complaints, I have with the game but I keep it separate from my complaints about the Living World project.

The pacing has been off from the beginning with Frost and Flame taking a full month to fully roll out at a glacial pace with no significant progress until the last gasp of updates.

It was off during Scarlet because it seemed to be skipping over things in order to get to the next big event in the storyline.

It was off during the first third of the second season because it seemed to flow in a pulse rather than a steady rising stream.

Devata.6589:

Do you really make the money you need to buy all the cosmetics you need? Well maybe you do depending on how much you like cosmetics but I can tell you I don’t even get close to the money I would need and so the only option left would be grinding. (What I do not do)

Do you need them or do you want them?

I mean, I don’t make nearly enough money to afford Dusk. But then, I don’t need Dusk.

Test.8734:

Obtena.7952:

I can’t believe I just read someone complain about the cost of exotic gear ><.

Arguably, if the community as a whole had complained enough about exotic gear, maybe we would not have had ascended gear at all. And GW2 would have been considerably less grindy than it is today.

Yeah, I don’t buy that for a second. There were complaints about how grindy the Temple Armor was to acquire. In response we got Karma consumables added to the Daily Achievement system, making it possible to earn enough Karma within two months of doing the Daily . . . excluding any other Karma gain, of course.

The first introduction of Ascended items was, also, not too grindy. From what I understand, the rings would/do drop rather like candy in Fractals. The back pieces required trips into Fractals and one stack of a T6 Fine material; not too bad all said.

Then came the Laurel-related Ascended necklaces. One month of Daily would earn you one of them (making them less grindy than the Temple Armor at that time).

Guild Missions introduced Ascended accessories you could earn either through Laurels and Ectoplasm (40 Laurels, 50 Ectoplasm), or Gold and Commendations (5 Gold and 12 Commendations). 12 Commendations can, in theory, be done in two weeks with a guild having access and completing the cap for all items. Not terribly grindy.

It wasn’t until the Weapons/Armor introduction people considered it grindy and there was a point to the complaints. First, the relevant crafting had to go to 500 . . . which was not cheap until the recent glut of snowflakes. Second, it required a lot of components from a variety of activities (or just from a weekend of stomping around in WvW). Armor with the Damask requirement is where a lot of the “grind” happens.

I use quotes there because I recall the absolute glut of silk which happened where the Bazaar of the Four Winds had to raise the price of the silk merchant for the RNG boxes because there was so much in play. I had, myself, roughly 2,000 Silk at the time of the first one. And notably this was the only resource out of its tier which had that much hanging around.

I suspect the price in components of Ascended Armor and Weapons was somewhat related to watching people turn in components to the vendors during those two events. And as such, that is what calibrated the cost.

My complaint is the pacing, as it has been with most of the rest of the game. The pacing is off, and the cliffhangers are overused due to the breaks we had going on.

Nah we know whose fault it is.

. . . why we haven’t destroyed Rata Sum before they do something like that again is beyond me.

naiasonod.9265:

Good advice for those that are neither used to thinking and feel fear when asked to do it often, right there. I do not personally have any difficulty intuiting my own motives and sifting from them rather exacting why’s, wherefores and nuanced details respective to my feelings on much, however.

It’s actually a somewhat tweaked version of a known QA process I was asked to study once.

. . . it also hearkens back to a lot of amateur engineering study back in early college, which shaped a lot of the way I think about things. Right up to including the KISS standard of designing things.

The New Traits system did not satisfy KISS.

I don’t like the current trait system for myriad reasons, not least of which being that it feels poorly thought-out, looks to me like it was designed by somebody that did not play and never intended to try to play this game and, somehow, still got the system pushed through to live servers despite what seem to me to be its obviously mis-shapen, inconceivably bad structuring.

Mmmm, I think more it seemed to be designed in a meeting room somewhere with a list of what they wanted to do, five pots of coffee, and orders to get something on paper before the doors would be unlocked.

Ergo, I do not feel very well positioned to tell them how to fix it. If I feel sufficiently motivated to share some idea, I occasionally do so, though most often, I only feel intellectually qualified to tell them ‘Nope, don’t like that’ and ‘Yep, do like this’.

Eh, I just share what I think would be a good idea. When I’m motivated to do so. Right now, the current project was from someone challenging me to rewrite the Personal Story and LS1 so that it “didn’t suck”. That’s taking a while, mostly due to work eating a lot of free time.

Malkavian.4516:

I consider playing this game at least an hour a day as part of my lifestyle as well. One could call me OC for doing this. :P

I try, I really do.

But as my computer is a little above a toaster (it only has two cores in its CPU) . . . it makes it hard to do so without rebooting before hand to make sure it’s not gonna chug.

naiasonod.9265:

I probably come off like someone that equates ‘I don’t have that issue’ with ‘there is no issue’, though I tend to look at things without a driving belief that my opinion’s anything other than that – an opinion. I don’t know about anyone else, though it pops to mind to observe that I might not be alone in that.

