288 replies to this topic

[Lareem]

Okay i see that i didn't write my point clear enough. What would you do to keep people playing? I want to hear some ideas how to improve the game. Lately the only thing i read on gw2 forum are about how arenanet sold their soul and betrayed everyone.

[DuskWolf]

@Lareem

Why do people 'keep playing' ME3? They want to get better at the various maps and AI on offer. They don't do it to grind, they do it because they want to trim time off the last run. It's pretty great to get through waves faster based purely on your own skill, and to know that you're getting better. What ArenaNet needs to do is stick to the power plateau and provide real challenges, and to try and add more challenges (even if smaller ones) to keep the variety up.

And the main priority is for them to work on the AI in PvE and to provide more locales and diverse objectives in PvP. Even a small thing like a new objective in PvP can elongate the game, because people want to get better at doing it. You don't need new armour with increased stats to keep people playing. Games never did.

In fact, think about it. Did Bomberman need that to keep people playing for years? How about Counterstrike? Did people play Counterstrike to have a gun or whatever with better stats? Noap, that was never what it was about. It was about doing better at the content on offer. This iswhy speedruns exist. If a game is fun, you'll want to get better at it regardless. All they need is better AI and to introduce new objectives on a semi-regular interval.

If the game is fun, people will keep trying to improve their ability to play it. No carrot is needed.

Edited by DuskWolf, 28 November 2012 - 09:18 PM.

[Briar]

There may have been power creep in the guild wars expansions but lets face it; it was grindless. You bought the expansion you got the creep.

I think I really know what this is about, once people get all of the armor they want they have nothing left to spend money on. Stats are GW2's biggest gold sinks and they cannot allow them to stop functioning because it will wreck the gem store profits

[DuskWolf]

Briar, on 28 November 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

Stats are GW2's biggest gold sinks and they cannot allow them to stop functioning because it will wreck the gem store profits

I know that this is what they think the problem is but... no. Damn it, no!

Okay, ME3 has sidegrades and cosmetic upgrades available via a gambling system (spectre packs). I've put quite a bit of money into that because I like the cosmetic upgrades, and the sidegrades can be pretty fun. I sometimes alternate between a sidegrade and my main weapon to keep me on my toes (so I don't get rusty). A game doesn't need stats in order for a gem shop to work. Proof? Mass Effect 3. Damn it, ArenaNet, look at Mass Effect 3.

If they're basing their gem store upon stats, then... quite frankly? They're doing it wrong.

[AureliusRex]

Auenwing, on 28 November 2012 - 09:08 PM, said:

<--- Old mmorpg hardcore player.  Note: left out the "farming grind", since that is basically the only thing games offered back then, even DAoC with its "sandbox" RvR (see: RR's).

I joined this game because it was not the standard old school, or heck, even new school (see: WoW & clones) grind.

Some of my guild is wondering which ex-Blizzard devs did ANet pick up and how much political power they have.   Or whether ANet picked up some ex-Trion marketing folks who could never figure out which constituency of customers to serve.

Still reserving judgement regarding game until all this "settles out". Skepticism is high though. Not a good place to be 3 months out.


.

Totally agree with this.  No matter what your opinion on VP, GW2 is just a mess of a game right now.  If you want to be where there are any people at all you are running fotm, and even then, you're looking for a group your level if you can find one.  The economy is bad, the open world is empty, the launch day dungeons are empty, spvp is a complete flop,  there are reams of bugs that haven't been fixed, and the community is at each other's throats.

This ship is starting to take on water and Anet had better start taking some serious action soon.  If the community perceives the ship is sinking there will be mass exodus.

[Drekor]

I don't like his response and to me it underscores a complete change in core design philosophy for the game. I'll elaborate a bit on each of his points

Quote

Because it's fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it's fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 -- no VP ever, year after year -- and it wasn't that fun. It was stagnant.

That's why people kept playing it for years? because it was stagnant? That's why it has some of the most loyal fans of any MMO out there? because it was stagnant? Bullshit. I play probably a good 30-40 hours a week and looking at my achievements I've likely got more than a year of play to "do everything". I think creating an expansion once per year is reasonable but even if not they've already released new content after only 2 months(it's just not very well designed).

Quote

--> No. No one said that. It would be pointless to design a game for those who want to play it zero hours per month.
But rephrase, perhaps to something like this: I want to play a reasonable number of hours per month and still be competitive, not falling behind a power curve that's only accessible to those with the most time. Then that is more along the lines of what we said, and we intend to stick by it.

Honestly the issue doesn't come down to an exact amount of hours. If it took 2 months to max out your character that's fine... if it ends there. If it takes 5 days to max out your character then things keep progressing after that... you have a EQ/WoW style treadmill. Both of those games are still going strong btw, we don't need more clones of them.

Quote

Well, obviously there are many reasons why it's good for any online world for people to actually play it. But the design motivation here is simple. --> We're intending to build content that's most fun for people who are playing the game, not that's most fun for people who are not playing the game. If you want to take a break for a year, that's fine, but we're not going to freeze the game for you while you're gone. I'm sure we'll make it reasonable for you to catch back up when you return. After all, it's clearly in our best interest to do so.

