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[Sylas]

I'm curious. What are you talking about here?

Sorry, just noticed this! I was referring to most anything, really. The best example I can think of were the Jade weapon skins. Pure RNG combined with actual grinding of boxes was one of the most infuriating MMO experiences I've ever had.

The dungeon sets are an annoyance. The system is better than waiting for the RNG to give you what you want, but an actual no-grind way to implement a token system is to have it supplement dungeon drops -- not outright replace it. If I want a full dungeon set for the aesthetics I have a pretty decent grind of the same dungeon over-and-over again to get the tokens necessary while getting almost nothing interesting from the dungeon itself. Again, better than pure RNG but it is completely opposite of the "grinding isn't fun" mentality the devs were going on about at one point.

See my earlier post in regards to Living Story rewards that were also a pretty huge pain to get. Grinding content repeatedly is not fun and very few of the items require a small time investment. Add that on to the prolific use of releasing weapon/armor skins through the gem store rather than giving them as rewards for doing something in-game and... Yeah. :/

 

[shysaursoft]

The dungeon sets are an annoyance. The system is better than waiting for the RNG to give you what you want, but an actual no-grind way to implement a token system is to have it supplement dungeon drops -- not outright replace it. If I want a full dungeon set for the aesthetics I have a pretty decent grind of the same dungeon over-and-over again to get the tokens necessary while getting almost nothing interesting from the dungeon itself. Again, better than pure RNG but it is completely opposite of the "grinding isn't fun" mentality the devs were going on about at one point. :/

I don't understand this bit. Dungeon bosses drop both chests and bags of dungeon tokens. (This is a pretty old change). First run of each dungeon path every day, also gives a big bump in gold and dungeon tokens. It's really not a grind at all to get a full dungeon set. Though if you didn't do dungeons again after the global dungeon token drop change, yeah, the old system wasn't that good, which is why the made the change, AND increased the amount of tokens dungeons give on first run. This was about a year ago?

If you ran the dungeon every day for perhaps a week, you could have the full set or very close to it. That's less than an hour a day on it. I can see how that might be a bit grindy if you're impatient or don't have that much time to spend, or simply don't want to spend that much time, but compared to other MMOs, I don't think this is a grind at all. But everyone's idea of grind can be different, I'll concede that.

And as for the Jade skins, yeah, that was kind of BS. I lucked out and got the tickets I needed for the shield, but I'm glad they've not brought that kind of system back. It's a lot better now, like with the Festival favours letting you just outright buy the thing you want, and they're a very common drop, especially if you do Blitzes and Flying Dolyak.

 

[Sylas]

I don't understand this bit. Dungeon bosses drop both chests and bags of dungeon tokens. (This is a pretty old change). First run of each dungeon path every day, also gives a big bump in gold and dungeon tokens. It's really not a grind at all to get a full dungeon set. Though if you didn't do dungeons again after the global dungeon token drop change, yeah, the old system wasn't that good, which is why the made the change, AND increased the amount of tokens dungeons give on first run. This was about a year ago?

If you ran the dungeon every day for perhaps a week, you could have the full set or very close to it. That's less than an hour a day on it. I can see how that might be a bit grindy if you're impatient or don't have that much time to spend, or simply don't want to spend that much time, but compared to other MMOs, I don't think this is a grind at all. But everyone's idea of grind can be different, I'll concede that.

I wasn't aware bosses dropped chests, but can those chests contain interesting or otherwise unique loot, or is it just a handful of yellows/exotics with generic skins?

And like I said, the system IS better than pure RNG but it's still incredibly lame to know that I was leaving a dungeon with no chance at having something to show. A token system is much better served as a supplement, not as an outright replacement for interesting or unique drops. Plus, the less than an hour per day really depends on the dungeons (in my experience). Something like the Arah set was a huge pain to get because that dungeon is awful and having to run the full dungeon on a consistent basis, while not leaving the dungeon with a chance at an immediate reward, was incredibly demoralizing. Beating a hard boss and getting boring loot and a handful of tokens isn't very fun, in my opinion!

There is also the fact that the overwhelming majority of everything comes out of the gem store if it isn't a small accessory item. That's neither here nor there in the context of the living story, though.

 

[Atrophis]

Even with all those boosts I'm not convinced you can get from 1 to 40 in 4 hours. One level every six minutes?

 

[shysaursoft]

I wasn't aware bosses dropped chests, but can those chests contain interesting or otherwise unique loot, or is it just a handful of yellows/exotics with generic skins?

Just for an example: a single AC path gives 60 Tears for each path, per day, with diminishing returns after that. An AC helm is 180 Tears. So doing all three paths, about 7 to 20 minutes per path depending on group, in one day, gives you one piece of armour. The shoulder, chest, and pants are more (210, 330, 300), so those do take longer. But it still means that on average, doing all three paths once a day is a steady pace to get the armour. But you'd only do that for the looks anyway, since it's quicker to just buy Karma armour from the Temples.

