Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Simin i might agree, but mainly because to the history of bugs that encounter had. Lupicus, if you didn’t try to do him the “pro” way, wasn’t all that hard even before HoT power creep. And both of those encounters were on the most difficult end of what dungeons had to offer – you’re conveniently ignoring here the other end, like AC’s Colossus Rumblus.

I don’t care about the easy bosses. I’m sick and tired of reading about the dungeon accessibility and how people want a raid “mode” of dungeon difficulty, when in reality they want AC/CoF P1 difficulty. At least be honest and don’t hide.

Noticed, how some raiders mentioned that they don’t really run fractals anymore? Just as at some time more hardcore players switched from dungeons to fractals, now many of those players switched from fractals to raids. Nothing surprising here.

You cannot lose fractal level last I checked. If they don’t run fractals now, they didn’t run fractals all those years ago? Or they somehow turned hardcore after raids and were full casual before raids? You get statistics of what people are running now somehow because I can’t.

Most casuals do not visit forums, much less register on some other gaming sites.

That doesn’t prove anything when you have a direct comparison between relevant game types. Those casuals who don’t visit forums won’t do T4 fractals so the comparison is valid.

That’s_ your average player.

No it’s not. Now you are using statistics out of nowhere.

There were many things that weren’t originally planned and yet made it into the game.

Irrelevant.

And, even if they do mean this at the moment, it doesn’t mean they won’t change their minds later on. They did so on many other things after all. Raids themselves are such a change, for example.

And this is also irrelevant, what will happen in 3 years is anyone’s guess. But at the moment, they were really clear about what they want raids to be (hardest content), period. You are arguing over “should” and “will” now? People will try and twist anything these days.

Astralporing.1957:

Massive changes to both done in the name of accessibility seem to show otherwise. Granted, they were not meant for everyone (because nothing can be for everyone), but they both were meant for “an average player”. Not some small niche minority, like raids.

No they weren’t. When was the last time you killed Simin or Giganticus Lupicus I wonder.

Those data are taken from g2efficiency, right?

I was comparing other “hard” types of content with Raids, like T4 fractals, or you are saying that casuals are doing more T4 and would lead to different results? Also, the actual data do not reinforce the idea that the gw2efficiency users are “hardcore” at all, if it was such a raiders website then all of them would be raiding right? Or all of them would be doing T4 fractals but in reality they don’t. The percentages don’t confirm this idea that the gw2efficiency population is some hardcore minority, there are more than enough players using it even for just the search function. Or the crafting. It’s not a raider’s website. 39.5% of the gw2efficiency population hasn’t even gone beyond level 25 of fractals, that’s really hardcore indeed.

They haven’t actually said anything definite there. Sure, the Raids were not originally intended for tiers. They never said however they couldn’t make those. Or that they never will.

Got some reading comprehension problems?

Tier systems for Raids come up a lot as a result of what Fractals did. I worked on the original Fractals team and a tiered system with increased difficulty scaling was always part of the original plan for that team. It was never a plan for Raids. They are, and should remain, the most difficult content in the game.

Tiers were never a plan for Raids. Even if tiers were added some time in the future the lowest tier would still need to be higher difficulty than anything else in the game (should remain is rather clear on that)

The latest radeon driver has the relive option to record gameplay from any game.

Side by side T4 fractals and Raids for science:

T4 Fractals:
Everyone: 27.5%
0-500h: 1%
500-1000h: 7.5%
1000-2000h: 23%
2000-4000h: 42.5%
4000h+: 61%

Raids:
Everyone: 29%
0-500h: 3%
500-1000h: 11%
1000-2000h: 25.5%
2000-4000h: 44%
4000h+: 61.5%

On all /age ratings Raids are surpassing T4 Fractals but by a very small amount. This is some very interesting data that shows the appeal of Raids compared to T4 Fractals

Also, let’s take a look at personal reward level 100 in fractals:

Level 100 Fractals
Everyone: 14%
0-500h: 0%
500-1000h: 1.5%
1000-2000h: 8%
2000-4000h: 21.5%
4000h+: 40%

Devata.6589:

Did you already dive into those numbers?

Not me. But I’m waiting to see if you confirm or deny what Behellagh.1468 said.

I am not going into to GW1 discussion because that will create yet another new branch.

