Guild Wars 2

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It can be done, but it’s much harder now. With the first push and zerg moving to new pastures, some events will be impossible solo. This, sadly, will include some hero points and the like because of timers.

Unfortunately, ArenaNet went the way of Silverwastes with events that required a zerg to complete in coordination. Again, now that the rush is dead, so are any attempts to do certain content without said zerg. Dragon Stand is the prime example because even mapping will need zergs to complete because content is locked behind quests. In order to gain access to more of the map, those quests must be successful . . . unless you’re clever with some climbing over the environment.

Personally, I expect an overhaul of this situation in the future. But for now? You’re not going to solo certain content.

Sorry.

People keep saying it’s much harder, and yet people do it every single day. People in my guild are working on it now.

Saying it’s hard doesn’t make it hard. What makes it hard is people insisting on playing one way and never changing what they do no matter the situation.

That’s what makes it hard.

Don’t solo,. Seriously. There are generally enough people in the zones where you can make a bit of progress at a time, just by calling out in map chat that you need help with something and being a bit patient.

Yesterday I came across a guy at a hero point. He was frustrated because he couldnt’ solo the champion. I said hang out.

I called out for help in map chat, linked a way point and we had three more guys there in less than two minutes. Then we killed the boss. If you have a mentor or commander tag, you can also pop that, it doesn’t hurt. The mentor tag is particularly easy to get.

You don’t have to group with people to follow a group and you don’t have to stay with a group as long as the group is together.

I follow people and leave and follow different people all the time. It’s really not that hard. If you don’t know where to go, odds are someone around does. Just follow them. It’s like having a group.

Edit: Btw, I’d be happy to help show you around the new zones if you like.

Blude.6812:

At least I finally found a good map at 8:30 am , succeeded and got my tiger and electric. Then I went after pods and found that the clock ticked down and boom! the hammer came down and couldn’t grab all the pods in the tiger area.

Well you don’t even need to win to get your wyvern and tiger anymore. You can get it pretty much at any time. Same with opening pods. You can open pods in those areas at any time. They’re no longer locked off by winning.

Rhapsedy.1569:

Vayne.8563:

If the game was already ruined, how did hot ruin it. You can’t really have it both ways.

He said the game was in trouble not already ruined.

Sure and now it’s ruined. But based on what?

First of all, many MMOs plan to go free to play before they even launch. But for a game that’s buy to play, it could indicate something completely different than a subscription game.

In a buy to play game, virtually any of them, people who play the game that are interested tend to buy it early. And eventually those people are used up and only people less interested might try it. The trick is to remove as many barriers to entry as you can so more people try it.

For all anyone knows, this was always in the business plan. Making generalizations that MMOs do or don’t go free to play unless they’re in trouble is not only silly but it’s quite probably wrong.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

As much as I like some of the changes . . . yes. Yes, it did. But the game was apparently in trouble beforehand. No MMO goes free-to-play because things are going well.

I distinctly remember when Colin announced free-to-play. The audience reaction was more than apathetic. And, from the look on his face, he knew it.

Yes, HoT ruined the game, but it wasn’t the only thing that did.

If the game was already ruined, how did hot ruin it. You can’t really have it both ways.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Killface.1896:

There is just no new events added to the game anymore,those raid update are part of the HOTM expansion that they had promised,now we need to wait for the underwater expansion that come out sometime in 2017….

This is patently false. The last update added over 50 new events. Also every other Tuesday for the last 2 months has added in an additional 3-10 events.

Additionally there was significant WvW updates, PvP seasons, Gliding added to the entire old world, a world boss revamp, QOL updates and a significant number of bug fixes. The amount of raid content has been miniscule compared to the open world PvE content added in the same time period.

Fractals had some decent updates too, let’s not forget.

HoT has been far better received since the April patch than it was at launch. It’s old news. It didn’t ruin the game. It didn’t destroy the game. It probably drove some people from the game and attracted other people.

At most, it ruined the game for you.

Which is okay. Not everyone is going to like every expansion. This has happened in every MMO pretty much ever.

Daroon.1736:

Vayne.8563:

mXz.4512:

Happens to me every other time I’m in a squad during the DS meta. Then upon seeing a 50/50 full map —> “Map is empty, receive a volunteer boon to transfer to a more populated map.” But only dumps me to an even less populated map.

Then I Look at squad map again… 50/50. This really needs to be fixed asap.

Get to DS early. Join a squad of peoiple waiting to go to a new map. Go to the new map. Get the maximum time limit and never have to deal with that again. Profit.

Anet actually gets round to fixing the megaserver problem that they have been aware of since before HOT launched and affects all HOT maps – Player can play the game as designed and not have to waste time map hopping to find a playable map. Even more profit

How is your post helping? Who benefits from it?

Do I want the mega server fixed? Of course I do. It may not be an easy fix. It may be they’re working on it and it’s taking time.

In the mean time people never have to go through the annoyance of this happening and I’ve proposed a solution that actually works, because I’ve done it time and time again.

Just trying to be helpful.

mXz.4512:

Happens to me every other time I’m in a squad during the DS meta. Then upon seeing a 50/50 full map —> “Map is empty, receive a volunteer boon to transfer to a more populated map.” But only dumps me to an even less populated map.

Then I Look at squad map again… 50/50. This really needs to be fixed asap.

Get to DS early. Join a squad of peoiple waiting to go to a new map. Go to the new map. Get the maximum time limit and never have to deal with that again. Profit.

They have a couple of dozen zones, and 15 fractals and a bunch of old dungeons lying around, thousands of dynamic events, and a single raid broken into three wings, the first in the game.

I’d say raids make up less than 1% of the content in this game. I don’t know how anyone could think the game is raid centric.

Raids are what’s ready now.

Feeh.1720:

a year and the price is still the same, no extra content for those who make wvw and spvp only the new specializations but this is not worth the price.

gg Anet

You may not keep up with such things, but the WvW community is pretty happy with what’s going on so far. Not everything of course, but they feel more included in Anet’s decisions as a whole and there have been a number of very good changes to WvW. Saying that’s not the case makes the rest of your post something to question.

