I’m sorry, but that’s hilarious. First, we don’t need people “popping into Queensdale” to kill the Shadow Behomth, there are people who are already there because they want to play in Queensdale. Look.. Queensdale was doing just fine before the February patch that changed boss loot, and the Shadow Behemoth was frequently in a broken state and not spawning for days/weeks on end. The recent rush of population to kill him is not doing the Queensdale population any favors.
Yes, there were just so many people playing in Queensdale originally. That’s why people were constantly complaining about empty servers and maps. And you want to go back to that.
Thank goodness that the devs have more sense than that, and actually want people to play on every map.
Who are you kidding? Sure, you’re partly correct when you say there will be a “lot less people”, but you forgot to finish the sentence. It should actually read “There will be a lot less people sitting around like a stump at Shadow Behomoth’s spawn point, tying up map slots that could be used by people who actually want to play in Queensdale.”. To which I say “Yay!”.
You do realize that it’s impossible to “tie up a map slot” without actually being at the computer that whole time, right? Because the game client automatically D/Cs anyone who idles in any map for a certain period of time (it’s usually a half hour or so), and so far as I can tell from my own testing of it, flipping through your character menu does not seem to count as “activity”. You have to move or interact with in-game objects to be considered not idle.
So your expressed “problem” of AFKers using up slots isn’t actually there. If you haven’t seen people moving, you haven’t stood there long enough to see if they’re actually standing perfectly still that entire time while their owner is AFK. I guarantee you that they’re not, because they’d D/C if they were.
You make it sound like this game can not survive without its loot pinatas intact. What in the world were you doing with your playtime prior to the February patch? I can’t imagine how frustrated you must have been prior to leveling your first character up to the point where you could start camping level 80 rare drops. Oh, the nightmare that playing Guild Wars 2 must have been for you.
That phrase about assumptions comes to mind again here.
Here, let me make one of my own and you can tell me how close to home this hits:
Your entire thread is a protracted complaint about how the guesting feature keeps pushing you into overflow. So you want to punish people who go to events for loot because they don’t play for fun like you do (never mind the notion that perhaps they consider it fun to gather loot, of course), and so the events are punishing and loot-less, only the people who play the game for fun will be willing to go to those maps, while everyone else will be running instanced content for their loots just like every other MMO out there.
Yeah, really sounds like you know what GW2 is all about.
It’s difficult to take your arguments seriously because you keep making the mistake of equating “lowering open-world boss event participation” to “lowering game population”. Those are not the same thing. And, honestly, I think you keep making that mistake for dramatic effect.
When there is only one World Boss per map, yes, they most certainly are the exact same thing. Most people aren’t going to pop into Queensdale just to kill bandits. They go there because they’re a newer player or because they want to kill the Shadow Behemoth. If you make the Shadow Behemoth give no drops, Queensdale will start being a lot more empty as a result, because most people will have nothing to do there. And if the problem exists on every map in the game, then they’re not getting rewarded much at all, and other games start to look an awful lot more appealing.
Your suggestion is basically “let’s make the World Bosses as unappealing as possible so that people won’t play there”. The result of that is that less people will be on most of the world’s maps, they’ll all go back to Orr to farm (or quit altogether, as some have already done). And then you’ll see even more complaining here and across the internet that the world feels emptier because there’s no one on any of the maps.
You’re basically suggesting that we take a flawed system and make it more flawed because you’re tired of getting put into overflow. I’m very sorry to hear that you get personally offended at being stuffed into overflow, but this is a very bad and overworked solution to a very simple problem.
The devs need to make all maps appealing so that players will want to spread out and see more of the world. The best way to do that is to make all maps equally rewarding, not to make them all equally punishing.
And here, folks, is where I’d like to note the difference between someone like myself and someone like the OP.
When I create threads or post in them, it’s to complain about a topic that I think is going to be to the game’s detriment, but I’m not actively trying to throw the entire game’s design structure out. I’m trying to bring attention to what I feel is a genuine issue. I enjoy most of the game but want to see some adjustments made to particular aspects so that players can spend more time enjoying the game and less time grinding for a chance to enjoy the game.
The OP, on the other hand, is the sort of person who just refuses to enjoy the game in any conceivable fashion. Which is why this is perhaps the sixth or seventh time I’ve seen him post this exact same topic. He doesn’t want to play GW2, he wants to play WoW, because he’s so engrained in the trinity mindset that he can’t enjoy hack-and-slash / action-adventure oriented combat. And it is my sincere hope that he has fun playing WoW. But GW2 isn’t WoW, and it doesn’t need to be. The fact that TESO is actively seeking to copy many of its combat aspects from GW2 (especially its PvP system which is a carbon copy of WvW) is, to me, proof positive that GW2 did something right in that regard.
Dungeon Explorables were never “for casuals”. Anet has always said that they were for solid groups that achieved “group synergy”.
Would you mind explaining how it is impossible for “casuals” to achieve “group synergy”?
Because it sounds like you’re using “group synergy” as an excuse to try and claim that dungeons are supposed to be designed only for “hardcore” players. Which tells me that you don’t know what “group synergy” even is.
Elonians aren’t a separate species from humans, so….not likely.
I’m curious about people’s experiences with scaling, particularly the up-scaling associated with WvW (though I’m asking about all scaling here).
I ask because I recently ran WvW with a friend, who surprisingly exclaimed that his character had 2265 Toughness as a scaled-up Lvl 27….far, far more than my Lvl 80 tank character, despite the fact that he is only wearing a single item with Toughness (an amulet). And it wasn’t a case of just everything being dumped into the one stat, either. His other stats were over 1.5k, 1.3k, and 1.2k.
He also tried to respec himself to Power by pumping his traits a bit, and he managed to get over 2k Power just changing those and nothing else. No gear swap or anything. Just trait adjustment.