Every main dungeon boss has a chance at dropping unique and themed items only they have, although those items aren't all that great anymore - they used to be, since they were account-bound exotics, but recent changes have kind of lessened their coolness. The early dungeons were mostly backpieces anyway, so they weren't a 'visible' cool item, but they were nice to have as a kind of heirloom since they were account-bound on equip, not soulbound.

But you always come out of dungeons with money and resources (materials), which in turn can be converted into usable weapons and armour quite easily, so I don't see it as coming out of a dungeon with nothing to show.

I do agree though, the Arah set is really only for people who want to punish themselves, or you just buy the runs. Most people charge 5g per run. I'm neither here nor there on buying completed Arah runs.

Even with all those boosts I'm not convinced you can get from 1 to 40 in 4 hours. One level every six minutes?

Granted, I probably also have a fair bit of XP boost from the account-wide XP boost Achievement Points give, but yeah. Perhaps I got lucky with some perfect storms, lots of nice kill-streak heavy events as I explored. To be safe, double that number for a more general "Average". I think 8 hours to get to 40 is pretty reasonable, though I still say people can do it much faster if they don't faff about. Not that I think people should rush it. There's zero reason to rush to 80.

EDIT: Some additional info:

Improved Experience Booster + 100%
Killstreak Booster + 100%
Laureate Booster + 30%
Guild Experience Banner + 5%
Guild Bonus + 5%
Food + 15%
Utility + 10%
Achivement + 3% per 2500AP

So assuming an AP of 5k, you're already looking at, roughly, a 271% bonus to per-kill XP, almost three times the normal rate, not even counting the Bonus from enemies that haven't been killed for a while. The first 15 levels also used a boosted XP curve to make them go faster than 15-onwards, and the whole thing plateaus around 30 so you're always getting 8% towards your next level for each Renown Heart. So if you do 10 Renown Hearts, that's practically a full level (since you'd be killing things while doing them, filling out the other 2%).

This also ignores the possible +10% you can get if your server is doing well in WvW, and a whole bunch of other things I'm likely forgetting. But boosts aside, the most important thing is doing Hearts and Events, really, and staying in zones close to your level.

 

[Sylas]

Every main dungeon boss has a chance at dropping unique and themed items only they have, although those items aren't all that great anymore - they used to be, since they were account-bound exotics, but recent changes have kind of lessened their coolness.

But you always come out of dungeons with money and resources (materials), which in turn can be converted into usable weapons and armour quite easily, so I don't see it as coming out of a dungeon with nothing to show.

Are these the chests that drop from all thematically appropriate champion mobs, it specific that individual dungeon boss? I can't really call boss loot unique if I can kill a mob in the open world and have the same loot potentially drop.

I don't really count money or resources as an interesting reward. Like, that's something that should be expected of doing any content whatsoever. There's something that's lost in having to budget your way to an item. Maybe it's losing the exclusivity of it, as in you're getting <X> reward for completing <Y>. If it's purchaseable I'm no longer being rewarded for a specific activity, which is what I find enjoyable about MMOs at the end of the day.

My point is at the end of the day that I don't see this journal really addressing my own complaints about the Living Story or even with GW2 itself. The rewards may stick around, but history has shown us that the rewards you get from the LS itself aren't as interesting as the stuff they want to sell you.

 

[shysaursoft]

Are these the chests that drop from all thematically appropriate champion mobs, it specific that individual dungeon boss? I can't really call boss loot unique if I can kill a mob in the open world and have the same loot potentially drop.

As an example, only the Ghost Eater in at the end of Path 2 of Ascalonian Catacombs, has a chance at dropping the Foefire Amulet. It doesn't drop anywhere else in the world. I can't remember all the other boss drops by heart, but most have something unique only they drop.

I don't really count money or resources as an interesting reward. Like, that's something that should be expected of doing any content whatsoever. There's something that's lost in having to budget your way to an item. Maybe it's losing the exclusivity of it, as in you're getting <X> reward for completing <Y>. If it's purchaseable I'm no longer being rewarded for a specific activity, which is what I find enjoyable about MMOs at the end of the day.

My point is at the end of the day that I don't see this journal really addressing my own complaints about the Living Story or even with GW2 itself. The rewards may stick around, but history has shown us that the rewards you get from the LS itself aren't as interesting as the stuff they want to sell you.

The Living Story has always given nice, thematic rewards. Look at the Fused Gauntlets from having done the Molten Facility. Although right now, you can just buy them (and other past Living World rewards) using Festival Favours, so their coolness and uniqueness and "I was there for this" ness has kind of been lessened. But people who missed being able to run the Molten Facility now at least have a chance to get them.

