Guild Wars 2

I have fun in bursts. That is to say, not everything in the game is fun for me, but there remain many things that I do find fun.

I still have a blast running dungeons with my guild. We’re not speed runners, and we don’t do dungeons all the time, so they don’t always go as planned, but we usually have fun. I still have fun in WvW sometimes. I enjoyed the new instance, and I enjoyed the way Kessex Hills has changed. I still enjoy Southsun Survival and Sanctum Sprint.

There are also things I can do without like the Mad King’s Labyrinth, but you know, I went in there for an hour, and got the achievements I needed from it and it was fine for that amount of time.

Admittedly some stuff is better simply because I enjoy playing with my guild. I’d probably not be having such a good time by now if the guild wasn’t filled with people I enjoy playing with…but that would be true of any MMO after a year.

Xae Isareth.1364:

In most situations you’re in far greater risk if try meleeing. Lupi anyone?

How about Subject Alpha? You’re at less risk meleeing him than you are ranging him.

Ronah.2869:

Skills should have levels. The more you use one skill the more they level and gain power up to a max of course. It would give you the option to level more skills or stick with the ones you like

Characters should not have levels. They should have an age. every 10h of being online will raise your status points by 10% up to a max of 300%

Weapons, armors and items should not have level restrictions but power restrictions. You can equip any of them but they will vary in stats spending on your character’s age

So if they get past a certain age, will their abilities start to deteriorate?

TSW was advertised as trying to do away with levels. In my opinion they failed miserably. You still earned experience points. You still unlocked skills in a tier order. You still needed to finish tier 1 before you got to tier 2…the only thing missing was a level number. By all other criteria you were simply leveling. I felt misled by the company after playing it.

A level, in most games, is just a numeric representation of how far you’ve come, particularly in regard to character development. Generally you get certain things unlocked until you’re 80, afterwhich you’re basically funneled into end game content.

Arguably, in this game, you don’t really need levels as much, because with the exception of your last trait points, you’re not getting much after level 30 even. All the skill slots are unlocked. Level would then be irrelevant say to unlocking a 30 point elite skill.

But levels are in most RPGs, if not directly, at least in spirit. I’m not sure how much difference doing away with them would actually make.

bravoart.5308:

Sheldor.6435:

I agree. I think I was there with you, and I needed the extra Karma and the ori node spot, but they just got mad at us, and started a verbal attack against us, lead by a commander . He kept using offensive language that could easily result in a ban, but those of us at the event were the only ones being harmed by his words, so no one reported him. I believe this is much of an over reaction for us just wanting to finish an event for some extra Karma and an ori node spot.

Couldn’t you join them for a bit and just buy the ori that you would have got in a matter of minutes?

They’re wanting to give you more than the worth of karma and ori, but since it isn’t karma and an ori node, you want everyone else to bend to your will….

You want a burger, I give you 20 bucks, you complain that it isn’t a burger. shrug

This doesn’t work for me, because I play games to be immersed. If I agree to escort an NPC I don’t deliberately set him up to die so I can prosper.

If all you care about is loot then your way is no problem. If you care about playing an RPG as an RPG, it becomes a problem.

Flash.6912:

The world of GW2 might be beautiful but the Living World is ruined it

I’m sorry how did the Living World impact the beauty of the world at all? The world isn’t any less beautiful due to the Living World.

I sort of figured it would go this way. I didn’t necessarily want it to, but I half-expected it to. I’m not sure why more people didn’t see some of this stuff coming. And you know, I don’t like all of it…but I’m not sure that matters that much.

I’m relatively sure they don’t drop anymore, but you know…just because it hasn’t dropped for me, doesn’t mean it can’t. How can anyone know if it doesn’t drop? We can only know if we didn’t get it.

Calling out someone’s name on the forums will result in an infraction. Just so you know.

If someone is abusive in game, report them for their abuse and screenshot it. Best way to handle it.

Zaxares.5419:

I play games to complete my own personal goals I set for myself in them. As a completionist by nature, this usually entails trying to do just about everything in order to reach my standard of “completed”, which encompasses:

- Doing all PvE content
- Outfitting my characters in a look that I like (which doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive gear)
- Acquiring all achievements in game modes I play (which basically just excludes PvP and WvW achievements)

The last tends to cause me the most problems, especially since some past chapters of the Living Story forced me into game modes I wouldn’t normally set foot in.

