Guild Wars 2

Part of the problem with a PTS and Guild Wars 2 is the turn around time. This stuff is getting released so close to when it’s made, there’s no real time to let players get it and test it. Guild Wars 2 would have to slow down the pace and I don’t think Anet is willing to do that.

Even back in the beginning, I was talking to a dev in game about Arah story mode and he told me that the moving platform technology, used for the fight on the ship, only came in a week before launch. While the game was launching he was working kitten the Zhaitan fight. There was simply no time.

The whole thing is possibly a management issue. I think the progress of events should be slowed down so Q&A has more time with each update. I think it’s coming to fast and furious now.

I don’t see how a test server could help that.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

LOL I did a google search trying to find Eric Flannum say something like that and your name came up almost 5 times. You use this argument a lot don’t you? I will paste a quote from that thread:

“We will not be retaining the level 20 cap. [from GW1] We will announce the exact nature and level of the Guild Wars 2 level cap early next year but let me state that our philosophy of allowing players to play the game without grinding their life away is something that is unchanged from Guild Wars 1.” – Lead designer Eric Flannum

“Our goal with our crafting philosophically is that you’ll never make an item that is a throwaway item. You’ll always be making something that is going to be valuable to someone. Whether it’s for yourself, whether it’s to put on the auction house, whether it’s a consumable that people want, there’s never a time when you’re just making something to increase your skill and then you’re just going to vendor it or chuck it or whatever else you’d do with it afterwards.” – Lead designer Eric Flannum

Oh I already know your next response. Using the iteration argument basically means they can do anything and we can’t complain. You know trinity + raids + tier every 3 months can also be “iteration”.

You don’t know my next argument. Guild Wars 2 was promoted for five years and it was heavily promoted for the last two.

You’ve found a couple of quotes that Anet changed. Anet literally said hundreds and hundreds of things and by percentage, far more than 90% of them are true.

There are so many things Anet said that changed that almost no one complains about. Remember when Anet said there would be energy potions? I don’t hear anyone complaining that they took them out.

Anet made changes both positive and negative. No one complains about the changes that they see as positive. But they do complain about the stuff they see as negative. How come you’re not here lying that Anet said there would be energy potions?

It’s a lousy double standard. Things are planned and things change. That’s been the reality of every single MMO I’ve ever played.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

No he just said “grind”, but you can twist it however you like. How are you going to twist this from back in page 5:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” – Mike O’Brien, President of Arenanet

I guess he meant a different “grind” too, huh?

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

Xcom.1926:

Oh also you skipped Ree saying “You are rescuing a village that will stay rescued”, missed that part too?

I am not holding devs to every word that would be silly, but I do hold them to honor the core fundamentals that they promised.

Did you miss the clarification published 3 days after the manifesto that was around for a year or more that explains Ree was talking about personal stories and Colin was talking about dynamic events?

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

xephire.8324:

They did tell us that this was a grind free game

Nope. They didn’t. They said all along there would be stuff to grind for.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I simply don’t see the game as having been misrepresented…at least no more than Rift was to me. Because of my experience with Rift, I was saved going through the same thing with Guild Wars 2. I had believed what was said about Rift and most of that never eventuated. The stuff that was said wasn’t born out. And yes, I was one of the people complaining at the forums. Now I see it again. Some stuff was said and that stuff changed.

MMOs change all the time and have been changing forever. Those who write anything in stone about any MMO are fooling themselves. That’s just how I see it.

It’ll happen with the new MMOs too.

Again, I do know other MMOs do it. But GW2 changed a lot of their games core fundamentals after launch. Including adding a new tier of gear. And making the game grindy. These were the core game features that were changed.

No matter how many times it happens it is unacceptable. To me, GW2 probably misrepresented the game the most, followed by SWTOR.

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Why would Guild Wars 2 disappoint people? Why does every MMORPG forum look just like this one? Why are people disappointed?

Because MMOs change and adapt and people hate change. Because no MMO can possibly live up to its height. Because companies are companies and they’re there to make money. Because MMOs are now big business, not family businesses, so they end up with less soul than you’d like.

The problem with SWTOR and GW2 to me is they overhyped it so people expected to much. My lesson for future developers is let the game do the talking, stop over hyping your product.

And about the forums, I usually stay away. But I have to say these forums after Pax for some reason are horrible, probably the worst I have seen. Especially the PvP sections. Post Pax and Pre Pax seem so different at least to me.

No MMO will be able to stop the hype chain. Imagine the company that made Skyrim stopping the hype about an MMO set in that world. Never going to happen. Maybe EQnext has a chance, but I’m thinking that it’s out of the company’s hands.

I am talking about developer hype (i.e. Manifesto), not player hype. I agree, player hype can’t be stopped.

The manifesto was a video displaying their intent. Did you ever see the Rift video with the guy in it who said, “for just a little while the area you’re fighting is the most important place in the world”…that was never true. Guild Wars 2 isn’t the first MMO to create a video to make their game look/sound exciting. It’s part of their job.

It’s part of the consumers job to read what is actually being said. That’s life in the big city.

Never said GW2 was the first, not sure why you keep defending GW2 when I didn’t call it out specifically? I said “MMO developers” need to stop doing that. However, the biggest hyped MMOs from developers has been GW2 and SWTOR. Too many promises they just couldn’t keep. But I knew that from the start so I wasn’t as disappointed but many are.

