Guild Wars 2

Ryu.1368:

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Well, the only thing I find offensive isn’t your opinion or sentiment exactly.

What bothers me, is most of these types of threads want the addition/subtraction of content viewed through the lens of mechanical game-play function, and almost NEVER through the lens of immersion, lore, or justification of existence in a ‘virtual world’.

It marks in my mind the all but death of the RPG genre.

I can actually illustrate that better by reminding you that this is a world with imaginary sentient beings. Imaginary plant life and environments. Imaginary lives. Why would you wanna remove the ability to eat food in a world?

As it is, food as implemented is a another weak-paper-thin way to express a “living world” already since it’s just a crappy little icon, in an unimmersive inventory pane. It has no visual representation in world. You can’t see the character eating it. No home to cook it in. These are things most will read here and go “Um… it’s a game. Why would you put that stuff in anyway?” —again, this shows the RPG genre is all but dead.

What also bothers me is the whole “Living World! Tyria lives!” but feels more ‘plastic’ then older MMOs that felt more alive. When I watch the live streams, it breaks my heart see the faces of the developers, see age groups of those that create this rather solid but flawed game, and how respectfully hard-working they are with all odds against them on all sides, but how horribly and almost childishly naive they are when they actually think this game fits the ‘living world’ schematic, just because of the temporary-content storybook they call a ‘living story’ where everyone don’t exist in a persistent world, but a grand protagonist in their own copied-facet of the universe.

Sorry to say it, but if they removed food for gameplay mechanical reasons, It’d not surprise me in the least. It’s disappointing.

If you feel this is a tangent, then my on topic view is that food buffs don’t give enough of an advantage to be removed, but enough to add variety and help. Your reasoning isn’t as invalid as some here’d like to think, but close to it. It’s just an extra part of the lack of variety a class-based RPG has to offer in this case. I say it should stay. I hardly use the stuff myself, and win in 1v1 fights 70-80% of the time regardless of their class, whether they’re buffed or not. Eat food, and still not know how to move and fight…

Two of the same class/level/spec/skill level? One has food buff? Both are subject to the same margin of error and misstep. Food won’t always save you… … …

THIS.

So well put. Especially the death of RPG part. Mmorpgs nowadays have become all “combat, efficiency, better, farm, richer, faster” and the playerbase mentality has become like in real, corporate zombie world. What ever happened to the “play” in “role play”.

In fact, I would suggest that they make food even more essential – that a character will start losing his combat effectiveness if he doesn’t eat food for several hours in game play.

1.) Because there’s no subscription

2.) Because its still a relatively much better mmorpg than many other games with no subscription

3.) Because I’ve played for quite long and don’t wanna start a new mmorpg yet

Actually it was excessive but I wouldn’t find a reason as a player to complain about it. At the very least it makes your 450-475 leveling so much cheaper.

I don’t know why we’re just not given the option to choose whether to be in a Megaserver or not. I mean, megaserver has its own pros, but sometimes the zerg is just too big for what the events in the map seems to be designed for. I dont know if this is a design fault or anything, but if its too messy to redesign, at least you gotta give people the choice. I think everyone has their own preferences.

Wolf Night And Wings.6219:

I have also thought about how to deal with the hard-cap on bleeds, specifically (because I am a weird guy who plays condiwarrior. I am not kidding).

In my view, a mechanic that ignores defenses like bleeds obviously requires a ceiling, since it is a supplement to the reduced direct damage that condi characters can do already. However, applying said supplement should feel great for the player. After all, that condimancer is working really hard to keep up that bleed stack. Furthermore, the mechanic should reward multiple players for using the same build. If a group of Direct Damage builds work together, things die faster. If a group of Condi Builds work together, things…don’t.

Like OP said, conditions should be synergistic and promote cooperation. And here is my idea (warning: long post incoming):

All bleeds should contribute to percent health damage per second…

Wait, wait. Don’t touch the pitchforks yet. Let me finish.

But with an asymptote and a deceleration factor.

Say what?

I am saying bleed stacking should be a race-of-time mechanic. An application (not stack) of bleed by a skill should do a small percent health damage over time, determined by Condition Damage. Additional stacks of bleed increases that percentage, to a maximum (the asymptote I mentioned earlier).

So how is that different from what it is now?

It isn’t, yet. Here is where the deceleration factor (let’s call it Staunching for now) comes in. Instead of duration for each bleed, the intensity (percent health per second) of the bleed decreases over time, and the rate at which the intensity decreases will increase as intensity goes up. In other words, it is harder to reach the max percent health damage the more bleeds you apply. To keep up the bleed damage, then, requires applying more bleeds to maintain the intensity and fight the Staunching.

So it takes multiple characters to work together and constantly apply bleeds in order to bleed enemies at the fastest possible rate. The maximum percent health per second is now an asymptote (something you can get really, really close), and bleeding is now a synergistic race against time.

For example, if a group of condiwarriors walked up to a champion, they would:
1) Begin building bleed intensity with #1 Skill chain
2) Cap out on the bleed intensity due to staunching
3) Build up their adrenaline
4) Presse F1 all at the same time (Sever Artery everywhere),
5) Bleed the poor champ at the, let’s say, max rate for a brief moment,
6) Lose bleed intensity because they can’t apply bleeds as fast
7) Maintain initial bleed intensity

So what percentage health damage per second should be the max? 1? 2? 3? 5?

