Guild Wars 2

Wolfey.3407:

People Complain about Rng Factor of Precursors -> Anet Adds Crafting for 100% Guarantee of one -> People still complain

._.

I’m guessing that people who complain about price want anet to constantly update the recipes every 2-3 days to ensure the materials required is on par with what players put their precursors for?

the complaint was about aquisition methods.
one method costs you a random amount of gold, the averaged out to 60% of the highest tp cost,
and the other was the higher tp cost

so cost was always the problem.

the other facet is, the material parts are the least engaging, and most annoying parts of the precursor crafting process. They make the process worse.

too much in this games item balancing revolves around destroying an excess of generated items. almost every implementation of this feels nasty and off putting in the game.
10,000 drinks 7200 silk 2350 orbs.

when will they learn its not simply about balancing consumption vs generation, its also about choosing the proper magnitudes.

Ohoni.6057:

why do you guys think we need a 1200 rnged weapon? if we didnt have the shadow steps then may be i would agree, but we have so many gap closes i don’t understand why you guys feel that we “need” 1200 ranged weapon. and srly, 300 isnt all that is it.

Because if the mob is 1200 range away, and you shadowstep to him, then suddenly he’s 0 range away, and his PBAoEs kill you. What’s so difficult to understand about that? A 1200 range weapon allows you to hit the opponent, and still be at 1200 range. I thought that was obvious.

And thats why dps should always suck at 1200 range, because its easy and low risk.
And if the dps sucks, i dont think many theives would want the weapon.

Making 1200 range weapons have good dmg would require some big changes in enemy ai and enxounter design, such that it is not really safer, and if thats the case, i doubt many people would want it.

It might work, is if it required a lot more skill, perhaps with aimed shots.
Buuut since everyone hates shooting gallery not sure this would be loved

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

And you know what we call that? Apathy. And it explains a lot about why the game is in the condition it is now. Again, I hope at least one developer watches it and not dismiss it out of hand like you just did.

But, again, I’m not holding my breath.

At what point was I dismissing those complaints? There are pros and cons to every design decision. They’re not going to make everyone happy. They also have development goals of their own.

How about if they implemented things the way that you feel they should be. What would you say if the people who enjoy things as they are now complained? Would you simply “dismiss” their complaints and be “apathetic”?

The fact that you cant please all people is an irrelevant comment. Yes its true, but that doesnt mean that you cant please more people, or that you made a great attempt.

I think hot is worthwhile, at 30ish dollars. But they could have pleased more people, i dont think they set up as many winning paradigms as they thought they did, and execution of some of their better ideas was not as good as it shouod have been.

Its like a kid who gets 65s on his test and then says nobody is perfecf, true, but it doesnt really mean anything

Except the performance of HoT is subjective. You can’t say that more people are displeased about it just as you cannot say the opposite. At what threshold would you find acceptable? Is that threshold reasonable? How you you know whether they have or haven’t met that threshold?

When you cannot obtain data, that doesnt mean you give up analysis, it means you dont use data.

Aka you discuss the implementations, strengths and weaknesses, and see how you may improve its strengths, and lower its weaknesses.

Hot is not crap, but its also not working well for a lot of users, not all of that is something that is just a case of mutually exclusive choices.

Ayrilana.1396:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

And you know what we call that? Apathy. And it explains a lot about why the game is in the condition it is now. Again, I hope at least one developer watches it and not dismiss it out of hand like you just did.

But, again, I’m not holding my breath.

At what point was I dismissing those complaints? There are pros and cons to every design decision. They’re not going to make everyone happy. They also have development goals of their own.

How about if they implemented things the way that you feel they should be. What would you say if the people who enjoy things as they are now complained? Would you simply “dismiss” their complaints and be “apathetic”?

The fact that you cant please all people is an irrelevant comment. Yes its true, but that doesnt mean that you cant please more people, or that you made a great attempt.

I think hot is worthwhile, at 30ish dollars. But they could have pleased more people, i dont think they set up as many winning paradigms as they thought they did, and execution of some of their better ideas was not as good as it shouod have been.

Its like a kid who gets 65s on his test and then says nobody is perfecf, true, but it doesnt really mean anything

Healix.5819:

AzureSky.3175:

That’s about 80 hours… or 4 hours a day, every day.

Once you’ve done it several times, it’s effortless. Watch or listen to something else while doing it. Personally, I manage 16 runs per match, running it daily for the duration of an episode or movie. Moving up to 80 hours would be like fully watching one of the longer running shows.

Griever.7480:

Doesn’t show HOW he did it, could have used hacks.

Bots run it all day every day every ~1.2 minutes and likely in private instances because they never quit. That’s over 100x more than this.

I dont fault you guys, thats how you enjoy playing. The messed up thing is that the item design guys balance item aquisition around the way you guys play. 10,000 drinks is driven by accounting for the way you guys play.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Tigaseye.2047:

If random people can start their own forums and keep them properly running and moderated, I’m not sure why a multi-million dollar company can’t seem to manage it?

Random fun-fact. Reddit was actually valued at around $500 million at one point in 2014.

Not sure if this info is supposed to be relevant. Reddits value has little to do with the inexpensiveness of forum software as a whole. Also programming forums is far frome the most difficult type of programing.

And really though this software is not awesome, its adequate. People apparently just dont feel like interacting here. Perhaps its the company policies on this forum, or as people said they are already using reddit and stumble on things. Fact is this forum is far from being used optimally by anet as a whole.

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

the exploit isnt any shorter though, just easier and more monotonous.

but as you said, this is a flaw in design. fractals was made to offer variety, its not really supposed to be about doing the fastest fractals as easily as possible.

fixing the exploits is needed, just because they are exploits, but it wont solve the problem. with current system it will always be about spamming the easiest fractal, if swamp gets fixed it might be aquatic, if aqutic is long, they may find a shortcut in uncategorized.

this is huge and hamstrings new fractals, even if they are better designed, more engaging, they will be competing with swamp, or whatever is the meta easy fast fractal at the time.

In spite of the wording if the last patch notes, it appears the only ascended come from the daily shaky chests.

Which means there is a chance for doing the dailies.

