Guild Wars 2

I agree with Inculpatus cedo.9234 what exactly is prestigious about a credit card? Seriously? At least now you would have actually HAD to have played the game in order to get one. That’s the difference I’m liking about it.

What got me about this whole ordeal was here we were in the forums everyday talking about the legendaries and how to get them but no one noticed that there was a huge conflict in the logic of the people like OP who supported the ability to buy them from the AH.

We’d have the 1% calling for things to be harder, calling for people to actually play the game by shaming people who didn’t have a certain gear score or a certain achievement point set in dungeons and telling people off who had just begun the game and played the class they liked in the way they liked it instead of following the Zerker crowd and who actually booted these players from groups — who then turned around and BOUGHT their precursor and the materials to make their legendary from the store to make them. If that isn’t a conflict of logic I dunno what is LOL

Exactly, that’s been my problem too. It was this huge todo and then suddenly nothing. There was like this big storm that moved through the area and then nothing but waste afterwards with only the crickets in the background. Even those who were invited to cover the announcement have not posted anything at all about what’s going on in the game since there’s only their general gameplay posts about what it’s like now.

munki.6402:

xev.9476:

Why are ridiculous, irrelevant posts like this so common? The OP was clear that he enjoys the game overall but wants the game to improve in certain areas. How does that merit a “love it or leave it” ultimatum? Identifying problematic areas now qualifies as “treating this game like a job”? What is the difference between “subjective and objective reasoning”, and what possible relevance does it have in a forum that welcomes and encourages player feedback?

I never suggested a ‘love it or leave it’ ultimatum. My point was that if the OP is dissatisfied he should move on to something else because it is unlikely that he will see immediate fixes for the ‘problematic areas’. The OP is regurgitating issues and Devs have already expressed that they are attempting to address many of them in HoT. I am satisfied with this game. I enjoy playing it. That is subjective in that it is my personal experience, which the OP obviously does not share. I fail to see why I should have to explain that, but here we are.

I have offered feedback via my expression of being satisfied with things as they are. I accept that the ‘problematic areas’ will be addressed with the release of HoT (as well as any potential patches between now and its release). Is my feedback, or opinion lacking because I’m not acting as a cheering section for the OP?

Actually yes yes you did and posts like yours do more damage than good. people come here to point out these problems not because they don’t like the game not after 3 years sorry to destroy your logic but that’s just not how that works. People continue to point out the flaws in the hopes that they’ll see the post and do something about it.

They have a real chance and funding to make the appropriate “fixes” to the games overall design so that it improves it for everyone and eliminates obvious flaws. That doesn’t come from a place of hating the game. I suppose you’ll tell us next that Woodenpotatoes recent youtube posts about certain flaws means he is dissatisfied with the game and should move on when nothing could be further from the truth because that is what your last post was saying.

Anyways, OP I completely stand behind you I’m interested in seeing where this goes we need more information that’s for sure because we’re definitely NOT getting enough. They had this huge convention in which it was all but televised on a marathon and suddenly everything went silent. There are some things we absolutely need answers on and I for one would like a comprehensive list of essential problems in the games design to be drawn up with responses on what is on it’s way and I’d love to see it in the forums and not somewhere else (cough reddit cough)

OP mentioned trains, metas and a lack of class knowledge (no class training quests or missions or even solo dungeons I suspect he was talking about), for me it’s always been what will the replacement for the anti-farming be when it comes to materials for ascended, what will the new balance be like since the new class is what they claim all classes should be like when it comes to combat style for the future, and what will they be doing about systems like the anti-trinity which has lead to things like the Zerker meta in the first place (now let me be clear about this one, I’m no fan of all DoTs for every class and every player the elephant in the room did that and the scout classes have suffered for it in that game so that’s not the solution).

Zoid.2568:

I think Druids should be able to tame some creatures that aren’t animals. Like monsters from the jungle that are influenced by Modremoths power.

I think they should be able to transform for travel purposes, tame monsters optionally, or become spirits themselves.

Badwolf.9725:

That’s what I’m afraid of. GW2 tried to pass itself off as a game that was challenging all the “mmo” fundamentals, it’s why they tried to get rid of the trinity, and it sounds great. However, the reality is that GW2, to me at least, suffers from the most extreme versions of some of the worst fundamentals in MMO’s. Grind Wars 2; Heart of Thorns doesn’t sound all that appealing to me.

If I had to make a wish list for GW2, I think getting rid of the trains would be #1. For a “living” story, it sure as hell feels dead to me. The last time I played, Divinity’s Reach had an event going on that was just a giant train for grinding out useless kitten, and now that I’ve come back, SW is almost the same exact thing, just on a larger map.

That’s what some of us have noticed yes. What’s not got be excited for HoT personally is there’s not much data on the new changes coming to PVE combat in particular diversity of builds sure you CAN have other builds but it really does you no good if you’re seen as a pariah by the community when doing anything meaningful does it.

The other thing is rewards. Sure they are going in a good direction with improving map completion rewards but we’ve really not seen numbers have we, like will you just get 20 of that Tier 6 material that’s impossible to farm from the 1 time map completion or will it be significant? And why after all this time despite countless hours of evidence of teleporter bots being in this game, is DR left in the system? It’s not stopped a single bot since the first day it was implemented, not one, they still freely pop from node ot node.

The other issue not listed by the OP in his exploit paragraph is the class imbalance. Even with the changes, there are still classes (cough warrior cough) that are used to run 5 man dungeons solo and sell slots to people in the lfg. It’s STILL happening despite claims that they were doing something about it. There shouldn’t be any class so powerful that it can run 5 mans by itself at all yet they are still worried about classes like Engineer. It amazes me because someone over there actually things that two handed swords should do more damage than bullets, bombs, mines, flame throwers, and chemical warfare like the entire violent history of the human race is irrelevent when it comes to class design and balance suddenly in PVE.

It’s almost easier to put up with the problems of the trinity, grinding levels, or playing a dungeon lobby game as the only option for progression with some of the problems this game faces sometimes.

So really it depends on several factors and many of them for me will be to see if they are going to make good on the changes to the old conventions they were using which caused these problems in the first place, how they handle these changes will make or break the deal for me honestly.

Here’s to hoping all those things are addressed yep!

yet another repeated request from the multiple quality of life requests sitting in the archives of the trash can where the suggestions folder now resides.

It’s very much needed yes yet I doubt it will ever be added.

This is what happens to the community when certain decisions cause the majority of players to leave the game, you’re left with the so called elite 1% that love to do these kinds of things while they are playing. Harassment is in their twisted psyche and no you’re not alone about it being troublesome.

