Guild Wars 2

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Fun Facts:

1. High Social Environment does not mean casual friendly, as far as technical definition is concerned it actually means requiring of High Social Skills, so when someone says this is a High Social Experience he means you need to have excellent communication skills. Guess what game environment requires that? Raids. Anyone who has put “High Social Skills” on their resume knows this.
2. Dungeons originally were suppose to be harder than the raids that were released with GW2 Hot. It was advertised kitten. Dungeons were nerfed to satisfy the WoW kiddies who came to the game. that couldn’t function out of the UI fiesta that WoW has become.
3. Aside from the grind fest added in HoT, the CGC released in HoT is in line with the original intentions of Anet.

1. True. But sadly, a high social skill alone means nothing when you are looking for a rewarding experience. You can be a first class demagouge or manager and not have a single honest or sympathetic thought for other people. I don´t want to spend my free time with people like this.
2. Dungeons are boring. Fully agree here. not sure if they were intended to be harder, but I am pretty sure that some people over at Anet thought who would be the better source of money. Too bad they did not put rthat much effort into planning the actual dungeons…
3. Debatable. I don´t say that you are wrong, but neither you or I know the Intention of Anet from the start except that they expected to earn money from us.

So you disagree that hardcore raiders who seek challenges leave a given game if they have the hardest content on farm mode only to return if a new piece of content appears while playing the newest version of another game tp repeat the cycle? Stuff like that never happens? Not even in WoW where numbers of subscribers is heavily fluctuating? Call it a trend instead of a proof if you like then.

And I complain about this argument because neither you or I know how it was intended. The person saying it probably does not know anymore how it was intended. You probably all remember how people were falling over each other when a dev said something akin to that ascended is mandatory for raids. It´s exactly the same with this argument here.

It is kind of telling that Anet´s defenders have to resort to such drastic measures as intended wording lately. Maybe it was not explicitly stated, but nobody did anything to correct that impression either.

Which would again neatly prove that you can not please or hold hardcore players in a game if you don´t have random dungeons with so many variables that even if someone figures out the possible combinations it would still be too much to predict accurately. They are sufficient for a quick band aid rush for the shareholder meeting, but that´s it then.

We did not have a league. We had seasons as Diku rightfully stated. That may be synonymus for some of you, but it is not.

To further explain, let me take football for example. The Premier League has some teams anyone knows, as do the Primera Division, the Bundesliga and the Seria A.
Bayern Munich is the record champion of Germany and has repeatedly won the world series.
Real Madrid has arguably the best individual players in the world.
Juventus Turin and Manchester United are both record champions and have century old traditions and are loved around the world.

We do have servers instead of clubs, but none of them has a tangible legacy over the memory of single people.
Ask a true hardcore fan of any of the clubs mentioned and they will tell you with pride and on the spot who played for Manchester form 1982 to 1988 as substitute defender. Ask anyone who won the first season of WvW and most people will vaguely point in the direction of SFR and know nothing more about it.
Do you think anyone would remember just any team of them if they played just for fun for 10/12th of the year and have an irregular season then and when? Football would be as popular as featherweight boxing if this was the case.

The whole idea of a reset is also nonsense. So what if a big guild holds a tower 24/7? It is a monumental siege to wrestle the fortress away from them then! Epic, legendary stuff. Give guilds some coins to spend in Guild Halls only if they hold or conquer stuff in wvw, and see how the servers will fill up quickly with idealists and small time guilds that will fanatically defend their tower or camp because they actually fight for something. Punish them harshly if they try to make obvious deals with enemies to hold ground and openly brand the guild as cowards and collaborators.

Use volunteer storytellers. There are many people that love to chronicle. Publish interviews on your home Page, not on some shady youtube account or with twitter or some place like that so that casuals can see them without taking part in twitter or stuff like that.

I support this exchange of ideas in general, although I have no idea if it will affect the diastrous situation positively. Coming from a small german server and having some wvw friends there, I realize that wvw is really on life support here.

I also don´t fully understand the whole EotM debate. Karma is old news in GW2, I see absolutely no reason to go to EotM at the moment if you have all the APs you can get there and don´t need to level.

So either we
a) turn it into a system like the one suggested and Anet treats it like a league. Why a league? Because even the worst sports team has die hard fans, and some people like to play against the big dog in a fight for survival. This would also validate WvW, as of right now the consequences of you loosing a match are close to zero. So you get a junk box less and maybe drop a place, but who cares? With the league, you at least have fought for your team in a meaningful way. Put in a ranking and some reward for guilds, not individual players only, and we have the people that want to grab for glory on the wvw maps and the people that want to bandwaggon of the maps and they can go to greener grounds. A win for anyone.
b) Break up servers and kill reset of WvW. Let guilds fight for and hold individual land, towers and fortresses until they loose them. For those of you who remember DAOC that worked realyl well and drew a quick response from your realm most of the time, even on the smaller servers.

I am pretty sure that is the idea behind the new learning curve in GW2 has nothing at all to do with intentionally driving people away. But whoeve plans stuff like this is surely on a good way to achieve that.

Over the years, options have become slimmer and slimmer for people like me. I usually gained my festival stuff by doing dailies because I refuse to be a seal and jump through the hoop that is winters day JP. So I get diddly squat this year. For me, that is ok, I find other things to do in GW2 most of the time. But what is the message of this?
a) " We HTFUed and you must too if we take you seriously" ?
b) “We planned it so, and it stays this way!” ?
c) " We are looking for new customers" ?

Option C is a pretty common business model, but it usually gets used by companies that are desperate or by those who have a monopoly anyway.
Option B is prevalent in companies that are ruled by families or a strong character who thinks that the company is his baby and thinks everyone is clueless about it expect for him and his yes men.
Option A is just plain stupid and is used only by a handful of companies who try to sell exclusives anyway. But even with these comanies, the customer is King. If someone with the necessary money asks Ferarri to custom build them a single car, of course they wil happily oblige.

I am pretty sure that is the idea behind the new learning curve in GW2 has nothing at all to do with intentionally driving people away. But whoeve plans stuff like this is surely on a good way to achieve that.

Over the years, options have become slimmer and slimmer for people like me. I usually gained my festival stuff by doing dailies because I refuse to be a seal and jump through the hoop that is winters day JP. So I get diddly squat this year. For me, that is ok, I find other things to do in GW2 most of the time. But what is the message of this?
a) " We HTFUed and you must too if we take you seriously" ?
b) “We planned it so, and it stays this way!” ?
c) " We are looking for new customers" ?

