Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

DaShi.1368:

There’s plenty of content for your style of play, Vayne. However, not everyone has the same style of play. They should be allowed to ask for content that they want. Yes, the new content may affect those who don’t want it, but the content for your style of play affects those who don’t want it too.

What I’m saying is the rewards may well affect my style of play, or how I play the game. If there’s enough rewards that I can’t get in a game, I’ll eventually feel that game isn’t for me. Surely I’m not alone in that, and surely pointing that out isn’t telling Anet not to make harder content. I’m just asking them to be careful with how rewards are offered.

I’m pretty sure TA Aetherblade path has proved that hard content itself is not enough. It has to have better rewards that aren’t RNG. And that becomes an issue for the game itself, if enough of those things are around that the majority of players can’t get or will feel forced to try to get.

Imagine if they hid a really cool awesome mini quaggan for some reason, in TA Aetherblade path.

At the very least, those rewards from that harder content should be sellable, which means that it won’t be the badge that many hard core players want their characters to have (like Fractal skins are).

If you could please – explain to me why other people having stuff you can’t get makes you want to quit the game instead of motivating you to work towards getting that stuff if you want it so much.

I’m not sure what the question is here. Let’s take a baby quaggan minipet. A special one with a purple parasol. Maybe there’s new challenging content and that’s the reward. A whole lot of people are going to want that reward that maybe don’t enjoy or even can never do that content.

Nor is one reward the problem. One reward doesn’t affect much of anyone. Most people in this game will never have a Liadri mini, or a clockheart mini and that’s okay. Because it’s relatively rare.

But now you have the issue of people who want the clockheart mini, but they maybe really dont’ like to group period. It ruins their game. They have to run that dungeon a number of times to get all those achievements. It’s a lot of work, but they really want it.

The problem is, if I really want something but don’t enjoy that content, I’m conflicted. Do I do something I don’t enjoy for hours on end to get something I really want? Okay not this time. What if it was more common. What if more and more of the stuff I wanted was locked behind stuff I don’t enjoy.

You’re saying get better. I don’t need to get better. I’m quite fine as I am. I can beat any dungeon in the game, but I don’t enjoy running dungeons. Particularly not most of these dungeons.

You use the word motivating me to “work” towards those rewards. I didn’t work towards Liadri, because it wasn’t fun for me. Period. Getting to her was okay. Getting some of the other achievements, no so okay. I did it for the meta, because I wanted to get the meta. I did NOT enjoy the content.

So you’re saying what’s wrong with offering me rewards I want and content I don’t enjoy?

I don’t even understand what you’re not understanding.

is it unfair that to get an NBA ring, you have to win an NBA championship? Is it unfair that pulitzers are given only to top writers? Unfair that only police officers can drive police cars?

I see how everything being only obtainable by things you dont like would suck, but no one is saying that. I definately believe this is not a black and white thing, it has to be balanced. They shouldnt put all new gear behind super hard content. But they should be ok putting SOME non essential gears in specific places.

anyhow, im not married to having super uniques for show off purposes, my main beef with selling everything, is the game is already too driven by grinding gold. Somethings should not be about how much gold per hour you can grind.

however having the items salable isnt that bad.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t the think the personal story was as well received as Anet wanted it to be. We all know what people thought of Trahearne and the Zhaitan fight. We’ve all seen people talk it down. While it did have people who liked it, many many people disliked it. The open world has always been the strength of this game.

I think Anet really wanted to shift the focus to the world and away from the story.

See personal story isnt great, but its actually generally better in the first 20 levels, (depending on your race/choices) But it does provide a backdrop or narrative.

The open world on the otherhand isnt that strong early, its ok, but its not stirring. Also the open world actually loses more with the arrow. Its good for completion, but its bad for making you feel like the game is free and open.

What they really needed to have, was an open world means of leading newbs. Lets think of some newbie like dynamic event chains that tell a story, The truth is the dynamic event system is one of the main strengths, and a well crafted chain in the beginning could be a lot more satisfying than the starter story, and hold them over till level 10.

They should also kind of make it clear when your next personal story missions will unlock.

point is, if they want to keep people, a more riveting starter experience will probably go further than a more easy one, imo.

I still think it’s not a huge deal that the story starts 1 hour or so into the game. The actual leveling and constant or almost contest addition of information from the level windows is what will keep people going to then. And I think we’ll see what percentage of people get engaged in MMOs due to story very shortly.

Again, to me it would have been the beauty of the world itself that kept me playing for an hour.

people like leveling up, but thats not enough for many people. Leveling up is more thrilling when you see real effects. GW2 is not designed properly to work well with the unlock method.

I dont think leveling in and of itself is as thrilling as you make it out to be for a lot of people

Vayne.8563:

I don’t the think the personal story was as well received as Anet wanted it to be. We all know what people thought of Trahearne and the Zhaitan fight. We’ve all seen people talk it down. While it did have people who liked it, many many people disliked it. The open world has always been the strength of this game.

I think Anet really wanted to shift the focus to the world and away from the story.

See personal story isnt great, but its actually generally better in the first 20 levels, (depending on your race/choices) But it does provide a backdrop or narrative.

The open world on the otherhand isnt that strong early, its ok, but its not stirring. Also the open world actually loses more with the arrow. Its good for completion, but its bad for making you feel like the game is free and open.

What they really needed to have, was an open world means of leading newbs. Lets think of some newbie like dynamic event chains that tell a story, The truth is the dynamic event system is one of the main strengths, and a well crafted chain in the beginning could be a lot more satisfying than the starter story, and hold them over till level 10.

They should also kind of make it clear when your next personal story missions will unlock.

point is, if they want to keep people, a more riveting starter experience will probably go further than a more easy one, imo.

Ohoni.6057:

In the end, harder content being more rewarding comes to common sense: it’s simply fair that players who work harder deserve better rewards.

Why?

This isn’t the real world, it’s a game. Everyone’s here to have fun. The player that has fun doing casual content is no less of value than the one that has fun doing Fractal 50. This isn’t like the real world where a harder worker brings in higher profits for the company or whatever, the “harder worker” in GW2 brings in absolutely nothing, because it’s a game. There is absolutely no reason to reward them extra.

Hard content deserves a fair reward based on it taking more time and attention, but not all that much more, not so much more that the more casual players can’t keep up.

hard content needs either greater, or different rewards, because it is harder. Its not because of profit, its because you design the rules of your game to encourage the type of play you want people to have. If you want people to get satisfaction from mastering the game, you need to design your game so that it leads you to mastery.
see
thing is, when you have a well designed game, people naturally get better at it.
At different paces, but they get better. If you actually develop a good game design with challenge, they will play, get better, and be able to do the things that was once hard for them. Therefor, all people will be able to get it.

Now to be clear, i am not saying raids= the type of challenging content they should make. They should have many different types. Raids are not really any more challenging than dungeons, they are just a different type of content. They need to mix challenge in to every thing. Solo challenge, small group challenge, jumping puzzle challenge. mining challenge.

and this doesnt mean erase easy stuff, but give players some type of room for growth, some way to get better, and see results at the things they enjoy. And yes, some sort of benefit for getting better, so they keep on getting better.

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

kokiman.2364:

Laosduude.1690:

snip

Yeah god forbid challenge in a videogame.

snip

And nobody is stopping you.
However certain players are trying to stop me and others from playing rewarding content. For no reason.

But there is a reason. If you put better rewards on that content, you’re pressuring people to do that content. I know myself. I’ll do most of that content. I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll do it. It will change the entire dynamic of the game.

There are plenty of games that cater to that. Why can’t you let us have just one?

Because nobody is forcing you. You’re forcing yourself and it’s half funny and half sad.

I’m going to do something that’s probably going to ruin your game experience if what you wrote above is true.
I’m going to reveal the fact that : Currently the most profitable content in this game is the trading post – and anyone who wants to make money should learn how to play it and get spreadsheets and calculators and get cracking.

If what you wrote above is true – you’re going to become a TP guy right? Hardly.

snip

Also how do you know you won’t enjoy it?

And why is it that you being " forced " ( when in fact you’re just forcing yourself) to play content you don’t like is worse than me being actually forced to have terrible rewards for content that I do like?

Why should you enjoy yourself over me?

I’m not asking for vertical progression, power creep or other things.

First of all, I didn’t use the word forced, I used the word pressured. There’s a not so subtle difference between those words.

Secondly I’m not just talking about me. You think I am, but this is a well known phenomena throughout the industry. You haven’t heard about people doing boring, uninteresting things to get rewards? Because it’s in just about every MMO.

I know so many people who don’t enjoy raiding, but they want the gear. I knew people who farmed polar bear minis with no real chance of getting them for weeks on end. I’ve seen people grind out titles doing the more boring stuff imaginable even in Guild Wars 1. So yes, this is a real thing and if it happens here, it’ll be a problem.

Even if you’re not one of the people who have that problem.

Can you stop bringing up WoW and raiding? I’ve already explained that the " pressure" that gear grinding puts wouldn’t be a factor since you wouldn’t need these rewards to be viable or wanted – like was the case in wow.

I also think people have a right to decide for themselves what content they want and do not want to do. How much they want to farm. What they want to play and if they want to do content they dislike just for the rewards.

I’m sure you mean well – but taking away the choice isn’t helping anyone really. People are still subjecting themselves to what you mentioned in GW2 every day.

From dungeon runs in dungeons we’ve done hundreds of times to farming EOTM for those ranks and karma.

Don’t think it’s not happening already – the whole point is to give people in the hardcore crowd something to work for while still allowing it to be attainable by casuals.

I’m bringing up WoW because pressure is pressure and the same kind of pressure would be exerted here.

If you push people and they don’t enjoy the trip, some will leave. The more people that leave, the less people play the game, which is worse for everyone. There is an inherent risk in putting something into the game that a small percentage might like but a larger percentage might feel compelled to do.

Players are often their own worst enemy. My son wanted a legendary weapon. He ended up spending real money to get the gold to get mats to make it. He made it and stopped playing the game. He thought he knew what he wanted…he was wrong.

Experience shows that people WILL do stuff they don’t like to get a reward, but each time they do it, it takes a bit away from their enjoyment of the game, until eventually people walk away. It’s the risk you take putting those types of rewards in the game.

