By running guild missions successfully.
This sort of thing really rattles my cage. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen corrections on stuff that was perfectly correct. Back in my retail days, I used to put up signs on the store window that said, Help Wanted – Enquire Within because I knew some people would try to correct me, and say inquire was correct. Enquire was also correct.
People who questioned it had more of a chance of getting a job, because it showed they weren’t scared to think and challenge, but when you’re sitting at home on a computer, there’s no reason to say something is not a word when it is.
A simple google check would have gone a long way.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
I don’t have a problem with the amount of content offered for the price in HoT. I am not, however fond of:
*How the content was organized. I would like to be able to access an elite specialization and play the new content with it from, essentially, the beginning. If I am not gaining access to an elite specialization until part way through the story, or even near the end, then its value to me is reduced.
*The vertical nature of the maps. This is exacerbated by the mario-esque elements such as bouncing mushrooms, jumping up into glowing orbs for rewards, and speed buff plants.
*The power creep built into the elite specs.
Again, the price seems reasonable as I fully recognize that my dislike for certain aspects of the expansion doesn’t make them bad for everyone and so they fully count as additions, costing development resources, to the game.
I think every game looks to have both account progression and individual character progression. Elite specs are meant to be character progression, masteries are meant to be account progression.
They idea that suddenly you’re so much more powerful and instantly learn a whole new specialization wouldn’t sit well with me.
It’s like becoming a doctor without going to med school.
I get the progression side of things, but the idea of finally getting your elite spec unlocked…after you’ve finished the story, rubs me the wrong way.
It would be like, to use an awful interpretation of your analogy, getting your medical degree on your death bed.
Getting the entire elite spec unlocked yes, but you can start using it way before you have the entire thing unlocked. I mean hell, if you complete the first zone, you get 11 hero points which is 110 HP.
That’s almost halfway to unlock
If you complete the second zone, you get even more. But of course, long term players will work complete already have a bunch of extra points too, If you have world complete you don’t need 25 hero points to complete your elite spec.
You’re making it sound like doing the story while ignoring the zones is the way the game is meant to be played, but it’s not. There’s a lot of leveling masteries that has to go on too.
I had my elite spec on my characters long before I finished my story. And then the story continues. Once you have it unlocked, everything that comes after well…it’s like leveling in core tyria, no different.
You didn’t have all your traits unlocked until you were close to the end of the story either.
I don’t have a problem with the amount of content offered for the price in HoT. I am not, however fond of:
*How the content was organized. I would like to be able to access an elite specialization and play the new content with it from, essentially, the beginning. If I am not gaining access to an elite specialization until part way through the story, or even near the end, then its value to me is reduced.
*The vertical nature of the maps. This is exacerbated by the mario-esque elements such as bouncing mushrooms, jumping up into glowing orbs for rewards, and speed buff plants.
*The power creep built into the elite specs.
Again, the price seems reasonable as I fully recognize that my dislike for certain aspects of the expansion doesn’t make them bad for everyone and so they fully count as additions, costing development resources, to the game.
I think every game looks to have both account progression and individual character progression. Elite specs are meant to be character progression, masteries are meant to be account progression.
They idea that suddenly you’re so much more powerful and instantly learn a whole new specialization wouldn’t sit well with me.
It’s like becoming a doctor without going to med school.
@OniGirl
You’re missing my point here. The game hasn’t shifted identity to you because this is how you perceive the game’s identity. But the game doesn’t have an identity with a capitol “I”. You saw the game a certain way and it remains that way to you.
More and more people who are casual are seeing the game they saw slip away. Not just raids. Maybe not even mainly raids. I used the winter’s presence shoulder as an example. That is beyond many casual players. They see the people getting it and realize they can’t. Not in one year. Maybe not in two. They see the bat shoulders from halloween. They see timed events in HoT that are on a schedule. for which they have to use LFG to get on a map that can beat it. Those are all changes.
For you the game has changed in a way that hasn’t affected how you perceived it’s identity. For me, that’s mostly true as well.
But just as true, there are people who have stopped playing because the game’s identity has changed for them.
The bigger the shift the more people will be affected. HoT is my favorite content in the game, but I do believe the shift in focus affected a lot of people. To those people, the game has lost it’s identity even if it hasn’t from our point of view.
And there are even people who left when ascended were first introduced who thought the game had lost it’s identity even then.
The problem wasn’t just HoT. It was HoT followed by 9 months of only raids and PvP in a content drought that probably cost the game players. I don’t suspect that will happen again. I don’t think it should have happened in the first place, but hindsight is 20/20.
I’m guilty here of hyperbole, which I’ve often accused people of because I’ve seen casual people walk away from this game in my guild. It’s just getting too much for some of them. Too hard, or too much grind or too much “work”. So yeah, I went over the deep end in some of what I was saying. I don’t like seeing guildies I’ve played with for years walk away because they don’t feel they have time to play the game the way the game requires you to play it now.
They feel left behind and who am I to say they’re wrong?
Well you can’t do a lot about the way people feel. Change is necessary to keep things alive and also to keep people interested.
I started gw2 with two (irl) friend of mine and we created a guild and played as we liked. One friend was always super active, always the first to find something new and to try every game mode and more or less master it. The other friend was the other extreme. Super casual and layed back. To this day never heard about “meta”, rotations, builds or any of that stuff. Me and my more active friend got to a point where we had maxed our gear and levels and had a pretty good knowledge of the game and how to do stuff. And more important we knew where to get information on how to learn stuff thats new.
My casual friend stopped playing because it was too much “work” to keep up. And we are talking about vanilla gw2!!The game has to keep moving forward and some will drop out but new ones will come in. And just because someone stopped doesnt mean they won’t return at some point.
Of course you can change the way people feel. More than that, to some degree you have to change the way people feel. A lot of the issues Anet has is presentation.
There are many changes they make that aren’t well explained or aren’t explained at all, and they leave people feeling angry, confused or puzzled. This isn’t the best way, in my opinion, to run the game.
If you tell people up front, HoT is meant to be challenging end game content, and that Living Story Season 2 is meant to prepare you for that, or where to go to get better before you venture into HOT, you end up with a different situation than we have now, which is people finishing the core game and jumping right into hot and getting slaughtered, because they don’t know any better.
They ramped up the difficulty too fast for people who don’t run dungeons and fractals, so they shouldn’t be surprised they’ve left some of those people behind.
Unfortunately casuals do spend lots of money in the gem store, because they’re used to doing so from facebook games. lol
I personally do not feel that the game has lost its identity, but much of what Vayne says here rings true to me.
To be clear I don’t feel the game has lost it’s identity either…but I can see why people are saying they feel it does.
@OniGirl
You’re missing my point here. The game hasn’t shifted identity to you because this is how you perceive the game’s identity. But the game doesn’t have an identity with a capitol “I”. You saw the game a certain way and it remains that way to you.
More and more people who are casual are seeing the game they saw slip away. Not just raids. Maybe not even mainly raids. I used the winter’s presence shoulder as an example. That is beyond many casual players. They see the people getting it and realize they can’t. Not in one year. Maybe not in two. They see the bat shoulders from halloween. They see timed events in HoT that are on a schedule. for which they have to use LFG to get on a map that can beat it. Those are all changes.
For you the game has changed in a way that hasn’t affected how you perceived it’s identity. For me, that’s mostly true as well.
But just as true, there are people who have stopped playing because the game’s identity has changed for them.
The bigger the shift the more people will be affected. HoT is my favorite content in the game, but I do believe the shift in focus affected a lot of people. To those people, the game has lost it’s identity even if it hasn’t from our point of view.
And there are even people who left when ascended were first introduced who thought the game had lost it’s identity even then.
The problem wasn’t just HoT. It was HoT followed by 9 months of only raids and PvP in a content drought that probably cost the game players. I don’t suspect that will happen again. I don’t think it should have happened in the first place, but hindsight is 20/20.
I’m guilty here of hyperbole, which I’ve often accused people of because I’ve seen casual people walk away from this game in my guild. It’s just getting too much for some of them. Too hard, or too much grind or too much “work”. So yeah, I went over the deep end in some of what I was saying. I don’t like seeing guildies I’ve played with for years walk away because they don’t feel they have time to play the game the way the game requires you to play it now.
They feel left behind and who am I to say they’re wrong?
Well you can’t do a lot about the way people feel. Change is necessary to keep things alive and also to keep people interested.
I started gw2 with two (irl) friend of mine and we created a guild and played as we liked. One friend was always super active, always the first to find something new and to try every game mode and more or less master it. The other friend was the other extreme. Super casual and layed back. To this day never heard about “meta”, rotations, builds or any of that stuff. Me and my more active friend got to a point where we had maxed our gear and levels and had a pretty good knowledge of the game and how to do stuff. And more important we knew where to get information on how to learn stuff thats new.
My casual friend stopped playing because it was too much “work” to keep up. And we are talking about vanilla gw2!!The game has to keep moving forward and some will drop out but new ones will come in. And just because someone stopped doesnt mean they won’t return at some point.
Of course you can change the way people feel. More than that, to some degree you have to change the way people feel. A lot of the issues Anet has is presentation.
There are many changes they make that aren’t well explained or aren’t explained at all, and they leave people feeling angry, confused or puzzled. This isn’t the best way, in my opinion, to run the game.
If you tell people up front, HoT is meant to be challenging end game content, and that Living Story Season 2 is meant to prepare you for that, or where to go to get better before you venture into HOT, you end up with a different situation than we have now, which is people finishing the core game and jumping right into hot and getting slaughtered, because they don’t know any better.
They ramped up the difficulty too fast for people who don’t run dungeons and fractals, so they shouldn’t be surprised they’ve left some of those people behind.
Unfortunately casuals do spend lots of money in the gem store, because they’re used to doing so from facebook games. lol
Objectively you’re right. But I’m not sure how much that really helps the conversation.
There never has been a ‘conversation’ because people participating aren’t talking about the same thing. The original poster was really trying to say, “I don’t seem to like GW2 any longer.”
And he’s right…for him. No one can tell him the game hasn’t changed it’s identity because to him it has. But there is a conversation to be had, though it’s not really obvious.
The problem isn’t just that changes are made, but how changes are made to the game.
If you’ve been playing all along and you’ve done all the living stories and living story achievements the jump to HoT is actually not that bad.
But if you haven’t, and you just level to 80 don’t own LS 2 and you just jump into HoT the difficult from core to HoT is huge. It’s a total game changer.
There’s no warning to tell you not to do that. How many people do you think finish their story and then jump into hot that bought the game more recently?
That’s a big issue because people are used to games with breadcrumb trails that gradually increase difficulty.
Many of those people are going to feel like the game’s identity has changed from a more or less casual romp to a death trap.
I’m not sure what can be done about it, but something should be.
@OniGirl
You’re missing my point here. The game hasn’t shifted identity to you because this is how you perceive the game’s identity. But the game doesn’t have an identity with a capitol “I”. You saw the game a certain way and it remains that way to you.
More and more people who are casual are seeing the game they saw slip away. Not just raids. Maybe not even mainly raids. I used the winter’s presence shoulder as an example. That is beyond many casual players. They see the people getting it and realize they can’t. Not in one year. Maybe not in two. They see the bat shoulders from halloween. They see timed events in HoT that are on a schedule. for which they have to use LFG to get on a map that can beat it. Those are all changes.
