Guild Wars 2

SkylightMoon.1980:

Casual players lol. Ok OP let me explain this to you. The raiding content being put in game in HoT is in response to the community specifically asking for very challenging content, in some cases, specifically asking for raids.

This is content designed to require you to press more than 1 in your full zerker set. It is designed to challenge you mechanically and strategically. People who are casual wouldn’t really fit the criteria for completing the content, because thats not what being casual is about. Its not about putting in tons of hours and effort to complete a certain piece of content. Its about having a lay back experience.

So no, people who play the game casually probably won’t be able to complete the content. Yet that doesn’t mean that not everyone can complete this content. Anyone can, it just requires you to put effort into it.

So think of it as not catering to people who are put into groups like “hardcore” or “casual” but instead people who are willing to put in big effort to complete a certain fight as opposed to people who arn’t. Simple as that.

And to repeat, raids, almost certainly, are what we’re getting in the place of actual hard content..

It’s a shortcut to limiting completion along with a feature they can advertise for the expansion.

They’re only harder because it’s exponentially harder for most people to get everyone going in the same direction.

Oh they’ll probably be more scripted too, so it takes a few more sessions to learn the patterns.

What they likely won’t have is substantially harder execution requirements for individual members.

@Philheat:

That goes to the other point, the challenging thing is likely (for lack of a better word) a scam.

Increasing encounter scale is a good way to limit accessibility and make things seem harder without greatly increasing individual execution requirements.

mrstealth.6701:

I never said it was just a skin, but that’s definitely the main reason most people have them. The QoL aspect is a secondary thing, that didn’t even exist for a long time, and that comes with its own downsides.

People are going along that line with the “There are no stat bonuses!”

Without putting any judgement on whether its right or wrong to do so, I think we need to keep it totally clear that there’s a strong (and intentional) item incentive to doing raids: Unique prestige gear with (minor) in-game effects that is unattainable either way.

~~~

This is the basis of the discussion. This is why people are upset at the concept.

To me it mainly says that Anet thinks they need to seriously sweetn the pot to get people to actually raid :p

mrstealth.6701:

Windsagio.1340:

mrstealth.6701:

Malediktus.9250:

Since legendary armor is cosmetic only and offers no stat advantage over ascended, there is no issue if non raiders cannot get it.

This is pretty much how I feel about it. The only difference between this and existing legendaries is that it might require something needing a party. And that’s assuming these items won’t be made available in pve, like the current dungeon tokens are.

I would certainly prefer that they give the reward track option. It does open up another (likely less efficient) option for those with no interest/time for larger-party gameplay. But the fact that’s a primarily cosmetic thing doesn’t make that an important thing to add.

Legendaries aren’t just skin swapping, you also usually get infinite stat swaps on them, it’s a nice QOL bonus

It’s a quite costly QoL bonus, though. For the time/money/effort put into a legendary, you could change stats on an ascended item quote a few times. That does come at the cost of losing runes, but stat swapping legendary armor is also very likely going to make the rune obsolete, or sub-optimal at best.

I still have alternate weapons for my legendaries (even if they’re using the same skin) just because I still need new sigils along with the stat change.

Still, though, I’d like to see alternates for obtaining as many legendary materials as possible. PvP reward tracks could cover a lot of them, as they do with dungeon tokens now.

[edit]
I do feel it’s relevant to point out that I’m not a fan of raid style content. And I’ll likely not do any of them more than a couple times, if at all. As much as I’d like to see those other options, I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

I agree it’s a costly QOL bonus, but saying ’it’s just a skin’ is a bit disingenuous, it’s intentionally much more than just a skin.

KittensWithClaws.3097:

So will this turn GW2 in to a grind fest? the very thing that made them different?

The grind will be the same, just the grind won’t be available to people not willing to make very specific commitments:

And the people who are willing to make those commitments will call it skill.

mrstealth.6701:

Malediktus.9250:

Since legendary armor is cosmetic only and offers no stat advantage over ascended, there is no issue if non raiders cannot get it.

This is pretty much how I feel about it. The only difference between this and existing legendaries is that it might require something needing a party. And that’s assuming these items won’t be made available in pve, like the current dungeon tokens are.

I would certainly prefer that they give the reward track option. It does open up another (likely less efficient) option for those with no interest/time for larger-party gameplay. But the fact that’s a primarily cosmetic thing doesn’t make that an important thing to add.

Legendaries aren’t just skin swapping, you also usually get infinite stat swaps on them, it’s a nice QOL bonus

thread probably won’t be deleted, it’s relevant to an existing feature now.

Of course I also thought there’d be no raids, so I might not be a good source :p

My issue is that this isn’t hard content the way I wanted it. This is throwing barriers to participation with organization and time investment.

SkiTz.4590:

Guess what, that’s not a good business decision.

Depends. If it gets box sales/gem sales past the cost of development, for sure.

If turns out development costs were higher than the revenue generated, then it was a poor decision – it’s a risk.

