Guild Wars 2

Nerelith.7360:

The problem is… My complaints about Gw2 are froma crafter’s perspective, Not talking about Armor… talking about going somewhere. And farming the materials i need. So I can then craft what I wish to craft, and sell or use.

In Gw2 MY experience has been that if you need something Like ancient Bone… i takes an incredibly long period of time to farm… MY experience is, that after a certain amount of time, the Bone just stops dropping.

I dunno about that, I spent time doing WvW Season 2 and got most of what I needed to craft through the 300-425 for Weaponsmithing. (Why 425? I haven’t gotten to the next ‘tier’ yet due to not wanting to spend the time pounding it out repetetively.)

In another game I play, I take My warlock to A specific place, farm up frostweave. And I can do so quickly… craft a 20 slot bag, and either send it to My alts… or sell on the AH. There are only 2 items i need, to craft it… thread i can buy cheaply off a vendor… not a 10 g sigil for a bag that then sells On the TP for 12g. ( sweat shop rates)…. and something i already have because I disenchant all greens I come across.

. . . this isn’t that other game, though. Weirdly, it was stated by developers they didn’t want crafting too profitable, or profitable at all. (Can’t recall which of the two off hand, but I know it was pretty much to try to keep the economy more in check.)

Again, the only game I can go to is Everquest, where you could craft bags . . . but the best ones were purchased for a ludicrous amount or dropped by specific raid-level mobs. (10 slot, 100% weight reduction, carries any item to be precise.) Crafting made 10-slot bags, but not to the same utility.

As Devata said. I can go and directly farm the materials I want, and the side benefit is Gold. That I can then use on the gold sinks, such that I never notice the gold sinks.

I never notice the (natural) gold sinks in GW2, save for cultural gear.

Not go out and GRIND gold to then go on the TP to BUY the materials I need… cause then I need to grind for gold.. and makes it feel less Like a game, and More Like a Job simulator where I play a Poorly paid independant contractor of Anet.

But you’re not contracted by ANet in that case, you’re contracted by the cartel of players who willingly charge high high prices for the components because they can. Which, mind you, is not unlike other games where they know you need it and they don’t want it.

PS I do miss silk farming in the East karanas.

Crag spider tracking forever.

PPS: There is a difference between grinding for gold, and farming for mats. I find the former unappealing since it turns the game into another job. But The latter quite entertaining.

Somewhat agreed. But GW1 already set up how ArenaNet handles materials and crafting stuff out of them – loads of common materials to the point of drowning in them sometimes, while the bottleneck is the rarer materials.

Devata.6589:

In his example he has a craft that he does (earning the mats easy in the game by directly working towards them) he then create things and can even earn money with it.

. . . I dunno about more recent games, but in older ones I listed off, there was only one example I had of “easily finding it in the game” and that was Ultima Online. It was dirt simple to find iron, wood, and cloth to do the various crafts. Alchemy was slightly more problematic since reagents could be a problem in a highly populated area (vendors only stocked so much, after all).

The only game I tried crafting in was EverQuest and really, there was nothing but pain and gold loss going into any of those crafting disciplines. And to cap it, most of what dropped was far better than things you could craft. With maybe exceptions I could count on one hand which were added years after release.

There were two attempts to entice players to jump into the gold sink which was crafting, though. First was a set of quests using crafting skills of various types (almost ALL types in fact) to work up a chain of objects to a moderately useful high-level piece of armor. (Coldain Shawl quests, for those who played.) The trouble was, almost all the final pieces needed had to be crafted and couldn’t be acquired from other players. So off you go to the grind!

Later there was a much nicer example (in the Plane of Knowledge) but it still required you to do some ungodly grind to get the parts, let alone the skill required. Gods be with you for attempting the cooking leg of that one . . .

In GW2 for many mats (higher tier mats at least) it’s not possible to work directly towards it. So it’s grinding gold to get them. Then in many cases you also need to put in an item you have to buy from a vendor, so more gold and then you have an item you can’t really earn any gold on. So then you craft for the items you might want but that are basically only the legendary weapons and the ascended gear (at lvl 400 and 500). So up until then it’s a complete gold-grind. Not so much playing the game as in the game of his example.

Honestly, I don’t quite see why this is the case. Most crafted gear is worn through relatively fast, so it’s not a matter of needing a delay between level tiers. Furthermore, there’s an ample chance you’ll find rare gear often enough while pounding out gold for those Fine Materials you’ll be merely saving for your Exotic pieces and to work them up.

(Fun note: getting the Gift of Quartz makes this simple, since Celestial gear is more or less a piece of cake to get for.)

And in that way you can off course with no problem compare games.

Eh, GW2 is considerably more useful in its results than EQ and I don’t find it anywhere near as tough to get ingredients as I did my crafting in that game. (“Hey, let’s make the only crab meat you can get drop in the most annoying Elemental Plane to fight in!”)

. . . I do almost kind of miss East Karana silk farming though. Almost.

Wanderer.3248:

One of the things that added to the character development in ME was having some quests specifically focused around the sidekicks. (Although I think ME2 overdid it a bit).

That’s a Bioware thing, which was done in Neverwinter Nights (both of them). And I agree, it did much to deepen the characters when I encountered it there.. Even the death-loving evil dwarven monk.

