Guild Wars 2

Gw2 is not GW1. I wish people would stop expecting that. They designed the game so they can do more things with it. With that said, I kind of wish it was like Gw1 a bit more. I never played GW1 but it sounds more up my alley.

The design direction is this:
-Lots of carrots(things to chase after for a reward)
-Lots of rewards
-Lots of things to do
-Poor living story
-Ambitious 2 week content patches.

Will the game actually improve? I dont know. Even with all of the improvements over the last 3-5 months, I still think the game went to the pits. Im slowly checking it out again and interested in Colin’s blog. But I had a thread of mine put in the trash can and deemed a complaint thread when I was seeking help and advice from players…simply asking “how do you have fun in the game”. So moderator behavior is still outrageous and there seems to be no oversight. THAT single handedly put the bitter taste back in my mouth.

So theres pros and cons all around.
Goodluck.

Vayne.8563:

You probably won’t love my advice, but I don’t think in this game, that size guild is viable. I think you need a larger guild and then find within that guild a subset of players you play with all the time, which is what most people end up doing in my guild. The same people tend to team a lot.

The reason I say this is because the game isn’t like other games. It’s harder to keep people in smaller guilds, partly because of guild missions, but also because of the casual nature of the game.

If you have 30-35 people and some are sick and some are away and some are doing things you’re not interested in, you’re back to having no one to play with.

Why would I not love your advice, vayne? !! I was actually waiting for you to show up This thread is prime for your opinion so please give it.

I see your point, true..true. But then it feels less like a guild and more like a company where you go out to lunch with only your small area of co workers and thumb your nose to the rest.

Dante.1508:

I have 12 characters 8 at 80 all geared and guess what i’ve got 2500 hours in game, i quit playing why because i’m like you i’ve done it all (all of what i wanted to do) so i wait for some new meaningful content, some meaningful balance and fixes and just login occasionally, very occasional..

Time is the best fix give it 6 months and see where it is then.. with from what i’ve seen most of the temporary content you wont really have missed very much and who knows by then some new real content may have been added..

Indeed, ofcourse I could give it a solid 6 months or so to see if anything of substance has been released. I really think that the living story and all the things that have been released since..jeez…January have been fluffy mini-game themed crap. All holiday-themed things without the holiday. Mini games, a poor weak fluffy story, and nothing that we have been asking for.

But after reading Colins blog, I feel a bit more energized. Getting some requirements done for the precursor might be worth the time. Who knows.

Still torn

Yeah you are fdefinately glad you missed that stuff. Its probably where my negativity derived.
I feel immersed in that the world is gorgeous and I can look around and say “ya theres cool crap out there…I wonder what everyone else is doing!” But opposite of you: If I see the same event happening again that I juts completed 5-10 minutes ago, Im like “wtf? these events cycle too quick..”

zenleto.6179:

I see the game through the eyes of my characters, call it immersion I suppose, so when they travel the world or deal with events/personal story/hearts its still fresh. All my guys and girls are different anyway.

Do you think it’s a case of you really wanting to love this game but falling short? I’m not going to play the “this game is not for you” card but maybe you have a disappointment factor that jut won’t be overcome. Or something else entirely. Anyway, this game is made to play on and off. Perfect for those who need it.

It definately could be a case of not living up to my perception of what it might have been. Along with what I posted previously on how I thought the game would play out for me, we were sold on the concept of a world that changes based on our successes and failures as a playerbase. If we dont defend that camp, its taken over and might have resounding impacts on the surrounding area. Thats definately not the case. Who cares if the centaurs destroy that water tower. Seriously…who cares? It doesnt impact the farmer that needs water to water his crops. Has no impact. I guess I was let down on that aspect as well.

Maybe it cant be overcome, who knows. I keep going back and forth… GW2 or firefall. GW2 was going to be “the one for me”. But betwee november and march, with the exception of Wintersday, it was one letdown after another. One frustration after another. With pockets of fun. But I have a lot of time energy and “emotion” invested in the game, which is why I dont want to just put it down. But I know it will be “hard work” to change my own mindset and expectaitons of the game going forward. And then theres firefall which is more of what I thought GW2 would have been. Absolutely no pressures and no carrots to do anything. All content rewards nearly the same stuff: Currency, resources, XP. And all content rewards roughly the same quantity of it. And you need all three for nearly everything you want to do in the game in terms of progression. So you really can just do what you want, and spend it however. Yet, then I think of the nostalogic good times of “old GW2”..pre-november and the possibilities that the firefall devs might go down some stupid route as well with gated content or gear progression or something that the game shouldnt be.