Well, depends. Let’s have a hypothetical example (all numbers are made up):

Here we have a champion monster.
It’s been mobbed by 10 Direct Damage warriors.
Same gear, same trait, same stat. For Direct Damage.
It dies in 180 seconds.

And here we have the same champion monster.
It’s been mobbed by 10 Condition Damage warriors.
Same gear, same trait, same stat. For Condition Damage.
Oh no. the game’s bugged. No one can apply any bleeds (like I said, hypothetical).
How much health did the champion lose in 180 seconds?
80%
That means Condition Damage Build is dealing 20% less Direct Damage in 180 seconds.
Which means bleed have to make up at least:
20% of health / 180 seconds = 0.111% of health per second
Then, the maximum cap for bleed intensity can be a little higher, like 0.15% of health per second, to reward good coordination in bleed application among multiple players.

Remember all numbers are hypothetical

This structure opens up balancing options for different situations too, as the amount of bleeds faced by World Bosses, Dungeon champions, Personal Story champions, etc. are all different. The number can be tweaked accordingly.

Since Condition Damage will affect the intensity increase by each application of bleed, investing in said stats will feel powerful and effective. The deceleration factor will make applying bleeds feel exciting and synergistic. Having multiple people applying bleeds will now work together, instead of getting into each other’s way.

What do you think? Am I full of bull? Do I have something going here?

I like this idea. Its elegant. But 1.) not sure if its too taxing to the system, and 2.) if it makes things for the casual player too complicated.

-Is it really adding to your overall experience?
Yes

-Does it make things too easy?
No

-Do I always use it? Why?
Yes. Because it adds a customized bonus – mf when im farming, power/toughness when needed. And I like the idea that its a CONSUMABLE. Not everything in a game is about efficiency, you know. The fact that I to gather materials and cook them by myself adds to the role play and immersion.

-Do I usually win 1v1 fights against those who don’t use it?
I dont know. Who cares.

-Do I craft my own for fun? Or just buy it off the TP?
I craft my own for fun.

-Do I offer it to other people when I see them without it? Why?
No. Its not my prerogative to tell how other people how to play their game.

No. Every other map is equally fine, except Skyhammer. Although Ive gotten quite used to it and QQ less, at the very best its still a Dev Troll map.

Actually prefer it the way it is(or the direction). I don’t know if there’s a reason to it except for the small population of pvpers, but for the relatively small time I’ve played spvp, the crowd is almost the same (fighting against the same people) even on different days.

Game design wise, competitiveness = very little percentage of player population is interested (majority of players/people are social players). Making pvp more of a social thing and less of a competitive thing is a good direction.

How about a better shuffle too. Played with and against the same people in the same teams for how many consecutive matches.

The number of PvPers playing concurrently in the whole of the GW2 gamer population cannot possibly be that bad that I am matched with the same people over and over again, regardless of rating or whatsoever.

Fell down and died. After respawning, I immediately fell down again (on spot) but didn’t die. Since there are no waypoints around, I couldnt get back up nor get killed to respawn.

Screenshot attached.

i dont even have them. I would like to buy some but cant seem to from TP.

Its ok, we’ll just find another way to farm something.

I agree.

There’s just a bunch of nerfs. I felt my combat effectiveness as an individual player reduced -and hence my feeling of individual importance within a zerg crowd- without even doing calculations. (and yes, ive updated my traits)

World bosses became somewhat tougher, but dont give considerably better loots in return. Otherwise still doable by the same amount of people in approximately the same amount of time up to a certain degree.

Traits changes dont matter much. Cosmetic changes to interface. New traits aren’t that interesting.

Megaservers are not up on the areas that matter.

So many minor changes to mechanics since Ive been playing since the release of this game but NOTHING feels different in a significant way.

Desthin Sinkropht.4123:

TL;DR: Gamers as a community have condensed legitimate game design concepts into buzzwords that trigger kneejerk reactions.

Of course this is fundamentally true, but game design concepts in their pure form have got nothing to do with gamers’ experience at all.

The average gamer generally doesn’t understand a game design concept as much as a game designer does, the same way that normal people don’t understand what an architect was trying to do with a building that they now live in for every day of their lives.

There is a gap between game design concept and user experience, and this gap is bridged by execution. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the designer has the most ideal of game design concepts, if the players do not feel accordingly or feel differently from what the game designer intended to do (hence, complaints), that means that there was a failure somewhere in the execution.

If only other game designers (like you) can see what a game is truly trying to do, that still means the game is poorly executed as a design. (As an experience though, it might not be necessarily so, because experience is personal.)

yea dance moves are the make and break features for me. If characters can’t dance well, this game is kitten.

The dance moves are so pathetic!

Can devs at least make some decent dance moves? At least something like the ones in LoL. Ezreal can do the para para dance, yknow!

A+ for English.

Blix.8021:

Get a better computer and monitor. 1024×768? Really?

It is hard to see in zerg fights, but you are in no position to complain with that poor of hardware.

Mwahahahaha. Omg I love this post!! +100000!!!

King troll ftw!

Gehenna.3625:

projectcedric.6951:

Btw, it’s called “social gameplay”.

=))

Well you rarely team up for zerg stuff and certainly don’t talk to other players and often people are left behind unressed because there’s no time to ress you. If you want to call that social…

I think it does what it does in WvW. Attacking a castle and all. Yeh, that’s usually done with an army zo a zerg makes sense there to me. The big dragons….well, not very heroic but considering how things are it makes sense there at well….but for the rest it’s just silly and not very social in my view. But I do get with some people like it.

