Guild Wars 2

While leveling, it’s fun to play in areas 5-8 levels higher than your character – this would provide some challenge.

Once you’re at 80 though, the only challenges are champs – and these often come down to whether or not you understand how to exploit a certain mechanic like dodging or not.

In other words, even champs aren’t hard in the sense that they have a diverse number of attacks and skills and strategies – they are really hard in the sense that they have extremely large health pools, immune to cc, and 1-shot attacks. Once you figure out the particular exploit needed to kill it, it’s not hard as much as it’s a test of endurance/patience (as in it takes a lot of time, you have to have a precise skill rotation, etc.)

I personally don’t like soloing champs for this reason, but I can see how the challenge is appealing – I might try champ hunting for a while if nothing else happens soon.

Mazdan.2071:

I’ve played since launch, and the gameplay keeps me coming back. One piece of advice I can give is, try downgrading your gear if you want pve challenge. I recently did this and it was almost a new experience pve wise.

I felt a strong need to quest and downgrading my gear made the quests more challenging and actually fun. Even dungeons are fresher this way. My good (ascended/exotic) gear is in the bank for wvw but I may continue to run this way.

I would prefer they just designed enemies with more interesting mechanics.

Ashen.2907:

It would take tens of thousands of developers to keep up with the rate at which players can (potentially) consume content. If it takes 50-100 people to produce x in a year, how many would it take to produce x in a day?

An entire team’s work for a year, completed in one day.

If it is doable , can you name a single MMO that has released an entire expansion every day for a year ? Even one example.

Just to give one example that entirely disproves what you are saying:

One fully randomized, procedurally generated dungeon would delay all content release related problems.

Not that that is the only thing they could do – but technically, a randomized, procedurally generated dungeon would create an ‘infinite’ amount of new content – for people to play while waiting for other things, like new dungeons, new zones, etc.

FPV is almost a necessity for many jumping puzzles.

Ashen.2907:

Again, people completed Factions in a day. Took the team something on the order of a year to produce it.

Would take a payroll budget measured in the billions of dollars to keep up with them, and would lose money in the process.

I disagree.

There are many tools available to the modern game developer to speed up production of content post-launch.

My guess is that they don’t have the same size team they did pre-launch (wasn’t it like 150+ people at one point?)

Not, I imagine they have a couple dozen, if that.

They invested into a strong team to get the game off the ground – then dropped it.

This is short selling.

It’s cut n’ run.

Make a profit, then ditch the game.

If they want more money from us – they have to put out more content.

It’s that simple.

tigirius.9014:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

Cept dungeons will no longer be their focus from here on out. They announced the problems with dungeons and the maintenance of dungeons in another post, which is why the discussion of removing the rewards from dungeons and placing them firmly back into the open world where they should have been all along in the first place has come up again. You see some of you are too new and don’t recall the discussion some of the devs had prelaunch about why dungeons would not be the focus of this game, the open world originally was to be updated regularly with new open world events and new metas. When the game launched you could actually find exotics in chests you found around the world, they were randomized for this reason. You could get actual loot without grouping without magic find by killing veterans and champions alike. Just by participating in the game you were rewarded for your time. There were places to farm for Tier 6 materials and as some have said it was a very bad idea to make them more RNG and to not allow people who craft to buy these things directly from vendors instead of having crafting bags with more RNG.

I guess my point is, dungeons and rewards only focused in dungeons/WvW environments were definitely not the original focus of the title. Before Fractals and Ascended were announced people were asking why dungeons wouldn’t be the focus and put pressure on the developers to make dungeons the new focus. We’ve all seen the problems that have come about from that design choice, players denied access because they weren’t the right class, class imbalance to the degree that only certain classes can solo and sell boss kills, exploits that allowed players to get extra rewards. I think it’s high time they delivered the game most of us were spending money on because of these things being left behind originally.

I looked forward when I first bought this game, to the thought of never having to step foot into a dungeon again for anything. ( this was after experiencing years of dungeons and raids and LFG in WoW) so you can imagine the disappointment when Nov 2012 came along.

It would be cool if you could acquire dungeon skins and exotics in the open world.

Wasn’t everything originally supposed to be purchasable through karma alone?

They should just make the dungeons part of the open world (and make them bigger….)

SRoode.7318:

ipan.4356:

If enough of us leave, the game dies.

Not really. Maybe PvP and WwW, but if they could introduce a Hero System like in GW1 (or allow our alt toons to be add to our group and PC controlled), then I would be more than happy. Actually, I would probably play more dungeons and fractals then.

Sure, a Hero system would be fine.

But I’m talking about revenue drying up because people leave.

If that happens, then everyone’s kitten out of luck.

Paradox.1380:

I don’t feel voicing complaints gets ANYTHING done when its not constructive. Especially when its just whining about things you hate but NEVER any ways to improve what you don’t like. That is your problem, not mine. I don’t have to hate it. I also don’t base my opinion on the health of the game based on the minute amount of people that use the forums.

I highly doubt this game is going anywhere, so go ahead and leave. The whole forums of people could leave and I doubt there would be much of a difference actually in the game. A lot of it stems also from the fact that a large portion of people that post on the forums whining still play the game on a regular basis.

