Guild Wars 2

I think the only way to get ascended gear should be by running fractals. I also think that ascended gear should not have greater stats that exotics, this way WvW players and anyone else does not feel obligated to acquire these items to stay ‘on par’.

Requiem.8769:

kitten s.7421:

I just found his IRL picture.

Without his armor:

Hahaha. Made me laugh.

CC Danicia.1394:

Greetings,

I clear out the forums@arena.net mail box each day (except weekends) and respond to all appeals & queries. Is that the email address you’re using?

Thanks for responding. Whichever email address is given in the notice you receive for infractions and such, is the address I believe I have replied to at least once (many months ago).

Edit: The address I sent my concern to was forums@arena.net , on March 11.

Errant Venture.9371:

Im Mudbone.1437:

What I don’t understand is WHY ANET hasn’t made the graphical part of the game GPU based over CPU, kinda counter productive IMO.

They bought the engine architecture from another company. Most MMO producers don’t actually write their own engine architecture anymore.

Wildstar did/does/is.

I guess, by their logic, bigger is better. The more the merrier. Quantity over quality.

Amadan.9451:

a queue system was too much? is it still like lfg.com but in game?

This is what I am wondering.

I am extremely baffled by two things:
1. It took arenanet OVER a year to release any sort of LFG tool.
2. Im not in the ‘beta’, but it just seems like a fancier gw2lfg.com…with its own UI in game, etc. I dont see this as being ground breaking or any different than gw2lfg.com.

It took this long to make this?

MrRuin.9740:

And you wonder why Anet won’t give a straight answer about a lot of things. I don’t know about Anet, but I know I’m tired of seeing the kittening thing.
It’s one thing to lobby for a change in the gamestate or help shape and push it in a direction that you would like or feel that it would be better, its another to cling to this one kittening statement and whip it out like its the golden law every week.

You can bet if Anet learned anything from the Manifesto…its to not have one out there and to say as little as possible because this is what happens.

I can’t think of one game that Ive played in the last 10 years that had as bold of a mission statement as Arenanet’s manifesto. Developers don’t do that. They don’t sit in front of camera and make bold claims about what their game will be, wont be, etc. And then later on when things aren’t working out, they claim that we ‘mis understood’.

Whether or not one thinks arenanet has gone against there core values in their manifesto…who knows. I personally, think they did.

Add up the manifesto, with the countless interviews, with the countless articles, blogs, etc…and look at the game today. Do you see a lot of what you THOUGHT the game would have been?

Before you go off half-..so I dont get banned..‘gunned’, yes I know games change, evolve, especially in one year. Completely understand and support that. But 3-6 months into the game, it was a completely different game. Suddenly, Im playing to have fun and now I have a new tier to grind for…guild missions OMG, where I have to run guild missions for this new tier, OR spend an arm and a leg to get the new ascended piece. NOW I have a checklist of dailys to do instead of just..doing them. Maybe Im different, but I hardly ever compelete a set of dailys by doing what I want. I have to stray and do something different to complete it.

Anyways, I digress.

What I think we all can agree on is that Arenanet gave themselves a TON of wiggle room, they were VERY ambigious, and grey. So that they can shift where the wind was blowing, sit back and say “Oh, you misunderstood us”. Lets face it, they gave themselves considerable leeway to be vague for this very purpose.

Intentional or not? Who knows.

colesy.8490:

Dulfy has access to the test server IIRC.

I dont know if THATS true..but if it is, thats BS. A friggin dev gives a person who runs a fansite special access to content before it comes out?

Silly.

Everyone is busy looking at their achievement check lists for every weak living story update…and everyone is busy zerging in the new GW2 content.

Serophous.9085:

cesmode.4257:

I agree and disagree with the OP.

He does sound like he is one of those “please hand me everything for free, no work required”..entitelements, etc.

But at the same time, the whole purpose of the thread is to illustrate the fact that yet another customer fell to the bait and switch. He bought Colin J’s line of “At max level we want everyone to be on equal footing”(not quoted verbatim) and is now upset. I totally hear his point.

I just want to know, what content is he unable to do because he doesnt have ascended gear?

Not agreeing with that portion of his post and in any thread about this topic, I never say I am excluded from content. But like most people, I want BiS gear and then I want to enjoy the game on my own time. I had that BiS gear until ascended was introduced into the game. So now my playstyle changed, for the worse. This is a topic Im not getting into a debate about because it is slightly off topic in this thread.

Point is: The OP feels like he was bait and switched. I simply agree with that. I feel the same way.

I havent logged in for more than 5 minutes in the past few weeks.

Are invasions still happening? Queens gauntlet zergs?

These two events alone showed me where Arenanets head is at.