Misrepresenting your game shouldn’t be part of their job.

I simply don’t see the game as having been misrepresented…at least no more than Rift was to me. Because of my experience with Rift, I was saved going through the same thing with Guild Wars 2. I had believed what was said about Rift and most of that never eventuated. The stuff that was said wasn’t born out. And yes, I was one of the people complaining at the forums. Now I see it again. Some stuff was said and that stuff changed.

MMOs change all the time and have been changing forever. Those who write anything in stone about any MMO are fooling themselves. That’s just how I see it.

It’ll happen with the new MMOs too.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Why would Guild Wars 2 disappoint people? Why does every MMORPG forum look just like this one? Why are people disappointed?

Because MMOs change and adapt and people hate change. Because no MMO can possibly live up to its height. Because companies are companies and they’re there to make money. Because MMOs are now big business, not family businesses, so they end up with less soul than you’d like.

The problem with SWTOR and GW2 to me is they overhyped it so people expected to much. My lesson for future developers is let the game do the talking, stop over hyping your product.

And about the forums, I usually stay away. But I have to say these forums after Pax for some reason are horrible, probably the worst I have seen. Especially the PvP sections. Post Pax and Pre Pax seem so different at least to me.

No MMO will be able to stop the hype chain. Imagine the company that made Skyrim stopping the hype about an MMO set in that world. Never going to happen. Maybe EQnext has a chance, but I’m thinking that it’s out of the company’s hands.

I am talking about developer hype (i.e. Manifesto), not player hype. I agree, player hype can’t be stopped.

The manifesto was a video displaying their intent. Did you ever see the Rift video with the guy in it who said, “for just a little while the area you’re fighting is the most important place in the world”…that was never true. Guild Wars 2 isn’t the first MMO to create a video to make their game look/sound exciting. It’s part of their job.

It’s part of the consumers job to read what is actually being said. That’s life in the big city.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Brother Grimm.5176:

HiddenNick.7206:

Another ‘AC gear is bad’ thread… It’s getting old. It differs from ‘mounts’ threads only by that you get a lot of +1 for making one.

Unfortunately, that means some people agree with it…..

While the entire argument the OP makes brings up valid points and complaints about “the problem”, it must be stated that not everyone agrees there IS “a problem”. Ascended gear is an end game goal that is NOT necessary to play the game. It IS useful to play some aspects (Fractals), but the claim that players are FORCED to grind for this gear or that BiS gear is mandatory is ridiculous. Hailing that idea as absolute truth is the real problem here (just my opinion, but I’m not alone).

I don’t think it can be argued that Exotics are fairly easy to gear up with and I just don’t see the major issue with the highest tier gear being a tier of items that take some time and expense to obtain. I’m still baffled that some seem so surprised that Ascended items are somewhere between Exotic and Legendary Weapons in both time and money to obtain (from what I understood, exactly what we were told they would be).

Pretty much no gear besides basic one was ever required to play any MMO.

Whats exactly your point as i dont see it.

Umm what? lol

Yah, ill let you figure that one out, cyas in few days?

To progress in Rift I had to get higher gear to do pretty much anything when I played. The same was true with AoC when I played that and Lotro.

All the good, cool, interesting stuff was hidden behind gear checks.

You obviously dont read what is responded to. Suggest you do.

You were NOT forced to get BiS gear in Rift or AoC or LOTRO to “play teh game”.

Lazy people, why do they respond like they wanted to quote someone else?

And not to mention that all those games had abysmal retention rate and gone F2P because they couldnt sustain any decent playerbase.

GW2 became “fastest selling MMO” * (in first 9 months) BECAUSE of their pre launch selling points. Keep THAT in mind next time you respond.

I’m not lazy. I can to ALL the content except for the highest level in fractals in Guild Wars 2. And I can see everything in the fractals without doing the highest levels, without getting anything above rares.

This is different from other games where such things aren’t true. I’m sure most people knew what I was talking about.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Why would Guild Wars 2 disappoint people? Why does every MMORPG forum look just like this one? Why are people disappointed?

Because MMOs change and adapt and people hate change. Because no MMO can possibly live up to its height. Because companies are companies and they’re there to make money. Because MMOs are now big business, not family businesses, so they end up with less soul than you’d like.

The problem with SWTOR and GW2 to me is they overhyped it so people expected to much. My lesson for future developers is let the game do the talking, stop over hyping your product.

And about the forums, I usually stay away. But I have to say these forums after Pax for some reason are horrible, probably the worst I have seen. Especially the PvP sections. Post Pax and Pre Pax seem so different at least to me.

No MMO will be able to stop the hype chain. Imagine the company that made Skyrim stopping the hype about an MMO set in that world. Never going to happen. Maybe EQnext has a chance, but I’m thinking that it’s out of the company’s hands.

Daywolf.2630:

Vayne.8563:

find a busier server to guest to. It’s free.

So become a nomad so farmers can have their new shiny farming content? So I gotta quest to the servers in Europe, screw my guild, screw the people I do this content with every evening that I meet up with? Hope we have 50 people to do fire ele or whatnot there? Guest here guest there guest guest guest. Sounds more like something a zerg farmer would suggest. And it’s not just they are doing something else? These people are not online, even my guild was emptied out when I logged in, and there is usually quite a few when I log in every evening.