Of course! The fact that you don’t necessarily have to talk with anybody in the zerg -because there isn’t anything to talk about- makes it even more comfortable to simply join zergs.

You can rest assured that there won’t be any conversation leading to anybody poking about your real life whatsoever, nor will there be any sharing of banal, mundane things like how the weather is like on your side of the world, or how men can never understand women, etc.

Furthermore, the fact that almost everyone’s build is the same, and there are no distinct individual roles make it unnecessary to bother other people about what they shall be doing as part of the zerg, so you can concentrate on spamming your 123457890 on that champ.

What’s not to like?

Mirta.5029:

Essentially players telling you to get used to it in a less harsh tone?

Dude, sometimes its not about what you say but how you say it =)

Stooperdale.3560:

Summoned mobs never have loot.

Really? Summoned wolves (by another wolf) gave me fangs.

The disparity between the two events is a little bit more than this.

I really wouldn’t mind doing Portals for the completion of the meta-event (after I do Aethers)… if the rewards for Portals is just a little bit less.

But how much more ridiculous can it be when even Veteran Aethers can at least drop a Bag, but a Veteran Twisted Nightmare drops NOTHING at all?

Btw, it’s called “social gameplay”.

=))

Flissy.4093:

My point is we have no proof that the rate is the same. AN have yet to prove anything such.

What the… Lol. Well, I do sincerely hope that the rate is the same. Otherwise, a game I paid 60 bucks for is severely broken, which is even a greater reason to cry foul for.

Flissy.4093:

In regards to forging them, you can throw in 4 Greatswords and you WILL get a Greatsword back, that means you can limit the pool of precursors you can get. If you want to craft a Dawn or Dusk, you can throw in 4 Greatswords and you CANNOT get any other precursors.

So yes, you can craft a specific precursor.

No. You can craft a RANDOM EXOTIC of a SPECIFIC TYPE. If you rely on the chance of a specific precursor coming through this method, this means that all precursors still have the same chance of being acquired, simply because if you can do it with greatswords, you can do it with hammers too. As far as I can tell, their requirements are still the same – 4 of the same type.

Understand that the number of availability or price of the precursor on the TP has got nothing to do with the difficulty of acquisition of said precursor from the game completely. If you really want a fair comparison, compare the acquisition of something relative to another, without purchasing or selling anything from the TP.

Once the TP comes into discussion, a lot of other factors come in.

We are not talking about the in-game society being fair here. Obviously, there is some kind of overall bias towards greatswords, seeing how majority of legendary crafters want to craft greatswords (if you cant take my word for it, TP price of dusk and dawn is a testament to this).

What we are talking about is the game (mechanics) itself being fair under its own rules.

Of course, there is no need to state the obvious that the game doesn’t necessarily want to be fair. For example, perhaps, it doesn’t indeed want as many people who acquire a Juggernaut as much as people who acquire a Twilight.

There is also no need to point the obvious that things like ‘want’ is hard to quantify and kitten – and had I wanted to, I can simply opt to craft a different legendary (nothing is stopping me) or choose to craft none at all. These are all beside the point.

So with this, I end my participation in this ridiculous (troll-ful, I hope) discussion.

Flissy.4093:

projectcedric.6951:

What other parts exactly? All the rest are the same except for one gift and precursor. You cannot compare precursors at all because game-wise, all the precursors have the same rate of dropping. Their difference in prices is due to the difference in demand, which is playerbase’s fault rather than the game.

Legend is currently 1333g on the TP, with only 1 available. This is more than Dusk, but Twilight is the most sought after Legendary.

Tell me again that the rate of precursors is the same.

Oh, don’t forget you can forge precursors too, so supply/demand has nothing to do with it – more people will forge as supply increases. How many people do you know that throw in Tridents to get Venom?

Oh my goodness…

This is gonna be hard to explain… But I will try my best to make it as easy for you as possible, okie?

Lets say that there are 100 exotics in the game. Chance of Colossus dropping = 1/100. Chance of Zap dropping = 1/100. With regards to acquisition from the game itself, the RATE OF ACQUIRING PRECURSORS ARE THE SAME.

What is not the same is the demand of each precursor. And this demand affects the availability and price of the item in the TP. This is not due to the game itself at all, but due to the behavior of players. It has got nothing to do with the game being unfair.

How in F’s name can you intentionally forge a specific precursor???? While the system is possibly being anticipated in the future, its not available yet. You can try and forge a RANDOM EXOTIC. Which means that once again all precursors has the same chance of coming out from this activity.

Oh. My. Goodness. Either you’re just a really smart troll, or… I hope you are.

Flissy.4093:

projectcedric.6951:

Molten Lode: 150 × 70s = 105g

Charged Lode: 100 × 2g = 200g

Difference = 100g

Gossamer Bolt: 250 × 2s = 3g

Silver Doubloon: 250 × 82s =200g

Difference = 197g

I made my Bolt when Charged were 3.2g each, and Molten were 50s each. Meaning Gift of Lightning was more expensive than Vial of Quicksilver.

I dare you to try and find a post of me complaining about this. I dare you.

I’ll actually add how it’s unfair that you only need 100 of your item, while I need 250 of mine!

projectcedric.6951:

Flissy.4093:

Don’t like what you need, don’t craft it. Simple as.

HAHAHAHAHA. HAhaha. Ha ha. Ha. ha. ha.

Omg. So funny. My insides are hurting so much.

