Guild Wars 2

selection bias ^^

SkyShroud.2865:

when reviewers make their game reviews on mmorpg, they make it base on their first impression but never were done with consideration of the developer performance. afterall, is a mmorpg, it is not a single player game or focused game like fps/rts/etc. a through review is necessary if is a mmorpg.

gw2 on first impression did have great score. personally, i too will give gw2 a great score if base on first impression. however, mmorpg will require a greater standard of reviewing because unlike non-MMO titles, MMO title usually have more frequent updates.

considering the performance of the developer, gw2 will not receive a great score any more, at the best, is a good score, with the consideration that is b2p.

i do agree that gw2 is not a great mmorpg when take in consideration of the developer performance. however, there are things i do disagree with you because some of reasons seem more like a personal preferences.

what the hell is ‘developer performance’? compare GW2 to all the other AAAA mmo out there.

Blude.6812:

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Put it this way, even PvE players complained about this expansion!

Dont bother buying HoT if you really want to buy it, wait the end of this year when they will launch the next expansion and buy that; you will get HoT free with it then.

Hopefully Anet learned from their pricing mistake. Those that bought the core when it 1st came out, then paid full price again for HoT should get the next expansion at a reduced price.( i.e. cheaper than players that have never paid for and owned previous versions). None of this pay the same price as 1st timers pricing.

how many times does it need to be said until the obvious sinks in, you DID NOT pay twice for core, you payed the average price for an AAA expansion. those that did not have core were offered core for free as an incentive to join our community.

If you bought a music album 5 years ago for $10 then saw that you can get that album for free as a special offer now with a new release would you bleet about that too, ofc not.

Doggie.3184:

Is it going to be 50 dollars again and come with the base game for no reason?

The free base game is to encourage new players to join them. I will always prefer that than Anet blocking potential new players to my community by expecting them to buy all previous content as well as the new expansion.

I was in a very similar boat 6 months ago. My advice is do the personal story (also agree ^^ unlock season 2 and do this first) and quests first before you hit HOT, this will engage you with the game world again. Enjoy the builds and don’t worry about perfecting x and y, just have fun.

Interestingly I had a lot of crashing problems with GW2, repair didn’t work, new drivers, window refresh, underclock etc. However after looking at my event logs I spotted a problem – some other application was crashing my pc lol. Suggest looking at the Windows application event logs to get a feel for where the problem lies, you may get lucky

Totally agree with this, WVW has acknowledged major issues and needs the lov next, and its a big part of the end game. As for raids, as long as the investment is proportional to the target demographic all is well., and with the GW2 Payment model that will happen natural – they have to.

With 32 active zones, fractals, dungeons (i still do em, im not worries about gold per hour), WVW, PVP, legendaries, map rewards, achievements, long term viable crafting goals, holiday events, guild activites. ive got more than any other 3 year old mmo I have played, and I can take a holiday at any time and know my character will still be there when i come back and wont be screwed by some power curve.

What we do see here is a lot of players that don’t get that a MMO game cannot be the perfect game to all players at the same time and generally act like spoiled children stamping their feet because the game doesn’t perfectly match their personal vision of a game while not willing to invest energy thinking about why that could be.

Anet missed a trick, with a bit of balancing the new raids could have become the new 10 man dungeons, the repeat boss over and over model is old and stale.

I look at all the expansions that have been delivered by AAA games and HOT is up there with the best. I would prepay, but not until close to the delivery date – keep Anet on their toes.

the problem with raids is that the term is now poisoned by WOW with the antisocial elitist, have x or be benched/kicked noob mentaility., that is not what gaming should be about. Raids can work if a casual group can complete it with difficulty, thats a good experience. The repeat a boss 100 times until everyone has memorized everything to perfection or the faceroll AOE every boss experience is dated and creates a nasty gaming environment.

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

vesica tempestas.1563:

um why is that bad exactly, players who have a mind of their own simply spend gold on what THEY want. The people who like the idea of long term goals may or may not fancy ascended gear which is offered as another choice. That’s good not bad because actually you need ascended gear for nothing.

If you need ascended gear for nothing, then it shouldn’t have had higher stats than exotic! It should have been like Elite armor from GW1. Meaning very expensive, and hard to get AESTHETIC look. For those who don’t know English that means just to look cool.

as i said you need it for nothing, you may WANT to aim for it, but you are not punished by not getting it. Some people for example like the idea of leveling high in fractals , some don’t.

