Less Gemstore Items and more earnable items

"Visually GW2 is a stunningly beautiful world with great armor and stuff and much to keep you busy as is WoW but GW2 has much longer dull spots where there is nothing new on the horizon to do. I'm pretty sure you will enjoy which ever one you pick."

This is what I read on a wow forum post, an I kind of have to agree. My friend as of late has been trying to get me to play wow and I refuse to give in. I try to stay loyal to one game of a specific type. However I have been looking in to the way wow functions and why people like it so much. In my opinion the game's combat seems unbearably slow. to me, along with the dated graphics. I also like GW2's interface/hud alot more.

I feel that GW2 does have major dull spots in between LWseasons/episodes and expansions. I think it feels dull because of the lack of things to collect. We pretty much recieve all new items through the Gemstore most of the time. What I think we need is new items that are achieved through gameplay, whether its pvp, wvw, pve. When I say new items, for example what we got with the eclipse GS, or the Colossus torch, those quests where we had to go around and do things to get the new weapon, that was fun it felt like getting a micro legendary, where you had to put in some effort to get the weapons but not an exceedingly long amount of time and grind. Yes I understand money needs to be made, but you also want to keep players playing the game.

"GW2 isn't bad - I go back to it occasionally. Parts of it are grindy as heck, but I like the dye and skin system, and the WvWvW is great.I just get bored with it faster than I do with WoW, I guess." we need more things to do.

I agree, but it wont happen, the problem is store bought is taking over everything. Blame the players that keep supporting this kind of gaming, its why just about every game out there is now microtransactions. Gaming for gamers is a lost art, games are just mini malls now.

You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

GW2 is not a f2p game. It's b2p.

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

It's not b2p. It's b2p with microtransactions and it's not anything new.

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

I never said he did. Less gemstore items = lower diversity of items available = lower chance for players finding what they like = less money. Glad I could explain something as complex as this.

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

At this point I'd probably pay a subfee if it meant raid bosses came more frequently and CMs were repeatable. Or even $60 per wing.

What I cannot do right now is confidently buy gems and know it'll fund raid content or even non-Gemstore content.

I'm to the point where I'm paying sub fees in games with worse gameplay just because those games have more frequent raid-like content drops.

@"ErikTheTyrant.4527" said:I also like GW2's interface/hud alot more.

You should goolge "WoW GW2 UI addon"

I always play WoW with that addon, and it's not just action bars and health bar etc, it even has stuff like experience bar and animations for level up etc, quest tracker and so much more in GW2 style.

For veterans, the only "vertical progression" left in GW2 is fashion and cosmetic items. Even if you can't make your character any more stronger, you can make it look even more awesome, with new skins etc. But obviously that is only true to some point, because what does it mean for veterans when Anet is adding a new weapon set when those ppl already crafted 5 legendary weapons?

What do you do when your character already looks exactly like you want? You suddenly have no goal whatsoever in this game left.

So far Anets answers seems to be outfits that **** on everything you've achieved, unlocked, done before in the game and ruin any sort of customization. So, Anet adds these outfits where some of them look like you would have to skin a literal god to get that outfit, they come through a crown store purchase, via popup, instantly, without any lore or worldbuilding or other story behind it. Most lame, boring, uninspired and laziest way to aquire an item in any game.

They're most of the time gated through time limited sales, in rng, RL cash gambling lootboxes, so that ppl buy them because they don't want to miss their chance. And whenever a new outfit comes out that then looks even shinier, you have to buy the entire thing and your entire previous fashion progress gets wiped again. Pretty much like a gear treadmill in other games, just with fashion cosmetics.

I think the amount of new skins that were made available in the past few years in the game and not in the crownstore is embarassing. The style of the armors is imo pretty lacking and uninspired (obviously personal taste). But for me, I haven't been able to upgrade my characters cosmetics in many months, if not even years. Heck my Charr warrior still wears its cultural armor, since Anet didn't release anything that looked remotely that good within the last 7 years.

But what I really think GW2 needs most right now is not more fashion, not more maps, not even more elite specializations, not even more world bosses etc.It deperately needs new core game mechanics.

We're talking about stuff like implementing hardmode for the entire open world, endless defense missions/quests/events whatever, for solo/groups, it needs for example what BDO has, where you have nodes on the map where you have workers that can craft stuff and gather commodities etc for you and where you can earn stuff and make progress for your worker empire, it needs more procedural things, like caves that you can find on the map or rifts that lead into procedural environments with little missions , stuff that you can do solo or hotjoin into a pug group.

Stuff like this. When you look at GW2 from release date to now, Anet has added tons of content, in the form of new maps, specializations, armor, weapons etc. What they pretty much did not add at all was new gameplay and game modes or however you want to call it.

Just look at WoW, every expansion they throw out at least 2-3 more or less new game modes out. With BfA we got Warfronts and Island expeditions. Yes both sucked ultimately but there were other expansions where these new additions were really the backbone of the day to day gameplay for many players. It keeps the game fresh an interesting and it always coms with some new reward and gives you something to do each day.

