Guild Wars 2

Vasham.2408:

So I was farting around earlier and something came to mind to try and show you people the error of your ways in defending GW2’s poor PVE design. This, as you know, is the Jade Maw encounter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcKG4IJD6X4

These guys went in completely blind and killed the boss in a single attempt. The encounter is simple:

• Phase 1 – Kill tentacles
• Phase 2 – Kill Jade Colossi
• Phase 3 – Kill the Jade Maw
• All Phases – Dodge the beam or catch it with reflecting crystals. Throw them back at the Maw to damage it. Repeat, then collect loot.

I don’t mention agony because let’s face it, agony on that boss is more a hard gating mechanic than anything which requires skill to avoid. Now having shown you that, let’s look at another tentacle monster from another game, Akylios: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efUmhV3V80U

And because a lot of what’s going on doesn’t make sense if you never fought him, here’s his strategy: http://www.endgameguides.com/Rift/Raids/Hammerknell/13

This kill came after nearly a month of attempts to learn the encounter.

This is what I mean by saying the lack of a trinity can’t support complex, challenging encounter design. Considering Trion released that fight on their second major content patch for their first MMO ever and Arenanet is still making simplistic content with their second content patch fast approaching on their second MMO to date it says a lot about Arenanet’s commitment to good game design.

Er, so it’s considered “good game design” to create content that requires an entire month to formulate a strategy for?

I mean, I like difficult games….within reason (i.e. not Dark Souls)….but that doesn’t sound like good design to me. But then, I was never a masochistic sort of gamer, and I don’t understand why people like to torture themselves in that fashion.

A, without question. The game definitely needs more variation in the weapon slots. Having more skill selection would allow for this.

I was actually surprised they didn’t already plan on doing this when I first got my hands on the beta.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

They’ll remain top tier as in Ascended, that’s guaranteed but the level will not increase otherwise what is the point of adding in a new level cap if a chunk of players can just bypass the content and new gear chase? No, trust me ~ expect to re-acquire higher level gear.

Then that would make them not on-par with the Best-In-Slot.

They didn’t say “on-par with the top tier”, they said “on-par with the best-in-slot”. Best-In-Slot refers to the absolute strongest gear that can be placed into that slot, meaning top stats and top level.

I don’t understand why this is so difficult for people to comprehend.

Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items.

I said that I would not humor you any further, and I meant it. You are wrong. Move on.

The short answer to the OP is yes, if the level cap is raised to 90, it would be reasonable to expect Legendaries to increase in power to match any Lvl 90 gear that might come out.

The rest (like “will the legendary’s level be raised, making it so I can no longer use it?”) is more difficult to answer because we don’t know.

My best guess is that they’d keep the item’s level at 80 and just hike its power to compensate for the new equipment that comes out. That would keep you from losing access to the item you spent 80 levels earning. OR maybe they just won’t release new gear above Lvl 80 (though that’s extremely unlikely).

It would be nice if we could get a dev’s confirmation on how this will work.

Alipius.4783:

Yes and no.
Prophecy : tank/heal/dps : right.
But after? No more. You could play without any tank, because instead of “drawing fire” you could control it. Or for a short time, heal/prot enough the entire party.

Trinity is abstract, and pretty wrong as a concept. Because as I said, if you don’t put everyone without heal, and able to tank/dps the exact same way, you see something that may look like trinity, inevitably, because it comes from “logic”.
But the gameplay and the mecanics in fight are real, and modulate what can be the “trinity”, even in presence of what could be seen as tank/heal/dps.
If you find anything wrong in the list I made for the strenght of Gw1 gameplay, tell me what ; or at least, where we find something as deep in Gw2.
A poor trinity gameplay would be as bad as the gameplay of gw2.

But once more, Gw1 wasn’t only about “heal/tank/dps”, there were variations, and many things working together to handle.

You are creating a false reality.

Having “variations” to trinity game play does not mean that the trinity does not exist.

GW1 relies on the rigid trinity of damage, tank, and healer. These roles all must exist in the party. What this means is that you’re forced to have someone tanking, someone must be healing, and someone must be doing the damage. You argue that it’s possible to run without a tank, I’m telling you right now that whoever is drawing fire is the “tank” by default. How rigidly you stick to those roles is partially up to your skillbar, yes, I do not deny that. But the trinity is very clearly there. It’s an undeniable fact of GW1.

GW2 relies on a loose trinity of damage, support, and control. These roles are not all forced onto you, meaning that yes, it is possible to have a party of five people who are all focused on damage. But it’s also unlikely, especially in more challenging areas of the game. My parties in Fractals have had to shuffle traits and weapons around so that they could provide some sort of service to the party as a whole. There is more to GW2 than just the damage.

They both have trinity game play, just of a different sort. The reason that you perceive zero strategy in GW2 beyond “damage, damage, and more damage” is because you aren’t actually watching your party members as closely as you think, and you have no clue how they are specced or what role they’re trying to fulfill. I’ve run dungeons with a warrior who I thought for sure was running a damage-heavy guy because of how much he would leap into combat, only to find out that he was running a support build through copious use of shouts (and traits that make shouts more supportive for party play).

It’s easy to detect who is fulfilling which role in GW1 because all you have to do is look at their class. GW2 doesn’t make that distinction clear, because any class can do any of the three main combat roles, and your party will still succeed if you’re smart and work together. You can run a dungeon with full DPS, or you can run a dungeon with a mixed bunch, and neither is invalid. What you perceive as “nothing but DPS” is more varied than you realize, and the main reason you don’t see it is because you can’t just look at a player’s class and say “okay, he’s the healer”.

Mind that this is only true for standard PvE. WvW….I’m not gonna lie, that’s just a blatant zergfest.

Ansultares.1567:

I don’t see where they promise legendary weapons will be BiS in perpetuity, only where they promise that legendary weapons will be upgraded to Ascended tier, so that they’re still BiS when Ascended tier weapons are released.

You quote it yourself; they plainly state that legendary weapons will “remain” BiS, not that they’ll always be BiS, and within the context of the statement it’s clear that “remain” refers only to the release of Ascended tier weapons.