Option C is a pretty common business model, but it usually gets used by companies that are desperate or by those who have a monopoly anyway.
Option B is prevalent in companies that are ruled by families or a strong character who thinks that the company is his baby and thinks everyone is clueless about it expect for him and his yes men.
Option A is just plain stupid and is used only by a handful of companies who try to sell exclusives anyway. But even with these comanies, the customer is King. If someone with the necessary money asks Ferarri to custom build them a single car, of course they wil happily oblige.

In my opinion, very good ideas.

but my main point for WvW would be simple: Recognition.
WvW is a game mode for heroes and guilds of heroes. They want to see their names recognized.

In the spiritual forefather of WvW, RvR in DAOC, there were huge lists of guilds and what they have done for their server with a score. That was pretty glorious in my opinion. And please, refrain from using the 90% score in any ranking! Nothing screams so loud and clear I don`t care for this list as having a percentage replace an actual score.
In GW2, I sadly have no idea who the good guilds for wvw are. I know a few legends from my own server, some from foreign servers but only a handful.

I firmly believe that the majority of serious wvwers are not karma grinders by heart but people who want to fight for a cause. Bandwaggoners come and go, but trust the people here when they say that the idea that a wvwer is automatically also a dedicated pve person is utter nonsense.

My firm belief is that anyone who buys something months! before release without having even a vague idea of what is in is either
a) a blind fanboy who would buy it if a gang of thugs was included to come and give him the beating of his lifetime.
b) someone who loves the game and buys it despite knowing better, hoping that the drough will end soon.
c) someone with too much money.

My concern is not even primarily with the tedious grind. I bought bolt I, looked at the requirements, shook my head and have not once since tried to collect it. And that´s ok. I don´t have it, and don´t really need it, so what. I am sad that I will miss out on the skin, but the party is over.
It´s not even the monsters of HoT. Yes, they are harder and you can´t go afk as often as you can in Old Tyria. Ok. If I want to play GW2 hile doing something else, I stay in old Tyria. No problem.

Now I am a pretty patient guy and intend to stay with GW2 until it really tells me that I have to move on or a new kid comes into town that caters better to my lazy ways. And I can assure you that HoT was the first shove in the direction of the door for me. Why?
a) Plattform Wars 2. I am no plumber, and not Italian.
b) Raid Wars 2. Hiding viable equipment between content that is not intended for a majority was, is and will always be wrong in my mind.
c) Maze Wars 2. I am also not a gopher or flying squirrel. While i can live with Map 1, Map 3 is the worst offender in this.
d) Adventure Wars 2. Boring, grindy, no want to replay them at all.

So I already know that I won´t touch HoT ever again after I have collected the recips from it. And is that something you really want, content that is not desireable but a lesson in patience and grudge management?

TexZero.7910:

Torolan.5816:

TexZero.7910:

Rayzah.4235:

So please tell me how I can improve my reaction time

By not making excuses and actively going out of your way, even though it may not be appealing or easy and just taking small steps.

Eventually you will build up muscle memory and be able to do the puzzle almost instinctively.

Seriously, I tried to stop reading after “it may not be appealing”, but I just could not do it. The fascinating point here is, you´re not even wrong. But what is this, a game or some kind of physiotheraphy? Muscle memory to make unappealing content is an actual argument in an MMO? People are not recovering from an accident, they are looking for fun in their spare time…

Fun is relative though. Rewards are concrete however, the item is a reward, not fun.

You can do many things for fun, you have to do many things to be rewarded. That’s the difference.

Again it may not be something you actively enjoy, personally i hate the bell choir game. Am i going to let my own rhythmic ineptitude stop me from trying ? No. Eventually i’ll be able to complete a song and not feel hopeless.

Do i think they could have been nice and made the achievement items sell-able and have limitless repeatable acquisition, sure. But then you’d open up a can of worms where-in people complain about Gold being all that’s required for the unique skin.

Is there potentially another solution ? Sure.
Do i think removing part of the requirements is ever going to be it ? No.

And again, it is hard to argue against the logic of the argument. But I thought until recently that it was the job to make a game fun for a company if it wants to sell it? You offer a solution like a mechanic that repairs a volvo with functionality as the goal, not fun or aestethics. And I seriously doubt that this can help a game like GW2 stay afloat in the future.

Of course you can argue that a reward has a fixed schedule to get it as it is a reward and wants to be earned. But it still does kind of not make sense to say people that they simply can´t have it then if a funny game is your product. It would make sense if we were all working in the accounting department of a comany though.

TexZero.7910:

Rayzah.4235:

So please tell me how I can improve my reaction time

By not making excuses and actively going out of your way, even though it may not be appealing or easy and just taking small steps.

Eventually you will build up muscle memory and be able to do the puzzle almost instinctively.

Seriously, I tried to stop reading after “it may not be appealing”, but I just could not do it. The fascinating point here is, you´re not even wrong. But what is this, a game or some kind of physiotheraphy? Muscle memory to make unappealing content is an actual argument in an MMO? People are not recovering from an accident, they are looking for fun in their spare time…

So if you are prepared for the arcade game part of HoT with jumping content, it somehow gets reasonable or even loredriven? Ok, we crashed in the djungle, let´s seek out that friendly looking frogmn and soo if he lets us take part in the funny game the locals play here. Yes, really legit from my point of view…^^

I never liked the idea of grinding dungeons for armor and weapons, but it had to be done for varios reasons.

Lorewise, they are very old content with one major NPC having died since and another one being close to a traitor. I know this can´t be helped if you do not invalidate Destinys edge and completely replace the dungeons with new content, but it feels still odd for me to play them now.

I would be all for reworked dungeons with the new heroes and old dungeons being converted into fractals, but that is probably not possible.

When is the next shareholder meeting of Anet? Probably a little before that date.^^

I am very much in favor of new fractals. I love fractals, but running the same fractals over and over again gets really stale.

Fractal themes I would like to see:
*Anything with Tengu involved.
*More Scarlett stuff. She has a cameo in reactor already, at least more of this stuff please!
*Abaddon
*Tales from Orr
*Karka

I found GW1 incredibly strong, and there is so much that GW2 was lacking from the start to let it keep up with it´s parent, but every game has it´s irks and flaws in the beginning.