The other game I had that come up was in Baldur’s Gate – though that game had Minsc, so it was automatically ahead of many many other games in terms of fun characters.

Just listen . . .

Vayne.8563:

If you want to say I find gold to come by hard in this game, by all means say that. But another game’s economy doesn’t really tell us anything. What you’re essentially saying is I once played a game and that game had better quests because of whatever.

No one can argue the point unless you name the game and they’ve played it.

I remember a couple games I played where gold (or rather, the standard unit of currency) was almost worthless when it came to buying things.

- I’ll fall back on the first: Meridian 59. On many servers it fell to the exchange of one high-level good (Dark Angel Feathers) for another. DAFs were fairly simple to get your hands on when you were high enough level, they weren’t heavy, and they were necessary components for more than a few high-rank spells which PvP players enjoyed/abused greatly.

- Ultima Online. Money was meaningless past a point, because it was often possible to just get money.

- EverQuest. The best items beyond a point were simply not traded due to being “No Drop”. Things that were traded were often for a considerable amount of Platinum, which was usually attained through farming, saving, scratching it up little by little.

- DDO: Before I found a need for gold to be useful, I ran into problems of premium currency being required. I was leveling too slow for people I’d met when I started so I wound up left behind and opted to jump ship for GW1 all over again.

Kalavier.1097:

Besides the fact we have no idea the true extent of Shining blade or Order of whisper knowledge, and thus cannot even attempt to guess at what they do or do not know.

Also, there is nothing making the Charr “the best race evar and no other group can compete!”…

It’s generally assumed the sylvari are currently the “bestest race evarrrr!!!!!!”.

Because large-scale fights mean large-scale packet handling by networks and there are tons of bottlenecks for the data to get caught up in?

It’s been happening since MMOs began, up to and including UO. It’s not really an easy problem to fix.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

Give Lion’s Arch to Kryta? Human leaders might become corrupt as a result? Says who? Where is your evidence that Human leaders are more likely than leaders of other race to become such.

Vizier Khilbron, King Adelbern, Confessor Dorian, Confessor Isiah, Varesh Ossa. Just off the top of my head. While we have more than a few examples of other races having decent leadership in line with their racial tendencies (i.e., norn don’t have a unified leader, asura rule through council which is corrupt only in the sense all asura are evil and need to die in fire and agony).

Firstly, Lion’s Arch was the traditional and original capital of Human Kryta. Secondly please read the Lore. Thridly please read my previous post in this very extended thread. As I have covered may issues and details concerning this.

But Lion’s Arch is no longer the human capital of Kryta, it is a hub where more than five races came together and managed not to kill each other off. And thus it remains, even though it’s in ruins and tatters, a place where everyone can feel welcomed. (Except maybe sylvari, but that’s hardly restricted to LA.)

However it is enough to say that Lion’s Arch as stolen by the pirate cartel using stolen Krytan gold from the wreaked Krytan vessel – Salma’s Grace. This gold paid for the cartel’s massive military muscle – including a navy that could best at that time a much weaken Kryta (Orrian Catalysm – seriously read up on the Lore!!!!). This fact was hidden and undiscovered by the Shining Blade and the Order of Whispers – for reasons I doubt Arenanet want to articulate!

Citation requested.

And finally yes the re-annexation of Lion’s Arch – Kryta’s former capital, main city, main southern port, and sea link to Cantha and Elona – will give an obvious massive economic boost to its National wealth and prestige – power enough to leverage towards building a miltary force(Army, Navy & Air Force) that would rival even the Charr.

I doubt it would.

See, first humanity would take it and have to hold it . . . and then it would find out Cantha doesn’t accept anyone coming close to them, Elona is ruled by an undead warlord who is not really an approachable chap, and there’s this giant sea dragon munching vessels.

I see you forgot the lore yourself.

But of course no race is even allowed to even be competitive to the Charr in real terms. And definitely not heaven forbid equal to them!!! Most know this to be truth undeniable LOL!

Oh please. Norn are equal toe to toe with charr in a battle, and unless charr devoted a significantly larger force to an invasion they’d be repelled. The asura and the sylvari are well outside their striking distance without considerable use of asura gates or Pact air power (things which aren’t going to be given or taken easily, if at all). And if they moved on humanity they’d have to move through or around the Shiverpeaks (still) or settle for Ebonhawke. A stronghold they cannot break with siege weapons and has terrain which renders numerical advantages moot.

And that’s assuming they don’t have other enemies who would gladly take advantage of the war machine going full-tilt out of their lands. I’ll take bets the Flame Legion isn’t destroyed by the death of Baelfire . . .

The charr cannot, currently, exert force on the other races.

Kulvar.1239:

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

Thus for Tyrian Humanity to truly prosper beyond it current circumstance it MUST have full and effective control of its only safe window to the world outside of Tyria. That window has a name. And its name is: Lion’s Arch.

Other races will not let Humans take this place because it’s the economic core of Tyria and they have interests in it too. Giving it to Humans is not acceptable because it’ll give Humans a strong grasp on the world economy and knowing how corrupt can be the Humans leaders, they’ll not tolerate it.