We tried to warn folks that it would degenerate into this but no one listened. You can see posts about it that I participated in years ago describing this very thing would happen to the community in the end. It started however with kicking certain classes from dungeons and degenerated from there.

Sadly nothing can be done about it at this point without causing more damage I suspect.

Asked for stealing from mobs early in the game to get items that would make a difference in farming for gold it was basically ignored I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Healing to be a thing in PVE, it’s really not where it should be. As an Engineer I don’t want to have to do 3 things to get the same AOE healing affects that other classes take for granted, I want cleansing to be an option in the trait trees, I want ranged healing like using grenades, and I want mines to be included in the healing aspects of explosives as well even those created by other traits especially since one of the biggest heals we had in PVE was taken out when they nerfed kits for PVP purposes which this class has never recovered from.

warbignime.4610:

They are not tradable

Exactly so how these people think that they’ll get rich off of it is beyond me. I’m also seeing an effort on Anet’s part to allow the acquisition of T6 mats for the use in the crafting. Who needs to buy it from the TP when you can do jump puzzles etc and get enough mats, that actually allows for some kind of farming to be involved instead of being locked out of farming them entirely like it is now! A good move in the right direction AWAY from the TP finally.

Even Woodenpotatoes mentioned how you can’t farm for the mats in it’s current design which is weird for an MMORPG, it’s the only one of it’s kind right now in that respect.

We’ll see if they actually offer enough of a reward to get you on the road to completion with the new rewards system. If not I don’t think I’ll be wasting my money frankly.

JonPeters.5630:

Hey Everyone,

As you may have noticed bleeding stacks go above 25 stacks when playing in the demo map. This is not a mistake, rather as we have said for a while now, we know that the current stack cap creates problems for condition players who want to work together. What you saw today was the first test in solving some of these problems. Keep in mind, it is not necessarily final and absolutely not the entire plan. I see many questions about how this will work and how it impacts other conditions, balance, etc. Rest assured that as soon as we have a final plan we will be revealing it and letting you all know exactly how it will work.

Jon

In addition to the question I posed above, will there be a concerted effort to remove the general blasé availability of certain conditions for everyone like bleeding for example so that only those who choose certain traits will have conditions turned on?

I think that both stacking and restricting certain conditions to condition builds would go a long way in preventing any problems with your servers during events.

Actually I read that the new precursors were actually the old ones and they would be obtainable from a combination of a crafting/mastery system they are implementing requiring that you complete a certain line of mastery in order to get the precursor. There was also mention of a revamp to the rewards system coming not with loot mind you but adding loot options when the mastery was updated to include certain items needed in crafting legendaries from activities like chests at the end of jump puzzles for example.

No answer for the question of poison and burning I see?

Mirta.5029:

tigirius.9014:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Fernling.1729:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Fernling.1729:

Cazamar.7148:

Okay, doesn’t WoW have the option to buy a max level character? And what promises did ArenaNet make you?

No, it doesn’t. Someone gave you some incorrect information.

They sell level 90 characters (where max level is level 100) to accounts with at least one level 90 char.

https://us.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft-service-character-boost

That’s why I said it doesn’t. Level 100 is max, not 90.

You’re correct, but……..

It’s verrrrry close though. Just 10 levels. I don’t know how long it would take to get 10 levels in WoW but surely it doesn’t take that long. Essentially they are selling what was max level until about 6 months ago (when the Warlords of Draenor came out) and the player only needs to get 10 more.

Like I said above, “it doesn’t it has 10 levels below max, it has a training system to help you prepare for using your class and role properly and it has a system of rewards that you cannot find anywhere else in the game with that system. The NPE system in this game has no training, no example builds, no preloaded builds, no personal instance to help players better understand their class.”

Far superior to the newer games like these that don’t have the training system so that players can learn their class.

It’s a necessary system in games in which they don’t have a proper leveling system. This game has a good one it’s one of the very things I like about GW2, not just the even leveling process but also the books but leveling isn’t everything. If you reach max level but you don’t know how to play your class properly you really aren’t helping anyone least of all yourself.

To me this would have been where I took the NPE in the direction of helping players learn their classes rather than doing what Anet did with the NPE with trait restriction because that’s not helping anyone and that’s one of the reasons why I and others are saying we’re going to give them a wide birth until they get things in order in the future because they aren’t doing the things right now that make it a modern mmo with the expected quality of life improvements it should have by now.

to be fair “instant 90” service released 6 months before the expansion and it does not require you to already have a 90. Expect an “instant 100” 6 months before the next expansion.

Pure speculation. The reason why they kept it at 90 was because they didn’t want to cheapen the leveling experience of the expansion they put out, they also wanted people to spend time using their training system to learn to play their class which is why they kept it as a requirement before people could jump into heroics, there’s also been 0 announcements concerning what they’re going to do next in an expansion because they’ve always used leveling as a system to delay the end game at max level which means more changes are coming to improve the game not make it harder. So they most likely won’t be adding more levels, they might be adding a post max level advancement system and from what I’ve seen in their other titles they know what they are doing. DIII has a good one.

Anyway as an all condition player in this game, combat is a drag because the basics of combat that I’ve found in other games simply haven’t happened here in this one for this type of damage type, such as crits on dots, a requirement that only those who specialize in this damage type gets it (instead of everyone and their brother having bleeds), and resistences playing a part in that people have to choose whether to have resistances as a serious defense so they can’t all be cleansed continuously without much thought and continue a DPS role at the same time, choices don’t matter in this title right now. If these things don’t change many of us will remember the game as “oh yeah remember that title you used to play, what was it again?” and ESO just might be on my list of games to try.

Beldin.5498:

DR only applies to weapon / armor drops but not to crafting mats.

I always love when people complain about it and have never really noted that.

Site your reference for that?

DR stops all drops it’s not tuned to key for only certain items and it’s used to stop loot period.

Tell that to the people who reported not getting any loot and people who are still reporting whole chests disappearing from events.

Anyway, Karma could easily fix this problem as well so that people wouldn’t have to use gold for every single piece of anything in the game. The cost of lodestones would then not matter.

Sounds like a repeated symptom of DR again. This has happened several times before you see only after the implementation of DR.

Let me correct the phrase above “good for the players that CAN farm and sell them” because people keep saying it’s an equal playing field for the farming situation but it’s definitely NOT that at all in this game. This game is the only game out there right now that uses DR the only MMO that uses that archaic system to this day and it affects people’s accounts negatively everyday.