Then why do you frequent the forums?

Why do you bother to respond to these threads?

I’m using the past as indication of what happens to MMO’s – I’ve been around this block so many times before, with Warhammer Online, Rift, and lots of others.

Will GW2 end up the same? Or can it beat the odds?

My feedback amounts to this: in order to beat the odds, Anet, you have to produce a lot more NEW content.

Recycling stuff (i.e., livid story) doesn’t really count – not that it was the worst thing you could have done – it’s ok – but because it’s not enough.

More maps (entire regions).
More dungeons.
Etc.

You’ve seen my laundry list.

That’s what will keep this game in the Top 10 – maybe even Top 5.

More content, and nothing less.

1) If there is enough “fun” content – then after a while, repeating it is fun again. It’s cyclical, in other words. If current dungeons were fun, you could play through them, one at a time, and by the time you started over, you wouldn’t be completely sick of them. Current dungeon design isn’t fun. I’ve mostly just run Citadel of Flame – about a dozen times – and I’ve got precisely 1 Medium Armor Gloves from it (and about 100 more tokens above that). A dozen times doing the same thing (P1) over and over, and all I have is a single skin for the gloves. That’s it. I’ve already done this dungeon 4x more than I want to.

Now, if the dungeons were 5-10 times the size, with many, many objectives (and plenty of non-objective based exploration and side quests), then this wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

But you realize that dungeons are just 5 or so rooms, each with a handful of enemies, and sometimes some non-consequential mechanic to open the door to the next room, right?

I mean, there isn’t any actual exploration going on – you literally just move from one room to the next, the cut scenes tell you what to do……..completely linear.

I thought Diablo 3 was pretty linear, but this is even worse.

The existing dungeons need to be completely redesigned, even randomized.

2) I disagree on what developers can or cannot do – obviously. I think they are capable of far more than you, and those who agree with your pov, think they are capable of.

Another awesome idea that will go completely ignored…….

@Paradox

You are only calling people whiny because you disagree with them about what they want.

Paradox.1380:

saventis.1485:

to much much whinning i agree with

but when you say arena net is doing " everything they can" to work on living world and such just isnt true they have a few small teams i think at max 25 people (remember reading somewhere, may be different now i dont know) out of there 400 employees

the staff to content ratio just dosnt make sense.
from what we have heard they are all split into teams to do with there content
i dont know about you but i havnt seen much from the dungeon team or even much change in the world events (which were originally supposed to change from day to day) I still have hope that theres something better because i love the universe of this game and the play style
but theres just not enough content to keep me hooked like other games

Maybe… just maybe there’s a reason for it “not making sense” They don’t have to tell YOU what they are doing. You bought and paid for the boxed game as it ships. Anything else added on is extra, and not something you can demand,

If enough of us leave, the game dies.

Hence, feedback.

By voicing our complaints, instead of remaining silent, we are giving Anet an opportunity to provide what we need from the game, so that we may continue spending more money on it, so that they may continue developing the game.

You should worry more about when people stop complaining – that means that they are truly gone, and have moved on to a new game – and then the players are fewer, the revenue dries up, and the game disappears.

bewhatever.2390:

Paradox.1380:

How about you just leave and let me stay where I want to stay? I play multiple games so I don’t have to worry about what this game does or doesn’t do. I don’t understand why people are always “this is MY game is it has to be EVERYTHING i could ever want in a game or its just not good enough and I am taking my toys and leaving the playground so NEENER!” That is honestly what this thread sounds like. Maybe play some different games at the same time? Its not like this game requires significant time sinks to get places. If you don’t like one thing about this game find another game that offers that, but don’t begrudge someone else’s feelings if they don’t share your own. I happen to adore GW2 and all that if offers. If it doesn’t give me something I need from a game, I find one that does, but the fact is GW2 offers a lot more than you give it credit for. Also as a side note: ANet adds A LOT to their games as far as QoL and Story goes, just because you didn’t like the way it was delivered doesn’t mean you get to say it never happened at all.

As a customer, I need to invest about a thousand hours in a game before I have learned the world, found the right class/profession for my main, and become proficient at playing that main.

This isn’t about neener-neener, it’s about I made that investment based not just on the game at release but also based on expectations which were set at release as to how it would evolve.

Those expectations are, in the words of a certain historical U.S. presidential administration, “no longer operative.”

So the question is, do I cut my losses and go invest the thousand hours over again somewhere else.

Glad the current direction of GW2 meets your needs and the expectations you have of the game.

I don’t know how you feel about space sims, but Star Citizen is looking awfully awesome right now – of course, it will be 2 years before it’s released

It’s like playing Super Mario Bros. – you replayed levels in that game because they are awesomely fun to play, not because you needed some more coins or mushrooms to advance to the next world.

I could play just about any of the Super Mario Bros. games (except 2) repeatedly, they were fun to do over and over because the gameplay was fun.

But GW2 is not the same – much of the content you are required to repeat is not challenging or interesting – it’s just repetitive.

Ashen.2907:

ipan,

You are starting to contradict yourself. Even you have pointed out that fun content often stop being fun after youve repeated it.

Yes, I could see how you might say that.