Lion’s Arch is like Suiss, a neutral place that other will defend to protect their interests.

. . . Switzerland can, in fact, defend itself. It did for a long time until people gave up trying because it meant a lot of problems trying to do it.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Maybe one day. I still need to finish Dragon Age: Asunder and Sea of Sorrows.

Seriously to add to the comment – read the books. And if you can, find “The Hedge Knight” short story too. It’s amazingly simple for a story, almost like a known fairy tale. . . but there’s clearly some attention paid to even it in the narrative of the main series.

And Elder Scrolls, I didn’t actually play Oblivion, just Morrowind and its additions Tribunal and Bloodmoon . . . at least until I got lost in the wilderness with what I stumbled into and forgot where I was in the story. Still impressive worldbuilding for an island the fraction of the size of the world!

But I’ve heard the two games which followed up weren’t as good at giving it that feeling of wonderful expanse.

If you asked me about good worldbuilding in video games, I’d direct you to the post-Avatar “Brittania” (Ultima 4 and onwards) or (with some grumbling about lore snags) Everquest’s “Norrath”. Squeaking by for being memorable are Ivalice (Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, and Final Fantasy 12) and Lea Monde (Vagrant Story).

Tabletop? I’d mention my old “friends” Barovia (Ravenloft), Mirrodin (MTG), with a nod towards . . . Rokugan I think it was (Legend of the Five Rings) . . . which I had no experience with but I know held a high place for integration of story into game.

StarbornStriker.6493:

If Season 2 is another story on railroad tracks, where the main characters are destined to stumble and lose the entire course of the story no matter how hard they try, what’s the point?

This is the utterance from most tabletop RPG groups from time to time. The story is generally always on railroad tracks (even if you can’t see them) with the exceptions when a group decides to go “off the rails”. Of course, that’s possible to do in tabletop because if you’re lucky you have a GM who can adapt rapidly and adlib their balls off.

Depending on your individual GM . . . Your Mileage May Vary.

Video games with a well-crafted narrative cannot really do that well. Yet. There has to be some amount of developers thinking ahead of the players in order for it to really work.

I’m not saying it should be easy. I’m not saying the heroes should always succeed at everything they do. But there has to be a balance somewhere. We have to be able to do something good at some point, or why bother?

I gave up on doing something good when I couldn’t steal ghostfire and drop it on Rata Sum.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

In my opinion Dragon Age and The Elder Scrolls far surpass Game of Thrones when it comes to lore/story. But to each their own.

Did Elder Scrolls get much more awesome story-wise after Morrowind or is this just me being jaded with it? Because Morrowind was good and all that but the lore in the world was not quite as developed as Westeros feels.

It’s not terrible, mind you. For what it is, it’s one of the top RPGs I played as far as stories go. Still beat by Digital Devil Saga . . .

Charming Rogue.8071:

Winter is also coming.

. . . eventually. We swear. Pinky swear.

Squee.7829:

And the Charr would probably be a lot harder to push out than last time.

Not really. All someone needs to do is get some herbalists to invent catnip. Then we’re all good.

Abe Kleine.3568:

Malganis.7468:

It still amazes me that people didnt know this. :P

Well to my knowledge Tara hasn’t been in many video games, (besides spin-offs of tv-shows maybe)

She’s been in a few. The one I know most is FFX as “Rikku”, and she was really fun in the role. Apparently she’s also in Secret World . . . The Old Republic . . . some Ratchet and Clank . . .

DarcShriek.5829:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, I highly dislike asura. Except as catapult ammunition.

They’re not really any good at that either.

Asura warriors are . . .

Zaxares.5419:

@Nicholas: Out of curiosity, what does the “HRH” in HRH Jennah stand for?

Her Royal Highness.

I’ve seen it from British friends before.

Bezagron.7352:

Should players be exclude for end game either through skill level or play style?

Only if warriors. (/sarcasm)

And to laboriously get back on topic before I clock out of this, the few questions for others:

- If they decided to add something similar to the Elite Areas in GW1, what’s the threshold for “properly rewarding”? I think the answer on whether “just” skins and gold is okay has just been established in the last few exchanges I made (it is). Where can it be set where it’s rewarding enough, but not enough where it unbalances things in favor of those who farm it for the gain?

- Similarly, where would the challenge reside? Given that in GW1 if you wiped, you didn’t get to hit the nearest Waypoint, would something like that be accepted in GW2 as a means of increasing the difficulty? On a more technical level: should it be challenging like, say, Liadri where there is a plentiful chance to beat it but not everyone will be able to do it?

Errant.1942:

In a game that has always been advertised as being a cosmetics-based game, what else do you expect from elite areas other than shiny skins and titles? There really isn’t much more such a game can offer, is there?

I didn’t address it because I don’t see it as a problem. You seem to do, there really isn’t much I can say to change your mind, nor is there anything you can say to change mine. The benefits I see in the model of being able to sell your drops are the exact downsides you see, so not much point in arguing something we won’t agree on.

I addressed that in the first place because the OP seemed to be looking for reward, and a couple people I recall reading earlier on seemed to think merely chasing skins or gold farming wasn’t an appropriate endgame.