For you the game has changed in a way that hasn’t affected how you perceived it’s identity. For me, that’s mostly true as well.
But just as true, there are people who have stopped playing because the game’s identity has changed for them.
The bigger the shift the more people will be affected. HoT is my favorite content in the game, but I do believe the shift in focus affected a lot of people. To those people, the game has lost it’s identity even if it hasn’t from our point of view.
And there are even people who left when ascended were first introduced who thought the game had lost it’s identity even then.
The problem wasn’t just HoT. It was HoT followed by 9 months of only raids and PvP in a content drought that probably cost the game players. I don’t suspect that will happen again. I don’t think it should have happened in the first place, but hindsight is 20/20.
I’m guilty here of hyperbole, which I’ve often accused people of because I’ve seen casual people walk away from this game in my guild. It’s just getting too much for some of them. Too hard, or too much grind or too much “work”. So yeah, I went over the deep end in some of what I was saying. I don’t like seeing guildies I’ve played with for years walk away because they don’t feel they have time to play the game the way the game requires you to play it now.
They feel left behind and who am I to say they’re wrong?
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to think that the game’s identity has changed.
Except when the game launched, there were similar complaints about some content being too difficult. Some people complained about Orr (and like HoT, it was tweaked down); many more complained about dungeons and specifically about not being able to get into a group if they weren’t running the meta (at the time, full zerk, and, incidentally, eles weren’t welcome for a long time).
Regardless, the vast majority of the game doesn’t require knowing the meta. Like many games (including single player), zones get progressively more challenging, with a few leaps in difficulty, from region to region.
Before anyone can say that the game’s identity has changed, they have to establish what that identity was originally. It’s also important to take into account that the players have changed: at launch, there weren’t any veterans, we had no idea that eles were OP’d, hardly anyone was in Orr, and a big subset of the population thought dungeons were too challenging.
Mostly, it’s fair to say things like, “I used to love this game; now I just like it” or “this game used to introduce lots of content that was new & interesting to me; now it doesn’t.” Trying to establish a game’s identity is a trickier proposition & I doubt any of us are in a position to do so (even the folks at ANet whose job it is to establish the game’s identity so that it can be hyped).
I think it’s fair to day the game doesn’t have, and never has had, an identity with a capital “I”. Of course, it had an identity to each person. And probably most people believe that is an identity in a capital “I”.
Objectively you’re right. But I’m not sure how much that really helps the conversation.
Frankly I think Heart of Thorns was too expensive for what the offered initially
Frankly, I disagree. US$50 was a bargain for me:
- Gliding
- New story
- True auto-looting
- New maps
- Tons of other stuff to do
The problem is a lot of people say the story was too short. A lot of people are annoyed a QOL feature like auto looting is locked behind a grind for which they don’t have mastery points. There were four new maps, which were pretty low compared to other expansions in other games…and that’s the problem. People were comparing this expansion to expansion in other games.
I always championed this expansion. I think it’s great. It was worth $50 to me. But then, you know me in game and you know my guild. There are a few people in the guild who go into HoT only when necessary. There are people in my guild who’ll never touch a raid. There are people in my guild who won’t even go to T4 Fractals. Most of them in fact.
So the amount of stuff there is to do, for a player like you, is different from the amount of stuff there is to do for players who don’t like more challenging content.
That $50 was well worth it to me, but won’t be worth it to a percentage of people.
And most people will just compare expansion prices straight up without looking at the fact that other AAA games have a subscription or an “optional” subscription and that most Triple A games don’t have the living story thing going on.
The idea that the stuff in the box my itself was worth it to the general population is very much a matter of opinion. But just looking at it from box content, it looks light. Many have said it. It’s deceptive.
The new HOT zones are my favorite zones in the game. I’d spend more time there by choice than anywhere else in Tyria. For me absolutely worth it.
But people just randomly coming by and seeing 4 maps, and people commenting about how short the story was (again forgetting all about the personal story which extends it quite a bit), well…that’s the issue.
One funny thing about this post.
The people that are saying that GW2 lost its identity are asking for things like LFR from WoW, which means they want GW2 to copy another game, such Hypocrisy.snip
So yeah GW2 is keeping true to the frenchise ideology. But the moment they implement such things like LFR is the moment GW gave up to its core philosophy.
snip
If this was truly the successor to Guild Wars 1 it wouldn’t lock out the casual players from those rewards. It worked in Guild Wars 1, and people are such champions of that game, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work here.
snip
Everything else can be bought for gold or gems.
If there were no game mode exclusive stuff much fewer people would play that stuff
(just ask the pvp guys)You are hiding behind the casual argument but thats nonsense. I am casual. I play how i want and when i want. Still i manage to work on everything i want in game.
In the beginning, you could buy legendary weapons, but you can’t buy the new ones. I’m not hiding behind anything. People are saying Guild Wars 1 had all this hard core stuff and I’m pointing out that Guild Wars 1 allowed you to buy all that hard core stuff.
Not sure what you think I’m hiding behind. What I’m saying is factual.
You are hiding behind the shallow argument that one has to be a (semi-)hardcore player to achiev everything in this game. Thats just false.
Also i don’t know why Guild Wars 1 is being referenced in a thread thats calles “Did Gw2 lose its identity”?
Because part of Guild Wars 2’s identity comes from Guild Wars 1. That is to say, there are similarities between the game. For example, most MMOs allow you to use all your skills, and have them all on your skill bar at one time. Guild Wars 1 and 2 both make you choose. Guild Wars 1 didn’t raise the level cap and didn’t bring out new tiers of gear. Neither did Guild Wars 2.
And Guild Wars 1 didn’t make you go through the process of getting really hard to get stuff if you didn’t want to because you could buy it and when Guild Wars 2 launched, you could buy legendary weapons…and now you can’t. Therefore there’s an identity shift.
There are other people in this thread who brought up Guild Wars 1 as an example and said, now, finally with the advent of challenging content, this game is more like Guild Wars 1. I was pointing out one major discrepancy with that theory.
And I didn’t say you have to be hardcore to achieve every or even most achievements in this game. But I did say there’s been a shift in what you need to accomplish stuff. I mean the major rewards we used to get from Wintersday never included shoulders which would required 10,000 drinks. That’s beyond a lot of casual players too. However, you’re misrepresenting what I’m saying.
I’m saying more and more, casual players are being left behind, and that isn’t just my opinion. You’re hearing it from more people than just me.
Most people wouldn’t consider me a casual player. I have over 31k achievement points. I’ve beaten every dungeon and I’ve beaten the highest level fractals. My personal Fractal reward level is 90. I’ve made 12 legendary weapons.
But I run a guild full of casual people and I watch them and I listen to what they say.
The fact is, most of my guild isn’t interested in getting together with a group to do organized 9 man content, because most of my guild doesn’t play that kind of content PERIOD. It’s not casual. The approach to raids isn’t casual.
Most of my guild doesn’t even know what a meta is. They play what they want. Most of my guild doesn’t look up builds on meta battle. Because they spend most of their time in the open world.
If I weren’t in the guild I’m not sure how many would have left the game because of HOT but I showed them how to get around and how to deal with various enemies.
But Dragon Stand is challenging content to our guild. We don’t run Triple Trouble. It’s not our style of content.
Can everyone raid? Maybe. Can everyone eat spicy food. Sure. Everyone can eat that. But they don’t enjoy it.
And as they don’t enjoy it, because this is a game that they purchased, and that game has CHANGED, they feel disenfranchised. There are enough people even in this thread who believe the game has changed identity and I’m not even one of them. But I see where those people are coming from.
You may not think going from being able to buy legendaries to not being able to buy them isn’t a change. But it is, in fact a change. The more specific hoops we’re required to jump through the get the stuff we want/need, the more the game has changed.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to think that the game’s identity has changed.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
One funny thing about this post.
The people that are saying that GW2 lost its identity are asking for things like LFR from WoW, which means they want GW2 to copy another game, such Hypocrisy.If you played Guild Wars 1 since the its launch until now you know what is unique to GW frenchise and its identity:
- The skill bar with only 8 skills that you can change. Both GW1 and GW2 have it.
- You can change traits any time there is no such thing as skill reset npc. In GW1 the traits are the attribute points.
- No Gear Trendmill, once you get the best gear you got it forever even if you come back after 2 expansions.
- All kind of content, easy and very hard content, but not all content have different difficulty options.So yeah GW2 is keeping true to the frenchise ideology. But the moment they implement such things like LFR is the moment GW gave up to its core philosophy.
If they were keeping true to the franchise identity you’d be able to buy the rewards for in game gold from other players, like tormented weapons. I mean you didn’t really have to farm ectos to get chaos gloves. You could farm feathers and buy them. Guild Wars 1 didn’t alienate casual players by making most in game rewards, at least as far as skins go, unavailable. Everyone could just tick away at something and eventually buy a voltaic spear, a celestial compass, a frog scepter, a bonecage scythe.
If this was truly the successor to Guild Wars 1 it wouldn’t lock out the casual players from those rewards. It worked in Guild Wars 1, and people are such champions of that game, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work here.
The only thing you cant buy from tp are game mode related things.
You can’t buy pvp exclusive stuff
You can’t buy fractal exclusive stuff
You can’t buy wvw exclusive stuff (if there is something like that)
You can’t by raid excluse stuff
And you can’t buy the HoT legendary weapons
Thats it.Everything else can be bought for gold or gems.
If there were no game mode exclusive stuff much fewer people would play that stuff
(just ask the pvp guys)You are hiding behind the casual argument but thats nonsense. I am casual. I play how i want and when i want. Still i manage to work on everything i want in game.
In the beginning, you could buy legendary weapons, but you can’t buy the new ones. I’m not hiding behind anything. People are saying Guild Wars 1 had all this hard core stuff and I’m pointing out that Guild Wars 1 allowed you to buy all that hard core stuff.
Not sure what you think I’m hiding behind. What I’m saying is factual.
One funny thing about this post.
The people that are saying that GW2 lost its identity are asking for things like LFR from WoW, which means they want GW2 to copy another game, such Hypocrisy.If you played Guild Wars 1 since the its launch until now you know what is unique to GW frenchise and its identity:
- The skill bar with only 8 skills that you can change. Both GW1 and GW2 have it.
- You can change traits any time there is no such thing as skill reset npc. In GW1 the traits are the attribute points.
- No Gear Trendmill, once you get the best gear you got it forever even if you come back after 2 expansions.
- All kind of content, easy and very hard content, but not all content have different difficulty options.So yeah GW2 is keeping true to the frenchise ideology. But the moment they implement such things like LFR is the moment GW gave up to its core philosophy.
If they were keeping true to the franchise identity you’d be able to buy the rewards for in game gold from other players, like tormented weapons. I mean you didn’t really have to farm ectos to get chaos gloves. You could farm feathers and buy them. Guild Wars 1 didn’t alienate casual players by making most in game rewards, at least as far as skins go, unavailable. Everyone could just tick away at something and eventually buy a voltaic spear, a celestial compass, a frog scepter, a bonecage scythe.
