Guild Wars 2

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

I gave a concrete example where ANet took existing content and made it significantly harder while saying this was in response to requests for harder content — and you claim this is pure speculation?

Significantly harder =/= requires grind.

There are two separate arguments here, but it doesn’t really matter because we disagree about the next item.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

The straw man argument is that it’s only a grind if you can’t play content without doing it. The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards. You couldn’t use the definition you’re using if you mean to include grinding for aesthetic rewards.

I never said you can’t play without doing the grind — that’s the straw man argument. I said that the rewards system includes rewards for content that isn’t fun to play — enough of this that I consider it a grind.

Here’s a definition for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Specifically: “the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games”. Are you claiming that the AP system doesn’t include rewarding repetitive tasks?

Some people like grinding, there’s an optional grind for them.
The grind will only be a problem if you cant do something (besides high level fractals) without doing it, so far you’ve failed to provide a single example.

It is a value judgement, not a statement of fact, to say: “The grind will only be a problem if you can’t do something”. As is implied by the definition I’m using, I do not agree. I think encouraging grinding is poor design even if the game doesn’t strictly require it. As I said earlier — I do see the reason ANet encourages certain activities with APs, and I can mostly accept them as justification for the dailies… I just think there are often better solutions.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Neither the OP nor I claimed evidence that people aren’t logging in. We claimed that logging in and playing does not (in the short term) prove that the players actually had fun. If you’ve never done something you expected to be fun, and realized afterwards it wasn’t fun … you’re probably not paying attention. The quotes you’ve given support that interpretation of the OP’s argument. Also — you appear to have completely missed the discussion of how psychology interacts with decision making …

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt” sounds like more of an opinion.
That argument could hold some ground in the first few LS – tried it, didnt like – not 10 releases later, you know what’s coming.

“beyond a shadow of a doubt that many players have logged into the game not because it is fun, but because of other pressures” … yes, that’s an opinion, but I think there’s evidence of it in the forums. “Many” could still be accurate even if it’s a relatively small percentage of the overall player base. The other pressures are the time limit for rewards / for experiencing the content.

Personally, I enjoyed LS until I realized that it felt like a treadmill. So it wasn’t the first or second release that left me unhappy, but more like the 10th. (When I realized that I was walking through content I would never have the time to do given work & family, using dulfy as a guide, purely for extrinsic rewards, without actually enjoying the content. I finished that particular SAB set of achievements out of misplaced stubbornness.)

The reason I’m posting here is that I hope the developers can look for ways to engage players by focusing on interesting content, rather than reward for content done. LS has had some fun points, but IMO it has become over-reliant on extrinsic rewards; that encourages participation for the wrong reasons. Some players may be happy just to get newer shinnies and upgraded gear, and those are OK… but you lose some players that way.

As an example — it’s another topic, but Tequatl. I didn’t think the rewards needed buffing, though it’s fine that they did so. I thought that the event needed to be changed so that a map full of players can trigger it when ready (including on failure) via pre-events (like the Karka Queen) — rather than having to wait around. I’d have fun doing it (success or failure) if it didn’t require sitting around bored in an overflow, unable to travel for fear of losing my place …

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Dungeons are the part I find interesting;… I dislike how that affects PUG dynamics. …

You can do dungeons in masterwork gear, is that it ?
You’re predicting what players will do, your argument relies on pure speculation, elitists will always be there, avoiding them is not hard.
Next

I gave a concrete example where ANet took existing content and made it significantly harder while saying this was in response to requests for harder content — and you claim this is pure speculation?

Yes, it is possible to do Arah in masterwork gear. But it is harder, and I’d fill bad at making others in a PUG carry me if I did this (the same reason I never ran MF gear in dungeons). Even if the dungeons don’t don’t strictly require you to get BiS gear — the group dynamic encourage it, especially for those who care about not being selfish.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

The straw man argument is that it’s only a grind if you can’t play content without doing it. The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards. You couldn’t use the definition you’re using if you mean to include grinding for aesthetic rewards.

You’re complaining about a grind, therefore grind must somehow affect your ability to play, it’s quite basic.
Calling it straw-man many times wont cut it dude, try again.

