Guild Wars 2

Freohr.7905:

Vayne.8563:

As I’ve said before, when Ascended gear was first introduced, this game had very little “stickiness”. There was no reason for people to play and it was easy to move on to other games. The ascended gear was a stopgap measure (which seems to have worked).

The stickiness now doesn’t actually come from ascended gear. Anet is going to release the rest of it, because it’s in motion, but the stickiness now comes from chasing achievement points.

If people continue to show up to chase achievement points, then there’s not much reason for Anet to introduce another tier.

The tier was introduced for a reason. If that reason ceases to exist, Anet won’t have to resort to that sort of tactic again.

Mind you the achievement point chase, to me, is far worse than gear grind.

Possibly. Assuming that the gear grinder’s are content with instead grinding achievement points for the rewards from the AP system. If they aren’t impressed with those rewards they’ll make a whole lot of noise and chances are the dev’s will have to cave in and release a new tier to try and keep those players around. (Edit: In the future, of course)

I agree though that, in a way, AP farming is even worse. Eventually you’d obtain all the Ascended items. Farming achievement points lasts forever.

It doesn’t matter if gear grinders are content or not content. This entire situation could be understood best by looking at the context.

Anet saw people leaving the game because they were bored and had nothing to do. Anet gave them something to do. Achievements give them something else to do.

Anet doesn’t care of group A or group B keeps playing as long as one group is large enough to support the game. So if the group of people playing for achievement points is big enough to support the game…ie the game is showing that it’s gaining concurrency, then Anet doesn’t have to worry about the people leaving.

Every MMO has to deal with people leaving. The real question isn’t who’s leaving, but how many are playing and for how long. People are always going to leave.

If enough gear grinders can be converted to achievement point grind (and face it there’s a lot less gear grind than achievement point grind..we don’t get new gear every two weeks), then Anet won’t worry about the few guys who leave because of gear.

The achievement point grind is probably stickier than the gear grind, because so many people with consoles are used to achievements now.

I really do think Anet won’t be doing anything beyond ascended gear, except MAYBE legendary gear that has the same stats, but the ability to change them (like the legendary weapons).

Solid Gold.9310:

Well I did do the story line dungeons.

But in the earlier days Rangers were “not welcome” in dungeon parties.

Vayne.8563
“If you don’t do dungeon, you miss all those individual currencies.”

Just why does any game need all those “currencies”, I guess there are different rewards for all those currencies, but it just excludes some players from getting any of those rewards because they might “not like dungeons”.

The point of the dungeon currencies is that they are dungeon currencies. Every dungeon has unique weapon and armor skins associated with it, so each has a specific currency. You can’t get a suit of Arah armor without running Arah explorable mode dungeons a number of times.

For players who like dungeons they become badges of honor. For other players they simple are another skin people can play for without spending gold or karma.

There’s nothing wrong with having different dungeon tokens for different dungeons.

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?

Freohr.7905:

I really love this game, I’ve burnt out sometimes and left for a while but always came back. When they first introduced Ascended items I was incredibly disappointed but – obviously – stayed around. However, slowly I’m beginning to realise… what happens after all the hamster’s in their little wheels have gotten all their Ascended weapons? ArenaNet introducing Ascended armor is the likely answer.

Then what? The issue is about trust, and I don’t trust them. I don’t trust that once the grinder’s have eaten the carrot that is Ascended items, that ArenaNet won’t then add in yet another tier in an attempt to keep them around.

Oh, they’ve said they hope that another tier won’t be added but by now I think we all realise they can’t be taken at face-value. Some on these forums would argue that because game design is a re-iterative process that their previous promises don’t matter. I refuse to accept that argument because the nature of promises is that they are supposed to be kept, not disregarded the moment they become inconvenient. But business is business, right? Something I despise but at least can understand, and so to voice my discontent I’m refusing to put money into the store.

They are so far removed from their original philosophy that it’s becoming tragic. It’ll no doubt take me a large number of months if I wanted to gear up any alts with top-end gear because I refuse to join the hamster’s in their wheels in the grind for these ascended items. I could probably go back to WoW and get the Insane title for the same amount of time it will eventually take to obtain a full set of Ascended for one character, and that’s sad.

As I’ve said before, when Ascended gear was first introduced, this game had very little “stickiness”. There was no reason for people to play and it was easy to move on to other games. The ascended gear was a stopgap measure (which seems to have worked).

The stickiness now doesn’t actually come from ascended gear. Anet is going to release the rest of it, because it’s in motion, but the stickiness now comes from chasing achievement points.

If people continue to show up to chase achievement points, then there’s not much reason for Anet to introduce another tier.

The tier was introduced for a reason. If that reason ceases to exist, Anet won’t have to resort to that sort of tactic again.

Mind you the achievement point chase, to me, is far worse than gear grind.

I’d like to see a gender linked title. Something like Lord of Ascension/Lady of Ascension depending on your character’s gender.

Most of those items are dungeon tokens. Each dungeon has it’s own specific tokens. Shards of Zhaitan are from Arah for example. Symbols of Koda from Honor of the Waves.

If you don’t do dungeon, you miss all those individual currencies.

They’re probably not as bad as you think…with the right group.

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.

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.

Daywolf.2630:

Vayne.8563:

I love how people expect pugs to have teamwork. This makes me laugh.

Expect? Expect nothing normal from this game, you will be better off Yet, I do feel I contribute to teamwork in a pug or most any group, since I’ll take a long hard look at class composition of the group and choose the right class/build to play for any given group or situation. Sort of like an anchor I guess. Need a tank, a healer, buffs, melee, ranged, more DPS? Covered. Only full ascended gear has me worried at this point.

