Enough is enough.

I don't think this is all about the haves and the have nots. I think it's about how more and more content is being added that is exclusively gained through repetition of activities that are for the most part no more challenging or imaginative than the type of gameplay experience we've seen since day one.

I think the decision to abandon GW1 and start working on GW2 couldn't have come at a better time actually. I'm hoping that GW2's design takes into consideration that a game's longevity demands ever changing/imaginative gameplay mechanics be added in order to keep players interest.

Gods! These "You love GW, but here is why you should actually hate your favorite game."- treads are getting old. If you no longer enjoy the game, get another one until you get the urge again.

And btw: I'm very shure that grinding will be a lot faster once hard mode is added to GWEN areas. Everyone will have everything maxed out in no time, and then the overly serious metagamers can get outraged about something else going downhill.

I think i just stop reading treads like this since they really ruin some of the fun i have in GW.

man I used to be a hardcore gw player.. I see rachtoh is still around =] he was one of the guys who actually had a brain in this game- I always loved how you could do things the average player would just fail at.. I was gonna start playing again but after reading all this I'm not sure- I thought all the campaigns were easy, heros were not necessary

the most fun was solo farming greens before anyone else- selling them for 50k in town and had like 8 of them in inventory lol think that's how alot of us got rich besides trading- I was set to buy gwen right away but wth- no character slots? what's with anet- I actually got to see a little bit of the game played over at a friends and it looked pretty sweet.. no character slots is just weak though- what's it going to hurt to put that in! they nerfed my 15% flame splitter too- there was only a few of us who had those, what was that going to hurt leaving it in..

I read about the pve only skills.. what's up with that! I always liked the challenge gw brought but I gotta look at it from their point of view.. they are no monthly fee- so they can't rake it in like wow and the retarded players will quit in roid rage if it's too hard for them they are drawing in the console crowd.. if I was lucky enough to be in dev, especially nightfall I would have made the mime mandatory lol

well if you want more sales, throwing in 2 extra slots like every other expansion you've sold would be a good start- I might just wait for gw2.. not much to do with my characters they are pimp

I don't wish the grind to be removed. However, for the sake of the casual player, I do wish the grind wasn't the key to 25% of the content of GW:EN. You never had to truly grind to get armor sets before (except for the mighty FoW armor) At one point in the history of this game, I was one of the richest players on the American servers, rivaling even Sir Spil. That wealth was given out via events and general charity. Why? Because I had all the flashy stuff, I had everything I needed/wanted.

I don't know how many times I must emphasize my points, but I shall once again take this head on.

Let me make this very clear. This is the last time I will explain myself, as I am tried of arguing with people who are only seeing the very surface of the issue, instead of what lies below all the issues and all the complaints.

The complaint comes not from each individual problem, but from the general lack of creative spirit that was once seen from the Arena Net development team. I like Guild Wars, I am not posting all of this to bash the game or start a bitchfest. I am posting because I genuinely care where the series has gone and where its future lies. I want to see Arena Net be unique, I want to see them thrive without becoming the next Blizzard or PlayNC. I want Guild Wars to be the most popular MMO in the world, and to have the privilege of saying, "I started playing that game in the Beta of the original"

My complaints are not really complaints, but more like a single complaint. The grind may not be necessary, but it is if you want to experience 95% of the content. In Prophecies, you could gather the materials for the elite armors, and make your way to the area the crafter was located. When you arrived, you gave the crafter your hard earned gold and materials, and in return he/she crafted your armor. The challenge was in being conservative enough to save the funds to purchase the armor, to GRIND for the gold and materials. FoW armor was never made for the casual player, it was an ultra elite armor set made for those who took the time to grind for the materials/gold. The armor required the rarest material in the game, Ectoplasm.

FoW armor was not advertised as a main feature of Guild Wars Prophecies, it was never even mentioned in the advertising and still is not. Why? Because Arena Net didn't expect but perhaps 5% of their game population to even attempt to go for it. Why advertise something that only a small niche will go for?

