Guild Wars 2 Review

[Shuguard]

Have you actually bothered checking the requirements for a legendary weapon?

Please do, then come and tell me that GW2 is not "grind-y".

GW2 is not grind-y.

I'm well aware of the fact that legendary weapons are obscenely hard to get. I'm also well aware of the fact that they are identical in stats to stuff that I can buy or make for a hell of a lot cheaper, so you're basically wasting your time going for them unless you're REALLY fond of pretty skins.

It's also sort of pathetic that your one counter-argument against GW2 being "grind-y" is "well, look how long it takes to get this one completely optional thing!" because you know damn well you can't point to the actual gameplay and call it "grind-y".

Any mmo by definition is a grind. That's one big component of an mmo is to deal with a grind. For gw2 it's more of a time-based grind, since a level(on avg with higher levels) can take about an hour to get(with just standard PvE). Had they included upward leveling into the pve zone of the game then most of the grind would be gone. I remember starting in the 1-17 zone and finishing the zone with the city near it to only be level 15 and so i had to grind before I could go up again. (this happened frequently and I did almost everything along the way).

That being said most of gw2 grind-iness comes from "wanting" something. If say I wanted a full exotic armor set from a level 80 dungeon, you would have to grind the 3 explorer paths for more than a full week (if you did each path once for 60 tokens/180 per day). Yes this is a grind because there is no chance of a random loot drop that would give me the piece i want or a tradable piece to players.

Then there are karma armor pieces from temple vendors who 42,000 karma per piece. Not to mention getting 360-390 karma per event in those zones.

We already know the huge grind for wanting a legendary weapon, and they recently put in these new amulets where you need 250 of a certain gem orb (250 ruby orbs, 250 sapphire etc.)

The problem with the end-game is that there isn't much other than grinding out legendary weapons or dungeon/karma armor sets. The game is still fairly fresh, but i'm disappointed in gw2 for nothing truly special for level 80's other than going through a personal grind and making the end-game what you want it to be with very few things to go on.

 

[Shuguard]

No, what you're describing is a quality of RPGs and RPG systems, not MMOs specifically. They are designed to encourage players to continue playing by offering "rewards" in the form of leveling, effectively the video game version of a Skinner box. This is why MMOs tend to be full-fledged RPGs or utilize RPG elements heavily in their design, as a method of artificially stretching out the length. But this is something true of RPGs, not specifically MMOs. MMOs just latched onto the trend first. Many other genres followed (like FPS games and their "leveling" to unlock content).

I was using "mmo" as a short for mmorpg, which gw2 calls itself meaning there's still a grind. So my point still stands.

That's funny, I remember consistently outleveling every single map I played in. But maybe that's because I took the very backwards and apparently quite foreign logic of clearing all the towns first (for easy XPs), then all the 1-15 maps, then the 15-25s, etc. You know, in order of level. Like you'd be expected to do in any other MMO.

Might have been luck for you, but i went from place to place, completing every part of the map and still came out under-leveled in every area, i didn't skip events, and i didn't run around mobs. The weird part might have been because Queensdale is 1-17 instead of the other zones being 1-15.

All of which are, as you pointed out, completely optional. So basically this is like me putting a big shiny diamond in front of you, and telling you that you can have it if you're willing to work for a few hundred hours to get it. You have every right to say no and leave at any time, you just won't get the shiny diamond. Except in this case, the shiny diamond is equally as shiny and valuable as other diamonds that require significantly less effort to obtain. So basically you're willfully choosing to do these things because you like the particular shine of that particular diamond. Sorry, but I don't consider that a fault in this game, or in any game (provided the conditions are similar, that is, you're not forcing players to grind hundred of hours for the BEST items and making that the only way to reach peak strength). No one is putting the gun to your head and forcing you to do it. "Grind" is a term generally used to refer to FORCED repetition of a task, not so much optional repetition.

Right, but there is barely any end-game so this is the only thing one can base it on. Sure it's optional as much as playing the game is optional, or logging in is optional, doing dungeons optional, aoeing mobs is optional, jump puzzles are optional. Also these guys had a much longer time to develop the game so i'm not giving them any excuses. Good games don't need excuses.