I used to be like you, but I tailor my game play style to the game I’m playing. I don’t need achievements I don’t need. Particularly now that you can get meta achievements by doing dailies, anyone can get a meta, which is the reward for an event. I simply switched from being an ultra completionist to getting the metas.

I’ll even get the WvW meta, which I didn’t think I would, but I only need 15 more camps to do it, so I might as well.

Svetli.4276:

it is harder to continue playing when this game is ment for casual play
well you can’t have 8 mil ppl play your game if it is casual

I think you’ll find that most WoW players are casual. That’s why content continually gets dumbed down.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

Zoltreez.6435:

here is one issue

the circle is broken

in an MMO Players leave new players join and ALLOT of players come back

in GW2 Players leave new players join ALLOT of players NOT coming back ( why should they ? they aren’t adding anything to the game players aren’t motivated to come back for what ? the missed story and loot that they never can see ? to the never changing and expanding world ? )

I don’t know. I see a lot of players coming back, even within my guild. People leave for two, three, six months, but most of them have come back.

Curious, are you the GM for your guild? Sounds like a cool place to be. Why do I get the feeling that one day I’ll apply to your guild?

You’re welcome to. We’re ultra casual though.

I think at very least the drop rate could be increased, or Anet should make some way for level 80s to be able to get them. As it stands now, it’s just silly. And I don’t need them personally, but people in my guild do.

I’m guessing that a guild that requires 100% representation because of loyalty to an online game is a guild I wouldn’t want to join in the first place.

I have groups of friends in real life. Not one of them insists I have no other friends or groups of friends. I’ve joined teams in real life. Not one of them insists I can’t join other teams. I’ve even been on two baseball teams at the same time, one from work and one from friends. I don’t think either team thought of me as disloyal.

This whole loyalty to a guild thing is quite beyond me. Some of us play games to have fun. I have 130 people in my guild, about 50 who are regular players….30 or so who play almost every day.

And I have some people who show up just for guild missions. It doesn’t hurt me. I don’t get less reward. I don’t get less guild merits.

And when I want to do a dungeon, I have a ready made group of like minded people who get on mumble and have a good time in the dungeon, instead of some pug business run.

To each his own I guess.

I’m always happy to help new players but I’m more of a PvE’er than a PvPer. What kind of stuff do you plan no doing in game.

If you’re looking for a casual group, I’m your guy. If you’re looking for competitive player vs player…probably not. lol

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Angelica Dream.7103:

Our guild has about 40% under 21 so I would say that more adults play GW2 but more “mature teens” play GW2 VS games like WOW

lol, I beg to differ. I’ve been kicked out of more dungeons than I can count by little teenagers in GW2. Let me give you a comparison. I’ve played WoW since the beginning of it’s existence. I’ll just say 8 years. I was only kicked by a teenager twice in WoW, and he was extremely immature. Fast forward to Guild Wars 2, and I’ve been kicked over 30 times. 20-22ish of those were teens.

That’s because more little teenagers pug, where older people tend to organize into guilds of like minded people. Much of my guild is over 30. Plenty of us are over 50.

Also, how do you know they’re teenagers? The MMO genre is infamous for attracting elitism.

I believe this to be a generational thing. The generation I’m from did everything personally. Mom and pop stores, instead of big huge megastores. That’s what I grew up with. The older you are, the more likely you were dealing with people personally and not systems.

So I’m more comfortable dealing with people I know…because growing up it’s how I (and people my age) interacted.

Now the younger generation, they’re more used to thinks like facebook, games where you pair with strangers over and over again, that sort of thing.

That isn’t to say there won’t be exceptions. There will be younger people who don’t want to pug and older people who like pugging, but even in my guild of 130, it seems to me the younger people just pug as a matter of course, and the older people tend not to pug unless it’s a last option.

I’m not judging this as being better or not better. I’m judging this based on comfort zones. I know how I feel and I attribute it to the world I grew up in.

It wasn’t intended to be a value judgement on anyone.

I don’t know… Pugging, especially using an lfg site or in game tool, is about convenience, and “path of least resistance” is age-neutral.

Well, I’m going by personal, admittedly annecdotal experience), but I didn’t grow up “playing” with random strangers, so I don’t gravitate to that solution. It’s harder for me to pug, not easier. It’s a different thought process.

