Guild Wars 2

Your concerns are shared OP by people who aren’t worried about whether you have spelled things correctly, or whether a certain amount of time has passed since the launch of the game, or tried to use an equally unnecessary alternative logical fallacy argument against what you are trying to say which is this game isn’t what was promised, and so far it doesn’t look like it’s going to be fixed anytime soon which is sad really because it had real potential to be great.

Behellagh.1468:

That assumes that DR was solely added to stop RMT.

It was in fact they made an official statement as to why they were adding DR and it was solely to stop gold sellers and nothing else.

What bothers me isn’t the name or the new features it’s turning something they already had in the game to begin with at launch into a “feature” after they themselves broke it.

It’s similar to adding reflection shields to turrets and then making it impossible to use those against bosses like the Worm for example. It’s ridiculous and it’s bad development.

I’m all for adding new features and upgrades and I’m all for Guardians using bows, let’s just stop trying to make it seem like these CC Trap and Heal skills are anything but a move to get people to buy a game that needs fixing and stop trying to add these fixes in as new “features” as if we can’t tell what’s going on or something. I know a few here will have extremely short memories but cmon now some of us aren’t so easily fooled.

I predict that Rangers will get new upgraded attacks with their pets that are like pet elites, and I predict that Thieves will finally be able to backstab properly. Two things that haven’t worked for these classes since launch will then be changed and made to seem like they are new abilities so that those of you who can’t remember past two days ago will get all excited.

Much like the suggestion to make conditions only available for those who setup pure condition builds they could make healing function properly when people setup pure healing builds that would at least keep glass cannons from misusing the setup by trying to make it impossible to kill them as DPS but also give healing specs a chance to actually shine for a change in this game.

I keep seeing people posting how this game is a trailblazer and I have to point out some facts for them because this isn’t anything new we’re seeing here.

Recently it was revealed the newest addition to the masteries line-up to be the dragon hunter. Now what I found most troubling about it wasn’t what it was called it was that once again we’re seeing a trend that already exists in mmo game development regarding a type of combat. Crowd Control. CC has been nerfed since Nov 2012 in this game and it’s directly affected many of the classes that relied on CC for years now, yet instead of fixing one of the most major problems with combat in the game they turned it into a “feature” of the expansion.

Several games out there including the elephant in the room have used this method to sell their expansions, this is nothing new. It’s really a bad development move too if they decide not to make any other changes to the combat prior to the expansion releasing because combat is extremely important in an mmo and to take something that shouldn’t have been nerfed in PVE and put it in as a new “feature” when there is plenty of room to fix what’s already been broken is not a very honest thing to do.

As always I’ll be watching closely.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We are introducing a change to gold transfers as part of an effort to address fraud and account theft. Beginning on March 31, 2015, there will be a limit on how much gold a single player can receive through in-game mail and/or the Guild Vault each week. This limit, which is based on historical data, should not affect the normal transfer of gold between players. It is designed to prevent rapid and abusive transfers of gold that may be part of account takeovers, fraud, and RMT (gold selling).

Full details about the system:

1. Each account will have a limit on how much gold can be moved from its mail in-box and Guild Vault into its wallet each week.
2. If you receive more gold through in-game mail than you can accept in a week, the gold will remain attached to the mail in your in-box and can be retrieved up to the limit the following week or in subsequent weeks.
3. For the purposes of this limit, a week begins at 12:01 AM UTC each Sunday (5:01 PM PDT/4:01 PM PST Saturday).
4. Gold received from the Trading Post is not subject to this limit.
5. The maximum amount of gold that can be sent via a single in-game mail will be 500 gold.
6. The maximum total amount of gold that an individual player account can accept in a week will be 500 gold.
7. We will monitor this system and may make changes to the limits if we find that changes are necessary.

See I have a problem with this and it’s not with this system it’s with the fact that after three years of DR that you finally are using something that we suggested as an alternative.

So to me it’s a slap in the face. We told you for years that DR wouldn’t work, that it didn’t take out any bots or gold farmers and you still didn’t listen so now I have a question….

Since you’re finally using the successful industry standard to stop gold selling in it’s tracks what will happen to DR will you finally at long last remove it?

nolop.8095:

HoT is the perfect opportunity to up the stats of exotics to be on par with ascended items.
Having no equipment spiral has always been one of the best things about GW.

So why not take this chance to even out the playing field and adjust the stats to one base level.

Now you might think the stat difference is rather small and has no significant impact. But if you compar it to other games like WoW, wich is pretty much the poster child for an endless gear treadmill, you can see the stat increase is about the same as in WoW, percentage wise.

If ANet comes through with their promises of “truly chalenging PvE content” I can’t help but wonder what this content will be balanced around.

If it’s balanced for exotics the hardcore crowd will just plow through the contend and be disappointed because it’s no challenge.
On the other hand if it’s balanced around ascended gear we will have a hard split in the community, at least in dungeons ect.

I’d be very interested to know how people who have all the ascended stuff would feel about a change like this.

I think it’s funny the number of people who will be (have already been) posting bad math for the % difference between the exotic and ascended, who’ve forgotten the reason why it was implemented wasn’t for open world but was supposed to solely be for fractals, and who will no doubt tell you no because they don’t want to be equal to others they consider beneath them.

It’s amazing isn’kitten Remember when this game wasn’t going to have stats on gear at all making it an even playing field for everyone? That would have been truly revolutionary a design but they decided to go the same direction as every other game title out there it seems. Sad.

Many.8419:

I was kinda excited after seeing the concept art this week and after reading and watching the preview post… it’s just meh. First of all the name. It is so cliche, it doesn’t connect to the guardian in any way, like the name you think of when someone tells you “this is the game where you kill dragons, what would be the best profession?” “oh my god, a dragonhunter!” I mean… what?!

And the skills… just another boring ranger like.

I have to agree with your points and first let me say that if this is the direction they’re going in with the masteries, “Finally” and “Really?” is all I can say.

