Guild Wars 2

Bad attempts at semantically breaking the thread need to move over and let the big kids argue…

Grind does not mean simple repitition, Grind specifically refers to content padding by leaving gaps within content that can only be reasonably approached by low-reward repeated behaviours.

In this regard there are actually only a handful of grinds in this game. The fact some may choose to repeat one “most efficient” activity (and therefore grind) is mostly a choice.

Actually it’s quite useful because you can get a much better sense of where your party is at and, with good players, people know what to anticipate. If I see a weaker player, I know I need to watch them and be on my game. If there’s special gear that tips off experience, it lends confidence to the group. If something is really off with gear, people can help straighten them out and give advice. A new player could see what high-level players use to help them along.

I’m stilll a firm believer in the fact I am pro enough that I can evaluate the performance of my party in real time – but I can see most are not. I apologise for suggesting that a tool to look at the gear of a player was not required in this task.

You want to “straighten them out and give them advice” and to this end allow others “see what high-level players use to help them along”… riiiiiiiiiiigggghhhht.

I agree that it’s impossible to remove all grind from a game, because by definition, grind is repetition. And you can’t avoid content repetition. That doesn’t change the fact that the devs promised a no-grind game, and yet are continuing to release content that makes the grind worse. That’s a complete 180 from what they said they were doing.

Sorry, but this sort of thing is completely indefensible, and it’s perfectly fair for people to call them out on this.

Can you just clarify if you think ALL paths are a grind (in this case – earrings), or just the one that has you attempt to do it alone?

Sorry – two points in my post, only vaguely related.

Point one of both our posts doesn’t apply to you (apparently), don’t stress it.

Point two of yours – the majority of the player base scattering out like that may have occured, but it may not have been intent – perhaps they have a very intense focus on big guilds with in-dev content and figured you can have your cake (tiny guild) and eat it too (big guild) so resistance would be illogical…

Early posts in this thread counters your point three – you can play a different way and still get access, it is just inefficient. Choose.

That is a horrible statement. Basically Anet is saying, “play the game the way we want you to play and we don’t care what you like”.

They are telling us, if we don’t play the way Anet wants, we will be punished.

I have bad news for you Anet. “Encouraging” me to do things I don’t want to do won’t make me do them. It will only make me quit and go find a game that I can play and have fun doing so, not being forced into content I don’t want to do.

Between telling people how to use their product and keeping the developement roadmap of their product secret it is hard to understand why anyone would keep paying… (Sarcasm with a kicker).

It is people who go out of their way to play against the developer’s plan or spirit (and blame the manifesto often, why not) that make the game as intended less fun for the rest of us.

Though I hope there is a game for you out there somewhere (else).

Rifter.6591:

They are obviously trying to kill small guilds and force all players into the larger 100+ member guilds. This is very obvious.

And if they keep it up like this gating all the gear/content behind large guilds then im going to leave the game, and im sure im not alone.

I like many of you im sure prefer the community/freindship of a small guild, im in one with a few real life freinds and am not giving that up just to be another face in the crowd or a number not even a real person to a larger guild.

And its not like you can join 2 guilds anymore most if not all large guilds on my server now have a 100% represent policy because they can hold the gear/content over your head, so its either disband small guild and join large guild, stay in small guild and dont get ascended items/content, or quit the game. Unfortunatly for Anet i think many small guild members are going to pick the third option and just move onto games where they can have the sense of community of playing with close freinds in small guilds without being excluded from high tier content/items.

I often call all the people who don’t use the gem store free loaders, one argument I hear against this is that all the cheap kiddies are in fact somehow generating content and emergent gameplay… The above would make that closer to true.

Balancing a ranked/rewarded guild system for all sizes and types cannot be done, since GW2 is about all types of people they sacrificed balance on size. Social will mean getting out there with a hunded of more people – not JUST your girlfriend, brofriend and cousin (Diablo is meant for that).

There is a point – the more involved the gameplay the greater the output ought to be, tested over years and loved by gamers.

I don’t think we have that yet, nor do I think anyone is fairly defining “output” (including me) in this thread.

Red Falcon.8257:

Morrigan.2809:

The problem is that if you decline, you would still then get excluded based on the fact that you decline.

So what?
If I don’t want to be inspected in the first place, I don’t care if they don’t want me; I actually don’t want such people in the first place.

