Guild Wars 2

There’s two avenues to consider.

1/ a lot of people don’t like underwater combat. Underwater fractal is easy for that reason alone … if it were difficult, people’d be all over the place kittening about it.

2/ currently, underwater combat is lackluster at best, with only 3 possible weapons and no BiS headgear. There is potential though.

3/ I fully expect a content update with underwater theme that will fix a whole lot of this combat problem.

If other ascended gear is just as easy to get as the current items, I’m fine.

Sure they’re not free and you’ll need half a brain, but 6 times 15 minutes for an earring isn’t too much imho. 30 laurels for an amulet is just fine and 10 tokens per ring is good too.

More instruments please!

It’s a compensation system. If you play 8+ hours a day, you’ve got to compensate over people who work 8+ hours a day. Achievement points do exactly that.

For the record, I have 4.8k.

Try the Guardian from this thread:
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/comments/rushs-guide-to-smoother-dungeons

Sure he ain’t the dedicated healer like in WoW, but he’s a nice support type that throws around area heals.

As for dedicated healers, there’s a million reasons why they’re bad for the game in general, you personally liking them unfortunately is not enough to kitten over backwards the entire playerbase.

No

123456789

At the very least it makes more sense than race changes in this game.

I don’t care either way. Rerolling a new profession is a matter of minutes if you have the gems/gold, it’s gearing him that’s the real problem.

It’s just the way you play it. I actively use all my skills in GW2, and try to make the most out of them. Most have more than one purpose which means using them wrongly can cost me.

In WoW I spammed shadow bolt. That’s it. Oh there were a million other skills but who cared, honestly.

Coopziana.1802:

Fror.2163:

Coopziana.1802:

Ok, So the title was just to make you look, but PLEASE read and let me know you’re thoughts:

Sorry, I didn’t want to read past this anymore. Go write for the Sun!

erm… Yeah thanks for that “Contribution” mate…

I contributed by reporting this post for misleading title. That’s bad practice.

It’s not unlimited. It’s time limited.

People want more content in those zones. Even without players, the Wayfarer foothills were better with the molten alliance in that zone. Currently it’s worse off once again. There’s no reason for the southsun content to be gone. If they revisit those zones in 10 months, maybe that’s a good moment to remove the really old content.

Naginto.4597:

@marnick

We’ll walk you through it slow, shall we?

Its a picture of gems.
GW2 has a gem store.
The continued existence of GW2 is dependent solely on gem sales.
The primary reason for making some items soulbound is to force players into buying more than one, thereby increasing Anet’s profit.

That wasn’t so hard was it?

Except it has nothing to do with gems. Soulbound items stabilize the economy which is required in any MMO, regardless of whether that game has a gem store, sub fee, pay2win or entirely free open source.

But you’re right, not having soulbound items would crash the entire economy including gold, legendaries, crafting materials and, of course, gems as collateral damage. Still doesn’t make gems part of the discussion.

Is that too hard for you or would a sub fee change your mind? I knew what he was going for, but since it has no relevance, that’s what I said. The picture was off-topic.

They seem pretty legit and have not been denied, which would have been expected if they were fake. Furthermore, they seem pretty balanced so not a very fake try either.

If someone made this, he put a whole lot of effort into it, gathering the best suggestions on the forums and compiling them into believable notes. On the other hand, they may just be legit or cliff’s notes from an earlier build (which explains the grammar)

My bet is on legit. My hopes too

aspirine.6852:

marnick.4305:

Septemptus.7164:

marnick.4305:

No. It’s devalue them.

They should be craftable, and extremely expensive.

Craftable, not expansive.
They should consume time not gold cause everyone will just go for easy grind. It’s better to make it similar to laurels system. More like log in daily to get something/do something not grind your way through CoF P1 or flipping to be the one who have it all without really playing the game (cause farming is not playing it’s offensive to normal playing the game).
It should be challenging as well. At least a bit. Like you need to do some hard dungeon like Molten Factory and get some 3 parts from there and get some laurels and in living story time you can get some part always in daily to make an item. In the end you can add few crafting materials in normal quantity – like 10 or 25 of them instead 250 all the way…

You have no idea what it took to craft obby in GW1 right? Legendary are a cheap joke in comparison.

I doubt that, I got several obby’s, But I dont feel like doing all that stuff for a legendary :/

The equivalent of obby in GW2 would be a stack of ecto per slot, plus a whole lot of other expensive stuff to approximate the value in GW1.