I even went to teq, onto the overflow. I saw how many people were there, then plus a full zone we overflowed from as I got into that from the overflow. There are a lot of missing people in this game, unless they all guested out, but I doubt that. That’s not a lot of people really. Then you put it like these zerg farmers are going to stick to this revamped content, but I know better, they will get bored and anet will lead them to the new patch, leaving a broken husk behind of what used to be our game.
bah

No, it hasn’t become that. Logically speaking, if your server isn’t doing what you want it to, and it’s free to try another, why wouldn’t you? Most games don’t let you play on other servers, this one does. That’s a plus, not a minus.

You don’t have to do T’quatl. You don’t have to do Fire ele. you don’t have to do any of those things. But if you want to, and your server isn’t doing those events, there’s no harm to guesting.

It’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

xephire.8324:

I don’t think every MMORPG forum look like this.ANET must have done kitten loads of things wrong till it became like this.

I don’t know if you’ve been on them, but when I was there, the Rift forums were at least this bad, maybe worse. The WoW forums are filled with complaints about WoW. Unless a company completely deletes all negative posts, MMO forums are known to be cesspools of negativity.

You don’t have to believe it…but that doesn’t make it untrue.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

xephire.8324:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

There was already a lot to “work for”

And they could have picked crapload of better options of thibgs to “work for” instead of gear treadmill with all its problems that even WoW hasnt managed to solve in 8 years.

A single tier of gear does not a treadmill make.

No, constant adding new gear to grind/upping power curve does. Duh.

No point play this game that fails to promise,lets just play gtaV and leave this game to rot

Ye, already playing something else. Waiting for ESO/EXNext, whenever those arrive.

I can’t wait to drink your tears when those games come out and disappoint you.

And why would those dissapoint me?

Why would Guild Wars 2 disappoint people? Why does every MMORPG forum look just like this one? Why are people disappointed?

Because MMOs change and adapt and people hate change. Because no MMO can possibly live up to its height. Because companies are companies and they’re there to make money. Because MMOs are now big business, not family businesses, so they end up with less soul than you’d like.

Every triple A MMO that comes out from now on is going to try to be a cash cow. They cost too much to make for it to be otherwise. Which means companies will do things that will eventually bother their “loyal fan base”.

You’ll see.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

xephire.8324:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

There was already a lot to “work for”

And they could have picked crapload of better options of thibgs to “work for” instead of gear treadmill with all its problems that even WoW hasnt managed to solve in 8 years.

A single tier of gear does not a treadmill make.

No, constant adding new gear to grind/upping power curve does. Duh.

No point play this game that fails to promise,lets just play gtaV and leave this game to rot

Ye, already playing something else. Waiting for ESO/EXNext, whenever those arrive.

I can’t wait to drink your tears when those games come out and disappoint you.

They should learn their lesson from other MMOs and not make promises they can’t keep. And people won’t be as disappointed.

Everyone says that when every new MMO comes out. The market has changed. The genre has changed. We’ll see in a year or two.

Jack of Tears.9458:

Nuka Cola.8520:

UMAD that Teq had 10.000.000hp and now 5.000.000.000? This is all anet’s good for, increase HP=higher difficulty. Originality/Mechanic to battles isn’t something known to them very much.

Except they did add a bunch of new elements ta the fight with Teq, not just more hit points.

This is completely true. It’s a completely new fight and HP isn’t by far the main feature of it. It’s probably what the fight should have been in the first place.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

What do people “work for” after the get the latest tier of gear?

Achievement points. Remember this isn’t the latest tier of gear. This is part of a tier of gear that was already rolled out. The achievement point grind (and yes it is a grind) started AFTER they started rolling out ascended stuff.

So why not add achievement point grind, instead of adding additional ascended stuff?

Because they started rolling out a tier of gear and it’s unfinished. Some people want that extra tier of gear (if nothing else it allows them to continue making higher level fractals). That’s why.

But it doesn’t mean there’ll be another tier of gear after this.

True and it doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Because after all people need to work for stuff.

It doesn’t mean there won’t be one. But I think when Colin said he hopes this is the last, is because I think he knows how many people are addicting themselves to achievement point grind (which I think is far worse than gear grind btw).

No one said, written in stone, this won’t be the last. But I personally don’t see any reason for another tier to be made, if in fact the achievement point system works for them. Most likely, progression will continue through different types of infusions.

I think that is a false hope Colin has, even though I want him to be right. Unfortunately if history as shown us anything in MMOs, it is that people like power and progress. Cosmetic items and achievement points aren’t going to quench the thirst of the masses.

I think the masses have changed a lot, due to consoles which all have achievement points now. Even steam has achievement points. People are making the shift from gear grind to achievement point grind…and I still think that’s worse.

History doesn’t necessary come into play after things have evolved a bit.

If that were the case, they could have built this game like that. Instead they added a new tier of gear. I guess you think they realized the importance of “achievements” a little too late?

Oh sure. Anet complete underestimated the percentage of the player base that could live with cosmetic rewards. Actually that may not be completely true either.

Anet didn’t put enough cosmetic rewards in that were hard enough to get besides legendaries which were ridiculous for the average/casual player. If they hadn’t been buyable, it would have been a completely different game today. But you can’t rewrite history.