Now, mind, my stats are very spread out right now, fair enough. And yes, up-scaling is meant to help even out the odds so a Lvl 1 can compete with a Lvl 80.
But I’m a bit curious why and how low level characters are managing to achieve such incredible stat distributions. Up-scaling is meant to even the odds statistically, I thought, not push them over Lvl 80s in terms of raw stats. He also reported to me that his stats aren’t staying constant in WvW when they should be: he dropped as low as 1.7k Toughness, for example, without leaving WvW, when his level and stats should be constant due to up-scaling.
Has anyone else experienced this sort of weirdness when it comes to scaling? I’m not sure if it’s a bug or not (thus why I’m posting here instead of the bugs forum, as I don’t really know if it IS a bug). It seems like it might be, but maybe it’s just how scaling is supposed to work. Anyone else seen this that might be able to give me more info?
Grinding is simply defined as the repetition of activity for the sake of attaining “rewards”. So, yes, anything that demands repetition would fall under that definition.
But that doesn’t mean grinding is evil or wrong. Grinding is perfectly fine, so long as it doesn’t exceed an individual person’s subjective view of what is “too much”.
In this game’s context, however, they advertise themselves as “zero grind”, which is obviously false. There is grinding in this game, some optional and some not as much. But, again, it’s not evil just because it’s there. If it’s kept to a “reasonable” amount, it’s fine.
For example, I think that dailies individually are okay. But the pricing system of laurels is a grind of sorts, in that it expects you to repeat tasks for 30-40 days to attain a single reward. I’m not fond of dungeon rewards either, in that they expect you to run 23 times to obtain a full set of gear (less than the Ascended problem, but IMO still too high).
My preference would be to cut those amounts down, so that they’re not excessively demanding on people’s time and not expecting them to log in with absurd regularity in order to obtain rewards.
I think if they gave a more clear picture as to what was going on, yes, they’d be in a better position.
See, for example, when they announced that they were going to blanket-nerf AoE. Player reaction was largely negative, and they pulled back, saying they’d evaluate on a case-by-case basis instead. That was a quick and easy dialogue between players and devs, and it prevented what might have been a disastrous patch from occurring.
That’s one step forward. Now they need to start giving more details. They obviously can’t tell us everything, but players should be given enough detail that they can adequately judge the pluses and minuses before it rolls, that way they can give prompt feedback that can help the devs before new content comes out.
So, it is your intention to suggest that, without super-loot from these boss events, many players will leave the game?
I’m not going to retype it all because I already addressed the concern in your question here:
No, you gave your assurances that it won’t affect the game that much, because everyone is like you and would be perfectly happy playing events that don’t reward them.
And I’m giving my assurances that it will devastate the game world in terms of participation. Yes, people will always do events regardless, but the number of people like yourself are significantly smaller than the number of people who run events for the sake of getting some form of rewards.
Not everyone will run events in the game world simply because they are good natured people who want to help those poor pixels out of their plight. Some people actually like getting something for their troubles.
Due to a lack of numerical evidence on either side, the logical way to deal with this is to stick with the “null hypothesis”, i.e. the existing model. You don’t change something unless there’s a statistically valid reason to do so and the drawbacks are mitigated. You haven’t shown that there’s a statistically valid reason to make this change, or how the drawbacks will be mitigated. In fact, you’re counting on those drawbacks to take place, so that the game’s population will be significantly smaller, which in your mind “solves the problem”.
And any change which considers a lower game population to be a positive is probably not a good design choice.
It’s anecdotal but also a symptom of a problem.
Guild missions are simply not catered for small groups of friends who decided to make a guild. They’re designed for large guilds. And that’s a potential problem in the long-term, because they are the only efficient way of obtaining certain Ascended items.
This problem is easily solved if they just balance the costs of Ascended gear and make it available in more places. Then people don’t feel “forced” to run with large guilds just to obtain optimal stats.
If by “most” you mean “more than half”, then sure.. probably. That is actually the goal, which.. apparently will work, according to you. I think I’ve been pretty open about suggesting there are simply too many players attending these events right now.
Ah, so your intention is to drive as many players away from the game as possible by making events less rewarding in a game where events are already poorly rewarded?
Okay, glad we’ve established that.
When you put it like that, it’s hard for me to argue. Mostly because it’s clear that arguing is a waste of time.
No, what you’re finding “fun” there is the reward, not the event. We could replace these boss events with me standing around handing a rare out to anyone that comes by and whispers me a joke, and you’d call that “fun” because you’re only there for the reward handout, not the experience. That’s the problem.
Ah yes, you instantly assume that I’m talking out of a selfish stance of “don’t take my loot”, rather than just pointing out how absurd your proposal is.
You know what they say about assumptions.
Holy over-exaggeration. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but 99% of the events in this game do not offer you a chest reward at the end and are continually participated in regardless. And yet the world keeps on spinning..! Where is your “death of most open-world events”?
You may have noticed that many events which spawn champion mobs, or which spawn a large number of mobs that aren’t killable with just a few people, don’t tend to get completed nearly as often.
There’s a reason for that. Time investment not being worthwhile is a factor in whether or not an event gets completed frequently. If you drain all of the rewards from open-world events, you will kill most people’s motivation to run them.
But of course, you’ll deny this, saying that you’ve never seen much trouble with this. And yet there are tons of other anecdotes in this same thread who disagree with you. So I wager that they’re not all wrong and that you’re the only person here who is correct. Whaddya think?
No, you don’t find it fun. There are people out there who find it fun to play an event primarily for its rewards.
What you are proposing is nothing less than the death of most open-world events, because instead of rewarding players for trying to run content (as any good game does), you are punishing them for not doing it. That doesn’t encourage people to play, it encourages them to find a new game.