My point is, teamwork, in the traditional sense of the word, requires a team…which requires some form of practice with that team. Knowing who you go with and knowing how they play, compensating for weaknesses in their play style, picking up the slack when it’s needed (and anticipating it because you know the other parties) is what team work is all about.

You can’t have teamwork without a team. You can’t even necessarily help someone if you don’t know what is they need help with.

Pugging and teamwork aren’t perfect bedfellows.

Obsidian.1328:

Vayne.8563:

Bright.9160:

Vayne.8563:

Feralwolf.7091:

I miss the Trinity. It made GW1 more fun. This game makes every class feel the same. Boring. OP suggested a system that allowed you to create a character that could switch roles. That’s exactly what FFXIV is doing now, and the approach GW2 should’ve taken. GW1 was approaching that idea by allowing you to switch secondaries but fell short somewhat.

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have the trinity, because you didn’t need a tank..at least not in PvE anyway.

You and I played a whole different GW1 then. All of the elite areas used tanks. They just didn’t use healers. Sometimes a bonder (DoA), but hardly any healing was used, because GW1 end game existed of tank-ball-spank, and abusing AI aggro mechanics.

I have no idea why you think you’d need a tank in Guild Wars 1. None-whatsoever. With an imbagon paragon absolving about 90% of an entire team’s damage, virtually permanently, a tank wasn’t really all that necessary.

Surely you’ve seen the sabway build which was pretty much all necros.

My hero team when I soloed used whatever character I was playing, a necro, 2 rits, 1 monk, 1 ranger (for interupts), 1 mesmer and then either an ele or a second necro for the last slot. No warrior, no heavy armor profession at all.

…

Then your imbagon was the tank. Or that team of necro’s were all three at the same time, seems like a highly specialized niche build /shrug. If you have enough heals and damage soaking/applying going around that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not using the trinity, it just means you’re doing it in an un-traditional way.

That’s nice you had a team which didn’t really require a tank, but it’s disingenuous to say that was the norm in GW1, especially when we are really talking about group play, and not custom-made hero teams.

A tank, from traditional MMO terminology, is someone who grabs aggro and holds it. calling someone a tank that mitigates a parties damage, but doesn’t get attacked or aggro would probably throw a whole lot of people off. In other words, the word tank is used in many many games, and applying it to an imbagon is confusing.

It may serve the same purpose as a tank..but the only true tanking I saw in Guild Wars 1 was a permasin in FoW on the early shadow mobs, while an ele stood back and hit them with meteor showers. That was true tanking. Meteor showers were AOE spells that didn’t draw aggro. The permsin gathered the enemies up and kept them aggroed, while the DPS guy gunned them down…and that didn’t need a healer at all…because the permasin, if he was any good, could do that indefinitely.

AndrewSX.3794:

Gw1 PvE (HM) didn’t needed tanks, if you were running normal teams in normal content.

Speeclears (especially for DG/elite areas), which is what Bright is referring to, were a totally different beast – if you think that on Gw2 Speedrunning is bad/lame/exploitation don’t step in Gw1, lol – quite unique actually, which would be quite too long to explain here: fact is that the rules of “normal” PvE do not refer to those.

Leaving SC aside (cause they are not “intended” in the balancing of the game, afterall), Gw1 was a bit more “locked” than Gw2 (well, there are very few games less “locked” than Gw2…), but much less than the average trinity MMO (like, uh…WoW and the clones. ok i said it.).

In a party of 8, HM content, after you’ve built up the backline of heal+prot (2 slot usually), the other 6 are pretty much free. There is a healing class/spec, but no tanks or taunt. Add on top of that builds swappable on the fly in outposts, double class system, and a much more free skillbar (8 skills as you like, 1 elite maximum and belonging to the 2 profs you picked up), and there you go.

I wouldn’t mind a similar system to come back. Trinity is bad. I hate it.
But Gw1 “soft” one was the balance between a trinity (healing is the only “locked” role), allowing to have some deeper mechanics, and a free for all approach, which do takes away the issues of grouping but flattens the combat as whole.

Long short story: i don’t play games with Trinity, i deeply hate it. BUT, Gw2 solution “Everybody glass cannon DPS” makes combat and encounter extremely swallow, flat, and overall lacking of depth. Maybe is just matter of better balancing the professions, the istances, the game as whole: but in one year the only somewhat interesting fight for me has been Lupicus, until you start meeleing him flattening it too. Not that good, 1 boss in the whole game.

Oh yeah, I don’t speed run…and I suspect those that do make up a tiny percentage of the population.

Just using the word “horrible” at the top will make this thread useless. There are ways to say stuff that’s not antagonistic, and in stating it the way you did, you’re going to get a negative response. It doesn’t even matter if you’re right or wrong (and frankly I think some of what you say is right…but I don’t agree with all of it).

What I do believe is that if you’re going to phrase stuff the way you do, most people won’t take you seriously.

After all, why should someone believe your opinion of game design over professionals?

Namu.5712:

Katie Feathermoore.5031:

Namu.5712:

I have 4 ascended weapons as of now.

And dont even bring up “well in gw1 you didn’t have to grind” Actually you did just wasn’t for gear it was for something that also increases stats.

We had to grind in GW1? Pray tell, how?

Read up on my other comments.

Unless you dont consider title grinds for skill stat boosts a power curve or a grind….. because its both.

If if not for just power, how about profit. The luck title gave you better chance to salvage stuff, and better chance to not break lockpicks. If that wasn’t a grind, what was?

I love how people expect pugs to have teamwork. This makes me laugh.

Imagine if professional sports teams worked this way. The New York Yankees pick up a complete stranger and expect him to play short stop and turn double plays with no practice or warm up. Right.

An elite navy seal team joins up with a complete stranger to rescue a hostage. Okay.

