Guild Wars 2

Ohoni.6057:

most likely, the bulk of any one specific precursor on the market, is coming from the forge. However, it is possible that the bulk precursors total introduced to the market is mostly due to drops in the world.

It’s perhaps possible that the bulk of any precursor for which the base rare weapons sell for more than 45 silver each would come from MFing, but yes, I believe the majority of Pres in total come from random loot, and I would not be surprised if the majority even of Dawns and Dusks came from open world loot. Keep in mind that the GS market is split two ways relative to other weapon types, and yet rare GSs don’t sell for all that much more than other weapons.

you can kind of make a good guestimate based on the number of dusks changing hands and the number of Rages changing hands.
Theoretically they probably have the same drop rate, however i really doubt any one intentionally MF a Rage.
So rage supply is probably close to the amount from world drops.

so essentially if someone wanted to tell, keep track of rage sales/supplied within 24 hours, compare it to JS data release that basically had dusks being sold like 1 per hour.

rare gs sell for substantially more than other weapons.
rare gs sells for 72 silver, or 30 silver over ecto value
rare speargun sells for 42 silver, or basically ecto value

rare spearguns actually sell for less than the cost of materials to produce it.

essentialy rare spearguns have no value of their own, and are only worth their ecto price.

Wanze.8410:

Ohoni.6057:

You do understand that the core supply of precursors is random world loot drops, not MF rolls, right?

Precursors are not “crafted,” they are pure gambling. It’d be like basing an economy entirely on lottery tickets.

You have any data on that? Otherwise I would say that the majority of precursors comes from the forge.

And considering that nearly all lootdrops are based on rng, the economy is based on rng as well and its working quite fine.

random number generator works fine with small rarity fluctuations, for example with only two outcomes, you tend to have to flip a coin a lot less to get a normal distribution of outcomes,

but for exremely rare occurences it is pretty bad. It is most especially bad on a micro level.
point is, a normal player getting a precursor is a gamble, with a wild range, and a high cost. you have better chances playing roulette. you can build an economy on anything.it will always be there no matter what.

That doesnt mean its particularly good to build an economy on that.

VodCom.6924:

This discussion is going nowhere.

We don’t have data or knowledge about the market for precursors. Period. As long as we don’t have official and complete data, you have the choice between :

- grinding for the precursor of a shiny legendary that you want everyone to see.
– buying a precursor for a niche use legendary (torch, focus, warhorn, UW weapons)
– trying to forge your precursor

I suggest the whiners to stop whining for their own sanity and mine, because this is the way it is since day 1 and until an hypothetical precursor hunt, NOTHING will change.

if they dont whine, there will be no precursor hunt, nor any means of altering the system. Anet doesnt figure out players concerns through magic, people tend to have to speak about it.

Ohoni.6057:

Precursors are actually one of the more functional markets in this regard. Players can specifically choose which precursor they want to generate with the forge; crafting costs and competition keep the prices between the high demand precursors relatively flat, as suppliers switch between them looking to maximize their profits. It’s only the purely random throws that generate the low demand precursors, which ensures there’s at least some supply available.

You do understand that the core supply of precursors is random world loot drops, not MF rolls, right?

On a lot of items players have little ability to generate specific, high demand goods for sale – but in the case of precursors, players doing exactly that dominate and make the market. It’s more or less exactly what you’d want a player driven economy to look like.

Precursors are not “crafted,” they are pure gambling. It’d be like basing an economy entirely on lottery tickets.

most likely, the bulk of any one specific precursor on the market, is coming from the forge. However, it is possible that the bulk precursors total introduced to the market is mostly due to drops in the world.

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

if their goal is to have a mostly player driven economy, then they would want to give players a greater control over the supply.

Perhaps, but I don’t think being pedantic about labeling the economy in some fashion proves any point, so who cares? It works. People can buy and sell stuff and set pricing how they want. Call it whatever you want. It’s what we have.

phys.7689:

any item that adapts poorly to demand opens up the possibility of being extremely unstable in price.
This is why the range on an item of similar rarity, is 85 gold to 1450 (rage compared to dusk) because the supply is too high on rage, and too low on dusk, even though they are supposed to be in the same family of rarity.

If they are unstable, I don’t see a problem with it for precursors considering Anet is targeting its ownership to a very limited number of players. Rarity is not what drives the price of these items or the range between them even though they are the same rarity. It’s completely supply/demand driven. People want dusk more than rage, hence the price difference. People have collected many stats on this. They drop at close the same rate. Rarity is not a differentiating factor between the price for these items.

yep, the difference between you and me, is i think its a bad idea to have demand be the sole determining value for price, it tends to create very problematic markets.

Obtena.7952:

Ohoni.6057:

ANet has shown a willingness to destabilize the economy on numerous occasions, this is no different. For the most part, if they do the changes carefully, only a very tiny portion of the market would actually shift, and the portion that nobody has any sympathy for, those who can afford to buy and sell precursors for an attempted profit.

Found the quote I was looking for:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/page/12#post4376059

Destabalizing the economy is something Anet obviously takes very seriously and likely avoids if necessary, taking pains to minimizing or at least understand the impact and change has on it. This legendary business is probably one of the most significant aspects of the economy when JS refers to permanent content in that post. Your suggestion is the opposite direction to what is being described by JS and that’s why it’s comical.

phys.7689:

Primarily ohoni is saying that the supply of high demand precursors is too inelastic and doesnt adapt well to high demand.
As well as saying its method of aquisition is too much of a moving target/uncertain.

Ohoni doesn’t seem to want to accept that a precursors are designed to be the barrier to getting a legendary, and because of this THOUGHTFUL design decision, it shouldn’t adapt at all to high demand. There seems to be a fundamental denial around these items; what they mean and what kind of player can own one.

if their goal is to have a mostly player driven economy, then they would want to give players a greater control over the supply.

any item that adapts poorly to demand opens up the possibility of being extremely unstable in price.
This is why the range on an item of similar rarity, is 85 gold to 1450 (rage compared to dusk) because the supply is too high on rage, and too low on dusk, even though they are supposed to be in the same family of rarity.

Ayrilana.1396:

It was not your metaphor that I did not like but how blown out of proportion you took it to argue against my argument which was simply that there’s a difference between changing something in the midst of cresting it versus changing something while it’s already gone live. More thought of the effects of your changes needs to be considered when making changes after something has gone live and especially after you’ve made it so things are even more interconnected than they were at release.

I never said that they shouldn’t make changes. That likely got lost when you blew it up with the metaphors and made my argument seem mire complicated than it actually was. All that I was arguing was that there’s a difference and more care needs to be put in when making changes after release. It’s odd that you blew it up when your last paragraph was most of my argument.

so you dont like my metaphor, thats fine, you can let it go.

what you seemed to be saying as i saw it, was that it was unreasonable for ohoni to ask the devs to make changes which may effect the economy on a large scale.
If you were saying, its fine, they just have to analyze the effects, then thats not something i disagree with.

Now while ohoni may be simplifying, the actual principle they are saying is this. Anet, you have all the cards, use those cards to make obtaining a precursor more reasonable as a long term goal for players with non money focused playstyles, without doing completely horrible things to the economy

Primarily ohoni is saying that the supply of high demand precursors is too inelastic and doesnt adapt well to high demand.
As well as saying its method of aquisition is too much of a moving target/uncertain.

hybrid.5027:

phys.7689:

not only that, but the materials do not ofetn drive the precursor prices, the precursor prices drive the cost of materials. This mean as demand or precursor supply changes, so to do precursor gambling items change in price. This means the price of precursors isnt really determined by the average cost of putting in the forge, the price of precursors determines the cost of items that can go into the forge.

But that doesn’t change the conclusions whatsoever. The casual player who wishes for cheaper precursors may not be aware that the unintended consequences of that damage him significantly.

your right, the casual player does not know, however the casual person does not know what making his car more energy effecient will entail, however its the job of the car engineers to figure how to take those desires and figure out how to give someone what they wants, preferably sacrificing nothing, but if they cant, the sacrificing something of less value to the people who want such a thing.

point is, people saying they dont like the system, and that system is biased/keeps them out, seems unachievable are not the ones with solution, they are the ones who tell the engineers what problems they should solve.

people sometimes have suggestions that may or may not be useful, but that doesnt mean they shouldnt speak/try. perhaps what they say might inspire a different idea, or perhaps what they say may eliminate some ideas, or make devs more aware what the specifications really are.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not manipulation if they did it as they were creating the system. There’s a rather big difference between changing something while you’re originally creating it from changing something after it’s already been released.

if you consider them to be the natural order, or the gods if you will, there really is no difference between their original design and whatever they seek to change. The gods will is the gods will.
Nature/time destroys markets and alters economics all the time. Resources dry up, new technologies are discovered, new resources are found.Politics change costs. If your premise is that anet are not manipulators, but represent the natural order/technology/evolution etc, then it also follows that changes they make after the fact all into the same line.

There is really no difference in creating or altering, other than it being rather annoying for people who are used to something.