With a pug, you have to usually anyway run run run. Fast fast fast. I’m not a fast fast fast type of guy. I’m older. It takes me longer to get my bearings. Unless I’ve done a dungeon a million times, I still have to think sometimes about where to go or what to do next. Pugs don’t give me that flexibility.

Then, there’s almost no chance when playing with guildies of getting kicked from a party, or having to deal with unwanted comments, or rage quitting. It’s a different thought process.

I tend to play best with people over 30, because I am over 30. And I tend to find those people in guilds.

I could be wrong about other people but for me, pugging is more difficult not easier.

Obsidian.1328:

Just because something is there, dangling in front of you like a carrot, doesn’t mean you need to go after it.

Exactly, glad we agree. This is true of both Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

My objection to the trinity, and I’ve said this before, is how artificial it is. How exciting would Lord of the Rings been if anyone only ever attacked Boromir while Gandalf healed him. I’m thinking not very. It’s a completely artificial construct that kills the drama in games.

I get what you’re saying and don’t entirely disagree, but not having dedicated healers on the battlefield seems more artificial to me than having them, because “Medic!” Granted, a medic probably isn’t going to hook up an IV and pump antibiotics into someone who’s actively drawing enemy fire, but still…

See also: Cleric!

My favorite take on the ‘trinity’ was in City of Heroes, where it wasn’t necessarily ‘healer’/tanker/DPS. Defenders and Controllers had some pretty cool (and fun, IMO) alternatives to being healbots. And as for tanking, well, I sure do miss me some CoH-style tanking.

First pic: That’s right! It was me! I ate all the Frusen Glädjé!

Second pic: Say, I had this, like, wacky dream, ya know, where the heroes were rolling around on the ground trying to avoid all these wacky red circles of doom, or whatever!

I have a lot less against healers than I do against tanks. To me it’s tanks that make the trinity artificial, not healers.

I don’t think anyone in good conscience can argue that there wasn’t more build freedom in Guild Wars 1 than in Guild Wars 2, and in some ways that’s a good thing…and in some ways it was a bad thing.

There were two problems that arose from the amount of freedom we had.

The first was the balancing issues, particularly around insanely overpower builds. There’s nothing like a permasin or an imbagon paragon in Guild Wars 2. There’s no 600 monk builds, or crazy spirit spammer builds. That’s a good thing, not a bad one.

The second problem is that a lot of people who tried Guild Wars 1 found it too hard to make builds, and they weren’t aware of websites like PvX wiki. So they simply left the game, because they couldn’t handle it.

The sweet spot of any game should be easy to learn, hard to master. I think Guild Wars 2 got the easily to learn down pat (at least when it comes to builds), but the hard to master still needs some work.

I think Anet overcompensated in Guild Wars 2, because it was so impossible for the to control Guild Wars 1. I think it’s time for the pendulum to swing back the other ways a bit.

I have about 50/50. I create characters based loosely on some idea I have for that character and then decide if male or female fits best.

But yeah, most women play exclusively female characters and many guys play them, so you’re going to end up with more females.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Angelica Dream.7103:

Our guild has about 40% under 21 so I would say that more adults play GW2 but more “mature teens” play GW2 VS games like WOW

lol, I beg to differ. I’ve been kicked out of more dungeons than I can count by little teenagers in GW2. Let me give you a comparison. I’ve played WoW since the beginning of it’s existence. I’ll just say 8 years. I was only kicked by a teenager twice in WoW, and he was extremely immature. Fast forward to Guild Wars 2, and I’ve been kicked over 30 times. 20-22ish of those were teens.

That’s because more little teenagers pug, where older people tend to organize into guilds of like minded people. Much of my guild is over 30. Plenty of us are over 50.

Also, how do you know they’re teenagers? The MMO genre is infamous for attracting elitism.

I believe this to be a generational thing. The generation I’m from did everything personally. Mom and pop stores, instead of big huge megastores. That’s what I grew up with. The older you are, the more likely you were dealing with people personally and not systems.

So I’m more comfortable dealing with people I know…because growing up it’s how I (and people my age) interacted.

Now the younger generation, they’re more used to thinks like facebook, games where you pair with strangers over and over again, that sort of thing.