If you want team work, don’t expect it from people you don’t “train” with. Join a guild, play with the same people. Enjoy teamwork.

Katz.5143:

Oddly there are many people who want company while they play and want to find leveling buddies. And yet the problem remains. Its one of the great mysteries of mmos. Why do these people never find each other?

Because they don’t look for guilds of like-minded players? lol

Bright.9160:

Vayne.8563:

Feralwolf.7091:

I miss the Trinity. It made GW1 more fun. This game makes every class feel the same. Boring. OP suggested a system that allowed you to create a character that could switch roles. That’s exactly what FFXIV is doing now, and the approach GW2 should’ve taken. GW1 was approaching that idea by allowing you to switch secondaries but fell short somewhat.

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have the trinity, because you didn’t need a tank..at least not in PvE anyway.

You and I played a whole different GW1 then. All of the elite areas used tanks. They just didn’t use healers. Sometimes a bonder (DoA), but hardly any healing was used, because GW1 end game existed of tank-ball-spank, and abusing AI aggro mechanics.

I have no idea why you think you’d need a tank in Guild Wars 1. None-whatsoever. With an imbagon paragon absolving about 90% of an entire team’s damage, virtually permanently, a tank wasn’t really all that necessary.

Surely you’ve seen the sabway build which was pretty much all necros.

My hero team when I soloed used whatever character I was playing, a necro, 2 rits, 1 monk, 1 ranger (for interupts), 1 mesmer and then either an ele or a second necro for the last slot. No warrior, no heavy armor profession at all.

Well, I got my first ascended weapon today. The part of found the most grindy was leveling my crafting to 500. Beyond that, I didn’t think the grind was particularly bad. In fact, it’s a lot less grindy than I first thought it was.

But leveling three crafts to 500 is unnecessarily punishing to more casual players. Particularly because you’ll need a lot of the same mats for each craft. It’s a lot of farming (and I hate farming).

I don’t know when I’ll get around to leveling my artificer and my huntsman to 500, because I have to recover financially from leveling my weaponsmith up.

It wasn’t cheap.

Tom Gore.4035:

Vayne.8563:

JDGumby.7685:

Jski.6180:

Wolfheart.1938:

First ascended weapon gotten. Still think the requirements are too much. Still think gear disparity is gonna be a problem in WvW.

You can nearly buy all the things for an ascended wepon if you MUST have it now

Only if you’re far richer than the average 2-3 hour a day player, of course, who considers them lucky to make even 1gp in total a day (minus their costs for transit and repair) even at 80.

Doing a single invasion would net you far more than 1 gold in a day.

Wasting almost an hour of your 2-3 hours a day to a stupid invasion is something not many of us are willing to do.

Wasting 40 minutes to make 5 gold, so you can do anything you want during the other two hours (aside from the fact that some of us actually enjoy invasions).

For that matter, if you do a dungeon run, you’ll be guaranteed more than a gold. Saying people in 2-3 hours can’t make more than a gold a night is simply not right.

Hell you could farm champs in Queensdale and make more than that.

Feralwolf.7091:

I miss the Trinity. It made GW1 more fun. This game makes every class feel the same. Boring. OP suggested a system that allowed you to create a character that could switch roles. That’s exactly what FFXIV is doing now, and the approach GW2 should’ve taken. GW1 was approaching that idea by allowing you to switch secondaries but fell short somewhat.

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have the trinity, because you didn’t need a tank..at least not in PvE anyway.

JDGumby.7685:

Jski.6180:

Wolfheart.1938:

First ascended weapon gotten. Still think the requirements are too much. Still think gear disparity is gonna be a problem in WvW.

You can nearly buy all the things for an ascended wepon if you MUST have it now

Only if you’re far richer than the average 2-3 hour a day player, of course, who considers them lucky to make even 1gp in total a day (minus their costs for transit and repair) even at 80.

Doing a single invasion would net you far more than 1 gold in a day.

Deamhan.9538:

Vayne.8563:

Algreg.3629:

Vayne.8563:

I know all about the backlash. There was plenty of coverage of the percentage of people who stopped playing completely. My experience with Guild Wars 2, admittedly this is just my own observations (but it’s backed up by what Anet has said) is that concurrency numbers are increasing.

When people make statements like Anet doesn’t listen to it’s player base because there was a backlash, my first reaction is to ask this….what about the people who didn’t backlash.

Snip

because people there are not infallible, just as GW2 devs are not. Still, that does not change you post about stuff you have apparently no idea about.

Well you’d have to disagree with not just me. There was plenty of commentary at the time by Eve players about exactly what I’m saying. So if you’re disagreeing with me, you’re also disagreeing with a percentage of the Eve population.

So, how many players of Eve do you know personally? And what does that reaction tell you about Eve devs? Sorry, stop musing about things remote from you still.

I’ve had people in my guild who played Eve completely and left over that debacle and didn’t return. Some of course did. But you insist I know nothing about something, because I don’t agree with you.

That’s like me saying you know nothing about Guild Wars 2 because you don’t agree with me. I didn’t say it, because I don’t think that way.

I play EVE myself. I have for years and I say you know little to nothing simply because you are not talking from first hand experience.

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/What_is_the_CSM

CCP has the best Dev to Player relationship I’ve seen in MMOs. As for my experience there?

Piranha Games w/ MWO
Blizzard w/ WoW & D3
NCSoft w/ Aion
ANet w/ GW1 & GW2
Cryptic Studios w/ NeverWinter
CCP w/ EVE

There were a few times where CCP made changes to EVE while not listening to the player’s warnings. It has come back to bite them each time. It also helps that EVE’s player base are very connected to each other (single shard, corp alliances and smaller population size) so we can act against choices.

