Guild Wars 2

Yourself.6870:

eisberg.2379:

I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.

You are certainly free to think so, but in economics there is a term called “opportunity cost”, which means that by doing one thing you can’t do the other. i.e. if you use your resources for crafting, you can’t sell them and vice versa. The cost in this case is represented by the potential market value of your harvested resources.

Also it didn’t cost you nothing to get those resources. You invested time gathering them after all. Granted, most of the time it’s simply a matter of just hitting up nodes along your way, but it’s not nothing.

This is why picking up pennies off the ground costs you more than the value of a penny, mind you, so you should totally leave any on the ground and not pick them up. It’s losing you money, and that’s been scientifically proven.

eisberg.2379:

Evelynddra.9265:

People seem to think if they farm the mats they’re free. That’s not correct. Those mats still have a value, so I would keep that in mind when calculating costs to level it.

I disagree. If it cost me nothing to achieve, then I consider them as free. Doesn’t matter if they can be sold on the TP, if I didn’t spend any money on it, then it is free.

Almost true, because in technicalities you’re looking at an expended cost since everyone is trying to analyze this as an economist rather than a person.

If you have the materials on hand, then the only actual cost is time. If you intend to craft with the materials then they don’t have a value since if you sold them you’d have to buy them back in order to use them. Or I guess you could look at the value of raw Orichalcum Ore in the tooltip and the value of it off Black Lion and note the discrepancy. The value of ore you have in hand is irrelevant since it’s not costing you anything to obtain.

Yes, you could be selling it and earning money. But since we’re talking about crafting . . . that’s not at all important to the discussion. You need materials to craft, and you’re not buying the stuff you already have, therefore measuring it into the cost of making it seems . . . really silly.

frans.8092:

My RL daytime job is less grind then the GW2 dailies.

. . . the GW2 dailies take less time than it takes me to do my daily upkeep of a house with four adult residents. It takes less time and effort than it took me to close the restaurant when I had an evening server position. It takes less effort than it took me to do daily schedule arrangement when I was a store manager. It’s less boring than doing the data entry job I had for a year.

There is no way that my RL has less grind than GW2. Primarily because I can always STOP doing GW2 grind if I want to and still play the game. I can’t stop RL grind and still survive.

Astralporing.1957:

Mackdose.6504:

Revolution.6301:

well Ascended should be there but only as a cosmetic feature. People love their skins. Love to show off. Anet just let them love and all will be good again.

And then fix the stats and let us casuals get stats easier.

Thank you

I’m a casual, and I think options for all player types is good for the game. Stop acting like casuals are losing out on something because of ascended gear, we’re not.

Not yet. Eventually, when all content will be updated with ascended stats in mind (and the devs said it will), everyone else will be left behind.

. . . in the interest of pointing this out, if it takes them a year to fully roll out the Ascended gear over little updates every month or couple months . . .

Exactly how would it be wrong for people to expect that they have at least the rings they would have introduced a year ago?

Diviner.7405:

This is the thing about Guild Wars 2. There is no skill, at all. Everything comes from learning and experience and there is little need for skill at all in this game.

Interesting take . . . does that mean there is no such thing as a skilled mathematician, since you either know how to do it or you don’t? Or a skilled accountant, since it’s numbers and making sure they match up properly? Can anyone really be skilled at any game where it’s played against numbers or computers and not other people, such as a “breakout” type game, or a turn-based strategy style game?

I’d like to ask, isn’t the dodge mechanic something used with skill, since there is a timing window involved. Or is the fact you either make it or you don’t make it not skill-based at all? How would a MOBA game differ in requiring skill, since it would follow the same criteria: either you avoid it or you don’t?

Seriously, if you’re going to take a moment to make a statement like “skill doesn’t exist in this game”, you need to stop and explain a bit more. I might even agree with you, because to me . . . there is no such thing as “skill” in video games if you distill it down to “you use learning and experience” to win. Then you pretty much negate any game’s claim of skill, because “learning and experience” describes any way to actually win at a game ever.

(I hesitate because WvW or PvP seems to incorporate “skill” as you would define it, but I could be wrong. I usually am.)

You can know how dodge works here, you can know what your skills do and how their effect lands, what they do in a combo field, and what another class is going to do. Now, take people who know all of that, and tell them they have to solo some content. All of them likely won’t be able to do it. Why? Because there’s knowing something, and using it effectively, and this point you made to dismiss there being skill in GW2. There is skill here.

It’s just that most places, you can substitute overwhelming force (“the zerg”) and get the same result: victory.

“All you need is a force in as great as concentration as you can muster, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide.”

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly? There was also the expense of the prestige armor, which cost 15k per piece to start with, then cost rare materials which might not be easy or cheap to get. There was the insane cost of getting certain weapon skins, or buying Armbraces. As much as people want to talk about the high cost of Precursors here? I just remember what some people were charging for Armbraces (and by extension “Gem Sets”) in the end days I was on GW1 and sigh.

I earned 15k+ from an evening playing pvp, which I completely enjoyed. The earnings in WvW are really abysmal by comparison. An armbrace was SO much more affordable than a highly demanded precursor. Really, the only GW1 item comparable was a full set of Obsidian Armor. And even that does not compare to the full requirements of a Legendary weapon.

. . . no? I’d beg to differ. Obsidian Armor required an obscene amount of both Ectoplasm and Obsidian Shards which you could only get two ways: drops in either Underworld or Fissure of Woe, or purchasing them (either from the Trader or other players).