I agree and disagree with the OP.

He does sound like he is one of those “please hand me everything for free, no work required”..entitelements, etc.

But at the same time, the whole purpose of the thread is to illustrate the fact that yet another customer fell to the bait and switch. He bought Colin J’s line of “At max level we want everyone to be on equal footing”(not quoted verbatim) and is now upset. I totally hear his point.

Meili Ying.3820:

cesmode.4257:

I think the reason for this is because we now have a sense of entitlement: “Well wheres my shiny?!!?” Instead of playing the game and simply having fun because its a video game.

Just curious, and I brought this up a little earlier in the thread, but who do you think is more to blame for this sense of entitlement? Is it the MMO companies that have tried (and albeit succeeded) in conditioning us to have this sense of entitlement? Or is it the players who accepted that the company’s way of doing things is good? Or is it fault on both sides for allowing this cycle to continue (most likely the reason)?

First, Maddoctor is spot on with everything.

Secondly, I think Arenanet abandoned their principles way too quickly. Either they only used them as marketing ploys to lure us in, or they simply gave up the good fight way too quickly.

I think it is a combination of the developer and the playerbase. They feed off one another. If a playerbase says “I want moar shinies, more farming spots, more redundancy”..developers say “sure!” and copy/paste content in. Do you think the invasions were much different than the gauntlet farming? Its just seas of mobs being mowed down in both cases really.

The game has become quite saturated with this type of content and the inflation of it continues to grow. Im not sure if Arenanet’s in-house economist knows what hes doing because hes supporting these farming events. Im not sure if the lead designers necessarily have their pulse on the playerbase. Do their stats truely tell them that we went grinds and farms, simplistic content, fluffy content? I know I want more rewarding content, interesting stories rather than extremely linear crap than what we have been given.

Maybe this is the beginning of the turn of the tide. MMOs might be grinind(no pun) out their niché in the industry. WoW is/has been regarding the king of treadmills and raiding. GW2 is and will be dubbed the king of grinding and farming. Wildstar is and will be dubbed the king of hardcore content and will challenge WoW in terms of raiding (all of the hardcores that left WoW are sitting in Wildstar fan-site forums salivating btw).

ThiBash.5634:

Knote.2904:

ThiBash.5634:

The main reason for this is that power scales too well. When comparing Soldier’s gear to Celestial gear, even the combined effects of the extra precision, condition and critical damage aren’t enough to make up for the loss of power. It’s too good, it scales too well, and it’s effect on the base damage of skills should be lowered. If that were to happen, a lot more gear options would suddenly become viable.

No it’s because of the content.

Explain please.

Its the content and playerbase.

Its the content because you either have huge damaging abilities from NPCs..that will nearly one shot you. Or you have little tickling ones that do next to nothing. Why have a support build when theres not much opportunity to use it. Or why tank when you’ll be squashed..(plus there is no tanking in the game btw..no trinity)

Its the playerbase because people just want the fastest route possible and forgoe all other forms of enjoyment. Zerker or nothing.

Paulytnz.7619:

Well I don’t think rewards are a bad thing. Especially in these kinds of games so I really have no idea what your beef is with.

Playing the game can indeed and SHOULD be fun just for doing so, however earning rewards on top of that is always a nice bonus. In these kinds of games building up wealth alongside of your character strength etc is usually all part of the fun of it. Again, rewards are NOT a bad thing.

I can and easily do play other games that don’t reward me in a reward type of system that gives shines. A good example is that I have always been a civilization fan and when I’m not playing GW2 there is a good chance I am playing civ5. There you build up your nation and can go to war with others to win the game or win in other ways. There is no shinies to earn as such but you do take their land/cash etc. The true reward however is playing the game to the best of your ability and winning by the strategy that you set and use.

I’m sure many people here still play the COD series as well as plenty of other games where you get no shines and have a blast.

Don’t go labelling us all as greedy shiny collectors and say it’s a bad thing. Because once again I say that is usually a big part of what makes THESE types of games fun. Start from nothing, build up your char, build up your wealth and then look back on it all and feel proud of what you have accomplished. What is so wrong with that?

You can’t compare an MMO with a shooter. You cant compare an MMO with civilization. In a shooter, you shoot things, maybe progress yourself a bit and thats about it. In civilization, you build up a civ and thats about it. In MMOs, its a much more complicated beast and yes there should be rewards in an MMO to keep players in the game because a developer will be constantly adding content to the game, and they need their players to be playing and spending money on the game.

With that said, now that we can effectively eliminate the comparison to COD and Civ, if all you play an MMO for is for shinies and loot, then thats your prerogative. But there is much more to a gaming experience than collecting loot and the sooner people realize it, the better off we will be. The better off a developer will be.