What I’m saying is that repeating content for something like a token, or some gold, or because the only reason you are doing it is because you need something that piece of content provides, is grindy and repetitive.

On the other hand, if you are doing it because you really like that particular piece of content, but you don’t necessarily need the (whatever) that it provides, then it’s not “grind”.

Unfortunately, most of the content in this game is designed as grind – it’s a hamster wheel, and it’s a well oiled, well understood principle that MMO’s have been utilizing to generate revenue for a long time.

GW2 isn’t even the worst offender, but since I like the underlying game engine in GW2 (it is awful pretty – and the combat, while not quite as “actiony” as I’d prefer – I’d actually do away with tab targeting completely, and replace it with a reticule – is still so much better than conventional MMO’s like WoW or Rift, for example) – anyway, I like much of the mechanics under the hood.

The problems in this game stem from that – the basic machinery is pretty fantastic, but the content design is sub-par.

The biggest issue being the amount of content that gets released.

That’s just because the MMO industry as a whole has been stale for a very long time.

This was true before GW2 – our big hope was that GW2 was really going to shake up the industry.

They promised much more than they delivered, but even with the game falling short of the Manifesto, they’ve still had 2 years to liven it up.

So what’s going on?

Nothing more than the typical modern MMO death spiral.

Will GW2 go away completely? I seriously doubt it. But I don’t see any growth either. It will scratch on for a few more years, just like every other MMO does – hey, Rift is still around, and I remember during the Beta for that game telling people how dumb it was because it clung to so much convention – it was just another WoW clone. I even touted GW2 HEAVILY during that period from all the Rift fans.

And you know what? They sounded exactly like the hard core GW2 fans here sound.

And Rift went F2P after awhile, just as I predicted it would, and all the fans said it would never………

So what’s my point?

My point is how is GW2 any different? MMO’s have problems – serious development drop offs after release, more hype than substance, etc.

GW2 isn’t unique in this – almost every MMO has exactly the same problems, and most MMO’s are even worse.

But here we are.

On the GW2 forums – not those other games.

So we talk about the shortcomings of GW2 – and whether or not Anet can really pick up the pieces.

I know what (most) players want – more content.

They don’t always agree on precisely where they want it (dungeons, open world, pvp, etc.) but the one thing they ALL agree on is that they want more content.

What Anet has given us so far is very little. Feels more like placations.

I think they could do better.

If I’m not wrong, the game will probably fade to a small, dedicated base that might be just enough to keep the game limping along just like so many other MMO’s.

Or maybe Anet’s developers will rally the game from it’s downed state – and get a second wind.

It’s possible.

It’s obvious what they need to do.

Release more content.

More dungeons.
More open world zones (an entire region would be nice).
Another class.
More weapons.
More skills.
More PvP (maps and modes).
Another race (Koda/Tengu).
More DE’s (rotate schedule).
More costumes.
Mounts/Vehicles.
Dueling.

I’m just saying that Anet has given no indication they are going to do any of this.

Instead, it’s MOAR LIVING STORY, OKAY GAIS!?!?!?

It’s like 5 guys sitting around in their living room.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

That goal creates a more interesting problem, though. If people don’t need to replay it, then there’s no incentive to do so . . . and if there’s no incentive to do so, then you run into two problems:

- A rapid splash of activity close to release time and tapering off to “nobody does it anymore”.
- People who didn’t do it in that time can’t do it because nobody wants to.

Replayability should be based on whether it’s fun or not.

Well designed content is replayed for itself – not for the extrinsic rewards it offers.

For example, SAB. People loved to play SAB over and over again, because it was awesome wicked fun.

Even with no rewards whatsoever, people loved to play SAB.

Why was it removed? Because Anet saw it as a threat. SAB was intended to be a ‘cutesy’ diversion – a nod and wink to past platformers, and a sly way to include some meta humor into the game.

It worked too well.

A lot of people enjoy playing SAB more than the rest of the game – so they yanked it.

It threatened their view of how to sell gems.

I don’t think it’s too slow at all.

On the other hand, it is kinda of boring and pointless.

They should just remove levels.

Arcade Fire.4895:

What you really mean by “I Don’t Want to Farm Anymore” is “I want everything handed to me”.

Having an MMO without having to put any effort in at all is absolutely absurd. Also, jokes on you, you can barely farm anymore. They’ve nerfed all the profitable ones because of people like you that complain about the “grind”. Good job.

Actually, I want the opposite.

I want the content to be MORE difficult, but less necessary to repeat it.

For example, I prefer guaranteed rewards from defeating bosses or events, but those bosses and events can be more challenging than they currently are.

The goal being to reduce the number of times you need to replay any particular piece of content, while increasing the total amount of content available.

Two more things:

I want to be able to log out inside of a dungeon – a massive dungeon, that takes several days (or hours, depending on your pov) to fully explore.

I want to ‘camp out’ inside dungeons – so that I can pick up where I left off the next day.

The only way this is possible is if dungeons are large enough that they actually take a very long time to explore.

Current dungeons are often doable in 20-30 min. (I guess maybe others do it even faster – but this is the average playtime I’ve experienced).

20-30 min. is NOT a dungeon. It’s a movie clip. A short story. An interlude.

