Feed back on Game progression

[Furry.3801]

I believe it is in terms of players who like to progress faster. Using real money to buy gems and using these can help a player progress faster. This is true because of the way guild wars 2 was designed. I purchased the ultimate package to try out and realised that I still had to pay more money in future to progress in a good pace. So, I guess I won't be playing this game for long. It is too bad. I believe it is a great game if the company just really use the online shop to sell truly cosmetic items. But, I don't think it is so. They have change the game to a certain degree to even remove or adjust certain game elements because some people found ways to progress faster without using real money. I do understand the company needs to pay salaries and maintain servers costs. But, to put artificial game progression stoppers to make you play for longer periods is just not making the game fun. Example, to get the flying mounts, you would need gems to exchange for gold. That's like about 500 to 1000 gems. I have 4000 from the ultimate package, but, can you imagine those without these. It would take the player many hours to collect the amount of gold needed to get the mounts. The game has become a chore rather then a fun thing to do which I thought it would be once I got my dinosaur mount but, guess what, it would take huge amount of gold and effort to get the flying mount. Probably I need to get more gems in future, so that mean pay more real money. I don't think this is a good way to monetize the MMO. I do not think I can support such a practice for the long term. However, I must truly say Guild Wars 2 has great potential and is a great game. Please do consider making the progression smoother. Personally, I also don't quite like the huge story lines which is like a time sinker. I just want to discover the world by myself and not be hand hold all the time. There is no fun is a linear tour. And can you imagine if I could find a flying mount very earlier in the game and be able to explore the world better as least to have a good view, but of course, certain areas would be above my level, but, then it would be very fun and make it fun to know that there are so many things to be done. A few years ago, I tried playing the free addition and the progression was so painful, that I stopped playing it. I did not purchase the game because the progression make me think that the world would be limited or hard to get into because of the time requirements and slow progression. But, finally recently I purchase the ultimate addition thinking that it would be a nice change to try it and took my bet on it.

 

Yes, it was fun for the boost to level 80. But, then when I started to try to get the mounts, I again realised the progression would be a show stopper again (also the resource cost is high = real money needed ) I don't have huge amount of time to spent just grinding none stop. Since, I paid an expensive price for the package, I was expecting a a game with good progression, but it is still the same. Maybe Guild wars 2 is not for me afterall. I am not an expert on MMO. Maybe the designers can think about my small views here. Can something be done to improve progression and make player be more interested in playing? The slow progression is making me quit the game even before I go deep into it. (I have one character i leveled from 1 to 33 in free edition)

[Donari.5237]

Please use more paragraph breaks, the big block of text makes it hard to follow your argument. But what I -think- you are saying is that the game forces you to pay real cash to get the long-term goals because you shouldn't have to play so long-term to get them.

 

An MMO needs things that fill time. GW2 is far less grindy than others. If you find the griffon gold prohibitive, you may want to look into doing the dailies for 2 gold a day. The griffon gold expense comes in chunks of 25 gold, so that's under 2 weeks per chunk even as you're doing other fun things in the game that in and of themselves increase your resources -- this game showers you in mats practically just for breathing. You can't get the high end stuff in a day or two of playing, not in a game designed to be playable for years. You also don't *need* the high end stuff for most everything in the game. You certainly don't have to convert gems to gold -- I'm pretty much a "whale" in the shop, being at a fortunate time in my life when I can spend just for fun, and I think I've directly bought gold with gems maaaaybe 3 times in 8 years. Once to fill out my gold to 100 g to get a commander tag before the price went up, I don't recall the other reasons. Yet I have all the masteries, all the mounts, and one legendary that I made myself, HOPE. And I've been one of the prime contributors to a small guild's large guild hall. Nor am I a TP baron, beyond doing my best to list things in the Sell column rather than selling to the highest bidder.

 

Progression is hardly slow. I had my first 80 within a couple of months after launch, before all the xp boosting stuff was available. Now I have ... I'm not sure, 27 or more 80's, all of them with elites. Otoh in ESO I've finally maxed all of 4 alts horse riding skills in over 6 years and still only have one max level character and no one at max CP. If you find GW2 slow, don't even look at ESO.

