Guild Wars 2

Archdevil.1748:

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

mauried.5608:

Lets look at the numbers of replies and views of this thread.
123 replies and 6300 views.
How many players does GW2 have?
On the basis of 123 replies HOT is a failure.
Seriously?
A basic course in statistics would be a good start for some of the replies to this thread.

Get used to it, someone once said it failed and he talked for a “lot of people”, when asked he directed me to a topic with less than 2000 replies.
The usual reasoning is “my guild + everyone I know + the people my guildmates know = everyone”

Should we wait for Anet to step up and show numbers proving that HoT failed?

Real, objective and verifiable evidence is always available after a game’s release.
Stocks change, they fire/hire more people, they make moves that show a declining population (like merging server) or such, you can access real evidence eventually.
And it may show that the game didn’t fail.
This “analysis” proves nothing, it’s simply a rant.

I never said it failed for the whole community. There are ppl that like it for some reason. Personally for me it is a huge fail. In order to make an hour and more rant means you have played the game enough and have analised the weaknesses of the expac. It is a rant, yes. One that is very well done. He points what is wrong with every aspect. So besides a rant it has a great deal of analisys involved.
About the evidence – there are so many topics here and on Reddit what is wrong with different aspects of the expac and they are popping more and more.
And one last thing – I never said the game is dead. Anet failed to delivere the content properly.

The word failed really doesn’t act like that. Failed is a state of not succeeding. It may have failed to hold your interest, but that’s a very different thing from saying something has failed.

When people use the word failed, they’re usually talking about something that is a statement of fact. The new burglar alarm failed to keep the house from being broken into. The virus checker failed to protect the system. He failed to score the final touchdown. That’s what the word means.

By placing that word in the title of your post, you pretty much interfere with anything else you want to say, because some people will say the game hasn’t failed or we won’t know if it has failed for some time.

That’s the problem with using sensationlist headlines. It competely detracts from the message you’re trying to get out there.

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

You not remembering a character doesn’t make him a bad character. He makes him a bad character to you. There’s nothing wrong with Ibli. You don’t believe he stood out, which is fine. I do. That’s fine too.

It’s an opinion. You’re entitled to yours, I’m entitled to mine.

The reason why stories in these games are as they are is because in single player games you have a lot more time to work on them, and they probably don’t change as much. Single player games don’t evolve as they go.

MMOs need more and faster, often with teams of people changing all the time. It’s not so easy to get everything in by that deadline all the time. But the deadline for a game that’s not out yet is very different from the deadline of a game that is constantly needed you for the next thing.

There are a lot of reasons why single player games have a better chance at a better story than MMOs do. The proof is in the fact that it happens so often. It’s not like single player game writers are great and MMO writers suck. That’s not it at all.

It’s a different vehicle with different focus.

If you’re building a racing car you build for speed. If you’re building a family car you build for safety. It changes the design.

Different opinions is not a basis to end the discussion, it’s a basis to start one. When we present our opinions we give arguments. Admit it, “I like it” is not much of an argument. You could just as well try to convince me, that a tree is a good character, since it makes nice sound when you chop it and you love that tree.

And why do you try to convince as that story wasn’t Anets focus on HoT? Well, maybe not the main one, but they still put quite a lot of resources into it. PC has 6 different voices, many missions have different approaches, Braham shaves his head. That’s an effort in my book. Hell, I can’t say many bad things about story and lore in VB. Beginning was good and if all HoT was as good as VB, I wouldn’t be talking here. But ever since I leave this map, it feels like they dropped the ball and all the promise beginning gave me starts to fade out. Compared to a slow start, everything else seems rushed. It’s like they reached Rivendell in the middle of the movie and destroyed the ring at the end of it.
I don’t know the reasons why, maybe they didn’t have enough time and they had to rush the story to meet the deadline. Frankly, I don’t care why and i shouldn’t. They took my money for a rushed product and that’s a fail.

It’s not healthy to defend a product for a sake of defence. I know you love GW2 and you want it succeed. I want that too. But when developers looses direction or even starts to insult their players, community has to be vocal about it.

What you’re saying is not relevant to the conversation. Try not to bring the fan boy into the conversation because that IS the end of the conversation. It’s disrespectful. It’s wrong because I DID like that character.

You’ve never watched a movie and liked a character? Without playing the story again I can’t analyze it to tell you what made me like it. But yes, it is the end of the conversation from that point of view. I like something you don’t. I don’t like it because I’m a fan boy. I’m not lying about liking it. I like it because I found the character entertaining. I liked he was the son of the village elder. I liked the way the voice actor played him. Yes, I liked the character.

Your attempt to dismiss me as a fan boy because I like it really does end this conversation. I’ve never talked to some about a movie or book where they said they liked a charcter and I said they didn’t and thought they were a fan boy.

In any event, there are enough characters in the main story without adding more characters anyway. The success of a piece of fiction doesn’t automatically mean adding new characters you remember. Star Trek when a long time with crew members and a lot of unmemorable characters in each episode.

This is a different situation from Factions where the story started all over. So judging the story based on new characters you remember is a complete red herring anyway. Pretty sure most people remember Braham and Kasmeer.

Anyway, I’m tired of people trying to denigrade my opinion because they think I’m a fan boy, or a white knight. You guys don’t really know anything about me.

Ashen.2907:

Anet did not raise the level cap in GW2.

They did, however, add an option to spend real money to buy something that provides an advantage in PvP (at the same character level) over those who do not buy it.

Pay real money to have a competitive advantage over characters of your level.

It fits the term Pay to Win.

That said, I do not think that this is intentional. I believe that Anet did intend for the Elite Specs to be more about variety than power creep. I also believe that Anet intends to address the imbalances, but fully expect that this may take quite some time. Anet has seemed to struggle with game and class balance throughout the game’s history and I do not expect that to change any time soon.

It fits the words pay to win only if you have no experience with how the words are used. It’s like when you see three phone booths and the center one has a sign that says out of order, you don’t wonder if it belongs before the first one or after the third. Not all combinations of three words were meant to be taken literally. According to the urban dictionary this is the definition of pay to win:

“Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.”

Now Guild Wars 2’s HoT wouldn’t fit this definition. You can’t make more powerful items. However, just about every other MMO would fit this definition of pay to win. This is the reason people require context and shouldn’t take words literally.

When Free to play games first came out, some games required you to pump money into the consistently to get anywhere or to be competitive. Those games were considered pay to win.

Every single major MMO has had expansions since the very beginning, and all of them raise the level cap and provide a new tier of gear, without which you can not be competitive

Therefore, by your definition every single MMO is pay to win. But the term wasn’t coined and hasn’t be used to cover expansions. The term has been coined and used to cover microtransactions.

By the literal definition of pay to win, Guild Wars 2 is the least guilty of it compared to any MMO, since it hasn’t raised the level cap or offered a new tier of gear.

The word loses it’s original meaning if you try to use it literally but even then, Guild Wars 2 is an improvement over the competition.

tldr; If you take the words pay to win literally, Guild Wars 2 does better than the competition anyway, but you probably shouldn’t take every term used literally because words have context.

Xenesis.6389:

Vayne.8563:

Sure and when new stuff is released it often takes months in most MMOs to get the balance right. So we see new professions, they’re being used a lot, people jump on the band wagon and then stuff gets nerfed, just like warriors got a nerf at some point.
It doesn’t happen instantly.

Sure it happens, Death knights were op when they came out in wow, eventually they got toned down, no different than the Revenant. The difference also is those other companies usually have longer beta’s and test servers to test stuff out, a lot of times it’s just adding a couple new spells to the top end of leveling that needs balancing. GW2 meanwhile added 9 elite specs at once that changes entire classes and barely did any beta testing on them, we’re in fact still beta testing them.

Vayne.8563:

In a year from now, we’ll see if things haven’t balanced out but it’s not going to happen right now, and no one can say the game is pay to win just because it’s out of balance right now. It’s a misuse of the term.

A year from now? lol. Not when they’re trying to promote e-sports right now to grow their game. Balance patches need to come faster on obvious broken stuff, when a pro team had to quit a tournament match just to get some attention to a broken meta says a lot.

Please enlighten us on your definition of pay to win.