You hate the cash shop because it causes grind. You love an expansion model because you believe it has less grind. I point out that a game with expansions (GW1) had more than enough grind, in many cases worse than GW2. Expansions don’t equal less grind, and cash shop doesn’t equal more grind.

Let’s do some statistics for science! I’ll be using that website we all know and love/hate because it’s the only place we can get statistics from.
First I measure which percentage of players have dungeon tokens of each dungeon:

Ascalonian Catacombs: 88.5%
Caudecus Manor: 75.5%
Twilight Arbor: 78.5%
Sorrows Embrace: 71%
Citadel of Flame: 83%
Honor of Waves: 69%
Arah: 73%

The problem with this one is that we don’t know which ones are from actually running the dungeon and which ones are from pvp farming. It’s easy to say that a much lower amount of players are actually running, or used to run, the dungeons due to how easy it is to get the tokens in PVP farm maps. Also, I assume that all those with 0 tokens never run the dungeon, because of how you get and spend tokens you must actively try to zero them. Still, the statistics paint a nice picture, the percentage of players that have tokens is from 69% (lowest)-88.5%(highest).

Second, let’s check fractals:
T0 (never run fractals): 10%
T1 (2-25): 29.5%
T2 (26-50): 19.5%
T3 (51-75): 12.5%
T4 (76-100): 27.5%
T100: 14%

14% of the players are level 100 in Fractals and only 27.5% have access to T4 rewards in general. There is obviously some exclusion here, it’s also worth noting how T2 and T3 have a lower amount of players than T1 and T4 which is normal, those who decide to get out of T1 try to get to T4. T1 is used for the precursor collections but it doesn’t offer the full rewards of fractals, no infused rings, no ascended armor or weapons, so T1 is very limited in the rewards it offers.

On the flip side, the percentage of players with at least 1 legendary insight is at 29% which is higher than the amount of players running T4 fractals. Also keep in mind that we had fractals and dungeons for years while only one of the raid wings has passed the 1 year mark, the others are more recent.

In conclusion, I think dungeons and fractals are by definition exclusive as harder-instanced content. And Raids are just like them, also exclusive as harder instanced content and the logical continuation of Fractals

Devata.6589:

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then.

And you seem to forget that according to data the GW1 model wasn’t profitable and that’s why they changed it. Now you are asking them to go back to a model that wasn’t successful? What’s the point?

Also you are saying that the cash shop focus leads to grind but GW1 is the prime example of expansions being all about endless grind. Or you forgot how every worth getting skin in GW1 was behind an excessive grind? A grind that you could skip with gold by playing what you liked btw, similar to how you get gems in GW2

Blaeys.3102:

Obviously I’m not basing the comment on numbers or hard data (which – in both my and your fractal example – only Anet really has), but rather on Anet’s own admission that raids – in their current iteration – were developed for a smaller number of players – eg, they were designed to be exclusive.

Fractals and dungeons were also developed for a smaller number of players. Anything that is not press 1 to win is designed for a smaller number of players, not everyone will do it.

Blaeys.3102:

The reason it wont be enough is that, given the path raids are taking, they are essentially becoming a game within a game – something more akin to WvW or PvP than fractals, dungeons or LS. And while WvW and PvP have the inherent randomness that living opponents bring to the table – thus keeping the content fresh to a degree – raids will never have that. They have to rely on new content drops.

Not really. Unfortunately we don’t have enough stats to compare those who are raiding with those who are running dungeons or fractals but the amount of players in fractals isn’t exactly super high. T1 is mostly done for the achievements and not for regular runs, T2 is also for achievements but not as much as T2 and T3 is mostly dead even after they added the T3 daily recommended. Once you get enough AR, even if your personal level is low there is zero reason to run anything but T4 unless you want to finish some collection achievements.

I can say with certainty that more than half the people I’ve raided with haven’t touched T4 fractals at all or some of them went to fractals back when they were new and never farmed them afterwards. Re-running the occasional new fractal for its achievements and that’s it. You can also feel it on these forums when players are saying how hard it is to gear up for Raids, when in reality it takes only a fraction of the cost than gearing for fractals (no expensive AR needed).