I never said you can’t play without doing the grind — that’s the straw man argument. I said that the rewards system includes rewards for content that isn’t fun to play — enough of this that I consider it a grind.

Here’s a definition for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_

Specifically: “the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games”. Are you claiming that the AP system doesn’t include rewarding repetitive tasks?

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Actually, Anet does now target them. That’s sort of my point when I call this kind of game design unethical.

Companies cant keep up with addicts or completionists, they complete content way too fast and producing it takes longer.
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GW1 devs asserted that they disagreed with grind as a philosophy — which has the nice side effect of not encouraging this kind of play.

And yes, I can make value judgement about companies’ behavior, and I will. I stand by that judgement — it’s my opinion.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

I read Dusk’s comments, and am familiar with yourlogicalfallacyis.com; this isn’t actually the anecdote fallacy because here the OP isn’t asserting that it is generally so, only that the personal anecdote does not fit the naive model. At least in this thread, the OP didn’t say people aren’t playing (making a claim about statistics from anecdote), but rather than playing more != enjoying the game more.

Really ?

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that many players have logged into the game not because it is fun, but because of other pressures.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

People will do a lot of things beyond reason, especially the more financially and emotionally invested they are. Simply assuming people will stop when it stops being enjoyable is a very narrow way of looking at things.

That’s just the first 2, there’s plenty.
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Neither the OP nor I claimed evidence that people aren’t logging in. We claimed that logging in and playing does not (in the short term) prove that the players actually had fun. If you’ve never done something you expected to be fun, and realized afterwards it wasn’t fun … you’re probably not paying attention. The quotes you’ve given support that interpretation of the OP’s argument. Also — you appear to have completely missed the discussion of how psychology interacts with decision making …

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

Dusk’s fallacy is in assuming the naive model: that players are rational actors. Like it or not, neither you nor I are perfectly rational.

And you assume that we play a game that we dont want to play, epic.

In context saying that we’re not rational actors means we’ll sometimes do things contrary to our own self-interest (e.g. responding in threads like this).

Raziel.4216:

[snip]
I’m sure you can do better

… there wasn’t actually anything left to respond to, but I feel compelled to point out that if you’re convinced you’re always right, you probably suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect.

DusK.3849:

The bottom line is, you may be dissatisfied, but in no way is the player base at large dissatisfied. That’s what the numbers show. The only way the general hypothesis of the OP could be true in the least is if there are more “glutton for punishment” players such as yourself than there are players who log on because they actually enjoy the game. And that just doesn’t happen, no matter what game it is.

You ask about masochism after the LS chapter which had such titles as glutton for punishment? :-p

I am dissatisfied with the structure of LS content; as an anecdote, some of those I see in my world in map chat (and guilds) are also disinterested/turned off by it. I agree that this is not a concrete measurement, but neither is your wild assertion of 1%. I would expect that the vast majority of players like the LS content or are indifferent to it.

In the long term, I agree that statistics of logins will indicate how significant this topic is; and I imagine that ANet will attempt to correct course if things aren’t going well. As I said, using concurrency naively when you’re also encouraging participation will produce skewed results; but you can take such enticements into account.

ANet’s devs have acknowledged that they’ve gotten negative feedback about too much temporary content in the past (albeit not for the reasons in this thread): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/jubilee/So-EVERYTHING-in-this-patch-is-temporary/first#post2561414

I think the OP is right that concurrency alone isn’t enough to do short-term course corrections. In the long term, I’ll grant that you’re right that it will approximate player satisfaction … but I would assert that you throwing around any specific numbers like 1% is pulling numbers out of your kitten .

Raziel.4216:

What advantage ? Dealing more damage in a pure PVE world? or dealing an extra 300 dmg in the middle of a huge zerg in WvW ?
I’m confused.

Dungeons are the part I find interesting; having done both with an without ascended gear, I’m willing to assert that it makes a difference. Also — as others have pointed out — give higher stats, and players will ask for harder content to keep things interesting. E.g. the recent changes to Teq. I have nearly full ascended gear — but I don’t want it to be the case that new people are at a disadvantage; I dislike how that affects PUG dynamics. (There’s enough disadvantage through not knowing the mechanics.)