. . . and since I expect an appropriately lucrative endgame amount of money would draw just about everyone to the content, I would both read complaints about how it was nothing but another gold farm, and possibly how it was being forced on the players.

Hence, it’s a problem to address. Even if it’s to bury it somewhere in a fresh grave.

Zok.4956:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

That’s not really what they’d said.

They said a lot of things, as I remember (but can not quote exactly). How can you be so sure to think that you know everything they said?

Because I spent a lot of time listening to what everyone said they said after the transcript hit the internet and watched it a few times to make sure of what they said.

You are wrong. I know of a dozen people who said that. That is more than “nobody”.

I stand corrected. The savvy people I was around who knew who got cast started a “dead pool” for how long it would take and disqualified anyone who had read the novels.

P.S. Sean Bean is not a redshirt per se.

No, but he does have an impressive resume of dying in things he is in.

And the clips are enough to convince me I need to see him as Sharpe.

Errant.1942:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s not really rose-colored glasses, correct. Really it’s more of a distorted lens since your experience isn’t quite on par with other players’ experiences. Especially if you still ‘boxed’ two accounts.

I could discard your opinion using the exact same logic. “Your opinion doesn’t count, because your experience was different from mine.” is not really a sound argument.

I didn’t say it was different from mine, so it must be wrong. What is it with putting words in my mouth for disagreeing? I said, and you even quoted it, this isn’t on par with what other players did. (Which, from memory, was devoting a lot of time learning to micro the Hero builds they had going on.)

I mean, we could also say because I spent the arduous amount of time and effort to run Prophecies with only henchmen through to the end for every mission, I shouldn’t be allowed to talk about how it was dead simple up until Thunderhead Keep? Or because I never went into GvG I don’t know anything about the “true” game of Guild Wars?

Nerelith.7360:

Here’s the thing. That is Like saying if I walk into an IHOP, and order the pancakes… but choose to eat them two at a time, and put meltewd butter in between like a sandwich… and then say " Nope.. don’t Like them" then " hey you don’t eat them the way us normal people do… your experience doesn’t match, so your opinion doesn’t count or counts for less."

That’s exactly the thing. And having been a server, it is frustrating to have someone come in and drop a ton of salt into their plate (before tasting it) then say it was too salty when I ask how their meal was. Should I tell the next person that dish is “perhaps salty” because of that?

Likewise, should I expect awesome rewards and gold to rain from on high based on the word of someone who played it like you did? Saying the rewards are awesome, following it with “but I had two characters at the same time, so it was doubled” sort of strikes me to wonder whether it was rewarding because you had two characters so it was double-normal, or was it really lucrative because it was initially highly so and you were doubling that?

It’s hard to tell. All I know is I never made good money doing it, semi-casually over the course of a couple months. (Which is to say, as often as I could make the time and align with people I trusted.)

Just because someone plays the game differently, doesn’t mean their opinion can be discounted. This is typical. " I don’t like your opinion therefore I’ll discount it, I need an excuse…" Two Boxing".

. . . no, I like your opinion just fine. I don’t agree with it, and my personal experience hasn’t matched. And it still didn’t address anything else I raised in my posts, namely how the exclusive rewards were . . . in the end, either farming for cool skins or gold farming through selling stuff off.

One of which has been what people really have said they want out of endgame content, because they can goldfarm elsewhere with better results. I’m still not sure how people would appreciate skins as the exclusive rewards except as a means to get more gold.

Zok.4956:

Before the start Living World Season One someone from A-Net said, they want to be for a computer game MMO what Game of Thrones is for a TV-series.

That’s not really what they’d said. What they’d said read to me a lot more like: “We want to be discussed in the same vein. We want to have people deeply invested enough to care about characters, to present theories and discuss them, to get a buzz going about things other than how much it sucked dolyak balls.”

One recurring concept of Game of Thrones is, that if you really start to like a character, it is very likely that this character will die. In GW2 Lions Arch was treated as a character.

Before Ned Stark was killed in Game of Thrones a lot of people thought “No, they can not do this”. But they did.

Nobody said that. Everyone knew he was going to die because it was Sean Bean.

Before Lions Arch was destroyed in GW2 a lot of people thought “No, they can not do this”. But they did.

And once more, it was tagged quickly as one thing they could do to deliver buzz was to do something to Lion’s Arch or Divinity’s Reach. Most people figured DR since Scarlet had seemed more interested in it initially as a side-project.

Of course, writing and production quality differs a lot. Not every writer/show has the quality to win an Oscar or Grammy. Thats why I really hope that the quality of the storytelling improves in LW season 2.

Not every decent show will win anything, or even be continued. Firefly didn’t get even a whole season, and it was actually pretty good once you could watch it in order without the time slot getting shuffled or things aired out of order. Castle hasn’t won an Emmy, despite getting a sixth season and generally being really entertaining TV. (I think it might be Nathan’s fault. He’s cursed.)

Star Trek didn’t win an Emmy, but it did win two Hugo Awards. Guess which two episodes won, if you’re a fan.

And we won’t get into how the Oscars don’t seem to catch “good movies” so much as “good movies within a certain formula” any deeper than to bring up it’s been noted there might be specific strategies to winning one . . .

Destai.9603:

That doesn’t mean the game can’t be enjoyed.