It’s the only way to make both happy.
Who wants to inspect can do it, who doesn’t can decline it.
Why must it be something you can force down other people to do? It seems to me there are other reasons behind it…

Looking for more, must allow inspect, link achi, carry meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Elitists will abuse it, mainly to find people to carry them, but also to reinforce their fractured self worth.

The true top players and guilds don’t care at all, though it will probably save someone an email/pic message.

The true casual might like to peek at others, but really doesn’t care either, as opposed to your casual time elitist who can never “catch up” and doesn’t want people to look at them.

Leaving a small but vulnerable group who can see the writing on the wall and don’t want a repeat of what happened in the “GS WoW” era. This time they are not buying into the arguments.

The value of the tool, compared to the potential for abuse, is so low I hope the devs put it off until 2029.

Fortuna.7259:

thisolderhead.5127:

They are shallow, but the fact you feel like you are missing out for failing to min-max to the bleeding limit is not an issue with mechanics, it is player (base) mindset.

Sure as hell not going to kill the game, but hey the sky may fall…

It is a player (base) mindset WELL understood by the developers. It is the REASON for ascended gear as it is. Pretending it is the players’ fault is a bit like throwing a kitten in a cage of rabid wolves and crying foul at what the wolves do. The design is manipulative, plain and simple.

And by the way, getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% DPS is hardly what I would call min-max “to the bleeding limit.” But of course there is a game going on to deny this as well. Maybe you will even grace us with that one…

One of my other accounts is already over there (you like my other accounts lol). You are not giving enough context for that number to have meaning – may as well have made it up.

Actually fair cop – guesting wouldn’t have turned up much on the PTR and the issue doesn’t seem like it is resulting from direct exploit so much as TC apparently having all the cool kids.

Guesting isn’t the issue, all you hawt dancing TC awesome peeps are, I’m jealous (but will just guest over).

Its is an ethical requirement that a company be profitable (if you are a director) so to suggest a conspiracy theory is a bit rich when it is the job/responsibility of the staff to make some money.

In civil law most countries only require evidence on the balance of likelihood – not “beyond reasonable doubt”… so many “you can’t prove that” arguments, so little need under the eyes of most laws.

Anyone not paying money to the gem store is a free loader, paying gamers are still subsidising your game play, I still think paying customers are better than you.

Three disjointed points to go into the weekend, as where I am its time for beers.

Its redundant tangent threads, they are like condition stacks and dragging everything to a halt.

But yeah – careful what you wish for guys, too many people demanding guesting be rolled out ASAP, and look at that it is exploitable as hell…

PTR is looking better each week.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

thisolderhead.5127:

“If Anet was really after cash sales from the shop, they’d introduce pay to win options like many other games.”

There is a (n often direct) path from real money to the highest stat items in the game, it is pay to win already. Fortunately most of the players seem to be poor/cheap mwhahahahaha.

Or just unwilling to spend on it when there’s a method of getting there less impactful to their wallets

Though I’m not quite sure I see “pay to win” here . . . sure you can burn a bunch of cash, into Gems, into Gold . . . into items. But most of those items are mostly readily accessible in other ways. Except Legendaries, which is more “pay to look awesome/silly”.

Ah – I see, nothing I was referring to was exclusively P2W, just that cash to domination would be viable for a decent/good player.

“If Anet was really after cash sales from the shop, they’d introduce pay to win options like many other games.”

There is a (n often direct) path from real money to the highest stat items in the game, it is pay to win already. Fortunately most of the players seem to be poor/cheap mwhahahahaha.

They are shallow, but the fact you feel like you are missing out for failing to min-max to the bleeding limit is not an issue with mechanics, it is player (base) mindset.

Sure as hell not going to kill the game, but hey the sky may fall…

My bad, but given most of the same actors in both threads that are fundamentally the same it makes sense.

Fortuna.7259:

thisolderhead.5127:

There players who are throwing around “Trust” and similar personal terms around quite a lot, one or two seriously sound like they want to get even over some form of slight like Anet is forsaking their love – it is a worry.

What exactly are you talking about? As far as it looks to me, you are the one to even bring up “Trust” in this thread.

You might be right, I could have crossed it over, there was a bit of “hurt” voiced above in the thread somewhere that would have prompted that mistake (if so).