Edit: Just so that it is clear what the CSM is….

http://community.eveonline.com/community/csm/

So which of the players that CCP is so close to longed for a $90 monocle? They tried to push the envelope to get away with something to see if it flew. It’s not about “listening to players”, it’s about being a niche game that has a very very definite existence.

Where you SEE a company that listens to players, I see a company that is interested in making money. They created a niche and because of that very specific focus, they can appeal to that very specific player base. It’s easy to look at them and say they listen to players. In reality, they’re providing precisely what players want…but it may not be because they’re listening. That’s an assumption. It might very well be what they were planning to do anyway…because their focus is pretty much one very specific type of player. You can do that in a sandbox, because the content is mostly player made. Very few people are playing Eve for the PvE elements.

Now let’s look at Guild Wars 2. Oh look, it’s a completely different type of game. You’re comparing a sandbox with user made content, with a theme park MMO. That’s the first issue. Then you’re comparing a theme park that is trying to have broad based appeal with no subscription fee, with a focused game that has a subscription fee.

See if Guild Wars 2 listened to one minority, focused on one minority, and had no subscription fee, I don’t think it could exist at all. And I think Anet saw where the majority lie.

So you have people that don’t like where the game is going…but are they the majority of players…that’s the question.

Anet doesn’t listen to it’s playerbase? Or is the player base simple for more fragmented than Eve’s.

Because you talk about all Eve players being more on the same page and more connected, and that’s very likely true. Does that mean that CCP is actually listening to their players, or does it mean it’s a lot easier to make it LOOK LIKE they’re listening to their players?

Maybe I haven’t played Eve first hand, but I’ve run businesses, and CCP has done some smart things. Anet has also done some smart things.

But because the two companies have completely different games in different genres and different situations, it’s certainly set up to look like Anet doesn’t listen to it’s players.

Pray tell, how can any company listen to all it’s players when the player base is so fractured (unlike Eve’s)?

I don’t really have an exact figure, because I don’t keep careful track. It’s probably quite a bit, because I’m paying for both my wife and myself, though. It’s certainly in the hundreds of dollars, though.

I know many people will be surprised that I’m posting in this thread. lol

I like a lot of stuff about this game. There are things I don’t like as well, but the positive for me far outweighs the negative.

I particularly love being able to do most things in small sound bites. A bit here and a bit there, and still feel like I’m getting something out of it. This is something many games have lacked in my opinion.

No one knows his story, but I feel the same way you do. I love that fractal.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

You appear to know all about everything. I believe this is the point where I start skipping your posts. You just want to argue.

I don’t know about lots of things. For example, you’ll seldom see me weigh in on conversations about the current meta, or PvP…because I don’t know those things.

The MMO industry as an industry I used to follow quite closely because that interested me. I have many friends from many games, including people who have played Eve extensively. I tried Eve myself, but it was a bit too involved for me to play they way I’d have liked to.

You don’t like my opinions and that’s fair enough, but I comment in only a small percentage of threads and tend to stick to the ones that interest me (which are the ones I talk about).

As for you reading or not reading my posts, I suppose I’ll just have to somehow survive without it, though I’m totally crushed by this development.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

TwoBit.5903:

Vayne.8563:

I run a lot more dungeons now than before.

Vocal minority.

Evidence? I don’t run them ALONE. lol

Your achievement rating alone places you in a very tiny minority.

Sure they do. But again, I can NOT run dungeons alone. I get four other guildies to go with me. Often people ask me, because they know I’m always willing to help out to fill out a party.

But the point is, three people in my guild are over 10,000 achievement points and 120 people in my guild have less. We aren’t pugging, almost every dungeon run is completely inside the guild window.

So even if you discount me (one of the other two isn’t really a dungeon runner), you still have an increase in people in our guild (most of who are casual), running dungeons more than before.

AntiGw.9367:

The fact that nobody cared is not very nice.

On the missions themselves, you need to be aware of the fact that you can and will fail them sometimes.

In puzzles this is even more obvious, because you have a time limit on getting 100 people to jump perfectly through obstacles at the same time. That means that the guild has to pay attention to people that can’t keep up, and use mesmer portals to help. Furthermore, the puzzles lock you in previous rooms if you are late, so the guild has to pay attention to stragglers, and avoid moving forward until everyone is ready. And it all has to be done within the time limit.

The fact is, your guild probably wasn’t very good at coordinating that kind of content.

This is true we did a guild puzzle today and made sure to keep everyone together. We had a bevy of mesmers helping out.

NoTrigger.8396:

everything the OP said is right.
but it was 100% obvious close minded kids are going to take over this thread.

for example ele players still run around with staff in pve. or rangers with bow.
…. then they come to the forums and cry about how bad their classes are.
seriously…

you just cant continue to fill a full glass of water.

Everything he said was right? lol

Some things he said were right, some were just opinion, which can’t be right or wrong, but the OP is stating them as if they are a fact, and in my opinion that’s wrong.

So I don’t think everything he said was actually right.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

TwoBit.5903:

Vayne.8563:

I run a lot more dungeons now than before.

Vocal minority.

Evidence? I don’t run them ALONE. lol

You run them with your guild, I presume. So, has interest in dungeons within your guild increased since the revamp? If it has, it the same people running more dungeons, or more people running dungeons?

More people are interested in running dungeons, yes. Probably because it’s the fastest/easiest way to get some of the mats you need for an ascended weapon.

I guarantee you, if they put a thread up specifically to get feedback, they’ll read the thread. Where as this one…probably not so much.

It might be different if the rewards were so amazing or so important…but they’re really not. I’ve missed out on rewards from Guild missions occasionally and yes, it sucks. But there’s always going to be another guild mission, and eventually I’ll get everything I need with guild commendations. Everything else you can get be gotten elsewhere anyway.