If this was truly the successor to Guild Wars 1 it wouldn’t lock out the casual players from those rewards. It worked in Guild Wars 1, and people are such champions of that game, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work here.
Well again, the problem is a lot of players, not a few, but quite a few, have trouble functioning within groups. That’s a completely different type of skill you bring to the table and until recently, it wasn’t quiet as bad.
I mean it’s far easier to find four other people you can gel with than 9 other people.
My guild is slowly working through the escort right now. We’ve gotten to the fourth tower. We’ve yet to have the same people show up twice in a row, and we don’t have enough back ups. Some people raiding with us are clickers. Some people raiding with us have worse connections than other people. It’s disheartening.
We only do this a couple of hours a week. I saw a post on reddit where some raider was telling us that the escort is a bit harder than other dynamic events in the game. They left off the part where those who die can’t be rezzed. They left off the part where you can’t use a revive orb even. Or boosters.
Whether you believe me or not, I could raid. I have the ability to raid. If it was something I enjoyed, I’d be doing it. But it’s not something I enjoy, nor is telling people in the guild they’re not good enough to join is, which is sometimes the case. Up until now, I could get people through fractals and dungeons, but this is a different level. And it takes me not only out of my comfort zone it takes the entire guild out of it’s comfort zone. There are people who feel like second class citizens because they can’t join us. Some are older. Some have health issues. Some have slow computers. Some have bad connections.
At the end of the day, my guild would likely be happier and stronger if raids weren’t in the game. And I know I’m not the only guild going through this because I’ve seen posts from other guilds that have gone through it and I’ve talked to people in the game who have had similar experiences. Sure I could completely ignore raids. But you always have to keep your head tilted at a certain angle. And once animated legendary armor is out there, they’ll be harder to ignore.
I don’t know whether raids will be good for the overall health of the game in the long run. I don’t know how many players will leave because they can’t get L. Armor, or want to see the raids but cannot for whatever reason. Yeah, I get your point. I guess I’ve gotten used to having to ignore a lot of the game. Thing for me is, while I do ignore significant portions of GW2, I would pretty much ignore vastly greater amounts of every multi-player game I’ve played except for the original GW. That’s why I’m sort of still around.
I’m probably overstating my case because I have seen a drop in interest with some people in my guild and it’s blamed not necessarily on raids, but on overall game difficulty. I would imagine my guild is pretty average, over all. I don’t think most people who play games are necessarily good gamers. We have a mix in my guild that I think (but I could be fooling myself) represents are fair cross section of the playerbase.
I have people who want to do the hardest content and people who’s highlight of the day is the center farm in Hirathi (not the new one lol).
I mean, my reaction is from seeing the reaction of other people and being unhappy with it. I personally still play the same game (more or less) that I always have, but I can see how I’d have to keep putting increased effort in to get the same rewards and yeah, that worries me. But it also might just be chicken little yelling the sky is falling. The problem is I don’t know, so I come here to express what I see happening.
I’m actually calmer after reading this thread and thinking maybe it’s not as bad as I’d originally thought it was. I guess time will tell.
I’d be happier if income wasn’t sliding in quarterly reports, but there’s no way I can say categorically that what I’m seeing is the cause of that. It could be just a case of confirmation bias.
I hope the next expansion finds a better middle ground than HOT did. And I hope we never have that long content drought again, because I’m sure that contributed to the current situation.
snip
Intensity is effort but so is endurance. The difference is, people who are grinders could get rewards prior to this at least most of the rewards. Legendary weapon, you could get it if you wanted to grind, even if you weren’t very good. You had a path to that reward.
Now, it’s not so simple to have a path to those rewards. You say well why should you get those rewards, you’re not working as hard as these other people. Maybe some of us didn’t buy this game to work. Maybe some of us bought the game to have fun and Anet keeps moving the bar on what we have to do to get those rewards, which is the opposite of fun.
No one ever accused me of not putting effort into this game. That’s very different from saying I’m going to like or enjoy raids. What you’re essentially saying is I should do something I don’t enjoy for hours to get a reward that I can’t get any other way. A reward that wasn’t in the game, in a type of content that wasn’t in the game. That’s a very different story.
I really dislike when people make it sound like I’m just lazy or I don’t want to make sacrifices. That’s not true. However, I do want to have fun playing a game I purchased.
If I read you correctly, you want a different path to L. Armor because you don’t really want to raid. I actually support that as long as it’s a different skin. I say that because we both know that a lot of players will not repeat content absent rewards. ANet has to offer something. To me, skins are a much better choice than the stat creep of gear progression.
Raids are far from the only content that offers exclusive rewards. ANet has been pushing content-specific rewards at players since launch. However, L. Items are the pinnacle of endgame rewards in GW2. Little else is as grindy. In a game that offers cosmetics as the major endgame reward, no other cosmetics have received as much emphasis from both the players and ANet. It was , imo, a mistake to offer them exclusively. Now, if their long term plan is to offer different L. Armor elsewhere, that would cover my concern. It might not cover yours, if only because Anet produces armor skins at the speed of your friendly neighborhood glacier.
My beef about effort is not directed at you. I was responding to a specific statement saying that some players seem to expect to waltz into any random group on the LFG and be accepted. That’s the lack of effort I was referring to. Call it meta effort if you prefer, since both finding like-minded players and learning about content is a step outside actually playing that content.
To me, the subtext for that type of player is, “Why should I try to find groups that might actually want what I bring? My convenience is more important than anyone else’s!” Unless I’m badly mistaken, that’s not you.
Well again, the problem is a lot of players, not a few, but quite a few, have trouble functioning within groups. That’s a completely different type of skill you bring to the table and until recently, it wasn’t quiet as bad.
I mean it’s far easier to find four other people you can gel with than 9 other people.
My guild is slowly working through the escort right now. We’ve gotten to the fourth tower. We’ve yet to have the same people show up twice in a row, and we don’t have enough back ups. Some people raiding with us are clickers. Some people raiding with us have worse connections than other people. It’s disheartening.
We only do this a couple of hours a week. I saw a post on reddit where some raider was telling us that the escort is a bit harder than other dynamic events in the game. They left off the part where those who die can’t be rezzed. They left off the part where you can’t use a revive orb even. Or boosters.
Whether you believe me or not, I could raid. I have the ability to raid. If it was something I enjoyed, I’d be doing it. But it’s not something I enjoy, nor is telling people in the guild they’re not good enough to join is, which is sometimes the case. Up until now, I could get people through fractals and dungeons, but this is a different level. And it takes me not only out of my comfort zone it takes the entire guild out of it’s comfort zone. There are people who feel like second class citizens because they can’t join us. Some are older. Some have health issues. Some have slow computers. Some have bad connections.
At the end of the day, my guild would likely be happier and stronger if raids weren’t in the game. And I know I’m not the only guild going through this because I’ve seen posts from other guilds that have gone through it and I’ve talked to people in the game who have had similar experiences. Sure I could completely ignore raids. But you always have to keep your head tilted at a certain angle. And once animated legendary armor is out there, they’ll be harder to ignore.
You can’t get the PvP ascended backpack without PvPing, but you can get the fractal legendary backpack without PvPing. There are two paths at a legendary back piece.
Do you know, dungeon armor was created so that you had a reward for specific dungeons. You ran those dungeons to get that armor. PvP people complained that they didn’t want to run dungeons, they didn’t find running dungeons run and wahlah! Anet created PvP tracks for PvP.
WvW people complained they didn’t want to go into HoT to unlock their elite specs and look at that. Anet created another path to get hero points in HoT without ever entering HoT.
It’s everyone’s right to say I want another path to rewards.
Skins are a bit different than an entire tier of armor that has an animation like no other armor in the game. Give me a different legendary armor skin that animates with a different path and that would be fine. Say I have to play something I really can’t stand to get something that is only available through one type of play, that’s not fine to me.
You can’t get Astralaria without doing PvE but you can get a legendary Axe, namely Frostfang.
You know, in Guild Wars 1, tormented weapons were the top weapons and you could get them in Kamadan by farming the gold and buying them from other players. I enjoyed that about Guild Wars 1. Though I beat DOA I didn’t want to farm DOA…but I could still get DOA rewards.
But we dont even have the raid legendary armor yet.
So you upset for not having a reward path for a reward that no one still has???
And they never said that the raid will be the only path to a legendary armor.
But still you dont have every path for everything, if you only like open world and WvW you still cant have a legendary backpack.
I’ve made maybe six, seven posts about this, not because it’s the biggest deal in the world, but because it’s an example. This is not about what is, it’s about what people feel. Right now, we know legendary armor is coming and we know even to get precursors you have to raid to do it. We’ve heard nothing else about legendary armor anywhere else in the game. So when, in your estimation, would be the best time to mention it to Anet? Not like I have their home phone number and can call them up and make suggestions. The time to suggest stuff is now, because it takes months and years to get anything done. Not sure why anyone would think I should wait to bring it up.
But more than anything, when that animated armor is in the game, and people start running around in it, and it’ll be noticable, I’m sure, that’s going to encourage some people to raid. And if they find raiding annoying or content they don’t enjoy, or they know they’re never going to have it because they don’t like the idea of raiding, it might encourage some people to leave…or play less…or spend less money in the cash shop.
I don’t work for Anet. For all I know they don’t know I exist at all. But sure, if they announce something and I want something else, of course I’m going to talk about it at the earliest opportunity.
Why wouldn’t I?
Because those players are interested in getting the unique rewards that raids offer. And the only way to do so without finding a like minded group of Play-As-I-Want individuals is to conform to whatever profession and build out is the current raid meta and try to find a PUG that’ll accept them.
The key thing being without having to make any effort to find like-minded players. What kind of effort did the early raid adopters have to put in to find other players and learn the encounters? Why should other players be able to obtain the same rewards with less investment? Essentially, you’ve got two demographics that value different play-styles. Why should the PAIW (play as I want) player be entitled to a successful play experience with less effort than the meta player?
You know, I get it. It would be really nice if everyone who queues for instanced content were as accepting of players who are new to such content. However, remember this. The same forces that drive the PAIW player (convenience, lack of tons of time to try and fail and learn, etc.) also drive the meta player.
Because games should be all about effort? Depends on how you define effort. There are different types of effort. Some people are really uncomfortable playing in groups, but they’ll grind until their fingers fall off. That’s a type of effort too.
Intensity is effort but so is endurance. The difference is, people who are grinders could get rewards prior to this at least most of the rewards. Legendary weapon, you could get it if you wanted to grind, even if you weren’t very good. You had a path to that reward.
Now, it’s not so simple to have a path to those rewards. You say well why should you get those rewards, you’re not working as hard as these other people. Maybe some of us didn’t buy this game to work. Maybe some of us bought the game to have fun and Anet keeps moving the bar on what we have to do to get those rewards, which is the opposite of fun.
No one ever accused me of not putting effort into this game. That’s very different from saying I’m going to like or enjoy raids. What you’re essentially saying is I should do something I don’t enjoy for hours to get a reward that I can’t get any other way. A reward that wasn’t in the game, in a type of content that wasn’t in the game. That’s a very different story.