Seems to me, that some people are enjoy SPvP leagues and that some people are working toward the legendary PvP back piece.

You may not like what’s out there, but that doesn’t give you the right to say there’s no extra content.

Last I saw WvW had it’s reward structure redone, it had changes to the PPT system, the game is moving forward.

And it’s not even close to a year yet, btw.

Siobhan.5273:

Vayne.8563:

Sister Swiftspell.1869:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t even understand why people ask questions like this.

It’s totally meaningless.

Why this great need to try to make something out of it?

Interesting enough… You hold the answer to your question in your own actions… Why bother responding to the meaningless?

There’s value in pointing out publicly that a question has an obvious answer, no? I’m not sure why you’d think otherwise.

Right. What was it the OP gleaned from you?

Vayne.8563:

You want soloable content? I know for a fact people solo some fractals and dungeons? How many have you soloed? How many have you tried to solo?

You don’t need heroes to solo instances in this game. You just have to play well.

Ah yes. It was essentially, “learn to play”. Got it.

The funny thing about a forum is that you’re talking to everyone. It’s a conversation with many people. I don’t know that half the posts I reply to will necessarily help the OP, but that doesn’t mean other people won’t derive value from those posts.

Some people agree with what I said and some people don’t. I’m okay with that.

The OP posed this as a question, but it’s not a question with anything but an obvious answer. It should have never been posed as a question.

The question part of the forum, in my opinion, is to ask for information about the game. Not whether anyone else is getting bored. Even if only 1000 people played a game, some of them would be bored at any given point.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

AliamRationem.5172:

While GW2 is different from other MMOs, I find the common thread between them is that they require secondary objectives to add replay value to the content they offer. In WoW, it was the gear treadmill. We don’t have a gear treadmill here, but legendary items serve a similar purpose. They give players a goal to work toward that requires a significant amount of time and participation in game content.

In my opinion, GW2 needs to put more thought into providing these types of objectives, but instead they seem to be moving away from that in favor of providing more content. More content is great! Don’t get me wrong. But if we don’t have these secondary objectives to go along with it, we’ll likely find ourselves asking “What’s next?” within weeks of the next release.

Legendaries are great, too. I’m working toward my first one now, and so far it’s done a great job of giving me a reason to log in. But I can’t imagine these are attractive to everyone. I suppose others go for easier collections and achievements? But ultimately I think GW2 needs to come up with more and different incentives that provide the same sort of motivation to log in and play.

There are plenty of secondary objectives in this game. Achievements/Collections give you some. For some the PvP season is a secondary objective (and getting the legendary backpack). The fractal backpack is another objective. Hell collectors and achievement hunters have plenty to do.

Then there’s of course legendaries, skin collecting, dungeon master, getting to level 100 in Fractals. There’s a ton of stuff in this game to work for. But there’s very little you have to work for.

As an example, there’s a collection for getting one of every type of ascended armor/weapons. That takes a long time.

There’s no lack of stuff to work for in this game. But since you don’t have to work for any of it, people think it’s not there.

I bet you most people who bought HoT don’t have every elite specialization weapon for example.

But… work is boring.

You can work on things that aren’t work. You can work on your tan, but mostly that involves lying in the sun. Nice try though.

AliamRationem.5172:

While GW2 is different from other MMOs, I find the common thread between them is that they require secondary objectives to add replay value to the content they offer. In WoW, it was the gear treadmill. We don’t have a gear treadmill here, but legendary items serve a similar purpose. They give players a goal to work toward that requires a significant amount of time and participation in game content.

In my opinion, GW2 needs to put more thought into providing these types of objectives, but instead they seem to be moving away from that in favor of providing more content. More content is great! Don’t get me wrong. But if we don’t have these secondary objectives to go along with it, we’ll likely find ourselves asking “What’s next?” within weeks of the next release.

Legendaries are great, too. I’m working toward my first one now, and so far it’s done a great job of giving me a reason to log in. But I can’t imagine these are attractive to everyone. I suppose others go for easier collections and achievements? But ultimately I think GW2 needs to come up with more and different incentives that provide the same sort of motivation to log in and play.

There are plenty of secondary objectives in this game. Achievements/Collections give you some. For some the PvP season is a secondary objective (and getting the legendary backpack). The fractal backpack is another objective. Hell collectors and achievement hunters have plenty to do.

Then there’s of course legendaries, skin collecting, dungeon master, getting to level 100 in Fractals. There’s a ton of stuff in this game to work for. But there’s very little you have to work for.

As an example, there’s a collection for getting one of every type of ascended armor/weapons. That takes a long time.

There’s no lack of stuff to work for in this game. But since you don’t have to work for any of it, people think it’s not there.

I bet you most people who bought HoT don’t have every elite specialization weapon for example.

Sardath.8524:

Depends on what you want from the game. If you want PvP, then Overwatch by a long shot.

Broadly speaking, if you want PvE, you got 4 big MMOs to chose from: Gw2, WoW, ESO, FFXIV – you won’t chose wrong with any of em.

I disagree with this. A lot depends on your play style. I prefer large scale open world content, that’s not PvP and so a lot of games really aren’t right for me. Guild Wars 2 provides an experience other MMOs don’t really provide, because the focus of the game is quite different. So you can absolutely go wrong buying a game that doesn’t match your play style.

Sister Swiftspell.1869:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t even understand why people ask questions like this.

It’s totally meaningless.

Why this great need to try to make something out of it?

Interesting enough… You hold the answer to your question in your own actions… Why bother responding to the meaningless?

There’s value in pointing out publicly that a question has an obvious answer, no? I’m not sure why you’d think otherwise.

I don’t even understand why people ask questions like this. Is “anyone” else bored. Let’s pretend there are 300,000 people playing this game and 5% of them are bored. That means yes, someone else is bored, and it amounts to about 15,000. If 10% are bored it’s 30,000 people. The odds of you being the only one who feels this way is tiny. It’s very very small. But the question also implies something.