That isn’t to say there won’t be exceptions. There will be younger people who don’t want to pug and older people who like pugging, but even in my guild of 130, it seems to me the younger people just pug as a matter of course, and the older people tend not to pug unless it’s a last option.

I’m not judging this as being better or not better. I’m judging this based on comfort zones. I know how I feel and I attribute it to the world I grew up in.

It wasn’t intended to be a value judgement on anyone.

1. I’m a hardcore casual (make of that what you will, none of the options fit me).
2. PvE
3. 8

The thing that I think will be the biggest problem for this game is player burn out from achievements, since that seems to be what Anet is focusing on for player retention.

Obsidian.1328:

Vayne.8563:

Obsidian.1328:

eisberg.2379:

GW1 had Vertical progression as well, and the grind in that vertical progression was far worse than what we have in Guild Wars 2. There was vertical progression in skills, and the better more poweful skills had a very long grind to get them, and they made previous skills weak and not useful anymore.

To be fair, those EotN skills weren’t that hard to max out, and the stat progression in those skills was tiny. It’s true some of those EotN skills eclipsed some older skills in efficiency if you maxed them out, but it was a handful.

Keep in mind that the devs that produced this game are the same ones that gave us Heroes and those EotN skills you referred to. Most of the people that created and produced the core Guild Wars game were gone by the time EotN came around, and those grindy skills were not in the game before that. The shift started with Nightfall. You can see the change in direction taking place even then, you just have to look for it.

But the factions and lightbringer skills were hard to max out…or at least took a long time.

…

Really Vayne??

The lightbringer stuff was in Nightfall. 1-2 skills per class, and they were most useful only in Nightfall lands. The Sunspear skills were 1 per class, though they were very good skills.

The Factions allegiance rank was a single skill per class.

So…2 skills per class, and 2 general skills. That’s around 20 skills if you really wanted to be maxed out in every secondary class.

Out of what…a thousand?

Please.

Yes, really. Let’s start with Lightbringer. DOA was one of the hardest and most popular of the elite content, which lightbringer ranks helped with enormously. If you didn’t have a high level lightbringer rank, certain groups wouldn’t even take you along. And if you happened to be a paragon and you wanted to run the imbagon build, one of the builds that were sought after for doing DOA, you had to get your Luxon Kurzick rank up for “Save Yourselves”.

There were, over time, many builds that required many skills. And you’ve completely ignored from your calculations salvage bonuses and lockpick retain bonuses that you got from the grindiest title tracks in the game.

I played Guild Wars 1 with a whole lot of people for a whole lot of years, and I know many who went out of their ways to max the Luxon/kurzick title track, as well as the Lightbringer title track. I know I did.

Zoltreez.6435:

here is one issue

the circle is broken

in an MMO Players leave new players join and ALLOT of players come back

in GW2 Players leave new players join ALLOT of players NOT coming back ( why should they ? they aren’t adding anything to the game players aren’t motivated to come back for what ? the missed story and loot that they never can see ? to the never changing and expanding world ? )

I don’t know. I see a lot of players coming back, even within my guild. People leave for two, three, six months, but most of them have come back.

Corpus Christi.2057:

Karizee.8076:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Gear is indeed part of the new content, strictly speaking.

It is one of the reasons why it has risen, the others being the ones I stated above.

Nevertheless, thanks for your thoughts.

Cheers

Content is something you play through. Armor skins, specifically statless armor skins are merely window dressing.

You don’t want to start the fight over the definition you do not understand… Just to help you get through: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/content, see 1.

Let’s focus on the topic now, thanks.

People who try to use dictionary definitions to back up their arguments about specific areas of interest are often going to be mistaken. If you look up mob in a dictionary it tends to talk about groups of people, but in MMOs you can have a single mob. Dictionaries don’t have context and so should be used in arguments sparingly.

You play content. You wear skins.

In the most general context if you want to consider skins content, you’re free to do so, but I certainly don’t and most of the people I’ve talked to over the years don’t either (this conversation comes up about every six months, so you know).

As others have said, the gem price is decided more by players than Anet. However, it’s part of their job to get people to buy stuff in the shop. If they weren’t doing that, they’re not doing their jobs.

Actually, considering most of the stuff in the shop, I’m not sure they are doing their jobs.

I’m not sure how many other MMOs you’ve played without a monthly sub, but most of them are absolutely godawful when it comes to their cash shop.