I like how you couldn’t respond with anything constructive.

So? Is it my fault that you crafted your legendary during a different time when prices were different? For all I know, there could be a new way of acquiring silver doubloons tomorrow and prices could drop tremendously. Doesn’t mean my complaining NOW is illegitimate, because it pertains to the CURRENT system of things. Not in the past, nor tomorrow.

Just because you didn’t complain doesn’t mean i shouldn’t complain. If you didn’t make a cry for it, whose fault is that? Martyrdom isn’t noble at all.

Yup, I have nothing constructive to say to a pointless statement such as that.

Flissy.4093:

And Dusk is also … what, 240g more than Colossus? You really can’t complain about some parts being unfair for your desired Legendary when other parts of yours are more beneficial.

What other parts exactly? All the rest are the same except for one gift and precursor. You cannot compare precursors at all because game-wise, all the precursors have the same rate of dropping. Their difference in prices is due to the difference in demand, which is playerbase’s fault rather than the game.

Flissy.4093:

Wahh wahh, your Sigil cost you 2.5s or so while Predator’s costs 2.5g which is 100x more! I’m going to complain because this is downright unfair.

And how many sigils do you need?

ONE.

Flissy.4093:

projectcedric.6951:

Compared to the corresponding requirements in other Legendaries:…

Bolt – 250 Bolts of Gossamer

And Bolt’s Lodestone’s are like … 5x more expensive than Juggernaut’s.

Your point?

Don’t like what you need, don’t craft it. Simple as.

projectcedric.6951:

Twilight – 250 Cured Hardened Leather Squares

And Dusk is also … what, 240g more than Colossus?

Molten Lode: 150 × 70s = 105g

Charged Lode: 100 × 2g = 200g

Difference = 100g

Gossamer Bolt: 250 × 2s = 3g

Silver Doubloon: 250 × 82s =200g

Difference = 197g

Dusk’s expensiveness is not due to its rarity or difficulty of acquisition. Its due to the demand, which is hardly the game’s fault.

Furthermore, the rarity of lodestones can somehow be mitigated by the fact that you can upgrade lodestones. While you can upgrade most doubloons, you cannot upgrade copper doubloons to silver doubloons, which makes it even more ridiculous.

Flissy.4093:

Don’t like what you need, don’t craft it. Simple as.

HAHAHAHAHA. HAhaha. Ha ha. Ha. ha. ha.

Omg. So funny. My insides are hurting so much.

Compared to the corresponding requirements in other Legendaries:

Twilight – 250 Cured Hardened Leather Squares
Dreamer – 100 Opal Orbs
Bifrost – 250 Unidentified dyes
Bolt – 250 Bolts of Gossamer

zzz….

ShadowPuppet.3746:

projectcedric.6951:

Yeah…

But I like zerging.

And the OP doesn’t soooo…. probably a good idea that Anet not simply stick to just zerg type events and content hmm? That way everyone is happy (who am I kidding? “everyone” will never be happy).

Yeah. Its good. Its guuud!

Yeah…

But I like zerging.

Sir Roland Karloseth.3798:

And it’s not even about an advantage when it comes to the living stories. It’s quite simply this: I like achievements. I like them very much. I like to collect special limited time things like skins. I like to experience special events. And in order to do that, one must do nothing but play GW2. God forbid they take a kitten break for a bit so people can catch their breath.

This simply can’t happen. The whole point of “special limited time things” is exactly to reward players who do nothing but play GW2.

Unfortunately, you have the desire to “achieve it all” (sort of) but like most of us too, not have the capability to play 10 hours every day for a year. This is the root of your frustration. You should feel entitled to this satisfaction if this were a single-player game, but this is not. Most importantly, this is a massively multiplayer online game. And that means too that there has to be a reward system that comparably reward players appropriate to the amount of time they spend playing the game.

Sir Roland Karloseth.3798:

The main point I’m trying to get at is this: After being busy with real life for a few months, I come back to GW2 and am lost, confused, and heartbroken about what the game has become.

This ought to happen in every mmorpg, not only in Guild Wars 2. But ESPECIALLY in Guild Wars 2 because of 1.) the rate of development is faster than other mmorpgs (and that’s a good thing!) and 2.) the introduction of Living Story.

Generally, mmorpg is a unique kind of game because of the fact that gameplay is never static. On one hand, developers can and most probably will change the game over time, by changing mechanics and adding contents, and that is what we normally know as the source of change. On the other hand though, even if the developers don’t do anything, game will still change over time because of the DYNAMICS of the game – the way that players behave in accordance to the game system and other players.

I think it’s pointless and redundant.

There is already a mechanic called “knockdown” – which means you’re down on the ground not being able to do anything while you are still alive.

A friend watching me play commented that it has got to be the stupidest thing he has seen in an mmorpg. Not only is death already without any real penalty in this game, Downed State just removes the risk completely from not paying attention to your HP going down.

Furthermore, not only does coming back up allows you to “Rally”(which again doesn’t make sense. Why would something like that be glorified?), getting downed also remove all conditions previously had.

Nope. Firstly, I guess you are probably just overwhelmed by the gazillion changes that happened and accumulated over the considerable number of months since you last played, and then thrown right at you when you logged in back.

Secondly, I don’t know what you consider good, but while this game is strange in a way that it is extremely good and bad at the same time, at the very least there are still things enough to do to warrant a good hour or so at least of daily gameplay.

So it’s highly likely that you are just shocked after months of not logging in.