Fortuna.7259:

thisolderhead.5127:

The answer is no -
“the current implementation ruins my enjoyment of the game”

Probably best just to log off and let it go then, check out the release notes once a month instead mate – free up some time and feel less heartache.

Yes, the answer is “no” as of yesterday. Today, I don’t have to log off.

I do however enjoy discussing about games and game design. I’ve been avid about this almost as long as I’ve played games. Some posts here are actually enlightening. So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick around for just a bit and absorb the remainder of this experience.

P.S. If I didn’t know any better, I would say you are projecting bitterness on me with indirect comments and insinuations. But of course, you wouldn’t presume to know my feelings or motivations so deeply.

Oh no – feel free to stay, I didn’t mean to insinuate you are best off leaving, you just seemed so frustrated and unhappy – once we’d unravelled the issue I thought it would be a weight off, its good to hear what the other sorts think about things!

You clearly do know better, it isn’t projecting bitterness – projecting bitterness is passive and what I am doing is direct & stands out like a dog’s proverbials.

Instead of 25 year old “QFD” frameworks shoehorned in from over the automotive side of the sea (along of CORBA and a host of other “great” innovations) they probably use some Agile based framework in an under resourced way…

So lets just get the Scrum-Master directly with the torches as pitchforks, artists and good code monkeys are hard to find – team leaders are bloody well everywhere!

Fortuna.7259:

thisolderhead.5127:

Movie critics that feel the director has personally slighted them generally won’t cast the film in an accurate light. Small issues that the viewers might not even notice become enraging to the critic, why doesn’t the audience hate the director’s consistent failure as much as they should – the critic has explained clearly to them all why…

Critical success and economic success are not as linked as one might think.

Well, the metaphor breaks down because you are not (generally speaking) revisiting the movie again and again. You watched the bad movie (or some part of it) and that’s that. On the other hand, you remember Star Wars was really cool and then you watch the embarrassment that is Jar-Jar Binks and really, really hope that you are not alone. You don’t care for everyone to hate the movie, you just really hope that the next one is better (a lot better LOL).

Films (and books) are not considered to be “one off” in the way you state, at the risk of seeming snooty – that is the consumer throw-away movie market, and your metaphor breaking example is from that market, Film is entirely different and I apologise for not being both more specific and more correct in the term usage in my prior.

Of course critical success and economic success are not tightly linked. This does not change the fact that I will not endure poor quality products because they are popular.

Good to hear – your agony over making this decision has been well voiced, but I hope you can find a better product for you soon.

Even if the veritcle progression increased the daily goal/currency combo allow it to be circumvented and reduces the effect of what can be perceived as a treadmill…

Have a look through some of the key individuals’ post histories – in many cases they were burned out on trying to power farm ascended/legendaries longer than I care go back – of course they are going to be upset with options being introduced to replace their grinds!

The existence of the current implementation ruins my enjoyment of the game whether I do it or not. As for me personally, a sense of “trust” and “betrayal” long since sailed. There is just the “state of the game” and the question “do I enjoy this any longer?”

The answer is no -
“the current implementation ruins my enjoyment of the game”

Probably best just to log off and let it go then, check out the release notes once a month instead mate – free up some time and feel less heartache.

There players who are throwing around “Trust” and similar personal terms around quite a lot, one or two seriously sound like they want to get even over some form of slight like Anet is forsaking their love – it is a worry.

Fatalistic and hyperbolic terms being thrown in are even more worrying – hopefully no one out there has been so tied up with the manifesto that they need to “an hero” a response to Anet… :-\

Anet is introducing these as there are players who are so over coddled that they couldn’t work out what to do in the game unless they had a scoreboard and a carrot to follow. If anyone is to blame it is all of us who didn’t teach the kiddies to make their own fun and left them screaming out to Anet for a simplistic tool to tell them what to do in the absence of leadership.

It makes it an odd argument indeed – but due to the fact that it illustrates Anet could narrow the gap, however has chosen not to at every step of the way.

Not only does it appear they aren’t listening to the manifesto-clutching group but it seems they are actively moving away from that vision entirely… its like they’ve abandoned all of those players – like they just don’t care.

Perhaps that should be the measuring-stick for which camp looks to be on the right page.

Cherry picking responses is poor form IMO.