Is it annoying? Sure. Is it annoying enough to quit a game over?

Not from my point of view.

I’d have posted this in the thread with the feedback to the new changes. Because this thread is about to be moved to the engineer subforum.

TwoBit.5903:

Vayne.8563:

I run a lot more dungeons now than before.

Vocal minority.

Evidence? I don’t run them ALONE. lol

milo.6942:

AndrewSX.3794:

I don’t miss the trinity.

But a soft one like GW1 – where classes were quite free, no tanks present but healers yes – could solve quite few issues.

I’ve never played any other mmorpg besides gw1, and I’ve heard quite a few times that it was described as having a “soft” trinity. I don’t even know what all this “taunt” stuff is but gw1 was a really good game, with unique roles. This game just seems like a dps race. All the people that wanted tight team combat (like myself) have already left the game.

I don’t know, my guild has tight team combat. Not sure why you don’t.

Taunt is a way to get something to aggro on you. That’s what tanks did in most trinity games. The tank would get and hold aggro, and the bosses would attack the tank. The monk would heal the tank, and if everything went as planned, everyone else just attacked the boss. It was very different from what Guild Wars 1 had.

I’d never play a game with the trinity again. I think the trinity is actually the worst thing ever to happen to MMOs.

The search function on the forums sucks badly. It’s not you.

As for the game changes…so much has changed, and I really mean a lot, that you’re probably better off reading patchnotes (or joining a Guild and talking to people).

There have been far too many changes to really make a comprehensive list. The biggest ones are:

An end to culling in the open world and WvW.
Introduction of the Account Wallet for various currencies.
Introduction of the Living Story which changes every two weeks.
Achievement points now provide rewards in the form of chests.
Scarlet invasions randomly happen randomly in a handful of zones (similar to zone wide invasions in Rift).
Dailies have changed so that you only need to do 5 out of a choice of a lot more (but you get an extra achievement point for each extra one you do).
Ascended weapons have been introduced
Guild missions have been introduced (there are several types).

There’s plenty more, too.

Algreg.3629:

Vayne.8563:

I know all about the backlash. There was plenty of coverage of the percentage of people who stopped playing completely. My experience with Guild Wars 2, admittedly this is just my own observations (but it’s backed up by what Anet has said) is that concurrency numbers are increasing.

When people make statements like Anet doesn’t listen to it’s player base because there was a backlash, my first reaction is to ask this….what about the people who didn’t backlash.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, in Eve was asking for a 90 dollar monocle. No one. People on this forums have asked for gear grind and raids and end game. As long as a percentage of people are asking for something, then Anet is listening to some of their players.

And if Eve’s devs are so highly regarded and thought after, if they’re so close to their fans, how did they EVER introduced a $90 monocle into their game. Did they think this was a service to their fans.

Stop causing your Eve hierophantism make you posting assumptions about games you apparently do not know much about

because people there are not infallible, just as GW2 devs are not. Still, that does not change you post about stuff you have apparently no idea about.

Well you’d have to disagree with not just me. There was plenty of commentary at the time by Eve players about exactly what I’m saying. So if you’re disagreeing with me, you’re also disagreeing with a percentage of the Eve population.

[/quote]

So, how many players of Eve do you know personally? And what does that reaction tell you about Eve devs? Sorry, stop musing about things remote from you still.[/quote]

I’ve had people in my guild who played Eve completely and left over that debacle and didn’t return. Some of course did. But you insist I know nothing about something, because I don’t agree with you.

That’s like me saying you know nothing about Guild Wars 2 because you don’t agree with me. I didn’t say it, because I don’t think that way.

Algreg.3629:

Vayne.8563:

Algreg.3629:

Vayne.8563:

Thrumdi.9216:

Laundry.5120:

Vayne.8563:

Crapgame.6519:

Someone said:

Let’s pretent that the 400k concurrency number is from launch…well so what? Are you saying you can name an MMO where the bulk of the population doesn’t play less over time? Do you think ANY MMO has more people a year after launch than on launch day concurrently?

snip

snip

The fact that WoW was mega succesful at a time when there was virtually no competition and made a name for itself means what exactly?

EVE isn’t just successful because of it’s numbers, it’s successful because gamers, whether they play EVE now or have played it, respect EVE and CCP. They cater to a niche and they serve that niche, and serve it well.

I’ve tried EVE once and wouldn’t play EVE, it’s just not for me, but you know what? I respect it, because it’s not trying to be everything to everyone.

How many books or movies,or any medium really except MMO’s, do you know that cater fiction/non-fiction/science/fantasy/drama/comedy/horror/suspense all in one volume?

Developers in general need to stop making games that appeal to “everyone” because there’s no such thing as “everyone”. WoW was the only one to do this, and it was popular because of it’s polish and there was very little competition for it for years.

GW1 strength was unquestionably it’s PVP, and that’s been sidelined in GW2 not only for PVE but PVE that’s poorly written, poorly delivered, while the real meat of the game, WvW has been tossed in the backburner for a year.

Invasions, Rift does it better (and fits in their lore). Personal stories, ToR does it better.
GW2 needs focus, and less fluff.

One other point to make about EvE is that they actually listen to their player base.

When EvE had “Monoclegate” and tried to introduce an expensive cash shop (where Monocles sold for something like $99), the players staged a mutiny. Many quit, and EvE reversed their decision and removed the shop. And so EvE continues to grow.

What did Anet do with the backlash against Ascended gear? Double down against it and introduce more Ascended gear.

Ascended gear might lock in their existing player base, who can’t take their equity out of the game and so will do the grind. But why would anyone else come here when you can get better progression elsewhere?

This is terrible logic. Eve didn’t “listen to their player base”. Eve ignored their playerbase, until their bottom line was affected. The playerbase brought the game to nearly a halt. Eve didn’t cave in until they realized they were in danger of going belly up if they continued.