Given how hard it will be to make tiers for Raids because they weren’t built with tiers in mind, adding tiers for them to be dead soon after isn’t exactly healthy for the game. When they add a new Fractal they don’t have to tweak anything for the different tiers because fractals already have a scaling mechanic that changes hit points and damage (which is the only difference). Adding a fractal takes the work of creating ONE fractal. Raid tiers can’t possibly be only about hit points and damage so it’s not an automatic process like with fractals. Which means the more tiers added, the slower the releases will be.

I hope you will try to get some data to support how Raids are like WvW and PvP and not like Fractals/Dungeons because I believe Raids aren’t like that at all.

Blaeys.3102:

• The reality is that 3-4 new raid bosses a quarter will never be enough to keep the hardcore raiding players interested in the game mode long term. It’s a significant investment for a very minimal return.

3-4 new raid bosses a quarter would be amazing to be honest but I doubt we’ll get 3-4 raid bosses per quarter, more like 3-4 per year or 6 months. Why are you saying it won’t be enough?

• Likewise, they cannot really integrate any meaningful rewards that exceed what is available in the rest of the game for fear of alienating other players.

Ascended will be the final tier forever, and legendary tier will be ascended with stat swap, that was promised and won’t change any time soon. That’s the reason they cannot add rewards that “exceed” what is available in the rest of the game. They will simply do what they did with the first raid, another legendary item, like a trinket or backpack with the next Raid(s) and new skins. That’s how all other types of content work.

• Raids in their current form cannot be used as meaningful story telling tools for accessibility and continuity reasons.

They should never be used as meaningful story telling tools. The big mistake with the first Raid was taking 6 whole months to complete it, and while we were waiting for the raid wings to finish, the game got no meaningful updates. Even with an easy/story mode that’s a terrible thing to do, postponing content for so long due to raid releases, it was a mistake and I hope their narrative/story team can do a better job next time.

• The further segmentation of the PVE community as numbers in game decline between expansions (which just happens – it isn’t a negative) doesn’t fit with the content model they have used successfully for years – which is to encourage people to play together- not apart.

New tiers for raids also cause segmentation.

• Raids have, for many, removed the illusion of choice from the game.

Funny that’s how the game always was in the past when more and more people were doing dungeon runs. Dungeons died and posts asking for easy modes for dungeons died too. Posts complaining about variety and exclusion also died. That’s the reason

Astralporing.1957:

There was the time during beta when mobs were brighter and had better AI.

They were a tiny bit more intelligent than the final version but not bright enough to take any player’s place. Even those mobs would be terrible in a dungeon environment.

Paulie.6215:

Gamers have gone too soft to allow this in games today.

Gamers gone soft or gamers are now intelligent beings that don’t want that terrible garbage called open world pvp in their game? I do more than enough PVP in the arenas, gold league at the moment, I can fight anyone in a fair fight where actual skill and ability matters. Killing someone in open world pvp is the exact opposite of skill and shows nothing about player ability.

I guess those who want open world pvp are those who can’t compete in actual pvp and want some easy mode kills because they lack any actual skill and want to jump on unsuspecting players. Lack of any skill = open world pvp

Devata.6589:

That however removes the game-play value of them and undermines the few that you can get in-game.

Since we agree that cash shop games get way more skins than non-cash shop games, the real question then is:
“Do we have too few items available in-game compared to expansion-based games?”

If the amount of items we get in-game in GW2 is similar to the amount of items you get in an expansion-based game then the cash shop isn’t exactly hurting the game compared to an expansion. If the amount of skins we get in-game in GW2 is way lower than the amount of skins expansion-based games give then yes the cash shop does indeed detract from the game in terms of shinny reward choice.

It’s really hard to make such a comparison though

Dungeons won’t be updated and no new dungeons will be added in the future. The simple reason is that the dungeons were created long before other mechanics and developer tools were added to the game. And by developer tools I mean how the developers can create the new instances, map creation tools, mob creation tools, reward creation tools and so on.

Fractals were created using new tools and CAN be updated/tweaked easily. New fractals can also be added to the list easily, while adding new dungeons is impossible due to technical reasons (there is a reason when aetherpath was added, they removed a dungeon path, and it’s not something they did by choice).

It’s not a matter of allocating resources or putting some of the developers to work on dungeons. It’s too much effort for no reward, they’d need to basically re-design and re-make all dungeons from scratch which isn’t exactly a good choice.

The best thing they could do for dungeons is to re-create them as Fractals with new mechanics, new encounters and so on. But tweaking the dungeons isn’t worth the effort.