~~~

Now I know what I said there is blindingly obvious, but it’s an important thing to think about.

Anet is taking a calculated risk that raids will drive more people into the game, and explicitly more spenders, than it costs to develop the conent. They’re gonna talk them up as a major feature right now, of course they are – they want to make their dev costs back.

If people don’t convert and actually do the raids in big enough numbers, don’t expect to see any more. It is now on the people who claimed to want to have raids to prove they’re a good business decision. The good news for you is that Anet is doing everything they can to help you out by putting unique rewards behind the raid wall.

xarallei.4279:

Though I think the raiders are in for a nasty surprise if they think raiding will be the main way of getting the armor. Raiding will be a step in the process, but there will be many other requirements that will most likely not involve raiding, like say sPvP. The legendaries will likely involve doing various types of content.

I think that’s why they made them legendary. If it was a straight prestige piece, skins would have sufficed.

They’re signing people that get these tokens up for a long grind.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Just chiming in to say that if raid skins are accessable anywhere except raids I will be leaving the game

If they were just skins, really rad skins, would that be enough?

amplitudelol.1409:

They didnt want to look around too much. Fixed 10 man? I guess it will take a few years to get the idea from Blizzard and finally introduce the flexible raids.

And making raiding a main feature? WoW says: welcome to the competition boy. And its never a good thing… For the competition…

It’s probably a case where they looked at the market segment they weren’t hiting and making a play for it. As much as I hate raids, that part makes sense if they can keep the prices down.

That’s almost certainly a good part of this too, marketing.

They can give ‘hard’ content without making the content harder for the individual players

They can give a huge grind dump for the dedicated players (in finishing out the legendaries).

They get a new feature to announce for HOT, and one that MMO players as a large think they like, to boot.

I can’t mind them being ambitious in the marketplace.

Sagat.3285:

Windsagio.1340:

@OP: If they don’t giive exclusive rewards, they know people won’t do them. It’s a way to guarantee some return to their development costs.

Logic.

Who wouldn’t just take the easy way for the same thing? Everyone is not like that but the majority is.

It’s more than that though; if there were no special rewards at ALL, say just a slightly increased normal reward curve, I’d bet you that the usage numbers would be TERRIBLE.

It is, and it aalways has been about standing out.

@OP: If they don’t giive exclusive rewards, they know people won’t do them. It’s a way to guarantee some return to their development costs.

Blaeys.3102:

NoTrigger.8396:

Blaeys.3102:

At the same time, there should be ultra challenging content for people like you (and for me as well – I want that challenge).

the ultra challenging content is exactly what the raids are going to be and why they are made. i dont get why you have such a hard time to understand this.

and if you dont want that ultra challenge, like all of gw2 core game is easy, alot of content in HoT will be easy, there is so much easy stuff to do already and there will be much more. so where exactly is the problem now?

Once again, I want ultra challenging content – a lot. But, I also think that raiding, as a new game mode, should be something all can enjoy. Add tiers or other mechanics (hard modes, achievements, etc) to give us those challenges.

The only reason people equate ultra challenging to raiding is because other games have conditioned them to. Give us raids and give us major challenges, but don’t dedicate a single game mode exclusively to a small percentage of players.