Please keep within the scope of the discussion. I’m half tempted to say this is just a strawman argument as my argument was about there being a difference between changing something while in the process of creating the game and changing something after it’s been released. You then went on some ridiculous tangent about gods, natural order, and so on that you went about in your post which don’t really have anything to do with the discussion.

The thing is that while something is being created, nobody or nothing currently relies on it. When the game was being created, you had the basic reliances created by the devs but this was before player involvement ever took place. Once the game released, and players entered into the system, the ability to change became more difficult otherwise you’d risk disrupting, of destabilizing, that system.

Imagibe creating a database for people to use. It’s easy to make changes as you’re creating it. However, once it’s been released and the people have been using it, making additional changes become much more difficult. If you make a large change to something then it could have a big impact on everyone that uses the database. The difference between changes while creating and after has to do with the reliance established after its release.

Back to the game itself, there are many recipes that exist now that did not at release. Doing an overhaul of several items within the game could have a ripple effect and really disrupt the stability of the economy. People suggest just bumping up the drop rates except they don’t think much further than that of what the complete impact would be.

Everything in the game is more interconnected now than they were at release.

ok, you hate metaphors, thats fine.
I ll be literal.
the game designers created all the rules by which the game is played, those rules actually are the design that leads to certain behaviors and trends. The purpose of game design is to make the best game possible. If they did something on release that does not serve those ends, it is not out of bounds for them to change it.

Even though you suggest that you believe they should never mess with a design once implemented, due to it changing the market. Thats a bad idea. There really isnt any design that is good enough not to be iterated on. Even if the design is great, times, and other factors change, making what was once a good solution not a good solution.

The arguement that anet shouldnt do anything, because they might cause fluctuations is foolish, of course things will change and fluctuate, thats will always happen with change, that doesnt mean you should fear change.

And in fact in database management, it usually the wrong idea to hold on to a bad data construct because you are afraid of change. Eventually you will always have to make the change, and the more invested in the old data system you are, the more costly it becomes to change it. But it will happen, you can delay it, but eventually it will happen.

So what i am saying is the question is not about whether anet should make changes that effect the economy, they can, will, and should. The question is whether these specific things need to change or not.
whether the game will be better if something changes or worse.

hybrid.5027:

Precursors are nothing more than an average ratio of the t5/6 mats and mithril/orichalcum needed to produce them in the mystic forge, plus the profit margin for assuming the risk of bad RNG and time.

You cannot change any part of the ratio without causing a chain reaction in the prices of everything else all the way down to t1 mats.

Way back in Christmas 2012 when the snowflake debacle happened, people found a slightly better way to convert Mithril to ecto than the standard version. What happened was ecto came down a little in price and Mithril increased in price until we had stability. So why ban all the people they banned if most people didn’t profit much and price equilibrium was achieved through normal market forces? Because the price of mithril rising had significant consequences besides the ecto market. If the price of Mithril quadrupled (as it did in my example) that directly impacts the price of precursors. So the “economic damage” that caused people to get banned was likely wholly unrelated to the original recipe at issue. The point of this history lesson is that you change one piece of the precursor puzzle and it will have wide ranging side effects which are not necessarily in the best interests of the players or the economy. Just because it will be better for players struggling to afford precursors does not mean much, since they may find themselves damaged in ways that make the price savings o the cheaper precursors totally irrelevant.

the random number generator is too inconsistent with small number for them to be that.
You cannot build a business reliably on such small chances, Some one on the middle-left of the bell curve and someone on the middle-right of the bell curve will have substantially different costs.

the amount of materials you need to normalize that is prohibitive.

not only that, but the materials do not ofetn drive the precursor prices, the precursor prices drive the cost of materials. This mean as demand or precursor supply changes, so to do precursor gambling items change in price. This means the price of precursors isnt really determined by the average cost of putting in the forge, the price of precursors determines the cost of items that can go into the forge.

for examples of this, you can see rare greatsword costs versus rare torch costs. That difference is not a representation of the difference in material costs to create.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

tolunart.2095:

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, what about the opposite then, what if they just dropped the T6 requirements to 100-125 each rather than 250 each? They did a similar thing with Unidentified dyes. This would mean that without raising supply any, they could reduce the demand due to Legendary crafting at roughly the same rate they increased supply of Pres.

The mats are something that can be collected over time, while the precursor is a single, major purchase. A lot of players have the mats already, and are competing with each other to buy the popular precursors or give up and buy a cheaper one instead (as per the point of the thread, you can choose a “lesser” precursor if you are impatient). Lowering the requirements by 100 each would lead to a number of players dumping their excess mats to make the money to get a precursor. It’s good for the ones who can act immediately, but soon the price of mats will crash while the increased wealth being thrown at precursors drives up their price.

So the first few to dump their mats will get their precursors, and the after the cheap ones are sold the price will rise while late comers will get less money for their mats and still won’t be able to afford the precursor.

Anet can increase precursor drops and raise the price of mats, or reduce mat requirements and raise the price of precursors… Neither solves your “problem” because no matter what they do, making a Legendary becomes more expensive. Which is why they haven’t done anything yet, it’s better to let the market determine the prices than try to manipulate the market and mess it up for everyone.

they created the current state of precursors through item distribution, methods of aquisition, job weapon acessibility, etc. If they change it would not be any different than how they manipulated it when they created the system. Or if you dont consider it manipulation, but grand design, changing their design would be the same.

As for the legendary aquisition becoming more expensive, not really likely, theoretically legendaries have already hit their price point, it would theoretically mostly change the distribution of cost.
Most people actually trying to obtain a legendary would prefer the cost to be more placed in materials, because that value represents a consistent progress to your goal, lets say you want charged lodestones, you can hunt skritt, alchemical bags, sparks, do COE and Dwayna missions. Even if you only get one a day, you are looking at 1/100 progress per day.

basically for many players, getting a precursor is like buying a house, which most americans would never be able to do in their lifetimes without credit. Having to save up 200k for house, by the time you save up 200k, its 300k, then by the time you save up that extra 100k its 350, so on and so forth

the legendary mats are more like building a house, you can get the materials as you can afford them, securing your progress each day.

It’s not manipulation if they did it as they were creating the system. There’s a rather big difference between changing something while you’re originally creating it from changing something after it’s already been released.

if you consider them to be the natural order, or the gods if you will, there really is no difference between their original design and whatever they seek to change. The gods will is the gods will.
Nature/time destroys markets and alters economics all the time. Resources dry up, new technologies are discovered, new resources are found.Politics change costs. If your premise is that anet are not manipulators, but represent the natural order/technology/evolution etc, then it also follows that changes they make after the fact all into the same line.

There is really no difference in creating or altering, other than it being rather annoying for people who are used to something.

tolunart.2095:

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, what about the opposite then, what if they just dropped the T6 requirements to 100-125 each rather than 250 each? They did a similar thing with Unidentified dyes. This would mean that without raising supply any, they could reduce the demand due to Legendary crafting at roughly the same rate they increased supply of Pres.

The mats are something that can be collected over time, while the precursor is a single, major purchase. A lot of players have the mats already, and are competing with each other to buy the popular precursors or give up and buy a cheaper one instead (as per the point of the thread, you can choose a “lesser” precursor if you are impatient). Lowering the requirements by 100 each would lead to a number of players dumping their excess mats to make the money to get a precursor. It’s good for the ones who can act immediately, but soon the price of mats will crash while the increased wealth being thrown at precursors drives up their price.

So the first few to dump their mats will get their precursors, and the after the cheap ones are sold the price will rise while late comers will get less money for their mats and still won’t be able to afford the precursor.

Anet can increase precursor drops and raise the price of mats, or reduce mat requirements and raise the price of precursors… Neither solves your “problem” because no matter what they do, making a Legendary becomes more expensive. Which is why they haven’t done anything yet, it’s better to let the market determine the prices than try to manipulate the market and mess it up for everyone.

they created the current state of precursors through item distribution, methods of aquisition, job weapon acessibility, etc. If they change it would not be any different than how they manipulated it when they created the system. Or if you dont consider it manipulation, but grand design, changing their design would be the same.

As for the legendary aquisition becoming more expensive, not really likely, theoretically legendaries have already hit their price point, it would theoretically mostly change the distribution of cost.
Most people actually trying to obtain a legendary would prefer the cost to be more placed in materials, because that value represents a consistent progress to your goal, lets say you want charged lodestones, you can hunt skritt, alchemical bags, sparks, do COE and Dwayna missions. Even if you only get one a day, you are looking at 1/100 progress per day.

basically for many players, getting a precursor is like buying a house, which most americans would never be able to do in their lifetimes without credit. Having to save up 200k for house, by the time you save up 200k, its 300k, then by the time you save up that extra 100k its 350, so on and so forth

the legendary mats are more like building a house, you can get the materials as you can afford them, securing your progress each day.

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, what about the opposite then, what if they just dropped the T6 requirements to 100-125 each rather than 250 each? They did a similar thing with Unidentified dyes.

They also massively reduced/restricted the drop rate for unid dyes.