A DUNGEON takes days, maybe even WEEKS to fully explore.

Ok.

Next, I want something like fractals, but procedurally generated to be randomized – this would be the goto “new” content when you are waiting for more permanent style new content.

Honestly, with a full randomized dungeon (and, again, scaleable to solo or group play), I believe that many of us would be ok waiting for much longer between updates.

A simple randomized dungeon is all it would take to quell complaints.

The third thing (I know I only said two things, but oh well….)

Is a much bigger, expanded costume shop.

Cosmetics is how we were supposed to support this game.

I actually love cosmetic items, especially costumes, but the selection is so small, there just aren’t enough choices.

Expand the costume shop – double it, triple it, quadruple it. The more choices there are, the more people will buy from it.

Rangersix.1754:

If you like dungeons, guild activities, wvw, spvp or, until recently, world exploration, this game isn’t for you. If you like terrible singleplayer storycontent in an MMO, that’s heavy pandered by “click to continue” railroad dialogue, then this is the MMO for you.

Otherwise, I hope you’re happy with 4 recolored icons every 2 years.

This^^ right here is the problem with this game.

It’s ok on the first playthrough (and I’ve done most of the open world content about 7 times now).

Bosses like Teq should be more mobile – chasing him around would be awesome – instead of just being a giant turret.

Partial victory conditions. What if bosses retreated through a dungeon, rather than just stand or die? What if they had conditions for regrouping with other monsters in the dungeon? Or retreating to some more defensible spot? But none of which is guaranteed to happen, it would just be a programmed behavior that they’d try to do if they were losing (meaning, not a scripted ‘phase’ – so things like this are preventable if you’re quick, or able to cut them off, etc.)?

I could go on and on brainstorming – I’m just chucking ideas out there, I bet we could come up with hundreds, if not thousands, of possibilities.

CETheLucid.3964:

Trice.4598:

CETheLucid.3964:

One Note Chord.5031:

CETheLucid.3964:

Lendruil.9061:

Yargesh.4965:

Lendruil.9061:

A single dungeon with the depth and the difficulty of underworld/ fow or doa from GW1 would be enough to keep many players busy for months. But instead of we get some living story that you finish in one hour, and thats it.
The combat-system of GW2 is the best i ever played, and i dont understand why they waste it with their living story instead of giving us a challenging dungeon.

A dungeon along the lines of the Aetherblade path that is not done by people because you can do several other dungeons in the same length of time it takes to run this one path?

In my guild we do aetherpath almost every day.

But of course a dungeon that is longer and more difficult should give better rewards. In GW1 you got the obsidian armor and tormented weapons in these dungeons, rewards that were unique to them.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA. If ANet did something that made it worth peoples while. Then they’ll do it. Clearly what ever you get from there is not worth the time/effort.

The weapons you can get from the aetherpath are worth 100’s of gold.

But it’s faster to run other stuff for the gold than to cross your fingers. It doesn’t take all that long to make 100s of gold just through daily dungeon tours anyway.

Okay but Xanthium of Dreams, among other Aetherpath weapons sell for more than several precursors. That’s some pretty great loot.

You have as many rolls at it as there are weapon types, and all of them are pricey. Do you begin to see the circular reasoning this is becoming?

“OMG Aetherpath is too hard, i can make hundreds of gold just doing the easier dungeon paths”
“Maybe if Anet made it worth it”
“Several aetherweapons are worth many times some precursor drops”
“Anet y u no make hm dungeons”

Dream weapons are not an incentive to do Aetherpath, they have under 0.1% drop rate, most dedicated runners didn’t get one yet. I ran the patch over a hundred times now with my group, we still haven’t got a single weapon.

Sure it is. When has an abysmal drop rate or ridiculous cost ever stopped anyone? Lots of people are still grinding for their favorite legendary are they not? I know several.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The best rewards came from the UW/FoW/DoA.

You were never guaranteed a perfect Chaos Axe, Storm Bow, Shadow Blade. Often time, you might get an imperfect version which was essentially worthless.

Their drop rates were abysmal and they were among the most expensive and sought after items in the game.

Those tormented weapons were a nasty bit of grinding. One of the hardest weapon sets to get in the whole game.

The cost and mats needed for FoW armor was enormous, needed rare mats from both the UW and FoW, and they were not common drops.

It was rare to find a few after a full run of each area. All of it was arbitrary. That dungeon offered some of the best loot money wise and it was long and hard.

Here in GW2, you have dungeon that offers the same; and yet?

I personally prefer harder content with guaranteed item drops.

I’d rather try – and fail – at some really challenging content three times, then finally get the item I am playing it for – then have to farm the same content 30 times, even though I succeed at doing it every time.

Guaranteed drops behind more challenging content is way better than ‘farming’ lame, boring content over and over for a slight probability of getting something useful, or grinding some tiny amount of currency (which takes a massive amount of to get the item you want).

I prefer skill based reward systems.

If you beat the boss, you deserve the item.

Champs should have guaranteed exotic drops, and legendary bosses guaranteed legendary drops – they should also be harder.

And by ‘harder’ I don’t mean they should merely have larger health pools and be immune to CC – this is a cop-out.