Guild Wars 2 had a backlash…but obviously they carried on, because they also experienced a surge in people playing, at least according to Anet.

What means that Anet listened to its user base too. The fact that you personally don’t agree with the rest of the user base is another matter entirely.

no, not that it really belongs in here, but as you argue along those lines: Eve devs were (and are) rather close to their players and appeared to be rather shocked at the backlash and were interested in player-to-dev interaction. I was there. Stop causing your GW2 hierophantism make you posting assumptions about games you apparently do not know much about.

I know all about the backlash. There was plenty of coverage of the percentage of people who stopped playing completely. My experience with Guild Wars 2, admittedly this is just my own observations (but it’s backed up by what Anet has said) is that concurrency numbers are increasing.

When people make statements like Anet doesn’t listen to it’s player base because there was a backlash, my first reaction is to ask this….what about the people who didn’t backlash.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, in Eve was asking for a 90 dollar monocle. No one. People on this forums have asked for gear grind and raids and end game. As long as a percentage of people are asking for something, then Anet is listening to some of their players.

And if Eve’s devs are so highly regarded and thought after, if they’re so close to their fans, how did they EVER introduced a $90 monocle into their game. Did they think this was a service to their fans.

Stop causing your Eve hierophantism make you posting assumptions about games you apparently do not know much about

because people there are not infallible, just as GW2 devs are not. Still, that does not change you post about stuff you have apparently no idea about.

Well you’d have to disagree with not just me. There was plenty of commentary at the time by Eve players about exactly what I’m saying. So if you’re disagreeing with me, you’re also disagreeing with a percentage of the Eve population.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Vayne.8563:

JustTrogdor.7892:

I really enjoy the game but I play a very limited amount of time. Since my game time is limited I focus on doing things I enjoy and I don’t go out of my way to grind things unless of course I decide I will enjoy that.

I have been a little disappointed in the last few living story updates but that again is more linked to my limited time. I didn’t have the time or didn’t want to dedicate the time to doing those 5 invasions that took 45 minutes a piece. That locked me out of the Pavilion which I was enjoying prior to that. I also wasn’t a fan of Stupor Adventure Box and the graphics almost made me have a seizure and that was after I smashed my computer against a wall, set it on fire and then sold it as “Slightly Used” on eBay.

I do enjoy the graphics but the removal of culling kind of made it worse for me as far as the quality of other players and even at max settings it does not change. I do like all the small details in the game and the thought that must have gone into them. I mostly enjoy the diversity of things to do in game and that fits great for someone like myself that does not play a lot. Some of the LS events have been the exception but I’m not an achievement point hunter so it isn’t a big deal.

I’d say I give Anet and GW2 a solid A- and I’m strict on grading so that’s pretty good.

The truth is, you didn’t have to be locked out of the pavillion. All you needed to do was going with a group of people who had already unlocked the pavillion and do the dungeon with them (since you could enter the dungeon without doing all the prerequisite stuff as long as someone else started it).

I took many many people in my guild through that dungeon to open the pavillion for them, even though many didn’t have time to do the invasions.

I didn’t know that. I’m also part of the “doesn’t read up on stuff much” crowd.

Well, I’d have gladly run you through too…keep that in mind for next time. lol

Algreg.3629:

Vayne.8563:

Thrumdi.9216:

Laundry.5120:

Vayne.8563:

Crapgame.6519:

Someone said:

Let’s pretent that the 400k concurrency number is from launch…well so what? Are you saying you can name an MMO where the bulk of the population doesn’t play less over time? Do you think ANY MMO has more people a year after launch than on launch day concurrently?

snip

snip

The fact that WoW was mega succesful at a time when there was virtually no competition and made a name for itself means what exactly?

EVE isn’t just successful because of it’s numbers, it’s successful because gamers, whether they play EVE now or have played it, respect EVE and CCP. They cater to a niche and they serve that niche, and serve it well.

I’ve tried EVE once and wouldn’t play EVE, it’s just not for me, but you know what? I respect it, because it’s not trying to be everything to everyone.

How many books or movies,or any medium really except MMO’s, do you know that cater fiction/non-fiction/science/fantasy/drama/comedy/horror/suspense all in one volume?

Developers in general need to stop making games that appeal to “everyone” because there’s no such thing as “everyone”. WoW was the only one to do this, and it was popular because of it’s polish and there was very little competition for it for years.

GW1 strength was unquestionably it’s PVP, and that’s been sidelined in GW2 not only for PVE but PVE that’s poorly written, poorly delivered, while the real meat of the game, WvW has been tossed in the backburner for a year.

Invasions, Rift does it better (and fits in their lore). Personal stories, ToR does it better.
GW2 needs focus, and less fluff.

One other point to make about EvE is that they actually listen to their player base.

When EvE had “Monoclegate” and tried to introduce an expensive cash shop (where Monocles sold for something like $99), the players staged a mutiny. Many quit, and EvE reversed their decision and removed the shop. And so EvE continues to grow.

What did Anet do with the backlash against Ascended gear? Double down against it and introduce more Ascended gear.

Ascended gear might lock in their existing player base, who can’t take their equity out of the game and so will do the grind. But why would anyone else come here when you can get better progression elsewhere?

This is terrible logic. Eve didn’t “listen to their player base”. Eve ignored their playerbase, until their bottom line was affected. The playerbase brought the game to nearly a halt. Eve didn’t cave in until they realized they were in danger of going belly up if they continued.

Guild Wars 2 had a backlash…but obviously they carried on, because they also experienced a surge in people playing, at least according to Anet.