No, having an exploded RAM stick means I don’t get to enjoy it until the replacement arrives.

. . . stupid power surges . . .

zenleto.6179:

What’s with this “waiting for dragons”? There’s three in the series.

Well, that’s what Bran is doing. Waiting for dragons.

. . . to warg into.

Soulstar.7812:

In Game of Thrones the audience hated the villains because the were villains.
In GW2, everyone hates Scarlet because she was obnoxious pest, A-Net tried to pass off as a villain. If GW2 was a tv show it would have been cancelled faster than Firefly.

No, they hated Sansa because she was dumb as a post for most of season one. They hated Catelyn Stark for being basically the one person who kept things getting worse who wasn’t doing anything. (Not that this is much different from how readers feel about her.) And they hate Ser Allister Thorne because he’s abrasive. I’d say S4E9 probably showed why people like him are in places of leadership, though. Not spoiling it here.

By the same token, everyone hated Scarlet at first because she was sylvari and that’s enough for a lot of people. Everyone hated her later because we didn’t get to kill her immediately, and that was more reason to hate on her.

On paper, there’s few reasons she shouldn’t have worked. It’s all pretty much there, what we’ve seen in the last few chapters of the first LS.

But in practice, it didn’t come off too well.

And for the record? It wouldn’t have gotten canceled faster than Firefly. It would have wound up like Revolution, which lasted way to darned long and also had an annoying female character as the focus. Or it will end up like Lost . . . lots of potential, dragged in the middle with the pacing, then hurried up to a finale which was adequate but didn’t quite live up to the promise of the show.

If we’re lucky, this will turn out closer to Fringe.

Soulstar.7812:

Sarathiel.6374:

I’ve been thinking. Living Story is a lot like game of thrones… in the sense that we are still waiting for dragons….

NOPE

This game story is terrible, the characters are bland, no one dies, and everyone hated Scarlet for ALL THE WRONGS REASONS.

This story isn’t even close to Game of Thrones, that comment deserved a face slap.

Please, everyone hated people in Game of Thrones for all the wrong reasons too

. . . and I still don’t think people hated Jaime enough . . .

Meglobob.8620:

Its nothing like game of thrones, silly comparison…

Game of Thrones story was written by one of the best authors of fantasy currently alive on planet Earth.

No story in any video game could ever compete…

Yes, there are at least a few which can compare. Try looking up Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Also strong is ‘Okami’, but that’s a different animal.

Nerelith.7360:

There is Gold in the gem store.

And your point is . . . what, again? Gold isn’t a “must have” either, after a point.

CureForLiving.5360:

Wanderer.3248:

I doubt most people were watching GoT for the Dragons. Ahem.

Exactly, where’s the zombie army?! Keep teasing us but never delivering.

They moved to “The Walking Dead” for the benefits.

Randulf.7614:

Also, GoT isn’t in the same solar system as really decent fantasy writing (of which is almost impossible to find in this generation). It is well written/acted (tick per media form), but ultimately inconsequential and rather uninteresting soap opera.

Strangely, I disagree a bit. I agree “A Song of Ice and Fire” isn’t quite as strong as series which it was inspired by (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn most notably). But probably due to the author killing off viewpoint characters more often.

The TV series is a decent enough adaptation of the books, though it diverged in Season 4 enough that I’d refer to it as its own entity.

Before anyone jumps on me for that comment… I’m not a fan of the GW2 season 1 story either, but I look forward to seeing the direction the go in this time around. Prophecies/Factions in GW1 were beyond woeful, but I enjoyed Nightfall and EOTN quite a lot, which shows they can learn lessons from previous story mistakes.

You. I like you for this comment here. It pretty much parallels my reaction to GW1 as far as story goes.

Boneheart.3561:

phys.7689:

I really dont think that paragon was locked out of the content by design, it was probably just due to meta and elitism. Im pretty sure every dungeon could be completed with 1 paragon in the party.

I tried, my friend and I could not get past the Four Horsemen.

To be fair, that’s where a lot of my runs with friends/guildmates would fail too. All it took was a small slip.

Nerelith.7360:

You could have summarized this wall of text with one sentence.

" I don’t agree with you opinion, so let me find an excuse to discount it…..ah here it is.. you two box."

Nah, but two-boxing is something the majority don’t do so. It also makes things much easier to handle. (I did it in EverQuest for a time – made things fantastically easier.) It’s also the lesser of two reasons I would find to discount your whole spiel.

The greater one? Your entire post about how good things were tended to focus on profit in platinum/gold. Adding a ‘fountain of gold’ hardcore players can tap is only going to make the TP go worse when trying to get desirable items off it. That’s just from having seen that sort of effect before in online games where trading is possible . . .

Anyway, feel free to keep trying to discount me. I’ve pulled my hardcore time in the past, the reward wasn’t worth it most times. When it was worth it, the goalposts would get moved in the next expansion with equipment power creep. (Gods EQ was bad at that.)

Nerelith.7360:

So ya… 4 years or so of Gw1… wasn’t even aware they HAD a cash shop… but m in gw2… the cash shop actually influences design decisions.