Ohoni.6057:

And as has been explained so many times that you’d think even the shortbus would be able to grasp it, The point is NEVER “to get a precursor of any type,” it is ALWAYS to get a specific precursor, the one that turns into the Legendary that you want. Until you can toss ANY precursor into any legendary recipe to turn out the one you want, your whole “there are some precursors that are relatively cheap” argument is entirely pointless. Buying a dozen Venoms won’t get you any closer to owning a Twilight.

And again, like the wheels on that short bus going round and round, It isnt that the price of precursors is unacceptable to you, it is the precursor you want(and most others want, DEMAND not supply) that is too high of a price.

yes this is about in demand items, but the system is flawed because it assumes all demand is the same for all precursors. If instead of getting a precursor drop, you got a precursor token, and could select your precursor, the price would likely become a lot more balanced.

Essentially the supply could be more elastic and intentional, they could still make it costly time wise, but with an elastic supply, and less focus on random and more focus on effort, the price would be more stable throughout the various demands.

Then a precursor would more represent the value of work currently required to get one, and less represent only the demand versus rarity.

Essentially stabilizing the prices.

however, this would alter the junk weapon economy we currently have.

also depending how they balance the average time to acquire, they would most likely have the cheap precursors go up in value since they would primarily be created only with intent.

Vayne.8563:

GuzziHero.2467:

Vayne.8563:

Malchors is a level 75-80 zone. Most of the creatures in the zone past the entrance will be a higher level than you. You don’t really need to go to Malchors at level 74. I’m almost 100% positive that a reasonably competent player at level 74 could get through most of Malchors without experiencing what you have.

It may very well be a learn to play issue. Stats are important in this game…but not that important.

13 level 80s, playing for over 2 years. The main difference to normal is that I was levelling using only pick up gear where usually I gear up with rares every 10 levels, and the NPE.

Thanks for the condescending tone, however.

It’s not condescending. You’re making a complaint that I feel is just wrong. I’ll test it myself (pretty sure I did when I was leveling) but I’m pretty sure I can take a 74 into Malchors of any profession and do okay. Not in big events mind you, with a zillion spawns, but certainly in the areas between outposts.

I’m not convinced those stats make that big a difference, unless you were very undergeared.

they make a pretty big difference. the amount they give also scales as you level. its basically equivalent to signet utilities boosts most likely, which in truth are noticeable.

However if you have the best gear for your level, you wont go from dying to surviving, however if you have say greens, that may make the difference.

However, its still doable, its doable naked, it just takes longer and requires less things to go wrong.

also as lack of traits may also be somewhat to blame.

DiogoSilva.7089:

phys.7689:

To be honest the way they designed GW2, it really probably would be a better game with no levels at all.

Thus why they were mostly there for tutorial purposes, which has now been expanded upon with the NPE.

well if this is the new tutorial(levels 1-80 are for tutorial), they need to rework it, it lasts too long (until 80) and it feels more like impediment than instruction.
Also, it focuses too much of the game on leveling, which is honestly not the strong suit of the game.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Fast leveling is not about Anet thinking that the early game isn’t fun, it’s about Anet fully accepting that leveling, in GW2, is nothing more than a form of tutorial, and expanding on it.

In this sense, the NPE is clearly superior than the old experience, because it accepts, with full honesty, what leveling is and has always been in GW2.

There ARE problems that come to (a greater) light from this, like for example, the underwhelming sense of character progression, but those problems always existed since launch. Underdeveloped horizontal progression, easily obtainable vertical progression (+ gear grinding since ascended) and lack of customisation outside of traits. Gaining 1 trait point per level was nothing but an illusion, but now that the illusion is stripped off, the problem is clearer.

To be honest, from the very little that I’ve played out of the NPE, the early game is more addicting. More addicting in the sense of instant gratification and clearer (unlocking) progression. What were before, to the new user, obscure and overwhelming options all spread through the UI to be ignored, are now layered, “exciting” level unlocks. It was a smart thing to do by Anet, because it introduces them better to the new user while giving a stronger sense of progression.

But I do agree there are some flaws with the system. Based on my short experience:

• Weapon skill unlocks is weird. Way too restricting at the start of the game, way too overwhelming when the new user gets a new weapon and suddenly he has the entire skillset unlocked. It needs a middleground somewhere here. Perhaps one solution, is to reward to the new user one weapon for each type very early in the game. This adds more skills to experiment with,when you have access to few, but also softens the moment where you get a weapon type for the first type and have most of it unlocked already.
• The first story instance should start earlier, I agree. Perhaps at level 5. This would add more options to a new player, so they could start the game and jump (almost) right into the story if they wish too.
• Dumbing down the game does NOT makes the game more interesting. Some of my favourite details, when I started playing GW2, were those that made the world feel more interactive when completing hearts. In addition to, there are players who love (slightly) challenging content right on the beginning, because losing gives them motivation to get better, and enhances the psychological feeling of leveling up and becoming stronger.

I love streamlining. But I hate when developers think that streamlining = dumbing down. Games do NOT need to be boring and shallow, to appeal to the masses. There are many good examples out there that prove my point.

problem is, leveling isnt that exciting, especially in the low level area. The game is starting out with no narrative, the personal story actually did its job soft leading players early in the game, and estabilishing more.

Also i disagree that leveling is a tutorial in GW2, leveling is just some arbitary system created to simulate progression. To be honest the way they designed GW2, it really probably would be a better game with no levels at all.
or levels that are primarily cosmetic.

After all, what does leveling teach you in this game? there really isnt much difference between a level 50 zone and a level 80 zone

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Devs keep saying it, over the years, over and over again, and the hard core crowd keep denying it. Why is it so hard to believe you’re part of a minority?

all you guys are not really reading the report, it didnt say hardcore, it said people want solo activities.
Perhaps all the hub bub about people not wanting challenge is being conflated with people not wanting high number of player content.

After all, i love challenge, but i seldom do raids. I dont really tend to like the culture created by raids either, though that may be different with gw2 drop systems.

point is, desire for low/small man content is not the same thing as desire for easy content

It’s possible. It’s also likely that the solo content in that game isn’t particularly challenging and so you couldn’t really say much either way.

depends on what solo content in the game you are talking about. To be honest, most of the difficulty i have seen in raid like content in most games isnt actually any harder than solo/small man content. Its more from an organization stand point, and the fact that some random person will probably mess up.

a lot of people just dont have the time, energy or desire to group up with 20+ people and try to do something, especially if it requires skill, because people tend to react poorly when pressure is on them.

not to mention, in general, your singular contribution is diminished, or your tasks simplified.

The thing that gets me is how many devs make the same assumptions and the same mistakes. The stuff the Carbine Devs said could almost be an echo of the stuff the Trion Devs said a few months into Rift when they started trying to develop stuff for smaller groups….but none of it was challenging at all.

So we have multiple questions. Do people want to be challenged? If they do what form should that challenge take?

And we still have the problem that different people are challenged by different things.

There should be some way to satisfy everyone. I actually liked the Fractals because you could play all the content without ever going to higher levels.

That’s one thing I would hate. I’d hate to be locked out of content because maybe I’m not good enough to finish it.

Games like Mass Effect have different difficulties for stuff, which brings us back to hard mode.

Maybe it’s time to implement something like that.

yeah, i mentioned this back when they released the info on the fractured update.
Fractured has a key flaw, the new fractal mechanics are only available once you hit level 31
now 31 is pretty far, but not impossible, but anything they add from now on, will require 50+ (new instabilitities)
so then they will want to reset progress again so that a wider audience can attempt fractals.
also they designed instabilities such that you can bypass the harder ones by playing one further along the difficulty curve. So a lot of people just join like level 50 fractals or level 40, and do the same instability 20 times.

point is they should have developed a more scalable system, where the item/mechanical difficulty scales, but the actual differences in game play mechanics are selectable at some lower level.
They can make it unlocks, but have it unlock at lower levels, or when certain conditions have been met.

point is to allow people to have some means of playing content at a level they feel comfortable with.

The other point is, large number of player content does not neccesarily equal challenging content.

What i think casuals, and a lot of people really want, is content that they can get into fairly naturally and easily, without too much hassle. Casual isnt about difficulty perse, its more about being able to get in and do something without much set up/hassle.

Wanze.8410:

Ohoni.6057:

There is no evidence that the precursor market is the pet playground of the wealthy either, unless you consider everybody wealthy that got a precursor drop.

Then why is there a cabal of fatcats so intent on quashing any discussion of making Precursors significantly cheaper?

I cant talk for other people and personally i dont have anything against a nicely implemented precursor scavenger hunt. But I think the precursor market is quite nicely balanced by the general player base. As soon as precursors drop at a significantly higher rate than now, it will mess up alot of markets because more legendaries are being forged at the same time.
Your solution to have Anet just inject more t6 mats into the economy is not viable either. It would be the equivalent of injecting more gold into the economy, so people can afford a precursor.