I can’t say with certainty that Guild Wars 2 has the best cash shop, but it’s very far from the worst. Some of us has played Lotro. lol

Obsidian.1328:

eisberg.2379:

GW1 had Vertical progression as well, and the grind in that vertical progression was far worse than what we have in Guild Wars 2. There was vertical progression in skills, and the better more poweful skills had a very long grind to get them, and they made previous skills weak and not useful anymore.

To be fair, those EotN skills weren’t that hard to max out, and the stat progression in those skills was tiny. It’s true some of those EotN skills eclipsed some older skills in efficiency if you maxed them out, but it was a handful.

Keep in mind that the devs that produced this game are the same ones that gave us Heroes and those EotN skills you referred to. Most of the people that created and produced the core Guild Wars game were gone by the time EotN came around, and those grindy skills were not in the game before that. The shift started with Nightfall. You can see the change in direction taking place even then, you just have to look for it.

But the factions and lightbringer skills were hard to max out…or at least took a long time.

All any MMO ever really is is a bunch of things to do. Anet is providing a lot of things to do, for people who like to do different things. There are people who really enjoy getting achievement points. It’s what they like. All they want is a checklist of things to do and they’re happy. More people than I thought it was possible.

There are other people, like me, who prefer to just do other stuff. I’ve been playing around with alts and trying to get my head around the ele this week, one of the two professions I haven’t leveled to 80.

You have to make decisions sometimes. Let the game think for you, or think for yourself.

Azure Prower.8701:

Sea of Sorrows still alive and kicking as the unofficial oceanic server still.

Tarnished Coast is just a role play server that every one flocked to.

Yep, everyone flocked to it. You’re 100% right there. But most people don’t RP, so I’m not 100% sure why.

My guild is slowly gaining members, but we don’t delete them because people do come back and we’re not near our cap. But we tend to have around the same number of active players now than we did six months ago, which is more than we had at launch.

Knighthonor.4061:

Vayne.8563:

Anet did indeed say the end game starts at level 1. The question becomes, what does that actually mean. How was it intended. Colin made this quite clear in several interviews and in panels that occurred when Anet was saying it, and it goes back to the manifesto.

In most games you go through the tedious process of leveling up before you can get to the fun good stuff. In most games, when you get to level cap the game changes substantially.

The point Colin made multiple times was that if you enjoy the leveling process why should the game suddenly morph into another game. After all, most people in most MMOs aren’t raiders. Raiders traditionally represent a fairly small (if vocal) part of the population.

He’s saying why change the game. If you enjoy what you do leveling up, why not continue to do it? Why not have big, cool looking encounters like the Shadow Behemoth in a starter zone. You don’t have to be 30th level to participate in that event. That’s what he meant.

Before launch they also talked about Orr as being an end game zone with harder content. It’s not like they lied about this…people either didn’t look deeply enough, or just took the words literally, without actually trying to ascertain what was meant by them.

if that was truly what he meant, than why is there no Hearts in Orr compared to the rest of the lower level areas?

Because hearts were meant for one reason and one reason only. To get people to the places where dynamic event were. They were never in the original game at all and they were added very late in the piece.

The reason Anet gave lore wise for not having hearts in Orr is because there are less friendlies in Orr. It’s enemy territory, story wise. But again, the story goes something like this.

A dev was standing next to a test player who ran right by a burning house and the dev asked him why he ran by it, and he said, because I didn’t have a quest to go in there. That’s why hearts were put into the game. They never intended to put hearts in Orr and they won’t be putting them in new content now that people sort of get the dynamic event thing.

You could always join a casual guild. There are tons of guilds that like helping people out and showing them the ropes.

The focus of the game seems to have shifted from typical end game content of my MMOs to the acquisition of achievements and achievement points. I’m guessing if that doesn’t interest you, you’ll end up leaving again.

It’s still worth logging in just for the new path of TA and maybe the new dungeon coming out next Tuesday…and the Tequatl fight if you care to join an organized force. That’s pretty cool too.

I’m Assuie and on Tarnished Coast and there are always people around, at all hours. We have a few Aussies and late night US folks in our guild as well.

From the sound of this, this is probably a poor game choice for you, to be honest. You want dungeons and end game. This game wasn’t really designed around dungeons and end game and in fact, was promoted as a game without a standard end game.