The highest chance is from doing the 50-100 bracket

Saint.5647:

phys.7689:

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

No one fights him up there on fractals without these atrocious new instabilities. Yes, people will always choose Swamp/Molten Duo. They’re the fastest. Again though, the new instabilities only served to make anything BUT swamp wildly unattractive. Being feared and immobilized every second isn’t fun, it isn’t engaging, there is little to no long-term counterplay. Of course it’s preferable to just chill on a little hut and get the daily fractal chore over with.

I would wager that with some engaging instabilities (or even the old ones back), you would see a lot more play in some other fractals. Nearly every instability they implemented is horrible and actually hurts enjoyment more than anything else.

The instabilities are a side issue. Its lazily done, and sometimes works against good play, but thats not why people run swamp to death, and its not why they go on top.

As annoying as random conditions are, its still more entertaining than pressing rotation x with virtually no interaction.

But the exploit is easier, the level is faster and the difference in reward is not great enough to offset longer levels, and longer waiting for group.

Simple truth, fractals shouldnt be competing against each other. The work balancing them is not worth it, and it overall will make them generic and same feeling, as well as limiting development options.

Raizen.7981:

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

Wanze.8410:

Zervan.6785:

Wanze.8410:

Zervan.6785:

Wanze.8410:

Are you complaining about the generally high price of cloth and leather or the fact that you cant farm them directly?

Would you be ok, if they added some nodes for leather and cloth in lower level maps but to keep scarcity at its current level, would scratch the ability to open gear bags from sw on lower level toons for t1-4 gear/mats and make karma gear unforgeable?

It’s the generally high price that bothers me. The high prices are the result of the scarcity of fabric and leather in the game and the great amount you need to craft ascended armor. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest to implement nodes for cloth and leather.

In a different reddit thread I sadly can’t find anymore someone suggested to bind the gearlevel of dropped gear to the maplevel and no longer to the character level. Meaning on a say level 15-25 map the gear that will drop will have the same level range even if it dropped for your level 80 character. This would create a new incentive for players to play on low level maps. The exception should maybe be rare and exotic gear so the world bosses on lower level maps stay attractive for those who want to do them with their level 80 characters or world bosses are the general exception and will drop gear according to the character level.

A different idea I had is that plant nodes drop different kinds of fibres which a tailor then can process into scraps and those scraps into bolts. I got the idea because I noticed how rarely I gather plant nodes if they don’t give me something that I can then process into the bufffood and I think most players are thinking the same way about them. But, yes this would mean there are actual nodes for cloth at least.

The downgrade option through the mystic forge is another good idea I think. I have 11 characters, 10 of which are level 80, the exception is my bagopener (the name of the character is literally bagopener, I am not kidding). This means I am drowning in t5 and t6 materials. Giving me the option to downgrade something of it into lower level fabric and leather would be great and clear my bank because selling it isn’t that attricive because of the low prices.

It actually got a couple of gold cheaper to craft 1 each asc ingot, bolt and square since HoT arrived.
The reason why its more expensive atm to buy 1 each of those from the tp is because of they high demand and the timegate. People are willing to pay way more than the crafting costs, compared to pre HoT.

It has nothing to do with prices or scarcity for t2-5 mats.

That is not entirely true. Yes people want more gold for their timegate, I don’t actually think that is a bad thing since the crafting of the material has become a service now and the price isn’t just determined by the material cost. It’s a legitimate way of making gold through crafting because you are also providing a service for other people.

What I am talking about is the prices of the raw material that have increased since the implementation of ascended armor. Yes the prices are driven by demand no questions asked here. The problem is the demand is so high that people are forced to circumvent certain game mechanics (i.e. creating a character and leaving it on a low level so it opens bags for you which yield the low tier crafting material) . This makes one of your characterslots almost useless because there isn’t a different way of aquiring the low tier materials that is actually feasible. Sure I can kill low level humanoid mobs (Centaurs, Charr) and gather their bags, but those have a big droptable. It will take me hundreds of hours to gather enough materials if I want to use that method.

The common mat market is basically set up so you arent able to gather everything yourself every day. This is working as intended, so the materials hold value and it also works as an excellent transfer mechanism to move gold from veteran players, who mostly play end game content towards newer players, whose droprate for lower tier mats is higher.

The high crafting cost for ascended materials is also intended by Anet, so it stays a long term goal for players.

yes, it is intended, but it is also unfun for most players. It primarily benefits those with the least desire for the item, or the desire to craft. It exists primarily for the sake of the market, and even in that its unbalanced, and creates odd playstyles.

short version it succeeds at giving lo level items value.
It fails at rewarding appropriate play, making crafting fulfilling/interesting or adding entertainment to normal play.

nobody besides marketers would shed a tear if linen went down to 1 silver, or recipes required half as much low level materials

You can have a treadmill if the side grades are actually upgrades due to game mechancis changes.

Also even if you want to believe that some of these trinkets are side grades, they give objectively more stats than other pieces.

Anyhow, if, every once in awhile, they have new game mechanics that make a new stat more desirable, and they put that stat behind the newest content, that will essentially be a a gear treadmill. It is possible this was a one time thing, but the op is correct, they did put some of the new most effecient, and more powerful stat combos behind the new content.

We ll see if this continues

Ok, now that the game is out and been played and analyzed, i ll say this.

Heart of thorns is a nice add on. Worthy of being an expansion. The new areas and plotline etc are fairly well done, and do add to the game.

However, 50 bucks is pretty steep still. 30-40 is the limit id say. 30 would probably have been optimal. 50 makes it seem like a full game.

Also, tyria masteries probably should have been basic core additions. Legendaries and fractals are old content, and mentor system is kind of a basic feature.

In the future for expansions of this size, sell a 30 dollar version for previous owners, and a complete edition for newcomers at 50.

Or make a bigger expansions that add more content, for all types of players.

Enewia.1356:

Cyninja.2954:

DresdenAllblack.1249:

I opened 77 chests and got ascended kitten. Zero. Nada. Bunk.

Which type of chests?

- Daily Fractal Adept (1-20)- has nearly no chance for ascended armor or weapons. rings can appear here. Why should this be better? It’s litterally baby mode fractals.