I never bought or sold a precursor in my life, so I am not invested in the market. The reason why I am against messing with precursor markets is the implication it will have on so many different markets and the economy as a whole.
I just dont think its worth it because the negative impact it will have outweighs the positive effect on the player base.

to be honest the market will always find equilibrium, I am sure changing precursors will alter the market, make changes, but whether the end effect will be negative or positive hasnt really been broached, other than assumption that all changes are negative.

The other thing is the item design in this game is too heavily based on precursors/legendaries. For years now it has been the driving force, the problem is that the actual game design of precursors is, and remains very poor. The economy molded itself around this implementation, but you will continue to get people every month complaining, disatisfied, or apathetic about this system because it is not an engaging design for most players.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

NoTrigger.8396:

Vayne.8563:

TA Aetherblade path is harder, but you guys don’t just want harder. You want better rewards.

why people dont run TA Aether:
- unskippable cutscenes
- ooze and electric floor puzzle (both is pretty much stupid and boring)
- scarlet
- scarlet
- even more scarlet

if they replaced both puzzles with fun and complex bosses the path would be ok actually. and no, TA aether is not harder than any other dungeon.

The unskippable cut scenes are relatively short…except for the first one anyway. The ooze puzzle is relatively fast and easy. The electric floor puzzle a lot of people seem to like.

Scarlet is a non-issue if the dungeon itself is good.

And virtually every thread I’ve ever seen on it says it takes too long for the rewards. I bet you that if the rewards were more, people would do it. Even people who didn’t like it.

dungeon flavor actually matters.
Twilight arbor/sylvari always was low on my list of dungeon coolness, just cause i dont like em that much, and scarlet annoys me whenever i see her. Its not like the my head explodes, but its a deterrent.

The people in my guild who don’t run it enjoy it…they just think it’s not worth the time investment. They can run two, three smaller dungeons in the time it takes that run that once.

regardless, i agree that challenging/time consuming content needs better rewards than easy/short content.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Devs keep saying it, over the years, over and over again, and the hard core crowd keep denying it. Why is it so hard to believe you’re part of a minority?

all you guys are not really reading the report, it didnt say hardcore, it said people want solo activities.
Perhaps all the hub bub about people not wanting challenge is being conflated with people not wanting high number of player content.

After all, i love challenge, but i seldom do raids. I dont really tend to like the culture created by raids either, though that may be different with gw2 drop systems.

point is, desire for low/small man content is not the same thing as desire for easy content

It’s possible. It’s also likely that the solo content in that game isn’t particularly challenging and so you couldn’t really say much either way.

depends on what solo content in the game you are talking about. To be honest, most of the difficulty i have seen in raid like content in most games isnt actually any harder than solo/small man content. Its more from an organization stand point, and the fact that some random person will probably mess up.

a lot of people just dont have the time, energy or desire to group up with 20+ people and try to do something, especially if it requires skill, because people tend to react poorly when pressure is on them.

not to mention, in general, your singular contribution is diminished, or your tasks simplified.

Vayne.8563:

NoTrigger.8396:

Vayne.8563:

TA Aetherblade path is harder, but you guys don’t just want harder. You want better rewards.

why people dont run TA Aether:
- unskippable cutscenes
- ooze and electric floor puzzle (both is pretty much stupid and boring)
- scarlet
- scarlet
- even more scarlet

if they replaced both puzzles with fun and complex bosses the path would be ok actually. and no, TA aether is not harder than any other dungeon.

The unskippable cut scenes are relatively short…except for the first one anyway. The ooze puzzle is relatively fast and easy. The electric floor puzzle a lot of people seem to like.

Scarlet is a non-issue if the dungeon itself is good.

And virtually every thread I’ve ever seen on it says it takes too long for the rewards. I bet you that if the rewards were more, people would do it. Even people who didn’t like it.

dungeon flavor actually matters.
Twilight arbor/sylvari always was low on my list of dungeon coolness, just cause i dont like em that much, and scarlet annoys me whenever i see her. Its not like the my head explodes, but its a deterrent.

Vayne.8563:

Beldin.5498:

Btw.:
http://wildstarreport.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/

In the true sense of their motto; “The Devs are Listening” Frost discussed how Carbine is regularly looking at and analyzing gameplay analytics. These analytics are focused on playtime, content and reward loop feedback, all of which have shifted their focus from high end content to solo gameplay. Statistics are showing the majority of Wildstar players enjoy solo play instead of larger raids which really caught Carbine developers off guard

Devs keep saying it, over the years, over and over again, and the hard core crowd keep denying it. Why is it so hard to believe you’re part of a minority?

all you guys are not really reading the report, it didnt say hardcore, it said people want solo activities.
Perhaps all the hub bub about people not wanting challenge is being conflated with people not wanting high number of player content.

After all, i love challenge, but i seldom do raids. I dont really tend to like the culture created by raids either, though that may be different with gw2 drop systems.

point is, desire for low/small man content is not the same thing as desire for easy content

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Actually I don’t overestimate Anet. But I don’t overestimate the forums either. Everyone on the forums is a complete stranger. I don’t know them at all. I’ve seen them post but I don’t always or even often agree with posts.

Anet is a company. The people who work there are. to some degree, proven entities. They produced a game I like. You didn’t. So I choose to trust them over you…knowing that everyone is fallible.

I believe the NPE was necessary but, as always with Anet, they took too strong a hand to it…and some of that has been subsequently rectified.

Anet as a company has often over-reacted. But it doesn’t mean the NPE was unnecessary.

The idea of retaining more new players is a great one. The execution of that idea and effectiveness its whats questionable.

As for forums, its tricky but there are people on the forum who seem to be “Experts” in thier fields, not that they are always right, or give the complete answer, but they understand things about the game that are beyond what even anet staff can see. There are posts the day patch notes on any given topic comes out, that accurately reflect what the future response will be, and how it effects the game. There are bugs found withing the first 5 minutes of playing that QA missed in however long their testing cycle is.

You can dismiss the forum as just some nobodies who dont really know anything, but somewhere in all of those posts 20 page long discussions, is almost always the guy who saw XYZ coming, or noticed something Devs didnt consider. Its not always the same guy, but the answers are there. Even when they dont have the answer, they often give insight into how different types of players are interacting with the game.

think about it, say you have 10 smart people who play the game a lot, discussing and analyzing an issue with open minds for 20 pages. Do you really think at anet has the time and energy to duplicate that?

These forums are actually a very powerful resource that generally companies have to pay people for, Some one just has to figure out how to correctly harness that.

No, I don’t dismiss the forum as nobodies. Anet says they tested this and it worked. Are they lying? Are the opinions of the forums better than Anet’s tests? Are you saying Anet is too incompetent to read their own data?

Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. But they tested it. We didn’t. So until we see the proof one way or another, I’m going to go with Anet.

The forums may or may not have a point (when they can agree on anything).

Anet has made three really bad decisions since the game started as far as I’m concerned.

The introduction of ascended gear.
The trait system revamp.
The end of the personal story from the 9/9 update.

That’s three really bad changes from my point of view out of a whole lot of changes. It’s a pretty good track record for me.

That doesn’t mean I dismiss the forums. I listen to what’s said and in this instance I judge Anet’s data to be a better source…until we hear otherwise. At the very least, we should wait for data from the weekend to be processed/revealed.

Colin said if it doesn’t work they’ll let us know. Hopefully they’ll be forthcoming with some information about this soon.

its not about incompetence, its an art and a science to truely understand and use data. Also, it may not even be anet’s error. Often companies pay some one else to gather the data and analyze the results and give them back some bullet points. Perhaps these companies didnt really understand the intricacies of the groups they were dealing with.

Point is, using data correctly at a high level isnt like look data gave me the answers, its something even people whose whole life is research fail at fairly consistently. Take a look at the salt causes high blood pressure question, numerous studies, numerous statistics, proffesionals, and still they get new data, or have to qualify their findings.

also its not so much about the forums agreeing on something, it more about what they are saying, what they are observing, why they are predicting X

anyhow it, just like metrics is not something you can just look at and it gives you the answers, they still will have to do their developer thing. But it is a resource.

Vayne.8563:

Actually I don’t overestimate Anet. But I don’t overestimate the forums either. Everyone on the forums is a complete stranger. I don’t know them at all. I’ve seen them post but I don’t always or even often agree with posts.

Anet is a company. The people who work there are. to some degree, proven entities. They produced a game I like. You didn’t. So I choose to trust them over you…knowing that everyone is fallible.

I believe the NPE was necessary but, as always with Anet, they took too strong a hand to it…and some of that has been subsequently rectified.

Anet as a company has often over-reacted. But it doesn’t mean the NPE was unnecessary.

The idea of retaining more new players is a great one. The execution of that idea and effectiveness its whats questionable.

As for forums, its tricky but there are people on the forum who seem to be “Experts” in thier fields, not that they are always right, or give the complete answer, but they understand things about the game that are beyond what even anet staff can see. There are posts the day patch notes on any given topic comes out, that accurately reflect what the future response will be, and how it effects the game. There are bugs found withing the first 5 minutes of playing that QA missed in however long their testing cycle is.