You say people should have freedom to choose. What if they make this change, it causes people to leave the game and there are less people playing? What if my choice was to rather have more people playing than these changes I don’t care about.

A person’s freedom ends where that freedom affects other people. This isn’t a democracy and we don’t get a vote. It’s Anet’s game. If they think enough people are interested, they’re going to make that content. If they think enough people will be disenfranchised by it, they won’t.

Nothing I say here, either way, is likely to change that.

But, people didn’t leave wow, more and more came, but wow is wow

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

But the early hearts being changed…as in the first 1-10 area?

I just don’t see this as something to rebel against. People talk about the “chess” game in metrica being taken out, even though it was ridiculously easy to win at and maybe I’ve spent 10 minutes out of all my time in game doing it.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

I love platitudes that people say but can’t be proven. I mean aside from being factually true, what it’s implying is anything but.

The first Star Trek Pilot was, after all, rejected. But a second was was made.

I think anyone that stops playing a game because they don’t like dancing with cows is someone I wouldn’t care to play with anyway.

I’d say anyone who doesn’t get up to level 20 before they judged an MMO, probably isn’t suited to MMORPGs.

You realize the people who quit before 20 is the people for whom npe was made?

They essentially are trying to target the first impression first hour of play crowf

Vayne.8563:

Well, the question becomes if it’s hard enough for the top 5% and 95% can’t get that stuff, you’re pressuring 95% of the fan base.

Would you rather lose 5% of your playerbase, or 10% of 95%.

I’m not saying those are the right numbers, but the idea applies. You don’t risk the bigger percentage, you risk the smaller one. At least you do if you want to maximize your profits.

things have degrees, and top 5% wouldnt be the ones you are aiming for. Right now the most rewarding activities are aimed at top 90%. You can get the best rewards following and literally spamming 1 in eotm, before that, queensdale and frostgorge champ trains. Paths in dungeons where people figured out how to win via spamming attacks blindly without moving in specific standing spots.(at least they had to find the spots, and strats)

And your percentage theory is off here, because this is a game that wants to have replayability. Things are replayable when they have depth. Pool would not be a replayable game if all you had to do was put the balls in the hole with your hand. People learn and adapt to the level of the game, if the game does not have that depth, they will quit.

The only way to keep people entertained without some sort of challenge/depth, is to make new content constantly, or make them grind for something they really really want. The game is mostly about C, which is in general the least satisfying method of entertainment for many people.
the second one is hard for the developers
the first in combination with the others is the best bet.

Iason Evan.3806:

I am all about more difficult content. Liadri was awesome. Heck, I found the Norn dude right before Poyaqui[SIC?] to be really difficult and that was fun. I think things like the stuff I just mentioned are great.

My two cents boils down to this: Give us tough content to play, but don’t offer exclusive rewards for it. That way you see who actually wants tough content.

Conversely, if ArenaNet decides to offer tough content and there aren’t exclusive rewards and then no one plays said content, you will know that the player base isn’t after the tough content, but the rewards that go with it. If that is the case then there is no reason to offer tough content. Just make it all easy so everyone can get it. It reminds me of that line from the bad guy in “The Incredibles”: “When everyone’s super, no one will be.”

What if people like challenge, and they like reward?

It really doesnt make sense to give the same reward for doing something harder than doing something easy.
sure a few people will do it, but they wont do it much, MMOs time is a consideration. People have a finite amount of time to get everything they want. Even if you enjoy something more, most people will do the thing that is more effective.

If you really wanted to compare which people want more, you would have to have a situation where there is no reward in either case.

But they have done this type of test already, and most people will do it easy, and then never do it again. Because their is little satisfaction in doing an easy task for most people.

lets be honest, people would not be doing the easy stuff for no reward either. We already know how many groups wandered the world killing champions when they dropped the same thing as a regular monster.

So yeah, people can want challenge AND reward

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

kokiman.2364:

Laosduude.1690:

These so called “few players” can go pick up Wildstar then, or play any Korean mmo in the market today. Guild Wars 2 ever since the start has been so relaxing, I don’t want to see it go along some hardcore path to get the best items that gives a significant advantage on almost all situations.

Yeah god forbid challenge in a videogame.

Not really the point. Plenty of people have challenging lives. They don’t need MORE challenge. Getting up in the morning and working is a challenge.

Every job I’ve had in the last 30 years has been ridiculously competitive. I don’t play games to prove myself or challenge myself. I play games to relax and unwind after proving myself and challenging myself all day…or I did before I was retired anyway.

It’s okay for people to play games just to have fun.

And nobody is stopping you.
However certain players are trying to stop me and others from playing rewarding content. For no reason.

But there is a reason. If you put better rewards on that content, you’re pressuring people to do that content. I know myself. I’ll do most of that content. I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll do it. It will change the entire dynamic of the game.

There are plenty of games that cater to that. Why can’t you let us have just one?

Because nobody is forcing you. You’re forcing yourself and it’s half funny and half sad.

I’m going to do something that’s probably going to ruin your game experience if what you wrote above is true.
I’m going to reveal the fact that : Currently the most profitable content in this game is the trading post – and anyone who wants to make money should learn how to play it and get spreadsheets and calculators and get cracking.

If what you wrote above is true – you’re going to become a TP guy right? Hardly.

You know, I know, everybody knows the TP is where it’s at yet I don’t find myself getting a master’s in economics any time soon. And neither will you.

The bottom line is this " pressure " you speak of is something you’re putting on yourself – and it’s a pretty far cry from the casual laid back Vayne you make yourself out to be on the forums.

Nobody is forcing you to play what you don’t like.

Also how do you know you won’t enjoy it?

And why is it that you being " forced " ( when in fact you’re just forcing yourself) to play content you don’t like is worse than me being actually forced to have terrible rewards for content that I do like?

Why should you enjoy yourself over me?

I’m not asking for vertical progression, power creep or other things.

First of all, I didn’t use the word forced, I used the word pressured. There’s a not so subtle difference between those words.

Secondly I’m not just talking about me. You think I am, but this is a well known phenomena throughout the industry. You haven’t heard about people doing boring, uninteresting things to get rewards? Because it’s in just about every MMO.

I know so many people who don’t enjoy raiding, but they want the gear. I knew people who farmed polar bear minis with no real chance of getting them for weeks on end. I’ve seen people grind out titles doing the more boring stuff imaginable even in Guild Wars 1. So yes, this is a real thing and if it happens here, it’ll be a problem.

Even if you’re not one of the people who have that problem.

problem is, we already do boring stuff to get what we want in this game.
Tp merchant game, boring(to many)
Champ train (boring)
EOTM (boring)
Ascended mats (boring)

Why are these boring things aok, and if you dont like them you shouldnt do them(even though its less effecient), but doing challenging content to get better rewards is inherently wrong.

why is inherently wrong that challenging content gives better rewards, but not inherently wrong that unchallenging content gives better rewards?

Beldin.5498:

Harper.4173:

We want harder content with better rewards ( as in quantity) and with rarer rewards ( as in unique skins. WE DO NOT WANT BETTER STATS. We do not want vertical progression.*

So .. you want still those rarer rewards .. that means anybody else get less new armor/weapon skins because the designers have to spent a lot of their time just to create stuff that only the elite crowd can get.

And you don’t see where the problem is ?

We should all be happy and say : yay .. great you get new stuff all day long while we get nothing instead .. cause we are just so bad gamers that don’t deserve it ?

lets say they handled it like SAB. you can get this version which is almost exactly the same, with a longer term method. The special versions have some slight small change, like pallete swap, or extra animation, perhaps a texture swap

for example:
lets say they made new content X. every time you beat content X (normal casual way) you get 1-3 tokens of token(depending how well you do). When you get 50 tokens you can buy armor X. Now if you do the more difficult version you can get 6-9 tokens.
If you successfully beat hidden Boss monster Y, he has a random chance of dropping Armor X beta (low chance). Beating him unlocks an npc that will sell you Armor X beta for 100 tokens.

The difference between armor X beta, and armor X is that armor X has a dragon embroidered on the chest piece.

even a casual can get armor X beta, if he saves his tokens, and beats the hidden boss Y one time. The ones who are good, get it by drop, or faster. Everyone who gets the special dragon version of the armor (just a texture swap) beat hidden boss Y at least once.

Ohoni.6057:

1. I’m not a fan of “hard” content….

3) dps checks, depends on the execution, there are levels of dps check, some dps checks are basically seeing if you can skillfully do damage without messing up. Ideally, gear should not be a consideration
4) only needing half the people to know what they are doing to succeed is a fail when it comes to test. If someone knows half the problems on a test, have they demonstrated knowledge? most places wouldnt pass someone with a 50%
5)hard content isnt better, but it should reward more, just like a 3 pointer is worth more than a 2 pointer in basketball.
6) untrue, if you get the same reward for something, but are more likely to fail it/require more effort to get good enough to beat it then it should reward more. If it doesnt then it people may not do it, not because they dont want to, but because it is ineffecient. how many people would aim for a bullseye in darts, if it was worth the same or less than other parts. How fun would darts be if the entire board all gave the same point value. The depth of the game goes down drastically with this concept.

Im not saying everything has to be super hard, but challenge is a primary tenant of game design. Rewarding skilled play is one of the key methods of balancing how the game is played.

I think some items can be exclusive to certain content, but that goes beyond just being hard, i think different activities should reward you more appropriately to begin with. WvW items should primarily be in WvW. Fractal useful items in fractals. Merchanting items primarily from merchanting.
There can be some cross obtaining of items, but the most effecient way should be linked to the type of play that makes sense for that item.

Vayne.8563:

Anet has done a lot to break up the zerg mentality. I’m not even sure why people haven’t noticed. Take the last events created by Anet:

The Marionette
Triple Threat
Escape from Lion’s Arch
The Battle for Lion’s Arch
The Queen’s Pavillion
Dry Top

Each of these events are “zergable” to a point and then stop being zergable, particularly if you want the maximum reward. Zerging is the least efficient way to go.

The marionette divided people onto platforms of five, but it was still massively popular.

Triple thread divides the zerg into three, but you still won’t beat it zerging. You need organized groups with the 50 further divided into different teams including a condition team and reflect team.