Because you dont like or cant be bother doing something does not mean it should not exist for everyone else.

another simply solution is that you have 28 or so zones that are easy mode, and a couple others that are slightly more difficult and group orientated to give us players choice.

And what exactly does a hard mode zone balance itself to be hard? how does the game work out for an instance of a map the average player skill at that time, player attitude to risk at that time, player alertness at that time, player skill selection at that time, player experience etc etc. Prime example is HOT maps just now, if you spend a little time learning the mobs and making a build that suits your own style then the content becomes trivially easy, yet some people rant about how difficult it is, what to do.

um why is that bad exactly, players who have a mind of their own simply spend gold on what THEY want. The people who like the idea of long term goals may or may not fancy ascended gear which is offered as another choice. That’s good not bad because actually you need ascended gear for nothing.

a goal that takes a long time is not a ‘gate’ for a casual player, its simply a long term goal for those that are not obsessed with having gear on day 1. Those that want gear on day 1 are equally not ‘gated’ from fast tracking that process with time and gold.

i was quite happily soloing camps last week with my 5 hours a wek casual elementalist in a mix of gear, so im not quite sure whats so difficult here. asside from that, GW2 has 32 zones, 28 of them can be solo’d with no effort, then the others increase slightly in difficulty so you need to do more than roll your face over the keyboard. The underlying problems is not difficulty, its attitude to mmorpg, some people cannot comprehend that the game cannot revolve arounf everyone at the same time, especially in a game designed for oeple to play together.

Aarean.5398:

I totally understand why youre suggesting this because the biweekly release schedule was amazing for consistent players like myself. It kept things just interesting enough to keep coming back. The expansion did release alot of really fun stuff but it certainly lacks the consistency we had back then. I would say they should beef up to a monthly content release schedule just to strike a balance between these two methods they have employed. Work on an expansion but release unique content once a month.

Ye that works for me, best of both worlds.

what does ‘true focus’ on living story actually mean? Anet spent years with living story, it was unpopular and fragmented, telling story in piecemeal is not how you encourage engagement and immersion (try reading a book, where you read 1 chapter a month or so). The reason they switched to expansions is because the player base wanted it – in fact its counter to their original intentions that they would never make an expansion – they learned from their mistakes, players love large content drops, they love the excitement of the release day.

Now if you were to say they dropped the ball with WVW for example, I would agree there, but the answer is that next expansion they dont drop the wvw ball.

its all about perception, or rather subjective opinion.

‘love the gliding, look forward to the possibilities going forward’

I like what HOT has brought to the table, its not perfect, but you look at an AAA mmorpg, they never are and never will be – but its not the same old same old x zones, bunch of quests, back to raiding in 3 weeks crap.

well OP, its a bit like being at a party where you are tired and not having fun anymore and just want to go home – except you want to switch off the lights on the way out even though other people are still parting.

a ‘Time sink’ is not a gate. Casuals are as capable of farming as hardcore players. Casuals like long term goals, they don’t need a reward every 4 seconds., in fact it tends to be the hardcore that feel the need to constantly progress to validate their time spent,.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Arenanet wants you to believe everyone has the same chance. Using RNG makes it so everyone does not have the same chance. They want winners that can dangle carrots in front of everyone else. Many of those “unlucky” people will just whip out the credit card to catch up with the Joneses. They use kittenty RNG by design.

I heard Anet evil evil developers use slave labour and sacrifice chickens to the dark gods as well

^^ great story

Carambola.1273:

which reward are those? Badges of honor? Proof of heroics? Pfft

Most people I know play wvw for ranks and fun. Put it this way earning achievments is a core part of pve and often there is no gold reward for that either.

When you do your PVE you get gold and PVE rewards, that’s kinda the point, in WVW you get different rewards.

Carambola.1273:

vesica tempestas.1563:

I play wvw when I want to pvp and gather ranks, I play other content when I want to gather gold. Sorted.

Yes…I feel obliged to run fractals, meta events, sw, etc to have enough money to sustain my fun on WvW. This is not fair.

why? you don’t need gold for wvw.

I play wvw when I want to pvp and gather ranks, I play other content when I want to gather gold. Sorted.

