Guild Wars 2

Smooth Penguin.5294:

MegumiAzusa.2918:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

MegumiAzusa.2918:

Though I do believe the OP is trolling this looks to be at most 16 to me:

You posted a pic of an adult female human.

You, good sir, have an … interesting image in mind of what you consider teen and want to play in this game.

As a real life human female, I’m sure you an attest that no teenager looks like what you posted, ever. Even in the movies.

I mean, what if I wanted to make an in game Harry Potter guild, and have the characters look like they’re from book 1 or 2? Right now, what I have is a bunch of adults cosplaying as an older looking wizard from book 5.

harry potter in book 1 and 2 would be 10-11 years old, thats not a teenager, thats a preteen

just looked up the movies, and yeah, first movie daniel radcliff would have been 9 -12 and emma watson would have been 8-11, depending how early they shot the movie.

so basically you perception of age is a fair bit off, what you want would be kids.

you can make a charachter look very young, you have to increase head size, go for one of the small chest frames. and adjust some of the face options manually.
It wont look like a prepubescent girl, but it will look like a teenager. If you want an extremely young looking teen, well i dont think thats what they want to do.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Theyd kitten more people off by changing it now then theyd please if they did change it. That said crafting is fine. It only starts to become a clutter once you get a lot of recipes and even then the search function exists.

Anyone remember ff14 before they nuked the entire game? Yeah they redid the entire crafting system because it was overly complicated/confusing.

actually the crafting system is virtually the same. They juggled where you get what abilities, and reduced the amount of items/mid items required. They added a recipe book as well.
They revealed all the data/secrets, and removed some hidden limitations. they also incentived playing the minigame well by giving you more exp the higher you could get quality.

essentially they cleaned it up, but the overal goal, focus and gameplay is very similar. They didnt change it much because its actually one of the things the game did really well. They actually evolved the system rather than creating a new one.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Brahmincorle.1264:

Stark.1350:

He’s also saying he has a friend that plays casually. And he managed to obtain ascended. What’s everyone else’s problem?

We don’t liek the way how it is obtained… grinding gold, grinding materials or p2w and then crafting.

P2W again . . . really don’t think that applies here but, if someone feels like dropping the cash then translating it to gold, just for Ascended when Exotic is much easier? And cheaper?

Sure, go ahead.

I hate the UI minigame known as crafting, I hate wasting my time by dull grinding of materials or gold. Why can’t I loot ascended gear in higher fractals with decend drop rate? There are like 20 types of gear sets – this alone is crazy RNG to get stats that you want so it won’t be super quick or easy to get so nobody should have problem with this right? Give me BiS gear for playing the game, not UI of trading post and crafting station.

Eh, I hate the crafting “insert materials, output item” ever since I got to try TerraFirmaCraft. (For all I dislike of that mod, the crafting is something impressive.) Now after FF14, I kinda want designers to think a little better about the crafting other than essentially “vending machine interface”

14 craft system is really well done, really enjoy doing it. Its also not necessary at all, which is good for those that dont enjoy it. And yet the items overall still have value.

anyhow i dont think gearing up should have ever REQUIRED crafting, its something some people just dont want to take to that level

timewarp is best stacked with when your entire party has high boons, and the enemy has high vulnerability, if your goal is damage.
the goal being to load a large amount of damage into a smaller time frame when the enemy is weaker.

however if they can have full uptime on might/vuln, it is less important overall

as far as the class that most benefits? probably theif, since they can burst harder than others due to initiative.

It also has support benefits, like getting teamates up faster or getting more blast finishers in a shorter time frame.

best auto attack damage is another focus

Stark.1350:

Jerus.4350:

Stark.1350:

Brahmincorle.1264:

Stark.1350:

Why do you want to even go that far when fractal weapon skins drop at 20+?

for challenge?

Stark.1350:

WvW is irrelevant. If an uplevel can run successfully in WvW, a 5% increase in stats doesn’t matter.

it is more than just 5%…. 5% mantra is a lie. And of course it matters. Every advantage in PvP matters. I bet he is not talking about zerg vs zerg but 1v1 or 1v2+ while roaming. An upleveled player will always loose against player with better gear and equal skill. It is simple math. If I hit you for 150 and you have 500hp and you hit me for 200 and I will have only 350hp I will die no matter what every time. Pls stop with gear doesnt matter bs.

Stark.1350:

Unless you need Arah tokens, this is an irrelevant argument. And even then you shouldn’t need Ascended for this.

Som ppl are doing speed clears of Arrah which is arguably the only somewhat hard dungeon (+ higher level fractals) in this game because it is the only PvE challenge in this game. Beating record time of their last fastest run or even competing with other groups is pretty much the only PvE “end game” this game can offer (arguably ofc). Once you get enough skill to beat any PvE content (in any mmo), the only limiting factor of your own personal perforamce will be your gear.

Because I can imagine a casual player who only has that amount of time to invest, is actually doing any of those things. Give me a freaking break.

I know many people who run Arah regularly and even do lvl 50 fractals that only play for a couple hours a day if at all.

That said, they can easily take a night or two off arah/fractals and jump into Silverwastes and gather all their dragonite needed.

The money is a far more limiting factor at this point IMO thanks to the dragonite rain that happens in SW (got 12 ingots in 4 hours the other night just to give an idea)

So what you’re saying is, someone who played casually had no issue obtaining ascended gear. Right?

what he said is dragonite isnt that hard to get. I never said it was. The primary blockers for people getting ascended is getting the gold, or the raw materials to craft, and leveling crafting itself.

Stark.1350:

Brahmincorle.1264:

Stark.1350:

Why do you want to even go that far when fractal weapon skins drop at 20+?

for challenge?

Stark.1350:

WvW is irrelevant. If an uplevel can run successfully in WvW, a 5% increase in stats doesn’t matter.

it is more than just 5%…. 5% mantra is a lie. And of course it matters. Every advantage in PvP matters. I bet he is not talking about zerg vs zerg but 1v1 or 1v2+ while roaming. An upleveled player will always loose against player with better gear and equal skill. It is simple math. If I hit you for 150 and you have 500hp and you hit me for 200 and I will have only 350hp I will die no matter what every time. Pls stop with gear doesnt matter bs.

Stark.1350:

Unless you need Arah tokens, this is an irrelevant argument. And even then you shouldn’t need Ascended for this.

Som ppl are doing speed clears of Arrah which is arguably the only somewhat hard dungeon (+ higher level fractals) in this game because it is the only PvE challenge in this game. Beating record time of their last fastest run or even competing with other groups is pretty much the only PvE “end game” this game can offer (arguably ofc). Once you get enough skill to beat any PvE content (in any mmo), the only limiting factor of your own personal perforamce will be your gear.

Because I can imagine a casual player who only has that amount of time to invest, is actually doing any of those things. Give me a freaking break.

you should be able to imagine it, because its pretty common.
there is a great amount of people who only play WvW
I personally know people who spend 90% of their time playing fractals
and there is a dungeon community who basically primarily runs dungeons.

and yeah, when you focus on what you enjoy in a game, you can play for 2 hours and be satisfied.