The best reward in Escape from Lion’s Arch involved rescuing as many citizens as we could before the miasma levels reached max. We started off zerging that event like a train, but in the end, we were all working different areas of the city. The corridor I worked usually had about 6-8 people clearing it. Divide and conquer.

The Battle for Lion’s Arch only allowed 50 people to get the buff for each of the three holograms and all three had to be defeated to win. At the end it ended up in a five man instance.

The Queens Pavillion could be zerged and often was…but it was terribly inefficient and the worst way to get rewarded. Having ten guys on each boss, coodorinated, meant that they didn’t scale up and you could control the experience. Kill Boom Boom first and everyone else follows suit…giving you gold or sometimes silver reward much faster than you could ever get a bronze by zerging (which means you could run it more often).

Dry Top rewards are much much cheaper if you can get to tier 6, but zerging isn’t the way to do it. When I do it with my wife, we try to do the least popular events to try to push the tier higher, so the rewards are cheaper. Zerging isn’t the best way to do Drytop, but not everyone knows it.

Anet has provided us lots of ways not to zerg, and it’s up to us, the playerbase, to educated the rest of the playerbase as to why zerging in some places is simply bad.

only two of the things you mentioned are still in the game though

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

People have to realize that it takes about an hour now to reach level 10 if you follow that little arrow they give you. If it is your first time, most likely you’ll assume the first hour is to learn stuff and by then you’re level 10.

It’s not taking you days to reach level 10.

I’ve played very few MMOs where the first hour was exciting. The first hour of most MMOs is just learning where to go and what to do.

And people who’ve played for a long time forget how visually stunning the world is and how good the combat feels, even with only a couple of skills.

So you get a skill, 1 minute into the game you get a second and it’s probably 15 minutes after that you get a third. By that point, you’re just looking around the world and seeing what is there.

You see the empty slots as something to unlock. You see the other stuff that starts appearing and realize there’s more of it.

No one I know plays the first hour of an MMO and thinks, this is going to be the best experience of my life. Most of us have been trained to think that the first ten levels are sort of learning.

Nothing in WoW was all that exciting to me up until level 10 and WoW seemed to do okay.

The beginning of any entertainment usually requires them to in some way entice and hook you on the game. GW2 wasnt that strong in this before, and it is even worse after npe.

Aion started off with some big battle, you flying, some people getting killed and you losing your powers
FFXI started with a huge cutscene with some huge battle, introduces you to some intriguing facet of your starter area’s story, and leads you to various quests/stories in the area
champions online starts you with a city under seige stuff blowing up, and super heroes showing you the ropes
DC universe starts with city under seige (hmmm heard that before) getting your super powers, and fighting super powered opponents

If you are trying to stop people from quitting within the first 15 levels (as npe seems to suggest) i think its a really bad idea to tell them to go do random, mostly pointless things for the first hour of your game.

Now, if the fighting systems, and other things were really attractive, just that experience alone could draw people in for the first hour, but its really not anymore. 3 skills for like 30 minutes. Enemies that sit down and die no matter what you do. usually in game design you make early AI still dangerous, but not complex. Like mario can still die from a goombah in the first screen.

the only thing good about the NPE is how fast it is to get done. The people who can play it a lil while and give it a bit may not leave, but these people were always gonna play it awhile and give it a bit. The people who got frustrated with swapping weapons and left, are just as likely to leave because the game seems to have no purpose/hook in the first hour.

I don’t know. I think, even with one skill the starting experiences, short though they are, are enough to promise more and bigger things. I think you underestimate them, having already tired of them.

The actually moving and attacking isn’t something you do in many MMOs, but again, it passes very fast.

I’m willing to wager that the minor differences in the starter zones aren’t going to turn most people off. Nothing in WoW was all that exciting (though I’ll admit Rift had a very good beginning).

Still, I just don’t see this as a major problem. Anyone who can’t sit still for half an hour isn’t going to be playing an MMO anyway.

half an hour, yeah, but it takes an hour to get to 10, and have the game tell you what your purpose for now is/why you are playing the game.

and honestly i have played many games for hours, there are some games i still havent played again after 20 minutes. I have read 1600 page books, and yet some other ones i never get past page 10. You got to bring people in with any entertainment medium. The irony is, i think the people who will stay are those who know mmos sometimes start slow, and are willing to give the game a chance inspite of not having much hooks early. And this exactly not the person for whom they needed to make this NPE

think about it, one of the complaints was people doing only their story, and not being high enough level for it after the first few. This kind of implies, they were attracted to their story, and now that part is totally missing for an hour of the game. For a true newb, the point of the game will seem like hearts, and honestly hearts are not one of the best parts of the NPE/story/world/lore imo.

Olvendred.3027:

Purple Miku.7032:

This seems like a DonQuack vs. everybody else sort of thread and I’m proud to say that I pretty much agree with everything he’s said so far. The mentality he has offers the ability to actually move on/overcome hardships or at least try to, and learn from them. A large amount of the opposing viewpoints seem like misplaced and overly-sympathetic rubbish.

OP messed up and instead of accepting it for what it was, decided to post on the forums and “1-up” himself over everybody by mocking the rest of the community with crude generalisations.

Anyone who tries something out in game, and, simply for being new, gets verbally attacked for it, is a valid concern. Yes, the OP shouldn’t have gone with the extra, generalised attack back on the forums; I agree he is in the wrong there. But he is completely justified in making a thread about encountering that sort of toxicity. When stuff like that happens, it discourages new players from trying certain sorts of content (or even the GW2 at all), and thereby diminishes the game for everyone.

This isn’t about “overcoming hardships.” It’s a game, people are supposed to play it for enjoyment, not to mentally toughen themselves up.

its a game, and games have rules, one of the rules of spvp, is you cant sit around doing nothing during a match because its an exploit.
Not knowing the rules does not make you immune to them. Its not about toughening up, its about what is acceptable behavior. In SPVP afking is not acceptable behavior, them possibly reporting him, is his learning experience, that he created through his own actions.

They could not have reported him for sucking and being new, they can however report him for sitting around doing nothing in a match, and they are in the right for doing so. He learned an important lesson about spvp, no matter how annoying your team is, you dont get to just afk and get credit.

The toughness is a non issue, hes new, he messed up and broke the rules, he is accountable for it.

Vayne.8563:

People have to realize that it takes about an hour now to reach level 10 if you follow that little arrow they give you. If it is your first time, most likely you’ll assume the first hour is to learn stuff and by then you’re level 10.

It’s not taking you days to reach level 10.

I’ve played very few MMOs where the first hour was exciting. The first hour of most MMOs is just learning where to go and what to do.

And people who’ve played for a long time forget how visually stunning the world is and how good the combat feels, even with only a couple of skills.

So you get a skill, 1 minute into the game you get a second and it’s probably 15 minutes after that you get a third. By that point, you’re just looking around the world and seeing what is there.

You see the empty slots as something to unlock. You see the other stuff that starts appearing and realize there’s more of it.

No one I know plays the first hour of an MMO and thinks, this is going to be the best experience of my life. Most of us have been trained to think that the first ten levels are sort of learning.

Nothing in WoW was all that exciting to me up until level 10 and WoW seemed to do okay.

The beginning of any entertainment usually requires them to in some way entice and hook you on the game. GW2 wasnt that strong in this before, and it is even worse after npe.

Aion started off with some big battle, you flying, some people getting killed and you losing your powers
FFXI started with a huge cutscene with some huge battle, introduces you to some intriguing facet of your starter area’s story, and leads you to various quests/stories in the area
champions online starts you with a city under seige stuff blowing up, and super heroes showing you the ropes
DC universe starts with city under seige (hmmm heard that before) getting your super powers, and fighting super powered opponents

If you are trying to stop people from quitting within the first 15 levels (as npe seems to suggest) i think its a really bad idea to tell them to go do random, mostly pointless things for the first hour of your game.

Now, if the fighting systems, and other things were really attractive, just that experience alone could draw people in for the first hour, but its really not anymore. 3 skills for like 30 minutes. Enemies that sit down and die no matter what you do. usually in game design you make early AI still dangerous, but not complex. Like mario can still die from a goombah in the first screen.

the only thing good about the NPE is how fast it is to get done. The people who can play it a lil while and give it a bit may not leave, but these people were always gonna play it awhile and give it a bit. The people who got frustrated with swapping weapons and left, are just as likely to leave because the game seems to have no purpose/hook in the first hour.

Penarddun.6827:

Yes, but how did you get through those first 10 levels? That’s the thing, the first 10 levels are so boring. I’m curious how many people actually kept playing to level 10 during this free trial.

Had the story started at level 1, and then been given to the player at 10 level intervals that would have been far superior than making them wade through 10 levels to get to the first story chapter.

Had the story been done this way it would have been more in line with the original level to story quest too. As it is now, you don’t get to do the story until you are over-powered for most of it.

yup, but they didnt design the story that way, it was actually supposed to lead players to the zones they were supposed to be at whatever level.

The end result of that is, that if they made the first story arc low level, they would have had people going into zones higher than their level to complete it, and dying. So they chose to push it back to level 10.

Problem is, it actually makes the beginning way less entertaining and purposeless. They basically introduce you to the game with objective being to grind. I can think of very few games that are able to sell the start up of the game with no purpose at all. Even open world skyrim starts you with a clear narrative, and hook before throwing you into the open wilderness.

This is the result of a hastily created solution they had to jury rig onto the old system.

and this is the biggest flaw, i think many new players, most especially free trial players who have commited nothing, with now quit before even hitting level 10, i would say the breaking point would be around level 7-9. They d be like ehhh, next game.

Broom.2561:

phys.7689:

Broom.2561:

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Another alternative solution for unlocking traits could be to have Adept and Master level traits attached to specific Renown Hearts across the map. Grandmaster level traits could be tied to specific Elite or Champion boss enemies in level 60+ zones that are not attached to any dynamic events.

This could be a less frustrating way of getting players to naturally gain new traits as they explore the map while harking back to GW1’s skill quests and elite capping from bosses. And as usual, offer a way of just buying the traits outright (minus the skill point cost, please).

You do realize, I hope, that this penalizes people whose play style does not include PVE? Making people do things they do not like doing is not exactly the way to go if you want to keep players playing (and paying).