I could ask is anyone else not bored and I’d find people not bored. It’s totally meaningless. All that matters if that YOU are bored or YOU are not bored. Why this great need to try to make something out of it?

You want soloable content? I know for a fact people solo some fractals and dungeons? How many have you soloed? How many have you tried to solo?

You don’t need heroes to solo instances in this game. You just have to play well.

If you’re on a US server, hit me up. I’ll show you how to get your masteries faster.

All collections are one time only. Every one of them. Usually customer support will refund the mats you spent.

You can still craft a second legendary, you just have to buy the precursor off the TP.

This is why you should find a guild of like minded players and run dungeons with them. You can’t expect pugs, generally do play for your benefit, when they’ve done the dungeon maybe hundreds of times. I barely run AC compared to other dungeons and I’ve done it many dozens of times.

And you know, I’d stay and hang out if someone needed to watch cut scenes as would just about anyone in my guild…but most people, you can’t expect them to play differently because one person is late to the party.

As others have said, put watching cut scenes in your LFG and then you’ve got no problem.

Imbune.5497:

OnizukaBR.8537:

MAXIMILIANUS.3429:

Heya all!

This is mine mail to Arena Net that i made after 13 loss streak.
At this moment i have 348 lost and 109 victory in ranked this season…
For most of players Match Making is disaster…
Please comment and help all players without HoT to get it. Thank you!

Dear Arena net

I would like to congratulate you for making expansion Heart of Thorns. It is really fun for all who have it…
BUT, the people that do not own it are angry on you especially because of match making in PVP. It is obvious that players without expansion loss 80% of the matches no matter what class and build they play. I understand that you need to make money, still this is no way… Please put expansion in gem store so we can buy it with gold exchange or put it for reasonable (15-20 EU) price . If you continue to do things like that you will lose most of players and game will be free for all soon. Do not let good old GW be same like other mmorpgs that collapsed suddenly.

Sincerely yours
MAXIMILIANUS

So what difference between having player that pay 0 real money or dont having them?? None, they generate 0 revenue, not a single game sell an expansion for “fake money”, they will never sell HoT for gems its make no sense at all. Paying 50 dollar once every 1 year and a half tops, for a game you will play a lot is not reasonable??? I think its really cheap.

You should play games where you buy the game once and play for years without having to dish out premium every two years. Most recently, sf5. Other genres include sports titles and fps. In fps you’ll get map packs…but someone how bought the map pack isn’t strictly more powerful than you are when playing the old maps.

I honestly don’t know when gamers start to devalue their own money, but if you want to use the ‘pay $50 a year for a game you’ll play a lot’ then I’ll ask you; why buy gw2 at all instead of playing LoL/Dota? Those are free…….literally INFINITELY more value than gw2 will ever be, if you’re using $$ vs hr as a justification.

Are you really comparing something like Dota or LoL to an MMORPG. Really?

So how big is the open world on League of Legends. How many explorable quests are there. I’m guessing you must be a PvPer, because I’m thinking there’s a whole lot this game has to offer that LoL and Dota dont’ offer, like you know, PvE. Which is a major component of this game.

Comparing a moba to an MMORPG is like comparing a baseball to a pinball machine. You can buy a baseball much cheaper, but it’s also infinitely simpler and far cheaper to run.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Yet to get content I enjoy, I have to wait. I’ve waited through three raid wings and two PvP seasons so far, and I still haven’t had anything I feel like I can sink my teeth into.

You got HoT. This was a bunch of PvE content that dropped all at once. It’s unfortunate that Anet has not provided additional open PvE content and/or story since HoT. It’s also unfortunate that HoT has not lasted as long in some posters eyes as XPac’s are expected to last in other games. If people want to sling blame for the PvE content gaps, they should be looking at the real culprits. These, in my mind, are:

• The people who insisted ANet adopt an XPac model. ANet may be innovative in some ways, but XPac’s in MMO’s always represent lengthy waits in between, so it does not surprise me that GW2 has the same content gaps other MMO’s using an XPac model have.
• The revamp of HoT.

Instanced group PvE and PvP represent the second and third most ignored demographics in the community. The HoT raid dropped over eight months rather than all at once. Sometimes I think there would be less complaining about content gaps if ANet had dropped HoT open PvE piecemeal, also. Then again, if they’d done that and still charged $50 for it, there would have been a ton more complaints about “Not worth it!”

I did get HoT…in November, I believe. That’s a long time ago. A long time without a serious update to stuff I’m interested in.

I’m happy enough with HoT and the April update made me happier, but I’ve already got every one of the order’s ascended back packs, I already have all the mistlock armor, I already have all the elite specialization weapons and I’m working on Nevermore right now. The truth is, there’s not a great deal for me to work on now besides legendaries.

I’ve finished the personal story on 17 characters. I’ve finished LS Season 2 and HoT story on a number of characters as well. I’m working on a couple of achievements, but I really feel a bit like I’m picking on bones right now.

If HOT was an expansion that was light on content because it rewrote the game, Anet needed to have more stuff coming sooner, or people are going to get bored.

I like the game. I’ve always enjoyed HoT. I strongly suspect I’d like HoT better now if I enjoyed farming, which I really don’t.

And the PvP season, which I’ve participated in due to lack of other viable stuff to do has pretty much ruined the game for me. If I raided too, I’d probably leave.

It’s too much setup time for me. Too much regimented stuff. I just want to log in and play. I don’t want to go through the effort of finding a group. That was the power of this game for me.

I still think the LS will come out and all this will go away. But I can get why people are frustrated.

Hjorje.9453:

Vayne to counter your argument, I have been waiting through 3 years of PvE content for raids to come to this game. Now some will say I should go play something else, but this is where my friends are and I enjoy every mode in the game. But I have been waiting for something to challenge me since I got my solo of Lupi.

In GW1, we had hard group content, UW, FoW, Urgots, the Deep. Here we didn’t really have that group content until raids came into the game. Now I have everything I want in this game, I got my PvP, my WvW(I was in love with DAoC so GW2 rang back to the day) the fun PvE stuff to hang out with friends, and Now I got my hard content.