Now fast forward to Eye of the North. 40 "new" armors were unveiled, none of which required ultra rare materials (stand alone pieces excluded). They were not ultra elite armors, but rather another set of elite armors that required a decent amount of grind to get. But rather then reward players for playing through to specific location and perhaps having to complete a primary quest to be able to speak with the NPCs (this would prevent running characters purely for armor crafting), Arena Net added a grinding element into the game, requiring you to kill hundreds of monsters to increase your alignment with a specific faction. If you wanted all 4 sets of armor, you had to do this grind 4x. If you wanted to do this ony 2 characters, 8x the grind. Have 6 characters you want all 4 sets on? Guess what, prepare to do 24x the grind.

The armors were advertised as one of the main features of GW:EN, also known as PRIMARY CONTENT. Primary content is supposed to be able to be (in the very LEAST) ACCESSED by all players. But, only those willing to grind for each title will have the privilege of seeing the materials required or a small icon giving a general idea of what the armors even look like. It forces casual players to become grinders/farmers to get what they want, when they could simply play through GW:EN, save every gold coin and harvest rare materials via specific areas. Then they could craft their armor after "Grinding" for the needed materials, just like it has been in the last 3 chapters of the Guild Wars series. But NO, Arena Net felt they needed to add a grinding element onto of the initial armor grind, because that would force the players who were so used to being able to get the advertised content to farm for the points. But what of those players that don't have the time to do this? THose 40 armor sets that were advertised are all but inaccessible no matter how skilled that player may be or what they may have accomplished in previous chapters. No matter if they have maxed out every other title, they are still forced to grind to access a primary ADVERTISED CONTENT.

This is wrong, this is against the foundations of Guild Wars, and this is a foul marketing scheme devised by silver tongued weasels that hide under their desks at Arena Net, coming up with new catchy phrases and veiled ways of saying things to make them sound oh so appealing when the truth is... you are forced to do 4x the amount of work that was found in previous chapters. If you cannot see my point now, all hope for you to ever see it is lost. Basically, most people want the content they paid for that was advertised.

When you go to a car dealership, they advertise the car as having a 290HP V-6. After you buy the car, and drive it off the lot, the car doesn't lose 2 cylinders and 50HP... and make you do push ups to unlock them. The car still has a 290HP V6. Now, on the flip side, the dealer may advertise the car has OnStar, but that always has a little asterisk by it (*Additional charges may apply) Notice, GW:EN doesn't say "40 New armor Sets!*) and then at the bottom of the page it says (*significant non story based play required to unlock when compared to previous chapters) No, it doesn't mention anything remotely like this, it just says quite simply, 40 new armor sets. That would infer the standard armor acquirement procedures we have all come to know in the past 2 years. Arena Net is too focused on business and their next dollar made to worry about fixing it.

I'm just going to slowly back out of the thread now.

On my way out, I'll mention that FoW is far more out of reach to a beginning player in Proph than anything in GWEN is to the developed level 20 players that game's designed for, thus accounting for the difference in advertising. But yeah, it's actually Anet being evil corporate weasels or whatever... that's fine. Personally I wouldn't have anything further to do with a game if I believed the people running it were like that, but again it's your prerogative.

My advice from way back when stands. Chill out, find a game you enjoy playing, and play it.

I'm out.

Look, if you wnat to comlain about armors, fine.

But i will point out two things:
* They are not worth it. I was mad first(see below), but then i realized ... They are nothing that is worth so much grind. They are just retextured older armors, usually looking worse than their predecesors. Extra pieces look stupid (very stupid i might add, plus they fit nothing), with exception of glasses, which look out of place. Only armor worth it is norn para one, just because it is unlike other sets.
* My issue with access-lock to theese armors was ... I spend considerable time gathering materials that were hot candidates on being used in new armors (stuff like fur...), and expected reward for that fact with ability to simply craft armor without any trouble and go on playing game (since effort to gain armors was outsourged to month ago.). Instead there was this content-lock stuff where you simply played throught in old armor and then spend some time farming reputation to get armor. But then you do not have content to play, so you dont really want new armor since that character will be taking break... Now, some armors are in the endgame, but you dont have to literally do every quest and explore whole map for it, so you have stuff to do.

If it take it to extreme, it is being punished for looking forward for something and preparing for it.