That is what was so great about the old system. All you needed to do, was buy a trait book ever x levels, after which you could experiment at will.

they should have an alternative method of unlocking in WvW that uses WXP as a gate, and karma and/or badges of honor to buy traits. To make it slightly more interesting, they could make the “trait trainers” have access to more or less traits depending on the situation.

not that i think hearts is a good suggestion, but i do believe that pve, and WvW should have different methods of aquisition for skills

I believe any type of fixed method like hearts or WvW achievements would be wrong, as it still tries to force people into certain directions, while this game USED to be about freedom to do whatever you felt like doing at whatever time you felt like doing it.

For me, it feels extremely stifling to know that if I want one specific achievement, I HAVE to go to this-and-that area and do this-and-that thing. Especially since I have 6 80s already, and have literally been there done that 6 times over (full PVE map exploration on all 6).

Again, I think the old method was vastly better. The amount of money needed for a skill book was not trivial to a new player, but it gave you a huge freedom to explore abilities and experiment with them.

And honestly, the way things are now, you can only really learn to play your character once you’re 80. Which is just silly.

i agree the new system is bad, but if you are going to have unlocking at all, it would be better that WvW and PVE have different means of unlocking. As far as doing things you dont like, Wxp karma/badges you will get from playing WvW, if thats what you enjoy. In fact in WvW, wxp/karma/badges is substantially more normal an occurence than skill points.
only skill points in WvW are from leveling, and a chance from champ bags. Champ bags are only at certain objectives, with champions.

Sturmruger.3920:

I never played GW1. Maybe thats my problem because I still love this game. I would rather play this game than anything else out there and I have tried just about all of them including QueueAge. I simply refuse to play a game that is sub par visually to this one. I WvW and have only run 1 dungeon in my time here. Have leveled many 80s.

I think new content will eventually come to this game. Dont think creating a 2667 post about it is going to speed the process up any. I figure most of you people complaining play the game differently from me but feel the same way I do about it or the passionate pleas for new content would not be here.

I would continue to urge patience on the matter. Nothing as good as this game will simply fall away. Find new ways to play the game. Create new characters. Play some PvP or WvW in the meantime. Maybe even indulge in some RP.

The alternative is to go somewhere else and come back later which Im sure a few will do. But you will hate it. The other stuff out there looks way worse than this game. You will hate your characters clunky look and animations. I know I did which was something I did not expect. I have gotten so spoiled by the sheer beauty of this game that I simply cannot play another game not up to these standards.

I hope you will all stay but understand it if you go. To each their own I suppose. I do think that should you venture out to do something different that you will be more disappointed by what you find than you are here with the state of this game. But thats ok…. you can come back lol.

Peace.

out of curiosity, when did you start playing actively?

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

In the end also this boils down to monetization.

GW1 was a true B2P game being monetization by selling the game and that also means releasing regular expansions.

GW2 is mainly monetized with the cash-shop what means releasing thing to keep people busy (LS) and taking elements out of the game to put them in the cash-shop.

Compare for example GW1’s cash-shop to GW2’s cash-shop with how much has been added and is in the cash-shop (vs in the game). Then GW2 wins easy.

Of course it just depends on what you prefer. I prefer the true B2P game thats in fact one of the reasons to go for GW2 as it was promoted as a B2P game and had also that name from GW1.

i dont have a problem with gw2 monetization in theory, I mean they could take all the money from cash shop, and focus it on creating new free content.

But the reality is, the further we get away from initial purchase, the more this game resembles an f2p game, which is natural, because the cash shop is the only means of new revenue from players after initial purchase.

if profit was tied to creating new interesting content people want to buy, thats what we would be getting

“i dont have a problem with gw2 monetization in theory, I mean they could take all the money from cash shop, and focus it on creating new free content.”

No they can’t really do that ‘freely’ because as you say yourself

“the further we get away from initial purchase, the more this game resembles an f2p game, which is natural, because the cash shop is the only means of new revenue from players after initial purchase.”

So what their main focus has to be with this form of monetization is getting people to buy gems. Whether they like that them-self or not. If the cash-shop is there main source of income (and that it is at the moment) they have to focus on that. Not focus on just being able to sell the game people like while of course they still need to try and provide a game people like. But you can easily so how the two (getting people to buy gems, creating a game people like) conflicts with each other.

And again like you say yourself “if profit was tied to creating new interesting content people want to buy, thats what we would be getting”.

Basically you seem to be saying the same as I and seem to b in agreement. Only your first line “i don’t have a problem with gw2 monetization in theory” in then a little strange. Because imho you should have a problem with it reading the rest of your post.

i am agreeing with what you say, but im am saying in theory, it could work out, however, one would have to work against the natural tendencies of a company or any one trying to earn money.

Basically its highly unlikely, because it would have to be a moral stance, or idealistic method of making a game, when as a business the best answer is to do what takes the least resources to make the most money.

Djinn.9245:

phys.7689:

Berelious.3290:

Spiderbite.8049:

warduke.1780:

JonnyBlu.3486:

You could have stayed, tried your best, and actually learned something from the experience.

But you deliberately went afk during a rated match. They reported an afker.

I see no problem here.

Why do people like you exist?

Because he’s right?

No, he’s not. OP stated that he entered by accident, and had every intention of leaving as soon as the verbal bashing began. Why on earth should he help a group that’s verbally tearing him a new one?

because the regardless you join a game, you are supposed to play it, or you are breaking the rules.

It sucks that people were mean to him, doesnt give him an excuse to grief or exploit pvp. He could have closed the game, or asked them how to leave the match. In short, his excuse is no excuse. He probably will not be banned, but if he is, it is because he made the choice to try to get revenge on the players passive aggressively.

lets be clear, he trolled them on purpose because he didnt like how they treated him, for his mistake. That is not excuse.

He didn’t troll them on purpose – he was trying to leave the abuse so he did it in the only way he could think of: he left his computer. Only certain kinds of players think of alt-F4 as a way to leave a situation. I personally have been playing MMOs since Ultima Online and the beginning of EQ and have NEVER used that at all. So it wouldn’t occur to me either as a way to leave the match.

Luckily for me I detest PvP and so will never find myself in the OPs unfortunate situation.

he could have asked them how to leave, or he could have exited the game and picked a different charachter, the same way you always do it. escape>charachter select. Or he could have just tried to do his best.
He actively decided to do nothing. Which is an exploit of the game, or greifing your team. Im not saying i dont understand why it happened, but its still against the rules, you dont get to just pout in the corner and profit, just because your team was mean to you.

Yes it sucks they yelled at him, no that doesnt really excuse his actions.

Dragoonale.7518:

There has certainly been a LOT of controversy following Anet changing the leveling experience. I can NOT speak for the trait changes, or anything else for that matter. I decided to give gw2 another try and rolled a Norn warrior. First 10 levels were a little dry, but they had me go heart to heart and it was a fairly smooth experience. The thing I love is that when you hit level 10, you get a bunch of story quests to do in a row. This REALLY created the story for me and caused me to care. I have a 58 mesmer(no 80, ik, I suck) and I have no idea whats going on in the story, why? Because it seemed to “side quest” feeling with the lack of attention it got. I would get a story quest every few levels. At least this ensures the story is introduced to me better. So I cannot go too deep into why its better, but in terms of the questing experience, I like it!

this would suggest it would be better if the story was designed that you could do the first series of quests at the start of the game, rather than having to do something that wasnt that entertaining for an hour.

It seems to suggest, the best experience would have been a short optional tutorial based area that is skippable, (gets you used to the basics of the game) and then you should go right in to story mode.

the other problem, great you like story, and after an hour you got to see some! however, now you have to play for 10 levels between each step. and level 10-20 will probably take you about 3-4 hours of playtime. level 20-30 will probably take you 5-6. essentially you will feel like you have to grind to get to the interesting part.

Devata.6589:

In the end also this boils down to monetization.

GW1 was a true B2P game being monetization by selling the game and that also means releasing regular expansions.

GW2 is mainly monetized with the cash-shop what means releasing thing to keep people busy (LS) and taking elements out of the game to put them in the cash-shop.

Compare for example GW1’s cash-shop to GW2’s cash-shop with how much has been added and is in the cash-shop (vs in the game). Then GW2 wins easy.

Of course it just depends on what you prefer. I prefer the true B2P game thats in fact one of the reasons to go for GW2 as it was promoted as a B2P game and had also that name from GW1.

i dont have a problem with gw2 monetization in theory, I mean they could take all the money from cash shop, and focus it on creating new free content.

But the reality is, the further we get away from initial purchase, the more this game resembles an f2p game, which is natural, because the cash shop is the only means of new revenue from players after initial purchase.

if profit was tied to creating new interesting content people want to buy, thats what we would be getting

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

Behellagh.1468:

I’m with Vayne on this. I play games to relax and enjoy myself, not to treat it as a job or as a way to measure my self-worth.

A lot of people enjoy themselves by meeting challenges. In fact the large majority of games created by man have some element of difficulty or challenge, or it becomes boring.
Tag? run around chasing people avoiding you. If they are just gonna stand there, its pretty boring.
darts, could be just hit the wall, but having things to aim for makes it fun.
pacman? dodge these guys and eat everything on the map.

let me try to think of games that dont have this element, playing house, peek a boo. Kinda drawing a blank on others.

I suppose its not a gaming joy people get from this game. Its more of a do something and see result joy? like spinning a top?

regardless, people who want games with some sort of challenge or difficulty or goal are not really the exception.

Some Facebook games argue otherwise.

I havent done a survey of popular facebook games, but lets look

top game in 2013 list is candy crush saga with 11 million daily users, its got 2000 levels of difficulty, the hardest levels people attempt to play for days. This game is probably more difficult than gw2. looks like the number 2 game is a similar type.

Now, there are some games that are more about just getting a stimulation response, but those are really not that common. Then there are games which rely on creativity over challenge, they work by having an interesting creative content, and depend on new experiences. Like telling ghost stories, or minecraft.
GW2, was creative and new 2 years ago, but if they want the main selling point of gw2 to be that type of game, they will have to either create a wealth of content, or somehow give users more ability to create an interesting world. And lets be honest, users/players have less control over the world now with mega server. Its fairly difficult to organize people now.

but yeah, even facebook games generally have some form of depth, which is what keeps people coming back

Berelious.3290:

Spiderbite.8049:

warduke.1780:

JonnyBlu.3486:

You could have stayed, tried your best, and actually learned something from the experience.