Just as an interesting observation: Look back prior to November 15th and prior to when the game began showering us with loot. The forums were much more positive in my opinion. Sure there were people complaining that there wasnt much to do. But I feel those people were less noisy than the complainers of today(myself :P). This forum was a much more pleasant place to be. Now, it is toxic. Noisy.

I think the reason for this is because we now have a sense of entitlement: “Well wheres my shiny?!!?” Instead of playing the game and simply having fun because its a video game.

Xcom.1926:

The game would have been in so much better shape if it was released with LFG, had the boss revamp at launch instead of now and had improvements to sPvP including features like ratings and matchmaking.

I agree. And its not like their LFG tool is all that elaborate either. Its basically the same thing as gw2lfg.com website. It took them how long to get in gear and start designing one, and how long to actually develop it? Oh. Forgot. They pulled all their developers out of the dungeon development and QoL teams, and put them into the 4 living story teams.

Gotcha!

Waldir.2571:

Welcome to Guild Wars 2.

Fixed it for you.

JBDanger.2603:

There’s always going to be idiots that agree 100% with what anet does. The devs can crap on a plate, serve it to those fanboys, tell them its brownies and they’ll cry for more! It doesn’t matter what Anet does, people like this will always support them. They’re too simple minded to psycho analyze whats really going on like the rest of us. Anet’s next patch could be “We’ve deleted all your currency and armor to make it a challenge for you to re-gear your characters” and people like this would be all for it. At least normal people like us truly know what garbage is.

I lol’d.

Vol.5241:

Orpheus.7284:

Vol.5241:

Orpheus.7284:

Chickenshoes.6250:

Vol.5241:

So basically you want achievement points but you do not want to earn it or don’t like how you earn it.

Quite simply, you don’t deserve it.

Agreed with this. Achievements are for achieving, not begging.

You guys don’t deserve to reply on the forums is really what I think because you can’t interpret people’s posts. I am saying time-gating achievement points is a pretty bad concept. Did i say I want AP without doing anything? Learn to read.

Achievments are for achieving? Achieving what? Achieving in afk’ing in daily activities? Kill 30 ambient creatures?
You guys must think achievement points are some prestigious thing that needs to be ‘achieved’ while it’s actually just a time-gated currency of the game.

And so what if it were a currency of the game and easy to acquire? Do you want all achievements to be on the level of 8-orb Liadri?

Doesn’t matter if it’s time-gated. If you don’t want to (or can’t) log-in every day to do your dailies, then too bad! You dont’ deserve it! The achievement is there for people dedicated to the game. There is no reason why someone who refuses to do daily achievements should be rewarded those who do them.

I understand you want to have an achievement system that is not time-gated, but these time-gated achievements reward those who are dedicated enough to play the game day in day out. If you can’t do that then readjust your expectations or maybe stick to fixed achievements.

8 Orb Liadri is only as horrible as the waiting time between each attempt. If the gauntlet was instanced, it actually has just-right difficulty. Off topic though.

I understand dailies’ current intentions, I didn’t ask for daily AP points to be awarded to people who don’t do dailies. But is this current system good?
I could do dailies, i’ve been doing them almost without fail since inception of the game (other than hurricane sandy hiatus)…but is the game supposed to make players feel like it’s work? I’m gonna keep doing dailies but I’m still gonna be disgusted by it. Many people share the same view.

It’s the player’s fault for having the expectation that it’s work or a chore. There is a reason why they increased the # of daily activities from 5 to whatever if it now (12?). It’s so that just by playing the game, you don’t realize that it’s a grind. If there is anything that Anet can do, they can lower the # of achievements done for laurels from 5 to 3 or maybe even to 1. But I bet you people would still complain.

Most of the time I need to get out of what I want to do in GW2 and go elsewhere to complete dailys. Youre dillusioned if you think that dailys can always be completed doing anything you do normally. Up until recently, I was doing map completion. I would focus on one zone. Lets say, Iron Marches. If one of the daily kills required my kills to be in, say, Kryta..well I cant do that one. Then you have 3 or four WvW dailys. Thats 5 right there out of 12 or so. Heres to hoping that 5 out of the remaining 7 can be completed by running around Iron Marches and map completing.

Knote.2904:

cesmode.4257:

Burnfall.9573:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-Grind-Wars-2/page/3#post2767235

1,090 responses; Holy Grind 2

Op, take a look.

As i said over and over again,

it’s either reward or grind/nerf.

You stated how Arena.net is rewarding us too much for everything we do, so where is the problem?

I agree that we are being spoiled by them a bit but would it been better to not be or be?

It seem you are being ungrateful and unappreciative of what Arena.net has done in rewarding you.