Then you had to have the platinum to afford it, and be sure you had the whole set of materials in hand when you enter Fissure of Woe and go to complete the series of missions to allow the Eternal Forgemaster to make it for you. This was, naturally, the easy part of it.

There are people in my guild who never made that armor. As far as I’m aware we had only one person who decided they wanted it for the appearance on their Paragon and it took a lot of effort to get it. Seven years, and the closest I came was having something like 30 Ectos and 10 Shards before I started the prerelease for GW2. To put it bluntly, if you were not grinding your fingers off you were exceedingly lucky. Or you were both.

That last sentence right there also adequately describes your hunt for a Legendary weapon here in GW2.

Edit: Also feel the need to clarify, the 15k armor was 15k PER PIECE, for a total of 75k cost for the whole suit.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

The thing is, you have several other factors in the background such as multiboxers, exploiters and hackers also a factor. I mean, I still look at people with legendaries and I personally automatically label them as hackers, the reason is that I’m not giving them the benefit of doubt ~ Many players acquired them illegitimately with the minority of players actually getting them totally legitimately.

Some players hired the help of entire guilds farming just so a few players (with large egos) could get them fast, a few names here stand out but I’ll refrain from posting them. However, others used more malicious methods ~ like some who got legendaries a few weeks after launch..

The problems with legendaries are simple ~ casual players, or even ‘unlucky’ players will never get them, its as simple as that. Look at how long it will legitimately take the average player to farm up 100g for just the Icy Runestones alone? Honestly, what Anet should do, is look at mail logs and ban players who have transferred large amounts of gold and also, remove that gold from the game…the problem is, this should have been done along time ago – but wasn’t.

What about the people with multiple legendaries? Even if I had a legendary item, could I prove I got it legitimately? No, I can’t ~ So kudos to all the legitimate players out there who got one.

If you’re automatically, subconsciously thinking “hacker” when someone has a Legendary . . . wow, I’m sorry to say I’d be really bothered if I got a Precursor by accident tomorrow (because I’m not even really trying for it) and spent the next two weeks busting my balls to get the rest of it . . .

. . . for someone to basically go: “Pfft, hacked for it” when I actually have it out.

Angry? Not really, I’d be more sad that I pulled that kind of achievement off to basically have someone say I didn’t work for it or earn it. And yet there’d be a part of me which would just understand why someone would think that.

. . . maybe that’s one of the reasons I don’t go actively looking for getting a Precursor.

thisolderhead.5127:

I would love to hear from a developer on why they feel that so many RNG elements within the game enhance the player experience.

You don’t need a developer of this game to come out and explain anything.

The devs are working within research by behavioural psychs that (a cursory search of the internet could point you to) an accepted truth is humans gain a better dopamine response from occasional and inconsistent rewards than they would from predicable and regular rewards. This also works well establishing Stockholms… and probably “hardcore fanbases”.

I’ll translate for the slow: GW2 RNG = more happy juice in your brain than constant kittens for a month, though still probably less happy juice in the brain than regular exercise and good diet lol.

It also is the sort of behavior that still keeps people who know about “Gambler’s Ruin” gambling at the casino or playing the lottery just for that chance . . .

tigirius.9014:

Revolution.6301:

Anet really should comment on this, and tell how why they’re changing things to such an extreme.

They have and sadly the verdict is not good, they’ve basically decided to keep everything that’s controversial, game breaking, and that harms the player community.

I learned that as a legit farmer the day they said “they love legit farmer type players and they want nothing more then to adjust DR to make it not harm the players anymore” and then turn right around the next week and nerf the last dragon event’s loot so that it no longer drops any rares anymore unless you’re one of the “secret loot table lottery winners” that seems to be rampant. One side of the aisle is getting nothing while another is getting every drop.

Strangely, I usually get at least one rare out of the Claw of Jormag chest. Unfortunately, it’s usually been a Crest. Of a type I don’t use. It’s the Temple chests I have real issues with. All that crap going through for defeating the Risen Priestess of Lyssa and I get 4 blues and a small bundle of coin. . . . I’d love for them to take a look at chests and rework how it chooses loot so it would guarantee a Rare item or higher, but only once per day. (Why that last bit? Because they won’t just guarantee a Rare with no strings, that’d be silly and feed into people purposefully trying to let the Temples flip just to retake them again for another Rare.)

Incidentally, this is sort of one of the problems I mentioned earlier – the chests from large meta-events in later levels have such a broad loot table it’s really difficult to acquire good drops out of them.

Revolution.6301:

But thats because they didn’t do the no-gear treadmill correctly. Anet is full of smart people that I’m sure can figure out how to make it.

For example improve rewards on jumping puzzle chests! For ridicilously hard ones give us a few rare with a chance of an exotic.

. . . you’re not comprehending me. “No gear treadmill” doesn’t make a game good by simply having that. Saying “if there wasn’t any gear treadmills games would be better” fails to acknowledge there’s other aspects that make a game not so good.

Guild Wars 2 has problems other than the perceived “gear treadmill”. Even if everyone was handed top-shelf equipment as they hit 80, there would still be 90% of the problem which people have noticed and complain about. Just erasing the “gear treadmill” doesn’t fix the rest of the problems, nor does it begin to address them.

There once were MMOs with no gear treadmills, and one is still out there somewhere, though I don’t advocate going to look for it. It is a primitive and brutal place where player versus player exists anywhere you’re not in a town (and if you’re guilded, in town too). The monsters are laughably simple to kill and farm, money is simple to make, and there’s no fee for playing.