So they decided to segregate the community into a ridiculous amount of levels for fractals, gate progression on RNG drops and put items you can only obtain there to pull people away from other dungeons and the open world and their DEs. This is called bad design... no... this is utterly atrocious design. This isn't the sort of thing you say "sorry, our bad, we'll come up with a solution and implement it on some unknown date in the future" this is the sort of thing that should never make it into a testing phase it's so bad.

What the hell happened to ANets developers? It honestly boggles my mind how you can make a game as good as GW2 then only a few months later release a patch as bad as this. Were they replaced by their evil twins or something?

Quote

That's really core here. It's fine to say that non-cosmetic VP isn't supposed to be grindy or outside the reach of normal players, but then we price some new items at 250 ectos with no other ways to get them, and it's hard to interpret it as other than that. That's a mistake. The design team has committed to fixing that.

The problem here is where it really comes down to it. Mike is basically saying it's a numbers issue not a design issue. They are clearly looking at adjusting the numbers so you still have to grind but they want to get it just under that threshold so that it's bearable to as many people as possible. He doesn't seem to realize that in vertical progression you'll run into an issue where you may not create enough progression and therefor don't appease the progression folks that wanted it in the first place but it would at least be accessible to average players. Or on the other end you create too much and progression folks are happy but the gear is out of reach to average players(FYI that's what we have now). Right now estimates range from 5-15% once everything is said and done and even 5% is a noticeable advantage.

I decided to play this game because it's design philosophy was inherited from GW1 and built on further to be different than your average run of the mill wow clone. The Nov 15 patch drastically altered this philosophy and while I can respect that developers may decide to take a game in another direction, I can't stand the bullshit responses they've been giving. I'll see what "solutions" they come up with but I don't have much faith in them right now. If things don't work out I'll be getting all my money back I've spent on this game so far and never coming back(they'll probably perma ban my account for getting a refund anyways). ANet has moved right up along SoE for their reputation to ruin games with this patch alone. I'm not sure they'll ever be able to repair their reputation after this.

*grumble*

[duncanmix]

Lareem, on 28 November 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

Okay i see that i didn't write my point clear enough. What would you do to keep people playing? I want to hear some ideas how to improve the game. Lately the only thing i read on gw2 forum are about how arenanet sold their soul and betrayed everyone.

I had enough to play with before this ascendant gear. First we have 8 dungeons and each have story mode + 3 paths except arah that have 4 paths. So thats 33 different dungeons. 3 months in the game I still didn't complete them all. I like arah set so I decided to stay there for a while. I can tell you its challenging enough. Lupicus is very well designed boss. Saw many people fail, saw many people succeed. So there u have improvement, add more content like arah dungeon. Also I love spvp, now with daily I try to finish it every day, so thats 3 maps per day, I enjoy in this also. Another suggestion how to improve add new types of spvp, new maps etc. There is wvw too. Sometimes I just wanna go zerg vs zerg and feel like in epic battle, sometimes I want to ninja cap camps, but wvw is fun in any form for me. There are jumping puzzles, mini dungeons, also I love making alts. My main warrior got 3 different sets, I enjoy playing different roles, my alts are guardian and ranger full exotic working on my necromancer. There is so much in this game already, and so much potential to add. Make big underwater city like lion arch. Add another class, another race, more cool dungeons, improve wvw...
But yet they choose to add new content and make u grind for top gear. That's fail simple as that.

[ScoutMATH]

duncanmix, on 28 November 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

I had enough to play with before this ascendant gear. First we have 8 dungeons and each have story mode + 3 paths except arah that have 4 paths. So thats 33 different dungeons. 3 months in the game I still didn't complete them all. I like arah set so I decided to stay there for a while. I can tell you its challenging enough. Lupicus is very well designed boss. Saw many people fail, saw many people succeed. So there u have improvement, add more content like arah dungeon. Also I love spvp, now with daily I try to finish it every day, so thats 3 maps per day, I enjoy in this also. Another suggestion how to improve add new types of spvp, new maps etc. There is wvw too. Sometimes I just wanna go zerg vs zerg and feel like in epic battle, sometimes I want to ninja cap camps, but wvw is fun in any form for me. There are jumping puzzles, mini dungeons, also I love making alts. My main warrior got 3 different sets, I enjoy playing different roles, my alts are guardian and ranger full exotic working on my necromancer. There is so much in this game already, and so much potential to add. Make big underwater city like lion arch. Add another class, another race, more cool dungeons, improve wvw...
But yet they choose to add new content and make u grind for top gear. That's fail simple as that.

yeah. and no one is even contesting the orr cathedrals anymore. rushing a level 80 is harder coz almost no one does the dynamic events anymore. i see less and less "lfg (insert dungeon) here) anymore. seems like the entire game is obsoleted by the fotm.


if they added gaining ascended items by doing activities in various of maps, even in the low levels. if they made it possible to get level 80 or t6 items when your level 80 is downscaled in harathis or kessex. all those environments are wasted.

Edited by ScoutMATH, 28 November 2012 - 11:39 PM.

[Beale]

Drekor, on 28 November 2012 - 10:35 PM, said:

I don't like his response and to me it underscores a complete change in core design philosophy for the game. I'll elaborate a bit on each of his points

[snip]

What the hell happened to ANets developers? It honestly boggles my mind how you can make a game as good as GW2 then only a few months later release a patch as bad as this. Were they replaced by their evil twins or something?


