Guild Wars 2

xephire.8324:

They got their money they just don’t care anymore…

Based on what evidence? More content every two weeks? The introduction of the wallet. The LFG tool is coming. A redesign of T’quatl.

This must be some strange usage of the words “don’t care” that I haven’t previously been aware of.

You may not like the content or find it fun but the amount of content and the work that goes into creating that kind of content implies a work ethic quite different from what you claim.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

But a treadmill, by definition, never ends. So if legendary is the final tier, then it can’t be a treadmill, because it’s final. That’s a definition.

You can call a bird a stone, but a bird isn’t a stone.

Legendary is not a gear tier. Legendary is a prestige skin. Legendary stats are not different than the stats of whatever the highest tier is. Thus, it cannot be thought of as a final tier. If ANet never adds another tier beyond Ascended, then Ascended would be the highest tier. We don’t yet know if that will or won’t be the case.

No definition of treadmill that I can find includes “never ends” as part of it. A treadmill does include an endless belt as one of its components. The belt is important to the treadmill’s function, but it is not the purpose of the treadmill.

That said, the function of a treadmill is to allow or cause the user to walk in place. However, the purpose of a treadmill is not to be “always on.” It is to power something or get health results. The purpose of a gear treadmill in an MMO is to promote the game’s longevity in the face of players who desire to play the game a lot. That is the purpose of Ascended.

Sometimes, people argue about the meaning of words to sidetrack from the real issues being discussed. I prefer to talk about purpose and intent rather than about whether a word that has been altered to fit a particular context is being used “properly” or not. The rapid evolution of words in popular culture means that their meaning cannot be set in stone. Thus, discussing the meanings of words is important in discourse so we know what each other is talking about. However, that discussion should be tangential to the real issues, rather than being used as a means to win an argument.

Legendary is a final tier, because Anet has said if you get a legendary it will be equal to the final tier of gear. I have a legendary trident on my necro and a legendary rifle on my engineer.

That means the day this new tier goes life, I have top tier gear without grinding or farming. You can say it’s not a tier all you want…but it works as a tier. And therefore, it’s not a treadmill, or wouldn’t be if ascended armor works the same way.

I see you ignored the rest of my post. Nice dodge of the real issues in favor of more arguments about semantics.

Okay I didn’t think I’d have to respond to the rest of it, because it makes no sense.

What is a treadmill? It’s something you walk on and you get nowhere. Why do you get nowhere…because it’s just the illusion of progression. This is why it’s called a treadmill. By definition it has no end, because companies keep coming out with gear. I’m pretty sure that most people understand that.

A treadmill isn’t doing something until you get to the end, because if you can get to the end, it’s not a treadmill.

I didn’t have a lot of time when I responded to the first part of your post, and I have more time now…so explain to me.

How is a treadmill something the stops. Because saying the definition doesn’t include endless blows my mind completely. That’s the whole point of using a treadmill as an analogy. If they wanted an end they’d have used an escalator.

Azunai.5974:

I… I like him. Can we keep him?

He better be in Tarnished Coast. Or I’ll personally drag him there myself.

@Vayne – As you can see from my sig, I’m a bit of an optimist. Yet, I hate the forums. I used to enjoy coming here, sharing my thoughts, participate in a discussion, or just have fun. Now… Everytime I think about the forums, I cringe and tell myself I shouldn’t go. But I always do. Because I’m an optimist.

I think we should get him on TC too. lol

I used to be an optimist myself, till start posting on forums. Now I’m a white knight apparently. lol

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

I like the game too…and I’ve been playing since the first beta. It’s taken some unexpected twists in how they present the game, which some people haven’t liked, but it suits me perfectly.

My biggest advice to you is don’t let the forums get you down. The game is way fun for me…the forums…not so much. lol

No offense, but you spend more time on the forums than you do actually playing the game… so what does that tell you? You enjoy playing the forums more than playing GW2. You consistently complain about how bad the forums are, yet come here to tell people how “good” the game is….. okay.

Anyway, once you get bored, then you will stay bored until you finally decide to quit. I enjoyed the leveling process and I also enjoyed about two weeks after I hit level 80, then things went downhill from there. Utterly boring content, no bug fixes, unbalanced classes, and a ton of other glitches and things of the sort just ruined the game for me, and I’m really patient with content that needs to be fixed.

So the 11,000 achievement points I got came from where exactly? Today I did two invasions and 7 jumping puzzles. I’m not sure how long you think that takes. Between chores at home I check the forums and post a couple of times. Right now I’m using the forums as an excuse to go food shopping a bit later.

But yeah, there’s no way you can claim a guy with my achievement points doesn’t play the game…not if you’re being honest about it.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

I prefer getting nothing……..as the gift was nothing in the first place or just to infuriate players…………

I think we’d all prefer you got nothing.

Those scrolls are kitten good buffs and I got a boatload of them. I’m buffed for weeks of my actual play time.

You focus on the mini, I focus on the extra magic find.

Enjoy your unhappiness.

This ^ right here, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason Guild Wars 2 is going downhill. Anet dishes out bad content and ridiculous rewards, and players like Vayne accept and even agree with the content/rewards. Seriously, open your eyes and actually look at what the reward is for once. I felt more rewarded after I finished mario bros when I got absolutely nothing. At least Mario gave me fun in exchange for playing the game.

Guild Wars 2 isn’t going down hill. It’s just a different hill than the one you want…which is far enough. Completely different from saying its’ going down hill.

The mini is a mistake. I’ve said so in numerous threads…but it’s still just a mini. I didn’t expect a random mini this year…do you know why? Because in Guild Wars 1, birthdays were the predominant way to get minis and when it launched the only way. So it was a thing. Here, I have minis coming out of my ears. The game is a year old and I don’t really care about another mini. I knew Anet wasn’t going to give people random minis, because in this particular game that doesn’t make sense.

Of course, those attached to Guild Wars 1 think otherwise.

Galtrix.7369:

CobaltSixty.1542:

Galtrix.7369:

Haha. Definitely not. Three out of four of my friends quit this game, and I asked them to take a look at some of the new content recently. Two of them logged in and played for about 5 minutes, then logged out and said they’d rather play barbie dolls with their kids or get hit by an oncoming train. The other person logged in for about 10 seconds, calmly logged out and uninstalled GW2, then took the disc and threw it out the nearest window into his backyard, to which the dogs happily devoured it and tore it apart.

