Guild Wars 2

The difference between Guild Wars 1 and 2 has nothing to do with the quality of the AI. It has to do with the fact GW 1 was instanced and GW 2 is open world. Saying this AI doesn’t exist in Guild Wars 2 shows me people that haven’t looked at dungeon and fractal groups. The team synergy there is pretty strong, trust me.

Like in CM explorable mode where you have riflemen who do more damage to moving targets, while you have bombers who make sure you have to move, or you get blown up. Or thugs who heal and buff allies. The dredge are another good example of various roles that do various things.

But even Guild Wars 1 players like me, wouldn’t be happy or stand a chance in a game where you have mobs respawning that have that kind of synergy. That’s why groups like that have to be reserved for instances.

You might argue that they should have more groups like that on a longer repawn timer, but that wouldn’t work either, because once you kill the group, the next guy running through will have nothing to do.

Good for you OP! This is a really well thought out post. As already pointed out, what was done in Guild Wars 1 is far better than what we have in Guild Wars 2. The only difference is that the outfits in Guild Wars 2 come with costume brawl skills, which is sorta fun, but other than that, it’s a lot of space to dedicate to something you can’t even use all the time.

I’m competitive enough in the real world. I don’t need to get new and better gear all the time in my fantasy world. I want to relax and enjoy myself and explore. If I really wanted to challenge myself, I’d teach today’s kids how to read.

This game won’t be a ghost town because you and players like you don’t like it. It’ll be a popular game with people who want something different from the zillion other games like the ones you want. That’s really the point.

All the games are one way and this game is different. Those who want something different pretty much have one choice.

This game isn’t going anywhere.

Sonbride.8190:

I find responses like “choose the way you spend in game time better” are kinda missing my point (not to mention a tad condescending).

We have been encouraged to participate in this “exciting living event.” So far it just been very tedious.

For me, this has been eye-opening b/c it has dawned on me that the game has a lot of “bait and switch” and “hide the ball” mechanics/features that I find non-intuitive and, at times, tedious.

To answer the question “worth what?” I mean worth my time. There are times when I really enjoy GW2, but too often those times are buried in “2 hour searches for hidden objects” (or the like).

P.S.-And I very much disagree with any who says its not looking for a needle in a haystack. Even with Dulfy telling me where to look, it still took me two hours.

Right, and that’s my point. There are times when you really enjoy the game. Look at what you’re doing during those times and do those things. If you try something and you don’t like it, you’re not obligated to do it, no matter what Anet is trying to encourage you to do (though trying to encourage you is a bit strong considering half the people don’t even know about this).

Do you think the people who like WvW or SPvP are doing this? Or the people who run dungeons and do nothing else? I have people in my guild who aren’t interested and don’t do it. By percentage, this living story is a tiny tiny percentage of the game.

Yes, I agree it’s not enthralling to me, so I’m not doing it. My wife finds it fun and challenging and she is. That’s it.

Sorry if it sounds condescending but you’re the one who posted the question about the ratio. There is is fun stuff and you’re not doing it,. seems to me you should change what you’re doing.

rizzo.1079:

Vayne.8563:

This is a theme park MMO. Think of a theme park. You go to Disneyworld with your family. Some people want to ride Space Mountain and some people want to sit and watch the show in the Hall of Presidents. You pick the attractions you like and skip the ones you don’t.

Not a great analogy for this quest…I would never, ever give my money to go to Disney World/Land, so I’m not sure about this, but is the “Find the Needle in the Haystack” a popular attraction there? Like I said, never been, wouldn’t go, but I can’t see that being a big draw.

It’s a good analogy if some people like it. My wife likes it. I don’t particularly but it’s her kind of thing. She likes searching for stuff. There ARE clues in game, once you read stuff and look around. It’s like those very very old fashsioned adventure games where you had to find stuff. And people BOUGHT those games. Not me, because it wasn’t my thing, but my wife loves finding stuff. It becomes a challenge to her.

And it’s not quite a needle in a haystack. You do know the zone and you know the approximate place it spawns…ie, along the refugees trail.

This isn’t content that anyone has to do. But some people like it. If you don’t like it, why do it?

Well, if you have a limited amount of time to play and there are tons of things to do, and that’s what you chose to do with your time, yeah, probably not the best decision.

There are tons of fun things to do in this game, and that’s not one of them. But the fun things are still there. So you pick what you enjoy doing and do that. Problem solved.

You do not need to get those things, unless you find it fun to do so. It’s an achievement. There’s no title associated with it. No in game bonus.

This is a theme park MMO. Think of a theme park. You go to Disneyworld with your family. Some people want to ride Space Mountain and some people want to sit and watch the show in the Hall of Presidents. You pick the attractions you like and skip the ones you don’t.

As long as you find fun stuff to do, what’s the difference what the ratio is? One of my friends LOVES WvW. That’s all he does. One thing. Nothing else. He cares about nothing but that. To him, the ratio of this game is a million boring things to 1 good thing. But that one good thing he enjoys enough to keep playing.

Is the ratio important or do you just need to make better choices in how you spend your in game time?

You need the skill points on the character you want to use the legendary on. The thing you buy with the skill points is soul bound. Make sure you get the points on the character you want to have the weapon.

stof.9341:

I think the problem with the dailies for me is that they feel like extra work. They are stuff I go out of my way to do, stuff I’d not do in a normal gameplay session.

The Zaishen dailies in GW1 for me were the same but better. The reason they were better was that there was SO much to do in that game that the current daily was nearly often either :
- something I hadn’t done already : doing all missions in hard mode little by little, day by day. When the daily is a mission I didn’t do, that’s a good combo of rewards. Or vanquishing a zone I didn’t vanquish already.
- something I had to do anyway : doing again a mission I already did if in Factions would give bonus reputation points I could use to max those titles anyway so it didn’t feel like doing the daily just for it’s sake
- something really worth repeating. Hard content that is fun or rewarding to do like killing Duncan as the last boss of one of the most difficult dungeon in the game.

GW2 dailies feel like work I do JUST for the sake of Laurels. And Laurels I get because I feel forced to get them for the ascended gear. That’s too much forcing going on to feel good about it without incidental rewards that make me feel like getting Laurels is a bonus to what I wanted to do anyway.

And Zaishen Missions were added like 5 years after the game launched, when there was years of content to back them up. This makes it a bad comparison.

Anet wants everyone to be able to do the dailies, so they put stuff in that most people can do. They throw in things like fractals or dungeons every now and then, but they almost always have gathering and events of some sort.

This entire thing is a storm in a teacup. If you don’t like the dailies, only do them when you do. It’s not like everyone needs an ascended amulet TODAY. Have some patience, enjoy the game and stop worrying about getting the daily everyday if it’s too annoying to you.

I do the daily every day, and it takes max half an hour. Half the time, the daily is mostly done when I start it, because I do it later in my play session, so most of it is done by the time I start it. Then it’s usually a very quick five minutes to finish it off.

Morlaug.3267:

I dont believe that permanent changes to the world is impossible to do on a character basis. Why? Well, some of you might remember “that other game”. In the frosty expansion they kind of made a new effect in game they calles “phasing”.

For those who have no clue as to what I am speaking about, I will do a short summery.

You arrive at a scouts hiding place, he asks you to kill the mobs in the area and while you are at it, kill the necromancer who keeps summoning the undead around this particular valley.

You set off, killing what needs to be killed. When you return to the scout and hand in your mission, the place transforms into a small camp. A few NPCs appear with their gear and stuff, a small tent or whatever.

Now, the phasing has made the world in this small area change. It will look like this to all players who are on the same stage of that questline. New players who enter the area for the first time will not see you and you will not see them, they are in another phase starting/doing the first mission or just passing through.