The reason I am saying “Finally” is this. After years of having classes who’s only purpose was to be CC heavy be completely nerfed to the ground because CC should affect the most important mobs in the game because “reasons” (which is pretty much the answer we’ve received when we asked why they are nerfing their own game design so people can’t use it smh) they suddenly see the light and fix that aspect of the game.

The reason I am saying “Really?” is that they added CC as a “feature” of the expansion something that you can only get if you upgrade to the expansion in order to grind to get to be able to use rather than fix the overall lack of CC the game already has.

Now I know it’s far too early but cmon now, part of the reason why expansions get so much money to start off with is to actually FIX problems the game has suffered from for a long time and the lack of CC in the standard layout of skills is one of those problems for Veterans + in PVE.

For me it’s not that they did this to the Guardian it’s that they haven’t really fixed the underlying issues the game already suffers from before trying something new.

Wake me when they fix the Engineer class Explosives Line including bombs and mines, thanks.

Prototypemind.4026:

The way real money to in-game return works in this game is just very poorly done compared to others. Some games can get away with having a system where what you buy with cash stays yours because they take in a monthly sub, but this game doesn’t and it needs to make the reward for spending real money more lucrative. One oddity is the BL Chests themselves.

In most other games that rely on cash-shop revenue, there are new boxes made for each item set release, said boxes are bought from the cash shop, and there’s no additional RNG luck needed to obtain keys to open them. If the equivalent were here in this game, boxes containing a number of the currently-unobtainable skins would still be purchasable through the gem store and could be resold on the TP for in-game currency. The way Anet’s system works, wanted skins go out of circulation for too long and they lose out on money, both from players trying to get the items themselves and from players who want to turn their gems into gold, something that they’d see a higher return on through the TP than buying gems and turning them into gold through the additional TP feature.

Secondly, this is the only MMO that I’ve played or researched lately that has such a horrid system for maintaining a customized appearance as you play. There are F2Ps that have 30-day cosmetic features as well as permanent, but none making top dollars that I know of where you literally have to pay real cash as you level or play as the devs denote—PvP for your transmutation charges, do map completion, or wait until your log in rewards build up—just to maintain your toon’s look from start to end game.

Again, let’s note that completely P2W games like World of Tanks and that out-of-nowhere eastern Counter-Strike clone obliterate Guild Wars 2 in terms of revenue and profit. Games like Star Wars: The Old Republic take in a large percentage of their income through the cash shop as well, and generally put some of the best looking items on said cash-shop. I do prefer a balance of both in-game and cash shop acquired cosmetic gear, so I take it where I can get it.

The bottom line is that when players literally have to stop their leveling, PvP, questing, etc. experience in order to get more charges so that they can keep a desired look when changing armor, it becomes either an annoyance. Both having to buy more gems or giving into the grind because of the need to do side content that the player doesn’t want to do in order to gain more trans charges take away from the gaming experience.

SWTOR: rip mods, put in new ones, outer appearance stays the same. They also just recently added a costume tab so that if an entirely new piece is desired the base armor can be switched and the outer look remains unchanged; LOTRO: costume tabs; WoW: acquire trans charges for little in-game gold; Vindictus and Black Desert: purchased outfits remain as cosmetic outers no matter what armor they player swaps to if they keep them visibly toggled. In Vindictus lower-level armors can be fused with other sets to maintain a look as armor is upgraded.

If players could buy all the sets they liked for this game, or acquire all the sets they like in-game, and change them more easily it would be beneficial. Buying outfits should not be the only way this can be accomplished.

I have to agree with you on your points. The system here leaves alot to be desired especially in the box and cosmetic systems in place and that lack of interest in a properly done box system ensures that their profits will be low but they often do things that ensures their profits will be low in the first place I’ve noticed. For example, their loot system, taking out the fun of feeling rewarded for your time pretty much ensures that people won’t be logging in because the whole point of gaming is to capture that feeling of the rewarding experience, there’s been several papers written on it over several years now. You mentioned LOTRO in your list and it was awesome having such an old title give you slots you can open with cash or points to give yourself multiple outfits, I’ve not seen another mmo do that yet.

So in one way they do seem like it’s a cheap F2P in the way they do things in another way, the successful F2P economic model is not being followed to this game’s detriment which is really sad.

As someone who has a human male guardian dressed in a skimpy heavy outfit with barely anything on I have to wonder how people think that there’s nothing else there for males to wear that’s skimpy in this game.

Sure I’d agree that there’s definitely not enough skimpiness going on but cmon now.

Did you mean there wasn’t enough skimpy light armor choices?

Aidan Savage.2078:

Halbarz.3854:

I am wondering why no dev is replying here. Would like to get an answer on why some players have 2-5 portals in a freaking day and others get nothing at all over a whole week.

Not kittened off that I have to farm or didn’t get a portal but this RNG thing is broken for sure and no dev comes to give info to us. for their own sake they should just reply and get over with it

Devs wont, and shouldnt, dignify tinfoil posts. Additionally, the only “evidence” people have are “I havent seen good loot (read: something expensive) in a long time/at all” which is at BEST a passing curiosity to the devs. By no means is it something worth investigating. Now, if you were able to categorically list every single item you’ve dropped, where/from what you got it, and when, since the creation of your account, or for say, the last 3 months, then you’d be able to give Anet enough to consider looking into it. Handful of people doign so with same poor loot results (I mean blues and kitten like that, not exotics worth under a gold)? Then Anet’s more inclined to investigate.