We know people weren’t picking up on legendary weapons, at least not enough to keep them in game and playing, and people were leaving after they hit level cap. Forums were filled with people who had “nothing to do” and no patience to wait for stuff to do.

Anet, in a blind panic, introduced ascended gear and fractals in an attempt to keep people in game…and to a degree that seemed to work. Then the achievement point stuff was put into the game along with the living story. That keeps more people playing and coming back on patch days..which is why they’re every two weeks.

I think Anet screwed up badly in the early days and they’re trying desperately to fix that error. But they can’t do it by removing gear grind at this point. They just have to do the best they can with the hand they’ve got.

Xcom.1926:

Namu.5712:

You can quit if you want it is a game after all. But someone will replace you thats the beauty of mmo’s with no sub people come and go more often than you think.

I see people throw this around a lot. “No sub” is not special anymore, most MMOs have no sub. Also, this game is not selling that well. Did you see the latest NCSoft report? Do you see how it is doing on sales charts like on Amazon?

When people say they don’t like things in the game. The response shouldn’t be “quit”, because eventually a lot of players won’t have anyone to play with.

How well was Rift selling at the one year mark? How good has any other MMO sold at the one year mark. Here’s a hint….though Rift released before Guild Wars 2, they haven’t sold as may copies total as Guild Wars 2 sold in it’s first year.

In fact, no MMO, no matter how “slow” sales have become, has sold more boxes in a year. Not SWToR with all it’s publicity, not WoW, not Rift.

Sales have to slow down because most people interested in the game get it when it comes out. People don’t say, oh cool new game and wait three months to buy it. So the people who are playing are largely the people who are going to be playing. Some will leave and come back.

If an expansion does come out, they may get some extra sales, but once an MMO is out for a year it’s success is based on the sales made by it’s cash shop, not the number of boxes sold.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Brother Grimm.5176:

HiddenNick.7206:

Another ‘AC gear is bad’ thread… It’s getting old. It differs from ‘mounts’ threads only by that you get a lot of +1 for making one.

Unfortunately, that means some people agree with it…..

While the entire argument the OP makes brings up valid points and complaints about “the problem”, it must be stated that not everyone agrees there IS “a problem”. Ascended gear is an end game goal that is NOT necessary to play the game. It IS useful to play some aspects (Fractals), but the claim that players are FORCED to grind for this gear or that BiS gear is mandatory is ridiculous. Hailing that idea as absolute truth is the real problem here (just my opinion, but I’m not alone).

I don’t think it can be argued that Exotics are fairly easy to gear up with and I just don’t see the major issue with the highest tier gear being a tier of items that take some time and expense to obtain. I’m still baffled that some seem so surprised that Ascended items are somewhere between Exotic and Legendary Weapons in both time and money to obtain (from what I understood, exactly what we were told they would be).

Pretty much no gear besides basic one was ever required to play any MMO.

Whats exactly your point as i dont see it.

Umm what? lol

Yah, ill let you figure that one out, cyas in few days?

To progress in Rift I had to get higher gear to do pretty much anything when I played. The same was true with AoC when I played that and Lotro.

All the good, cool, interesting stuff was hidden behind gear checks.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

What do people “work for” after the get the latest tier of gear?

Achievement points. Remember this isn’t the latest tier of gear. This is part of a tier of gear that was already rolled out. The achievement point grind (and yes it is a grind) started AFTER they started rolling out ascended stuff.

So why not add achievement point grind, instead of adding additional ascended stuff?

Because they started rolling out a tier of gear and it’s unfinished. Some people want that extra tier of gear (if nothing else it allows them to continue making higher level fractals). That’s why.

But it doesn’t mean there’ll be another tier of gear after this.

True and it doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Because after all people need to work for stuff.

It doesn’t mean there won’t be one. But I think when Colin said he hopes this is the last, is because I think he knows how many people are addicting themselves to achievement point grind (which I think is far worse than gear grind btw).

No one said, written in stone, this won’t be the last. But I personally don’t see any reason for another tier to be made, if in fact the achievement point system works for them. Most likely, progression will continue through different types of infusions.

I think that is a false hope Colin has, even though I want him to be right. Unfortunately if history as shown us anything in MMOs, it is that people like power and progress. Cosmetic items and achievement points aren’t going to quench the thirst of the masses.

I think the masses have changed a lot, due to consoles which all have achievement points now. Even steam has achievement points. People are making the shift from gear grind to achievement point grind…and I still think that’s worse.

History doesn’t necessary come into play after things have evolved a bit.

MikaHR.1978:

Brother Grimm.5176:

HiddenNick.7206:

Another ‘AC gear is bad’ thread… It’s getting old. It differs from ‘mounts’ threads only by that you get a lot of +1 for making one.

Unfortunately, that means some people agree with it…..

While the entire argument the OP makes brings up valid points and complaints about “the problem”, it must be stated that not everyone agrees there IS “a problem”. Ascended gear is an end game goal that is NOT necessary to play the game. It IS useful to play some aspects (Fractals), but the claim that players are FORCED to grind for this gear or that BiS gear is mandatory is ridiculous. Hailing that idea as absolute truth is the real problem here (just my opinion, but I’m not alone).

I don’t think it can be argued that Exotics are fairly easy to gear up with and I just don’t see the major issue with the highest tier gear being a tier of items that take some time and expense to obtain. I’m still baffled that some seem so surprised that Ascended items are somewhere between Exotic and Legendary Weapons in both time and money to obtain (from what I understood, exactly what we were told they would be).