But you deliberately went afk during a rated match. They reported an afker.

I see no problem here.

Why do people like you exist?

Because he’s right?

No, he’s not. OP stated that he entered by accident, and had every intention of leaving as soon as the verbal bashing began. Why on earth should he help a group that’s verbally tearing him a new one?

because the regardless you join a game, you are supposed to play it, or you are breaking the rules.

It sucks that people were mean to him, doesnt give him an excuse to grief or exploit pvp. He could have closed the game, or asked them how to leave the match. In short, his excuse is no excuse. He probably will not be banned, but if he is, it is because he made the choice to try to get revenge on the players passive aggressively.

lets be clear, he trolled them on purpose because he didnt like how they treated him, for his mistake. That is not excuse.

darkace.8925:

On a slightly related note, I’m still waiting for someone – anyone – to make a cogent argument as to why removing the the water bucket and feed sack bundles from Diah’s farm or the recipe for Eda’s Apple Pie from the game improved the leveling experience.

what it boils down to, is they decided new players couldnt deal well with the concept of bundles, (a new skill bar based on environment) so they cut all such occurences from starter hearts.

munkiman.3068:

phys.7689:

Roybe.5896:

Torsailr.8456:

I would like to have our actions actually be reflected in the world over time.

IE. Zhaitan is dead, over time (2-3 years) we should see fewer risen in the game.
If certain events aren’t done then we get a spontaneous raid event related to it such as if we don’t do the centaur events in Kessex then a large group raids Queensdale. Or vice versa if over farmed.

Maybe tie this into a meta map system similar to what Dry top has so people realize it’s going on?

I agree with this. My question then is, shouldn’t the personal story be abandoned at some point? Why would anyone need to run the personal story IF the quest line is in the past, the area has been renovated into ‘not Zhaitan’? My point is, everyone wants repeatable content in a ‘living world’. Sorry, but you shouldn’t be able to. If the world changes, stories change and become unavailable. You can say something different, but in a world that moves on, you cannot do that. You can’t fight the wars of your grandfathers, so why, in a game that was advertised as such, should a new character?

pretty common to be able to do exactly that in fiction. There is no timeline on new charachters, whenever a story happened is when that story happened.

Let say i make a charachter named Jim. unless Jims charachter describes him as born on X date, there is no logical reason he could not have been involved in something else before that moment.

It would be nice (although maybe technically difficult) to make it more apparent you’re going back in time, to experience things again. I think i’ve seen them comment on it before and it would probably be a boatload of work, but it would be very cool. Like when you do the personal story, you go into LA before it was all messed up, type of thing.

it really isnt that hard.
give each story a year/date.
if the date is in the past start it off with a screen with intro text.
“320CE..
I remember in summer right after scarlet laid waste to the pulse of krya, Lions arch.”
with an illustration/graphic that sets whatever scene.

it really isnt that hard, to make it clear you are in a different time.

its basically as simple as having a loading screen. IF they want to get more complex, they could add post scripted narration to old content, fleshing it out, and giving context.

been playing bastion for the first time recently, and they are able to tell loads of story/flavor with a simple narrator, and triggers based on what you are doing/where you are going. Its not really that complex.

As far as the having multiple instances(like old and new LA), i dont think its really that hard, its more a matter of if they feel like putting aside any resources towards these ends, when they have other things to do. Also they would probably want to figure out whether they should do a simple solution, or a complex solution that is in the long run more effecient.
(copy the old map to a different map file) vs (create a system where you can alter one map, and use most of the same assents)

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

which kind of points out exactly what the OP is saying.
Its a way of shutting down conversation.

“I disagree with you, and i am not going to say why, i will just say you should leave the game.”

On the plus side, i guess its an easy way to make it clear to any reading devs that you are in opposition to the entire principle of what they are asking for.

perhaps that would be a better response.

The thing is, saying “I want Open World PVP, or I want mounts” is not exactly “conversation” now isn’kitten Doesn’t have any arguments or points for actual discussion, so giving the simple answer: “This game is not for you” is enough, it’s more like “I won’t bother with this”.

However, saying “I want Open World PVP because <>, and it would work like <>” is completely different. Adding mounts like they are in other games wouldn’t work in GW2 very well (see Mount thread X for details), that doesn’t mean adding mounts in some way or form wouldn’t work if they were tweaked in some way to fit the game.

I would say even Open World PVP could work in GW2 (remember BWE2?) in some form if it was presented in a way that makes sense in this game, both mechanic wise and lore/story wise. It CAN happen.

Suggestions “Add this from gameA just because” get a response of “this game isn’t for you” for a good reason, there isn’t enough to discuss there.

I agree with most of your second part, but maybe this game isnt for you is the exact opposite of the way to actually have discussion.
Its doesnt mean, you havent thought about it enough, it means your idea has no merit.

Girl tells guy, I want to see transformers
he says maybe you should find another guy.

that is totally different from saying
g: i want to see transformers
b: what is it you like about transformers?

flyingcats.6194:

Vayne.8563:

flyingcats.6194:

GW1 had the business design of “releasing an expansion every 6 months”. It was nice, but it also had insane drawbacks. It took ArenaNet way longer than planned to release their first expansion, and then after the second expansion it was already clear that this constant overload of new mechanics was absolutely not maintainable.

What they’re doing in GW2 is much better, in my opinion. They’re not adding mechanics at GW1’s crazy speed, but they are adding much more content. All those Living Story episodes, the extra story packs (which I paid 600 gems for yesterday, and was not disappointed by), new areas such as Southsun Cove and Dry Top… It keeps the game refreshing and interesting, without overloading it with nifty and fancy features that nobody was asking for in the first place.

If you’ve been away, it seems like they’re adding a lot of stuff. But the amount of stuff is less than it immediately appears unless you’ve been away.

For those people here two years without that break, there’s not much new content…at least partially because a lot of the content has been removed.

One of the most valid criticisms of the game, in my opinion, is that the Living Story season one gamble failed and we have had the best part of a year with relatively few updates.

I think over time that will be compensated for (I’m cautiously optimistic) but people who are complaining definitely have a point.

The living story at its best — with new content every two weeks — was definitely a high amount of new stuff at a steady pace. Unless you play 16 hours a day and play through everything at lightning speed of course, but I do like to think that those people ruin the game for themselves by doing that.

The two week pace was not sustainable internally. And generally it only took 2-3 hours per cycle to see the bulk of what is offered. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But is a fallacy to say you need to play a lot fully experience LS, or that it was a lot of new content.

fact is, in the year 2014 we have had 7 releases so far, and likely there will be around 3-4 more by the end of the year, so
10-11 releases, each which generally had 1-2 hours of new content (aside from grinding achievements/items)
so even the most casual player can get the full experience fairly easily, with about 24 hours of playtime in a year.

not horrible, but not really a shining display either. oh yeah the best parts of the first 3 releases, are basically gone

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

flyingcats.6194:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

When suggestions pop up for things like “open world PvP” or “remove all waypoints, then add mounts” . . . no, I’m still going to respond with that statement. Because this game is clearly not the one they’re looking for.

When you reply to this with “this game is not for you” to this, you’re showing one thing: Your deep-down reason for not wanting to have those features is the same as their reason for wanting them: because it would make the game more similar to WoW.

Ergo, you’re being just as narrow minded as they are. Instead of replying “this game is not for you”, it would be more useful to explain why those features would be out of place in Guild Wars 2, in your opinion.

I would, except more often than not I find myself being derided and picked apart over avoiding those changes. I gave reasons, repeatedly, and even shifted my stance on mounts for instance. Doesn’t matter, me saying “I don’t think that’s a good idea to shoot for” means “you’re incapable of logic”.

Your response pretty much encapsulates why I stopped posting two-post replies to things and just keep it short and snarky. I don’t have the time to waste trying to lob arguments back and forth with people who don’t want to listen (and those who do listen and I can hold a good conversation with are a casualty for this, yes).

You immediately decided I didn’t want this game to be WoW. You’re . . . mistaken, and you tried to tell me what it is deep-down I want. You tried to tell me what objections I have, rather than asking me to provide them.

Ergo, you’re exactly as narrow minded as you claim me to be. Either that, or you just want to score points off me in some game nobody is keeping score over anyway. I really don’t care.

I reply “maybe this game isn’t for you” usually because I really think they’d have more fun playing something else. It’s the same thing I tell people who want to see Roguelike games like NetHack without permadeath.

. . . even if the gnome with a wand is a sneaky son of a skritt.

which kind of points out exactly what the OP is saying.
Its a way of shutting down conversation.

“I disagree with you, and i am not going to say why, i will just say you should leave the game.”

On the plus side, i guess its an easy way to make it clear to any reading devs that you are in opposition to the entire principle of what they are asking for.

perhaps that would be a better response.

maddoctor.2738:

Harper.4173:

So – they reset our levels in order to “start an earnest competition” that never started. And they never said why.

Unfortunately only 50 levels isn’t a high enough number for a proper leaderboard. Top 1000 players on the leaderboard will all be at Fractal level 50 so what’s the point?

and how is it that within 2 minutes of announcing a leaderboard, people saw this flaw, yet in months of development, and making a huge descion like resetting level progress, no one at anet saw this. Even after weeks of people telling them it served little to no purpose, they still ignored everyone and did it anyway.

And the sad part, is even with numerous design failures that have occured due to this type of we only tell you what we are doing when we wont change it for another 12 months development, they continue to believe its a good strategy for development.

they either need more player feedback, or they need to master developing better solutions, that have less obvious and annoying flaws built in.

*disclaimer, i am not speaking in absolutes here, there are of course times when they make changes fast, and i applaud that, but overall, if something comes down the dev pipe, and you dont like it, chances are it will not be changed for 8 months to a year. And that is only if there is a truely large outcry, if it is simply not as good, or a general downgrade, it will probably stay in.

joshc.3129:

Kurrilino.2706:

Esmee.1067:

The way I’d compare them;
Guild Wars started with 6 classes and grew to 10 classes within 2 years, but Guild Wars 2 started off with 8 classes straight away.