- Daily Fractal Veteran (21-50)- still not good drop rates on weapons/armor. Infused rings have a decent chance as well as normal rings. Still beginner mode fractals on about the difficulty of fractal 30 back pre HoT.

- Daily Fractal Champion (51-100)- 12% on armor chests, 4% on weapon chests, very high chance on rings and infused rings, decent chance on skins. This is the only real daily chest of value and the drop rates are fine.

- Fractal Encryption Box (any)- has a 0% chance on any type of ascended (and my guess is you were either refering to these or low level daily chests). Literally only good for gold rewards. You could open 10,000 of these and not get a single ascended item because they do not have ascended in the drop table.

So unless you want to share which types of chests you are refering to, no one can help you.

Opened 10 champion chests since patch : not a single drop apart from the guaranteed kittenty ones. So for me drop rates are still kitten. Before Hot I had almost every lvl 50 run something of value like ascended chest or a fractal weapon skin. Now well i get 3g and some useless tome.
Also don’t look at just one research :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zMD0SKSgL_YUNMGdC9OCUA1rJsXA-Tdo9-W4cpKfpQ0/pubhtml
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml

you were lucky before, now you are unlucky.
This is the nature of rng.
the chances before for level 50 and the champion chest are roughly the same, at 15% you just are on the other side of the luck curve now.

the main difference is you could do a 15% chance, and also do like a 10% chance in the same day pre hot.

now, im not saying you should be happy with bad luck, but the culprit is the nature of rng distribution of items, not the actual rates perse.

get them to come up with a streak breaker, or guaranteed bottom style of rng.

Exotrax.4207:

phys.7689:

Exotrax.4207:

So …..few weeks ago my guild started to do raids , we managed to kill VG quite few times and I managed to collect enough Magnetite Shard to get a new piece of ascended armor…..yesssss…..hype.

Note that I already have few ascended piece ( 4stats).

So I decided to grab shoulders and EXPECTING to be able choose a piece with 4 stats.

And this was not the case , in fact you just get ascended gear with 3 stats only that you supposed already to wear for the raid.

….so what’s the point on doing raids if as reward you receive armor that you already have.

Please tell me that I’m doing something wrong

mystic forge it to get the stats you want.
ascended piece+ teir 6 insgnia or inscription you want

So I can get 4 stats (like viper) instead 3 doing this ?

yea, can get any stat that has an exotic inscription/insignia as far as i know.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge

scroll down to
Ascended equipment prefix change

Exotrax.4207:

So …..few weeks ago my guild started to do raids , we managed to kill VG quite few times and I managed to collect enough Magnetite Shard to get a new piece of ascended armor…..yesssss…..hype.

Note that I already have few ascended piece ( 4stats).

So I decided to grab shoulders and EXPECTING to be able choose a piece with 4 stats.

And this was not the case , in fact you just get ascended gear with 3 stats only that you supposed already to wear for the raid.

….so what’s the point on doing raids if as reward you receive armor that you already have.

Please tell me that I’m doing something wrong

mystic forge it to get the stats you want.
ascended piece+ teir 6 insgnia or inscription you want

Manasa Devi.7958:

I wasn’t complaining about not getting ascended boxes, was I?

in all seriousness, what are you looking for them to put in boxes?
you already said that fractal only dropped skins dont impress you
gold doesnt impress you
ascended doesnt impress you

what would you hope they could put in boxes, And im seriously curious.

Vayne.8563:

The bottom line remains that the missing ingredient can be bought relatively inexpensively. If someone refuses to buy it, that’s their own lookout. There’s an old expression about cutting off your nose to spite your fact that seems to apply here.

its not just that it can be bought, its that it can be obtained via fractals. He doesnt have to buy anything, he can just salvage his extra rings/ascended boxes he got from fractals. Hes comparing one rare weapon skin to 1 piece of currency that is incredibly easy to obtain just buy playing the game.

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

YaYa.5879:

Manasa Devi.7958:

I’m actually not happy about some of the fractal changes. Sure, the increased gold yield is nice. But there’s also the following:

First they offer the opportunity to buy fractal weapon boxes for 20 pristines. So I buy fractal weapon boxes. Now I have the fractal skins, and they start dropping random fractal weapons almost daily for me. Instead of the Stabilizing Matrices that I need lots and lots of.

When you’re cursing your luck for getting a fractal skin instead of a measly single Stabilizing Matrix, it’s obvious that something is not right. These skins should drop in addition to the regular reward, not instead of it, because they’re drops of limited appeal. Even if you enjoy occasionally getting one of these skins as a drop, that elation will quickly pass when you keep getting skins you’ve already unlocked, again and again. Especially when you need hundreds of the drop they replace.

I do not agree with you. First of all these boxes are available when you complete lvl 50 fractals. Which means that you already are a high lvl player. At this point Rewarding you with a fractal weapon seems fair.
Then stabilizating matrice can be bought everywhere, TP, daylis…

Finally are you seriously crying about having awesome rewards?
That is really weird my friend.

I am actually really thankfull towards arena for finally giving us back good rewards in 5 man group content. It took some time, but in the long term we will all forget the 2 first months

If you actually read and comprehend Manasa’s post the thing is, they already have all the fractal skins unlocked (or at least all the ones they wanted anyway), so further fractal skin drops do literally nothing for them, it’s a waste of a reward slot. I’m sorry but Manasa’s 100% right random drops should never be account bound or gods forbid soul-bound, this just leads to players being stuck with items they can do nothing with.

uhh, hes complaining that he got something he was willing to pay 20 pristine relics for. His complaint has slight merit, but its no where near the big deal he is making it out to be.
stabilizing matrices are most easily obtained by salvaging ascended items. A random drop is a random drop. Being mad because you got a random drop you did not want is pointless. He literally believes getting nothing is better for EVERYONE just because he doesnt need/want the items.

as for making item tradeable, im sorry, but thats not worthwhile. The only thing that would do is reduce the value of the items in question, or make them balance its aquisition around the very high grind economic designs, instead of personal game design based designed.