I think it would be bad if they raised in price. This game’s economy was perfectly fine in the beginning of the game, it had all of the elements of a healthy economy and continued on until the first loot nerfs began. They didn’t outright proclaim it but when they nerfed the loot and added DR they declared that legit farmer players had no place in their game. I think they underestimated just how many healthy economies in mmo’s out there are driven by this kind of player and just how many players play that way because that’s been the standard for years.

If the prices increased it would be ongoing of a central problem. It would be bad. If they’d decrease that would be a benefit to the rest of the economy because people could actually make the items they needed. I think instead of adjusting the prices directly they should remove the anti-farmer systems in place to allow people to go get the items they need without having to farm gold or make certain centrally required items available from karma vendors directly.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Fernling.1729:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Fernling.1729:

Cazamar.7148:

Okay, doesn’t WoW have the option to buy a max level character? And what promises did ArenaNet make you?

No, it doesn’t. Someone gave you some incorrect information.

They sell level 90 characters (where max level is level 100) to accounts with at least one level 90 char.

https://us.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft-service-character-boost

That’s why I said it doesn’t. Level 100 is max, not 90.

You’re correct, but……..

It’s verrrrry close though. Just 10 levels. I don’t know how long it would take to get 10 levels in WoW but surely it doesn’t take that long. Essentially they are selling what was max level until about 6 months ago (when the Warlords of Draenor came out) and the player only needs to get 10 more.

Like I said above, “it doesn’t it has 10 levels below max, it has a training system to help you prepare for using your class and role properly and it has a system of rewards that you cannot find anywhere else in the game with that system. The NPE system in this game has no training, no example builds, no preloaded builds, no personal instance to help players better understand their class.”

Far superior to the newer games like these that don’t have the training system so that players can learn their class.

It’s a necessary system in games in which they don’t have a proper leveling system. This game has a good one it’s one of the very things I like about GW2, not just the even leveling process but also the books but leveling isn’t everything. If you reach max level but you don’t know how to play your class properly you really aren’t helping anyone least of all yourself.

To me this would have been where I took the NPE in the direction of helping players learn their classes rather than doing what Anet did with the NPE with trait restriction because that’s not helping anyone and that’s one of the reasons why I and others are saying we’re going to give them a wide birth until they get things in order in the future because they aren’t doing the things right now that make it a modern mmo with the expected quality of life improvements it should have by now.

Torvic.8256:

Teon.5168:

Torvic.8256:

I’ve been enjoying both GW2 and TESO for quite a while and will continue to do so. In fact, they’re both my fantasy-based MMO’s of choice.

They’re just different enough from one another that I don’t feel like I’m playing the exact same game. Still, among other things, they’re two of the most beautiful looking MMO’s I’d ever experienced.

Agreed Although LotRo was visually stunning back when I played that, as well.

Also agreed. Though somewhat less so than both GW2 and TESO (not surprising considering the age disparity), LotRo is still a beautiful game.

Among the other aspects of TESO that I’ve been very impressed with is with many of its quests’ narratives with their interesting twists, turns and resolutions.

Exactly. To me it’s funny when people bring these things up there are several holes in the design of GW2 and if that makes people happy that’s fine but those of us who’ve been around longer who’ve seen just how good a quality game can be (which btw doesn’t have the design flaws this game has because they’ve ignored years of MMO development history of just what works and works well) it’s like there’s a nostalgia glasses thing going on here where they can’t seem to see the flaws because they are trying to hold onto the first time they loaded the game (which btw didn’t have Ascended in it, didn’t have loot nerfs, didn’t have DR, didn’t have squashed Karma, didn’t have alot of the things we have now that made the game worse not better).

LOTRO is a wonderfully beautiful game but one out of the two things it has a problem with is not having evenly spaced leveling, it’s a terrible 2004 system of leveling no doubt perpetrated by the same thoughts the decisions in this title has suffered from in that give people busy work and they’ll stay which has never worked. I like LOTRO but I can’t play it because leveling has become a grind much like Ascended has become a grind here.

Oh and to the guy who said WoW has a purchase max level toons system, it doesn’t it has 10 levels below max, it has a training system to help you prepare for using your class and role properly and it has a system of rewards that you cannot find anywhere else in the game with that system. The NPE system in this game has no training, no example builds, no preloaded builds, no personal instance to help players better understand their class.

Coalwhite.2571:

This has to be said.

I haven’t played GW2 for about a year, maybe a bit more. I reached end-game back then, played around and after a while gave up because I got bored and lag was pretty bad back then (this was also around the time the trading shop was down for a few days for Mac users only). Then ESO was announced and I was like: suck it ArenaNet, Bethesda is going to take all your players.

In any case, fast forward almost a year and despite seeing tons of new and exciting GW2 news I decide to buy ESO Online now that it’s finally B2P. This thing costs 60$, and there’s no refund – but I think: hey, how bad can it be – it’s from the guys that made Skyrim.

ESO is so darn uninspired it made me upset! I’ve logged 25 hours in the game, around 13 of those are install hours o_O

Battle is a drag, the in-game world is boring to explore and the skills are not adding to the battle at all yet. Lore is great though, I’ll give them that. But really, there’s no strategy and hitboxes are deplorably bad. After about three days of frustration and boredom I can no longer force myself to play it, and am downloading GW2 as I type this.

Maybe because I’m older or have just played more games, but I look back on my time with GW2 and I remember excitement, mystery and great, challenging combat. Glad to be back, let’s hope the magic hasn’t faded (…. and that they didn’t stop working on the Mac client!!!!)

Anyone else come here from ESO?

That’s funny because if certain changes aren’t coming GW2 will have driven me to not only ESO for console but also other console MMOs and they would have contributed to several factors that have driven me from the MMO market on pcs entirely.

I’m 42 played MMOs for 15 years on pc and I’ve found joy in the console MMO and RPG markets recently that simply don’t exist in the PC MMOs like GW2 anymore because everything save for two games has become one big pay to progress system. WoW and Rift seems to be the only development team with any kind of ethics when it comes to not following the mobile market economy.

I played the ESO beta and it was missing several required QoL improvements but I was impressed with it’s combat and storytelling which was fully voiced, I liked how they incorporated the exploration with the quests, and combat was actually quite fun from a FP point of view.

I’m waiting right now to see what they’ll tell us about the essential fixes coming to HoT but I can promise yeah that if they don’t come through with several broken systems as well as forgotten promises made 10 months ago to the community I won’t be staying because I don’t believe in giving money to those who haven’t the ethics to fulfill their promises made to the public in any company or game genre.

We’ll see.