I’ll tell you my experience. I had to keep switching guilds because I was pretty much the only one that ever logged in anymore. And they were massive guilds too! Each had just over 470 members, and they were thriving a few months ago. I am now in a guild with 100 members, of which 30 are active every few days. I can’t find anyone in PvE (and I play PvE for like 6 hours a day), and I can’t even capture a mini tower in WvW because I’m the only one there. Honestly, even patch days are looking sad on my server. There used to be huge numbers of people that showed up. Now I’m lucky to even get 7 people for Jormag or any other meta boss.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most hyperbolic post in the history of the GW2 forums.

You wish I was exaggerating, because then you wouldn’t have to admit that your precious GW2 is dying and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Do you know what we call a baseless claim with no evidence to back it up? It’s called fiction.

There’s no evidence the game is dying. And by none, I mean zero. Zilch. Nada.

You can say anything you want and so can I.

Evidence, however, doesn’t support you.

xephire.8324:

Yes its fun for the first 2 weeks ^^.

Or a year, if you’re me.

xephire.8324:

I prefer getting nothing……..as the gift was nothing in the first place or just to infuriate players…………

I think we’d all prefer you got nothing.

Those scrolls are kitten good buffs and I got a boatload of them. I’m buffed for weeks of my actual play time.

You focus on the mini, I focus on the extra magic find.

Enjoy your unhappiness.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

But a treadmill, by definition, never ends. So if legendary is the final tier, then it can’t be a treadmill, because it’s final. That’s a definition.

You can call a bird a stone, but a bird isn’t a stone.

Legendary is not a gear tier. Legendary is a prestige skin. Legendary stats are not different than the stats of whatever the highest tier is. Thus, it cannot be thought of as a final tier. If ANet never adds another tier beyond Ascended, then Ascended would be the highest tier. We don’t yet know if that will or won’t be the case.

No definition of treadmill that I can find includes “never ends” as part of it. A treadmill does include an endless belt as one of its components. The belt is important to the treadmill’s function, but it is not the purpose of the treadmill.

That said, the function of a treadmill is to allow or cause the user to walk in place. However, the purpose of a treadmill is not to be “always on.” It is to power something or get health results. The purpose of a gear treadmill in an MMO is to promote the game’s longevity in the face of players who desire to play the game a lot. That is the purpose of Ascended.

Sometimes, people argue about the meaning of words to sidetrack from the real issues being discussed. I prefer to talk about purpose and intent rather than about whether a word that has been altered to fit a particular context is being used “properly” or not. The rapid evolution of words in popular culture means that their meaning cannot be set in stone. Thus, discussing the meanings of words is important in discourse so we know what each other is talking about. However, that discussion should be tangential to the real issues, rather than being used as a means to win an argument.

Legendary is a final tier, because Anet has said if you get a legendary it will be equal to the final tier of gear. I have a legendary trident on my necro and a legendary rifle on my engineer.

That means the day this new tier goes life, I have top tier gear without grinding or farming. You can say it’s not a tier all you want…but it works as a tier. And therefore, it’s not a treadmill, or wouldn’t be if ascended armor works the same way.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Zypher.7609:

Ohh look another thread about the birthday gift. It is great you feel entitled enough to complain about a free item. Glad you had to make your own thread instead of commenting on the other ones.

“Play more, whine less.” – Zypher.7609

I agree with your point about creating a new thread for a topic that has been discussed to death in who knows how many other threads, but….

“…free item.”

Hmm. So this item is available without spending any money ? I am pretty sure that only people who have spent money on GW2 get the minipet. When there is a threshold of, “must spend at least X amount of money,” to get something it is by definition not free.

Everyone who bought the game gets that minipet when their character turns 1 year old. You don’t have to spend money in the gem shop to get that mini.

But as a tradition from GW1, it is kinda expected to be a part of the game…either way, I spent money on the game, so you can’t say that it’s free.

That’s what what the guy I was responding to was implying, but thanks for your input.

My advice to you is to find a guild of people who play like you (like-minded) people…and enjoy the game with others. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but the best of all is that sharing this experience is far greater than just seeing it yourself.

Sharing the fun is almost as much fun for me as experiencing it the first time myself.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Vayne, you are not too complex to understand. The reason why so many, including myself, don’t care your comments seriously isn’t because, as you claim, others see you as someone who thinks ArenaNet can do no mistake. No, it’s something subtler than that.

I went to Guild Wars 2 looking for a fun game. Others came here looking for a way to “work” in order to show off in front of fellow players. Others wanted a place where to socialize with other people, some wanted a place where they could be the annoyance that gank fellow players from the shadows without the chance for a fair fight, and so on.

All those groups are different, but there is one even more different than all of those: the players who came to Guild Wars 2 looking for a life. Those who embrace escapism to an infinite degree.

You talk a lot about your life. We know you are 51 years old, retired despite being relativelly young, and that you spend your days taking care of someone who’s crippled (in some meaning of that work), probably your wife or your yourself. You mentioned in that /age topic that you spend more than 12 hours per day playing this game.

In other words, Guild Wars 2 is your life. You or the person you are stuck with cannot run through a grass plain like the one in Queensdale. You cannot do something productive with your (real) life. GW2 is pretty much everything you have.

That’s why it’s hard to take your opinion seriously. All the “I know a lot of people who like this”, “I have talked with a lot of editors who agree with me”, “everyone in my guild loves that aspect of the game” comments are empty – they are just baseless comments lacking any evidence, from someone who plays this game because he has no other option, not because he simply wants to.

This post shows how little you actually understand me, even though you think you do. No one is going to understand me from a few sentences on a forum.

I have a life. I play this because my wife (who I care for) plays this too. See, spending time with your wife is part of having a life, whether you’re retired or not. But we also do other things. I read…I still write, I have friends (both real life and online). You really don’t have a clue.

I play this game to have fun, this isn’t a life for me. In fact, this game has specifically failed to be the kind of escapism I crave…because it’s not immersive, something I’ve commented about in multiple threads.

But I don’t care if you misunderstand me. I don’t even care if you ignore or don’t take seriously what I have to say.

Because there are enough people that do take me seriously and those people are the people I’m talking to. People who want to judge me one way or another…they’re perfectly welcome to do so.

Doesn’t change reality one single jot.

Zeldain.5710:

Vayne.8563:

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Don’t ask me why.

I’m sorry, but the percentage of people who are PAYING monthly for a game and NOT playing it is minute, at best. And if you DO believe what you’re saying, then surely you have to agree that box sales in no way reflects active players…

Don’t move the goalposts – there’s nothing wrong with asking ArenaNet to define “active” players just as Blizzard has done.

Then, and only then, could we get a bead on the original topic of “is this game growing” because anecdotal evidence we have shows the opposite.