Olba.5376:

• To the guy who claimed that no one plays for the experience: Have you ever played Monopoly? Did you happen to play board games when you were a kid? How about single player computer games? How about playing cardgames with your friends? It’s not exactly hard to make a case for all of those being about the experience rather than the reward. Because when the reward is just a “you win”, it’s not much of a reward at all.

All yes to your questions, and additionally, I happen to be academically doing a research on games.

Monopoly – there are rules(mechanics) and there is an aim/goal: to force all other players into bankruptcy. Achieving this is the aim of all monopoly players, whether you enjoy the gameplay or not. This aim is what basically drives the game to progress. Nobody is playing that game to only go around every lot in the board purposely and aimlessly – even Socializers.

Skyrim (single-player video game) – this example is ideal for this discussion, because this game boasts an open-world system that encourages wanderlust in a player. Basically, there is an option for the player to do nothing except to feel the “experience” of the gameplay. But that is still not the totality of the game. There are aims and goals – do quests, finish story line, attain items, etc. Even if you do nothing but just roam around, there is still a inherent goal to that activity – to explore the map! The experience itself cannot be the goal.

Minecraft – we can even take the discussion one level further. The original mechanics of this “game” (if it can even be called a game) is simply to create a digital environment. Yes, this “playing” for “experience” alone, but does the purely sandbox version of this game can truly be called a game? No. Because there are no rules, no mechanics, no aim. A game must have an aim – that’s part of a basic definition of a game. Minecraft becomes a game due to the other modes of the game, especially “Survival”. Now, the creation process is no longer just an experience, it has a purpose.

Bridge – arguably the most social-oriented card game. Studies shows that players who play bridge mainly belong to the category of the players who do not put so much value in winning as they do in simply socializing through the game. BUT it doesn’t mean that they do not play to win. The game itself cannot progress without the players trying to achieve that goal. In other words, even in Socializer-type players, there is still the instinctive drive to achieve a game goal. Of course!

You can argue that there is a unique category of (meta) players. One example is us – or more specifically, ME- players who play games not necessarily as intended players but to STUDY the game. So my aim is not really part of the intended mechanics of the game. Even so, I still have an aim ASIDE from simply experiencing the game.

zeromius.1604:

I wouldn’t consider the farmers to be high achievers by any means. They find the easiest things that reward the most. The MMORPG farmers have no equivalent in Sonic, Mario, or whatever 16 bit era platformer because they would never play those kinds of games.

The achievers are the people who aim for 100% completion in games like Metroid or Castlevania. They play hard games because they are challenging, not because they get some shiny trophy at the end. This was before achievements ever made it in games and you could only brag to close friends about doing something crazy.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, farmers are addicted to farming. You might find it the most boring thing in the world but it doesn’t stop it from being addictive to some people. It’s like alcohol, caffeine, gambling, drugs, etc. Loot gives them that hit that they’re looking for. The so called phat loot gives them a really big hit. The fact that it’s all random is what helps drive this addiction.

Firstly, “high achievers” and Achievers are two different things. Notice I use upper case “A” for the latter. This is the category of players who wants to win, in any way possible. To “win” is to reach a goal or reward. In GW2 context (and other mmorpgs) one reward is gold(in-game currency), and gold can give you access to different other rewards. Difficulty has got nothing to do with the quality of winning. In fact, the easier the method, the better.

Secondly, being an Achiever is not exclusive. Therefore, there is some level of being an Achiever in everybody. Conversely, being a high-type Achiever doesn’t mean that all the player wants to do is “win”/farm. In this sense too, how can you even say that mmorpg farmers would never play such games as Sonic, Mario etc?? It is completely possible for any person to both like farming in mmorpgs and play Mario too. Its just their gameplay in Mario will be different than other types of players.

Thirdly, “100% completion”, bragging rights ARE a kind of “shiny trophy in the end”. They are in the same concept as getting a high score, being number 1 in leaderboard, gaining a lot of in-game currency, points, badges etc – whatever is the goal of the mechanics of the game. In GW2, a Legendary is an in-game item that can be considered as having a sense of prestige or gives a player bragging rights. At the very least. it is absolutely a legitimate goal or reward.

In this sense, there is absolutely no rule that you can only do one kind of strategy to achieve that “shiny trophy in the end”, whatever that is respective to the game. In Pacman, if you want to eat ghosts, kite them or hide in the corner – that’s up to you. As long as it enables you to finish the level. That is a game goal, and being able to say, “I finished level X” or “I got this score” is the reward.

In mmorpgs, farming is also a strategy to achieve a reward. And people who put much value in getting that reward (hence doing a lot of farming) are Achievers.

Lastly, I will not respond further to “farming as addiction” as I find it irrelevant. It is just as possible for any player to be “addicted” to Jumping Puzzles or doing dungeons as another player to farming. This touches more on one player’s “immersion” in the gameplay rather than farming in itself.

You can never get too much content.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine

The ability to contract “demons”(equivalent of mobs in gw2) which function like the ranger’s pet that can help in combat, but can be “fused” to create higher level, more exotic demons.

Banquetto.9521:

Erasculio.2914:

projectcedric.6951:

However noble it sounds, it is against human nature to driven to do something without an end goal or simply “for the experience of it”.

False.

Why do people go to the movies? It’s not because they are paid for it. It’s because they will enjoy the experience of seeing the movie. Why do people listen to music? They don’t receive a physical reward for listening to 500 tracks. They do it because they enjoy the experience of listening to music.