^^ why, because you want it too without the effort? I would like some gear from spvp but I don’t play it because I prefer playing a certain spec that is no good for spvp, should I expect to get that too? in fact isn’t everyone entitled to everything, so cant we just do away the unique rewards from unique content and get it all on demand too?

being ‘casual’ has nothing to do with it, casual players are ex raiders too you know.

Going back to original post, an outlier is not an aspect of an account, Outliers are a natural and expected artifact of a large sample size, its not something you ‘fix’

rofl hot area is not balanced around ascended gear, I can quite happily solo camps in my cloth elementalist with no problems. As for raids, its compelted by players in exotics so you are clearly wrong, also the single raid in the game represents a fraction of the content in the game.

I think this thread should suddenly and mysteriously disappear!

As of today, to buy the legion expansion, it will cost you $49 + cost of WOD+cost of vanilla + $100+ a year to play it.

Hot $49 for everyone, that’s it.

Kohlteth.3715:

ok, I am confused, where is the “Upgrade to Heart of thorns” Pricing for Existing core purchasers?

If i was new i could buy whole game (Core + Thorns) for $49.99
Existing who already bought core for $39.99 has to ALSO buy the whole game again ???

even WoW dont make people do that to upgrade from one expac to another, they only charge existing client base for new addon.

What gives here A Net ??

One very kittened off player and I bet I am not the only one here

man this is old, but one again : the average price of an AAA mmo expansion is $40-60. For new players they get the base game for free to encourage them to try the game out (bigger population is good for all)

and in wow you also MUST pay $100+ a year just to logon right.

Dragonax.6487:

It’s the most grindy game I’ ever played. Almost everything top level in this game take either massive luck, lot of money or massive amount of time to get. And the most terrible thing is almost none of those require any amount of skill.

Legendary probably takes like 2 years to get unless you are either extremely lucky, play > 10 hours a day , or pay $500. Even Ascended would take like 1-2 months for casual players , 3-4 months for the armor sets. And now with HoT out, even more grind are needed just to unlock the new specializations (which should be unlocked freely after purchase ).

When I compared it with a truly casual game like Warframe for ex: It took me 3 weeks to obtain top level gears. After 5 weeks, with a bit of luck and trading skills, I was able to get Frost Prime, which was by far the rarest, most valuable piece of gear in the game at that time, matched only by some of the (really good ) stuffs that no longer drop for several years.That’s what I would call Casual/

you misunderstand what a casual game is, its a game where there are not gates preventing casual player from playing, casual players can quite happily spend years developing their characters. A Casual game is not casual because you can max something in 3 weeks.

mmorpgs are all about having the opportunity to spend years developing your avatar, something people coming from a purely single player/non rpg background fail to understand.

Zenith.6403:

You should try these things before hastily making judgments.

A game being fun has no bearing on the complexity of the build, especially when you are comparing across genre.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sarrs.4831:

I’m not sure how this is even a problem?

So tanks, condi dps and healers don’t really need ascended weapons, while power does… Isn’t that good for tanks, healers and condi builds?

And upgrading the weapon level still does provide benefits. Everyone takes swings at the boss which are based on power damage.

OP (supported by frequent posters BRA and Cyninja) contends that ascended offers greater benefits to power-based builds. OP asks: since it costs the same (roughly) to build either type of ascended gear — shouldn’t they offer (roughly) the same value?

I’d argue that they do provide comparable value, which is difficult to compare with just raw numbers. We tend to think that +40 power and +40 precision are comparable because the numbers are the same, but the true impact isn’t as simple to compare as looking at the stat number. We have to look at actual gameplay results and so far, I don’t see anyone doing that in this thread.

Sarrs.4831:

And it’s not like ascended weapons are hard to come by.

Plus, ascended gear is hard to come by for the vast majority of players: anyone who doesn’t craft, anyone who plays for short periods of time, and people who focus on certain types of content. (I’m not arguing that it should be easier — I’m pointing out that for a lot of people, it’s not easy to get ascended armor or weapons.)

not everything has to be served on a bitesized plate. I play very casually, I have all ascended trinkets (they are handed out like sweets by the game) ive crafted 1 piece over a long time period, and there’s never been a situation where I have felt that I’m so underpowered that’s its noticeable. This is really about min-maxers who think in 1 dimension – max dps/hps per second.