Raziel.4216:

You could say some of those tittles did encourage grinding, but like in GW2 they were optional
Still waiting for you to point out the required grind that limits the game for you, so far you limit yourself to calling this a straw-man (nice try).

The straw man argument is that it’s only a grind if you can’t play content without doing it. The meaning I intend is that it’s a grind if you’re doing something you don’t enjoy for extrinsic rewards. You couldn’t use the definition you’re using if you mean to include grinding for aesthetic rewards.

Raziel.4216:

If the grind is somehow affecting your gameplay you should be able to point it out (I cant do X without spending hours and hours grinding for it). If you simply cant help not having the newest carrot all the time there’s no point in arguing, completionists or game addicts are a minority and Anet doesnt target’em.

Actually, Anet does now target them. That’s sort of my point when I call this kind of game design unethical.

Raziel.4216:

BTW you may want to re-read a bit of a previous reply from this thread

You’re attempting to discredit statistical information with extremely faulty analogies and personal experience. That kind of argument has a name.

I read Dusk’s comments, and am familiar with yourlogicalfallacyis.com; this isn’t actually the anecdote fallacy because here the OP isn’t asserting that it is generally so, only that the personal anecdote does not fit the naive model. At least in this thread, the OP didn’t say people aren’t playing (making a claim about statistics from anecdote), but rather than playing more != enjoying the game more.

Dusk’s fallacy is in assuming the naive model: that players are rational actors. Like it or not, neither you nor I are perfectly rational.

I can understand that the game designers created “Achievement Points” to solve a problem: experienced people won’t be in newbie zones (or re-doing old content) that long, and new players will otherwise be playing in a wasteland. Also, they wouldn’t be able to attract the hordes to their bi-weekly updates (living story fluff) without APs.

The part that bothers me is the use of time-limited offers for this. There’s plenty of literature in psychology research about this, and I’m sure the use of this is not an accident.

That (use of psychological pressure to encourage certain decisions) is why Dusk’s argument:

DusK.3849:

If a player clicks that log in button, it’s because, for whatever reason, he wants to play the game.

— misses the OP’s point: players may think they want to log in and play the game — but afterwards realize that they did so due to psychological tactics rather than because it was actually fun (or because they actually wanted to rewards in question). Any players which experience this will go through a period of higher play followed but unhappiness with the game. Said differently: naively using engagement metrics will probably produce biased data when you’re also using psychological tactics to encourage engagement.

The question of whether or not such players constitute a large enough group to matter is a different question, and I don’t think the OP asserted that it is a large number. OTOH, if you only looked at concurrency, you would misunderstand the behavior of this set of players, however large or small it is.

Raziel.4216:

linuxotaku.4731:

GuildWars 1 was advertised in part by developers claiming that they were against the concept of grinds as a way to encourage player participation. GuildWars 2 is not, AFAICT, guided by that philosophy, which makes me sad. (And I may yet decide that I’m done with it when having playing/having fun for the fewest possible number of APs stops being an interesting goal.)

Please point out what mandatory grind stops you from playing something in GW2 besides fractals.

Guild Wars 1 had plenty of OPTIONAL grinds, just like GW2. You dont NEED ascended (unless you want to do elite content), you dont NEED legendaries, you dont NEED 12398192389 AP, you dont NEED that tittle.
You can complete all the content in the game besides fractals in rares, you dont even need exotics.

You aren’t responding to my actual argument — I’m sure it’s satisfying to argue against that straw man, though.

I do not like content which encourages grinds, regardless of whether or not they’re necessary — for anything other than purely aesthetic goals. You can call that exception inconsistent if you like, but this keeps the playing field level. (And in this case, I also think you’re wrong if you think the difference in ascended stats is insignificant.)

GW1 was advertised as not encouraging grinds, and there were fun ways to do almost all of the content. GW2 has far too many grinds which are clearly designed to get people to do content which isn’t very interesting in order to get moar loot or more AP or temporary-LS-items (wings, anyone?).

I think that’s crappy design, and unethical to boot.

nihavel.6592:

linuxotaku.4731:

GuildWars 1 was advertised in part by developers claiming that they were against the concept of grinds as a way to encourage player participation.