I believe in practice of Justice and against practice of InJustice (look at my history and see)

In other word,

Arena.net Reward implinentation is Just

Im running rampid in that thread… you don’t see me running around? Trust me, Ive read it.

It is not that I am ungrateful. But why must you NEED to be rewarded for everything? Cant you simply play to have fun?

Because people don’t want rewards for the sake of getting rewards, getting money can used for all kinds of carrots/goals that keep you playing.

Not to mention the simple activity that gives “Rewards” can also be fun at the same time.

If Anet did nothing but add a ton of new dynamic events (aka the same old garbage that exists) no one would do them, because 1. They aren’t rewarding (that’s a given), but also 2. They’re not fun, at all.

It need to be one or the other, but ideally both.

Too many people that keep hating on “rewards” and think they know better, it’s such a silly mindset lol. That’s just one part of the problem.

cesmode.4257:

Don’t believe me? Try going to another game after you have had your complete fill of GW2 and try not to expect the game to reward you for everything. I bet for a lot of us, it will be difficult.

Alright, done.

Playing minecraft.

I meant an MMO, my friend. Minecraft does not qualify.

Przemek.6835:

Since when giving some people a reward at the end of an activity is considered bad?

I mean… wtf.

You enjoy something? You do it. And additionally you get an extra shiny stuff for it.

What is the problem lol.

When all you begin to think about are rewards, how is that fun? Do you even care what youre doing at that point? Just as long as you get the milk bone at the end?

And someone else mentioned it: If everyone gets the same reward and everyone walks around with the same stuff, it waters down the value. If everyone had The Dreamer(legendary), who cares at that point? If everyone was rewarded a legendary,it waters down the uniqueness.

While I think the legendary grind needs to be adjusted in certain areas, I do think that it is still something to strive for, for a long time. But showering us in gold, T6/T7 mats, rares and exotics to be salvaged…all while playing monotonous invasions…Is that truely fun? Do you care about what you are doing? Are you playing with one hand, and smoking a cig with the other? Do you have your favorite TV show on the second monitor, only paying half attention to what youre doing in game because you’ll be rewarded regardless?

My point is with this entire thread, and those of you that are defending the amount of rewards are only proving me correct, is that arenanet has conditioned us to feel entitled to rewards, and to really go after rewards instead of going after “fun”. There are some really cool event chains in abandoned zones that no one knows about. There is some really cool dialogue between NPCs, but no one sticks around after the event to see. They run off to the next event to get the next reward.

I dont want to say Im immune to this. I definately speed through portions. But I can admit that, until now, Ive been addicted to the amount of rewards that are given to you for everything you do.

I wonder what type of game this would be if we all played because we enjoyed the content of the game. And not playing for rewards.

Vol.5241:

cesmode.4257:

@vol: Insta kill mechanics are lazy designs.

Instead of insta kill, they could have dropped a condition on you that ticks away a % of your HP..after 5-10 seconds, youre dead. You must use a condition remover.

Instead, we get a berserker style burst DPS mechanic. Its lazy whether you can avoid it or not. Plain and simple.

The only insta-kill mechanic that teq has AFAIK is the bloated norn looking risen that explode after awhile. They’ve been there before patch and continue to remain here. The best possible way to counter them is to know them away or DPS them down.

Whether it’s an insta kill or a condition on you, there are ways of handling it. One type of damage is preventable. One is countered by using a skill. I think the insta death mechanic is good enough to teach players how to prioritize rather than smash skills.

Id like to point out just a few more in the game: First boss in TA. Spider boss in TA. Alpha in COE P3. Just to name a few. The ghost boss guy in AC.

I think all insta kills are poor designs and just fillers for more engaging mechanics.

@daniket: First, any other MMO you can ignore the gear grind and rewards too. Nothing against you, but I really dont see how people feel guild wars 2 is different in this regard. Ignore them in GW2, ignore them in WoW..Grind for Ascended in GW2, raid in WoW…who cares? Play how you want, right?

Secondly, I agree. It is a section of the playerbase that has been conditioned from the likes of WoW, and those gear grind games that came before and after it. They clamored for that type of content. Verticle progression and rewards. So we are slammed with it all. Now, you hear the word reward, and you quickly head to dulfy to find out the fastest route possible for that reward. You get that reward and feel proud. Did you have a lot of fun getting there? I dont know. For me, no. Once arenanet started giving people incentives to play, is when the atmosphere shifted for me. Instead of fun, engaging content with really cool looking environments and awsome bosses with huge looking weapons, and all of that kind of stuff…we are given rewards, recycled content, temporary content, RNG..but at the center of it all is rewards.

They could not give us a visually awsome game that took it to a whole new level.. They had to give us rewards instead.