By the way, this isn’t directed at “you” specifically but rather the collective “you” including ArenaNet

We don’t know that. Again a lot of people subscribe to games long term..because it’s cheaper, and they think they’ll be playing a long time and stop. Not most, but not necessarily few either.

Take WoW’s idea of who plays. Now they can’t players in China as subscribers, even though none of those players actually subscribe.

They count people who bought a year’s subscription to WoW to get D3 for free (because then the year’s sub only cost them like 30 bucks). Are you saying 5 guys bought that? A million? No one really knows.

It was a good enough offer where I even considered it…and I’d almost never have played WoW…certainly not for a year. But every single person who bought into that deal…the annual pass deal, is considered a WoW subscriber. We don’t know how many people bought the annual pass, but I guarantee you not all of them play WoW still, or even really played it at all.

Thirty bucks for a year’s subscription plus the price of a game you were going to buy anyway? How many people would YOU say that is?

Then you got games like Rift. When it launched, Rift was like magic. I really enjoyed it. It rapidly went down hill. I enjoyed it enough to buy a long term subscription. Why? Because it was cheaper per month. I only paid $120 for 12 months, so ten bucks a month instead of $15. I was the only guy who did it.

At that time, a ton of people who loved the game at launch were walking away. The forums were, at least annecdotally full of us. Everyone I started playing the game with left.

Rift kept getting more new people because they kept having free weekends and selling the game for 5 bucks and stuff like that. Good promotion and good uptake, because the starting zones were great.

But Rift probably never had a million people at one time. They were just good at rotating players.

Guild Wars 2 is good at that too. A lot of the original players have left. Some have come back, but no one can say the percentage. That said, if 75% of everyone who played the game left, and then more people come and like it…the newer people are actually less likely to leave. Why?

Because they’re starting a game that is as it is. They don’t feel they were promised a game with no ascended gear, because that’s already in the game. They don’t feel the living story is kitten, because if they bought then game when it started it was already here. It’s not a change for them. So if they like it, they have more of it.

I think the people who originally bought this game looking for a specific experience, one like Guild Wars 1 were disappointed. This is particularly true of the competitive PvEer’s and the PvPers. But then there were a whole lot of people who played Guild Wars 1 non-competitively in PvE and never touched PvP. They just played (like me).

And I’m not so sure most of us are disenfranchised. As an annecdote there are 120 people in my guild and almost half of them have played Guild Wars 1 and probably a third of them consider themselves Guild Wars 1 fans.

But we don’t really know enough about any company to talk about goalposts. Because every company, including Blizzard, tries to make themselves look better. I’m convinced that was the purpose of things like the annual pass in the first place. They get both D3 sales and a chance to artificially raise the subscription rate of WoW for a year. I’d be stunned of at least a million people didn’t take Blizzard up on that, who had no real intention of playing WoW longer than just checking it out briefly.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

So you ground out stuff. And you were happy to ground out stuff.

I got the max titles for the skills so I could have BIS skills on many characters including Sunspear, Lightbringer, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor and Ebon Vanguard.

And if you say those skills didn’t mean a whole lot more to GW 1 PvE than BIS gear here, I’d say you were dead wrong. Do you know why Anet limited those skills to 3 per skill bar? Because even with three you were too OP to play normal content. If you could have 5 or 6 of those skills you’d be unbeatable.

So you say over and over again my gear was the best, but your skills weren’t. And yet somehow that’s okay with you. The question is why are skills and grinding out that different from gear.

I say it’s in your head.

I didn’t completely answer your question when you asked me the same thing so I thought about it a bit more.

The biggest difference I see between the EotN skills and Ascended gear is that the skills did not replace something that players previously did or earned. They did not make anything else purchased obsolete. While some people may feel Exotics are cheap and easy to obtain, not everyone feels that way and is one of the reasons they may complain about the added vertical progression.

Another thing is that the PvE skills were named that because they were not allowed in any form of PvP. That is also not the case for Ascended gear and is why some of the WvW crowd is upset. Especially as that gear was not available at the same time in that game mode.

The last thing that came to mind is that GW1 was very dependent on specific builds. Some builds took advantage of PvE skills, others did not. Gear is not optional. Everyone has to wear it. It will affect every event, challenge, build decision, etc. Many outcomes and decisions are impacted by a gear change.

I’ll see if I can stir up any additional thoughts.

Anet seperated PvP into WvW and SPvP and said, from the very beginning, WvW was never meant to be balanced. That’s why gear is allowed in WvW.

I don’t think exotics are so expensive that it’s such an issue that we have to replace them…particularly because the content doesn’t require it to be replaced.

As for the skills in Guild Wars 1…they were still more neccesary (or at least they’ll make a bigger difference in the long term, than ascended weapons will.

Thats why youll see “transended” weapons next year. Its a gear tremill, no point in denying it.

Sorry but without the content requiring the upgrade it’s not a treadmill. If I don’t need that gear to play the game…then it’s not a treadmill.

I played Rift. I needed a specific amount of focus to queue for a dungeon. Not to beat it…to queue for it.

That’s why I say it’s not a treadmill. In games with gear treadmills there’s a new tier of gear every 3-4 months. If Anet introduced a tier of gear every year and a half, slowly in stages, I wouldn’t call it a treadmill.

I would. Because one treadmill is set at a shallower incline than the other one does not make it “not a treadmill.” People get on real treadmills not because they want to go somewhere, but because they want a result — usually, cardio. A lot of them dislike the process (reading or listening to music to distract themselves), but they want the result.

It’s not about needing the gear, either. It’s about keeping the players who can go to other games to feed their playstyle, while hoping that the ones who don’t want this crap will stay anyway, because there’s nowhere else to go. Don’t you defend so many aspects of GW2 so vehemently because this game gives you enjoyment you cannot find in other games? So, you don’t value having BiS gear. There are people who do.

But a treadmill, by definition, never ends. So if legendary is the final tier, then it can’t be a treadmill, because it’s final. That’s a definition.

You can call a bird a stone, but a bird isn’t a stone.

I like the game too…and I’ve been playing since the first beta. It’s taken some unexpected twists in how they present the game, which some people haven’t liked, but it suits me perfectly.

My biggest advice to you is don’t let the forums get you down. The game is way fun for me…the forums…not so much. lol

You only have a couple of days to do stuff before the next patch. I’d recommend focusing on the invasions while you can. It’s a good way to get a jump on your monthly, get some money to get started again, and I find them pretty intense.

Edit: Every hour on the hour, the zone location where Scarlet is invading will change. Just wait for it to ding and read where she us. Then zone to that location. You have ten minutes to get in…then just find a zerg and follow along.