And while you may be thinking “fine, screw those people”, I imagine that “those people” significantly outnumber you. If we’re aiming to please the players as a majority, that means you lose that debate regardless. Maybe you are the one who needs to find another game, not everybody else.
You’re being a bit dramatic. You describe a game where nobody is completing events, and yet thousands of events are completed across these servers every day, and the only reward for them is a little coin, a little XP, and a little karma.
Yes, and there are also thousands of events that are completely ignored and left stuck in their existing status for days and days because people don’t want to run them, because they aren’t rewarding.
Your proposal wouldn’t make world bosses fun, they’d make them frustrating, and we’d end up with servers where world bosses stay up for days because no one wants to fight a creature that takes several minutes and drops nothing for your time or trouble.
You have also apparently never been to Orr, where parts of the zone shut down based on the status of events. And yet the world keeps on spinning..!
You’re the one who needs to visit Orr more often. On many servers, the temples remain locked for the majority of the game’s run time, until larger guilds come along to unlock the temples. I’ve done quick skims of Orr every time I’ve played and there is always at least two temples locked down on a regular basis, if not all of them. And my server isn’t a small server.
So you want to make these events disrupt the map to such a significant effect as to make things extremely inconvenient for everybody playing the game….but you also want to remove all of the loot from these events so that people don’t feel even slightly inspired to bother doing them?
You basically want to force people to do the events or suffer the consequences, rather than doing them for the enjoyment or loot?
I….honestly have no idea what to say to this, so I’ll simply make one point:
You do realize that the primary reason most people don’t kill event-spawned Champion mobs in the world’s many maps is because they provide almost no valuable loot, right? May want to consider that before you suggest removing ALL open-world content loot from EVERY area in the game.
You are basically suggesting the death of all open-world event running.
Ya if you cant avoid something then its going to always be there.
When you say “And it’s worth noting that MMOs don’t actually have to include grinding.” other being a very confusing statement (no not never soo many negative) makes it seem like your saying mmorpgs do not need grinds of any type.
I did state that avoiding all grinding is impossible. It can always be mitigated, not removed.
But developers want to pad their content length, too, so they tend to leave some grind in there. MMOs have a high tendency to
When you say" They do it because it’s the cheapest method of long-term player retention available." show that there are other method that is not so cheap i would love to know these.
One option would be to dedicate several members of your development team to providing full-time content releases on a very frequent and regular basis. Some smaller companies utilize this sort of model, pushing out weekly releases (instead of monthly ones) in an effort to maintain higher retention levels. Bigger groups like ANet would have trouble doing this, though, because it’s not cost-efficient.
And there are others, too, but I’m not going to go in-depth any further since I’ve already had multiple posts deleted for being “off-topic” when I was merely responding to other users’ posts.
Suffice it to say that grind is not the only way to keep people playing your game.
They need to let you store character builds like you could in GW1.
But making it a gem-based thing would be absolutely ridiculous when many of GW2’s closest competitors allow you to re-spec for in-game currency.
And your the one who said that you could not have an mmorpgs with out a grind. so i am not sure why your flipping your views. We had a long argument about this. Any way RPG do have a grind in them all of them do if just simply leveling up that is a type of grind.
No, I said they couldn’t avoid all grind.
Not that they can’t possibly minimize it.
If you read my post, you’d note that I said this:
If an MMO were to come out that had very little grinding in it, it wouldn’t get shunned by its peers and be cast out of the MMORPG “club”.
Note the choice words: “very little”, not “none”.
I don’t think you’re even trying to read my posts correctly at this point, because I know I’ve said this at least three times now.
The thing is this game GW2 is the lowest grind mmorpg to date maybe you do not like mmorpgs?
RPG does not stand for “Really Powerful Grind”, you know. It stands for “Role Playing Game”.
Contrary to popular belief, some people buy RPGs for the atmosphere, the experience (no, not the stat), and the escapism. Not everyone who plays an RPG does it because they want gear to chase after.
And it’s worth noting that MMOs don’t actually have to include grinding. They do it because it’s the cheapest method of long-term player retention available. But it’s hardly a mandate. If an MMO were to come out that had very little grinding in it, it wouldn’t get shunned by its peers and be cast out of the MMORPG “club”.
Grinding is not a required facet of MMOs. It’s just a cheap and easy way to keep people busy, which is why they do it.
-snip-
So your complaint boils down to:
1) It’s not a skin (even though it is)
2) It doesn’t look pretty (which doesn’t really matter)
I’m not sure you’ve thought this through.
You provided a hypothetical set of conditions, you’ve not evidence that they’ve been met (and have stated you don’t meet them).
And I already told you, there is someone who expressed this same complaint about two days ago.
You want individual cases so badly, you go digging for them. I’m not going to humor this line of thought that, because you haven’t actually SEEN someone complain about this, that obviously no such person exists.
See the way you twist reward there is beautiful, like twisting laurels from earnable currency to an entitlement that you miss out on if you can’t log in and play – completely back to front logic and BRILLIANTLY presented. You’ve managed to take a short list of crap you’d do anyway (more or less) and turn it into the biggest chore list the internet has ever seen, shown the petulance to complain about having to do the chores to get desert, and then moved that it should be repeatable ad naseum.
No, you’re twisting my words. Again. I never said a single thing about “entitlements”. No one is entitled to free laurels.
But players who dedicate the same amount of time to a game and perform essentially the same activities deserve the same opportunity for rewards. And time gating prevents that.
You’re trying very hard to distract from this core issue and question my moral fibre without actually addressing the problem (as my prior question remains unanswered). If that’s not trolling, then I question why you’re even bothering to post here, because you certainly aren’t trying to have a genuine discussion.