I really dislike when people make it sound like I’m just lazy or I don’t want to make sacrifices. That’s not true. However, I do want to have fun playing a game I purchased.
So tell me how i get the PVP legendary without PVPing.
The Fractal legendary or gold fractal weapons or even the new purple plant weapon skin from 100CM withou doing fractals?
Or how do i get Astralia without doing open world boring stuff?
See, every mode have exclusive rewards, so this talk about you having path to get all other things without playing what you dont want never existed. Having exclusive rewards for each part of the game is really health. If every mode have all the rewards, it just make the reward system really bland.
So want raids stuff? Do raids.
I would love to have Astralia but i will never put myself on the open world boring grind, and its ok.
You can’t get the PvP ascended backpack without PvPing, but you can get the fractal legendary backpack without PvPing. There are two paths to a legendary back piece.
Do you know, dungeon armor was created so that you had a reward for specific dungeons. You ran those dungeons to get that armor. PvP people complained that they didn’t want to run dungeons, they didn’t find running dungeons fun and wahlah! Anet created PvP tracks for PvP.
WvW people complained they didn’t want to go into HoT to unlock their elite specs and look at that. Anet created another path to get hero points in HoT without ever entering HoT.
It’s everyone’s right to say I want another path to rewards.
Skins are a bit different than an entire tier of armor that has an animation like no other armor in the game. Give me a different legendary armor skin that animates with a different path and that would be fine. Say I have to play something I really can’t stand to get something that is only available through one type of play, that’s not fine to me.
You can’t get Astralaria without doing PvE but you can get a legendary Axe, namely Frostfang.
You know, in Guild Wars 1, tormented weapons were the top weapons and you could get them in Kamadan by farming the gold and buying them from other players. I enjoyed that about Guild Wars 1. Though I beat DOA I didn’t want to farm DOA…but I could still get DOA rewards.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
Because those players are interested in getting the unique rewards that raids offer. And the only way to do so without finding a like minded group of Play-As-I-Want individuals is to conform to whatever profession and build out is the current raid meta and try to find a PUG that’ll accept them.
The key thing being without having to make any effort to find like-minded players. What kind of effort did the early raid adopters have to put in to find other players and learn the encounters? Why should other players be able to obtain the same rewards with less investment? Essentially, you’ve got two demographics that value different play-styles. Why should the PAIW (play as I want) player be entitled to a successful play experience with less effort than the meta player?
You know, I get it. It would be really nice if everyone who queues for instanced content were as accepting of players who are new to such content. However, remember this. The same forces that drive the PAIW player (convenience, lack of tons of time to try and fail and learn, etc.) also drive the meta player.
Because games should be all about effort? Depends on how you define effort. There are different types of effort. Some people are really uncomfortable playing in groups, but they’ll grind until their fingers fall off. That’s a type of effort too.
Intensity is effort but so is endurance. The difference is, people who are grinders could get rewards prior to this at least most of the rewards. Legendary weapon, you could get it if you wanted to grind, even if you weren’t very good. You had a path to that reward.
Now, it’s not so simple to have a path to those rewards. You say well why should you get those rewards, you’re not working as hard as these other people. Maybe some of us didn’t buy this game to work. Maybe some of us bought the game to have fun and Anet keeps moving the bar on what we have to do to get those rewards, which is the opposite of fun.
No one ever accused me of not putting effort into this game. That’s very different from saying I’m going to like or enjoy raids. What you’re essentially saying is I should do something I don’t enjoy for hours to get a reward that I can’t get any other way. A reward that wasn’t in the game, in a type of content that wasn’t in the game. That’s a very different story.
I really dislike when people make it sound like I’m just lazy or I don’t want to make sacrifices. That’s not true. However, I do want to have fun playing a game I purchased.
Everything you said is true. There are less posts about anything but hard core competitive content. That means there are less posts that are personally of value to me, and players like me.
So when people come looking for info on a game what does that do for people like me, looking for new people to play with?
Here is the deal, how raids post are deleting the posts about things you like ?
If there wasnt post about it, there wouldnt still no posts about open world stuff. If people wanted to create topics about exploring Tyria, they would be doing it now, but things like this gets boring really fast.
So actually even for people that dont like raids, they come to forum or reddit and see a lot of activity, new videos about builds, discussion etc. And dont think “i dont want to play this game it seems kind of dead with very little posts goind around”
You obviously don’t know how reddit works. The posts don’t get deleted. They get downvoted. THe hard core guys look at posts, think I know this or I know taht and they downvote. Unless you’re looking at reddit 24/7, you’re going to miss stuff. The stuff that gets upvoted that stays on the first page is more about hard core stuff generally.
Even if you go to the new page, stuff gets downvoted pretty fast. People don’t really want fun discussions they want serious discussions. But of course if people downvote just to keep the stuff they’re interested in on the first page and those people are mostly hard core guys, then that’s what most people will see.
The official forums, in my opinion aren’t as good as reddit for a lot of reasons.
I’m not saying the game is evil for having raids. But I do think raids are bad for the game. I certainly don’t think they’re helping the game.
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Personally, I’m as casual as they come. My days of active raiding are long past (in another MMO). Among my many friends in this game are people that haven’t set foot in a dungeon as well as those that thoroughly enjoy dungeons, fractals, and raids on a daily basis. Mostly though I see a lot of people enjoying the fact that you can do all kinds of different things in this game, and to many of them a raid here or there is an enrichment of their gaming experience. I’ve also met quite a few people coming from other games who have thoroughly converted to the “casual play as you like” style of GW2 by now but kind of needed the familiar surroundings of dungeons and raids to transition from traditional-style MMOs to this game.
In my opinion GW2 has lost none of the identity it has had for me for 4+ years. The features that make this game stand apart from other MMOs and that have quickly taken root in my preferences and spoilt me for other games out there are here and if anything more strongly now than they were back at the start.
Variety of content to play, and ease to jump in play a huge part for me. I don’t have to farm specific dungeons to get the current BiS gear to get into endgame (no matter if we’re talking raids, wvw, or whatever). I don’t have to farm the same questline with each character separately to unlock whatever achievement is needed to even access specific content. I don’t have to play content I don’t enjoy, because there’s always comparable rewards to be had in other content. It may not be the same rewards, they may be a bit less convenient to what I have in mind, but they’ll be there and enable me to enjoy whatever content I want to play nonetheless.
GW2 very much has a strong identity as a game that sets it apart from similar games. Not everything is done the way I’d dream of, but there’s always more fun things to do and to enjoy than I even have time to play. And I don’t see this changing anytime soon.
Even paranoids have enemies.
This game was, more or less, once really close to what I wanted in an MMO. It’s now less close to what I want and it’s moving further from that. But at least some people even in this thread do feel like the game is losing it’s identity. I was one of the people who said, early on in this thread, that I don’t think it is. That is I play HOT maps the same way I played core Tyria maps.
But more and more now, people are blasting through content faster to get to raids, which is what many consider to be traditional end game. It’s changed a lot of how at least new people to get the game respond to the game.
Sure there are some hold outs and throw backs. I’m just not 100% sure it will remain that way. The more prevalent raids are on forums and on reddit, on twitch and on youtube, the more likely people looking for the game will see raids as a thing. As someone else said no one is really streaming anything but raids now. That doesn’t mean most people raid, but how will people looking for stuff on twitch interpret that.
I’m not thinking this thing will happen right away, but I perceive a drift and there is no telling how far that drift will take us. And I do believe it has cost this company money and players. I can’t prove it. I simply believe it.
You see a lot of raids in the forum and reddit, because its hard content so there a lot to say and show about it. New strategies, low manning, new time records etc.
Just like when dungeons were harder and the only hard content in the game.
People dont make post about open world pve because there is nothing to talk about it, for example there is 0 strategy about doing tequal, its some people get to canon while other zerg the boss, thats it, its boring.Nobody want to see a new open world Guardian build for example, because it doesnt matter as any build can do it easily.
So when content has a lot of depth ( raids ) there is a lot to talk and show about it.
And as I said and some other players, i’m a vet Guild Wars 1 player, and GW2 never been so closer to GW1 philosophy then now.
A game without grind, with challenge content to be overcome by player skill instead of gear grind.
Guild Wars 2 finally is back to the same track of Guild Wars 1 was and i loved.
Everything you said is true. There are less posts about anything but hard core competitive content. That means there are less posts that are personally of value to me, and players like me.
So when people come looking for info on a game what does that do for people like me, looking for new people to play with?
I’m not saying the game is evil for having raids. But I do think raids are bad for the game. I certainly don’t think they’re helping the game.
Vayne, I usually agree with a lot that you say, but I think you’re being just a tiny bit paranoid here. Of course there are people out there who run far away from anything associated with raids, but there are also a lot of people that can contribute to a healthy playerbase of this game that are attracted by the fact that raids are among the things this game offers, or helped getting into this game by having raids and dungeons like they are used to from previous games.
Personally, I’m as casual as they come. My days of active raiding are long past (in another MMO). Among my many friends in this game are people that haven’t set foot in a dungeon as well as those that thoroughly enjoy dungeons, fractals, and raids on a daily basis. Mostly though I see a lot of people enjoying the fact that you can do all kinds of different things in this game, and to many of them a raid here or there is an enrichment of their gaming experience. I’ve also met quite a few people coming from other games who have thoroughly converted to the “casual play as you like” style of GW2 by now but kind of needed the familiar surroundings of dungeons and raids to transition from traditional-style MMOs to this game.
In my opinion GW2 has lost none of the identity it has had for me for 4+ years. The features that make this game stand apart from other MMOs and that have quickly taken root in my preferences and spoilt me for other games out there are here and if anything more strongly now than they were back at the start.
Variety of content to play, and ease to jump in play a huge part for me. I don’t have to farm specific dungeons to get the current BiS gear to get into endgame (no matter if we’re talking raids, wvw, or whatever). I don’t have to farm the same questline with each character separately to unlock whatever achievement is needed to even access specific content. I don’t have to play content I don’t enjoy, because there’s always comparable rewards to be had in other content. It may not be the same rewards, they may be a bit less convenient to what I have in mind, but they’ll be there and enable me to enjoy whatever content I want to play nonetheless.
GW2 very much has a strong identity as a game that sets it apart from similar games. Not everything is done the way I’d dream of, but there’s always more fun things to do and to enjoy than I even have time to play. And I don’t see this changing anytime soon.
Even paranoids have enemies.
This game was, more or less, once really close to what I wanted in an MMO. It’s now less close to what I want and it’s moving further from that. But at least some people even in this thread do feel like the game is losing it’s identity. I was one of the people who said, early on in this thread, that I don’t think it is. That is I play HOT maps the same way I played core Tyria maps.
But more and more now, people are blasting through content faster to get to raids, which is what many consider to be traditional end game. It’s changed a lot of how at least new people to get the game respond to the game.
Sure there are some hold outs and throw backs. I’m just not 100% sure it will remain that way. The more prevalent raids are on forums and on reddit, on twitch and on youtube, the more likely people looking for the game will see raids as a thing. As someone else said no one is really streaming anything but raids now. That doesn’t mean most people raid, but how will people looking for stuff on twitch interpret that.