I’ve given my definition of pay to win again and again on these forums. But I’ll try again.

Pay to win is a game that sells power directly through micro transactions. That it to say the best weapons or power can be bought only in the gem store and you have to buy that to pay for those specific weapons or armor. Or buffs.

I haven’t ever seen pay to win refer to an expansion in any game, though some expansions will add stuff to the cash shop to make it pay to win. I’ve never seen pay to win refer to anything except cash shop purchases.

For example, WoW comes out with an expansion that raises the level cap. To compete you must buy that expansion but no one calls WoW play to win. The same is true in virtually every MMO I can think of. The levels go up and when an expansion comes out. Expansions are like season passes. You’re expected to buy them to stay current. That’s normal for the genre.

Pay to win was a way of differentiating between games that required you to spend money in the cash shop on a relatively consistent basis, rather than selling an expansion after three years.

If you call Guild Wars 2 pay to win for an expansion you would have to call every single MMO I’ve ever played pay to win. Once you start calling every MMO pay to win, pay to win has lost it’s original definition which was to divide the good guys from the bad guys.

People have have played actual pay to win games can see the difference.

Xenesis.6389:

Vayne.8563:

When there were a zillion ham/bow warriors running around the situation isn’t much different than it is now.

Actually there is a difference, because everyone had the base game before so if you wanted to roll up a ham/bow warrior yourself you could, with the expansion not everyone has access to the new specs, there is now a line drawn between equal play to pay to win, whether that changes depends on Anet and how they go about their balancing and how long it takes them to even do so.

Again P2W is in regards to competitive play which affects all account types in this case because they are all forced to play together in pvp and wvw. I don’t care how much more damage you can or cannot do in pve with your old or new class unless of course your new class is suddenly doing like 20k more dps then obviously something needs adjusting. There’s no dps meters in gw2 so even there the pve is not very competitive.

Mmo classes are not built to be equal, but their have their roles to balance each other, and that’s expected more so in pvp. You will never achieve perfect balance but you of course don’t expect to have classes than can 1-2 shot you, or man handle the old specs so bad that it becomes expected to upgrade to continue to compete on a more even ground.

It’s like you’re playing vanilla iron man, and the expansion comes out and someone buys it and gets hulk and starts wrecking other players, you can still try to take on hulk but prepare for limbs being torn off, eventually you’ll be forced to just p2w and get access to the hulk buster instead.

Sure and when new stuff is released it often takes months in most MMOs to get the balance right. So we see new professions, they’re being used a lot, people jump on the band wagon and then stuff gets nerfed, just like warriors got a nerf at some point.

It doesn’t happen instantly.

In a year from now, we’ll see if things haven’t balanced out but it’s not going to happen right now, and no one can say the game is pay to win just because it’s out of balance right now. It’s a misuse of the term.

nacario.9417:

This is kinda dodgy thing to do though (or lazy designing). Many have busy lives and commitments which is what made gw2 very accessible in the first place. Challenging is fun, but this is just dumbing it down, once again by rewarding it with time, just like in leagues, HoT meta map rotations, time is all you need to progress.

If the only thing gated behind non-casual stuff is legendaries, I’m okay with it. Legendaries were never meant to be casual. Waiting 7 hours for an event is bad.

But when Legendaries first came out, you needed WvW completion. Even on high tier servers, I had to wait weeks or even months for one single tower to be ours so I could get the last point so I could finish my WvW map completion.

WvW map completion was removed from the legendary process, but I believe for most people it was far far worse than what we have now.

That was far less casual than waiting for an event to spawn, and that’s how it was from launch for a couple of years.

This is more casual than that was.

Ghostwind.4380:

Vayne.8563:

Ghostwind.4380:

Vayne.8563:

Ghostwind.4380:

I watched his whole video. I think he was a bit too dramatic in some of his complaints, and his incredulity and exasperation was kind of annoying. However, he did actually give a lot of specifics in his critique, and I have to agree with most of it. Particularly about the story. Then again, I’m not sure what he was expecting for the story.

Anet has never been good at the story mechanics. It’s something I’ve always felt they really are lacking in. They don’t seem to really want to put any serious effort into it either. I can understand of course, creating a good, compelling story requires a lot of thought, story boarding, cut scene generation, and cost.

Still, when you see a scene like this from MA3 (nearly 4 years ago), with a different commander, you can really see what a compelling scene with the proper music, camera work, and story boarding can accomplish. Watching it still brings a tear to my eye…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6RHg-BCk0g

If only Anet would try a bit harder with story and learn from other game companies. I might be willing to overlook it’s other flaws.

Comparing a single player game story to an MMO story though is probably not the best thing to do. I haven’t really found stories in MMOs generally to compare to games that focus on stories like single player RPGs. Those entire games are designed around stories. MMOs are designed around other things like progression.

The Guild Wars 2 story compares with the story of most, but not all, MMOs I’ve tried. The exception would be SWToR, which was created by a single player company known for their stories. But single player games in general are better at story. It’s the heart of most single player games.

It’s funny I knew somebody would rush to the defense of Anet with the “don’t use a single player example” argument by linking that vid. Saying single player games solely focus on story while mmo’s only focus on progression is a bit of a falacy. They do both have progression. In fact, single player games generally have even more progression, it’s just usually localized to your machine. Yes, mmo’s are a totally different game design and the money spent on the story part is not going to be as heavy. But there are indeed mmo’s out there able to weave good story telling and mechanics into the design. For other mmo’s story telling is a focus, not an afterthought. You mentioned swtor as some kind of exception, it’s really not. Here’s another one, The Secret World…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gewzp9x_3rY

The point is (and the point of linking that vid), is that good story telling CAN rely on a big budget, but what’s more important is understanding what skills are involved in good story telling (story boarding, camera work, pacing, dialog, drawing out emotion, immersion, etc), as WELL as how your story mechanics work. It’s not just science, it’s also art. If you don’t know how to craft a good story and make it compelling then it’s just going to fall flat. Not only that, if you do it BADLY you will turn off your audience.

Here’s a perfect example of how to quickly turn off your audience: throughout the story in HoT, there were multiple times when I would enter a story checkpoint where a dialog scene was to occur. Depending on how I entered the scene, my character would sometimes be locked facing the WRONG direction. So there I am, looking the opposite direction, talking to nobody. Meanwhile the npc I’m supposed to being having this meaningful dialog with is ALSO facing the wrong way. So not only are they behind me, they are facing a spot I supposedly am supposed to be. Or sometimes, depending on entry, the person I am supposed to be talking to is not in the clip at all because of the entry and camera locking. Not only does this speak to poor quality and testing, it’s just plan sloppy. It’s a consequence of bolting on story aspects onto the existing game engine, instead of taking the time to craft a scene for that dialog that is compelling. The end result of this wonky design is that I am left asking the question “If Anet doesn’t really care about story, why should I?”.

GW2 does combat and environments extremely well in my opinion, it’s still an amazing game to me that I play nearly every day, but your argument that their story mechanics should get a pass “because they are an mmo” is wrong. They simply aren’t doing enough in that part of the game, at least compared to what they could be doing.

I’m comparing MMOs to other MMOs and single player games, generally to single player games. As a general rule, MMOs don’t have great stories and there’s a reason for it. Because everything is takes so much time and is so hard to implement. It’s much easy to balance things in a single player game.

Take Skyrim. Good story. But more, everything is geared around you as one guy. You can be the head of every guild all at the same time, making you feel more heroic. That stuff can’t really be done in an MMO because a million people are all the hero. The entire process for writing MMOs is stories is very different.

You can say it doesn’t matter, but that doesn’t make it not matter. It’s not giving someone a free pass to recognize that MMOs have a plethora of things to deal with that no single player game has. That’s fact.

It’s also fact that MMOs cost more to produce as a whole. It’s more expensive to create and maintain an MMO. So the budget can’t go for voice actors and cinematics, unless you have very VERY deep pockets. SWToR did it and become the most expensive MMO ever made. After which they had to fire a third of their staff.

Yes, MMOs aren’t single player games, they have different problems and different business sensibilities.

That’s a fact.