Stark.1350:

FYI, I’m right about 5%.

http://dulfy.net/2013/12/12/gw2-ascended-armor-stats/

you missed the factor where the effects are multiplied because stats interact.

lets say you want to consider how much damage some one does to you since its based on power weapon strength crit rate and crit damage, having all of these high translates into 10-15% damage depending on the build

lets say you want to consider how hard it is to kill some one
its a function of tougness, armor for damage done, vitality for total damage to a win condition, and healing for how fast they can recover.

so saying 5% more per stat, isnt really the real picture as far as the effective difference in performance.

If you have a car that has 5% more acceralation 5% more top speed 5% better cornering. you have a signifigant advantage in a race.
If you have a team which averages 5% more at the line 5% more feild goals, 5% more blocks 5% more 3 point shots. They are a favorite, and are likely to win.

Stark.1350:

phys.7689:

Stark.1350:

Can the people who can only play 1-2 hours a night explain to me why they want ascended gear?

fractals?
WvW?
Arah speed clears?

So a casual player who can only invest that amount of time needs gear for level 30+ fractals? I say that because the accessories you can get for just by logging in will carry you that far. Why do you want to even go that far when fractal weapon skins drop at 20+?

WvW is irrelevant. If an uplevel can run successfully in WvW, a 5% increase in stats doesn’t matter.

Unless you need Arah tokens, this is an irrelevant argument. And even then you shouldn’t need Ascended for this.

if you have been doing 2 fractals a day, by now you should be up to 50, a couple hours a day adds up. As to why they want to go that far, challenge, and mistlock instabilities provide different experiences.

In WvW, when skills/strats are close 10% will lead to a loss more times than not, and btw between full exotic and full ascended you are looking at 10% or more difference depending on your stats/build.

If you are speed running, you need the best gear possible. People compete for top times and fastest completions. Do you really think your gear is irrelevent?

Stark.1350:

Can the people who can only play 1-2 hours a night explain to me why they want ascended gear?

fractals?
WvW?
Arah speed clears?

Ayrilana.1396:

dietzero.3514:

Ayrilana.1396:

For those curious. Weapons are based on buy orders. Light armor jumped up 30 gold within the past week.

2-handers 40 gold cheaper than two 1-handers, and light armour 100 gold more than medium. Anet need to hire an economist.

It wouldn’t change much considering that 24.4 gold of it is in the inscription alone.

well they could have designed two handed weapons to take twice as much of the item of the highest value.
and they could have not have made silk us twice as much materials, or make cloth be required by all 3 armor types.

didnt really take a genius to see that things would develop this way.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

You still seem to not understand that many people don’t care that much about ‘performance’ as is needing to have the max damage. Some care more about the visual part so then the cosmetics are more or at least just as important / fun as the performance are for others. Meaning it does not change a thing if it does or does not impact the performance. You can keep repeating that as long as you want but it does not change the fact that people run into this grind (you are now finally accepting) and dislike it. Performance or not is completely irrelevant for that. The game is for fun, not for performance.

Is it for performance or fun? Which is it? Because you said the performance is an issue at the top, and ended with that end bit. So . . . what?

Then why are you here actively trying to downplay there complains because the grind is not ‘required’ or does not revolve around ‘performance’. We all know that.. we don’t care. You say thats fine, nobody ask you to parent them but don’t downplay the complete reasonable complain they have about this.

There’s a fine line between “I think this is too much for this” and “I am being forced to do this grind”. I take issue with the latter, which is the tone a lot of the complaints take.

“Gold isn’t hard to come by, so long as you are patient.  ” First of all, my example did how why patient will only put you more behind

I’m sorry. I really, truly, am sorry you feel there is no room for patience. This is a point we will have to disagree on entirely, as I feel patience is very much a virtue. Especially when not having patience causes so much distress as you lay out.

“If you want to keep championing for the downtrodden grinders ” Uhhm.. no the grinders are fine. It’s those that want fun ways to hunt down the items in stead of grinding.

If the grind is fine, why are we having this conversation at all?

“In fact, you keep repeating the same thing.” 100% true because I keep answering to the same arguments all the time. Or do you think you said anything new? “It’s grind because I say it’s perceived as grind.” No it’s grind because it’s grind even Colin named it grind and even you just referred to it as grind. “I know how people run into it and see it as grind.” If ‘people’ see it as grind, it is grind right.. thats how words work.

We agreed some pages back grind is subjective, right? So please, stop and realize what you just said here is that grind is universally if it’s subjectively true. Don’t argue something so absurd.

“I say it is so it must be so” That is then almost as good as your “I say it’s not so, so it can’t be so”
Thing is, if many people do feel the grind (they feel it’s so) that makes a relevant point to debate here. So in a we yes “if people say it’s so, it is so.”

But if people say it’s not so, then that is an affront? Seriously, why do you keep arguing with these logical absurdities?

But for some reason you seem to think you need to downplay this with funny arguments as ‘you don’t need it’. What was, is and stays irrelevant for how people want to play and enjoy a game.

I’m watching you play it up with funny arguments all the time, so I figured I’d give it a shot keeping it within a logical framework rather than rhetoric and appeals to the masses as “more agreement = right”. That’s not how it works, if you want to simultaneously claim something is a universal truth.

i think you misunderstood devata’s point about patience, there are some items which by being patient you end up working longer to achieve the same goal.
some high price items will inflate in the time it takes you to save up enough money to buy them. (barring a game changing market shift)

Behellagh.1468:

Felkes.2759:

Anyone who says there’s no grind in GW2 is delusional. There WAS no grind in GW2. Since the devs released “updates” that force players to do more and more specific things in the game in order to progress or get rewarded, the game has become nothing but grind.

I only log in once a week or so anymore just to nab any new living story in my journal so I don’t have to pay for it later.

GW2 is more work than actual fun.

But that’s the result of players saying they were sick and tired of RNG based rewards and wanting reward tied to specific content. To be “special” it has to take a long time to get or everyone will end up with a dozen of them.

interesting, but there are otherways of feeling special.
like player gradual player customization
unique looks from a pool of unique looks
overcoming a specific challenge before getting item

Honestly, in theory, mastery can be a good progression system utilizing some of these possibilities, however, i think they are probably going to overdo the numbers and thus turn it into a grind, rather than an adventure.

Behellagh.1468:

Colin said the following …

With the introduction of the new account based mastery system for end-game progression and growth in PvE, we’ll also be re-evaluating our other systems of character progression to ensure they match our over-all pillars and goals for Gw2.

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

Basically because of the introduction of the mastery system, it gives them the excuse to fiddle with the rest of character progression and that trait acquisition is certainly changing. It’s like painting the living room gives you the excuse to change the flooring and furniture, at the very least the drapes.

And what we got last week simply answered a few of the myriad of questions about the Mastery System.

if your take on this is correct, it means there is little connection at this stage. So the next question becomes
What are the goals anet hopes this new trait system can achieve that the current one lacks?
What is their overall plan for this (if there is one)
Is it at a stage where our feedback can change the course of design?

etc.