I’m not thinking this thing will happen right away, but I perceive a drift and there is no telling how far that drift will take us. And I do believe it has cost this company money and players. I can’t prove it. I simply believe it.
Someone used an analogy of a restaurant which added a dish. This is more like a vegetarian restaurant that suddenly decided it’s no longer going to be a vegetarian restaurant. I mean it will continue to serve vegetarian stuff, but it’s going to increasinglyi put meat dishes on the menu.
Sorry, it’s nothing like that. You’re ascribing a morality to a raid-free game that is soiled by adding raids.
It’s fine to say you don’t like raids. It’s fine to say you’re guild doesn’t have the 15+ people interested enough to raid (since RL will prevent some from showing on any given night). It’s even fine to say you don’t think it will ultimately have a positive impact on the community.
But please don’t try to make the argument that raiding is somehow inherently wrong for ANet’s franchise.
It’s a design choice and like any design choice, it has positives and negatives; some will embrace it, some will turn away from it. That would have happened if GW2 hadn’t offered an expac or didn’t add raids; it just would have been a different subset embracing or turning away.
Raids have a connotation throughout the MMO genre. That connotation taints any game that centers around raids and I would never play a game that centers around them. This game doesn’t make that error.
But you wouldn’t really be able to tell that from doing research on the game…or at least it would be quite hard to tell. That’s the issue.
The issue is one of appearance, and emotion, not fact. Unfortunately people buy based more on emotion than fact. They see a game and think wow that looks cool, I can see myself playing that game.
If they have experience in other games with raids, and raids are front in center in what they’re re reading at least some of them will avoid this game. I would possibly if I didn’t know what I know.
I’m not saying the game is evil for having raids. But I do think raids are bad for the game. I certainly don’t think they’re helping the game.
Okay so a lot of people seem to think the addition of raids is disliked because of a lack of resources for other things in the game. This is not my contention.
However, we have seen raid balance affect open world PvE balance. Suddenly someone is doing too well in raids and so everyone who doesn’t so raids (which is most of us) has to deal with the consequences.
In addition to that, more posts on raids and PVP means less casual people finding this game by going to social media sites. It means less casual people joining the game. But it’s my understanding that there’s always been more casual players that hard core players.
I’ve seen posts on reddit where people read what’s there and think this game might not support a casual player, and that’s a major problem. Because I don’t believe there are enough hard core players to support this game. I think this game needs casuals.
At the end of the day, raids have divided the community and they’re so visible, they take players who already have experienced raids in other games and they drive them away. They attract the kinds of people I’m not necessarily interested in playing with (and who probably aren’t interested in playing with me).
In my own guild there are a handful of people who want to raid, but fielding 10 people is very hard, even though there are 300 people in the guild. So we created a raid team, o which I am a part. We haven’t had the same 10 people show up for our once a week raid since we started. There’s always some replacement who isn’t ready, isn’t up to speed, isn’t geared. Because there aren’t really enough people in my casual guild who are into the idea of raiding.
Some people want to raid because of achievements or completionist tendencies, some for legendary armor, but it’s really not there. Not for our guild. But this has put some pressure in our guild. There are people who aren’t necessarily good enough to raid, and they want to raid. Which means we have to tell them, for the first time ever, sorry we’re already selected our ten and our backups.
It’s not only not good for this game, it’s not good for my individual guild. And I’ve seen other posts by people who have seen their guilds die under similar circumstances.
This isn’t the game I bought or came her to play. It’s divisive. It causes conflict. And I don’t really think that in a game that was geared as a casual game for 3 years, it’s welcome by the majority of the player base.
Someone used an analogy of a restaurant which added a dish. This is more like a vegetarian restaurant that suddenly decided it’s no longer going to be a vegetarian restaurant. I mean it will continue to serve vegetarian stuff, but it’s going to increasinglyi put meat dishes on the menu.
Vegetarians probably will stop eating there, not because they don’t have the dishes they used to eat. But because the feeling of what had been theirs is no longer theirs. And that feeling, like all feelings, is valid. You can logically say it doesn’t matter, and it won’t change a single thing because people, most people anyway, spend money emotionally, not logically.
Penalty box is by far my least favorite feature in this game. Nothing is worse than sitting there and being carried, which might even be from a lag spike. I’ve died on this a couple of times, and it’s just horrible.
If they added the trinity to the whole game, I seriously consider leaving. I don’t think it makes the game better. It makes the game less plausible. I mean if I were reading Lord of the Rings and everyone only attacked Boromir while Gandalf healed him and the hobbits were never in danger, it would have ruined the book.
Some of us are interested in mechanics above all else. Some of us are interested in immersion. To me, the trinity is the worst thing to ever happen to this genre.
I disagree whole heartedly here. You are really not in the place to claim what has been good for the community and what not. Revenue drops have many different factors and you cant draw a corrolation between raids and revenue – that is just fictional.
Again. If you want to play everything in the expansion you can do that. There is nothing but yourself stopping you from doing it – just because it doesn’t apply to your selfmade requirements for playing.
I never disagreed that people will like a game mode and not like another. But maybe its time to accept that instead for calling for changing a game mode over and over again.
Id never call for pvp to be less competetive because i don’t like competition in a game.No, it’s not time to stop and say that you think a feature makes the game less enjoyable for you. There’s never a time for that. I think raids make this game less enjoyable to me.
Since a good portion of all posts on reddit are raid or PvP related, a good portion of those posts don’t concern me directly (even though I’ll read some of them). The game becomes less for me in my mind, and the minds of players are the only thing that matters.
Surely you must have noticed there are a group of people who think even HoT is too difficult. And they complain. Why? Because they don’t like it and they don’t feel it’s for them. They feel disenfranchised. It’s their right to complain, even though I don’t agree with those complaints.
I worked in the publishing industry for quite a few years, and I’m telling you there is little that is more dangerous to a readerbase than changing something suddenly mid-stream. You’ll lose readers that way. The same thing applies to gamers.
Anet created an easy game, with very little hard core or difficult content by percentage. That game attracted a lot of very casual players, who play the game because that’s how they like their games.
Changing that without warning is going to cost the game people, probably a lot of people. If you don’t think raids are a part of that, that’s okay. You’re entitled to that opinion.
But the combination of harder core elements has definitely lost players from this game whether you want to believe it or not. Long before the expansion came out I said this would happen, not necessarily directly because of raids, but because of the perception of casual players who were going to feel disenfrachised. Believe me I’m not happy to see that what I thought was going to happen actually seemed to have happened.
Of course you can keep complaining how bad raids are for this game (even though you don’t have any real evidance for that) and eventually stop playing the game. All you do here is hurting yourself for stop playing a game which for 95% you still enjoy. But that 5% (meaning raids) is turning you off so much (even though you could just not play it) that youd rather stop then adapting to it and find a way to still enjoy it.
As far as i am concerned i couldn’t care less about people whining if HoT is too hard for them. I have no sympathy for people who stop doing something because its too hard. This is a mentality that sets you up for losing – in game and in life.
YES the game has changed and its a good thing – nothing stays the same forever
Well that’s the thing. You don’t personally care if people find it hard or people leave the game because of raids, but it affects everyone including raiders if it happens to enough people. I didn’t say I’m leaving the game, but I did say the game feels less like it’s “my” game. That means I’m more likely to leave in the future, because I’m less invested in it. That’s how it happens.
Everyone has different thresholds of whats acceptable. Someone made this thread because they felt, that the game had lost its identity. You dont’ care about it, but I guarantee you Anet does. If enough people feel like this is can tank the game. It’s already had an affect financially.
Whether any individual player cares what other players feel or not matters, it should matter to everyone. Enough people have issues where it’s affected the bottom line. You can bet Anet cares about that.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
Just so you know, the original is not free. That is the game you bought is NOT the free version. There are a boatload of limitations on the free version. You can’t send anything to anyone. Your access to the trading post, both buying and selling is extremely limited. You only get 2 character slots. You can’t talk in map chat. Playing the unrestricted game is very different from playing the free game.
Anet has to compete with other MMOs and most of them are doing the same thing. Imagine how hard it would be to get someone to start the game three, four expansions down the road, if the buy in price is 300.
For two years of WoW, you’d be paying for the game and $15 a month. This game doesn’t charge for a monthly fee. I’ve personally gotten my money’s worth for the $60 I spent originally, even having bought it for me and my wife.
So 3 years later, they come out with an expansion and ask for another $50?
One of the best deals out there for an MMO that doesn’t have a pay to win cash shop. That’s my take on it.
Ok, I totally agree that I’ve gotten my money’s worth with my copy, the game is awesome so let’s get that out of the way. If I had only bought the one copy and had to dish out for HOT this post wouldn’t even be here.
It’s really just that I’m an older game whose been dying to play with his family, and yes maybe I rushed into buying the other 2 copies when I should’ve waited (didn’t see the 12.5K hospital bill coming), but I was so enthusiastic about the game, and the prospect of having my own little ‘home-guild’ if you will, that I grabbed the other two copies before I had the computers for the girls to play them on.
Vegeta.2563 – Awesome, thank you for that!
First of all, sorry to hear about the hospital bill, because health issues simply suck. Of course, games don’t really care if I have money or don’t have money. It’s a business and it needs to keep the lights on. I buy everything I buy in this game twice, because it’s not just me but my wife who plays. Both my kids own the game as well, but they’re old enough to buy their own kitten copies lol.
The thing is no matter how you slice it, it’s a fair price of the game. To put it another way, would I give up everything I’ve earned prior to the release of the expansion to save $10-20 on the expansion? The answer is no.
It reminds me in some ways of Guild Wars 1. If you bought every title at the time they came out, you’d have been spending $50 on each title (roughly, I don’t remember exact prices), so you’d have spent $200 (which again I’d have bought for my wife so double). A few years later that same game was less than half price. You could get the trilogy for $50, which was like getting two games free, and you could get EotM for like $30 or later on much much cheaper.
But as a player who was there longer, I had a ton of experiences that newer players were never going to have. Like playing the game before heroes were introduced, which was a different experience. Or masks at events that people couldn’t get because those event masks changed. Or minis from festivals that were no longer offered, because it was now the year of the Ox, or whatever it was.
I get the whole financial strain of multiple copies, and I know everyone is in different financial situations, but that really doesn’t affect game pricing, nor should it…if the price is fair.
Frankly I think Heart of Thorns was too expensive for what the offered initially but I always saw it as a combination of game plus a season pass to get the living story episodes for free just by logging in. Now, with four new zones and more story coming, I’d say Heart of Thorns is more worth it than it was at launch.
Okay wait a second. So I buy a game. I play a game for 3.5 years. I invest time and money into that game, and energy. I play the game because I like the game and want to continue to play it. I didn’t invest time and money and energy to stop playing when the first expansion came out.
The options were don’t buy the expansion, or buy the expansion. Obviously if you want to continue playing EVERYTHING is in the expansion. Want to glide. That’s in the expansion. Want to use new weapons. That’s in the expansion. Want to continue the story, that’s in the expansion. Basically buy the expansion or stop playing the game. Do you think that’s better somehow for raiders? Cause I don’t.
Just because I bought the expansion doesn’t mean I have to like everything about the expansion, nor does it mean I have to support everything, or remain silent about the things I don’t like. Yes, I bought the expansion because it was my only option to keep playing a game I genuinely like.