JonPeters.5630:

Hey Everyone,

As you may have noticed bleeding stacks go above 25 stacks when playing in the demo map. This is not a mistake, rather as we have said for a while now, we know that the current stack cap creates problems for condition players who want to work together. What you saw today was the first test in solving some of these problems. Keep in mind, it is not necessarily final and absolutely not the entire plan. I see many questions about how this will work and how it impacts other conditions, balance, etc. Rest assured that as soon as we have a final plan we will be revealing it and letting you all know exactly how it will work.

Jon

Will we see personal single stacks of poison, chill, or burning? (ie no interrupts of any other players out there putting their own on the enemy)

Gaaroth.2567:

Is there any other convention in the near future where there will be GW2? Cuz i’m totally thinking of showing up with an hobosack on my back. And a commander tag. Green. (Seriously we need some more colors xD)

LOL that would be awesome for everyone to show up with a hobosack on.

What’s sad tho is when you look at the long list of players on the list of people who are presenting the videos about what’s going and those who were invited to Anet’s location to talk about HoT I’ve not seen a single one of those presenters or reviews play the Engineer class.

It’s truly telling when you have not only no representation on the Development team but also no representation on the side of reviewers who are talking about the expansion or the game on a weekly basis. It’s like everyone’s ignoring that this class exists unless it has to do with PVP and then e-sports or something.

At this rate nothing important to the community will be fixed much less hobosacks if proper representation doesn’t exist in the two most visual communities of the game.

Gaaroth.2567:

Still we are craving for a dev reply. Gaile Gray we summon you! <3

Yes please. everyone get their brooms and form a circle! Now start chanting! There we go, maybe we’ll get one of them to appear in the circle and tell us about the changes coming to hobosacks. If not, see the picture below.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Let me get this straight, you have decided to give up on a character you enjoy playing because one bad pug couldn’t handle the molten duo?

Exactly why Zerker is harming this title. It’s no different than any other title out there that’s ever tried to make it all about the deeps. Historically it’s the same, they try to destroy the fundamentals of a good group and make people all glass cannons which then sets up a community that eats itself whole because these glass cannons essentially croak when touched one time by bosses unless of course there’s imbalance with health between classes which pretty much is how this title is setup from the start.

I feel sorry for people here who think that this is superior gameplay when all it is is a bunch of people running around in tissue paper protections trying to burst the enemy down as quickly as possible in PVE. It’s the equivalent of superman with all of his powers intact accept for his invulnerability being swatted away and instakilled by a giant enemy of some kind because he didn’t think about what he was doing beforehand.

If we were to use the military as an example, teams don’t survive because they try to be gung ho about killing the enemy before anyone else they also don’t survive by trying to be timid about supporting their fellow team members in battle situations, they survive by supporting one another and the person who’s the medic has to stop and stabilize the wounded to keep the team going otherwise they won’t survive. No wars have ever been won simply by more firepower.

I’ll just leave this here.

Hylgeriak.8250:

It’s only grind if you make it a grind. Finished my full light ascended armor only recently…took me about a year (or when did anet introduce ascended armor crafting?). I gathered all materials by playing “the way I want”…it took me quite a while, but no reason to rush anything. You don’t loose track in GW2 if you’re not constantly playing like in most other MMOs.

And you don’t think a year is too long in a game that was touted as one that wasn’t following the crowd or doing things the old way?

This is what’s called irony in the posts who keep defending this in these forums.

This game was meant to have a grind about as much as it was meant to have ascended gear, it wasn’t at all. When you look at everything prelaunch and then you look at everything now, GW2 has become the game that it was never supposed to be in the first place and that’s the central point of threads like these. Defending these things isn’t doing anything to make the game better.

OP specifically said it shouldn’t be a thread about whether or not it’s an optional grind because that’s entirely irrelevant and I agree, the grind is still a grind and it’s still present that’s the entire point of threads like these, so how do you improve it. I’ve given several great examples from games that are immensely more rewarding in experience than this title. What can the defenders add to the list so it doesn’t take a whole year to make top tier gear in a game without raiding because that’s what the OP is asking for.

Unfortunately it looks like burning, chill, and poison might still be stuck at 1 stack.

I’m really only interested in the beta when they are releasing the changes to my favorite class, Engineer.

So I’m more interested in playing in a beta that has those changes so I can test those first hand. I didn’t think they’d have that available yet do they?

Still no response to this issue I see. Need a non-excuse response please.

Oh god no! WOW really? If he truly said that instances were the cure for storytelling ….I just can’t even, have they not been paying attention to the market at all? Are none of them there MMO gamers at all? smh

There’s so much wrong with that statement! Why is it post launch, this team has gone backwards in game design on so many things, wasn’t this game supposed to change the way people play? Well if that statement was true then why are they going backwards to 2004? Why not stick with the new stuff out there there are new ways of doing open world events we’ve seen them in other games and you can incorporate them into this title.

Why do so well with voice acting while running around which I’ve enjoyed immensely in games like Dragonage Inquisition, and Diablo III and then try to make all content stuck behind a 5 man instance? Sorry that’s just not fun I truly hope they come to their senses and pay attention to what happened to their sister game Wildstar when it tried to do just that.

And racial storytelling is one of the biggest things that’s kept the elephant in the room going for all these years. The misunderstanding of who the Horde really is, the bigotry of the leaders of the Alliance, the war mongering all made such a good story in another game I’ve played, it’s compelling because it’s closer to what real life is like.

Bernie.8674:

Obtena.7952:

Necessity is not defined by the player, it’s defined by what is necessary from a game mechanics. Here is why … that perception of necessary could also be used to justify why Anet should just mail me a full set of anything I want —- which would be ridiculous.

People keep bringing up necessity, but necessity is irrelevant. ArenaNet stated that in their game players were not going to have to grind for BiS gear. It’s that simple. Bringing up necessity is straw-manning the issue.

Here’s my stance: By the time you’ve hit level 80, completed your personal story, and attained 100% map completion you should have obtained your BiS gear under a system that works as ArenaNet claims.

How are you making the leap from that to “Anet should just mail me a full set of anything I want?”

ArenaNet claims they never intended for ascended gear to be grindy. In my opinion they failed miserably at that. I believe that even WoW’s gearing system is less grindy than the current one because at least in that one you have to make your way through an entire raid to get your drops. Under the current ArenaNet system you just spend all your time trash farming in Champion Trains/Dry Top/Silverwastes/Living Story du Jour. As much as I’ve grown to hate raiding, it is still more engaging than defending four forts that have identical mechanics ad nauseum.