The problem here is where it really comes down to it. Mike is basically saying it's a numbers issue not a design issue.

This feels like what happened in RIFT.  The game starts out with a specific and well articulated philosophy, attracts a lot of players, the players who don't like the philosophy leave making a lot of noise, and suddenly we start seeing patches which fundamentally change the nature of the game.

Two observations:

First, marketing: A game is an entertainment product, not a technical product.  Success is about the emotional experience of the customers.   This is true whether you're producing a Broadway play, making  a movie, or opening a Club Med resort.  Any idiot can tell you that a movie which tried to be all things to all people would fail miserably.

Now, let's picture a movie whose producers and directors somehow thought they could, advertised that they could, and on opening day every theater is full.  In the opening scene we have a high adrenaline car chase / smashed cars / macho guy driving / hot babe with too few clothes on in the passenger seat...and the families with small children get up and leave the theater.  This cuts to another scene where a truly eloquent speaker gives an impassioned discussion of minute points of philosophy worthy of a Harvard PhD...and all the people who liked the chase scene get up and leave the theater.  Then cut to five minutes of children playing and playground drama between the kids...more leave.  Then the folks in the car from the first scene put their clothes on and actually have an interesting drama with a plot...for the handful of people who stuck around.

My first point: developing a game you make decisions who it's for, design the game for that segment, market the game to that segment, and don't look back.  On day 1 you sell to a subset of the game market, which you have chosen, plus a some people just there to explore.  The people who don't fit your segment will all leave.  If you've served the segment poorly, even more will leave.  But from that moment on, every time you change direction, even slightly, you signal an additional set of people to leave and you cannot get back the ones who left already, or never came because the game wasn't for them.  So a game designer who panics and shifts direction repeatedly guarantees the outcome RIFT had, which is that essentially all the customers left.

My second point: I think that at release there is a shift of power in the game publishers, from the developers, to the bean counters.  The bean counters see 2 million units sold, do not understand that a million of those were sold to people the game wasn't targeted to and couldn't possibly retain, and panic when those million leave after a month.  They look at the exit polls and identify the fact that the game was designed to plateau instead of having a perpetual gear grind as the cause of those million people leaving, and demand that the developers fix the problem.  (In the case of RIFT, it was that speccing a character was extremely complex (counterpoint to WoW) and dynamic world events (again counterpoint to WoW): so RIFT tracked players into cookie cutter specs and gutted the world events.)  The problem is that this reversal of direction alienates the other million people, the ones who stayed, the ones the game was designed for.

In fairy tales, this is called killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.  I don't know what it's called in the game world.

As a business person, i see it as a total and complete failure of the marketing process, and of the corporate management's stewardship of the asset.  Failure to understand who your customers are, and how they will react to what you are doing, is an utter failure at Marketing 101.  Even if you have no clue, there are these things called "focus groups" you use to ask a cross section of customers how they will feel about proposed changes to the game.  And you run the focus groups after you have the concept for the expansion, but before spending all the development.  Or even after spending the development but before release...and have the courage to cancel a patch or x-pac which will alienate most of your customers.

[Asomal]

Beale, on 29 November 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

As a business person, i see it as a total and complete failure of the marketing process, and of the corporate management's stewardship of the asset.  Failure to understand who your customers are, and how they will react to what you are doing, is an utter failure at Marketing 101.  Even if you have no clue, there are these things called "focus groups" you use to ask a cross section of customers how they will feel about proposed changes to the game.  And you run the focus groups after you have the concept for the expansion, but before spending all the development.  Or even after spending the development but before release...and have the courage to cancel a patch or x-pac which will alienate most of your customers.

Precisely. People who wanted grind left before the 15th November patch. People who didn't want the gear treadmill left after. In both ways, Anet loses.

What I don't really understand is this "change" in direction, without even trying their original concept first. Where is the "skin grind" they promissed? I mean, in 3 months the only new skins we got are the Halloween's ones and the Cursed Shore, both selling on the gem store (yet those were just a few).

Where are the regular skins? The skins we could hunt & grind for in the game's world? If you really want people to grind for skins, you should add a few every month (both gem store and regular skins). Skins that we could actually use in combat (looking at you, halloween's costumes) and didn't rely on RNG to obtain (BLC chests,CS gem chests). If they were good enough, people would buy it, but it's not like they even tried...

Edited by Asomal, 29 November 2012 - 03:52 AM.

[fatrodmc]

ScoutMATH, on 28 November 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

if they added gaining ascended items by doing activities in various of maps, even in the low levels. if they made it possible to get level 80 or t6 items when your level 80 is downscaled in harathis or kessex. all those environments are wasted.

Totally agree. Mat tiers should be scaled to your area. While they're at it why not split the 6 pieces of exotic armours amongst DE's in 6 different areas, spreading the population and keeping low level areas alive instead of having to run the same dungeon a million times.

Edited by fatrodmc, 29 November 2012 - 05:06 AM.

[RabidusIncendia]

AureliusRex, on 28 November 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

Totally agree with this.  No matter what your opinion on VP, GW2 is just a mess of a game right now.  If you want to be where there are any people at all you are running fotm, and even then, you're looking for a group your level if you can find one.  The economy is bad, the open world is empty, the launch day dungeons are empty, spvp is a complete flop,  there are reams of bugs that haven't been fixed, and the community is at each other's throats.