The mission series can continue until several phases later, a fortress now stands when at first there was nothing.

This technology exists, and is used “in that other popular game”. I dont play it any more, since long, but I remember that permanent changes on a character level was made with a technology that now is old.

Sure, there are some problems as well. Too much phasing and you will have people disappear all over the map, since they are in different phases. But well harnessed, for key locations or event it might be a very good thing. I like it, since you actually saw the world change as you went through it.

You speak like phasing is universally accepted. But I can think of some very strong arguments against phasing.

For one thing, it means different people are actually playing in different versions of the game, dividing the player base. This is one thing Anet didn’t want to do, and had no intention of doing.

How many times are you playing with your friends in WoW and you want to do some quest together and you’re on one part of the quest chain and he’s on a later part of the quest chain and you can’t play together until he catches up. That’s a real downside of phasing.

Anet wanted a world with people in it, so that they could do stuff together. Not have everyone doing separate things in a public space.

jblade.6470:

Vayne.8563:

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch.

While I dislike a few parts of GW2, when I read this statement, I had to think about it and think it’s important to note. My biggest sadness was how weak the story was compared to GW1, but a lot of the deep lore came after the world expanded and connected these various lands together. While I still enjoyed Prophecies compared to the GW2 Personal Story, I’m going to be a bit more patient with how many ways GW2 can improve.

I think this game was released six months too early. I think Anet had no choice but to release the game before MoP came out. And I think they’re right to have done so. That said, I’d yet to play ANY MMO that hasn’t released early, except maybe Rift, but the world in Rift was laughably small on release. Even then, the skills changed constantly after release for months. Entire skill trees even changed. It sucked.

Several features of Guild Wars 2 what were supposed to be there at launch, including guesting, never made it in. So much stuff was screwed, but Anet really had to release for business reasons.

What you see now is actually what the game would have looked like on release, had Anet had more time to finish working on it. I mean no company could possibly release a game with most of the quests not working in their final areas and so many personal story quests bugged.

I think in six months this game will be at the same place Prophecies was six months after release. And I think that would be a fairer comparison. Particularly because this game is far more ambitious than Prophecies was.

Have you guys ever been on an MMO forum before. Some of you are making it sound like an LFG tool is great for all players and everyone wants them.

I remember on Rift, before there was an LFG tool (yes it took quite a while for Rift to introduce one) and the infighting on the forums was brutal.

I’d say there were nearly as many people against an LFG tool and for it. I’ve seen the same argument on guru. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

Those who love LFG tools can’t imagine how any game can launch without them. Those who hate LFG tools can’t imagine wanting one in any game.

People make it sound like every major AAA MMO has launched with an LFG tool and this is simply not the case.

I’m pretty sure Anet has enough contraversy without having to throw that into the fray. lol

No way could anyone construe the hearts being permanent. They change. Events are sort of like war in real life. There are times when towns are taken lost and taken again by the enemy, all in the period of a day. And games always accelerate real time.

The thing is, if events aren’t up, people don’t have much to do, so they events have to respawn. The part of the game that is permanent is your personal story because once you do it and make choices, you can’t go back and remake those choices (arguably not always a good thing). If you make the wrong choice in a personal story, it’s so permanent that you have to restart your character to make the other choice.

Colin was talking about dynamic events which are persistent, but not permanent. For example if you can’t defend the tree in Morgan’s Spiral, it dies and you can’t access that jumping puzzle. That’s a persistent change, until players can beat that event, and then you can access the puzzle.

It’s not really that hard to understand, but I can see where the editing caused confusion, which is why Anet released a clarification shortly after the Manifesto appeared.

Rifter.6591:

Vayne.8563:

Rifter.6591:

CETheLucid.3964:

Rukia.4802:

Is it really necessary to keep making these same exact threads?

Nope.

kikittener.9578:

lies, lies everywhere! shame!

Nope.

Revolution.6301:

One of my favourite claims are that they are against mobs respawning 10 minutes later to be killed. Oh I understand so 1 hour is better right? Well it is 6x more. This contridicts what they said about that. IN MY OWN SERVER I get put into overflow server because so many are doing the SAME event.

Hold it. Sounds like more then a few someones are having a good time if the event is so popular that you’re being dumped into an overflow as a result.

So much for that whole ‘the game is dying’ thing you people were harping on no less then a month or so ago.

Revolution.6301:

And yes no one cares if we killed it and yes thousands are doing the same thing.

Rifter.6591:

kikittener.9578:

dont get me wrong, i like this game..instead is the only game i play atm since is free after all and is good time silk, but dude: that colin johanson or wtv hes name is, is no to be trusted anymore. i hate when they use marketing ploy to cheat on me.

The chick isnt any better, i mean seriously she talked about changing the world, lasting effects, people remembering you helped their village?

Its all complete load of kitten. You rescue a village and 10 min later its under attack again, you save someone farm and 10 min later its under attack again, there is ZERO permanent changes like she is talking about in this game.

The NPC’s care, BTW. That’s the point. It’s a story.

Several send you a thank you note, with money, and those folks aren’t in the most dire of straights they were in prior to your assistance.

You can’t replay the hearts. You had a permanent impact.

But no I seriously doubt most event farmers or even folks not big on the game lore give two kittens about any of it in general, let alone stuck around long enough to hear or else read the event conclusion dialogue.

I wonder how many actually took the time to read those letters?

Yes, the world events restart after a bit. What else did you expect to happen? One time Kralkatorrik general fight?

Build a bridge and get over it.

Even the hearts arnt permanent changes, sure you are done it after you kill X centars or bandits or collect X items or whatever the situation is and then you are done.

But those centars/bandits/whatever are still attacking and burning the farm, long after you have “saved” it.

I realize that this would be very hard to implement in a MMO which is also why i think they should have left that part of the video where it belong, as nothing more than a dream of a game design that is not possible to implement.

Again, those who read the clarification when it was posted, shortly after the video was released, would know that Ree was talking about the personal story and Colin was talking about dynamic events.

Anyone following the game would remember that Colin said many MANY times that changes made in dynamic events are persistent and not permanent. It’s been explained over and over again.

Years after the video was made, it’s very easy to take it out a context. It’s simply an easy target. But there are no lies here. Just people misunderstanding information.

Perhaps this is true, as i said ive seen the colin clairification not ree’s, and the poster i quoted was talking about her talking about the hearts so perhaps he got that from somewhere i dont know.

When the manifesto was made, hearts didn’t exist at all. Hearts were added later to keep people locked into areas where dynamic events occurred, because people were running around, not having any idea of where to go or what to do.

Orr is the place in the game that is most like Anet’s original vision, since it has no hearts.

Just completed our first guild bounty mission, thanks to everyone who attended. Still looking for more Oceanics, and of course US players as well, since that’s most of our membership.

LLunatic.5280:

Awww lol you sound like you would be a perfect fit for Forbidden. Too bad your on TC :P

But if your there i would strongly suggest Vayne’s guild Wardens of Destiny. Hes good peoples and will treat you right

Awww, thanks for this. Been a long time. Hope you’re well.

Rifter.6591:

CETheLucid.3964:

Rukia.4802:

Is it really necessary to keep making these same exact threads?

Nope.

kikittener.9578:

lies, lies everywhere! shame!

Nope.

Revolution.6301:

One of my favourite claims are that they are against mobs respawning 10 minutes later to be killed. Oh I understand so 1 hour is better right? Well it is 6x more. This contridicts what they said about that. IN MY OWN SERVER I get put into overflow server because so many are doing the SAME event.