But until people have substantive proof, anet, again, wont dignify tinfoil posts. There’s no reason to. These threads are proof of why. They say “no it’s not broken, we checked.” Tinfoil invades the forums with cries of “SHOW US THE PROOF, YOU LIE, YOU LIE.” It really is no different than people “claiming” there are flagged accounts for “luck” and JS (the game’s lead economist, one of the few people who can actually tell you with ANY certainty) has stated beyond your MF% value (easily seen ingame), your account information means kitten-all. Not your serial number, not your display name, not your login name, not your password, not your first character’s class, age, sex, or level, not the age of your account, not the number of times you’ve logged in, or the number of gems you’ve bought with cash. Nothing. And you still get “MY ACCOUNT IS CURSED TO BE UNLUCKY” posts/threads.

Seriously people. Dont ask for something you clearly arent going to believe in the first place.

And people who continue to post that it’s not real keep leaving out evidence like DR and how other games out there don’t use DR in their loot systems and the fact that we keep seeing a recurrence of missing chests. That doesn’t happen in a normal loot system.

If you look at ALL of the evidence then you begin to see that not only is it not a typical loot system but you’ll also see that similar things were reported in every other game in mmo development history that added their own versions of DR to their loot system.

Remember folks, they posted once before after 9 months of evidence that there wasn’t a problem, and then in fact found a problem no apologies no nothing.

Want it to stop? Well, get them to remove DR. People won’t have anything to post about because they’ll actually be getting their loot instead of skulls. The evidence is absolutely there you just have to believe what you’re seeing.

Behellagh.1468:

As I said in an earlier post. But let me simplify it hear.

You have 100 players.

There is a 1 in 100 chance of X dropping as loot.

Everyone gets 229 loot drops from the same source.

The distribution of X is:

10 get 0
23 get 1
27 get 2
20 get 3
12 get 4
5 get 5
2 get 6
1 get 7

To the 10 that got 0 and seeing some players got 5-7, it’s only natural to think the fix is in or something is broken but that’s the mathematical distribution. We have 10 unlucky players and 7 lucky ones. Nothing is broken here. The fix isn’t in. It’s just math and the nature of probability.

Except when you factor in what DR does. Here’s an Example:

Without DR:

10 get 0
23 get 1
27 get 2
20 get 3
12 get 4
5 get 5
2 get 6
1 get 7

With DR:

10 get 0
23 get 1 except 20 of those were hit with DR who then get nul
27 get 2 except 15 of those were hit with DR who then get nul
20 get 3 except 17 of those were hit with DR who then get nul
12 get 4 except 7 of those were hit with DR who then get nul
5 get 5 except 1 of those were hit with DR who then get nul
2 get 6
1 get 7

So when you have this kind of distribution in which the system automatically removed the loot even though people have made the appropriate rolls to get the loot, and then it requests what it should do next and get’s back the answer, the loot shouldn’t be available/visible to the user, that’s NOT a standard RNG system. It’s a myth and also bad math (as well as bad programming) to not include this system because this is the type of system that this game uses.

If it were a simple method of mathematics in which nothing would make anything nul and void then you could claim that it’s RNG but you can’t because there is an algorithm in place that was specifically designed to try to stop bots from getting loot (but no one has ever been able to adjust for the playerbase in the entire history of MMO development) that hasn’t stopped a single bot since it was created yet it’s been harming players since it was implemented since day one.

When you get enough of the Nul messages or you happen to be on one of those accounts that gets loot all the time until DR sets in and then you too are hit by the Nul bug, don’t say we didn’t tell you so because we did.

RNG is RNG yes but not in GW2 because GW2 has DR.

The thing is with all of these people who keep using failed arguments against the actual evidence at hand showing that there’s a problem with the loot system (disappearing chests anyone?) is that they keep trying to say that the loot algorithms are the same as those found elsewhere by saying that RNG is RNG but that’s not the system we’re seeing here. DR is a factor in determining if you even GET the loot you just rolled for.

There’s a reason why Historically all other MMO developers have stopped using DR and this IS the reason, because it not only stops players (not Bots) from getting their loot, but it also causes all kinds of bugs that are extremely hard to detect even though the playerbase is in fact experiencing them.

It’s well documented in MMO development history, as one of the worst loot systems one could use. It’s certainly NOT a new issue nor is it mysterious. Those of us who’ve been around playing MMO games for a long time now remember those companies that tried to use this same system and we remember what happened to those companies when they used them and insisted on keeping DR even with the problems.

So really it’s not simply RNG.

FearSeven.6357:

I wonder what theories these people conjure if they play a game of dice.

“No, it’s not fair, I’m from the 90’s and gravity works different on 90’s kids, therefore my changes of throwing sixes are lower. I have a friend from the 90’s who has the same experiences and his dad is from the 60’s and he always throws six. No you can’t disprove it, and it’s in the realm of possibilities, therefore I’m right.”

Except it’s not like playing dice. This system is a DR based system. It’s the equivalent of going to roll the dice, having it land on a number that’s great for the game your playing but before it counts for your scoring system the points are taken away and in it’s place is given a failing number.

That’s essentially the system they are using here and let’ me reiterate, it’s been well known to produce these results historically, this is not a new or mysterious problem this is a well known well documented system. Because it’s so well known and well documented all other MMO developers have stopped using this system of loot years ago because of the problems we’re describing.

So using falsehoods or misdirections isn’t going to fix the problem and neither is acting like it’s a normal loot system with the same RNG issues other games suffer from.

It’s simply NOT the same.

CookieMonster.5869:

Andraus.3874:

Everyone saying that no one is providing factual evidence please enlighten me how you would go about obtaining this evidence. There are so many factors that play into DR and there’s no reliable way to say that your DR has “worn off.” There is no way for us to test this.

DR is real. Certain events such as leaving a character in Sparkfly to farm Teq over and over will result in loss of chests because of DR. Here we can see a specific example. But random things like simply zoning can reset DR for some people. But others have to do more than that and go do some events or dungeons as well to reset this DR for this event. What we don’t know, and never will know, and can’t test, is how DR works for other events or on mobs. Are there different types of DR? Such as an overall mob DR where you kill X amount of things in a X amount of time and you are reaching DR that carries through zones and takes 24 hours to reset (which in some cases may never reset for people who play daily). Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t, but there’s no way to test this as other factors might also affect DR (maybe salvaging for ectos affects DR from drops from mobs, or getting obi shards from bandit chest affects this DR). There’s too many confounding variables to actually test this. But that doesn’t mean we should give up and ignore it or say it isn’t real when it very well could be.