Rahja, you brought up a good point, initially. Arenanet, like all big companies, have come to change their focus from their customers to the bottom line. This is something I have said for about 6 months now, and it appears to ring true now more than ever. They care much less about the opinions of the fans on these forums and more about the total playtime and profit numbers.

However, this is not some kind of "weasling" by marketing and advertising, I disagree with you there. The main issue isn't that we were fooled by any kind of marketing, but rather the focus of the game itself. The designers, when separating themselves from the fan community little by little, are losing connection. They have reached a point where instead of researching what the players want - they are telling the players what they want.

Ok I didnt read all that woffle, but I get the impression it was about the titles being connected to pve only skills, armor and weapons!

1) Rank 5 is achievable on all races by just doing quests and dungeons. I know because I did it. Just complete GWEN and be patient.
2) You are not forced to increase ranks past 5. There is no reason you need to max your pve only skills or have the status effects be maxed.

Their not critical to the game in any respect at all, in the slightest!! Any grind in GWs is completely optional, and you are in no position to winge about it if you choose to do it!

Stop winging about grind that you dont need to do, unless you choose to!

And dont start with any nonsense about "being pressured into increasing ranks to join PUGs". If your stupid enough to fall for peer-pressure and you only do something because someone tells you to, then that is your own daft fault.

Plus at the end of the day, how else was Anet meant to keep us around for another 2 years exactly?

Titles may not be the best solution to keep us around, but its one solution. How about instead of winging about Anets solutions to keep us around, you come up with a better idea? How ever keep in mind that Anet cant afford the time and resources to keep adding new content every few months.

What we're seeing in part I think is a plain and simple case of people getting bored. Been round playing GW for 27 months? It's no surprise that the novelty has worn off. What is also happening is what happens with TV shows for example - a new show grabs the audience, if it's good then it keeps you hooked into the second season. But by the third season we as viewers get our own ideas of where we want the story to go, the crew behind the scenes changes, other influences emerge (and it would be foolish to exclude money here) and so on. And when the issued content doesn't match our expectations, disappointment ensues.

This happens in every walk of life and I'd have been surprised had it not happened here.

On to EoTN in particular. The main content? For me, it's the quests. The gameplay. The new areas. I don't need new armour to play the game (hell, I'm still in my regular Luxon gear). I'll finish the game, then go and do the side quests, the mini-games and so on. All the time, my ranks will be increasing. At some point I might even go and look at the new skills and see if they're worth having, THEN and only then, will i consider title rank and what i need to do to make the skill effective. And maybe then, the armour.

How long does it take to get through the story line? Not long. If you put new armours in the primary quest track, then pretty much everyone will get them as a matter of course. There's a big moan generally that PvE is too easy, so if that's true those armours would just be standard kit. But the game engine as it stands doesn't really allow for any other way to make stuff harder to get to, aside from grinding. So grinding it is.

Bring on GW2 here, for an expanded universe, new ways to acquire items, more options etc. Don't forget the GW engine is a few years out of date now, and while it was pretty much perfect for chapter 1 and 2 (the chapters the old hands are most pleased with, don't forget), it's getting past it's sell-by date now and is lacking the scope to break new ground.

For me, the 'reward' is playing the game. I paid for it, I play it, I enjoy it. If as part of that I get to dress my character in a new swanky suit then great, but hey, I've got 3 chapters worth of stuff to pick from already. I really do think you'd be hard-pressed to gather a significant percentage of players who will be that bothered about 'having' to grind. You don't. You really don't. You play. If you enjoy, you play more. If you don't want to play more, then is getting a new armour set going to mitigate that? No. The majority of the game - the questing and badguy killing - is not grind, it's gameplay.

Think I've reached rank 3 in posting title track, so I'll stop now.

Rob.

It's going to take me quite a while to plod through and consider all the posts here, bit of a grind too really "quickly ducks" only kidding.

Would like to consider a couple points about the grind vs skill.

It was pointed out that the player wanted a rainbow Phoenix "personally prefer my present Phoenix grew into one upon achieving the necessary goals"

What would be the alternative to grind, Suppose as has been suggested missions were shorter and more of them.