WvW and the idea of changeable world made me quickly jump on the hype train when it was released.
I was a happy PvE player who really enjoyed the events of Vanilla GW2. Not because they were faceroll easy, but because they were exciting and fun. But after some months of gaming joy, I began to realize that it could not deliver all of it´s promises. That is perfectly normal with computer games, but look at how long the list is:
*Dynamic world events that could wrestle control over cities from the players were cancelled before the game even started. They had a brief and glorious return in ls1, but that was scrapped. The world stays so static that you can visit NPCs that vanished or died years ago, and Orr for example has not changed one bit. I don´t know if it is possible or sustainable to make such things in a running MMOs, but if you can´t do it, don´t promise it.
*WvW is dying. Don´t deny it, everyone who plays on the lower servers knows that it´s true. It is not dying because people hate it, it is dying because Anet did not deliver what players wanted, but gave us maps that are PvEcentric.
*GvG was never supported until recently with guild halls. I did not even GvG and find this to be wrong and a missed opportunity.
*The cap of dailies is plain stupid. A new player will never catch up to a 28K veteran that continues to play. Accept it. It will N E V E R happen, and everyone above the age of 11(the minimum age of GW2) knows that. That reason for the daily cap is plain wrong.
*Laugahably bad and neglected leaderboards. In DAOC, you could be proud of your guild, people knew and respected your band. In GW2, I don´t even know the names of prominent WvW, PvP or PvE guilds. I am at a point where I don´t even care anymore for that honestly, but I advocated for this for years. Give your guilds a face and recognition! But no, Anet just wants to highlight a group of PvP aces to a small audience because the sniff money in that.
If you are behind the best by more than 10%, you are counted as having 90% on the AP leaderboard. Huh? I am not a computer geek, but i have seen better and more detailed lists in the 15+ year old DAOC.
*Repeated content and events. If you don´t have time for events, do do events. Copying the Halloween event piece by piece because the guys at Anet were busy to make SuperMarioWars2 with HoT was a plain slap in the face, even though people were so hungry for content that they even swallowed that toad.

These are just some of the problems you encounter in Vanilla GW2, and with HoT, things turned in a complete opposite direction from a very promising start. I realize that the tides will probably turn in the favor of people like me again but up until now, I am stuck in Super Mario Wars 2 if I want to keep on playing.

And on a sidenote, I entered HoT with my Mesmer yesterday to get Chronomancer running, and only died when I did something stupid. The funny thing is that I play Mesmer only once in a blue moon so that I basically don´t have a clue about him, but situational awareness does the trick most of the time. So HoT will not necessarily turn you into a better player, it just causes you to pay attention.

And I did not want to be “forced” into minigames with HoT, but here we are. It is a year long practice of Anet to make content obsolete, play with their rewards or simply not reachable anymore after a time. Then you have the choice to either play it when it is up, suck it up that you will never get it, pay for it or go down the grindy way like I did with minigames.

I also thinks this sucks, but realistically spoken, that are your alternatives.

I would like to use an arguent here that is widespread on this forum:
“Don´t like how it is, don´t do it. Nothing is forced upon you.”
I find that to be an incredibly stupid and telling idea myself, but it also works in the opposite direction like in this case. Better than nothing.^^

I find them neither challenging or funny. Some are tolerable, but especially the kite flying stuff is plain unbearable and took the little wind I had left in my to sail to further play HoT away and now that is reduced to some sporadic forays. Luckily I don´t need them that much, but I sympathize with everyone who wants the highest levels of masteries and has to force itself through this filth.

And to be honest, I find the arguments of “challenge” and “don´t like it, don´t do it” cynical and dishonest. The people who are good at this kind of stuff are uually the first to come here and whine so loud that you could hear it on the moon. But now as it suits their taste, they are all for it and tell people to just do them and swallow the toad.
It´s also not challenging either. Yes, it is difficult, but not challenging. Something that is challenging catches my interest, but does not raise my level of frustration just for the sake of it.

I agree with the idea that Anet had basically nothing except for a few ls2 episodes maybe to fill HoT with when they changed their business model, so they build as many roadblocks in it as possible to make it look bigger. But for me personally, the veil over HoT is too thin to hidfe it´s flaws and hurried design.

SW was at least only one or generously two layered.

HoT is like Drytop on steroids. But compared to drytop, navigation gets less and less tiresome if you unlock the masteries.If you are looking for an experience of something getting less tiresome, is another question.^^

I think there is much to do for those who are willing or find it enjoyable to do:
a) Minigames and collections. Specialization collections are wortless as anyone of them contains an arcade game from HoT, made at a special level. Boring and out of question for me personally.
b) Fractals. Same old stuff. The idea is ok though, add some new fractals and that may bring me over the winter contentwise.
c) Dungeons. Never my thing to begin with.
d) WvW. Dead.
e) PvP. Yawn. Adding a collection to this made me even want to do this less.
f) Questing in HoT. Yes, I occassionally do that to get some AP.
g) Exploration of HoT. Out of question. Never would I subject myself to the nightmare of exploring every hidden door in a map with 3 horrible layers.
h) Collect recipes. Yes, I do that, I am kind of a hamster in this one.

Maybe you ask yourself what is this guy still doing in GW2 right now at this point and why has he not left yet?
a) Star Citizen is not ready, not by a long shot.
b) lack of suitable alternatives, no interest in single player games.
b) My guild

xarallei.4279:

ChrizZcE.5981:

of course legendary is objectively the best in slot. It´s not even debatable.

Legendaries have the ability to switch stats on the fly which make them objectively better than ascended items. They also tend to be the best looking items in a game that is all about cosmetics (at least it used to before the ascended gear treadmill was introduced for raids)

In six months to a year legendary armor will be required for raids so that you can change stats on the fly for every raid boss. Ascended gear will become the new exotics and people will exclude you from raiding if you only have ascended gear as it is the case now with exotics and raiding.

This is so ignorant it’s not even funny. Changing stats on the fly is useless when you have to change runes. It’s far more efficient to have two set of ascended then to be constantly changing legendary. No one is ever going to require legendary for raids. Ever.

I already kind of gave the op my support for his position, althouh I am not really happy with the idea of buying it outright, but with a diffrerent method of aquisition.

Ignorance is a two edged sword, xarallei. I also disagree with the majority that legendary is not better than ascended. Better, not superior. Right now. You and your colleagues are basing your ideas on the premise that ascended will stay the highest available tier of armor. Fair enough.