Movie critics that feel the director has personally slighted them generally won’t cast the film in an accurate light. Small issues that the viewers might not even notice become enraging to the critic, why doesn’t the audience hate the director’s consistent failure as much as they should – the critic has explained clearly to them all why…

Critical success and economic success are not as linked as one might think.

stobie.2134:

So are we only sane when we’re in the middle, accepting everything? I must have launched from Completely Sane to Outright Nuts in a day. Good going, me.

Well no… but there is ten shades of brown crazy most people could progress through and still not make it to the lofty heights required to earnestly attempt to single handedly save the game (add trumpets now).

What I have to agree with is that the vocal minority are not representing the bulk of players, most miserable players will just leave a game silently and not make a fuss.

However the silent players who are still in the game Anet listen to (yes – through science!), not me and not anyone else ranting here as we do not represent the sane and happy majority in the middle.

inability to consider alternatives

There are games that are more like the manifesto vision for GW2 (and clones of GW1)… just saying. :-)

That is unfortunate. I refer you to this thread in its entirety so that you may enlighten yourself.

Love the tone, you need to get the really condescending tightened up a bit but you are definately on the way to being one of my favorite forum posters.

I’ve stepped through it a few times, I am not saying Dailies are acceptable end-game replacements for decently designed party encounters – and would get behind anyone calling for more resources to be put into that…

This isn’t really about one bit of thin gameplay, its about a whole “betrayal” and a breakdown of “trust” by the developer updating its model/plans and many players not feeling that the update met their standards – and that is just fine too.

Derk.3189:

Whats with this whole ‘optional’ argument. The whole game is optional, you don’t have to log on. But the fact that you do, the fact that dailies give laurels, and laurels get you things you want, does not make it optional at all. You don’t do it, you miss out.

That is based on choices to make the rewards from the activity your goal. There are other goals and activities. “Missing out” is a matter of perspective by the player.

Some goals require greater input of time, capability, whatever – some players can’t meet those requirements… sorry.

That element has every right to voice its displeasure at gross violations to this manifesto, and opinions backed by the manifesto have additional validity beyond just “well, that is how I like it.”

I would love for the link between this manifesto abuse and optional dailies to be explored, I am clearly not seeing something you are concerned by.

Your belief that you will be “experiencing inequity based on others” is what I called out there, not your opinon that you don’t want to run dailies. Despite digging I cannot see where you clearly outline the inequity itself really – can you refresh me on it?

Referring back to the manifesto may not be the best tact either, especially when in the same sentance you concede that there is much in it that never came up as expected. It was a document of the day and has been clearly left for dead – superceded by pragmatism and capitalism.

I am not belittling you – we are just stating OUR opinons too, freedom to speak comes with freedom to respond.

The developer did in fact, through action, imply they did not want a tactic/strat to be used – there are two other viable options that were not targetted by the dev that are still viable.

I get that there are some disappointed people (mainly the ones who will now be afflicted by players who don’t know the working strats), but really the devs patched an exploit of sorts – they didn’t intend for that workaround clearly.

Working as intended…. now.

No, I don’t enjoy experiencing inequity based on others’ whims. I have to deal with that in life. I don’t want to pay to experience it in my leisure time. I don’t enjoy it. Period. Many people agree.

See here’s the rub – you are playing with other people, in a group and social based virtual world. Your freedom once again ends where mine begins. This is a SHARED world we are playing in, others not willing/able to get their heads around that really ought not be used to try to validate the above point.

Outfit/appearance management inspired from LoTRO would do very well in this game.

I’m a fan of showing off my lootz but I prefer to AFK in my hobo-set, plus it would put a nice touch on any PvP – gear illusions lol.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Astralporing.1957:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Avatar.1923:

they have the general players opinion, they have data.

Data is not opinion, because while data is generally specific and precise . . . it is also unchanging.

Opinions change over time.

Data changes as well – unless you stop collecting it, of course.

I misstated, apparently, and now have to be slightly pedantic:

“Data collected at a specific time about a specific range does not change. Opinions held by particular individuals might possibly change over time, but this is not a certainty, and is void in the state of Wyoming.”

Data means nothing, however when in the hands of a group of knowledgeable and experienced people can be interpreted into Information. I can assure you that Anet like forum opinions – but love their data-derrived Information.