The scary thing is how common this whole “I don’t have to earn, its a game” attitude is folks – its an MMO and you’ve entered into a social contract of sorts, do y’all know what that means?
Already dismissed this ridiculous twisted logic earlier, so I won’t do it again.
Degeneration of your “mature converstations” may indicate communications issues with a common variable, dismissing me as a troll would be a nice completion to this one with a nice touch of faux symmetry…
You are a troll. You’re not actually answering any of the questions I’ve asked you directly (most likely because you have no interest in actually having the discussion to begin with), you’re twisting my words to say things I never said, and you’re questioning my integrity instead of providing any discussion of merit.
The only “common variable” here is that every single person left in this forums who defends the dev team is incapable of actually answering direct criticisms of the game’s mechanics without heavy use of straw-man and ad hominem. The game can’t possibly be at fault for any mistakes, you claim, it’s all of these nasty entitled haters who dare to expect adequate rewards in accordance with their time investments who are detracting from this perfect game. And all I can say to that is….fine, you can stay in your bubble. I’m not going to invest further time in trying to explain something in detail when you’re simply shrugging it off without actually replying to it.
I see no value in this ‘discussion’ any longer. I’ve attempted to engage you in an intelligent debate, and you’ve dodged every question I’ve asked and taken every opportunity to insult my person. You’re a waste of my time.
(edited by critickitten.1498)
Agony mechanic is pretty dopey, keep it locked in the fractals and let tier 1 of the verticle gear ladder be a lesson in how not to implement it.
No disagreement here.
I just don’t know if the devs will end up thinking the same way. They went through the trouble of creating a brand new special dynamically scaling condition just for this dungeon….so it would strike me as odd if they only intended to use it in the Fractals and never anywhere else. Doesn’t seem like a good use of resources.
I understood that as “no additional tier in 2013”, sorry.
Will indeed be interesting to see how they plan on making vertical progression work…
You didn’t hear wrong, it’s just that they’ve made two separate claims.
I’m referring to a claim they made back in November after the Lost Shores patch drove many people away from the game.
So to the question of vertical progression. So as we know there is already vertical progression in the game and we do intend to keep moving forward with this philosophy. However we have no intention of adding a new Rarity of Gear such as Ascended. Instead and as we evolve the game existing Rarity’s will evolve over time. However these will not be common occurrences, for example full Ascended gear will be introduced over a long period of time and will be earn able through lots of different parts/activities of the game. We had intended for example for the first release of acsended items come from other parts of the game but sadly it did not work out this way. Moving forward this is how it will work however.
Though as I went back and read it again, I noticed this one on the same page:
We do not intend to deploy another tier/rarity of loot such as Rare>Exotic. However we also do not intend to make promises that can be misinterpreted moving forward.
So perhaps I’m mistaken and they really will introduce another tier after Ascended. This second quote does appear to be trying to leave that door open.
So you aren’t here to save the game, not to save a player, you are really just “sensitive” to the fact there is a niche imbalance in the game mechanics that could potentially screw someone over, that doesn’t affect you and that you’ve failed to evidence actually affects anyone.
I established how it could screw someone over in this thread at least a page ago. You’re not paying very good attention.
And there was another thread posted in this same forum no less than two days ago discussing this same topic. If you’re so desperate to find someone who is affected by this, go digging. I’m not obligated to go locate individual people for you. >_>
Time gating is your reversed wording for what is actually rewarding regularity, but since that doesn’t affect you really and you have all the time in the world to play, I can only assume you’re angling towards an abusable grindable system….
No, time gating refers to the notion that a player is only rewarded X times per day for their decision to repeat an activity they enjoy.
I see no point in punishing a farmer if they enjoy farming. I find it boring, but more power to ’em if they can find enjoyment in something so menial.
Which onto the final part – you have touted that effective grinding is possible but hindered by DR, time gating and concurrently noted you want more loot for your time in game.
No, I have stated that the game produces an environment which restricts grinding through use of time gating while also forcing players to grind in order to obtain certain types of gear.
In other words, the devs can’t seem to decide if they want us to grind or not. Because they have introduced gear that has a grind to it, and then severely restricted people’s ability to grind for it.
Looks like a duck and quacks mate – 9/10.
Looks like you need to work on your English to me. If you think I’m complaining about time gating because I have this innate urge to create an abusable farming system, then you’ve completely and utterly failed at every single attempt you’ve made to interpret any of my statements.
I’ll give you one last chance before I just ignore you, because I’ve been hoping that you might produce some form of reasonable discussion. But it seems that you, too, are only here to troll. I’m genuinely disappointed. But this is why I don’t bother having “mature discussions” any more and just complain loudly. Folks like yourself demand civility and constructive dialogue, but you don’t actually want it, you just want the complaints to go away.
(edited by critickitten.1498)
I am curious if there would be quite so many people defending the present state of Ascended gear if the Agony mechanic was implemented across the game world, instead of only in the Fractals.
That’s not to say the OP is rationalized. He’s not. He’s nuts. But I am legitimately curious if people would be quite so defensive of the poor implementation of Ascended gear at present if it were needed everywhere, instead of just the Fractals. I suspect there would be much more disagreement in this thread if that were true.
And I do actually expect to see Agony elsewhere eventually. I have a feeling they won’t keep it confined to the Fractals. It just seems wasteful for that to be the only place it’s used in.
To be fair, the devs have claimed that they would not introduce a new tier beyond Ascended.
However, they still said that the game will continue with vertical progression. Ergo they will apparently be looking for ways to keep you going after new gear without actually making a new tier of gear. Raising the level cap is perhaps the easiest way to do that, but I don’t expect that to occur until their first expansion. So I’m rather curious how they intend to make this work.
But it doesn not impact on you so…
So what?
I don’t understand why anyone would think that you’re not allowed to have a stance on something that doesn’t affect you. Especially on the internet of all places.