And then there’s Ultima Online, which had no gear treadmill so to speak. And it still had plenty wrong with it :P

Y’know, if there was a change or two made to precursors, it’d clean up this whole “precursor gold mine” fast, and do something about that underutilized home instance too:

- Make Precursors account bound.
- They still drop at their obscenely low rate.
- Add in a once-per-character event/quest chain where you can wind up making decisions and those decisions cause alterations of NPCs and objects within the home instance.
- At the end of the chain, your choices determine which Precursor choice you receive as the final reward. You can pick from three, determined by three choices you make as you progress, so this prevents home instances from looking TOO similar all across the game. You want one Precursor, but the other two choices can be for just aesthetics.

thisolderhead.5127:

What is the problem with stating that anyone who uses a service without paying for it is being subsidised by those who do?

The problem is that it’s that bare naked kind of truth nobody really wants to hear or consider as fact. Like “everything dies, even your parents”, or “that new car you signed a payment plan is going to cost you twice as much as the sticker price in the end and by the time you finish paying it off you will just have to get a new one”.

Or “your child is not a good actor enough to be in the school play”, “you sing like a drunken cow”, or anything Simon Cowell says.

Daroon.1736:

Because it’s a completely unnecessary mechanism that randomly discriminates between players. I can’t think of one situation that occurs in-game that uses RNG that couldn’t be reworked to offer fixed rewards.

I’m curious as to how discrimination is random? By its nature, discrimination is very specific and targeted.

As for how to remove the extremity of the RNG, have the reward items be guaranteed in certain cases but the amounts be random. Or go in and tinker with the drop tables so they offer a higher reward more commonly. Such as, I dunno, making blues not drop out of a Claw of Jormag chest . . .

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . you use the word “coerce”, but I think you meant “entice”. See, there’s a nontrivial difference there. If they were coercing you to log in every day, that would be by charging you for not doing anything, penalizing you for not playing. Enticing you to play involves putting rewards into place so that you want to play so you can get the rewards.

Let’s see a definition of “entice”:

Entice: to attract artfully or adroitly or by arousing hope or desire.

No, that definitely is not what I mean… nothing artful about saying “dodge 15 times every day and we’ll give you a few more stat points.”

Coerce: to compel to an act or choice.
Compel: to cause to do or occur by overwhelming pressure.

Now I wouldn’t exactly use the word “overwhelming” when describing the pressure, but it is a pressure. Yes, “coerce” is pretty much what I mean.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . and “falling behind”? Look, if you’re not doing Fractals with agony, then you don’t need Ascended Gear yet. There are four slots currently holding it and until armor starts being released those four slots aren’t critically important. The Amulets have the new “Utility Infusion” which have interesting effects but “required”, really? I don’t have Ascended gear . . . heck I’m still running around in mostly Rares . . . but I’m not seeing where I can’t do content other than high-level Fractals.

As hard as it is for you to understand, people have satisfaction from achieving the pinnacle of their character. Introduce a system where they are drip-fed new and better gear, and they feel compelled to play along. After all, there is no possibility to “catch up”… you are always going to be down X laurels and who knows why you might want those? Or maybe they just quit.

Hey, way to pick and choose a single interpretation of “entice” when what you ignored is the last bit: “hope or desire”. You’re expected to “desire” what is the end result. But, hey, I don’t expect you to do that when you think there’s compulsion to do the Daily . . . for some reason, now, even though they always gave you:

- Lots of experience doing each achievement part.
- 5 Silver at the end, plus a Mystic Coin you could sell for another silver if you didn’t want it.
- Later, a Jug of Karma worth a base 4500 Karma.
- Sometimes, rarely, a BLC item.

That’s coercion? Looks like enticement to me. And none of this covered what the old system had you do; the coin you could make selling what you gathered, or from events, or loot from the kills.

Now they added Laurels, and something to trade Laurels for: the Ascended Amulets. The rings you can get doing Fractals, which is what you need the rings for later, but the amulet is only through Laurels currently. Of course, you can still do just fine with the rings from doing Fractals but now that there’s an amulet ArenaNet is twisting your arm to do dailies.

You’d be better off pointing to the miniatures and cat tonic and saying how collectors are utterly screwed over with the Laurels than whining and whimpering about Ascended gear. I mean, I can understand why though. When it comes to the pink gear the official forums are like an echo chamber . . . you get more people agreeing with you if you say the words “gear treadmill”.

Xomic.5792:

I like it for the random set of requirements, but I feel like things like veteran slayer or events need to include things like champions or higher and dungeons.

I’d like champion kills to show up on Monthly, not on Daily. Why? Because I can’t solo Champions outside of starting areas all that well (and even then, only a choice few can I actually do that with reliably). And Dungeons are already on Monthly…

. . . I need to get to doing those, come to think of it. Just need to find people running them.

Fortuna.7259:

The laurel system is about as exciting as washing the dishes. The pace they are dolled out is completely controlled and contrived – metered to a satisfying rate for those that play every single day and yet have just one character to equip.

“Dailies” are just a manipulative method to inflate online presence by coercing people to play when they don’t want to play. Apparently the old daily wasn’t ham-fisted enough to do the trick. However, people begrudgingly logging on to hurry through them don’t really add to my experience when I play, because they just want to “get it over with”. If they are in my guild they might not even say hello.

This isn’t new content, and falls somewhere between inconsequential (you already play every day) to pure grind (you played the game a lot already and still want to play sometimes so now you have to log in to avoid falling behind).

. . . you use the word “coerce”, but I think you meant “entice”. See, there’s a nontrivial difference there. If they were coercing you to log in every day, that would be by charging you for not doing anything, penalizing you for not playing. Enticing you to play involves putting rewards into place so that you want to play so you can get the rewards.