Devata.6589:

The cash-shop model on the other hand at least grantees that compromises in the content had to be made.

This is what you fail to understand. The cash shop model adds extra items that wouldn’t exist in game otherwise there is no reason to believe that without the cash shop those items would’ve been given inside the game. They wouldn’t even exist.

Do we really need a festive mini Aurene in-game?
Isn’t the regular version which you get from a collection enough?

Do you really believe that those outfits, back items and black lion weapons added would’ve been added in game if the game was using an expansion model? Because I don’t think that would make any kind of sense because they’ve added a billion skins in the game and they’d require 100+ expansions to provide all of them in-game.

And the next failure is how you get those rewards you so like in other games. More often than not it requires grind and repetition, more than enough of it. Just take a look at Guild Wars 1 and how much grinding you had to do to get any of the pretty skins. With abysmal low chance of getting anything remotely interesting, you had to play the same type of content a bazillion times to get the rewards you wanted. The alternative they used in Guild Wars 1 so you wouldn’t need to bleed to death getting those rewards? They made them available with gold.

Devata.6589:

Nonetheless, if I had to pick between a game that sells content (With the option for a season pass) or a game that earns money with a cash-shop focus I would go for the season-pass just so I know the content is not being compromised for cash-shop sales.

Content is not compromised by cash shop sales. You are saying that all the items offered in a game’s cash shop, like the gem store of GW2, would be in the game if the gem store didn’t exist. That’s a lie, without the cash shop most of those items wouldn’t even exist in the game. You are mistaken if you think otherwise and that’s the major flaw in your reasoning. We get so many black lion weapon sets and outfits because we have them inside black lion chests, if there were no chests/gem store, we wouldn’t get so many black lion weapon sets/outfits.

You are also saying that there are no things to hunt in game in GW2 which shows that you aren’t even playing the game. There are a lot of minis and skins to collect in the game, especially in LS3 there is some good variety added, and those who are available in the gem store I honestly wouldn’t want them to be in-game items. It’s one thing to break immersion from the gem store and another one completely if you make those skins available through actual in-game content. A lot of the gem store items are not suitable as in-game rewards and I’m really glad they are on the gem store and not in-game.

In addition, with an expansion you add absolutely no content for those who don’t actually buy it. With a cash shop you get the items you want, when you want them and IF you want them. With an expansion you can’t pick and choose what you want. It’s either you get the whole thing (and pay a premium) or you get nothing. And with the gem store you don’t even have to pay because you can use gold.

An Expansion don’t has to be P2W.

No they don’t have to be, but they always are.

If I’m not mistaken the leaderboard isn’t updating instantly but takes some time.

Doggie.3184:

maddoctor.2738:

Someone was summoning a skritt for people to hit with snowballs (it was green) and it counted for the achievement. I’m not sure what kind of skill summons a skritt

The Water Balloon Bucket can summon a Skritt. I’ll test it when it pops up again.

That’s probably it. I don’t think there is any other skill that summons skritt and that skritt from the water balloon DOES work for the achievement.

Djinn.9245:

MithranArkanere.8957:

Puk Grum.8647:

Have you guys tried using the snowballs from the Wintersday vendor that sells snowballs for karma? I’m just guessing but there’s plenty of unoccupied Skritt in the giant presents around Tyria. 5 Skritt per present. Maybe this will work?

Hmm just gave it a good go, doesn’t seem to work. Can’t throw snowballs in combat, and even when I outranged them outside of combat, none took hits.

Nope. Not the same type of balls either.

You need an effect that hits with the matching balls: The ones from magic snow.

Other balls won’t work.

If it’s only supposed to be snowballs from Magic Snow, why does the achievement say “Hit 10 skritt with snowballs anywhere in Tyria”?

The snowballs from the bundle work just fine

First: I want them to be honest about what will be in it. How many zones and approximately how big they will be, how many instances, how many new masteries and so on

Second: the price needs be appropriate for what we get

Third: give us things we can’t already have from the LS. Things like new professions and elite specs for existing ones are prime candidates. New mastery points and new expansion masteries that help make our life in the expansion zones better.