You are carrying the cause of others – being the White Knight bro.
No, it’s not. That implies a connotation that isn’t present here.
You need to look that term up before you use it again.
Still comes a point in every venture where the return for the investment (of time or other) just isn’t worth it, and attempting to push beyond that point impacts on the rest of the venture, in this case it is you minority of binge-only-casual-end-gamers.
How does removing time gating negatively impact the rest of the playerbase?
I’ve yet to see anyone explain that, so let’s hear it.
You’ve discussed “grinding” and DR greatly, always negatively – so you’re saying this is NOT able to be summarised as “not effective”?
I’ll ask one final time before I dismiss this as merely an attempt at twisting my words into a context that I clearly didn’t use them in: Where did I make the claim that ANet had created a game where the grinding was “not effective”? Give me a quote.
I have said that the grinding is too great, certainly. And it is, considering that the developers continue to insist that the game has zero grind.
I’ve said that the grinding is rather poorly designed in some places and could be supplemented or complemented with genuine story content and skill-based challenges.
But I don’t believe I’ve ever made the claim that the game is ineffective at creating a grinding environment. I’ve said only the opposite, if anything.
So just a Noble White Knight – out to fend off the developers and stick one to the makers of this product you love for the little guy who doesn’t even understand how he’s screwed, gotcha.
Not at all. Don’t twist what I said, I don’t find it amusing.
I’m simply speaking out about an issue that I feel negatively affects other players who have expressed these very same complaints in this forum before. The problem didn’t even occur to me until someone else complained about it. But once they explained their point of view, I couldn’t help but agree that what they were saying was, in fact, a pretty legitimate issue.
“White knighting” has nothing to do with it. If someone makes a convincing case for why something is a problem, one that I can’t honestly refute, then yeah, I’m probably gonna end up agreeing and back them up on that stance. Because that’s what a sensible, rational human being does.
No the other context.
One noisy kid without much clue can take up such a large chunk of your time and energy (should you let them) proportionate to how much that one person actually matters, it could affect better souls – I mean really its just one unemployed mouth to feed (in the future of course).
Except that in this particular case, the noisy kid is only being noisy because he honestly feels slighted and that he’s not being treated fairly, not because he’s a genuinely bad person who wants to hurt the rest of the class.
Post don’t exist in a vacuum from one thread to the next and within them your points are quite mutable and there is little that hasn’t been said, but will concede that I should have said “effectively grindable” game.
Still not seeing a quote of where I said that….so….got one available?
I can’t respond if you’re simply going to say that I said “X” and I can’t even view the quote so I can recall the context in which I was speaking.
They are not punishing Binge players by catering towards anyone, that is just a victimised way of saying that some people get left out – well you cannot cater towards everyone, and of course you (as one of the vast minority who’s life doesn’t mesh with the game mechanics) are upset mate.
Actually I have time to play every day. So this doesn’t affect me. Doesn’t mean I’m not sensitive to the issue, however.
Teaching and training are different (just sayin’), but in either regard you would have experience with diminishing returns – you can spend a lifetime of resources on one lost cause student and gain basically nothing… put that into context.
Yes, but I’m not limited to only getting one chance per day to teach content to my students.
I can’t see how you can remain straight-faced (so to speak) while saying Anet failed to create a casual friendly game, Anet failed to make a grindable game, Anet failed to make a game without excessive grind, and that Anet has failed to reward adequately for grinding all in parallel.
If you can reconcile that for us it would be great,
I’m curious as to where I claimed all of those things, because it wasn’t here.
They did create a game that isn’t casual-friendly and has an excessive amount of grind, that much I have said many times in the past. They have indeed failed to adequately reward players for their efforts, choosing instead to time-gate so as to artificially lock the content for hardcore players and make it more difficult to access for casuals. But I don’t recall when I claimed that they failed to make a grindable game.
That is right, some people have duty weekends, some people fly in and out – but you have to tailor your passtimes to suit your lifestyle mate – can’t expect Anet to help out there, so they reward those who can only spare an hour or two here and there to play. Those who can only binge play (as you seem to be stuck with) are lower on the representation – so get screwed for the sake of the vast majority.
And therein lies the problem.
They’re punishing those who “binge” by trying to cater to those who play a little bit every day. Okay, fair enough, but why punish anyone? Why have time-gating if you want to try and reward everyone’s play time?
The answer, of course, is that they’re adding time gates to prevent farming. And that is a discouraging thought: that they find it more important to punish people who find grinding fun (I don’t, but I don’t feel it’s fair to punish those who do) than to reward their playerbase.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from teaching, it’s that negative reinforcement doesn’t provide nearly the same level of encouragement and overall drive as positive reinforcement. Instead of time gating and thus punishing people who can’t meet daily schedules, just focus on making a large variety of your content equally rewarding, and people will naturally start to gravitate towards the content they have the most fun playing.
No really it is a casual friendly game (at least RIGHT NOW) based on the fact there is no gear gating and its pretty easy for the most part, you state those elsewhere, so that makes it VERY appealing to casual players…
Which is true. However, that alone doesn’t make it casual-friendly.
A game that is casual-friendly allows players of very diverse schedules to all feel adequately rewarded for their time investment. Time gating prevents that from happening.
-snip-
That’s much better!
Your points are mostly correct and fair enough. I don’t object to the notion that the statistical increase isn’t game-breaking. I simply object to the notion that it’s “meaningless”.
Also, one problem:
Monsters cannot be “tanked” in the traditional sense of MMO’s. This is an important fact, as everybody in the group in Guild Wars 2 needs to put effort to survive. Thus, they cannot stand stationary in a predetermined spot to increase their DPS as much as possible. (They could, but with poor results in their HP)
My Guardian isn’t even fully dedicated to tank stats yet, and yet is perfectly capable of tanking any veteran, and quite a few champion mobs.
