81 replies to this topic

[Soki]

TO CONDENSE MY SENTIMENTS:
Good players are not rewarded for overcoming challenges – the majority of the game’s status symbols and cool items are gained from performing an easy task for an inordinate amount of time. This sums up my opinion, and why I think GW2 is not as good a game as it could be – but I implore you to read the rest of the post if you’re going to add to the discussion.



I believe that Guild Wars 2 was designed with the philosophy of urging players to spend money to buy Gems to convert to Gold – first and foremost; with every system in the game pushing players to spend money on the Gem store for gold.
Every single item that is even remotely neat or hard to get in this game is received from the Mystic Forge.
Not only does tossing a huge amount of trade materials into the forge remove flavor from the items you’re getting; but it empowers players who have a lot of RL capital to spend far more than it should.

The exotics for a fresh 80 are cheap enough – 12g maximum to deck yourself out, inclusive of exotic jewelry. This ignores runes and sigils.
After this, players go for cosmetic gear to transmute their stat-gear into. Here is where the tacky design starts up.
When you transmute gear’s appearence, you lose the actual item you’re transmuting. The two items fuse into one. That means that if you ever want to use that item’s skin again, you need to reacquire it.
After getting the item skins and transmuting your exotics to what you want, what do we, as players, have to strive for? Vanity items, like Mystic Weapons and other neat-looking gear from the Mystic Forge.

Mystic Weapons are Okay. They have a feasible grind attached to them. To make a Mystic weapon, it usually costs between 7 to 12 gold , which is entirely feasible. I wish it were more than a simple grind for gold, but hey, it's from the Mystic Forge. No big deal. ...Or it wouldn't be, if there were unique items to get that were ~not~ tied to the Mystic Forge (and thus, gold).

Check these recipes out:
http://wiki.guildwar...rge/Other_Items
Most of these unique equipments take an excessive, unfeasible amount of goldto get. No flavor. No quest. No challenge. No adventure. No journey. No ~fun~. Just grind. Plain, boring gold grind.
These equips don’t even have a unique sigil or rune.

With the way the market works, it’s nearly impossible for the average player to amass money at a decent rate without grinding, unless they convert bought gems to gold. Killing a champion in the world does not give you appropriate reward for the effort involved. Aside from this fact, Champions are generally pretty bland – just normal mobs with more health and damage. ~That’s it~.


As you can tell, I am very disappointed with how GW2 turned out – and have seen these sentiments mirrored by many other players. The game’s combat is fluid, and the gameplay is solid – but gameplay should be supported by strong systems that reward good players – and GW2’s economic and legendary/vanity item systems simply do not deliver on that. They reward spending real money on the gemstore and converting to gold; or grinding easy content until you drop.


As far as discussion goes, I’m interested to see what the broad community of GW2Guru forums think about the state of the game; and what they feel about my opinions on the underlying item-acquisition systems of GW2; independent of the gameplay.

[Lordkrall]

So, you have to work for stuff that looks cool, which has been stated quite clearly, since the announcement, to be the case.

Why do people feel the need to get more e-penis than everyone else without working for it?

[The_Blades]

Tossing stuff into the forge to get a weapon is nothing but a grindy system, grind your ass at the materials and thats it.

I obviously agree with the op.

Until they put in the game the same reward system gw1 had, for dungeons for instance, where you had a small chance of getting good loot from the end chest, the game will always feel like its lacking something on the pve side of things.

Green weapons are meaningless, why the hell did they even bothered to add white blue and green variety? its all crap.

And yeah, making the game revolve around the cash shop its a cheesy move.

Yes i want a chance at a good drop if i get to kill a boss.

Edited by The_Blades, 06 December 2012 - 11:31 AM.

[Geralt Romalion]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:25 AM, said:

So, you have to work for stuff that looks cool, which has been stated quite clearly, since the announcement, to be the case.

Why do people feel the need to get more e-penis than everyone else without working for it?

I believe the OP doesn't mind working for e-peen, he just dislikes having to do the same thing a million times in a row, in order to simply earn gold to buy this e-peen.
Every form of e-peen boils down to grinding gold in order to buy it.
As such, there is no real sense of achievement, nor is it original.

OP would probably like more ways of getting said e-peen regardless of the amount of time invested, instead of just grind gold->buy item1, repeat until infinity.

[Darkobra]

There's a huge difference between something like overcoming every explorable path in a dungeon for a unique skin and being able to just buy it. I can buy any single item there right now. It doesn't mean I've earned it. It just means I have money.

