Guild Wars 2

Hi Mangarrage.

I’m from [Choo] on Sanctum of Rall. Also known as “Pain train”.

We’re a very active guild, primarily focused on WvW. That’s not to say our members do not partake in other activities (dungeons seem to be a favourite for many). We have regular events for WvW, and often see 40 or so of us flooding a single battleground during peak times of WvW.

We usually have around 80 or so online most nights and are active in Teamspeak. Our members cover pretty much most time zones, with members everywhere across the US and Canada, and Australia and New Zealand aswell, so you should always be able to find people to play with.

SoR is currently in T2 for WvW so you will find us pretty competitive, and finding groups for dungeons, including fractals should never be an issue. I’m also at FotM level 6, and some of our members are closer to level 20.

I won’t be on until roughly 6 or 7 pm EST. But feel free to message me if interested.

Blade.9317:

@Choo: you guys are a fun bunch. What was up last night with that Omega golem jumping up and down on SM outer wall after you captured it? lol

I can’t believe we pulled off that backdoor ninja attack on SM. The fifteen of us were standing in the green circle when we spotted a mass of red coming through the door. It was like: “OMG! Here they come!”. You guys were about .5 seconds from preventing the cap. Good times.

I probably went offline before that happened. That assault on SM was a massive pain haha.

This is one of the reasons I call Sanctum of Rall my home. This server has a touching story to it, and it makes me proud to represent this server.

Diashame.6328:

Since I can’t play at the moment I was wondering what is peoples opinions as to what has happened this week? Why the shakeup in results so far?

It likely has alot to do with burnout for some people and guilds.

I know we’ve also seen some people who’ve also taken breaks come back, seen a few cases in Choo already with guys I haven’t seen online for a while suddenly start playing again.

DeLag.8391:

Glad to hear this. I joined the server last night because I am a new player to guild wars 2. Looks like I chose the right server to begin with!

Welcome to the team.

When in WvW look for Purp Nurp. He does a good job of leading new players and smaller guilds in the EB. You’ll learn the ins and outs of WvW pretty quickly if you keep an eye out on what he does.

Well now with this news

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Coming-Soon-To-WvW/first#post965551

We won’t have to worry about alt+f4 plaguing anyone, even though I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it myself.

Interesting changes, i wonder if we’ll end up seeing much of the breakout events though.

fivekiller.1432:

Artaz.3819:

In other news:

IoJ has recently acquired Ascension Alliance (what remains of them) including Team Legacy. That definitely adds to the talent pool for IoJ during NA primetime. And it’s good to see some old allies now as my enemy

recently, as in, a couple of months ago?

So this is old news?

xtraordinary.5704:

score update.
BG is waking up.

They have roughly 4 hours before I get home from work. I wonder what the point spread will be like by that time. Especially considering IoJ also apparently made some big gains in terms of guilds.

Now I just have to debate downloading my new maps for Halo 4 or WvW all evening.

Mikitten058:

Nice, and ICoa on SoR…
Yo recall your guild members off SoR please ICoa.

This could potentially explain a few things. It does seem that certain groups seem to know our movements.

Anyone have a current score update?

Torva Messor.1452:

mulch.2586:

I’m confident a good team in pvp would roflstomp an average fully-geared team, even if they came in rares (if that were possible).

Since you know so much about these things, would you care to explain to me what would happen if two equally skilled teams faced off against each other, one wearing full exotic gear and the other wearing full ascended gear?

I’m reasonably confident the team wearing the better gear would win, but feel free to disagree.

What are class compositions? Traits?

Statistically what are the odds that 2 exactly equal teams will ever face off with the exact same class, stats, trait and gear combination?

It won’t happen realistically

BWE item is from the Beta Weekend Events, and is just a placeholder. Some people figured out how to place a custom buy order for it, although it technically doesn’t exist.

It does nothing at all.

Also for the copper mining pick, those can’t be sold, and a buy order was placed by the same way by someone who thinks they are funny and showing off how much gold they have. It can;t be fulfilled.

[Choo] on Sanctum of Rall, we usually have people on at most times of the day, as our guild base is from everywhere pretty much. We even have Oceanics.

feel free to send me an ingame message, or look for any Choo members in SoR.

We are usually active in the Eternal Battlegrounds as of late, so you shouldn’t have issues finding one of us.

- Lord Lefteris

ChairGraveyard.2967:

tkalamba.2541:

Cortechs.3265:

I’ve already uninstalled because of Ascended Gear (btw Anet, your ‘Exit Survey’ is broken — surprise, surprise). Horizontal progression was the main reason I bought the game. There is no reason to continue playing now.

The forum does provide marginally entertaining lunch distractions though.

Honestly, buying a MMORPG with 80 levels expecting Horizontal progression, you bought the wrong game, or are using a very loose definition of Horizontal.

See… getting from level 1-80, with 5 tiers of gear, is anything but Horizontal. Even with a plateau, this doesn’t fit the idea.

Horizontal progression would mean, from day 1, no levels, all gear being equal. We would never of had to bother leveling our characters. Just like is sPVP. This was never the case in any of the Beta events and it has remained exactly the same to today.

You don’t understand the concept of horizontal progression, or how it worked in GW2 prior to Ascended gear at all.