This ship is starting to take on water and Anet had better start taking some serious action soon.  If the community perceives the ship is sinking there will be mass exodus.

I've taken a two week break from both the game and the forums (minus some tp posts) and this is going to be my last post, but the break has really given perspective for me.

As much as I hate gear treadmills and ascended (and I still think it's stupid btw), ascended really isn't the reason to strop playing GW2

It's a lot of reasons.  Reasons that together make this game really suboptimal, but it's hard to see after the initial excitement of waiting 5 years for the sequel to the game I loved guild wars.  It's kinda silly if you've seen my posts, but I really think of myself as somewhat of an arenanet fanboy given how much misplaced excitement I had for this sequel.  Many of the reasons can be seen by just comparing the original to this one, others are just general * ups for this game.

1) PvP aside, both games were inevitably about grind.  Realistically speaking, you tended to do things that were profitable in the original GW even if some things were less fun, although there were so many ways to do this you could usually find something that was both fun and profitable.

The difference is the grind was open and fun.  In guild wars 2, if you want to reasonably grind for something, you honestly only have like 3 or 4 grind options and they're all boring as hell.  You can grind orr, now you can grind fotm, you could do ori runs, or maybe you could solo farm in Frostgorge.  And you'll be doing this all with a build which you can techincally modify but will ultimtely just be the same damned obvious build as anyone else, even if you choose different traits.

In guild wars 1 even in the beginning you could chest run, run people through areas, farm mursatt, farm any of a million other areas since lack of downscaling meant you could farm just about anywhere for profit, run FoW or UW, holiday farm (since you the required ingredients for holiday collectores reamined the same you could farm for next holiday), and even do PvP for PvE rewards via Hall of Heroes.  Now realistically speaking, FoW and UW were no different than any other dungeon of GW2, but all the others were massive fun.  Everyone had their own special running build that they worked on and specfically used, and running required quite a lot of skill: You needed to know every inch of your run.  Not everyone could do droks (I actually couldn't reliably! although I found marhan's more profitable anyways :3 ) and many of the others were difficult.  But you went through it and mastered it and it was quite enjoyable when you could help people out and make money doing it.  Especially fun is when you come up with your own runs, like when I figured out how to run captured son in like 2 minutes flat.

And thats just describing running people!  There were also these grouped chest runs in FoW which were absolutely hilarious.  People who had a warrior in prophecies know what I'm talking about.  You basically had 8 warriors join the dungeon all together and just keep running as a group hoping you didn't die, until eventually the group wiped and you opened a bunch of chests along the way.  It was incredibly fun, and the rewards were very fun too since you never knw what you were going to get.  You could sell the stuff unidentified and make a solid profit, or you could take a gamble and hope for something really great.

And then of course there was standard farming, but even then you used your own unique build.  People were always tweaking and messing around with builds and while there were some accepted specific builds for some areas (namely 55s/ bond monks), you could really run whatever you wanted that worked for you, but at the same time it was always incredibly different from everyone else.   Ever run sorrows furnace with 8 fire eles and no tank or monks?  That's a friggin blast.

For anyone who read all that and is a GW1, you know these were all fun.  And compared to what in GW2?  Spam 1 in an event.  Spam AoEs in frostgorge or grind your one friggin set of fractals with the same build everyone else uses of your profession.  Oh and there's ori runs, but not nearly as fun to do solo, and not nearly as difficult or amusing.  What a joke.  And now you guys are going to be stuck in one place, fotm really.

Furthermore, while there was techincally a gear grind, the top stuff only put you at 1-2% more powerful, and since guild wars was much more skill oriented, aside from running you didn't even notice it in the slightest (and even then, 1-2% is 1-2%!).  But this was great, because the few hardcore grinders who needed that top stuff for whatever reason payed through the nose for it, so even the most modest of farms could fund you with the money to pay for several alts' armors and runs to the highest level areas.

tl;dr  Grind was still the point of PvE, but it was much more open and fun.

2) Pvp again, in comparison is an absolute joke in Guild wars 2.  The excuse given for dumbing down builds so everyone runs the same damned crap and everyone expects the same damned crap is that at the very least it would be easily balanced.  The problem?  3 months into the game now and there is still less viable build variety and formats than in guild wars 1.  This is an atrocity.  I think they realized a bit too late now that roles such as interrupters and prot monks were what kept what balance guild wars had going, and removing them actually made guild wars 2 balance even worse, only now it's dumbed down and stupid to boot.  Without profession specific roles, people just choose whichever class runs that role best, and so we see a neverending set of nerfs and Arenanet scrambles to try and bring some semblance of class balance.  In the end, we're left with about 20 or so viable builds across all professions, which is truly terrible.

3) WvW, the final format, is a format that fails on a level greater than Hero battles, and considering the latter was actually an attempt to make solo players try and handle 4-5 capping zones by themselves rather than fight, that's saying something.  With the substantial amount of AoE in the game, both defensive and offensive, realistically you need large parties to counter anything, and because of the high population size per map, realistically you had to zerg up to take a tower, as organized groups had scouts that could stop small groups.  And there's severe population imbalance.  And there's no decent reward (negative for new players actually).  And there's hacks on a level unseen in guild wars.  And you cant even see your enemies names so there's no social value at all.  They probably know what they need to do: lower the population queue max all around and force people to spread around, fix outmanned so it's fun to play at odd hours, and increase the towers per map to prevent zerging.  But they just don't give a shit.