They should have interesting mechanics that add to the ‘action combat’ system – they should have movement based abilities – like climbing on walls, flying, burrowing, etc.

They should have evasive maneuvers like dodge rolling and blocking. They should have a larger skill pool to choose from, that actually tries to detect what players are doing and respond to it (counter spells, blocking, parrying, etc.) They should be intelligent, is what I’m getting at, instead of just beefier.

And they should make more use of set design – some monsters can be made difficult just be their environment – archers that are difficult to reach (parapets, etc.) Serpents whose necks can reach out of the water (but the water is filled with pirahnas, etc.)

Primarily, I’d prefer new maps opened up and new dungeons (possibly old dungeons revised and expanded, as well).

Let me give you some concrete examples:

Open up the ENTIRE Magus Falls, Verdant Forest, Far Shiverpeaks, OR NE corner (past Blazeridge, Flame Legion origins). Any 1 of these REGIONS would be acceptable as entirely new content (I’d expect for every 2 years that goes by, at least one of these regions to be fully opened up).

New dungeons, that are about this size:

http://paratime.ca/images/fantasy/dungeon-075bw.jpg

(Note: I’m just providing a frame of reference for size comparison – I want dungeons that take longer to explore, instead of linear quest objective dungeons that just lead you from one room to the next – also, while I’m on the topic, I think that every dungeon should have scaleable difficulty and a ‘solo mode’, with both down scaled enemies and down scaled rewards)

And also old dungeons revamped and expanded (particularly for size and possible pathways – I want a dozen different directions to go in for all dungeons, ideally).

New “mini” dungeons – little keeps, cave systems, castles, etc. that make exploring older areas new again.

All open world content properly scaled, so that’s it’s possible to do ANYTHING, even champs, even with 1 person (and of course the rewards properly scaled as well).

New DE’s to replace the old ones on some kind of rotational schedule (this should be done every month – every map should have, at minimum, one DE removed, and one added).

One new class (every two years, minimum).

Each class should have a new weapon, and at least 3 new utility skills (every two years, minimum – though eventually, stop adding new weapons – there is a limit to how many weapons can be added to classes under this system).

A new playable race (Tengu, Koda, Skritt – my vote goes to Koda).

That’s the gist of it….I’m sure I could add and tweak the list here and there, but I think you get the idea.

LS is like personal story + zerg events.

Not my cup of tea at all (I actually think a lot of the living story events in the open world could have been cool if Anet had figured out how to discourage or prevent massive zergs – the fun (i.e. challenge) of the events is ruined by the massive firepower of the zerg armada – basically because it trivializes the content and made it too easy).

The Living Story, many of us feel, is a poor substitute for the kind of content we want – new maps/zones, new dungeons, new classes, new weapons, new playable races, new enemies (get tired of fighting the same enemy models used over and over – at least last season introduced toxic enemies, though arguable these are just reused models with some new particle effects).

Just treading water until a better game steals me.

Might kill time in Skyrim instead.

One way or another, it boils down to new content.

Each person has their own idea of what they’d like to see the most, whether that’s dungeons, DE’s, WvWvW, or sPvP. Classes, weapons, playable races.

No matter what the specific preference, the point is people want NEW content, and lots of it.

LS is ok for some – I don’t think it’s terrible.

But I don’t think it suffices for enough new content. I think it’s a little weak, a little half baked, and a bit of a cop-out.

When S2 started, my hopes were raised temporarily as I thought that an entire new region of the world was about to open up.

And all we got was Dry Top.

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Dry Top – I’m saying it’s not enough.

I’m saying they should have opened up four or five new maps (even one per episode would be just fine).

When I learned that Dry Top was all their was, I was severely disappointed.

It’s just too little.

I want more (and bigger, and better) dungeons and fractals. More loot (Legendary armor would be awesome, and better drop rates). More open world content.

More WvWvW maps, but also more diversity in play (aside from the zerg which seems that is about all there is to do in WvWvW).

And so on.

Some new weapons, maybe a new class and and a new race.

These are the only things that will keep people busy – LS feels like a placation.

The game has been out for two years already, the lack of expansion content is unacceptable, and if not remedied soon, the game will bleed players.

And any case, my translation is fine – that poster essentially said if you don’t like it, don’t play it.

I agreed, adding the thought that I also won’t be spending any more money.

Which is what it really comes down to.

Anet wants to make some money on their game, then they ought to make a game that people want to spend money on, right?

I mean, that’s pretty simple market logic right there.

So, what do people want? What will make them spend even more money?

More content.

I stopped spending money in the cash shop when I realized that Anet was not adding any significant content anymore.

When (or if) they do, then I may reevaluate whether I want to spend any more time (or money) in the game.

My guess, however, is that they are going to shoot themselves in the foot – like just about every MMO does – and not actually add any content that will bring people back in.

It sounds to me like people are leaving the game in droves – and this is largely due to the lack of content updates.

Now, if they just worked on adding some more content, then we’d all be happy, and I’d spend some money on cosmetic items to support the continue development of the game (so that they can add even MORE content).

But, all appearances say they are not going to do this, and this displeases me.

No new zones (Dry Top is like, 1/2 a zone). No new dungeons. No new classes. No new weapons, no new skills (aside from a couple heals). No new enemies. No new mechanics.