Four: the new skills/specs shouldn’t be more powerful than old ones. Enough with the power creep

Five: The expansion should have something for EVERYONE. Open zones for more casual exploration, action/meta packed zones for where the big action vs the Dragons will be, new fractals, a new Raid, new PVP maps, the third borderland for WvW. Expansions are supposed to cater to the entire playerbase of a game

Someone was summoning a skritt for people to hit with snowballs (it was green) and it counted for the achievement. I’m not sure what kind of skill summons a skritt

Zeyta.3519:

Players that have a lot of time to put into the game should be able to get the most out of it. They should be rich.

Usually those with more time put into the game are richer than those with limited time. But it’s also about how you spend that time.

Make every skill and trait equally effective

Although it’s something all players in all games have been asking since the beginning of gaming, you know that’s impossible… there is no game in history that ever managed that.

- More PVP Maps (I’m sure there is a reason for removing the variety of PVP maps, but when all you have are the same 4-5 maps with players often choosing the same map in queues, it becomes very monotonous and adds to the repetition.

They added 2 new maps very recently. Waiting for extra testing and feedback processing to make them available in queues.

Zeyta.3519:

- Ability to Dye weapons including Legendary Weapons.

Won’t happen. They add “new” skins that are similar to ones but with different dyes already.

Zeyta.3519:

Map Completion and Map Zones

They added the map rewards system from events, you find the zone that gives what you want, go to that zone and do events, and get the reward you are after. The problem with that system is how one map (Frostgorge) is way too rewarding compared to the others and it’s usually better to farm that map (on week sell the materials, and buy what you want.

If they tune that system better so it’s worth visiting the zones for the materials you want, instead of playing on others to get gold to buy them, then it will be much better and we may see way more players using it.

Map completion can be added to it. Like, every vista, heart, waypoint, point of interest, hero challenge that you finish contributes to the map rewards. This gives a high incentive to take your alts to every zone (and make new alts!) to re-do them for the rewards.

As for map currencies I think we have too many and adding one on each region will cause an overflow. It’s already a mess. What they could do (and is already done to some extend) is to add the specific region rewards to Heart vendors, then make those Hearts repeatable. So you want that krytan greatsword skin? You need to finish HeartA and buy it from the vendor.

Events:

There is a reason events with long escorts and/or timers are being ignored, they aren’t worth the effort. A way of “fixing” this is to split long events in phases, and make each individual phase contribute towards map rewards. So a camp is under attack by risen, now you get a reward once the assault is finished, but with the phase system, you will get “progress” multiple times, if the event lasts 8 minutes, it might reward you 4 times (every 2 minutes) with map reward progress. Together with tweaking the map reward system (see above) this can go a long way in making the entire game more rewarding to play and give incentives to visit the entire world.

I always hid my cape in Guild Wars and never liked that I couldn’t hide them in PVP.
I’ll pay 0 gems for capes, to me they are a waste of resources to make.

Red skritt work for the achievement. The problem is you cannot use the snowball while in combat so basically you throw a snowball and run in circles to get the next snowballs to hit it again. If you are hit you need to kill it and find the next skritt

Auroraborealis.7310:

Placement rounds need to go. EVERYONE needs to start off on equal footing, at SQUARE 1. Each and every player should get equal treatment disregarding their e-sport status, or previous seasons outcomes.

This is a horrible idea and will make the season completely unplayable during the first 2-3 weeks. It will all be random, or rather even more random than now. Keep in mind that the more seasons they do, the better the initial placement will be in the future. As more and more people begin their pvp journey at the top, they won’t fight newcomers or players with lower skill levels, making the games better and better.

sophiewhite.3149:

i can make a gift of fortune in 2 days grinding my butt off in pve. i need like 3 months of raiding to make a set. so yeah its a much higher grind. your also assuming perfect groups 1st try kills and every kill being on lfg within the week. im lucky to get 4 kills a week through lfg.

You can’t compare gift of fortune and LI using how long it will take in months or weeks since LIs can only be acquired once per week. Is it a “much higher grind” when you will need to play the Raids for one or two days a week for 3 to 4 hours? Compared to what exactly? How many hours of “grinding” to get a gift of fortune in 2 days?

And I’m “assuming” a proper static group, not using the lfg although you can find intelligent/competent groups on lfg as well.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s just grind in a single, specific part of content. Which, in many ways, makes it worse.