People play games for all different reasons. Dungeons were never going to be the mainstay of this game, or the focus. There are no raids. The open world was always supposed to be the focus and people who prefer open world content will probably tend to like this game more than people who are just waiting for the next new dungeon to come out.

Anet did indeed say the end game starts at level 1. The question becomes, what does that actually mean. How was it intended. Colin made this quite clear in several interviews and in panels that occurred when Anet was saying it, and it goes back to the manifesto.

In most games you go through the tedious process of leveling up before you can get to the fun good stuff. In most games, when you get to level cap the game changes substantially.

The point Colin made multiple times was that if you enjoy the leveling process why should the game suddenly morph into another game. After all, most people in most MMOs aren’t raiders. Raiders traditionally represent a fairly small (if vocal) part of the population.

He’s saying why change the game. If you enjoy what you do leveling up, why not continue to do it? Why not have big, cool looking encounters like the Shadow Behemoth in a starter zone. You don’t have to be 30th level to participate in that event. That’s what he meant.

Before launch they also talked about Orr as being an end game zone with harder content. It’s not like they lied about this…people either didn’t look deeply enough, or just took the words literally, without actually trying to ascertain what was meant by them.

Maybe I’m completely out of line here, but I think the necromancer is the best it’s been since launch. That is to say, at launch, I found my necro completely unplayable. Now I see them in every form of the game. They can do well in SPvP, they have their place in WvW (I love using a staff and stacking marks on bridges to keep the enemy zerg at bay), and in PvE it’s probably my favorite farming profession at this time.

Are there problems? Undoubtedly. There are problems with every profession. There will always be problems with every profession, if you look only at the downside.

And Anet can’t make changes in a vacuum. They can’t change the necromancer without making sure it’s going to fit in with all the other professions.

I think people who live in the profession forums are too tightly focused on the trees and sometimes they miss the forest. It’s nice out here.

FluffyFox.2756:

I don’t think the trinity is the root of the problem. I believe that people could care less about the trinity in and of itself, but people DO want to feel like they’re doing something to contribute to the party in a unique way; Something to make someone feel desirable, as it were.

It is my opinion that the reason people get bored with combat in this game is because there are no adequate replacements for the trinity. The whole “DPS, Control, Support” triad we have currently going on is fundamentally flawed, and it basically just boils down to DPS. Additionally, combo fields were meant to make combat more engaging, but the whole combo system is a bit of a bore. I hardly pay attention to fields that are not water or fire, and anything but a blast finisher is basically pointless, or has so little effect that it’s not worth the effort to really do.

I can’t speak for other people but I hated the trinity and decided never to play a trinity MMO again, even before Guild Wars 2 came out. For me the trinity is a part of the problem.

End game content is still mostly the same as it was, with a couple of exceptions.

There is a very good Tequatl battle that requires lots of people and lots of organization, that a lot of people hate because it’s most often failed. But it’s a good fight. There’s also a new dungeon path of Twilight Arbor that replaced the TA F/U path, that’s challenging.

Challenging content comes in waves…including the Queen’s Gauntlet, which you missed but devs say it will make periodic reappearances.

And no one knows how hard the new dungeon will be starting next week.|

Oh, and there’s ascended weapons if you want to grind for them now. And of course higher level fractals.

And WvW if you like that sort of thing, which is the end game for many. That’s had many changes too.

Enokitake.1742:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

playandchill.3908:

The hater of vertical progression killed this game. Those babies never played an MMO.

I hope other designers learned the lesson. Vertical progession is NEEDED to keep a mmo alive.

Since VP was added to the game, I’ll guess it was not “enough” to satisfy this poster and those like him. It’s ironic that players are leaving because of lack of VP while other players are simultaneously leaving because of the addition of VP. This is what happens when developers go for compromise solutions that cater to everyone — they end up displeasing players on both sides of the issue.

Very much this. I’m not sure what Anet can do.

Last night, we got a new guild member, who said to me there was no reason to go for a legendary because the stats weren’t higher. In fact, without higher stats, for this new guy, there’s no reason to get any other weapon and without that driving force, there’s no reason to play the game. He took a year break because there was no gear to work for.

This is why I say WoW’s success killed this industry. Sure they got 12.4 million players at their height, but that’s a relatively small percentage of gamers over all. And not all the people who play, play to grind gear. Many, in fact, don’t raid at all. That’s why raids in WoW kept getting easier and more available and finally, the looking for raid tool did away with the challenge in the game altogether. It was this reason that this new guildie said he left WoW.