Opinions are rooted in something, and that’s what needs to be looked at first when you want to defend that position. If I believe something sucks, I want to at least bore down a level and figure out why I think that.

Some of us (me, at least) don’t always feel qualified to argue a point from a position of authority we simply don’t have. I know I hate trying to make a strong logical argument from a position of ‘I don’t like X’ and ‘I like Y’, anyway.

Well . . . see, that’s just it. You do have to stop and analyze what led you to not like it. See, in the case of the new Trait Mastery system? I don’t necessarily like it. If you want to make an argument about it which doesn’t begin and end with “it’s a pile of skritt”, then keep reading and figure out (quietly) your answer:

Why don’t you like it?

Keep asking yourself going down one layer at a time, slowly. Don’t leap ahead. This is how you get to the root of “Why I dislike this system” and can offer something better than “it sucks”.

Notably, a ton of people have done that in the thread. This is probably why ArenaNet devs popped in now and then to say they were reading and found it useful. The posts iterated exactly where the problems started to come in per person and painted a better picture than “fix it now!” could.

Anyone can “fix” a problem . . . but to fix a problem, that takes some time.

I can attempt to qualify my opinions as best I’m able, but that doesn’t change their nature.

Just a thought to consider! Some of us might not be trying to say ‘there is no problem’ quite as much as we might seem!

I’m on the other side of the issue – I think there is a problem, I just am not sure how deeply it goes. For the most part, this seems to be another textbook case (in my opinion of looking at this long and hard) of a system which was not given sufficient time to be shaken out of issues before hitting the live servers.

. . . and no, PTR wasn’t the answer this time. Giving the whole thing a good look over after the pieces were assembled is probably the more likely answer to solving what went wrong. A small list from personal experience.

- The Masteries unlocked from certain event participation were not always synced up properly to the tier of unlocked Masteries.
- The event participation failed to take into account a successful “defend” condition and required only a “capture” condition.
- It is improbable to wrangle people together in WvW enough to kill the Grub target without drawing the ire of others or being the “low hanging fruit” other servers might happen upon and take advantage of.
- The cost of unlocking a Mastery for one of the above events is likely to be a significant blow to the bank of a given “normal” player. As opposed to people who had been around for two years. As such the costs were not equally felt, when they could have been. (i.e. You could have used another currency, or another method instead of taking gold out from people who might not have a lot to their name.)

I’ll need some time to bang this on a wall until it breaks, and I have no free time off work schedule for about another week thanks to things. I’ll get back to you.

Tom Gore.4035:

Let’s be honest. If I were disabled and could not work, I would be playing MMOs all day long, too.

I’m afraid I would not.

I have about six other things I would rather be doing, one of which could possibly earn me money again if I really bore down and practiced polishing my writing. The thing I’d be doing most would probably be going back to designing my tabletop RPG setting . . .

. . . either that or trying to make the Ars Magica rules make sense to people I play with

Guhracie.3419:

If I have made you feel ashamed for liking the game, please accept my apologies. I am very sorry, and that isn’t my intention. I like the game, myself, even if it doesn’t seem that way all the time. I’d just really like to love it again.

No, you don’t . . . I get you want the game to be better than it is. There are a lot of you fine people who still love the game and hope for it to turn better. I’m okay with that – I’m on board with “this could be so much better if…”

It’s the people who think liking a game means the same as “I think there is nothing wrong with the game”. Or who equate “I don’t have that issue” with “there is no issue”.

Nilkemia.8507:

….Did you even watch the video I liked for the Opening Ceremony? She’s there. She’s named “Mysterious Stranger” at that point, but she’s in—-no, no, you’re clearly trolling now. Done. No more.

No, not trolling. I think you are (especially with regards to anything post-Scarlet storywise), but I’m still treating you with utmost seriousness. You’ll note I wound up agreeing with you at the end, just not to the same severity you have.

People, when having lots of time and nothing to do, turn to various ways to fill that time with something of meaning. For some, it’s reading books or watching television/movies. For others it’s gaming on their PC where they can for a time indulge in forgetfulness over what their problems are in reality.

I’ve met people who do that. I’ve also met people who have taken . . . another path, which is tabletop games. Same deal as the MMORPG players, they use the game to socialize and have friends around to lighten their mood and help them cope. Sure, objectively looking in 90% of the time their life sucks. That other 10% though? Totally makes it worth their while.

. . . same could be said for many other people who consider themselves “normal”, honestly. We’re all chasing that little breath of time out of our lives where for once we don’t have things worrying on our nerves, or things holding us back from having a good time. We just . . . are.

That’s why people do the hobbies they do.