That’s what makes it better, not worse.
First, it depends on your definition of grind, I don’t find the Raids a grind at all. You don’t even need to repeat them that often to make the Legendary Armor. The achievements do not require repetition at all (except for Gorseval who needs 4 tries)

Then you need 25 LI to make one part of the set. That’s 2 full runs (9) + a couple more (3) kills per piece so you are making enough progress easily. With the upcoming Wing 4 we’ll get 4 more per run for a total of 13. 2 full Raid runs (2 weeks) per piece of armor.

Future Raids might give more LI too.

Compared to getting the other gifts that are common with legendary weapons (like 15 mystic clovers) or the 100 of each t6 material, that’s absolutely nothing.

So you want the game to be all about endless/mindless grinding. I thought this game wasn’t about grind, something you forgot in your pillars of GW2

Some comments on Colin’s list:

1. Hiring a new male/female voice actor to be the voice of the main characters (pricy and gotta work their schedules)

They could use an existing voice actor and add some effect on it, like they did with the mysterious asura in fractals

2. Building another personal story (takes time)

No need for a personal story if the new race is only available in the expansion it is released in. When we go and fight Jormag, we can also play as level 80 Kodan, when we fight DSD we get Largos, when we fight Primordus we get Tengu, and so on

3. Personalizing to the race, certain interactions with NPCs (racism, curiosity, etc) (often overlooked and takes a lot of time)

Not really hard if most of those interactions are in the new zone anyway.

4. Adjusting EVERY piece of armor in the entire game(and those yet to come) to fit the new race (This would take months on its own)

Kodan: Norn, Largos: Human, Tengu: Charr. Won’t need as much “fitting”

Armor will fit Tengu better than Charr because they don’t have tails. Their body type looks very similar so it should work with minimal (if any) adjustments.

About the Largos wings: remember that according to lore, all Norn can transform into animal forms, yet player characters cannot do that (they need to slot skills) A Largos player could be without wings and use a racial skill to deploy their wings, or a racial armor that has wings on. Or they deploy as a glider when you glide and stay hidden otherwise.

my 2 cents. They CAN add a race

When I’m in bell choir I always wait for the timer to expire so I get to the next map that starts from the first song instead of joining a mid-point map. I noticed something today and I don’t know if it can help the team. Everyone else left the map when we reached the “play what you want” part, I was all alone. When the timer expired I got the “world full” error and couldn’t proceed unless I got out of the instance and entered again.

It’s possible that the world full error appears when your map doesn’t have enough people to create a new one, when the timer ends. Then players outside in DR that want to get in, might get assigned to the bugged map and then they also get the error.

I noticed when my map was full or nearly full, I never ever got the world full error in Bell Choir, although I got it in the Winter wonderland even with loads of people inside. But never in Bell Choir.

The easy solution is to remove the “play what you want” part, so nobody leaves a map early. Or add some extra final gifts once that part finishes, add an incentive for players not to leave the map early because nearly empty maps cannot create new instances once the timer expire and cause this “world full” error to appear.

This is purely from my observation of course, it might be completely different. But I hope this info can help the team find the real issue and next year we won’t get full instance bugs.

Nikkinella.8254:

What’s wrong with this generation that everyone feels like they’re entitled to everything? Theres more than enough things already that everyone can get. there should be more things in the game that only one person can get.

I didn’t get to Legendary last season so I didn’t get the AP from that. I’m fine with it. I’m fine with having difficulty barriers to get achievements. I’m fine with achievements being difficulty to get and exclude a lot of players. But having limited slots for achievements goes against all the other achievements in the game, that’s not a good barrier.

Whether you want to accept the fact or not, there are simply some people that are better than others

And the one who is first on the leaderboards isn’t necessarily the best. Did he play against the 2nd to prove that he is better? The leaderboard shows a matter of skill when you take whole brackets (divisions), but individually the one at the top might be worse than the 2nd player, or the 3rd player. Not to mention the lovely decay that will drop your rating if you miss a day during the last week of the season. Or how someone might not play PVP at all and start during the last week and climb to the top.
Or the difference in rating levels between NA and EU, why is the top NA player getting the top achievement, when the nth EU player has a better rating?