3 words:

Friend of luxon

Anyway i love your new philosophy “i want do this so i’m not interest in other objective.”

Actually … given how they changed the luxon/kurzick tracks, I don’t think that’s much of a counter argument. At one point, the way to do the kurzick track was farming quests — I saw the farm (I learned to do it out of curiosity) — incredibly boring and slow as molasses in terms of progression. That was changed so that you’d get faction credit for vanquishing … add in zaishen quests & double faction weekends, and I found the result somewhat fun for a while. (Though I stopped somewhere after r10 — it was still a grind to hit r12.)

In any case — you pointed out a single, which they made less grindy — which hardly seems a strong counter-argument. The Zaishen Quests are perhaps a better counter-example, but I liked that you could stack them do do them when you want … if the AP system were like that, I’d like it more.

GW1 was advertised as not requiring a grind for BiS stats — but included farming/grinding for pretty skins. This seems OK to me; and other than precursors, I don’t mind legendaries in GW2. (Even if the only legendary thing about them is the grind.)

In GW2, there are stat differences for “BiS” gear (5% for weapons, >35% for trinkets — and a little more if you include fine infusions). You can do most content without, but eventually you’ll have to deal with all the people who have BiS gear QQ’ing about how the content has become too easy … followed by updates like the one to Teq. (For the record: the fight is fun in PVT gear, but waiting in Sparkfly fen > 1h for each try … kitten that.)

But really — what bothers me isn’t so much that you can find a grind in the game, but rather that the grinds are so in-your-face, with constant reminders of how you could get more APs, stats, and items through boring, repetitive content.

I have come to hate the AP system, and I am unhappy that anet added something which clearly encourages grinding. There are things I like about the game, or I wouldn’t play it — but this isn’t one of them.

Olvendred.3027:

Many players simply do not play content they don’t like. You, apparently, are unable to stop yourself from doing so. The fact that you are still playing every day to do things which you don’t find fun is… up to you, I guess.

Anet will, no doubt, draw their own conclusions.

I think of this as being like gambling. People who are compulsive about it (it uses similar psychological mechanisms) aren’t really enjoying it. But at some point, lack of enjoyment isn’t really relevant.

I think the AP grind is designed to function like that. You start out getting something you want … then you realize you could get a little more if you do this little thing right now (but not if you wait) … and that little bit of grinding grows to take up more and more time.

I quit when content was really not fun (so I didn’t have every AP, and wasn’t at the top of the AP grind leader boards) … but it’s easy to get sucked in.

GuildWars 1 was advertised in part by developers claiming that they were against the concept of grinds as a way to encourage player participation. GuildWars 2 is not, AFAICT, guided by that philosophy, which makes me sad. (And I may yet decide that I’m done with it when having playing/having fun for the fewest possible number of APs stops being an interesting goal.)

nihavel.6592:

if you don’t enjoy AP system and since you hate some feature (like crab toss) but you are playing them as well a question rise in my mind:

I was a “completionist” (I’m still w/in the top 1k NA players for APs — 11588, though I’ve fallen almost 100 places in the ranking in the past week) — there’s something psychologically effective about offering limited time rewards. But I lead to me being very kitten ed off at anet, because I’d play content I wasn’t enjoying for extrinsic (rather than intrinsic) rewards.

I considered quitting (and took most of a week off … first time in a while), but finally decided that I can enjoy the game if I make my goal having fun while getting the fewest number of APs possible.

So I won’t touch the new TA dungeon path (though it sounds like it’s at least somewhat interesting) until the meta is done, because avoiding LS achievements is the only way I can see of protesting the AP grind that is LS. (Well, that and quitting, but there are still some parts of the game that I find fun.)

But I’m still unhappy that GuildWars 2 has chosen to add so many grinds — the fact that it’s psychologically effective doesn’t make it a good way to design your games.

RLHawk.3290:

You’re talking as if they have somehow limited how you used to always re-trait. You /don’t/ need to spend money on it. The silver cost remains the same as ever. If they REPLACED map travel cost with gem cost, then yeah, I’d be upset. If they added a way to use gems as an alternative to that cost, like an item that teleported you to a specific waypoint when you used it, then I’d have absolutely no problem with that.