You’re obviously not understanding what just happened here.

So let’s review.

1) You said the following:

And please provide a quote where they explicitly state that they’ll maintain legendary weapons as BiS.

2) I provided this quote (and I’ll bold the key words because you keep purposely choosing to lie about the contents of this quote):

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

You’ll also see more Legendary items in the future and an update to our existing Legendary weapons. Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game. Thus Legendaries will remain “best-in-slot” items.

And ever since then, every single post you’ve made, you’ve been rooting around for technicalities like “they never said they’d increase the level”, trying desperately to worm your way around the fact that I found a dev quote which directly contradicts what you claimed they never said.

You claimed that they never said Legendaries will always be BiS. I have proven that they did say it. So you’re wrong. Period.

We can argue all day about whether or not they’ll actually keep to that promise. I maintain that with enough pressure from forum members, they will be forced to, or else risk even worse backlash than they had from Lost Shores. You may not agree, and that’s fine.

But we’ve already definitively proven that the promise was made. I will not humor further discussion about the “technicalities” of a promise that was made in no uncertain terms.

They said it. Therefore they will be expected to stick to it. That’s the end of the debate.

Now let’s get this discussion back on track.

PowerCat.5738:

I can’t help but think he’s right. They never mentionned anything about level, and “best in slot” could just mean ascended for all we know.

Well there are level 80 ascended items too, what about those? they won’t get raised to 90, you’ll need to craft more. For 500 ectos.

Vertical progression sucks.

I don’t deny that it could happen that they release new items at Lvl 90 and don’t increase Legendaries to match. It certainly could happen.

What I do deny is the notion that (for some reason) this “doesn’t count” as a direct promise. “Legendaries will always be BiS”, they said, in no uncertain terms. That was their promise. I don’t know how other people define “BiS”, but to me, “Best-In-Slot” actually means “the best item that can be placed in that respective slot”.

So if indeed they DO release future content and Legendaries fall behind, then it is up to the players to say “but you promised BiS” and to make it very clear that they’re not happy with this sort of vertical progression.

If they break that promise, regardless of how they do it, they should be held accountable for it.

lothefallen.7081:

This basically….there was no trinity in GW1. There were healers that balanced out the rest of the mechanics, but you could not indefinitely tank in GW1 even with a healer. Everyone had a purpose in team play and you’re right, if my mesmer gets spiked or pressured out to where the monk can’t heal him, oh my, guess what? Lots of ele AoE and meteor coming my way. Same for any class in the team. This game is just homgeneized and dumbed, it’s time to rub that dust out of your eyes.

GW1 did use the trinity. To claim otherwise is being dishonest.

There were dedicated healer classes, dedicated tanks, and dedicated damage. And groups could not run without all three elements in play. The tank drew fire, the damage damaged, and the healer healed. That is the textbook definition of trinity game play.

People need to stop viewing GW1 through blatant nostalgia goggles. I love GW1 as a game, but as someone who played it for years, I can tell you that you’re not being honest with yourself. GW1 was textbook trinity game play. The fact that some classes could adjust their roles depending on what skills they had does not change this fact.

GW2, in that respect, is similar to GW1, because it also has trinity game play (just of a more vague sort).

Reaver.9256:

-snip-

Ansultares.1567:

-snip-

Ah I love it. Even proven conclusively wrong, you’re all still wriggling around for technicalities.

“They never said that Legendary items would be Best-In-Slot.”
“Yes they did, here’s a quote proving it.”
“THAT DOESN’T PROVE ANYTHING!”

There is nothing to discuss or argue here. You made the statement that they never promised Legendaries to be the best in slot, and I have a quote that proves they did in fact say just that. Don’t try to get technical now and try to look for loopholes. You are wrong. They made the promise, and they will be held accountable for it.

Ansultares.1567:

critickitten.1498:

The fact that they promised Legendaries would always be top-tier gear is pretty much the only rationale in favor of the existing mega-grind necessary to obtain them….imagine how ugly these forums would get if all of the players who dedicated months of grinding to getting their Legendaries had all of that suddenly invalidated by an expansion or content patch. There would be no end to the forum riot.

Welcome to post-Lost Shores GW2; please check your disbelief at the door.

And please provide a quote where they explicitly state that they’ll maintain legendary weapons as BiS. The quote you’re thinking of came from the AMA reddit interview, AFAIK, and they only stated there that legendary weapons will remain in the highest tier.

We’ve already pointed out that there’s no correlation between loot tiers and levels. An item can be the highest tier of loot quality without being the highest level.

But, as I said, feel free to go fish up the quotes. I think you’ll be surprised.

Oh really?

What’s this then?

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

You’ll also see more Legendary items in the future and an update to our existing Legendary weapons. Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game. Thus Legendaries will remain “best-in-slot” items.

Took me all of about five seconds to find this, btw, because I knew where to look. Would be nice if people just looked up this stuff for themselves, instead of making assumptions that the person posting these things is always lying. >_>

So yes, Legendary weapons have been promised by the devs to always be BiS.

Which means that a failure to increase their stats and level to match the best gear in any future content update would be a violation of that promise.

Reaver.9256:

I don’t get what you’re saying. A level 90 or whatever legendary will still be top tier and best stats. A level 80 legendary will also still be top tier but not the best stats. Tiers have nothing to do with level and stats of weapons. WoWs tiers haven’t changed in years and years. I’m guessing they would probably introduce some sort of upgrade path to evolve your legendary into a current one, but it’s not going to just become level 90 on it’s own.

You’re creating a technical divide where none exists.

The devs very directly stated that legendaries would be the best equipment in the game. There is no grey area here, “the best in the game” means “the best in the game”. If someone worked to get a Legendary at Lvl 80, and then new gear opened up at Lvl 90 which beat that Legendary, then that Legendary obviously is no longer the best in the entire game, is it? It would still be the best at Lvl 80, sure, but that’s not what they promised. Stop trying to muddle in technicalities and grey area, there is none. They made a promise and they are now obligated to stick to it.