Just a quick note – it is in fact possible to identify more about the player base’s preferences and real opinions by observation, as opposed to discussion, in fact it is usually the prefferred way in MMO land.

EA huh, I don’t know anyone who likes their Sims or sports games, I suspect their complete disregard for players has them on the cusp of going broke…

Sometimes a spin-off show comes out on TV that ends up capturing a very different audience than the original and has to evolve to meet the consumers it NOW has. Put back into this context – this game captured some of the JAG viewers but quickly realised that NCIS could get a lot more people watching it than some niche lawyer drama, but all the JAG kiddies wan’t to go back to the courtroom and corner offices.

Dailies serve a couple of goals:
1. Give people a time sink while they wait for group activity.
2. Give the grinders a positive feedback event.
3. Introduces a time centric rewardable system, rather than a skill or event centric one.

Reward tokens are designed to support 2 and 3. There are plenty of ginders out there unhappy so we can see they need a “ding” each day to let them know they’re on the right track, which leaves 3…

I personally would prefer to jump in with other people and attempt a hard encounter and (possibly) be rewarded for the effort, some folks don’t want that form of play or can’t handle the requirements (skill, time, guilds, etc) of that – these currencies offer them a pathway to reward too.

If you are worried about token rewards resulting in devalued event/encounter gear that is a fair point, takes a bit to find the balance sometimes, but is pretty easily overcome by adding “welfare” before any refernce to the welfare token rewards. ;-)

Expectation management. I don’t know who is doing a worse job – GW1 players or Anet in general.

This is a game released late, but still early like all big MMOs, around six months ago, stepping back from a mature product to one that is evolving is pretty much what is going on – there is constant change but never the change that “I want”.

I think a large chunk of the (vocal) player base has come from WoW, GW1, and other similar matured products… where the forums are still filled with people who “have not has X fixed since patch 1.2.1.3”.

So there you have it folks, two entirely different tactics that don’t require players cheese the encounter – which is good since Anet modified the item to stop cheesing it.

Working as intended, adapting is part of MMO life.

Do we think it is due to MF < Vit / Toughness?
:)

I hope not – we’d only just started to get to know each other, and generally speaking we’d get along…

Oh – and referencing a person (bro) does not a personal attack make.

I’d be careful about muting mercs – there is a reason why they get paid, generally it is because they have more of a clue than someone you could get for free!

But we guild up for social reasons, not competitive game reasons… right?

Are you comparing “kiting vs. face tanking” as a tactical discussion to having a cry because an exploitable consumable was patched?

Seems the real concern is PUGs, how will PUGs be sucessfull if they can’t sleaze their way out of challenging content? I would have some more faith in your fellow players bro – we got your back…

Ok – there is a flaw, the big guild would be rewarded for the little guild representing for it in order to see to run some missions…

The player/character doesn’t have to leave their friendly small guild, gets to run the content, however doesn’t get the same return of investment as the organisation of hundreds of neckbeards.

It is actually tilted in your favour – if you are deadset about seeing/doing everything developed you can, if you are a megalomaniac wanting to build a ranked super guild you can.

For the few who slip through that gap – they pretty much have to meet all of these conditions at once:
1. Have to be very keen about Guild Mission running.
2. Has to be in a small / marginalised guild.
3. Has to be unwilling to also be in a big guild.

Now I know that there are people who will meet all three at once, and make the personal choice not to be flexible/pragmatic enough to move on any of them – to get tacky for a moment – you’ve already made the choice…

Given that they changed the item mechanics to make “Your way” no longer work, and all of the reaching for alternative tactics come up with some weak approaches…

It could be that just killing the mob as suggested is in fact “The Right Way” – it appears to be intended, works, has just had a big item nerf to support its core mechanics… tick tick tick in favour of “More correct”..

Celtic Lady.3729:

thisolderhead.5127:

@Celtic Lady

Yes – you are a casual player in a smaller guild, your gameplay will differ from a neckbeard in a virtual club of five thousand other neckbeards.

Relevance?

“I’m in a small guild, as well. This is simply one more set of content that I won’t be doing”

Rebuttal.

Small guild members – chat with a bigger guild and get some, kick in some teamwork and provide a bit of room for players who need a change (big vs small, busy vs quiet), before you know it the multi-guild system will start to making sense.

“I don’t want to adapt my gameplay” – well the rest of the players you don’t hear crying are all doing that…