Not sure how this counters my argument. Even if you’ve been waiting for 3 years for this, a whole bunch of players who don’t like raids are getting very little by way of updates and they’re angry about it.

If Anet had released an easier mode raid at the same time, which less rewards, at least we’d have had content. Instead they chose something that not everyone is interested in, and guess what, it’s not just Anet’s problem it’s everyone’s problem. If people walk away from this game because they’re nothing to do, some of them will return but not all of them.

What Anet did was build a vegetarian restaurant and then, after 3.5 years and building a large clientele, they started offering meat. Some people are going to walk away from that restaurant, because they perceive the focus is changing.

That’s one thing about MMOs. People take ownership of them. They buy into the idea that this game is MY game. It was made with me in mind. For a long time I was able to say that. I can’t really say it as much any more.

As much as I enjoy the game, and as much fun as I still have, there are elements in the game that make me feel like it’s no longer my game. And that’s a problem, not just for me, but for everyone who plays. You can’t really make a group of players who felt like the game was for them feel like second class citizens and not expect backlash. That backlash isn’t just felt by Anet. It’s felt by everyone who plays the game.

Moyayuki.3619:

Vayne.8563:

So first you complained about difficulty, then grind, and now map complexity. I think I’m sensing a pattern here. lol

And don’t give me this age stuff. I have a guild full of people who are older. One guy is in his 70s. A few people in their 60s and I’m 54. My wife is my age and she can get easily anywhere in any of the zones. It’s not an age thing.

I think it’s a phobic thing. People scare themselves and make it harder than it is. Of all the maps, only TD is confusing in any real sense of the word, and once you have wallows unlocked it’s not hard at all.

Between Teku Nuhoch and The Confluence waypoint, you can get almost anywhere in the zone. Maybe a couple of hard places to get, but it’s on you. Easy enough to figure it out if you want to.

What about players who really do have memory issues…? Just because you know gamers who are older, doesn’t mean all are that way. Also, some players do just have trouble navigating such layered zones, and are not “scaring” themselves out of it. Lots of variety of gamers exist in GW2, so we all have our own personal strengths and weaknesses.

Anyone I know who has memory issues, uses pen and paper to their advantage. They write stuff down. They make notes. It’s not hard. It’s what we all used to do.

If you don’t want to do that, and compensate for your own issues, you can always watch videos which show you want to do. You can watch them over and over again if you like.

I’m colorblind and I’d love to see a colorblind mode. But by the same token I don’t let it stop me from playing the game. I’m proactive. I find work arounds.

To some degree, we control our destiny. It’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. Of course, some would rather curse the darkness.

Mirta.5029:

tolunart.2095:

Angelica Dream.7103:

Did Anet make this so expensive. I am torn now looking at how much I have lost in material and the major grind ahead.
What ever happened to the GW2 that I bought that promised no grind?

Grinding is when you log in after buying an expansion and suddenly your character is 5 levels below max and those 5 levels will take longer than the first 60 did. Your BiS gear is now two grades below and to get back to the top you need to complete two raids and go through five ranks of reputation with three different factions.

Nevermore is a pretty skin for your staff. It doesn’t offer any significant advantage (changing stats at will is not worth another 1000 gold) just bragging rights. Most MMOs reset your “progress” every year or so to keep you paying and playing.

how is that different than buying the expansion and having to grind masteries to participate in the new content? Or grinding ascendeds to partake in raids? Actually vertical progression grind is less bad than grind currently present in HoT.

But if you just play the new content and use a few boosters, you’ll get the stuff you need to participate in the new content very fast. You don’t need leyline gliding to particpate in new content. You need about four mastery points to get through the story.

In reality, it’s not much grinding at all.

You CAN grind it by killing spiders over and over again, which some people did, or you could just do some adventures, do some dynamic events, do some story…because I didn’t grind anything.

I played the new zones. I got plenty of progress just playing normally without grinding. I was always doing something different.

For the record, I don’t believe grind means taking time to do something. I think grinding means having to do exactly the same thing over and over multiple times in order to make progress. Like grinding the same raid until you get the drop you want. I never had that experience in Heart of Thorns.

If you’re focused on the skill bar, you feel like you’re grinding, If you focus on events and just enjoying yourself, you don’t.

So first you complained about difficulty, then grind, and now map complexity. I think I’m sensing a pattern here. lol

And don’t give me this age stuff. I have a guild full of people who are older. One guy is in his 70s. A few people in their 60s and I’m 54. My wife is my age and she can get easily anywhere in any of the zones. It’s not an age thing.

I think it’s a phobic thing. People scare themselves and make it harder than it is. Of all the maps, only TD is confusing in any real sense of the word, and once you have wallows unlocked it’s not hard at all.

Between Teku Nuhoch and The Confluence waypoint, you can get almost anywhere in the zone. Maybe a couple of hard places to get, but it’s on you. Easy enough to figure it out if you want to.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Manthas.6234:

Doesn’t matter if you are pro or against raids, right or wrong, you have to admit that they created one of the biggest community divide in GW2 history.

Nope. Just nope. That division has been there for a very long time already. The problem isn’t Raids, it’s the lack of sympathy and empathy from one group (the so-called elitists) to the other (the so-called casuals). People who Raid are glad that GW2 now also offers some content that challenges their skills. People who don’t Raid feel left out and that’s never a good feeling. But this game has so much to offer, and all the “casual” content is still there. I don’t where this feeling of entitlement comes from, but it’s misguided. No, you don’t have to do everything that’s in the game. Nobody is entitled to any and all parts of the game being catered to their specific needs. If you don’t like Raids or don’t have the skill to do it, then don’t. LS3 will fill in the story gaps and besides that there is plenty in the game that is suitable for the “I play however I want” way. ANet is not making this game for any one person. They’re making it for all of us, so they have to keep as many of us happy as they can. About 10 to 15% of the game’s population plays Raids, which is a hell of a lot more than any other MMO Raids. These people would’ve been gone. And while some people might have been happy about that, they don’t see how that can come back and bite them in the kitten . Be glad ANet also caters to the more hardcore players. The bigger the community, the better. The only real problem is that people forgot how to be nice to each other, to respect everyone for who they are and what they can do, not berate them for what they’re not and can’t do.