They have NOT made anything MORE tedious at all though. Instead they added something you can spend some money on for relatively negligible convenience and thereby support the game. I think that’s awesome, and shows that their priorities are in the right place.

You think it’s awesome? I guess that means you’ll be buying them? There is no way I will; and this offering makes me less likely to buy gems from them in the future. I spent a lot of time and money, but it was fun at the time.

A consumable for trait resets doesn’t make the game more tedious — but it does seem to kill the hope I had that it’d get better.

Personally — I hate being forced to make a choice between wasting money and wasting time — having that decision thrust into my face is a constant irritant. Previously it wasn’t a choice as they didn’t have functionality for resetting traits in the field; now that they do, I either have to pretend that this doesn’t exist or stew.

My objection to this is that — based on my personal response — I think it’s a poor business decision. If you or others respond by spending cash to buy these and are happy to have them in the gem store, then perhaps I’m wrong — and if that’s the case, have fun.

But I get the impression that you’re probably defending this offering out of loyalty, rather than happiness at seeing this in the gem store. If that’s the case, consider that my comments might be sincere.

RLHawk.3290:

I think this is a ridiculous thing to get upset about. It’s a convenience item — not at all necessary, but handy at times for people who don’t mind throwing money at the game reasonably often to make it free for everyone else. Seems like the perfect thing to put in the gem store to me. Just like repair canisters. Yes — you can go and repair lots of places, and that’s a LOT cheaper. But if you wanna use money to be lazy, you can. And you can support the game in the process.

I’m perfectly willing to spend money on the game. I’ve bought items which are just for convenience (e.g. unlimited use gathering tools) — that seemed fine with me. But traits and builds are a core part of the game; I am not OK with needing to spend money on this. I can accept a cost in silver as a way to limit inflation, but not a cost in gems.

What would you think if they made map travel cost gems rather than gold (silver)? I mean, that’s just a convenience, right? You could spend all your time playing running from one map to another … but it wouldn’t be much fun.

Their choice to make this a paid item tells me about their priorities, and it makes me sad. Anet can make the parts of the game I find interesting more tedious or expensive … and I’ll have less fun when I play the game. It’s their choice — just not really a good business decision. (Right now I’m taking a break from playing; this isn’t the main reason, but it gives me more reason not to come back.)

Ashabhi.1365:

I have a question for you…

What do you do while waiting? Do you just “stand around” or do you try to organize with the people around you?

While I understand that simply standing around is terribly boring, sometimes having that extra hour to organize is a good thing… besides, I don’t think I have ever waited for more than about 20 minutes once the window has opened….except for the one time that Taco broke.

I would be happy if there were pre-events because we could spend the amount of time we want to on organization, then trigger via pre-events.

The time I did it w/ RE & snowcrash (one of their tries, not a successful one; I don’t know if they tried again) I was there 30-40m while we were waiting — they discussed strategy, I decided on my role, got into their TS, got 25 stacks of +10 power via sigil, got appropriate consumables … and that was OK.

The attempt wasn’t successful (down to ~40% IIRC), which is OK; I’m sure I could have done some things better, and the same is certainly true for at least some of the others on the map.

But wait another hour? No..

(I went as a PVT guard — all exotics / ascended. Mostly I think I could have had better timing for my stability consecration, and better DPS during downtime. But I spent the time DPS’ing Teq, up’ing the downed, and curing conditions via boons. It wasn’t hard to stay up and continue DPS’ing Teq given my class/build… perhaps I should have gone for higher DPS/less support — that kind of experimentation sounds good. Waiting an hour to try it … not interested.)

This. Seriously. This is what made me unwilling to do the event after a few tries, and unhappy about how it’s designed.

I’d have joined TTS or tried to get folks in my guild to do it if we could trigger it via pre-events (including after failure, like the Karka Queen) — but I refuse to sit in Sparkfly Fen waiting for the timer to go off. Especially since I expect it’d take a few times to get the fight down.