 

This may be another example to support all the people that have posted through the years that giving a level 80 boost to someone that has not yet gotten to 80 by actually leveling up has a strong tendency to disenchant them with the game, whereas those that take their time to explore on the way up appreciate things far more. Though that may be self-selecting, the patient ones who are willing to take that time are going to be patient about post-80 goals as well.

 

 

[Avraham.8504]

You can *choose* to purchase gold via gems but IMO you'd be missing out on a lot of fun. There is something to be said about earning your equipment/weapons/items/mounts. I personally, haven't used the lv. 80 boost for my alts. I'd rather run around and level up. That's me, though.

 

Also, I've been playing since the beginning (2012) so I've got a lot of gold and materials in my bank (and I'm a dirty casual). So lets say I've got some excess gold to burn, I still go out of my way to earn them unless it's super annoying (like making Ascended Diviners gear). Then, I might cash in a bunch of fractal pages but then again, I still earned those....

 

I suggest taking your time and play the game. You'll appreciate the items/gear/mounts you earn a lot more.

[DeanBB.4268]

You know the mounts you see on the gem store are just cosmetics, right? Not the actual mount? And you get all the needed mounts just by playing the game. The griffon and skyscale are "luxury mounts." I'm still chipping away at the griffon, not in any big hurry to get it.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"DeanBB.4268" said:

> You know the mounts you see on the gem store are just cosmetics, right? Not the actual mount?

 

The OP was talking about the actual mounts (the griffon, for instance, costs 250 gold, if I recall correctly).

[Fallesafe.5932]

> @"Furry.3801" said:

> Yes, it was fun for the boost to level 80. But, then when I started to try to get the mounts, I again realised the progression would be a show stopper again (also the resource cost is high = real money needed ) I don't have huge amount of time to spent just grinding none stop. Since, I paid an expensive price for the package, I was expecting a a game with good progression, but it is still the same. Maybe Guild wars 2 is not for me afterall. I am not an expert on MMO. Maybe the designers can think about my small views here. Can something be done to improve progression and make player be more interested in playing? The slow progression is making me quit the game even before I go deep into it. (I have one character i leveled from 1 to 33 in free edition)

 

Yea, great argument. I guess there's nothing you could possibly do but quit at this point.

[Linken.6345]

Played since head start and both level 80 boost are still sitting in my shared slot.

Bought gems to fork over some money to anet for doing the right thing fireing a Developer that abused a content creator.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Furry.3801" said:

> I believe it is in terms of players who like to progress faster. Using real money to buy gems and using these can help a player progress faster. This is true because of the way guild wars 2 was designed. I purchased the ultimate package to try out and realised that I still had to pay more money in future to progress in a good pace. So, I guess I won't be playing this game for long. It is too bad. I believe it is a great game if the company just really use the online shop to sell truly cosmetic items. But, I don't think it is so. They have change the game to a certain degree to even remove or adjust certain game elements because some people found ways to progress faster without using real money. I do understand the company needs to pay salaries and maintain servers costs. But, to put artificial game progression stoppers to make you play for longer periods is just not making the game fun. Example, to get the flying mounts, you would need gems to exchange for gold. That's like about 500 to 1000 gems. I have 4000 from the ultimate package, but, can you imagine those without these. It would take the player many hours to collect the amount of gold needed to get the mounts. The game has become a chore rather then a fun thing to do which I thought it would be once I got my dinosaur mount but, guess what, it would take huge amount of gold and effort to get the flying mount. Probably I need to get more gems in future, so that mean pay more real money. I don't think this is a good way to monetize the MMO. I do not think I can support such a practice for the long term. However, I must truly say Guild Wars 2 has great potential and is a great game. Please do consider making the progression smoother. Personally, I also don't quite like the huge story lines which is like a time sinker. I just want to discover the world by myself and not be hand hold all the time. There is no fun is a linear tour. And can you imagine if I could find a flying mount very earlier in the game and be able to explore the world better as least to have a good view, but of course, certain areas would be above my level, but, then it would be very fun and make it fun to know that there are so many things to be done. A few years ago, I tried playing the free addition and the progression was so painful, that I stopped playing it. I did not purchase the game because the progression make me think that the world would be limited or hard to get into because of the time requirements and slow progression. But, finally recently I purchase the ultimate addition thinking that it would be a nice change to try it and took my bet on it.

