Rasimir.6239

It's not an issue, it's a feature. Beta characters live in their own space, or more precisely on a snapshot taken off of your account the moment you created that character. Nothing you do on the beta character has any influence on your "real" account, including loot, wallet currency, and achievements.

I honestly don't think you are supposed to do that before release, not in this game at least. It's not as much of a numbers game as other games to begin with, since even with the theoretically "best" build out there, a large part of your performance relies on player skill and environment. Beta events in GW2 have always been more of a general "look and feel" test, testing fluidity of gameplay and synergies with the rest of the game, rather than coming up with "optimizied" builds. Grab a beta character, go out into the world, and see if the gameplay works for you. Judging from the HoT and PoF betas, we will see enough skill and trait changes before release that any min-maxed theory crafting you do now is worthless anyway.

The reason ANet gave for the new player experience (that has been new since 2015 ... I just got my 6th birthday present on the character I specifically made to try it out back then 😉 ) was that player retention was lacking due to too many people needing more guidance than the original system provided. Back in the early days you had to have experience with the game systems (which you only gain by playing) or do internet research to figure out how to unlock "a full bar of skills by level 10is", and apparently many people didn't do either and felt lost in the game. The NPE isn't aimed at veterans, and as the poster before me mentioned there are plenty of ways to short-cut the leveling process for these veterans that come naturally with playing the game (starting with leveling scrolls from birthday presents, which can get you up to lvl 60 if another of your characters had their 6th birthday already). Are there players that pick up things quicker? I'm sure there are. I strongly suspect though that there are enough people that "need" the pacing the NPE provides them with to actually get into this game, else ANet would've changed things again by now. Why stick with a change if you find out what you had before was superior?

Judging from their post history, the op has in fact been done for over a year already 😉 .

The main problem I see here is that technically there is no such thing as a "main" or an "overflow" map. All instances of a map are equal, the number is determined by the number of players that currently want to play in that map, and all players again are equal, no matter the reason they join the map (completion, story, meta, chatting with friends, whatever). Other than that, as far as I can see, the system already works similarly to what you propose: every map has a soft cap, after which new players entering the map are not automatically put on that map instance any longer. It is however possible for players to join that map instance on purpose (via joining a party member already on that instance), up to the hard cap or players on the map. The game has no way of knowing if a player coming into a map is going there to join a meta event or not, so changing map population rules based on event status isn't feasible. A few maps try something like it, but only by blocking all entrance during certain event phases to stop people from "leeching" the meta rewards. As you can see by people afk-ing in some of the more involved meta maps (e.g. Dragon's Stand), even that doesn't stop those that are focussed on reaping the rewards without helping to get there.

Check your material storage. Long-term players tend to have hundreds if not thousands of materials in storage that are easy enough to aquire that they could very well cash in on them to fund other stuff. Other games have conditioned us to hoard materials, but this game relies on regular trading, and a lot of wealth is hidden behind drops that disappear into material storage without you noticing it.

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The source is a post from Mike O'Brien on reddit: (full post here). That post is made explicitely to repsond the the question of 2k gem mount skins, but also goes into the general idea of gemstore offerings and pricing. It does not however explain in detail how the price point of each item or item type on the gemstore is chosen. If you doubt that the prices for outfits or whatever are correctly, your best bet is to take it up with ANet directly, since it looks like they do in fact put some though into their pricing 😉 .

Masteries (including but not restricted to gliding and mounts): new and expanded abilities for your whole account Elite specializations: new traitlines, skills, available weapon types, and/or profession mechanics for each class. Some of these are equivalent to what other games release as new classes, but with the flexibility to switch between different elite specs on one character Stat sets with 4-stat combinations. The most widely-used is vipers as the go-to stat combination for most condition builds Raids and Strike Missions: 10-man instanced content Intricate maps and complex meta events. While the basegame has maps and metas/world bosses, too, most of these pale in comparison to the expansion content