The fact that there is a stat progress prior to the level cap does not mean that GW2 did not have horizontal progression. Horizontal progression means cosmetic progression instead of stat progression at max level. That last part is important. At max level. Read it again.

GW2 WAS based on horizontal progression, at max level. It isn’t any more. Get your facts straight before going off on someone.

um… you ignored the entire game from level 1 to 80 then? The entire game was vertical progression…. You can’t claim a game is designed around Horizontal progression, for it only to matter at max level.

The concept of Horizontal progression games is not just for max level…. It’s the entire core of a game. sPVP is proper Horizontal progression, as right from the start, you’re at level 80, with the same gear. Only gear you earn is purely cosmetic, and offer no advantages.

The entire core of PvE was alwayss vertical progression. You level from 1-80 and your character gains stats as they level with different tiers of gear inbetween just like any other MMORPG. From day one this has been the case.

You can’t just ignore the entire game up to level 79, then claim the game is Horizontal. It makes no sense.

Sotaudi.1265:

GregT.4702:

If you’re on the forums right now, you haven’t quit the game over Ascended Gear.

And you’re very likely not going to. You’re either going to:

( a ) quit the game because actually you’ve finished all the content you want to and you’re bored with it;
( b ) quit the game because as a hardcore player you have a high game rotation and honestly you were going to move on to another game soon no matter what GW2 did;
( c ) not quit the game, and keep complaining for another three years; or
( d ) not quit the game, and enjoy it.

Your stereotyping of people is nonsense. I left both WoW and Rift after reaching the level cap and realizing that, unless I wanted to slave myself to a playstyle I did not enjoy, the best gear in the game would be unobtainable. So, contrary to your stereotyping:

1. I did not leave because I had completed all the content or was bored with the game. I had plenty I could still do, and I was, in fact, still enjoying both games.
2. I did not leave because the next latest and greatest game came out. I left both games because of this issue, not “for” another game. In fact, in the case of leaving WoW, I went back to EQ2, a game I had left for WoW only because a friend I played with wanted to check out WoW.
3. I did not stick around and complain about it.
4. I did not stick around for any reason and I have never gone back to either game.

I don’t necessarily agree with the OP’s position. I am not ready to leave GW2 yet because I am waiting to see how they deal with this gear. While the gear is currently available only through running dungeons (which are not my favorite content), they are done with single groups and not larage scale raiding. Since I have people I play with, I can tolerate that, and, to my knowledge, they have not n yet stated that they will only make this gear available through this format. I am concerned that they are making it so that you have to get on a dungeon treadmill (higher and higher fractal levels) to get the best gear, but I can bide my time and see how this plays out and impacts the game.

However, if it becomes clear that the only way to obtain the best gear in the game is to run gear-gated content repetatively and that the gear-gating makes it hard to get with friends who have either moved on to higher tiers or have fallen behind (making it even more mind-numbingly repetative), forcing me to have to rely on PuGs to get the gear, I want nothing to do with it. If they do not make the gear obtainable through other means (or worse, add a raiding requirement) and if I have to start facing opponents in WvW who have better gear than I can obtain through means I enjoy (which was the case in WoW PvP), I will have little reason to stay with this game.

People do leave games over issues like this. Quit trying to marginalize them just because it doesn’t bother you.

It’s already been said by Devs they fully intend Ascended gear to be available in all aspects of the game. The limited release of the gear to just one dungeon was an admitted mistake, and they fully intend to open up acquisition methods.

I would possibly even expect the current available pieces to be opened up to new content as early as the Wintersday patch via new crafting recipes and an increased loot table.

Minos.5168:

I’m certain we’ll see Ascended amulets and earrings first (since like rings they don’t really have to design any new art).

Possibly also weapons… (With an update to Legendaries at the same time.)

I mean, it’d make sense if weapons are next since Fractal weapons start dropping at level 20+ (right after you start getting infused rings).

Ascended gear will be acquired from many areas, not just Fractals. They want them to be accessible.

MrSilver.5269:

I’m still playing, but the same can’t be said for 90% of my guild, which quit as soon as the Ascended grind was introduced. They are all waiting for the impending release of another MMO that has full loot and is an unrestricted sandbox.

I’m still here, but for the most part I find myself running solo in WvW hoping to find small fights.

I have to admit, that the recent turn of events has sucked the enthusiasm I once had for the game from me. Since the game is free I’ll keep logging in, but have no intention of ever spending another penny at the gem store.

Find a new guild, especially if you run WvW.

Not sure what server you are on, but Sanctum of Rall has plenty active guilds who are always looking for new members. If you want, reach out to myself, or anyone in [Choo] and we can bring back some of the fun. We’re very active, and there’s always guild chatter going on.

Cortechs.3265:

I’ve already uninstalled because of Ascended Gear (btw Anet, your ‘Exit Survey’ is broken — surprise, surprise). Horizontal progression was the main reason I bought the game. There is no reason to continue playing now.

The forum does provide marginally entertaining lunch distractions though.

Honestly, buying a MMORPG with 80 levels expecting Horizontal progression, you bought the wrong game, or are using a very loose definition of Horizontal.

See… getting from level 1-80, with 5 tiers of gear, is anything but Horizontal. Even with a plateau, this doesn’t fit the idea.