You are mistaken when you think the experience itself cannot be the goal. Playing a game to have fun, as opposed to playing a game to reach a reward within said game, is actually the rule, not the exception, as long as you are not talking about MMORPGs. I think MMOs (and its clones) are the only games in which people are so willing to go through experiences they don’t enjoy just to get a reward. In old RPGs, those rewards were not the goal, just auxilliary to the experience.

Exactly! As I read your first paragraph, I was about to chime in and say that you don’t even have to switch media to movies or music – for the majority of my 30-odd years of playing videogames, you didn’t play games to get a reward, you played them precisely to see what was next.

That, for me, was the innovation of games like Scramble (1981). The earliest arcade games, like your Pac-Man and Space Invaders types, didn’t have different levels, really. Beat the level and you basically got the same thing only harder. But Scramble had multiple very different playing zones, and once you’d seen other people reaching the later ones, you really wanted to make it there yourself!

As you say, it’s really only in the MMORPG genre that you get this infestation of players who have no interest in experiencing content unless they are rewarded with some sweet, sweet pixels. As someone who plays games as an entertainment/leisure pursuit, it’s quite sad to see.

Level progression is considered as a goal or reward. Even “to see what was next” is the reward. The “experience” he was talking about here is only half of the mechanics of every game. No games are designed without a goal or reward as part of the mechanics. Except, well, certain arguable exceptions… like Minecraft.

Aberrant.6749:

Erasculio.2914:

Aberrant.6749:

So those people aren’t helping the bar move as well? It’s at a slower rate, but they are moving it and helping the overall progress. It’s not as if they are working against the other players which is more of what your post sounds like you’re implying IMO.

There are two kinds of Aetherblade pirate events:

1. “Lower the Aetherblade morale”, which is basically a “kill all of them” event. Doing this one, the farmers actually help the event as a whole. But killing champions over and over actually closes the event (morale goes to zero), so farmers have to move elsewhere.

2. “Kill the Aetherblade Captain”. This is where the issue lies. As long as you do not kill the captain, but you kill the other Aetherblades, more enemies will continue to spawn. If you ignore the captain, you won’t progress the event – it will just be stalled. But more and more champions will spawn, allowing farmers – here, exploiters – to farm in a single event by killing a continous flow of champions.

It’s similar to the Arah farm, when people farmed the Champion Risen Giant – by not killing the Giant, the event was stalled, and lots of Risen would spawn. By not killing the Aetherblade champion, the event is stalled, and (if a zerg big enough is there), a lot of champions spawn.

Out of 20+ of these being done I’ve never seen anyone do this. Never once have I seen anyone tell others not to kill the capt. From what I can tell the spawn rate of the extra champs isn’t more worth while than killing the champs and the capt. and then quickly moving onto the next one. That way you get all the champ spawns and the extra 2 rares and all of extra boxes from finishing the event. More overall loot <- what farmers want.

That’s just from what I’ve come up with as some one that farms never ever having seen some one stall the event despite doing it many many times. It doesn’t seem to be that widespread of a problem.

I concur.

I thought about too at one point. That I’d suggest to not kill the captain and just farm the champs. And then I realized that the event itself spawned endlessly all over the map, against a timer. So regardless of whether the zerg focuses on the captain or the champs, they will get about the same loot anyway – but completing the event gives slightly more rewards.

The event would have been a bad design in itself, but because it’s part of a larger event, its a good design.

Knote.2904:

What, I don’t really understand what you’re arguing here.

The 2nd half of your post is literally what I’ve been talking about this whole time.

Not exactly. There’s a fundamental difference.

You’re argument is for finding an ideal balance in farming – which I believe is impossible- by reducing the rewards for farming in it’s current state.

My argument is for improving farming as an entire sub-system, if they can. Because I’m not event exactly against the farming in GW2. I don’t think there was anything wrong with, and hence I don’t know why they’ve been trying to “fix” it. But as a result -intentionally or not- they created a better farming system! Which is the Invasion Events. So that’s good.

Erasculio.2914:

I agree with the end goal, I disagree it’s the same thing we see in MMOs.

In many MMORPGs, I see a lot of people who don’t enjoy the experience of what they are doing, but they are doing it anyway because they want a reward in the end. We see this both in players who say it with all the letters, as well as in those who want the quickest, fastest path to whatever it is they want.

Comparing it with something else, let’s say… The first Sonic game, for example (Sega Genesis FTW!). I’m sure a lot of people had the goal of reaching the end of the game. But I doubt many people played the game if they didn’t enjoy it, just to get to the end. And, likewise, the game had a cheat we could use to arrive straight in the last level, but that wasn’t something everyone did, and I doubt very much it was something even the majority did.

There was a goal. The journey to that goal, however, was equally as important as the goal itself. I don’t believe the same thing happens in MMORPGs, when people claim they don’t want to farm but that’s the only way they will get the gold they need for the shiny stuff they want. This is what I believe happens in MMORPGs:

Actually, the differentiation is in the type of players, not in the genre of the games.

The GW2 farmers (or most mmorpg farmers) – their counterpart in Sonic are the people who dont really enjoy the gameplay as much as they simply want to beat Robotnik in the end finish the game (without cheating).

Similarly in Pacman, there are players who are content with playing the first 5-10 levels of the game. They enjoy the gameplay, and since the mechanics is generally the same for all levels (the same goal), there is really no reason to progress further. On the other hand, some people may or may not enjoy the gameplay as much, but they want to beat the highest level or the highest score, even if the mechanics is repetitive.