I can tell you exactly where the feeling comes from. It’s not that raids and PvP seasons are in the game. It’s that the raids and PvP seasons are in our face….up on the event bar. I can’t remove them, I don’t know about you.

Yet to get content I enjoy, I have to wait. I’ve waited through three raid wings and two PvP seasons so far, and I still haven’t had anything I feel like I can sink my teeth into.

While it’s true we did get a revamp of the new zones, and that helped some. by the time that came out, I’d already done most of what I wanted to do the hard away anyway.

So yeah, three raid wings, three PvP seasons and very little for my play style.

First, give me the ability to get this annoucement off my front page. Secondly give me something to play other than say a bandit bounty every day. If we’d had other content, and this stuff wasn’t being pushed so hard (and it certainly feels like it’s being pushed) there’d be a lot less of a problem.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Vayne.8563:

Congrats. You’re in the same boat I am. I don’t really PvP. I do some WvW but I’m mostly a PvE’er but not a raider.

I’m just about at 29,500 achievement points. I’ve made 9 legendary weapons one of which I sold. I’ve got the dungeon master title done. All LS achievments except migraine, because I’m lazy.

I’ve done 99% of what I wanted to do.

Yep, that’s how it works. If you put thousands of hours into a game, there’s a really really good chance you’re going to exhaust the content. Do you think expecting otherwise is unreasonable.

It’s happened to me in other games I’ve played, why shouldn’t it happen here.

Fortunately I have a great guild who I enjoy hanging out with and that keeps my happy most of the time. And I like helping new players and players who need some help getting through the new zones, or stories, or dungeons or whatever.

At the end of the day, a theme park MMO is going to run out of content and if you can’t find ways to enjoy the game, you’ll stop playing. I’m not really sure why you’d expect anything else.

Have you tried RP?

I’m a long time RPer that can’t adapt to modern RP. It was different when I RPed, before computer games really. Pen and paper. Big leap for me.

That said, I’m still happy with what I’m doing in the game anyway. I’m happy helping people and running the guild. So no complaints here. I don’t expect the game to entertain me. I learned long ago to entertain myself.

Congrats. You’re in the same boat I am. I don’t really PvP. I do some WvW but I’m mostly a PvE’er but not a raider.

I’m just about at 29,500 achievement points. I’ve made 9 legendary weapons one of which I sold. I’ve got the dungeon master title done. All LS achievments except migraine, because I’m lazy.

I’ve done 99% of what I wanted to do.

Yep, that’s how it works. If you put thousands of hours into a game, there’s a really really good chance you’re going to exhaust the content. Do you think expecting otherwise is unreasonable.

It’s happened to me in other games I’ve played, why shouldn’t it happen here.

Fortunately I have a great guild who I enjoy hanging out with and that keeps my happy most of the time. And I like helping new players and players who need some help getting through the new zones, or stories, or dungeons or whatever.

At the end of the day, a theme park MMO is going to run out of content and if you can’t find ways to enjoy the game, you’ll stop playing. I’m not really sure why you’d expect anything else.

Moyayuki.3619:

Vayne.8563:

Anet never promised there would be no grind. They did say there would be no grind for BIS gear. Obviously even that’s questionable with ascended weapons which were meant to be a longer term goal but you absolutely don’t need a legendary weapon. It’s an optional feature.

It’s something put into the game to give people who want to grind, something to work towards. Some people like and need that.

No required grind is very different than no grind. No grind for BIS gear is very different from no grind.

Even ascended, you don’t need them to play the game, except for the highest level fractals.

May I ask what cool, special weapons/armors are available out there that us non-grinders are able to obtain? It just feels like all of the cool stuff is meant for the few who have the time and money to do it.

All of the elite specialization weapons are very easy to get. For that matter, many of the black lion skins on the trading post don’t even go for that much gold anymore.

There are plenty of skins offered over the years that everyone could go for including carapace armor that came with living story season 2.

All the dungeon armor and weapons are casual. Fractal weapons are fairly casual too.

There are far more casual armor and weapon skins than high end ones. But people get them faster and then have nothing to do. This is the value of skins that take longer to get.

Anet never promised there would be no grind. They did say there would be no grind for BIS gear. Obviously even that’s questionable with ascended weapons which were meant to be a longer term goal but you absolutely don’t need a legendary weapon. It’s an optional feature.

It’s something put into the game to give people who want to grind, something to work towards. Some people like and need that.

No required grind is very different than no grind. No grind for BIS gear is very different from no grind.

Even ascended, you don’t need them to play the game, except for the highest level fractals.

Thanks for point it out. I didn’t even notice the change. I think I briefly noticed it wasn’t working, but I didn’t know the keys changed.

Not sure why they felt it was necessary either, but presumably they’re going to be doing something else with shift left click and while keybinding is a thing that’s the decision they made.

I think that might have changed in the April patch, because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t always like that. But yes, I did it the next day and did beat T4 again, not for the first time obviously.

CMM.6712:

Ardid.7203:

Wow, maybe they decide to put some lore outside raids, so the great majority of the players can enjoy it!

Exactly! (If so) This is just the latest in a string of frustrating decisions by Arenanet.

Don’t know if you’ve looked into how little lore is actually involved in raids. It’s really small. Wood Potatos has a video of the lore for those who want to know. Also you can check, plenty of people will take you into an explored raid instance so you can see the lore for yourself, but it’s nothing to get bent out of shape about.

Okay this raid thing is a bit out of hand. 3 months apart, they created wings of a single raid, a couple of bosses.

This is nothing on a living story. So if they can do 3 raid bosses in a raid instance every 3 months, that’s not a huge amount of content. People are thinking this is a ton of work.

If a Living Story has five instances and part of a new zone, as Dry Top and Silverwastes was released, it’s a whole lot more work than the three raid instances we’ve seen so far.