Legendaries will get a level cap raise and stat increase when the cap is inevitably raised in the future. And if they didn’t, you could expect a forum riot roughly on the same scale as the Lost Shores debacle, if not worse, because everyone knows precisely what was promised time and time again by the devs when this subject came up.

The fact that they promised Legendaries would always be top-tier gear is pretty much the only rationale in favor of the existing mega-grind necessary to obtain them….imagine how ugly these forums would get if all of the players who dedicated months of grinding to getting their Legendaries had all of that suddenly invalidated by an expansion or content patch. There would be no end to the forum riot.

Now, if they’re going to break that promise, I myself would like to know now, so that I know not to bother with any Legendaries ever.

karma.8763:

critickitten.1498:

He’ll be added in an expansion, most likely.

Same with a majority of the elder dragons…..we still don’t even know if zhaitan is dead or not, we just seen him slowly fall.

In Arah’s explorable, you collect broken pieces of Zhaitan’s body as tokens to craft the dungeon armor.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shard_of_Zhaitan

I’m pretty sure he’s dead. And if not, then we need an explanation for what the hell people have been collecting this entire time. O.o

I’m hoping the changes to the existing dungeons are the first thing updated in January. Right now they’re the biggest problem area.

Second, I’d like Legendary updates to make precursors more plausible to obtain, and some way to reduce the grind. I’d honestly like Legendaries to be obtained through actual in-game skill.

Daecollo.9578:

Um, in the city they last forever, one person can make 100s of them…

They are still out too, its been 2 days…

The number one threat to Divinity’s Reach….BEARS!

Reaver.9256:

No your legendary won’t be leveled to 90. MAYBE they’ll offer an upgrade path for it but that’s all speculation at this point. People saying it’ll always be top tier and all that aren’t reading the whole thing right.

No, the devs were very direct in saying that legendaries would always be the top tier of equipment. And they said it on multiple occasions.

So if the existing legendaries were not upgradeable in some way to fit the new level cap, then yes, that would still be breaking their promise because it would mean that Legendaries were no longer equal to the strongest gear in the game.

penatbater.4710:

But the thing is, there really isn’t any problem with the current model. You’re just making it into a problem. Who are you to say that the current model needs fixing? If you claim it’s broken, can I claim it’s fine as it is?

Ah, this would be a great argument….if we didn’t know why they implemented daily and monthly achievements in the first place.

But unfortunately for you, we actually DO know what daily and monthly achievements exist for. The devs stated in an interview (way back when the game was being shown off at conventions) that there were two main reasons for these specific types of achievements:
1) intended to be a way to easily reward casual players for performing simple tasks in the game
2) meant to encourage players to log in more regularly

Right now, they do not perform this task.

Casual players cannot be expected to just “jump into WvW” and earn 50 kills, and most casual players (we’re talking real casual players here, mind, not the folks like myself who SAY they’re just casual players but have several Lvl 80s and well over 600 hours logged since the game’s release) will not be very good at Fractals either. And this is something that people who aren’t actually “casual gamers” don’t tend to understand, because there’s a different mentality and mindset involved. It seems easy to YOU because you’re a different sort of gamer than the folks we’re talking about.

“Well, kitten on them,” you’re no doubt itching to reply. “If they can’t perform these arbitrarily chosen tasks then they obviously don’t want it bad enough!”

And the moment that thought even entered your mind, you were lost to us. Because you have so completely missed the point right there that there is no way to bring you back. You’re way past the event horizon the very instant you start separating people into tiers of importance, and claiming that those “casuals” just don’t want it badly enough and aren’t worthy of the “glory” of monthly achievements.

This game was built around the concept of letting us play the game how we want to play it. At this stage, we’ve tried everything and (most likely) most have settled on a few things in-game that they prefer over the rest of the game. We may have even developed a hatred of certain game aspects (for me, it’s the way the old dungeons are loaded with cheap shot mechanics that don’t lend themselves towards a skill-based game). We should not still be forcing players to do content that they don’t enjoy. You want to promote new content, that’s fine. But Fractals is not new any more, and neither is WvW. I think we can move on, now.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

You aren’t forced into fractals. You don’t HAVE To do the monthly.

I’ve already explained why this logic doesn’t work and I don’t have the patience to keep repeating it for every single person who posts this.

So I’ll just summarize it instead:

“It’s optional” is an excuse that can be applied to virtually any aspect of the game that you or anyone else doesn’t like. The problem with this excuse is that, if there is an actual problem with the existing model, this excuse doesn’t FIX the underlying problem. It instead insists that people should just ignore the problem instead.

These discussions pop up because people want to fix the problem, or at least discuss the problem rationally. They do not ALWAYS pop up just because people are fond of complaining. Some of us actually want to make the game better.

I suggest that if you are incapable of contributing to the discussion, that you refrain from posting in it.

Jrunyon.3012:

As to your idea, whats the point of having it like that? Its so repetitive and boring and pointless since you’re going to complete it just by doing daily’s. That’s not fun for me and it makes me think you’re only in it for the reward at the end, which is fine I guess but it’s not how I see it at all.

Let me respond by asking you this:

What’s the point of having daily achievements like that, then?

Isn’t it just as “boring” and “repetitive”? Well no, it’s not, and the reason is because you’re basically allowed to go wherever you want and do whatever you want, and it takes very little play time to complete. I’ve often completed my daily achievement without even realizing that I was getting close to it. It’s all natural and part of the game anyways.

Which is what makes it perfect not only for daily, but monthly achievements as well. You wouldn’t be asked to do anything you don’t normally do throughout the course of playing the game. You could WvW if you wanted, or PvE it if you wanted, and it wouldn’t matter.

That said, it might be nice for them to set up some PvP daily/monthly achievements as well, separate from the PvE ones. I think that’d be a simple step they could take that would move PvP closer to being something that people actually want to do.

I actually like the chaos of WvW, but only when I’m feeling in the mood for it. Generally I just prefer the reliability of PvE combat, where I won’t be ganked quite as often by OHKOs (unless I’m running a dungeon).

Durian.5419:

This attempt at creating a forum meme is just a blatant move by Arenanet to get more people into the cash shop.

This post is obviously a blatant move by Arenanet to get more people to agree with them so that they’ll all go shop in the cash shop.