What means that Anet listened to its user base too. The fact that you personally don’t agree with the rest of the user base is another matter entirely.

no, not that it really belongs in here, but as you argue along those lines: Eve devs were (and are) rather close to their players and appeared to be rather shocked at the backlash and were interested in player-to-dev interaction. I was there. Stop causing your GW2 hierophantism make you posting assumptions about games you apparently do not know much about.

I know all about the backlash. There was plenty of coverage of the percentage of people who stopped playing completely. My experience with Guild Wars 2, admittedly this is just my own observations (but it’s backed up by what Anet has said) is that concurrency numbers are increasing.

When people make statements like Anet doesn’t listen to it’s player base because there was a backlash, my first reaction is to ask this….what about the people who didn’t backlash.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, in Eve was asking for a 90 dollar monocle. No one. People on this forums have asked for gear grind and raids and end game. As long as a percentage of people are asking for something, then Anet is listening to some of their players.

And if Eve’s devs are so highly regarded and thought after, if they’re so close to their fans, how did they EVER introduced a $90 monocle into their game. Did they think this was a service to their fans.

Stop causing your Eve hierophantism make you posting assumptions about games you apparently do not know much about

JustTrogdor.7892:

I really enjoy the game but I play a very limited amount of time. Since my game time is limited I focus on doing things I enjoy and I don’t go out of my way to grind things unless of course I decide I will enjoy that.

I have been a little disappointed in the last few living story updates but that again is more linked to my limited time. I didn’t have the time or didn’t want to dedicate the time to doing those 5 invasions that took 45 minutes a piece. That locked me out of the Pavilion which I was enjoying prior to that. I also wasn’t a fan of Stupor Adventure Box and the graphics almost made me have a seizure and that was after I smashed my computer against a wall, set it on fire and then sold it as “Slightly Used” on eBay.

I do enjoy the graphics but the removal of culling kind of made it worse for me as far as the quality of other players and even at max settings it does not change. I do like all the small details in the game and the thought that must have gone into them. I mostly enjoy the diversity of things to do in game and that fits great for someone like myself that does not play a lot. Some of the LS events have been the exception but I’m not an achievement point hunter so it isn’t a big deal.

I’d say I give Anet and GW2 a solid A- and I’m strict on grading so that’s pretty good.

The truth is, you didn’t have to be locked out of the pavillion. All you needed to do was going with a group of people who had already unlocked the pavillion and do the dungeon with them (since you could enter the dungeon without doing all the prerequisite stuff as long as someone else started it).

I took many many people in my guild through that dungeon to open the pavillion for them, even though many didn’t have time to do the invasions.

Thrumdi.9216:

Laundry.5120:

Vayne.8563:

Crapgame.6519:

Someone said:

Let’s pretent that the 400k concurrency number is from launch…well so what? Are you saying you can name an MMO where the bulk of the population doesn’t play less over time? Do you think ANY MMO has more people a year after launch than on launch day concurrently?

I’m not going to get into the middle of this cat fight but actually if you would recall, Warcraft actually gained subscribers (paying mind you) over the years. It increased year over year and only after cata and the 10 million mark has it subsided. Most would consider its current population of 6 million a success yet here we are talking about 400K active maybe at best and 3.5 million copies sold.

Look, not going to pee in the wind here but I do find it rather interesting that people ask “do you still play that game” (e.g. GW2). I really don’t know how it fits in the public space but for me, it is only really WvW that I care about and it is pretty much dead in regards to return on investment (playing time mind you).

Anyway – Figured I’d throw that out that at least one MMO grew. The others while good failed because they tried to measure success like the two ton heavy thing…

Actually, you’re right WoW did grow. But at the 1 year mark where we are now, it had less sales than Guild Wars 2 does now and it didn’t grow by that point to it’s high point. So how do you know what Guild Wars 2 will do in the same time period. If Guild Wars 2 has two or three years of updates, how do you know it won’t grow?

More to the point, Eve, also considered a successful MMORPG just managed it hit 500,000 subscribers…I think it was last year.

The fact that WoW was mega succesful at a time when there was virtually no competition and made a name for itself means what exactly?

EVE isn’t just successful because of it’s numbers, it’s successful because gamers, whether they play EVE now or have played it, respect EVE and CCP. They cater to a niche and they serve that niche, and serve it well.

I’ve tried EVE once and wouldn’t play EVE, it’s just not for me, but you know what? I respect it, because it’s not trying to be everything to everyone.

How many books or movies,or any medium really except MMO’s, do you know that cater fiction/non-fiction/science/fantasy/drama/comedy/horror/suspense all in one volume?

Developers in general need to stop making games that appeal to “everyone” because there’s no such thing as “everyone”. WoW was the only one to do this, and it was popular because of it’s polish and there was very little competition for it for years.

GW1 strength was unquestionably it’s PVP, and that’s been sidelined in GW2 not only for PVE but PVE that’s poorly written, poorly delivered, while the real meat of the game, WvW has been tossed in the backburner for a year.

Invasions, Rift does it better (and fits in their lore). Personal stories, ToR does it better.
GW2 needs focus, and less fluff.

One other point to make about EvE is that they actually listen to their player base.

When EvE had “Monoclegate” and tried to introduce an expensive cash shop (where Monocles sold for something like $99), the players staged a mutiny. Many quit, and EvE reversed their decision and removed the shop. And so EvE continues to grow.

What did Anet do with the backlash against Ascended gear? Double down against it and introduce more Ascended gear.

Ascended gear might lock in their existing player base, who can’t take their equity out of the game and so will do the grind. But why would anyone else come here when you can get better progression elsewhere?

This is terrible logic. Eve didn’t “listen to their player base”. Eve ignored their playerbase, until their bottom line was affected. The playerbase brought the game to nearly a halt. Eve didn’t cave in until they realized they were in danger of going belly up if they continued.