Yes, without moving.
But that’s more a testament to the fact that Guardian is pretty horrendously broken.
Let me dig out some surveys of working gamers from one of my previous lives, most well balanced working people would see binge gaming all weekend as less attactive than a few hours a few times a week. Some very big games you may not play used the results to create (wait for it) structured daily reward programs.
Not everyone works a 9-to-5 job. Some people have restricted internet access hours by virtue of the jobs they work.
And while it’s easy enough to say “well, tough for them”, I’d prefer if there were a way to ensure that they’re still being given a fair shake.
The few hours a night player cannot engage in activities that require as much sustained involvement as the binger, therefore binger has potential to gain rewards from sustained activities which often also reward better.
Not any more, since much of the game’s best rewarded content is time-gated to once per day.
If not for February’s patch, I might agree with you there to some degree. But now? Nope.
Also fixed something for you…
The original statement was correct. A casual player cannot always play every single day. A game which punishes them for that is not casual-friendly.
I’d be happy to agree with you about the subjectivity of other things I’ve said, but this isn’t one of them.
I missed the part where I said you hate the game. You are mad about it though – we can all see your post history. In fact, you’re so argumentative and upset about stuff all the time, that yours is one of a few forum names I know from memory because of it. I look over your post history and I can’t say I agree with much, if any, of it.
That’s fine. I don’t demand that anyone agree with me.
Only that they actually show respect for my point of view. Which you haven’t demonstrated. So you can expect me to hold your opinion in precisely the same level of regard as you have with mine.
Anyways – I’m gonna go enjoy the process of getting some more ascended gear. You all have fun arguing. Go ahead and have the last word, cause I’m gonna go play.
I already finished my daily as of this post. I’ve been playing for about two hours now, because (imagine this) I can actually multi-task.
It’s awfully cute that you’re implying that I spend so much time on these forums that I can’t possibly play the game with any regularity, but unfortunately for you, you’re wrong about that, as well.
Keep your snide remarks to yourself next time, or save it for PM. I’m looking for a reasonable debate, and you’re clearly not capable of providing it. So please, next time just keep it to yourself. Thanks!
Stop pretending like it matters.
It does. I’ve shown that the difference is statistically significant.
You, on the other hand, have yet to prove how it doesn’t, beyond your own assertions that it doesn’t.
In any sort of formal debate, the guy who actually has numbers tends to be the one who “wins”. So you may wish to provide some actual evidence to back your claims now, if you please.
You can’t argue with this guy, Aristio.
Well, he can’t, but that’s because he can’t put together a coherent and evidence-backed argument.
I’ll be happy to yield to someone who can actually prove me wrong or at least come up with a good concrete counter-argument, but so far, I haven’t seen many people like that.
He’s determined to be upset about the game, and insists on doing it all over the forums. I personally find it hilarious the way people think they have been betrayed/lied to/bait and switched with this game. You just have to hope that these sorts will eventually wear themselves out or go back to the GW1 they love so much.
Yeah, I’m totally determined to be mad about the game that I still play on a regular basis. Because I hate it so much that I dedicate hours of my time to it every single day and….oh. Wait. That’s a preposterous argument, isn’t it? Whoops.
I do wish that people such as yourself would actually stop and think for a moment about why I’m complaining so much. Because if I was complaining simply because I hated the game, I would have just left the game months ago.
(edited by critickitten.1498)
I’m pretty sure that was the intention because it’s coming from me.
Again, 13% still won’t matter in my opinion.
I do wish you’d just add this yourself instead of me having to keep correcting you.
Again, I don’t mind if you assert that you believe 13% will not matter in the subjective sense of a battle. But it is subjective. Your opinion.
Stop pretending that it’s fact.
It’s not a problem and never will be. 13% is not something to care about in a game like this in my opinion.
Fixed it for you.
Because there is more to gaming than pure time investment – skill and guild management for instance, that and you find games that reward casual play while concurrently opening doors for the elite/hardcore/whatever succeed.
I could also suggest it is promoting healthier gameplay by rewarding moderation over binging…
To many people, “binging” is the only option, as they have jobs that prevent them from obtaining regular access to the computer.
I don’t feel that it’s particularly fair to say that they don’t “deserve” the same rewards as someone else who puts in the same amount of time but spreads it out across more days.
It’s certainly not creating a “casual-friendly” game.
There’s a reason why people laugh at real-life comparisons. Because they’re extremes and really silly to compare it to. You’re comparing a slight increase in power in a video game, to a major life-changing event. Get over it.
The logic is identical.
You don’t think something is a problem now, while it can still be mitigated, but then you want to maintain the right to complain if it becomes a problem later, after it’s much too late to fix.
I understand that perhaps you do not see any problem with a total lack of foresight, but at least comprehend the fact that some of us like to try and fix problems before they become too serious to ignore.
13% still is meaningless.
Then go into work tomorrow and tell your boss that you’re okay with a 13% pay cut, because after all, it’s completely meaningless.
Yes, that’s another real life comparison. Guess you’ll just have to “get over it”.
People play these games to grow characters, I don’t know why you would want to stop developing your characters for their life…
Er, what?
I play these games to have fun. Something which I generally am not having when I’m having to pursue higher stats at all times.
This is something GW1 did spectacularly well, and something many people expected to return in GW2.
I hate this mentality that it’s only possible to “progress” if you’re chasing after gear.
So to summarise – some people will get things faster than others, and that is difficult for some players to pallet.
Wrong.
There are several problems being expressed, and that has never been one of them. Please listen to what people are saying and don’t distort it to suit your argument.
It seems like some assume that time=reward, we input more into this game than just time (well assuming one is not faceroll grinding watching TV).