If it’s a cup system, like the PVP tournaments were teams fight fixed games, then yes it shows who is the best. But this ladder on which everyone is playing a different amount of games, with random team-mates, shows very little about skill when you compare two players individually. A division could be used for the achievements just like the previous seasons (and without Stronghold farming and the pip madness it will be more accurate)

DoctorDing.5890:

Multiloot is a vibrant and happy community event. The game needs those type of events. Careful what you wish for….

No it’s not always a happy community event and it creates a lot of drama for no reason. The game doesn’t need those types of events at all.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Haishao.6851:

Preventing this now is a bad idea IMO. If it was something that needed fixing they should have fixed it in the first weeks, not nearly 2 years later.

Right now everyone can go do it if they need gold. If it stops now, the people that joined multiloot during the last year will be forever richer and everyone else will be forever poorer with no way to close the gap between them. Right now it’s possible to close that gap by joining multiloot too.

You realize that multi-loot in its current form has only been around since the update earlier this year that made it possible.

Multi loot as we know it, started in July 2016 (or June 2016?). It’s easy to figure it out because that’s when the glob of ectoplasm price started falling rapidly, while it was perfectly fine until that point.

AlexPort.9204:

and you dont get, that it is not set in stone who will be the #1 in the end

Yes but in the end it will be only one who gets it (two if you include NA/EU). There is no set barrier for getting it, like all the other achievements in the game. Crossing to Legendary division, killing a raid boss, capturing towers or eating enough candy all have set requirements that any number of people can fulfill if they try or get good enough. Will everyone do them? No of course not, but everyone has a chance of getting it, that is not limited by what others will do.

There is a difference between making an achievement hard to get, but with set requirements, and making an achievement limited to a handful of people.

That’s exactly what I’m referring to.
Achievements that ARE limited to a certain number ARE good. “I was one of the few that achieved this goal” achievement points SHOW achievement.

Achievements limited to a certain number of players by design aren’t good. Achievements that are limited to a certain number because only they can be good enough to get them are good, there is a difference between the two. As I said, if they made it so you got the achievements based on your rating (even a very high rating) and not your position, there wouldn’t be an issue.

Warcry.1596:

Why? Achievement… Something to be achieved. This person achieved the #1 spot on the ladder. There SHOULD be things worth achievement points that not everyone can obtain.

Yes, achievements for something not everyone can obtain are good. Achievements that limit how many will get them by adding number limits are not. They could say anyone with a rating of 2000 will get the top title, anyone with a rating of 1900 will get the second title, 1800 rating the third and so on (arbitary numbers). That way everyone has access to the achievement and they can all potentially get them if they get good enough. Limiting the achievement to one player “just because” isn’t a good way to go.

And I repeat: getting to Legendary division last season gave AP and a title. Not everyone was able to reach Legendary but it was fine. There was no thing like “only 250 people are allowed in Legendary division”

AlexPort.9204:

that doesnt mean that everyone was capable to achieve it in the last seasons. when you cant reach that level, you simply cant. same as this season. you want the AP? try to improve yourself in pvp and get into the top 250. that is also achievable for EVERYONE. simple is that.

You missed the part where only the top player would be able to get the top 6 AP, so that’s not achievable by everyone, but just by ONE person and no amount of get good can help with it. AP for ONE person is wrong

I had the opposite experience. Horrible placement matches but once that was over I started having good matches.

Nikkinella.8254:

If it really meant that much to you, you should just get good and earn the title.

There is one thing to make an achievement hard to get but this isn’t the case. The 6 AP for the top title will go to ONE person. If only ONE person out of the entire population will get that 6 AP no amount of “get good” can help anyone else.

Getting to Legendary division in previous seasons also had an achievement and a title, but I didn’t see anyone complaining because it was obtainable. These AP are not obtainable and it’s a good thing they were removed.

sophiewhite.3149:

mauried.5608:

The invalid assumption here is that the only reason people do the AB meta event is because of the exploit, and no one would do it if it was fixed.

its pretty valid. took at the other metas. people will just go to SW

You do understand that even in AB the reason multi loot succeed is because there are non-ML players around, right? In multi loot squads you send at best 5 people per zone which are obviously not enough to finish the meta of that zone and the rest of the players are non-ML runners.

VB/TD/DS have healthy populations so the argument that AB will “die” if ML is removed is invalid. Unless you think that plain AB doesn’t offer as good rewards as VB/TD/DS, that’s a different issue.