But trust me with this: You can´t take a gaming company, or a company in general, by its word. They lie with silver tongued words, cheat for bonuses and steal ideas if the tide of time washes them ashore of the company. Call me a communist if you like, but I don´t trust companies and the free, unregulated market with their promises. The world has evidently shown that it can not sustain itself in truly free markets. Even economists begin to realize this, although the economy will of course fight tooth and nail for their established world order.
Of course you could argue that this has nothing to do with such a minor thing as an armor in an online game, but we have a saying here: The fish starts to stink from the head. If the CEO of a company gives you a statement, you can bet your last cent that half of what he says is over the top and the other half is already an attempt to heave his butt out of the fire line.
A promise from a company is worthless. Even a promise from a sports federation like the FIFA or the olympic comitee is worthless. SAdly, they are probably the worst offenders.

NewTrain.7549:

Torolan.5816:

You can buy an exact copy of the world championship trophy. It has the same value and function(standing around) as the original, it just lacks the prestige of the original.

No, it actually doesn’t have the same value. I’d invite you to look at the few Olympic medals or championship trophies that have been sold and compare those prices to replicas. Not the same in the least.

They have the same value, you pay for the prestige of the original. But you are right in a way, I should have used the word properties instead of value.

I would be more than ok with it being not buyable and would also not care if it is a different skin. If I was able to see a legendary as a skin only anyway, we would not even have this conversation right now.^^

So it is ok when some people reach the reward through the backdoor someone else opened for them, but it is not ok when people that don´t like raids ask for an alternative method to obtain the reward?
Either a content is optional or not, Pick your choice if raids are mandatory or not.

And I also feel that we are back at step one from some months ago when raids were anounced. You are ok with them hiding something behind one special content, I am not. And once again the alternative would be items that have the same properties but different skins to keep everyone not happy but satisfied, the lowest common nominator you mentioned.

I am not exactly supporting P2W in the way you describe it. But I despise the alternative, casual but veteran players getting excluded from content, even more.

My suggestion would have been a red item for the raiders and a blue item for the non raiders. So everyone could see that the red item belongs to a content completer and the second to a buyer or grinder. Everyone would be happy.

You can buy an exact copy of the world championship trophy. It has the same value and function(standing around) as the original, it just lacks the prestige of the original. You supported the sports federation of your team to buy it and without your support, your team would have to find other jobs.
So you can rightfully say that you own an exact copy of the championship with all the accompanying functions, but have not won it by playing the sport. What is lacking here are history books that show who has actually won it and who has only bought it, nothing else. If that is enough for someone, why deny it to him? It is neither unfair because it is his gold or money he spent, nor unfair because someone invested time instead of money as that is everyone´s choice.

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

I did not say that they enter once, fail and then ragequit. I did say they try it multiple times, fail and don´t come back to try again. Would you return to a game where you are only a B+ customer by design after starting as an A customer like everyone else? HTFU or GTFO, isn´t that the mantra of raiders? I have read it often enough on this and other message boards. Which other part of PvE offers a glass wall?

What are you talking about? Because you fail some type of content on an MMORPG you’ll rage quit a game completely? Are you kidding me? It’s not like the rest of the game disappeared or there is nothing else to do in the game. Have you ever took part in a PTS PVP league? I haven’t because I know I can’t compete on that level, do I have to quit PVP because of it? Please get serious.

You are looking for challenging content, right? I suppose you don´t buy stuff with your credit card but try to achieve them with your own work. Then the progress of those who choose the credit card should be of no concern to you anyway as you have the chance to get all what they have by your own work. If this is not your motivation and you are looking for bragging rights, I can´t help you with that. With the inevitable carrying of people into raids at some point, your work is going to be invalidated anyway in the not so far future.

You really don’t get it, do you? When they add things that you can buy with a credit card they don’t add things behind content. There is no reason to. If you add a way to get something through grinding/farming or paying with cash, the exact same thing will never appear in other more challenging types of content.

You know why? Because we already have the “Which is the best gold per hour in the game?” mentality and that won’t change. Allowing players to get the items through a credit card AND from a raid, by default makes the raid worthless. It doesn’t have to do with bragging rights.

Is there an item which you can replace legendary armor with in other parts of PvE? Not adequately substitute like ascended armor, but replace piece by piece? It is my firm opinion that everything that is not a skin or booster and exclusive and accessible through only one way is a wrong design, regardless of my demand or need of the item. I am sorry if this rubs you the wrong way, but if hiding real items behind a raid is necessary to make it popular, it is an unpopular game mode from the get go.

If you can´t compete in PvP it is because you, like me, are not good enough to play at the highest echelons. But again, PvE is not PvP. Anet has no control over PvPers and how much of a challenge they pose or how accessible they are. But they have this choice in PvE.

People can buy their way in on legendary armor at some point, so I really don´t understand your position. It is inevitable that in some months some jokers will have bought that which you valiantly battled for by getting carried. The noble cause to keep reward = effort is as hopeless as the battle of Anet for Esports or their unrelenting quest of pleasing the unpleasable raiders crowd.

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

Please don´t exaggerate that much. I am not a fan of raids and did not ask for them but like to do various other things in GW2 where I am also willing to invest time an effort into stuff I like.

I didn’t say that people who play the raid and fail quit the game.

But If people chose to hand their paycheck over to anet, it is of no concern to me. Neither you or I are forced to do it to have fun in the game. What is probably the difference between us in that question is that I don´t pay attention to what my neighbor is or has. What is of concern to me is that Anet choose to hide an item I would like to have behind a specific content I dislike. And it is also of no concern to me if the rune swaps with it or not as I don´t min-max my builds.

You are wrong. If the game is built around the gem to gold conversion then we get to where we are now. Everything is gotten through crafting and to craft you need an insane amount of materials, so you either grind, farm or pay cash. Making everything available with cash is exactly what makes the game feel like a grind in the first place. I don’t care what my neighbor has either. I care only to allow those items to be acquired through playing the game and not through farming/grinding/cash because that in the long run hurts me too.

It ruins MY play experience when the game doesn’t have items to go for, and instead put everything behind endless RNG,Grind and crafting. Let me ask it this way, if it was sellable on the Gem store why would Anet even bother to make the Raid in the first place?