---

First of all you had 2 classes to cross in any way you liked and wanted.
So GW1 started with 36 classes and ended with 100, GW2 still has 8……….

Did all of the combinations made sense ??? Of course.
But this was one of the best features…. and made GW1 such a success.
The freedom to pick from millions of skills and mix them with others.

GW2 took lots of these features out that made A-Net what they are.. or onced were, better said.

GW2 looks unfinished and so incredible uncreative like someone forced someone to program it. No love for the game no love for deatails and even worse completely
ignoring why people love GW1 so much

The double professions and large amount of skills in GW1 is what also kept the game really unbalanced and the double professions and the large number of skills that came with it is also what made a lot players shy away from the game because it was to overwhelming for them (hints* why Anet dumb down GW2).

With the countless nerfs from Anet destroying entire professions and entire skill lines, 90% of the skills went unused because of nerfs or the skill effect was basically worthless. With the use of henchmen and heros many players just went for the very overpowered builds and did the game solo killing the player interaction part of the game.

Don’t forget many of the skills where just copy and paste skills meaning the base game and each expansion had skills that where the same when it came to doing the same effect just called by a different name.

That’s why Anet did away with the second profession concept to help new players not feel overwhelmed and focus on the quality of the skills rather than the quantity of skills. This also help prevent overpowered builds from creating chaos in-game and help keep the player interaction alive that was killed off early on in GW1.

problem is, the experiment failed, the game isnt really more engaging than gw1 was when it comes to pvp, or entertainment gained via using skills. Checking on the spvp forums, the game isnt any more balanced than gw1 was.
I would rather have tons of skills, the meta sees no use for, rather than a few skills the meta sees no use for.

and lets be really honest here, which skill is it that you feel is of great quality in this game? I mean i like some skills in this game, but they are not any better designed than skills in gw1.
In fact i would usually say its the combat mechanics that shine in this game, the majority of skills are usually pretty lackluster.

Broom.2561:

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Another alternative solution for unlocking traits could be to have Adept and Master level traits attached to specific Renown Hearts across the map. Grandmaster level traits could be tied to specific Elite or Champion boss enemies in level 60+ zones that are not attached to any dynamic events.

This could be a less frustrating way of getting players to naturally gain new traits as they explore the map while harking back to GW1’s skill quests and elite capping from bosses. And as usual, offer a way of just buying the traits outright (minus the skill point cost, please).

You do realize, I hope, that this penalizes people whose play style does not include PVE? Making people do things they do not like doing is not exactly the way to go if you want to keep players playing (and paying).

That is what was so great about the old system. All you needed to do, was buy a trait book ever x levels, after which you could experiment at will.

they should have an alternative method of unlocking in WvW that uses WXP as a gate, and karma and/or badges of honor to buy traits. To make it slightly more interesting, they could make the “trait trainers” have access to more or less traits depending on the situation.

not that i think hearts is a good suggestion, but i do believe that pve, and WvW should have different methods of aquisition for skills

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Another alternative solution for unlocking traits could be to have Adept and Master level traits attached to specific Renown Hearts across the map. Grandmaster level traits could be tied to specific Elite or Champion boss enemies in level 60+ zones that are not attached to any dynamic events.

This could be a less frustrating way of getting players to naturally gain new traits as they explore the map while harking back to GW1’s skill quests and elite capping from bosses. And as usual, offer a way of just buying the traits outright (minus the skill point cost, please).

hearts are not the best part of this game by far, i wouldnt require people to do 30 hearts.

Kreejaffa.3682:

I have a friend who is an old GW1 player who decided tonight that he was going to give GW2 a try, since it was a free trial and all.

I listened to him as he made a character, and played through level 6. He stopped at level 6 and said he was no longer interested.

Along the way, the main things he disliked was how dumbed down some of the hearts were. As a human, when he got to the farm, he found it quite silly to dance for a cow. I explained you used to be able to pick up feed sacks and feed the cows. He complained how there were so few weapon skills, and how boring it was to attempt to kill things so far.

He made it to the heart at Claypool, and this is where he pretty much got fed up. He again was saying it was very boring, and nothing was there to keep your attention. No story to drive you. I explained to him that the personal story has been split up into chapters now, unlocked every 10 levels. Shortly after completing the heart at Claypool, he exited the game.

From all that I gathered from listening to him, the level gating on the skills made combat boring, the hearts themselves were too simplified to keep his attention, and because the story is now locked into chapters every 10 levels, there was nothing there to keep him interested or going. He was just roaming around aimlessly, with no sort of focus.

Basically, what would have been another member of the community has probably been lost due to the changes brought on by the NPE.

yes, i figured this would be the case. I think they didnt realize, is a new player, especially the type who is going to leave quickly, needs a hook. The redesign of the game has no hooks.

Virtually nothing in the begining of the game is engaging anymore. In fact it always had this kind of problem, but NPE enhanced it.
moving story to level 10, basically makes starting the game about doing, doing a bunch of stuff you have no idea if you want to do, for no real reason

now, if the pure joy of playing the game/interacting with the world was high early, people may get distracted by the joy of playing and not realize it. But the npe dramatically decreases the chances of this, by making everything too easy, depthless. The pacing of new or interesting mechanics is too slow, the combat is to easy, the world people are interacting with is too simplified.

one hour is too long for a player to play with no compelling narrative.
if monsters were designed better, with more danger, than perhaps you could still get some thrill out of fighting an enemy with only two attacks, but it isnt, they stand there, and die.

i think if they wanted to improve player retention they should have focused NPE less on slowing down everything, and more on engaging the player. The more interesting something is, the more likely people will stick around to learn the ins and outs.

Roybe.5896:

Torsailr.8456:

I would like to have our actions actually be reflected in the world over time.

IE. Zhaitan is dead, over time (2-3 years) we should see fewer risen in the game.
If certain events aren’t done then we get a spontaneous raid event related to it such as if we don’t do the centaur events in Kessex then a large group raids Queensdale. Or vice versa if over farmed.

Maybe tie this into a meta map system similar to what Dry top has so people realize it’s going on?

I agree with this. My question then is, shouldn’t the personal story be abandoned at some point? Why would anyone need to run the personal story IF the quest line is in the past, the area has been renovated into ‘not Zhaitan’? My point is, everyone wants repeatable content in a ‘living world’. Sorry, but you shouldn’t be able to. If the world changes, stories change and become unavailable. You can say something different, but in a world that moves on, you cannot do that. You can’t fight the wars of your grandfathers, so why, in a game that was advertised as such, should a new character?

pretty common to be able to do exactly that in fiction. There is no timeline on new charachters, whenever a story happened is when that story happened.

Let say i make a charachter named Jim. unless Jims charachter describes him as born on X date, there is no logical reason he could not have been involved in something else before that moment.

Sariel V.7024:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Certainly there’s little to complain about about their relationship being more important than Tyria.

Sure, there is. They can talk about their feelings for each other all they want, whenever they want – except for when we’re in the middle of a mission. Hoo boy, if my mesmer had really been the ‘boss’ in that situation, those two would still be waiting for their ears to stop burning. She’d have made Gunnery Sergeant Hartman blush.

You mean people in the middle of missions in real life never talk about anything personal? Hell you’ve never watched a war movie where the guys are in a trench talking about home and their loved ones?

Give me a break.

No, sir. No break. They weren’t in a trench. They were smack dab in the middle of unfamiliar territory facing threats known and unknown. Not the appropriate time for relationship chatter.

Go watch Aliens with your favorite adult beverage. Take a drink for every time Hudson says something that should earn him a reprimand. Have another for every time he gets one. You should be blackout drunk by about 100 minutes in.

The point isn’t whether chatter is appropriate. The point is it happens. And btw, you’re in an adventuring company, not a rigorously trained military squadron.

1) main problem is you cannot escape them yapping, IRL, you can ignore such conversations or start talking to your other friend. In gw2, you must stand around while the convo is happening. 9/10 times.
2)Irl, you can tell them to kitten, get a room, save it for the bedroom, or otherwise mock and ridicule their overly coupltastic behavior, or just stop hanging out with them. Perhaps they should let you pick 3 npcs to come with you, and you can leave the rest of the guys at home.
3)These type of convos do happen, but usually at appropriate times, and with appropriate lengths. While you are actively in a danger situation, responses are shorter, more to the point, more context driven. In general though they will happen when its a direct lull, when people camp for the night or in a moment of liesure.

Bottom line is it generally feels really unnatural, and for many people those charachters are annoying.

I would love a, hey “insert npc name” shut up. When whatever personal unrelated dialogs are happening

Behellagh.1468:

I’m with Vayne on this. I play games to relax and enjoy myself, not to treat it as a job or as a way to measure my self-worth.

A lot of people enjoy themselves by meeting challenges. In fact the large majority of games created by man have some element of difficulty or challenge, or it becomes boring.
Tag? run around chasing people avoiding you. If they are just gonna stand there, its pretty boring.
darts, could be just hit the wall, but having things to aim for makes it fun.
pacman? dodge these guys and eat everything on the map.

let me try to think of games that dont have this element, playing house, peek a boo. Kinda drawing a blank on others.

I suppose its not a gaming joy people get from this game. Its more of a do something and see result joy? like spinning a top?

regardless, people who want games with some sort of challenge or difficulty or goal are not really the exception.

laokoko.7403:

I think lots of the time it is more than a popularity contest.

For example if the developer knows players want item A, but item A just take way too long to develop, and is hard to do, more than that if the developer did a bad job players will be angry anyway. Not only that, since it take very long to develop the content, many people might get impatient.

But, item B is much easier to develop, the developer can do it quickly, and many people will actually do item B, eventhough the players arn’t thrill about it, they’ll actually log on and do it. There is small chance of failure.

If you are the developer, which route will you take. I just think it is more than what players want scenario.

problem with that is, eventually you have a lot of small changes not many people dislike, but no big updates that many people like.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Snow White.1842:

The LS (to me) seems like an excuse to add very thin “content” over mostly already existing areas. Npc text covers any pretense for being “where ever” doing “what ever”. Drytop (as an area) is tiny.