This exactly.

It very much is real. They keep using the argument that this is the same for other games, it’s not there’s a reason why all of the MMOs have left DR behind and this is the reason. They cannot effectively remove bots without harming the players this way, that’s always been the problem.

Oh and to those who keep saying that you can’t test the results you can test the results you can look in your bags and see all of the grey skulls you received.

I can see the TP now brimming with massively over priced portals to the beta all over the place rivaling the prices of the most expensive precursors out there to date. Yea that’s not the solution.

mtpelion.4562:

Right now, “build diversity” means “select the damage increasing traits so that you are using the exact same build as everyone else”.

Due to the way they are changing traits, it seems like there will be a LOT more build options now since we aren’t going to be shoehorned into taking the same selection as everyone else in order to get max DPS out of it.

LOL yep I was waiting for a supporter of the Zerker movement to try to make this argument. It’s the same argument that’s been made in every major MMO out there when they realized they messed up the build diversity and role system in those games and their sweeping changes made it possible for people to run dungeons properly.

It’s even happened in games like NWO in which people were all DPS only and you can’t survive on DPS alone so they look for players with more diverse builds in groups.

What’s ironic is a game that has Trinity Lite has more current diversity options and roles in PVE and PVP than GW2, HoT is moving in the right direction trust me.

Michael.9403:

really? The flag came up just as soon as I’d zoned in.

Why to I get zoned in to a map they want to empty?

What zone control theorycraft am I missing.

Sounds like it’s working as intended.

Some I’m sure have come here and posted that the burden of proof is on you though. smh

Yeah this system did that constantly to me the last time I was on.

It always amazes me the level of denial people deal with. If in fact in real life you were only taking home $200 a month for a job you worked 60 hours a week to try to reach your goal, some of these people’s arguments would be the equivalent of being told that “the burden of proof that you only get $200 a month is on you” “you should have learned how to work better and then maybe just maybe you might get noticed or something” and my personal favorite “you’re $200 is all in your imagination and you need to go check your wallet again because what you’re saying you’re getting and what you’re really getting isn’t the same because I saw a penny”.

Those arguments have been used as logical fallacies for years now, you can’t escape from the facts, and the facts point to their use of a system that is A: not typical of most MMO’s B: is using an age old system called DR that has been responsible for all kinds of unusual circumstances and has been so terrible an experience for players that it’s been responsible for shutting down whole companies because smarter players left the games that implemented DR historically in situations in which the subscription models were the only method of paying for MMOs.

Some people need to look at MMO development history and stop using logical fallacy arguments and no the burden of proof isn’t on the people making the claims that has been overused and there have been thousands of posts when the population was higher about their experiences with direct postings of their daily weekly and monthly inventories, so that argument is also dead.

There’s a point when you can’t keep repeating the same thing over and over to defend the honor of your favorite product and you have to look at the reality of it when new players come along and report the same findings that have been reported by other new players all along.

Essence Snow.3194:

Idk if anyone else has this. I have two accounts. 1) 25k+ AP, head start, 230% mf and 2) 1.8k+ AP, 3 months old, 86% mf.

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. I had always had suspicion that certain players had better drops on average than other. In my guild and ally guilds we know which players will consistently get better drops. It’s so predictable it’s not funny. But, as all that was second hand I couldn’t ever really experience it for myself. Well, now I have.

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it. There are too many coincidences for that to fly anymore. I also know others will say…“we are programed to find patterns when there aren’t any”…sorry not buying that as the patterns emerge on their own accord.

Brace yourselves!…Get out your tinfoil hats!…and Hide behind you significant other! I’m going to claim that out loot code is borked!

With the limitations we have in terms of data, we the players have no clue how things work. We can only base our assumptions on what we experience and see. It’s very easy to say “it’s working as intended”, but really what does that mean? Is it intended that loot be equal? No. Does it mean loot is supposed to be fair? We don’t know. Does it mean that unless its absolutely kittened, it’s good enough? I have my hat on.

Thing is we simply don’t know as players. We are limited to very little evidence. Unfortunately most of the evidence I’ve come across as a player leans towards it being either broken or simply just bad loot algorithms. By that I"ll return to the question above. I cannot say I know it’s working correctly b/c I don’t know what working correctly is. I can however say it’s working poorly or broken since it defies logic.

Flame away………W O A L S p……..

Actually this is nothing new. I’ve noticed this myself and it’s been reported for years now. It’s most noticeable when you run with the same people doing the same content each week in a guild and that guy, you know the one, that has less mf than you do gets all the loot all the time while you’re using all kinds of boosts and it doesn’t make a difference and you’re lucky you don’t get stuck with permaDR during your runs. yeah…that. It works poorly, there are far better systems out there than cutting people off entirely from their drops.

MrWubzy.3587:

shaman.1938:

MrWubzy.3587:

EazyPanda.6419:

-Snipped for length!-

-Snip again!-

snap

IF you want to be handed everything an MMO really isn’t the place and a first person shooter is definitely a better game for you ..

myself I am hoping for a game more in line with the old eq that DOES take a long time to level up so you can feel actual growth in the character instead of ending up feeling like a “cheap one night stand”… sadly I also know this won’t happen as the gaming companies are all after “big money” which means making it appeal to the players like myself who want a challenge and a game the lasts a long time and the more casual players who might only play for 2 to 3 hours through the week and then a bit more on the weekends .. because of the second group of players those like myself have suffered since 3 or 4 years into EQ 1 so about 16+ years

I was referring to grinding levels in Final Fantasy IV, not MMOs. And the mention of having to level to 80 to do Living World was just a sort of flame shield to prevent those claiming that we have to ‘grind’ levels in GW2, sorry if it wasn’t clear. I have no issues with GW2 in terms of farming or leveling process, I was just agreeing with EazyPanda’s post and attempting to define grind myself.