Otherwise, we really can only talk about whats currently wrong with traits, but then again we could have done that in the old thread, so i assume there is another focus for this one.

runeblade.7514:

PLEASE LOWER THE DROP RATES OF GREEN AND BLUE!

Instead, add more valuable gray items and more salvage bundles.

• Let me save inventory space. I need it for switching gears.
• Make crafted gear be more valuable.
• Make it more easy to salvage and sell everything.
• Let blue and green gear as drops be something to be happy about.

based on their utility, you will probably never be happy about blues and greens.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Ashen.2907:

She is an employee that publicly repeated and supported a statement that feedback from the company’s customers was irrelevant.

I have defended her in the past and am sure that I will again in the future because she gets flack for things that are not her fault, or are not things with which fault should be taken, but that statement was a bit off.

It seems you need to re-read the post she quoted, and understand the context. Here’s said post.

Corax.7381:

Here’s the situation, as Gaile pointed out above.

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

However, imagine the rage at the travesty of closing that thread WITHOUT opening another thread focused on Traits feedback. Why, the forums would explode! Players would launch their own personal vendettas against ANet, or further embellish the ones they’ve already begun.

So, Gaile opened this new thread. Yes, there aren’t any new facts or concrete details we can discuss – right now. Which is why she suggested to step away from the entire topic for a while, instead of going through the same cycle as the first thread. But people can’t do that, I predict, so it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone.

The relevant paragraph:

The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant, because Colin posted saying that ANet is working on a new Trait system and that some player feedback had been taken into account when developing that system. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing of value that could be added to that thread, which is why Gaile said she should’ve closed it right when Colin posted.

Now, here’s the part being taken out of context as a reason to argue: “The old thread was redundant, non-constructive, and, ultimately, irrelevant,[…]” However, if you continue reading, thus having the remainder of the context, you find out that definitive information was given, thus rendering the continuation of the thread pointless because the entire premise the thread was based on is no longer the same.

Also, tangential discussions should be cleaned out of the thread so this thread doesnt get cluttered up by irrelevant back and forth between posters

actually there was a relevant response,
its basically
what type of changes are you making
are we going to get to give feedback, or is it set in stone

wont help much if they are still in high level areas, poorly messaged, or in very specfic content players dont want to go to on principle (like WvW)
that said it would be good to have options.

However over all, i think they need make early traits something really easy, or natural, and then as you get higher and there are fewer traits, you can have more ambitious goals.
you can also have multiple options, or perhaps you can get the traits sooner if you do X Y or Z, but guaranteed just by doing something you will naturally do anyhow, like hitting a certain level, or using X skill a moderate amount of times.

regardless whatever system needs a lot more refinement, the current trait system was thought out very well even for what it was trying to accomplish.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

There are 8 minute fights in other games where people can watch videos, and know exactly what to do, and still need to build skills at executing it. So still requires skill, if its well designed.

These are the types of fights I like the least…not because it requires skill. That’s not my issue.

I don’t love going out of the game to have a watch videos to do things. I prefer to solve things on my own merits. I still don’t have all the badges in Silverwastes, because I’m missing one and refuse to look at Dulfy.

Memorizing what to do and practicing it till you can do it like a trained monkey might be challenging to some people…but I personally don’t see it that way.

Being the first guy to figure out what to do, or figuring out a different way to do stuff is far more challenging.

my point is skill isnt just about knowing what to do. Its about learning how to do it well, and its not really all about being a trained monkey. Is every sport ever about being a trained monkey?

well perhaps you see it that way. Regardless whether you use a guide or not, skill exists

A video game is not a sport for a lot of reasons. At very least, PvE in a video game. Talking about players is something different.

The reason it’s not a sport is because someone programmed it and there’s nothing in it but that program. Juggling requires hand eye coordination and it requires practice, but I wouldn’t call it a sport.

Here’s the difference. When facing a human you don’t know what to expect. You really don’t. Let’s say the best, most accurate fast ball pitcher in the world is facing you. He can still throw one over your head. It’s happened.

When you’re facing AI, you know what to look for specifically and what to do specifically eventally. Half of it is memorization, half of it is reflex. Maybe not exactly half but you get the idea.

Unfortunately, I don’t find that stuff impressive. First of all, it puts every single person who lives in Australia at a disadvantage, because we have no servers here. I’m almost guaranteeing an extra half second lag. So less interest because no fairness there.

And of course net connections affect things, what kind of computer you have. That wouldn’t really happen with sports (though admittedly you can have a better bat).

It’s just not the same thing.

if the key difference is unpredictability, that can be programed as well.
Does chess not take skill when you play against a computer?
hmmm

anyhow regardless, sport or not, skill doesnt require innovation. in fact most skills are not innovated.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

There are 8 minute fights in other games where people can watch videos, and know exactly what to do, and still need to build skills at executing it. So still requires skill, if its well designed.

These are the types of fights I like the least…not because it requires skill. That’s not my issue.

I don’t love going out of the game to have a watch videos to do things. I prefer to solve things on my own merits. I still don’t have all the badges in Silverwastes, because I’m missing one and refuse to look at Dulfy.

Memorizing what to do and practicing it till you can do it like a trained monkey might be challenging to some people…but I personally don’t see it that way.

Being the first guy to figure out what to do, or figuring out a different way to do stuff is far more challenging.

my point is skill isnt just about knowing what to do. Its about learning how to do it well, and its not really all about being a trained monkey. Is every sport ever about being a trained monkey?

well perhaps you see it that way. Regardless whether you use a guide or not, skill exists

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lheimroo.2947:

I will agree with DavidH that what is missing in this game is a middle ground.

Things are either relatively easy to get or dishearteningly hard. The problem’s compounded by most of what’s considered ‘the best/most desirable stuff to have’ being accessible least randomly by just getting gold .. and farming gold is an activity which Devata and myself find fundamentally uninspiring, and neither of us, with our playstyle, I expect, accumulate it very fast.

I don’t actually accumulate it very fast either, when you consider what it would cost for Dusk. Or even The Lover if I wanted a ponybow. I’m just okay with that, because almost every other skin I could buy, I can afford to. I just don’t want to.

They could have doubled and tripled the token costs of the dungeon sets and I would seriously have been fine with it.

Nah, I’m preferring where it is right now. I don’t want to get bored of a dungeon before I get my armor from it. Not to mention if I actually luck out and need the Gift for a legendary.

But gold? Sure, it’s accessible everywhere.. but it’s needed for EVERYTHING. It creates this incentive to just go hard and do what it takes to get it as quick as possible, and it still ends up feeling like it’s not enough.

. . . meh.

You could gear up in Exotics for one character for less than 50 gold, if you don’t do Temple Armor. If you do you can do it in under 10 gold, since you’re mostly buying weapons.

The champ trains existed for a reason; people feel this compulsion from the game design: get gold, get better stuff. And yet it results in the most mind-numbingly samey gameplay.. unchallenging encounters repeated ad naseum.

Ah, nope. The champs trains existed because of “Monthly Champion Slayer”, “Monthly Event”, and so forth. It was seriously the least stressful way to do it, and it just moved from wherever it was easier to wherever it was more profitable depending on what people wanted.