All we get is Living Story, which is totally half baked in my mind – and therefore not worth spending additional funds on.

Since the game has no sub, it is risk free – and I can complain and petition for the things I want (more zones, more dungeons, more classes, more races, more weapons, more skills) until they do add it, or another game becomes so much more interesting to me that I stop logging in to GW2 completely.

Sooner or later, something’s gotta give.

Vayne.8563:

ipan.4356:

Oxidia.8103:

You don’t want to farm? Simple. Don’t.

Translation: Move on to a new game, don’t spend any money here.

Oh come on, really? So many people have already said farming is a choice and you continue to insist that it’s not. I choose not to farm. I don’t farm. I’m still playing this game.

Therefore your translation is in error.

If you’re playing, you’re farming, because there isn’t anything else to do in the game, except farm.

Oxidia.8103:

You don’t want to farm? Simple. Don’t.

Translation: Move on to a new game, don’t spend any money here.

I still log in once in a while only because I haven’t found something better yet.

The state of MMO’s in general is terrible – they’re all treadmill/hamster wheel/slot machines.

I’m thinking of just playing Skyrim for a bit until Star Citizen comes out – at which point I will probably not be logging in to GW2.

Since there is no sub for GW2, there’s no reason to uninstall. I check back every now and then just to see if Anet has seen the light yet – but they never do.

People want more content. It’s that simple.

Expand your world – make it bigger.

More dungeons (better dungeons!)
More zones/maps.
More open world.
More dynamic.
More WvWvW maps and PvP game modes.
More classes.
More skills.
More weapons.
More loot (Legendary Armor would be a good start).

These are the ONLY things that will keep more people coming back.

What GW2 has right now may be fine for their hardcore fanbase – and that’s not a bad thing.

But my prediction is that none of that will bring in NEW players, and it won’t keep the majority from leaving.

If you want GW2 to THRIVE, then you must demand MORE content.

There’s a gigantic heap of dead MMO’s out there. GW2 will just become one more of them unless they create mountains of new content.

I believe it’s possible to achieve. What I am skeptical about is whether or not Anet believes this.

Anet promises much, delivers little.

Regular expansions are good.

A procedurally generated, randomized dungeon (what ‘fractals’ should be) would probably keep a lot of players (including me) entertained in between expansions.

If I were saying all of this in the first six months of release, I think your reactions would be justified.

But it’s been two years.

Too little, too late.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan.4356:

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan, there is a symbiotic relationship between MMO fans and MMO developers. The fans want to play the game forever (it seems). The developers cannot provide new stuff to do at the rate that you seem to want, so they use repetition to fill the void, as it were. It isn’t just developers foisting repetitive tasks on you, it’s also MMO fans forcing them to use repetition to fill their otherwise empty hours.

Well, again, here is where we disagree on what developers can or cannot do.

I think they can do better (and more).

Many single player games take 2+ years to create. GW2 took 5+. Those SP games last for 100 hours, if you’re lucky (40 if you’re not). Based on that “standard,” an MMO built on the same principles GW2 would last somewhere around 120-500 hours. How many hours have you played?

A lot of that work is building the engine, developing art assets and animations.

Most of the groundwork has already been laid, adding new content doesn’t take as long as creating the original game to begin with, because you are using a lot of what’s already been created.

I work a lot with game editors, like the world editors in Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 – and while an MMO is different than those, the same idea holds true – once you have a massive library of assets, you do not have to start over at the beginning.

You act as if they have to reinvent the wheel every time they want to add content to the game.

This is what I don’t get about you people – adding new contents – whether they be in the form of dungeons, or a new zone/map doesn’t take years like building the original game takes – it only takes a couple months.

GW2 has been out 2 years and has added minimal amount of new content (Southsun, Fractals, Dry Top, and Edge of Mists).

No new classes, 1 1/2 new maps (Dry Top counts as 1/2), no new weapons, only a handful of heal skills.

It’s just not enough.

Especially after two years. They should have – at bare minimum – a full expansion’s worth of new content out by now – and that means entirely new zones (like 10 more), new dungeons (at least 2-3), a new class, at least 1 new weapon for every existing class, and a bunch of new utility skills.

Instead, we get Living Story, which is mostly terrible, and doesn’t really add a lot of new play to the game.

Oh, and gem shop items. There seems to be plenty of that.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

You obviously did not read and/or understood what I stated in my post. With a lower player base, as a result of your suggestion, they will be unable to do so. Your suggestion, if implemented, would severely shorten the lifespan of an MMO to the length of any console or PC game.

Scroll up to my post. I bolded at least one part you did not read that pertains to this post.

It also seems that you do not know what it takes to develop content. They don’t snap their fingers and “poof” there it is. It takes time. It takes people. It takes money. All of which is impossible if they did it your way. It’s impossible to create constant content without grind while maintaining a profit.

The point is that the threat of losing customers would light a fire under their kitten.

I disagree with you that it is impossible.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ipan, there is a symbiotic relationship between MMO fans and MMO developers. The fans want to play the game forever (it seems). The developers cannot provide new stuff to do at the rate that you seem to want, so they use repetition to fill the void, as it were. It isn’t just developers foisting repetitive tasks on you, it’s also MMO fans forcing them to use repetition to fill their otherwise empty hours.