Let us suppose to get the rainbow you have to do 10 missions of increasing dificulty.
Suppose also you are not that great a player just a steady competant one.
Wouldnt maybe doing the last mission or two 20 times and failing at the same point all the time still be a grind.
I aggree I would get more satisfaction from achieving it but many would still
consider it grind.

Do I really care if I get something by skill while others get it from grind the only real reward from the schievement is the personal satisfaction.

If everyone else in the game gets something from grind while I get it from skill does it matter.
Ok so when people deride my achievement with yeah yeah so you spent 4000 hours farming to get a meaningless skill/item, should I mind.

Did I get same to swagger around and brag about it "a very sad reason indeed" or for the satisfaction of achieving it.


As for pugs vs heroes etc I find little difficulty in finding parties but its inevitable that players will drift towards heroes.

The problem is time you have to play vs time to get the party organised.

First time you do a mission you have no idea if it will take 30 minutes or 2 hours.
Same for the entire party so you sometimes lose people mid mission if the game automatically replaced a player who lost connection left in disgust or otherwise is gone with an appropriate hero/henchman, it might be ok.

At least those who have come thus far could try to complete it, don't forget as well the number of young players with caring parents who ascribe to the current health and safety reccomendations of taking a break from computer use after 1 hour.
Something we should all perhaps consider but find it impossible to log on find a party and complete a mission in much under 3 or 4 hours.

All the while ignoring phone calls the doorbell ringing calls of nature etc.
I have been 2 hours getting parties ready, 3 times we restarted as people went afk went for a smoke ate dinner were sent to bed had to let their brother/sister use the shared compter etc.

When there was 1 game it was common to find a dozen or more parties forming in most of the towns "ok they were all fighting over the 2 or 3 monks in that town.
Now with 4 games I dont think there are 4 times as many players to give the same saturation.
New players buy nightfall + gwen for instance and find little player support since most are in gwen.
If it wasnt for grind there would be no old players there at all, with all the suggestions for account wide achievements players older players would have long left the first game and probably the second too.
Would that be better ?


PUGs are 80% of the time a waste of time except for easy short missions

Make friends form a guild and play the same time same day then playing with people works, provided the rest of the guild has the same games and wants to do the same mission as you.
Friends will do that if you do it for them.

just a few "probably flawed" observations on a dull and rainy morning.

I just want to point out:

a) Generally speaking, we don't pay Anet to do their jobs for them. i.e., they're supposed to come up with ideas, preferably ideas that don't deviate too far from the founding values of the game.

b) Again, we pay Anet for their time and resources, if by new content you mean expansion sets like GWEN.

Anyhoo, you probably missed his whole chunk of argument about armors.. so nevermind that. not a big issue anyway.

---

I don't really agree with the weasling part. To me, they're just doing their jobs. I do agree that there is a certain amount of capitalizing on past performance and good will, but i guess it gets harder to please everybody with each new game.

I just hope that GW2 will bear in mind the spirit on which GWrophecies was built.

So, what would you consider "critical to the game?" No one is forced to even play the game - the entire game is optional. That point is entirely moot.

There is a line, and it seems that Anet keeps moving and shifting it with each expansion. At one time, the line was drawn at vanity - not functionality. This has changed.

Simple fix? Have all of the PvE skills tied to already existing attributes instead of titles. Allow the achievement of rank 5 reputation with all 4 reps by completion of all primary and secondary quests - either by adding more quests to fill in the gap, or by lessening the rank limits. Those are my suggestions.

How about making more of the quests repeatable?

I've not only finished the game, but finished every subquest as well (other than the Special Operations missions, because even after around 3000+ kills over the last few days, I still havent had a single encoded battle plan dropped)

I have been farming Vanguard points in Sacnoth. It isn't hard, but it is certainly dull.

I have reached rank 8 delver, and rank 6 Vanguard, and rank 5 in Norn and Asura, but there is nothing left for me to do gain additional points other than repetitive farming.

I would certainly like to do some of the subquests again as a way of earning points.

Other than this, some other new way needs to be introduced to the game to earn points.?