Horizontal progression would mean, from day 1, no levels, all gear being equal. We would never of had to bother leveling our characters. Just like is sPVP. This was never the case in any of the Beta events and it has remained exactly the same to today.

mulch.2586:

Katai.6240:

Baron of Winters.5697:

Katai.6240:

But the vertical progression only affects one part of the game, FotM. Those who care about getting to deeper areas of FotM can have their vertical progression to get armor with higher agony resistance. Everyone else couldn’t care less. How does ascended gear affect anyone doing anything outside of FotM in a meaningful way? All you’re doing is upgrading your armor to get more agony resistance.

No, there’s plenty of documented evidence showing that ascended gear has higher base stats than exotic. Further, the Q&A on reddit revealed that there will be more tiers within the infusions, and there’s no reason to believe those higher-tier infusions won’t have base stat numbers too… so you can feel like a hamster in a wheel chaisng those too.

I am aware of that, but you have to remember that Ascended gears basically have Runes baked into them. I mean, compare Yakkington’s Ring vs Exotic Ring with Jewel is a difference of 5 power, 5 precision, and 3% magic find.

I mean, how much is the total stat difference? After taking Rune bonuses and special effects into account?

Right, the 5 power/pre, considering your prob’ly at 2700 or more power, that amounts to a 0.2% increase in damage and 0.25% increase in crit. So if everyone had that upgrade, we could have shaved a second or two off the 2.5 hr Lost Shores event. :p

A treadmill on which you only take one step… is this still a treadmill, or just a rubber rug?

It’s nothing more than a mere step. The term treadmill is overused really, to the point where its meaning has been watered down too much.

mulch.2586:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

Also, I felt the Lost Shores content was pretty lackluster.

What I like is that it’s not all doom-n-gloom, the way Orr is. But it’s not an alternate to Orr.

The islands were just left the way they were after the special event. Somehow we failed to actually repel the karkas. Somehow game developers made a zone with almost nothing in it, not even zone-completion. No temples, only a couple poorly designed events. You’re better off going to Frostgorge.

To me, it’s not game-quitting sort of issue. But neither is the island a reason to play.

Zone completion would be problematic really. What will this do for people who’ve already managed to pull off 100% map completion and already recieved their rewards? by adding additional zones you risk having people being angry that they did more work for the gifts of exploration than those who did it early.

spartanx.1364:

Epic fight over Hills in SoR BL Last night. If you where BG trying to run back to deffend and found Balista at the other end of the bridge by the Lake tower. Sorry that was us and we held yall there for what seemed like an hour and half. Oh you made some pushes we would go up the switch backs, down across the bridge, treb our balista from the lake tower, and even hit us from the stairs to the south gate so you could get your friends inside to save the keep. One of the best fights I have ever been in, no joke I got like 50-75 badges from that fight alone.

Sounds like I missed out… I’m finding it too difficult to balance time between games, (Halo 4, Battlefield 3 Aftermath, Planetside 2 and GW2). I wish I had more time

I keep missing out on the WvW fun.

Minibiskit.6158:

I wonder if I can call GW2 a gear treadmill if the treadmill is running slower than any game I’ve ever played. Still, I would rather have no treadmill of stats. Just give me new aesthetics and an achievement system to incentivize the collection of all currently available armor sets. Horizontal progression made easy.

(go home spellcheck, you’re drunk)

Honestly, It’s still way too early to even use the term “treadmill”

We’ve only seen one addition… It’d only be so if we see a new tier every so often. We have no evidence to really support this yet.

Sylosi.6503:

tkalamba.2541:

There is zero difference between adding new gear to obtain and adding a higher level cap

There are two differences:

1 – New level caps are infrequent and not an ongoign process.
2 – The game was sold on the basis “presitigious gear” would be cosmetic, that is would not have the end game gear treadmill that “WoW 2.0” clones have, it was not sold on teh basis there would be no increase to level cap.

tkalamba.2541:

Stressing over small changes is such a waste of time and energy that could be better used else where.

What you call a small point, was a key reason many peolpe bought the game. As for time and energy, that you are posting in a thread that apparently has nothing to do with you, says different.

And ironically enough ‘time and energy’ is one of the reasons having no gear treadmill was important to some of us.

Well, It sounds like we’ll see multiple expansions, not just one, and so far only see one new tier… increasing level caps will be much more frequent than a new tier. I’d hardly call adding a single tier frequent in any sense.

I play and enjoy the game, I’m also at work procrastinating as I have no work to do so I enjoy in partaking in these discussions.

Sanctum of Rall should be pretty populated at those times.

Sylosi.6503:

tkalamba.2541:

I just don’t understand why everyone stresses so much over a simple new tier in a game that is 3 months old. You’ll need to regear again anyways the second they raise the level cap so there’s no point in freaking out over it.

If you a buy a game sold to you on one philosophy then they u-turn within 3 months, it is a perfectly valid complaint.

Would you say the same if they u-turned on other pre-game promises? For example they stated they would not have open world PvP (in the full proper sense), can you imagine the uproar of three months in they went all EVE and decided to make introduce full open world PvP on every server.

I somehow suspect that many of the hypocrites who say sticking in a gear treadmill is fine, would be having a fit.

Raising the level cap at an expanision is fine, it was expected, introducing a gear treadmill in direct opposition to their pre-game interviews/ Q&A/ videos, etc is not.