You totally ignored my mention of The Secret World (on purpose?), which was just one example I used to show compelling story can be applied to mmo’s – if story is made a focus. So that is an mmo to mmo comparison like you say you are trying to use. TSW is not a big budget game like swtor. Sure, even it’s story elements are not to the level of a single player game with a strong story focus like nearly every bioware game. But it’s story crafting and cut scenes do use in game character assets and are done fairly well. It’s not about quantity after all, but quality.

Bottom line, compelling story can be done in an mmo if it’s made a focus, with the right skill set, and the right people involved. As games like TSW show, it is NOT totally about budget.

That’s a fact.

The secret world has a decent story. It’s not a great story, but it is also more centered on story. Unfortunately because it’s centered on story, other aspects of the game fail to capture masses and the game is pretty much up for sale. The CEO of the company walked. The staff was cut in half and now they’re looking for a buyer.

I didn’t ignore your mention of it. You ignored my mention that there are very few MMOs that can afford to focus on story because it’s very expensive to focus on story. TSW focused on story and failed. Failed as in it’s not one of the TOP MMOs, it did not meet expectations, and it’s failed financially.

People say Heart of Thorns failed and I say we have to wait six months to a year to see if that happened.

So let’s recap. Games choose a focus. The focus of this game is obviously the dynamic event system and for some silly reason, esports, which I don’t think is a great move, but maybe it makes them money…I have no idea how. I don’t see that as one of the strengths of this game.

So Anet doesn’t focus on story. The story in this game is a reason to do things. A motivation for world events to move forward. That’s how it was designed. It’s not the focus of the game.

TSW did focus on story, but because everyone has limited resources, they focused on story and failed.

Now we’ve discussed TSW. It’s an MMO who tried to focus on story, didn’t go over well, because they had limited resources and spent them wrong.

I would have loved the story in TSW personally but I ended up being annoyed by the presentation because even though they focused on the story, they saved money by not voicing the main character, so every time I went up to an NPC, it felt like they were talking at me and I wasn’t there at all.

Completely killed the story for me. They should have voiced the main actor, because I don’t really want to listen to a bunch of monologues when I’m questing.

nickoboy.2063:

laokoko.7403:

nickoboy.2063:

I have played maplestory for plenty of time and this expansion is exactly the same, its just not as extreme as what Maplestory is. it’s okay to defend the expansion if you clearly purchased it but you gotta face the facts

Maplestory is probably a bad example.

But other typical mmorpg raise level cap in their expansion. How are you going to pvp in those games?

I can tell you no one playing those mmorpg ever talk about pay to win.

That’s because, like stated above 9/10 people agree that bringing out the Elite specs in regards to competitive aspects of the game ( so not regarding PvE ) has made them much stronger, for example. I don’t remember a normal Tyrian Gw2 Guardian auto attacking for 3.4k dmg every second and a half with a longbow, and then using another skill on the longbow that has a 6 second cooldown that does almost 10k damage. Or maybe a revenant who has basically all classes put together to make it, if a thief fights a revenant (even though thief has been turned into a evade spamming button mashing class now which is why i don’t main it anymore) what can it do? thief only has so much stealth and if you don’t have the expansion you can only dodge twice instead of dodging 7 times to evade a simple revenant sword 3 skill. ( i forgot to add that this also adds evasion to the attack aswell making it even more stronger.) HoT was added to give an unfair advantage in competitve terms of the game which is why myself and many others above are calling it P2W.

And raising the level cap isn’t an unfair advantage. Do you think if you were level 70 and everyone else was 80 you do well. Or if everyone was level 100 and you remained at level 80.

In PvP in most MMOs the level cap raises. This includes all the AAA MMOs I can think of except for Guild Wars 2.

Pray tell, can you name a single AAA MMO that you don’t need the expansion for to remain competitive.

This is what exists INSTEAD of paying a sub. Calling it pay to win is simply wrong.

Thaddeus.4891:

Vayne.8563:

In the mean time, you have the problem of having to sell the expansion. Plenty of people are simply cheap. They won’t spend the money unless you give them a kitten ed good reason to pay the money. So people who only PvP, they really have no reason to spend money on an expansion if you give them everything.

That doesn’t even make sense dude. They sold their elite spec on the very fact that it wasn’t a power creep and they were equal, just different way to play your profession. You don’t remember? All those tread and qqing about how elite spec could be pure upgrade and it was bad. And all those fanboy (me including) that were defending anet since they clearly said that

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specs-No-Diversity/first#post5069916

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Pay-to-win/first

Here two that I could found.

They don’t need to make the profession more powerful to sell the expansion. They could sell the expansion by promoting the NEW roles these spec would give to the professions, not by improving where they are already good at. And you know what, that’s exactly what they did. Take a look at the Elite spec page right now.

https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/specializations/

brand-new way for you to progress, adding nine entirely new ways to play, a twist on your standard profession mechanic.

They always talked about how they would unlock different way to play the character and never talked to improve current strength of these profession.

Ask yourself. What do you prefer to play and what would sell the most?

Hey come play the new PS Beserker and the new Staff Tempest. Which are pretty much basically the exact same thing as the PS Warrior and Staff Elementalist, but with just a little twist with your F keys and more powerful.

or

Hey come play the Condi Reaper the first time Necromancer can finally be powerful in PvE. Come play the Chronomancer who can buffing the party with crazy with quickness and alacrity. Come play the first truly competitive Condi Warrior. Come play the Healing Druids. Come play an auramancer support with the tempest, etc, etc.

Those are what are selling the new specs because they bring completely new ways to play your characters. That sell way more than pressing F1 and F3 on a staff elementalist that play otherwise exactly the same, but with more dps.

Of course some are a bit too powerful. Chronomancer perma quickness is a bit much, condi Warrior dps is crazy, etc. But the point is that making profession more powerful is not what sell the best. Giving new ways to play your characters is what sold the elite spec to the players base. They just included a power creep into that.

Actually saying the sold the elite spec on the fact that it was just equal is a bit of an overstatement. They sold the elite spec on the very idea that it gave you a new way to play a profession.

Now, we don’t know how those professions will be adjusted now that they’re in game and people are using them.

Years ago, warriors were OP and now they’re not. They didn’t sell the original game on the idea that warriors are OP.

Also not all the new specializations are OP. And the idea that most people are playing them because they’re OP is also wrong. Many people will be playing them because they’re new also.

As an example, my burn guardian in PvE is just as effective as a guardian as he is as a dragon hunter for the content I do. I still play the dragon hunter, because I like the new skills. Not because it’s OP.

So, new stuff comes out, its’ not balance, game is pay to win. No. Not even close.

We have to watch balance patches to see where it goes in the future, because there have always been more powerful professions in this game.

When there were a zillion ham/bow warriors running around the situation isn’t much different than it is now.

And you know it’s hard to introduce a bunch of new stuff and know where the meta will go.

But my understanding of these specs, how they were SOLD was that they were new ways to play your existing characters, which is what most people were asking for.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ayrilana.1396:

Would you consider the Guild Wars 1 standalone campaigns and expansion P2W?

I didn’t play GW1 so I can’t answer that. And tbh I don’t care about labelling any game as P2W, B2P or whatever. My only point is Elite Spec should have been equal in power to the core specs and not so much more powerful like they are now. That’s my only point here.

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. I played Guild Wars 1 too, which was also buy to play and there was definitely power creep in that game as well. People want to feel like they’re progressing. It’s very hard to do that without making them a bit more powerful. That said, it’s not TONS more powerful in most cases.

Then you have necros, which were less powerful over all and now have a spec they can use.

It’s simply more complex an image than you’re painting it.

I’m just gonna leave that here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

Power Creep is a very bad design decision. You said it yourself.

‘’People want to feel like they’re progressing. It’s very hard to do that without making them a bit more powerful.’’

Power creep is an easy way to achieve that, but it have a lot of bad side effects on the game, especially on the long run. Think about it for a second.

My guardian used to do around 6-7k dps back at launch with level 80 full exotic gear. And I’m talking with full buffs on. Now? We are doing more around 18k and we one of the worst dps profession. Lupi which was one of the biggest boss at launch with 1 or 2 million HP is ridiculous compare to the 20+ millions hp from raid boss. People complained that dungeon were way too easy. That’s what happen when you can explode mobs in second bypassing their mechanics.