I’m on to your schemes, sir.

Jrunyon.3012:

critickitten.1498:

but rather the fact that monthly achievements are asking people to do things they don’t want to do, which is abnormal when it’s clear that wasn’t supposed to be the point of them.

Well what would you rather have then? Just logging in 30 times gives you the monthly?

See, this is where I stopped taking your post seriously. Because you don’t actually want to hear other ideas, as indicated by your pointlessly sarcastic remark.

There’s no need to be a child. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean you need to be rude.

Come on, lets hear some ideas of what you think should be implemented, I guarantee there will always be complainers no matter you suggest and no one will be able to decide on it until its comes down to being removed altogether because people keep whining. Is that what you want?

Slippery slope fallacy. And boy, did you drag that one out to a preposterous extreme. No one is going to demand the removal of monthly achievements just because they can’t reach the mark (and if they did, I’d be right there with you telling them that they’re being ridiculous).

As for my suggestions? Honestly, I’d just take three of the daily achievements and extend their overall length to make them more befitting of a monthly tally.

I’d go for:
900 Daily Kills
300 Gatherings
75 Events
Which means that you’d only need to max out your daily achievement 15 days out of the month. Pretty fair and reasonable, if you ask me.

The fourth achievement can be the one that changes monthly, corresponding to the new content released for that month. It should be content that is accessible by every player. So for October it could’ve been pumpkin carving, or November could’ve been the karka slayer, for example.

There. A perfectly fair and reasonable suggestion that virtually any player could complete while still playing in whatever parts of the game they want to. No being forced to run one piece of content you don’t like, and best of all, you could still easily finish it off in a few short days if you’re a hardcore player, so it doesn’t in any way hinder your ability to cap out the monthly early.

Do you have something to contribute to the discussion now? Or are you going to keep insisting that everyone who complains has no ideas?

I’m actually growing rather tired of people’s defense of poor game design decisions.

Don’t like Fractals? Just don’t do them.
Don’t like Ascended gear? Just don’t get it.
Don’t like legendaries? Just don’t try for them.
Don’t like monthly achievements? Just don’t do them.
Don’t like WvW? Just don’t do it.
Don’t like PvP? Just don’t do it.

You all do realize that if we take your argument to its logical conclusion with regards to all of the things in this game that need to be fixed, there won’t be much of a game left to play, right?

I don’t disagree that people who complain just to complain are obnoxious, but some of us are complaining because something is actually not designed all that well and there is an actual issue there that needs to be addressed. You don’t need to take personal offense every single time someone comes forward with a complaint about the game.

Monthly achievements are not quite where they need to be yet. Daily achievements have it down pat, allowing you to play wherever you want at any time you want. Now if we can find a way to get monthly achievements to this point, there wouldn’t be a problem any more. The problem stems not from the difficulty or “people just wanna complain”, but rather the fact that monthly achievements are asking people to do things they don’t want to do, which is abnormal when it’s clear that wasn’t supposed to be the point of them.

Boonprot.6274:

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Topher.1684:

-snip-

You both need to read what I’ve said more carefully and put more thought into your replies.

I have already said that I actually LIKE Fractals. In fact I think all the game’s dungeons need to be rebuilt in the same vein.

But unlike either of you, I acknowledge that my opinion is not the only one in the entire universe, and that there are a great number of people who do not like Fractals. And the devs received a great deal of flak for Fractals from the start, as the release convinced many people to quit this game. Fractals is not actually all that popular. Fractals, and its creation of Ascended gear, spawned backlash of such a large degree that they were forced to announce several fixes to the dungeon coming in January’s patch, and had to reassure players on multiple occasions that Ascended items would be introduced in other areas. And yet, despite the massive backlash the team has faced, they continue to try and force it down people’s throats every month. That doesn’t seem like sound business logic to me.

People who do not like Fractals should not be forced to play in Fractals. Just as those who dislike WvW should not be forced to play in WvW.

Daily achievements can be completed virtually ANYWHERE in the game. So why are monthly achievements forcing people to play in content they don’t like? They need to be restructured to be more friendly to the casual audience.

For the tenth time now, no one cares that it’s “easy”. Ease of completion is NOT the complaint, it’s not what people are upset about.

The core complaint is that while daily achievements have been fairly reasonable and can be completed just about anywhere, monthly achievements have been forcing players to perform much more specific tasks, and often asking them to go places or perform tasks they do not want to do. A player should not be punished because he or she doesn’t enjoy WvW or Fractals. And neither of these locations is really a “casual-friendly” place to be, either.

One of the core selling points of this game was the ability to go where you want and do what you want, and they stated that both daily and monthly achievements would reflect this casual, “do whatever you want” game play. In fact, they said that the entire reason they were implementing these daily and monthly achievements was for the casual players, so they still felt rewarded and wouldn’t fall drastically behind the grinders. But right now, monthly achievements clearly are not designed with casual players in mind. A casual player cannot just “hop into WvW” and casually tag 50 kills. A casual player is not likely to perform all that well in the Fractals dungeon, either. You’re all fine with those requirements, but I’m willing to bet that none of you are among that “casual” audience that the achievements were stated to be for. Sure, they’re optional for YOU because you play the game regularly enough that the extra karma doesn’t matter much to you. But not everyone lives and breathes GW2, and it’d be nice if they designed monthly achievements with that in mind.

I’m glad that all of you are perfectly fine with the way things are, but you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not all that thrilled about it. It’s a relatively small aspect of the game, which is why I’m not all that upset about it, but I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about it either. Monthly achievements need to be more considerate of the variety of players that play this game, rather than railroading them into specific tasks that they don’t want to do.

He’ll be added in an expansion, most likely.

Jski.6180:

I see so i guess if you cant do your monthly they will close your account? What monsters they are!

So ya i think this is going to happen every month it will changes but there will always be a sub group of ppl who will not like it.

See, these are the sorts of posts that should be getting infractions, but never do. This poster has contributed absolutely nothing to the discussion at all, and has very blatantly trolled me. I’d like to see a moderator deal with this post, but I won’t hold my breath.