And maybe people realize they have hit the glasswall for this or that reason and see no use in playing the casual game they are used too anymore? It is quite a difference if people realize that they are not the best players or only have a vague idea about it. Raids are a part of PvE, the core game of GW2. It is one thing to suck in a niche part of the game like PvP. If you suck at the core game, you probably begin to think if it really makes sense if you go on playing it.

WvW is part of PVP but they are fundamentally different. Would you say that a PVP player going to WvW and failing would quit the game? Or a WvW player playing in ranked arena and failing would quit the game?

Raids are in PVE yes but that doesn’t mean anything, PVE isn’t only one game type and it shouldn’t be treated as such. There are dungeons, fractals, raids, meta events, world bosses, a lot of different things to do in PVE, someone who is good at one, doesn’t mean will be good at all of them, and why should it? Farming World Bosses all day won’t make you a dungeon player, nor doing fractals will make you a Raid expert.

And if you want, in PVP we have solo queue, party queue, ranked, unranked, farm servers. Being good at one, doesn’t make you good at all the others. Same with PVE, so please that “Raids is part of PVE” doesn’t make any sense.

I did not say that they enter once, fail and then ragequit. I did say they try it multiple times, fail and don´t come back to try again. Would you return to a game where you are only a B+ customer by design after starting as an A customer like everyone else? HTFU or GTFO, isn´t that the mantra of raiders? I have read it often enough on this and other message boards. Which other part of PvE offers a glass wall?

You are looking for challenging content, right? I suppose you don´t buy stuff with your credit card but try to achieve them with your own work. Then the progress of those who choose the credit card should be of no concern to you anyway as you have the chance to get all what they have by your own work. If this is not your motivation and you are looking for bragging rights, I can´t help you with that. With the inevitable carrying of people into raids at some point, your work is going to be invalidated anyway in the not so far future.

Please don´t exaggerate that much. I am not a fan of raids and did not ask for them but like to do various other things in GW2 where I am also willing to invest time an effort into stuff I like.

But If people chose to hand their paycheck over to anet, it is of no concern to me. Neither you or I are forced to do it to have fun in the game. What is probably the difference between us in that question is that I don´t pay attention to what my neighbor is or has. What is of concern to me is that Anet choose to hide an item I would like to have behind a specific content I dislike. And it is also of no concern to me if the rune swaps with it or not as I don´t min-max my builds.

And maybe people realize they have hit the glasswall for this or that reason and see no use in playing the casual game they are used too anymore? It is quite a difference if people realize that they are not the best players or only have a vague idea about it. Raids are a part of PvE, the core game of GW2. It is one thing to suck in a niche part of the game like PvP. If you suck at the core game, you probably begin to think if it really makes sense if you go on playing it.

maddoctor.2738:

eldrin.6471:

In the end anet will decide who they want playing there game.People who spend money who actually will never be capable of doing raids due to disability’s.but i think it will take more than the dozen new players you mention to make up the £3000 uk iv put in to this game in the last year.Time will tell.

What do raids have to do with this? They could add multiple ways of getting that Legendary Armor, and they might well do it after the third wing is released and the actual playerbase completing those Raids is confirmed. I’m only saying that no such way should be available that uses only gold/gems/cash as currency. It’s very simple.

And you are clearly underestimating how many people want to play games to be rewarded and have fun rather than do endless grinding, farming and paying with cash. The first one is an actual game, the second is like a job.

As usual, I almost agree with you. Almost. What is a job for me(raids), is a fun activity for you. Do you really think that it is fair, funny or just economically makes sense that less skilled players or those unintersted in being the best players are dependent on alms to get legendary armor after the chosen few have competed the raids? It was wrong with thew fractal backpack years ago, and now it is wrong with legendary armor. I got my fractal backpack early because i loved doing them, but I could sympathize with those who did not want to spend so much time in fractals to collect over 1K in currency just for the standard exotic backpiece.

Maybe you underestimate how many people run into a raid, fail a few times and then give up either on raids or the entire game? I am as smart as you in this question, only time will tell.

xarallei.4279:

You want legendary, you need to earn it. That’s the way legendary should be. It’s a prestige item.

Yes, because all legendary weapons out right now have been earned on an epic quest, and not on the TP or by simply falling over them after a valuable pre dropped from a random mob, or because people cashed in to buy their chosen legendary. Right? No? Strange enough.

The claim that an earned good is much better than a bought good is also nonsense if they have the same quality.
Pro Sports for example could not exist if people who are not good at sports would pay to see people who are good at sports play it and take them in with their performance for the feeling that they are part of the team with their financial and mental support. Imagine Christiano Ronaldo or Kobe Bryant saying that everyone who is unable to win the soccer or basketball championship is a scrub and should work harder at their skills. To further this idea, the next chamionship willl be held on the K7 and people have to climb it to watch it.
Luckily, this will never happen. Both will instead thank their fans for their support and advise the kids to stay helathy and play the game for fun, not for success.

anduriell.6280:

After being trying to do the first boss for one hour or so, i’ve met the first toxic player. The problem you have to use teamspeak and you have to listen it.

I run heal druid, and i clarify that at the beginning but then he complain about i heal too much.
Then i have too much toughness.
Then complained about an engie.
Then about the people getting killed or teleported when it was in the green circles…
Then he was raging like a monkey when we got wiped out and he said and i quote I’ve done this thousands of times
Then i left, i couldn’t stand it anymore.

Is there many people like these? I don’t run dungeons or fractals for the same reason, i don’t play to have to listen this kind of insulting and toxic players..

You did the most unpardonable offending here, Anduriell. You played a character that was suitable for the role, but not optimal. And as every raider and elitist(not necessarily any of the people commenting about this right now) knows that if it is not the absolute best, it is garbage and useless and the raid failing is entirely your fault while all others took their build from battlegeek or some other, approved place. And so they can rest easily despite falling left and right, facetanking or for whatever stupid reason they chipped in for your raid to fail.^^

My characters have the luck of an early birth so to say, I got the large majority of my stuff rather cheap. I find raids tiresome and continual trial and error boss fails boring instead of exciting, so I have never really considered raids in GW2 content that I want to do more often than necessary, and it surely was no reason for me to buy HoT, quite the contrary. If they gave for example 30 Gold and a medal per success, I would not even object or mind raids. What bugs me is the exclusive gating of legendary armor, that is as wrong as hiding the ascended backplate behind fractals was wrong. I happened to have made a lot of fractals so this was no hindrance for me personally, but I could understand everyone who was angry that he missed out.
Besides, it is also a sign that your content is weak and your numbers show it, or that you have to prove to your superior that your idea was good if you have to exclusively gate somewthing while devaluing something else like in this case dungeons. I find this a despicable and thinly veiled tactic.