Honestly if there were another MMO that checked as many boxes as this one, I’d consider moving to it. There’s not…yet. By the same token revenue is down since the expansion and it’s raids. Clearly someone didn’t buy or, or clearly some people are no longer spending money in the cash shop.
If I’m less happy with the game (and I am) then I will spend less money in the cash shop. I’m not miserable about the game. I don’t hate the game. But I’m not as enthused as I used to be.
Raiding hasn’t been good for my guild. It hasn’t been good for the community as far as I can tell, and I don’t think they belonged in the game.
I disagree whole heartedly here. You are really not in the place to claim what has been good for the community and what not. Revenue drops have many different factors and you cant draw a corrolation between raids and revenue – that is just fictional.
Again. If you want to play everything in the expansion you can do that. There is nothing but yourself stopping you from doing it – just because it doesn’t apply to your selfmade requirements for playing.
I never disagreed that people will like a game mode and not like another. But maybe its time to accept that instead for calling for changing a game mode over and over again.
Id never call for pvp to be less competetive because i don’t like competition in a game.
No, it’s not time to stop and say that you think a feature makes the game less enjoyable for you. There’s never a time for that. I think raids make this game less enjoyable to me.
Since a good portion of all posts on reddit are raid or PvP related, a good portion of those posts don’t concern me directly (even though I’ll read some of them). The game becomes less for me in my mind, and the minds of players are the only thing that matters.
Surely you must have noticed there are a group of people who think even HoT is too difficult. And they complain. Why? Because they don’t like it and they don’t feel it’s for them. They feel disenfranchised. It’s their right to complain, even though I don’t agree with those complaints.
I worked in the publishing industry for quite a few years, and I’m telling you there is little that is more dangerous to a readerbase than changing something suddenly mid-stream. You’ll lose readers that way. The same thing applies to gamers.
Anet created an easy game, with very little hard core or difficult content by percentage. That game attracted a lot of very casual players, who play the game because that’s how they like their games.
Changing that without warning is going to cost the game people, probably a lot of people. If you don’t think raids are a part of that, that’s okay. You’re entitled to that opinion.
But the combination of harder core elements has definitely lost players from this game whether you want to believe it or not. Long before the expansion came out I said this would happen, not necessarily directly because of raids, but because of the perception of casual players who were going to feel disenfrachised. Believe me I’m not happy to see that what I thought was going to happen actually seemed to have happened.
Additionally, not everyone find their enjoyment in the same things. Some will find success after many failures a thrilling and invigorating experience. For others it will be just a relief that the tedious and annoying part is already over.
Same goes for every other game mode.
If you cant win a single pvp game because YOU are not good enough – do expect the game mode to change? I, personally hate competetive play, thats why i avoide pvp. So if i don’t like the essence of something – why do it?I understand the cry for a “story mode”. But raids were meant to be “challanging group content”. If you add a soloable easy mode you remove the “challanging” and the “group” out of its purpose.
And yet in Guild Wars 1 they had normal mode and hard mode for every dungeon. They had a story mode, normal mode and hard mode for some of them.
You don’t have to offer the same rewards. No one went through the story of Oola’s Lab and get the Hard Mode rewards for it. Saying it’s not possible, only fuels non-raiders dislike of raiding and what it does to a game.
This is hard content. It’s meant to exclude some people. It’s meant to exclude you. If you can’t do it, you don’t deserve the reward. You don’t see how this sounds to people who bought a game without raids, and never had to deal with that in PvE to get pretty much any reward they want? And it’s not just about reward.
They changed the personal story so you don’t have to group with someone to beat it. Then they add story to raid, which goes between the stories we play and the stories we play after. How anyone thought that was a good idea is beyond me.
The basic story should be easy enough for most people to get through on their own and they’re making story transitions and putting them into raids.
I get that you want challenging content. I’m not sure how putting in a story mode would affect that, since obviously it won’t make the raid less challenging.
But it would allow people who aren’t as good, or aren’t on good computers, or who aren’t in places where the net is good, to experience the story.
Face it, a lot of casuals play games predominantly for the story. You take away parts of them from them and they will express their displeasure. Anet made the decision to include story transitions in raids.. I believe it was a bad decision.
Yes they bought Guild Wars 2 knowing it had no raids. They bought the expansion knowing raids are a big part of that expansion. Raids didn’t change any of the other game modes.
I understand you feel like you are missing out on story – but everything that is story related in the raids can be experienced by entering a cleared instance. The only thing you miss is the fight and during that fight there is nothing story relevant happening (i guess with the newest raid thats not totally true anymore). You could really remove everthing story wise in raids and it wouldn’t loose much.
Okay wait a second. So I buy a game. I play a game for 3.5 years. I invest time and money into that game, and energy. I play the game because I like the game and want to continue to play it. I didn’t invest time and money and energy to stop playing when the first expansion came out.
The options were don’t buy the expansion, or buy the expansion. Obviously if you want to continue playing EVERYTHING is in the expansion. Want to glide. That’s in the expansion. Want to use new weapons. That’s in the expansion. Want to continue the story, that’s in the expansion. Basically buy the expansion or stop playing the game. Do you think that’s better somehow for raiders? Cause I don’t.
Just because I bought the expansion doesn’t mean I have to like everything about the expansion, nor does it mean I have to support everything, or remain silent about the things I don’t like. Yes, I bought the expansion because it was my only option to keep playing a game I genuinely like.
Honestly if there were another MMO that checked as many boxes as this one, I’d consider moving to it. There’s not…yet. By the same token revenue is down since the expansion and it’s raids. Clearly someone didn’t buy or, or clearly some people are no longer spending money in the cash shop.
If I’m less happy with the game (and I am) then I will spend less money in the cash shop. I’m not miserable about the game. I don’t hate the game. But I’m not as enthused as I used to be.
Raiding hasn’t been good for my guild. It hasn’t been good for the community as far as I can tell, and I don’t think they belonged in the game.
Additionally, not everyone find their enjoyment in the same things. Some will find success after many failures a thrilling and invigorating experience. For others it will be just a relief that the tedious and annoying part is already over.
Same goes for every other game mode.
If you cant win a single pvp game because YOU are not good enough – do expect the game mode to change? I, personally hate competetive play, thats why i avoide pvp. So if i don’t like the essence of something – why do it?I understand the cry for a “story mode”. But raids were meant to be “challanging group content”. If you add a soloable easy mode you remove the “challanging” and the “group” out of its purpose.
And yet in Guild Wars 1 they had normal mode and hard mode for every dungeon. They had a story mode, normal mode and hard mode for some of them.
You don’t have to offer the same rewards. No one went through the story of Oola’s Lab and get the Hard Mode rewards for it. Saying it’s not possible, only fuels non-raiders dislike of raiding and what it does to a game.
This is hard content. It’s meant to exclude some people. It’s meant to exclude you. If you can’t do it, you don’t deserve the reward. You don’t see how this sounds to people who bought a game without raids, and never had to deal with that in PvE to get pretty much any reward they want? And it’s not just about reward.
They changed the personal story so you don’t have to group with someone to beat it. Then they add story to raid, which goes between the stories we play and the stories we play after. How anyone thought that was a good idea is beyond me.
The basic story should be easy enough for most people to get through on their own and they’re making story transitions and putting them into raids.
I get that you want challenging content. I’m not sure how putting in a story mode would affect that, since obviously it won’t make the raid less challenging.
But it would allow people who aren’t as good, or aren’t on good computers, or who aren’t in places where the net is good, to experience the story.
Face it, a lot of casuals play games predominantly for the story. You take away parts of them from them and they will express their displeasure. Anet made the decision to include story transitions in raids.. I believe it was a bad decision.
Now that HoT zones are for the most part empty outside of primetime hours
What hours do you consider primetime? Also are you aware that there are timers so you can see when the meta is on? It’s easy to get to a map late and end up in an empty version of it whilst there are 200 people mowing down Mordrem in a different instance to you.
Have a look at dulfy.net for a handy HoT timer and try to turn up a bit early for the start of a meta. Ten minutes is not unreasonable.A lot of players can’t play games whenever they like, so having a timer isn’t going to help them.
Using LFG might help for some maps but for the final one, it’s a question of turn up early in a squad, wait around for 30 minutes at least while waiting on event start, do the long tedious event and hope you can stick around long enough to get it finished.
And waiting around for 30 minutes or whatever when they might only have an hour to play that night after a long hard stressful day at work isn’t much fun.
Trying to access those MP, AP etc in the H0T maps can be a real pain.
If you’re waiting a half an hour on the last map, your’e doing it wrong because I show up five minutes early and have never failed to get into a map.
Well, here’s what I can tell you briefly. The creatures in HoT are much harder, but there is progression in HoT. Check out how masteries work in the wiki, do the first two story steps in HOT to unlock them.
The first zone, VB is all about progression. I’d worry less about gettting through stuff fast and more about exploring. When you have the masteries jumping mushrooms and updraft use (in the gliding line) unlocked, the zone opens up a lot. Until then just follow dynamic event chains.
There are outposts in the zone. Each outpost is where event chains start during the day. During the night, you have to defend them, until the night bosses spawn.
Most of the enemies, if you watch them, have ways to avoid them. Pocket Raptors attack in groups and are best taken out with AOE skills. If you go down they’re fast enough to kill to rally so don’t give up. Just don’t try to run past them, stop and fight the pocket raptors as you go, or you’ll be overwhelmed.
Veteran Stoneheads can be killed by range from the side. Never stand in front or behind them.
Mushrooms often explode when they die, so don’t melee them. Make sure you have a ranged weapon.
Smokescales create a circle around them in which they’re invulnerable. Drag them out of the circle by moving away, they’ll follow. They die very fast if you DPS them down.
Modrem Snipers put a target over your head for their worst attack, which is a line of red fire. If you move sideways that line will never hit you. Keep moving when they stealth and watch for that target.
Mordrem Tormenters put torment on you which does more damage when you’re moving.
There are two types of frog foes that are hard. The blade dancers should be ranged and shadow leapers should be meleed. Shadow leapers will kill you fast in their poison circles so avoiding those is a priority.
You can always look for a commander tag on the map, or a mentor tag and follow around. You can also just find anyone and follow them, because two people can do 90% of that zone easily.
Hope this helps.
Yep, you jumped from A to D without having experienced B or C. It’s a big problem with the game.
Originally there was Living Story Season 1, which helped hone your skill. That’s not playable anymore. There is Living Story Season 2. If you were here and logged in while it was current, that unlocks free. If not, it costs gems to buy. But it’s story progression and helps prepare you for the harder content of HOT which was always meant to be end game content.
If you’re on a US server, I can help you get through HoT and show you what you need to know to enjoy the new zones.
@Vayne, well, based on that assumption, I can also tell you that there are at least 3 known guilds I personally know running raids right now, which is from my personal group, not some people I tried looking for, I am genuinely are saying that you can not define math nor the population by including and excluding based on your preference, nor is taking 1 thing (LFG) and using that thing to exploit it, which is my bad, I should have also taken in the account of people who are not “pugs” from both sides, I am not a politician, but a person online trying to explain raids are good, not trying to lie to your face….. But yeah around 6-7 groups on LFG are doing it now.