Hold it. Sounds like more then a few someones are having a good time if the event is so popular that you’re being dumped into an overflow as a result.

So much for that whole ‘the game is dying’ thing you people were harping on no less then a month or so ago.

Revolution.6301:

And yes no one cares if we killed it and yes thousands are doing the same thing.

Rifter.6591:

kikittener.9578:

dont get me wrong, i like this game..instead is the only game i play atm since is free after all and is good time silk, but dude: that colin johanson or wtv hes name is, is no to be trusted anymore. i hate when they use marketing ploy to cheat on me.

The chick isnt any better, i mean seriously she talked about changing the world, lasting effects, people remembering you helped their village?

Its all complete load of kitten. You rescue a village and 10 min later its under attack again, you save someone farm and 10 min later its under attack again, there is ZERO permanent changes like she is talking about in this game.

The NPC’s care, BTW. That’s the point. It’s a story.

Several send you a thank you note, with money, and those folks aren’t in the most dire of straights they were in prior to your assistance.

You can’t replay the hearts. You had a permanent impact.

But no I seriously doubt most event farmers or even folks not big on the game lore give two kittens about any of it in general, let alone stuck around long enough to hear or else read the event conclusion dialogue.

I wonder how many actually took the time to read those letters?

Yes, the world events restart after a bit. What else did you expect to happen? One time Kralkatorrik general fight?

Build a bridge and get over it.

Even the hearts arnt permanent changes, sure you are done it after you kill X centars or bandits or collect X items or whatever the situation is and then you are done.

But those centars/bandits/whatever are still attacking and burning the farm, long after you have “saved” it.

I realize that this would be very hard to implement in a MMO which is also why i think they should have left that part of the video where it belong, as nothing more than a dream of a game design that is not possible to implement.

Again, those who read the clarification when it was posted, shortly after the video was released, would know that Ree was talking about the personal story and Colin was talking about dynamic events.

Anyone following the game would remember that Colin said many MANY times that changes made in dynamic events are persistent and not permanent. It’s been explained over and over again.

Years after the video was made, it’s very easy to take it out a context. It’s simply an easy target. But there are no lies here. Just people misunderstanding information.

Revolution.6301:

Hahaha your posts are all great lololol!

There wouldn’t be a need for a thread like this if they didn’t lie to all of us. Look at world events, or even the centuars. Nothing is permenent, the mmo world doesn’t change and you don’t feel like the hero.

I’m just bringing up this issue because its clear they lied to us to the point where its almost laughable not one delevelper has commented on these kinds of threads. They ignore them and really really REALLY hope they go away like an annoying cold.

They didn’t lie to us, you just have no understanding of what they were saying, which is fine.

At the very worst, they intended to do something things that didn’t work out, which isn’t a lie (you should look up lie in the dictionary before you use the word).

If I tell my kids we’re going to the movies tonight and suddenly I’m called into work and I can’t take them, I didn’t lie. Because when I said it, I had every intention of taking them to the movies. The situation changed.

Half the stuff you claim is a lie is simply you assigning context to things that don’t exist. The other half is stuff that was changed in ways the developers didn’t expect to have to change things.

In order to call something a lie, you first have to prove intent to deceive. You don’t have it.

Something my human engineer says, after blowing something up: “That went better than I expected!”

Also, my Asuran necro after summoning a minion: “I’ve made life…of a sort”. Alternetly he says: Up…up on your…ummmm…feet".

And there’s a great conversation in The Grove near the Asuran gate, where a Sylvari is driving a golem mad by asking questions, and this Asura yelling at her because of it. It’s pretty funny.

I think it depends on how you define casual. Do you mean that they’ve taken away a lot of the need to min/max? Are you talking purely difficulty level? Are you talking about not having raids?

Without a definition there’s no way to answer the question. Or you can answer it, but the answer will be meaningless.

Rifter.6591:

Vayne.8563:

It would probably be pointless to point out (again, because this is just a repeat thread) that after this was made, there was a clarification posted. Due to editing it can be a bit confusing. Ree is talking about the personal story and Colin is talking about the dynamic events. Of course, context means nothing to people who make these kinds of posts.

That’s why the part about grind is so often taken out of context. Colin is saying there are fun things to do right away, as opposed to other games. You don’t have to wait till you’re geared up at max level to fight giant bosses, and that’s completely true. The Shadow Behemoth is in a starter zone and it’s one of the coolest bosses in the game.

Not to mention the fact that a manifesto isn’t an advertisement, but a statement of intent, before something happens. kitten changes all the time. That’s why the constitution has amendments. MMOs change all the time. This game keeps changing, often for the better

Anyway, after watching this again, I think it’s pretty much spot on. I think that Anet did, within the boundaries of existing technology, pretty much what they set out to do.

Some people can’t see it, because they’re taking individual words out of context, or simply not understanding the context surrounding the words in the first place.

Got a link? ive seen the clarification about what colin said but nothing on the story/permanent changes mentioned by Ree.

I sure don’t have a link. This was years ago when that statement came out. Not even sure where to find it, but I’m pretty sure it was on guru. If not it was on Reddit.com. I remember it clearly, but how you’d find it after this much time, I have no idea. But watch it again, and assign the values of dynamic events to Colin and personal story to Ree and it all makes perfect sense. The editing of the video makes it less clear, but once you know it, it’s obvious.

Kaputsid.5169:

In my opinion

GW2 graphics and soundtrack are true masterwork, but being pulled in here by some marketing tricks and wake up in a game with:

- no build crafting
- no second profession
- no body block
- no energy management
- AOE cap
- Stealth (bleh)
- no counter to stealth (double bleh)
- stealth with no counter in a game suffering from culling problems (huge bleh)
- mesmer, one of the most original class in gw1 turned into a crude pet spammer
- ranger stuck with a kittened pet
- skills lag, culling
- lack of optimization (you need a kitten good pc to run the game smoothly)
- only 2 pvp mode with one affected by gear treadmills

So yeah… just bleh.

The second profession is one of the things that destroyed Guild Wars 1. It was taken out because it’s virtually impossible to balance a game with it in. Asking for it to be repeated is like asking for something totally broken to replace something that’s been fixed.

Body block works perfectly fine in an instanced area, where there are you and a few guys in your party. Body block in a larger open world is a recipe for major lag. Very few MMOs used body block because it has a negative affect on frame rate, which has a negative affect on the game. The moment this was an MMO instead of an instanced game like GW 1 was the moment body block really needed to come out.

Energy management is a matter of personal taste. I think the game plays much faster without it. I don’t see why it’s needed. Obviously the devs didn’t either. One of the things I love about this game is that there are no energy potions are there are in most MMOs with energy. Anet was going to including them originally and took out energy instead. It was a good move, in my opinion.

Actually looking at this list, you’re probably a PvPer and yeah, we’ll have a completely different list of what is good or bad in a game. Stuff like culling is being worked on and there will be a fix. Higher requirements for computers is a reflection of the year in which the game was made. Guild Wars 1 is 7 years old. It has modest requirements. The game looks a lot better because of those higher requirements. Some guys don’t care. They’d rather have a faster game that looks worse. Some people do care. I’m one of them.

Anyway, Guild Wars 1 at six months wasn’t the greatest game in the world. It took years of adding stuff before it really came into its own.

So why compare four games, to a single game?

It would probably be pointless to point out (again, because this is just a repeat thread) that after this was made, there was a clarification posted. Due to editing it can be a bit confusing. Ree is talking about the personal story and Colin is talking about the dynamic events. Of course, context means nothing to people who make these kinds of posts.