I know it may just be the translation into print causing it, but let’s please have a discussion without the condescending tones. You have an opinion, but it is no more important than anyone else’s. The point of a forum is to give all players a voice.

The issue really is that raid implies multigroup.

The additional scale and organization limits who can commit to doing them in a way that game difficulty never could.

~~~

This is really interesting as a choice, because on one hand making it raids mean they don’t have to worry about difficulty as much. Depending on the group size, the organzational difficulties and getting people together lessens the need for execution challenges. In that sense, it’s a slightly harder extension of the silverwastes stuff.

It’s essentially just another way to force exclusivity by forcing people to commit more focus to it than many are willing to, without making encounters so hard that most people can’t do them. It’s brilliant. Sneaky, but brilliant.

~~

The rewards issue on the other hand is directly the lesson ffrom Aetherpath. If they don’t sweeten the pot, the ‘hard content’ people won’t actually do the content. To me it’s a sign that htey don’t really have faith that people are interested in doing the content, as a whole.

Once the raids show those aetherpath numbers, we won’t have to worry about them anymore (knock on wood).

kitten , that’s dumb

“Slap in the face” is way overused in these discussions.

It’s definitely the ‘dying’ thing, pretty common annoyance in that fight

Konig Des Todes.2086:

With the current ssystem, level 100 will require 145 AR. Currently, ignoring the (Infused) property of rings and backpieces, you can only get 70 AR; with said (Infused) property, you gain three slots that can have up to +16 each (theoretically more but no player has obtained a +17 yet it seems). Using just +10s, you can currently get 100 AR. Any higher is not feasible for most players.

As I see it, there are three possibilities:

1. They’re going to adjust the amount of AR required per level, lowering the 145 closer down to current feasible max. I find this unlikely.
2. They’re going to make more ascended gear able to be (Infused) like rings and backpieces. If they do this to just the remaining trinkets, you can get up to 130 AR using just +10 Agony Infusions, forcing those who wish to do level 100 to use at least 3 +15s.
3. They’ll add an additional means of gaining agony infusions – such as masteries. If via masteries, then it will likely be gating making the higher levels ‘easier’ by requiring the expansion.

IMHO, the second solution is the best.

Third is the best really, it’s more streamlined and leads to less rigamarole.

They’re really not gonna be doing much to ensure content accessibility to non-hot people at the cost of convenience to hot people.

I suspect prices will take a hit when they announce that the ‘agony channeling’ mastery increases your resist (citation needed), so there’s definitely going to be a ‘right’ time to sell

I’m at work, but apparently prices on +agony are going crazy.

Enko.6123:

Yeah I’m glad I held on to mine. Always a use eventually

I am intrigued by the green wands mixed in ><

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phys.7689:

Enko.6123:

well they could make agony resistance from HoT masteries and if you don’t have it, you might be stuck with crafting the +1s into higher and higher levels which would be cost prohibitive.

They could and may do this, but it would be a pretty crappy system, that i imagine would annoy a great many people.

Well honestly, it would only annoy people that didn’t buy HoT.

Edit: Which, I might add, I don’t think is a bad thing. I doubt anyone pushing into post-50 fractals is at all not buying it anyways.

Necros will complain about how every possible change will destroy them. It’s apparently part of the aggreement you sign when you roll the class.

Iason Evan.3806:

Disappointed that they went with an off-hand when Ele’s offhand options were arguably the best overall already. Point blank: Ele could have used another two-handed option.

I am not saying that the warhorn isn’t great. It could be amazing. That’s not my point. My point is that they are bolstering that which needed no bolstering. If they really wanted a frontliner like they say, give us an option for mainhand outside of Lightning Whip.

They kind of had to do an offhand if they want to balance skills introduced.

Most classes get 3 or 5 new weapon skills, with warhorn eles get 8. With GS or Rifle (although rifle would be RAD) they’d get 20 new weapon skills.

Quiznos.4296:

This isn’t only a concern for staff/ventari revs, but something I’ve been facing for years as a primarily heals/support guardian.

Support/heals build aren’t rewarding in terms of loot.
most of the time they aren’t even appreciated in party situations; so the old pooling of party loot (as managed by the players) is out.

The exception being PvP thanks to reward tracks.

Unfortunately the “down with the trinity” attitude present in gw2 means dps is king. I hope a net compensates healers/support builds fairly and don’t understand why they’d introduce a profession that’s so support heavy without it…

Who knows what HoT will bring?

If you’re playing support guardian, you should be plunking symbols right in the middle of everything anyways. You should never have any problems with getting tags.