Honestly I think the trains in Cursed Shore and Frostgorge Sound are just out for getting the named Exotics out of the coffers/strongboxes there. Because there’s always a demand for them, especially that hammer. What’s it called, Entropy?

Not only that, but with prices fluctuating and gradually rising continually, it replicates the same feeling I had such a problem with in WoW and other gear-grind-centric games.. the feeling that if you aren’t moving forward full speed you’re falling behind.

It helps if you just set your sights on functional and put the thought of “awesome” on the back burner. No, seriously, it does help if you don’t try to set a quota for your periods of play and just realize you are . . . in fact . . . always taking a step towards it. It’s a mental exercise worth pursuing.

The Liadri mini and title.. a straight out skill challenge. —- ‘Blazing Light’ is a wicked awesome thing to have, and it was never a grind.

It was to me, I’m sorry to say. That place was not friendly to my play style and forced me outside of the nice box where I have fun playing the game. It was a chore, not fun, which is why it felt like a grind and made me really stop and go “nope, I don’t want this that bad, enjoy everyone else . . . I’m off to go deforest Orr again”.

It’s very much a “your mileage may vary” thing.

At least with dungeons, fractals, pvp, Liadri, at least it’s challenging or mentally stimulating. And you get an item directly through skill, with relatively little repetition.

Or, if you don’t get it, relatively lots of repetition. Or if you cheese it like people learned how to . . . no skill at all and just following a manual. I mean, I don’t like using walkthroughs to figure out how to beat something. I like to give it a shot first, and if I can’t do it . . .then figure it out. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s like I’m not actually playing the game – I’m playing it for someone else.

1/2

you seriously believe champ trains were about champion daily/monthlies? no it was about gold. more 2-3 times as much gold as you make now in 2 hours
(8-12 gold) with less effort than your own method.
The champ train didnt die when champ slayer wasnt in the monthly, it didnt die towards the end of the month. It was about effecient gold grinding.

also strictly speaking it often takes skill to follow an manual. most things in life its not knowing what to do, its gaining the skill to actually execute it. That said its fun to come up with your own methods, but that doesnt diminish the skill required to pull off something even with instruction.

There are 8 minute fights in other games where people can watch videos, and know exactly what to do, and still need to build skills at executing it. So still requires skill, if its well designed.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Indigo Sundown — I know that the dev team understands how critical this subject is, and I also know this has been an often-discussed system. With that, I think we can look forward to substantial positive changes.

Wolfheart — we’re good, and thank you for being so thoughtful, I really appreciate it!

Traced — Yeah, I heard that “Braveheart voice” there.

you are hopeful, but how is this different than the last trait change? Devs knew it was a critical issue, being one of the man forms of progression, and im sure there was internal discussion. That alone does not = substantial positive change.

What might be useful is devs saying what are they believe are players primary beefs with the latest trait system. The devs have yet to say what they feel are the biggest problems with the current trait system. That would at least communicate to players what issues are likely to be changed, and allow players to elaborate, or correct the devs perceptions on what are the biggest problems with the system.

I will tell you that the account binding of traits doesnt really encompass the real problem with the system, it simply makes it something that you only have to do once.

major problems with system
1) its backloaded, it comes into the game too late -starts at 30, but effectively is more like level 40-to endgame progression
2) its uniform and has little to no context,-you do the same things for different traits, of different importance, and different utility
3) it provides few options
4) it doesnt give players a good starter tool kit, its ok to make more complex things harder to get, but players should have had a fair amount of traits to play with without going crazy
5) poorly messaged, even when you know whats going on, its not really clear what to do, or even that you need to do these things for regular players.

im sure there are more, but what i say has been said before, the real question is what is the devs understanding of the situation.

Gaile Gray.6029:

No snark intended. All I said was factual. You can see that if you analyze the thread, where even after Colin’s post, people were returning to the same comments without recognizing that changes are coming. Saying “Change it!” when the game director has said “We’re going to change it!” doesn’t seem the best of discussions.

Sure, players would like more information. But that’s not available right now. So the choices are to continue on the treadmill of wash/rinse/repeat in the old thread, determine there’s sufficient info to post a new comment in this thread, or hold off until there is more information. It sounds as if you fall into the latter category, and that’s perfectly fine! Feel free to post in the future when you feel you have enough on which to base your input.

People will tend to say the same things over and over again, if things havent changed. Thats logical, the same stimulus creates similar responses, except with less hope, and more finality as time passes.
We can create a new thread, but that will not change the feedback because the situation hasnt changed.
Yes change is on the way, but they said that already months ago. I agree it sucks that information gets lost in a thread, but that is primarily due to the structure of forums in general.

I dont really have the animosity that some others have, but honestly all the problems with the old thread accurately represent where your playerbase is at right now. The annoyance you feel reading that thread, is the same annoyance that players feel with the changes, and the subsequent interactions. As well as their hopes for the future.

The fact that colins post had minimal impact, was because his post has very little impact on traits. And yes the narrative did change from, change it, more to tell us what changes are being made so that we dont have another crappy system in place for a whole year.

SO yeah thats the feedback you should take from this. You need to come up with a way to let players test, or reveal the new trait system before it is finished. Now of course that doesnt appear to be how you guys want to handle things, so here we go again, a circlular discussion because you provide little feedback in order to move the conversation forward. Just the same circles with increasing feelings of futility, resentment, or dissappointment.

If you want to change that, direct the conversation to find out whatever information you need to find out, and give some actual information back to users. That will be what breaks the chains. A new thread cant do that, a thread merely reflects the current situation/information. You will find this threads evolution to be very similar to the last.

he is using hyperbole, but essentially what he is getting at is keeping the game grindy pays their bills.

and that may have a certain kernal of truth with the old monetary system. But if they use an expansion based system that can shift more towards, making the type of content people are willing to pay for as being the main monetary incentive for development.

anyhow its not just to force people into the gem store to avoid the grind, its also to keep people playing/engaged enough to spend in the gem store.

However i would say that it isnt cut and dry

Obtena.7952:

Lheimroo.2947:

Bernie.8674:

And you effectively clarified this argument by describing a two hour grind. That’s not so convincing.

Tobias’s routine wouldn’t count as a grind by the definition Anet has given in this thread.

It would count as one for you, and for me, and seemingly for many others. Which is why Anet’s definition is so troubling; it’s quite self-servingly limited.

It’s not self serving … it’s how they defined their goal to have no-grind for the game. It’s not even an unreasonable definition; it’s what many players experienced in the industry would also define as grinding. It’s not simply some definition they concocted to high five themselves around a board room table. Just because it doesn’t suit a subset of QQing players doesn’t make it less relevant or meaningful of a definition.

They don’t design around players ideas of what the game should achieve; that would be a fool’s errand and rather stupid to try to do.

Anytime you use words, you must consider what it means to everyone else. This is the basis for communication, a shared understanding.

Another point is, when designing a game you should absolutely consider what players think and how they see something.