If he doesnt like the item, throw it away. Other people do like getting fractal weapons and unlocking collections. Just because he has them all, doesnt mean everyone else should get the equivalent of half of an ascended ring.

Different fractals have different levels of exp.
A 21 swamp will probably give less than a <21 molten facility.
99 would give more than 10, but it may not be much more. (havent done 99, but a level 40 molten boss gives less than a level 20something cliffside)

Dont know about personal fractal level, but i doubt it has any effect at all

Not sure if there is DR, but i doubt it.

kirima san.3760:

Salvatore.4983:

got 0 ascended chest from 36 daily chests (between adept, journeyman, master(10))

Got a master today, opened it and got Ascended Boots. Fractal 77

So you are saying its dependent on what fractal you finish the daily on?

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

They daily ones have indeed increased rewards; got 5 chests (3 armor, 2 weapon) from 22 daily chests each; someone else in my guild got 10 chests total from 44 daily chests each.

The reward increase is pretty good overall.

most reports i have seen dont have returns like that, generally i hear of 2-3%
we probably need more data.

The patch notes does make it seem like the boss chests though, however its not clear. Any Dev can clarify?

Godmoney.2048:

Levetty.1279:

Nausicca.6038:

Levetty.1279:

You aren’t going to make the game worse for your paying customers just to appease a minority of players, who don’t want to learn how to play the game, when you can easily split the changes right?

Huhuhu, good try

Why should this skill be nerfed in PvE?

I’m sure you’re not refering to the Chrono bunker’s shield 4 skill are you? Only somebody lacking common sense and reasoning would be using that in PVE.

I look forward to personally kicking the first chronomancer I see using shield in pve just like I would do if they’re using scepter.

But of course you weren’t referencing the shield’s 4 skill because that would be insane for somebody to actually be worried about pve balance in relationship to that particular skill which is entirely useless for pve.

so wait, your not going to use shield in PVE? which gives quickness to allies, does dmg, and does heft dmg to break bar, or stuns enemies?

or is your plan to not use your phantasm generating skill at all, while equiping your best dps?
oh yeah the phantasm that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies.

Im not saying the changes are the worst in the world, but im sorry guys, pve is different now, open world in hot demands more defense, better use of CC, and yeah, blocks for channels. Fractals needs good use of teamwork, and raids are difficult.

skills matter in pve now.

Back to pvp, making all blur not contribute to capture points is a bad idea, precog only might be ok (though it will now become a troll your own party skill), but mesmer has always been designed thats its best defense is timed use of blur.
Mesmer as a tank (hence the shield) that cant hold a point, is a fairly bad idea.

Rising Dusk.2408:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

They could also just give us random fractals back, which would be really great.

That would actually be very bad. Variable times for finishing the different fractals means people can’t commit if they don’t know how much time they have to spend. Regardless if anyone likes it or not, making the fractals we play predictable was a much needed change.

It was a much needed change for you.
Fact is, level design will almost always fail with this type of system. It essentially means you have to balance every level against every other level. This also reduces variability in level design, and limits creative design. You start to have to do things like add time gates (unavoidable fights) decrease gains from knowledge etc.

So yeah, it solves making them shorter, but it decreases the life of the content, and decreases the freedom of design.

I think the best solution would have been to have a selectable mode, and a randomized mode with better rewards.

Another option would be another option to play:

• Randomizer:
  • Selects 1 fast 1 medium 1 long 1 boss as target levels.
    • Can be reset once per day
    • this allows you to do peice by peice as you have time, but doesnt allow resets to select chosen fractals.
    • you can choose not to reset, if it takes you more than one day to get it done.
    • has better rewards (needs an incentive, and its going to tend to be harder than other methods)
    • If you beat all 4, you can try again up to 3 times per day
    • You can choose to roll random as a group, so your party all has the same targets.

to make it even more variable, id make the boss fractal have an option to disrupt the fractal, sometimes nothing happens, sometimes the fractal changes slightly, rarely you get warped to special zones with special bosses with nice drops.

regardless, i think for the long term health of fractals, randomization needs to find some way into the system. Its going EXACTLY as people predicted, and fractals are becoming more repetitive, with less of the content seeing playtime(wasted design)
As it stands, even if they make cool new fractals, if its harder than the easiest fractal, no one will ever play it outside of a lark.

The biggest mistakes with item design in this game, is they are by and large designed for the purpose of the economy, and not designed as products that make sense. The crafting part of your process is 100% driven by economy concerns at the point in time they were designed.

This tends to make them very functionally imbalanced more often than not.

the legendary journey specifically should NOT have been designed primarily around economic concerns. It should have been designed primarily around strong gameplay incentives. The gold methods for obtaining legendaries can be designed around economy, but the effort methods should be designed differently.

items design guys, its not about balancing an equation, its about creating a relationship thats enjoyable or logical to deal with.

If i have country that over produces jello, I could require people to make their houses out of a jello based material that takes much longer to create, and requires 2000 cubic feet of jello per 1 foot of the new material, and outlaw use of wood/metal/sheetrock in houses.

Sure it helps deal with jello based economy issues, but it really makes creating a house suck.
It creates jobs! gives jello more value!
And makes creating a house a huge costly, unsatistfying time consuming hassle.

the house is an analogy for precursors btw

Nike.2631:

I find harvesting relaxing. If I log in after work and want to run around a low level map punching skelks in the snout and chop wood that people ABSOLUTELY NEED FOR THE HIGHEST TIER OF GEAR, guess what? You’re gonna pay me through the nose for the work you aren’t willing to do yourself.

Its not an accident linen is as expensive as it is.

its fine from an economy and in game job point of view, but it sucks from a game design point of view, in that the unfun, and least adventure like things are the most effecient ways to get ahead.

In other games i played, yeah they had good consistent easy farms based on the market and knowledge and base materials, but the best things were obtained faster via adventure. The stuff you got from these adventures would pay equal to a lot of time farming.

in gw2, gathering basic mats pays extremely well, killing level appropriate mobs pays less, and big adventures pay the worst.

its not that easy to solve, but the balance is heavily on gathering right now.
Ideally you would incentivize the best designed content

perry.9645:

Scandi.5693:

They add all of these new stat sets to the game, then not only force people to use zerker for raids because of the timer, but also force certain classes as well. So you are a zerk dps or condi engineer, other than that bugger off…Remove the timer and let people form groups with whom they wish. The mechanics are fun and challenging enough without timer. At the very least make the time limit doable for more class-build combos.