If arenane hit the rewind button and asked us which would we prefer.. A) Really cool bosses, lots of new zones and content, new skills. Lots of beautiful areas and places to explore. Awsome dialogue and lore bits to be found. New enemies to fight, new tragedies to stave off. True dynamic events that have consequence on the world… Ascended gear, lots of gold, lots of skins, lots of minis, a lot of mini games, lots of short stories, lots of T5/T6 mats..

I would dhoose option A. In a heartbeat.

Burnfall.9573:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-Grind-Wars-2/page/3#post2767235

1,090 responses; Holy Grind 2

Op, take a look.

As i said over and over again,

it’s either reward or grind/nerf.

You stated how Arena.net is rewarding us too much for everything we do, so where is the problem?

I agree that we are being spoiled by them a bit but would it been better to not be or be?

It seem you are being ungrateful and unappreciative of what Arena.net has done in rewarding you.

I believe in practice of Justice and against practice of InJustice (look at my history and see)

In other word,

Arena.net Reward implinentation is Just

Im running rampid in that thread… you don’t see me running around? Trust me, Ive read it.

It is not that I am ungrateful. But why must you NEED to be rewarded for everything? Cant you simply play to have fun?

Stooperdale.3560:

I mostly agree. A lot of problems are based on a lack of balance in the reward system. Rewards were not balanced at game launch. Many reward changes have been inappropriate for the content, a bit like putting square pegs in round holes. Many reward changes have balanced one aspect of rewards and broken others, so players migrate from one set of game content to another after each patch.

Having said that though, all MMOs have a reward system. Other factors are at work such as the style of end game content. There’s possibly an argument that the widespread accessibility of game content for lone players has created a selfish attitude, with little or no compromise for long term social benefits. Even the guild system promotes individual freedom within a loose collective.

Sure, and I have acknowledged that games need rewards. Plain and simple. But tied to everything? Or rather, must the rewards be changed or unique or a different system to reward new activities?

Picture this: An entire month(roughly two patches(2 week content updates)) where all we get are more dynamic events in zones such as: Orr, Timberlain Falls, Frostgorge sound, Iron Marches, and Kessix Hills. Just dynamic events, maybe a few hearts. Regular events, some with longer chains. Just..content. Maybe open a new zone with just content. Nothing special. Just content. New content that you have never seen before. Maybe a hidden cave or something.

Ask yourself if this is something you would spend time exploring. My guess: people might check it out quickly, realize its run of the mill, and head back to invasion farmin, queensdale champ farming, dungeon farming, LS achievements, etc…whatever nets the most profit and reward.

@vol: Insta kill mechanics are lazy designs.

Instead of insta kill, they could have dropped a condition on you that ticks away a % of your HP..after 5-10 seconds, youre dead. You must use a condition remover.

Instead, we get a berserker style burst DPS mechanic. Its lazy whether you can avoid it or not. Plain and simple.

Treeline.3865:

I’ve felt for a long time this game has changed in a direction that I personally don’t like. I knew very well it would be different from GuildWars 1, but here this is the feel I get:

Content? You got it. Everything.
Want anything else, and I mean, anything at all – Skins, pets, any conveinance item, upgrades, anything that costs – Either pay up or grind like this MMO was korean. And I don’t like it. GW2 was for me supposed to be the laid back cozy kind of MMO where you can come and go as you please. All the temporary crap (although nice content), time gating makes me feel stressed when playing. I need a break. And I feel it’s not because I try doing too much (well, I am), I feel like the game wants me to do too much. Dailies, daily bosses, daily invasion, daily fractals. Oh and I’d like to squeeze a pvp match in there somewhere.

But you dont have to do any of that. No one is forcing you. <— line everyone loves to use.

I think its a BS response. No one forced me to do dailies in WoW, faction grind in WoW, run dungeons or raid in WoW. I did it because it was there. It was in front of me and accessible. Not to mention, I was encouraged by the shinies, just like in GW2.

In Neverwinter, no one is forcing me to run the campaign system(which is awsome btw). No one forces me to run foundry missions. I do because they are there, infront of me, accessible.

So where someone tells me “no one forces you to do any of that if you don’t want to”…most of us can respond “Yeah but they are there so I must.” No one forces a fat kid to eat cake, but he does. Im not fat, but no one forces me to eat that bag of sour patch kids. But I do even though they are bad for my teeth Getting the point? Anyone?

Dangle a dollar bill on the branch of a tree and someone will swipe it. No one forced that person to do so, but human nature compels them to. Same principle applied here.

No one forces you to do anything in any MMO. You do it because its there, you might have some small inkling to see it even if you know youll hate it, and its something to do in the game.