That’s why the part about grind is so often taken out of context. Colin is saying there are fun things to do right away, as opposed to other games. You don’t have to wait till you’re geared up at max level to fight giant bosses, and that’s completely true. The Shadow Behemoth is in a starter zone and it’s one of the coolest bosses in the game.

Not to mention the fact that a manifesto isn’t an advertisement, but a statement of intent, before something happens. kitten changes all the time. That’s why the constitution has amendments. MMOs change all the time. This game keeps changing, often for the better

Anyway, after watching this again, I think it’s pretty much spot on. I think that Anet did, within the boundaries of existing technology, pretty much what they set out to do.

Some people can’t see it, because they’re taking individual words out of context, or simply not understanding the context surrounding the words in the first place.

Conner.4702:

Vayne.8563:

I’m another long time Guild Wars 1 player, who likes Guild Wars 2 more.

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch. At this point in it’s development, Factions wasn’t out yet. And a lot of people seem to be comparing four games with one. Take away professions like the Rit, sin and dervish and see how many people are still saying Guild Wars 1 was much better. Certainly not as many PVe people.

25 missions, no hard mode. That’s what you had. And the mission bonuses were annoying and story breaking in some cases. Many were badly done (particularly in Nightfall).

Sorrow’s Furnace and hard mode weren’t there at launch. There weren’t 8 dungeons. There wasn’t five races and starting areas. And though the personal story is uneven, some of them are pretty good (while others are not). That being said, there are only so many times I could play through pre, even though some people loved it. At least here I have five zones to play around in.

There was plenty wrong with Guild Wars 1. It was still one of the best games of its time but I think too many people remember it with rose-colored glasses on, and even more, many are comparing the full range of games that appear over a couple of years with what we’re seeing in Guild Wars 2 after six months.

In two years, I think this game is going to rock.

The things you list as negative are either positives for me or neutral. No marketplace meant trading meant something, sure you had scammers, but it was personal. Now it is cold and impersonal. No jumping honestly did not matter to me. Jumping does not a good game make. While there weren’t 8 dungeons there was UW and FoW. These 2 to date still outperform GW2 dungeons.

Now let’s look at the first major update for both. Lost Shores and Furnace of Sorrow. The former died out a week after it’s launch while the latter is still done to this day. Not only that but you can consider it a precursor to GW2 dungeons as there were multiple routes depending on which quest you took.

What else did GW1 offer. To me it offered self set goals. One of which was exloring as much of the world while doing the bare minimum of missions. I had all missions and outposts unlocked by travelling to them except for Crystal Desert. Or uncover as much of the map as possible. I did this before the title was added. Unlock every single skill. These are self set goals, goals that GW2 is lacking. Or another way to look at it is freedom. Prophecies has it, GW2 a lot less.

GW1 felt like it was developed by gamers to me, while GW2 was developed by suits. I would not be playing this game if it had not been for the first.

But Guild Wars 2 isn’t lacking self-set goals, you’re just not setting them. There’s plenty of stuff I want to do, and haven’t gotten to yet. There are also things the game offers for those who don’t like to set their own goals.

As far as jumping, you’re right it doesn’t make a game. Nor does being a ranger in the wild and not being able to stop over a log. Sorry but that, to me, is almost game breaking. Here I am, the great explorer, oh, a log, I guess I’ll have to walk around it.

If you like standing around in Kamadan to sell stuff, and you think that’s superior to posting it and leaving, well, I think you’d be in a very small minority there. I can’t tell you how many times people in my guild complained about having to go to Spamadan.

There were other major problems with the game from my point of view. Mission bonuses used to annoy the hell out of me. Take Blacktide Den. So you have to kill this Rinkhail monitors to get the bonus. Why? It’s never explained in game. I’m going to make this guy suspicious while impersonating corsairs, to hunt down monitors for no reason whatsoever. Ummm why? The only reason I know to do it is because I get a message on my screen. Well, my character can’t see my screen. Why is he running around this swamp killing those monsters and why those monsters?

I can think of tons of stuff like that that pulled me right out of the game. I’d say Eye of the North was my favorite Guild Wars 1 product and the game was already out a couple of years when that came out.

As for Prophecies and Sorrow’s Furnace, the amount of content in Guild Wars 2 compared to Guild Wars 1 is HUGE. I mean if you’re really comparing Sorrow’s Furnace to the Fractals, which was something you left off your upgrade list, I don’t know what to tell you.

I find the Fractals a whole lot more entertaining than Sorrow’s Furnace ever was. As for Underworld and UW, sure, they were entertaining. I’ll grant you that. But there’s still far more content in Guild Wars 2 than there was in Guild Wars 1 at this point. In a year or two, Guild Wars 2 will have far more content than all the games put together.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

The trinity is tried and tested. But for everyone person who enjoys using it, there’s at least one person who doesn’t. It’s tried and tested and okay for a small percentage of people. Face it, most people didn’t love dungeons or raids in WoW, it was a specific crowd. Some of those guys liked it.

You made that up. There is no data behind that. In fact since WoW is still going strong with over 10 million subs and most other MMOs still have the trinity I would still say that the majority of players is enjoying the trinity system.

Vayne.8563:

But I know a number of people who hated it, and only did it for the loot, or to help out their guild. It may be tried and tested, but that doesn’t mean universally loved. Even in this very thread we heard from a WoW raider who said it was kittening boring. So yeah, what does tried and tested mean?

Again there is no data to support your claims. I can only go by the numbers and as long as people still mostly play games with the trinity, I can only conclude that people still enjoy it, as do I.

Vayne.8563:

It means it got into games. Not necessarily that the largest percentage of people find it fun. I was one of the guys who didn’t. I hated the trinity long before Guild Wars 2 was announced.

That’s fine. We can all feel the way we want. However, since the majority of players isn’t actually playing GW2, it cannot be concluded that they want what GW2 offers.

You see, it’s easy to hate something but if the alternative is not better or worse, then where does that leave the player?

My point is that each person can enjoy what they want, but for a lot of people GW2 is fine and for a lot of people it isn’t. A big issue is identified here. Not having a trinity has certain advantages but also has some major drawbacks. Then you have to make a choice for yourself in what is more important to you. I find the trinity system more interesting because it defines roles and classes better and therefore gives them purpose. This also translates into the combat system and I find GW2 lacking tremendously there as well.

So for me the end conclusion is simple: GW2 doesn’t offer me an enjoyable experience.

You have a different conclusion. The OP probably agrees more with me about this

When I started with GW2 I just noticed 2 big things:

1) It’s nothing like GW1, which I loved and played to death.
2) The lack of trinity and depth/transparency in the combat system bores me.

So I stopped playing. I just stop here from time to time to see how the game is doing but so far the discussions are more of the same. Just saying.

Actually I didn’t make it up. Years ago, there were polls about the number of people who actually raided and the number of people who enjoyed raiding. It was a much smaller number than you’d like to believe. Those polls aren’t fact, but I detect a trend.

There are, truly, people who do like raiding, but I don’t think they represent near 50% of the gaming population. Dungeon runners, same thing.

Anyone who’s played any MMO knows that many many many people solo. Do you really think those who solo love the trinity? Take the soloers out of that ten million,. the PvPers, who don’t like PVe at all, the people who just enjoy the social aspect, and you’ll find that only a small percentage of people like raiding and a bunch of people who do raid and run dungeons ONLY do it for the rewards….not because they like it or find it fun. The same is true in Guild Wars 2 of course and the same was true in Guild Wars 1. Most people didn’t like dungeons, but there was a small, hard core dedicated percentage who did.

Let’s call it 50%. It’s not that high, but let’s call it that. So 50% of the people like dungeons or raids. Then you ask, how many of those like the trinity, because not all do. As we’ve seen many raiders in this very thread don’t. My son was a raider in WoW, both actually. One of them likes it, and one of them hates it.