Pretty much no gear besides basic one was ever required to play any MMO.

Whats exactly your point as i dont see it.

Umm what? lol

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

What do people “work for” after the get the latest tier of gear?

Achievement points. Remember this isn’t the latest tier of gear. This is part of a tier of gear that was already rolled out. The achievement point grind (and yes it is a grind) started AFTER they started rolling out ascended stuff.

So why not add achievement point grind, instead of adding additional ascended stuff?

Because they started rolling out a tier of gear and it’s unfinished. Some people want that extra tier of gear (if nothing else it allows them to continue making higher level fractals). That’s why.

But it doesn’t mean there’ll be another tier of gear after this.

True and it doesn’t mean there won’t be one. Because after all people need to work for stuff.

It doesn’t mean there won’t be one. But I think when Colin said he hopes this is the last, is because I think he knows how many people are addicting themselves to achievement point grind (which I think is far worse than gear grind btw).

No one said, written in stone, this won’t be the last. But I personally don’t see any reason for another tier to be made, if in fact the achievement point system works for them. Most likely, progression will continue through different types of infusions.

Daywolf.2630:

Vayne.8563:

Daywolf.2630:

Yep, logged in, nothing left to do, logged out. I mean I can go to teq and watch it fail over and over, or I can go to something like fire ele and hope a huge wall of zerg farmers come in once the fire ele pre is done and whack-a-mole so we can succeed. Went to other boss events, temples etc etc and no one is bothering any longer. And certainly, as I play more after peak, I won’t be seeing any game content any longer apart form JP’s. So I’m usually playing at this time, already grinded my daily, now dusting off another game to play. wtg anet!

Paitence much? New big huge fight comes online, and everyone goes to check it out. In a week’s time everyone will be doing other events as well. The game keeps changing. What happens on patch day, stays on patch day.

No, it’s not like that at all. If you did bosses around midnight server time, regular, you would know there are often maybe 10 people at such events, and on one of the populated servers I’m speaking about. I went to a boss event tonight around 10pm server time, no one bothered to even show up as they do every night, around 20 or so around that time. If they did, we probably couldn’t do it anyway. If things go back to normal as you suggest (we even did it during invasions), then we are going to need a lot more people to do it. You think that is going to happen? no way! This is just the latest zerg farmer content patch.

This is flat out the same zerg farming crud anet has been dishing out in recent patches. Zerg farming, gear progression, grind. What happened to the original intent of the game? Friggen liars, man. False advertisement.

UMAD that Teq had 10.000.000hp and now 5.000.000.000? This is all anet’s good for, increase HP=higher difficulty. Originality/Mechanic to battles isn’t something known to them very much.

I don’t give a crud about teq. I’m speaking about the rest of the game that is being wiped out to accommodate the zerg farmers who scramble to pile up gold to buy gems and make anet happy.

As I said, give it time. It’s the first day after a patch. People on my server were doing bosses anyway. Not as many as before, but enough to do most of them. I did quite a few of the bosses today.

If you’re on a slow server, particularly at an off hour, find a busier server to guest to. It’s free.

But it’s still patch day and for a couple of days after patches, you get an completely artificial distribution of players as people check out the new stuff. Then it changes.

Saying that something is a certain way on patch day means nothing. In two weeks it’ll be back to normal.

It was like when people complained about no one doing anything because everyone was at Scarlet’s invasions. People burned out on it and started doing other stuff again. That’s what happens when new content is introduced.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

What do people “work for” after the get the latest tier of gear?

Achievement points. Remember this isn’t the latest tier of gear. This is part of a tier of gear that was already rolled out. The achievement point grind (and yes it is a grind) started AFTER they started rolling out ascended stuff.

So why not add achievement point grind, instead of adding additional ascended stuff?

Because they started rolling out a tier of gear and it’s unfinished. Some people want that extra tier of gear (if nothing else it allows them to continue making higher level fractals). That’s why.

But it doesn’t mean there’ll be another tier of gear after this.

I use lots of way points and see my money going up every day. Gold sink is a gold sink. It’s part of all MMORPGs.

/not signed.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

What do people “work for” after the get the latest tier of gear?

Achievement points. Remember this isn’t the latest tier of gear. This is part of a tier of gear that was already rolled out. The achievement point grind (and yes it is a grind) started AFTER they started rolling out ascended stuff.

Daywolf.2630:

Yep, logged in, nothing left to do, logged out. I mean I can go to teq and watch it fail over and over, or I can go to something like fire ele and hope a huge wall of zerg farmers come in once the fire ele pre is done and whack-a-mole so we can succeed. Went to other boss events, temples etc etc and no one is bothering any longer. And certainly, as I play more after peak, I won’t be seeing any game content any longer apart form JP’s. So I’m usually playing at this time, already grinded my daily, now dusting off another game to play. wtg anet!

Paitence much? New big huge fight comes online, and everyone goes to check it out. In a week’s time everyone will be doing other events as well. The game keeps changing. What happens on patch day, stays on patch day.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

There was already a lot to “work for”

And they could have picked crapload of better options of thibgs to “work for” instead of gear treadmill with all its problems that even WoW hasnt managed to solve in 8 years.

A single tier of gear does not a treadmill make.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Kirschwasser.3972:

Because there is no party to chat with.