Have fun!

GOSU.9574:

Everyone knows Anet doesn’t make “grindy games”, just ask Anet, or watch their pre-release video. You know, the one that also states they won’t have a gear tread mill in GW2….yeah….that video.

Strange, I watched every Guild Wars 2 video and never saw one that said we won’t have a gear treadmill.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

So you ground out stuff. And you were happy to ground out stuff.

I got the max titles for the skills so I could have BIS skills on many characters including Sunspear, Lightbringer, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor and Ebon Vanguard.

And if you say those skills didn’t mean a whole lot more to GW 1 PvE than BIS gear here, I’d say you were dead wrong. Do you know why Anet limited those skills to 3 per skill bar? Because even with three you were too OP to play normal content. If you could have 5 or 6 of those skills you’d be unbeatable.

So you say over and over again my gear was the best, but your skills weren’t. And yet somehow that’s okay with you. The question is why are skills and grinding out that different from gear.

I say it’s in your head.

I didn’t completely answer your question when you asked me the same thing so I thought about it a bit more.

The biggest difference I see between the EotN skills and Ascended gear is that the skills did not replace something that players previously did or earned. They did not make anything else purchased obsolete. While some people may feel Exotics are cheap and easy to obtain, not everyone feels that way and is one of the reasons they may complain about the added vertical progression.

Another thing is that the PvE skills were named that because they were not allowed in any form of PvP. That is also not the case for Ascended gear and is why some of the WvW crowd is upset. Especially as that gear was not available at the same time in that game mode.

The last thing that came to mind is that GW1 was very dependent on specific builds. Some builds took advantage of PvE skills, others did not. Gear is not optional. Everyone has to wear it. It will affect every event, challenge, build decision, etc. Many outcomes and decisions are impacted by a gear change.

I’ll see if I can stir up any additional thoughts.

Anet seperated PvP into WvW and SPvP and said, from the very beginning, WvW was never meant to be balanced. That’s why gear is allowed in WvW.

I don’t think exotics are so expensive that it’s such an issue that we have to replace them…particularly because the content doesn’t require it to be replaced.

As for the skills in Guild Wars 1…they were still more neccesary (or at least they’ll make a bigger difference in the long term, than ascended weapons will.

Thats why youll see “transended” weapons next year. Its a gear tremill, no point in denying it.

Sorry but without the content requiring the upgrade it’s not a treadmill. If I don’t need that gear to play the game…then it’s not a treadmill.

I played Rift. I needed a specific amount of focus to queue for a dungeon. Not to beat it…to queue for it.

That’s why I say it’s not a treadmill. In games with gear treadmills there’s a new tier of gear every 3-4 months. If Anet introduced a tier of gear every year and a half, slowly in stages, I wouldn’t call it a treadmill.

Really, so you claim they will just raise stats until you go around one-shotting everything you come across. rofl

Its a treadmill. Like pretty much any other MMO out there. Diference is that pretty much any other MMO out there does it better than GW2.

I don’t play other MMOs because I think they do it badly. You’re entitled to your opinion of course. But just because something has slight vertical progression doesn’t make it a treadmill.

After all, there was already vertical progression in the game from day one, and no one said a word about it. Rare 80 to Exotic 80 is vertical progression.

Ignorance is bliss i suppose.

Lots of people resort to insults when faced with a truth they don’t know how to deal with. Have a good night.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

So you ground out stuff. And you were happy to ground out stuff.

I got the max titles for the skills so I could have BIS skills on many characters including Sunspear, Lightbringer, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor and Ebon Vanguard.

And if you say those skills didn’t mean a whole lot more to GW 1 PvE than BIS gear here, I’d say you were dead wrong. Do you know why Anet limited those skills to 3 per skill bar? Because even with three you were too OP to play normal content. If you could have 5 or 6 of those skills you’d be unbeatable.

So you say over and over again my gear was the best, but your skills weren’t. And yet somehow that’s okay with you. The question is why are skills and grinding out that different from gear.

I say it’s in your head.

I didn’t completely answer your question when you asked me the same thing so I thought about it a bit more.

The biggest difference I see between the EotN skills and Ascended gear is that the skills did not replace something that players previously did or earned. They did not make anything else purchased obsolete. While some people may feel Exotics are cheap and easy to obtain, not everyone feels that way and is one of the reasons they may complain about the added vertical progression.

Another thing is that the PvE skills were named that because they were not allowed in any form of PvP. That is also not the case for Ascended gear and is why some of the WvW crowd is upset. Especially as that gear was not available at the same time in that game mode.

The last thing that came to mind is that GW1 was very dependent on specific builds. Some builds took advantage of PvE skills, others did not. Gear is not optional. Everyone has to wear it. It will affect every event, challenge, build decision, etc. Many outcomes and decisions are impacted by a gear change.

I’ll see if I can stir up any additional thoughts.

Anet seperated PvP into WvW and SPvP and said, from the very beginning, WvW was never meant to be balanced. That’s why gear is allowed in WvW.

I don’t think exotics are so expensive that it’s such an issue that we have to replace them…particularly because the content doesn’t require it to be replaced.

As for the skills in Guild Wars 1…they were still more neccesary (or at least they’ll make a bigger difference in the long term, than ascended weapons will.

Thats why youll see “transended” weapons next year. Its a gear tremill, no point in denying it.

Sorry but without the content requiring the upgrade it’s not a treadmill. If I don’t need that gear to play the game…then it’s not a treadmill.

I played Rift. I needed a specific amount of focus to queue for a dungeon. Not to beat it…to queue for it.

That’s why I say it’s not a treadmill. In games with gear treadmills there’s a new tier of gear every 3-4 months. If Anet introduced a tier of gear every year and a half, slowly in stages, I wouldn’t call it a treadmill.

Really, so you claim they will just raise stats until you go around one-shotting everything you come across. rofl

Its a treadmill. Like pretty much any other MMO out there. Diference is that pretty much any other MMO out there does it better than GW2.

I don’t play other MMOs because I think they do it badly. You’re entitled to your opinion of course. But just because something has slight vertical progression doesn’t make it a treadmill.

After all, there was already vertical progression in the game from day one, and no one said a word about it. Rare 80 to Exotic 80 is vertical progression.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

So you ground out stuff. And you were happy to ground out stuff.

I got the max titles for the skills so I could have BIS skills on many characters including Sunspear, Lightbringer, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor and Ebon Vanguard.