Torn torn torn. And I just read Colins blog. Promising, I like it. If they can pull it off. I remember they said they adjusted Champion loot tables. Nothing was changed, I still received Blues. So Im so skeptical when they say we’ll be rewarded accordingly.

TooBz.3065:

I have 7 characters that are level 80.

I think the pursuit of legendaries is the root of all evil in this game (well most evil). They force you into prolonged periods of doing things that aren’t fun at all. If you aren’t going for a legendary, you actually don’t need very much money.

I recommend suspending the legendary grind for two days, then at least once a week after that. For those days do whatever interests you. If it’s WvW then do that. Run a longer dungeon. Whatever. Just don’t grind.

Edit: If there’s nothing you want to do, turn off the game and do something else. This isn’t a “this game is not for you” post, more of a “don’t play out of habit” post.

Good advice.
/10char

Sounds promising. I especially like the bit about the champions. Just worried still about Legendary/precursor stuff. Always will be until I see that it is obtainable..and not left to RNG.

Also, the daily crafting rewards or whatever…I hope these rewards are T6 or the new crafting material that we would need. I’ll be so annoyed if its T5 or below. That would be pointless.

You guys say “go off exploring” when you have multiple 80s, and probably hundreds or over a thousand hours played. Honestly, whats left to explore? Are you really finding those nook and crannies hidden in the game?

I dont have any RL friends that play. My guild is dead and its the only guild Ive enjoyed since playing Gw2. I cannot find one that fits me: Small casual tight knit guild(30-35 ACTIVE players, max). So playing with other people tends not to happen. And I agree with the living story, but there could be something cool here and there with it. So I tend to check it out a bit.

But then Im..bored again or want to go after more carrots!

Thanks for the responses. And here I am, deciding if I want to give it another serious go…but Im behind in a lot of the living story stuff. Missed a lot of dragon bash, skypirates, and whatever Ive missed so far with Winds of the Bazaar. Id feel compelled to get that stuff done as much as I can before anything else.

@marnick: One of my followup posts was grind was a bad choice of words. You need to spend a bit over a month earning Laurels to purchase some acsended gear, or a bit over a month of laurels + a large sum of ectos to get some gear. It takes relatively the same amount of time to gain…Id say 3/4 of a tier of gear at least in a game like WoW. and I have a life. My guild was ultra casual, raided 3 hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. Combined with the things you did on your own, you had a lot of gear in a month or so.

The time spent in both games, GW2 and WoW, would yield someone the same result: The newest ascended gear slot, or most of a tier of gear.

Ryuujin.8236:

maddoctor.2738:

Peetee.9406:

GW2 (Launch) = A
Solid and innovative, best MMO since WoW

GW2 (Now) = C-
Substandard cash shop MMO with RNG and poorly designed mini-games.

WoW succeeded because it continued to add features and fix bugs. GW2 seems more interested in farming players pockets.

Care to explain what changed? The same innovation is there, the game is still solid so what changed?

It’s what didn’t change.

The rest of the MMO market is moving forward, absorbing many of GW2’s innovations into the standard MMO framework while GW2 has stayed more or less in stasis – many of the features people come to expect of a modern MMO (Such as LFG tools, varied PvP modes, PvE custom dungeon creation etc) are simply absent in GW2.

While the level of RNG and viciousness of the cash shop exceed that of many F2P games, despite the fact GW2 is a B2P game. Overall, it means that GW2 languishes in amongst a horde of similar games instead of standing out form the crowd.

I think that GW2 is moving forward, just not in the direction we thought. Even though I don’t really like it, Living story is moving forward. Even though I don’t think its a good idea, 2 week updates is moving forward.

Hi,
As the title states: How are you able to simply log into GW2, not worry about receiving your due rewards for whatever activity, and just enjoy the game. “hmm, I want to do a dungeon:” “Ok, maybe I’ll run around Orr a bit and do some DEs.” “K done with Orr, what Jumping Puzzles have I not done yet?”

I started playing this game with this mindset: It was an explorers paradise. Gear did not matter, reward did not matter. Get to max level, gear your gearset, go after cosmetics, and just explore the gorgeous world and enjoy the game because you had all the gear you wanted, now just have fun!

So my plan was this:
-Level up as many characters as I could stomach (I got 5 to 80)
-Then pick two or three to be the characters you play the most and gear them in exotics (I picked Thief as real main, Warrior, Necro)
-Then get into WvW for some server pride!
-Then in tandem with WvW begin looking at what you want to do about Legendaries and begin the process.
-Maybe dabble in sPvP
-Enjoy the game.