I fought the Vale Guardian. It was a smallish instance with three “trash mobs” that train you to fight VG and then the boss fight.

I’m sure it’s fun for people who like to raid, but believe me, it’s nothing near the work Living Story instances take.

2-3 months for something the size of the Silverwastes/Drytop updates isn’t much time at all.

Pretty sure the raid story was meant to bridge the gap between the HoT story and LS 3. I’m sure I heard that in an interview early on.

I don’t see them as real people, but I like to pretend they’re real people for my own enjoyment. When I go to the movies, I don’t spend the entire time saying to myself this is really fake, that guy isn’t really dead, he’s just an actor, that guy isn’t an evil kitten. I let myself get immersed and I do the same thing in Guild Wars 2.

I’m not beyond passing an NPC and saying, sorry mate, no time right now, as if they can hear me. Sure I know they can’t here, but that’s okay. It’s fun.

StinVec.3621:

Vayne.8563:

StinVec.3621:

snip

Not sure if you realize but completing the map in Drytop (which isn’t that hard) will give you 100 geodes. If you do it on two characters you’re set. lol

Thank you very much for the tip, Vayne.

I think I had completed it long ago on my main LS character and had used those geodes to craft a different ambrite weapon that I made shortly after the map’s release. I’ll double-check to make sure I’ve earned those already on it. I did not think about possibly earning more in the same way with other characters. I guess I’ll try to see if I can get myself to map-complete it on another character instead of scraping a couple geodes together one event at a time over the course of months.

I was mostly using my lack of only a few geodes as an example to illustrate how much I do not like the area – even though I only need a few geodes to craft the weapon and free up the storage slots the items currently occupy, I end up finding myself staring at them and talking myself out of simply deleting/selling the items and then talk myself into spending 5 minutes in Dry Top getting a few of the last geodes I need. That is how much I dislike that map.

Again, thank you for the tip.

I’m curious….why do you dislike the map so much?

StinVec.3621:

Silverwastes

• Functionally:
  • I do like how the events in the Silverwastes are designed, mostly. I really need to get back over there to try for some more coat boxes to unlock the others that I am missing
• Aesthetically
  • The map space between the forts seem to only function to artificially spread the forts out simply for the sake of distancing them from each other as a requirement of the purpose of the map – the events. This results in the enemies these areas contain simply being obstacles that attempt to hinder travel between the forts. Due to the event-driven nature of the map and how it requires as many players on the map as possible to take part in these events without any ‘sightseers’, I feel that they intentionally designed the map itself to be uninspired and lacking in atmosphere. I feel the reason for this was simply as a way to lessen the number of non-event related reasons to be on the map, so that the players that are on the map would likely be there to take part in the events and not off admiring the beauty of the landscape.
• Basically, I feel that there are not too many reasons to be in or return to SW if you are not there for the ‘events>chest farm>events’ cycle and that this design is intentional.

Dry Top

• I loathe everything about this place. I still need ~150 geodes to finish making the ambrite sword, but I struggle at bringing myself to even set foot in there for 5 minutes at a time to slowly whittle away at them.

HoT
I did not purchase HoT.
However, based on what I have read and seen of the map designs:

• I would likely love the vertical nature of the maps
  (and would likely be the only thing that I would like out of what HoT includes)
• One aspect of them that I would not enjoy is the ridiculous mob density and their being designed to focus on CC spamming and discouraging solo-traveling that would keep me from adventuring and exploring the maps, let alone actually getting a few moments to enjoy the sights.
• I would love to see more maps of a vertical nature, but in the style of the solo-friendly, exploration-encouraging and admiration of the sights-permitting design of the core maps. A logically-designed and intuitively-functional 3D mini-map would also be a good idea to spend resources implementing if they continue with creating some vertically-designed maps.

Not sure if you realize but completing the map in Drytop (which isn’t that hard) will give you 100 geodes. If you do it on two characters you’re set. lol

The game isn’t requiring more time from you. You’re requiring more time yourself. This game cured me of my completionist tendencies a very long time ago. I’m a better player for it.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Andraus.3874:

Can I give you a quiz on the current patch notes without looking? What adjustment was made to Mai in the last patch? No looking.

Her wall teleport funkiness. That I know from actually doing fractals and paying attention to my game mode

Keyword: your game mode. The people negatively affected by this are people who don’t play WvW (you know, most of the playerbase) either due to disinterest or having long ago abandoned it for irredeemable dumpster fire it is. So logically they would not pay much attention to a patchnote section they don’t think affects them as they’re not psychic and can’t be reasonably expected to find the one bit that affects them in the wall of bad decisions that is a Guild Wars 2 patch Note update.

Not anet’s problem if people dont read patchnotes in any length, including the massive quarterly updates.

It’s absolutely Anet’s problem. Having bunch of kittened off players is 100% Anet’s problem. Whether or not people should read all the patch notes, it’s unreasonable to think most people do, and even a guy like me (who didn’t have the badges anyway so it wouldn’t have mattered) didn’t remember, or I’d have reminded my guild.

It’s not a stealth change, but it feels like a stealth change and in this business, appearance counts for a lot.

Calydro.7268:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vyrulisse.1246:

It is kinda ridiculous but there are people who think everything in this game should cost money for some reason.

No one thinks that everything in the game should cost money. A lot of people accept that a buy-to-play game needs to make money from something besides just box sales.

Calydro.7268:

Poor guy thinks in-game stores are necessary

I’d be interested in hearing your proposal for how ANet could maintain its current income (and therefore level of development) without a cash shop.

Are you aware of the period when MMO’s did not have in game stores? It existed.

Yes, I remember quite clearly when MMOs didn’t have game stores. Of course back then almost all of them had subscriptions. Free to play MMOs, as soon as a they came out, had cash shops.

So yes, if you charge a subscription you can get away without a cash shop.

And you know, once movies were a nickle and you could stay there all day. My dad told me about that. We can’t do that anymore.

I remember lots of stuff that are no longer possible. What’s your point?

Moyayuki.3619:

Vayne.8563:

Moyayuki.3619:

PopeUrban.2578:

They are consistently killing off characters to make room for cheaper voice actors.