Is there any oversight or someone managing the moderators of the forums? Or are they given a large latitude to moderate at their discretion?

Mikau.6920:

Don’t worry guys. ANET will just ignore this post and nothing will happen.

/sarcasm off

Sarcasm? That will actually happen. You werent being sarcastic.

But this thread will probably be modded to high heaven, along with any other thread displaying any sort of criticism. The thread will be closed eventually, some infractions given out. I’ll probably get my response here deleted and given an infraction.

I truely think there is no oversight on the moderation of these forums. Ive tried to get in contact with some sort of manager before because this is the most terribly moderated forum Ive bever been a part of. I got no where.

Keep it constructive guys. This is about Grindwars 2.

They are going to give it to the speedrunners..the “cool” guys of GW2. The ’Dulfy’s of the world(not saying shes a speed runner, but shes in Arenanets inner circle it seems).

I logged in last night soley to see if my account had been selected for the LFG beta. Nope. Logged off.

Dante.1508:

cesmode.4257:

Brace yourselves…
I just want to say that come March 18th, Diablo 3’s economy will be more healthy than GW2.

I might actually buy D3 now

I thought it was a fun game for the last year. I still play off and on. Removing Auction Houses and seeing what they are doing with Reaper of Souls…game looks boss.

But tying this reply to the topic: I dont know what is going on with the GW2 economy. Ectos are all over the place. First they are at 35 silver a pop. Then drop to 18.. and now with silly ascended gear, they are back up to 32. And Ectos are tied to a ton of things in the game. They are almost as valuable as gold. I can no longer afford what I want. I have to…wait for it…grind and farm these ectos for days on end. Thats not fun. Who is watching this stuff? I think arenanet needs to do something drastic similar to what blizzard did with diablo 3 auction houses..(which they are removing).

1. Overflows — I agree. They really need to expand the unmber of players on a map. whenever there is new content, you are going to be tossed into overflow most likely. Is this to create the illusion that the game is just so populated? Not to mention, I really hate the fact that arenanet funnels us into one or two zones per update.

2. Disconnects — Haven’t really experienced these so I cannot speculate.

3. Insta-kills — Arenanet has become notorious for their lazy boss design. Bosses have enormous health pools, tons of bad floor, and a lot of one-shot mechanics..or at least mechanics that take away 3/4 of your HP. Tequatl seems like a good start with mixing up the mechanics, but the majority of bosses in the game are stupidly one-dimensional. Fractal bosses are a decent step in the right direction. The molten TEMPORARY dungeon was a good step. But I really think arenanet is lazy as hell with regard to this. How do you launch a game, say explorables are SO hard…and think that the difficulty comes from anywhere other than one-shot kills.

4. Dulfy — Dont get me started on Dulfy. Its like she gets the content before any of us, has her achievements, and then sits back. Its like she works for Arenanet or something. Why is she treated any different? So what, she has a website…big whoop. Arenanet could stop being lazy and actually explain achievements and these living story updates a bit better. Nope, they have a schedule to keep to..pump out the content and let dulfy handle the explanation. Lazy..again, 3 points..lazy.

5. Stop trying to force me to play — I agree. What happened to play as you want to play? Oh no no no..if you want anything decent stat wise or looks wise in the game, you need to run through a series of ‘mandatories’…Dailys, crystal charges, chest events for rares, etc etc. Also, I point to a developer post long ago when guild missions came out and we were wondering why they tied ectos to an ascended piece. The dev said “We want to encourage people to participate in guild missions for these pieces”. Oh that infuriated me. I dont want to be in a guild, or rather one that is large enough for guild missions. I like smaller ones. I dont want to run guild missions. But I want that piece…but youre making it cost an arm and a leg to acquire instead of a few guild mission runs. Stop trying to influence how I want to play the game. Stop trying to steer me.

6. Achievements, Achievements, Achievements, Achievements — I agree. Every update is nothing more than an achievement checklist. Forget quality, immersion, lore and story. Forget meaningful content that impacts the world at a substantial level. Forget adding things that we have been clamoring for for an entire year(new class? skills, new dungeons, harder dungeons, new zones, more personal story)…Lets just throw tons of achievements at them and dangle a mini at the end. Thats real good stuff.

EDIT 7. Time Gating — Time gating is a lazy mans way of creating content. “Well I only have a few weeks of creating content for these guys, lets time gate it so that I can create LESS and give the illusion that we have a ton for you to do each day you log in.” Really?

Whos making these decisions?

Suggestion to fix EVERYTHING regarding ascended….get ready.

Ascended gear’s prime use is in fractals because agony resistance is required.

1. Drop down ascended gear stats, along with legendary, back down to exotic gear stats
2. Still include the infusion slot for AR resistance.

Done.