If the purpose of anet’s anti grind philosopy is.that players don’t feel like playing the game is grindy, then they should definately ask themselves, what players think is a grind, and why, and how much is too much. The players definition in this case is more important than what the devs think it means.

Its like you want to impress a girl, so she likes you. You think Flashy clothes are impressive, and hand design the flashiest clothes ever. But turns out your definition of impressive and hers are different, therefor you fail at your real goal.

Likewise anet must consider what players think of as grindy, if their goal is for players to not feel grind

If their goal is for devs not to feel grind, then they can totally ignore players opinions on the.matter.

Iyeru.5240:

If they ever decide to continue the personal story in the future, then you’ll have more content to deal with. Otherwise, you’re right, content that includes raids, dungeons, etc. requires you to get other people to help you, and some of them may be upset with your choice of skills / etc. on your class. I don’t really know how to deal with this though, I tried to deal with tanking in FFXIV, but item levels and people with best-in-slot just mess that up. I don’t like dealing a ton of damage either really, I like to support people or protect them. But it’s hard to do this when they’re yelling at me for losing aggro / enmity on things I cannot control easily.

Finding a Guild is pretty easy, but finding one that still shares your original pre-megaserver server is harder now more than ever. Plus, some Guilds require you to use voice chat, and I’m not ready to do that yet.

ffxiv tanking is more about getting first aggro, and using enmity skills at the right time, gear mostly will effect how well you survive, not so much how much hate you keep. it also gets easier as you level. More to the point, people will always complain, in any game. But it doesnt happen all the time, with all people. There will always be some good times too.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

IMO, all accessories other than the back item should be excluded from comparisons because of how widely available they are to get unlike the others. The bulk of your stat increases, and thus your damage boost, comes from them. It would be misleading to include these in a discussion such as this one.

actually bulk of your dmg increase of from the weapon, and the bulk of your defense increase is from the armor.
oh yeah and infusions are pretty big boost if you choose to stack them

The defense increase is very insignificant. Do a comparison without the stat increases from the earrings, rings, and necklace. The bulk of the damage increase gained from an ascended weapon comes from the stat increases. Without any stat increases, the benefits from the increased damage modifier is only about 5%.

the largest single gain you can get from changing 1 piece is the weapon.
all the accessories are probably noticeable, but thats 6 pieces

Ayrilana.1396:

IMO, all accessories other than the back item should be excluded from comparisons because of how widely available they are to get unlike the others. The bulk of your stat increases, and thus your damage boost, comes from them. It would be misleading to include these in a discussion such as this one.

actually bulk of your dmg increase of from the weapon, and the bulk of your defense increase is from the armor.
oh yeah and infusions are pretty big boost if you choose to stack them

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

The actual value of ascended to all modifiers is a small one. Just the raw effects of ascended and full including ascended armor are 5% and 10% on top of the exotic.

But you can get another %’s for almost nothing , so why bother too much with paying 700 gold premium, unless you got a real purpose…:

The sigil of force will NOT scale, it will stay 5% for 5 gold
The sigil of night will NOT scale, it will stay 10% during night for 1 gold 30
The sigil of X slaying will NOT scale, it will stay 10% vs a certain foe (risen?) for couple of silvers…
The powerful potions of x-slaying will NOT scale and cost a couple of silvers each…

The ascended weapon will downscale DMG to an exotic or even lower @ lower levels staring from 79
The exotic weapons will downscale DMG to a rare or even lower @ lower levels starting from 65…

Ascended’s are usefull when running Orr, Drytop, Silverwastes and a small part of Frostgorge sound and also in Fractals, Arah, HotW and CoE, WvW and EotM.

In all other area’s it’s downscaled. For your 700 gold investment you’ll get 0% return, IMHO it is a bit low in 85% of the present tyria? When HoT is released the relative value of ascended will go UP as there is more lvl 80 area.

because the % you are talking about are applied multiplicatively.
sigil of force isnt +5% its 1.05%

this is it it does what it says and adds 5% damage. it it adds 5% to your weapon damage or something that may be different, but i believe its a straight multiplier.

as far as being downscaled, yeah this may be true, but the future of the game is now at cap, they have set up a leveling system they can apply to new areas. chances are most if not all new content will be at cap.

DeceiverX.8361:

phys.7689:

DeceiverX.8361:

naiasonod.9265:

I wouldn’t say that ascended is negligible in power builds, especially the zerk meta.

Just gonna be honest here; its not negligible at all where the Power stat is concerned. For anything additive…yeah, pretty negligible. Anything multiplicative? Not so negligible.

I’d really have to argue otherwise. I kept very close detail of the difference between parts/set, and I can assure you that the difference is still absolutely negligible even under maximal multiplicative capacity.

Unless you’d like to argue that a 300% damage modifier isn’t good enough for multiplicative results – my thief build does indeed pack quite the hefty sum of multipliers.

The damage difference between ascended gear and exotics in terms of my absolutely bonkers damage scaling is…

Around 5 percent, still.

It’s actually really, really negligible.

according to the max presented, full ascended with full power infusions (5 more power) per slot(total 65) will give you 11%

that doesnt include effective damage from crit, and crit rate
so yeah its a noticeable difference

with crit rate and ferocity, assuming a power crit dmg trait set, it would be a difference of 24% over time.

so yeah, full ascended? not so negligible.

now, do you need ascended to win? aka dps checks? not really, are their some things you can burn than you cant burn if you are in all exotics? yeah.

is it a noticeable difference? definately.

Maybe for people with like 2.1k power running no offensive traits or modifiers that damage is substantial as an increase.

But that’s kind of the way it is for everyone. It’s like saying that using soldier’s weapons on a dire condi player bumped their base damage substantially. Of course it did.

But when you’re playing a real DPS build/trait setup, and are sittin at around 3k base power with no might/stacks, the damage bonus is quite literally negligible.

So okay, full power modifiers on someone with no stacks/real power as a stat might have it be more effective, but that’s just basic math dictating a larger percentage of x stat is coming from increases to baseline numbers that are already low.

i just did the math on person with full stats in the post i linked, the difference is 13-15% with crit, and 10-11% without.
13% damage is noticeable increase and thats 13% more for dude who is already hitting like a truck.
a dude who used to hit for 5.3k would see 6k damage, 10.6k is 12k damage. its not negligeable
only because the content is easy do people say it doesnt matter.

maddoctor.2738:

krixis.9538:

gear grind in expansions makes current hard earnt gear invalid as u just keep upgrading gear over and over, like World Of Warcraft and its raiding systems and every 6 months new gear is added forcing u to upgrade to be able to play the new content.
this is called vertical progression

skill grind in expansions allows current gear to remain current and lets u improve your character in other aspects of the game that are commonly used by all PVE players , allowing every one to play all content with out the need for new gear while getting more powerfull from just playing the game in a normal way.
this is called horizontal progression

Also, one more thing. Players who don’t buy HoT but get the next expansion won’t be at a disadvantage at the new zones. Maguuma Masteries will function in the new zones only, so it stands to reason that any new masteries they add for ANY expansion will offer advantages in that particular part of the game and not everywhere.

they did say they will have core mastery as well though, so there will be core bonuses as well

Izaya.2906:

phys.7689:

DeceiverX.8361:

naiasonod.9265:

I wouldn’t say that ascended is negligible in power builds, especially the zerk meta.