But for this instance, lets say that I accept this rather unknown suggestion that since “I am not playing it, nobody is ideology”.
I am literally trying to figure out why you like meta maps, I simply and genuinely dont get it, you want to play alone, but want 30-50 people redo the same task that requires nothing of you, but do not like the ideology of depending on others. I am not critiquing you, I am literally and honestly just lost on this ideology
As I said, I like, Raiding, GvG and solo runs, I absolutely hate meta maps, the only thing I do in a meta map is complete it so I can watch how it looks like, like with dragons stand.
Have done that a few times to see the map, I dont even do the achievements unless everyone is running to them, I like to watch the world and killing the boss, it is pretty easy tho, so have again only done it a few times, I dont really care for cosmetics at all, have not changed look for over a year, unless if it is something like shattere holographic wings, but………Please explain, so I can understand your thoughts, they just seem, rather unknown to me.
It’s common knowledge that there’s a huge number of people who solo MMOs. This isn’t some guess on my part. It’s not some magic thing. These things have been known for years.
Scott Hartsman who was the lead designer of Rift said straight out that developers who ignore the solo players are looking for trouble (paraphrasing here, but he said it). The original FAQ for Guild Wars 2 had an entire question about solo play. There’s nothing to explain.
Again, the devs have said straight out that the majority of people won’t ever beat a raid. Not that many people raid in any game.
In fact we heard a dev that left lotro not long ago that said that only 10% of the game’s population ever raided, though 50% of the forum posts were by raiders.
This is just stuff we’ve known for years. I’m not sure what part you’re finding hard to believe.
And because so many casuals came to this game to bang around the open world, without running dungeons or fractals even, to them it feels like HOT has a different identity than the core game.
@Zengara
If you think raiding is bigger because twitch streamers stream it, you’re missing the point. A huge number of people solo MMOs. Not a few. A lot. How do we know? We’ve heard it from devs for years. We see it in forum and reddit posts. A lot of people solo.
Most people who solo don’t stream on twitch and if they did it would be boring to watch anyway. But I guarantee you less than 25% of the players of this game actively raid, or have ever beaten a raid and it’s most likely a much smaller group than that.
Same with LFG> If you’re a solo player you NEVER have to post a listing to LFG. With raiding you pretty much do.
So I’m looking at raids LFG right this second and there are 4 groups raiding, one of who is selling.
Four groups in LFG is 40 people raiding in pugs at this minute, or will be when those groups fills.
Compare that to the 40 people I just saw running around in a leather farm in Lake Doric.
I guarantee you no one is streaming the leather farm. And though it is on LFG, it’s 50 people, which would be one listing, instead of five raid groups. That single listing takes care of more people than all four raid posts put together.
The devs have said straight out only a small percentage of people will ever beat a raid. I can’t see why they’d lie about it.
Also, raids in their current implementation are NOT hard.
Gearing yourself out over time is NOT hard.
There are plenty of people who will take players into raids who are not full ascended. Get your ascended trinkets and literally you’re geared enough to clear all of the bosses.
That people think that part is hard just baffles me.
You don’t find it hard. I do find it hard. I find it hard to see circles sometimes, because I’m colorbind. I think it’s hard if there’s lag, particularly because I live in Australia, and I’m 55 years old, and my joints don’t work like they did when I was 20.
This attitude of it’s not hard for me so it’s not hard is one of the things that make people resent raiding so much.
But making an easy mode is the worst possible way to make the game mode more accessible. The sense of love and enjoyment and feeling of success that comes from overcoming raids at their current level of difficulty is so satisfying.
Generating an easy mode sets us on a downward spiral of people only completing the content once and saying “oh, I’ve seen it, I’m pretty much done with it.”
Even if those modes have worse rewards, the impact of the story is gutted when there is no challenge. We saw that all the way through LWS1. There were other things wrong of course. But no, creating an easy mode is NOT the solution. A colorblind option? Sure.Regardless of that, not having an easy mode will simply make it so only a small percentage of the playerbase completes that content. It really is too hard for some people. The intensity and amount of practice you need is physically beyond me on most days. So whatever rewards there are there, well, I can’t get them.
But that wasn’t the situation for 3.5 years. In 3.5 years there were only a couple of rewards I couldn’t get. The PvP tournament rewards, and I couldn’t beat Liadri. Everything else I could get. I could get legendaries if I played long enough. But I can’t get legendary armor.
So now this is barred from me and it feels less like a game made for me. That has nothing to do with fair, or how much fun you find it. I’m more disenfranchised. I was doing pretty much everything in PvE and now I can’t. And every time that happens I have to ask myself, is this game still for me.
Worse yet, the percentage of posts now that are raid or PvP posts is much much higher than anything else. So again, I have to question, is this game still for me.
And you don’t really want players like me asking that question because there are probably more casual players than there are raiders.
But my question is this: WHY are you barred from it?
What can they do besides an easy mode to make it more accessible?
What improvements to LFG can they make?
Should they release raid guide videos for the community that you can study?
Is there something OTHER than easy mode? Because easy mode is the one option that takes fun from one group and gives it all over to another. While apparently in the current state only the “hardcore” group is having fun.
There has got to be a middle ground.
Look, let’s pretend, for argument sake, that I hate cooking. I don’t enjoy cooking. I don’t like to cook. And for years, I could play this game and get all the rewards without having to cook. You like challenging content that you have to work through and I don’t. It’s that simple. Could I if i had a gun to my head? Sure. But if you pay for one game, and you’re getting a different game, then that’s why people are saying the game is losing it’s identity.
I’ve gone back to the basics and I’m doing the stuff I enjoy now, playing the way I enjoy playing. Playing the way I always played and I’m having more fun than I did when I was trying to do PvP tournments and trying to raid.
Raids DID NOT exist in the game I bought. Anet didn’t talk about them. A big percentage of the reason I came to this game was because it didn’t have raids, and all the stuff that comes along with raids. Now that raids are here, I’m less comfortable.
What’s stopping me from participating in raids. I think they’re a pointless, waste of time. I don’t enjoy them. They’re not fun for me. That’s what’s stopping me.
Maybe other people buy games to do stuff they don’t enjoy to get rewards. I’m not one of those people, even though I tried to be for a while. And I was starting to hate the game because of it.
PvP almost drove me from this game. If I started raiding, I’d be gone in months. Completely gone. That’s what’s stopping me from raiding.
Also, raids in their current implementation are NOT hard.
Gearing yourself out over time is NOT hard.
There are plenty of people who will take players into raids who are not full ascended. Get your ascended trinkets and literally you’re geared enough to clear all of the bosses.
That people think that part is hard just baffles me.
You don’t find it hard. I do find it hard. I find it hard to see circles sometimes, because I’m colorbind. I think it’s hard if there’s lag, particularly because I live in Australia, and I’m 55 years old, and my joints don’t work like they did when I was 20.
This attitude of it’s not hard for me so it’s not hard is one of the things that make people resent raiding so much.
But making an easy mode is the worst possible way to make the game mode more accessible. The sense of love and enjoyment and feeling of success that comes from overcoming raids at their current level of difficulty is so satisfying.
Generating an easy mode sets us on a downward spiral of people only completing the content once and saying “oh, I’ve seen it, I’m pretty much done with it.”
Even if those modes have worse rewards, the impact of the story is gutted when there is no challenge. We saw that all the way through LWS1. There were other things wrong of course. But no, creating an easy mode is NOT the solution. A colorblind option? Sure.
Regardless of that, not having an easy mode will simply make it so only a small percentage of the playerbase completes that content. It really is too hard for some people. The intensity and amount of practice you need is physically beyond me on most days. So whatever rewards there are there, well, I can’t get them.
But that wasn’t the situation for 3.5 years. In 3.5 years there were only a couple of rewards I couldn’t get. The PvP tournament rewards, and I couldn’t beat Liadri. Everything else I could get. I could get legendaries if I played long enough. But I can’t get legendary armor.
So now this is barred from me and it feels less like a game made for me. That has nothing to do with fair, or how much fun you find it. I’m more disenfranchised. I was doing pretty much everything in PvE and now I can’t. And every time that happens I have to ask myself, is this game still for me.
Worse yet, the percentage of posts now that are raid or PvP posts is much much higher than anything else. So again, I have to question, is this game still for me.
And you don’t really want players like me asking that question because there are probably more casual players than there are raiders.
Also, raids in their current implementation are NOT hard.
Gearing yourself out over time is NOT hard.
There are plenty of people who will take players into raids who are not full ascended. Get your ascended trinkets and literally you’re geared enough to clear all of the bosses.
That people think that part is hard just baffles me.
You don’t find it hard. I do find it hard. I find it hard to see circles sometimes, because I’m colorbind. I think it’s hard if there’s lag, particularly because I live in Australia, and I’m 55 years old, and my joints don’t work like they did when I was 20.
This attitude of it’s not hard for me so it’s not hard is one of the things that make people resent raiding so much.
Gw2 did take a different direction with HoT. Some good, some bad, some disastrous. HoT maps were good, for example. Yeah, they’re tougher than normal level 80 maps, but that’s fine. I don’t mind the extra challenge. Others won’t mind it either. Maps are core to this game. Players will eventually be accustomed to them.
However, I always thought raids were a bad idea. There’s just no way anyone can expect to keep players if you make content for 1% of the playerbase. I’m not against group content, I’m against group content being accessible to the majority.Looking back, I have to ask: Why was the dungeon team disbanded? It saddens me that dungeon content is non-existent. Yes, at least we have fractals, but…why not dungeons too?
I’m curious about the next expansion, but I will tell you I am NOT gung-ho about it like I was with HoT. Thanks to HoT, pvp and wvw have all but been destroyed.
wow, you are like completely on the other side of the majority o.o Most dont like the Meta maps, where you lietrally can only complete the 1000 mobs with a massive group without any form of challenge (your gear, dmg output really doesnt matter, as long as you survive and dont only press 1).
Most likes the raids, since they are interesting, have a story and real challenging, you have to be very active and your rotations needs to be on point, it is not like solo lupi with a thief (no reflect or clones/minions), but still a real good challenge that does depend on the entire groupI agree on dungeons, but I was one of those who did solo arah p4 with killing all bosses, so the true form of dungeons are rather near and dear to me, and I always hoped that they would create walls/stop people from at least skipping a boss. But thats how it is now, I guess
I don’t know who you’re playing with, but my experience here is the opposite. I don’t think most people want challenging content and I don’t think most people raid. Most people want to feel like they’re accomplishing something with minimal effort on their part, get their rewards and go home. That’s why the AB multimap was so popular.
But I’m relatively sure more people are doing world boss trains than are raiding. Why? Because raiding you have to buy into. You have to invest…time…gold…energy. I’m pretty sure only a small percent of the population raid.
I’m pretty sure lots of people do massive zerg events (which is how they become zerg events in the first place).
As for the identity question, I think Guild Wars 2 has multiple identities depending on your play style.
Yes it has (to answer the OP). The arguments for or against don’t matter. If the perception towards the game is negative, nothing you can do or say will matter.