Some claim that this isn’t grind because they were able to get what they wanted by playing the way they wanted. Good for them, but when they clarified how they liked to play, it turned out that the way they want to play was to grind. The other common argument is that it’s not grinding because you can pick from a variety of grinds. You can run Champ Trains, WvW, Dry Top, and/or Silverwastes. Sorry, but all that crap is the same to me: repetitive, mind numbing, and only fun for about 45 minutes. LIke the title of this thread says, “Grind is Grind.” Just because you have 4 different forms of grind to pick from doesn’t make it “not grind.”

I’m playing WoW right now I have to say that it’s far more fun imo I actually get rewarded for my time. I go through and get enough currency to buy a piece of gear for one slot within 4 days of completing the tasks necessary. They recent expanded it to double the bonus because it was previously too slow. Then once you get those items (let’s say it’s an Exotic) you go through the process of getting together some materials to upgrade your item which is another type of currency that is earned in a different way. I’ve upgraded my items at a ratio of 1.5 weeks per item with their current system.

Far superior than the ascended grind here in a game that was touted as being developed by people who don’t believe people should grind or repeat the same activities I might add.

So, when people come here to defend these things I’m always amazed because it’s obvious to anyone anyone at all who’s played multiple mmo’s for multiple years I’ve been playing for roughly 15 years and I’ve seen all sorts of progression methods in my time, this my friend is a grind. I like how you pointed out that these people are a minority who like the grind, casuals like me make up the majority of the gaming community in the PC mmo lifestyle, it’s been proven in every major test by every company in every pocket subgenre of the MMO genre. We are the market, so I find it interesting that they are continuing to listen to basically what comprises of the same community that their sister game was made for, Wildstar. If ever you had enough evidence for the argument that the 1% should not be listened to when it comes to game development, that game is it. There is no doubt now that the old school gaming styles cannot sustain games and frankly grinding for gear is one of those old school systems of progression that do not belong in modern mmo’s .

I agree with the OP it doesn’t matter if the minority likes it, it doesn’t matter if people say it’s optional for themselves, and it doesn’t matter if “some” people can actually farm because they don’t suffer from unlucky accounts, what matters is this level of time gating doesn’t belong in a modern game with the type of audiences that Anet is trying to attract with statements they’ve made in their interviews and in their manifesto. No one can argue that when they said they don’t believe in grinding, that they therefore shouldn’t have grinding in any form in their game. It just shouldn’t be here and they’d improve their game greatly if they’d include in their update to the world exploration completion the ability to get ascended gear and/or parts from karma, or from salvaging which would change up their TP centric nature of the game.

tfcgeneralkmk.9508:

tigirius.9014:

Novuake.2691:

RnG is RnG.
There is no game, there is no pattern. Every single time to take a CHANCE, that chance is calculated separately from any other roll.

However ANET does tweak drop-rates often. The mystic forge difference you noticed is such a small sample size however that we can call that RNG.

Diablo III would like to have a word with you about how RNG is not the same in every game out there.

There’s a right way and a wrong way of doing MMOs and the right way is to make it a rewarding experience.

I agree OP the loot in this game needs serious work and the people who keep throwing out RNG everytime someone points this out seem to conveniently forget how DR works.

easy solution to DR do a different zone, move to orr for a bit or dry top from silverwastes

also helps farming not be so darn boring

I’ve personally tested that theory and when I’ve changed locations not only do skulls continue to drop even in events but also they don’t stop across all of my toons often it stays active on my account for weeks at a time no matter the location the character or the magic find boost at the time.

I also tested what the OP is talking about using the mf in order to create exotics and I’ve since stopped using the mystic toilet because even though I’ve earned the items I’ve collected to put it in there apparently it would drastically affect the TPcentric nature of the game so junk comes right back out again.

Novuake.2691:

RnG is RnG.
There is no game, there is no pattern. Every single time to take a CHANCE, that chance is calculated separately from any other roll.

However ANET does tweak drop-rates often. The mystic forge difference you noticed is such a small sample size however that we can call that RNG.

Diablo III would like to have a word with you about how RNG is not the same in every game out there.

There’s a right way and a wrong way of doing MMOs and the right way is to make it a rewarding experience.

I agree OP the loot in this game needs serious work and the people who keep throwing out RNG everytime someone points this out seem to conveniently forget how DR works.

kittenahe.3108:

Hello,

I would like to start a thread about “Old School” content/feature changes. Guild wars 2 is soon 3 years old and much have changed, I myself really enjoy nostalgic moments and i don’t doubt that the veterans do aswell. Please fill the list with anything you remember, it’s always funny to read!

Do you remember when:

*You could jump down a cliff and dodge the fall damage, or use a leap/charge?
*Rangers pets ran out of AoE?
*Events were really hard almost impossible?
*Shouts were displayed above your head like “STAND YOUR GROUND” in a say bubble?
*Commander tag only cost 100g?
*Precursor were really cheap, like 50g each?
*Gold to gems prices was really low, 6 silver per 100 gems?
*Rangers pets had 4 skills to be actived on demand?
*You could use kites and toys in WvW?
*Lion arch was the player hub and not destroyed?
*Bleed stacks didn’t have a limitation?
*The login screen looked like this
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/46385/gw003.jpg
*First beta weekend were impossible to attend because you only got disconnected?

That’s all i can remember at this very moment, i will update as soon something comes to mind!

I totally remember the pre DR pre Anti-legit farmer nerf that came just before the Ascended announcement in 2012! Man that was an awesome economy. You could actually go and get the things you needed without fear of a boated gold standard, you could purchase the things you needed without endlessly farming gold or trying to flip the market on something. This was of course prior to the Island event that gave too many people multiple precursors as well you see, I’m always amazed at how few people actually remember that event or those posts that kept happening in these forums every time they’d delete them, they kept going, the posts about the loot issues with DR that have once again started up again.

Remember when you actually saw other players in all of the zones and the world seems filled up instead of constantly getting the request to change “channels”

mtpelion.4562:

tigirius.9014:

Not everyone has access to the same loot tables

not sure why people can’t realize this fact. There’s a reason why people are reporting unlucky accounts and it’s not because they like to, go to any other game out there with individual loot and you’ll not see a single forums post about unlucky accounts.

This statement is false. See here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/page/15#post4487484

Okay let me point out two things for you. Recently there was yet another report of a bug that caused whole chests to disappear from events and from dungeons and there’ve been ongoing reports of loot just not dropping at all for whole accounts.

The last time we saw these two things together was when there were loot issues with the game that took them 9 whole months and thousands posting to get them to realize these were not the imaginations of the players. They even told everyone the same things Johns telling people now which is it’s all in our heads.