My experience and the knowledge I have, logically tells me that a whole lot of people don’t like dungeons or raids. So ten million people becomes less than 5 million.

Maybe, without the trinity, more people would do dungeons, but I’m not sure that’s the case either.

But there are a whole lot of people who play WoW, who just hang around in the world soloing and none of those people weigh in on the trinity at all.

I’m another long time Guild Wars 1 player, who likes Guild Wars 2 more.

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch. At this point in it’s development, Factions wasn’t out yet. And a lot of people seem to be comparing four games with one. Take away professions like the Rit, sin and dervish and see how many people are still saying Guild Wars 1 was much better. Certainly not as many PVe people.

25 missions, no hard mode. That’s what you had. And the mission bonuses were annoying and story breaking in some cases. Many were badly done (particularly in Nightfall).

Sorrow’s Furnace and hard mode weren’t there at launch. There weren’t 8 dungeons. There wasn’t five races and starting areas. And though the personal story is uneven, some of them are pretty good (while others are not). That being said, there are only so many times I could play through pre, even though some people loved it. At least here I have five zones to play around in.

I did like the skill system in Guild Wars 1 and loved making builds. It was my favorite part of the game. But it wasn’t enough to compensate for the incredible lack of necessary game functions, like marketplaces and jumping. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around Spamadan all day, trying to sell a bunch of stuff, instead of playing.

There was plenty wrong with Guild Wars 1. It was still one of the best games of its time but I think too many people remember it with rose-colored glasses on, and even more, many are comparing the full range of games that appear over a couple of years with what we’re seeing in Guild Wars 2 after six months.

In two years, I think this game is going to rock.

Gehenna.3625:

The trinity of tank, dps and healer classes is tried and tested. You could call it old but it works.

GW2 is a different game where they wanted to step away from that, specifically to avoid people being in LFG too long.

Although the theory of that is nice, the reality, at least for me, is that they didn’t succeed in replacing the trinity with something equal. I never asked for GW2 to go to the trinity but the lack of roles and the lack of transparency in a furthermore shallow combat system, doesn’t succceed in giving an in-depth experience of the various classes available in the game.

I applaud the attempt ANet made to replace the trinity as such (not that I am against the trinity myself), but I am not happy with the resulting reality. The combat system and classes are uninteresting to me and that’s mostly because they simplified everything too much and by taking the trinity out they reinforced that. Perhaps taking out the trinity started that.

There is an advantage in not having to look for healers or tanks, but there is a big disadvantage in the lack of role and class definition and a combat system that is based more on general skills like dodging and ressing than anything else.

Also the mix of a limited skill bar (10 slots) but MMO style cooldowns (minutes) does no good to it either. And I cannot escape the impression that the lack of trinity is at the foundation of all this, because it’s one thing to say “I don’t want this” but without a proper replacement, it doesn’t really get you anywhere.

The trinity is tried and tested. But for everyone person who enjoys using it, there’s at least one person who doesn’t. It’s tried and tested and okay for a small percentage of people. Face it, most people didn’t love dungeons or raids in WoW, it was a specific crowd. Some of those guys liked it.

But I know a number of people who hated it, and only did it for the loot, or to help out their guild. It may be tried and tested, but that doesn’t mean universally loved. Even in this very thread we heard from a WoW raider who said it was kittening boring. So yeah, what does tried and tested mean?

It means it got into games. Not necessarily that the largest percentage of people find it fun. I was one of the guys who didn’t. I hated the trinity long before Guild Wars 2 was announced.

John Widdin.9618:

Among all the kitten flinging, I’m not sure if anyone has pointed out, there’s sort of a soft trinity.

Bruiser, Dps, Support

One Bruiser, and one support makes a world of difference in ease of the dungeon. Along with proper combo field usage.

Except that these are not necessarily profession dependent. Any number of the professions could be the support or the “bruiser”. And that makes it a very different game.

Hell you can be any of those things from fight to fight, sometimes in the same dungeon.

vespers.1759:

I
alright np. i really hope the wvwvw patch addresses the problems with classes and not just culling.

just have to wait and see i guess.

I suspect it will. They did say WvWers would be able to get ascended gear in WvW…it’s only that the patch was knocked back a month. So it didn’t get in. I’d be quite surprised if they didn’t give you guys a way to get ascended gear, and I firmly believe they should.

People who WvW should never be pushed into having to PVe.

Sunflowers.1729:

I don’t agree with the sentiment that GW2 has synergy. On one hand there are combo fields, and builds that are meant to benefit your team, but in the end it is still an individual game of survival (especially in dungeons).

Sure you can play ‘support’ or ‘tank’ builds ala Altruistic Healing Guardian, but the benefit to your team is still small.

A simpler way to see this is if your ‘tank’ guardian dies. Will you still be able to defeat the boss? Of course. In most other MMOs, if your tank dies, your team wipes. Period. Same for your healer and sometimes DPS.

So I don’t see how anyone can argue that the synergy in GW2 is anything to write home about. Yes the generic 4-warrior-1-mesmer group works together pretty well, same with 3 guardians for permanent projectile reflection, but it’s still kind of iffy compared to other MMO games.

This isn’t necessarily bad, as it means you can just play whatever the heck you want and get away with it, as well as not having to depend on a tank or healer who may or may not suck.

It is just different, and honestly I find it kind of boring. (Disclaimer: this is my own opinion) Sure you can argue that tanks tanking, healers healing, and people doing damage is boring too, but at least you had to work together to do a dungeon. In GW2 it’s just a test of how well you can time dodges and hit the enemy.

Edit: Yes teamwork helps in WvW – nobody is disputing that. However in the end it is still every-man-for-himself. And for serious dungeons – let’s use Giganticus Lupicus as an example. He’s a decently difficult boss, and sure when I’m on a Guardian using teamwide stability to get people out of the bubbles helps a lot, as well as using aegis to safely rez people during his storm of green stuff. However if my team was skilled enough there is absolutely 0 need to do that as we would never get hit. Can you take a team of 5 fire-mages into the Deadmines? The answer is no.

So what you’re saying is that synergy can only exist where if one guy dies you fail? Cause that sounds like you’re saying that. What does that mean?

A team of navy seals could go out on a mission and they could have great synergy. One of them could die…the rest could finish the mission without him. The mission shouldn’t automatically fail because one guy dies. That’s not synergy anyway.

Ravious of Kill Ten Rats wrote an article about this very topic and he came to the conclusion that the type of synergy you get in Guild Wars 2 is more like the type of synergy you get in Team Fortress 2. You gel with your team (his word not mine). You fall into a role as you learn what other people are doing and you react to it on the fly. You see what needs to happen and you move to fill that role. At least you do if you’re a decent player.

This becomes even more true with a guild that plays together all the time. Synergy with strangers is not the same thing as static roles, because then everyone is just doing something mindless. Synergy, real synergy comes from reacting.

People in trinity games aren’t play WITH each other. They’re doing their own thing while standing next each other. The healer is looking at green bars going up and down, while trying to stay out of red circles. He’s not playing WITH anyone. The tank is holding aggro on the boss. He’s not playing WITH anyone. The the DPS guys are trying to outdo each other. They’re all playing their own game.

In Guild Wars 2, if I lay down a well, other people have to see it and recognize it. But I can’t tell you how many times in mumble, while doing a dungeon, someone will say, look we have three mesmers, let’s stagger our time warps. I’ll use mine first then you go, then Joe will go. Or how many times we come up with cool ways to do things that require voice communication. We do this stuff all the time. We tell each other when we lay down certain types of fields. There’s a ton of synergy when we play together.