There's hundreds, if not thousands of this kind of "junk" item across the different collections. I have also kept some of them for sentimental reasons (like Rabsovich's lost treasure), but I suspect that creating and stocking a vendor that sells these things (of course only to players that have gotten them naturally before) is way more work that it's worth it. Allowing them to drop again on the other hand would be a great nuisance for the majority of players that have their bags filled with junk they neither need nor want. Personally I'd prefer if they'd expand the collection ui to allow us to link the found collection entries in chat. Maybe they could even include the ability to read collected books (and other kinds of text) straight from the collection ui, too. It's something I would really enjoy, but I suspect that the only way this could ever become reality would be if a dev would be interested to do it as a side project during whenever they have a bit of free time. It's just not important enough for the majority of players to get into the big feature category. If this is not just for sentimental reasons, to keep the items as reminders, but rather for linking during e.g. roleplaying sessions, there always is the option to get the object code from the wiki and post that into chat instead, but I agree that while technically possible, it isn't a very immersive option 😉 .

Are you certain these are not part of your options? The list of available runes on the wiki does list them (e.g. Superior Rune of the Aristocracy as ID 91602).

They changed this a while back. If all your tracks are filled but not trained, then they will go towards spirit shards. It is however not shown in the ui, but if you pay attention you will notice getting spirit shards with experience gain every now and then.

Back when I was young, people would design content, then design the matching rewards afterwards. Designing rewards, then design the content around those seems such a backward way of gamedesign 😢

News flash: there are people (an quite many actually) that enjoy exploration and scavenger huts in games. What to you is "the worst of early 2000's mmorpg quest filler design" is actually content that many on the forums and in game have expressed to have enjoyed tremendously, myself included. Personally I'd much rather do another dozend of such collections than the ones where I have to go around following the world boss timer to hope for my collection items to drop. The later is what I personally find tedious. tldr: people are different. Just because one subset of the playerbase enjoys different kinds of content than another doesn't make any of that content bad in itself.

Going off on a tanget here, but my advice would be not to farm for crafting materials at all. This game is built on the basis of a trading economy where you sell the part of your loot that you don't (currently) need, then use the gold you got to buy those materials you don't have enough from. The idea is to reward all playstyles comparatively and to enable all players to play the content they enjoy rather than feeling the need to grind something specific because it offers a superior income of whatever resource they are after. Farming for specific materials is often an exercise in frustration, especially during leveling. The idea of comparable reward relies on a system where all loot drops have value, and that automatically leads to a system where nobody is self-sufficient (unless they really go out of the way). On top of that, due to down-leveling of characters in lower-level areas, a large part of the loot you drop from enemies and containers will be scaled to your character level rather than the area level. Especially when it come to cloth and leather, materials that you mostly get from salvaging dropped armor, actual drops of tier 1 materials are few and far between once your character goes beyond lvl 15. On the other hand this enables you to just go out and explore the world without having to worry about what materials drop where. Ore and wood can be harvested in the world (in addition to salvaging it from equipment), but since 2nd and 3rd tier materials are much more versatile in use, you're still better off to gather higher-tier materials, sell them on the trading post, then put in a buy-order (or buy now if you are impatient) for the lower-tier materials you currently need for crafting. Coming from more traditional MMOs that focus heavily on self-sufficient resource aquiring, this system may take some time to get used to, but once you do, you will find it gives you a lot more freedom in what and how to play. Instead of endlessly farming specific things, you can really make your own game and play the parts of the game you enjoy, while still getting rewards that enable you to do pretty much anything you want to do, including leveling your crafting professions, and having fun at the same time 🙂 .

There's a fine line between encouraging and mandatory.

There is one fundamental difference between McDonalds and ArenaNet. Burgers are sold and delivered locally, so you have to be in a specific country to buy one (and eat it close by if you don't want it to spoil), no way around it. Online games are sold and delivered online, and there ultimately is no way for the seller to control where you are when you buy it, much less where you are when you use it. Sale and use of digital goods can of course be region-locked, so you can only use it in specific countries/regions of the world, but that includes a whole extra can of worms like drm to check if you are in the right place to access the service with your account, as well as the question what happens to people that have bought their products in one region, but then move to a region with different pricing. If you just check the region during the sale, there's technical options like vpn that mask your region of origin and pretend you are from someplace else. How should the vendor decide what region you are really in and what price to charge?

I strongly suspect that this whole "give us more rewards for challenge" discussion is really not about the rewards, but about bragging rights. The kind of people that don't agree with the current system seem to be the ones who want their rewards to be prestige items they can flaunt. The rest of us who like their rewards because they look nice to them are perfectly fine with the system we have.