Also because the part line is that all of the cuts made to HoT were made to enforce a sense of urgency in the storyline and not, you know, because it was too kitten expensive.

Those seem like lame excuses for ANet. I just dislike character deaths that are there just for cheap drama.

How is that a lame excuse. As certain voice actors demand more and more money, they become harder and harder for money to be spent on creating content to play. I don’t know about you but I think that’s a kitten ed good reason for a company to move away from a character.

At any rate, Eir is the oldest in Destiny’s Edge. She blamed herself for Snaff’s death. She was already passing on her legacy to someone. She said at the beginning of Guild Wars 2, if you played the norn story, that her time is over and that it’s time for someone to take her place.

The question wasn’t whether or not she should die but whether or not her death should be meaningful to a norn. Her death in combat, at the hands of Faolin’s betrayal really is a tale good enough for moots in Hoelbrak.

Sadly, she did not die in combat. She was skewered like a pig while trying to escape. That’s not noble at all, and any Norn that would present it as such would be dishonoring her by presenting such a bold-faced fabrication. The only way she can be given any honor is to be remembered for what she did in life, not how she died. Because that’s very miserable, un-noble death for a Norn, IMO.

Too bad Brahm is such a lame character (IMO), he doesn’t seem worthy of being handed a legacy. Everyone in DE 2.0 is a sorry excuse for a hero.

She was running until she stopped to try to help Faolin who stabbed her. But she was NOT running when she met her death. She stopped and looked it in the eye. She knew, but she didn’t turn away. That’s a story you can tell at a moot.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Ryou.2398:

Trust me you don’t want easy progression you will get bored, it doesn’t matter how casual you are that isn’t rewarding in the end. Are you guys using the lfg tools? Are you asking map chat or guilds to help? People are really really helpful in the game give it a try.

I only got bored with Tyria when they added Ascended grind and Fractals grind to the game, before that i played for a year and a half happily daily, with no issues leveled 11 characters to 80, got every single crafting to 400 saved my gold and bought my exotics..

As soon as the whiners complained about end game being non existent GW2 was ruined for me.. So please don’t say i’d get bored, i was happy in core until i was gated and it became a grind..

Almost every MMO on the planet raises the level and introduces new tiers of gear. Ascended were meant to be a long term goal and fractals were introduced as an end game OPTION for people who wanted that play style. You can experience every fractal without grinding.

In fact, there are now 15 fractals and you can touch each one of them in easy mode without ever grinding up to the higher levels. So the grind in fractals in entirely optional.

As for ascended gear, I never ground for it. The most important ascended gear is the jewelry. You need 30 laurels for an amulet, which you can get just by waiting for them to come from log in rewards, you can get accessories (earrings) from 24 guild commendations from guild missions (or laurels if you don’t want to do guild missions but I can’t imagine why) and you can get rings very very easily from low level fractals.

The fact that it would take you a couple of months of not grinding, and that you can play all the content in the game without ascended stuff makes it just something that you get over time naturally. The only people who call jewelry a grind think they need it to play and what to have it now. Anyway gating is the exact opposite of grind.

Weapons, again, are easy to get if you take your time. They’re only hard to get if you choose to grind them. Ascended armor is almost completely unnecessary and if you absolutely have to have it, just let it come.

In those three years you’re talking about Anet has raised neither the level cap or added a new tier of gear.

Ascended gear makes the game easier.. 30% or so for a full set.. Ascended gear is really difficult to get due to costs i need to get to 500 crafting and the items needed to craft the ascended..

Time gating content is just a wait grind, gotta wait months for no reason.. If ascended is as pointless and meaningless as you people make it out to be why isn’t it for sale on the AH and why are you so up in arms if they ever did put it up for sale, you don’t need it right its pretty meaningless remember.. yeah right.

To be honest i’m not even sure where we are supposed to find half of the Ascended materials i’ve never seen some.. i thought just playing got me enough for ascended, it really doesn’t, i looked on the wiki and there are parts i’ve yet to even see ever.

No three years Anet has not raised the level cap or added a new tier of gear, but they hid everything behind stupid time gates and grinds which is far far worse.. I’d have been fine with new levels and gear similar to core tyria if the content had been made for them.. I actually enjoyed leveling up seeing the world getting map completions and just killing stuff casually, but they ruined all that in Hot for “challenge” lol

Time gates you only have to do one time in order to get BIS gear, instead of raising the level cap and gear tier every three months. You might think that’s better, but I personally don’t.

They were meant to be long term goals and frankly they don’t even take that long and since you’re not a hard core player you’d hardly need them right away anyway.

First of all, trinkets are the easiest to get and trinkets give you the most bang for your bug. Weapons are next, followed by armor, which provides very little upgrade.

Basically if you’re not surviving in the HoT maps without ascended armor, you’re not going to survive them with ascended armor.

Do a handful of guild missions and you get get ascended earrings easily. Cash in 30 of your laurels for an amulet. And get rings from easy fractals, and yes, there are easy fractals.

That’s half the battle right there. At this point you’re complaining to complain. I finished my ascended stuff probably close to two years ago. You took a two year break.

But it’s not nearly as hard as you’re making it out to be, and you only have to do it once.

So every MMO is pay to win since you can buy gold in all of them, legal or not legal. I never spent money to buy gems to sell for gold, and yet I have 8 legendaries. There are people that are just good at playing the market place and don’t have to spend real money to get that far ahead.

Not to mention redefining pay to win to change it’s original meaning doesn’t really accomplish anything.

Seyiwaji.4082:

@Vayne.8563
Number talk for themselves, and this is only the beginning
Huge gain from HOT 4q15: Now see 1q16, the game is decaying

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4j3ntv/ncsofts_earnings_report_1q16_strong_performance/

http://i.imgur.com/QEp8Y9o.png

You can say what you want. Reality is there.
If you ask people if they will buy a new expansion. I am sure 50%+ will say NO.

You’re still missing the point though. Where did I say the new expansion sold well? I do believe most people still playing this game from before it went free to play did buy the expansion, because there really isn’t great reason not to, unless you’re like really broke.