Of course it does. You can turn cash for Gems into Gems for Gold, so it has to influence decisions so Gold isn’t as high a gateway for all that much. Not to mention you can do it backwards with Gold for Gems, so most of the desirable objects on the Gem Store sit at less than 1000 Gems. And mentioning, once more, there’s not much in the Gem Store which is all that “awesome, must-have”.

CETheLucid.3964:

Agreed!

We know Logan’s obviously a descendant of Gwen, and the fact that Steve Blum does Pyre… I’d totally bet Rytlock is a descendent of Pyre. It would just be beautifully ironic.

New tangent! Discuss!

Nicholas? I trust you can provide commentary on how this theory is inevitably weakening humanity? Don’t fail me now, soldier!

Not having Steve Blum voice a human means we are automatically that much weaker until we can get Crispin Freeman.

Errant.1942:

The drop chances of EotN dungeon weapons were actually pretty decent. I saw a lot of them drop. A friend of mine even got double Froggy drops at least 4 times, but then again, he farmed Bogroots with 4 accounts, while his buddy did the same, and they made stupendous amounts of money doing so. Upwards of 1000e/week.

Yet I never saw any ‘unique’ weapon skins drop out of Eye dungeon chests. I saw them out of the Zaishen chest, but that required me to go farm keys. And they were terrible stats, so I kept them for looks. Also “farming Bogroots with four accounts” is not a standard, usual player. Not to mention the word “farming”, which assumes he probably got more junk than good stuff.

As for UW and FoW requiring 1 platinum and kicking you out if you screwed up, it was something that was mainly meant to keep solo farmers at bay that would farm the first mobs in every instance and go back. Seriously though, 1 platinum wasn’t a lot of money, so paying it to enter FoW/UW wasn’t that big of a deal.

More annoying, early on, was the Favor requirement or Passage Scrolls. And yeah, making 1 Platinum was fairly simple once HM was introduced.

UW wasn’t very rewarding in the end, because of time taken/consumables and bad drops if you ran the wrong area. I knew people that usually lost money doing a UW run. They just kept doing it because they loved the area. They weren’t in it for the money.

I ran it because it was one of the last challenges I hadn’t actually passed. I am glad I didn’t run it for the Ecto because I rarely saw it. Or “sweet drops”. Usually I just wound up storing trophies in case Nick wanted them.

DoA was very rewarding in fact, and wasn’t an RNG slot machine. You needed a maximum of 4 full HM runs, and you would have a tormented weapon. Usually it was around 3 runs, because of drops, and 4 runs would even net you an additional 5 gemsets that you could sell if you wanted, which is 1/3 of another armbrace. We calculated once that a single DoA run would net you about 70 platinum on average per run, usually going upwards of 80-90k for the people that looted after the run.

All fine and good, but that rewarding note is only good for people who were good at running DoA and would allow people along they didn’t know. And, again, the rewards were mostly cosmetic (very nice looking, though) and the cash could be lucrative . . . but then, so could other options. As noted, platinum wasn’t exceptionally hard to earn, it ranged from “time consuming” to “you lucky son of a skritt”.

As for chest running being unrewarding, I actually made money doing dual/triple account chest runs. And it was pretty good money too, nothing compared to running DoA, but I didn’t care, since I just enjoyed chestrunning (20k+ chests over 2 accounts).

Again, dual accounts isn’t something normal players generally do. But I did make profits on chest runs once my luck rose high enough for my Lockpick retention to be roughly 50+%.

It’s really not rose-colored glasses, or at least not for me. I went back and played GW1 for a few months earlier this year due to being jaded from the Fractured patch. It was still fun to run said areas.

It’s not really rose-colored glasses, correct. Really it’s more of a distorted lens since your experience isn’t quite on par with other players’ experiences. Especially if you still ‘boxed’ two accounts.

Nerelith.7360:

Balancing the game so drops are both rewarding and NOT Impossible to attain in a reasonable amount of time, is the reason they draw a check.

To be pedantic, that’s not the reason they draw a check. They draw a check because they’re actively developing and keeping the MMO we’re playing running. The first part is not a given for a company to do, even ones who make single-player games or other multi-player games.

Also, it wasn’t really ArenaNet’s strong suit in their previous creation either. (Cough, Gamer title, cough. . . )

Other game companies do it … why is it that we don’t expect it from Anet?

I honestly don’t think other game companies do it, or at least do it well for MMOs. Single player games? Sure. Some multi-player games? Possibly. MMOs? Haven’t found one which really did it ‘right’.

. . . not even MUDs.

Erukk.1408:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well, we already had our own Arya Stark in Gwen . . .

I still want to know the story behind “the Goremonger” title.

Probably because she was one of the few people who seriously was able to take on charr for most of her life and get away with it.

bhcbose.9615:

Honestly I think that if Anet will one day implement new zones that are strictly level 80 they should really think about bringing the challenge and the rewards that comes with it.

As for high level dungeon, right now I can hope to see one day new dungeons and more fractal levels with new rewards

We do agree, believe it or not. Mostly. (I’d like the new zones to allow people lower-leveled if they want to jump in and upscale, because it’d just add more challenge to it.)