I don´t even deny that leveling in Core Tyria is faceroll easy, and that people that sought a challenge should have got one beside Fractals. I also agree when people argue that you can survive HoT alone if you´re not a zerker Ele type or can´t find a difference between your brow and your butt.

xarallei.4279:

Palador.2170:

Alteraphim.4629:

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

Legendary gear has the same stats as ascended gear forever . /thread

Fixed that for you, Vayne. You´re welcome.^^

Fixed your fix for you

Actually, they said that Ascended would be the top gear level (save Legendary) until the end of… I believe it was the end of 2014. We’re a full year past the end of that. They could add in a new top tier at any time and not go back on what they’ve said.

Would it be a bad idea to do so? Most likely, yes. But it could happen at any time.

Actually no. They clarified later on that ascended is going to be the final tier forever. Now will they stick to this? I’d like to believe they will. But things change and people change their minds. But I’m going to try to stay positive on this for once though.

Alteraphim.4629:

No way to avoid losing runes/sigils though.

There is an extraction device for this in the gem shop. Doesn’t cost that much to convert gold to gems for it.

The new type of armor is surely not right on the heels of HoT,but don´t be too angry if it happens. Anet has proven that they can and will execute unpopular decisions, despite what their player basde says.

I don´t know about you, but when I started to play, GW2 prided itself on it´s casual approach. That this has gone out of the window with HoT should be hard to deny, even for the shiniest of White Knights.

Although I find it personally undeniable that casuals and non-meta-build players are not the target audience of Anet anymore, some posters still offer the argument that you can theoretically play all the content if you find people stupid, friendly or hardcore enough to carry you or your fingers are quick enough to give a world class performance with everything after memorizing it in and out of the youtube channel of some math-geek gamer who crunched the numbers. It´s up to everyone´s own opinion if that argument is valid or not, but it clearly gives you the option of being a shameless leecher or a person that just doesn´t get it if you don´t go down that road. Not very appealing if you ask me.

+1, Molch. A very nice of way of stating the obvious message on the basement wall.^^

I don´t know if that is humanly possible for over two months, but maybe he subsided himself with coffein, nicotine and medication to shortcut eating and sleeping breaks or works in an industry where you have to stay awake but not necessarily be working in the purest of senses like night shift guards or a machine technician.

…Yes, Alteraphim, you´re surely right about that. Because we all know that Anet has never backpeddaled on any decision or altered the core game or the direction of the game or said that more fractals would get added too or gave up on dungeons etc etc…

…Based on the same premise, I am ABSOLUTELY sure that ascended armor will be the best armor forever…

Please, get a clue. If the accounting department joins forces with the marketing department and proudly explain that there was not done enough for the collector people and there is big money in it, you can bet your lucky underwear that Anet immedieately turns traitor on that promise too.

Vayne.8563:

Legendary gear has the same stats as ascended gear for now . /thread

Fixed that for you, Vayne. You´re welcome.^^

Vox Hollow.2736:

Honestly, the best players I’ve come across have both been curious PvP’ers.

If Fractals and Gold Grinding were adequately challenging enough activities to encourage folks to climb the Skill Curve, we would’ve never gotten Raids.

That’s kind of the crux of the entire years-long campaign for more challenging content; that existing content did not suffice. So why would having those rewards indicate anything meaningful?

Huh?

I play since release and must have missed that glorious campaign you mention for SuperMarioWars2, ReflextestWars2 or Raidwars2.

My fun with GW2 began to decline with ls2, that was garbage in so many ways that the waste department probably thought of ways to dispose it. My login time sunk rapidly with HoT, and the few times I was in a raid I felt that I utterly wasted my time.

It may be that there was some lobbying for it, but I am pretty sure many people would rather like to have a beautiful story, engaging game mechanics that keeps the game awesome without turning it into a slaughterhouse for the less skilled players, progressive world and new creatures/races to explore instead of a jump heavy, multilayered nightmare of a map which hides the good stuff behind chain events you have to babysit for hours and from different locations if you want to understand what is going on in them lorewise.

Of course you could argue that we got some of that with HoT and to an extend, it is true. If you like a story or not depends on your preferences, your engaging experience is my grinding experience, and your jumping preference is my kick in the balls. I have to weather HoT out if I want to stay with GW2 and have to hope that if falls flat on the face in a timespan where I still want to play GW2.

So please don´t try to sell the impression that there was massive lobbying for raids and engaging open world, support for raids was medium at best with many people speaking out against it, at least in this forum.

I neither want to ban PvP or want to get people away from it. If you like it good for you, really. It can also have patches and new maps bi weekly if you ask me. honestly, if I were a PvP enthusiast, I would have quit GW2 years ago.

But I think you confuse providing with promoting here. Of course Anet has costs for power, employees, etc etc. These are tools, programs and wages they have to PROVIDE for the game to run. You can´t host the game without a, well, host. And it´s not the idea that Anet want´s to promote PvP that bugs me, it´s the way they PROMOTE it. It´s trhe complete neglect of their other types of players like WvWers or casual PvEers lately.

Compared to HoT free maps, it stays optional. So far, so good. To be honest, I don´t know if the legendary backpack is PvP only, I did not inform myself over it as I was still hoping mad about legendary armor gated behind raids. If it is exclusive, my only other complain about PvP would be that it gates something I would like to have, but am forced to get it by doing things I dislike.

TexZero.7910:

Dresdoe.7503:

TexZero.7910:

Dresdoe.7503:

Sicarius.4639:

Hey! Those 4000 odd people watching that stream think it’s highly valuable!

The people who watch streams are the cancer that needs to be purged from the internet. I mean seriously they contribute zilch to the community as a whole, whereas those of us that have actually supported the game have been kicked to the curb in order to encourage…..what? people to watch? this is so disturbing to me.

Really calling people who watch streams cancer now ?

That’s mighty low, especially from what is supposed to be a friendly community. Shame that PvE players are being so toxic, instead of constructive and a staple part of the community that thrives to show their best sides…..