There is zero difference between adding new gear to obtain and adding a higher level cap. You will still need to gain new gear to hit the new max…. It’s still vertical progression and was stated from the get go. I expected it.

I also don’t throw fits over a game. I simply choose to play what I like, and not play what I don’t like. Simple as that. Stressing over small changes is such a waste of time and energy that could be better used else where. If the game didn’t deliver on what I thought they promised on, I simply would have not played it. I’ve bought plenty of games in the past where I play, realize It wasn’t what I wanted, stopped playing, and that was it.

fellyn.5083:

People actually buy gems with the idea in mind that they’d use them to buy exotic gear? Serious question.

Apparently so.

I had my full set ready to go only a few days after hitting 80. I just didnt bother spending karma as I leveled, really there was no point. Saved it for when I hit 80 and voila, free exotics. Wasn’t hard.

Nope, doesn’t effect me in how I play the game, so I don’t care the slightest.

I’m still having fun running with my guild in WvW. The only thing that prevents me from logging in is the fact that I play multiple games and there’s so many other games to play like Halo 4, FarCry 3, Aftermath Battlefield 3 expansion and Planetside 2. I can’t play them all at the same time you know.

I just don’t understand why everyone stresses so much over a simple new tier in a game that is 3 months old. You’ll need to regear again anyways the second they raise the level cap so there’s no point in freaking out over it.

Jabtangs.9251:

SoR wants me?!

/15 chars =(

We do, we really really do want you.

We want to give Blackgate a much harder time than we currently are.

Gibson.4036:

My perception is that GW2 is no more buggy than Rift was in its first three months. And yet people were crowing about how Rift was so polished except for a few bugs here and there.

I wonder if it’s a recent shift in perception.

I haven’t been around the MMORPG world for very long, so all I have to go on is what people have said about their past experience. What I got from people talking about Rift was that previous launches included truly game-breaking bugs that made it so huge portions of the player base couldn’t even log in and that the servers were down for hours at a time. People were praising Rift because it was by and large stable, and the only bugs were class skills here and there, dungeon elements and quest issues. You know, ones you can skirt around and keep playing the game.

Just my perception. I haven’t hit 80 yet, so I haven’t been frustrated by the Arah bug, and I’m not a dungeon runner. I do, however, have a Mesmer main who has been impacted by the recent LoS change and Greatsword bug.

Still, I wouldn’t call the game “broken”.

Again, just my perception.

For some people, it’s their first MMO, so they haven’t seen what one at release normally is like. They are always riddled with class imbalances, bugs etc.

Infact, many game releases at launch are always filled with bugs, as alot of things are insanely difficult to test for without a live environment. Makes me think many here haven’t been buying games right at release. Especially MMO’s.

Here’s the thing with software. Never, in the history of software, has anything been 100% bug free. There will always be bugs, and with any code added, be it class balances, bug fixes, new content, server updates or anything of the like, there will always be new bugs. It happens, no code is ever perfect.

Guildwars has actually been a more stable release than many other games of this genre in its first 3 months. This game is most definitely in it’s infancy, and there will be thousands of bugs to be introduced in the future. It’s not as easy as alot of people seem to think to fix issues with bugs, alot of the time the code involved is pretty complicated and is not just flipping a 1 to a 0 in some database.

So if they focused 100% on squashing bugs, what would all the other people involved in content creation do? Animators, sound engineers, designers, artists etc. do not fix bugs. Their purpose is content creation.

Programmers are the only ones who fix code issues, which are the primary reason why bugs exist. They will always be there, as no code, ever, is 100% bug free. When you have a large team of coders, it is safe to assume some will focus on creating new code, while others will focus on debugging. Having all your programmers fixing code can lead to other issues. Having too many people put their hands on a single project serves to complicate things, and you get people doing the same work multiple times and potentially eliminating possible fixes.

You have to remember, this game is insanely young, bugs will be present throughout it’s entire lifespan. They come, they go, and more show up again. It isn’t new. By focusing on just one aspect, you leave a large portion of a dev team without a job. They want to keep all their artists etc. employed and happy. If they idle, they get bored, and they leave their company. Content has to be created to not only keep this game going, but to keep the talent they have. Every MMO I’ve played always has bugs, especially so soon after release.

Still a big gap, but we can atleast close it a bit.

moirweyn.9872:

I’m just wondering if this:

•Mini pets are now usable in the Heart of the Mists.

Will do nothing but make the zergs invisible for a longer period of time or if all we will see are a bunch of minipets attacking.

Heart of the Mists is the sPVP lobby, and not in WvW no?

moirweyn.9872:

I’m just wondering if this:

•Mini pets are now usable in the Heart of the Mists.

Will do nothing but make the zergs invisible for a longer period of time or if all we will see are a bunch of minipets attacking.

Heart of the Mists is the sPVP lobby, and not in WvW no?

Johnson.4867:

@Ahlen

I’ve yet to meet one person that DIDN’T kitten about how something is wrong in this game….

We’ll, now you have. I don’t complain about this game. I just play it as is, and that’s it.

Ahlen.7591:

Johnson.4867:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

In the strictest of terms, the number of people who post on the forums is a minority of the game population as a whole. The forums do provide a modest, self-selected sampling of the player population, but so do fansite forums, twitter and facebook.