But it does boil down to personal preference, I agree. Some people like the WoW-style of getting specific items from specific dungeons, so they can show off how much they did that dungeon. I prefer to get resources myself, so I can get the things I want, not the things I lucked into.

Then again, it's all pretty moot, since gear in GW2 isn't really that important. If you want a unique look, that's something to go for (if you're into that), but the actual gear and stats associated with gear, isn't really the focus of the game. GW2 isn't a "loot game", it's more like a brawler. You make your build, minmax your stats a bit to push your build further, and then see how your build stacks up against the content. I see GW2 more like Dungeon Fighter than WoW.

Just a note: I've yet to buy a single cosmetic item off the Gem Store, except for the Cook Outfit, which I don't even use in combat, it's my "town clothes". Not everyone thinks the Gem Store armours are that nice, it's personal preference. I think the stuff you can get in-game is far nicer, especially the Arah shoulders, and the AC chest, with some random exotic looks. Though Medium armour is touch and go. I wish Medium looked more like the Heavy stuff, but that's me.

As for the Journal: I've yet to form an opinion about it, other than I want to see how it works in the real first. They've only given us half of the information we need. They've told us about a UI element, but said nothing about the content that UI is tied to. It doesn't tell us how they're changing the content to suit the new structure, etc. So it's impossible to really guess how the Journal will affect things going forward.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

GW2 is such a damn great value. I regret only jumping into it about a month ago. It's addressed just about all the issues I have with mmo's, and it continues to add content. About the only thing I miss is the greater prevalence of dungeon raids and 5 mans. I have no clue how they manage to keep this profitable, even with the micro transactions (which have been thankfully as non intrusive as possible), but future mmo's need to seriously take notes on the stuff arenanet have been doing here.

 

[Syril]

How do you do dungeon paths in 7-20 minutes is what I want to know. You make this stuff out like it's nothing, but you also sound like you're coming from the perspective of a speedrunner on this.

 

[shysaursoft]

How do you do dungeon paths in 7-20 minutes is what I want to know. You make this stuff out like it's nothing, but you also sound like you're coming from the perspective of a speedrunner on this.

I'm hardly a speedrunner. I don't run Zerk armour.

First off, I'm talking about the 'quick money making' paths people tend to do, like AC1 and 3, SE1 and 3, CoF, etc. Obviously there are a lot of variables: if there is an elementalist in the party, certain things go quicker thanks to Ice Bow and FGS, etc.

Twenty to thirty minutes if you do them normally (not counting Arah or TA Aetherblade, of course), which means no skips, no stacks, etc. And this is with general population/gaf guild. Of course, this is if nothing goes horribly wrong. But I've done AC path 3 with just three people (two engineers and a mesmer), with no skipping, even killing Kholer, in 30 minutes. And none of us were Zerk, none of us particularly good.

Much, MUCH quicker if you do them speed, with people that stack, skip, and even quicker if you do all-zerk (which I do not). Every now and then I'll join a random speed pug that stack on Spider Queen, etc.

The dungeons run for money and tokens, like SE and AC, just aren't that hard for level 80s in exotics. Nor do they take that long. If you're ever interested in doing dungeons normally regularly, myself or others in GAF guild would be happy to run with you.

Not all dungeons and dungeon paths are equal, of course. There's a reason certain dungeons and paths are ignored for the most part - because they're not easy, and not quick. Which is a pity, since they're usually quite good, but the general community tends to only care about getting rewards fast and now. :/

 

[Retro]

I'm hardly a speedrunner. I don't run Zerk armour.

Gonna have to echo Miktar's comments here; I run a Knights geared (Power / Vitality / Toughness) Shout warrior (i.e. support-oriented) and vehemently opposed to tactics like stacking and full zerker. Stuff like Citadel of Flame paths 1 & 2, Sorrow's Embrace 1, and even Honor of the Waves 1 are all sub-20 minute runs.

A solid GAF group, without stacking and only skipping one section, can clear COF1 in about 8 minutes. Having said that, I actually wish they were harder though, and maybe just slightly more rewarding for the extra effort needed. The AC revamp they did last year made that dungeon sooooo good. Just right for the 'intro' dungeon while still being hard enough you can't faceroll through it. I'd love to see ArenaNet drop the hammer and revamp the dungeons to be harder across the board.

 

[Retro]

Right, forgot its an MMO. "Small amount" here is usually defined by the amount you can get together from around ~10 hours of active game play. Like how getting to the "fun part" of an MMO "just" requires to get to lvl 40 which takes 200 hours.

Seriously though, 20g probably doesn't take that long if you are good. I can see that, but my opinion remains that calling it a "small amount" is still not true.