Or how about, letting you chose what points you want to earn reputation for from the Lights of Deldrimor in the Dungeons? That way, once you have reached the 80,000 point limit in one, you could choose to earn points in another? (OK, so it doesnt quite fit in with game lore, but what the hell.. )

Because I can't reach GWO here during my lunch break, I just reply here.

Adding grind (titles) to the game was something that kept people playing.
I know that from several guildies.
I don't mind a certain amount of grind.
LB and SS titles are character based, but it was quite easy to reach the required amount by just playing the primary missions/quests and activating bounties on the way. Maxing is different, but that's no must have.
The problem with EotN is that the various reputation titles cannot be gained by primary quests/missions and bounties alone anymore.
The game would also be a little short for that.
Not a real problem, except when you have multiple characters and limited time to play.
However, it's just a matter of dedication to a character.
If I want Asura armor on my mesmer, I have to invest time in getting the reputation. Nothing wrong with that.

There is no real compare to EotN armor.
It cannot be obtained by finishing the game alone.
It's not possible to get by getting a certain reputation on your account (that's the way Factions worked) and move all characters at once past that point.
It's not possible to farm/powertrade the armor like FoW (I have a screenshot of a lvl8 guildie with FoW, that's a different kind of achievement, but shows getting the armor itself does not require a lot of time spend on a character).

I think the armors are fine the way they are, but increased reputation in HM would be nice and would get R5 easier.

Back to the OP:
That's a totally different issue and one that concerns me a lot more than the "omg, I cannot get item XYZ without grind".
Mind you that easy in this case is not that H&H are better, but it takes a lot less effort to team up with them.

Personally, I think that it would have been better in the beginning to really think about what the hell they were doing. The whole earilier prospect of releasing a new continent to the Guild Wars universe every 6 months might seem like a godsend to most players who don't give it a second thought, but, when you actually think about it, it also gives the devs a smaller span to think thing through. They rushed through Nightfall, plain and simple. The whole idea of having to gain Sunspear ranks through the blessings system might have actually been fun if they thought about it longer before release! Having to do boring side quests (which might have decent side-stories, but very very boring variety) to gain Sunspear Points and fight through hordes of monsters was a bad idea. What kind of average Istani citizen is able to enhance one's SS points through mediocre tasks? I think they should have brought up ranked repeatable missions, which would be fun and well thought through, as to improve the replay-factor. There should have been Sunspear quests given specifically by Sunspear soldiers. And, if the sunspear points HAD to be from questing, at least make the quests tied to your Primary Quests so that when the time comes that you have to achieve a certain rank, they could make a couple long, fun quests to keep you busy and entertained!

The same goes to things like Norn and such, although, for some strange reason, it seems much funner to rank that up more than Sunspear points. Probably because they are tied to armor that someone would really want, and in some way, they are tied to how hard you worked for it.

Another thing: the titles

I'm not arguing against titles. Some of them are reliant on skill, but others, such as the Treasure Hunter titles, Lucky, Unlucky, Seeker of Wisdom, and other titles that do not necessarily require skill should never have been thought up. I think titles such as Survivor and Protector, Vanquisher, and Cartographer are excellent. We need more titles like those. How many people do you see with Legendary Vanquisher of Tyria? How about Cantha? I haven't seen another person with one of those titles in a long time. Do you know why? Most of the Guild Wars gamers today are too wrapped up in the mediocre time-consuming craze. Guild Wars is not about time spent playing, it's about skill. I also don't like the habit of nearly everyone relying so heavily on PvX wiki builds. They aren't perfect. Sure, these builds are very nice, and usually work for their applied situation, but honestly, when was the last time those Elitists made builds of their own? Without PvX and other builds sites, this game would become much funner. There would be more incentive to create your own builds and toy around with attributes until you find the combination that you like best, that you yourself fine tuned. builds from PvX are nice to base yourself on, or get a good idea on what you should be doing, but really now, do we honestly need it?

This game has become dilluted to the point of losing it's original substance. I don't see the skill based gameplay anymore.

I think the main problem is the FUN of the game
I consider a online game is FUN in my opinion have 2 following:
1. chating (commu.) with other online player
2. have some diffculties to get some high end items.