BuD.7851:

marnick.4305:

Paul.4081:

http://shoryuken.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gems1.jpg

Off-topic much?

Actually he’s spot on.

It’s a picture that has nothing to do with the thread on a website that has nothing to do with Guild Wars. If it’s even tangentially related, feel free to elaborate.

You forgot Elona, which doesn’t have a Charr/Asura/Norn presence either.

Cantha and Elona will make it, pretty sure of that, but they’ll require heavy retcon.

Jam.4521:

Good for you.

Now stop complaining and let those of us who enjoy a changing world play it.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, but I want to do it at my own pace. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Paul.4081:

http://shoryuken.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gems1.jpg

Off-topic much?

Vayne.8563:

Oh I get it completely. Then again I’m over 50, so yeah. Courtesy used to be a matter of course. Times have changed, unfortunately. People just don’t care…some people anyway.

I blame the parents. lol

www.xkcd.com. Times didn’t change in the slightest. Rude kids always existed, bad parents always existed, it’s just that you and me learned manners and others didn’t (and if I understand correctly you’re a generation older than me).

In 20 years that’ll be my line too .. .that my generation learned manners.

To sink items. If stuff didn’t bing, items would become worthless fast.

The alternative is the diablo2 system where items have random stats, leading to even more RNG outcries (although I liked the d2 system better)

Snowmoon.1758:

Monocle
Players who face down the deadly Aetherblade Captain will have a CHANCE at a new, stylish Monocle. This dandy piece of Headgear is combat-ready, tradeable, and full of sophistication!

Aetherized Rewards
Your journeys through the Aetherblade Retreat will earn you a CHANCE for items like rare salvageable materials or a new infinite tonic recipe in addition to guaranteed rare item rewards. Enduring the trials of the Not So Secret jumping puzzle will win you a set of exotic shoulderpads.

Anet has made the word “CHANCE” become a GW2 Player’s MOST HATED english word ever.

slow clap

Perfectly acceptable. RNG can be used for good and bad. This implementation is good.

Septemptus.7164:

marnick.4305:

No. It’s devalue them.

They should be craftable, and extremely expensive.

Craftable, not expansive.
They should consume time not gold cause everyone will just go for easy grind. It’s better to make it similar to laurels system. More like log in daily to get something/do something not grind your way through CoF P1 or flipping to be the one who have it all without really playing the game (cause farming is not playing it’s offensive to normal playing the game).
It should be challenging as well. At least a bit. Like you need to do some hard dungeon like Molten Factory and get some 3 parts from there and get some laurels and in living story time you can get some part always in daily to make an item. In the end you can add few crafting materials in normal quantity – like 10 or 25 of them instead 250 all the way…

You have no idea what it took to craft obby in GW1 right? Legendary are a cheap joke in comparison.

And this is exactly why I bought a vuvuzela IRL, just to grief soccer fans in the pub.

As a PVE engi I’m psyched about the pistol condition damage buff with conditions. Gonna be huge (hopefully). Scope looks kinda promising.

Maybe I’ll finally be able to do DPS that’s barely on par with the buffed ranger or necro. Maybe the nerfed zerk warrior only does double my damage now. We’ll have to see. I’m 60% positive 40% cynical.

Agree. I always thank people for completing content with me. Every dungeon, every skill point etc

As a kid I learned that stupid questions don’t exist.

As an adult I learned they were wrong.

This would be a stupid question which is why no one asked.

Sarcasm thread ftw

Khisanth.2948:

I wouldn’t mind another Mystic Forge Conduit but as much as I would love to have one I think that was not a good solution. There needs to be a long term solution that will naturally use up these things.

Don’t forget those chests were part of a three-pronged fix:
- materials needed for recipes increased
- drop rates more sensible
- chests would remove huge amounts of this material from the economy

The first 2 fixes would do nothing given the huge amount of butter at that time, and the chests are only a temporary solution. Silk and leather need a real use as part of the solution.

Legendaries aren’t that expensive to craft once you have the precursor.

No. It’s devalue them.

They should be craftable, and extremely expensive.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Zaxares.5419:

I’d like them to slow down too, but not for the reasons the OP mentioned. Rather, it feels like I’m spending so much time doing the Living Story content that I barely have time to get my characters through the normal content! :P

I preferred the slower, more relaxed pace of the early Flame & Frost months, where you could complete the Living Story content in a single weekend, and then get back to your normal gaming for the rest of the month. Special events, like Halloween, Wintersday and Dragon Bash, should be the exception, not the norm.