The first problem we do run into is the rewards. I don’t expect much different rewards than what were given in the GW1 “elite dungeons” – recognition via title, some exclusive-to-area skins of armor/weapons, high-tier crafting materials, and tons of vendor trash. And from what all the people who want “endgame-level rewards” have been saying . . . that’s not quite going to cut it.

The second problem is more . . . a case of “after the honeymoon”. After this new area’s novelty has worn off and there’s people who can run it in their sleep, how much do you want to bet it won’t be farmed into “just another farming binge spot”? Follow-up concern: what do you want to think will be the response if it can’t be easily farmed, such as limited attempts per day or it occurs at a schedule daily (say, every three hours)?

Much as I’d like to see any of this come to pass . . . I think no matter what they’d do, half the people who are here demanding “endgame content” will be back going “this isn’t what we wanted/this isn’t good enough”.

SkiTz.4590:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Come on, people, meet halfway, make an effort to show you really mean this rather than just spouting rhetoric about endgame being terrible. I’m not against there being “endgame” like there was in GW1 but you’ve got to overcome how meaningless it was then and would be now.

Whats your suggestions for endgame than?

Why should I bother making one? I am, to admit it, a “filthy casual”. Endgame I’d propose wouldn’t be as good as others’ suggestions. But I did make a stab at something up thread. Do you need me to find it for you?

Link

It’s something I ran once for people as part of a D&D Miniatures event just for giggles. I’d probably take a stab at something described there, tweak it a few times with some people who would be interested if such a project was possible, and slap that on as a permanent addition. Maybe even tie it to the Mursaat as a neat lore bonus.

Funny you saying meaningless gw1. Because thats how a lot of my guildies descibe the current rewarding system in gw2. Of course this is all just opinion but it doesn’t change the fact this reward system does need some re tooling.

It was meaningless. UW, FoW had some meaning to it only in getting Obsidian Armor or other cool skins (and the armor was gods-be-darned ugly), but it at least was moderately fun to mix up some of the area quests in UW. Fissure was okay, though it wore on me real quick. But still, the rewards were skins.

Domain? Totally pointless. The only rewards were things which were cosmetic and bragging rights. The potential rewards were skins, a minipet, and some shinies to display in the Hall..

Go ahead and say how meaningless GW2’s cosmetic endgame is, but that was the same endgame we got in GW1. Up to and including sales in trade channels of the loot for profit like the TP does now.

The sole difference is instead of having to go to a gold seller, you can go to ANet for Gems.

bhcbose.9615:

but tobias, is it the player job to build the reward infrastructure?

But bhcbose, the community seems dead set on doing the game design for the developers and saying how wrong they are to develop a game in a certain way, so why shouldn’t they just keep right on going and do the rest of the work for them?

Sarcasm aside, if you’re going to start saying the design is bad and not offer up reasonable alternatives, or at least unpacking exactly why it’s bad rather than just “it’s bad because I don’t like it”, then you’re not helping.

Of course, then you have the other half of this:

SkiTz.4590:

Thats the problem , anets going to side with whats good for the majority of whats left of this community, which is mostly casuals….

I would love nothing more than anet coming up with some reward infrastructure changes , but if they decide that more difficult content gets the better rewards, it will cause a massive outcry from this casual fanbase, hence it will never happen IMO….

. . . who basically take the path of “I’m going to complain long, loud, and continuously about this, but then assume it’s never going to happen”. That’s also not helping.

Come on, people, meet halfway, make an effort to show you really mean this rather than just spouting rhetoric about endgame being terrible. I’m not against there being “endgame” like there was in GW1 but you’ve got to overcome how meaningless it was then and would be now.

Scientia.8924:

This is the opposite of GW1, where leveling up was long and boring to me, but at least half the story is experienced while at max level.

Not in Prophecies. Half the story was impossible to figure out what was going on until you hit max level, perhaps, but that’s because the story pacing was a mess. Factions catapulted you into level 20 on the ‘tutorial island’ of Shing Jea, and Nightfall was close behind.

Honestly, I want to see what ANet could come up with if they just nixed levels all together and found a different progression scheme. Apparently they tried it in GW2 and the testers hated it.

SkiTz.4590:

Im Mudbone.1437:

This game isn’t about what we get in-game for our effort it’s about how many wallets can be forced open for the gem-store crap.

Pretty much

Yeah, no. This game isn’t nearly about forcing your wallet open to grab cash. I should know, I tried games like that as a challenge to see how far I could get without succumbing.

Soon as something which is inherently necessary shows up on the Gem Store, I’ll concede the point. Until then, I’m going to keep saying this: There is nothing forcing you to buy through the cash store.

The reward system in GW2 is flat out bad, point blank period

Just because you say it, doesn’t make it so. Even if you use “point blank period”. I could say hardcore content like Domain of Anguish all were a waste of time as there was no really useful rewards out of running it beyond cosmetic appeal. Point blank period.

Doesn’t mean people didn’t like it, as is evidenced by how many people want something like that back. (And I sort of liked it, but after realizing there wasn’t enough in there to really appeal, I stuck to other stuff.)

Unfortunately, people in this game don’t want tough and difficult content to be more rewarding than casually playing…which is why I don’t think we will see a change in the reward infrastructure…

I’d say you’re wrong, this topic pretty much shows there’s people who want hard content to be rewarding. I mean, that’s where it started, right?