I feel sort of like people who come from other games need to re-educated, but unfortunately, there seem to be more of them than there are of me.

Indeed. They forgot that GW1 was filled with millions who loved it because GW1 was mostly horizontal progression, capping new skills and expanding your mastery of the class in ultra competitive pvp/challenging small group pve… instead of vertical RNG SLOW GRIND NEW GEAR TIER CAUSE SLIGHTLY MOAR DPS in mostly zergs.

Actually they didn’t forget anything.

Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies of four games, and many people had more than one games. My household alone accounts for more than a dozen of those sales, even though my two kids eventually moved to WoW and never looked back.

Actually it’s Guild Wars 1 fans who are forgetting that Guild Wars had a staff of about 50 and Guild Wars 2 is a much bigger project with a staff more than six times as large. There was more content in Guild Wars 2 at launch than in Guild Wars Prophecies and Factions combined, and an MMO is much harder to program than a lobby game.

For this game to be successful, it had to be a lot more than Guild War was…because Guild Wars was never really a house hold name. It was a great game, but it was also niche game. I loved it…but I’m by no means atypical of the multiplayer fantasy fan base.

WoW had more people at one time playing it than Guild Wars 1 made sales over 8 years. Almost double. And then there were myriad WoW clones and no Guild Wars clones.

So the entire MMO playerbase became conditioned to the way things were supposed to be in an MMO.

I truly believe Anet wanted this to be different…and found that too many people left the game without someone telling them to do this now and this is what you have to grind for now.

If you play this game the way I do, it’s fine. If you play this game like a grinder plays and you like grinding, it’s fine.

If you think this game can be the game you want and still support the masses…well, Anet would have had to have set its sites a good deal lower…and then they wouldn’t have been able to fund the new game at all.

There’s just not enough players today to support a big title that doesn’t tow the line.

Galtrix.7369:

I definitely agree that it seems like the devs pay special attention to certain things that need to be addressed, but it’s the things they don’t address that get people angry. From Anet’s standpoint, it seems like the Living Story takes precedence over Class Balance. Actually, at this point, I think it’s safe to say that Anet is thinking the Living Story is more important than anything else, and therefore they neglect many other important aspects of the game.

I believe most of the players would take class balance over the living story any day. I, myself, didn’t even participate in many of the Living Stories, and if I did, I played them for about 5 minutes.

Hopefully Anet will address some of the issues in PvE and the gear viability issues. As of now, it seems like they’re doing very well and communicating with the players much more often, so it seems like there’s going to be a lot more communication in the future. Good job so far on communication, Anet!

Actually I don’t think most players even know about class balance at all. There are a few hundred people that post here, and hundreds of thousands that play the game. It’s a small percentage. Most people don’t think deeply about their gaming experience. I do. You do. Most don’t. They just come in, bang around on a character for a while, kill some stuff, have some fun, and never look deeper. I’d guess the people who do care and notice are smaller than you’d think. I mean those who run with a zerg, those who don’t SPvP, aren’t necessarily going to notice much. You have to be a dungeon runner, or an SPvPer or a solo/small group WvWer to really notice stuff like that.

And I agree with the OP completely…more transparency is better. Anet has made a lot of their own problems by not communicating, or by communicating poorly. This is definitely a good trend.

OP, you strike me as the type of guy who likes the same sorts of things I do…and wants a game with a stronger story and better characters.

The problem is, I don’t think most people care about story much at all. Those that do are in the minority…relatively speaking. I’m one of those guys who seldom, if ever, skip cut scenes. But I’m the exception.

We have a generation of players trained around loot acquisition and gear grind. Anet is trying to make a game for everyone and in doing so, they please no one. But if they don’t compromise, they lose me, and lose them. It’s a tough place to be.

And because the story aspect isn’t the most important to most of the demographic (that’s just my opinion), it’s not going to be the first or main focus.

The other side of it is, I didn’t think some of the Guild Wars 1 stories were that good anyway. I think they’re highly overrated. Like I knew from the moment I met them the White Mantle were up to no good. Why was my character so trusting? I knew from the moment I met him, it was a bad idea to hand the staff over to Vizier Khilbron. Why didn’t my character.