Again like you said, it’s complex. Some buffing is needed. Some profession are weak in certain content and certain build are weak for certain professions. That’s where elite spec should have buffed their profession. Not buff everything into a power creep.

Power creep needs to be controlled, that’s absolutely true. But I’ve never played a game without power creep. Certainly not an MMO. Not Guild Wars 1. Power creep is a fact of life.

It has to be controlled. This game is actually made so that power creep means a bit less than other games, because of scaling. In other games, power creep is really bad, because everything is meaningless.

In this game, that’s not really the case. I can go have a good time in DredgeHaunt or Mount Maelstrom, because of downscaling. It doesn’t completely nullify power creep but it certainly mitigates some of it.

In the mean time, you have the problem of having to sell the expansion. Plenty of people are simply cheap. They won’t spend the money unless you give them a kitten ed good reason to pay the money. So people who only PvP, they really have no reason to spend money on an expansion if you give them everything.

You have to give them options that are desirable, or an entire segment of the population has no reason to buy the expansion. That’s just logical from a business point of view.

This isn’t a charity. It’s a business. Businesses try to make money. But since there’s not an MMO I can think of where this situation doesn’t exist, trying to single this game out when ever subscription games have the issue is a red herring.

Thaddeus.4891:

Vayne.8563:

Yes, I am facing the facts. The fact is there’s a difference between cash shop purchases and selling an expansion.

Is WoW pay to win? Because every expansion in that game raises the level cap.

The game is buy to play. It was always supposed to be a series of games that you bought, instead of paying a sub. That’s the business plan of the game.

By your reckoning, Anet could never add anything to the game that might give power, unless they gave it to everyone. In my reckoning that’s a failed business right there.

If you can’t tell the difference between an expansion for a game that sells once, three years after the game comes out and Maple Story there’s not a whole lot of point in continuing this conversation.

Well it’s flirting on the line if you ask me. An expansion should add content and give more option. That’s what they were telling us and that’s what we were expecting. The problem is not the expansion itself, it’s the power creep from the elite specs. It was a big debate pre-HoT. People were fearing that elite spec would be elite and would toss aside vanilla profession. I was of those who were defending Anet since they said that elite spec would be new ways to play the game, not just improved version of profession. And I was wrong because they are.

You can see it. In PvP, the vast majority of build are elite spec. Same with PvE. You don’t want elite spec to be bad so ya of course you want some of them to be meta, but ALL of them?

As for your question. If Anet could never add anything to the game that might give power, unless they gave it to everyone.

I answer that they should never add anything to the game that might make a power creep. Balancing profession yes. But not power creep.

You could say, hey lets upgrade the dps of the necro because it’s lower than most.

You could say, hey let’s make tempest improve condi ele since it’s wasn’t competitive.

But when tempest add dps to the direct damage elementalist, that’s when you brough Power Creep and it’s never a good idea that you give it to everyone or behind the expansion. But behind the expansion is ever worst.

I disagree. I played Guild Wars 1 too, which was also buy to play and there was definitely power creep in that game as well. People want to feel like they’re progressing. It’s very hard to do that without making them a bit more powerful. That said, it’s not TONS more powerful in most cases.

Then you have necros, which were less powerful over all and now have a spec they can use.

It’s simply more complex an image than you’re painting it.

nickoboy.2063:

Vayne.8563:

If this game is pay to win then every MMO expansion for every game is pay to win. Not really what the term was meant to designate.

Pay to win was when you had to continually use microtransactions to stay current. Look up games like Maple Story. This game is not P2W. They’re selling an expansion.

In just about every MMO expansions raise the level cap, and you need to buy them to compete. Not sure why you think this is different.

I have played maplestory for plenty of time and this expansion is exactly the same, its just not as extreme as what Maplestory is. it’s okay to defend the expansion if you clearly purchased it but you gotta face the facts

Yes, I am facing the facts. The fact is there’s a difference between cash shop purchases and selling an expansion.

Is WoW pay to win? Because every expansion in that game raises the level cap.

The game is buy to play. It was always supposed to be a series of games that you bought, instead of paying a sub. That’s the business plan of the game.

By your reckoning, Anet could never add anything to the game that might give power, unless they gave it to everyone. In my reckoning that’s a failed business right there.

If you can’t tell the difference between an expansion for a game that sells once, three years after the game comes out and Maple Story there’s not a whole lot of point in continuing this conversation.

I never assumed every part of forging a legendary would be fun. On the other hand, I do agree that choosing events with really long spawn timers is just annoying. Fortunately I have two monitors, and I can browse reddit or the forums or even watch a movie while waiting.

Edit: I guess you can figure out why they named it Nevermore.

If this game is pay to win then every MMO expansion for every game is pay to win. Not really what the term was meant to designate.

Pay to win was when you had to continually use microtransactions to stay current. Look up games like Maple Story. This game is not P2W. They’re selling an expansion.

In just about every MMO expansions raise the level cap, and you need to buy them to compete. Not sure why you think this is different.

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

It’s not about cinematics, voice actors or something like that. It’s about quality of the story/lore developers are creating. And that quality is low, compared to the original GW2.

For example, could anyone give me any name of a new, HoT NPC? Describe his/her character?
In my opinion, there are no new characters in HoT, only new races, which will be forgotten in the next expansion since there’s no one to represent them.

Ibli. I love him. Sorry but I do.

Googled him. If that’s the best HoT story character, then it just describes how low quality is.
I kind of remember him myself for being one of the first NPC of some importance. After a mission (wiki says he’s in two missions) that guy is dropped.

Nothing wrong with the character. He’s cartoony, he has a great voice and I like him. You may not remember him, but it doesn’t make him a bad character. There was a bit of writing that I really didn’t like from HoT, but aside from that one incident, the writing was fine. And the delivery was better than anything we’ve seen so far.

If I can’t remember a character, it kind of makes him a bad character. Look how you describe him “he’s cartoony, he has a great voice and I like him”. That is all. Anet didn’t even bother to make his character model stand out. If I present you with 3 random Itzel and one of them would be Ibli, you couldn’t even point at him. Lazy developer?

You not remembering a character doesn’t make him a bad character. He makes him a bad character to you. There’s nothing wrong with Ibli. You don’t believe he stood out, which is fine. I do. That’s fine too.

It’s an opinion. You’re entitled to yours, I’m entitled to mine.

The reason why stories in these games are as they are is because in single player games you have a lot more time to work on them, and they probably don’t change as much. Single player games don’t evolve as they go.

MMOs need more and faster, often with teams of people changing all the time. It’s not so easy to get everything in by that deadline all the time. But the deadline for a game that’s not out yet is very different from the deadline of a game that is constantly needed you for the next thing.

There are a lot of reasons why single player games have a better chance at a better story than MMOs do. The proof is in the fact that it happens so often. It’s not like single player game writers are great and MMO writers suck. That’s not it at all.

It’s a different vehicle with different focus.

If you’re building a racing car you build for speed. If you’re building a family car you build for safety. It changes the design.

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

It’s not about cinematics, voice actors or something like that. It’s about quality of the story/lore developers are creating. And that quality is low, compared to the original GW2.

For example, could anyone give me any name of a new, HoT NPC? Describe his/her character?
In my opinion, there are no new characters in HoT, only new races, which will be forgotten in the next expansion since there’s no one to represent them.

Ibli. I love him. Sorry but I do.

Googled him. If that’s the best HoT story character, then it just describes how low quality is.
I kind of remember him myself for being one of the first NPC of some importance. After a mission (wiki says he’s in two missions) that guy is dropped.

Nothing wrong with the character. He’s cartoony, he has a great voice and I like him. You may not remember him, but it doesn’t make him a bad character. There was a bit of writing that I really didn’t like from HoT, but aside from that one incident, the writing was fine. And the delivery was better than anything we’ve seen so far.

Manthas.6234:

It’s not about cinematics, voice actors or something like that. It’s about quality of the story/lore developers are creating. And that quality is low, compared to the original GW2.

For example, could anyone give me any name of a new, HoT NPC? Describe his/her character?
In my opinion, there are no new characters in HoT, only new races, which will be forgotten in the next expansion since there’s no one to represent them.

Ibli. I love him. Sorry but I do.