^^ All of which sites have numerous players complaining about the game…. Why cant you guys just take it from the players themselves…. Do you not think we hear other peoples opinions of the game while in party chat doing an instance/event/ect?

lets take some expamples from face book (theses posts are one after another..not scattered in different topics)

“Stephan Nitschmann: Really nice feature but I’m getting tired waiting for a better gold/gem balance. One month ago it was around 20 silver. Now it’s 136 and no end in sight. Seems like a hyperinflation. :-(
November 27 at 5:42pm · Like · 2

Nita Katriina Alexandra Vesa: Gems are way too expensive, though. Casual gamers have no way of generating enough in-game gold for gems at these prices, so the only way for them to get gems is with real-world money. In other words, it punishes casual gamers quite severely.
November 27 at 6:15pm · Like

Tim Penner What a waste of developer time!
November 27 at 6:28pm · Like · 2

Kevin Ip: Let’s have some new styles!
November 27 at 7:01pm via mobile · Like

Aj Maresh: maybe your playing the wrong game to be a casual gamer

Brian Premo: Crash Wars 2
November 20 at 3:14pm · Like · 3"

People who enjoy the game, don’t come out and complain about it. Therefore you don’t notice them.

Get it through your heads, the overall reception of guild wars 2 is positive, while the overall feedback is negative. Because people who have a negative opinion are more likely to bring up their real or perceived slights.

This is exactly like any other product or service. Negative opinions will always be voiced more often than positive opinions. It happens all the time, if you have a problem, you will complain. If you are not having any issues, you don’t say anything as you don’t tend to have the need to.

Alsonia.4753:

SleepsAtDay.1582:

Dear BG and IoJ,

You’re colluding. We know. It’s hardly subtle. Not faulting you for it, I can understand the strategic value.

But do you have to do it in the jumping puzzle?

How are we working together? We had IoJ spawn locked for a long kitten time today.

There have been instances where it appears like there is collusion. I’ll give actual examples from yesterday, but keep in mind I’m not actually saying these are instances of collaboration, but events that give the appearance.

One example from the EB was when we were hitting Golanta, it appeared that a small handful of IoJ were within spitting distance of BG, but more or less ignored each other.

or the fact that IoJ seems to like to harass us at SoR more than they do BG (alot of the time they focus on Durios and Umber, and seem to ignore venturing into Wildcreek.

We also drained SM completely of supply, but IoJ opted to swing around and hit Bravost.

These events, although not likely collaboration, but just IoJ trying to take second place from SoR do make it look like we’re being double teamed.

May I suggest IoJ, focus a bit more on the match leaders? It would close the gap they have on us and benefit both our servers. I know you want second place, as do we, but if we spend all our time battling each other like we do, BG just takes everything else and gains a massive lead.

I’m surprised no one is mentioning the little siege tower we had set up outside of QL on the EB for a good chunk of yesterday.

We had Blackgate try to zerg that location quite a bit. Also, mad props to that very persistent guardian from [LORE] on BG who must have come back something like 50 times trying to jump his way up and AOE our triple trebs.

Like Mishi said, we are looking to expand our Night presence SoR. It’s not empty, but it’s not as full as our primetime and daytime teams. Alot of our Prime-time players tend to stay up to make up for shortages.

You’ll find a great community of players regardless of time.

Conner.4702:

tkalamba.2541:

Serelisk.6573:

This is troubling. I’m not sure how I missed this quote people keep referencing by Mike O’Brien from 2011, but I was certain they wouldn’t increase the level cap. It;s even more disturbing watching people fail horribly at trying to understand what fans of lateral progression want and why…

This probably also means that they’re abandoning a lot of their emphasis on aesthetic gear choices. Less of the game most likely will actually be about having fun. It’s an inherent part of catering to the VP reward crowd. You’re not designing the game around fun content, you’re designing it around carrots. And no matter how many carrots this crowd eats, they won’t see that they’ve been running in place for several years.

This makes my hopes for seeing things like the activities that were supposed to be in at launch much, much lower. After all, why should they provide fun content when there’s a new audience of people who are more content chasing artificial rewards in the form of numbers. It makes no sense to me, but you can’t teach people to have higher standards.

When Keg Brawl and WvW stop being fun for me, I’m through with this game. They’re no longer my favorite game development studio. :/

It is still entirely possible to have fun while still maintaining vertical progression.

If they award exp for everything then there’s no reason not to have fun leveling like they do now. Grind only kicks in when what you are doing isn’t enjoyable, at that point the only award is the carrot.

I haven’t done kegbrawl, so I do not know if it awards any exp or karma, but pretty much everything else does. The game doesn’t need strictly Horizontal progression or Strictly Vertical progression to be enjoyable, it can have degrees of both.

That’s what makes this game special over other MMO’s. I can level doing pretty much anything. This makes reaching level caps, or obtaining gear less of a chore. The only grind there is in this game is when you willingly fall into a pattern of farming for one specific purpose (ie. Legendary, dungeon armours, Ascended gear)

None of these were designed to be consumed within the first few months, but people feel the need to be the first to have them all.

The sheer fact that I can get full exotics from multiple sources, be it gold, karma, or badges of honor means I can do what I want, still get gear, still level, and still enjoy myself. The grind is self imposed. You don’t need to grind for anything, this game is 3 months old only.