Ascended gear was introduced, along with many other reward systems, changes to reward systems, incentives to do this or that, guild missions, etc. So lately my mindset has been:
-Farm materials for legendary via farm spots or COF1.
-Try to hit up every dragon / meta event I can not because they are fun, but for the rares
-Check off the boxes I need for my daily.
-Try to acquire as many Laurels as possible
-Try to acquire as much Ascended gear as possible

You can see where I went wrong. And it is hard to change this mindset with so many carrots(rewards) dangling in front of you. I hear a few people in the forums that are able to ignore all of this crap and simply play for instrinsic enjoyment. How are you able to do this! I really want to know because despite all of the criticism I have given Gw2 over the past 3 or so months, it still provides the most gorgeous landscape, the most MMO experience out of any MMO out there, an ambitious design team(even though I disagree with where they are taking the game), and a few other minor positives.

I want to get back into the game. Ive invested about 1000 hours and probably 160$ in the game(not a lot compared to you people with loads of disposable income). Maybe your stories of fun and memories can inspire me to not be such a kitten and play to play. Ignore the rewards, and just play.

Traveller.7496:

Why can’t we play several MMO’s if we so desire?

It is hard for me to do that. If I have the energy, I have the ability to play 2-3 hours per night. For the past week, its been one hour per night. Life is just draining me dry of energy lately.

I cannot juggle two MMOs for time restraints alone. For the past 2+ weeks Ive been enthralled in Firefall…I love the sandboxy feel of the game, its a shooter so its new for me…and its a challenge. Before that, it was never winter on and off for 1-2 months. Probably the most difficult MMO out there IMO. The dungeons are sick. And further back it was GW2. I have a hard time playing two at once.

However, Firefall had a positive effect on me. It showed me I might be able to play a game just to play it, and not focus on reward which is part of my problem when I log into GW2. So I am at a crossroads….Firefall for the sandbox “do what you want” shooter feel…Neverwinter for the interesting talent builds and difficulty in dungeons….GW2 for the most MMO experience to date with great WvW(but I have serious issues with the dev directions)…or even Defiance which is a “no gear requirement no level requirement” complete sandbox game.

Choices. Whatever game I decide, I tend to play 100%. I hate balancing two. So whatever game I decide to play, I hope I can stick with it a long while. This would be my 3rd go around with GW2.

Since I left WoW, Ive been alone in my MMO adventures. All my RL friends and gaming friends stayed in WoW or stopped playing games all together. It is difficult to get them to follow me. They have tried, got to max level and promptly went back to WoW.

So I play solo not entirely by choice but because all my gaming buds and RL buds have no interest in GW2. Also, I do not like large guilds(50+). I don’t want to be a number. I want to be part of a close knit family of 20 or 25 people. Why cant I find that? A small guild, consisting of 15-30 people that are active…meaning at any given time, 60-70% of them are online playing. I haven’t found that, so I don’t join guilds. I also stay away from guilds because I dont want to be tempted to schedule my life around guild missions. That was one of the reasons I left WoW. I know its not mandatory to participate in missions and all, but Im one of those people that if you put a dessert in front of me, I will need to eat it. Not to mention, I like to go off and do my own thing, my own direction. Sometimes a party slows me down.

Yes I prefer solo. I like the online multiplayer MMO aspects of GW2. But I prefer solo. Maybe if I could find that small, tight knit guild..I’d guild up.
(I am/was in one, but its dead).

tolunart.2095:

cesmode.4257:

emikochan.8504:

Professor Sensei.2941:

Maybe offer a soulbound version for hours and hours of work? Like a list of achievement similar to the new events where a box will spawn with a ticket allowing you to claim one soulbound version of the precursor needed. I don’t know just an idea.

Anet are already working on the scavenger hunt. It’ll just take a while.

Which sucks because people were complaining about the lack of precursor drops since like..september/october.

But in the mean time, enjoy this fluffy story, your new kite, a quaggan backpack , and infinite mining pick!

And have some Candy, and press F.

Millions of gold have changed hands over Legendary precursors alone, some of it purchased via real money with gems. A lot of people have a lot of time and resources invested in this, a simple and certain path will invalidate a lot of that and kitten off quite a few of Anet’s customers. You might not like market speculators who have invested thousands of gold each in buying and selling precursors, but they paid just as much to Anet for the game as you did, and deserve the same consideration Anet has for any of their players.