It’s not when you look at your bags and they have nothing in them but skulls that means you’re not getting your drops, when you do major boss events and the chests never appear that means it never appears.

So historically we’ve been told that ever since DR was introduced that there’s never been any problem with it, that everything is fine, and that everyone’s experience with getting loot will be equal but historically the evidence has been contrary to that statement. DR doesn’t allow people to farm, there’s been a well known anti-legit farmer campaign in this title for years. So when you sit there and say just because the economist says these experiences that thousands of players are having don’t exist, it’s really not honest is it.

The grind is here to stay until something is done about DR because no other system in the world of MMO development stops people from getting loot entirely, DR does that. RNG at least allows something anything other than greys to drop, DR doesn’t allow anything to drop sometimes and it even cuts you off from loot entirely which is why all of the rest of the studios out there stopped using it years ago.

DR is quite frankly adding negatively to the grind problem because in other titles you can farm for the materials or use your gold, here in GW2 you might be stuck with an unlucky account which would prevent ANY character on your account from getting the type of materials you need for ascended. Please, examine the evidence rather then listening to the claims because they claimed that it wasn’t happening before and they were wrong then too.

Anyway several things need to change in order to make it a diverse system and not a grind dependent totally on the TP. Karma could be used for the items needed from the karma vendors, there could be a system change in which salvaging produces more than the drops from RNG bags, and there could also be a system in which one could purchase Ascended gear with Karma instead of crafting everything or at the very least items that need to be crafted in order to make the ascended weapons.

DarckKnight.7519:

I think you guys are making this topic a big fuss of drama, trying to put your ideas on the other people and don’t accept the ideas from other people, which is kinda rude, from what i read in this topic is just the same thing but with different words and means the same, so at least try to be humble and not arrogant perhaps?

The grind is still grind is like saying that the sky is blue, we all agree that all MMORPG are grinds, that’s the core game play, if you don’t like it well go play other game genre, or if you are a game developer make your own game, actions not words please.

But then again, this game doesn’t force you to grind it like hell, you can go casual, today do some dungeons, maybe a vista, actually to me the dailies are actually for those people who want to play it more grind less and that’s all.

But then you will come to me and say, “hey what about legendaries or the new shadow skin that is so freaking awesome and i want them but i gotta grind for them” well i am sorry to disappoint you on this but you have the problem, because you LIKE the items, and so you HAVE to play to earn them, as an example i dislike the legendaries (i actually dislike the 75% the skins of this game lol) but they released the shadow skins, i liked them heck, time to bust in even if i don’t like it just to get em.

So stop acting like a child (unless you are) that your parents tell you to do your homework or you won’t get a candy and the only thing you do is rant or complain about the homework and you want the candy for do nothing for it.

about better rewards at higher level, well that would definitely kill that “no-grind” philosophy of ANET, because what they want is all the stuff they release, has to be used since day one to the game closure (that i hope it takes wayyyyy long) so technically this game is not made for those people that has the “superiority” or the “aria race” ideology with its gear set up and you gotta explore the classes a lot to find the one that suits you.

I’ve repeatedly stayed on topic of Ascended which is the Max level of gear in this case and yes you do need it to accomplish certain things in the game in PVE so the idea that it’s somehow not part of the need to grind for progression is offensive. Like I’ve said in my last post, major companies have talked about the problems with loot in GW2 and how it’s had too much RNG and how DR has played a role in preventing people from progressing. It’s not something that happens in other titles because in those other titles one can actually farm for free the materials one needs without fear of an entire account being cutoff from loot like what happens here.

The ball is in their court now we’ll see if “Rewards” is one of the things they fix at long last with the release of HoT and all it would require is some minor ajustements to where the materials commonly come from to fix the problem (Karma/Salvaging).

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Grind = the REQUIREMENT to REPEAT content over and over and over again to get NECCESARY equipent to proceed the game.

This game has no grinds unless you selfimpose them.

Ascneded armor is NOT neccesary.
Legendaries are not neccesary,
Skins are not neccesary.

You can craft armor or buy it for 10-12 gold, get it through karma or wvw points, dungeon tokens.. same for weapons…. Trinkets you can earn by logging in. logging in for 56 days gives you 2 ascneded ringes and an amulet…. for Free….

Nothing gamebreaking requires the repeditive return to content if you do not want to. -NOTHING-!

You wil stay lvl 80 forever. The only thing which is interesting is your own appearance.

And selfimpoing your needs for something will make it feel like a grind if you cannot think of other things…. but it still isn’t required to proceed in the game.

Not everyone has access to the same loot tables

not sure why people can’t realize this fact. There’s a reason why people are reporting unlucky accounts and it’s not because they like to, go to any other game out there with individual loot and you’ll not see a single forums post about unlucky accounts.

It’s happening in this game however you might want to ask yourself why instead of trying to prove people wrong who simply take pictures of their bag filled with nothing but trinkets and junk on multiple toons.

It’s a grind because you cannot get rewarded for your time properly and I’m sorry but you’re not going to discredit even the major game reviewing companies who’ve pointed this fact out or the fact that Anet has admited that their rewards system isn’t really where they’d like it to be.

Poof myth destroyed.

Worblehat.8697:

The trait system can turn new players into ex-players much faster than Anet can be bothered to fix it, apparently. I’ve been playing for 3.5 months and no longer have any solo content I care to do while waiting for guildmates to become available for fractal/dungeon runs each night. In a normal MMO, this would be where alts come in and I’d stay busy for a very long time. Sadly, since alts have been non-viable for 11 months, I just log out after my dailies unless I find a fractal or dungeon group in that brief period of time. I’ve thought about sucking it up and doing the scavenger hunt a second time, but every time I do I just shudder and log out.

In theory a successful fix to the trait system would be a necessary condition for me to consider buying HoT. In practice, I’ll probably be playing another game whenever HoT releases and won’t even know that it came out, let alone whether traits were finally fixed.

Hard to believe Anet let this disaster remain in place for so long.

See this is the thing. We warned folks about the trait system and what it would do 11 months ago, no one listened. In fact the same people that to this day continue to attack those of us who care enough to come here and point out the flaws in order to make change for the better for the whole community, are the same people who said that traits wouldn’t be a problem when they made the change 11 months ago. Other things we’ve been right about have been, DR causing whole unlucky accounts, PVE combat being stuck in the Zerker meta, Nerfs to classes like Engineer making them most likely to be booted out of pugs.

But for some reason, traits are now being fixed. What I’d like to know is what about the rest of it.

Don’t misunderstand, but if traits have caused people to leave why not fix the other items that have caused people to leave as well? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to fix the problems this game faces while you have the development team available and the funding?