Why shouldn’t time = reward?
If a player puts in 10 hours all in one day, and another player puts in 1 hour across ten days, why is the second player getting ten times the reward?
Once they do, get back to me.
In the mean time, it’s insignificant.
No, it’s a little over 3% right now, not including the earrings. Once I have done the math for those, I’ll let you know how much it is now.
I do appreciate the hilarity of this comment, though.
“My house is going to be hit by a major storm tomorrow. But it’s not today, so I see no reason to prepare for it in advance.”
I agree i play other games that give way more then 13% stat boosts and as a result i see 13% as a fly. plus its just accessories, which of course give the weakest boosts, the stuff is nothing currently. but i wont lie and say that once they add full sets THEN it will be significant and absurd.
It’s 13% after all of the gear is introduced.
And that’s only for damage. That doesn’t consider defense (which, at the very least, increases by 5%).
Also, it assumes only a 5% boost, when in fact the devs stated that the power difference per item would be between 5% and 10%.
I re-watched the manifesto recently. They never say “no grinding”
You are correct. They never explicitly stated that the game would have no grinding in that Manifesto video.
They did, however, claim back in November (after the tremendous backlash of Ascended gear) that they would actively pursue a “zero grind” game.
I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.
So even though the Manifesto doesn’t make that claim, the developers still did promise a “zero grind” game. So players are right to point out that they’re not living up to that advertisement, though I would say it’s unfair to expect absolutely no grind at all.
But back to the original point: the reason people keep waving around the Manifesto is because of this statement:
“Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world.”
One of the things that many people loved about GW1 was its emphasis on horizontal progression and not having to grind for stats. Yet somehow, the devs interpreted that as “everyone loves vertical progression”.
Clearly, something got lost in translation.
A 5% increase to every single piece of armor, weapon, and trinket available gives player wearing full Ascended Berserker gear 13% more damage than someone who has Exotic Berserker gear.
Please, stop pretending that the difference in stats isn’t significant.
You’re welcome to believe that differences in skill will help make up for that gap. And I’ll agree with you to some extent, because it’s a fair point. I’ll even go so far as to say that you don’t have to be decked in full Exotic gear, much less full Ascended, at this point in the game. Again, fair point.
But let’s stop fabricating this fantasy that there isn’t a statistically significant difference between full Ascended gear and full Exotic gear. Because there is. It’s an undeniable mathematical fact.
I don’t see a problem with this, primarily because it’s horizontal progression. Yes, it’s a massive grind, but it doesn’t grant you so much as one lick of power more than any other exotic.
It’s why I also don’t have a problem with the grind for “legendaries”, though I do think that the grind absolutely should be complemented with an actual story and some skill challenges in between.
Ascended are the only grind that I have a legitimate problem with, on the grounds that it’s a symbol of vertical progression (something even the devs admit) and that it’s apparently only the first of many future jumps in power.
No its right you seen grind every where so you cant see means of countering it.
No, you’re not right. Go back and read my post again.
This is the absolute last time I will reiterate this, so burn it into your retinas because I won’t repeat myself a fourth time:
I don’t hold it against the staff that the game has “zero grind” because, as I acknowledged, I don’t think it’s possible to get rid of all grind. However, when they are claiming to be pursuing a game that has “zero grind”, creating new content that actually increases the amount of grinding required by players is a blatant violation of the promise they made back in November to pursue a zero-grind game.
Until you start reading my posts, there’s no reason for you to even bother trying to have a debate with me. Because if there’s one thing that infuriates me more than anything else, it’s when someone who is debating with me blatantly lies about what I’ve said in an attempt to spin it for their own gain. Dishonesty is not a respectable quality, and I won’t engage with those who perpetuate it. It’s a waste of my time and theirs.
(edited by critickitten.1498)
Just what you posted for me:
I am saying YOU see every thing as a grind so your views are going to always be one way and looking at things in such a way for you to call them out on saying there is no grind is wrong.
Read what you quoted again.
It doesn’t say what you think it says.
Irrelevant. As I’ve already explained progression doesn’t go to infinity, therefore being behind by 60ish laurels doesn’t matter.
Everyone will hit the ceiling in gear obtainable by laurels at a fixed point so being ahead is irrelevant when it comes to “catching up”.
And as I’ve already said, you’re wrong. Progression will continue beyond Ascended. Ascended was stated as the beginning of their “initiative”, and the devs have openly said that they will continue with vertical progression moving forward. Ergo, there is no “end” to the progression curve until they change their minds on that policy. So, simply put, you are incorrect, and the devs have said as much.
Well see if you believe that but then you call them on it your kind of being a hypocrite. See the idea is that they are not making a grind game but you call it a grind game but your wrong. To call things like once a day only events as a grind is simply untrue therefor they are not doing wrong with what they are saying.
I am saying your problem IS that you see every actively as a grind you kind of proved my point.
Everything is a grind. I’m not sure why this is confusing for you.
Grind is repetition of content. There is no way that you can claim that performing a certain number of tasks every single day for 30 days is not repetition. Ergo, it is a grind by definition.
Now the grind may not bother you personally (thus why you claim that it isn’t a grind), but by the actual definition of the term, it most certainly is. So let’s stop trying to argue semantics here, because the definition of “grind” in the dictionary and every other major source is quite clear, and it doesn’t agree with your chosen definition.
As I said, they promised a no-grind game. Yes, that was a dumb promise and I do not think it’s fair to say “this is a grind” when it’s virtually impossible to create lasting content without some form of grind.
However, when they claim to be creating a no-grind game, continuing to release new content that actively increases the amount of grinding a player must do in order to achieve the new item? That is 100% against what they promised, and yes, they deserve to be called on that.