That’s not always true. I’ve met people who had a negative opinion on something because there were things they didn’t know about it, and when they learned those things, their opinion changed. Not always, of course, maybe not often but it does happen.
I know people who hated Hot, jumping puzzles, one zone or another, and gradually over time, they came to have different opinions as they got better at that content.
Of course, some people won’t change their mind. That doesn’t really stop it from being a valid discussion however.
I think it’s a great idea to have a vanilla Guild Wars 2. Just make sure when you do it Anet to remove the wardrobe, updated crafting UI including the ability to craft from stuff in your bank, remove the 2 gold per day for the dailies, reinsert the falling bug that occurred when you ran downhill, makes sure you can’t salvage by right clicking a salvage kit, oh and make sure you can’t preview anything on the trading post.
Pretty sure that some people are seeing vanilla Guild Wars 2 through rose-colored glasses.
There are not multiple fallacies there, or at least not blatant ones. I never said that HoT changed whether we needed ascended or not for fractals. Fractals were introduced at the same time that ascended armor was introduced. And yes, for high level fractals you NEED ascended gear with AR. Yes, there is tier 1 that you can do, but most people do higher level fractals for achievements and rewards. When they are not running fractals for dailies, a lot of the people in my guilds do upper level ones.
As for story, no, I haven’t finished it. I have time constraints in RL that don’t let me play as often as I’d like. I still have no idea what is going on and why it is happening, and I do not skip cutscenes, so, there’s something somewhere that I have missed.
EDIT: Yes, they are gating content, because if I could play in those higher level fractals without AR then I wouldn’t need Ascended Gear, would I? The fractals might be the same story, but the fact that you NEED a certain set of armor to play in these upper level fractals and it is not reliant on skill is worrying. What will they gate behind armor next, like I said before?
And if they are dead they should WP…….this is the kind of attitude I am talking about! This attitude never used to be around, and now its “You’re dead, WP.” Some people won’t even help downed players anymore, they let them die and tell them to WP. I am not saying rez them when it’s dangerous, but when you are able to, and you need people to help finish, making them run back from a WP is time consuming.
BUT to get the thread back on track, YES, I think that GW2 has definitely lost its identity over time. For multiple reasons. It’s still fun, but it’s definitely NOT the same game I bought when it was released, many, many moons ago.
Fractals, with said gates, were introduced three months after the game launched. So unless you’re arguing the game lost it’s identity then (which would make this post relatively toothless), then what you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me.
This is gating has existed in one way or another even since launch when you had to level up between stories.
I remember playing this game, not being high enough level to do the next story and having to help some farmer in a field until I could get to the next story. This has been since launch.
I couldn’t beat Arah with a 15th level character either. It’s called progression.
If you’re arguing that the game changed when ascended stuff came in a few months after launch, I can agree with that. But that was three years ago.
This game hasn’t significantly changed since then.
Which meant it had 3 months of being one thing and 3.5 years of being another. The another IS the game’s identity.
There are not multiple fallacies there, or at least not blatant ones. I never said that HoT changed whether we needed ascended or not for fractals. Fractals were introduced at the same time that ascended armor was introduced. And yes, for high level fractals you NEED ascended gear with AR. Yes, there is tier 1 that you can do, but most people do higher level fractals for achievements and rewards. When they are not running fractals for dailies, a lot of the people in my guilds do upper level ones.
As for story, no, I haven’t finished it. I have time constraints in RL that don’t let me play as often as I’d like. I still have no idea what is going on and why it is happening, and I do not skip cutscenes, so, there’s something somewhere that I have missed.
EDIT: Yes, they are gating content, because if I could play in those higher level fractals without AR then I wouldn’t need Ascended Gear, would I? The fractals might be the same story, but the fact that you NEED a certain set of armor to play in these upper level fractals and it is not reliant on skill is worrying. What will they gate behind armor next, like I said before?
And if they are dead they should WP…….this is the kind of attitude I am talking about! This attitude never used to be around, and now its “You’re dead, WP.” Some people won’t even help downed players anymore, they let them die and tell them to WP. I am not saying rez them when it’s dangerous, but when you are able to, and you need people to help finish, making them run back from a WP is time consuming.
BUT to get the thread back on track, YES, I think that GW2 has definitely lost its identity over time. For multiple reasons. It’s still fun, but it’s definitely NOT the same game I bought when it was released, many, many moons ago.
Fractals, with said gates, were introduced three months after the game launched. So unless you’re arguing the game lost it’s identity then (which would make this post relatively toothless), then what you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me.
This is gating has existed in one way or another even since launch when you had to level up between stories.
I remember playing this game, not being high enough level to do the next story and having to help some farmer in a field until I could get to the next story. This has been since launch.
I couldn’t beat Arah with a 15th level character either. It’s called progression.
If you’re arguing that the game changed when ascended stuff came in a few months after launch, I can agree with that. But that was three years ago.
This game hasn’t significantly changed since then.
Which meant it had 3 months of being one thing and 3.5 years of being another. The another IS the game’s identity.
You know, I play this game no differently now than I did 3 years ago.
What was I doing three years ago? Whatever I wanted to do. Now there are just more options.
I play HOT pretty much the same way I played the open world. I go to a map and start doing events. If I want the meta, I will look at LFG, but it takes a few seconds to get over to another map and then I’m playing the same way again.
HoT feels a lot like Orr did to me, and I welcome that kind of thing. There were places in Orr I had trouble doing stuff by myself too, but they got done. Temples, some events. that were group events. This was fun for me. And the same situation exists in HoT.
I don’t have to min/max (and I don’t). I don’t need to run a specific build (and I don’t). I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.
Do you know how I leveled by masteries in HoT? By doing events in the zones. The only thing I did differently was I used boosters and food. Beyond that, I played the same way.
You also now have mandatory holy trinity as well if you want to succeed in top tier content. Not needed for open world content, but like I said that content it’s either old or not really relevant.
No, there’ is no “holy trinity” — there is a huge diversity of potential builds and team comps. I don’t see it any differently than people insisting on “zerker or bust” for dungeons, when that wasn’t necessary either.
Do you have for raids (and sometimes T4 Fracs):
Tank – Check
DPS – Check
Healer – CheckYou have the holy trinity, not much you can do about it as it’s that straight forward and simple. I also wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s “a huge diversity” as people generally still tend to shoehorn into the same sort of builds.
But it’s always been that way for high level fractals and hard dungeons. It used to be zerker or get out. Now there’s more variety, not less.
Yes but his point was that there isn’t a holy trinity, when there is. I wouldn’t totally agree that it’s always been that way – you could easily do the old dungeons without zerker (it just wasn’t often as fast), it was something around 90-95% wanted zerk or gtfo.
Right now there’s power, condi, for offense (in which the only thing that’s changed is the stats of the gear being used), most likely Minstrel or Magi for healing, and tank depends on what you are really.
There’s a trinity in raids. I run fractals without a tank. Even T4 fractals.
Is why I said sometimes in T4 ;P I’ve never seen it myself but a friend has said he joined a group and they were expecting raid-like efficiency.
There’s no consistent aggro mechanic in fractals and anyone in a group with raid-like efficiency will blast through t4 bosses so fast tanking isn’t even an option.
This is my experience too. There are some bosses in Raids that require a tank. But saying that you have a trinity without encounters requiring it is a fallacy.
In games with a trinity you can’t even queue for content without a tank and a healer. No such restriction exists here.
You also now have mandatory holy trinity as well if you want to succeed in top tier content. Not needed for open world content, but like I said that content it’s either old or not really relevant.
No, there’ is no “holy trinity” — there is a huge diversity of potential builds and team comps. I don’t see it any differently than people insisting on “zerker or bust” for dungeons, when that wasn’t necessary either.
Do you have for raids (and sometimes T4 Fracs):
Tank – Check
DPS – Check
Healer – CheckYou have the holy trinity, not much you can do about it as it’s that straight forward and simple. I also wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s “a huge diversity” as people generally still tend to shoehorn into the same sort of builds.
But it’s always been that way for high level fractals and hard dungeons. It used to be zerker or get out. Now there’s more variety, not less.
Yes but his point was that there isn’t a holy trinity, when there is. I wouldn’t totally agree that it’s always been that way – you could easily do the old dungeons without zerker (it just wasn’t often as fast), it was something around 90-95% wanted zerk or gtfo.
Right now there’s power, condi, for offense (in which the only thing that’s changed is the stats of the gear being used), most likely Minstrel or Magi for healing, and tank depends on what you are really.
There’s a trinity in raids. I run fractals without a tank. Even T4 fractals.
You also now have mandatory holy trinity as well if you want to succeed in top tier content. Not needed for open world content, but like I said that content it’s either old or not really relevant.
No, there’ is no “holy trinity” — there is a huge diversity of potential builds and team comps. I don’t see it any differently than people insisting on “zerker or bust” for dungeons, when that wasn’t necessary either.
Do you have for raids (and sometimes T4 Fracs):
Tank – Check
DPS – Check
Healer – CheckYou have the holy trinity, not much you can do about it as it’s that straight forward and simple. I also wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s “a huge diversity” as people generally still tend to shoehorn into the same sort of builds.
But it’s always been that way for high level fractals and hard dungeons. It used to be zerker or get out. Now there’s more variety, not less.
Wouldn’t be afraid to say that I believe gw2 have gotten more content these far few months than we got with season 1 and 2. I men, we have already gotten 4 new maps along with associated story, 2 new fractals, the huge rework for pvp, 2 new pvp maps and so on. Raiding is fine, and it was needed. Tbh we should all be thankful for the elitist’s since they are the ones spending all their money on the game. I used to know a guy who bought a huge amount of gems and then converted all the gems he got to around 3k gold, Idk about you but I would never do that. Well my point is, eventhough i dont raid, i think raiding was a very good addition to the game, and until now it doesn’t seem like it hurts any other content in the game.
Don’t kid yourself. Over all it’s casuals who spend more money. I have a guild full of casuals who buy wings and outfits and toys. Elitists make fun of that stuff. They often want items they can earn in game to show off their prowess. To an elitist, a raid skin you can’t get anywhere else is worth more than something you buy in the cash shop.
I’m what you call a hard core casual. I’ve spent big big money on this game, but I’m not a raider, I don’t PvP, and I’m not competitive.
Guild Wars 2 hasn’t lost it’s identity. The same game. It has the same sensiblities it’s always had. There have always been a handful of min/maxers in dungeons doing speed runs or in Fractals, and they’ve always been strict about who they allowed in their groups. And it was,. and is, always possible to make your own group or join a casual guild that ignores all that.
I have a guild filled with casual people who go into HoT and get the stuff done they need. A couple of them don’t like it, but most do. And we’re casual as hell. If we were any more casual we’d be dead.
The game hasn’t lost it’s identity. Several of the new meta events build on the old meta events. AB meta, Dragon stand meta, these are both events that build on the old.
People are annoyed they have to use a timer or LFG to get certain things done, but all the other stuff is still there. There are 9 really good event chains in VB that you don’t need to have a zerg for. 3 people can finish almost every chain in VB.
The game hasn’t lost it’s identity, but some people haven’t played the entire game, and so assume what they did was the game’s identity. There have been hard core players here with us from day one.