Irony is when someone says you get everything handed to you in an FPS game. smh apparently someone’s not played any since Battlefield 4. So many things wrong with that statement where to begin….

The problem isn’t that people have to earn their way that’s not an issue at all, because every game has that design. The problem with GW2 is you don’t earn your way from participation you get it from luck. Luck as you well know doesn’t always strike and when you have a game designed specifically to nullify luck, as this game has, with their DR system, then you don’t get anything. People have been complaining about the serious lack of drops in this game for years now, how it’s gone too far when they tried to do things so differently that they are actually scaring away players because people play games for one major psychological reason, to feel a sense of reward/accomplishment. That’s the reason. The games in which there have been 0 restrictions on loot have been the most critically acclaimed games of our time by regular players outside of what our media has said about them.

Take Eve for example, 0 restrictions, you can even go so far as to sell in game goods for real money and it’s been thriving with a growing community for years now.

This game is a grind not because people have to work to get their items far from it, it’s a grind because it’s not an even playing field. If player A has a lucky account and player B has an unlucky account and they run the same dungeon, just as the players reports have stated when they’ve noticed this exact thing in this game, and player A comes out with almost all of the top notch loot every single week, there’s a problem with the design.

Using the logical fallacy argument that it’s not a grind because people have to earn their way in a game that doesn’t have a earn-your-way-reward system isn’t going to change the current problem and neither is changing the definition of grind.

Archeage is a great example of how restrict without the grind. It too has RNG but it doesn’t have DR why? Because they made it so that the only thing to restrict players is labor points. If you don’t have enough points you can’t open your loot. I have to say it’s a far better system then completely cutting people off from their rewards, and you have to understand that I hate AA’s billing model hand and foot but at least you get your drops.

pdavis.8031:

tigirius.9014:

…….You don’t buy a phone and then have to pay more just to be able to use the apps that are supposed to be free on the phone …….

Clearly you’ve never used an Apple product…. :P

Actually that’s where my experience comes from with that example I used. Every time I’ve bought an Apple product it has free useful stuff that you don’t have to spend anything on to use and it integrates with Google to boot right out of the box.

Others can’t make that claim in fact the monthly charge for software for example would be a good subscription equivalent.

I guess what I’m saying is there are bad deals and then there are terrible deals. GW2 falls under the bad deal category in it’s current economic design. Now if they actually do something brilliant and impressive with their lack of rewards system coming in HoT that’s going to be a game changer because then you wouldn’t need 8 hours a day and login to this online job to achieve the gold you need you’d actually oh I don’t know play the game and be rewarded for your time and activities. Edit: And this of course is if you don’t suffer from the Perma DR or the unlucky account syndrome this type of loot design is infamous for historically.

I found it telling that even Angry Joe slipped up during his interview and mentioned that it would still be grind when talking to Collin sort of supports the OP’s case doesn’kitten

Brother Grimm.5176:

tigirius.9014:

…….You don’t buy a phone and then have to pay more just to be able to use the apps that are supposed to be free on the phone …….

Besides storage (that you CAN get with in-game gold, BTW), name me ONE thing you ABSOLUTELY NEED to spend RL $ on to play GW2?

Also, the fact that EVERYTHING can be obtained via in-game gold (gold to gems) discounts every claim that Anet MAKES you spend RL $. Is it more convenient? Sure…but there is an option (a HUGE distinction from most F2P games).

GW2s economic model has NOT changed since release (tho I will agree it has leaned more toward gemstore based rewards than I would like). The fact that it is highly successful for ANET (and NCSoft seems to like the status quo), attempting to change this model with some sort of grass roots player movement is just a waste of effort. If you feel that “grinding” or "nickle and diming " is beyond what you can stand, there are hundreds of other MMOs you can go play.

“Have fun storming the castle!”

You can endlessly 8 hours a day. There I fixed it for you…

I’m actually surprised that this was done considering the problems this game has with
RNG. I’d be surprised if anyone gets anything honestly.

GrandHaven.1052:

So now people are complaining about the B2P model?

Where are the days when it was the best thing since sliced bread.

Entitlement is just too much with some people..

There’s no one single B2P model just like there’s not a single subscription model to fit all games out there. This B2P model just happens to have heavy anti-farming anti-legit rewards systems combined with a draconian system that they say is just for bots (but it’s never been for bots and has yet to actually do anything about bots) combined with an extremely heavy RNG system for anything worth anything.

The grind is real, it’s not entitlement to expect enjoyment without forking out more money after you’ve bought the game, it’s just good consumer business sense. You don’t buy a phone and then have to pay more just to be able to use the apps that are supposed to be free on the phone that it comes with, say the email for example. If you were to be charged per email even when you’re paying for your internet access already, and you’ve bought the phone, and all you want to do is email your mom or get emails from your friends and there’s a severe chance that you’ll never get them or they won’t receive yours you’d be disappointed too I’m sure of it.

Now if you want me to use an analogy that has to be the equivalent of progression, how about if you’re about to get a really great job with a company that pays extremely well and all you have to do is send out an email and your phone is the only way you can. How would you feel if you have that extreme chance that your email never arrives which prevents you from getting the job all because the design of the app didn’t allow for it to work properly by design not by bugs by design. You’d be pretty mad right?

I can see them locking out the elites especially if they aren’t the old ones ie they have been significantly changed to a degree that’s severely improved them. Anything that hasn’t been changed or improved or added new to such a degree that it’s basically a new skill/trait should not be locked out. Anything that they are removing should give us an extra slot unlock/point however the new system will work.

That would be how I’d handle it that way it’s fair because we’ve all spent the time leveling and getting the old traits but we should still want to progress through whatever would be new in the expansion to enjoy getting a new skill.