It’s a delicate matter that spans the entire game, and not something they can finish in a week without breaking the game. There are specific procedures for adding anything to the game, including pitching ideas, getting approval for a plan, testing and refining the plan, then creating and testing the changes to the game that go along with the plan. This takes many months to go through, and even if the process began in December/January it’s only recently entering the testing stages.

No amount of complaining, requesting or begging will speed up this process.

Who said a week? Try at least 8 months. Sometime in the fall, within a month or two of release..the precursor issue issue really became hot. This isnt new, and we have given them a long time to get things fixed. Only in the last few weeks did we get any info on what they have planned. Yet, a priority is given to small bits of content that leave the world exactly as it was before. Fluffy crap.

Huge issues that are enormous for a lot of people..precursors, dungeons, LFG tool, etc…these are things that are big name issues but keep getting kicked further down the road in favor of the living story…something that noone asked for.

emikochan.8504:

Professor Sensei.2941:

Maybe offer a soulbound version for hours and hours of work? Like a list of achievement similar to the new events where a box will spawn with a ticket allowing you to claim one soulbound version of the precursor needed. I don’t know just an idea.

Anet are already working on the scavenger hunt. It’ll just take a while.

Which sucks because people were complaining about the lack of precursor drops since like..september/october.

But in the mean time, enjoy this fluffy story, your new kite, a quaggan backpack , and infinite mining pick!

And have some Candy, and press F.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

But didnt something like 5 million copies of GW1 sell or something? I have an inklink that GW1 was the second most successful MMO to date, next to WoW, in terms of box sales…or at least high up there. So if it sold that many, it HAD to be fun.

The thing with VP is that every game has it, and after the honeymoon period is over, people get bored and leave the game to either a new game promising new things(along with VP) or back to WoW or their old mainstay game. Or they complain for months on end comparing the new game to WoW.

Take VP out of the game. Make a hard-line announcement: No VP, at all. Cosmetic grind. Have fun. That is all.
Watch the fat fall off the body and then your core loyal customer base stays, and spends money happily.

Ive been playing firefall which is more of a “go do what you want” type of game than GW2. And it is reminding me about how a game can be fun when you just play to play. Dont worry about reward. In the end, this could have a positive effect on me. I could come back to GW2 and just enjoy the game again and ignore the stupid development direction.

We’ll see…

Ive played since beta. I loved how the game was until November 15th. And then every patch after seems to give the players exactly what we dont need or even ask for.

There was an enormous eruption of negativity when they announced ascended gear(new tier to acquire)..which had always been planned but they sat on announcing this for three months. Hmm?

Things we DONT have but CLAMOR for:
-LFG tool
-Scavenger hunt
-Difficult explorable mode dungeons / dungeons that you cannot glitch
-Additional story content
-A stop to nerfing farm spots
-Player/Guild Housing

Things that we have received that I dont think I’ve seen one whisper about:
-Living story
-Monthly updates
-Monthly updates increased to bi weekly
-More minigames
-Temporary content
-RNG boxes (also purchasable in the gem store).

Still creative or not, I just cant wrap my head around a company that might back track on its word, every once in a while. You might be able to do this because of your chosen profession I suppose. You are subject to the “creative process” more than the next guy, so you are mentally able to step back and see that things change, etc.

I am a statistics guy, hard coded, etc. I work in a field where crunching numbers, metrics, and determining hard fact is my world. So when a dev says one thing, I take their word for it. If that word changes, I have a hard time adapting because I was already told one thing and understood it as fact.

Even the general populice: If they are told one thing…they expect it. Not everyone has the ability to put their creative thinking caps on. If I go to a store and purchase a gallon of whole milk, but get home and realize its actually skim milk, I’ll be kitten ed. If order a cheeseburger and fries and the person at Mcdonalds reads that order back to me, but gives me a cheeseburger and onion rings, I’ll go back and get my fries! Hell, she read it back to me! She understood what she was supposed to give to me.

Its all about managing expectations. This is the #1 thing my first boss taught me years ago. Manage expectations. Why give us any expectations at all, if they are all completely subject to change in a matter of months. Arenanet is in love with telling us their plans, how their teams work, etc. I like that. And they are giving us expectations. Going back on them would be a huge setback. And they did so a few times already in the eyes of many.

So they feel free to contradict themselves? Thats probably going to be a largely unpopular practice.

If they say they will do one thing, and in a few months go in a different direction..that would be unpopular. Back lash. And ultimately leads to losses in consumer faith(aside from you )

And what is Utopia? Never heard of it in GW2 official blogs or interviews.