Please stop putting words in my mouth. I'll try to put it plainly one more time: your are focussed on rewards you get from playing. I am focussed on enjoyable gameplay. I have found over the years that focus on rewards (in game design) is ultimately detrimental to my enjoyment of the game. I have chosen GW2 over similar games because it is the least reward focussed and the most gameplay focussed of the games I have tried.

Interesting how quickly you dismiss arguments that don't go your way. For reference, I've been playing computer games since my late teens. I think my first rpg was the then brand-new Ultima IV on my dad's apple IIc sometime during the 1980s. I was however a bit older than 13 at that time, computer games weren't a thing that far back 😉 . I've lost count of the number of rpgs, adventures, strategy games, and whatever else I've played, including a wide range of online games (starting with text-based muds in the late 80s/early 90s). Chasing rewards isn't the only goal in an rpg. In fact I would argue that that is more of a modern, mobile gaming thing than it used to be. Exploring worlds, solving puzzles, figuring out mechanics has been the base of rpgs long before the mindless grind for stats has surfaced as the be-all endgame of way too many of today's games. And that's where this game has its strengths: making worlds to explore, give us things to figure out. It's not an endless, railroaded race for bigger numbers. It's an involved world that you are free to explore any way you like. And this is the reason why I, and many others I have met in game and on the forums, play this game: it has an emphasis on exploration and discovery, it gives me the feeling that I choose to play what I enjoy. It doesn't imbalance rewards depending on which map, which kind of content I choose to play. GW2 rewards me for playing the game the way I enjoy it, unlike many of the other modern games that only reward me for playing the very narrow tunnel the developers have chosen.This game's main reward is enjoyment, and it's why I primarily play this game, instead of any of the other options, several of which have been tempting me but ultimately turned me off by forcing me into very narrow gameplay repetitions to get to the shinies I might like.

Your whole chain of argument in this thread builds on the assumption that players are motivated into playing by chasing rewards, and that rewards are the main (or even only) incentive that makes people play this came. It's an easy assumption to make, since generations of computer rpgs have conditioned us into looking at the rewards first, gameplay second, and at worst grind endlessly for rewards long past the point of where the gameplay stops being fun. GW2 is a different beast in a well-grown market. This game's reward scheme for the most part does not rely on motivating players into playing specific content, nor does it offer a lot of account-bound sparkles locked behind "high challenge". Instead, most shinies are tradeable, so you are spared the frustration of grinding content long past the point of enjoyment just because you aren't lucky enough to drop the loot you desire. Incidentally, this is also one of the reasons why raids have no extraordinary rewards (although you could argue that the rate at which you can gain ascended equipment in them already is way above average). You can play them if you enjoy that kind of content, but get comparable rewards through other parts of the game if raiding isn't your cup of tea. GW2 has carved its niche in the MMORPG market to cater to the players that value gameplay over rewards. I play this game because I can play whatever catches my fancy that day without seriously disadvantaging me in working towards whatever shiny has caught my fancy. The game rewards all of the time I invest into actually playing it, rather than dictating what I need to play to get to the shinies. Your definition of a "better game" seems to be one that gates rewards very rigorously, so you have to play (and possibly replay over and over if it's a rng drop rather than a one-and-done collection) whatever content ANet has decided to use as gatekeeper. This clashes horribly with a large part of the game's playerbase that came here precisely to get away from such wide-spread loot-gating and (artificial) prestige attached to arbitrary pieces of loot. I wouldn't mind more outfits, gliders, mount skins, whatever as in-game rewards, but only if they are tradeable so everybody has a shot at getting them, even if the content they are attached to doesn't appeal to them. Having been on the wrong side of rng too often in other games, I think we have more than enough grind-only skins already. There really is no need to force the "grind or pay" mentality any stronger.

Yes.