[Lordkrall]

Geralt Romalion, on 06 December 2012 - 11:31 AM, said:

I believe the OP doesn't mind working for e-peen, he just dislikes having to do the same thing a million times in a row, in order to simply earn gold to buy this e-peen.
Every form of e-peen boils down to grinding gold in order to buy it.
As such, there is no real sense of achievement, nor is it original.

OP would probably like more ways of getting said e-peen regardless of the amount of time invested, instead of just grind gold->buy item1, repeat until infinity.

But the thing is: Either we have to repeat stuff for our e-penis thingies. Or we would get them all without much work, which would lessen the achievement even more.

The only other real way is to have bosses drop them.
But that would still mean you have to repeat the instance over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to POSSIBLE get the item you want.

[The_Blades]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

But the thing is: Either we have to repeat stuff for our e-penis thingies. Or we would get them all without much work, which would lessen the achievement even more.

The only other real way is to have bosses drop them.
But that would still mean you have to repeat the instance over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to POSSIBLE get the item you want.

which is much better than the current system, imo.

Edited by The_Blades, 06 December 2012 - 11:35 AM.

[Lordkrall]

The_Blades, on 06 December 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

which is much better than the current system, imo.

And yet it still require repeating things over and over again and possibly NEVER get the item you want.

[Geralt Romalion]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

But the thing is: Either we have to repeat stuff for our e-penis thingies. Or we would get them all without much work, which would lessen the achievement even more.

The only other real way is to have bosses drop them.
But that would still mean you have to repeat the instance over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to POSSIBLE get the item you want.

Or Anet could think of more ways to get e-peen so grinding gold for hours and hours won't be the only option.
In GW1 you had e-peen that could be bought with gold, but also e-peen that couldn't.
Services from other players aside, you could not buy your Legendary Vanquisher title or the Zei Ri hero.
You obtained them by clearing maps/completing a very challenging questline in Hardmode respectively.
GW1 also had less goldsinks, making it easier to obtain money in the first place.
I won't say GW1 was perfect, but it had more ways of obtaining your desired e-peen then simply farm gold -> get item ( that ofcourse was still an option, hence all the perma sins in uwsc, but it wasn't the only way ).

Edited by Geralt Romalion, 06 December 2012 - 11:39 AM.

[The_Blades]

But you can possibly get it, and when you do its great. I still remember my first BDS

Grinding for ectos, money, orichalcum. or buying them on the tp, its not even close to be as exciting as the small chance we had to drop a BDS. Yeah it sucked when you got 2 greens, but it was FUN. Mystic forge is not fun.

[Lordkrall]

Geralt Romalion, on 06 December 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

Or Anet could think of more ways to get e-peen so grinding gold for hours and hours won't be the only option.
In GW1 you had e-peen that could be bought with gold, but also e-peen that couldn't.
Services from other players aside, you could not buy your Legendary Vanquisher title or the Zei Ri hero.
You obtained them by clearing maps/completing a very challenging questline in Hardmode respectively.
GW1 also had less goldsinks, making it easier to obtain money in the first place.
I won't say GW1 was perfect, but it had more ways of obtaining your desired e-peen then simply farm gold -> get item ( that ofcourse was still an option, hence all the perma sins in uwsc, but it wasn't the only way ).

And so does GW2.

You can get your e-penis gear via karma or via dungeon tokens or via crafting or via Mystic forge. A very minor part of the e-penis acquisition actually uses gold.

[Soki]

I find the boss-drop idea preferable to the current one because the current shows absolutely no personal or group skill at the game's core mechanic: Combat.
All the current system shows is that you can do one thing to get Gold for a long time; or you have a disposable $ income to put into Gems to convert into Gold.

Reiterating: A game's systems should support its gameplay - the gameplay should not be uninfluenced by the income-system the game has.

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:42 AM, said:

And so does GW2.

You can get your e-penis gear via karma or via dungeon tokens or via crafting or via Mystic forge. A very minor part of the e-penis acquisition actually uses gold.

This is wrong, aside from dungeon tokens.
Crafting is irrelevent, as I'm mostly talking about "prestige" items.
Karma is irrelevant aside from for Legendary gifts (for which some of the non-Legendary unique equips require Gifts) - and is just a different currency to grind on, anyway. It's all a grind. A no-skill, no-flavor, no-fun grind.