Ghostwind.4380:

Vayne.8563:

Ghostwind.4380:

I watched his whole video. I think he was a bit too dramatic in some of his complaints, and his incredulity and exasperation was kind of annoying. However, he did actually give a lot of specifics in his critique, and I have to agree with most of it. Particularly about the story. Then again, I’m not sure what he was expecting for the story.

Anet has never been good at the story mechanics. It’s something I’ve always felt they really are lacking in. They don’t seem to really want to put any serious effort into it either. I can understand of course, creating a good, compelling story requires a lot of thought, story boarding, cut scene generation, and cost.

Still, when you see a scene like this from MA3 (nearly 4 years ago), with a different commander, you can really see what a compelling scene with the proper music, camera work, and story boarding can accomplish. Watching it still brings a tear to my eye…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6RHg-BCk0g

If only Anet would try a bit harder with story and learn from other game companies. I might be willing to overlook it’s other flaws.

Comparing a single player game story to an MMO story though is probably not the best thing to do. I haven’t really found stories in MMOs generally to compare to games that focus on stories like single player RPGs. Those entire games are designed around stories. MMOs are designed around other things like progression.

The Guild Wars 2 story compares with the story of most, but not all, MMOs I’ve tried. The exception would be SWToR, which was created by a single player company known for their stories. But single player games in general are better at story. It’s the heart of most single player games.

It’s funny I knew somebody would rush to the defense of Anet with the “don’t use a single player example” argument by linking that vid. Saying single player games solely focus on story while mmo’s only focus on progression is a bit of a falacy. They do both have progression. In fact, single player games generally have even more progression, it’s just usually localized to your machine. Yes, mmo’s are a totally different game design and the money spent on the story part is not going to be as heavy. But there are indeed mmo’s out there able to weave good story telling and mechanics into the design. For other mmo’s story telling is a focus, not an afterthought. You mentioned swtor as some kind of exception, it’s really not. Here’s another one, The Secret World…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gewzp9x_3rY

The point is (and the point of linking that vid), is that good story telling CAN rely on a big budget, but what’s more important is understanding what skills are involved in good story telling (story boarding, camera work, pacing, dialog, drawing out emotion, immersion, etc), as WELL as how your story mechanics work. It’s not just science, it’s also art. If you don’t know how to craft a good story and make it compelling then it’s just going to fall flat. Not only that, if you do it BADLY you will turn off your audience.

Here’s a perfect example of how to quickly turn off your audience: throughout the story in HoT, there were multiple times when I would enter a story checkpoint where a dialog scene was to occur. Depending on how I entered the scene, my character would sometimes be locked facing the WRONG direction. So there I am, looking the opposite direction, talking to nobody. Meanwhile the npc I’m supposed to being having this meaningful dialog with is ALSO facing the wrong way. So not only are they behind me, they are facing a spot I supposedly am supposed to be. Or sometimes, depending on entry, the person I am supposed to be talking to is not in the clip at all because of the entry and camera locking. Not only does this speak to poor quality and testing, it’s just plan sloppy. It’s a consequence of bolting on story aspects onto the existing game engine, instead of taking the time to craft a scene for that dialog that is compelling. The end result of this wonky design is that I am left asking the question “If Anet doesn’t really care about story, why should I?”.

GW2 does combat and environments extremely well in my opinion, it’s still an amazing game to me that I play nearly every day, but your argument that their story mechanics should get a pass “because they are an mmo” is wrong. They simply aren’t doing enough in that part of the game, at least compared to what they could be doing.

I’m comparing MMOs to other MMOs and single player games, generally to single player games. As a general rule, MMOs don’t have great stories and there’s a reason for it. Because everything is takes so much time and is so hard to implement. It’s much easy to balance things in a single player game.

Take Skyrim. Good story. But more, everything is geared around you as one guy. You can be the head of every guild all at the same time, making you feel more heroic. That stuff can’t really be done in an MMO because a million people are all the hero. The entire process for writing MMOs is stories is very different.

You can say it doesn’t matter, but that doesn’t make it not matter. It’s not giving someone a free pass to recognize that MMOs have a plethora of things to deal with that no single player game has. That’s fact.

It’s also fact that MMOs cost more to produce as a whole. It’s more expensive to create and maintain an MMO. So the budget can’t go for voice actors and cinematics, unless you have very VERY deep pockets. SWToR did it and become the most expensive MMO ever made. After which they had to fire a third of their staff.

Yes, MMOs aren’t single player games, they have different problems and different business sensibilities.

That’s a fact.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Your other comment, about it not being visible all the time is fair enough, but not playing the UI is not really appropriate in this case. Whenever I get into trouble with any foe, the first thing I attempt to do is read what it says about them.

Fair enough about the UI comment. That was frustration with the encounter. That said, ANet’s info blurbs under mob name bars are not usually very different from what the game itself is telling me. “Applies Vulnerability (or Weakness)” == sure enough, there’s the debuff. “Knocks” — bingo. And so forth. So, I tend no longer to look at them or even think about them because I usually just figure it out. That’s my reaction to mobs. I try different things to see what works. The results in this case were underwhelming. Nothing worked, and believe me, I tried.

I normally find that discovery process to be a large part of the fun in MMO combats. However, that usually means an eventual success. The frustration with this encounter was that nothing I could do was going to work except: a) leave the encounter and go do something else; or b) get lucky and be there when there were enough players doing it that could see him, and hope that I got lucky in placing my ground targets — which is what eventually happened. Neither option seems like the result of good game design to me.

Anyway, I’m over it. I know not to attempt that fight until and unless I get that Mastery trained. There are other bosses, and now that I’ve got the AP for killing him, incentive to return even with the mastery is not very high. It seems like this boss design exists primarily to justify the Stealth Detection mastery. Now, if instead there were enough player abilities to reveal the unseen, and they built the boss so those worked instead, I think that would have been a better encounter — but it would not have justified the Mastery.

Two ways to look at it. The boss exists just to justify stealth detection or people would try the boss, read the text and look forward to getting stealth detection. Obviously some people read the text under the boss, or they’re told that, and without the frustration of failing, people think, oh cool I can come back when I have stealth detection. Without the frustration it’s something to look forward to. I know this because though I beat the boss with a zerg, he was invisible most of the time and I looked forward to trying him again when I had stealth detection.

The thing is, if you want a T4 map to succeed, people have to do it, so once I have stealth detection that’s the natural boss to go to. The upside is, with stealth detection and people who know what’s going on, he’s the easiest of the bosses. That’s another incentive for me to do him when we’re doing T4. lol

While I can see why Anet is reluctant to talk to the fan base, I have little down that the fan base reacts more strongly when they’re not talked to. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.

Fan base reacts badly.
Anet responds by withholding comments.
Fan base reacts even worse.

To be more specific there is always an element of the fan base that is going to react strongly in a negative manner. By letting those people have their say in response, more reasonable people will simply learn to ignore those people and those posts.

Right now, Anet is in a situation where people can talk and they don’t get to present their side…whatever their side is.

My guess is Anet is tired of being called names. If people called me a liar or lazy I wouldn’t want to tell them anything either.

But I think it’s a mistake. Tactically and just for the good of the game, it would be better if Anet ignored the unreasonable posts and let the fan base stand for them. The problem is they waited so long to bring the fan base into the fold, it’s harder and harder for reasonable people to side with them. After all, we’re not hearing their side at all.

VaLee.5102:

Vayne.8563:

Comparing a single player game story to an MMO story though is probably not the best thing to do. I haven’t really found stories in MMOs generally to compare to games that focus on stories like single player RPGs. Those entire games are designed around stories. MMOs are designed around other things like progression.

The Guild Wars 2 story compares with the story of most, but not all, MMOs I’ve tried. The exception would be SWToR, which was created by a single player company known for their stories. But single player games in general are better at story. It’s the heart of most single player games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAIrj_Vqdfc

Way better story ending with way crappier graphics.

Crappier graphics, but not crappy for it’s time. The WoW cinematics are outrageously expensive. Very few MMOs can afford to produce stuff like that. The advantage of having a subscription game and more subscribers than anyone.

I agree, that’s a great way to tell a story. Star Wars ToR told a story through great cinematics too, but it was also the most expensive MMO ever produced.