I was going to mention this in another post. I like new stuff, but man, I don’t like being required to treat the game like a job. When stuff is only available for a short time it really sucks to feel pressured to play.

Feels like watching Lost. I pulled the plug on living story. I simply can’t bother with the temp content anymore.

To make matters worse, the story is actually scattered among short stories, twitter accounts, facebook pictures and what not. I don’t bother with anti-social media so that stuff is mostly lost on me.

is this kitten dungeon temporary or permanent? “Requires” agility sounds like the direction of Molten Facility. It’d be a real shame if it goes dodo agian.

I wasn’t able to complete Southsun, hardly played SAB, ain’t completing Dragon Bash this year and I’m not interested in the temporary dungeon in Sky Pirates (seriously?). I want to do the permanent content, stuff that’ll stay in the game.

I want to play the actual game, which means, for now, I’ll put the living story on hold.
> get my ascended gear on par on my main
> get all jumping puzzles
> get dungeon master
> all professions at 80
> and get that elusive legendary

As you can see … I’m going to bother with all that permanent content I can’t play if I focus on temporary nonsense. If stuff would just stay so I could play what I want, when I want, I’ll eventually get to it. Right now, it makes no sense for me to bother with the living story.

The living story is fun. I loved the parts I managed to play. However I never dated videogames and I’m not going to start now. Put all that stuff in the game permanently, it’ll be for the better.

Kailden.5943:

I hate statistics.

At least the fanart looked nice. Kinda…

I agreed with the fanart. Kinda…

His statistics prove two things:
- people with money spend money
- casual people play casual marketed game

kitten

Mist Y.5214:

marnick.4305:

hardcore content, which I couldn’t play.

ah so you’re one of these casual players

And proud of it. I take it you’re one of the vocal minority?

Bright.9160:

Because a lot of them don’t know how to play the game efficiently. I’m not saying all casuals are bad, but most of them are not what I’d call good either.

Let’s not put people into insulting boxes. Hardcore people on average aren’t known for their social skills either. Now that we’re even, let’s stop this kind of kitten throwing.

Not all content should be doable for all players. There were many players that had never completed UW or DoA in GW1, and it didn’t change their experience in the game one bit. Mainly because everything you got in UW and DoA was tradeable, so they could just get the money elsewhere, in a less challenging, and less rewarding area, and buy the gear they wanted that way. Smooth, perfect system.

I agree to a certain degree. As you might imagine, I didn’t complete UW nor DoA and it didn’t influence me much. I did play UW to a fair extent, didn’t play DoA at all. However such content already exists in GW2. Not everyone will complete tier 3 bounties or Guild puzzles, and only a minority will ever complete FotM48. I don’t care about either group. That said, the content should be approachable to a degree, which FotM10 and bounty tier 1 certainly are.

But that was because they didn’t bother to learn the area. The hardcores got rewarded for their efforts, as it should be.

It’s not that I didn’t bother to learn the area, it’s more that I simply didn’t have the time. Guild Wars 1 was an extremely large game, especially by the time HM DoA released. Getting 50/50 was a pretty daunting task but I managed. GWAMM was difficult too but I managed.
Learning a hard time sink AND getting my degree AND getting the kitten laude I wanted was impossible. I put a lot of effort into GW1, but there’s a limit. DoA HM was that limit. At that point, I had to choose, and I chose my future. I graduated with flying grades and got a nice job. I got the reward I wanted from not doing DoA HM. That’s my choice and I stand by it. In the end, I bought someone’s armbrace and got that tormented weapon too.

And, not to sound like an elitist prick, but no, most casuals don’t posses the same knowledge (not necessarily intelligence) that the more dedicated players have. Which again, is only reasonable, but what I don’t get is that they get rewarded for it.

Knowledge isn’t the right word. Experience is. Casuals indeed don’t have the same amount of experience through repetition. I want to be rewarding for beating the content, not necessarily for beating it 100 times. Once I can beat content, I could theoretically beat is ad nauseam, but I’d rather move on to the next piece of content. On the other hand, on a rainy weekend, I’d like to beat all hard dungeons in a binge session.

If by hard but casual you mean: hard content that doesn’t take an eternity to complete, but does require some skill and preparation in order to get it done, than I wholeheartedly agree.

Agree.

ilr.9675:

They’d probably just flip a coin at this point when deciding between Aion and GW1’s servers ..