/thread

lies! i am a one man party!

No doubt the life of the party too

I agree, it would be nice to be able to do that in party chat. The other option is to get yourself a solo guild and go into guild chat.

Anet has to change the T’quatl loot. People aren’t going to stand around and get nothing and keep doing it…at least most people won’t. I will though. I rather like it. There’s plenty of loot in other areas of the game. I think this game needs some challenging content.

And even if you’re not in a guild, once the big guilds figure out what to do, you can still participate and contribute, without being in that guild and still get the benefits of the reward.

Wolfheart.1938:

Something that makes a bit more sense would be ideal

I think what Colin said did make sense. People need stuff to work for…you may not..I may not, but I suspect we’re not typical.

Knote.2904:

psy.5437:

God Of Fissures.8627:

More evidence that Quality Assurance at ArenaNet is nonexistent.

Perhaps you should lend them your massive knowledge about QA and how best they can optimise their company for testing for large scale deployment under tight time frames. I am sure you have a wealth of experience and wisdom gathered whilst festering in your armchair.

Public Test Servers, then people test for free.

I’ve been in games with PTS’s that weren’t particularly less or more buggy than Guild Wars 2. The problem with PTS is two fold.

First, you get no surprise about anything at all ever, which sucks for some people, and more importantly it takes people out of the game.

And you know, a lot of people don’t even use the public test servers, because it means they’re not making progress on their main character.

And if people DID use the public test server, it would just take them out of the world, so that there are less players in the zones where they’re needed. Remember this game is designed to have lots of people in an area doing stuff. If the public test server never reached that number (and I have no reason to think it would), then this stuff still wouldn’t be tested with the masses and would still break.

I was on the Rift PTS and it was a joke. So PTS isn’t necessarily the answer and it isn’t necessarily going to help…it would probably help a little…but not enough to warrant creating one.

I agree, I like the boss changes as well.

The meta events don’t seem to take much longer than they used to, and you don’t get much more reward for them. What they have now is the ability to kill you..which they should have ALWAYS had.

The reward is fine. If you get blues and greens you’re working on your magic find, and if your magic find goes high enough, you’ll be rewarded constantly in other areas. I’m up to 88% magic find now and I’m getting better drops than ever throughout the entire game. I’m happy for greens and blues right now.

And I’m getting a sufficient quantity of rares (and even the ocassional exotic) to keep me in mats.

You will be missed.

Hrithmus.2583:

Just a comment to keep this on the front page.

Would like a reply from a Dev asap on this post that has over 22k views.

What comment do you think a dev would/could/should make? Colin explained in his pax interview why they went this way. Some people don’t accept his explanation some people do.

All they would do is reiterate what Colin as already said.

What kind of comment were you looking for?

GOSU.9574:

MOAR GEAR STATS BEGETS MOAR BOSS HEALTH.

Film at 11.

This has nothing to do with gear stats. This has to do with bosses that were ridiculously easy. When was the last time the shatterer scared you?

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Just based on how this game is designed, I don’t think one shot mechanics can really be called artificial difficulty.

Anyway, there are two sides to this coin. Some people cry that hard content is too hard, while others cry that ‘hard’ content is too easy.

As much as I love complaining that ANet doesn’t supply much difficult content, I try to understand their situation.

I’m talking about stuff like the last boss in I think it’s CoE story mode, where he literally has killing shot as a skill. It’s just not fun…for me at least.

There’s different types of hard…fun hard and not so fun hard.

There’s all sorts of hard things that are made “artificially” hard…like one shot mechanics. Those I don’t find fun, whether they’re harder or not.

I enjoy fights like the Lupi fight, or some of the fractal fights. I love the elemental boss at the end of the grawl fractal.

But I hate the Simin fight in path 4 of Arah. It’s not a fun mechanic for me.

It’s not ONLY about difficulty.

Depends on how it scales. It should scale to a lower number of players still.

Ashabhi.1365:

Vayne.8563:

Ashabhi.1365:

I think we’d come up with “serious” ideas if it weren’t so dependent upon RNG and grinding to get.

I have a life… I am not going to spend 12 hours a day trying to collect enough mats to get myself a piece of gear that so far hasn’t shown itself to be that much of an improvement (no matter what the number crunchers say.)

If Ascended gear was given for completing some epic task, or a chain of tasks, then I might be inclined to agree with the OP, but until it is, my choice for title would be “More Time Than Sense.”

What’s the RNG for ascended gear? Whether you get more or less of an ascended material from a chest?

There are people who got ascended weapons in less than a week after they were released…and those people farmed. I’m pretty sure if you make it a more casual goal you can easily have an ascended weapon in a month.

What RNG are you talking about?

The RNG I am talking about is the “chance” to get some of the mats you need from refining other mats, which take time and RNG to get such as ectos from dropped gear, etc. As you said, farming is the way to go. I am also talking about the “Chance” of getting an ascended piece of gear from a chest, as my friend did the other night (lucky kitten.)

I am not trying to bash farmers, or those who play a lot. I apologize if it came across that way. I am simply stating that to ME it’s not worth it. If, down the road, ascended gear turns out to be truly a step or two above what I already have, then I may rethink things and put a bit more effort into getting what I need.