But if you don’t train with a team, I don’t know why you’d expect synergy. That’s why pugs aren’t as good as playing with a guild.

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

If you’d stop lying to your friends about what’s needed to play the game, maybe word of mouth wouldn’t be so bad. But once you say you NEED this end game gear (which you would in other games, but not in this one), then you are essentially doing the game a disservice.

BIS gear is a must in most games because of gated content. Here’s it’s a luxury and a compromise.

Maybe you should let people who play this game explain it to your friends instead.

did you even read? you DO NEED this gear for fractals.

I do fractals without that gear. You need this gear for TOP level fractals. But you can see all the fractals without going to the higher level. All it is is the same thing, but harder mobs. It’s designed to be self-perpetuating.

There’s a huge game out there, outside the fractals. Eight dungeons for which you don’t need this. PvP and WvW for which you don’t need this. And entire world to explore, for which you don’t need this.

You don’t even need agony resistance till after level 10 fractals, at which point you get chances for rings. The rings will allow you to have 5 agony resist, which reduced agony damage by about half. That alone would last most people to level 20 fractals.

Do you have any idea of the amount of the player base who doesn’t care about level 20 fractals at all. But let’s say you do. You only need 10 agony resistance to do that level and that agony resistance can be gotten by either 2 rings, or an amulet and a ring, or an ascended backpack, that’s been upgraded and a ring or amulet.

People who liked to grind didn’t have that play style catered to, so Anet made a compromise. Since you don’t need this stuff except to do the one place where you can actually get this stuff, your point is completely moot.

why are you explaining fractals to me? i know how it works. the point is that it takes years to get trinkets for alts.

that’s just insane. pvp requires you to have the best gear to be competitive. this just makes the joke that is wvwv even more of a joke.

if they gave us all exotic gear in wvwv like they do for spvp and gave AR in fractals without the extra stats i would be much happier.

there is no need to have AR outside of fractals, and pvp should attempt to be as balanced as possible.

But why do you have to run fractals with alts. And if you’re not running fractals why do you need the trinkets?

I have a ton of characters, I mean a lot, and ONE Of them does fractals, which is my mesmer. The rest of my characters don’t do fractals, and I play them all, and enjoy them. That you need to kit them all out in ascended gear is ludicrous and it’s a personal choice. I don’t, and I play the game just fine.

Why does every single one of your characters need to get to the highest level fractal? If you don’t, then you don’t need that gear. None of the other content is gated.

1. read my post
2. realize how silly and irrelevant your reply is
3. maybe fix it? or just go away? seriously i don’t have to time to discuss things with people who don’t even read before they reply.

I read your post. My reply is relevant, whether you think it is or not. But feel free not to reply to this, I’d hate to see you waste even more of your time.

you replied to a post about wvwvw and balance with a comment about reaching max fractal level. how is that in any way related to what i said?

i need ascended for pvp. i need multiple sets for different builds. reaching max fractals has nothing to do with it and wasn’t even mentioned in my post at all.

read please.

Okay let’s try this one again. I was attempting not to reply to you, but to reply to the OP. I don’t really know how your post was quoted. My bad. I really was replying to what the OP was saying.

As for what you’re saying, no one can know anything until the WvW update comes out in March. I’m still not convinced anyone needs ascended gear to WvW, I sure don’t use it, but I can see where you’d think you would.

It still could all change when the March WvW upgrade comes out. Keep in mind they delayed that update and it could have come out in February. That team wasn’t ready.

So if they give you ways to earn that stuff in WvW, that would make your argument moot.

As for the reply, I really was trying to reply to the OP, not you. And since you replied to me, I replied back to you. We were having different conversations. Again, my bad.

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

If you’d stop lying to your friends about what’s needed to play the game, maybe word of mouth wouldn’t be so bad. But once you say you NEED this end game gear (which you would in other games, but not in this one), then you are essentially doing the game a disservice.

BIS gear is a must in most games because of gated content. Here’s it’s a luxury and a compromise.

Maybe you should let people who play this game explain it to your friends instead.

did you even read? you DO NEED this gear for fractals.

I do fractals without that gear. You need this gear for TOP level fractals. But you can see all the fractals without going to the higher level. All it is is the same thing, but harder mobs. It’s designed to be self-perpetuating.

There’s a huge game out there, outside the fractals. Eight dungeons for which you don’t need this. PvP and WvW for which you don’t need this. And entire world to explore, for which you don’t need this.

You don’t even need agony resistance till after level 10 fractals, at which point you get chances for rings. The rings will allow you to have 5 agony resist, which reduced agony damage by about half. That alone would last most people to level 20 fractals.

Do you have any idea of the amount of the player base who doesn’t care about level 20 fractals at all. But let’s say you do. You only need 10 agony resistance to do that level and that agony resistance can be gotten by either 2 rings, or an amulet and a ring, or an ascended backpack, that’s been upgraded and a ring or amulet.

People who liked to grind didn’t have that play style catered to, so Anet made a compromise. Since you don’t need this stuff except to do the one place where you can actually get this stuff, your point is completely moot.

why are you explaining fractals to me? i know how it works. the point is that it takes years to get trinkets for alts.

that’s just insane. pvp requires you to have the best gear to be competitive. this just makes the joke that is wvwv even more of a joke.

if they gave us all exotic gear in wvwv like they do for spvp and gave AR in fractals without the extra stats i would be much happier.

there is no need to have AR outside of fractals, and pvp should attempt to be as balanced as possible.

But why do you have to run fractals with alts. And if you’re not running fractals why do you need the trinkets?

I have a ton of characters, I mean a lot, and ONE Of them does fractals, which is my mesmer. The rest of my characters don’t do fractals, and I play them all, and enjoy them. That you need to kit them all out in ascended gear is ludicrous and it’s a personal choice. I don’t, and I play the game just fine.

Why does every single one of your characters need to get to the highest level fractal? If you don’t, then you don’t need that gear. None of the other content is gated.

1. read my post
2. realize how silly and irrelevant your reply is
3. maybe fix it? or just go away? seriously i don’t have to time to discuss things with people who don’t even read before they reply.

I read your post. My reply is relevant, whether you think it is or not. But feel free not to reply to this, I’d hate to see you waste even more of your time.

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

If you’d stop lying to your friends about what’s needed to play the game, maybe word of mouth wouldn’t be so bad. But once you say you NEED this end game gear (which you would in other games, but not in this one), then you are essentially doing the game a disservice.

BIS gear is a must in most games because of gated content. Here’s it’s a luxury and a compromise.

Maybe you should let people who play this game explain it to your friends instead.

did you even read? you DO NEED this gear for fractals.

I do fractals without that gear. You need this gear for TOP level fractals. But you can see all the fractals without going to the higher level. All it is is the same thing, but harder mobs. It’s designed to be self-perpetuating.

There’s a huge game out there, outside the fractals. Eight dungeons for which you don’t need this. PvP and WvW for which you don’t need this. And entire world to explore, for which you don’t need this.

You don’t even need agony resistance till after level 10 fractals, at which point you get chances for rings. The rings will allow you to have 5 agony resist, which reduced agony damage by about half. That alone would last most people to level 20 fractals.

Do you have any idea of the amount of the player base who doesn’t care about level 20 fractals at all. But let’s say you do. You only need 10 agony resistance to do that level and that agony resistance can be gotten by either 2 rings, or an amulet and a ring, or an ascended backpack, that’s been upgraded and a ring or amulet.