Curo.2483:

So we’ve all heard the “my friend has better RNG than me stories”, and most of us know that computers cannot actually create random numbers, and there must be a ‘random seed’ based off something. And if we put 2 and 2 together, it looks like some accounts have better RNG due to some sort of innate calculation tied to their account.

So the question is this: are we just wearing tinfoil hats, and the fact that my friend with 900 hours in the game has 4 precursors and 2 unlimited bank access contracts. compared to my zero anything over 4.5k hours, is just to be chalked up to RNG? I get that. But how many people can relate to this story? Yes, we all know about biases. But how long are we going to say things like “random is random” (which we know it isn’t), and “your sample size is low” (which by this time, is not), and “you’re not factoring in other variables” (which we are)?

When are we going to actually look at “lucky” accounts (and I use quotes there because we know computers can’t generate random numbers)? Can we start talking about things like “is it right”, and “how can we level out this uneven distribution of wealth through drops?” When can we stop insulting each others’ intelligence, and address the issue at hand?

That’s not how coding works, An Account would be described as an Account entity which has no knowledge or state associated with luck.

^^ yup scale elemental up again to give us this, much more interesting fight back then.

runeblade.7514:

We all talk about balance in PvP, but what about PvE?

What direction of balance changes would you make so that there is a high diversity of viable builds.

balance is only required in competitive pvp. As for non-competitive pvp, you don’t need balance, you just need fun builds and to ‘untrain’ those that have been weaned on power kitten games like wow to learn that its ok to not have ‘max dps’, its all about group diversity and fun battles rather than reward x per hour. Losing is ok if it was fun!

what any mmorpg developer needs to focus on is how to disincentives class stacking through effective counter building, which is different from balance, its paper stone scissor x on steroids.

See Eve for this model.

wvw is not pvp (player versus player) its army versus army – a very different model.

Ardid.7203:

So my investment on viper armor for my engie was a really really bad deal… and a lot of raid groups looking for “Viper ascended condi build” are plainly wrong.

I wouldn’t worry about it, 2 dimensional players think in terms of ‘min maxing’ they don’t revile in diversity of build, they simply want to make life as easy as possible – ie duller and most likely a learned behaviour from other mmorpg.

FOR AAA mmo:

Best graphics : ESO/GW2
Stable/least power creep : GW2
Music : GW2/WOW
Choice of viable skill and ability : GW2/ESO
Number of Zones playable for max level player : GW2
Cheapest to play in real money terms : GW2
Most friendly community : LOTR/GW2/FF
Questing during levelling : WOW/ESO
Game with least anti social activities (e.g mob/resource tagging/elitism) GW2
Performance with high number of players : GW2
Friendliest to Casuals (e.g lack of power creep, skins rather than power) GW2

Goes to GW2 for me with ESO comming in second if you ignore performance issues.

Sealer.1937:

The grinding required for Guild Wars 2 after reaching lvl 80 and ranking up your specialization is just insane. I played a lot of Jrpg’s and Asian mmo’s to have some understanding about grind but this is just hell. If your someone like me and dont have a lot of cash lying around for games this is gonna be a big problem at the end game. Ascended gear costs an arm and a leg, to even be able to craft them youll need to grind yourself to death leveling your crafting specialization and the time gated crafting materials that you can make once per day is not helping. When i started playing GW2 at launch day it was the best thing ever but now i feel like iam working just to play a kitten game

ther is no grinding required, you do not need ascended gear, but since you have been playing since day 1 you would know this would you not?

conspiracy/men in black/ developers are evil aside, obviously they will be working on wvw as well as the expac (as they have already intimated) because that’s high up on the player bases mind, and is clearly of need of work.

Newteck.6403:

Ok, i was a bit kittened off earlier, so i didn’t expressed myself correctly. What i meant is that i find this part (Chapter 8: City of Hope; the trial of strength specifically) too hard for the casual player. Hey, i’m experienced, I’ve played many MMOs, i’ve been playing this game since it started, i know what i’m doing, I know when to use range or melee, but i always struggle with this part. So I put myself in the shoes of my friend (and any player with her level of experience) and it’s become really hard and it takes the fun away. It’s a game it’s suppose to be fun… it’s not supposed to be a chore.