That said, my comments have been all along, people stopped playing and free players started playing. Some people left and some people came back.

Until you can put numbers to those figures you don’t know the total population of the game, period, end of story.

The total population of the game is really what makes a game dead or dying if you can pay your bills.

Dying games simply don’t go back and fix entire maps that people don’t like. They don’t do it because they’re dying. They don’t have the resources TO do it.

Anet went back and made huge and wide-sweeping improvements to HoT. No dying game would do that or even consider doing that.

This entire conversation is ridiculous.

Is the game dying? No. Whether 50% of the people bought HoT or not, the answer is no, the game isn’t dying. 8 million dollars a month isn’t dying either. There’s nothing it indicate the game is dying except a bunch of people who need to refresh themselves on what that word actually means.

Look at Wildstar. That game is dying. Wildstar canceled plans to go to new markets. Wildstar has had layoffs. That’s a game that’s dying.

Is Guild Wars 2 dying? You’d have to have a very specific definition of that word to say yes. And you’d probably be wrong anyway.

Follyfoot.2803:

I got to silver waste using my level 80 boost. My word that map is nuts. They take a fort, you take it back., they take a fort, you take it back, and rinse and repeat. I can’t seem to find any point to it.

There is a point to it, but it’s not an immediate point. There’s a meta event in the zone. The bar on the event bar on the right gets further and further along. When it fills, you get a boss event underground (each fort has different boss), followed by another boss event called the Vine Wrath, which has three different lanes with three different bosses. After that, you get another event that’s sort of like an underground maze that you run through while transformed into a floating plant thing. You can only avoid combat, not fight and the things in the maze one shot you, so you have to be fast.

Each of these events comes with pretty decent rewards, not to mention chests you can find throughout the Silverwastes.

The zone, like all zones, is locked at a specific time. This is before the events that lead to HoT.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

2. HoT selling has nothing to do with how many people are playing the game if the core game is free to play. It really is simple. Let’s pretend there were 600,000 people playing. And let’s pretending half of them bought HoT and half didn’t. 300,000 sales would certainly be lackluster. It’s entirely likely that some of those other 300,000 moved onto other things. But then the game went free to play. Are you saying they couldn’t get those numbers from free to play players? I absolutely believe they can.

But free to play players can’t post here and can’t talk in map chat so things seem deader. I’m a new zones running into free to play players all the time. I’m also in zones where I run into returning players.

Can you, or anyone, categorically state the number of returning players plus free players is significantly less than those who play?

Can you account for people taking a break until new content comes out that haven’t left but only log in for dailies?

Because I don’t think you can.

if for two years GW2 consistently brought, let’s say 20 million. HoT sales open up. Suddenly the profit jumps to 40 million. However the quarter following that the profit is suddenly 7 million. Something that has never happened before.

Are you telling me that free to play players buy nothing? Or that people that used to play the game and buy stuff no longer buy stuff, but still play? Drop in profit always correlates with drop in players. Especially when F2P normally brings a jump in profits rather than a fall.

EDIT: and just to clarify, for the second time, I don’t think that the game is dying. If someone wants to try it out, I would say “sure, go ahead!”. It’s in no way doomed. It’s just that the numbers and in-game view doesn’t add up with the game being at the same population as it was a year ago. From my perspective there was a clear decline.

Actually we were doing about this much a year ago. 24 million a quarter. This number hasn’t significantly dropped.

You’re saying the numbers don’t add up. I think you should look at them again. They do. And I expect them to go down from here, but so far the performance of the numbers isn’t under question and has never been under question.

If the game wasn’t living up to dollar expectation, you’d hear about it. It is.

What we do know is less people bought the expansion than Anet thought would buy it. But that’s all we really know at this point. Dollar for dollar, we’re pretty much flat, not down.

It’s a T4 map. Tried it tonight and got to T3. I was pretty kittened. The achievement just says finish the meta, not that you need T4.

When stuff like that isn’t worded right and leaves you guessing, is something that really annoys me. They need to change the collection text.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

Mirta.5029:

I would worry if this was Wildstar level of bad. Currently no, GW2 is not dying. However has it shrunk greatly in population following HoT and all HoT patches? Yes.

How do you know? What is your evidence? Source please?

1. Plenty of people have seen their servers shrink. There’s two pages of people saying the exact same thing.
2. After the profitability spike caused by HoT being sold, GW2 has fallen in profitability below what they used to make before HoT. This would have not been the case if the population stayed exactly the same, unless you think that people that used to buy things suddenly stopped for no good reasons.

1. Have we seen 100 people say they’ve seen their servers shrink? The only place they could possibly see that is WvW. There’s no other place to see your server’s shrink. As an example, tons of people run fractals now, even in my casual guild. A lot more than ever before. I’d never see them on a server, because they’re in fractals for much of their play time. So how do you know servers have shrank. If peiople are running fractals and some are running dungeons again and some are raiding and even I’m doing the stupid PvP season, how does this prove anything at all? You have a dozen people saying something. In those same threads you have a handful of people also saying that they see people everywhere they go. So not everyone agrees. This is not proof of anything. The population is not known by anyone but Anet.

2. HoT selling has nothing to do with how many people are playing the game if the core game is free to play. It really is simple. Let’s pretend there were 600,000 people playing. And let’s pretending half of them bought HoT and half didn’t. 300,000 sales would certainly be lackluster. It’s entirely likely that some of those other 300,000 moved onto other things. But then the game went free to play. Are you saying they couldn’t get those numbers from free to play players? I absolutely believe they can.

But free to play players can’t post here and can’t talk in map chat so things seem deader. I’m a new zones running into free to play players all the time. I’m also in zones where I run into returning players.

Can you, or anyone, categorically state the number of returning players plus free players is significantly less than those who play?

Can you account for people taking a break until new content comes out that haven’t left but only log in for dailies?

Because I don’t think you can.

Edit: Obviously I’m pulling numbers out of my kitten as an example, rather than trying to provide accurate numbers.