People who liked to grind didn’t have that play style catered to, so Anet made a compromise. Since you don’t need this stuff except to do the one place where you can actually get this stuff, your point is completely moot.

why are you explaining fractals to me? i know how it works. the point is that it takes years to get trinkets for alts.

that’s just insane. pvp requires you to have the best gear to be competitive. this just makes the joke that is wvwv even more of a joke.

if they gave us all exotic gear in wvwv like they do for spvp and gave AR in fractals without the extra stats i would be much happier.

there is no need to have AR outside of fractals, and pvp should attempt to be as balanced as possible.

But why do you have to run fractals with alts. And if you’re not running fractals why do you need the trinkets?

I have a ton of characters, I mean a lot, and ONE Of them does fractals, which is my mesmer. The rest of my characters don’t do fractals, and I play them all, and enjoy them. That you need to kit them all out in ascended gear is ludicrous and it’s a personal choice. I don’t, and I play the game just fine.

Why does every single one of your characters need to get to the highest level fractal? If you don’t, then you don’t need that gear. None of the other content is gated.

Today we invited a smaller, friendly guild to join us in our guild bounty. The members of that guild joined our guild, repped for the duration of the event, and they got their rewards. They were really happy. Thanks us several times for including them. Then they went back to their guild.

I’d encourage other medium-large guilds to seek out smaller guilds. You get more people to do your bounties, the other team gets rewards and everyone goes home a winner.

Is someone really comparing a P2W game like what Lotro has become to Guild Wars 2…really? Yes I love having a game where each part of the game has to be purchased seperately and I can’t play with my friends because I don’t have the same areas they do. Or standing there killing one type of creature over and over to get a specific trait I want. This is great stuff.

Lotro is probably my second favorite MMO, but Turbine has destroyed it completely. You couldn’t pay me to get me back to that game. In fact, if it weren’t Lord of the Rings, that game would have been out of business ages ago. It’s not because people love the lore. Same with DDO, another Turbine disaster. That company is so greedy it makes me sick.

I don’t see how anyone can compare these two games.

Zeldain.5710:

Conncept.7638:

Because playing a game where everybody has to fulfill the exact same three positions in the exact same way (two of which take no skill whatsoever) isn’t shallow at all right? That’s why everybody knows football is so much more deep than chess…

Some people’s kids…

As opposed to one role with no team synergy? Yeah, your parents kids.

You must be playing a different game than me, because we have tons of synergy when my guild plays together. We take skills and styles that compliment each other. We do things smart.

This game is probably tougher on pugs than other games are. Which is why you should join a guild. This kind of game requires training as a team to work as a team.

The trinity was great in that anyone could just slot into a role and play that role, because it was always the same. And that is a strength of that system. But considering how stale and contrived that system actually is, I think this is a much much better system.

Imagine how exciting the Lord of the Rings would have been if Blizzard had produced it. No one would ever attack anyone but Boromir, and Gandalf would be back healing him. Very exciting.

vespers.1759:

Vayne.8563:

If you’d stop lying to your friends about what’s needed to play the game, maybe word of mouth wouldn’t be so bad. But once you say you NEED this end game gear (which you would in other games, but not in this one), then you are essentially doing the game a disservice.

BIS gear is a must in most games because of gated content. Here’s it’s a luxury and a compromise.

Maybe you should let people who play this game explain it to your friends instead.

did you even read? you DO NEED this gear for fractals.

I do fractals without that gear. You need this gear for TOP level fractals. But you can see all the fractals without going to the higher level. All it is is the same thing, but harder mobs. It’s designed to be self-perpetuating.

There’s a huge game out there, outside the fractals. Eight dungeons for which you don’t need this. PvP and WvW for which you don’t need this. And entire world to explore, for which you don’t need this.

You don’t even need agony resistance till after level 10 fractals, at which point you get chances for rings. The rings will allow you to have 5 agony resist, which reduced agony damage by about half. That alone would last most people to level 20 fractals.

Do you have any idea of the amount of the player base who doesn’t care about level 20 fractals at all. But let’s say you do. You only need 10 agony resistance to do that level and that agony resistance can be gotten by either 2 rings, or an amulet and a ring, or an ascended backpack, that’s been upgraded and a ring or amulet.

People who liked to grind didn’t have that play style catered to, so Anet made a compromise. Since you don’t need this stuff except to do the one place where you can actually get this stuff, your point is completely moot.

I think, OP, the problem is that there are different types of players. I’m more like you. I’d have done the event, because I could care less about rewards. But there are also people who DO play for rewards.

One side is not better than the other side. We just see the game differently.

I’m an immersion player. I’m immersed in the world. I feel like I’m there. If an outpost is under attack, I’ll defend it, because it’s what my character would do. But a lot of people don’t play this way…and that’s okay.

No one’s play style is worse than anyone else’s. It’s all just a matter of a different point of view.

The only thing more boring than the trinity is the amount of times people take the time to try to defend it. But it’s like everything else. It’s had it’s time. it’ll fade as new games come out, and five years from now, only old games will have it. We’ve started moving beyond it, and as time goes on, the new generation of players will learn to hate it as much as I do.

The trinity is a contrived mechanic that lacks imagination. It reduces players to rotation players, who don’t even have to think to get through content. It doesn’t surprise me that some people like it. It’s nice and controlled and everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing.

It also doesn’t surprise me that people who come from that background think there’s no depth in GW2’s combat. Most people see only what they’re trained to see, and people give up way too easily to learn something new.

But the trinity system is truly appauling. It set the RPG space back ten years. The damage it’s done to the genre will take another five years to recover from.

If you’d stop lying to your friends about what’s needed to play the game, maybe word of mouth wouldn’t be so bad. But once you say you NEED this end game gear (which you would in other games, but not in this one), then you are essentially doing the game a disservice.

BIS gear is a must in most games because of gated content. Here’s it’s a luxury and a compromise.

Maybe you should let people who play this game explain it to your friends instead.

Sounds like you’d be a pretty good fit for Wardens of Destiny. We’re already on Tarnished Coast and we’re mostly PVe. Medium sized guild, with a lot of really nice people.

Mumble is definitely a plus though, since we have a lot of social interaction happening there.

Guild Website is http://wardensofdestiny.enjin.com

Or shoot me a mail/message in game on my character Cador Shrike.

I’m a Guild Wars 1 guy too, btw.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

Vayne.8563:

Because they’re not stacks. You don’t have 50 axes. You have an ax that wears down and is useless when you get that number of uses. You can’t stack weapon axes. You can’t stack the axe you’re using to harvest, because it’s 1 axe, that you eventually where down.

Are you arguing real-life logic in a game that lets you bank resources from anywhere in the world and has individual resource nodes?

One of the reasons I originally enjoyed GW2 was for those little touches where the game didn’t fight you for no reason, didn’t create challenge for unentertaining management, let you have fun. I don’t get that feeling so much now that I’ve struggled with a lot of the UI, but this one’s a no-brainer; gathering tools should be able to be combined to their maximum usage (e.g. two mithril mining picks, 57 and 62. You can drag one on top of the other for a 100-use pick and a 19-use pick).

No, I’m saying that it says in the Guild Wars 2 Strategy guide. These aren’t individual items. they’re single items. Someone asked a question about why they can’t combine stacks and I answered them. Their question, as posed, said they have stacks of axes, but they don’t. They have a single axe that eventually wears out.

There’s no need to stack this stuff. It’s cheap enough to replace, even if you delete a dwindling stack at some point to save inventory space, which I almost never have to do.

Just buy bigger bags and play the game, instead of making spurious threads about non-issues. There are plenty of actual issues in this game…this ain’t one of them.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m more irritated that (other than the few blogs or dev posts in forums) ANet dispenses what information they do give out everywhere but on the official site. I’ve seen way more forum posts by players about something someone from ANet said: on Reddit; in an AMA, on facebook, on twitter, on some third-party site, etc. than I;ve seen official information released on the official site. That’s bassackward.