On what basis are you arguing this? Sorry to say, but you sound more and more like you haven't even properly explored the game beyond the first two months after release, and are now grabbing at internet "information" to convince yourself that it's bad. I honestly can't think of anything in this game that's become obsolete and truly isn't touched anymore. Dungeons aren't as popular as they used to be in 2012, but I regularly pug different dungeons through lfg since I enjoy playing them, and there's never a problem finding others to fill the party within minutes. It's a mix of new players and veterans alike, some that want to experience the content, some that are in it for the skins, some looking for dungeon currency for legendary weapon gifts or exclusive runes and sigils, and some (like me) because they enjoy running dungeons occasionally. The beauty of GW2 is that there is no such thing as truly obsolete content. No matter what content you enjoy, there will always be people around to play with, and the game gives you tools to find them, from megaserver pve maps to lfg, and no matter your goal, all content will give rewards that in some way or another allow you to get closer to your goal(s). You don't have to farm a single boss to get materials to craft a legendary weapon, or exclusively play just one map for weeks and months to get the resources you need. There's always alternate ways to get to your goal, and there's always people on each of these ways to play with. On the original question of "hidden" cost from additional DLC, I have to admit I have a hard time understanding why anybody would feel the need to buy "everything" up front in a game that's been going for years and that they haven't even tried to see if it suits their needs, nor spent any time looking at what releases are part of the game. This is 2021 after all, DLC content of all sizes being dropped into games is not exactly new after all (**feels the stare of the 30+ Sims games, expansions, add-ons etc. coming from the shelf behind her back, some of them dating back 20 years**). Whenever I try a new game, I usually try to figure out how many "parts" it has (including expansions, dlc, battle passes, subscriptions, must-have micro transactions, and whatever else people come up with these days) and go for whatever looks like a good starting point to me that will allow me to figure out if I like the game enough to buy all the rest. Sometimes it's a lot of content because of a bundle that's too good to pass (like the Civ VI platinum edition), but more often than not it's just the base game with one or two most promising looking expansions/dlc, then buy the rest later if I find it does actually appeal to me and expands my gameplay. GW2 living world does contain story episodes as well as maps with new events and achievements. They are nice to have if you like pve gameplay, and each of them offers a lot of content that is regularly played, but at the same time are in no way mandatory, since the game (as mentioned above) doesn't lock any must-have content behind a narrow selection of content. If you want to play them, that's fine, and you'll get your money's worth out of them, but if you'd rather skip them and spend your money (in game or out of) on different stuff, that's just as valid. From reading this thread, I suspect that both you and your friends fell into the trap of thinking GW2 works like most other MMORPGs out there, in that you have to linearly "work" your way through the game to be able to unlock other parts of the game to eventually get to the "true endgame" where only a small part of the available content is relevant to top-end gameplay. GW2 doesn't work that way. It is a lot less linear and doesn't lead you around by a carrot on a stick. It's much more sandbox-y than any of the other MMORPGs I've played, even ESO. You can (and you have to) pick your own goals, and find out what content you actually enjoy. Everything is relevant, and everything is endgame, it just depends on what you enjoy. If you want to buy the DLC, go ahead, there is a lot of content in there, and all of it is played regularly. Still, all of it is optional, as beyond region-specific cosmetics, there is nothing locked behind the DLC that you wan't do another way. Even the mounts that you can unlock in some of the episodes aren't mandatory, anywhere you can go with them you can go with the default mounts, too. Sorry you and your friends fell into the trap of "must unlock everything, and unlock it now", without anybody telling you that there is no need to do it. If you find the game fun, it sure is a purchase that's worth it, but there really was no need to rush ahead, only to feel buyer's remorse right after. Give the game another chance taking one step after the other. There no need to rush anywhere, stop and smell the flowers as long as you like. The content you unlocked offers years of exploration and fun. Just be prepared to decide for yourself what you enjoy in this game, rather than letting people on the internet tell you what you "must" do.

I actually suspect that's one of the reasons they haven't gone that way: they would have to duplicate the account wardrobe in addition to the already duplicated wallet, bank, and legendary armory so beta participants wouldn't unlock legendary skins they don't own. From a computer point of view, it's probably not just "another copy like all the others", but rather a non-trivial extra piece of coding that won't give sufficient advantage over stat-selectable exotics to invest the effort.

If I'm not mistaken, living world seasons are 200 gems per episode. That's $15 per 6-episode season that was released over the course of about 1.5 years. $15 is like a month and a half of another game's subscription? When did that suddenly become "an arm and a leg"? Not to mention the $35 a year you pay for one map and four dungeons in ESO in addition to the yearly expansion.