And if you say those skills didn’t mean a whole lot more to GW 1 PvE than BIS gear here, I’d say you were dead wrong. Do you know why Anet limited those skills to 3 per skill bar? Because even with three you were too OP to play normal content. If you could have 5 or 6 of those skills you’d be unbeatable.

So you say over and over again my gear was the best, but your skills weren’t. And yet somehow that’s okay with you. The question is why are skills and grinding out that different from gear.

I say it’s in your head.

I didn’t completely answer your question when you asked me the same thing so I thought about it a bit more.

The biggest difference I see between the EotN skills and Ascended gear is that the skills did not replace something that players previously did or earned. They did not make anything else purchased obsolete. While some people may feel Exotics are cheap and easy to obtain, not everyone feels that way and is one of the reasons they may complain about the added vertical progression.

Another thing is that the PvE skills were named that because they were not allowed in any form of PvP. That is also not the case for Ascended gear and is why some of the WvW crowd is upset. Especially as that gear was not available at the same time in that game mode.

The last thing that came to mind is that GW1 was very dependent on specific builds. Some builds took advantage of PvE skills, others did not. Gear is not optional. Everyone has to wear it. It will affect every event, challenge, build decision, etc. Many outcomes and decisions are impacted by a gear change.

I’ll see if I can stir up any additional thoughts.

Anet seperated PvP into WvW and SPvP and said, from the very beginning, WvW was never meant to be balanced. That’s why gear is allowed in WvW.

I don’t think exotics are so expensive that it’s such an issue that we have to replace them…particularly because the content doesn’t require it to be replaced.

As for the skills in Guild Wars 1…they were still more neccesary (or at least they’ll make a bigger difference in the long term, than ascended weapons will.

Thats why youll see “transended” weapons next year. Its a gear tremill, no point in denying it.

Sorry but without the content requiring the upgrade it’s not a treadmill. If I don’t need that gear to play the game…then it’s not a treadmill.

I played Rift. I needed a specific amount of focus to queue for a dungeon. Not to beat it…to queue for it.

That’s why I say it’s not a treadmill. In games with gear treadmills there’s a new tier of gear every 3-4 months. If Anet introduced a tier of gear every year and a half, slowly in stages, I wouldn’t call it a treadmill.

What about the other teams that are already working on that stuff? They don’t count? It’s not that every team Anet has is working on the living story. They have four teams working on it, and other teams working on other stuff.

Have more people alive and fighting will make the battle go faster and will thus provide the greatest chance of reward.

Anyone who doesn’t rez people in that kind of event doesn’t deserve the reward for beating it.

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

So you ground out stuff. And you were happy to ground out stuff.

I got the max titles for the skills so I could have BIS skills on many characters including Sunspear, Lightbringer, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor and Ebon Vanguard.

And if you say those skills didn’t mean a whole lot more to GW 1 PvE than BIS gear here, I’d say you were dead wrong. Do you know why Anet limited those skills to 3 per skill bar? Because even with three you were too OP to play normal content. If you could have 5 or 6 of those skills you’d be unbeatable.

So you say over and over again my gear was the best, but your skills weren’t. And yet somehow that’s okay with you. The question is why are skills and grinding out that different from gear.

I say it’s in your head.

I didn’t completely answer your question when you asked me the same thing so I thought about it a bit more.

The biggest difference I see between the EotN skills and Ascended gear is that the skills did not replace something that players previously did or earned. They did not make anything else purchased obsolete. While some people may feel Exotics are cheap and easy to obtain, not everyone feels that way and is one of the reasons they may complain about the added vertical progression.

Another thing is that the PvE skills were named that because they were not allowed in any form of PvP. That is also not the case for Ascended gear and is why some of the WvW crowd is upset. Especially as that gear was not available at the same time in that game mode.

The last thing that came to mind is that GW1 was very dependent on specific builds. Some builds took advantage of PvE skills, others did not. Gear is not optional. Everyone has to wear it. It will affect every event, challenge, build decision, etc. Many outcomes and decisions are impacted by a gear change.

I’ll see if I can stir up any additional thoughts.

Anet seperated PvP into WvW and SPvP and said, from the very beginning, WvW was never meant to be balanced. That’s why gear is allowed in WvW.

I don’t think exotics are so expensive that it’s such an issue that we have to replace them…particularly because the content doesn’t require it to be replaced.

As for the skills in Guild Wars 1…they were still more neccesary (or at least they’ll make a bigger difference in the long term, than ascended weapons will.

Kyrel.8942:

At PAX they said players logging in and such have been on the rise steadily

But what does that mean? On the rise by 3 players? 6 players? It’s not really telling us anything.

Lafiel.9372:

As I have said before, I think looking at your guild and friend roster is actually a good way to judge whether this game is losing players on a small scale.

To Vayne – not sure how old you are, but I’ve played my share of mmos, games older than runescape I believe. I started out in 2D mmos back in late 90s to early 2000s games like dransik classic now known as ashen empires (i’m surprised it’s still here, really brings back memories as a kid lol). Korean games like ragnarok online etc, all of them showed players online back then. This is just a couple examples, i’m sure there are more out there. But this point is not important, we all know why companies now choose not to show players online.

Companies today in most MMOs have more players than they ever did back then, so I’m not sure why you think they don’t say it now.

It’s a lose/lose situation for a company…because inevitably, everything gets compared to WoW. No one has close to WoW’s numbers…so not one says numbers. That’s my take on it.

Manuhell.2759:

Considering that many people crafted that armor especially for magic find, it is all but minimal.
Also, if they didn’t want to cause issues, they should have avoided to put it to armors and weapons to begin with if they already knew they would remove it with no compensation. And considering they were introduced quite recently, they should have known – and acted otherwise.
Obviously this also means people wouldn’t have used up resources to get the recipes and to craft them and wouldn’t have consumed transmutation crystals to skin them…

It was well known, even when the celestial armor came out, that magic find would be removed from armor. Anyone who bought it for magic find didn’t do their homework.

Sucks, but there it is.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Really wish I could see the preview. Guess ill have to wait until youtubers and blogcasters come back from pax and upload. Anyone know of a link to the recording of the livestream?

Until then, I speculate itll be kind of challenging, but nothing a guild or large semi competent PUG group cant handle. Im guessing there will be a few forum goers complaining about difficulty at first, until the list of mechanics becomes second nature to players, who will then return to complaining about the lack of trinity and how everything is zerks and zergs.

I hope (yet somewhat doubt) that when people play it, the revamped content will be engaging enough to capture the attention of those playing the content. It seems to me that these new mechanics will be looked upon as ‘so whats’ rather than the missing pieces to the puzzle. But hey, seems and ‘is’ are two different things, which is why Im kicking myself that i didnt see the preview.