In player profile, these are the “Achievers”. You’ll be glad to know that most people are not like that. Interestingly though, most GAME DESIGNERS are in this category. So there is always some sort of bias -consciously or subconsciously- when designers design games.

The types of personalities are not exclusive: Achievers may also be Socializers. So people farm in different degrees of intensity.

Whichever the category, ALL kinds of players are driven by goals and rewards for playing a game. And that reward can range from prestige, sense of accomplishment, real world rewards, etc. But it can NOT be the gameplay itself.

Knote.2904:

Optimal farming being only 5-10% ahead of everything else is still way better than optimal farming being 50-100% ahead of everything else in terms of rewards, so maybe it’s not perfect, it doesn’t need to be, it just needs to IMPROVE.

Number 1: Again it goes to the fundamental concepts of optimization and “farming”. Given that, maybe after intensive refinement, rewards of activity A has been reduced to 5-10% more than activity B, the obvious thing to note is that the very nature of “farming” itself has the ability to explode this to 50-100%, by doing it 10 times. If it cannot be done 10 times, it won’t be farmed.

Fundamentally, therefore, farming only occurs because something can be largely ahead of everything else in terms of rewards. At the same time, something will always be ahead of everything else in terms of rewards because it can be farmed and it will be farmed.

Lets say the optimal farming rate now is 5g per hour. If you nerf the event/s that provide this farm, farmers will move to something that is say 3g per hour. And perhaps the next one is 1-2g hour. Notice that differences, in terms of percentage, is actually the same. Simply, people just move to the next best efficient thing.

Number 2: This optimal calculation can not take into consideration things that are difficult to value. We know the value a particular T6 mat, because we know how much we can sell it for gold. But how much do you value an activity that you actually do not like doing? For example some people would prefer farming Activity A over Activity B even if Activity B is the optimal farming activity by 50% on a per hour basis, because they find that they cannot do Activity B for very long periods of time on end. So eventually, for those people, the gold rate evens out between the two activities.

OR

How much do you value chance? Given that Activity A gives a more consistent drop rate of lower-value loot, and Activity B gives a rare chance of a higher value loot – in the end again, if you do them enough times, they probably even out in terms of gold, but the “optimal” in this sense depends on how much people value the probability.

My general point in all this is:

It’s not that they shouldn’t improve the game, but they should improve the game in the right way. Farming cannot be reduced or avoided, much more especially in mmorpgs. And there is no need to. Like I said, only about 25% (maybe 50% in mmorpgs) of playerbase farms. And this is an essential part of the game.

What they should do is make things more wholistic so that people who choose to farm are simultaneously doing other things too. The Invasion events are a first improvement in this sense. Farmers are no longer just stuck in FS, CS or CoF. Now they are motivated to run all around the world in a different map every hour.

If they want people to pay more attention to DEs and world events, then perhaps indeed they should increase the rewards of those events so that they are equal to the most optimum farming activity.

Farmers wont stop farming then, they will just start farming those events. Basically, its just diverting the farming efforts from one activity towards another, depending on which one the designer chooses.

MrRuin.9740:

Legendary is hardly a hurdle. Anyone who knows how to TP flip or wants to spend hours in a zerg can do it.

Does everybody know how to TP flip? Obviously not.

How many hours does it take to farm 1700 gold (assuming you wanna buy the Legendary off the TP completely)? At average 5 gold per hour, that’s approximately 340 hours.

Therefore, it IS a hurdle.

Erasculio.2914:

projectcedric.6951:

However noble it sounds, it is against human nature to driven to do something without an end goal or simply “for the experience of it”.

False.

Why do people go to the movies? It’s not because they are paid for it. It’s because they will enjoy the experience of seeing the movie. Why do people listen to music? They don’t receive a physical reward for listening to 500 tracks. They do it because they enjoy the experience of listening to music.

You are mistaken when you think the experience itself cannot be the goal. Playing a game to have fun, as opposed to playing a game to reach a reward within said game, is actually the rule, not the exception, as long as you are not talking about MMORPGs. I think MMOs (and its clones) are the only games in which people are so willing to go through experiences they don’t enjoy just to get a reward. In old RPGs, those rewards were not the goal, just auxilliary to the experience.

Ok, fine, let me rephrase that.

IN GAMES, it is against human nature to be driven to do something without an end goal or simply “for the experience of it”.

And no, all games -regardless of genre- follow this rule. This is the definition of a game. If it doesn’t follow this rule, it is not a game.

And please do not take the word “game” out of the context here too. There is an objective, scientific definition of a game I am talking about here. And that is one in which there are rules and there is a goal.

Knote.2904:

Farming isn’t really an “issue”. The only reason it’s even labeled and sticks out as an activity is because reward isn’t evenly balanced/distributed throughout the game.

If doing any sort of activity in the game was equally as rewarding as zerg farming (give and take depending on the difficulty of said activity) there wouldn’t even BE a concept of “farming” really, it’d just be playing the game whether that means “farming” champions or doing a difficult dungeon with friends, or exploring and doing puzzles.

Yes, but such game is impossible.

The difficulty-yield relationship is part of a game’s mechanics. “Zerging” is part of a game’s dynamics. Dynamics means – how players behave in relation to other players and the mechanics of the game.

This mechanics is not based on game dynamics. That means that if you have perfected the game this way, considering that reward balance is based on single-player gameplay, it is not balanced in multi-player gameplay, and vice versa.