Full zerker/viper Teams beat Bosses with multiple minutes left on the Timer, you are nowhere near forced to bring certain Professions/Gear and even then the enrage isn’t even a hard enrage (except gorseval).

im not saying there should be no timer, but you have to realize the difference in full zerker/viper teams dps and defensive teams dps is more than 50%

However, i will say that people missed the point if they thought there would ever be a situation in which its better to have more than two tanky charachters in a fight. Even in other MMOs you never see a 40% tanky charachter group encounter.

If they were going to do that, theyd probably have to increase the depth of tanking fairly drastically.

Its hard to say how much the economy is being effected by having less gold sources, but how the player feels in the streets is more important anyway.

What the OP is saying is it feels like its hard to get ahead.

Regardless one of the big points made that is accurate, is its not just whether you can make money, but how you make money.
In a video game, most people dont want menial tasks to be the main way to achieve their goals.

right now, from what ive seen, menial tasks are the best way to get gold (which is required for many goals)

The plus side is they added more ways to achieve goals that involve less gold, but if you are going for something like a legendary, or ascended armor, you are generally drawn back into menial tasking to get ahead.

Or you can play the market. Neither of which is how many players prefer to play an adventure game

the game plays a lot better when you can mostly ignore the economic incentives.

out of curiousity, is it really impossible for a defense based team to be twice as effecient at soaking damage?
knights alone should offer a 20% decrease.
though bringing more healers per team is probably the purest solution.
Im sure it would be hard, require a different team build, and might even be more difficult, but isnt that what defense people say they want? an encounter tuned around them playing defensively, but still difficult?

Timers are the lesser of two evils.
without timers, to design a difficult encounter, they have to design around max defense. That means everyone would be tanks/healers. It also means anyone whose not would be dead.

The key here is they wanted it to be difficult, If they dont balance around high dps, it means they have to balance around high mitigation, and i dont think people really want that in this game

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

NecroN.8306:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally I don’t give a darn about my skills looking impressive. I want to be able to see what my enemy is doing, and I am tired of not being able to do just that.

Then go into your graphic options settings and adjust them so you can see your enemy. Do not make other people suffer when you can take care of your simple problem with a setting.

The whole problem is that, even with reduce effect LoD ticked, you still can’t see squat. Get any small group together and the game looks like someone is violently shaking a lava lamp in your face. It is rather selfish to demand that the notion of conveyance be ruined because you want the game to look like a back-lit tie-dye t-shirt is trying to eat your face.

Ganathar.4956:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally I don’t give a darn about my skills looking impressive. I want to be able to see what my enemy is doing, and I am tired of not being able to do just that.

That’s great and all, but many people do care about visuals and with all these changes the professions are becoming more and more bland-looking. Fireball was one of the primary reasons why I initially got my ele to 80 before any of my other characters. It just used to feel awesome when you threw those impact balls of fire.

No matter what you prefer, there is no reason to not at least support the notion that all of this effect culling should be an optional thing for whoever wants it. If it becomes optional, Anet can cull effects from every single ability without any complaints whatsoever. This is a win-win situation, right?

It’s really not. Visual clutter is a mechanical issue that affects how people play the game. This isn’t a matter of preference. It is a matter of performance. Balance.. It affects not only how well I can see the game, but how well my teammates can see the game. The moment a teammate goes down due to an attack they can’t see (which happens all the time. Take newbies through AC and you’ll see it happen on Kholer at least half a dozen times before they finally see the windup), it becomes my business.

The fact is that having a game based around visual cues be obscured by flashy visual effects is bad design. It is inherently contradictory, and other people being fine with how nonsensical it is does not change this fact. Having a slider which scales up visual effects is the same as having a slider which scales up how badly you’ll play.

Narrrz.7532:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally I don’t give a darn about my skills looking impressive. I want to be able to see what my enemy is doing, and I am tired of not being able to do just that.

In that case, i strongly recommend you try GW1. It has much better pvp balance.

This.. isn’t really related.

you are wrong.

Not because you shouldnt be able to see what you want,

but because you think that your personal concept of what the focus of the game is should define everyones experience.

There is a large amount of people who would not want to play a very clear stick figure game. They want explosions and effects and textures etc.

This is why OPTIONS are the best solution.

And all that aside, making effects smaller doesnt actually make them clearer. If your design focus is clarity, you should not simply try to minimize effects, but redesign them.

Its kind of nonsensical to say an effect is clearer when it doesnt represent the effective areas, or types.

its a mistake to try to make effects smaller/less obtrusive if the goal is to be more clear and readable.

this is some small unobtrusive writing

http://jp29.org/cal371b.jpg

this is clear noticeable writing:
http://www.websitetemplatesonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/rules.jpg

the real issue stems from the fact that 100 people are doing things at one time.
the best answer would be a system that could adjust based on importance, but thats too complex.
a simplified effect system with a focus on clarity
and a normal effect system with a focus on visuals is probably the best solution

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

What they were saying was still hurting ANet

If negative comments about ArenaNet or their content get you kicked from partner programs/raid testing/whatever, I think there’s a long list of people who apparently got exceptions (and continue to get them regularly). And if being salty, offensive, or childish gets you kicked, I can think of a handful of streamers ArenaNet regularly promotes who deserve the boot.

This seems inconsistent with ArenaNet’s past actions and specific to either a) raids or b) DnT. In the end, ArenaNet gets to make their own decisions about who to include or not include. No problem there. But the public shaming on the forums, including leaving the post open for comments (and then almost certainly abuse) seems out of character for them and (imho) rather distasteful.

Because all of this was public, the response had to be public.

Its not really distasteful on arenanets part, its a pretty calm response.
Based on what you did, and how it is effecting our perception, we are letting you go.

Thats basically all they said, and its the most appropriate response.

If you get publicly shamed by objective revelation and results of your public actions, thats really your own fault.