Rozbuska.5263:

They never said there isnt grind in this game. They said you dont need grind to be able to participace in any content and it works that way.

No they just keep trying to redefine the grind just like so many others in these forums.

There’s much to answer for not just in this game but in many many others out there because other companies pay attention to design, and this game has changed the market in very very negative ways (grind and an AH centric gold conversion market where basically the developers are their own gold sellers).

I feel your pain OP we’ll see if they come to their senses with HoT.

Ok I Did It.2854:

So the new Beta keys are purely down to RnG, given the way RnG has worked over the last 2 1/2 years it might be better if Anet just tell us how many people they want for the Beta Test, as if they only want say 2000 people….yea you get where this is going.

Do you have to have a lucky account or at least an 800% magic find rating before it will even consider you?

Good luck with that request, you’re talking to people who actually think that the circumference of a two-handed sword is bigger than a bomb or a mine in size If this were to happen in our actual history of war, we would have never gotten past the Arquebus stage.

Actually it sounds like it’s a bit of poetic justice from where I’m sitting especially since this kind of heavy only, 3k + only etc pretty much destroyed this game early on for many a player. Nothing to see here carry on.

Andred.1087:

Broken Arietta.4631:

So fed up of this.

Then… stop?

They once said that this game would change the face of the PC MMO Genre, and it certainly did.

It made developers become lackadaisical about content by increasing the grind in their games as if this level of grind and RNG were normal and… (have several examples two of which are Archeage and STO)

It made people become complacent about the grind as if these levels we’re seeing now were ever the norm.

It’s even affecting the elephant in the room who switched the direction of their progression with their most recent expansion to compete.

Companies follow the trends of other companies all of these people who are apologists who keep using the argument that “it’s okay because everyone else is doing it” about a game that was supposedly supposed to be different in all aspects of the PC MMO Genre aren’t really helping the PC MMO market.

That list is great and all that but….

How about they follow the original suggestions list and give us the things people actually asked for originally when the game launched.

Fishing complete with props outfits minis tools cooking recipes etc

Housing complete with props we earn from doing achievements in game (so we can show where we’ve been) extra storage full on radial interior decoration controls furniture armor displays etc.

Boating complete with different designs to sail the seas props flags and battle capabilities. (there are pirates already where do they think they spend their time, ship wrecks only? sppssssh)

Cosmetics craftable cosmetics that we can mix and match that doesn’t take up armor slots and that can be warn anywhere when outside of combat.

All of these with Achievements of their own.

Weyrd.2794:

“But I first need ALL CHANGES for HOT! You are fundamentally changing the trait system, the attribute system, and therefore balance, rendering all previous made assumptions invalid. ALL of them. GIVE’M TO US! "

I doubt they are set in stone yet and anet will not want to release them until they are more confident in them.

I’m seeing this too, they haven’t released much and nothing is complete yet so I would wait.

Honestly I’m glad they did this, it’s time for them to fix the games problems and this was one of them that flew in the face of the so called diversity and roles that never existed in PVE in the first place post Nov 2012. I would say actually that I’d prefer that they remove ALL stats from gear entirely because they can do it there has been multiple precedents for such a thing and to make gear completely 100% cosmetic in the first place. If they truly wanted to live up to their no grind no gear treadmill philosophy that would be where I’d start that way people wouldn’t have an advantage just because they happened to have a lucky account that didn’t crap on them when RNG was in play.

That’s my thing. I think it would be an immense improvement personally if they made stats all level and on the characters themselves except for legendaries they can keep stats and keep them switchable. That would be fine.

The trait lines were long overdue however, and I don’t think they’ve gone far enough to remove the old problems like gear stats and the lack of roles and the grind we’ll see what happens next however.

Ragnarox.9601:

They are taking away guardians virtues.-..nice…kill us more and give us warhorn and 6x shouts. R.I.P. Longbow.

I was saddened to see this as well. I would have loved for Guardians to have had the chance to become Miko like characters (bowwomen shamaness’s in Japanese culture who symbolize purity). That would have been awesome.

And I agree with the OP on yet another point, transferring stats to the armor is not a smart thing to do it will increase the already present gear treadmill problem not solve it!

Belzebu.3912:

SEEEZZRR.7802:

The gap between ascended an exotic should still be 5% after the change, both numbers will just be bigger.

Yes percentage-wise it will be probably the same but value-wise it will have a larger gap.
Example:
100 to 105 have 5% difference and 5 points difference
200 to 210 have 5% difference and 10 points difference

The percentage argument was never really a good one due to the math involved.

I suspect the gap will be wider because it’s always been a thorn in their side. The thing about Ascended however is that they should have admitted that it was never really just for fractals as it was advertised originally.

I think they should remove stats from gear entirely personally like one of their original plans.

And while I know they are trying to improve rewards for completing maps I’d like to know if those rewards will help Ascended acquisition.

But your question deserves a Dev response OP absolutely!

I’m not seeing ANY problem with this actually. In fact this looks exactly like what I was expecting from what Jon was saying before. I don’t use ground targeting anyway I use the wells and seals and zones pretty much just below my position so this works out well.

The thing they should do next is make conditions not available to a single class until they have unlocked conditions in a max level line. That way it will help the conditions builds as well as everyone won’t have those anymore unless you’ve specialized in conditions.

Also Mortar as a kit is actually one of the best things I’ve read all day! WOOT an engineer change for the positive!

Uh yeah no…..Everyone leveled to level 80 it’s only fair that those of us who have 80s across the board on our alts list get the proper points.

STO came out with spec system but didn’t retro theirs and the nerfed their xp to the ground it now takes 3.5 years of casual play to get 1 specialization complete on their system and they lost alot of us lifetime members because of it, it’s a ghosttown of a game now.

Retro is fine because there are such things as veterans.

Ardid.7203:

I think it would be nice to have pets that don’t forget their names.