GW2 was designed without an end-game intentionally. I still question why that is. I know they are trying to make the game equally interesting from start to finish, and I'd say they did that....but I still want something to do after I've done all the normal stuff and there's really no reason it shouldn't be there. I can only assume WvW is meant to substitute for this in part, but I'm not sure I want to ONLY do WvW once I max all my dudes out.

You can't have an beginning without an end. I'll give you the fact the first 100 hrs were pretty good, but after that it becomes boring pretty quickly because there is nothing to keep players around other than personal shiny diamonds.

 

[Aposthebest]

And I've never run into it despite having played the game for more than a month. So I'm still not inclined to think it's as big of a problem as you say it is, especially when I've cleared the map you did and never ran into that problem despite killing copious amounts of Inquest lackeys.

So,something is ok as long as it doesn't happen to you?

You are aware that this doesn't make sense, right?

As long as it happens to even a small percentage of the legit players, then it is a problem. And the amount of people who have quit due to the DR being implemented only further shows the frustration that this system creates.

Ye, you might not run into it and I'm glad you don't, that doesn't make it trivial either though.

Other than that, not only it shouldn't be there in the first place, something that you have agreed with, but it's also bugged and it has been admitted to be as well. So that means that the developers not only implemented it, but now have to waste even more time into it to tune it.

Right now,there are reports from players who haven't seen a single blue drop for over 3-4 days, because they have been flagged with DR and it never got to reset.

All this time would be better off into banning bot accounts instead and fixing bugs that actually matter. (and we both know there are many bugs who actually matter and the faster they get fixed, the better)

Once again, don't take this as trying to be offensive towards you, even though it might seem that way at some points.

I'm just trying to understand your point of view, it's just that the "it doesn't happen to me,thus it's ok" really doesn't go well with me. I've only been hit with DR once in fairly close to 300 hours of play, but that one time is enough to take away a lot of the fun for me. I don't like being severely ristricted, neither do I enjoy having to think every time I play whether I should stop playing,otherwise my account will get flagged for the next 24 hours and anything I do will be for nothing. That thought alone just doesn't give me any reason to keep on playing, since I'm not the one who decides how much I can enjoy what the game offers.

EDIT: Actually, feel free to not reply if you really can't bother with it. The game won't change out of this conversation and we've both already placed our argumentation. I'm just having some trouble understanding the basics of your way of thinking and I guess the same goes for you, we can't all be the same.

 

[Aposthebest]

Try to look at it from my perspective. You've poured a month's time and many, many hours into a game you're enjoying, and somebody comes along and tells you they're afraid to play the game for fear of getting their account locked up for what amounts to "playing too much". You're probably going to look at that guy a little bit weirdly, especially if you've never ever seen it happen yourself, doncha think? It's not like I'm saying it doesn't happen, or that it's not a bad thing....it's that you're making statements which sound rather excessively paranoid about this sort of thing. Just play and enjoy, man, don't panic over it. I remain reasonably faithful that the problem will be fixed eventually.

It's true,it might sound paranoid, but it's not.

You see, there are reports of people never hitting the DR, like you.

There are reports of people hitting it every now and then, like me. (although I might have hit it more than once and not noticing. In any case, I haven't been playing as much lately anyway.)

And there are reports of people hitting the DR within 30 minutes of play, only because they did events in Orr that are heavy in killing stuff.

Additionally,there have been reports of the code kicking in WvW within random amounts of time.

So the code is incosistent. It's not paranoia to think that after an hour and a half of doing WvW or events, the game might have flagged me for a bot and if I keep playing it's for nothing.

Now,you might say I am a little reward driven, which to an extent might be true, but since those rewards are in the game, then it's something to work towards and I'd rather they didn't have an unofficial cap that also happens to be random amongst different players as well.

It's not a "single aspect". It's something that affects every other aspect and that pops up everywhere. It affects events, it affects crafting and it affects WvW. It's more than just one aspect.

I can tolerate bugs, because I know how sneaky they can sometimes be.
I can tolerate new things taking time to come, because I know that they do indeed require time.
What I can't tolerate is being restricted and being treated like a potential law breaker. You might say I have problems with authority, but that's ok with me, because yes, I most likely have.