~~~

IN GENERAL

Short version: You’re carrying 2 different legends, switch them the way you’d switch a weapon. That’s how the system is set up.

Spoj, alternative to me lacking comprehension, I’m just interpreting what you say in a way you might not like.

And no you’re not. You think you are, of course you think you are, but you’re not looking at things objectively.

But, I’ll let you be, this is down to petty wrangling at this point.

maha.7902:

Windsagio.1340:

maha.7902:

oh look it’s this guy again looking for fights

well how about you go somewhere else because literally nobody here is interested in reading your posts

Yeah, I know the circle-kitten is much more fun than actually having to consider your assumptions.

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

I don’t actually want to be the bad guy, but seriously somebody’s gotta try to break the cycle.

well you are looking for a fight because when spoj stated the blatantly obvious (anet balance for pvp rather than pve) you decided to try and make out that we want them to balance the game for us (as in, speed runners, not pve in general) which is incorrect. we simply want pve to be given even the slightest consideration in terms of balance changes. a basic example would be something like the damage reduction on hb/ww or the damage increase on whirling axe. what need was there for hb/ww to be reduced in pve when warrior is an average dps class, and why did whirling axe have to get its damage buff split between the two modes? it’s not like off-hand axe is particularly good in either pvp or pve so why not let pve get the buff as well?

it’s flagrantly obvious to anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to this game that pvp is basically what 99.5% of the game is balanced around, since catering to the almost zero people who play it is of the utmost importance.

This is what I mean by myopia.

Spoj’s statement is incorrect because he thinks they’re balancing for PvP instead of PvE.

In fact, it only seems that way to him because he moves in a very small circle that reinforces a fairly closed conception of the needs of PvE balance and can’t/isn’t looking at the game holistically.

~~~~

And, I don’t want to get into the whole concept of holistic design, but in short, balance for different game modes don’t need to be, and shouldn’t be treated exclusively, and they have to consider the effects of a change on the player base as a whole, all play styles and skill levels.

~~~~

If you get out of your own subculture the needs you see aren’t remotely so self-evident. Someone coming from a different place and arguing to a different conclusion isn’t ‘just looking for an argument’.

Reject generalizing from your own needs. It will almost always lead you wrong.

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

Right…. Falsely claiming we have a hidden agenda and completely failing at reading comprehension would be a more accurate description of what you are doing.

You don’t have a hidden agenda, you have an explicit agenda, and not even one I disagree with that much:

Your agenda, simply, is that you want more time and effort and resources spent on difficult group content.

The thing is, you’re not helping that agenda with persecution myths.

maha.7902:

oh look it’s this guy again looking for fights

well how about you go somewhere else because literally nobody here is interested in reading your posts

Yeah, I know the circle-kitten is much more fun than actually having to consider your assumptions.

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

I don’t actually want to be the bad guy, but seriously somebody’s gotta try to break the cycle.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Not explicitly, no, but the tone and focus are pretty blindingly clear.

Pretty sure everyone here would be happy if the put a fun boss in an isolated room where no speedrunning tactics could take place just a fun fight.

Sure, but the point holds. If I leave hte reference to ‘speed running’ out of it (don’t have a good term for the community in question, it’s not actually the broader dungeon community), we have people complaining that Anet doesn’t balance to match their issues and treat it as if anet doesn’t balance the game mode at all.

This is false and myopic.

spoj.9672:

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Not explicitly, no, but the tone and focus are pretty blindingly clear.

Or balancing for the speedrun crowd is not their priority.