The entirety of the Mystic Forge is boring, and it's the sole way to get unique equips in the entire game.You do one thing for a mind-numbing amount of time, to toss items into the forge, to get an item with an interesting name that has 0 backstory or lore, because all you did to get it was Grind, Grind, Grind. No quest for the item explaining why it's powerful, no task of challenge to the player unique to the named item, no check of personal skill, no group event to put players out in the world and accomplish challenges - just tossing a stupid number of items into the forge and getting the named item out.

And it doesn't help that for the majority of the leveling process, every blue and green set within each armor type looks the exact same, anyway.

Edited by Soki, 06 December 2012 - 11:48 AM.

[The_Blades]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:42 AM, said:

And so does GW2.

You can get your e-penis gear via karma or via dungeon tokens or via crafting or via Mystic forge. A very minor part of the e-penis acquisition actually uses gold.

those are just other currencies. think of it as credit cards instead of coin. Same issue there buddy.

[radamant011]

Soki, on 06 December 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

I believe that Guild Wars 2 was designed with the philosophy of urging players to spend money to buy Gems to convert to Gold – first and foremost; with every system in the game pushing players to spend money on the Gem store for gold.

Oh you got that right. No sub game, but if you are a vanity player you need to fork out some cash...

[Lordkrall]

Soki, on 06 December 2012 - 11:42 AM, said:

I find the boss-drop idea preferable to the current one because the current shows absolutely no personal or group skill at the game's core mechanic: Combat.
All the current system shows is that you can do one thing to get Gold for a long time; or you have a disposable $ income to put into Gems to convert into Gold.

Reiterating: A game's systems should support its gameplay - the gameplay should not be uninfluenced by the income-system the game has.

I suppose you have missed that about 75% of all the e-penis gear in this game can't be gained with Gold?

Most of them actually require doing dungeons and killing bosses.
Doing the Storyline to the end and so on.

Only a small part of the game is buyable with gold.

[Geralt Romalion]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:42 AM, said:

And so does GW2.

You can get your e-penis gear via karma or via dungeon tokens or via crafting or via Mystic forge. A very minor part of the e-penis acquisition actually uses gold.

precursors cost a massive amount of gold, out of reach for the casual player.
combining exotics in the mystic forge gives a minimal chance for a precursor, and in the end you will once again need a fortune worth of exotics before you ever get lucky.
Unique skinned weapons?
Created in the mystic forge, and the items needed for their respective recipes are simply outrageous ( not even considering upgrading certain items, like 250 ecto to upgrade a certain type of backpiece ).
Karma items really aren't e-peen these days, since daily and monthly makes them very common.
All of this besides karma boils down to grinding gold.
Why grinding?
Because playing in a normal way will never net you enough gold in years to purchase any of these items.
In GW1, even if you played casually, in time you could afford your dream item.
In this game, this simply isn't possible.
You cannot even get lucky with a certain drop.
In GW1 you could get lucky and a monster would drop you a very rare skin or a low req weapon of some sort.
These options are gone in GW2.
The only thing worth anything are precursors, and the chance of getting one of those to drop is about the same as hitting a bullet with a smaller bullet while aiming from a riding train being blindfolded.

[Soki]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

I suppose you have missed that about 75% of all the e-penis gear in this game can't be gained with Gold?

Most of them actually require doing dungeons and killing bosses.
Doing the Storyline to the end and so on.

Only a small part of the game is buyable with gold.

There are many, many, many unique items that cannot be gained with gold. Dungeon sets are good. I like those. I don't like the way dungeons were designed, but that isn't the topic at hand.

Killing bosses in the world isn't worth the time unless they drop a chest--and even then, if you spent all your time grinding gold on efficient DEs rather than fighting a world boss for 10 minutes, you would net out more money in the long run - even with the minuscule chance of finding a precursor out of that chest.
Bosses do not give appropriate rewards, for the effort required to kill them.

Edited by Soki, 06 December 2012 - 11:52 AM.

[Arquenya]

Soki, on 06 December 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

The exotics for a fresh 80 are cheap enough – 12g maximum to deck yourself out, inclusive of exotic jewelry. This ignores runes and sigils.

WTB exotics for 1g/piece!!

[Soki]

Arquenya, on 06 December 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

WTB exotics for 1g/piece!!

The market may have shifted since I hit 80, but that was a rough number.
My point was that getting your character decked in a set of crafted exotics is entirely feasible for an individual to achieve, with normal play.
Sorry if my market prices are out of date ^^;

[Arngrim Einheri]

Lordkrall, on 06 December 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

I suppose you have missed that about 75% of all the e-penis gear in this game can't be gained with Gold?