In the end, there is no difference between chasing a statistical number, or chasing a skin. It’s still chasing something, and the both can have a grind associated with them. Skins are still a carrot, just like a small statistical increase. There is still plenty of fun content surrounding these carrots. This is what people seem to fail to realize. The fun is still there, people are just going for the newest content, and things will always be that way. Everytime something new comes, people will want to see how fun it is.

People find Fractals fun, and why shouldn’t they? It’s well designed. Other people find WvW fun, like myself and others find exploration fun. There are rewards for all. Just be patient, your activities are still coming, this game is still incredibly young.

I don’t think you get how different both progressions are. Horizontal progression is about gaining something you want and or becoming more versatile. Vertical progression is only about getting more powerful. These 2 are mutually exclusive. Either new content is designed for lesser gear. Making the content a borefest for those in the better gear. Or it forces those in lesser gear to obtain the highest tier or not be able to do said content. Either way one group is left out. Now you can say but they can adjust the difficulty for each armor tier. Well than the enter game population loses, because you will get exactly what is going on in LA now. A fragmented population.

So if they were so exclusive, this game would be considered Vertical from the get go. We wouldn’t have had levels to start with, we’d all start the same, and progression would have come solely from versatility.

It doesn’t happen this way at all, not even during beta. There already is a mix of both types.

The closest thing we have right now in gaming to Horizontal progression is Planetside 2, and even then there is hints of vertical progression.

Columba.9730:

Stop telling us that fractals are fun. Some of us hate them, some people find them fun. An absolute statement that people find them fun is misleading.

I’m just saying people find it fun, I didn’t say all find it fun. Some do some don’t. Point being, there are many people who play this game, they all find different aspects of it enjoyable.

Fortuna.7259:

Your argument is unconvincing. You haven’t tied persistence to a continual need for what you call progression. Your key point, that levels control the flow, is blatantly false in the case of Guild Wars 2. It doesn’t control flow at all. I can, for instance, level from 2 to 80 inside WvW and then walk to Orr. Or I can do AC runs from 30 to 80 and walk to Orr in my full exotic set. All it does is mandate time doing something else before I go there, which is only important because it is a high level area… which is in a sense circular logic and one which can be done away with by proper design.

I kinda struggle to put my thoughts into words, especially while at work.

Without this sort of pushing a character along a particular path, how would a player experience growth? How can you push the right buttons and make players feel more powerful over time? Even just unlocking skills is a form of vertical progression, you get more as you get further along.

So how would a horizontal progression model work in a MMORPG, which very purpose is to progress a character from pretty much nothing to a hero?

I use Planetside 2 as the best example of an actual Horizontal Progression game, and even then, it still has plenty of vertical progression.

You play the game, with any class, any vehicle right from install. You can be competitive, and don’t need to level. Not like in an RPG atleast. Any experience you get awards certifications, which allow for weapon purchases, which are just serving a different purpose, but aren’t any better than what you start with. The difference with this game is it’s a Sandbox combat game.

GW2… is not. Hasn’t been from level 1. We have more of a themepark game, where story and character progression is more deeply intertwined with the enviroment and world. As you level, you push further along into Tyria. It does however have some elements of Horizontal progression, but this game at its core, wasn’t built around it. Really, this was evident from the Beta, Even if you leveled in WvW, you were still forced along the same path as everyone else, by doing the personal story.

Planetside 2 on the other hand isn’t an RPG, it’s an action oriented FPS game. A Sandbox with no end goal, no real story progression, and no real character progression. Your character name, and class doesn’t matter in this game, he is just one of many grunts. The entire content was designed around the chaotic nature of a sandbox.

GW1 now, this game is neither a themepark or a Sandbox game. It’s more of a closed box. You only have one path really to progress your character and Story. There is technically a start and a end. There’s a fixed journey inbetween, and not alot of room to explore. It’s not a persistent world in the slightest, and is more akin to a single player RPG with coop.

The three different games are all vastly different from one an another, and feature entirely different progression models. GW2 would need to borrow many elements from Planetside 2 to effectively be Horizontal progression and it’s too open for GW1’s closed progression.

Serelisk.6573:

This is troubling. I’m not sure how I missed this quote people keep referencing by Mike O’Brien from 2011, but I was certain they wouldn’t increase the level cap. It;s even more disturbing watching people fail horribly at trying to understand what fans of lateral progression want and why…

This probably also means that they’re abandoning a lot of their emphasis on aesthetic gear choices. Less of the game most likely will actually be about having fun. It’s an inherent part of catering to the VP reward crowd. You’re not designing the game around fun content, you’re designing it around carrots. And no matter how many carrots this crowd eats, they won’t see that they’ve been running in place for several years.

This makes my hopes for seeing things like the activities that were supposed to be in at launch much, much lower. After all, why should they provide fun content when there’s a new audience of people who are more content chasing artificial rewards in the form of numbers. It makes no sense to me, but you can’t teach people to have higher standards.

When Keg Brawl and WvW stop being fun for me, I’m through with this game. They’re no longer my favorite game development studio. :/

It is still entirely possible to have fun while still maintaining vertical progression.

If they award exp for everything then there’s no reason not to have fun leveling like they do now. Grind only kicks in when what you are doing isn’t enjoyable, at that point the only award is the carrot.