So to all of those still pissed off at ascended and the gear grind, I challenge you: just take two weeks off from the game and the forums.  If you can't take a two week break from it, when you would probably otherwise be playing for months to years, that should be a bit of a warning sign that you're only playing to keep up with the grind in the first place.  I actually had a hard time even quitting BEFORE ascended for even a few days because I know I would fall behind on playing the tp from not doing my daily ori runs and stuff and it would put me behind, but I realized this is not a good reason to be playing a game.

And if you do come back after two weeks, and play with all the more fervor, then good for you.  You actually do like the game in spite of it's flaws and there's nothing wrong with that, enjoy yourself.  But my instinct says most who would take this challenge will never play the game again, not once.

Edited by RabidusIncendia, 29 November 2012 - 06:35 AM.

[Var]

raspberry jam, on 28 November 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Yes, as i said, some skills are obviously more powerful than others. Especially, I'd say, elementalists saw this (compare Nightfall's Savannah Heat to Prophecies' Mind Burn). For other professions it was simply not so: the biggest thing to happen to warriors, for example, across all updates was that Flail allowed hammer warriors to use a non-suicidal IAS that didn't suck, and that Crippling Slash made pressure easier... even then, though, you could set up a 100% viable warrior bar using just Prophecies skills.

Crippling Slash made a lot of things easier but, yes, warriors were on the lesser end of the gain spectrum. Warriors are probably the only class for which that last sentence is true though without suffering a large gimp in effectiveness (and even in that case, with the best case scenario of the classic axe build, you're losing the better mobility options provided by the other chapters). You're free to refresh my memory.

raspberry jam, on 28 November 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Your second paragraph is very confusing. Could you tell me what you mean by negative progression or what you mean by a fictitious notion of always being up to date?
I do agree with you that EotN skills... no, actually, just one EotN skill, we all know which one, was not only truly marketable but actually, I'd think, a sales trick. UB was PvE-only skill though, I wouldn't say that EotN was a revolution for PvP...

Negative progression, ie what we've been talking about: power creeps, some form of vertical progression.

As for the notion to which I refer, it is the one that people often quote here: "I could have logged in after 7 years of not playing GW1 and still be the on equal footing" or some other variation, usually concerning armor/weapons but always, likely out of convenience to the fact that it shreds the whole argument, ignoring the fact that said person would be hopelessly inferior to someone with all the expansions, all of the PvE skills ground out, and all of the consets and jellybeans to speed clear the halls of a high school during lunch break.

raspberry jam, on 28 November 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Anyway, I think that people are mostly surprised because ANet seemed to claim that they were making a low-grind, horizontal-progression game which almost seemed to revolve around an "unlock to own" kind of design when it came to reward structure. Now, Mike O'Brien is right when he says that they never said that it would be horizontal progression. They just gave the impression of it, implied by the design decisions that they did tell us about. Design decisions that they later reversed, but quietly so.

I suppose this is fair enough.

[Ritualist]

Var, on 29 November 2012 - 07:04 AM, said:

As for the notion to which I refer, it is the one that people often quote here: "I could have logged in after 7 years of not playing GW1 and still be the on equal footing" or some other variation, usually concerning armor/weapons but always, likely out of convenience to the fact that it shreds the whole argument, ignoring the fact that said person would be hopelessly inferior to someone with all the expansions, all of the PvE skills ground out, and all of the consets and jellybeans to speed clear the halls of a high school during lunch break.

It took multiple expansions and a bunch of REALLY dumb ideas for GW1 to get there.
GW2 is in that place from the start.

I think this is what people are trying to say - mistakes will be made. But you need to recognize those actions as mistakes, hopefully learn from them and try to not make them again. In GW2 though, the actions that folks consider as mistakes, A.Net considers as ground blocks to build their game on.

[Evans]

Briar, on 28 November 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

There may have been power creep in the guild wars expansions but lets face it; it was grindless. You bought the expansion you got the creep.

I think I really know what this is about, once people get all of the armor they want they have nothing left to spend money on. Stats are GW2's biggest gold sinks and they cannot allow them to stop functioning because it will wreck the gem store profits

I just wanted to say that I find this untrue. In fact, I believe prophesies was the least grindy part and it was still a grindfest to get anything of worth. I've spent oh so many hours running droknar to earn cash for a superior vigor for example.

Factions was a bit more grindy, specificly the part where you have to befriend the luxons or kurzicks was grindy as heck originally. They eased it up later, but originally I'm fairly certain you couldn't even gain enough faction by doing quests only. I believe you were forced into low end pvp to do this. Even if not so, it was a stupid barrier that involved unnecessary, tedious tasks to overcome.

Nightfall cranked it up another notch with the sunspear and lightbringer titles. They became a necessity for Elonian characters, making you grind for them (because no, quests alone were not enough) and later on you needed to max these titles for the skills they offered because it was demanded by groups in higher end play. This was grindy and people would play extra on double point weekends for it. The fact alone that double point weekends existed mean it was grindy.