Now on the rewards front, I fear they will not be enough to satisfy the above type of player. This will perpecuate the problem im predicting because in the eye of such players, they would rather have to face a 5 min zerg for rubbish rewards, than 45 min zerg for a unforeseeable tiny chance at decent stuff.

Id suggest including a token based system for the unique skins, minis and anything else specific to the dragon champ. Tradeable at a NPC that becomes available after the fight is won.
The ascended mats, weapons and components could be RNG with a low chance, in accordance to rarity (weps extremely low, mats not so low).
The rest of the items should be reworked to a tier above. What I mean is all blues to turn to greens, all greens to turn to rares and the guarenteed rare to be turned exotic. The guarenteed exotic is really important imo, as even if the player is unlucky and doesnt recieve any ascended mats, they still have the exo to salvage for dark matter.

Unfortunately to alot of players the rewards do come first, which means that alot hinges on the way they are updated. IF the reward structure is similar to my suggestion, with the inclusion of non rng unique rewards and updated loot tables with current ones, I can see the major complaint from players being about the other dragon champs and ‘WHEN WILL THEY REWARD LIKE TEQ???’. That in the eyes of many players, ASLONG as its ALSO considered an engaging and challenging encounter, would be evidence of a successful system and revamp.
Then Anet can concentrate on making all other boss encounters as diverse, fun and engaging as possible, knowing they have a successful reward system to push players into the content.

Live stream is up on the twitch channel here:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/454437568

Zeldain.5710:

Vayne.8563:

I know Eve does report that, but again, most companies don’t. Even WoW doesn’t usually tell you how many players are on at the same time and they have 8 million subscribers.

Players = subscribers in EVE’s case.
Players = subscribers in WoW’s case.
Sales does not = players in GW2’s case.

We don’t care how many people are playing at the same time… we care how many players are actively playing.

What I would like is for ArenaNet to define what an “active player” is (similar to how Blizzard has defined an active player/subscriber as someone who has paid to play the game during the course of a given month.)

ArenaNet could do the same thing – even “logging in once in a calendar month” would be enough of a definition.

Then we could accurately measure if the game is growing or not. Sales is simply an indication of sales, not players.

Players DO NOT equal subscribers, I’m sorry to say. I subscribed to Rift for six months. I played for 3. Even though I stopped playing I was counted.

WoW had deals where if you subbed to WoW for a year you got D3 for free. Those subs counted whether people paid or not.

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Don’t ask me why.

Hamartia.3421:

They said they wanted to do this with minimal issues for players. This is an issue for players.

This is a minimal issue for players. They didn’t say no issues.

Shinlen.4695:

So i’ve bought magic find infusion on 2 characters and 1 ascended amulet with magic find. Ive paid for it 70 laurens, so it is about 2 months of playing. Am i going to be screwed now and lose 2 months of playing? It doesn’t looks nice to me…

The infusion should still work. That has nothing to do with the magic find on armor or weapons. Thus you didn’t waste your money and don’t need a refund on it.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Vayne.8563:

Lafiel.9372:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Well I feel like there is less people. For example, I regularly play on server other servers. Back in the days, I would notice a lot more people doing the PvE content (the main ones) like fire elemental or jormag etc. Now this could very well be the doing of the current invasion but even before that time, i’ve noticed drop off in player numbers. I just want to see if other people feel it too.

Also, as conner has explained perfectly well, the numbers given by anet can be twisted, no company is going to give you the cold hard facts (that their game is losing players). Like I said, there could have been a significant drop off in the last 3 months that no one knows about and the numbers stated them are incredibly vague.

The problem is the population keeps moving around. It’s not a static population but an active one. Every time Anet changes something, the people who are doing it change.

When people were farming the flame champions in the cursed shore, you couldn’t get a hit on them unless you were in a group, and playing a staff guardian. Otherwise you wouldn’t get credit for a lot of the kills.

This was less than a month ago. But not everyone one there. There were also champion trains in Queensdale and Frostgorge. Then the pavillion opened and it was the place to be, so people went there. And some people kept themselves entertained with the gauntlet.

Now people are doing the zone wide events. I’ve yet to be on a server those aren’t packed on. There are multiple events, multiple overflows for each of the events.

So yeah, there are less people in WvW and less people in the word.

But when they changed WvW a couple of months ago and introduced WxP, it was new so WvW was packed.

Sure it seems like less people are in WvW…because less people are in WvW. That doesn’t say anything about all the overflows I keep getting into.

if thats the case then theres no point at the thread because everything on our part is pure speculation and any evidence shedding light can be “twisted”.
At some point you have to either give the company thats providing you your product the benifit of the doubt, this doesnt just go for anet but for every company that produces all of the things we use, without it, the sake of argument is none existent.

but take note though, Arena net is a subsidary of Ncsoft, a company thats traded, at least partially, Publically, meaning it producers information, such as financial ones for their stockholders, meaning transparency and with it integrity is utmost importance, supposedly Manipulation or Bullkittenting something like the info graph would only live to haunt them, Its most definetly against their philosophy but perception will always prevail over reality.

We’ve seen the financial report. That much we have seen. Beyond that, we don’t know how many people are actually playing the game.

But we also know people tend to gravitate to new stuff and people tend to gravitate to profitable stuff. So if something is both new and profitable, it’s logical that other areas of the game will be less populated, because the new stuff is more populated.

It doesn’t answer the question at all, so yeah you’re right. There really is no point to discuss this because no one can answer it.

arjeidi.2690:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Zypher.7609:

Ohh look another thread about the birthday gift. It is great you feel entitled enough to complain about a free item. Glad you had to make your own thread instead of commenting on the other ones.

“Play more, whine less.” – Zypher.7609

I agree with your point about creating a new thread for a topic that has been discussed to death in who knows how many other threads, but….

“…free item.”

Hmm. So this item is available without spending any money ? I am pretty sure that only people who have spent money on GW2 get the minipet. When there is a threshold of, “must spend at least X amount of money,” to get something it is by definition not free.

Everyone who bought the game gets that minipet when their character turns 1 year old. You don’t have to spend money in the gem shop to get that mini.

That’s the point, I think. Everyone who is playing the game has purchased the game. Its not as if we sign up using their free-to-play option and then complain about a mini given to us. Everything you get in GW2, whether you like it or dislike it, requires a purchase.

I was just responding to the quote, I quoted, where the poster suggested you had to spend money to get the minipet. I get the point.