Guild Wars 2 had a backlash…but obviously they carried on, because they also experienced a surge in people playing, at least according to Anet.

What means that Anet listened to its user base too. The fact that you personally don’t agree with the rest of the user base is another matter entirely.

Mugiwara Luffy.1087:

We waited for this for over a year, we can wait a bit longer. It’s not like it’s gamebreaking anyway, we still have gw2lfg.

Because you can’t tell what happens when hundreds of thousands of people are all using something at the same time, so they want to avoid what happened with the trading post at launch.

By slowing increasing the numbers, they can control it if it becomes unstable. It’s actually smart to do this.

Just imagine how bad it would be if they opened it up to everyone and it just started crashing all over the place.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Never played WoW because it was so grindy and the lack of grind was what lured me to the GW franchise from the start. Unfortunately GW2 has turned in to just another run of the mill grind fest. There is nothing special anymore.
The WoW players have gotten their wish and GW2 is turning in to another clone with nothing to make it stand out except no monthly fee. I have no wish to make a legendary as they are all ugly as sin, and the requirements for ascended do not offset the benefits of having one. I play every day, but I really don’t know why, guess I am just glutton for punishment.

and having to have the right gear to get into those raids.

Nah-uh.

WoW is currently implementing 4th raid mode. Intended for family and friends, thats a bit more difficult than LFR.

Get in touch with the times Vayne. Spreading missinformation is bad for you.

Nobody cares about 5-10 years ago.

So are you saying there are currently no raids in WoW with gear checks? Let’s be clear here.

I run a lot more dungeons now than before.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Never played WoW because it was so grindy and the lack of grind was what lured me to the GW franchise from the start. Unfortunately GW2 has turned in to just another run of the mill grind fest. There is nothing special anymore.
The WoW players have gotten their wish and GW2 is turning in to another clone with nothing to make it stand out except no monthly fee. I have no wish to make a legendary as they are all ugly as sin, and the requirements for ascended do not offset the benefits of having one. I play every day, but I really don’t know why, guess I am just glutton for punishment.

It’s funny how you can say this is just another WoW clone, having never played WoW. In fact, I think only a Guild Wars 1 player would call Guild Wars 2 a WoW clone.

In reality, there’s a ton of differences between Guild Wars 2 and your typical WoW clone, particularly in the inclusion of raids and having to have the right gear to get into those raids.

81% so far. I’m liking having something to do with greens and blues besides vendoring them.

Good post OP. It’s nice to see something positive in this sea of negativity.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Namu.5712:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s the same person that once claimed that he wants everyone to get their best stat gear by the time they get to level 80. Now he says they never intended that.
If a year from now they decide to add a new tier, he’ll likely be saying that “it was planned all along”.

What happened was players chewed through content way too fast. Faster than they wanted.

less than 1% of players did that. In fact i believe there are more people that played from the beginning and still don’t have full exotic set than there were people posessing legendaries in November.

Besides, it doesn’t matter. The fact remains, that they went back on something they said once barely 3 months into the game (earlier, actually – it had to take them at least a month to prepare November patch) – and they did it easily, at the first opportunity.
Which basically means, that we cannot expect them to keep any solid promises they might have made to us now (even if they had made them, which they didn’t)

Where do you get your percentages from? I’m interested.

Sorry, should have quoted a bit more of Namu’s post – especially the part:

Exotics in a day legendary in a month.

I’m pretty sure that even now, over nine months later, number of people with legendaries is still below 1%.

I’d think that’s probably accurate.

Crapgame.6519:

Someone said:

Let’s pretent that the 400k concurrency number is from launch…well so what? Are you saying you can name an MMO where the bulk of the population doesn’t play less over time? Do you think ANY MMO has more people a year after launch than on launch day concurrently?

I’m not going to get into the middle of this cat fight but actually if you would recall, Warcraft actually gained subscribers (paying mind you) over the years. It increased year over year and only after cata and the 10 million mark has it subsided. Most would consider its current population of 6 million a success yet here we are talking about 400K active maybe at best and 3.5 million copies sold.

Look, not going to pee in the wind here but I do find it rather interesting that people ask “do you still play that game” (e.g. GW2). I really don’t know how it fits in the public space but for me, it is only really WvW that I care about and it is pretty much dead in regards to return on investment (playing time mind you).

Anyway – Figured I’d throw that out that at least one MMO grew. The others while good failed because they tried to measure success like the two ton heavy thing…

Actually, you’re right WoW did grow. But at the 1 year mark where we are now, it had less sales than Guild Wars 2 does now and it didn’t grow by that point to it’s high point. So how do you know what Guild Wars 2 will do in the same time period. If Guild Wars 2 has two or three years of updates, how do you know it won’t grow?

More to the point, Eve, also considered a successful MMORPG just managed it hit 500,000 subscribers…I think it was last year.

The fact that WoW was mega succesful at a time when there was virtually no competition and made a name for itself means what exactly?

Astralporing.1957:

Namu.5712:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s the same person that once claimed that he wants everyone to get their best stat gear by the time they get to level 80. Now he says they never intended that.
If a year from now they decide to add a new tier, he’ll likely be saying that “it was planned all along”.

What happened was players chewed through content way too fast. Faster than they wanted.

less than 1% of players did that. In fact i believe there are more people that played from the beginning and still don’t have full exotic set than there were people posessing legendaries in November.

Besides, it doesn’t matter. The fact remains, that they went back on something they said once barely 3 months into the game (earlier, actually – it had to take them at least a month to prepare November patch) – and they did it easily, at the first opportunity.
Which basically means, that we cannot expect them to keep any solid promises they might have made to us now (even if they had made them, which they didn’t)

Where do you get your percentages from? I’m interested.