Ah, the evolving argument. So that is the last line of defense. When an argument is supported by fact and quote…it is viewed as obsolete because its months old. Then why on earth would arenanet go through the trouble of writing the blog, having it approved by PR and posting it for everyone to see if it was going to be obsoleted in a few months or a year. I completely disagree with you.

If arenanet promised us Dungeon X in January and in April we get Dungeon Y instead, I would be kitten ed. I wanted Dungeon X. They said we would be getting Dungeon X.

You can’t throw the “evolving” argument at supported facts every time. Yes its evolving. But why have any vision at all? Why tell us what they are doing, what their design teams look like…

I recognize the difference between gated content via gear and verticle progression. I do. I just see a lot of small carrots dangling in front of my face. They do a great job not to make these carrots huge, just large enough for you to want to go after them but small enough that they might be disguised as minimal treadmill/if any treadmill.

-Grind was bad choice of words. Get laurels yes. Still takes a month to get them. Time vs reward.

-https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

“As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”

True, she doesn’t say armor or weapons, but she sais a full set of ascended gear. I take that as a full set of ascended gear. A full set is not limited to accessories. A full set is a full set..armor…weapons. They are coming. A very very high probability.

-I can still see every raid in WoW. If I enter with my guild, the game doesn;t stop me from entering. It prevents me from queuing if I use LFR, but I can zone in normally if I wanted to with my guild. I can be in pure blues and crap lvl 90 gear and see all raids if I wanted. (at least this was the case when I played up until this expansion).

marnick.4305:

maddoctor.2738:

Shockwave.1230:

What I’m saying is that they abondend their philosophy of not doing vertical progression that impacts gameplay. They didn’t have to abondon that philosophy, but they did.

Ascended is the last gear tier and it was needed to introduce new ways of getting it without requiring the over-farmed ways to get the other gear types. Gold/karma/crafting were flawed and imbalanced designs in the first place, relying only on your luck to get what you need or excessive hours farming at certain places. They didn’t abandon their philosophy, yet, I haven’t seen a constant tier increase with Ascended gear, yet, so until that time comes, the amount of vertical progression in the game is at the bare minimum.

Indeed. He wants to see extreme VP so takes the extremely shallow and optional VP currently in the game and expands that into a flawed argument.

Not even half the gear slots are currently of ascended quality, whereas in other games at the 1 year mark, about 2 full tiers had been released. Furthermore exotic is viable everywhere except fractals.

While there’s a little bit of VP in this game, it is well implemented and I hope it remains at this level for a very long time. After ascended armor comes legendary armor and then nothing.

Yes, in one year you get one, two or even three tiers of gear. Takes about a month or so of grinding raids and rep to gain a near full set of the new tier gear. True.

Takes about a month or so to grind the laurels + ecto to gain an ascended..amulet? Whichever one requires the ecto. Takes about as long to gain that back piece, if you’re not playing 10 hours per day. See where Im going?

Takes as long to gain one slot of ascended gear than it does to gain a full set of max tier gear in a game like WoW. So tell me, what not grindy and not pure example of verticle progression?

You do know that while ascended gear is currently limited to accessories, amulets, rings…they plan on releasing a full gear set of ascended? They said by the years end we will be able to fit out an entire gear set of ascended gear.

So no, it isnt limited to just accessories. We will have our ascended gear set. And if the level cap ever raises, that gear becomes obsolete(unless they allow ascended gear to scale with your level). And if they allow ascended gear to scale with your level, that pressures other people to grind for ascended gear so they can have their scalable gear.

Woa speculation I know.

And response from a small % of the playerbase? Try a thread containing 40,000+ posts in November, largely kitten ed off about ascended gear. And if ascended gear was always planned, as they claim, how come they didnt let us know about it for three months, or even in beta? They KNEW releasing ascended gear was going to annoy a lot of people, and they said they knew this. So why not avoid all trouble, release the game, and say “hey we do have more gear coming down in a few months., a higher tier. A one time treadmill only”. No, they didnt do that, instead they just annoyed a ton of people when they could have avoided a lot of it. So no, I really dont think it was planned.

Whatever people in either camp will say to sway eachother…here is my personal opinion:

I have always loved a sandbox style of game(even if GW2 isnt exactly sandbox). I’ve always loved exploration, finding hidden things. I enjoy leveling and then gearing up my character. After that I want to just play and enjoy the game, knowing that I have the maximum and optiimum stats my character can have so I can tackle any situation, pve or pvp, and just enjoy the game for what it is and find new things. I saw GW2 as that avenue. I was thrilled, stoked beyond words.