As for contributing nothing, really….can you tell me all the solo “causal” etc contribute anything more outside of constant complaints founded only in the basis that they are too stubborn or unwilling to learn/adapt ?

The whole anti eSports crusade is a sad joke on the communities part. You don’t have to like, understand or even remotely care why its a thing, but refrain from the petty and nonsensical and baseless attacks on people who enjoy something you do not.

you seem completely ignorant to the fact that PvE players have sustained this game as the majority purchasers of gems which are the financial backbone to this game, seeing how this games streaming accounts are joking unpopular they are not even relevant to the profits generated by GW2. Arenanet is trying to force this change, which is the stupid part of it all which is why I blame everyone who watches people play games instead of actually playing them. Can you not see how their not playing is ruining our game we have up til now fully supported? They have literally SAW something that was ours and mutilated it. I stick to my original comment, people who watch streams are the equivalent of cancer to those of us who actually play and don’t care about streaming. I’ve paid hundreds of dollars to play this game and enjoy it and it’s all being twisted and warped into some trash that I don’t even have interest in. If I wanted a hardcore pvp stream experience I’d play something revolving entirely around PvP, not take an mmorpg and try to turn it into some busted, falling apart, unbalanced wreck like it is now. I understand that you think they should have a right to watch us play and not get labeled as cancer and that’s true, but when it starts leading the the developers down some messed up road that I have not ever cared about nor want to care about that creates a problem that cannot be ignored.

Post your figures….I await how you know exactly who the biggest backers of this game.

You’re posting from a position of extreme bias, and it’s cute to label someone as ignorant when you have nothing but your own anecdote to go on.

Additionally, you seem to be under-informed or misinformed if you truly believe you cannot watch a stream, and play the game. People do it all the time and in fact the game itself has its own twitch stream where-in it promotes all gameplay facets, showcases recent updates, and even does community related shout outs to its artist.

So please continue shouting on your soapbox about how people not being in game is hurting the game, when many of the ways people are coming into the game come from sources other than traditional media or gameplay.

I think you pretty much admit that PvP is not the core mode of GW2. Everyone knows that, even Anet admits it. But according to Dev´s, it is growing rapidly. That may very well be. But let´s just assume you have 10 Dollars and get an additional 10 dollars by lawn mowing. Your income has doubled! Hooray!

Let´s also say that 4000 watch a stream. Let´s say that these 4000 are 10% of all pvp players, aka 40000 players in general. Or let´s be more generous and say they are 5%, settling full blooded PvPers at 80000 then. According to the latest news, Anet has 3.1 Million accounts. 31000 accounts would be 1% by that number, so we´re probably looking at 2.5% of all accounts.

The ESport tournament has a pricing money of 200000, and the costs all together could indeed be sitting at 300000. So with a target audience of 80000, Anet is offering 2.5 € per player to get their Esports going. Offering, not collecting money. When was ever offered money to PvE and WvW players? These demographies are by default the largest when PvP is not, and we all know how sparsely populated WvW is these days.

Therefore it is highly doubtable from my point of view that Anet will be successful with their PvP offensive and makes a serious mistake by driving the casual player base away.

And the thought that people were warned and should have seen it coming is complete nonsense. I am pretty sure only a tiny minority asked for a super mario clone expansion, but indeed for enjoyable content in general. I have no problem with the opponents, but the glorified jumping puzzle maps and the life line grind on these maps to keep them populated annoy me.
So of course enjoyable is a matter of definition, but Anet should get a clue about how empty maps appear and to which kinds of tricks players are forced to undertake to get the events going. This should not be an issue for players, but Anet.

Thorwyn.8469:

@Torolan
Only because people are better at a game than others, doesn’t mean that they spend their whole life in it.

My post was not about the assumption that people who devote time to raids have no life in general. My idea was an observation I took from a thread right in this forum where a guild claimed to have spend 11:20 a day over a period of 3 days to beat the raid. So I think the point you´re trying to use here, aka quality, is invalid. I couldn´t care less if you´re a better player than me to be honest, you probably are. I merely disputed the claim that you should receive a favorable condition where we non-raiders do not receive one and are even excluded of a content by design. This last point arenot my words, it´s Anet´s statement who do not expect many people to finish the raids.

perry.9645:

I’m just gonna ignore assumptions made against my and other peoples play style as this isn’t part of the Discussion, even tho “supposed basement dwellers” sounds more funny than insulting.

Rewards don’t have to be just gold, what about Rewarding Boss kills with Ascended Crafting Materials that are otherwise just found in Content no Raider wants to do but has to do to get Legendary Gear.
A bit of liquid Gold wont do much to the Economy as only a minority of the Playerbase will be able to even complete the Content unlike it was for Dungeons.
Also the Token Reward needs to be changed as its currently more efficient to wipe to Bosses to get Tokens and a Full clear will not even get your Tokens halfway to the Cap. How about Caping the Tokens for Wipes and Fails but add a Daily Token Reward for Boss kills.

I wrote supposed as I can indeed only assume and not confirm that someone who has the time to devote nearly half of his day to a computer game over an extended period of time can´t have a life and I also stated the possible exceptions for that. So no, it indeed wasn´t meant as an insult. But a behaviour like this made my prediction some months ago much easier.

What I find particularly telling is:
“Rewards don’t have to be just gold, what about Rewarding Boss kills with Ascended Crafting Materials that are otherwise just found in Content no Raider wants to do but has to do to get Legendary Gear.”
Look what a little word salad magic can do with this:
“Rewards don’t have to be just gold, what about Rewarding Boss kills with Ascended Crafting Materials that are otherwise just found in Content no Non-Raider wants to do but has to do to get Legendary Gear.”

We non-raiders are forced to do raids if we want the legendary armor. Why should you not be forced to do other content if you want it? As we already know, raids are challenging and therefore rewarding in itself, an additional bonus should not be necessary if you already got what you wanted. That would be like me parading around and demanding that conquering castle stonemist should be rewarded with ascended materials because it is the supposedly toughest target of WvW.

Good for you and them. I can rest easy, knowing that I tried my best to enjoy HoT and, after weeks, came to the conclusion that while it is not a total bomb and has many good ideas, it is content I plan to do until I have the masteries and recipes(I am a collector of some sorts) and then never set foot into it again. I would buy the basic edition again, but not hand over 100 €.

Pandabro.8743:

People on the forum are usually more negative than the average gamer. HoT is a lot of fun, especially for the first 20-30 hours (It get’s a little tedious after you start going trying to gear up to raid and do harder content, but still fun). It’s well worth the $50.