I’m happy with content that’s hard enough to take more than one try to get right (I know I can improve personally, and I’m sure a group would improve given practice) — but I am really not willing to wait around twiddling my thumbs for no good reason. There’s enough toil/drudgery in RL, and experiencing more is really not why I played this game.

aeneq.1760:

So anyone tried the transmute to white trick and have any feedback on whether the reverse transmutation gives the legendary back?

This is what I did:

(1) transmute with a blue or white item — taking stats from the blue or white item. this gives an account-bound item with the legendary skin and crappy stats
(2) use a transmutation splitter — this returns the legendary and the blue/white skin above — both accountbound rather than soulbound

This worked immediately after transmutation splitters were released; I’d guess it still does.

Transmutation alone would, I think, give you an item with the legendary skin — but without the ability to change stats when out of combat; you need the splitters as well.

I think it’d be better to make legendaries account-bound (or account-bound on equip), period — but transmutation stone + splitter let you do this for cash, and its something I’d want to do rarely enough that it seemed an OK solution.

(I’m sort of happy now that legendaries aren’t account bound — I’m not sure I want to play anymore, so I bought a pre that seemed reasonable (no luck with the mystic forge, despite throwing thousands of rares & hundreds of exotics at it), crafted a second legendary, and gave it to a friend who’ll get more use out of it than I think I would have. I suppose if legendaries were account-bound, I’d just have given the stacks of T6 mats, & helped farming the dungeon tokens … but it was fun to be able to do all of it.)

SeeRower.3852:

Also I don’t remember anything about the game being cosmetic progression orientated. Got a source for that? I know that they said it won’t be be gear orientated, but that, to me, doesn’t mean it’ll me cosmetically orientated, it just means that at top tier gear doesn’t mean squat, it all comes down to how well you lay out your build and you skill in playing it.

This was the approach they took w/ GW1, where I thought it worked well. [I wouldn’t have bought GW2 if I hadn’t been playing GW1.]

SeeRower.3852:

On the note of feeling that we need to fork out gems to have fun; huh? How does that even make sense? I don’t see anything in the gem store is a necessity for fun?

Playing with builds is part of the core of what makes the game interesting to me. Making us choose between wasting time and wasting money for the interesting part leaves me much less interested in the game.

SeeRower.3852:

Again this is all for convenience. And what monetization are you referring to? I have not spent a cent of RL money on the gem store, all my gems I got from trading gold. That said, this has nothing to do with templates, the trait reset stones don’t let you save a certain trait setup, they just let you reset your traits on the fly. If you don’t like the item then don’t buy it, Anet isn’t cramming it down your throat.

I’ve spent a lot of real money in the gem store — something like $2k across my accounts. (Remember that the gems you buy via in-game gold are all sold by people who paid cash; if people stop paying cash & selling for gold, the gold-to-gems ratio increases until they start paying again.) I paid for char slots, convenience harvesting gear, bank slots, inventory slots — and also sold for gold so I’d spend less time on farming when that farming stopped being fun. I’m taking a break from playing right now, but it was all within my budget for entertainment (this was taking the place of other kinds of entertainment), so I don’t regret it.

I do object to trait resets for gems — I was fine with paying for convenience for harvesting equipment or inventory slots because neither is core to what makes the game fun — they’re grinds I get caught up in, but only that. OTOH — playing with builds is part of the core of what makes the game fun.

If you have to travel to reset traits — there is nothing fun about waiting for the game to load another map (SSD, so not loading data from disk, but it still takes some time) or waiting for your character to run to the trainer or back. It contributes nothing to gameplay — it just discourages me from one of the parts of the game that is most interesting (playing with builds, trying to find better synergies). I have heard the argument that there should be a consequence to decisions — but IMO, wasting time on a bad build is a consequence (and is probably worse than the cost).

I’d been living without a good trait reset system, so you could say that nothing changed.

But releasing a 1-time-use item which costs gems tells me that they are more interested in making money via the gem store than in making the game fun for people like me. (I know, occasionally these will drop from dailies or the like — nonetheless.) That’s their decision — but making it less fun makes me less interested in playing. Another reason to quit is probably a blessing (I was playing more than I’d intended when I bought GW1 six years ago) — but that’s what this is, at least for me.