Again, since you didn’t read the post the first time: I myself don’t mind running Fractals, but plenty of other people do. And a lot of players quit the game because of the update that Fractals helped introduce. It is extremely unwise for the dev team to keep forcing people to run Fractals when they don’t want to. If players feel like they’re being railroaded into something they don’t want to do, they’re not going to do it, they’ll just stop playing.

This isn’t one of those “people are always gonna complain” things, there is no legitimate reason for Fractals to still be on the monthly achievements list. It made sense in November because it was part of the update, and you could argue they were still trying to push it in December. But it’s now January. And in fact, keeping it on the list violates their promise of not being forced to run dungeons at endgame. “But you’re not forced to do achievements”, you say. Sure you’re not….if you’re a hardcore player. If you’re a casual player, this is your primary means of keeping up with the folks who farm the game like they’re possessed. Daily and monthly are the easiest way for you to get karma and forge tokens. So yes, if you’re a casual, you’re being “encouraged” to run something you may not want to run just to keep up with other players, and that makes it a violation of the “no grinding dungeons at endgame” promise.

I would love to hear a real reason why Fractals should stay on the monthly achievement list. Let’s have it.

Mechanix.5719:

why so much hate for the Jps they are fun and easy

Because the core argument in favor of jumping puzzles to date was that they were entirely optional.

Now they’re required as part of the monthly achievements for January.

It’s easy to argue that those achievements are optional, of course, but for more casual players, those achievements are one of the few ways they can keep up with the more regular players in terms of obtaining karma and tokens for forging.

Really, I’m much more bothered by the fact that Fractals is still required. It made sense being there in November, but this is January now. And Fractals was a huge part of the update that made many people quit this game. The devs should know by now that even the people who like Fractals aren’t keen on being forced to keep running it for monthly achievement points, and those who don’t like it probably don’t like being reminded about it every month.

Seriously. Don’t force players to run Fractals if they don’t want to.

NetherDiver.6079:

critickitten.1498:

Berobad.4536:

Will there ever be a monthly without the fractals again?

This is the question that REALLY needs to be answered.

I find Fractals fun to play, but I don’t want it to be forced on me every single month to complete the monthly reqs.

It’s 7 Fractals guys. As in run 1 and 2 and you’re done.

It’s not about the number of times we have to run it, it’s the fact that, a full two months after this new dungeon was released, we’re still expected to run it every month like clockwork. I could understand it being a requirement for the month of November, maybe even December, but January too? Is it really going to be a forced monthly requirement for all of the foreseeable future?

I seem to recall the devs saying that they didn’t want us feeling as though we were “forced to run dungeons at endgame”, yet that’s exactly what this is. We’re being forced to run dungeons to fulfill our monthly quota. And I don’t mind Fractals much, but for those who aren’t fond of it (or worse, quit over it), it’s really not smart to keep shoving it down their throats every month.

Berobad.4536:

Will there ever be a monthly without the fractals again?

This is the question that REALLY needs to be answered.

I find Fractals fun to play, but I don’t want it to be forced on me every single month to complete the monthly reqs.

Turgut.4397:

The problem is no true healing class. Guardian regen/heals are laughable. GW1 countered the lack of trinity with Monks/Ritualist, direct healing classes.

….but GW1 did not lack the trinity.

Monk/ritualist were not “counters” to the trinity, they were dedicated healers, which is one of the three aspects of trinity game play (they function as the “healer” spot in tank/DPS/healer).

GW2 operates on a trinity of its own in practice, a much more loose trinity (damage/support/control) which works far, far better. No one is obligated to fulfill any particular role in said trinity (though doing so will make your party more well-rounded) and can play the sort of character they want to play.

No true healing class is a blessing, not a weakness, in GW2. If you honestly can’t handle healing yourself in combat, or else design your character to fulfill a support role in combat, then I’m inclined to inform you that you’re doing it wrong and maybe this isn’t the game for you. Because honestly, it’s not that hard to either build yourself as a support character, or (if you’re not the “healer” type) at least self-manage your heals.

I see a lot of folks ranking Ranger low.

Which confuses me because I do just fine as a ranger, in fact I’ve saved my dungeon party from certain doom in a couple of situations.

Maybe you all just haven’t had much experience with a ranger that knows what they’re doing?

When you said “plays tight”, I instantly thought of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjCo2I3ooK0

You’ll be disappointed to hear that vistas were not originally part of the game. They were added after the first open beta test had finished, back when map completion wasn’t as great of a chore. I’m still not sure why they added vistas except to drag out map completion a bit further. The panning camera shots are beautiful, but let’s be honest, pretty unnecessary.

And to be fair to you, the later portions of the game ramp up in difficulty quickly compared to the early portions. You have to get really good with the game’s mechanics and you’ll generally find that the tactics you used in the early game no longer cut it. You’ll get the hang of it eventually. Orr itself is another learning experience, too.

Mostly satisfied, but there are a lot of areas where the rushed nature of the game shows.

They have a lot of fixing yet to do.

When they fix the game I originally bought, then sure.

But we’ve got some serious work to do on the core game before we go talking about expansions.

Congrats on your legendary.

No, really.

I don’t begrudge you having a legendary. You’re welcome to have your time to brag about it. I just don’t agree with your belief that the existing system for getting Legendaries is okay.

When I imagine a “legendary journey” as you put it, I’m thinking more along the lines of Frodo taking the One Ring to Mount Doom. Or Bilbo going after Smaug’s gold hoard. I don’t imagine Sam sitting in Frodo’s garden, chopping down 250 of every plant he sees so that he can toss all of them into a big glowing hole in the ground so as to fashion the legendary Salad Fork of the Shire.

I’m sorry that you disagree, but I don’t see anything “legendary” about Legendaries right now. And I’ll continue to feel that way long after I’ve obtained my Kudzu. It’s just not the glorious epic that I imagined it would be, and I’m sincerely disappointed that the dev team romanticized them into something they’re definitely not.

Vasham.2408:

Coffeebot.3921:

Here’s a challenge for you OP, name one game with the holy trinity that a) Wished it were WoW by virtue of it’s mechanics and play style and b) Didn’t rely on a gear based revolving door to force people use the trinity.