I respectfully disagree. Halfway through season 2 we already got 19 (!) story missions which are more challenging and include longer playtime than any story mission before. It might not be difficult for you personally, but I (can only speak for myself) noticed a significant increase in difficulty which made the missions more tense and more fun to me.

In season 1 people complained about the lack of replayability, not you can do these missions again and again and work on some achievements which demand a bit more than your 0815 first runthrough. The only thing I find underwhelming are the achievement-rewards, a new skin for perfection would have been nice.

Drytop may be not the biggest zone (yet) but it has more stuff going on than on any other map we got before, so I really see no reason to complain. The reward-scheme is a good step in the right direction while I think there may still be flaws (again, mostly uninteresting rewards for geodes except the mats you need for Mawdrey).

ehh, all those missions make up like what 4 hours playtime? maybe 6? And i’m not talking about leet playing here, im talking about first time see whats going on playing. I dont really think each mission is any longer than each mission in personal story. fairly certain each part is on average 10 min to 30 min which is the same as personal story generally.

Vayne.8563:

Ian.1349:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Allelya.6830:

I don’t want end-game anymore, I want more stuff. Two years and now we have dry, tasteless Living Story about two lesbians worrying more about each other than about Tyria.

…not only does that sound INCREDIBLY bigoted, but I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about. Are you even PLAYING the living story?

Also, I’m not the OP. My post was in reply to the ORIGINAL poster, who has since deleted his comment. So… yeah. Go ahead and step right in here, late to the discussion, and make assumptions about everything you missed over the last week.

The discussion has moved on FAR past these first comments. Either catch up to what is being discussed now, or just leave the old stuff drop. This comment is no longer relevant.

There wasn’t anything bigoted about that statement. The living story does spend a lot of time focusing on the Marjory and Kasmeer end of things. I guess you don’t know but they are lesbians.

But the fact that they are lesbians, in theory, should have nothing to do with your complaint. Certainly there’s little to complain about about their relationship being more important than Tyria.

At the very least your comment makes it feel like a heterosexual couple wouldn’t have received the same treatment.

Stating they are lesbians isnt really bigotted, it could be, but we cant really tell just from that. Because in the sentence its just a description.

But as far as them talking during the missions, its pretty annoying, because i dont care, it has nothing to do with me. Im not saying they shouldnt have discussions, but generally they are designed to be in the way of whatever is happening. Often unskippable. I think they should put most of this as optional side story stuff you have to actively engage in. I can understand them telling each other this stuff, but why do i have to listen to it public. Most people would tell their friends with this type of behavior irl to stop having big personal conversation material in the group setting.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Well wanze, i just did 50 promotions. Average? 56 iron ingots. It’s not because you have precursor luck (luck that’s way to good to be normal, for average player), that you can state it as a fact that that is the rate.

Even if i believe 80 ingot are the average, and I use the best case scenarios (buy order -10c, sell order +20c), the best gold gain is 1,2g. If i use my math on it, it’s a (x56 ingots) it’s a only 30 silver.

You also don’t take into account market limitations. I see 5 people posting here about 50k stacks promotions… really? While these markets have velocity, i’m pretty sure, there’s no 300k thousands sold/bought per day, no way. Also iron ore is dipping, so why would this remain profitable? I doubt it. Seems like it ‘used to be a good source’, but some people forgot to do the math again, and now suddenly would realize it ain’t that good anymore (it should be even worse, by posting this on forums, luring more people out).

the velocity on iron is many many times greater than copper.

first of all copper is only used on low levels, iron is used on mid levels which has about the same exp curve. Iron is also used twice in daily ascended crafting, (As iron and as steel) and it is also used in many side consumable recipes, as well as your odd weird recipe (like backpacks) iron is used for two level ranges as well.

iron has a really large velocity.

meh, fine count all the races/sexes then, but only count the pieces that are not a skin on a different shaped body.
you will also have to count the sexes for gw1 though

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

Scipio.3204:

Ohh boy I see I have my homework for today! Lets try it with only cantha:

GW1 Armors in cantha, there was: Shing Jea, Kurzick/Luxon & Elite Version, Canthan, Elite Canthan. Thats for 6 professions and they had all these versions for Ritu/Sin+ Exotic Armor sets. That means 8 (Profession) * 7 (Version) * 5 (Armor Piece) + 10 ( For ritu/Sin exotic armor) That’s 290 different armor piece.

Now on GW2 Non-gemstore armor pieces
2 new PvP set , Ascended armor . Thats three version from each means 9 different armor with 6 individual piece. 54 in all , now let’s count small things:
In the recent patch 6 new backpacks for every crafting profession : 48
Living story backpacks since release ( Check it on wiki if you don’t believe me): 30
+ 1 PvP Backpack
3 craftable, god themed back & fractal backs (4)
Collection reward backpack (1)
Standalon armors (Like dry top glasses etc, counted on wiki) : 27

Total Individual armor number: 165 ,

and Just for fun!
GW2 Gemstore Armor pieces since release!

6 Gemstore armor packs have been released ( means 6 medium, 6 light, 6 heavy.)
That means : 18*6 individual armor piece : 108
Number of individual armor pieces: 43 + 5 from black lion chest.
Also costumes: 8 added since release, lets count with two/ each : 16

Total armor pieces added to gemstore since release : 172 Individual armor piece

If I miscalculated something feel free to correct me.

ohh homework havent had dont in years

anyway.. you forgot to factor in races as well as forgot radiant and hellfire sets though to be fair until last update they were missing 2 pieces.

so its actually 5 sets x 3 version x 5 races x 6 pieces = 405 pieces

according to this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Gem_Store_armor_sets

there were 21 armor skin variants in the gem store x 5 races x 6 pieces = 630 pieces

so in all its 1035 pieces

thats not factoring in that gw2 armor pieces are more elaborate then the gw1 models too.

There were also a truckload of weapon skins released. like 34 unique skins released with the champion reward updates.. The ones that were tied to living story like the aetherized weapons, dragon weapons etc.. The new set tied to dry top. etc.. thats quite a number of skins there too.

but even counting just the none gem shop skins thats 1035 armor pieces + 165 misc (calculated by yourself thanks ) = 1200 thats about 4x more then your count for factions

factoring in multiple races is kind of stretching it. Its the same gear/skin on a different shaped body.

i think now you are just reaching. I guess by that token AION has like near infinite gear sets, since they have a robust body customization option.

I think the point is, pick a charachter, how many different options can you have with that charachter.

mostly valid point
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Apprentice_armor

You can see its not the same model exactly across all races? Look at the neck area of the asura and charr. charr is open, the asuran one is closed Auran version has straps going round the neck, charr version has them on the shoulders. and they’re all pretty different then the human version

But human norn and sylvari are identical. so that I admit was a mistake on my part.

that being said I did forget gender, male and female have differnet models which I forgot to factor in. so even though to be fair races should be multiplied by 3 not by 2 you need to add a 2 multiplier for genders so number remains the same.

Its good to be right even when you’re wrong but yes

Still reaching, both gw1 and gw2 have male and female models (aka it cancels out)
changing 3 things on an armor doesnt really make it a new armor. and even if you wanted to claim it does, that doesnt happen for every peice, or every armor. Some armors are exactly the same except warped for a new body type.
Also IF you want to bring female/male into this, you would have to realize that asura uses identical male/female armor for some peices.

regardless i would say its pointless to even look at races or sex, because that doesnt increase the amount of options you have for a specific charachter. Female char will never be able to wear male clothes, and never be able to wear whatever skin looks slightly different on a human.

Ehecatl.9172:

Curunen.8729:

My belief is ranged combat is impossible to balance in this game because of one thing – tab targeting => no skill needed to aim ranged attacks.

Yes I know it’s not a shooter but here lies the problem. Then we either have:
- ranged skills too weak as in the past with combat strongly favouring melee
- ranged skills too strong with no skill required compared to melee

Ranged combat DOES require skill. It’s incredibly biased to say otherwise.

A ranged damage dealer has to be capable of keeping away from the enemy, which requires well timed snares, knock downs, immobilizes, etc to limit the enemy’s advance while simultaneously desperately avoiding any of the opponent’s control effects and trying to continuously run away without turning your back on the enemy so you can keep doing damage.

Melee counters this strategy with gap closing skills to get in close and utilize their own slows and control effects trying to keep the ranged fighter in melee range.

It’s called kiting. It’s in just about every RPG ever invented, and it’s the single most important skill a ranged fighter can have.

but if the ranged damage is close to the melee damage, or the ranged class is just as survivable, what excatly is gained by getting close? thats the problem, IF ranged is too powerful.
the melee has to do the exact same things that you say make the ranged skilled, except they do no damage when they arent doing it well.

I agree with the poster, that ranged damage basically has to be balanced by complex mechanics/set ups or perhaps more mechanics to block ranged damage. If succesful closing the gap mattered, i think you might have a point, but it really doesnt.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Galen Grey.4709:

Not dismissing anything also company doesnt price any tp item for the millionth time, players do that. But anyhow cosmetic is different because if you need 6 months to get the gear tier you need to play 1/2 the game its totally different then needing 6 months to get the skins you love so much. In 1 you’re missing out stuff and limited during those 6 months, in the other you’re not.

Iirc the gem<->gold covnersion isn’t as innocent as you’re tying to make it look, but I don’t have the time/nerves to dig up the posts discussing that issue.
And well, you’re missing out on the skins, which are considered end-game, and on the BiS, but you don’t really need either if you’re just doing normal things (zergs).

On double charging – the game is borderline a f2p but still charges you for the box. Just a matter of time unti the store starts adding non-cosmetics (outside convenience items).

On time sink – see GW, and behold how such a simple concept in terms of gearing, leveling, build-making, and skill hunting boasts longevity stretching way over 5 years.

just like to say here. Unless GW2 starts selling content, only one of two things can happen with gw2.

• they cater to getting new players to buy the box
• they cater to the cash shop, and basically become a f2p cash shop game.

this is because your monetization policy determines what you produce. The only way they can continue to make money, is to make more people want gem shop items. Or have new players buy the box.