I haven’t done kegbrawl, so I do not know if it awards any exp or karma, but pretty much everything else does. The game doesn’t need strictly Horizontal progression or Strictly Vertical progression to be enjoyable, it can have degrees of both.

That’s what makes this game special over other MMO’s. I can level doing pretty much anything. This makes reaching level caps, or obtaining gear less of a chore. The only grind there is in this game is when you willingly fall into a pattern of farming for one specific purpose (ie. Legendary, dungeon armours, Ascended gear)

None of these were designed to be consumed within the first few months, but people feel the need to be the first to have them all.

The sheer fact that I can get full exotics from multiple sources, be it gold, karma, or badges of honor means I can do what I want, still get gear, still level, and still enjoy myself. The grind is self imposed. You don’t need to grind for anything, this game is 3 months old only.

In the end, there is no difference between chasing a statistical number, or chasing a skin. It’s still chasing something, and the both can have a grind associated with them. Skins are still a carrot, just like a small statistical increase. There is still plenty of fun content surrounding these carrots. This is what people seem to fail to realize. The fun is still there, people are just going for the newest content, and things will always be that way. Everytime something new comes, people will want to see how fun it is.

People find Fractals fun, and why shouldn’t they? It’s well designed. Other people find WvW fun, like myself and others find exploration fun. There are rewards for all. Just be patient, your activities are still coming, this game is still incredibly young.

Surbrus.6942:

AzureNightmare.3914:

Well I’ve never touched WoW before in my life so i’m not even trying to make that arguement (I enjoy not spending 15 dollars a month for a game). I’m not bringing this arguement up out of some kind of shame or some BS like that, I’m bringing it up because it’s a fact.

I’m saying this because the fact is, GW1 was a very different game than GW2 is, and always will be. One I believe could get away with it’s low level cap and never increasing, while GW2, being that different game had a harder time avoiding it.

And that’s how I feel. I don’t, and probably never will play WoW even if it became free, so if you’re gonna reply to this and you wanna bring that arguement up, keep it in mind. I know kitten about it for the most part, really.

It doesn’t matter that you haven’t played WoW or not, because you are still being incredibly vague and not communicating anything other than basically “WoW did it so GW2 should do it too”.

The biggest difference between GW1 and GW2 is a persistent world. With the instanced nature of GW1, it wasn’t a world, but a series of hubs with levels attached to them. The persistence is by far the largest and most prominent difference.

With persistence tends to come some progression. GW1 could have gotten away with no levels whatsoever because of its closed and limited nature. Instead they controlled what skills you had at the onset to make it feel like your character became more powerful until a certain point. Elite skills were then used to further extend this. It’s to give the illusion of growth, even in such a small leveling process.

With persistent worlds, people want to feel powerful generally. They are also required to be somewhat controlled in their flow of the game. The game wouldn’t work very well if I could go straight to Orr from the get go. The levels of 1-80 is indeed as a gating mechanism of sorts to control how quickly you progress, and prevents you from jumping straight to the end of the game. The progression, the increase in stats, are all a product of the need to more or less control the progression. Hence, why an increase in level cap may be necessary for expansion content that contains a new story that is to be told. You control the flow of the story through the levels and the ability to fight tougher creatures.

It’s not simply because WoW did it. Games have done it before WoW. Even standard RPG’s. It’s to control the rate at which you experience the world. It’s the very nature of an MMORPG. This game does plenty that WoW doesn’t.

Liquid.9672:

@ Preech and maybe others that are wondering about score flow this week.

BG’s weakest time period against most competition is after our EU guys go to bed and before our PST time zone contingent comes online. In other words, BG is pretty short handed during a good chunk of the prime time East coast time zone. Last night SoR capitalized on this with a great turnout and ran a 400+ PPT for awhile, getting within a few hundred points of the lead.

But then your EST guys went to bed. I logged on at about 9pm PST, and went to bed around 12:30 PST. This is a strong time zone for BG, and about an hour before I went to bed, BG hit about 420 PPT. Then IoJ’s Oceanics logged in and started to eat into that, before URGE and our Oceanics got online.

This is it man. No magic. No trickery. SOR has a very strong NA crew that appears to be heavily weighted to the EST time zone. However you are out covered over night, which allows BG to gain ground again.

You seem pretty much dead on based on my observations. We do have quite alot of people from the Eastern Timezone, and some for Central. I think our weakest is still EU and Oceanic timezone though. Having them would round us out quite well.

Obsidian.1328:

Burl.9567:

preech.4071:

How bout i dont and BG plays the game as its meant to be played …… try using something other than an army of mes’ and thieves and stop hacking. Theres a reason we cant find ALL the mesmers u guys hide …. ur entire realm is mes’ and thieves, cheap class realm much?

The thread is starting to get back on track. Stop with the baseless accusations. They do a better job with yaks. Period. There is no secret to their success, they are just better than us at it. IoJ is as close as they are because of it.

Agreed. IoJ is fiesty as heck. If they had more manpower they would be a dominant server imo. And both BG and IoJ do a better job than us with the little things that add up like yak hunting, supply camp capping, tower/keep sweeps, etc.

Last night in the EB was a good example of this.

IoJ kept grabbing Danelons from us, and we would go and take it back. This would repeat a bit, but never did we say, you know what, with only 20 of them coming, why don’t 15 or so of us defend this camp? with the help of siege and the NPC’s, IoJ wouldn’t have been able to flip it so many times, but we never actually did do this.