GW2 lacks that. In GW2 you do what, fractals, PvP and then? World boss tour? A Meta event? Silverwastes farming? Pretty much the same stuff you did since release or at least for several years already. That's not good

@Sobx.1758 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

I get that they need to make money, but what I'm pointing out is that all the new items they make come in through the gemstore almost exclusively. What we need is for some of those new items to be grindable and achievable through the game. Whether its through achievements or making them drop from bosses, or some other means, so that we have something good and simple to work for other than legendaries. If everything new comes in through the gemstore then all we do is log on buy it then log off, which isn't very fun.

@Sobx.1758 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

You didn't need to explain, it is indeed, not complex at all. Ideally though, more items in game don't mean less in the store.

What would need a bit of explaining though is why anyone who isn't a dev or shareholder, would argue against having more stuff available in the game they are playing. Even if it cuts a bit into the bottom line, that should be a shareholder's concern not a player's. Although in this era of 'buying" your way through games instead of playing them, maybe even that doesn't need any explanation.

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

You did get the part where they had to lay-off 1/3 of their staff this year right?

There is no point in having more stuff in game when the game shuts down a few months later. So there actually should be an interest on the players side of how the studio generates money.

TC left out 1 critical detail in his GW2 to WoW comparison: WoW has a subscription fee (on top of its by now real money shop). That's on top all the other differences.

This "cut into the bottom line" can sometimes be quite significant in a games and developers performance.

There are Pros and Cons to Free to Play and Subscription based games. Both have to earn a revenue that is stable and worth investing in the future.

@Alimar.8760 said:There are Pros and Cons to Free to Play and Subscription based games. Both have to earn a revenue that is stable and worth investing in the future.

Stability comes from a playerbase that has things to do in game new stuff to look forward to and work towards. I dont play games to go shopping, i can do that irl. I play games to have something to beat, something to achieve, something to earn, something that lets me slay dragons and rip their shiny loot from their cold dead hands.

@Awesumness.1823 said:At this point I'd probably pay a subfee if it meant raid bosses came more frequently and CMs were repeatable. Or even $60 per wing.

What I cannot do right now is confidently buy gems and know it'll fund raid content or even non-Gemstore content.

I'm to the point where I'm paying sub fees in games with worse gameplay just because those games have more frequent raid-like content drops.

Honestly I don’t know what you really expected from the game. We have known from the start of season 3 that they wanted to focus on open world content. High end instanced content have never been a focus of the game because you can play the game, ignore raids, ignore fractals, ignore dungeons (lul) and still make gold, gain AP while acquiring skins.In fact the only time raids got proper raid development was about the time when sales were dwindling the most, so that was obviously not good and they have never been able to consistently release both instanced high end content and open world at the same time.

The hard truth is that you also have no guarantee they will use use the money generated by a subscription to fund the raids because they could very well use that money to develop more open world content, or WvW or PVP.

@Tiviana.2650 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:There are Pros and Cons to Free to Play and Subscription based games. Both have to earn a revenue that is stable and worth investing in the future.

They said recently that they’re not going to have an expansion, at least any time soon. How do you suggest they make their daily dollar?

@Tiviana.2650 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:There are Pros and Cons to Free to Play and Subscription based games. Both have to earn a revenue that is stable and worth investing in the future.

Good for you, last I checked your enjoyment does not feed the developers. Unless they can manage to convert some of that enjoyment into actual hard $$$, your enjoyment of their product gives them a giddy warm feeling inside while their bellies go empty.

Now you might disagree to the amount of resources spent on which of both (revenue generation or game content), but both is necessary.

@Tiviana.2650 said:

@Alimar.8760 said:There are Pros and Cons to Free to Play and Subscription based games. Both have to earn a revenue that is stable and worth investing in the future.

We pretty much recieve all new items through the Gemstore most of the time.The OP seems to ignore all the skins we get via living world. During LS4, and strictly via the new maps, we got new armor sets, new weapon sets, new backpack sets. Several new legendaries were released during this time, including Vision.

So really the question is: what's the right mix, to ensure that ANet earns enough to keep NCSOFT happy and so that the players are happy? I don't think there's an objective answer. I do think ANet is likely to have a better idea, if only because they have data on how people spend, on why they leave, and what performance targets they need to reach for a 7-year old game.

I'm sure we'd all like it better if there were more collectibles and more skins available in game. But that's like saying we'd all like it better if our landlord lowered the rent.

It would be more valuable if the OP could articulate what sorts of things they like and/or why things like the requiem armor collection didn't appeal.

I haven't seen any Armor Sets in the Gem Store in a long, long time. I have seen Armor Sets released in-game in the past couple of years.
I have seen a few Weapons released in the Gem Store (not counting Black Lion Weapons, which are quasi-Gem Store/quasi-in-game). I have seen many more Weapons released in-game.

@flog.3485 said:

@"Awesumness.1823" said:At this point I'd probably pay a subfee if it meant raid bosses came more frequently and CMs were repeatable. Or even $60 per wing.

What I cannot do right now is confidently buy gems and know it'll fund raid content or even non-Gemstore content.