Luckily for me however, trait changes came after I had already reached a high enough level that it didn’t matter on my guardian. I did go and buy the ones I needed which was extremely tedious considering my account is still on a reward embargo right now. Every time I login it’s almost impossible to make any gold.

Someone mentioned getting traits for gold. Well why not karma? Why not get traits for the one underused currency in the game? Oh or how about no cost at all just getting traits at certain levels then one wouldn’t have to worry about buying anything you’d just level and get them normally. I like the second system better.

Nike.2631:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

You where saying?

I think they were saying “Oh look, another human. The only race it works right for…”

Doesn’t work for Charr either.

Trevor Bennett.3691:

Personally, I played the entire game solo. There is never a requirement to group up outside of dungeons and fractals. That said, playing with a group on most anything can really enrich your experience. I highly encourage you to find a guild of people you get along with and play with them doing whatever.

I used to but I found that certain things won’t drop at all unless you are grouped with is a problem with the rewards system for some accounts. For example, I was playing with others during events and when we weren’t in groups together we discovered we didn’t get rewards save for the 1 mandatory daily exotic/rare. However, the moment we grouped suddenly it was like the algorithm unlocked and allowed loot to come through.

This game is in severe need of an open world auto-group feature for events. I can’t tell you how awesome that system was in Rift when I played Rift, there was a button at the top of your screen that allowed you to temporarily group with people in order to do the event, then after you were done you simply clicked on the button the group interface to leave.

It was nice because no one was left out, everyone was equally rewarded and you didn’t have to worry about outdated UI throwbacks from 2004 left out of date by people who want to force a certain gameplay style on everyone. (where you absolutely have to be in a guild constantly and group for every event on a schedule.

I’d personally love to see this and the full zone map event notification come to this game, it’s something that’s part of everyday mmo life now. (I say the map thing but correct me if I’m wrong because I thought I saw that there was a map notification on one of the maps but not on the other maps while I was running around in Tyria a few days ago.).

KevinB.9643:

Good day OP,

If Arenanet is buffing condi dmg or applying changes to it, I’m positive they will let us know.

For now, I think we should just wait and see..

You know by the time they mention it I’ll be on ESO on my Xbox or playing NWO so, at this point they’re silence is really giving me a clue about the lackluster updates about the game coming. I had high hopes about condi damage but I may have to write off this game as a bad investment if nothing else happens. I’ve gone over all of the content they’ve released explaining things every interview I can and they’ve been quiet too long after getting the hype train started the way they did. It’s almost like dealing with a bipolar person one second they are manic the next they are quiet in a dark room and tell you nothing.

Condis need scaling, crits, burst crits, proper stacking, proper availability across all weapons I doubt this game is going to be able to get all of those things if they release the expansion by the summer as some have speculated. Sad too they had a good thing going before Nov 2012.

When they add the QoL ability to join parties for events like Rift’s had for years now I suppose.

Some people might tell you to go find a guild though.

phys.7689:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If the rewards are behind quest chains, it won’t take more than a couple of days before all the information on how to do it is in wiki. With a cooperative game like this where each person gets the loot, parties of fully geared level 80s will blow right through the quests to get the reward. Unless the content is gated in some manner or is made so hard that most rage quit, they’ll run through the quests that the Devs spent weeks working on then turn around and say, “Is that all?”

whats wrong with that?

If someone could do all the homework/tests/projects a teacher was going to assign for the whole year, then they have earned the right to sit on their butts for awhile.

I am not saying things should not require effort, im saying that you shouldnt artificially spread out that effort in illogical ways just to get people to keep playing. Make the effort required logical to the task, instead of logical to how long you want them to play.

Exactly. Absolutely nothing is wrong with getting gear quickly. People like these are the same as those 1%ers we keep seeing in these forums asking for raiding constantly so they can prance around the city and try to make everyone else feel envious.

Karma is plenty of effort, it’s a quick easy solid fix, they can do it in no time for Ascended and they know it but the gold buying is too good.

cranos.5913:

So none of the suggestions have actually “fixed” grinding for the people that like to play this game a lot. If there was no grind involved, I litterally would have everything already, and then what?

Like it or not, no grind would mean all rewards would be extremely easily optainable which means a lot less replay value of the current content.

Grind doesn’t equal content, time gates are no substitute for story, and people need to stop taking these things for granted. Poor workmanship should never replace the best content and we all know what that is even if some people can’t admit that this game is lacking which is the reason why a huge grind was implemented in the first place, it’s called “busy work”.

And no to answer someone above who called people names when they come here to discuss things, we do have arguments and we do have facts and we do have historic precedent what do you have? hmm? You don’t have anything save for calling members of your community names when we point out how wrong you are about a subject.

Now those of us who’ve had many many years of experience playing MMO’s know that you cannot give players busy work as a replacement for good quality compelling plot lines or other activities. We know what a good rewards system looks like, and we also know what it looks like when a game is designed with not busy work but content in which gear doesn’t matter and you can do everything without a single member of the community booting you because you aren’t using the meta at the time. Those things aren’t happening in this game and we’re waiting to see (a rather long time btw) if they’ll come to their senses and listen to those of us who’ve had the most experience in these forums.

It’s definitely not because we don’t like the game. I have so many better things to do with my time trust me.

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

tigirius.9014:

Here’s the end all solution for the argument of needing a new currency. Karma. It’s completely under-utilized and it needs to be used to directly purchase the items that are simply too expensive and growing in expense in the TP that are used for Ascended gear. Also people need to realize that not everything is equal in this game, some people do continue to experience problems getting any kind of meaningful loot right now! Whole accounts are cut off from it which adds to the frustration.

Interestingly enough, Karma might be a satisfactory solution so long as you can Account Bind things acquired with it. The reason? Karma is significantly easier to accumulate than Gold, and the potential to transmute Karma -> Gold needs to be throttled very carefully.

I don’t know. I have like 4 million karma sitting in my bank. Unless the karma stuff that comes out is VERY expensive, which will put off new people, people like me will just get everything very quickly.

One of the reasons new currencies are added is to get people out in the world doing stuff. Karma would make me item rich perhaps, but objective poor.

OMGaaaaawd you might actually be able to GASP progress I can imagine how terrible that must be! Actually getting the items you need to complete the progress you’re doing in progression that is simply such a terrible idea I know, actually moving forward with something you put the time into in completing. I know I know who would have thought that actually reaching your goals would be such a boring and tedious thing. I mean who actually achieves their achievements with time spent doing things like oh I dunno playing the game! Totally new concept! LOL /sarcasm

I always find these arguments funny because of that fact like seriously, how terrible would it be to actually be able to progress. You know what I was doing before coming back here and checking these replies?