LOL Man they still haven’t fixed that yet?! What was that, Beta 1?

Yeah I think that we’ve seen as many pet request forum posts as they’d care to read frankly folks if they haven’t fixed that bug and they haven’t paid attention to the hobosack thing I wouldn’t hold my breath about seeing any new pets in any upcoming patch. Apparently they think people are only interested in new WvW maps and Hyleks.

Derigar.7810:

Andred.1087:

Or you and everyone who won’t shut up about hype could just realize there’s more to life than GW2…

Derigar.7810:

Just increase the hype because otherwise, all this work will be for nothing.

Yeah, nothing except the metric tons of money they’re going to get from expansion sales.

You’re really a negative person at heart, aren’t you? I shall pray for you this evening.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that hype makes a person keep going back to discuss the new expansion and talk about it. Hype makes your time in-game a lot more fun too. Hype is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. I don’t see why increasing it is such a bad idea.

These people just don’t get it. The silence is a huge problem with this team. Just like the use of DR to try to stop bots unsuccessfully, attempting to kill the trinity which lead to the zerker meta problem, and nerfing loot to try to preserve the gold selling system for buying progression items from the TP, these things have all been tried before and there are several very good reasons why they failed and having a poorly distributed developer blog system is no different.

Being silent about the progress on any product will lead to it being forgotten by the people you’re trying to attract. It should be common knowledge of any first year PR student really.

Frankly, I think the OP has a great schedule it beats the schedule they have hands down!

And no LOL saying that this thread came out just after they finally mentioned something in no way negates his very valid and supportive point about the lack of information coming out of the studio right now!

But that would actually require diversity in the system and for some reason which none of us can guess, adding diversity seems to be a terrible thing in their minds all save for one that is. So who knows if what Jon was talking about will come to pass but I can say this that telling the people about pvp maps isn’t going to help your PVE players understand whether or not you’re actually fixing the problems with PVE in the first place.

The silence sadly will most likely be too long and we’ll most likely see too little too late when it comes to actual plans coming up for HoT to fix the Zerker problem.

It is a problem, some people just don’t want to accept that is it a central issue in this title one that’s actually been repeated multiple times before by other development teams no less when they too thought they could simply remove the trinity without having a complex and balanced PVE core.

One of the major issues in this game is the lack of crits with DoTs and the fact that everyone and I mean everyone has a DoT. It used to be that you had to make choices to even be in the a DoT spec and now here we are everyone has certain ones and the few that are actually important ones do hardly any damage and people keep mistakenly saying that those are important (like poison or burning). (DoTs aka Conditions doesn’t matter what label you use, it’s still the same system we’ve seen before.)

If they forced people to be in a full on grandmaster to even be able to apply conditions this wouldn’t be a problem, and don’t get me started on power only builds.

No dungeons being even more difficult won’t help but diversity certainly will.

Maunzi.3764:

Posts like this illustrate that the problem is OP, not GW2.

OP only tries the easiest dungeons and easiest worldbosses and then complains that it’s easy.

So, why should Arenanet design more content that people like OP are avoiding? Sure, OP CLAIMS he wants harder content, but the simple fact is: He doesn’t. Reality already proves this. It’s just posing.

Way to throw logical fallacy into the mix.

I’m no lover of the 1% in fact that community has ruined many of the newest games to come out by demanding such extreme difficulty that they’d personally not be satisfied unless they were fighting multiple bosses solo, yes that’s how extreme their demands are on the developers. So keep that in mind when I say what I’m saying below…

Trying to discredit what the OP is saying by only addressing certain points and making it seem like the others don’t exist isn’t going to validate your counterargument.

He makes great points about the lack of fixes to the inherent problems, the problems with trains and bugs, the overall design of the “meta” which btw has happened countless times before in loads of mmo’s both indie and AAA when those other developers tried to destroy the trinity or make it not needed at all.

I’m waiting to see what they post next, for some reason they think that PVP is all people want to see and some suspect that this is because they don’t really have anything to talk about in PVE yet for the expansion so I agree with him when it comes to the lack of information about what’s going on with the expansion. I don’t care about PVP because PVE is the core of the game, you do PVE to progress not the other way around and we absolutely need as much information as possible. Several others have mentioned the lack of information coming out of the studio as well after such a huge to do about the thing.

He’s got valid concerns that it just might be more of the same. So here’s to hoping but there’s only so long people can hold their breath.

Yet more evidence that systems like DR do not work and do not prevent bots or gold spammers at all. Their scripts didn’t break they just never worked in the first place.

Gibson.4036:

Wreave.2138:

Complaining about grinding in an MMO is like complaining about sugar in a sugartart.

MMOs are time consumers. That’s their primary feature, and its there by necessity. People play MMOs to kill time. But, psychologically they want a reason to play, i.e. there has to be something that draws them to play. Hence, there has to be something that gives them a reason to play a lot — hence… grinds.

I was going to respond to this, but Test covered it really well above.

Just because MMOs are traditionally about setting up huge time-sinks so people can treat them as a second job doesn’t mean that have to be designed that way. Sooner or later, an inspired team is going to have the backing to make something different, and MMOs as we know it will shift.

As it is, the status quo is slowly bleeding out.

What I find interesting is the sheer number of people who actually mistakenly think that this game is different than the rest. It’s got grind, gear treadmill, Pay to Progress elements in it’s current state and in order to actually deliver on what they claimed they’d be doing in the beginning they’d have to do something completely different than they are now.

We’re waiting to see if they actually say something about what they are planning on doing about these situations but information has been far and few between.

Mister zeeRo.8561:

yeah I think im gonna have to give up on GW2 since Anet doesnt seem to give a kitten about removing the horrible “improvements” no one asked for in the first place.

“improvements” and a total lack of communications over the course of a WHOLE YEAR

traits unlock and town clothes were FINE as they were,

now traits are a horrible grind and town clothes are useless and cant be dyed.

toon specific guild repping is an absurd design , but it doest matter , guild chat is broken beyond recognition.