GW1 servers are scalable and run parallel on the GW2 servers. There’s a very nice video about that somewhere. Tech guy explaining it if someone knows where to find it.

Rama.6439:

You’re totally wrong on it being a vocal minority, it’s a vocal majority, just look at the forums, most are posts about what people don’t like and what’s wrong with the game, and where they see the game headed. The people that stick up for Anet in these posts, look at their post histories, I have they LIVE IN THE FORUMS, they can’t possibly play the game with the amount of time they spend on these forums, some people who stick up for the DEV’s post in almost every single post on these forums, now how does someone like that spend quality time in game and find the time to post on the forums all day? I’ll tell you how, they are actually Anet employees posting under their own game accounts, just like the the Anet employee in this post said he plays on his own account, employees are posting in the forums on their own accounts to look like regular players.

Indeed I do tend to post between phone calls. It’s a relaxing break to talk to fellow gamers given the nature of my job. However I do not work for A.net. That’s too much credit. Thanks for the compliment though.

You’ll notice though, that my posts are usually spread in a 10 hour windows (I work 7 to 6) and almost never in the weekends. When I’m not posting, I’m either playing GW2, sleeping or doing other RL stuff.

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

It should comfortably drive at 100km/h if it’s a city car and 140km/h for any other car. 140km/h is already about highspeed limits in most of continental Europe. It is not necessary to design your car to drive faster, except if you market it to Germans (who don’t have speed limits).

They actually do have speed limits at some parts of the freeway. Most of them just don’t bother with them.

I know all too well. I drive through Germany on a daily basis. Loving it.

Back to the terrible analogy though, since you obviously missed my point: they designed a casual game for a big market (the comfi city cars you refer to), but failed to test them on the high way to see what happened (speed runners), which is why PvE is so broken right now. They are all like “I don’t know what you guys are talking about, my damage doesn’t look so OP”, because they run trash builds.

OK so you fix the trash builds, a.net should be on that. Sincerely hope this months update brings some big changes to conditions and warriors. Time’s up for me too. But the comfy car ain’t the problem, it’s the people chiptuning it.

You don’t ask a guy without a drivers permit and no experience driving cars to design a car for big masses.

True. You ask someone from the target public, who, on average, don’t chiptune their car, don’t go speeding and stay off the German highways for the most part.

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Be clear that with “hardcore” I mean long time investments. I’m for hard content and against hardcore content.

In this case, I think you’re arguing with Kaboose on the wrong points.

I think when Kaboose talks about hardcore content, he means challenging, rewarding content that might be too hard for some of the casuals, but is meant for the ‘hardcore’ community. I don’t want 3h+ instances either, the fact that Fractals 48 usually takes 1h-1h20 is already painful enough. I just want challenging content for the more dedicated players that is rewarding at the same time and isn’t purely RNG based.

Why would it be too hard for casuals but not for hardcore? Do casuals not possess the same intelligence as hardcore people?
I want dungeon master one day, which is a pretty hard/hardcore title to get. For that, I’ve been watching lupi videos during lunch break and read up on tactics. Sure I can’t play millions of hours, but I do prepare so I can make the most out of the time I have.

What I just don’t get is that ArenaNet made a game, built around both casual players and hard core players in GW1, had an almost flawless system in terms of hard content, coupled with appropriate rewards, and when building GW2 decided to completely ignore EVERYTHING they ever did right, and go with everything they ever did wrong instead.

They’ve done a lot wrong in GW1 too, and I’m happy some improvements were made. I sincerely hope they’ll focus on hard but casual content (let’s call it smart casual). I also hope they will not produce anymore hardcore content. The current guild missions are a step in that direction, especially with the 15 minutes hard cap.

FearedbytheGods.8617:

marnick.4305:

You can’t compare a 7 years old game with a game at the 10 month mark.

While I’m sure it’s not your intention. You would argue that we should expect this to occur many years in the future, despite other MMO’s having it now?
Imo your falling into the trap that I’ve stated in my post.

I’m not sure your trap is a real trap. You may perceive it a such, and I agree that it should come one day, I don’t agree that it’s such a crucial issue it should come immediately.

You again fall in the trap of comparing fleshed out games with a game in late launch phase. Quality of life improvements will be coming in the near future. I’m fairly sure. Some will come soonish, others later.

lekyii.9856:

I hope some of the money goes to Wildstar, i want to play that awesome game

If that game can keep you occupied for another 10 months, go for it. I bet coppers to gems that most so-called hardcores will be done with wildstar in a few months too.