I'm to the point where I'm paying sub fees in games with worse gameplay just because those games have more frequent raid-like content drops.

Ah, I failed to quote "You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?" My post is just answering how Anet could easily extract $$$ from me.

But I agree with you, I don't know what to expect in terms of Raids and WvW (another gamemode I used to enjoy before my WvW guild disintegrated) because there's no clear commitment. The Open world and Story content doesn't keep me engaged but that's okay. I'm not sure if there's going to be another raid and I'm not sure when alliances are coming... and I'm not sure I'll be able to get my friends to play again even if these features come. If this content is in the game one day, I hope I can muster the will to play it. Until then I'm churning though a deep game backlog and trying other MMOs with new and old friends.

Last year at Pax West Mike Z told me his favorite part of GW2 was the community. At first I didn't quite agree but after getting more involved with the raid scene and meeting some of the nicest people I've ever met online, I'm starting to see what he meant. The previous ERP got me hyped to play again and try raids, and now I'm getting the chance to give back to the raid community and it feels damn good. I'm not really holding my breath for anything at the Aug 30th announcement, but I hope to personally thank the devs for all the effort they put into the game on behalf of of my dissolving community. The game isn't dead or dying without us and we hope the game continues to thrive.

tl;dr A multi-mode veteran converted into a raider. Nothing desirable in gemstore. Will pay for raids/WvW. Raid/WvW community died. "Just Leave" meme feels okay :)

@Awesumness.1823 said:

@flog.3485 said:

@Awesumness.1823 said:At this point I'd probably pay a subfee if it meant raid bosses came more frequently and CMs were repeatable. Or even $60 per wing.

What I cannot do right now is confidently buy gems and know it'll fund raid content or even non-Gemstore content.

I'm to the point where I'm paying sub fees in games with worse gameplay just because those games have more frequent raid-like content drops.

Ah I see. Thanks for your precisions. Sad to see though that for the low amount of content raiders got, it doesn’t seem to be worth the wait.

As for the topic at hand, I dont think there is not enough skins released through the game. It is more a matter of skins being too easily reachable and too easy to obtain. I don’t think open world is really at fault but rather the lack of varying content being thrown into open world and the fact that the metas have been too easy to complete.

However games in general don’t tend to have an amazing open world content. It is more of a pass to make the players rush into instanced content where you will get the most replay-ability.

So who knows, maybe that is what season 5 will do: switch the model from of having most of the rewards easily reachable and obtainable in open world.

@ErikTheTyrant.4527 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

New items come though the gem store "almost exclusively"?

Are you counting the multiple armor and weapon sets we got from Living World Season 4. Episode 1 had two weapon sets. Thunderhead Peaks had 2 weeapon sets. There's armor sets in at least two of the episodes.

The only thing we haven't really gotten access to are outfits, mount skins and glider skins. But there are tons of weapon and armor skins in game, that keep coming out, most recently skins for WvW and PvP. I wish people would clarify this, or it looks like we have nothing to work for. I don't know about you but I don't have all the skins from season 4 yet.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

You did get the part where they had to lay-off 1/3 of their staff this year right?This is irrelevant to the discussion. They cancelled other projects which accounted for this.

@Awesumness.1823 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

That's ok. I wouldn't. :D

@ErikTheTyrant.4527 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

The new items they make that aren't in gemstore are mostly added with new expansions and LWs. Also you say you want them to be grindable. Well, technically they are, grind gold in any way you want, convert to gems and get what you want by literally grinding it.

Did you already unlock everything available including legendaries?

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:You know gw2 needs to make money to exist, right?

Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post.

I'm mostly referring to the part where -for some reason- you said "Also I didn't see OP suggesting to dismantle the gem store at any point in this post." (in a cheap attempt to discredit what I said I guess). But he literally wrote "Less gemstore items", so I assumed I had to point that out no matter how obvious it is for you now.

What would need a bit of explaining though is why anyone who isn't a dev or shareholder, would argue against having more stuff available in the game they are playing. Even if it cuts a bit into the bottom line, that should be a shareholder's concern not a player's. Although in this era of 'buying" your way through games instead of playing them, maybe even that doesn't need any explanation.

You literally can't tell me what should be my concern. I mean technically you can, but that won't do anything. Also I wrote why in my very first post in this thread, it's pretty simple. And no, just because you didn't understand something I already wrote, doesn't mean I'm "buying my way through games".

Considering it's possible to convert gold to gems, technically everything in the gem store is earnable in game so long as someone out there is buying gems.I'm all for even more in game earnable stuff outside the gem store, but I don't really think what they add in the gemstore regularly is excessive. Considering things like FFXIV are sub based and still have a cash shop where they charge $7 for 1 emote or $15 for a character bound mount, I'll take GW2's model.Though I'll agree it would be nice to get like...an in-game achievement mount skin or something, even if it's just the default skin with more dye channels. I personally feel we get a decent amount of armor sets and weapons with LW updates and things like the new PvP ones.

Can someone make some graphs which show what was added to the gem store and game per patch?