Most of them actually require doing dungeons and killing bosses.
Doing the Storyline to the end and so on.

Only a small part of the game is buyable with gold.

No offense Lordkrall, but you are being very narrow-minded on this topic. What I think OP wanted to say is that the game doesn't throw you a real challenge to be rewarded for. Only rewards your farming skills. At least in the PvE aspect of the game.

Edited by Arngrim Einheri, 06 December 2012 - 11:57 AM.

[Arquenya]

Soki, on 06 December 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

With the way the market works, it\u2019s nearly impossible for the average player to amass money at a decent rate without grinding, unless they convert bought gems to gold. Killing a champion in the world does not give you appropriate reward for the effort involved. Aside from this fact, Champions are generally pretty bland \u2013 just normal mobs with more health and damage. ~That\u2019s it~.

As you can tell, I am very disappointed with how GW2 turned out \u2013 and have seen these sentiments mirrored by many other players. The game\u2019s combat is fluid, and the gameplay is solid \u2013 but gameplay should be supported by strong systems that reward good players \u2013 and GW2\u2019s economic and legendary/vanity item systems simply do not deliver on that. They reward spending real money on the gemstore and converting to gold; or grinding easy content until you drop.

As far as discussion goes, I\u2019m interested to see what the broad community of GW2Guru forums think about the state of the game; and what they feel about my opinions on the underlying item-acquisition systems of GW2; independent of the gameplay.

Personally I don't see dungeon runs as grind. I have 3 lvl80s and do almost all the dungeons and fotm which provide me with a steady income. Which I don't even really need. Actually there's not a lot of stuff that I still want beyond regular exotics as I think all the legendaries are either ugly or very ugly.

Although I may feel obliged to make one if the stats are updated - but just for the better stats, I will definitely transmute the skin back to the exotic/gold skin I prefer. So I'm saving up 1,000s of dungeon tokens, hoping ANet will soon release improved, "ascended" dungeon sets.

One of the things is that dungeons may be easy or hard (deprnding on which dungeon and path) but the fact that you can have 15 wipes and still succeed takes way from any sense of accomplishment. I pug 90% of my dungeons and it never happend that we didn't finish it because it was too tough or challenging.

Subsequently, nothing has any prestige status anymore, even legendaries only tell that you're smart with the TP or have an excessive amount of spare time to waste.

[Soki]

I want truly difficult, dynamic boss encounters and challenges in dungeons. I want solo or group endeavors for unique equipment - such as the Mystic Forge giving you a special item that you take to a certain location or NPC in the world - which then either starts an event, leads you to another place (with story involved), or presents you (and/or your group) with some form of challenge unique to that special equipment.
Depending on the item, it could be many steps, or just one challenge.
That is how I think Legendaries should have been designed - not the absurd
"Toss crafting materials and grinded items into the Mystic Forge to get Gifts; then toss 3 Gifts and a ridiculously rare weapon into the forge - and out pops your Legendary "

The design is pure, unadulterated ~LAZE~ - and it's there to support the Gem-to-Gold conversion.
Real-money involvement is the problem with GW2; just as it was with Diablo 3.

Arquenya, on 06 December 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

Although I may feel obliged to make one if the stats are updated - but just for the better stats, I will definitely transmute the skin back to the exotic/gold skin I prefer. So I'm saving up 1,000s of dungeon tokens, hoping ANet will soon release improved, "ascended" dungeon sets.

One of the things is that dungeons may be easy or hard (deprnding on which dungeon and path) but the fact that you can have 15 wipes and still succeed takes way from any sense of accomplishment. I pug 90% of my dungeons and it never happend that we didn't finish it because it was too tough or challenging.

Subsequently, nothing has any prestige status anymore, even legendaries only tell that you're smart with the TP or have an excessive amount of spare time to waste.

Mhmm, mirror that sentiment.
I hate how dungeons were designed. It's like they weren't even playtested or something. My group of friends and I have never once been challenged by a dungeon, aside from a couple of simply BS encounters (Kudu's Golem Trio in Story Mode Sorrow's Embrace; anything in Story Mode CoE).
The encounter design is lazy. Bosses have a ridiculous amount of health, and even fighting the DUNGEON BOSSES in this game is a test of patience, instead of skill. @@

[ObscureThreat]

I remember in GW1, when while really wanting a BDS, I couldn't find a group to run Fendi. Instead I ran Slaver's Exile with a PUG and scored a Voltaic Spear. It was great cause I sold the spear and got enough ecto to buy a BDS. All the dungeons had a unique weapon skin that made it fun to open the boss chest at the end, which while still was a grind to get that item, at least I was having fun.