You can dismiss the forum as just some nobodies who dont really know anything, but somewhere in all of those posts 20 page long discussions, is almost always the guy who saw XYZ coming, or noticed something Devs didnt consider. Its not always the same guy, but the answers are there. Even when they dont have the answer, they often give insight into how different types of players are interacting with the game.

think about it, say you have 10 smart people who play the game a lot, discussing and analyzing an issue with open minds for 20 pages. Do you really think at anet has the time and energy to duplicate that?

These forums are actually a very powerful resource that generally companies have to pay people for, Some one just has to figure out how to correctly harness that.

Vayne.8563:

munkiman.3068:

Vayne.8563:

Right and my audience is tiny. No one thinks the way I do. You’re so busy trying to prove I’m a white knight, you didn’t even read what I said. I said I have a group and you have a group and there are a bunch of other groups. I’m not sure why you’d find that so unreasonable. In fact, if you reread what I wrote, there’s nothing in it at all that’s white knightish. I just pointed out that different groups don’t always agree even if they like or don’t like the game. If you think there’s something untrue about that okay. Maybe you’re just hung up on the fact that I’m a white knight so you don’t read what I actually said.

Anet has hard numbers on how many people try the game and how many people continue playing past level 10, level 20. How many go on to buy the game. You saying it’s not broken means about as much as me saying it is. That is, neither comment holds any real weight, because we don’t have the facts.

We do have a quote from Colin saying it’s “absolutely not good enough”, referring to player retention. If you want to argue that, go ahead. But I don’t think you have the evidence, other than I know guys who think like I do. Well yeah, I know guys who think like I do.

I wish you would read what people write sometimes. I actually find your insights balanced ankitten OT in agreement of the white knight comments. It’s like a trigger or something with you when you see those words, i guess.

I’m not sure how many times i’ve said, i’m stating an opinion. I clearly don’t have access to metrics, im not trying to state things as facts. But, metrics is my point and you often defend that you think the game is healthy, which i guess isn’t the case.

Anyways, always nice typing with you.

Right, that’s sort of my point though. You’re saying something isn’t broken. I’m saying I don’t know if it’s broken or not, but Anet would know if it was broken.

This isn’t something we get to decide, because we don’t own the company. We don’t get to decide if the game is “sticky” enough in the first 10 level or first 20 levels. No matter what our opinions. It’s one thing to say I like this or I don’t like that. It’s another to say the starting experience isn’t “broken”. Because the criteria for it being broken is not getting people to play for longer.

you always overestimate anet as a company. Too much of your reasoning is based on the idea that if anet has chosen to do something it must be because its the right answer.

First of all data is deceptive, anyone who takes statistics knows this. 2nd of all people are notoriously bad at interpreting data. People whose life work it is to collect and interpret data scientifically still OFTEN have their findings overturned, by new data or new experiments. Even if you have excellent data, what you choose to do about it or what you think causes it is often still suspect.

the people in charge are just people, they make misteps, mistakes etc.

Note, gw2, with the NPE did not do as well in china as the original did in US/EU, even though thats a larger market. Metrics were taken into account to produce what should have been a better game, but it didnt sell as well.

Metrics/descions made by people in charge are not always the right/best decsions

IndigoSundown.5419:

NewTrain.7549:

Then the discussion you want to have is about exclusive rewards, not about challenging content, since the two subjects are not intrinsically linked. Again, the fear about elitism and exclusive rewards is tangentially and a distraction from the actual topic.

It’s difficult to separate the idea of content difficulty and reward. They’re linked to each other in the minds of groups on both sides of the issue. In fact, rewards are linked to content in peoples’ minds in MMO’s in general.

As long as some proponents of harder content demand that there be better rewards for harder content, the issue of rewards has to be settled. After all, whether people actually will play the harder content needs to be considered. If they won’t play content in sufficient quantity and over time (repetition), then it might very well not warrant the effort to produce it.

its not just in the minds, the game is designed such that in order to do whatever type of progress they decided to add, you need rewards.
Want to level crafting? need gold/items
want new special gear? need gold items
want best in slot? need gold/items
want to run a zerg in WvW? need gold/items
want to progress in fractals? need gold/items
want to unlock your traits? need gold/items

this means that people who are trying to achieve most things in the game, will need gold/items to progress, so where you get your rewards/how you get it matters even more.

Jana.6831:

phys.7689:

didnt really work that way, how many kills you needed scaled based on your level, so in many ways it actually was better than the current system. They could just have set the amount of kills to scale more drastically with level, to the point that at level 10 you unlock 1 skill per kill.

at level 80 you would have unlocked your entire weapon set in 5 kills, so i really dont know why you bring that up.

I actually don’t know whether you talk hypothetically or about facts. So you think anet should’ve made it so that weaponskills unlock faster with a higher level or did they do that before anyway?
I brought up the level 80 and underwaterskills because I remember that all my characters had to unlock most of them after they hit 80, no idea how long it took but it was somewhat restricting, had more troubles with it on lower level characters and I sticked to my weapons for the most part as I had no time to unlock all the skills.

phys.7689:

the other thing is they didnt teach new players anything here, they are trying to teach them by osmosis. And i really doubt anyone before was like, i really am not ready for 5 skills until i hit level 10, in fact even having a 5 skill makes me want to quit playing.
If the NPE taught things like combos, condition removals, complimentary trait selection, reading tells, etc, that would be one thing.

The former system didn’t teach me anything either, I tried to be all serious about it when I leveled my third character 4 months after I started this game.. but still.. nah. But hey I learned that knockback is annoying on my ranger a month into this game. Didn’t need any hints or clues for it, just fought melee – maybe more people should be forced to do so.

phys.7689:

When is the last time anyone heard anyone in mapchat in a level 1-10 zone say hey guys i got too many weaponskills

You aren’t serious, are you? The only people who would complain about having too few skills are veteran players. And I actually don’t get why as “most of them” are leveling in EotM anyway where there’s an occassional champ to kill.

EDTA: overread it first time around, sorry: “If the NPE taught things like combos, condition removals, complimentary trait selection, reading tells, etc, that would be one thing.” They do explain combos but the explanation has stayed the same and it still sounds as if you need a random player doing a random field at a random time to produce a random combo. Not happy with that either but.. Condition removals are kind of self explaining, I think. I don’t know what you mean with the rest, to be honest.

yes shortly after launch they changed new skill aquisition to require less kills the more high level you were. So at some levels you would unlock 1 skill per kill.

and what i was saying is heard new players being confused about many things in map chat, having too many skills was never a complaint.

and yes, the game taught you very little that you needed to know before, so they revamp the system to make it easier to learn, and nothing suggests its any easier to learn. The same things that people didnt know before, they still wont know now with the improved system.

one thing this highlights, is the fact that gear drops in the game are probably way too common, by that i mean, their main reason for existing is to be salvaged, and sold. Which would suggest they should probably have put in less gear in to the drop tables, and more discarded garment, salvageable scrap, etc.

Jana.6831:

Alright, there it was again “The weaponskills are locked” – they were before on ALL weapons, so you started out with an axe, it took you 100 kills to have all the skills unlocked, by then you were level 7, then you got a sword and had to kill 100 more to unlock all of the skills, then a shortbow, a longbow, a torch, a warhorn… Even as a veteran player you were restricted. So I don’t get why people think they are more restricted now as honestly: there aren’t that many killable mobs around and even if, it gets boring real fast or you get killed really fast as you can only spam 1 on every new weapon. And yes, the numbers aren’t absolute but I know that I’ve had troubles with this system on every character. All of them learned all their underwater weapon skills after they hit 80.

Lazuli: A new player doesn’t know that there were bear cubs who had tiny hearts above their heads when they fed them before the changes, that was what I meant.
Does anet has to introduce bundles in a starter area? My first quest/event in gw2 was the one with the sylvari hounds and spiders and I think I just smashed 1 to kill the spiders, pretty certain that it failed as I had no time to have a look at the remedy or understand how to use it properly. And yes, the unusable golem chess confused me this week, but it wouldn’t really confuse a new player: “Something there, I can’t do anything with it, whatever, next”

Most people in this game don’t know too much about it, let’s be honest. I’ve been on two servers and played wvw and only those who were around when I started wvw nearly a year ago had some idea about combos, all others don’t they just stack to share their boons, so I find all this outrage “are new players too dumb” a bit amusing as I know that 95% of those who think they’ve mastered the game have not.

I have no idea whether or not the NPE helps new players as I’m a veteran myself, so I can’t tell but if it means that less people are screaming that this or that should be nerfed (like food, as it’s useless, right?) because they understand that everything has a purpose and that there’s always more to learn, then I’m all for this new system.

didnt really work that way, how many kills you needed scaled based on your level, so in many ways it actually was better than the current system. They could just have set the amount of kills to scale more drastically with level, to the point that at level 10 you unlock 1 skill per kill.

at level 80 you would have unlocked your entire weapon set in 5 kills, so i really dont know why you bring that up.

the other thing is they didnt teach new players anything here, they are trying to teach them by osmosis. And i really doubt anyone before was like, i really am not ready for 5 skills until i hit level 10, in fact even having a 5 skill makes me want to quit playing.
If the NPE taught things like combos, condition removals, complimentary trait selection, reading tells, etc, that would be one thing.