That said, its not really that big a deal, they messed up, they arent testing any more. Its not like they are evil, just that they cant represent the company with those actions.

This should not be a global change, it should be an option.
This is exactly the same as if they lowered everyone to low res textures from ps1 era. Of course you will have complaints.

And even if they did want to do it, the execution is bad, because a lot of these changes are less readable now, not to mention a lot of the graphics dont line up well with the actual damage areas.

Oh Snapalope.1378:

sini/viper berserker works.

Proof: http://i.imgur.com/aC0tr9v.jpg

In my opinion part of the game is gearing for a variety of play styles. They tried to bury the one gear type meta and make other types of gear more viable. I think the intention is good but it’s not idealy implemented.

Berserker has uses still. Some bosses and maps has bad targets for condi such as dredge.

The funny thing all the classes that pugs will kick in “elitist runs” before expansion, like necro and ranger, are the top tier picks now. It’s retribution in a way I guess?

that is illogical:

everyone complains one set is best for most fights that matter
solution: lets make another set best for most fights that matter

what should be the case is direct damage is a certain style of play, and condition is a certain style of play. If this is their implementation, they probably never should have separated condition damage and power.

Jahroots.6791:

Does anyone else feel like the game is kind of…shallow and empty after this dungeon nerf? It’s really not meant as a QQ thread, but I really feel like I underestimated how much of my play time was spent in dungeons. Totally love the new maps, but the meta event zerging is starting to get old, and I just zone out like ‘Well, what the kitten do I do now?’.

Yes, dungeons are still there and surprisingly it isn’t too difficult to find parties but it really isn’t the same any more. The stakes are much lower and the motivation isn’t there. Might be time to take a break, I guess. Just wondering if anyone else is missing their daily dungeon tours as much as I do.

deincentivizing dungeons has left a large gap in the small group content. I like fractals, but thats basically all there is now.

i dont know if raids will scratch the same itch.

Leggendalex.4659:

Ryn.6459:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3rmwfr/do_ascended_gear_drops_even_exist_anymore/cwr1k47

there is still hope maybe

hes just gonna look to see if they still exist, or are performing at the rates they wanted. They havent really told us if the drops are supposed to be the same rate or not

anet has a firm belief in time gates. And most especially, long repetive time gates.

Yes, i really think they need some dev interaction here. Because fractals should be one of the best places to obtain ascended gear, its actually required to progress.

And no, crafting ascended gear is not appropriate to fractal progression:
you dont get mats
you dont get a variety of ascended account bound
you dont get gold

this aside from the player type that likes fractals, is looking for challenges and goals, which tend to prefer trial oriented progression over time gates, and material gathering/crafting.

they changed a lot about fractal drop rates, the point of fractal level, and they never even told anyone.

They really need to say what their intention is, and what type of reward/progression they expect fractals to have

Harper.4173:

phys.7689:

DrEckers.2039:

Currently, +1 agony Infusions are 3.64s buy and 4.24s sell and Fractal Encryptions are 15.01s buy and 22.5s sell. Both are steadily falling. Source: 1 Agony Infusions. Fractal Encryptions

The problem with all the rewards depending on the Trade post is that it leaves them subject to supply/demand cycles. In this case, it has created a huge oversupply of +1 agony infusions, which kills the value of the boxes. Also, every other tradeable item in the boxes has plummeted in value since the encryption’s inception. Point is you are getting less than 1g per fractal after Tp taxes even if you sell all of your boxes on the trading post which is a nerf from the previous and much maligned gold given per completing a fractal.

We are not equating “cash” with “reward.” This is only one aspect of the reward problem and so far the one we have the most evidence to show is problematic. In addition, the rough, preliminary evidence leads, but does not conclude that ascended weapon and armor drop rates have been heavily nerfed per box. Source: King Fractal Research It should be noted that even if the chances were the same as before HoT it would still be a nerf due to the reduction of the number of boxes which give ascended items. Finally, there is the epidemic problem with fractals that it is more worth your time to do the lowest levels of a tier than the higher level ones. One of the key promises of the Blog Post introducing Fractals was greater rewards and that promise has not been fulfilled.

that data is fairly dissapointing
anet really needs to stop changing drop rates without telling us how the rates have changed, especially on daily lock outs. It will take months of data before they can notice bugs, unless someone (john smith) specifically pulls the data.

and are they even tracking how reward level effects it? (if it does)

It will also thus take months for peoples feedback to be heard.

suffice to say, armor rate should be at least 10%, but id say probably something like 20% for people who hit 100.

point is, they need to say what their intended rates are, especially when changing rates, as well as what can drop what, and how fractal level effects chances

The problem here is that Anet is aware they can do whatever they want with the drop rates and the majority of players will most likely not know any better since very few of those who play visit the forums or actually bother to look for any research into the matter.

It is most likely true that the nerf that came for ascended drops is somehow related to them wanting people to be a part of this huge “economy change” that’s been hitting the game recently.
I also think a lot of ascended drops are intended to be moved at the end of Raids and thus were taken out of fractals.

Because – you see if both Raids ( 10 man instanced content) and Fractals (5 man instanced content) both gave out Ascended then people would most likely do both and get a lot of ascended – and that’s a big no-no in Anet’s book.

This is likely true, but it is still the wrong answer, because they built a system where fractals has more of an ascended requirement now than raids will, due to agony. You simply need armor slots or agony will kill you. By making it need max level agony, they assured that now ascended must be a part of fractal progression.

Then the whole flaw that raids is simply not accesible to many players just by the virtue of needing 10 players, when nothing else in the game is built that way.

anyhow, yeah Im sure they did decide to move fractal rewards, the problem is its a really bad idea, it would actually be better to give raids other rewards, since most people will end up being expected to have it already regardless.