This is also why you may have noticed a more and more aggressive gem shop as the game goes on. You now get gathering boosts, almost all new cosmetic armors/outfits, special access to well designed npc areas, gathering nodes, cash shop items linked to special resources.
as well as focus on new markets like china, NPE (which they think will retain more new players) Megaserver (less likely for new players to feel lonely)

you cant really escape your monetization policy. It will always effect what/how you develop. That said, as far as value goes for a f2p/b2p mmo, gw2 is probably high on the list.

Sleepwalker.1398:

Oh i just started a new character a few days back and when reached i think level 52 or something, i was given a tip in the game about combos and fields after level up. So any new player out there, if you are taking advantage of combo fields before level 52, Stoppp….you’re doing it wrong, follow tutorial, your not suppose to take advantage of these fields before then

Ok, on another note, seems for Anet staff, this thread is either hidden or invisible. Can someone please fix this or let us know whats happening with this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits

You were pretty quick to push out patches to fix the NPE stuff ups but completely ignore the traits thread, why? This is ongoing since April patch

what this generally means, is either 1 of 3 things:

• 1) they have decided what they want to do, and no longer will pay attention to what people want until they finish making the new functionality.
• 2) they arent working on it right now, or its low priority.
• 3) they like it how it is and have no intention of changing it.

They will not tell us which it is, because it is their policy not to tell players anything about whats in development or what development goals are.

eisberg.2379:

munkiman.3068:

Galen Grey.4709:

ohh homework havent had dont in years

anyway.. you forgot to factor in races as well as forgot radiant and hellfire sets though to be fair until last update they were missing 2 pieces.

so its actually 5 sets x 3 version x 5 races x 6 pieces = 405 pieces

according to this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Gem_Store_armor_sets

there were 21 armor skin variants in the gem store x 5 races x 6 pieces = 630 pieces

so in all its 1035 pieces

thats not factoring in that gw2 armor pieces are more elaborate then the gw1 models too.

There were also a truckload of weapon skins released. like 34 unique skins released with the champion reward updates.. The ones that were tied to living story like the aetherized weapons, dragon weapons etc.. The new set tied to dry top. etc.. thats quite a number of skins there too.

but even counting just the none gem shop skins thats 1035 armor pieces + 165 misc (calculated by yourself thanks ) = 1200 thats about 4x more then your count for factions

Well, to be fair he/she didn’t account for male and female variants either (which is relevant in both games). If you’re comparing between the original and GW2, you can’t take into account races. While it’s also fair to say, that’s a decent bit of work in and of itself, to make armors work on all races, if we just talk about sets themselves, that’s more telling.

It’s obviously a lot harder in this game to create armor, so it’s probably overall unfair to compare an apple to a banana.

That is a good point. Also, Guild Wars 2 seems to have more diversity in how people look, because of mixing armor pieces from different sets/pieces. I don’t remember nearly as much diversity in Guild Wars 1 because people didn’t seem to veer to far, if at all, away from the armor sets.

the lack of diversity, was mostly because you didnt see most players. The ones you did see were generally using show off pieces, like chaos gloves elite armors etc.
When you spend like a month getting a vabbian set, you will probably wear it almost exclusively

Galen Grey.4709:

KarlaGrey.5903:

Bad gear; warriors having sick regen ..

Bad gear? with no gear at all you should be doing over 1k condition damage per second. regen from signet shouldnt come close to match that. also of course you dont need to run with no gear at all, so in actuality you should be doing close to twice that even if using just rares which I am sure you have no trouble getting.
You’re a necro so you should be dishing out conditions and then using crowd control to keep your distance and disrupt the warriors for as long as possible. then dish out a nice fear and chill to have the time to dish out the conditions again as they expire. I am not saying you should win every single fight against warriors but they’re definitely killable.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Changing one’s play style in combat has nothing to do with wanting to try out different builds and stumbling across the brickwall that is stat-based gear. …

its not bad design its inevitable. Gw2 gives you the freedom to play any role. how can any gear support any role? Other MMOs have essentially the same issue which they solve by forcing you to stick to a single role. Thats an option but I dont really see the need for it. There will also be that build you love most, get the best gear for it and then get rares for the other builds once you see thy work for you. You can test out the build in any gear really so why not do that ? Rares are cheap, 2g max you can fully gear up.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough, but I only ever tried wvw a couple of times..

Okey I missunderstood then sorry. What do you typically play then?

KarlaGrey.5903:

You see, I only leveled them to max..

oh so you just do spvp then? how exactly do you have a gear problem in sPvP? Also just by playing sPVP you can now full gear your PvE in exotics thanks to the reward tracks. So 2 problems solved.

KarlaGrey.5903:

You intentionally missed the point..

No I didnt miss the point, you’re doing a supposition that you’re treating as fact. Every game even the ones that do not allow trading of real world into in game currency which is like most MMOs out there have gear thats hard to get yet just because here you can use the cash shop to lessen that doesnt mean the rarity is a result of the cash shop. If it where why would other games have hard to get items even though cash shop has no impact? Correlation doesnt imply causation. Just cause one can observe two related facts.. gemstore that can be used to speed up acquiring an item, item thats hard to get it doesn’t automatically mean one is the result of the other. Hard to get items exist in every MMO and are essential to their longevity. Pirates used to sail the seas and as the number of pirates continues to decline the sea levels continue to rise. Does that mean sea level is rising cause we dont get enough new pirates?

KarlaGrey.5903:

Idc about the cosmetics at the shop…

Like I already said obtaining gold and price of items are relative. Making it easy to obtain gold will just result in prices of those items rising up. If buying the wool to craft a whole ascended get armor costs 43 gold right now. And arenanet made it easy for people to make 50g an hour do you think it would result in people being able to buy the wool they need in less then an hour? no cost of wool would increase. People arent selling bolts of wool for 6s just for fun, they price it like that cause it takes time to gather wool and they’re not going to bother if some other activity makes then 50g per hour when to make the same amount of money they need to farm wool for hours.

KarlaGrey.5903:

On a side note, you shouldn’t conveniently dismiss that fact GW2 is a lot about the look…

Not dismissing anything also company doesnt price any tp item for the millionth time, players do that. But anyhow cosmetic is different because if you need 6 months to get the gear tier you need to play 1/2 the game its totally different then needing 6 months to get the skins you love so much. In 1 you’re missing out stuff and limited during those 6 months, in the other you’re not.

there is a build of warrior for whom conditions is basically worthless. It turns conditions into boons, and has extremely high healing power. It can clear conditions constantly.

However it is kind of tanky, but warrior has pretty high base damages, and can probably kill a condi necro over time.
poison will turn into regen, bleed stacks will get cured, and they will regen from signet as well as the regen spell.

that said its essentially a hard counter for attrition condi builds, and it may have been nerfed. It takes forever to do anything, and generally one should just run away if you face one of these builds.

Galen Grey.4709:

Scipio.3204:

Ohh boy I see I have my homework for today! Lets try it with only cantha:

GW1 Armors in cantha, there was: Shing Jea, Kurzick/Luxon & Elite Version, Canthan, Elite Canthan. Thats for 6 professions and they had all these versions for Ritu/Sin+ Exotic Armor sets. That means 8 (Profession) * 7 (Version) * 5 (Armor Piece) + 10 ( For ritu/Sin exotic armor) That’s 290 different armor piece.

Now on GW2 Non-gemstore armor pieces
2 new PvP set , Ascended armor . Thats three version from each means 9 different armor with 6 individual piece. 54 in all , now let’s count small things:
In the recent patch 6 new backpacks for every crafting profession : 48
Living story backpacks since release ( Check it on wiki if you don’t believe me): 30
+ 1 PvP Backpack
3 craftable, god themed back & fractal backs (4)
Collection reward backpack (1)
Standalon armors (Like dry top glasses etc, counted on wiki) : 27

Total Individual armor number: 165 ,

and Just for fun!
GW2 Gemstore Armor pieces since release!

6 Gemstore armor packs have been released ( means 6 medium, 6 light, 6 heavy.)
That means : 18*6 individual armor piece : 108
Number of individual armor pieces: 43 + 5 from black lion chest.
Also costumes: 8 added since release, lets count with two/ each : 16

Total armor pieces added to gemstore since release : 172 Individual armor piece

If I miscalculated something feel free to correct me.

ohh homework havent had dont in years

anyway.. you forgot to factor in races as well as forgot radiant and hellfire sets though to be fair until last update they were missing 2 pieces.

so its actually 5 sets x 3 version x 5 races x 6 pieces = 405 pieces

according to this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Gem_Store_armor_sets

there were 21 armor skin variants in the gem store x 5 races x 6 pieces = 630 pieces

so in all its 1035 pieces

thats not factoring in that gw2 armor pieces are more elaborate then the gw1 models too.

There were also a truckload of weapon skins released. like 34 unique skins released with the champion reward updates.. The ones that were tied to living story like the aetherized weapons, dragon weapons etc.. The new set tied to dry top. etc.. thats quite a number of skins there too.

but even counting just the none gem shop skins thats 1035 armor pieces + 165 misc (calculated by yourself thanks ) = 1200 thats about 4x more then your count for factions

factoring in multiple races is kind of stretching it. Its the same gear/skin on a different shaped body.

i think now you are just reaching. I guess by that token AION has like near infinite gear sets, since they have a robust body customization option.

I think the point is, pick a charachter, how many different options can you have with that charachter.

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

The game felt so huge.

By the time I bought it, the EOTN had been released. I played all the way from the northernmost edge in Jaga Morraine down to the southernmost areas in Cantha, all across the parched plains of Elona and up to again the endlessly burning forests of the Charr area.

I miss the scale and scope of the dungeons. Not cramped rooms filled with seemingly endless trash mobs but whole maps in their own right where you carefully maneuvered among the mobs, taking them out one by one. (And the Dreadspawn Maw in the Domain of Anguish, aka DoA or Dead on Arrival, scared the spit out of me by coming out of the ground right beside me the first time I was there). The Guild Wars 2 dungeons don’t evoke the same feelings of battling dangerous foes.

By comparison, Guild Wars 2 feels so much smaller.

Keep in mind, I was able to finish all four Guild Wars 1 titles in a single week once.

you can probably finish gw2 in 1 day if you so desire. I think personal story takes about an hour per plotline with like 8 big plotlines.
bulk of time in gw2 is spent leveling, which you can do via crafting if you want.