There are great ways to tell a story and there are affordable great ways to tell a story. Not everyone has EA or Blizzard’s deep pockets. Companies all have to improvise.

One of the reasons Anet is doing what they’re doing it because there’s no real point in competing with EA or Blizzard in terms of the quality of cinematic you can afford to produce.

Ghostwind.4380:

I watched his whole video. I think he was a bit too dramatic in some of his complaints, and his incredulity and exasperation was kind of annoying. However, he did actually give a lot of specifics in his critique, and I have to agree with most of it. Particularly about the story. Then again, I’m not sure what he was expecting for the story.

Anet has never been good at the story mechanics. It’s something I’ve always felt they really are lacking in. They don’t seem to really want to put any serious effort into it either. I can understand of course, creating a good, compelling story requires a lot of thought, story boarding, cut scene generation, and cost.

Still, when you see a scene like this from MA3 (nearly 4 years ago), with a different commander, you can really see what a compelling scene with the proper music, camera work, and story boarding can accomplish. Watching it still brings a tear to my eye…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6RHg-BCk0g

If only Anet would try a bit harder with story and learn from other game companies. I might be willing to overlook it’s other flaws.

Comparing a single player game story to an MMO story though is probably not the best thing to do. I haven’t really found stories in MMOs generally to compare to games that focus on stories like single player RPGs. Those entire games are designed around stories. MMOs are designed around other things like progression.

The Guild Wars 2 story compares with the story of most, but not all, MMOs I’ve tried. The exception would be SWToR, which was created by a single player company known for their stories. But single player games in general are better at story. It’s the heart of most single player games.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Teleniel.1809:

Also to note, the boss has a descriptor which says you should get Stealth Detection if you read by his health bar.

Funny, I though this was a game where we were encouraged not to look at the UI. Not really helping, especially if 90% of the fight his health bar is not available for viewing and the other 10% you’re scrambling to figure out what’s going on.

Okay, I often agree with you, and I understand you’re frustration, but the not looking at the UI comment is really bad. Not play the UI means not staring at bars going up and down like healers do in other games, not reading a description under a bosses name that tells you what’s going on.

Your other comment, about it not being visible all the time is fair enough, but not playing the UI is not really appropriate in this case. Whenever I get into trouble with any foe, the first thing I attempt to do is read what it says about them.

Frankly I’d prefer a system where I could learn it myself, but the information is being provided for a reason.

Vieux P.1238:

kdaddy.5431:

4) Guild Halls and Scribing
There isnt any thing really fun about this. My guild members and I only go in there to upgrade the hall and even then we are sitting going is this worth our time and mats. Everything about it feels like work.

You have know idea how many times i said so as well & how many arguments i gotten from ppl on the forum saying the opposite.

I’ll say it again. Guildhall is a waste of tons of resources. In the end, no one spends time in it.

It was a great idea that was badly implemented. & what i mean in badly implemented is that foremost first, a guild hall was meant to be a place to have a guild & guild friends to gather & hang. In the same way & feel when ppl in WoW gathers in front of Ogrimmar. You could spend hours socializing & still be close to your conveniences & friends wile showing off. Man, Anet missed on that one big time by making not only super big maps as guildhalls but also making it it’s own instances. when the only thing that was needed, was to redo the game so that in only major cities, guilds could buy a guild house. Man ppl would hang out & show off & duel in front of the guild house. It would of bin better then WoW Ogrimarr social aspect.

To bad they missed on that one.

Your idea of a guild hall is not THE idea of a guild hall. You think it’s meant to be a place where people gather and hang out. I’m pretty sure that was never the intention of the guild hall.

This didn’t happen in Guild Wars 1 either, so I’m not sure why you’re measuring the success of guild halls against what is essentially an arbitrary standard.

Guild Halls were always about convenience. In this case, it’s measure on guild progression, which some people got into. It’s mean to be a long term goal.

It was never meant to take people out of the open world for extended periods of time. Instead it’s a meeting place, before missions, because the guild portal takes you right to missions. It’s a place to get buffs, work on scribing if you’re nuts enough to do that.

But it was not meant for people to go and live in. That would have been counter productive.

Any game that has managed to make really good housing, suffers a loss of players in the open world. That’s a lose/lose situation.

IndigoSundown.5419:

It was my third time trying him last night. First win. The fight was not really very fun. This could be due to the fact that he was not visible for 90% of the fight (presumably a bug). It could also be due to the fact that being unable to personally counter the 1m damage hit via block, dodge, etc. is frustrating. I get the whole, “CC needed” thing, but was unable to contribute because my CCskill requires a target. The fight basically consisted of running after the other players, dropping AoE fields and swinging a melee weapon in the hopes they’d hit.

If I ever see a patch note that says they’ve fixed the bug, I might try him again. As of now, I see little reason to do so.

You need, as others have said, Nuhoch Stealth detection to see him. That needs to be communicated better. But aside from that, The entire fight after that point is the break bar. Assuming you have enough people with stealth detection, which will be more and more as time goes on, all you really have to do is break the break bar each time it comes it. That prevents him from doing his big killing attack.

It’s actually quite an easy boss for that reason, and not particularly exciting. I do him on my ranger with my eletric wyvern pet, because by itself that skill pretty much takes down his break bar. If you have a mesmer, the moa skill pretty much completely takes down a break bar too.

When people think in terms of speccing for break bars, bosses like this are dead easy.

That wouldn’t be more to some people. It certainly wouldn’t be more to me. I’m not sure what percentage of the original Guild Wars game participated in GvG, but I’ve always suspected it wasn’t as popular as people who played it thought it was.

Kamara.4187:

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

Actually, I stand corrected on your first point.

On your second, I said that I believe that you are. Dissembling my words isn’t going to change my opinion. Supporting your statements with facts and evidence and not anecdotes that can’t be verified will. I’d also believe that if you didn’t care what I believe, you wouldn’t post about it so much.

It’s think it’s a fact that Facebook games exist and tons of free to play MMOs exist that aren’t free to play and they charge for all sorts of unreasonable things. I think it’s a fact that people’s expectations in general are trained by their experiences. The conversations I claimed I did have are only natural.

If you go to most free to play players who like the game and you give them more reason to buy the game, ie you can get these other features as well as the new content, of course some of them are going to say yes I’m planning buying the game. My next paycheck or when I get money or when I hit 80. It’s a perfectly reasonable response.

It’s even possible some people say theyr’e going to buy it, and never do, or have no real intention of it, but they say it anyway. But I have no reason to make it up and it’s a very logical thing for a lot of people to say.

Just about everyone in my guild has bought HoT, so I don’t have that conversation so much with returning players. I have it with free to play players. What’s really that hard to believe.

In a culture where you have games like SWToR That are free to play but “pay too walk”, or games like DDO or Lotro where you have to pay for areas, races and professions to unlock them, how unreasonable is it to say that a specific buff isn’t available for free to play accounts?

It’s like we live in completely different worlds.

Because in this particular instance those guildies may have contributed to a mechanic that they can not use yet the guild needed their help to acquire it… So yes it was a kitten- move to milk money….

First of all, you’ve made two statements that have nothing to do with each other. Why people are mad has nothing at all to do with the motivation behind the move.

Secondly, you’ve quoted a specific argument and your post has nothing at all to do with that argument.

The conversation you quoted has nothing to do with whether or not it’s a way to milk money. It doesn’t have to do with some people being upset.

It has to do with the number of people that won’t care vs they number of people that do care.

My argument is there are tons of free to play players now, most of whom won’t care, vs a relatively small contingent of people who own the original game but didn’t by the expansion that still play regularly.

So I’m not sure how your comment fits into what’s being said.

I haven’t said it isn’t annoying for people who own the core game. I haven’t said they shouldn’t be upset. I have said it’s a business decision.

I just don’t think that group is nearly as large as the free to play player base, who mostly won’t go ballistic over having a buff they can’t access in a game they’re not paying for.

zenleto.6179:

I think you’ll find that many people considered a “white knight” do have issues with the game and will mention those issues if they come up. They just don’t blither on about them ad nauseam. They’re really more like “grey knights” (which sounds much cooler).

Oooooo grey knights. I like it!