Well, again, here is where we disagree on what developers can or cannot do.

I think they can do better (and more).

Ashen.2907:

ipan.4356:

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

In GW1 one of my alliance’s players completed Factions within 18 hours of it going live. People were at 80 in GW2 within a few days.

How do you propose that game developers keep up with that ? A new expansion every day ?

Well, there’s a couple possible answers to this.

1) Hire more people.

2) User generated content.

3) Procedural generation (randomized, infinite dungeons, for example).

ShadowPuppet.3746:

ipan.4356:

Again – I’m not saying that getting the best gear should be easy. I’m all for locking it behind extremely challenging content.

What I don’t want to do is to repeat that content over and over – i.e., farming.

Purple enemies in dungeons should drop an dungeon armor skin for that dungeon guaranteed, for example.

Legendary weapons should have a chance of dropping from world bosses, for example.

I shouldn’t have to “run” dungeons over and over and over to get something.

I should merely have to play it 1-3 times to get what I want – then move on to the next challenge.

If that meant actually making the content harder – I’d be fine with that.

I’m not complaining about difficulty – I’m complaining about repetitiveness. The grind.

The farming.

Stop the farming.

Gaming is not a second job. It’s not a chore.

It’s a kitten game, for god’s sake.

You are supposed to have fun.

Now, if “farming” is your idea of fun, then the changes I propose would in no way stop you from doing that.

You could still kill the same thing over and over and over again, if that’s your thing.

But, for those of us who like to experience content a couple times (at most), and then move on to something new, with the stuff we got from the last encounter – well, we would be able to do that.

Without farming for it.

What I’m asking for is an end to farming – even if it meant raising the difficulty.

The only problem with locking something behind a high difficulty challenge is that it excludes certain segments of the player population which Anet has gone out of their way to avoid. Also no matter how difficult you make something, some people will always be able to chew through the content at break necks speeds, so in order to keep people playing you get the grind to keep them busy. Personally I think the most challenging content in the game should be involved in obtaining a legendary weapon since in it’s current state the only thing legendary about a legendary is the patience required to make it.

That was just a suggestion.

I personally enjoy challenging content.

But regardless, I don’t want to do any farming for anything.

I don’t want to have to repeat any content more than three times – that means I should be able to that content, get the rewards for it, the first 2-3 times I play it.

That means that legendary bosses need to drop exotics and legendary items.

And also that Anet needs to produce more content.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Ayrilana.1396:

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

That’s about it, in a nutshell.

It’s ironic you should mention Skyrim, because I’ve been thinking of picking that up soon.

But yeah, Skyrim in an MMO format – that is, the ability to play with other people.

Sure.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say the upcoming feature pack removes all grind. We can use the repetive action of three or more times as the definition as this is consistent with what those against grind claim that grind is.

Drop rates would dramatically increase. Since farming is grinding, players would not have problems getting everything they need in a timely fashion. Crafting materials would be easy to come by, all armor sets would be easy to get, everyone could have the legendary weapon(s) that they crave, and so on. Everything in the game is within their grasp with little to no effort required on their part.

The economy would crash as players would have zero need for the TP. With such easy access to items, what need would players have to go to the TP or for other players to list their items on the TP? Everything not needed would be be vendored or trashed. Gold would have zero value. What reason is there for gold if everything is easily obtainable?

All gem store items would have to be purchased with cash. Converting gold would no longer be an issue as players would have so much that the rates would be incredibly high. There’s nothing to prevent inflation anymore but then that isn’t an issue as you don’t need gold.

Players now have nothing to work towards in the game. All that they have left is the content such as WvW, PvP, and PvE. Unfortunately, this gets stale eventually. Players can only do dungeons existing campaigns for so long before they’re bored. Most likely no more than a few times.

Player activity takes a dive as a result. With nothing to do in the game, they move on to other things. Group content becomes increasingly difficult to do because of the lack of players. This is then scaled down to be doable by yourself. Some may or may not remain challenging. There are also no champ trains, Orr trains, EotM trains, and so on. What reason is there for them to exist if you don’t need to grind for your rewards that you get from them? Player interaction also becomes less frequent.

ArenaNet eventually consolidates servers as there’s no longer enough players to justify a large number of servers. They also start charging for all additional content as the lack of players has reduced the in one that they receive from gem store transactions. There will likely be less frequent content updates as they may not receive enough purchases to warrant keep all if their existing staff.

The game devolves into a single player game where players have easy access to everything and can experience everything within a month of playing. After that the game is discarded like so many other console games and PC games. How many of you continued to play Ocarina of Time after you got everything in the game and beat it? Did you continue to roam around for hours on end? Likely not.

With this, the MMO genre dies because people did not want nor understood what role grind played.

Umm, or the developers adapt and start releasing more new content.

Labjax.2465:

As far as I can tell, you need a system that is somewhat dynamic. It has to give players the tools to make their own content, in a sense (not necessarily in a literal sense – they just need the tools to challenge/entertain themselves in new and interesting ways).

I found this paragraph particularly telling, because it’s ironic that you use the word ‘dynamic’, because this has a lot to do with people’s disappointment over what was promised in the Manifesto.