Guild Wars 1

Well considering that GW1 in no way resembles WoW’s design structure, I think you’re wrong.

That said, having read your original post….it sounds like you want to play GW1.

Fine, go play it. It’s still running, after all. There’s no reason you can’t go play it right now. So please, leave and go play GW1, since you clearly feel it is the superior game then there’s no reason to stay here.

As for myself? Removing the trinity is the best thing to ever happen to GW2, and I love its PvE primarily because we don’t have to worry about picking a “healer” for every party, we can just roll with whatever classes we want.

Godorn.2931:

“So when we say we’ll show something “when it’s ready,” we really mean it. We don’t want to talk about it until we’re ready to show it, because it may change. "

The way we see it, Guild Wars 2 sPvP may be shipped, but it’s far from finished.
-Jonathan “Chaplan” Sharp

The above is from the link posted. Personally, I can’t resolve the contradiction.

The problem here is that they didn’t listen to their beta testers. We were telling them that this game wasn’t ready to ship well before they even had the release date announced. But they were pretty much dead set on getting GW2 released before the end of 2012. So they ended up releasing a game which has great starting content….but the late-game content (like their under-tested dungeons, and the insane thrown-together-at-the-last-minute style grind to obtain legendaries) and other aspects of gameplay (PvP especially) are incredibly rushed and indicate just how not ready for release this game really was.

What’s worse is that all of these things they designed poorly and rushed to get ready for release? We’re now at three months later and many of them still haven’t been fixed. Dungeons are still poorly designed in general, legendaries are still one of the dumbest grinds I’ve seen in any MMO, and PvP/WvW still suffers from extreme balance issues that make any “e-sport” status very unlikely in the foreseeable future.

ANet needs to focus on fixing all of the things it rushed before they can concentrate on making PvP an “e-sport”, and by the time they get it all done, I suspect they won’t have enough PvP players left to make much of a sport out of it.

Kacigarka.5176:

So players like you are the one who should change their mentality and stop beeing jealous and just mind their business

What are you still doing here?

Instead of actually trying to submit any valid discussion here, you’re here rubbing your legendaries in everyone’s faces and saying “neener neener, I’ve got one and you don’t”, as if anyone actually cares what you think or what you own.

We don’t care if you have one or not. We really don’t.

We’re here trying to have a discussion about legendaries and what they’re meant to represent. And every single major point you have made in favor of the existing system is directly contradicted by the GW2 development team’s declared intentions for the game. You have no support in this thread primarily because your stance is 100% against what ANet was trying to create. The devs aren’t going to back you up on this because they don’t actually agree with you.

Let’s go through this systematically and dismantle your entire argument, comparing what the devs have said to what you said.

“They’re just expensive crafting items” and “they’re not meant to be anything meaningful”:
Cartwright (quoted earlier) once stated that legendaries are “meant to show off your accomplishments and what you’ve been doing in the game”. The devs have all treated legendaries with a degree of reverence and stated they will always be the best of their tier. They are clearly meant to symbolize something greater than “expensive crafting item”.

“They’re meant to be a grind”:
ANet has been quoted countless times as saying that “we just don’t feel the need to make grindy games”, yet we can all agree that Legendaries clearly violate this premise. There are only two ways to obtain everything you need: grind for it, or play the TP. They’ve been slowly taking steps to improve on the grind, make it more bearable in the long run, but it’s still a grind.

“It’s just like how other MMOs do it”:
This one is especially golden because the core selling point of GW2 is that it’s an “MMO revolution”, and that people who don’t like MMOs “will really wanna check out GW2” because of how different it is from traditional MMOs. But of course you’d think that this grind is perfectly okay, you already own a Legendary so you’re perfectly content to let the game falsely advertise its no-grind premise. Fortunately, the devs are not quite so insane, as they’ve said they intend to cut down on some of that grind not only in Legendaries but Ascended gear as well. We’ll see what happens in this regard.

“There’s nothing wrong with the system as it is”:
The devs have agreed that not only is the existing system not what they intended it to be, but they’ve also gone so far as to say that they’re working on implementing other ways to obtain Legendaries as well. So really, not only does your argument have no leg to stand on, but you’ve already lost. They’re going to be making changes eventually whether you like it or not.

I’ll repeat what I said before: if you’re just going to use this thread to brag about your own Legendary and don’t intend to contribute anything to this discussion, please do us all the favor of posting elsewhere. We don’t care if you have a Legendary or not. Really. We don’t. We’re all here to have a serious discussion about fixing an aspect of the game which is poorly designed (something the dev team has admitted).

Kacigarka.5176:

Legendary weapons are just tier above exotic. They are still JUST Crafted weapons. They are not ment to be aquired by some legendary quest chain or whatever you want it to be.

As someone said .. you can find Excalibur in trash but the weapon is still Legendary no matter how did you obtain it.

They are called Legendary weapons only because of awesome super skin and effect, not because you had to do some Legendary journey. Again .. they are crafted expensive weapons. Thats all.

Wrong. According to the dev team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdA4MlrF5mA

Legendaries are supposed to be “allowing you to show off your accomplishments and symbolize all the things you’ve been doing”. They are intended to be the pinnacle of accomplishment in GW2, something that only the best can ever hope to reach.

But right now they’re just a symbol for grind and gold. They’re utterly meaningless. This is something that needs to change.

Also, I love how you’ve totally 180’d on your original opinion. Before they were supposed to be just for the uber-leet which is why they were supposed to be so rare, but now “they’re just expensive crafting items” that anyone can get if they put their mind to it. Bravo.

And yes guild wars dont require you to grind like in other mmorpgs to be powerful as eveyone

Yet you are required to grind to obtain Legendaries. Which is precisely my point. You’re playing two entirely different games, which is not the idea. Which is precisely why the devs have already said that they’re looking into changing the system from what it is now.

No one promised you Legendary without grind .. in fact you always have to collect material for crafted weapons, in every mmorpg ive played.

So basically you’re saying it’s okay for GW2 to be just like every other MMO, when GW2 was sold on the premise of NOT being like every other MMO.