The speedrun crowd is not the end-all and be-all of pve.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

more of this.

You guys have got to get over this persecution complex. They care about PvE to a degree that is totally independent of how much they care about dungeon speedrunners.

You guys have it better than the GvG’ers do, by a long shot.

It isn’t just speedrunners or even just dungeons. It’s simply a lack of challenging content. Their systems can do so much more.

And, as far as GvG, well I don’t think I’d be here if they simply never put in content that was aimed at being more than a pushover zergfest, so I don’t know. Completely ignored such that I would have never bought the game doesn’t sound all that bad :b

And Veckna I was honestly curious on that question, as personally it wasn’t all that long after I started playing that FGS got the nerf, i mean still months but yeah… was curious how long FGS rush meta was a thing after reading about all the 4war+mesmer stuff that was the rage originally, it was all before my time.

Believe me man, I get you. Especially with the state of the game now, I’m desperartely praying for harder content.

It’s just that the “OMG THEY DONT CARE ABOUT PVE!” stuff is tiring… and honestly it’s evocative of a tone we’ve seen all too much of on the GW2 forums over the last month or so. I want to expect better of the community ><

phys.7689:

As a seller they can come up with whatever prices and package content how they want.
They could say revenant needs a elite char slot that costs 20 dollars.

However, if the consumers dont feel it is a fair value, the product will fail or change price. Many people dont feel the no batteries included style for revanent is good.

They circumvented this with a prepurchase bonus, but the truth is at the end of the day many people still find the package they are offering lacking. They just arent focused on it because they dont actually intend to buy the game after release.

They picked the wrong price point for the product they are promoting. A large amount of players are only interested in the product at this price if they start adding extras.

After release they will have the same issue. Many returning players wont feel its worth it. This expansion as it is, is going to need sales and special offers to achieve its goal of having a high adoption rate.

Either that or give more content or take away content from core.

They didn’t circumvent anything.

They charged what they thought the market would bear

Arenanet, or NCSoft doesn’t owe the customers anything beyond producing the game and selling it. If the market won’t bear the price, the product will fail, and they’ll have to discount it or take a loss on it.

There’s really not much else to say.

more of this.

You guys have got to get over this persecution complex. They care about PvE to a degree that is totally independent of how much they care about dungeon speedrunners.

You guys have it better than the GvG’ers do, by a long shot.

Arbitrary rules are arbitrary, that’s really all there is to it.

All the avove is subject to change if/when there’s actual difficult content.

maha.7902:

good

go cry somewhere else

so mean :’(

I was making a comment about the myopic nature of your jibe about balance, but I’ve since realized I don’t have the emotional energy to engage right now, we’re in crunch ><

maha.7902:

we’ve already been over this

catering to the 30 people playing pvp is clearly more important than the thousands upon thousands who play wvw and pve

this is why pvp balance is more important

“We’ve been over this. The thing I like is loved by thousands, whereas the things I don’t like aren’t liked by anyone else, it’s only sense!”

Honestly though, if you can’t afford a 50 dollar expac, you have much bigger problems on your plate than that.

edit: lol@profanity filter sometimes, $50 is verboten after ‘a’

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-For the same price of $50! Don’t forget about the price, because that is what this is about. You pay the same, but you get so much less for your money.

You know what else sucks? I used to be able to buy a Coke for 25 cents and it was considered terrible that Gas might some day be more than $1/gallon.

Or alternative, we have a bunch of people who learned that their parents would always cave when they cried loudly enough.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

A glider skin is a pre-order incentive. No slot unless you pre-purchase or 10$ extra gets shelled out is arm twisting.

Best example of good practice being nightfall – they had no problem adding 2 slots for 2 new professions baseline, no strings attached.

which goes back to my earlier post, you have an inherent misunderstanding of what nightfall was and what it represented as a product.

Zeft; the slot has become a preorder incentive. Should they just not have one?

@OP please repeat after me:

“Nightfall was a standalone, boxed product”

Even putting aside your … narrative-slanted descriptions of the product, what you end up with is:

“A complete product came with more stuff than an expansion”.

fractal masteries say hi >