Enticing you to play daily isn’t evil, or wrong. Every game which has an online multiplayer presence does that in some fashion or another.

. . . and “falling behind”? Look, if you’re not doing Fractals with agony, then you don’t need Ascended Gear yet. There are four slots currently holding it and until armor starts being released those four slots aren’t critically important. The Amulets have the new “Utility Infusion” which have interesting effects but “required”, really? I don’t have Ascended gear . . . heck I’m still running around in mostly Rares . . . but I’m not seeing where I can’t do content other than high-level Fractals.

Vargamonth.2047:

If you look at vanilla Prophecies, making tons of money was far from something you achieve naturally. By the time you reached Droknar, you probably had to invest all your funds in order to get the top-tier armor which still came without runes at all (and a Superior Health one wasn’t exactly cheap).
Then you had the weapon issue. ¿How were you supposed to get your top tier weapon? There wasn’t any green weapon rewarded on campaign completion, and both collector and crafted weapons (idk if this last one even existed, but 5 plat would had been a really good chunk of money at that time) were lacking upgrades/bonuses you had to RANDOMLY recycle from other rare items.
In order to get, lets say, a perfect health sword pommel, you needed: a) a rare sword to drop, b) that sword having a pefect health sword pommel and c) getting randmoly the pommel instead of any other upgrade the weapon could had.

If you look at latest versions, gearing could seem easier since money was given to you nonstop, but it still had its tricky parts.
Even if buying a raw top-tier armor was really cheap, superior health runes were still pretty expensive and some insignias (which were given to you for free on vanilla, but must to be bought at this point) were more expensive than the armor itself (a shaman ritualist insignia was for a bit more than 4 plat iirc while armor pieces were 1 plat each).
Getting a good weapon was far easier for many reasons. Crafteds were much more accesible money-wise, you were rewarded with a green weapon on each campaign completion, there were a lot of champions along the world that dropped complementary green items, salvaging wasn’t random, …
I feel however that there are a couple of points about the latest versions of GW1 that affect the “gearing” process and need to be taken into account
a) The game became highly oriented to 7H groups, which means that you should probably unblock skills and get some runes/insignias/weapons for each one of your 7H, probably more (and obviously unblock the heroes themselves).
b) There were really powerful PvE-only skills which performed based on rank levels, so even if it wasn’t gearing at all, you still had to earn/farm those rank points (which were character based iirc) in order to perform at full potential (this was eased A LOT with one of the latest patches, not too far from the launch of GW2).

Yeah, and the point where the PvE only skills got a lot of exposure was where a lot of people I heard in towns were saying GW1 had “died” much in the same fashion as the Ascended Gear added into this game are making this splash. Eye of the North was received with very mixed reactions but it petered out because people actually quit rather than hung around saying how much it sucked.

Honestly? There was also the expense of the prestige armor, which cost 15k per piece to start with, then cost rare materials which might not be easy or cheap to get. There was the insane cost of getting certain weapon skins, or buying Armbraces. As much as people want to talk about the high cost of Precursors here? I just remember what some people were charging for Armbraces (and by extension “Gem Sets”) in the end days I was on GW1 and sigh.

Lastly, while it was easy to get a maximum stat weapon . . . it was not easy or cheap to get a dropped one with “Requirement 9” on it, which would allow people to free up large bits of their build. Let alone the rare, and often-hunted maximum stat requirement 8. For those you could name your price if it was a rare skin.

Green weapons were often not looked for for stats (except in some cases where they dropped/came with combinations which could not be replicated) but because they often had the rarer skin/dye combinations people wanted. And, as people will point out, the green uniques you could get post-campaign were often lackluster. At least when they added them to Prophecies finally they allowed you to weaponsmith the skins as a “Rare” and add your own mods

Heijincks.9267:

The cynicism on this forum…

It’s been earned by the disappointment some people felt, at various points. Drop rates aren’t good enough and Black Lion traders charge “too much” as they play the market for profit. Ascended Gear was put in, though currently it’s low-impact on anything other than Agony. The one-time event of Lost Shores didn’t meet up with hype due to half a dozen reasons. The idea of Fractals doesn’t mesh with what they want to be doing with their time. The only thing to really do after hitting level 80 and doing map completion is moving into PvP or WvW. The list grows the more you listen to people.

The thing that gets me is . . . a lot of this sort of thing was going on the first year of GW1. I did start playing the week after it got released publicly and it evolved a lot since the beginning. And even still, lots of the complaints above can be carried backwards and applied to GW1 the same way. And some old ones about GW1 can still apply to GW2. (Exhibit A: “These festival hats stunk, why can’t we have something cooler?”)

Now, as for on topic . . . to the original poster:

From your perspective GW2 is “gear treadmill” based. I don’t see it there yet. There’s a definite progression, but I find it hard to call it a “gear treadmill” based on there being 6 rarities of gear and somewhat easy access to 5 of them while the 6th is barely existing just now.

And before you start aiming at me over that last paragraph, I said “not yet”. It can still happen, it may still happen, but I don’t think we’re there yet. But you won’t see me apologizing, recanting, and raving about it if it happens . . . mostly because I’ll be just moving on to the next game if it gets bad enough to discourage me from playing.

Heck maybe I’ll finally try to learn how to play Dwarf Fortress.

I would not play it on a subscription basis because I cannot afford to. I often will leave the game for a week or longer, or just log in to poke at some fun timewasting between other things.

I don’t want to pay for that, I could find some other game to play, Heck, I’d probably go right back to playing Monster Hunter. The RNG in that game is considerably more unfair but I always found it fun to slap around dragons with a sword the size of a dinner table.