I’ve done it 66 times this year, but I really like the puzzle. Yes, I’d say you’re addicted. lol

Sandpit.3467:

DarcShriek.5829:

This such total BS. There are a number of negative posts from people that are simply trolling. Really, complaining isn’t as honorable as you would like people to believe.

So you think that a lot of people that complain actually enjoy the game as it is and only complain to troll? Now THAT is total BS. Trust me, when I stop complaining it’s either because there are no serious problems in the game, or I have completely given up and gone elsewhere.

Actually there are people who post negatively and have admitted to me that they just enjoy riling up the white knights, including me. They even used the term Vayne-baiting for a while on the forum.

If you don’t believe that people post stuff just to rile other people up, you must be new to the internet.

DaShi.1368:

Actually, I stand corrected on your first point.

On your second, I said that I believe that you are. Dissembling my words isn’t going to change my opinion. Supporting your statements with facts and evidence and not anecdotes that can’t be verified will. I’d also believe that if you didn’t care what I believe, you wouldn’t post about it so much.

It’s think it’s a fact that Facebook games exist and tons of free to play MMOs exist that aren’t free to play and they charge for all sorts of unreasonable things. I think it’s a fact that people’s expectations in general are trained by their experiences. The conversations I claimed I did have are only natural.

If you go to most free to play players who like the game and you give them more reason to buy the game, ie you can get these other features as well as the new content, of course some of them are going to say yes I’m planning buying the game. My next paycheck or when I get money or when I hit 80. It’s a perfectly reasonable response.

It’s even possible some people say theyr’e going to buy it, and never do, or have no real intention of it, but they say it anyway. But I have no reason to make it up and it’s a very logical thing for a lot of people to say.

Just about everyone in my guild has bought HoT, so I don’t have that conversation so much with returning players. I have it with free to play players. What’s really that hard to believe.

In a culture where you have games like SWToR That are free to play but “pay too walk”, or games like DDO or Lotro where you have to pay for areas, races and professions to unlock them, how unreasonable is it to say that a specific buff isn’t available for free to play accounts?

It’s like we live in completely different worlds.

Eldbrand Charging.8902:

Sarika.3756:

Why can’t all guildies access the guild buffs? I don’t see what’s special about a karma or xp boost that should require HOT…

It’s part of the expansion. Don’t see why some should be able to cherry pick some content and not the rest.

Before the expansion, everyone could get buffs, not just free players but people who bought the original game. Now people who bought the original game can’t get guild buffs.

I don’t care as much about free to play players not getting it, but people who paid for the game? They shouldn’t lose the ability to get guild buffs when they once had it.

Two questions. First is your inventory full, because if it is, you can’t take stuff. You need enough room in your inventory to take new items.

Another possibility, less likely I think is that you’re a free to play player who only recently upgraded to a full paid account. It takes about 4 days to get TP restrictions removed, due to a proliferation of fraudulent credit cards used by goldsellers.

Hope this helps.

Tigaseye.2047:

Vayne.8563:

Plyply.8621:

Soon.5240:

I’m sure the White Knights “protecting” Anet will find some way to blame you….

You’re so “Vayne”. I bet you think this comments about you! You’re so “Vayne”, I bet you think this comments about you, don’t you don’t you….

That’s very cute. I’ve never heard that before…except like…every day in my guild. And you know the song that this comment was based on? That song WAS about me. lol

Are you Warren Beatty?

If so, only one verse was about you, apparently.

Or maybe you’re one of the other two unknown people?

Re. Warren, that had to hurt – he thought the whole song was about him…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_So_Vain

That’s a different song. You’re so Vayne is about me. lol

Garambola.2461:

I have not seen anyone react to these tiny buffs missing with ‘I must get HoT right now’. I have seen it cause dissatisfaction and that may cause people to delay the purchase.

Okay, as much as I think everyone should have access to this buff, this statement is just silly.

A million people, most of whom are used to paying for really bad cash shops and face book games are free to play players. People are used to having to pay for stuff these days. Really.

I’ve been recruiting for my guild and I get new people in all the time and not a single person I’ve said they can’t get the buff has said they’re not likely to buy the game because of it. However, when I said that not all the guild feature are accessible to them, a few of them have said they’re going to buy the game.

To an older player like me, stuff like this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but there are so many people who have grown up in a completely different world.

Plyply.8621:

Soon.5240:

I’m sure the White Knights “protecting” Anet will find some way to blame you….

You’re so “Vayne”. I bet you think this comments about you! You’re so “Vayne”, I bet you think this comments about you, don’t you don’t you….

That’s very cute. I’ve never heard that before…except like…every day in my guild. And you know the song that this comment was based on? That song WAS about me. lol

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is the expansion did not hold the attention of the masses for long nor did it reinvent the wheel. Honestly, I don’t know what people were expecting given the time frame and lack of class testing. I’m not even going to get into that PvP and WvW nightmare.

The sooner Living World returns, the better. Chasing the next carrot achievements is what this game is all about.

Let’s not kid ourselves.

I’m not so sure the Living World didn’t hold people’s attentions as long as the industry average. I have people in my guild who played the new WoW expansion for a month and came back. A month or two seems to be what you get from expansions in most games.

Edit: And I should point out, there are people still enjoying the expansion to this day.

Ayrilana.1396:

What I’ve noticed lately is there are people who insist on ad hominem attacks by labeling everyone who disagrees with them as a “white knight”. For one thing, these personal attacks have nothing to do with the legitimacy of their arguments. It’s the same as if I was going around and just posting that those complaining about the games are just “whiners”. It would be a personal attack which has no bearing on their complaint.

See and I don’t mind being called a white knight. I’m happy to fight for what I believe in. Yeah, believe in.

Because those who often comment on how easy something is to fix, or how lazy devs are for not fixing X Y or Z, or how little work when into X Y or Z have no clue about how much work it takes or how hard devs work or even what devs were trying to accomplish whether it’s accomplished or not.

I leave most constructive feedback threads alone. But yeah I’m happy to be a guy who stands up to people who I feel are using hyperbole, which doesn’t help anyone, or making false claims, or even stating their opinion as if it’s some kind of fact.

Being a white knight, on the whole, isn’t really such a bad thing.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Juanpierre.8913:

- Masteries. I like the concept. But I’m new so I don’t have many achiements. The options for Central Tyra mastery points are all gated behind achieves- and ones that generally require grind. OK, that’s fine. Something to work towards. Problem is my XP bar for masteries is now stuck. That is incredibly unmotivating. Poor design, or a middle finger to new players. Either way, poor. This honestly is my biggest gripe with the game.

I’ve been playing this game for 3 years and have quite a few achievements done, so I had a decent leg up on the masteries. But what I have left to do feels like a grind. lol I can’t really imagine having to start as a new player with nothing. Especially when it comes to the Maguuma Masteries.

Why especially when it comes to Maguuma Masteries. We were all on basically even footing there, since no one started with mastery points.

I’m at Mastery Level 141. I have all core Tyria masteries finished and I think two left in Maguuma, that I don’t care much about, but I’ll eventually get. I haven’t touched the raid masteries and may never, which is fine.

I never farmed spiders or CoF either.

luzt.7692:

reapex.8546:

Soon.5240:

Juanpierre.8913:

I played for 2 months. I’m an avid MMO player (not just wow). Leveled 2 tools to 80. I enjoyed some things about gw2:

HoT’s maps represent a significant departure from the core game’s content, and because these departures were so poorly communicated to the community, it caught many who loved the core game off guard.

Waiiiiiiiiiiiiit, hold on. Live stream, login articles, gaming websites, map chat, forums, reddit, beta weekends, and more all talked about the radically departure HoT was from Central Tyria BEFORE the game came out and people celebrated the changes o.O. It was communicated extremely well, imo. The only way someone didn’t know about most of the upcoming changes was if they avoided detailed news about HoT.

So they had all that info and communicated extremely well and still delivered some sub-par expac that a big part of the community doesn’t like. Many already took a break.

That makes me worried, since apparently no amount of extremely well communication is enough.

No amount of communication is every really enough. A lot of things that surprised people, I knew from paying attention.

Like the new zones would be hard, or the guild halls would be long term goals.