For whatever reason, this is not how I perceive the game today. With all the reward systems and currencies in place, it is VERY difficult to ignore all of the reward and just enjoy the game. Whether you can obtain the reward and enjoy is a circumstanstial statement. It depends on what youre doing. In my eyes, with all of the rewards, currencies, and check boxes…I cannot just head off in one direction and play. It is human nature for me NOT to ignore the carrots.

So, if this thread is self evident along with the dozens upon dozens of threads along with the utter outrage the announcement of ascended gear had..if these responses mean anything, it means that the community is divided pretty evenly on this subject and Arenanet made a decision to go whichever way the wind was blowing.

I hate it, I hate their direction, and I miss the first few months of Guild Wars 2. To illustrate this: This weekend, Friday through Sunday, I logged into the character screen..looked at my characters for 10 seconds shook my head and logged out. WTF is the point? Game isnt fun anymore.

And to re-iterate..this was my opinion. You can disagree with my opinion but if any of you fanboi’s try to reason with me to make me see your side, you are wasting your time (as Im sure you already do). I’ve already limited my visits to this forum in the past week or two.

The game isn’t supposed to be a grind. They said they dont want us to simply swing our swords over and over again. Doing the same boring tasks. But that is ALL we do. Grind. This is the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played. No, I haven’t played Lineage or the likes. But this is far more grindy than any decent MMO still on the market.

They really failed on this one. They dont want us to grind but give us a ton of currencies and rewards to go after. They want to keep us playing, keep us in the game because the more time we spend in game, the more likely we are to spend $$. Which means that they need to give us a system that takes a long while to “complete”. Grind.

Ill check it out, but I dont need another re-hashed explanation of the living story. Unless he has something new to say, its just more PR.

HiddenNick.7206:

…and it wasn’t because there was more mini-games.

At launch the game was about dynamic events, leveling, crafting and gear progression. I had more fun back then. I really miss that time. I loved the feeling that there is a reason to fight that monster and help those peasants. Now I feel that the game is about farming achievements and getting 8th back piece that I really don’t need and don’t care about… I never cared much about achievements. That didn’t change. But AN puts most of their effort on mini games and achievement system instead of that what was really fun for me – dynamic events, fighting giants and dragons with crowd of people!

After launch I was playing a LOT. Now I rarely log in. Just to check out new area or dungeon. After an hour I’m done and bored. I spend more time on the forums now.

Yup. Exactly how I feel. Ofcourse theres always a honeymoon period with any game. But even after max level, for a few months the game was just pure fun. No insane and intricate reward system. No crazy number of currencies to farm. It was just pure fun. Help the farmers, help the soldiers. Defeat Zhaitan. But like you said, now its achievements, checking off Daily boxes, rewards, rewards, rewards, rewards, currencies, farming/grinding, legendaries, meta events, meta events, dragon fights, and kittenty living story.

Gone are the days where it was a simple exploration game where you just had fun. It is hard to just explore and have fun with 50 carrots dangling in your face to chase after. For me personally, this game was hyped to be an explorers dream and my dream MMO. It started out that way. It was the BEST MMO I’ve ever played. Until November and until every patch after that. Since November, it has failed me personally and this may be the game that has burnt me out on MMOs because of its insane amount of grinding, developer half-truths and half promises, and the change in direction.

lordkrall.7241:

cesmode.4257:

Tera..no dodging? Clearly you did not try Tera.

That game has TRUE combat.

Yeah.. getting locked in place when using skills is very much true combat.
Oh wait…

Or try this one for size…

Dont spam abilities .. \o/

You have to think “Is it a good time to use X or Y ability? Is the BAM going to drop the hammer on me, should I dodge first or do I have time to get off another ability?”

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

Angry Joe’s review is spot on and a great reminder of what’s great about this game, and even some of the features and issues raised in his review have been fixed/polished by now.

Angry Joe, while I like his reviews and they are not biased, did not play to max level and did not sit at max level for months…and did not sit through an ever-changing direction of the core of the game.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I tried TERA out for 3 days and came back to GW2. No shared loot, no dodging, the need to constantly turn in quests and backtrack, a vertical progression system.. All of the characteristics of a WoW clone, essentially. People claim that Guild Wars 2 has boring and stale combat, but I’d beg to disagree. Try Dark Age or GW1 out now. Both games had extremely good combat back in the day and helped pave he way for many games even now. When you go back to those games and play similar games today with similar stand-and-hack-and-slash RNG-based combat it’s boring. No fight between two people will ever be the same due to the mobility and unique situations every fight entails, yet people still complain that it’s “stale” and “bad”.