Now if we could only actually find a reward infrastructure/type we could agree on adding.

bhcbose.9615:

I just don’t get why people would be mad if content would be added to the game.

Would casuals be mad if the content added was to hard? Maybe

Depends on the content. I mean, if the content was just another RNG engine but attached to extreme difficulty so only the hardcore could get a chance, I would be mad. Similarly, if the rewards were only given to the person to land the actual killing blow to whatever end boss in the content, and everyone else got a lesser item? I’d be mad.

If the content was, also, just “Collect 10 Bear Rectums for one RNG Box” with the drop chance not being 100% for said bear parts? I’d be heavily annoyed. Further annoyed if the drops from the RNG Box were all basically vendor/salvage junk except for 1%.

You know, unlike Coffers of Whispers, where most of what you could get was useful or valuable.

Well, we already had our own Arya Stark in Gwen . . .

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

Zaxares.5419:

Mostly it’s about Nicholas arguing that the existing game lore is wrong and how humans can and should be the dominant race in GW2, if only the devs weren’t so biased against them and nerfing them so the 5 races can be “equal”.

Excuse me? Did you say that the races are essentially equal at least at the start of the events of GW2 the game? Seriously?

Also I never said Humanity should be the dominant race as it was in GW(1) in Tyria. Your confused and misguided post is full of errors and statements that I’ve never made or suggested.

Given you do the same to other people, I think it’s fair someone did it to you. No offense, naturally.

This approximates what I think should have been a possible and likely outcome of the events after that of the first game.

Yes, sure, should we cover how this goes against the general theme of the game? The dragons ran the norn out of the north, the asura out of the Depths, and dropped a big pile of “oh dead gods why” on the charr in the form of the Dragonbrand, and the sylvari are too new to the world to have much in the form of lasting power.

The theme of the game is how all civilization of the five races is threatened by the dragons and their minions. Not “humanity is too weak to stand” but “all races need to wake up and smell the apocalypse”. Jormag’s influence keeps spreading southwards, Zhaitan (was) pressuring everything to the south of Kessex Hills along the coastline, Primordius’ destroyers basically only kept in check (assumedly) because the dwarves sacrificed themselves. Kralk’s minions keep expanding the Dragonbrand’s danger zone.

And, apparently, Mordremoth’s had a nice nap and is ready to get in on the fun too.

What is the decline of humanity in the face of the end of every civilization once again in the vicious cycle alluded to in Arah (Explorable) and the Tome of Rubicon?

Devata.6589:

Tokens is yet another currency (so boring) so while nice to have as an extra there should also be some unique drops in there you would really want to go for.

Nerelith.7360:

As opposed to tokens, which make me feel Like I am clocking in, and clocking out… Like a job.

Well, you see, there’s a reason I go to Tokens as a means of determining loot, or even a chest item you can open and choose your reward out of (a la Weapon/Armor boxes). It’s because I’ve, in the past, been burned by RNG or even the choice of random rolls, heck even DKP systems which are supposed to be fairly adjudicated have been broken due to corrupt methods of accounting them by guild leaders.

Heck, most of my dungeon loot in Eye of the North would be diamonds, uncommon rare items (with useless stats), and maybe some onyx. Saurian Scythe? Emerald Blade? Amythest Shield? Please, I had to pay people to get those if I wanted them. Pretty big collection of stuff I’d never use though. (At least it raised my Wisdom track.)

Tokens or otherwise is a fair choice, it’s guaranteed to be useful instead of “yay, two greens and a blue”™, and it’s less like the Precursor Lottery.

It is also maybe boring, maybe not exciting to go “what’s in the box?!” but . . . show of hands . . . how many people really expect to get the awesome-and-useful end of the loot spectrum opening loot bags or end-area chests?

Zaxares.5419:

Plus a small side argument between me and CETheLucid about Pyre Fierceshot.

I don’t know what the argument is. He is awesome and brings great honor to rangers by being one.

. . . also, he could totally take Rytlock in a fight.

Daishi.6027:

If we had proper raids or 10 man content (hell even challenging 5 man content) that had skins and fun consumables as rewards NOT based on RNG (Although RNG can help a goal) This would fit and give people proper content.

I’d bite on a test-case where two different groups compose and run a dungeon-like instance from opposite ends to meet in the middle for the final fight. Vizunah Square was a relatively fun mission when the bugs didn’ crop up.

Seriously, that’d actually be interesting – X groups of 5 players queuing up or entering an area together to run separate paths (or paths which intersect then diverge later) and culminating in a rather impressive, large battle where multiple-group tactics can/must be used so the fight can be won.

Let the rewards be tokens traded for skins. Screw just getting handed Ascended-stat things, because then everyone and their sister would complain about how they’re now “forced” to do that event due to the reward being too good.

Kronus.6048:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kronus.6048:

and I can ask what’s the point of legendary weapon when I can just get an ascended one

Footstep effects.

lol 3-5 months of grinding for footstep effects

Some would say “worth it”.

Some would say “forget that”.

I say “whatever, next asura in line please, and adjust the catapult five degrees left”.

Title thread does remind me of Don’t Let’s Start

. . . I just needed an excuse to share it.