Windsagio.1340:

I don’t think any company in any realm of gaming (let alone MMOs) does that.

actually many companies put drop rate data in the API. aka easily avalaible fairly quickly. Wow. ffxi ffxiv definately had that data ready

DrEckers.2039:

Currently, +1 agony Infusions are 3.64s buy and 4.24s sell and Fractal Encryptions are 15.01s buy and 22.5s sell. Both are steadily falling. Source: 1 Agony Infusions. Fractal Encryptions

The problem with all the rewards depending on the Trade post is that it leaves them subject to supply/demand cycles. In this case, it has created a huge oversupply of +1 agony infusions, which kills the value of the boxes. Also, every other tradeable item in the boxes has plummeted in value since the encryption’s inception. Point is you are getting less than 1g per fractal after Tp taxes even if you sell all of your boxes on the trading post which is a nerf from the previous and much maligned gold given per completing a fractal.

We are not equating “cash” with “reward.” This is only one aspect of the reward problem and so far the one we have the most evidence to show is problematic. In addition, the rough, preliminary evidence leads, but does not conclude that ascended weapon and armor drop rates have been heavily nerfed per box. Source: King Fractal Research It should be noted that even if the chances were the same as before HoT it would still be a nerf due to the reduction of the number of boxes which give ascended items. Finally, there is the epidemic problem with fractals that it is more worth your time to do the lowest levels of a tier than the higher level ones. One of the key promises of the Blog Post introducing Fractals was greater rewards and that promise has not been fulfilled.

that data is fairly dissapointing
anet really needs to stop changing drop rates without telling us how the rates have changed, especially on daily lock outs. It will take months of data before they can notice bugs, unless someone (john smith) specifically pulls the data.

and are they even tracking how reward level effects it? (if it does)

It will also thus take months for peoples feedback to be heard.

suffice to say, armor rate should be at least 10%, but id say probably something like 20% for people who hit 100.

point is, they need to say what their intended rates are, especially when changing rates, as well as what can drop what, and how fractal level effects chances

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

if you dont buy the keys, you build up extra boxes, if you salvage for keys, you lose money sometimes.

Salvaging won’t make you lose money. Ok ya if you salvage one or two it might. But on average each ring salvaged will give you 5.6 Matrix, which is around 11 keys. If you don’t have any salvaging to do? Buy Matrix on the tp and your key will cost you 12 silver instead of 20.

if salvage is an average of 5.6, and each attemp cost 1 gold, each key costs 17.8 silver.
raw gold return according to the 1000 box guy was 16.7 silver
this means
paying 1 to 2 silver per salvage for 2.3 teir 5 mats (which most are currently under 50 copper) and 2 agony infusions

BUT if you just sold the ring you would make 4.5 silver, so its still a bad idea.

basically only reason to try open these aside from using keys you got by accident is for the collection/acievement whatever, and if you are looking for a rare ascended armor recipe?

I dont think any recent content has a payout this low.

which is fine, as long as ascended armor/weapon rate is like the old, but i highly doubt that.

Thaddeus.4891:

It did end up in fractal, but it an awkward, weird and unintuitive system.

Even someone without HoT get at least 3 encryption box per fractal without county the daily and each box can give you 19-22 silver of profit, meaning that 3 fractal (which is faster than an old 50) will give you at minimum 1.7-2 gold. Of course there is rng in the trophies you get so some might be more profitable, but on average you get more gold than we used to. It’s just that it’s hard to see it and a lot of person still buy key directly which is the biggest NO NO ever. That’s the best way to kill your reward.

if you dont buy the keys, you build up extra boxes, if you salvage for keys, you lose money sometimes.

also, the truth is the keys/chests are likely to continue to drop in value until they are almost exactly vendor price. The only hope they have is unique crafting recipes, but who is going to want to spend a ton on the recipes, when making ascended itself is one of the most annoying things in game

they are going to have to add value to those chests if they want em to be worth more than 15 silver, maybe 10 due to keys

Windsagio.1340:

And again, its to the point of how circle-jerk stagnant this community is. They can’t even imagine something different, and they don’t know the classes at all outside of the accepted builds.

edit: In fairness it could be that my charming personality makes people automatically reject what I have to say out of hand

no, its that you are not listening.
there is straight up mathematics.
even with a team of people with like 50% crit, and boon removal, you are not better off than just powering through.

Im not the meta guy, im the do whatever works guy, but you cant realistically expect people to get whole new gear sets for 10 levels of fractals, especially when they probably just spent 2 gold getting new infusions for their current gear.

lets be clear i am not saying its impossible, i am saying its rarely ever better. The only time it was useful was if i did like arcane theivery to try to get stability off for a stun, but even then, if you are unlucky, it will refresh before you can break the bar.

its very doable, it just doesnt create a viable alternate playstyle that doesnt require changing your gear.

to be clear:
if you know what you are doing you will win
if 3 people have 50% crit rate, you will generate more boons per second than your party can remove.
if you alter your party to ignor boon strips in favor of reflects, blinds, might/dps(standard) it will generally be just as easy, if not easier.

If you are saying people need to change out of their crit gear, well thats really not feasible for a lot of players, and is thus a bad design mechanic.
Most people dont have space or resources to get new fractal gear for every 10 levels

Windsagio.1340:

phys.7689:

Windsagio.1340:

dutchiez.7502:

There is no amount of boonstripping that can clear the boons a full zerk team generates on mobs with this instability. I haven’t tested it, but I am fairly confident in saying that a mesmer in zerk gear who is autoattacking with sword (which has a boon strip on the 3rd skill) would not be able to strip the boons it is generating with it’s own attacks.

The only way to “counter” this instability is to wear gear which does not have precision as a stat. This will mean your damage goes down the drain, any build that relies on on crit effects is extremely hampered (read: every build) and more importantly, everyone in your team will have to acquire a new set of ascended gear (armor, weapons, trinkets) just for the 20 levels that feature this instability.

Not what I would call great design.

But you haven’t tried it, and don’t quite get the build.

This is something we (well one of the others) figured out to try in the first 5 minutes of us doing the new fractals (doing the 50 right after HOT released). The Mesmer takes a fairly substantial dps drop because you’re not using damage phantasms, but the net party gain is enormous.