For the first point, I think is also because of hero introduce, make the game easier (cos the people can make their dream team and play on their own). So lesser commu.
Compare to other onine game, they don't have any hero/hench to work with them. So why people willing to team up together?
That is because the builds system working in different way....In gw, fix skill slots, if u don't have the right build, the team won't work etc. In some other online game, you just team up, go somewhere and do your part, not much team work require. That's why gw makes people don't wanna team up anymore because of some "noob builds", therefore, it make the game lesser commu.

For the 2nd point, they created title grind. Ya....i understand what Gaile try to say is "there are no High end items can be earn easily" but in my opinion, grind title to increase the "diffculties" is not a good move.
For example armor in following suggestion:
Instead of grinding, what I looking for is go high up to the mountain, dive deep down to the sea to gain that armor....I consider that is some "diffculties" to gain a high end item, not
killing the same monsters again and again for the points to get the armor/item.

That's what I looking for in the future, what you guys think?

Rockman, I think part of the reason why the battle difficulty is so flukey and often does not feel like an accomplishment in itself is because it's mostly 8 man group content.
The more players there are in a group the easier it is to just recklessly plow through battles, get away with not paying attention and just c-spacebar through battles. There is far more room for error in PVE when it's large numbers against large numbers.

Because its their property, because it would cost significant resources to create a toolkit usable by users, because GW would have to run on the same servers as your 'user friendly' one.

Sure it would be...if this was Neverwinter Nights which was designed to accomodate such a system from the start. It simply defeats the purpose of an MMO where everyone plays the same game however.

Then again, Anet never said they wanted to please everyone, now did they?

User generated content can be great, again see NWM for examples but 99% of it is crap with memory leaks, programming errors and bad textures. Again, how do you imagine running that on the GW servers or do you want to host those too?

This is not Counterstrike, its GW, I suggest that people who want user generated content go play a game that allows that but do not mess with GW.

i agree with the titles and Time>Skills issue, the game is still good but no way near as it used to be thanks to the grind based skills, Anet first you lied saying there would only be expansions to proph and for less price (and renamed factions and nf as non expansions) and now this, im sure of one thing, i cant trust Anet Word if i Guildwars stays a as a Skills<Time Game i wont be buying GW2

Try to understand and listen to me....

...you can reach rank 4-5 by just playing the storyline. I did it on the all! Maybe I didnt get exactly rank 5, but I only needed to bounty hunt a few areas 2 or 3 times to up the last few points to rank 5.

Why wont you or anyone else accept that?

I'm not lieing! I had rank 5 on all races within about a week of playing, and all due to playing all quests and dungeons and a tiny bit of bounty hunting.

There is no hard aspect to getting armor in GWEN! No line has been crossed, because Anet is not made it hard to get anything. Once again they have pretty much given everything away!

I keep using the term "not critical" in reference to the pve only skills. Everyone is winging that their not full strengh at low ranks and your somehow "pressured" into increasing ranks to make them more powerfull.

Why?
Who is pressuring you?
Why do you need these pve only skills maxed out?
Where are you going to use them in the game, where it will give you a staggering advantage?

All these pve only skills are alot more powerfull then most other normal and elite skills, so to just give them to us at max levels would be over-powered!

Even at rank 5 most are pretty powerfull. What is the huge priority for them to be maxed out?

Do you want Anet to just hand us all a huge selection of maxed out, oober strong new skills to make GWs easier then it already is. GWEN isnt a hard game, and even in HM im doubting it will be that much more of a challenge.

So where exactly do we need these skills maxed?

This is why I say their not critical, because their not. Its a fact! There is no point in all 3 campaigns or in GWEN when we are reliant on using them and cant progress is we dont.

Even the status effects are argueably not critical either! Maybe they will be in HM, but I expect even then it wont be critical. It might make it easier, but I doubt undo-able without!

I accept connecting titles to skills and armor is a tactic to keep us playing longer, but the ranks needed for armor are not hard to reach at all. Ranks over 5 arent critical... as ive said. Its all optional and your game isnt going to be damaged without them.

Im not saying the new mechanisms are acceptable, but their not making anything ingame unbareable. You can litterally avoid any grinding aspects of GWEN and still enjoy the game if you wanted to.