Bright.9160:

I’d just like to say this: I played GW1 for 6 years. I played as a casual the first couple of year, but the last few of them, I played as what you could have called ‘hardcore’ (mainly DoASC wise). What kept me playing GW1? The permanent, ‘hard’, fun, rewarding content. I put ‘hard’ between quotes, because to us, it wasn’t really hard at all, but to most players of the game, it was.

Hard content, not hardcore. Hardcore means 3+ hours required time investments, which almost didn’t exist in GW1.

Guess what kept almost everyone in the SC community play? The permanent, hard, fun, rewarding content. Guess which community stayed alive the longest in GW1? The SC community. The PvP had long before that died and only a few of the original ones still played. The SC community stayed very strong until the end of 2011, beginning 2012, at which point, most of the high-end pro’s quit. The reason PvE stayed alive was because there actually was a competitive PvE scene in the form of records.

And yet, speedclears became so fast that most could be done in under an hour, which becomes a casual time investment yet extremely hard. That’s what I call perfect content.
If those speedclears would have taken several hours instead of 30 minutes (conset time), they’d have died out very soon. They thrived because casual yet smart players could partake in them.

As such, your entire post I agree with because it’s a case in point.

The people that kept playing GW1 the longest and the most were NOT the casuals. It were the hardcore PvE’ers and some of the hardcore PvP’ers.

I did speedclears too, I loved them because they were hard without being annoyingly long. Casual time investment with hard gameplay. That’s what I want from my games.

If you disagree with any of my points, feel free to explain, because I don’t see opinions, only facts. Facts can’t be argued about. Be clear that with “hardcore” I mean long time investments. I’m for hard content and against hardcore content.

d/ dodge into it

- living story: flame and frost was really good imho and should have been permanent. SAB was good. southsun was ok. Dragon Bash … meh.

- your profession ideas are good.

- dungeon overhaul is needed, not just to make it more difficult but also to make it more consistent.

- split PVP/PVE. Yes, absolutely and most certainly the balance numbers. Have skills continue to do the same thing but different damage multipliers.

- condition buff is very much needed

- open world rewards should indeed be balanced. If all champion events in Queensdale would give chests, it would almost be raidable.

And to triple post

The inherent problem with vloggers like you and dontain, is that most people who vlog put a lot of time into it. As such, they’re most likely to fall in the hardcore camp and make their opinions very vocal at the same time. That’s fine to a degree, but it is also a very selective bias.

I’d like to make a series of commenting videos on how the casual segment perceives Guild Wars but frankly … I don’t have the time to produce those. I’ve got some notes and scripts written on toilet paper though :p My free time goes entirely into GW2, which is about 2 hours a day. I can’t squeeze in videos too.

Or in other words …

casuals are the core public for GW2, while hardcores are not.

Watched the video:
1/ thanks for the apologies at the end. Hope you accept mine.
2/ you’re mostly right
3/ casuals are the vast majority, and most certainly play for years. With vast I literally mean 60% to 80%. Playing what is commonly considered hardcore is simply not possible for people with real life commitments. Most people are happy to get 1 or 2 hours a day. Some are even happy to have the 30 minutes it takes to complete a daily.
It’s easier to get years out of a game casually than hardcore. Not a single “I’m quitting thread” was made by casual people because they still play and still have a lot of goals to go for. With two hours a day tops, I can’t exhaust content nearly as fast as you do.
4/ ask many people why they kept playing GW1 for years, and that’s because it could be played casually and you could still achieve most things. It was the #1 redeeming quality over WoW.
4.1/ I actually quit WoW because after months of play, I still had nothing to show for. After a year I had 3/8 tier 1 and then expansion destroyed my character. Thanks Blizzard… vanilla was too hardcore, not made for humans.
5/ if you wanted a hardcore game, GW2 was not the right purchase and you knew that before launch.
6/ that said, casual does not equal to difficult. It equals to low time requirements. I want difficult content too, but not 3 hours content locked behind 40 fractal levels.
6.1/ I’m not going to complete the dragon bash achievements. They’re too boring, and I don’t buy RNG boxes.
6.2/ gathering some skills in GW1 could be very difficult, yet only took a few minutes if done right. That’s what I want first and foremost. Getting UAX was difficult but still bite sized.