Ursan.7846:

This whole “ANet wants higher prices on things so people will buy more gems and convert into gold” theory is stupid.

The conversion rate from Dollars -> Gold is horrid. I think about $500 gets you around 700 Gold. Do you really expect a company to count on people buying optional cosmetics for $1000 (counting the cost of all the other mats).

Besides, if Anet wanted to you buy more gems with real gold, why include a Gold -> Gem exchange in the first place?

They don’t WANT you to buy more Gold through real money, but since MMOs always have a thriving black market Real-Money-Trade going on, better it be through the company and not some shady website. That’s the theory anyway.

Face it, people ARE willing to spend hundreds of actual real dollars for in-game currencies or items. Not everyone does, but . . . enough do that it’s an issue. See, what happens is it starts like this.

Someone sees something they really want on Black Lion, like a Precursor. But Dawn is 250 Gold (and yes, shut up, it was there at some point early on) and they don’t have it! Oh, but there’s these gold sellers . . . all you need is a measly $50 and you can have that 250 Gold from someone . . . so they do it. And then they buy Dawn, and get to work forging Sunrise.

Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they buy it and then re-list it for 20% more . . . but woe to the next player, where do they get that 300 Gold from . . . well there’s these people, all you need is $60 . . .

Steadily, the price climbs, not entirely because Dawn is rare . . . but because it is coveted, it is wanted, and people manipulate the price. And with every time someone pays more for it, the price goes up a little. Just a little . . .

TheAngryLuddite.1834:

That said, I still like to have some MF equipped and don’t think it’s the selfish devil many folks make it out to be.

The “selfishness” comes from basically upgrading and building gear solely for the highest Magic Find rating rather than balancing it in amongst other bonuses. It overall means your stats are weaker, which means you are weaker. Depending on what you’re doing, those points could mean the difference between:

“I’m doing okay, but I could be doing better. At least I haven’t really screwed anything up.”

and

“Sorry I died again guys.”

Chickenshoes.6250:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It does work but it takes a long sampling time to actually see the difference. And it’s generally easier to just snack on some food rather than build your gear for it.

Just buy some green magic-find gear and throw on whatever upgrades you can find. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend a lot of gold on gear you’re hoping will get you more gold anyway.

No, but it makes sense if you’re trying to get a specific sort of item after you’ve already made your gold. (Read: Exotic, Tier 6, Vials of Mist . . .)

Chuo.4238:

But when I wonder why, I always tell myself to “follow the money”.

The current system (low-odds RNG + tradeable precursors/legendaries) encourages people to purchase gems and convert them to gold. ArenaNet knows exactly what they are doing with this, and it has nothing to do with what players want. It’s a cash shop strategy, pure and simple.

I’m not saying it’s either right or wrong, but I am saying that I don’t like it one bit, and I find it rather distastefully done.

Just because the option is there doesn’t mean it’s encouraged. ArenaNet has encouraged Gem purchases with things like the Backpacks, the limited edition skins at holidays from RNG chests, If you’d been talking about those I wouldn’t have started this discussion.

Precursors, Lodestones, Tier 6 materials . . . these are among the things most bought off Black Lion but again . . . there’s a difference between encouraging it to be done, and simply having it as an option.

By the example of “ArenaNet encourages this with the low-odds RNG” it would be like saying . . . and I’ve heard this argument . . . that since glitches and cheats exist in a game, it’s expected by the developers you are going to use them, so not using them is not playing the game as it’s intended.

It does work but it takes a long sampling time to actually see the difference. And it’s generally easier to just snack on some food rather than build your gear for it.

That does support my “nothing’s promised to exist yet” point. It’s being worked on amidst a bunch of other things, last I heard. It’s not top priority, which means . . .

. . . it’ll make it in when/if it’s ready.

SafeFatNoob.3156:

Someone in anet said that there will be a treasure hunt or something like that.
Just be patient

They said they liked the idea of it, and would think on it. Nothing’s been outright promised to exist yet . . . and given the huge focus on value of Precursors? Yeah. They’ll likely be very coy about it so don’t expect them to say more than “oh, yeah, we’ve got a plan now” before it goes live.

I’ve developed a soft spot for Lionguard Lyns even if the repetition is getting on my nerves. It’s the slightly hopeful “will you donate?” at the end which tugs at me.

If we’re talking best looking? It’s still Jora.

Sovta.4719:

Unfortunately he is right. Don’t get me wrong, i wish this game to be great, i wish they fix all these issuse so BOTH sides will be satisfied, but for now this game is not really that skill based (with is also how it was marketed) but grind based.

That’s not the problem I had with his post, and I’m not saying he’s wrong on that point. I could debate it but . . . why? I’m not going to change minds on that point, people who have already determined that the grind is what shapes this game aren’t going to be convinced even if I cranked out a 6 hour video documenting how you can still get reasonable gear and not grind for it.

The big reason I singled that post out like that was because it was:

- Poorly written and unclear of what was being said. I had to read it a few times to get what he was saying.
- Combative. “They deserve to fail” is an attitude which helps absolutely nobody, and it prevents anyone from seeing a way for the situation to improve. It’s simply “no, it failed, throw it out and start over” with no constructive words involved.

Ursan.7846:

Also just saying, even if you enjoyed the GW1 RNG more, it doesn’t change the fact that it still had RNG…

As someone who went several UW trips with no Ectoplasm drops? Yeah. I can kind of attest to that. One time I had nothing but blue/purple canes drop reserved for me (I am not kidding).