Now the only people that will fret over ascended gear are the ones that want to progress through fractals. Those that do not run fractals need not worry.

Simple. Easy. Done. Makes… —- EVERYONE — … happy.

But no, it makes more sense to alienate a decent portion of the playerbase…enraging many of us is a better alternative to the one I just laid out.

If this ever happened I will gladly come back to Guild Wars 2…even if Living Story is still around.

Brace yourselves…
I just want to say that come March 18th, Diablo 3’s economy will be more healthy than GW2.

Tybalt likes apples.

I agree that they wanted to innovate more than they did. They really should have stuck to their guns…on everything.

Part of the problem is that prior to launch arenanet loved to get infront of cameras and tell epeople how the game is going to be..what they are going to do, what they wont do. They made bold statements, they said “We. Will. Not. Do. <insert here>”. Sure, part of this is referring to the manifesto because their statements are so bold there. So as a community, we held them to those standards, not giving them an inch of wiggleroom to play the black/white/grey game..walking a fine line as they are currently doing.

Comparing to other games, they do not make as many bold statements concerning their design direction. A game dev will say “We will have dungeons and raids at launch, raids will be difficult and reward the best gear”. Most of these other devs are not saying “Our raids will be vastly different than other MMOs because of XYZ…no more of ABC in these raids as you are accustomed to. We will do things differently and change the genre”.

So because they made bold statements and teetered off of those statements is the reason why so many of us are up in arms about EVERYTHING.

I go to a game like neverwhere where I have received everything I expected. Sure, game got bugs.. But I wasnt lied to, or rather I dont feel mislead at all.

EQN needs to watch it with their big promises. Same with Wildstar, although I have a feeling Carbine wont falter from their design path…they really dont give a crap about the casual and will make that game for the hardcore. But we’ll see.

Its when companies make bold statements and promises to us…lures us in with those..and then its not as they said it would be. Thats what gets us.

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

I already settled this. Don’t you remember? He’s talking about the way combat looks. Here’s the indisputable proof:

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow that’s incredible I’ve never seen anything like that.’

We want to change the way people view combat.

The evidence lies in plain sight before you, yet you persist in persistently choosing to ignore it. And even if it wasn’t there and you didn’t persistently persist in choosing to ignore it, would there have been a difference in the laws of physics if Newton got bonked on the head by a Golden Noble instead of a Flower of Kent?

So what else in that entire paragraph, beside the single word grind, has you believing that he’s talking about gear grind. Because I don’t see anything in that paragraph that mentions gear. Or vertical progression. All he talks about is going through this awful grind to get to the fun stuff.

We didn’t settle it. You settled it. I didn’t agree it was settled and there are others who agree with me as well. They posted in that thread too.

You may disagree with Newton, too;
But gravity still has a hold on you.

Strawman much?

See what i mean name calling!!

Strawman is describing a type of argument, not name calling. Asking if you strawman once is quite clearly shorthand for suggesting that a strawman argument was used. I’m not sure how anyone can interpret that as name-calling.

Tinman much?

OP is talking about this missed chance at the carrots arenanet dangles with these updates. The minis, the achievement points (because they do matter now), the titles, etc.

Some people do care about those sorts of things and if he doesnt have the time to complete these events at his pace playing his way(as we have been told we can do in guild wars 2), then he will most certainly miss out.

Power scaling has nothing to do with this conversation.

First, baseball is boring.

Second: Im not calling myself a mastermind or a pre-cog, but oneismple player catching a huge design problem in 10 minutes vs a design team that had months to plan and execute….eh, I dont consider that mistake that a human can make. If you have many people making decisions and coming up with ideas, chances are someone has to have seen this coming. All of their decision makers cannot be THIS short sighted. Its a simple concept that I was able to see right off the bat. Many were involved with that decision. Either the decision makers didnt care to listen to reason, or they were all incompetant and they should hire me as an outside consultant because I do see things a few steps down the road.

Ive predicted this next one a few times before…

We are slowly getting ascended gear. We are told that its probably, most likely the last tier of gear. We also have been told that the level cap very well could be raised some day. Arenanet has two options: Scale our level 80 gear to the new level cap. Or, make us grind for a new level 90 ascended gear set. This will be a hot one on the forums and I want you to remember me calling this way in advance. I said tihs back in November when they first announced ascended gear. Once we they raise the level cap, nothing is stopping them from making us grind new gear (like any other MMO).

You will have concrete evidence of your gear grind there. It would be irrefutable.

Of course this is all speculation, but it is a reasonable conclusion to come to.

I leveled 5 to 80, picked 3 to play exclusively. That 3 has changed but one has stuck around: My thief. I dont even necessarily like the thief more than say my mesmer. Like you, its an attachment to the time invested in a character. I hear you.