When is the last time anyone heard anyone in mapchat in a level 1-10 zone say hey guys i got too many weaponskills

Astralporing.1957:

NewTrain.7549:

No. You’re talking about elitists. The thread was simply about challenging content. It was the anti-challenging content crowd that introduced the fear of elitism into the discussion. Frankly, it’s misdirection and has no place.

Elitism appeared in this topic the very moment we started discussing rewards. Difficult content that does not offer increased rewards is not so strongly contested, after all, if you haven’t noticed.

elitism and rewards is not intrinsicly linked.
I wont deny some elitist types popped in, but the elitism isnt really the point. I am not an elitist, i just like having challenges to meet, and then having worthwhile rewards for the challenge.

Rewards had to be brought in to the discussion, because they tend to reward everything fairly uniformly regardless of how long, difficult, amount of preparation. Doing so is basically guaranteeing no one will run challenging content repeatedly, and will generally have a feeling of being cheated when doing said content.

lets look at dynamic events.
a 2 minute dynamic event gives the same reward as a 8 minute event. kill krait witch essentially same reward as kill corrupted quaggan.

Point is, they kill their own content with a reward structure that does not reward content appropriate to its difficulty/time investment/ knowledge etc. Its not really about me wanting no one to have anything cool. Its about overall making the game more fullfilling by adding various degrees of difficulty (this includes moderate difficulty) and having rewards that fit the content.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

I don’t understand how spamming 1 1 1 over and over again helps a new player learn how the combat system works.

For five minutes? Give me a break. They’re not spamming 1 once the tutorial is over…usually takes less than five minutes.

Maybe they’ll learn to move and fight at the same time, something you can’t do in many MMOs.

they have no reason to learn this though, because they trvialized the encounters. actionh games can get by early with one button, because they usually make early game about mastering moving and hitting at the proper times, but gw2 tends to have enemies with unclear hit boxes, poor feedback on when you get hit, poor movement, and their attacks are rare.

thinking about it, the monster basic behavior and movement style is generally really poor. i dont mean like AI, i mean like this monster tries to maintain mid range and use line drive attacks, this other guy tries to teleport next to you then strike, this guy does a damaging line drive. Just regular enemy behavior type stuff

People complain that people press 1 through the entire game and that complaint goes back long long before the NPE. So blaming that fault on the NPE would be misdirecting your ire. If your complaint is people can do content by hitting one, you’re considerably late complaining about it.

i dont blame NPE for that, but i am saying that the idea that people could learn better movement if they had less skills to deal with, is not reinforced by the enemy AI design. And yes this is a problem for the whole game,

but basically, the type of depth they do have in battle is more about knowing which skills/sequence of skills will help the most in a given situation. So having no skills, only highlights that most enemies are homing punching bags.
the reduction in damage dealt and less skills that it would be a good idea to dodge only highlights this early in the game

Wanze.8410:

Ohoni.6057:

Well, maybe you should have used all your mithril/elder wood and t5 to craft rares and forge them along with all the other rares and exotics you got from loot drops and you would have gotten one.

Not likely, that would have amounted to a few extra RNG rolls, probably no more than I get in a single night of play. I do MF any Master or rare GSes I find, btw, no luck on that either.

The only point i made was that statistically, you have the same change (if not better) to get a precursor as 2 years ago, if you dont want to hassle with the inflation of precursor prices on the tp.

Yes, but “rolling the RNG dice” has never been a viable way of getting the Precursor you want, so that’s irrelevant. I imagine the number of players who have found the specific Precursor they wanted through random play could be counted on one hand.

So the statistical odds of finding one as a drop are so ludicrously small as to be irrelevant, what matters is the market value. Your argument is as pointless as arguing that it doesn’t matter that average income hasn’t risen relative to inflation over the past few decades, because you could always win the lottery and not have to worry about it anymore, so why complain when you could be buying tickets with what money you do have? Let them eat cake!

The odds are still the same (or better) as 2 years ago.
Tens of thousands of players managed to get one since release, why do you think Anet should make it easier for you?

in actuality this isnt true, they were actually much easier to get on release, they said it was a bug and nerfed it, but it has come to light that anet call anything whether intended or not that they want to change a bug.
regardless they were easier at least two times. Karka event and before mystic forge nerf. I think they were also easier first halloween, but i could be mistaken. (it had some guaranteed exotics once per day or something)

anyhow, they established long ago that precursor aquisition was flawed, and too based on competitive gold earning, or a gamble so low that being in the unlucky 20% would mean for most players never getting the item.

The problem is they established this over a year ago, and have yet to solve that known issue. Its not necessarilly about getting it easier, its about having a less unpredicatable method that doesnt require you to beat the general upward trend in cost before you actually make progress.

now personally, i would probably still gamble, but for those that hate gambling/feel unlucky that is no option

Vayne.8563:

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

I don’t understand how spamming 1 1 1 over and over again helps a new player learn how the combat system works.

For five minutes? Give me a break. They’re not spamming 1 once the tutorial is over…usually takes less than five minutes.

Maybe they’ll learn to move and fight at the same time, something you can’t do in many MMOs.

they have no reason to learn this though, because they trvialized the encounters. actionh games can get by early with one button, because they usually make early game about mastering moving and hitting at the proper times, but gw2 tends to have enemies with unclear hit boxes, poor feedback on when you get hit, poor movement, and their attacks are rare.

thinking about it, the monster basic behavior and movement style is generally really poor. i dont mean like AI, i mean like this monster tries to maintain mid range and use line drive attacks, this other guy tries to teleport next to you then strike, this guy does a damaging line drive. Just regular enemy behavior type stuff

Manasa Devi.7958:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what Anet can do better to “sell” DE’s over hearts to new players but I feel it’s important. Hearts were only put in to keep people in the areas DE’s spawn.

I’ve come to believe that DEs are a terrible way to deliver content. They require either luck (running into them) or standing around waiting for them to happen. I’ve been playing a new character since the latest FP, and the amount of events I’ve never ran into while in the areas I know them to be in is staggering.

DEs seem like a good idea, until you realize that with little else to do in zones, they lead to dead zones where people only pass through once, because very few people enjoy wandering around aimlessly or standing around occasionally killing a respawned mob, waiting for an event to happen. It doesn’t help that the vast majority of events are trivial, unchallenging affairs with little reward.

they have fairly on demand DEs, and you dont have to do every DE. That said, i think they need some DEs that are almost always going on in some step or another. Some that are often started. They actually reduced the occurence of many DEs early in the game so that the DEs didnt seem to be on as much of a loop.

I have done quest hub games recently, it is in no way better than DE. In fact it is way worse.

So yeah, i agree they could iterate and improve the way DEs go immensely, but i disagree they are inherently poor at delivering content. They just havent refined them much.
Back when they had event tracker api working you could see the large potential of DEs in terms of always having something going on.

to be honest i think orr is a better experience content wise than heart areas, and definately more fun than quest hub narratives

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vethaera.6319:

For those of you saying that Anet can’t roll back the changes to the trait system because it sets a bad precedent, I have two words:

New Coke.

I didn’t find it that objectionable when it happened. I also find it weird the more I think about the whole debacle because I understand they went from cane sugar to HFCS . . .

While Pepsi successfully markets the “Throwback” line which uses cane sugar, and one of the most popular drinks around here is “Mexican Coke”, which is . . . yes, Coca-Cola with cane sugar.

Weird.

Come on, ArenaNet, just roll back the change already.

I’d really rather they not, and either fix things broken, unbind some of those Masteries from events which never get done (Gates of Arah, Overgrown Grub…) or hire some interns to draw up a proposal for how to make it possible to keep this system’s basic structure while shaving away the objectionable parts.

Not that I have faith it will go over any better than what exists now, given what I read on the forums daily.

you are ignoring a lot of the problems with your simple answer.
locking every trait is too much for new players, most of them just dont get them or have many missing traits.
Its exactly the same for every charachter, thats boring. I can level up to 80 like 10 different ways, go to different zones, do wvw, do spvp, craft, explore, do it slow with dailies, burn some kill boosters and look for bonus exp Run my favorite chain repeatedly. etc.
the unlock on these traits is either grind gold, or do them again, 65? traits 8 proffessions, thats a lot of monotony.

bandaids can only make it less annoying, it cant actually make it a good system. I dont think a dev should ever aim for a moderately annoying game system

Astralporing.1957:

phys.7689:

I generally dont like elitism, but i dont think any game can be replayable for long without depth. But thats my opinion

I agree, i just think that neither “hardcore” difficulty content nor rewarding such content better is necessary to achieve that depth. In fact, i think that of all possible ways to do that, this one is the most shallow, and the most likely to achieve the opposite result.
Wait, scratch that, there’s one even more shallow – gear progression hamster wheel.

phys.7689:

challenge is just depth applied to how hard something is.