CoRtex.2157:

How can they learn? Youtube? Wiki? Friends? Guild? The problem is that their is no room for good players (elitists). Even top players got banned for finding something smart in the game. That’s also why on the most popular streaming website twitch, that gw2 has 200 viewers and elitist games 2000-50000 viewers. Also they will never be an esport this way, like they wanted. At the end of the day, anet just screws them-selfs. They created a skill-less grind money game. Well, then they don’t diserve to be a great game. I played gw1 soooo much, i loved it. If they create gw2 like this, i’m glad that so many players quited the game + they aren’t an esport game. If they keep the game like this, they won’t get far as a company.

First, please proofread your posts, it’s hard to make out what you’re trying to say.

Second, I get the idea you’re pulling those Twitch TV numbers right out of someplace dark and cramped. Especially because you’re not naming competing games.

Third, GW1 was an entirely different game, with entirely different mechanics, and a whole pile of problems. It never could be an e-sport either. Was it a great game? I dunno, I liked it. Is GW2 a great game? I dunno, I like it. How do you measure a “great game”?

Lastly, I think it’s in poor taste to wish people failure because you don’t like what they produced. If you don’t like it to the point you want to trash it, then walk away. Walk away, and go find something else worth your time. You’re not doing yourself any good dwelling on it, and you’re burning up your limited time dealing with something you don’t even like.

Chuo.4238:

Agree with OP. It’s ridiculous that the only ways to obtain a precursor are through either

1) low-odds RNG or
2) Spend hundreds of gold on the TP

In my opinion, this seems deliberate by ArenaNet to create an “incentive” for people to purchase gems and change them into gold. That’s playing dirty pool, guys.

Edit: how about adding another, guranteed method of getting a precursor. Like say, a Mystic Forge recipe.

Three things.

ArenaNet isn’t responsible, directly, for the price of things on Black Lion. Those prices get set by players, and if they figure they can charge 9001G for a Precursor then that’s NOT the company’s fault. People charge that figure because they get it, or they at least hope to get it.

The idea behind the rarity of Precursors is to keep Legendaries from basically becoming overexposed. They’re supposed to be somewhat rare, special, an achievement (which there is an achievement for). Whether this is a good idea, or a bad idea, or just an all-around failure of concept? I can’t judge that myself, I’m biased.

Due to point #2, any action which will make Precursors easier to get means that it trickles down to affect how easily Legendaries can be earned. How much does it impact it? Hard to say, some people only need the Precursor, others won’t start planning the trip until they have the Precursor. It’s one part out of four, after all.

The reason we don’t see an easier way . . . yet . . . is that there’s the question of “once we do this, how many Precursors will we see pop up because of this?” If the question leads to the thought that too many will show up, that idea will be shelved. This is probably why we haven’t heard about the “scavenger hunt” idea aside from “that’d be neat, we’ll take a look at that idea”.

Every game promotes selfish gameplay, in some form or another. And every game promotes selfless behavior or group-based behavior, in some form or another. We can sit here and cherry pick examples all day long but the core of the matter doesn’t change.

People play how they want to play, but this can be altered as they are encouraged by mechanics and social pressure to play a certain way. That’s what’s going on slowly and steadily the more people bang on the war drums one way or the other.

I play a ranger main; I’m pretty much automatically not wanted on speed clears due to that. I don’t use standard builds, I tend to home-grow mine to suit what I think works best. Roughly 7 out of 10 times it works passably well; while it can work better, and it can be tweaked . . . I’ve had mixed success with that.

(Confession time: I couldn’t land a D-shot in GW1 to save my life. Literally. Savage Shot, on the other hand, I could land like clockwork even on 1/4sec casting time Mesmer spells. Don’t know how, it just worked better for me.)

I’ve said this before, the thing isn’t that elitism or being picky about your group composition is bad. It’s being crappy about it to people, rather than a polite “no thanks, you’re not quite what we’re looking for” . . . that’s bad. And the reverse is true – burning elitists in strawman effigies isn’t good. They do have valid points sometimes (“we don’t want to spend a long time on this, just knock it out and get on with it”) even if people don’t like them. They have the right to play just how they want, same as every other player.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

You can easily get 20 gatherings in 5 minutes, especially in Cursed Shore where you’ll often find 6 or more trees/ores next to each other, consider that each one gives you 3 gatherings and there you go.

There’s also a spot in Malchor’s Leap in the Valley of Lyss where a Veteran Earth Elemental guards a stand of Cypress. There’s . . . last time I saw seven trees there. If Lyssa’s temple is in progress you can probably get those events (four of them) and the Wren defense.

There’s a potato farm in Metrica Provence which isn’t hard to reach and has about half the gathering you need. I would need to check but I think it’s possible to get your full Gathering with them and the trip there. Also, I think Thaumanova-related events can kill your 5 event requirement easily enough.

On a good day where everything clicks and I burn money doing Waypoint travel instead of walking, I can probably knock out 90% of the daily in under half an hour. I can definitely do the whole thing in less than an hour.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

(20 days for an amulet +50 to 60 days for 2 rings) x 5 characters. More for anything else you might want there, while the fractal monkeys are tossing stuff away.

Equal rewards for everyone playing the game how they want to play. Nice idea.

. . . not equal rewards, equal opportunity. The availability is there, just not as fast/easy. And honestly, with Ascended gear only required flat out for Fractals with agony going on (currently)? So what if it takes a couple months for someone who doesn’t want to do Fractals? They don’t have to. And if they don’t want to do Fractals, they don’t need Ascended gear yet anyway.