Of course the cleansing isn’t perfect, but it avoids the normal zerk party fury/retal/25 might/10 stability/protection/occasional aegis issue that you get in the 41-50 bracket otherwise.

~~~

Honestly this goes directly to my point. People never even tried to be creative in dealing with the instability, but instead tried to haedbutt it to death and then complain about it.

I have tried it, its pointless, null field is pulsing, mind stab is 1/3 strikes and arcane theivery has a cool down.

There is nothing you can do if even two people in your party have crit damage.

You’re gonna feel silly when you read lower down.

dude, go in there, try it, it is not worthwhile, i have done it, disenchanter attacks once every 3-4 seconds.
they get a boon with every single crit attack. There is no boon strip fast enough. You are better off ignoring it entirely and focusing on your normal builds.

Its not hard, its just not very effective to alter your playstyle for boon removal. Go, play the level, try it out, and then try it with your normal playstyle ignoring boons.

Windsagio.1340:

dutchiez.7502:

There is no amount of boonstripping that can clear the boons a full zerk team generates on mobs with this instability. I haven’t tested it, but I am fairly confident in saying that a mesmer in zerk gear who is autoattacking with sword (which has a boon strip on the 3rd skill) would not be able to strip the boons it is generating with it’s own attacks.

The only way to “counter” this instability is to wear gear which does not have precision as a stat. This will mean your damage goes down the drain, any build that relies on on crit effects is extremely hampered (read: every build) and more importantly, everyone in your team will have to acquire a new set of ascended gear (armor, weapons, trinkets) just for the 20 levels that feature this instability.

Not what I would call great design.

But you haven’t tried it, and don’t quite get the build.

This is something we (well one of the others) figured out to try in the first 5 minutes of us doing the new fractals (doing the 50 right after HOT released). The Mesmer takes a fairly substantial dps drop because you’re not using damage phantasms, but the net party gain is enormous.

Of course the cleansing isn’t perfect, but it avoids the normal zerk party fury/retal/25 might/10 stability/protection/occasional aegis issue that you get in the 41-50 bracket otherwise.

~~~

Honestly this goes directly to my point. People never even tried to be creative in dealing with the instability, but instead tried to haedbutt it to death and then complain about it.

I have tried it, its pointless, null field is pulsing, mind stab is 1/3 strikes and arcane theivery has a cool down.

There is nothing you can do if even two people in your party have crit damage.

Windsagio.1340:

rotten.9753:

Windsagio.1340:

The entitled crybaby stuff only draws attention away from the real issues.

Which is what exactly? Except garbage drop rates, boring health sponges and a decrease of instabilities?

The loot stuff primarily. You think the dev has never heard “Its horrible that I dont’ get more stuff!!!” before?

The instability stuff feels similar to me, but it’s subject to interpretation.

The low output health sponges is the thing I keep referring to as a real issue and the issue we should be focusing on.

the instabilities they chose you end up doing 10 times.
Boon fumbler is not an interesting interaction, it basically means, ignore the part of the game that is boon focused. Or you can just take more damage. Its not really hard, you will win if you already know how to win, you just wont have boons, so you ll do it a little slower.

enemies gain boons on crit is similar, you cant do anything about it, you just have to fight enemies who negate CC do way more dmg and have protection. There really isnt viable play here.

a big part of the problem with these designs is they figure, of you should just change your stats, and play different (best case)
changing your stats isnt really feasible for fractals. gear is a large investment, in inventory and in gold, for 10 levels of fractals you will likely seek to avoid ever doing again:

which now focuses on rewards.
Im sorry but basing any response on your gut feeling or general ideaology will often be flawed. regardless how you feel about people asking for more rewards, you need to understand every content is competing with each other for time investment. You also need to look for the benefits of repetition.

With the current reward design, many fractals have relatively low benefit for repetion. This was ok before because fractals had better account bound rewards, and a fairly self contained reward/progression system.

This is no longer the case, profit comes from tp now, ascended seems to be less common, with fewer attempts per day. EVERY fractal item that once cost only fractals now also has a gold cost. The increase in AR is exponentially more expensive (literally, the cost for 5s-10s is literally an exponential equation) Rewards are not well balanced for different fractal types (as they said they would be) or for higher level time sinks.

Reward is a basic and importnt part of game design, its not simply about more stuff, its about properly incentivizing good play. They dont need to have insane gold rewards, but they need to have reasons for you to do something that are compelling. And with their new design of fractals reward is evenmore important, because now they need to balance fractals against each other as well as other content.

Windsagio.1340:

The only serious problems are the kittened up stat balances and the need for reccomended dailies in the top brackets.

Everything else really is forum eeyore.

rewards are lower than before with a much higher investment in time and money. How is that ok?
ascended box should be similar rates/chances as before, but its not by all indications.
crappy stat choices for level 100+ difficulty
crappy reward ratio
crappy instability selections to keep around

thats basically everything they did in this update, so if thats all thats wrong thats basically most of the fractal update.

Id also add that long term, they will see little to no fractal variability.

Dengar.1785:

phys.7689:

its basically the difference between a work/friend car pool, and taking a bus.

You mean one forces you to be popular and the other doesn’t care what your social standing is? Now which of these is the more antisocial one? >_>

the one that wants you to be popular. Popularity is a social structure, not caring how people fit into a social structure is anti-social.

Like i said, im not saying gw2 should be super social, however the systems gw2 instituted, which make players need virtually no interaction/structure are asocial ones. You sound like you prefer asocial/antisocial play, many do, which was the point the reviewer was making.

Gw2 is the game that said, you dont need to group up, and if people are around cool, if not cool. So in heart of thorns when this changes, it causes problems

Dengar.1785:

phys.7689:

they force you to group up to get loot at a decent pace. Hitting a target first you cant kill, or killking a monster 10 levels lower for crappy loot slowly, isnt usually too beneficial

And in GW2, you don’t need to group up for the exact same thing. Anyone can join in a fight and help out. There’s no need to form a party.

which is why its anti social.

trust me, i live in a big city, taking the train is not a social experience, even though there is often 20-40 people in the same car.

its basically the difference between a work/friend car pool, and taking a bus.

now, i am not saying they should force these interactions, however, a spade is a spade, the game is not one that tries to force social play very often. Which is the point of the reviewer, because you never have to group, or need help for most things to this day, hero points are seen as crazy.

In ffxi, you needed to group up just to level past 15. Gw2 is antisocial, and they ve made it into a strength, perhaps asocial is a more accurate term.