Somewhere in between came the faction skills for luxon and kurzick, some of which were also required on certain builds. Initially the rank made a big difference and it was again most certainly grind.

Finally Eye of the North made it even worse. More title tracks with OP skills that originally had great increases in power by rank. No one can truly say that maxing these titles wasn't grind. In fact you were no where near the required rank to even buy items or armors from these title tracks by finishing the game. Some were worse than others. Wintersday became a snowball grind fest to max out the vanguard, the raptor boss was the place to be to spend hours upon hours farming the asuran title track (for pain inverter of course). And so on.

The power creep most certainly did involve grinding and it only got better after a while. So maybe people should stop banging their head against the wall and wait for the intervention Anet is going to do.

AureliusRex, on 28 November 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

Totally agree with this.  No matter what your opinion on VP, GW2 is just a mess of a game right now.  If you want to be where there are any people at all you are running fotm, and even then, you're looking for a group your level if you can find one.  The economy is bad, the open world is empty, the launch day dungeons are empty, spvp is a complete flop,  there are reams of bugs that haven't been fixed, and the community is at each other's throats.

This ship is starting to take on water and Anet had better start taking some serious action soon.  If the community perceives the ship is sinking there will be mass exodus.

Of everything you say I only notice the last bit. "the community is at each other's throats" and at the risk of getting a lot of hate for it I dare say that this is 90% of the problem. Only looking at the front page of Tyrian Assembly I see pretty much only negative topics, and the ones try to be neutral twist in a negative bias. The game is not THAT bad as everyone says it to be.

Just going of your post (nothing personal meant).

- Getting a group for fractals is not hard. It takes less time to form a group for fractals than it did to do anything in GW1 (need 2 monks);
- Other dungeons are still being played. I have had no problem finding a team. Still doesn't take as long as it took in GW1;
- Economy might be bad, little do I know, but it isn't hindering me at all tbh and I don't play the market or anything;
- sPVP I'll leave to your judgement and can use a lot of polishing yes;
- The open world is empty... Hello? Tyria was 90% empty space in Prophesies and what did people say?
"oh it's great because there's so much to discover when you go off the path!"
The world of Tyria as we know it now is HUGE and filled with at least double the wonders Tyria in GW1 had to offer. And yes at some point you're going to have seen it all, they can't make a neverending world;
- There are plenty of bugs yes, but at least they seem to handle them. I give them some more time to tackle this. The game is more than playable though.

Goodness, the overall negativity is smothering. Playing a game is entertainment to me and when I see all these frustrations and fears I wonder what keeps drawing these people back in. Surely the game must be very addictive when people keep playing it grudgingly...

Edited by Evans, 29 November 2012 - 08:08 AM.

[Zippor]

The balanced PvP in GW2 isn't affected by the VP. Since WvW isn't meant to be a balanced ordeal in small fights (or even in big fights), I wouldn't mouth off about it.

[Rhydian]

Zippor, on 29 November 2012 - 08:03 AM, said:

The balanced PvP in GW2 isn't affected by the VP. Since WvW isn't meant to be a balanced ordeal in small fights (or even in big fights), I wouldn't mouth off about it.

PVP is not balanced for gods sake what planet have you been on. The PVP not even being fun or having any dimensions to it rather being a Zergy spam button fest, unfixed bugs, useless specs and skills etc.  The only thing giving pvp any balance at all is the total LACK of specs or variety.  All of that was not so bad knowing that Anet was "working" on it. However they were not "working" on it, no they were working on gear grind. Guess what pvp is still terrible.

[DuskWolf]

Evans, on 29 November 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

Goodness, the overall negativity is smothering. Playing a game is entertainment to me and when I see all these frustrations and fears I wonder what keeps drawing these people back in. Surely the game must be very addictive when people keep playing it grudgingly...

I've already talked about what's wrong with the game as it is at length.

Also, this is a fallacy that's been bandied around so often that it's becoming unoriginal, guy. I mean... you're, what, the fiftieth person to march out that same tired old party-line this week? Sixtieth? I've lost track! Good grief. You ArenaNet faithfuls are, if nothing else, completely devoid of imagination. I mean, can't you come up with something else.

But to humour you and to answer the riddle you and yours like to peddle out ad naseum: If you take away the game, this forum still proves for an interesting discussion on horizontal versus vertical progression. It's a fascinating discourse and one that the horizontal progression fans seem to be winning by a wide margin. I'm just curious as to whether the virtual progression fans can actually mount anything resembling a reasonable and logical defence.

The other reason I hang around is out of morbid curiosity. You know how you watch X-Factor and you have these people without any talent who get up on the stage, and you can't help but wonder where their shame and self-respect is? But you can't take your eyes off it. It's an atrocity, it's like a train-wreck, but you just can't stop watching, morbid curiosity compels you. Similarly, I'm morbidly curious as to how many times faithfuls like yourself need to be stabbed in the back by ArenaNet before you end up in the Sensible People camp.