Just gonna be honest here; its not negligible at all where the Power stat is concerned. For anything additive…yeah, pretty negligible. Anything multiplicative? Not so negligible.

I’d really have to argue otherwise. I kept very close detail of the difference between parts/set, and I can assure you that the difference is still absolutely negligible even under maximal multiplicative capacity.

Unless you’d like to argue that a 300% damage modifier isn’t good enough for multiplicative results – my thief build does indeed pack quite the hefty sum of multipliers.

The damage difference between ascended gear and exotics in terms of my absolutely bonkers damage scaling is…

Around 5 percent, still.

It’s actually really, really negligible.

according to the max presented, full ascended with full power infusions (5 more power) per slot(total 65) will give you 11%

that doesnt include effective damage from crit, and crit rate
so yeah its a noticeable difference

with crit rate and ferocity, assuming a power crit dmg trait set, it would be a difference of 24% over time.

so yeah, full ascended? not so negligible.

now, do you need ascended to win? aka dps checks? not really, are their some things you can burn than you cant burn if you are in all exotics? yeah.

is it a noticeable difference? definately.

Can you kindly post in detail a comparison between the EP of full exotic and full ascended gear(with +5 power infusion on offensive infusion slots) and how you came up with the 24%?

You can use the most common meta build of warr 6/5/0/0/3 with 2 banners and 100% Fury uptime with 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vuln on the target.

vulnerability can be ignored, it is a % damage increase, so it will maintain the ratio
stacks of might will lower the % of damage you get boosted via power, but it will increase the effectiveness of your weapon damage.

you can do the math yourself and see the ratio

weapon dmg*power
to consider the effect of crit rate and crit damage, figure 34% of the time you will do Crit damage X weapon dmg*power
so just looking at the factors that change your formula will look like
weapon dmg*power x (1+(crit rate * crit dmg))
divide the ascended values over the exotic values and you see your average difference.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQFABEAAAMD1A-TxRDwAJUC2T53L1fApDg6+BmWQAg5PA-e

so conisdering might

1100×3333x(1+(.39×2.20))
1047.5×3178 x (1+(.37×2.17))

looks like 13% difference with full might.

my 24% was off i think i had a sigil in one and not the other.
without might it should be…
15% effective difference.

so yeah made a mistake 11% base difference, 13-15% difference including crit depending on how much might you have
interestingly enough, looks like the % difference will increase if you arent running power in your traits.

may come out different with precision bonus as opposed to crit dmg bonus. but probably not much, since its probably gonna be 2% increase regardless

regardless 13-15% more damage isnt a ignorable amount. If content actually gets more challenging, you can definately expect people to be pushing for 13% more dmg, or effective hp and heals.

its actually a pretty large difference between ascended, its just that content is pretty easy, so ascended is generally more about overkill.

DeceiverX.8361:

naiasonod.9265:

I wouldn’t say that ascended is negligible in power builds, especially the zerk meta.

Just gonna be honest here; its not negligible at all where the Power stat is concerned. For anything additive…yeah, pretty negligible. Anything multiplicative? Not so negligible.

I’d really have to argue otherwise. I kept very close detail of the difference between parts/set, and I can assure you that the difference is still absolutely negligible even under maximal multiplicative capacity.

Unless you’d like to argue that a 300% damage modifier isn’t good enough for multiplicative results – my thief build does indeed pack quite the hefty sum of multipliers.

The damage difference between ascended gear and exotics in terms of my absolutely bonkers damage scaling is…

Around 5 percent, still.

It’s actually really, really negligible.

according to the max presented, full ascended with full power infusions (5 more power) per slot(total 65) will give you 11%

that doesnt include effective damage from crit, and crit rate
so yeah its a noticeable difference

with crit rate and ferocity, assuming a power crit dmg trait set, it would be a difference of 24% over time.

so yeah, full ascended? not so negligible.

now, do you need ascended to win? aka dps checks? not really, are their some things you can burn than you cant burn if you are in all exotics? yeah.

is it a noticeable difference? definately.

naiasonod.9265:

Dave.2536:

You forgot the most important stat: weapon strength. That gives you the remaining half of the 10-12%.

Actually, its trinkets that have the most dramatic effects. Edit: stat-wise, I should specify. Trinkets have the most dramatic stat-based effect. Armor’s is comparatively insignificant on its own (before infusions get factored for on either end).

I’ll make an example out of greatswords for brevity’s sake.

Exotic greatsword
Weapon Strength: 995-1100
Primary: 179
Secondary: 128
Secondary: 128

Ascended greatsword
Weapon Strength: 1045-1155
Primary: 188
Secondary: 134
Secondary: 134

Stat-wise, the differences are present but fairly negligible on their own. The difference in Weapon Strength must be assessed by contrasting their integer values via this equation —

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Now, just eyeballing that equation, I can tell you that you might very well be right, since the multipliers of weapon strength and power would are both increased in Ascended.

Someone with the time to dig up skill coefficients want to math out a contrast? I’d love to, but I’m typing from my phone at work.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2o8efo/full_exotic_vs_full_ascended_gear_how_large_is/

full ascended versus full exotic with a power focus is minimally about 11% difference in damage, not counting more complex factors like crit rate and crit dmg (which can only increase the difference)

this also doesnt consider the stat boosts from infusions (which can add up to a lot actually)+5 power across 13 slots? so 65 power?

so yeah thats actually a very noticeable difference in damage.

as for the people saying armor is worthless, the main benefit is reducing damage, not the main stats. lets say its only 5% more defense, that makes a big difference when you start considering survivability heals/etc.

point is, the type of gains you get from ascended are actually pretty noticeable between full ascended and full exotic. killing 15% faster and taking % less damage can totally change what playstyles are available to you in order to win an encounter.

Thaddeus.4891:

So they say :

We want to give you more option, meaning and milestone to make it a journey.

And you read :

We made a huge mistake, we are sorry, we gonna fix it for free.

i didnt say huge, i said mistake.
They make fixes when things arent performing as intended
and yes everything in the looking ahead 2013 was about changes to base game that would be free.

you can continue to pretend to attempt to win an argument, but its clear at the very least, the OP has a valid complaint/point based on the information anet provided about the future of the game, and what he should expect regarding precursors for the game he already purchased

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

what you can see is the problem.
Legendaries were supposed to be a long term goal, but the precursor was a sticking point that required luck on a low random roll, or earning enough gold to compete with the mid -high range gold earners.

The fact that you were fine with random/gold grind doesnt mean it wasnt a problem, just that it wasnt a problem for you specifically.

The designers admited it was a problem about a year ago, and said that solutions were on the way for free.