I’m not going to debate the PTR further. It didn’t work in WoW, that’s my experience with it. People used it to raid Ironforge, which crashed the PTR, while hardcore raids secretly gathered exploits to get world first kills. In the end, all content was spoiled before it even released. I like surprise content and hotfixes more, personally. It’s a choice.

Stating you won’t buy gems anymore at the end is cheap. It doesn’t change your argument for the better, it actually undermines it by being childish and spoiled. I’d not have included that, your video would have been that bit better without. But ignoring that, I agree to some things, and don’t with others.

Casual regards

M

Kaaboose.3897:

Now I know there are those that hate videos/my voice so here’s what is covered in this video:

Going to watch later. Everyone deserves a second chance. I’m going to comment on these points right now.

• GW2 and WoW already share many similarities, both good and bad. Anet should be emulating the good things that don’t interfere with its goals while dropping the bad stuff.

To me, it sounds like “GW2 is already a WoW clone, let’s make it identical”. Do not agree but that might be in the wording. Personally I’m happy that WoW and GW2 are vastly different bar for being MMOs (like coke and wodka both being drinks).

• I compare the first 10 months of WoW to the first 10 months of GW2 for thoese that break out the “You can’t compare the two because WoW is older” arguement
• Some things Anet could take from WoW are Clearer Patch Notes, Risk Vs. Reward, Content for long term players, Public Test Realms and More Permenent content.

Permanent content: yes, totally agree
Public test realms: didn’t work in WoW, ain’t gonna work in GW2 either. Not needed.
Patch notes: I didn’t care about WoW’s patch notes because it was all hardcore content, which I couldn’t play. GW2’s patch notes are good.
Risk/reward: absolutely, but only if cosmetics. Some should also be casual dosed, like an extremely difficult 5 minute jumping puzzle that can be farmed for extremely rare weapons (think BDS, frog staff …)
Long term content: yes, absolutely, but again, should be cosmetics.

• Some things GW2 should stop doing that Wow does is Enforcing a Grind/Timesink for challenging content and Dumbing down their game for the casual playerbase.

Casuals don’t necessarily want dumbed down content, but it should be bite sized. The Mad King’s tower is a perfect example, maybe with a hard mode that adds randomization to platform movement. Apart from that I agree.

One thing to note … grind and timesink don’t make for challenging content necessarily, neither does gear gating and forcing raids or trinity. That’s annoying content, and doing annoying stuff usually is hard. I wouldn’t call ironing shirts or cleaning my apartment hard, but it sure is an annoying time sink. That’s how I think about WoW’s raids too. Not a single one was actually hard mechanicswise.

As always guys I welcome feedback, Ideas and Critisism alike, Though I do ask you keep the rabid fanboism down if you can. If you want to defend the current state of GW2 as being okay I’m cool with that, but give us a bit more then “WoW sucks, GW2 is Great! You Suck!” comments please.

I hope this post qualifies. Let’s hope rabid anti-gw2 fanboys can keep their cool too.

I do want drums, mandolin, hard, pianoforte or clavecimble.

Esplen.3940:

The only thing I can agree with the video is that I’m interested in new content. Living Story is fun, but it’s catering to the casuals too much. And while I understand that there are casuals, I feel like the game is too slow-paced because of that.

Ask yourself several question.
1/ what would be the ratio of casuals vs hardcores in any setting including but not limited to videogames?

2/ who brings in the most money in a videogame? Those who play 8 hours a day to get ahead or those who play 1 hour a day who catch up with gems?

After answering 1/ and 2/, ask yourself how to cover the player base best, by adding hardcore content or casual content?

SoPP.7034:

This post is really, for me at least, just finding it amusing just how ‘clunky’ a feeling of having to respec a toon is in GW2, more than it needs to be. That unless you have a photo graphic memory its usually a case of “what trait was it again…?”. Coming from GW1 I would have numerous builds saved for one toon, with easy weapon swap system with relatively quick swap on armours.

/rant

I agree but let’s put that in perspective. Saving skill builds was only done after several years, gear builds even later. In GW1, changing armor on a pvp toon meant deleting it and making it new. Furthermore, at launch there was this awesome thing called refund points which meant 1 misplaced skillpoint had you delete and rebuild you character. Thirdly, the amount of skills in vanilla was larger by far than the amount of skills in GW2 currently, with most of them locked in PVE (balthazar faction first came in summer).

So … this part is most certainly quality of life, but not a necessity. It will come eventually. It comes in every successful MMO. You can’t compare a 7 years old game with a game at the 10 month mark.