Edited by Chalky, 29 November 2012 - 10:02 PM.
less patronising please

[Zippor]

Rhydian, on 29 November 2012 - 08:24 AM, said:

PVP is not balanced for gods sake what planet have you been on. The PVP not even being fun or having any dimensions to it rather being a Zergy spam button fest, unfixed bugs, useless specs and skills etc.  The only thing giving pvp any balance at all is the total LACK of specs or variety.  All of that was not so bad knowing that Anet was "working" on it. However they were not "working" on it, no they were working on gear grind. Guess what pvp is still terrible.

I know sPvP isn't very good at the moment, calm down lad. I was just pointing to the fact that the supposed 'balanced' PvP side of the game isn't affected by the VP, and such, those complaints are mostly unfair. Though I don't fully support the notion of the PvP being 'zergy spam button fest' since you're better off using your skills in reaction and as an counter-action to what opponents do. The lack of specs is unfortunate and hopefully worked on in the future, usually the most balanced games are the ones with least variation but yeah, they ain't too much fun in the long run.

[Rhydian]

Zippor, on 29 November 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

I know sPvP isn't very good at the moment, calm down lad. I was just pointing to the fact that the supposed 'balanced' PvP side of the game isn't affected by the VP, and such, those complaints are mostly unfair. Though I don't fully support the notion of the PvP being 'zergy spam button fest' since you're better off using your skills in reaction and as an counter-action to what opponents do. The lack of specs is unfortunate and hopefully worked on in the future, usually the most balanced games are the ones with least variation but yeah, they ain't too much fun in the long run.

Well it was a major point of contention for me, all the interesting specs you could possibly "play" are totally useless, the reason some people are abusing thieves and Mesmer spam is the fact that driving people batshit with clones or harassing them with invis grief are probably the the two most fun things to do right now really. I wanted to play support CC after a few weeks after release I along with everyone else got the system down, quickly found out the only useful specs were condition, crit or bunker and proceeded to play through with our soulless empty, unfulfilling builds. It took every bit of energy to play sPVP matches. I have actually passed out from boredom during a match.
Being able to counter is a no brainer anyone worth their salt will be ready for that, its not a lack of ability, its a lack of choice. If I wanted to play the same thing everyone else was playing I could have played one of those gender locked Asian grinder games. The Ranger build I was using cut Hundred blades damaged down about 60%, ownd thieves and soloed Mesmers.

As for gear, I also like to ( casually ) do pve content, and I also like WvWvW, the latest changes turned both of those things into chores that would eat into my sPVP time, which was so bad anyway, the question arose, why the hell am I still playing this crap. So I dont anymore.

[DuskWolf]

@Zipper

So you agree that the moving goalposts of vertical progression (and thus the lack of a power plateau and the lack of an even playing field brought about by vertical progression) render WvWvW a completely meaningless endeavour?

Edited by DuskWolf, 29 November 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[Zippor]

DuskWolf, on 29 November 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

@Zipper

So you agree that the moving goalposts of vertical progression (and thus the lack of a power plateau and the lack of an even playing field brought about by vertical progression) render WvWvW a completely meaningless endeavour?

Depends on what you define as 'meaningful'. I'm content with WvW as long as there are players present there to make objective defense possible.

[raspberry jam]

Var, on 29 November 2012 - 07:04 AM, said:

Crippling Slash made a lot of things easier but, yes, warriors were on the lesser end of the gain spectrum. Warriors are probably the only class for which that last sentence is true though without suffering a large gimp in effectiveness (and even in that case, with the best case scenario of the classic axe build, you're losing the better mobility options provided by the other chapters). You're free to refresh my memory.



Negative progression, ie what we've been talking about: power creeps, some form of vertical progression.

As for the notion to which I refer, it is the one that people often quote here: "I could have logged in after 7 years of not playing GW1 and still be the on equal footing" or some other variation, usually concerning armor/weapons but always, likely out of convenience to the fact that it shreds the whole argument, ignoring the fact that said person would be hopelessly inferior to someone with all the expansions, all of the PvE skills ground out, and all of the consets and jellybeans to speed clear the halls of a high school during lunch break.

By "classic axe build" I guess you mean shockaxe, and by better mobility options I suppose you mean Enraging Charge. It's good, but I can't think of any skill I'd drop for it. Losing DChop? Bull's? lol no. Breaking up the spike? Yeah, no. Replacing Rush? Being stuck with a 20s cancel is not a good thing.

Oh, ok. "Negative progression" made it sound as if you'd delevel or something.

Yes, true, if you don't have the expansion you're limited by that, but then again, if you keep playing all the time you are still limited by that. Still, the limitation is not that large (in PvE). I would certainly not say "hopelessly inferior". It's only with the title-based PvE skills that the difference truly started to appear, and as I've said already, many disliked those skills, for that reason and many other.
In both cases (Proph/Factions on one hand, NF/EotN on the other) the limitation is mostly content locked though. As in, you need to play the missions to remove the limitation. Once you reach a skill trainer that have what you want, you can just buy it. The exception is of course the EotN cons and such, which requires a certain rank of respective title.

So basically, GW1 required you to play the missions, which were designed anyway for people who had not unlocked the skills that you could get at the end, while GW2 require to you repeat a dungeon or grind karma or skill points etc.

Anyway: I remember a certain update for GW1 that was added for free some months after the release. Sorrow's Furnace was fun, one of the best dungeons I've played in any game, but if you didn't have Razorstone or Rago's Staff, if you used your random drop from the troll cave outside of Droknar's Forge, you were not any weaker for it (well, depending on the drop lol). That is what people mean when they say that in GW1 you were always up to date.