Lafiel.9372:

Zeldain.5710:

My feeling (with no numbers of course, purely anecdotal evidence) is that while ArenaNet seems to be pretty decent at selling boxes and getting new players, there are more players leaving out the back of the bus.

So to me, it feels like the net population is shrinking despite new players coming in.

I’ll say it again – the only way to measure this is if they reported players instead of sales. But they seem to refuse that.

I agree, I remember the days when most mmos were proud to show the amount of players online at any given time on a server.

Nope, I don’t remember that at all. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t happened. Because most MMOs didn’t have huge numbers of players. I know Eve does report that, but again, most companies don’t. Even WoW doesn’t usually tell you how many players are on at the same time and they have 8 million subscribers.

Yargesh.4965:

xephire.8324:

This thread has officially become yargesh vs MikaHR

might as well be. Most of the threads seem devolve into 2 people saying ‘is’ and ’isn’t’ at each other.

Isn’t! (just kidding lol)

Lafiel.9372:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Well I feel like there is less people. For example, I regularly play on server other servers. Back in the days, I would notice a lot more people doing the PvE content (the main ones) like fire elemental or jormag etc. Now this could very well be the doing of the current invasion but even before that time, i’ve noticed drop off in player numbers. I just want to see if other people feel it too.

Also, as conner has explained perfectly well, the numbers given by anet can be twisted, no company is going to give you the cold hard facts (that their game is losing players). Like I said, there could have been a significant drop off in the last 3 months that no one knows about and the numbers stated them are incredibly vague.

The problem is the population keeps moving around. It’s not a static population but an active one. Every time Anet changes something, the people who are doing it change.

When people were farming the flame champions in the cursed shore, you couldn’t get a hit on them unless you were in a group, and playing a staff guardian. Otherwise you wouldn’t get credit for a lot of the kills.

This was less than a month ago. But not everyone one there. There were also champion trains in Queensdale and Frostgorge. Then the pavillion opened and it was the place to be, so people went there. And some people kept themselves entertained with the gauntlet.

Now people are doing the zone wide events. I’ve yet to be on a server those aren’t packed on. There are multiple events, multiple overflows for each of the events.

So yeah, there are less people in WvW and less people in the word.

But when they changed WvW a couple of months ago and introduced WxP, it was new so WvW was packed.

Sure it seems like less people are in WvW…because less people are in WvW. That doesn’t say anything about all the overflows I keep getting into.

xephire.8324:

Fernling.1729:

I actually blame the lack of healing/tanking for the zergy gameplay that we currently have.

Nice point there

Only a nice point if you’re talking about the open world. It’s nice how you take the time to agree personally with every single person who says something you “like”. I no post of yours have I seen context or reason. Just one liners that cause arguments.

I’d like to see a more thought out post from you about why you think that there’s more strategy to the trinity than not the trinity (keeping in mind that in most games in the open world you don’t use the trinity anyway). Most people solo in the open world in WoW till level cap when they do instances with the trinity.

So maybe it would be better of you compared dungeons with and without the trinity, instead of the open world which is a red herring.

Jatacid.3725:

So, while this does the job, it won’t address the problem.

To address the problem of “LFG”, they need to add incentive and quality-of-life.

For example, in this LFG interface – there should be a subcategory called “Volunteer to Fill a Group”. This category will list all parties which have 4/5 players, or are older than 30 minutes. If you join a group with this, you can earn bonus rewards during the event.

Otherwise, there is absolutely no benefit of using this over using gw2lfg.com other than you don’t have to alt-tab.

There is a benefit. No one can list something under your name and grief you. That alone is worth it. And it has happened on lfg.com there has been more than one thread about it.

Ashen.2907:

Zypher.7609:

Ohh look another thread about the birthday gift. It is great you feel entitled enough to complain about a free item. Glad you had to make your own thread instead of commenting on the other ones.

“Play more, whine less.” – Zypher.7609

I agree with your point about creating a new thread for a topic that has been discussed to death in who knows how many other threads, but….

“…free item.”

Hmm. So this item is available without spending any money ? I am pretty sure that only people who have spent money on GW2 get the minipet. When there is a threshold of, “must spend at least X amount of money,” to get something it is by definition not free.

Everyone who bought the game gets that minipet when their character turns 1 year old. You don’t have to spend money in the gem shop to get that mini.

xephire.8324:

Companies never post their game failing.They are trying desperately to get new players now through their PR bs……Which indicates why the player base are declining.

So according to your logic, no game is ever growing because publishers of all games never post their game is failing, and they all have PR bs. Which means all games say they’re growing which means to you all games are failing.

I understand completely now. Carry on.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Plenty of people thought Guild Wars 1 was grindy as hell…it wasn’t for gear. But the gear here, even though it’s BIS…it just doesn’t make that much of a difference.

I ground out multiple sets of Obsidian armor for various alts. I enjoyed very much doing that. But once I had that gear, my stats were still exactly the same as the guy who had the cheapest set of gear. And I thought that was revolutionary, and a very, very good thing.

Skill and imagination made that game so much fun to play.

Having better numbers than someone else just because I had more time to grind out some gear doesn’t make me a better player. Which is what I hated about all those other MMO’s.

Gah…I don’t know why I bother. I’ve said this a hundred times on these forums. ArenaNet aren’t trying to make a good game. There’s no pride or prestige in anything in GW2. It’s all fluff, or bought with the credit card. And always will be. I don’t think they’re going to change at all.

And I’d be willing to bet that the next time there’s a sharp dropoff in players, they’ll add more tier gear to grind…

So you ground out stuff. And you were happy to ground out stuff.

I got the max titles for the skills so I could have BIS skills on many characters including Sunspear, Lightbringer, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor and Ebon Vanguard.

And if you say those skills didn’t mean a whole lot more to GW 1 PvE than BIS gear here, I’d say you were dead wrong. Do you know why Anet limited those skills to 3 per skill bar? Because even with three you were too OP to play normal content. If you could have 5 or 6 of those skills you’d be unbeatable.

So you say over and over again my gear was the best, but your skills weren’t. And yet somehow that’s okay with you. The question is why are skills and grinding out that different from gear.

I say it’s in your head.

Keep in mind folks, this isn’t in the next update, as someone has stated, but in the update after, Sept 17 (along with the LFG tool).

xephire.8324:

This game has the worst end game of gaming history………..

You mean a game that actually promoted itself as not having an end game has the worst end game in history? I this your claim.

I think that most MMO end games suck really hard, and I’m glad one company had the gumption to get away from the raid mentality.

I tend to finish my achievements during the first week of living story and make the second week a week off from living story.

Make your own vacation and you’re keeping it fresh. During the second week I do other stuff, like I always did.