>

> Yes, it was fun for the boost to level 80. But, then when I started to try to get the mounts, I again realised the progression would be a show stopper again (also the resource cost is high = real money needed ) I don't have huge amount of time to spent just grinding none stop. Since, I paid an expensive price for the package, I was expecting a a game with good progression, but it is still the same. Maybe Guild wars 2 is not for me afterall. I am not an expert on MMO. Maybe the designers can think about my small views here. Can something be done to improve progression and make player be more interested in playing? The slow progression is making me quit the game even before I go deep into it. (I have one character i leveled from 1 to 33 in free edition)

 

It would take the player many hours to farm enough gold to buy the LS episodes, and I don't disagree with the complaint about that. However, to put it in perspective, the gold you'd need to farm would take you less time and could be done concurrently along with the collections you need to complete to earn a skyscale!

 

You seem to be in some sort of rush to complete everything. That's not how MMOs work. These are games that are supposed to keep you playing for years. It's not about unlocking everything in a day. If you slow down a little and do things like playing through the story, learning your way around the maps, completing achievements, you will find that you earn the things you otherwise would have had to farm as you go and it's less like grinding and more like...playing a game.

[Danikat.8537]

If you're looking for a game you can finish quickly, without long stories or goals which take many hours to complete then MMOs are not for you. They're designed to be played regularly over very long periods of time. I'm sure there's a lot of people in GW2 who were able to reach level 80, complete the stories and get the griffon and skyscale without paying real money to do it, but I'm also sure they'll have been playing for thousands of hours over months or years, whereas even 100% completion of single-player games typically only takes a few hundred hours at most.

 

It's true that you can spend real money to complete some things faster, especially levelling up a character, but I completely disagree that's necessary or even desirable. Levelling a character by playing them can also be done quickly if you want to, but more importantly there's absolutely no need to rush it. The game isn't really any different at level 80 to lower levels, you're going to be doing largely the same types of activities you were before, so you may as well focus on playing what you enjoy rather than trying to level up first. (There's also a free way to level up instantly if you're patient - save the Tomes of Knowledge which come from login rewards and other places. I always keep at least 80 of them, just in case I do want to instantly level a character for some reason.)

 

Also anyone who thinks they can pay real money to get a griffon instantly is in for a nasty surprise. It's true that part of the collection is buying 10 items at 25g each, so you need a total of 250g to complete it. But that's just one, relatively minor, part of the process. You have to complete the Path of Fire story to even start the collection, which includes finding griffon eggs hidden around the maps, defeating bounty enemies and completing events and then doing a special instance map. There is absolutely no way to pay to skip any of that, you have to play through it.

 

Ironically I think part of the reason discussions about getting the griffon tend to focus on the gold cost is because the rest is seen as a non-issue by most players. The only other bit I see people complain about regularly is having to defeat the legendary facet, because that takes either a coordinated group or lots of people. So, contrary to your claim, it looks like the majority of people who get the griffon are fine with the parts which require playing the game to complete and it's the cost - the part they could skip by using real money if they wanted to - which is off-putting. That suggests this game is achieving exactly what you want: players want to play the game to complete goals, not pay to get them out of the way faster.

 

(Also there are ways to get 250g relatively quickly. I got it by playing Wintersday mini games and selling the gifts, but there's other ways which are available all year round too.)

[Ototo.3214]

Nothing in the gem store is needed to actually progress. Everything in there is either cosmetic or convenience. Considering the game has no sub fee, I find that fair.