To be sure there were some good things in the Guild Wars 1 story, but a lot of it was cliche, or just plain bad. And in the case of unlikelable characters, Prince Rurik was a cardboard cutout most people didn’t like….most people didn’t like Komir either. I think you’re over-estimating how many people liked or cared about the Guild Wars 1 NPCs.

However, I’m with you in wanting a stronger story with more relatable characters. I just think we’re in a minority position.

I don’t actually disagree with the OP, but for all that I don’t disagree, there are problems with doing away with the whole leveling architecture.

Anet has made a number of changes to the “standard” MMO with this game, no raids and no trinity being the biggest, but by no means the only changes. They had discussed not having levels at all early on in development, but decided it was “too far to go” for the normal MMO player. In other words, you can’t change the entire genre and then expect the game to sell to fans.

Already they’ve lost the battle to have a game that revolved around only cosmetic advancement, and people posting about bringing the trinity into the game is something that happens quite frequently.

Too many changes would have doomed the game from the start. In fact, in the early days of development you could be up-leveled as well as down-leveled and that led to problems…so they did try it.

There’s still content that does uplevel you. When the living story was in South Sun, you were leveled to 80. When you’re in the halloween maze, you’re leveled to 80.

So you’re not missing out on anything that you can’t really do, unless you just started the game very recently.

In fact, I do quite a bit of content (the queen’s pavillion, the halloween maze) just to help level some lower level alts.

Khisanth.2948:

Vayne.8563:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Don’t forget all the Gem Store items. Merchant Express, Bank Express, Box o’ Fun, etc.

Well box of fun you can use immediately. There’s no reason to save it.

Unless you are planning on making The Moot or Quip.

Holy smokes…I had no idea you needed those, since I don’t plan on making either, I never looked.

Nice catch!

Good post OP. There are more of us out there than you’d think. Fairly often, I get messages of support for some of the stuff I say from complete strangers who no longer post to the forums for either fear of being ridiculed or because they simply don’t want to deal with the flack for saying something positive about the game.

Obviously the game isn’t perfect and some design decisions won’t please everyone…but there’s a whole lot of good in this game as well, which people often overlook.

I’m thinking it’s to try to stabilize things and see if it helps some of the people who have been crashing lately. It’s not happening to everyone, but I think there’s been an increase from posts I’ve seen.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Don’t forget all the Gem Store items. Merchant Express, Bank Express, Box o’ Fun, etc.

Well box of fun you can use immediately. There’s no reason to save it. The other stuff, bank express, trading post express. that’s useful stuff. I always keep that in my inventory. You know, you’re in a dungeon one day and you forgot to sell. So you call up your merchant and let everyone sell.

It does you no good if it’s still in your chest.

Another time someone wanted potions for a hard encounter and on one had bought any…so I opened up a trading post express and purchased some off the auction house. Useful things those.

Dante.1508:

These new nodes are they actually used for something? As in what do they make if not Ascended items?

One node gives you candy corn, one node gives you quartz and one node gives you a daily skill point and allows you to charge a quartz crystal once per day.

None of them are necessary…particularly since both candy corn and quartz can be bought off the trading post and the charged quartz crystal is account bound.

And you can easy charge the quartz crystals you buy in the open world.

Bright.9160:

They could start by removing the forced cutscenes and dialogue no one cared about anyway.

Anet dev 1: “Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s remove a very fun dungeon path and replace it with one that is time gated.”

Anet dev 2: “Okay, sounds good…”

Anet dev 1: “and you know what would make it even more fun and give it even more replay value? If we would make cutscenes and dialogue unskippable!”

Anet dev 2: “That’s a great idea. We all know how positive people are about being force fed cutscenes and dialogue! People are always so positive about our story writing and immersive dialogue!”

Anet dev 1: “I know right! We’re so cool.”

Anet dev 2: “We sure are.”

I’ve never liked any of the paths of TA, it’s been my least favorite dungeon over all. The new path is like a breath of fresh air. The boss mechanics, and the mechanics over all are just more interesting to me. The fact that there is stuff to do after the dungeon ends is cool too.

I agree there should be a way to skip cut scenes, however, I probably wouldn’t.

It’s in Bloodtide Coast in case you’re wondering in the cave on storm bluff isle. It’s the only POI that doesn’t show on the big map.