What you are describing is what we were told we would get – what we actually got was far less than that.

Labjax.2465:

Your cause is a good one IMO, ipan, but it has to be replaced with something. The vacuum it leaves is essentially no PvE content. We can’t just demand for faster content updates because it’s not a realistic request; developers simply don’t have enough time, even working 24/7, to produce original content at a rate that will prevent people from having to repeat.

As far as I can tell, you need a system that is somewhat dynamic. It has to give players the tools to make their own content, in a sense (not necessarily in a literal sense – they just need the tools to challenge/entertain themselves in new and interesting ways).

Like the spirit of being able to choose difficulty settings in a game, only more robust and varied.

But it’s not as though no devs have ever thought of this fact. I’m sure many have gone down the rabbit hole, only to find nothing particularly useful/workable. I still think it’s a good thing to talk about, but if the answer was easy, we’d probably have it right now.

I’d love to see what they could do by combing user created content with procedural generation with developer created content.

By leveraging all of these together, they could create a level of content never before seen in any game.

As to whether it’s “realistic” or not – I simply believe that the dev’s don’t do enough.

They have over 100 people, or so I hear – what do they do all day?

dancingmonkey.4902:

So let me ask this.

How do you suggest you acquire armor in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire wepons in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire gold in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire legendaries in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire runes in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

How do you suggest you acquire sigils in a manner that require zero farming, yet takes work to cause a player to “earn” it?

By making all of the challenges (i.e. bosses/dungeons) that drop those things more difficult, but much higher (perhaps even guaranteed) chance to drop those things.

Raise the difficulty, but also raise the chance (perhaps to 100%) of drops.

Ayrilana.1396:

@ipan;

What you’re requesting is essentially Skyrim but with the possibility with playing with other players.

That’s about it, in a nutshell.

It’s ironic you should mention Skyrim, because I’ve been thinking of picking that up soon.

But yeah, Skyrim in an MMO format – that is, the ability to play with other people.

Sure.

Obtena.7952:

laokoko.7403:

Obtena.7952:

E Tan.7385:

Balsa.3951:

U don’t need farm at all. The exotic gear is easy to get. .

i’am sorry, but

• Having to do more that 50time a boring dungeon to get a complet exotic armor + 2-3weapons for me its farming.
• Having to collect 900+ mcm insignia just for a complet exotic armor, for me its farming
• I dont speak about Ascended gear which is CLEARLY farming.
• And i dont even speak about the necessity to have serveral stats to be able to correctly play 2-3 differents builds per char : which mean repeat X time the previews farm to play decently ONE class.
• And i forget to add the necessity of having X version of the same armor / weapon because of runes / sigils.

Yeah sure, no need to farm in GW2.. sure ! Are we really playing the same game ?

Wow … you don’t need to do any of that. A full set of anything exotics is about 60-70 gold. You’re just being sensational.

right and people should be able to play for 20 hours without extensively trying to farm money and make those amount of money.

I don’t get your point. You can play 20 hours, do what you LIKE and still make money. Just leveling to 80 gives you most the gold you need to get some exotic gear … unless the player is a moron. EVERYTHING in this game rewards with money in some way. Giving the impression that there is only a select few ways to make gold necessary to equip yourself reasonably well are stupid.

Do you have any idea how long that actually takes, and how often you have to repeat the same content over and over again?

This is the core of farming – being required to replay the content (again, not because it’s fun and you like it – that’s fine) to get anything.

The easiest way to solve it would to increase the odds that bosses (especially purples) drop exotic loot, including sigils and runes – and even legendary’s.

Farming is a completely artificial means to produce revenue for Anet – and has nothing to do with making the game more fun for it’s players.

Down with farming!!!

The entire concept of ‘farming’ should never have entered into gaming in the first place.

This is the core of the issue – farming is a way for companies to make money, not a way for you to have fun.

I say abolish farming.

Demand more.

Raise your expectations higher.

Ayrilana.1396:

ipan.4356:

Because the idea of ‘farming’ is quite literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to MMO’s (or any game) in the entire history of gaming.

It’s a staple of the MMO genre. Console games and single player PC games are relatively farming free. You may find more enjoyment from those if you dislike farming.

But I don’t accept the status quo.

It’s time you demanded more from your developers.

What I’m trying to show here, above all, is that the acceptance of such a practice, the very idea that ‘farming’ is normal itself really need to be questioned by the gaming community.

You’ve been conditioned to run a hamster wheel.

Why?

You should simply be able to play content, and when done with it, move on to the next piece of content.

The game should not require you to repeat the same thing over and over (but that should be available for you to do – repeating content should be a choice, because you enjoy that content – not a requisite to advance).

Farming is an artificial way to keep people playing a game for which you cannot create enough content – it uses psychological manipulation and conditioning (Skinner box/casino tactics) to get you to replay content you don’t want to for “rewards” that otherwise wouldn’t take as long to acquire.

End the farming.

Demand more content.

Another way to look at is like this:

If you’ve already beaten a piece of content, then you’ve already proven that you can do it.

Why are you required to do it again, if you already know you are capable of overcoming that particular challenge?