This is the problem with the entire scribing guild hall thing. There’s always going to be a tiny percentage of people that drive it forward. 500 people in a guild and maybe 15 or 20 will end up contributing.

We have a couple of hundred people in my guild. We’re level 34. Didn’t bother with much scribing yet, because the materials you need for scribing, in part are the same materials you need for the guild hall itself.

So instead of splitting stuff up, we’re just working on the guild hall as a long term project and when we have it higher, I’ll work on scribing.

The problem is the pressure it puts on the people who are carrying everyone else. It’s not a good design from that point of view.

We have a number of people in our guild who put stuff into the guild regularly but there are as many who don’t. Actually far more who don’t. That’s why I’m taking my time and telling everyone this is a long, long term goal. Just do a little. Don’t put yourself out there too far.

Some people listen, some give more than they can afford…despite my warnings.

That said, I still love having the guild hall. I’m just not going to rush building the guild hall.

Knighthonor.4061:

Juanpierre.8913:

Problem is my XP bar for masteries is now stuck.

what you mean by this?

He means he’s leveled his XP to max for a mastery point, but he doesn’t have enough points to spend it.

All you can do is switch to leveling other mastery lines until they’re all full. I’m at that point in HoT now.

I have two full mastery bars of experience, but not enough points to spend. It’s the same after you’ve leveled all your masteries too, your XP bar won’t go anywhere.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Seera.5916:

Vayne.8563:

This is a business decision that’s unlikely to change. While it’s true that we used to have buffs for everyone in the guild, it’s also true we never had free to play players before. The free to play Guild Wars 2 is more of an unlimited demo than an actual full game. Anet isn’t allowing people to be free to play players out of the goodness of they’re heart. The idea is to convert free to play players to paying players. And while some people might think it’s cheesy to do this and not join, more people will likely join.

Usually, I agree with what you say, but this time I don’t.

Guild buffs should not have been something locked behind the expansion pack. Guild buffs should be available to all guild members regardless of whether they’ve bought HoT or not.

It’s not like HoT introduced buffs to the game.

I’m not disagreeing. I’m saying it’s a business decision unlikely to be changed. I think it should be changed too…I just don’t think it will be. This is a call from the suits.

I agree this likely was a business decision. However, I’m not sure anyone at ANet wears suits and they’re driving the bus since they took over the publisher role. I’ve never seen Mike O in one.

There’s a business integrity question that they apparently did not consider worth basing the decision on. Consumers bought the core game. The core game came with certain benefits that not only required purchase, but which also took in-game actions to unlock. Now those benefits have been removed from core, requiring a new purchase and more actions to regain. How many players the removal of something paid for affects is not material to the integrity issue.

Sure, the “game conditions may change during play” clause in the ToS/UA gives them the power to do so with impunity. I’m not up in arms about it. Both guilds I’m part of are basically dead. That said, it was not a decision that inspired trust, loyalty and respect on my part. Rather the opposite, and such emotional capital ought to be of concern to businesses. I doubt I’m alone in that, though I’ve no idea just how many care.

The suits is a euphamism. It doesn’t literally mean suits. The problem is there are still people making decisions at high levels, whether at Anet or NcSoft that are controlling some of the decisions. The developers that actually work on the game probably don’t have much say in these things. It’s extremely likely that some decisions are made for the reasons of making profit, them being a business and all. lol

IndigoSundown.5419:

My take is that if ANet had chosen to create new benefits to exclusively fuel the new guild systems and left the old benefits as is, there would be fewer complaints. Taking things away that players previously “earned” never goes over well. That it also was taking away benefits that existed under the core game purchase, requiring a new purchase and a bunch of progression involving spending gold or taking time is just icing on the cake. No matter how “pure” ANet intentions might have been, it’s going to look like they removed access players had paid for (with core purchase) and then earned via in-game actions and now require a new purchase and more in-game actions to recoup.

So much this. No one should ever have stuff they worked for removed.

Andred.1087:

I don’t really think it’s “fair” but let’s be honest, if you’re even remotely serious about this game, you have / are planning to get HoT. Like come on, it’s $50. You could pay that much for a game that you play for 25 hours and never pick up again. It’s really not that much to ask, and frankly, if you’re going into an MMO not expecting to buy the expansions, idk what you’re thinking.

Well that’s the thing. I’m pretty sure most of the people who own the core game and still play are buying HoT anyway. The percentage of active players who aren’t going to buy HoT is very small. Compared with free to play players which a far greater percentage. I still think they should change it.

Seera.5916:

Vayne.8563:

This is a business decision that’s unlikely to change. While it’s true that we used to have buffs for everyone in the guild, it’s also true we never had free to play players before. The free to play Guild Wars 2 is more of an unlimited demo than an actual full game. Anet isn’t allowing people to be free to play players out of the goodness of they’re heart. The idea is to convert free to play players to paying players. And while some people might think it’s cheesy to do this and not join, more people will likely join.

Usually, I agree with what you say, but this time I don’t.

Guild buffs should not have been something locked behind the expansion pack. Guild buffs should be available to all guild members regardless of whether they’ve bought HoT or not.

It’s not like HoT introduced buffs to the game.

I’m not disagreeing. I’m saying it’s a business decision unlikely to be changed. I think it should be changed too…I just don’t think it will be. This is a call from the suits.

Mikal Dynath.6195:

Vayne.8563:

This is a business decision that’s unlikely to change. While it’s true that we used to have buffs for everyone in the guild, it’s also true we never had free to play players before. The free to play Guild Wars 2 is more of an unlimited demo than an actual full game. Anet isn’t allowing people to be free to play players out of the goodness of they’re heart. The idea is to convert free to play players to paying players. And while some people might think it’s cheesy to do this and not join, more people will likely join.

What are you talking about?

Just because someone doesn’t buy HoT doesn’t make them F2P … I have several friends I’ve played with for years that simply don’t have the expansion. They used to get guild buffs …

Yes, that’s true too. But I’m sure the decision was designed around getting people to buy the expansion. It’s STILL a business decision and it’s still not likely to be changed. It would be nice though.

This is a business decision that’s unlikely to change. While it’s true that we used to have buffs for everyone in the guild, it’s also true we never had free to play players before. The free to play Guild Wars 2 is more of an unlimited demo than an actual full game. Anet isn’t allowing people to be free to play players out of the goodness of they’re heart. The idea is to convert free to play players to paying players. And while some people might think it’s cheesy to do this and not join, more people will likely join.

Sheobix.8796:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Torque.2948:

Maguuma is dead because there nothing to do and the event rewards well they just suck. I log into Destiny and Wow and completely skip over this game. Maybe if it was worth Logging in and staying people might actually do that but with the rng god and playing for two years with no precursor drop people got better things to do then waste the years away.

Yet you had enough time playing WoW and Destiny/reading about them on web sites to come here and post; we feel blessed by your presence.

I also have not logged in for a while, but i still frequent the forums to see if activity is declining.

A dead MMO isn’t indicated by “[blank] is dead!” posts, its indicated when there’s a lack thereof. When people STOP caring about this game, and they stop posting, stop logging, stop thinking about GW2— that’s when it’s dead. People stop playing, then people stop posting, then people stop talking about the game. And I’ve personally seen one part of this advent happen, and we’re slowly phasing into the second phase.

There’s people here who go to the forums and have “quit” or taken a break or simply stopped playing. Don’t mistake them for a second.

Ignoring of course the fact the free to play players can’t post here.

Palador.2170:

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Andraus.3874:

The whole system is pretty bad. But unfortunately there’s no real way to cater to smaller guilds because that would be easily taken advantage of by all guilds.

Other than that, even for larger guilds, this is a a pretty big wall of grind to jump over for chairs you can’t sit on.

Other games manage to do it successsfully but of course anet think they know best.

I’ve played some of those other games. The gold spam in some games is ridiculous. Far worse than this one. I personally don’t consent to give free players more freedom at the expense of paying players.

I think you’ve drifted a little off topic there, Vayne. This is about guild halls, not F2P.

And yes, the GH decoration system is horrible. Can you imagine if the NPCs had to follow it? The inn in DR’s Salma district would have cost more to decorate than it does to build Eternity.

Lol too many threads, too much to drink. New Years Eve. Kill me. lol