Zappix.7928:

Lol it happened in GW1 if anyone remembers going to Random Arenas and seeing dancing naked females with the names “Tip me plz” and “Tips pls”. They exist in almost every MMO I’ve played..

Random Arenas? Try Kamadan in high-numbered districts.

People will choose to be beggars, unless it doesn’t work for them. Then they either get frustrated at not getting in easily or they get to work earning it themselves.

Precursors taking a dive in value would be . . . interesting to watch, but anything that totally devalues something highly rare would be probably detrimental to the economy on a larger scale.

I say “probably” because Legendaries would probably remain at the same spot they’re at now (beyond stupidly expensive) and the cornerstone of “highly expensive to obtain by purchase” but would drop in price somewhat. Precursors would take a hit, but still be three figures for the more desirable ones . . .

Hmmm. I’d assume materials would take a boost in expense since more people would be out to buy their way to the rest of the Legendary, drying up supply just a tad.

After the dust settles, you’d probably see things about the way they are now, but with cheaper Precursors being bought up to artificially maintain the market where it is.

Daroon.1736:

Budchgon.2108:

‘Beggar was profession skill in Ultima online – you could talk to any NPC and they would give you a few copper.’

Beggar still is a profession in UO … UO still alive and doing well

Oh – if only they would update that game with modern graphics – I wonder how today’s young gamers would cope with a sandbox environment?

That game needs more than modern graphics to get with the times. It’s a good trip down nostalgia lane but there’s so much going on within it which just doesn’t fly too well these days to a larger audience. Frankly, more often than not there’s nothing to do . . . well, except fight PvP, with really limited forms of tactics which work.

As far as what young gamers would do with a sandbox? Have you heard perhaps of Minecraft? Or Dwarf Fortress? They play sandboxes, just no MMO has really had a sandbox feel to it . . . and UO doesn’t let you do as much as those other two games so they’re not as interesting in a sandbox way.

Currently, for now, you can exchange Commendations for Level 80 Exotic weapons.

marnick.4305:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now can we find other ways of earning Laurels which keeps them limited but more broadly achieved? Like, perhaps, special exploration rewards or for finishing bits of the Living Story?

How about personal story awarding 5 laurels in it’s own right

Jumping puzzles could have a drop chance for laurels, just like Vets/Champions. There’s plenty of stuff that hasn’t been properly fleshed out.

Champions which aren’t part of DEs, sure. Veterans, no. There’s way too many Veterans skulking about a few areas; it’d be too easy to scrape up your 30-40 Laurels in two days. It’s clear ArenaNet designed this so it’d take around a month. I would say shaving a week off that (at most) is the biggest thing.

Jumping Puzzles, I’d rather have the chests drop the minor Liquid Karma items. Especially since the Orrian Jewelry Boxes exist now as an alternative for Obsidian Shards (and sheer gold).

I like Laurels, and would like to exchange my Mystic Coins that I may not use for them.

I understand the reason it is Laurels and not Karma, and not Mystic Coins:

- It’s not Karma because you can farm Karma open-ended over the course of a day.
- It’s not Mystic Coins because those are used in Forge recipes for odd pieces of equipment.
- It’s not “Achievement Points” since people probably still have huge backlogs from “Agent of Entropy” and such.

It’s Laurels since they can control the income of Laurels through awarding them on a 1/Day average and 38-41/Month maximum. Meaning they fully expect people to have Ascended amulets within a month, and definitely predict people will have them within two months.

Now can we find other ways of earning Laurels which keeps them limited but more broadly achieved? Like, perhaps, special exploration rewards or for finishing bits of the Living Story?

I want to enjoy the game as I play it, and not feel as though:

- I am being pushed into doing things I don’t enjoy.
- I am being punished for choosing “the wrong class/weapon/skillsets/traits…”
- I am being judged by other people’s metrics and found wanting.

I want to be able to walk away from the game for a few weeks, come back and pick up more or less where I left off. And, yes, I did that following Wintersday. Guess what? I didn’t find it impossible to play anything except WvW because for some reason Stormbluff Isle decided it was not going to even try.

My guild? Still there. Still banking Influence and organizing a weekend to get together and drop Karma banners in Lion’s Arch or sit down and chatter while using the saved Liquid Karma goodies from the bank.

If I had to say the most important thing I want? People playing who give a crap about the game, even if I don’t agree with them. I want people who care about it and who can disagree with me civilly, so that I feel they’re people I could at least coexist with rather than people I want to avoid strongly enough to not click “Log In”.

ANet can’t give me that, though.

Okay, so the new “Risen Priest of Balthazar” miniature is account bound so you can’t sell it. And chances are while opening Jewelry Boxes for materials you’ll get more than one . . .

Why not allow you to transform it in the Mystic Forge?

- Create five items you can make in the Mystic Forge or through crafting disciplines. Call them “Engraving of X” for the six gods.
- Have the Risen Priest of Balthazar go into the Mystic Forge with one of these “Engravings” and two other items (one of them being something like a Crystal or something).
- Make four other miniature Risen Priest(ess) miniatures and now you can own an entire set.
- Find a use for the Engraving of Kormir later :P

loneknight.8425:

LordGardakan.9568:

There is no reward with the title. I’ve only gotten the title

u will get 30 Anet points with the title, if that count as something

running around in Alpha Siege Golem with ‘Apprentice Toymaker’ title

This will do nicely . . .

Why does this remind me of the whole “Coffer of Whispers” buyers in GW1 complaining they weren’t worth it if you were after an Armbrace . . . or the mini . . . or some of the other items.