P.S. i finally succeeded an hour ago after taking 3 deep breath. and i didn’t have to change my traits so your argument of trait doesn’t stand. I still stand by my opinion.

Just because you find a thing hard does not mean the world and his dog finds it hard. The vast majority of guild wars players are casual and can do this fight with no problem, and if they do find it a problem, they have not felt the need to complain about it in a games forum, they either worked it out or just moved on – that’s how gaming usually works. The alternative is that somehow the game automagically reads your mind and balances itself exactly to give you as an individual the perfect difficulty level based on your skill level and preference for learning and mood and number of retries, and adaptability and desire for a challenge while also taking into account all possible skill combinations and how you personally use those skills moment to moment. – I will buy that technology when it arrives ! Although interestingly you did manage it eh.

Lord Kuru.3685:

vesica tempestas.1563:

morrolan.9608:

Avarice.2791:

morrolan.9608:

Avarice.2791:

I don’t understand, what’s one aspect of this game that is challenging. I hopped into HoT a few days ago after a year break and beat the story in a matter of two days. Cleared all exploration in the next two days. There is nothing in this game that isn’t casual… Unless all you complainers expect free kitten.

Thats due to the lack of content, the story is way to short.

The story was only a tid bit shorter than the original story.

The 1-80 story? Wat? HOT is far shorter. 1-80 is a legitimate single player length for an mmo, the single player story in HOT is way way to short.

vesica tempestas.1563:

morrolan.9608:

Thats due to the lack of content, the story is way to short.

the reason the game is not casual friendly is because its too short?

No him clearing the story in 2 days is due to it being to short, nothing to do with whether HOT is casual friendly or not.

oh and what’s that got to do with the thread?

Because the story is so short, Anet takes the path of stretching out the content by putting in loads and loads of grind…. which is what makes the game no longer casual friendly.

what exactly did he grind then if he completed it in 2 days. its either casual un-friendly or its not.

I play casually and I am quite capable of farming stuff and have fun doing it, its hardly a gear check.

morrolan.9608:

Avarice.2791:

morrolan.9608:

Avarice.2791:

I don’t understand, what’s one aspect of this game that is challenging. I hopped into HoT a few days ago after a year break and beat the story in a matter of two days. Cleared all exploration in the next two days. There is nothing in this game that isn’t casual… Unless all you complainers expect free kitten.

Thats due to the lack of content, the story is way to short.

The story was only a tid bit shorter than the original story.

The 1-80 story? Wat? HOT is far shorter. 1-80 is a legitimate single player length for an mmo, the single player story in HOT is way way to short.

vesica tempestas.1563:

morrolan.9608:

Thats due to the lack of content, the story is way to short.

the reason the game is not casual friendly is because its too short?

No him clearing the story in 2 days is due to it being to short, nothing to do with whether HOT is casual friendly or not.

oh and what’s that got to do with the thread?

morrolan.9608:

Avarice.2791:

I don’t understand, what’s one aspect of this game that is challenging. I hopped into HoT a few days ago after a year break and beat the story in a matter of two days. Cleared all exploration in the next two days. There is nothing in this game that isn’t casual… Unless all you complainers expect free kitten.

Thats due to the lack of content, the story is way to short.

the reason the game is not casual friendly is because its too short? I bought the patch on release, several months on and I still visit when I’m in the mood for more intense fights.

DoctorDing.5890:

I’m an epic hero. I don’t want to have to run away from a short man dressed as a mushroom.

yep heros cc the mushy and nuke its face off and have fun with the bit of challenge, some others it seems runs away or dies and rushes onto a forum to blame the world for their poor skill choices.

90% of the maps is solo friendly, with the other 10% for skirmishing group/groups and 1 solitary raid is designed as a highly tuned fight. Even the elite ‘must use meta’ idiots that raid have a right for content designed for them, as long as it is in proportion. 90 % entirely soloable content in 27 or so zones in a mmorpg is a lot lol.

Astralporing.1957:

Famps.7461:

I have not read all 22 pages.. But everytime i wonder what people are Talking About.

Yes. it’s hard to understand what people are talking about if you don’t listen to them.

(seriously, read the thread first)

actually I agree with him, the title of the thread is evidently false, casual players can indeed play 99% of the game, therefore the game is casual friendly, you cant discuss away the facts in 22 pages. The rest is noise which boils down to someone personally not liking this or that.