Vayne.8563:

…
People stop playing…how many people? I’m pretty sure Anet has numbers (in fact I know they have, I talked to a dev in game recently and unless he was lying, they have numbers).

Concurrency is up. More players are returning. Some people will leave, but name an MMO that never loses anyone.
…

I’m taking a break now (or quitting, I dunno). Finished a second legendary (howler), gave it away to a friend (looks great, btw), then gave away all my extra exotics to various guilds (50 or so).

I played a lot recently; but it left me feeling thoroughly burned out. And yes, the problem is the way Living Story and other time-limited content is offered (APs, laurels, daily limits on charged quartz, per-map T6 harvesting limits, etc).

So — for a while, I was getting almost all the APs — most dailies (~9-14 points) and almost all the LS ones. (I’m still somewhere in the top 1000 for APs in NA still, though falling quickly now since I stopped playing. I would have left at 11500 if the PvP award change hadn’t messed up my score.) I was playing a lot … but at some point it stopped being fun. (For a while, it was fun to optimize the grind. But a faster grind is still a grind.)

As well — when you’re trying to finish LS achievements before the artificial deadline, it’s infuriating when bugs cause you to lose time. If you’re just doing the content for fun, the bugs matter less — you can always come back later. But when you’re trying to hit a deadline …

I started playing GuildWars1 (6 years ago) in part because it was advertised as anti-grind. GW2 doesn’t feel that way — the grind is optional, but it’s still encouraged in many ways. That’s just not what I want in a game.

Making LS achievements not time limited would have gone a ways towards eliminating perceived pressure. Allowing dailies to stack somewhat (as Zaishen Quests did — up to 3 — in GW1) would also have helped. But nothing I see makes me think that this goal (reducing pressure on players to play now, and every day) matches the current game designers’ philosophies.

Encouraging players to play as much as possible thorugh time limited rewards will drive up participation — for a time. But it will also lead to burn out and may drive some people away. I’m in the latter boat right now.

I wouldn’t be surprised if metrics show more concurrency — the psychological tools the game designers are using are effective on a large scale. But that doesn’t mean that I like their choices, and I’m perfectly willing to walk away (I spent a lot of time and money, but that was because it was fun; if it’s not fun, it’s time to stop).

This is specifically what I found insulting about the event. I think the Karka Queen is a good design in this sense — if you fail it, you can restart it by re-doing the trigger quests. With Tequatl, you had to wait for it to start with a prepared group — and then if you failed, you were faced with >1h more waiting. That is not how i want to spend my time — I play a game to be entertained and challenged, not to wait around being bored.

Tequatl wasn’t enough to make me quit — but it was enough to make me look at my time spent playing the game and honestly ask: is this fun? or am I just grinding?

Yesterday was my first day not playing in a long time (I logged in to continue giving away stuff, and that’ll take a little longer as I wait for everything I’m selling to finish going) … no dailies, no APs, nada. The increase in AP rewards for PvP progress messed up my nice clean score … I’ll just have to pretend that I still have only 11500 APs instead of 11518.

I have plenty of other complaints (over-reliance on RNG for top-tier rewards, tagging siege, temporary content with limited-windows to finish) … but Tequatl really seemed like a slap in the face or a kick in the shin or whatever expression you like.

Teq is almost enough to get me to quit the game. (I’ve got 11450 AP and have spent 2k hours in game — on my main account. And I’ve got more disposable income than good sense, so I’ve also spent a lot of money… but I won’t throw good time and money after bad if the game stops being fun.)

It’s that bad — not the failure part, the fact that winning appears to require sitting in an map for an hour to ensure you’re with a group that has a chance. The supposedly winning strategy is also not really fun (sitting in a zergball, spamming dps or zerg support skills … how is that difficult?) — I had fun running around teq’s legs with other PVT heavies, but sitting in a zergball with enough visual effect spam that it’s hard to see anything … no, that wasn’t fun, and it certainly wasn’t worth the wait.