It’s not like the chance to get ectos or dark matter is that rare. I have enough dark matter for 3 ascended weapons. I get it from playing the game. I guess some people would call what I do farming…except I’m not doing it for drops. I’m playing to have fun, and hang out with my guild. The drops just happen.

Ectos and dark matter you get often enough where the RNG doesn’t slow you down much at all.

It’s only in beta..not everyone will have access to it for a few days…in case you didn’t know.

Sounds good to me (and yes, I read the whole thing).

The way you’re playing now is the way I play pretty much all the time. It’s always been about the journey, enjoying myself, helping out guildies.

It’s just more fun for me that way.

Yeah but there are some cool skins, like the weapon skins from Ascalon Catacombs that look completely different during day and night cycles.

Daywolf.2630:

TheJokester.4672:

so I think I’ve done better than you since I gave rather than sold I’m not counting lodestones

Thing is I don’t have 3000-4000 hours to play in a year. Of course some are going to have what I mentioned plus multiple legendaries, but the rest of us gotta plan how we sink our time into the/a game. Some went for a legendary/s, others went for game content. And yes, I’ve given stuff away, but loadstones just rot in my collection apart from making destroyer weapons.

But what I listed is just from normal game play, shouldn’t be anything special really, just balanced game playing without an obsession for long term grinding on a weapon. But to those that whipped out the CC# to buy mats for a legendary, I’m sure anet is appreciative.

Vayne.8563:

Pugging and teamwork aren’t perfect bedfellows.

I don’t see this game as that complicated. I can name games that make this game look more like toontown online in comparison. Seriously. But still, to someone that has been speed running CoF1 constantly for six months, and within a party of two or maybe three classes, er must have been a shock to see parts of the rest of the game once that farming got nerfed.

Though this game is simple, it does take participation outside of constant farming to really grasp it on a whole. Knowing how to play all classes (or most) really helps in that, because it’s so simple you quickly pick up on what people are going to do most often. I’d much rather be in a pug with people that understand the game than with a group of honed CoF1 farmers nearly experiencing the game for the first time outside of that dungeon. But hey, added challenge I guess, keeps my eyelids from drifting down.

Sure I agree. I’d rather be in a group with people who know their characters than a bunch of guys who have done nothing but run CoF. That said, I’d MUCH rather be in a group with my guildies, particularly certain guildies that I run dungeons with fairly often.

We know and anticipate each other. We make hard things easier. We often take through a player who really knows very little or someone who just isn’t that good, because they’re in the guild but not dungeon runners…but they want to try. So it helps to have three or four guys who really do know each other.

And I find that a whole lot more fun and engaging than pugging…and I find the team work much better.

If nothing else we’re all on mumble and we talk to each other. Communication is a big part of teamwork.

cesmode.4257:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

What percentage of people who bought the game did so because of ideas like “everyone should have best in stat gear by the time they hit the level cap” or “we don’t make grindy games” or “our measure of success is ‘is it fun’”?

I’d wager it’s a far lower percentage than you think. FAR lower.

I’d take that wager in a heartbeat.

Vayne.8563:

I mean I heard those same words, and though it was nice, it wasn’t the reason I bought the game. It may have added to the list of reasons, but other reasons were far far more important to me.

That’s nice. Irrelevant, but nice.

Id probably take that wager too. I believe many people bought the game thinking that when they hit 80, it wont be a hefty grind for max stat gear. Once they have their max stat set, they play for fun and for aesthetics. Thats what I was hoping for.

So how many places on the Guild Wars 2 website did it say that would happen? I’m interested, because I’m sure most people who buy a game don’t research it to death. I’m sure many people did research this game a lot, and many more just looked at the webpage. The hard core guys like me, sure, I watched every interview. Out of all my friends who bought it, and there were tons, I was the only one who did it. They played other games, they thought when it comes out, they’ll play it. They watched a couple of trailers.

That’s how most people are. Hard core fans pour over every interview and everything any dev says. Most people just aren’t that hard core.

I think you’ll find a whole lot of people saw the hype, saw the ratings and bought into it, without every delving deeply into it. Can I prove this? Nope.

But I do know that people tend to think everyone is like them, and it’s often not the case.

Ventrue.5731:

marnick.4305:

I am simply not interested in that nonsense. Celestial allows me to not do calculations. I’m doing plenty of those during the day. Come on … if you spend your day fixing complicated stuff from customers, calculating integrals and 3D models by hand to find the error … do you have any idea how tired your brain becomes by doing tgat … do you really expect me to waste even more of that energy and intelligence on a videogame? Isn’t that a bit far fetched.

I do not want to be in a raiding guild. I do not want to play WoW. Maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly why I play GW2 … in celestial gear.

That’s not to say I don’t like more difficult games in my free time, but that’s more in the realms of chess and triathlon. Those demand far greater concentration and endurance than ever necessary in WoW or GW2. So again, why would I waste that energy when there’s superior ways to stimulate my brain. To me, videogames are just that … videogames.

Ok, what you said before was sort of understandable, but now you say some thing like that? Oh wow, thats just amazing. Let me get this straight.

I assume you see how a warrior can benefit from stats like power, precision, critical damage as well as the fact they are multipliers. Precision increases the effectiveness of power by 150%, adding crit damage lets you further multiply you power damage, then you can also add about 30% damage from talents that say do 10% damage while —-. This isn’t even hard to comprehend, with celestial you get over all more stats but those same stats are less valuable. 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 but 2 × 2 × 2 x 2 =16, even though you have more stats they interact at lesser capacity. Not to mention, that healing or condition damage might be a 100% pointless stat for you.