Tough choice. If the game is truely “play how you want” then you should have no problems rolling a new character, leveling, and enjoying all that comes into the game.

No, they are pretty reasonable expectations. I expect well-thought decisions to be made, executed, and the “updates” to be tested. Thats what a good company would do.

They have dynamic events where the mobs drop lots of stuff. They couldnt see a few steps down the road where people will intentionally fail the events to gain more loot? Or the TA first boss speed runs? Or glitching CoF early on? They couldnt see this coming?

Or how about when fractals were released. It was completely player gated. Chris Whiteside responded to my very own reddit post during the AMA and told me this was a mistake on their part. Me being a simple player picked this apart in 10 minutes after the launch of the update. And they spent months working on the fractal update, with a whole team of industry vets. Me, a simple player saw what a team of industry vets could not.

I expect a company worth their spit to see the big picture more so than me. They dropped the ball on that fractal update. Inexcusable to be honest because it required a patch to fix how the ‘gating’ works.

I expect quality in decision making, content and code.

Vayne.8563:

cesmode.4257:

So again, they will release content when its profitable for them..at a fast paced schedule to keep us checking things off the achievement list…rather than spending the proper time to QA the stuff and give us quality.

Everything youre saying supports the notion that they would rather pump out piles of dung in hopes to increase player concurrancy and money, rather than giving us quality experience.

And while games release the actual title when it is profitable…that is true..but after the fact, good games test their content. Not saying GW2 is a bad game ofcourse, but it definately has a quality problem with the amount of bugs and exploits they need to scramble to patch.

Except that it’s not dung. YOU don’t like it. That’s the difference. There are people who do like stuff. Last I saw, people liked the Bazaar of the Four Winds. There are threads on these forums thanking Anet for the new Tquatl fight. There are threads that thanked them for SAB.

You don’t like the content, that doesn’t make the content dung.

A few positive threads popping up doesnt make the content good.

Holding the new teq fight or the invasions up to a traditional content release such as new zones, quests/content/missions, new skills, classes, races, new dungeons, new raids.. Theres no comparison.

You people keep saying “YOU dont like it, but others do”. Thanks for calling the kettle black. Yes, ofcourse there are people that like it. We are talking about the playerbase as a whole. These content updates are not slam dunks. (just throwing a number out there, brace yourself), 80% of the playerbase doesnt LOVE these content updates. Its more 50/50. And that IS a problem for a game that wants player concurrancy. These content updates arent getting praise from the majority of folks. Its so split down the middle… that really wont bode well for the longevity of the game if it keeps up

The fact that this thread has reached 22 pages is another testiment to the uneasiness of spirited playerbase. The spirited playerbase being the ones who take the time to voice their opinions. The people who could care less either way, come and go.

Many many threads about ascended gear, about living story. Many points to be made from both camps. And many of these threads are 10,20,50 pages long.

At what point does arenanet admit that this isnt a case of “cant please everyone” and call it for what it is.. alienation of a significant portion of the playerbase. Id say the numbers are 30-70,40-60..something like that, going either way concerning ascended and living story. Just guessing…but thats from map chat in game and forum speak.

@Eurhetemec…so then instead of testing content with a larger pool of testers than their small QA team and reporting bugs…we encourage the behavior of haphazardly pushing out content that will inevitability break in some fashion just because we want to look cool in front of cameras and say “We will pushout content every two weeks”.

My god man..do you read what you write? I write SQL for a living. I pull data from databases, mold them into reports so overpaid directors can read them in a pretty format. If i didn’t proofread, test, or UAT, Id be fired.

We just rolled out a new platform here. We performed UAT. We found bugs, we reported, they fixed before go-live, and all is well in the universe. Do you think that this is a worse alternative? Do you think that not having some sort of UAT or PTR is better than having the actual end-users test the stuff?

Wow. Im going to exit this thread because clearly the mentality of quantity vs quality, and not wanting to put forth proper effort to debug and test is beginning to be toxic around here. Not sure you all understand what you are saying.

Sephiroth or Cloud.

I love the new gear, I love huge seas of people hitting one mob, I absolutely adore short stories, huge permanant new zones with new skills, abilities, classes, additions to the personal story

Astral Projections.7320:

Seriously, they need to have time between these events where nothing happens. Let people decompress, do dungeons, level alts, stand around in LA, whatever. It’s one thing to visit a carnival. It’s another to live in one

Perfect. Particularly “It’s one thing to visit a carnival. It’s another to live in one”… but the whole quote is nice. Whats wrong with a few weeks of just regular guild wars. No themes, no silly looking NPCs…just playing guild wars. Is there something so wrong with that?