Just be warned. The jungle is confusing and challenging, if you are into that you’ll have a blast, but if you’re expecting difficulty on the same level as central Tyria you will be frustrated.

I would have put that the other way. HoT is a really bad and boring salad of multilayered, confusing deathtrap maps at first, but it gets step by step better if you gain masteries.

Ropechef.6192:

eldrin.6471:

The people buying large amounts of gems are not and never will be the same people that can do raids.and by marginalizing the people who are the life blood of this game anet have committed economic suicide.

I buy lots of gems,

I raid…

I also WvW and PvP,

your point?

The premise is that a raider is supposed to be a basement dweller that has the time to farm stuff instead of buying it. And thinking of how people here reported about completing the raid in 11:20 hours a day over the time span of 3 days, I have trouble fighting that impression too. Of course they could be freelancers, students or have taken days off, although the last alternative does not necessarily negate them being basement dwellers, just self sufficient basement dwellers with a functional wallet and a job.^^

To be fair, you can make many events without having a group by loosely banding together with other wandering players. And if you´re a pro, you can also do the soldier escort events on your own on the first map.

Legionnaire.4059:

*Q: Why there are champions for Hero points? Why the mobs are too hard to beat?
A: The game was too easy before and thats why it is called MMO you don’t solo , it is not a single player game. Also staying face to face atacking is really boring , i really like the thing that mobs have more actions like leaps and dodges.

Remember MMO=Massively Multiplayer Online , it wasn’t designed to do things solo . PS: I’m not that social but if i need help or to do something that requires more people i use LFG or ask in map/guild. It’s not hard to get into a kitten guild people are recruiting anytime.

*Q: Why are we forced to do Adventures, why do we need silver rank to complete collections/acquire mastery points?
A: Nobody forces you , if you are too lazy and want to get gold rank from the 1st try this thing won’t get you far. Tip: watch a video on youtube , somebody who made gold rank , learn from it! PS: I’m not a hardcore player and i’m not that good at this kind of things but i try do my best.

I can agree some Adventures are really hard or some of them its not your type for example Shooting Gallery for me i can’t even get silver , probably i have to practice more. But don’t tell me none of this are your type because i don’t believe you.

*Q: Why can’t I level my masteries anywhere?
A: Because you can’t go and study Medicine and become a Mechanic thats why. Gliding is not for Tyria you can’t glide there , bouncing mushrooms none of them in Tyria and so on…

*Q: Why do we have to get masteries in order to lvl them up? It’s not enough that we have to get experience? OR I just want to explore why do i have to lvl them up?
A: I don’t know guys but this sends me to think the logic here it’s something like that : "Why do they force us to play? We paid for this game , i just want to explore like in a simulator … ". That’s the jungle you have to learn in order to master it !

*Q: How can i make gold since dungeons got nerfed , why is everything too expensive ?!?!? blah blah blahh i’m lazy again , i don’ want to play …
A: Of course the things are more expensive now there are many new things to craft. Nothing changed it was like before the expansion , every major updates did that. For example when Ascended Crafting came out. For example Silk scraps from 8 copper to 3 silver back then , linen also … They had to do something also with leather it was too cheap , you could sell it at vendor if you had too much of it.

Doing dungeons just for gold is absolutely sad , yea you won’t see many people doing dungeons these days probably because of that nerf (lol) or because NEW CONTENT! Now you can make more gold by selling these mats if you don’t need them than running a dungeon even if the reward wasn’t nerfed.

I’m not saying i like eveything about this Expansion and i’ll tell you what:

• Time Gated stuff – i don’t like waiting in for something in order to get it and i don’t talk about doing events to get to a boss or something like that , when i say waiting i mean afk/not doing anything until the event spawns without beign able to progress in that time.

• Some bosses don’t reward enough compared to time spend killing. Or maybe i’m wrong because i’m not an economist.

Yea there are more things to talk about / answer but i’ll stop. Have a nice day!

1. Disagree and agree all at once for the champ stuff. I think it is reasonable to make new content harder to earn, but I disagree with the old stuff being too easy. There isn´t a too easy in a game for everyone, just a too easy for you personally.
2. Nobody is forced to do adventures, but if you don´t you have to pick up your points elsewhere. It is either take the route we built for you or leave it. I personally find the miniadventures the weakest point in a series of soso decisions of Anet. They are not heroic or enjoyable, just grindy and overall horrible minigames with then intent to kill time and trick people into going into HoT maps out of necessity if they want to have the masteries. I plan to do them at the least possible grade to get the mastery point to do them never again after that, I already shoved the first I managed to do out of my memories. Replayabilty? A thick 0 from me.
3. Agree. Leveling masteries where they will be used makes sense.
4. I am not even a dungeon runner, but I get why they are mad about the situation. It is a really thinly veiled attempt to drive people out of dungeons and into fractals, PvP and raids. If I would love to do dungeons and see them as my primary income, I would have probably ragequitted then.
5. Making ascended even more expensive is also a thinly veiled attempt at cash cowing. I have 4 full sets of ascended armor, but I will take a long time to complete the fifth with the changes made because it is sadly a cloth armor that was already expensive to make before requirements went up.

How can an Asura wear a backpack anyway? In my perception, an Asura is a walking, talking backpack on it´s own anyway.^^

Up to a certain, point, people are unhospitable in fractals. Most of them are vets and have forgotten how they were mentored by a nice guy or girl that took pity on the newbie that stumbled around in the swamp(which is dreadful if you do not know how to contribute but easy if you do) or harpy fractal or are too proud to admit that.

Others have read anything to know about fractals and know things even I don´t know after having made X fractal runs, because I simply don´t care to know these glitches and stuff. I can do reactor solo because someone taught me how to do it, not because I read it in a desperate attempt to spare me the 5 minutes it takes in a regular way. I personally think that is is nice to return the favor of being taught to anyother person in need and have done it this way for years.

As Cynz stated, an experienced fractal runner can basically solo some low level fractals and carry 4 newbies with him. If the ego of the vet drives him instead of fun, just leave on your own and deny him the satisfaction to kick you. Both of you will be spared a headache in the end. Any fractal vet knows that you can draw some bad apples/total newbies if you pug low level fracs, so any complain he may have with you is completely unfounded as he should have known better instead of you.