On the other hand, game dynamics adapts. Players’ behavior will move towards which is more efficient in terms of rewards, and not necessarily “fun”. (To be clear, “reward” in this context is not personal reward. It is the objective game reward, which is an essential element in all games.)

Farming and zerging are phenomena that are results of this adaptation. In competitive loot mmorpgs, it is obviously not efficient to zerg, so the players adapt by farming individually.

Hypothetically, let’s say you have designed the perfect game. The perfect game being defined as all activities in the game have the rewards appropriate to their specific difficulty – thus, “reward balanced”. In such a game, there is completely no incentive to do higher difficulty activities.

On the other hand, if higher difficulty activities are imbalance in terms of loot, playerbase will find a way to exploit that system and make it farm-able. In GW2’s case, this is the zerging of champs.

In other words, in any game, there is no design or solution in which the ideal can happen. That’s why it never happens. The successful games are only successful in terms of how much does the intent of the designer is made to reality – given that non of the intents are ideal. In almost all cases, the playerbase loses.

House always wins.

zeromius.1604:

I don’t know what your definition of rewarding is but for many the experience of the content is the reward rather than the end result of doing it. If you’ve done the content enough times then no doubt it becomes boring. This would hold true for many people but we know it doesn’t for everyone.

I actually don’t think that farmers actually hate farming and do it because they feel they have no choice. This is something that more moderate farmers like propagate. Habitual and frequent farmers are addicted to farming like an junkie would be to narcotics. Taken this into consideration we know that something doesn’t have to be fun to be addictive. There are lots of people addicted to slot machines for instance even when there are other more interesting ways to gamble like with Poker.

So if ArenaNet were to control the supply of their narcotics (the farming spots) it would probably make the addicts upset and quit. They would go play games were where it’s easier to get high. It’s the reason why games like Maple Story are so popular while offering so very little. It’s the addiction of farming and in many cases, grinding for better stats.

If you want something truly rewarding, play a really good single player game where there’s no loot. ArenaNet tries to create challenging and compelling content but the farmers don’t want that unless it comes with material rewards. They want to improve the rewards for jumping puzzles and mini dungeons. People who love this type of content will love the new loot rewards. People who hate this type of content because they don’t like jumping will hate it and complain about how it’s not fair for them. The great thing though is farmers will finally have something different to feed their addiction.

The experience of the content is the reward for purchasing the content. It is not a reward for playing the content. However noble it sounds, it is against human nature to driven to do something without an end goal or simply “for the experience of it”. And this is not my opinion. Even social-oriented games like Bridge has an end goal, and social, casual players do not necessarily mean that they don’t care about winning or losing and are just there for the experience.

The work-reward relationship is the backbone of any game mechanics. Once again, “reward” here pertains to what you get after you experience something with the play. This can be real cash, real world materials, virtual cash and items, “badges”, prestige, etc. What it is NOT however, is the EXPERIENCE of playing the game.

Now let’s go to your point about addiction. Assuming you are right (which I do not necessarily agree but its irrelevant) about farming as an addiction, what motive does the designer have to reduce or control addiction?

The core of any game play is “immersion”, and as far as it conceptually goes, is the ultimate manifestation of immersion. There is a concept called the “Flow Zone” (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011), which lies between anxiety and boredom.

Making players stay in this “Flow Zone” is the bull’s eye for all game designers. Addiction is the complete immersion in this Flow Zone, so excessively powerful that the player cannot move out of the flow zone.

From the designer’s standpoint, if farming is an addiction (as you say), then farming is a win. It is we, the players, who do not want addiction.

Erasculio.2914:

projectcedric.6951:

So ok, that will pacify the dispute between the champ-farmers and the event-doers, but doesn’t really do anything significant aside. Farmers will still farm – they will farm events now.

And it will deal with the issue mentioned above by Knote, about how Dynamic Events give little to no rewards. If fixing champions was worth all this trouble, and considering how DEs are far more important in the GW2 design than champions, fixing DEs ought to be important as well.

Farmers will always farm. Until they leave the game, which appears to be something ArenaNet doesn’t want them to do. The best we can do is not allow them to exploit, and not make the most effective way to farm something that goes against doing Dynamic Events. Just solving the dispute between farmers and other players is a boon by itself.

I agree with the DE reward but its not exclusive with better champ loots. Why can’t we have both?

Even if we do, still won’t solve any farming issue. Farming is a different issue/concept to deal with from poor reward system. Farming will occur in both poor reward systems and good reward systems.

(Farmers cannot leave the game, mannnnn. According to the book “Gamification by Design”, Achievers/Killers/Explorers -the categories under which farmers belong- makes up about an essential 25% of any MMO gamer population. Basically, they are the drivers of competitive play who provide social pressure to the rest, which are Socializers.)

MrRuin.9740:

projectcedric.6951:

Of course you have no use for 200 gold.

99.99% of the game requires 50 gold or less.

0.01%, which is a Legendary, requires at least 800 gold.

Your gold is sitting in the middle.

Well yeah, but I don’t like the legendaries either. I find most of them uglier than some exotics/rares/skins.
Just the point was, farming all those hours in a zerg for gold that isn’t really needed for anything isn’t an enjoyable experience for me :P

So then you have no problem.

But it comes to a point when one simply… has nothing else to do. And acquiring a Legendary becomes the hurdle to being able to say to oneself “I’ve completed this game. I can move on.”