Behellagh.1468:

Looking at the audited annual reports reveals an ugly truth. ArenaNet as an entity never made a profit from Guild Wars.

You should’ve said that in page 1. But really Anet made no profit from Guild Wars? That sounds extreme to be honest

Tekoneiric.6817:

I’m just trying to offer a constructive suggestion that keeps the event and the culture that has sprung up around it while reducing the impact on the economy to counter the few vocal people who are biased against it calling for it to be nuked.

The “fix” for multi loot is to not allow multi loot, plain and simple, no other changes are needed for AB. You are scared that people will stop doing AB? VB/TD and DS do not have multi loot options yet you can find lots of groups for those every day. World bosses get people every day too. So I don’t understand how removing multi loot from the game will destroy AB, in fact it might make the other zones better since AB won’t get all the players.

Khisanth.2948:

I am told you can just coompletely ignore that mechanic and burn it down with enough damage as well. I have yet to try with any character that has enough damage though. I still need at least one stun.

It is possible. the boss heals when he pulls you in so if you avoid the pull he will only heal from Aurene. Then it’s possible to kill it ignoring the mechanic

Don’t allow players to loot chests on multiple instances like it is on all other maps and on all chests in the game? There is no need to “fix” the rewards or the events themselves, just remove multi loot from the game and all is fine.

The white circle appears on top of the platform and when it does you simply enter it and click the new skill. If Aurene is stuck and isn’t doing anything then it’s probably a bug and you need to restart the instance.

You are not supposed to kill that boss alone. At a certain point your extra skill will be active and you need to stay in the big white circle then use that skill. Aurene will damage the mob and if I recall you simply repeat that 2 times and the mob is dead.

Farm the Guild Hall

Check this out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Duplicate-White-Mantle-Portal-Device/first#post6434232

MarkoNS.3261:

Hello i would like monthly rewards to be a thing again for those of you who dont know it was an extra 300 ap every month for like the first year and some of us like me came back as that was being shut down, the problem is the guys who completed this have their daily ap maxed and have a huge ap boost compared to people who only get ap from daily. In order to make things “fair and equal” either removed monthly ap completely from everyone or make monthly available again.

The monthly AP is combined with the daily AP and the combined total cannot exceed 15k AP. Since that cap exist, it’s “fair and equal”

Devata.6589:

Sure there are still a few negatives about that approach.

Please don’t tell me that you like Season Passes. Just don’t. The worst thing that has ever happened in gaming is the Season Pass where you pre-buy a bunch of random DLCs together, a bunch of DLCs that you don’t even know what they will contain or if they will interest you. Paid Season Passes and DLC need to die. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone say that they like Season Passes.

So the effect that you take something away is there in all the cases. The question is, what is best for the quality of the game.

Remove cosmetics, not content, that’s the best for the quality of a game. With an expansion you remove content, with a cosmetic cash shop you remove some cosmetics. It’s an easy choice for me.

A cash-shop focus leads to frustration.

And being forced to buy an expansion to get access to higher level caps, better/different gear stats, more powerful skills and abilities is not frustrating?

Which one is more frustrating?
a) You cannot compete with others because they have the expansion and are objectively better than you at beating the game, and they have access to more content than you do.
b) They have a shinny that you don’t have.

I’d take b) any time. Not to mention how expensive expansions are and you can only get the complete package. For example, let’s say I want the elite specs to compete in PVP but don’t give a kitten about Raids or the Hot zones. I can’t buy just the elite specs. Expansions are expensive and limit your choice, they are all or nothing packages.

In a P2W shop the frustration is that you are getting unfairly killed because people simply have better weapons.

Note that expansions bring new skills (elite specs for example in GW2), you should know how FRUSTRATING it is to get killed in PVP by a Druid, a Tempest, and so on, while you don’t have access to those. The power creep is real with expansions and it’s not that bad in GW2 because at least here they don’t increase level caps here. But even here, expansions ARE a source of P2W frustration. Expansions are P2W by definition, a cash shop doesn’t need to be P2W.

In game where you can convert cash to in-game money and the other way around you will usually see that to get the items you would normally want, you need to grind a lot so that is frustrating.

And with an expansion model you don’t even have access to the content of the expansion to get the items you want. Without HoT I wouldn’t even dream of getting the rewards from the Raid, or the Bladed/Leystone armor skins for example.