This is one of the most legit complaints about Anet. Saying something on Twitter and not on their site or the forum is ridiculous. I’m a big fan, but they need to present information across all spectrums at the same time. There are several times I found out something from Twitter that others didn’t know.

Because they’re not stacks. You don’t have 50 axes. You have an ax that wears down and is useless when you get that number of uses. You can’t stack weapon axes. You can’t stack the axe you’re using to harvest, because it’s 1 axe, that you eventually where down.

Wardens of Destiny is a small-medium sized guild (currently 70ish members), looking to slowly expand. Slowly because we like to know the people we play with. We don’t want people to get lost or just be numbers to fill out parties. We are an online family.

Wardens is primary a Pve guild, though we have people in our guild into WvW and even SpvP. However, we mostly love exploring Tyria and experiencing it as a living world. When we run dungeons and fractals, which we do, we’re more interested in running with fun people than we are running it fast as we possibly can. We like to joke around on mumble. Though it’s not a requirement, you’ll certainly get the best exposure by having a mic and using mumble. We highly encourage it.

We’re looking for people in the US or Oceanic regions (we have a small oceanic contingent we’re looking to grow), who enjoy Guild Wars 2 and want to play it in a low stress environment. Just be aware that we sometimes have a twisted sense of humor (or nothing we say will make sense to you).

Also be advised we accept no one under the age of 18.

If you’re friendly, social, non-elitest and focused on Pve, feel free to send an in game mail to Cador Shrike.

I’m a celebrity playing this game, but I dare not reveal my true identity, because if I did, I’d never get a moment of peace.

Carry on.

I think the problem with this thread is that people are confusing their own personal preferences with grind. Let me give you an example.

I don’t like WvW, so getting badges in WvW FEELS like a grind. It’s not really a grind, because those who do like WvW get them all the time. They have stacks of them. There are jumping puzzles I can do too, to get badges of honor.

But the bottom line is just because you don’t like to do something or it bores you, doesn’t make it grindy. It just feels grindy to you.

An objective grind is different from a subjective grind. For example, no matter how much you enjoy running dungeons, if you have to run the same dungeon over and over again, waiting for a specific piece of gear to drop that you specifically need to progress to the next dungeon, that would, objectively, be a grind. Even if you like dungeons, you’re still running that dungeon to get that one piece. And then there’s a person who ninjas it when it finally drops and you have to do it again. That’s grind in most games.

Karma couldn’t objectively be considered a grind, because there are so many ways to get karma.

If you want a set of Dungeon armor, getting the whole set could objectively be called a grind, due to the number of times you have to run that dungeon. But you don’t need that dungeon armor, you want it.

And that, I think is the difference. This game doesn’t gate content. You can do everything with greens if you want to, certainly rares. So you don’t NEED to grind. However, without grind, there’d be little to do in ANY MMO long term.

So grind has to exist. As long as it’s optional grind then no one should be complaining.

The problem with ascended gear is that some people say it’s necessary and some people say it isn’t. For those who feel you can comfortably play the game without it, like me, it’s not a grind. For those people who feel they absolutely must have it, it is one.

Forum goers: We aren’t getting any good drops. World bosses are horrible. There’s no reward for them.

Other Forum goers: You promised us guesting, we want guesting. When will it be available. Another broken promise.

Anet: Okay we’ll fix the drops. We’ll make it worth doing world bosses. And we’ll finally implement guesting.

Forum goers: There’s lag everywhere. You can’t do anything. People are guesting to my server.

It doesn’t matter what Anet does or says for two reasons. First the MMO playerbase is so fragmented, a percentage want one thing and another percentage want another thing. And both things are mutually exclusive.

People want raids. People absolutely don’t want raids. People want better rewards, better rewards are killing playability in certain zones. People want cheaper, easier to get legendaries. People want legendaries to take time and money to get so they mean something.

So what is Anet supposed to do? Communicate every idea they have, before they’ve discussed it to death? To what end? So people can complain loudly before they implement.

Anet has numbers to some degree of what people are looking for. They definitely have more data than any player has access to. They make decisions based on their data. Players kitten and moan and say Anet is wrong, even though players don’t necessarily have the data.

It’s like a profession nerf. Most warriors wouldn’t enjoy being nerfed and they’d complain about it, while many other professions feel the warrior should be nerfed. Who should Anet listen to? What should they say? Why should the say it?

Anet would be really really stupid if they didn’t keep their cards close to their chest. Not just for competition reasons, but because they can’t do ANYTHING with having to go into damage control mode. Not because the stuff is necessarily bad, but because a certain percentage of the population will very vocally say it’s bad. The new dailies and the fractals are perfect examples. Many many people really like the Fractals. Many people like the new dailies. But it doesn’t matter, because the amount of complaining about these things is legendary.

If I were Anet, I’d give you less information than you’re getting now.

Zeata.6830:

new account? what if you haven’t talk to that guy before? i have had my account for 6 years. can i go back and talk to him if i never did before? ty for the tip tho!

You should be able to get the keys, once per account.

Skyrim blew it for me, when I realized that my single character could end up the head of every single guild and organization on the planet with little to no effort on my part. Total bullkitten. Dragon fights, which started off amazing, soon became, oh look, another dragon.

Skyrim did have some good elements, but I think you’ll find that the average amount of time most players play Skyrim is far less than the average amount of time most players will play an MMO.

Skyrim, not being sold AS an MMO, didn’t really need time/gate material. If someone got 100 hours out of skyrim, it was a huge amount. I came close, but didn’t.

By the same token I’ve gotten hundreds of hours of of Guild Wars 2. How the hell is anyone going to get that many hours out of a game without any time gating mechanism. Could it be, OP, that your expectations for an MMO are way off?

I’m willing to wager that of those people who played and enjoyed Skyrim and those people who played and enjoyed Guild Wars 2, you’ll find that a much larger percentage of people played Guild Wars 2 for a much larger number of hours. I can’t prove this, but I suspect it’s true.

Some of this is because of time gating, but some of it is because the way the game is laid out.

Also, Skyrim was available on consoles and so it’s going to have a LOT more players, just because there are more console players out there than PC gamers. That’s a fact.
The Skyrim devs expected a huge percentage of their sales to be from consoles. This is why the PC UI sucked so bad.

Add into it that Skyrim released with as many or more bugs as Guild Wars 2, and it has a huge modding community. WIthout those mods, how long would most people have played?

Skyrim was a good game, no question about it. But it can’t hold a candle, long term to a game like Guild Wars 2.

The camera angle isn’t likely to improve on older content and newer content is being written around it (such as the new jumping puzzles). Part of the problem with the camera was that several changes were made to it after jumping puzzles were designed and redesigning them isn’t cost/time effective. That’s why the new jumping puzzles work better for norn and charr, rather than the older ones.

As time goes on, of course, there’ll be more and more newer ones, and the older ones will eventually be in a minority. But I doubt they’ll fix them.

The map situation depends on what server you’re on, but you can’t expect people to be everywhere, because people are only going to group where the rewards are best. Try guesting to different servers if you find the one you’re on to be not so busy.

Waypoints are pretty pricey, but since the money you get as a high level character is also pretty high, they cease to be a problem after a while…at least for most people I talk to. I mean 1 dynamic event at level 80 pays for a waypoint charge to most places. And since you can get closer to places going through the mists to Lion’s Arch, which is free, it’s hardly a problem.

I do agree that they loot scaling still has some issues and needs to be looked at, but it’s a whole lot better than it was.