SAB aint coming back. Necromancer minions still useless. Low tier WvW is basically PvE since all you ever fight is a bunch of npcs.

ever since April 2014 :

friend : dude you still playing GW2 ?
me : yeah
friend : I’m thinking about getting the game, what character should I make first ?
me : listen to me very carefully, dont buy the game in its current state.

WoW what changed suddenly? What did I miss? Did someone say they would fix something again – like they did with hobosacks and it never came to pass?

What was it specifically because I just have to know?

I genuinely would like to know because it seems by some of the posts I missed last time around of reading through the most recent posts that something has changed? o.0

It’s just another example of how not-so-different they built the game compared to other titles out there. As someone who’s been playing these games for years I can’t tell you the number of young titles in their primes who said it was absolutely necessary only to have had it removed as it caused more problems then it was worth and was one of the many straws that made people leave finally.

LOTRO comes to mind immediately. A mob would have simply had to look at you, not touch you mind you look in your general direction and suddenly you’d be stricken with a type of fear. Now fear as we all know it make people run faster, so anytime we’d see this in a game that was actually being advertised for the more cerebral players, naturally we’d give them flack about it in the forums until they finally removed it.

I’d say that GW2 doesn’t have enough options for movement, they need it to be a 4 tier system and by that I mean there should be a movement state on gear for out of combat, there should be the 25 movement available as a choice for in combat, there should be traits that allow certain classes that ability to escape combat, and there should be the mastery system (which they are adding) for gliding.

It gives more dynamics to the group and it allows for strategy instead of the standard everyone run at the same pace nonsense we have now.

I absolutely love it. I watched the preview of what it could be on woodenpotatoes channel and It will definitely fix alot of problems. It still has a heavy gold element to it in that it will require that people gather enough Tier 6 materials to put one together which won’t stop the economics but it will require that players actually EARN it instead of using their credit card to get one.

So definitely a big fan of the new system from one of their biggest critics right here!

I’m wondering now though what they’ll do to help the ascended gear acquisition problem for those of us with unlucky accounts. If they find a great solution for that too there maybe hope yet!

I’d like a reclass token myself but I’d also like a re-race token because at the end of the day we really are just playing a game here there should be an option to change these things without destroying all of the progress we’ve made thus far and having to start over.

glehmann.9586:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Now, if they bring back the nice face-to-face cutscenes we had in the original personal story, we would be back at the beginning, which – to be totally honest – would be a big step forward compared to the LS.

Bluh, I wholeheartedly disagree. I thought the face-to-face cutscenes were really jarring and ruined immersion. I don’t think the LS text dialog is any better for immersion, but at least the dialog flows better, so I consider overall a small step forward.

I’m actually pretty excited about the announcement of PC voice acting returning, and share the OP’s surprise that more people aren’t talking about it.

I didn’t like them at first either because one it interrupted what I was doing and it made the battle scenes less fun I wasn’t free to move and do things while talking to the NPCs and two it caused problems with battle scenes in which the game had to be tricked into either despawning mobs or it had to make you immune (which bugs didn’t always allow) in between cut scenes sometimes which broke immersion for me.

In every other title I’ve played in which npc and player character speech was occurring it was always less jarring and more realistic to carry on a conversion while running through the scenes doing things especially in battle scenes or emergencies. From Star Trek’s adventure zones to WoW’s WoD initial questlines it just makes it more fluid.

If I’m not mistaken I believe that SWTOR is changing how theirs work too from what I’ve read.

I think it would be awesome if they did do that for guardian because I’m thinking of the Japanese holy shrine maiden archetype that used the bow as a design based off of the four directions and used arrows to purify, heal, and destroy demons (nothing like the demons of the west btw).

For example, the Momote-shiki , the hundred-arrow ritual, is a ritual performed each January to honor the coming of age day and in November to pray for a bountiful harvest in Shinto could be used as inspiration for a skill.

They could also borrow heavily from the huntress goddesses in the western mythologies as well there’s plenty of room for inspiration there.

It’s an archetype that’s found throughout the digital entertainment culture with themes in shows like Sailor Moon, and Inuyasha. It would take the class in a whole new unexplored direction if they used this archetype for the Guardian in this expansion.

Zoid.2568:

Nephziel.6053:

Zoid.2568:

Nephziel.6053:

It wouldn’t fit. You are commander of the pact, trying to unite different spicies to be your cannon fodder and go in almost certain deaths. I can’t imagine a lot of people would follow the cuttroat and a thief.

Justice system doesn’t belong in GW2.

Why would you base the features of GW2 on the personal story? that’s stupid and will only limit the game. MMORPGS would be better without a linear story.

Its not only that there is a lot more but I tought you would be able to see it. Oh well.

How would you prevent certain players from killing the players in low areas?
How would you solve the difference between lower level players and downscaled ones?
What method would you use to balance the PvE gear since its quite different from PvP gear?
How would you consider food and stacking sigils?
What happens to player who just started with no traits if the run into someone with full traits?
What would determine what stuff gets pickpocketed?
How would soulbound/account-bound stuff and safe/invisible bags influnce this?

This is just PvP aspect of the system, there is so much more to consider.

As I said Justice System doesn’t belong here.

It’s a feature you activate to participate in, depending on your actions.
- If you steal and murder (Only NPCs, players can’t be targeted) you’re a criminal.
- If you follow the law like a law abiding citizen you’re safe.
- If you follow the law and apply as a guard you have the rights to arrest criminals and put them in jail, also demand a fee depending on the crime they committed.
- Criminals and Citizen can apply for bounties which makes them a bounty hunter, chase down criminals and be rewarded for it.

I don’t see how PvP is forced?

This is the proper way to implement this setup yes I agree. No one is talking open pvp from what I’ve read so far so I don’t know either where they get these ideas.