You really don’t understand anything, do you?

So ye… this was my last post in here, just wasting my time here anyways. And you are wasting your also.

Good to know you have nothing of value to contribute to this discussion. You can go away now.

Kacigarka.5176:

1-80 is easy journey, for casuals, avarage, hc .. its easy

Legendary weapons are not some end-game content, they are the most expensive crafted weapons and you have to decide if you want to craft it or dont.

If you decided yes, you have to work for it and dont expect it just comes to your inventory like levels or be really patient because it might take you year or more

If you find more fun leveling, doing casual stuff, thats your choice. But Legendary weapons are for HC players that are willing to put the kitten big effort into it and blindly follow their dreams.

It seems you bought an entirely different game than I did.

See, I bought this game that promised “no grind”, that told me “the entire game is the endgame”. A game that said it would be all about skill, rather than who has the biggest wallet.

Does anyone in this forum still remember buying a game that promised these things? Okay then, so why are we defending Legendaries, which (while optional) are a violation of every single design aspect that was promised?

Hardcore? “Following your dreams”? Bah! You’re romanticizing something that has no romance at all. There are two ways to obtain a Legendary: having an excessive amount of gold, or being INCREDIBLY lucky. And sometimes both. Neither of these things implies that you’re the “uberleet best player evar”. It boils down to whether you’re lucky enough to get the drops or else able to grind hard enough to get them.

Doesn’t sound like a “Legendary” event to me.

Legendaries always should have been a journey of epic scale and proportion. Earning the pieces to forge this super-amazing, ultra-rare item through epic quests and adventure. That’s not what we have right now. What we have right now is the parts being sold for insanely high prices in the TP, and people grinding non-stop to get lucky with their drops.

I don’t think Legendaries should be more common, in fact I think they should be more rare if anything. But the problem here is that we’re looking at two fundamentally different games: you’re perfectly content with a game that promises you no grind and then delivers a grind far worse than almost any other game on the market. I’m the guy saying “hey, why don’t you make this into a truly epic journey of some sort” rather than relying on a terrible RNG and TP system for everything.

Again: There’s nothing epic about collecting 250 of several different items and tossing them into a big glowy cup. Legendaries should always have been about more than that, and the fact that they rely on grinding when the rest of the game doesn’t? That’s bad game design of the most indefensible sort.

There are plenty of ways to fix them, to make them truly worthy of their name. I’d be happy to offer my thoughts on the subject if you’re actually willing to listen. But right now there’s nothing Legendary about Legendaries, except the amount of time and money you were forced to waste grinding for them in a game which promised no grinding. If we can’t even agree on that, then any further discussion with you is wasteful.

Kacigarka.5176:

critickitten.1498:

Kacigarka.5176:

critickitten.1498:

Kacigarka.5176:

So either you work for it, or you can just complain for another 10 years but nothing is going to change just because there are few whining individuals

Except that ANet has already admitted that they don’t like the way Legendaries are currently obtained and are going to make changes to the system.

Whoops. Guess you’d better stop whining about how other people are whining, then.

Gimme link, thank you And if you think the scavanger hunt, thats only because of high precursor prices, nothing new

The scavenger hunt, yes. That is “new” because it’s entirely different than the existing way of obtaining a precursor: sacrificing animals to the RNG.

They also said that players are reaching their legendaries faster than expected, so lets hope that they make it 2x harder than now

They won’t. The players are obtaining them faster than expected because the devs underestimated some people’s grinding ability. They’re still completely inaccessible for any average player as was intended.

And btw I am not whining about other people, I am statig that fact that Legendaries are okey? If you can say that they are not, I can say that they are ok U mad?

No, I’m not mad, you’re just being childish and I’m pointing that fact out.

And what makes you think Legendary weapons are for avarage players?

Is bentley for avarage person, is Louis vuitton for avarage person? NO .. THERE ARE SIMPLE THINGS which are not for avarage players/people.

You should get used to it or you will be reallly dissapointed in your life.

I never said they WERE for average players. You really need to learn how to read.

What I said earlier in this thread is that their design is poor not because they are so restricted, but because in order to obtain one, I have to willfully choose to play an entirely different game than the one I was playing from 1 to 80.

I seem to recall a game dev staff that said “we don’t feel like we need to make grindy games”, yet that’s precisely what they’ve done with Legendaries. I don’t like that the entire game changes at Lvl 80 (like they said it wouldn’t) and that in order to obtain this one item, I’m forced to radically adjust my mentality and grind the kitten out of a game that was promised to have no grinding in it.

No matter how you spin it, that’s bad game design: expecting players to suddenly be okay with grinding when you said there would be none.

That’s why, instead of going on some epic journey to craft a Legendary, I’m playing my non-maxed characters instead, because that’s actually fun. Finding 250 of ten different highly expensive items? Not fun.

Kacigarka.5176:

critickitten.1498:

Kacigarka.5176:

So either you work for it, or you can just complain for another 10 years but nothing is going to change just because there are few whining individuals

Except that ANet has already admitted that they don’t like the way Legendaries are currently obtained and are going to make changes to the system.

Whoops. Guess you’d better stop whining about how other people are whining, then.

Gimme link, thank you And if you think the scavanger hunt, thats only because of high precursor prices, nothing new

The scavenger hunt, yes. That is “new” because it’s entirely different than the existing way of obtaining a precursor: sacrificing animals to the RNG.

They also said that players are reaching their legendaries faster than expected, so lets hope that they make it 2x harder than now

They won’t. The players are obtaining them faster than expected because the devs underestimated some people’s grinding ability. They’re still completely inaccessible for any average player as was intended.

And btw I am not whining about other people, I am statig that fact that Legendaries are okey? If you can say that they are not, I can say that they are ok U mad?

No, I’m not mad, you’re just being childish and I’m pointing that fact out.

If players like me werent posting on forums, players like you would cry out loud for everything to be changed and we would see Guild Wars 2 become something that no one would play.

Actually, players like me are perfectly happy with SOME aspects of the game and don’t want them changed. I just don’t think that the game is perfect as it is, and am not going to blindly defend bad game design like you are right now.