We seem to have very different understanding of the mening of that term then. No, more difficult contend is not necessarily more “deep” than an easy one. Compare for example a difficulty achieved through a stat inflation, with a difficulty coming from introducing a simple logical puzzle. Even if the first content is so hard that only 1% of the people will be able to pass it (compared to, say, 25% for the puzzle one), the first one still has no depth at all.

phys.7689:

ok, lets not assume, its safe to say no one bought gw2 within the presale/first month because they thought it would be easy.

I’m not. I don’t assume as well, that people bought it because they thought it was not going to be easy (…why is the opposite to easy being filtered, i have no idea…).

On the other hand, i did buy it because it was marketed to casuals. And what most interested me was the advertised then lack of hamster wheels.
Mind you, i am a veteran GW1 player as well, and i definitely didn’t play that game for the challenge. After all, if i wanted to, there were (and still are) better games for it.

challenging content aka depth in combat doesnt come down to statistics. I never was refering to stat inflation type content as challenging.

ok challenging combat on a one on one level will usually come down to preparation, execution, and adaptability. depth in preparation is having skills/abilities that matter and can give you an advantage when properly executed, execution is how optimally you can execute your plans. Adaptability is how well you can adapt to your opponents counters, unforseen behaviors, or your own errors. Stats in MMOs is usually used as a means of either gating players or, allowing them to mitigate difficulty with inflated stats.

Then there is challenge in the encounter/level design

to be clear, i have never been talking about stat manipulation in terms of challenge.

in fact i wouldnt mind if they had a mode where they fixed your stats and set up challenging fights/encounters. One of my favorite online game modes was challenge mode in phantasy star online. where all your stats was preset for the instance, and you had to survive and do it fast in order to succeed. That was some of the most enjoyable replayable content i had in an online game.

Sol Solus.3167:

As someone who has 7 level 80s and has yet to complete the personal story, I despise personal story trait unlocks as much as map completion unlocks. Before the trait revamp nothing was locked behind PS completion, and I liked that here was one game where I really was free to spend my time as I pleased.

The major design issue with PS unlocks is that every step before that step must be completed to get to that step (if you decide to go for a trait but have yet to start the PS); no other kind of unlock has such tedious requirements given the linear nature of story quests.

yup, having a level 80 trait unlock means essentially you must do the whole personal story.And come on, that fight is the most horrible fight ever, why would they want to subject any player to the final story mode

Stooperdale.3560:

It’s a really nice idea but it is the players that will cause the problems. As soon as some people in a group want to bail out and some want to stay in then there are going to be unhappy players. Unhappy players every run.

The game design should allow players with restricted time to manage that time carefully. If someone can manage an hours worth of time they can do something productive for that hour and log off satisfied. Endless dungeons really exclude that sort of player and only rewards those people who stay online for hours on end.

this is why some suggested being able to log off in the dungeon, and i suggested at certain points you could stop, log off, or pick up new players in the same level. You couldnt leave with that charachter though, just essentially pause the progress, or regroup.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Crovax.7854:

There most definitely is an audience for games that treat you like an actual adult.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/05/08/dark-souls-ii-sells-1-2m-units-in-three-weeks/
1,2m in 3 weeks is pretty good if you ask me but I get where you’re coming from.
It just feels so incredibly insulting being handheld all the way, especially when they changed it from a good system to one that aims to bring in people with zero initiative (Is that the right word in english? What i mean is the ability to think for oneself and make calls based on good judgement/common sense).

I’m not against the NPE, I think it’s a good thing if it makes people actually better at the game. It’s just that my gut feeling tells me that the Sept. patch wasn’t a crash, more of a ‘brace for impact’ sign before all the really bad players reach max level.
And when they do… May god help our poor souls.

Maybe I’m wrong though :/

First of all, Dark Souls is available on both PC and console. Console is a bigger audience, which means selling that many copies is just okay. Anet sold more than that before the game launched and it’s only available on PC.

Now, what percentage of people who bought the game actually played the game for any length of time. People buy games for all sorts of reasons, but for a game like Dark Souls, the purchase is it. It doesn’t have to hold you for an hour. They’re not going to make millions of dollars off their cash shop.

That’s the thing. MMOs last longer, have higher overhead. If people don’t stay with the game, the game is in trouble. This doesn’t just mean long term players. It means people playing the first ten levels. Anet obviously had a problem with how many people were actually graduating to become players. They had to fix this.

But it’s not hand holding all the way. Most of the hand holding is in the first ten levels, which is pretty much what most MMOs do. There is NOTHING wrong with teaching a game to people. Nothing at all.

anet sold that many on PC before the game launched, under the assumption that it would be similar in challenge to GW1. I will say it really is not. Though i prefer gw2 combat, exploration, etc. DOA Underworld, challenge missions, hard mode vanquishing, heck for some missions, normal mode was harder than gw2,

So basically most the people who bought GW in the first month, believed it would be like gw1, even if they never played it, they would be going off how hard other people said it would be. This implies not everyone is as incapable, or non desiring of challenge as you imagine

This is a terrible assumption actually. I didn’t buy this game because I assumed it would be “similar in challenge” to Guild Wars 1. If you’re laboring under the assumption that the main reason people buy games is challenge, you’d have to do a lot more than say so to prove it to me.

People bought Guild Wars 2 for a whole host of reasons and challenge may or may not be a factor in that. I didn’t play Guild Wars 1 because I found it particularly challenging either. I don’t really think most people go look at games and say “that will be challenging”. I think people look at games and think “that will be fun”. Different people get their fun from different things. Most of the holiday events in Guild Wars 1 were popular, but I can’t think of any that were challenging. They were just fun.

There are always people interested in challenging themselves, but I don’t think it’s the bulk of humanity. Of course, I could be wrong.

ok, lets not assume, its safe to say no one bought gw2 within the presale/first month because they thought it would be easy. I was paying attention and they never marketed it as easy, in fact they talked about they would have 8 dungeons with 3 paths each that were extremely difficult designed to challenge the best players. Therefor, i think it is incorrect to assume that in order to sell big quantities, you need to be easy.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

phys.7689:

magic find is irrelevant its supposed to only effect the quality of the goods not the frequency. IE, low magic find, less blues, greens rares etc.

And I’m supposed to have four Precursors and 100k Gold, but I don’t

even frequency is irrelevant, the only thing that matters for this test is armor/weapons obtained from monster kills, and what ratio of them was job specific.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

phys.7689:

Heres how the scientfic method works, you come up with a hypothesis, you test it, then you analyze your data.
Thats what he did
If you oppose his findings, the burden of proof is now on you as a scientist to disprove his data.

Using the Scientific Method while you can not even use spell check on your own post.

First, the OP needs a control character. This control character needs to be on an account with 0% Magic Find and the character needs to be wearing armor, trinkets, and weapons that DO NOT increase Magic Find. He CAN NOT use ANY Magic Find buffs except for what is given to PvE from the WvW standings.

He did not use a Control and therefore is findings are a moot point. We don’t even know his total Magic Find on his account combined with the buff to PvE from WvW combined with any trinkets he had that might have increased his Magic Find combined with the Magic Find buffs from food and/or utility potions.

We don’t even know if he didn’t clean out his bags to match what the loot would look like for both the Engineer or the Warrior just to get everyone here riled up over it.

I could do it for you all and have my bags look skewed and none of you would know the difference. And I wouldn’t even have to use photoshop. Just clean the bags, make them look the way I want them to look to get a rise out of everyone, then log out to clear the on screen chat and log back in and sit for about 5-10 min to get a chat log.

I myself see some difference and I can now restock all my materials without paying the bloated prices on the Trade Post. I’m sorry you all are losing your cash cow. Adapt or rage quit already.

spelling and the scientific method have nothing to do with each other.
magic find effects drop rarity, not drop type.
" Magic Find is both an account bonus and a character attribute that increases the chance to receive higher-quality loot from slain foes"

has little to do with cash cows.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

phys.7689:

Heres how the scientfic method works, you come up with a hypothesis, you test it, then you analyze your data.
Thats what he did
If you oppose his findings, the burden of proof is now on you as a scientist to disprove his data.

Using the Scientific Method while you can not even use spell check on your own post.

First, the OP needs a control character. This control character needs to be on an account with 0% Magic Find and the character needs to be wearing armor, trinkets, and weapons that DO NOT increase Magic Find. He CAN NOT use ANY Magic Find buffs except for what is given to PvE from the WvW standings.

He did not use a Control and therefore is findings are a moot point. We don’t even know his total Magic Find on his account combined with the buff to PvE from WvW combined with any trinkets he had that might have increased his Magic Find combined with the Magic Find buffs from food and/or utility potions.

We don’t even know if he didn’t clean out his bags to match what the loot would look like for both the Engineer or the Warrior just to get everyone here riled up over it.

I could do it for you all and have my bags look skewed and none of you would know the difference. And I wouldn’t even have to use photoshop. Just clean the bags, make them look the way I want them to look to get a rise out of everyone, then log out to clear the on screen chat and log back in and sit for about 5-10 min to get a chat log.