It’s probably something we should do better.

I would also like to thank whoever called out the 3 golems hiding in the water under Durios. That could have been a pretty solid ninja attempt if not spotted, and we acted quick to prevent it. If it wasn’t for the call out we could have very well lost that tower.

xeph.8410:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The tiny number of us who pay for 100% of every upgrade ourselves (thanks for failing Anet) are permenently BROKE because of WvW.

Thats why lots of people have quit WvW.

And OP- yes if you wanna make money you have to do dungeons and fractals. Also if you wanna get the best gear YOU HAVE TO do fractals.

This bears repeating. WvW is a large gold sink – mitigated only by the fact that large WvW guilds pool their gold for the greater good. Whether a players pays for it completely out of their own pockets or not isn’t the point.

Also, sometimes no one buys upgrades. Every WvW player has been there. You pay for the upgrade or it simply doesn’t happen – even the cheap ones like Dolyak supply. Players like Lordrosicky should be encouraged, and not told to “find a WvW guild”.

No ones telling him to find a guild, but not to take it upon himself. The upgrade system wasn’t designed for a single person to upgrade.

Alot of guilds take it upon themselves to take care of it, and if they don’t upgrade, there is usually a reason (ie. hotly contested tower that will change hands often, why would you waste resources to lose it 15 minutes later)

UnderdogSMO.9428:

tkalamba.2541:

marnick.4305:

For those who missed the AMA, Mike O’Brien and Chris Whiteside keep mentioning a “shallow power increase”.

Yes or no, is this a good idea?

As far as I’m concerned: no. Bad idea. Keep this power increase bs out of the game.

Also hypothetical level increases were mentioned. Give your opinion.

For me, also a big no. If I stop for a year and come back, I don’t want to find an outdated character.

A shallow power increase is nothing really to worry about.

You finding an outdated character is going to be inevitable anyways. There was never any avoiding it. They said back in 2011 that they would increase the level cap, and again during the AMA they said it. The intention was always there, and they have said it during development. It was a fact that was ignored or glossed over. An increased level cap will mean that your character will inevitably be outdated.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/19873-level-cap-increase-in-expansions/

the thing about GW2 level though is it will NEVER get any harder to level than it already is as the level curve is FLAT

I have a friend who just started playing only about 2 weeks ago, yesterday he was say “man i just hit level 40… I ONLY PLAY FOR LIKE at most 2 hours a day! Thats awesome!!!”

as long as you do your leveling in area’s built for your level it will always take a short time

That’s true, and it doesn’t ever get harder. Even if they throw another 20 levels for us to achieve, I can bet that most people will hit it in a week. I’ve technically probably achieved an extra 150 levels on top of level 80 (based on skillpoint gain) just by playing maybe an hour a day. Occasionally more.

Archmortal.1027:

tkalamba.2541:

The Temporary grind.

Others have mentioned it, but it is a power creep. Meaning as more vertical progression is implemented, we will have to grind again, be it for resources to craft, WvW badges to purchase, Dungeon tokens to purchase or the good ol’ RNG in drops. Every time the vertical bar rises, we have to grind.
Every time the carrot is extended farther in front of us, we get back on the treadmill.
That is exactly what ANET said they would not do.

The current method to obtain the gear is a grind (farming for ectos is a pain) but they’ve already stated its a mistake and will be fixed. It’s not like this game didn’t have grind before?

So what about the grind for skins? Or the grind for Legendaries? What if your only goal is WvW, isn’t the journey to level 80 to be competitive still a grind? This term is used way to loosely that its honestly beginning to lose its meaning.

There will always be a grind. If there wasn’t, this game wouldn’t have gear or levels to start with. Just like how you will always have to chase a carrot anyways. New content with new goals is still just another carrot to chase, just in a different form. Not to mention they’ve stated before, and have again during the AMA that they will likely increase a level cap, so you will continue to chase a carrot.

In a game with levels etc. There will always be some sort of carrot to chase. Everyone will have a different carrot they prefer, and Anet is trying to create a mass market game. GW1 sold as much in 7 years as many games can sell in a week (IE. Call of Duty)

If you enjoy the content, isn’t it no longer a grind? A grind is repeating activities you don’t like. If you can obtain these items doing stuff you like, or hitting a new level cap enjoying yourself, its not a grind.

This game doesn’t even compare to grindy games, where I have to spend 2 weeks in a single 20 square foot area killing the exact same set of mobs before I can progress to the next 20 square foot area. The very fact that there is flexibility in what you do negates a grind, as if you get bored of one method to gain a level, get better gear etc, you can just go to the next.

Right now, this very second, yes, fractals is a grind. One that is temporary as Anet has already stated new methods to obtain said gear is being released, and current methods were flawed.

They already announced a scavenger hunt method, not sure what it will be, but they said they would provide an alternative to just farming for them.

Expect to have to go to many places around Tyria and start collecting things from Champion mobs.

Sammeixii.4579:

Piles of cinnamon and sugar are undervalued right now. They cost 9c minimum to make and are on the tp for 4-5c right now. Their price is also directly tied to the cost of cinnamon sticks.

i expect cinnamon sticks to probably take some sort role in new recipes.