I like this better than the holy trinity. They’re not going to introduce a trinity into the game for the players who want it. It’s not happening.

On the other note, Guild Wars 1 didn’t have a trinity because it had no true tanking. It just had healing. I played Guild Wars 1 for years without any tank at all.

The easiest characters to play are probably Guardian, warrior and ranger.

Warriors are better in PvE than PvP. Guardians are better in PvP than PvE.

Guardians excel in all areas of the game.

Actually I sort of like the buff scrolls. They’re more use to me than a mini. They last a day each. I have a lot of alts. I even got some duplicates I wasnt’ entitled too.

Basically I can buff my magic find for a couple of weeks.

The mini situation, however, definitely sucks.

JK Arrow.7102:

I won’t disagree that some of the PvE skills were OP, namely the few you listed. There was plenty of complaining on the GWGuru boards about it too. Players back then realized that it trivialized much of the content. The boards were full of requests to nerf Shadow Form.

While Anet strangely changed SF to where some considered it better, they actually did reduce the effectiveness of several of the PvE sills including the well known Ursan nerf. They didn’t want people yelling Ursan R8 or kick. Which is a far cry from where we are today in GW2. Zerk anyone? Soon to be Ascended Zerk.

I’m not complaining about more ascended gear making content easier, although it will. I’m complaining about added vertical progression that we were led to believe wouldn’t be a part of this revolutionary ground breaking innovative MMO.

I understand. I’m just not understanding the difference between skill progression, which you had to grind to level or gear progression which you can get casually if you want.

Grind is grind. I didn’t grind in Guild Wars 1 and I’m not grinding here. It’s just a mindset.

Plenty of people thought Guild Wars 1 was grindy as hell…it wasn’t for gear. But the gear here, even though it’s BIS…it just doesn’t make that much of a difference.

That’s why I can let it go. That doesn’t mean I’m thrilled about it. But I don’t see this as game breaking, that’s all.

My preference would be cosmetic only progression but I understand too many people can’t live with that…and that is a problem.

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

JK Arrow.7102:

What he means is that GW1 had a level cap and max gear that was reached extremely early on in the game. Only the first few hours were spent working towards stats. The other 99% of your time in game was spent doing whatever you wanted. If that meant grinding for better LOOKING gear, that was your choice. But in no way was that time spent working towards BETTER gear. That is the difference.

So there were no skills that got better in Guild Wars 1 with grinding. I’m asking because I remember grinding a whole lot of luxon points in order to get MORE POWERFUL by having my “Save Yourselves” skill upgraded so I could run my imbagon paragon in DOA.

Oh yeah and I remember upgrading my technobabble so that was more powerful by grinding out Asura rep…oh and I definitely remember grinding out my Sunspear and Lightbringer Titles to get those skills up. I often grinded to get more powerful in Guild Wars 1.

I have no idea what game you were playing.

Now it is true that that extra power had nothing to do with armor and gear…but it was still grind for power, so please spare me.

Must have touched a nerve.

Oh I played GW1 all right. 8 Characters 1 of each profession, 2 GWAMMs, over 130 total maxed titles, 6000+ hours. I played GW1.

I don’t see how you can even compare a few optional slot skills that get more powerful as your character does specific tasks related to those skills to gear that you always wear that gets replaced at the whim of the designer with something with better stats that is a time gated money sink.

This whole thing is about moving from a horizontal progression dress up game to a vertical power creep grindfest. That is why people will continue to complain.

Sorry but those skills brought far more power to the game than ALL the ascended gear. And I mean by an order of magnitude.

Or didn’t you notice that entire builds were designed around some of them. Imbagon paragons designed around “save yourselves”. The perma sin designed around the sunspear skill.

Just pain inverter alone rewrote how easy the game was.

There is no way in creation you can seriously say that those skills didn’t have a greater impact on the ease of PvE than ascended gear will.

Edit: That’s not even counting stuff like Ursan. Looking for Ursan R8! Ring any bells?

All any MMO is is a list of things to do. They all work like this for a reason.

There’s no way any development team can create enough content to keep people playing for the ridiculous number of hours people expect to play an MMO for.

You pay $60 for a video game, that lasts 15-20 hours (if you’re lucky). You payed the same for Guild Wars 2…but you’re supposed to play it for hundreds and eventually thousands of hours. That’s the equivalent at least of dozens of games.

No one can create that much content, so instead they give you things to do. You either do them, or you don’t. Or you do the things you want to do.

I’m not sure why this is such a shock to people.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

zeromius.1604:

I think the real problem is that people…judge a game based on very specific factors that they consider to be important.

Doesn’t pretty much everyone judge something’s worth to them by those factors that are important to them ?

It would be pretty silly to try judging something’s worth to you based on factors that mean little or nothing to you.

“Hmm, I think that the Trailblazer is the car for me because it has four-wheel drive..which I do not need nor will I ever use….”

Nope, not every judges things on what’s important to them.

For example, the very most important RPG element I crave is immersion and Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have it at all. I realized it early on, decided it’s okay to play games without immersion and I’m having fun.

Now I could have easily gone the other way. I could have said this game has no immersion so it sucks. But it doesn’t suck, in spite having no immersion.

Some people are more adapatable or tolerant…some people attach themselves to certain criteria and they must have this criteria.

That’s why I’m often less jaded when it comes to watching movies than most of my friends. I don’t just judge a movie by my standards…I look at what the goal of the creators were and I judge at least in part of that.

Essentially, I don’t go to see Tombraider the Movie, and expect a deep and compelling drama.

Honest question:

Are you intentionally misrepresenting my statement or is it a case of misunderstanding?

Must be misunderstanding: I’m looking at this line:

“Doesn’t pretty much everyone judge something’s worth to them by those factors that are important to them ?”

I don’t. I just stuff on what they’re intended to be. That’s all I’m trying to say.

Note the part that says, “worth to them,” please. I am not making any statement about some sort of absolute value or worth to the user base as a whole. Also note that something being of little or no worth to one person because it is unimportant to them does not mean that it, “sucks,” merely that it doesn’t matter to them.

You give the example of immersion lacking in GW2. But you also state that you find GW2 to be fun. It seems that fun is one of those important factors for you. Would you continue to play and financially support GW2 if it was not fun for you ? I imagine not as you would be judging its worth to you by a factor that is important to you and would likely move on to find a game that you would enjoy.

It’s fun for me, because I’m not attached to the more important aspect of immersion. Fun is important, immersion more so.

I could have hated this game, if I were attached to a pre-conceived notion. That’s all I’m saying.