I myself see some difference and I can now restock all my materials without paying the bloated prices on the Trade Post. I’m sorry you all are losing your cash cow. Adapt or rage quit already.

It’s all moot – there is no way of a Control Character since everyone is DPS oriented these days.

Sorry, that was sarcasm again.

It’s really nigh impossible to get a valid Control set up with 0% magic find and duplicated items down to the exact digit. Why? Achievement bonuses which apply across the account.

You can try to start working on the doubtfulness of the method but there is the second option, which is to have 100 people with varying characters (at level 80) collect data in the same zone in a set batch of results. Such as saying “farm in Cursed Shore until you hit 25 equipment loot items, post screenshot of your results”.

Without having debug-level control over variables, this is really the best which can be done. And it is valid for scientific study, since that is usually how blind tests are run.

magic find is irrelevant its supposed to only effect the quality of the goods not the frequency. IE, low magic find, less blues, greens rares etc.

11/17 job specific.
6/8 medium armor
5/9 weapons

Sariel V.7024:

While the ire is bubbling, over in the quickie-experiment thread, I thought I’d put in a more serious question. Assuming the following is true

1. One player’s observation is that the gear received from drops now heavily corresponds to what the player can equip.
2. Exotic Hunter items are tied to particular classes of champion creatures.

Do we now have to know what a particular champion can drop AND bring the right profession to the fight in order to have a shot as getting the particular exotic? If I pit my ele against old Shelob, have I screwed myself out of obtaining Lord Taere’s Shadow?

in his thread he said he did a champ bag research and it either didnt seem to effect it, or was substantially less. My guess is bags arent effected by this change. However, some more data, or a dev response would clear it up a lot more

Seera.5916:

Ashen.2907:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

So…

You all want to be able to get the best loot while playing the Zerker Meta?

I’m enjoying finally getting more than just leather drops for ALL my characters. I play my scholars when I need various cloth scraps and I play my warrior or guardian when I need more metals.

It encourages players to play more classes. But then again I don’t play the Zerker Meta nor do I play the Trade Post.

So far it seems to be working as intended.

Zerker meta doesn’t really come into play with this. The DPS race of zerker applies to all classes.

What this does is, “encourage,” players to play specific classes for maximum reward. If you happen to like playing a non cloth wearer, ranger in my case, then you have your long term goals which require in game currency delayed compared to those who either enjoy cloth wearing classes or who are willing to switch for increased rewards.

If there is even truly a noticeable increase. OP did not give any numbers as to how many times he got loot drops, but I can’t imagine the number is high enough to draw any statistical evidence from at any reliable error allowance.

Heres how the scientfic method works, you come up with a hypothesis, you test it, then you analyze your data.
Thats what he did
If you oppose his findings, the burden of proof is now on you as a scientist to disprove his data.

All you are doing is saying even though this is what the data shows, i believe something else is the case with no actual basis at all.

if you think he hasnt provided enough data, provide more, until then his data is the data we will have to work off of in this discussion

Gene Archer.8560:

phys.7689:

well you appear to like the game easy and have a large hatred for certain types, fair enough. I generally dont like elitism, but i dont think any game can be replayable for long without depth. But thats my opinion

Depth and Challenge are two entirely different concepts.

Furthermore, true challenge isn’t actually quantifiable. You say this game is super easy, but that’s not true.

What is true is that it’s super easy -to you-.

But those are two entirely different things.

challenge is just depth applied to how hard something is.
Depth in exploration would be having places you can only get to by knowing secret routes, and somethings in there. Or shortcuts, hidden chests, special interactions etc.

Depth in lore would be more information, side stories, and some use for that, whether it be to gain greater knowledge or get more interactions out of npcs, or objects in the world
Depth in crafting would mean more customizable appearances, and possibly stats, with skill or knowledge improving your results.

but all these things amount to depth applied to different playstyles. depth in combat and encounters amounts to challenge.

So yeah i dont think the game can last long with eotm trains, champ trains, easy dungeon path speed runs. Its truely a waste of the combat mechanics they have developed.

but it aint up to me, so its just my opinion on the matter

Blaeys.3102:

The problems, which I suspect alot of people sympathize with, are twofold.

First, compared to the original leveling system, it is a much more involved and lengthy process. If the system were in the game from the start, I suspect no one would have had an issue with it.

Second – and the BIG one for me – is about what we thought horizontal progression meant when Jon made the original comment in his blog. I know, I for one thought he was referring to new ways to advance my character at max level – in other words, they would be introducing new traits and utility skills on a regular enough schedule to keep us engaged as we sought out the events that unlock them.

The second concept had me very excited (and I wasnt the only one – the forums lit up with alot of positive comments after that blog post) – thinking this would be part of the new end game in GW2.

Gaile’s comment makes it sound like the idea all along was that horizontal progression applied to those leveling – rather than at end game. That bothers me A LOT.

This is a perfect example of when clearer communication is desperately needed – and simple clarification could make things better. What is the plan regarding adding new traits/utilities on a regular basis (horizontal progression as part of end game)? Has that idea been scrapped or is it just not ready for prime time yet?

well the fact is, its not horizontal progression, its actually level locked progression. You each trait unlocks in some level locked zone. Its horizontal progression when you are level 80 perhaps

And yes the discussion about horizontal progression was primarilly about NEW traits and skills added to the game, and ALTERNATE methods aside from the 25 skillpoint costs that new skills at the time were costing.
Taking your basic traits out and having no base options totally changes the concept of the system.

Also homegenizing the traits based on their trait number was pretty lame. They should have made the challenges at least the type of things people want to try to beat with each charachter type rather than something polarizing like map completion

Gene Archer.8560:

phys.7689:

you shouldnt react to someones attitude as much as what they are saying. Are you just annoyed at their tone, or do you think the game is better off with less challenging content/low reward content

I think the game is better off being easy, yes. I think it’s better off being welcoming to the lowest common denominator because catering to the “hardcores” and the “uber elite” only ever leads to a horrible, toxic, elitist community of haves and have nots.

I’ve seen too many MMOs take that route, and I am downright sick of it. Enough of that bullcrap goes on in the real world. I don’t need it infecting my video games.

I get and respect that some gamers like challenge for the sake of challenge, but they are in the wrong game quite frankly. And beyond that, too many of them wind up being the other kind of challenge seekers. The ones that don’t want actual challenge. They say they do, but what they really want is challenge that’s just hard enough that they can beat it, but no one else can. They want to stroke their egos, nothing more. They want to feel part of some elite and will gladly trample over everyone else’s fun to get there.

And yes, I will gladly deny them their fun because of that.

And it’s so easy to tell who those kind of people are. They’re the ones that demonize casuals. The ones that proclaim “I can’t wait til those filthy casuals leave”

And I have no problem telling those people that they already have their challenge available to them in other games and they are more than welcome to let the door hit their worthless kitten on the way out. They are poison and will forever be poison.

Rewards are a whole different matter. I’m not gonna start on that.

well you appear to like the game easy and have a large hatred for certain types, fair enough. I generally dont like elitism, but i dont think any game can be replayable for long without depth. But thats my opinion

Gene Archer.8560:

calyx.9086:

And those people need to go back to Candy Crush or the Sims or minesweeper or solitaire where they belong. All they do is contribute to the dumbing down of a game with a lot of potential.

How about all you “challenge seekers” go back to Dark Souls and WoW, and all those “UBER HARDMODE SO EDGY” games where you all belong?

You guys are making me agree with Vayne. You have no idea how much I -despise- that.

you shouldnt react to someones attitude as much as what they are saying. Are you just annoyed at their tone, or do you think the game is better off with less challenging content/low reward content

Torsailr.8456:

phys.7689:

Torsailr.8456:

Disconnects would be a risk just like any other dungeon.

If you can save and return it kind of feels like regular fractals with a different reward structure. In which case, why not just adjust fractals? By making it a marathon then it creates a new form of challenge and a slightly different game mode.

he didnt say save and return, he said log out there.
Essentially your charachter would be trapped there until you leave, unable to use any sort of inventory/salvage/repair management aside from what you get in the dungeon. They cant get anything sent to them, and they cant get sent out.

So its not like saving your progress, doing something and coming back, its more like putting your game on pause for

my guess is people would dedicate a charachter slot to it, however, in order to get the big drops, they would have to put in the time, and eventually to ever make use of anything they have in there, they would have to leave.

Hmm, you’re right. I just interpreted it differently when I read it.

That raises the question, is this a solo dungeon or group? That would be ok for a solo dungeon but there would be issues with group runs. I could easily see people trading out spots to keep advancing further up the dungeon then coming back later for better rewards without the effort to attain them.

I think this might make for an incredibly challenging solo dungeon. Just you and the mobs and how far you can make it with your skills.

i think it could be solo or group, with group you could wait at checkpoint areas for people to join, or invite friends who are at same level. (group of friends would probably stop at the same level)
might be interesting as a solo activity, but gw2 devs dont like to encourage solo instanced activity.

If it is team based though, they could design some team based mechanics, like having to split up sometimes and what not. anyhow its all brainstorming that will probably be ignored, but a fun excerisize none the less