[ScoutMATH]

Dear Mike O'Brien,

"Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 -- no VP ever, year after year -- and it wasn't that fun. It was stagnant."



"Taking everything that I love in Guild Wars 1 and put it in persistent MMO."

What I love in Guild Wars 1 is that there is a maxed cap. What I love in Guild Wars 1 is that there is no grindy vertical progression. What I love in Guild Wars 1 is that I could get the best armor stat in game without grinding 250 vials of powerful blood or 250 ectos. I really enjoyed Guild Wars 1 from 2005-2007. I kinda enjoy Guild Wars 1 from 2007-2011. I've never touched any games during that period. Why? Because it was new and consistent. What you sold was the product advertised. And because it was not stagnant. Why the diminish on my interest? Because it became old. But I never quit.

So how dare you call Guild Wars 1 not fun and stagnant? You are incorporating early 2000 ideas in a 2012 MMO. That's not fun and stagnant.

Edited by ScoutMATH, 29 November 2012 - 12:59 PM.

[pumpkin pie]

why are ppl angry with free contents update?

btw, what is CEVP ?

[Major_Disaster]

Lareem, on 28 November 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

Okay i see that i didn't write my point clear enough. What would you do to keep people playing? I want to hear some ideas how to improve the game. Lately the only thing i read on gw2 forum are about how arenanet sold their soul and betrayed everyone.

I think this whole mess has come about from the perceived need to "Keep People Playing".

Why do they need to do that? What does it matter? As long as *some* people play, the game is fine. As long as they keep bringing new players into the game by selling more boxes, it barely matters whether a million people play a week, or 10k people. Doesn't it?

I see this idea of "keeping people playing" repeated over and over, even from the game devs, whose manifesto clearly states that:

"It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee."

This one line of text, from the CEO of the company no less, was the one thing that made me interested in GW2 at all. I'd seen other MMOs, I'd seen games that *did* try to "Suck your life away" by enticing players to stay connected for a lot longer than was healthy. I wanted to avoid that.

I was buying into a world where you could play for a bit, log out for a few weeks, then come back and play some more.

I was buying into a game made for NORMAL PEOPLE, not demented weirdos who sat there every day and every night, 7 days a week, chasing a sword that made them 0.5% more powerful.

Now, with the Fractals, with the gear grind, with the infusions and the promise of more infusions to come, all this content that panders directly to these weirdos, I'm left wondering: Have they forgotten about all the normal people that bought this game? Have they forgotten what it was supposed to be about?

Edited by Major_Disaster, 29 November 2012 - 01:40 PM.

[Coren]

Sorry Mike, but my ritualist felt like he was growing through the story, not his gear. I got obsidian armor barely one year after I made him and he kept it for the next 5 years. Yet I felt he grew because I got him through missions, their special challenges, and the occasional elite LOOKING weapons (aka cosmetic elite weapons

I had more fun that way than I do getting to the levels where you get a RANDOM stat ascended ring that will probably be opposite the stats you need.

And you say it isn't fun for players to keep at the same level? Tell that to GW1 fans.

[Millimidget]

ScoutMATH, on 27 November 2012 - 07:53 PM, said:

what keeps people playing a subbed game is the subscription that they pay.

Only if I've paid in advance. I don't know that I would buy a three month subscription at a game's release any longer, let alone a six or twelve month subscription.

[Arquenya]

The reasons given in the OP aren't reasons at all. They don't need reasons or excuses. A lot of players don't want it (there's actually more against than in favour, see poll) but they still do it. Well in the end it all comes down to:

ANet: We introduce vertical progression (and we think about level 100 and subsequent new gear tiers) because we think you're going to like it!!

Most players: No we don't want or like it!

ANet: Ah well some people like it. And we're going to do it anyway!

[Zero_Soulreaver]

I'm sorry but I am sick of seeing the Manifesto vid posted over and over.  That Manifesto was tossed in the trash a week after release anyway and if you didn't notice then I kinda feel sorry for ya.  It was a trap and you fell for it, I am sorry to say.

"Taking everything that I love in Guild Wars 1 and put it in persistent world."  First of all their is a major issue with this from the start and if you never saw it since the beta until release then you really missed something.  GW2 does not take what we loved about GW1 and use it at all, it is a completely different game overall.  Having no "grind" is by far the least of your worries.  I am no mega insane GW1 purist, but GW2 is completely different on so many levels.

"We don't want players to grind, no one finds it fun"  Wait, didn't you say earlier this game is for MMO players old and new?  I sense contradiction and grind has always been in the game just in different forms than people cared for.  People were complaining about grind since day 1 with dungeon tokens, nothing changed besides the focus.


"It's your world, your story" That line is used in so many games and was b.s since day 1.  It's never "your world" and you hardly effect the world around you at all.   Tell me, was it your world when you had to babysit other characters through story mode?  Surely not. All the fake "choice" b/s when their are only like 3 different paths which all lead to the same thing.  So much crap about "you control how your character develops" Yea... you get charisma, ferocity and dignity and guess what?  They don't change anything no matter what you decide to pick.

Edited by Zero_Soulreaver, 29 November 2012 - 03:31 PM.