Here's the way I look at it. 200 gems is basically the price of a cheeseburger, or a Slurpee and a Candy Bar. So if by some odd chance I missed the two week window in which to unlock an episode for free, I can unlock that content for the price of junk food.

Another way to look at it is, if they released new content every two weeks, that's about $60 total, assuming you pay the full 200 gems and they don't discount them (which seems like something they'll obviously do). That's about the price of an expansion.

However, since they're now having inter-season breaks in which to drop Feature Updates and give them more breathing room for content creation, it's much more likely that total will come down. If they do five months of two-week updates, that's something like $25. For a year of content.

Edit: Whoops, meant to edit this into the post above, apologies.

 

[Syril]

Gonna have to echo Miktar's comments here; I run a Knights geared (Power / Vitality / Toughness) Shout warrior (i.e. support-oriented) and vehemently opposed to tactics like stacking and full zerker. Stuff like Citadel of Flame paths 1 & 2, Sorrow's Embrace 1, and even Honor of the Waves 1 are all sub-20 minute runs.

A solid GAF group, without stacking and only skipping one section, can clear COF1 in about 8 minutes. Having said that, I actually wish they were harder though, and maybe just slightly more rewarding for the extra effort needed. The AC revamp they did last year made that dungeon sooooo good. Just right for the 'intro' dungeon while still being hard enough you can't faceroll through it. I'd love to see ArenaNet drop the hammer and revamp the dungeons to be harder across the board.

Well alright then. Granted it's been a really long time since I tried dungeons, so there's probably been a lot of improvements since then. I was just always frustrated on the paths because the encounters kept feeling like they were instant death if one thing went wrong.

 

[Retro]

Well alright then. Granted it's been a really long time since I tried dungeons, so there's probably been a lot of improvements since then. I was just always frustrated on the paths because the encounters kept feeling like they were instant death if one thing went wrong.

That sounds like you either went in early when people were still figuring out how dungeons work / shaking off the rust from other MMO combat systems, or you got into one of those obnoxious zerker/stack speedruns.

If you're not on an EU server and can hazard the re-install, there's room in GAF. We make it a point to do dungeons the right way (and as a result, they're usually faster because doing it right is much easier than using exploits / tricks / glitches to try and speedrun when not everyone is on the same page.)

That said, some dungeons just have tough parts that need to be dealt with cautiously. Those are the good ones though =),

 

[Syril]

That sounds like you either went in early when people were still figuring out how dungeons work / shaking off the rust from other MMO combat systems, or you got into one of those obnoxious zerker/stack speedruns.

If you're not on an EU server and can hazard the re-install, there's room in GAF. We make it a point to do dungeons the right way (and as a result, they're usually faster because doing it right is much easier than using exploits / tricks / glitches to try and speedrun when not everyone is on the same page.)

That said, some dungeons just have tough parts that need to be dealt with cautiously. Those are the good ones though =),

I'm in the guild already actually, I just don't really play all that much. Combination of other games and not being able to do long play sessions, and thanks to the two-week living story schedule I always felt obligated to hop on so I wouldn't miss the chance to do the story even though I just wanted to give the game a break (though that should be fixed with the journal for next season). After the first season was the first opportunity I've actually had to take a real break.

I just played a Catacombs path and compared to the last time I played, they definitely reined in the ridiculous enemy health and bullshit instant kill attacks.

 

[KiteGr]

Damn! I almost made my first thread in gaf about this!

The direction of the new living world worries me...
Arena net sucks at telling stories, as evident from your personal story being the worst part in the game! Their heart is on the right place, as their stories contain conspiracies, giant Dragons, Undead, divided armies and Lesbians, but their execution was, and still is, just horrible!

During Season 1 they appear to have improved on some aspects of their storytelling by:

1. Not using those horrible discussion cut-scenes.
2. Stay focused on a set of characters rather than introducing you your new best friend in every episode.
3. Having more in-game cut-scenes.
4. Have large unpredictable things and twist happen (see clockwork chaos patch).

IMO, the question is whether have they improved them selfs enough to use their story as a selling point.
Also they got to fix the Personal Story at some point! It drives people away and the Final fight with Zaitan is still unfinished!

 

[Retro]

To be fair, the Personal Story is actually pretty good when you're doing the race / bio / Order-specific chapters. It's only when the Pact gets involved and it becomes the Trahearne show that everything falls apart. I do agree that the personal story is the weakest part of GW2 though, hopefully the Journal gives them the ability and the impetus to go back and clean it up a bit.

I'm hoping for big things with Season Two. Like the actual mechanics and cadence of Season One, I think there was a lot they learned about storytelling that they'll apply to Season Two. Like comparing pre-launch zones to Labyrinthine Cliffs or Edge of the Mists, you can just see the difference in quality.