What amazes me the most is that you think that this is heavy calculations and not common sense, the fact that you would need to dwell in to spending bunch of time researching it and that would not be fun. The reason people take power/toughness/vitality was my biggest issue because its a turtle build, but it still is correct in that regard, with toughness your affective health is much larger.

You also talked lather about dead zerkers doing less damage. As engineer you mostly ranged, by default you should have more leisure to go squishier to do more damage. And a berserk warrior who dies but hits 35k with hundred blades would still be more use then some one who goes tanky and uses range. But the most important part is that he gets to learn how to survive a lot easier, he’s mistakes cost him so he gets to improved. Don’t play games easy mode, put it on hard mode and you will do better.
My argument does work on the part that I have to play with people like you. I have not done higher level fractals because all my friends have quit the game so I am forced to pug, I have had runs with 3 berserker warriors and those last least 3 times as less on average, but then you get those really tanky teams were they don’t do enough damage to make it quick, but obviously bosses still one shot them so it doesn’t help them being tanky.

You first made good valid arguments, but with this you just lacked common sense.

I think you’re missed a point here.

YOU play for efficiency. That’s your game. That’s what YOU care about. But other people play games for other reason.

For example, I don’t care about efficiency at all. Not even a little. I want to clear content, but I don’t care how long it takes me to clear it. I don’t care if a dungeon that takes you five minutes takes me an hour. I’m having fun with my guildies for that hour. And yes, I’ve done every dungeon in the game and got my dungeon master title. And some dungeons are a lot more difficult this way than they need to be. So?

I play games to have fun and enjoy myself and a lot of people play RPGs not for stats, but for building a character they enjoy playing. Do you know what character I enjoy playing least? Zerker warriors. I find them massively boring. I have one, 80th level, fully geared, and don’t play him. Not interested enough.

So yeah, your logic works for someone with your play style but doesn’t work for people who don’t have your play style.

Ventrue.5731:

I was going to read through it my self, to correct spelling, but then I saw how much I wrote so I figured I’ll pass… I’m pretty sure majority of players will just read a few lines and start defending gw2.

I didn’t defend Guild Wars 2, you might note. I simply commented on your use of language to try to create a sensationalist topic. The way you phrased things was antagonistic.

I specifically didn’t defend Guild Wars 2, because the validity of the complain when phrased like this has to be called into doubt.

knives.6345:

lul at some people..

Typical MMO community.
Anyone better than you = no life. Anyone you’re better at = noob.

@topic

“Ascended” would be fine.

Edit: Just realized it’s the same as OP’s. O_O

It can’t be ascended because the title is already in the game. I have it already.

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

If you had to take a guess, what percentage of the players even know what vertical progression means?

What percentage of people who bought the game did so because of ideas like “everyone should have best in stat gear by the time they hit the level cap” or “we don’t make grindy games” or “our measure of success is ‘is it fun’”?

I’d wager it’s a far lower percentage than you think. FAR lower.

You’re wrong Vayne … this was the #1 selling point for the game. You know it so don’t try to deny it. Doublethink is an ugly thing.

That wager … you’re bound to lose it.

That said … ascended does give a good form of progression, but it’s not ascended I’m scared of … it’s what comes next. I’ve got plenty of laurels/pristine relics/commendations currently to deck out any alt in the ascended crap I want, but that’s not the issue I have. It’s that they did a very stupid move with the worst communication possible.

While I support Arena.net in most things they did to the game, ascended is still an icky thing. It was a bludgeoning hit in the face, even though it turned out to be moderately good on the longer term.

That said, Arena.net has a track record of doing stupid things, both in GW1 and GW2, but also managed to make good on most of them. Just a shortlist: 3 hero teams, loot scaling, smiter’s boon, IWAY, DR … yes that’s GW1’s DR which was HARSH. The GW2 DR is not an issue. It simply doesn’t exist in comparison unless for bots an no-lifers. In the end, most of those turned out okay. That’s gives me a bit of faith concerning ascended.

Okay here’s your challenge. Look at EVERY single video and article, every one. Look at everyone that mentions vertical progression. Count the amount of minutes or lines of everything Anet published or said that referenced vertical progression.

From my point of view the living/breathing world got a lot more play than the words vertical progression or no gear grind even.

What Anet spent most of the time talking about (ie most of what it was built on) was dynamic events as compared to quests, a branching personal story line, and a living breathing world.

Look at it all. Everything Anet said. You might have 15 mentions of vertical progression, but I seriously doubt it. Some of those might have been in response to direct questions.

But I don’t think it was the #1 point. I think it was one of many points. I think Anet also made a lot of other points. They made a huge deal about not being able to kill steal, or node steal. That’s still in the game. They made a big deal about the amount of voice acting they used. That’s still in the game.

They did talk about vertical progression, but I’d wager that far more people saw dynamic events, personal story and living breathing world. In fact, I can only remember one single blog post that mentioned vertical progression at all, out of dozens and dozens of blog posts.

In fact, I’ll take it further. How many times was vertical progression or gear grind mentioned on the Guild Wars 2 home page. If it was a central selling point, surely it would be mentioned there.