At the very least, these boxes don’t contain things which tangibly affect your game . . . you know, unless you sell them. (Like selling Armbraces, Mini Mallyx, Gemstone sets . . . )

Nate.5109:

The rest of us just have to hope that Anet shows more wisdom in designing these events in the future.

I hope the next time the reward is just town clothes, a t-shirt saying:

“I killed the Ancient Karka and all I got was this.”

in the tooltip.

That’ll shut this crap up about unfair reward systems.

Fuz.5621:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . that’s the economy.

No.

Explain?

Fuz.5621:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

nothing which Gems can get you is severely unbalancing to the game.

Gold.

. . . that’s the economy. Slight difference.

Also, take some time to explain the way you having more Gold than me translates into you being better than me.

Snores.7806:

What does wrry me though is that if the company continues along the path it has been travelling since release, they are going to make the cash shop more and more attractive for your avg player. Enticement can be a terribly powerful tool to manipulate the OCD types who make up the major population of most MMOs.

Alas, that’s the job of some people who work there . . . to make those Gem purchases enticing. Without, mind you, making them unbalancing to the game. Dye packs, Mini pets, costumes, rare skins . . . boosters which are only good in PvE . . .

They do have to make their money somewhere. It is missing the point entirely to say they should not be. (It’s not subscription, they have to pay for the expenses and the purchase price only goes so far.) What should be done is pretty much what is happening currently – nothing which Gems can get you is severely unbalancing to the game.

Given the shop which existed in GW1 since early days (skill unlocks, pet packs) . . . I don’t think the track record suggests it will be as kittenome other games I’ve seen. It will definitely not be as enticing as Riot Games’ League of Legends.

(Purchasing Riot Points to buy a champion is far far easier than getting enough Influence Points through playing to do so. It’s so tempting to just plunk down ONLY $20 so you can get those two characters you got to love so much over the last couple weeks . . . rather than wait for them to cycle back into the free pool.)

nic.5720:

@ Tobias Trueflight…

Yes. I asked Galen Grey a couple of oblique, loaded questions. I chose not to use the words “conspiracy”, “manipulation” or “undercover employee”. You can nitpick all you want. I did not use them. No further discussion on the matter is warranted.

You “implied/suggested” yourself as possessing some insight when you responded to my question to Galen Grey in the following manner?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Crap! Galen, they’re onto us. Quick, remember Plan B and hope they don’t sniff out the names this time!

. . . Now onto seriousness.

Oh! My bad. Was that also sarcasm I detected in your reply? In which case the bonus points you refer to belong wholly with you. I’m not playing for points!

And as for plan Z!

Are you seriously telling me that only you and Galen Grey are allowed to play the “Men in Black” game! Doh!

Tobias if you wish to continue this conversation in this manner, please feel free to PM me.

@ Tobias Trueflight & Galen Grey…

Do you often find yourselves unconsciously dividing your responses to posts in such a seemingly coordinated manner?

Just kidding! Or am I? :-P

Well, you see, I take the entertaining road with answers, he takes the serious one mostly because I’m done taking the arguments around this game 100% serious anymore. I play the game when I find myself wanting to, and if I’m not having fun then I don’t play it.

And if I don’t play it, then it will be there tomorrow. Or the day after.

The day will definitely come when I will find myself entirely unwilling to log in because it just isn’t fun. I reached that point with Guild Wars 1, after all, and I loved playing that game for six years. The seventh, well, it’d done lost its luster and I had other things which were more intriguing and interesting.

But you know what, I’d just really love it if people could express what they find wrong with the game . . . and not stoop to the following:

- Conspiracy theories. “They’re tanking their game on purpose!” “They’re messing it up just to coax more money out of us!”
- Namecalling. “Fanboy! Hater! Apologist! Whiner! Grind-lover!”
- Analogies to real life politics. (Insert your own here.)
- Underhanded tactics to hurt the game or those still playing it. “Review bomb the game so it doesn’t sell! That’ll teach them.”

I’d prefer . . . much much prefer . . . constructive approaches to the mess.

nic.5720:

@ Galen Grey… Thank you for answering my question.

A simple “no” would have sufficed. An answer that requires no mention of “conspiracy”, “manipulation” or the assumption that I think anyone that defends Anet is an “under cover employee”.

Your choice of words. Not mine.

In answer to your question; No. I do not think that anyone who thinks Arenanet are doing more right then wrong has to be an under cover employee.

But like many people, I observe patterns in the world around me. These patterns cause me to question things. When I question things, I seek answers. When I receive answers they help to inform me as to the validity or otherwise of the patterns I observe.

Pretty normal human behaviour as far as I can ascertain.

@ Tobias Trueflight… Thanks for your answer on Galens’ behalf.

@ Galen & Tobias.

With your evident love of plans perhaps you can tell me/us why, if plan K was fun… have ANet now dumped it for plan Z?

Plan Z being to suck the fun out of GW2 for many of it’s players one patch at a time.

Oh no, nooooo, you don’t get to use implications while avoiding a statement, then fall back on “I didn’t say that”. You implied, you suggested, all without saying directly. Then when someone makes a specific denial, you claim “oh I never said that, why would you say that?” That’s playing dirty. I play fair when I enter discussions, even if I might ramble off on tangential thoughts.

You want to . . . imply, suggest . . . that I have some insight into what’s going on in the inner circle? And you want to go for sarcasm for the bonus points, that’s admirable. I’d almost applaud if it wasn’t misguided.

If you meant it seriously, then I’ll answer it seriously. Though it requires a Socratic approach:

Why do you think that has to be the plan?