Make the event like the Karka Queen and I’d consider it OK — maybe not fun, but not an insult. A dedicated instance should be able to re-trigger it to get another chance on failure. But being forced to wait > 1h for your next try … is a stupid waste of time. Maybe the game is a waste of time in general, but at least it’s usually a fun waste of time. Sitting in sparkfly waiting for Teq to spawn is not fun.

If this is how GW2 is going to create challenge — I’m out.

tolunart.2095:

linuxotaku.4731:

I don’t know of a way to get the legendary skin on one item and the stats on another — that’s not what I saw; but it’s also not what I was trying for.

You can’t do that. The transmuted Legendary splits into the item that provides the skin (Legendary) and the item that provides the stats (white/blue item).

Agreed. That part was responding to what Vorch.2985 wrote.

I used this recently (about 2 weeks ago) — either white or blue works; when you transmute it, it becomes account bound (I think you have to accept the non-legendary stats for this). Then when you use the transmutation splitter, you get back the legendary + the white/blue item.

If you use the transmutation splitter while the item is still soul-bound, then the resulting legendary will be soul-bound — first you have to transmute to get it to be account bound; then you can split it. (Yes, I used two transmutation splitters — I was curious, and had transmuted previously.)

I don’t know of a way to get the legendary skin on one item and the stats on another — that’s not what I saw; but it’s also not what I was trying for.

lazila: You’re aware that the karma boosts are going to stop applying to liquid karma as of the next update, right? Makes the karma ascended trinkets … well, not completely useless, but much less useful. With that change, there will be no real reason to store liquid karma — it’ll be just like bags of gold, AFAICT.

I’d be happy to also make them account bound to start, rather than tradeable — I agree that buying a legendary makes little sense. I don’t have a problem with using cash to buy gems → gold, which I did rather than grind T6 mats (or farm gold to buy T6 mats), but I do think you should do the account-bound parts yourself. I just don’t know if that’s a decision which can easily be fixed at this point. :-/

But I do think it’d be easy and non-disruptive to make legendaries account-bound on equip, so we can move them to alternate characters if we decide to change builds. Asserting that transmutation won’t remove the specialness (going forward) would be sufficient, though I’d prefer if we didn’t need to waste an additional top-tier weapon in the process.

(or leave in mechanics for changing soul-binding)

I love my legendary (the Bifrost), but I’m considering changing the main build I use — which would make the legendary a lot of work for nothing unless I can use it on an alternate character. (Fire XI makes scepter/dagger really appealing for Elementalist). Right now, this can be done with transmutation — but it’s not clear if we’ll get the ascended boost & ability to change attributes with the next patch. (I did move it once with transmutation stones, so perhaps I’m already SoL — but this applies for others even if so.)

It doesn’t have to be free — I’m fine with using transmutation stones or something else from the gem store — I just want think legendaries should retain their special characteristics through the process.

Jumping puzzles can be hard — not that they’re impossible to do, but getting timing and position right can take a number of tries; I find them fun. If you do them repeatedly, this gets boring, but it’s fun to go through them from time to time.

The gauntlet, and some other skill based challenges in Living World, are intended to include hard content. Most PvE isn’t because too many people get discouraged at failure… and the point of the game is to be fun. It’s hard to mix the right level of difficulty for everyone without leaving less skilled players unhappy, but GW2 does an OK job IMO.

OTOH, I haven’t finished Liandri yet, so probably I qualify as less skilled. :-p

This fight is extremely frustrating in PUGs post-patch — taking away conditions makes many builds useless. Add to that the way he randomly detonates all the nearby mines and then immediately puts up a shield while using a stacking debuf to damage the party — I can’t see how this is supposed to be fun. Several times we got him < 5%, but then he did that and we died while trying to get him to a mine.

I spoke with some guildies, who went in with a non-condition team, and they had an easy time. I guess the PUGs I was in just had too much condition damage (though I went in with a zerker warrior) — but I like the mechanics of conditions, and find the game boring when it encourages everyone to switch to zerker / crit DPS builds.

I’ve done almost all the other dungeons (except SE exp), and I’ve enjoyed them even when I’ve been in groups that fell apart. This just seemed like masochism. On the bright side, if you keep putting out content like this I’ll come to my senses and stop spending so much time playing this game.