(80) Ranger: 392 hours, 653 deaths, 1.67 dph
(54) Elementalist: 97 hours, 98 deaths, 1.01 dph
(38) Warrior: 67 hours, 61 deaths, 0.91 dph
(34) Thief: 53 hours, 61 deaths, 1.15 dph
(32) Necromancer: 48 hours, 32 deaths, 0.67 dph
(20) Mesmer: 23 hours, 26 deaths, 1.13 dph

None of them are as bad as I expected, actually.

Kacigarka.5176:

So either you work for it, or you can just complain for another 10 years but nothing is going to change just because there are few whining individuals

Except that ANet has already admitted that they don’t like the way Legendaries are currently obtained and are going to make changes to the system.

Whoops. Guess you’d better stop whining about how other people are whining, then.

HawkMeister.4758:

So is everybody else´s.

Quite frankly the starter areas should be overrun maybe even on par with the launch, due to the Holiday sales and the free time available to the general populace.

Is that what every body is seeing?

Or are you guys just proud that the numbers aren´t declining, during a time when they should actually steeply rise?

Not really.

Every MMO’s population in this generation starts to decline rather rapidly about a month out of release and eventually settle down at a much lower number than the original sales figures by about the 3-5 month mark. Holiday sales would not buck that trend much if at all.

Honestly, my interest is purely academic at this point

No it’s not, you’re just like all of the other people in here who are posting doom and gloom because the game did something to kitten you off, and you can’t fathom why other people could possibly still enjoy something that you no longer enjoy.

If you no longer have any interest in playing the game, fine, then go do something else and leave these forums for those of us who are still having fun.

Asglarek.8976:

rickets.1386:

Going good, still takes about 13 seconds to get a pug to run with our 4 man group in fractals. Normal dungeons take maybe 5 minutes to find a pug, but that is to be expected since fractals are newer.

How is failing at being a doom and gloom bear going? Why not just play the game if you like it? Or do you only play what other people like?

Dude you might want to check your fanboism nobody was casting any doom or gloom scenarios but it is obvious you never leave Lions Arch what a sad little person you must be.

And it’s obvious you haven’t been playing the game very much, because I’ve seen a lot of people running around in the starting areas while I was playing on my new mesmer character. A hell of a lot more people than I was seeing over a month ago when the game was supposedly “perfect” and Ascended-less.

Karizee.8076:

Oops, my mistake. It was a blog, not an interview.

Here is the link:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/chris-whiteside-on-the-lost-shores-and-beyond/

My concern with that post is that it’s incredibly vague.

And in the past, when they’ve been too vague about what they’re changing/fixing, they’ve ended up releasing stuff that either didn’t address the real problem or ended up making it worse.

I’m hoping they’re putting a great deal of thought into how they want to fix the dungeons, because this was one of their big selling points for the game originally, and it’s a shame that they’ve been such a disappointment up to now. Especially now that we’ve seen how good they COULD have been, if the team had put in the necessary time and effort before the game’s release. It’s really a shame that they’re having to spend so much time overhauling them a mere three months after the game’s release.

Almost at 680 hours, myself. Not bad, all things considered.

The problem with legendaries isn’t the notion that everyone “deserves” to have one.

It’s that you’re expected to behave entirely differently than the rest of the game to earn your Legendary.

I went from 1 to 80 on my ranger without grinding, just playing through the vast depth of content as the developers intended. And yet in order to take even a swing at a Legendary, I’m expected to grind the game so hard that my eyeballs will pop out of their sockets from the extended pressure of so much play time.

Obtaining a Legendary should be in the same vein as the rest of the game: a journey of epic adventure. NOT a “Race to the Top” grindfest in which I’m expected to collect 250 of every animal in Tyria and load it onto an arc before the rainstorm starts.

It’s stuff like this that makes people say things like “ANet has abandoned the manifesto”, because really, that’s what it is: a total departure from the manifesto’s promise of a grind-free game.

I played through a round of Fractals today, and a round of Twilight Arbor. And I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they were designed by two entirely different teams of people.

Fractals is an example of dungeon design that I actually find fun and challenging in a good way. We’re expected not only to fight but also to think, and smart/efficient parties can get the job done with not too much difficulty. Some of the bosses are more easily killed (or outright can’t be killed) without some teamwork and strategy, which is a good thing. It means the dungeon is challenging, but it’s possible to avoid dying much (if at all, with good teams) and the dungeon is very rewarding in general.

TA (and all of the other major dungeons before Fractals) is a classic example of how dungeons should NOT be designed. Here we have dungeons that are loaded with cheap shots and OHKOs and various other design decisions that you can’t possibly pick up on the first run. You’re going to die and die a lot, and you’re not going to be rewarded very well for your time, either. There’s no thinking, there’s no strategy for the most part, it’s mostly “kill the baddies before they kill you, and hope they don’t OHKO you out of purely poor luck”.

And I really couldn’t fully grasp what I hated about dungeons until Fractals came along, but now I know. It’s the knowledge that my time and experience in the dungeon is not rewarded. I’ve run Fractals several times and know it pretty well, which has helped me do better in subsequent runs. But every time I run TA, I and my party die horrendously often to the exact same cheap-shot mechanics. It’s not “fun” or “challenging” to be barraged by 20 shots of 2k damage with only a split second’s time to react, it’s just a cheap shot.

Honestly, having seen what GOOD dungeon design in GW2 could look like, I feel as though the team should very seriously consider redesigning their existing dungeons from the ground up. They really aren’t well designed, and while they’re certainly tough, they’re tough in all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons, and are rewarded much more poorly to boot.

Yes, yes, go ahead with the “maybe you just suck lol” posts, I know they’re coming. But rather than blindly defending the game’s old dungeons as “perfect” or whatnot, maybe we should take a good hard look at why they’re so under-rewarded and why people rather quickly stopped running them, even before Fractals came along. Because they’re a major selling point of the game, and yet they’re probably one of the worst designed aspects of the game right now, especially since players are expected to grind these awful things dozens of times to obtain dungeon armor or legendaries.