Call me a fanboy, but GW2 still outshines the majority if not allof modern MMOs of its kind.

Tera..no dodging? Clearly you did not try Tera.

That game has TRUE combat.

Zacchary.6183:

Living Story > Content.

I fixed that for you

On the contrary. I enjoy no progression..sure maybe horizontal. But GW2 isnt necessarily horizontal. Last I looked, Ascended gear is better than exotic. True, you dont need ascended gear to experience the game, but then again you can walk into a raid in wow, in blues and greens(cant queue for a raid in that gear though..but I believe you can still manually enter with your guild).

Yes, they catered to people that felt the game had a shallow end game nothing to work towards, but that right there to me is the problem! What was wrong with just playing the game? Enjoying the content? Why did the progression-minded folks feel the need to corrupt an innovative idea?

You can say “simply ignore the progression and just play…” but that is like telling a fat kid to ignore the red velvet cake in front of him. Very easy to say, hard to do.

I would have been completely content and enthralled if the reward-fiasco did not begin and the biggest reward was your own fun. Now, everything you do is laced with incentive and reward. So instead of just enjoying, Im checking off boxes to complete to have a bite of that red velvet cake.

Im playing Firefall right now. You get the same types of rewards for nearly everything you do. Resources, ingame currency, experience. Everything you need to progress your battleframe you can acquire by doing anything you want. Anything. Because all the resources gained from any of these activities can be used to craft better and better gear until you craft the final tier of gear.

In GW2, the best tier of gear is ascended. I cannot only dungeon run and obtain ascended gear. I cannot simply do WvW and obtain ascended gear. I cannot log in, do a few jumping puzzles, craft and then do the pent/shelt farm in Orr for ascended gear. I have to mix and match certain activities to make sure I get that Laurel. In a game like firefall, anything I do nets me resources/mats, ingame currency, xp. Thats all I need, so I can truely without a doubt do anything I want and Im still working toward my goals.

I believe that is what Arenanet wanted to accomplish with GW2, but missing the mark.
(this might have strayed off topic)

I guess to summarize:
I personally feel that all of the things that make GW2 awsome and fun are packed into levels 1-80 and a little beyond…but after you’ve been 80 a while..the amount of awsomeness dwindles.

You can stumble upon a cool jumping puzzle, or an amazing sunset or something…or have fun in a mini game they pump out every once in a while. But it quickly fades. It isnt like the BAM in your face intensity of awsomeness during the first 80 levels.

And it took me about 5 months to get my 5 level 80s. So its not like it was the honeymoon period that got me. The game was pure awsomeness for 5 months. Once I transitioned from leveling to try to simply enjoy the game, the amount of awsomeness faded.

Hi,
So I was reading some articles about a different game(civilization 5) and they described the fun of the game as front loaded. Meaning: All of the fun is to bad had early on in the game. After that, it is run of the mill, routine Civilization game.

Could this be an accurate description for Guild Wars 2? Leveling 1-80, for me, was the most fun I’ve had in an MMO since Burning Crusade in WoW. I maxed out 5 characters to 80, and geared them up. After just triyng to play the game and enjoy, patches came out with carrots and rewards. More rewards. And more rewards. And more currencies. Suddenly, I felt the game’s focus shift from having fun, exploring Tyria and just playing the game to chasing down that next reward. There are tons of rewards and currencies in the game. It was at this point that I realized the GW2 had become like all other MMOs: At max level, chase down those rewards. Just the mere presence of more and more currencies and rewards made intrinsically playing the game for fun less “rewarding” in its own right. I dont know how, but it happened.

Yes, there are those that are able to simply ignore this and are able to play the game for fun. For people like me, I think, in our opinion, we can call the game Front Loaded. Great experience leveling up with all of the sights to see, amazing graphics and areas, NPC conversations. After that awsome climb, you plataue and no longer feel like you’re climbing.

I could be wrong…but this is my opinion. Front loaded…

Edit: This is not to be a rant or a whining post. If it sounds that way, I apologize. Just an observation of the game through my own experience.

fellyn.5083:

nirvana.8245:

I’m not disappointed with the rewards, but I really think they should have reworked the AP system before they implemented it so it was balanced. A lot of the WvW rewards will take in excess of 10 years playing 18 hours a day doing the exact thing that is required for the achievement, yet its worth the same amount of AP that I can get for another achievement that takes me a couple of hours…

They can balance wv3 achievements separately because most, if not all of them, will be getting massive buffs (hopefully).

cesmode.4257:

Esplen.3940:

If you don’t want to unlock something, you don’t need to open the chest.