Even casual players can afford a precursor. I know because I was a casual and It took me a year to get my first legendary. I started to play more after that. There is also a lot of casual with their own legendary in my guild. It ain’t gonna be easier to get precursor through collection, its will just be more different. You could gain gold through a lot of different ways to buy your precursor, with the collection you will have specific stuff to do. They are both great ways to get a precursor and more diversity is always welcome. That doesn’t make the old system a problem.

Now I really would like to see that post from a Dev a year ago that said that admitted it is a problem and the solution is on the way for free. Because that seem a lot more like your own interpretation and not real word from a dev.

they said they felt people should have a way to work towards precursors that wasnt random, they presented the solution in a blog post.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

relevant part is, “but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary” this was in 2013, slated before 2014, and this is before they had features you had to pay for.

“so that you can feel like you are making progress towards getting one of those put together”

CMM.6712:

phys.7689:

CMM.6712:

phys.7689:

CMM.6712:

I am not seeing how this is a bad thing, and something that would leave anyone disgusted… expanding the game is a good thing. Really don’t understand your complaint.

disgusted because it seems like new methods of aquisition for old precursors may be put behind a paywall, when it was a problem and issue the were supposed to solved a year ago.
Essentially he fears they the solution to the core games problem will only be available to those who buy the expansion

I assume 95% or more of the people that play this game are going to get the expansion, so the point is kinda moot. They never said how it would be implemented. Just that they wanted to, and they are, and here’s how.

so if you bought a car, which was had issues accelerating, they company agreed it was a problem and told you they would fix it for free, then after a bunch of time went by, they said they would be fixing it, as part of an upgrade to the car that they are selling, you would have no problems with that?

Its not even fair for you to bring it up as feeling dirty?

Sounds like you are intending to buy teh expansion, so you just dont care much about problems for people who dont buy it.

They said they would like to add a feature, weren’t able to as they maybe first intended to, things change that’s life. Here is how it is being implemented now, have it or don’t the choice is yours. Of course I am going to buy it as most people are.

actually they are able to add the feature, they may have decided that now it will cost you money to get. That is a viable complaint, because before it was supposed to be part of the basic service of the game that they would correct the issue.

the point is not whether or not you will buy it, the point is to consider the people who will not buy it.
Its perfectly feasible to lock new content in an expansion, but to lock a fix for an old problem in the base game? not really as feasible.

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

yes its problem that they identified within 4 months of the game coming out which they were hoping to fix within a year of the game coming out.

2 questions. What is the problem? And how it is a ’’core’’ problem?

I can see that not everybody like the RNG of the mystic forge or that going through a adventure or collection to get your precursor will be more fun than accumulating gold, but I still don’t see the problem?

I ask because I just made my 6th legendary and didn’t see much problem there.

what you can see is the problem.
Legendaries were supposed to be a long term goal, but the precursor was a sticking point that required luck on a low random roll, or earning enough gold to compete with the mid -high range gold earners.

The fact that you were fine with random/gold grind doesnt mean it wasnt a problem, just that it wasnt a problem for you specifically.

The designers admited it was a problem about a year ago, and said that solutions were on the way for free.

CMM.6712:

phys.7689:

CMM.6712:

I am not seeing how this is a bad thing, and something that would leave anyone disgusted… expanding the game is a good thing. Really don’t understand your complaint.

disgusted because it seems like new methods of aquisition for old precursors may be put behind a paywall, when it was a problem and issue the were supposed to solved a year ago.
Essentially he fears they the solution to the core games problem will only be available to those who buy the expansion

I assume 95% or more of the people that play this game are going to get the expansion, so the point is kinda moot. They never said how it would be implemented. Just that they wanted to, and they are, and here’s how.

so if you bought a car, which was had issues accelerating, they company agreed it was a problem and told you they would fix it for free, then after a bunch of time went by, they said they would be fixing it, as part of an upgrade to the car that they are selling, you would have no problems with that?

Its not even fair for you to bring it up as feeling dirty?

Sounds like you are intending to buy teh expansion, so you just dont care much about problems for people who dont buy it.

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

Essentially he fears they the solution to the core games problem will only be available to those who buy the expansion

And precursor crafting is a ‘’core game problem’‘? It will be nice, but its not like precursor were a problem ever. Mastery won’t allow you to get a precursor within an hour, it will probably as long and difficult as buying or forging a precursor right now just without the RNG of forging it.

Yup precursor crafting was suppose to be in the game by december 2013. They screw up, their first system wasn’t good enough they had to redesign it and they apologized for that.

yes its problem that they identified within 4 months of the game coming out which they were hoping to fix within a year of the game coming out.

DavidH.7380:

timmyf.1490:

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

I think you are following along the same tracks as the Anet definition of grind, but I don’t think it serves well as a guide for what “feels grindy”. The players who complain about all of the above are coming from something more like along the lines of this:

It becomes grindy when the player feels:
1) It is not fun or inherently rewarding to do X,
2) but they have to do a lot of X to get Y,
3) and they want Y.

In that case, the player is stuck between doing a lot of not fun or rewarding gameplay to get what they want or going without. Ideally everything should be so inherently fun and rewarding that it is worth doing for its own sake regardless of repetition or item rewards. Realistically, most of us are okay with a certain level of not fun play as long as we don’t have to do it for too long and the reward is worth it.

When too many Ys are locked behind too much X that isn’t inherently fun, you get complaints that the game is too grindy. But that is really hard to measure or define… how “fun” is X? How much is too much X? How badly do you want or need Y? Is Y just rewarding enough to get people to want it or is it so rewarding that people feel it makes all the X they suffered worthwhile?

The entire concept is so subjective that it not only varies greatly between players but it also varies greatly for individual players as circumstances and stages in their lives change.

use small numbers and over arching achievements.
in terms of reducing the feeling of grind, it feels less grindy to need to beat a game that takes you 40 hours to beat, than to beat a 1 hour game 40 times for the same reward(in general)

CMM.6712:

I am not seeing how this is a bad thing, and something that would leave anyone disgusted… expanding the game is a good thing. Really don’t understand your complaint.

disgusted because it seems like new methods of aquisition for old precursors may be put behind a paywall, when it was a problem and issue the were supposed to solved a year ago.
Essentially he fears they the solution to the core games problem will only be available to those who buy the expansion

Jerus.4350:

Great post. They’re introducing Vertical progression while being hesitant about admitting it.

Personally one of the things I love so much (and was even discussing with a friend last night) about GW2 is the fact that it doesn’t have that vertical progression. The fact that the game is about content, styles, and just having fun. Grinding and working on things are there if you want to do it but there’s no hand on your back pushing you to do it only carrots that I can choose to go after or not.

Getting a legendary or even ascended didn’t make or break me, it was done to give a little bump or just for a cool style.

I fear these masterys will become a grindy time sink that you have to go through just to enjoy the content at the end of the expansion… in other words it sounds like they’ve gotten away from one of the beautiful aspects of GW2 and has gone the way of other MMOs.

they have always wanted vertical progression, they were initially planning to increase level cap, then they tried ascended, they had a cdi on it a ways back.

gw2 was never meant to be that horizontal. Honestly though, vertical progression is something that will always be around, i mean even back in the day playing NES castlevania and ghouls and ghost, you vertically progress through the content.