The loot you get in GW2 is simply crap. Look at the disparities in price between the MF exotics and "normal" exotics. They need an alternative way of obtaining these weapons. At the moment the only reason anyone does dungeons is for gold and tokens (only if they need the skin) and despite ANET's "buffed" rewards, the groups I run with still skip most bosses because the loot they give is still not worth it. I mean if you can save yourself five minutes ignoring a boss that doesn't drop great loot, would you skip it too.

In the end the game currently is just either people farming DE's or Fractals for gold, or people playing the TP in order to get gold. The game has become stale as a result. But since we don't pay a sub fee, frack it I'll just leave and come back later no harm done.

[Arquenya]

ObscureThreat, on 06 December 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

At the moment the only reason anyone does dungeons is for gold and tokens (only if they need the skin) and despite ANET's "buffed" rewards, the groups I run with still skip most bosses because the loot they give is still not worth it. I mean if you can save yourself five minutes ignoring a boss that doesn't drop great loot, would you skip it too.

In a way UW/FoW in the original series were unique in the sense that every mob could drop a shard/glob so you had an incentive to kill everything. While in GW2 it's basically a "rush to the boss" as everything in between is just a delay to get your final 60 tokens + 26s + chest.

[Coren]

As long as the grindy stuff doesn't become mandatory for stories and the like, I.don't care. ANet always said that you'll never need that stuff to play casually, and now that I have taken a step back, it doesn't bother me as much. It sucks but not as big a deal.

My two 80s are full exotic and have no trouble at all... So far

[Martiniam1]

Isn't this what fractals is meant to be? Sure right now not many ascended items are released, but when a full set is available wouldn't that be the prestigious armor you want? The dungeon gets harder as rewards go up. Seems like exactly what your asking for. If they keep the promise of more fractals as well should keep it from getting to stale.

And like others have said, dungeon ends chests really need a unique rare drop. Would give people a reason to start doing dungeons again.

Edited by Martiniam1, 06 December 2012 - 03:00 PM.

[Ritualist]

Soki, on 06 December 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

The exotics for a fresh 80 are cheap enough – 12g maximum to deck yourself out, inclusive of exotic jewelry.

Mind explaining what I am doing wrong?

[Shadowrose]

You know, you don't have to get those items.

Leave them for the people that actually have time. Out of the total amount of items, maybe 5% are extremely expensive.

You've got 95% of easily acquirable items, but no. You want to have everything within your reach, right? Everyone with the same items! Fun! No real achievement in getting one of those at all!

That's pretty selfish.

Edit: While we're at it, let's put legendary weapons for sale in some NPC at 5g each.

Edited by Shadowrose, 06 December 2012 - 03:47 PM.

[Gilles VI]

The_Blades, on 06 December 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

Tossing stuff into the forge to get a weapon is nothing but a grindy system, grind your ass at the materials and thats it.

I obviously agree with the op.

Until they put in the game the same reward system gw1 had, for dungeons for instance, where you had a small chance of getting good loot from the end chest, the game will always feel like its lacking something on the pve side of things.

Green weapons are meaningless, why the hell did they even bothered to add white blue and green variety? its all crap.

And yeah, making the game revolve around the cash shop its a cheesy move.

Yes i want a chance at a good drop if i get to kill a boss.

LOL
I ran FoW hundreds of times as a perma, not even once did I get anything of value, I have absolutely 0 interest in going back to a system like that.

The token system/mystic forge system is waaay better for me thanks.

Edited by Gilles VI, 06 December 2012 - 03:52 PM.

[Gilles VI]

Arquenya, on 06 December 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

In a way UW/FoW in the original series were unique in the sense that every mob could drop a shard/glob so you had an incentive to kill everything. While in GW2 it's basically a "rush to the boss" as everything in between is just a delay to get your final 60 tokens + 26s + chest.

Except every boss now drops 10s (15 with food), the bag which gives another 5s and 600karma and 3 tokens.
Not to mention the new drops from the chests, just this morning I got an exotic from a chest in AC, sold for 8g on TP.
8g for killing kholer in 5 minutes, pretty neat imo..

Protoss, on 06 December 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

Mind explaining what I am doing wrong?

Funny you show a pic of more expensive exotic items..
Why don't you post of the cheaper, crafted items exotic weaps?