Jeesus spare us BS.

“If you dont like it dont do it”.

I am semi disappointed too. I thought there would be a wider variety of things. I’ll grab the few skins I need and be done with it, again, not giving a crap about achievement points because the reward for all of it is small.

Even if you don’t like the skins, 15g for 5000 points is small? 30g for 10000 points is small? By the time you’ve reached 10000 points you’ll be handed a total of 70g for literally “doing nothing”.

Not to mention the laurels, gems, account bonuses, boosts, and gem store items that you’ll be getting too and all for free. Small?

I guess if you play the market and are flipping precursors then those gold amounts are not an incentive, but for everyone else? Hardly small.

This is taking entitlement to an entire new level.

Well consider this: I have 4700 points, so almost at that 5000 point mark for around 15 gold. That is with 1000 hours played.

Someone starting out, when they get 500 points and get a gold that is nice $$ to get, but time spent vs money earned..ehh I dont know. Its not like someone racks up 500 points in a few hours.

I havent gotten any gems yet.

Ive gotten loads of crappy armor skins that I never liked looking at to begin with in the mists.

Boosts are nice.

Weapon skins are nice, although giving us only ONE choice, for say a short bow…everyone will run with it(and by everyone I mean a lot of people). I figur’ed we would have a better variety here.

And its not that we get 70 gold for doing nothing. Thats a lot of hours played…whether fun, or not..grinding or not.

You get gold, laurel as a bonus..yes. Some of the boosts are nice. But a lot of this is crap to take up bank spaces and force me to spend gems on more space! There I said it! haha. JK

VOLKON.1290:

cesmode.4257:

Hi, Im trying to catch up. What is this celestial gear? Something pvp/wvw intended?

New crafted gear using quartz. It’s an “all stats” based gear. You can see them right here.

And are people whining that this new gear is some how needed to be effective in PVP or some other part of the game?

Stats specifically for WvW? Meaning, if you want to be competitive, get celestial?

I took a two month break from the game and came back. I was a tad overwhelmed trying to “catch up” with living story and what not. I thought this game was not meant to do that.

What is celestial gear?

I only logged in for 5 minutes total this week to check out changes and logged out.

I think the achievement interface is actually good. Probably the best thing of this patch.

Hi, Im trying to catch up. What is this celestial gear? Something pvp/wvw intended?

Esplen.3940:

If you don’t want to unlock something, you don’t need to open the chest.

Jeesus spare us BS.

“If you dont like it dont do it”.

I am semi disappointed too. I thought there would be a wider variety of things. I’ll grab the few skins I need and be done with it, again, not giving a crap about achievement points because the reward for all of it is small.

Who is marjory? And if your post sums it all up, I think thats a cheaper quicker easier way to tell the story than these silly updates.

This is really something..best patch to date?

The community has been clamoring for a LFG tool of some sort..anything! Do we one? No.

The community is scratching at the walls for a scavenger hunt. Do we have one? No.

The community is wishing for the “dungeon team” to come back. Do we have any new perma dungeons, or revamped dungeons outside of AC? No.

People are asking for new zones and content..Cantha and Elona. Do we have it? No.

No one asked for living story. No one is crying each week for more living story content. No one is crying for more fluff and mini games.

No. Their development direction is assed backwards.

Incoming “We’re working on it…”

I havent really checked out the options but if what you say is true, and I dont play an engy, that is BS for you guys.

So much for quality 2 week patches.

Ronah.2869:

Have you guys looked at the full zoomed out map of Tyria? My guess is: until we will have all of it filled with explorable zones, we wont see any new continent/expansion.
The living story opens little by little the whole map. It is very possible that the other teams Colin’s talking about are assigned to develop different zones which will be added to the game though the living story.

A casual player who comes in the game from time to time notices thet there are different events happening in the world (top right of interface or mails)
He/she may try to do them or just ignore them if he is not interested, but still the world feels different every time he loggs in

For a professional achievement hunter with a real life too, the game world feels too full of achievements which are timebased sort of, and this brings frustration to him/her
On the other hand, for a professional achievement hunter with less real life activities, this living story feels like a 5h content.

All we have to see now is how are the percentage split between GW2 player base.
If casuals are 40% and the hard-core are 60% then the living story is a semi-flawed concept, but if we reverse the percentage then it becomes semi-successful.
If we make this balance as 20% / 80%, then the living story can turn from totally flawed to totally successful, depending which of the categories are the most.

These statistics are all in A-Nets hands so they know what is best for their game.

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.