It leaves an especially bad taste in my mouth this time around because the devs are quoted as saying that they purposely overpriced the items specifically to encourage players to run guild missions for the new items instead. That’s wrong, and it violates their promise of a game that can be “played the way you want”.
So in summation: Yes, they are breaking promises. And yes, they should be called out on it. I appreciate that you don’t agree, but it’s very clear that what they are doing here doesn’t match up with the promises they’ve made in the past.
If you can’t even muster the 30-40 minutes on average daily to do your daily then this game is not for you. That’s the bottom line.
“You don’t play the same way I do, therefore this game is not for you.”
Again, the developers disagree with you. They did claim that this game would allow people to “play the way they want to”.
So, sorry, but your arguments are being dismissed by the developers’ own list of prior comments and promises.
It’s nice to know that our fundamental disagreement hinges on this point, though. You apparently believe that someone who cannot log into the game 30-40 minutes per day is “lazy”. I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on that, because I think that’s a ludicrous point of view.
Yes yes.
Or you could consider whether your “suggestion” remotely considers outliers who are often the ones that topples a system. If proving anything to you, means spoonfeeding you, then by all means just remain complacent and assume you are correct.
Be happy with it.
This is the defense of someone who doesn’t have any other defense left, much less a counter-proposal.
“I refuse to tell you what’s wrong with your idea. I don’t feel the need to explain myself, I expect you to work it out for yourself.”
No. If you try that in any formal debate, you are guaranteed to lose that debate, because this isn’t a valid defense. It’s being obstinate. It’s saying “I don’t have an idea of my own, I’m just refusing to accept yours”.
You called out everyone in this thread, demanding a proposal from these supposedly “unreasonable” people. I have provided you with one that is entirely reasonable given the way the game is designed, and you are refuting it as a bad system while refusing to explain why. That, to me, tells me that you didn’t actually expect someone to call you out, and now that your argument has been utterly derailed, you’re trying to salvage it as best you can. You initiated this discussion, and now you will need to defend your statements with valid evidence.
So I’ll ask once again, and this will be the final time.
Provide evidence that the system is a flawed one. Or at the very least, offer a counter-proposal. Otherwise we will operate under the presumption that you don’t actually have either one, and that you’re merely being obstinate because you stubbornly refuse to accept that there is a problem with the existing model.
I rest my case with you.
As for the other poster who said that FOTM run durations wouldn’t make it viable. In a sense that true. But. If we were to go by that silly proposal’s numbers and then you factor in the number of veteran/champion/etc mobs in an FOTM, and you’d ALSO be able to exit/enter to roll for a specific fractal, and calculate in terms of guaranteed drops per minute, it’s pretty phenomenal. You don’t have to complete the whole thing. You just need to choose a specific portion clear it and exit.
How would you also balance the loots in 1-9. 10-19. 20-29 etc. ?
I wouldn’t give credit to try to prove a half baked proposal.
Farmers will always find a way.
So you have no actual proof that the proposal is bad, you just wanted someone to make a proposal so that you could be like “Look! See how absurd and unreasonable these farmers are?!?” even though the proposal is perfectly reasonable and wouldn’t break anything.
Okay, glad we’ve established that you have no argument to stand on.
I have giving you points and reason if you chair to post if they are wrong or right. Would you call WoW a grind? Would you call FF11 a grind would you could COD a grind would you call EQ1 a grind would you call any rpg a grind would you call any thing in life that takes some level of skill (meaning you MUST do it over and over to get good at it) a grind?
Yes, on all counts. Grind is repetition.
It’s never a question of “is there grind or not” because there is always grind in everything you do. What matters is how meaningful the grind feels to you, and whether or not you feel adequately rewarded in exchange for that grind.
Which is why I said that their promise was a bad one to make. There’s no way they can make a zero grind game. Which is something I specifically pointed out.
However, that should not stop them from trying to reduce the existing grind in GW2, which is clearly not what they’re doing. In fact, they’re only introducing even more content that is even more difficult to grind for. Ergo, yes, this is a violation of that “promise” to provide a game with no grind. Yeah, it was a dumb promise to make, but they made it to reassure players that November would never happen again, and now they’re breaking it. It’s their own fault if they’re being called out on it.
Bad attempts at semantically breaking the thread need to move over and let the big kids argue…
Grind does not mean simple repitition, Grind specifically refers to content padding by leaving gaps within content that can only be reasonably approached by low-reward repeated behaviours.
No, it doesn’t.
Grind specifically refers to the repetition of a particular activity in order to achieve a desired effect or reward.
Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games. The most common usage is in the context of MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft, Tibia, or Lineage in which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over again to advance their character level to be able to access newer content. MUDs, generally sharing much of the same gameplay as MMORPGs, encounter the same problem. Grinding may be required by some games to unlock additional features.
Please try to be less condescending to others, especially when you’re wrong. Thank you!
Totally irrelevant and wrong.
What you call “time gating” is basically natural game progression.
You said:
“time gating is actually making it impossible for new players to get to where old players are no matter how much they play.”There’s absolutely no substantiation for that statement because you yourself admit that it takes QUANTIFIABLE time for a player to get to where the old players are.
Therefore new players CAN get to where old players are.
Person who has been playing since the introduction of laurels could have as many as 56-57 laurels right now.
Person who joins the game right now will always be behind that other player by 56-57 laurels unless the other player oesn’t play for at least 46-47 days, and/or repeatedly skips his monthlies.
Time gating makes it impossible for new players to ever catch the older, more consistent players who log in daily. You are certifiably wrong in your claims that a newer player can “always catch up”.
But that is NOT the case here, since there is a ceiling to which you can achieve in terms of gear and progression.
Also wrong, as the developers have expressly stated that Ascended items are only the beginning of their “initiative” to provide vertical progression in this game. There will always be more new gear to go after.
(edited by critickitten.1498)
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