I progressed in another title I’m playing right now. You know how quickly I did it on one of my alts. three days for one piece a gear. Guess how, I did 2 dailies a day and a series of passive missions with my followers, got the currency turned it in and bam another piece of gear.

Guess what I’m going to do after getting geared? Fish.

These arguments are so funny really they are….exactly when did actually progressing in a game become the most terrible axis of evil event in MMO gaming? Like when did it become the equivalent of <insert the worst imaginable crime possible> to actually have not just equal access to progression as everyone else but to actually complete it in a reasonable amount of time to oh I don’t know enjoy the rest of the game?

smh

Nice sarcasm. My response didn’t deserve it, but whatever…

As for what I said, you’re not actually paying attention to it. At the end of the day all ANY MMORPG is is a list of things to do. At least in PvE that’s true, and I"m a PvE’er. You say you can progress, but if you progress instantly there’s nothing to play for. You’re in the exact same boat you were before that came out. Because of part progress is the journey, it’s not only about getting the shiny for some of us.

It’s like planning a vacation and going on it and coming home with souvenirs, instead of skipping the vacation and just getting the souvenirs.

Which is to say for me, it would be pointless.

There’s a false equivalence going on here and many have stated it and the opposite is true. When you go to any other game out there with a similar system of progression as GW2, that progression is typically reasonable. In titles in which they didn’t promise there wouldn’t be a grind there is no grind in those titles, there’s simply a small minor equally available easily accomplished time gate.

That’s the point. This game has a grind. There is no ifs there’s no buts it’s a grind. STO used to have progression, now it’s gotta grind because of the 3.5 years to get a single progression of specialization down and some of us fear that spec in this game will become just that again, a grind as we’ve already seen in ascended gear.

And once again you’re using a logical fallacy as an argument against those of us who want reasonable, not instant gratification, reasonable gratification for accomplishing these tasks. This gear isn’t legendary gear. It doesn’t deserve such an enormous amount of time, it doesn’t deserve to be locked behind RNG DR and other draconian loot busting methods that have prevented this game from being fun for many of us on unlucky accounts.

It’s simply not right and to keep repeating the logical fallacies as an argument does nothing to improve the game.

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

tigirius.9014:

Here’s the end all solution for the argument of needing a new currency. Karma. It’s completely under-utilized and it needs to be used to directly purchase the items that are simply too expensive and growing in expense in the TP that are used for Ascended gear. Also people need to realize that not everything is equal in this game, some people do continue to experience problems getting any kind of meaningful loot right now! Whole accounts are cut off from it which adds to the frustration.

Interestingly enough, Karma might be a satisfactory solution so long as you can Account Bind things acquired with it. The reason? Karma is significantly easier to accumulate than Gold, and the potential to transmute Karma -> Gold needs to be throttled very carefully.

I don’t know. I have like 4 million karma sitting in my bank. Unless the karma stuff that comes out is VERY expensive, which will put off new people, people like me will just get everything very quickly.

One of the reasons new currencies are added is to get people out in the world doing stuff. Karma would make me item rich perhaps, but objective poor.

OMGaaaaawd you might actually be able to GASP progress I can imagine how terrible that must be! Actually getting the items you need to complete the progress you’re doing in progression that is simply such a terrible idea I know, actually moving forward with something you put the time into in completing. I know I know who would have thought that actually reaching your goals would be such a boring and tedious thing. I mean who actually achieves their achievements with time spent doing things like oh I dunno playing the game! Totally new concept! LOL /sarcasm

I always find these arguments funny because of that fact like seriously, how terrible would it be to actually be able to progress. You know what I was doing before coming back here and checking these replies?

I progressed in another title I’m playing right now. You know how quickly I did it on one of my alts. three days for one piece a gear. Guess how, I did 2 dailies a day and a series of passive missions with my followers, got the currency turned it in and bam another piece of gear.

Guess what I’m going to do after getting geared? Fish.

These arguments are so funny really they are….exactly when did actually progressing in a game become the most terrible axis of evil event in MMO gaming? Like when did it become the equivalent of <insert the worst imaginable crime possible> to actually have not just equal access to progression as everyone else but to actually complete it in a reasonable amount of time to oh I don’t know enjoy the rest of the game?

smh

Guhracie.3419:

I think it’s worrisome that their stance has been “No comment on anything that is a work in progress” and then they commented “hey, yes, we’re totally fixing this” and then went back to complete silence. Traits are why I’m not going to pre-order HoT for both of my accounts. Traits are why I’m not going to buy HoT for either of my accounts, in fact. I will snub my nose at precursor crafting, hang gliding, languages, and character progression because of traits. This is the strongest message I currently know how to send to the company. I don’t care what else is gated behind the expansion, because I will not buy it until I see for myself that the fix to traits and leveling is an improvement.

If that’s better than the potential backlash over the new system, I shudder to imagine what they’ve come up with.

For me it will be a combination of traits, loot for progression, and a more diverse combat situation in PVE (truly diverse and not this “oh you can play this way” even though we know all other builds are meaningless nonsense)

I’m watching and you know if not, I’ve recently been a console convert, RPGs now have the capability of minor multiplayer, and new MMOs will be converted or releasd for consoles this year. If Anet wants my money they’ll do right by the community, really simple isn’kitten

I’m hoping that one of the things in traits that’s fixed is having a separate trait line for underwater combat, or switching and also some of the more annoying aspects of chemical gameplay like Explosives with the Engineer in PVE. I’d love some more options for explosives like adding a chemical element to explosives to increase damage (a damage version of the healing choice with bombs but for grenades and healy grenades would be nice too.)

Here’s the end all solution for the argument of needing a new currency. Karma. It’s completely under-utilized and it needs to be used to directly purchase the items that are simply too expensive and growing in expense in the TP that are used for Ascended gear. Also people need to realize that not everything is equal in this game, some people do continue to experience problems getting any kind of meaningful loot right now! Whole accounts are cut off from it which adds to the frustration.

Their rewards system is the problem. It’s based not on participation but on presence and really it’s flawed it’s been that way for some time now. It’s also behind the huge RNG wall that this game exhibits. We all talked about it when the game first launched but those discussions went nowhere because the same people who are now denying that this game has a grind were the same people who back then denied that there was a problem with the rewards system in the game.

Why participate when you’re just going to die alot and when the real rewards come from a random dice role at the end of the event anyways?

It’s an endless circle it seems.