It really comes down to how well its handled.

Mo Mo.1947:

Yeah but none of that is grind, phys. I’m still not sure what aerial is thinking of. Opening things in your inventory is not grind. :P

lol, it actually is, and its probably unintentional,
but some one recently opened 13k bags
they got one ascended box.
it took them 10 hours i think to open all the bags.

he made like 1.1k i think

i think the poster’s point was, for some reason, anet tied a lot of endgame goals to opening a crap load of bags to get a crap load of materials/currencies, and they are hoping masteries wont be similar.

As of right now, in that respect it seems unlikely.

Mo Mo.1947:

Some people have a very loose definition of “grind”.

Go play Silkroad Online and tell me GW2 has grind. Go play Aion, go play most MMOs of the past and tell me GW2 has grind.

You’re a might spoiled if you honestly believe GW2 has any significant level of grind that you are forced to do.

Also the ArenaNet team doesn’t even want you to have to level up from 2 to 80 but they put levels in the game so the majority of gamers wouldn’t be confused by the lack of character level.

aerial.7021:

I wonder how much grind they’ve added to that ‘challenging content’ they keep touting, I’d wager colossal amounts of grind and left clicking until your mouse breaks.

DO YOU EVEN PLAY THIS GAME!?!

What is the colossal amount of left clicking you are imagining?

The only time I’ve encountered a lot of left clicking is when using Essences of Luck.

You know you can use a keyboard to activate skills, right? Spamming left clicking?? Whaaaa?

or opening bags, and the game has a ton of opening bags for various currencies/materials needed for other items.

timmyf.1490:

phys.7689:

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

This is actually a really subtle, interesting point. Which of these count as grindy?

1) You must perform Activity A 1000 times.
2) You must perform Activity A 1000 times, Activity B 500 times, Activity C 100 times, or some mix of the above where each activity gives its corresponding progress.
3) You must perform an Activity, A B or C, a total of 1000 times across all three.

I think we’d all agree #1 feels grindy. I’d argue that #2 or #3 are not grindy. It sounds like you are concerned about #2 where a certain activity is significantly more efficient, thus you don’t actually have a choice.

But I think it also somewhat depends on how long these take. If A B and C require equal time, skill, and effort, you only really have the illusion of choice. If Activity B takes roughly twice as long as Activity A, though, then it’s not grindy?

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how equal in time/effort must the alternatives be to not count as grindy? (And that answer will be unique to everybody, an opinion, and thus none of us are “right” or “wrong.”)

the key is for it to feel like real choice,
so yeah they have to consider time, difficulty and how much the content fits the spirit of the game.

also one should generally avoid large numbers to begin with, because then even if you have a choice, you may just say its not worth the hassle. 10000 activities is probably gonna feel bad no matter how you slice it.

Lishtenbird.2814:

The time gate is there for economic reasons too.

As stated by devs (and common sense), high-level crafters should be able to make money out of it – in this case, by providing their service of daily crafting on TP. That’s important since almost everything else drops in excessive amounts and can be bought cheaper than the materials you’d need to craft it.

i dont know about right now, but there was a signifigant amount of time where selling the time gated materials was at a loss.

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this is the Best Possible Solution. The unlocks are only to allow you to put points into the track. You earn points by doing whatever you want.

I have a hard time calling it “grindy” when you can earn points through whatever you like.

This also gives you a reason to keep earning experience at 80 as skill points are so plentiful they’re nearly useless.

Well done, ArenaNet. You did considerably better than I expected.

generally the flaw with do whatever you like systems, is when some methods give more progress than other by a large margin, then you get people doing 1 thing again and again. Its even worse if that one things is fairly boring to begin with

so they will have to carefully balance gains, try to avoid extremely long amount of repetitions, and try to weigh the gains toward things that create a pleasurable gaming experience

timmyf.1490:

It’s almost like flipping out about something you don’t even remotely understand is a bad idea. Or something.

dont really see how he was worrying over nothing, far as the reveal says, masteries may in fact be as grindy or grindier than ascended, and certain content is locked behind them.

the key here is, as he says, how much is required, is it grindy?

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Lishtenbird.2814:

AdaephonDelat.3890:

The information we currently have is -

Masteries are account wide.
Traits are changing.

We have way more information, as stated in the OP. The PAX presentation is not the only source of official information – various interview articles have appeared in gaming websites, and we had a blog post yesterday.

We really don’t. We have vague outlines of ideas. Adventures are tied to masteries. When they do the blog post about the mastery system as I said then feel free to say the sky is falling, it’s the end of the world, cats and dogs will be living together. Chaos as we know it.

Lishtenbird.2814:

AdaephonDelat.3890:

So you want to reduce the grind from obtaining the masteries. Brilliant! Love it! Fully on board with that idea. By the way how do you obtain mastery points again? And how do you spend Mastery points again?

Since ANet has stated that things are not set in stone and they’re willing to make changes based on player feedback, I want to raise the problem now, preemptively, to make sure no more “misunderstandings” like the Trait revamp make it into the game and stay for year(s) until they reinvent the wheel once again.

And if I was Anet I’d want that to be informed feedback based on the full amount of information given i.e. Not yet!

We also have a saying in my country shutting the door after the horse has bolted. You sir are trying to shut the door before you’ve even purchased the farm.

actually the OP is right and you are wrong about the timing.
In fact he may be too late, The Devs are making descions NOW about the topic he is bringing up.
If he waits till its in game? it will take more than a year at best to change, and will be a waste of resources.

Now you are right, that he doesnt have all the information, but thats why this is a hypothetical discussion, based on past trends, and what they have announced. Now, theoretically, the devs could look at this and be like hmm, thats not exactly what we are doing, but maybe we have to consider X, Y or Z more.

now the best solution? the devs should give more information, before they are at the point where no qualitative changes can be made. However that is unlikely, so the best thing even though it isnt great, that can be done is discuss hypotheticals to give the devs a better idea what players thought processes are.

So the question, assuming what he said is true, how would it make you feel
What are the better ways of going about handling it so his fears are never realized
Even assuming what he says is true, is that a negative thing?

Carighan.6758:

naiasonod.9265:

Uh huh. Is ‘every area of the game’ fractals by chance? Because if you do anything outside of fractals? Yeah, you’re both wrong and hilarious. In factals, sure.

Running around out in the world? Doing world bosses? Killing mobs? Doing dungeons?

NNNNNNNNOPE, swing and a miss. You’re either mistaken in what you mean by ‘every area of the game’ or you’re lying through your digital teeth.

Uuuh…
Not the person you’re trying to make fun of, but I got 3 Ascended armor pieces so far, and 2 Ascended weapons. 2 of the armor chests were random drops IIRC, 1 was from Triple-Worm, weapons were from Tequatl and… I think the other one was a random drop from another world boss ,but not entirely sure any more.

you are lucky but not insanely so, however even your luckyness pales in comparison to the guy with 2 fully equipped charachters and 24 ascended boxes sitting in his bank. some one recently opened 10,000+ bags, and got 1 ascended box, just to give you an idea how unlikely it can be.